LIBERTARIAN BOOK CLUB / ANARCHIST FORUM

Tactical Retreat, Strategic Escape:

Anarchist Options for the Near Future

Peter Lamborn Wilson’s Annual Chaos Day Lecture

The December Anarchist Forum

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On Tuesday, December 12, at 7:30pm, the Libertarian Book Club's Anarchist Forum will present, returning to the city for Chaos Day, the author and radio star Peter Lamborn Wilson, who will speak on some strategies and tactics that might aid anarchists in coping with the world in the sad state that it is. Coping with the world may actually include
escaping from it. After putting his ideas forward, Peter will answer questions and respond to audience comments. Then we may all escape together.

The event will take place at the Brecht Forum, 451 West Street, Manhattan (between Bank and Bethune streets) (212-242-4201). Take an A, C, E, or L train to the 14th Street and 8 th Avenue subway stop or take a 1, 2, or 3
train to the 14th Street and 7 th Avenue stop. Walk South down 8th Ave, and take a right on Bethune. Walk until you hit West Street and take a left.

Everybody is welcome and invited to come and to have their say. There is no set fee for the presentation, but a contribution to aid the LBC is suggested. If you have questions, contact the LBC /Anarchist Forum, 212-979-8353 or e-mail: roberterler@erols.com

ABC No Rio Art Benefit Auction December 15

The Clothesline Show

a benefit art sale for http://www.abcnorio.org “>ABC No Rio

156 Rivington Street New York, NY 10002

Thursday December 14 and Friday December 15

7:00 - 10:00pm

ABC No Rio, the Lower East Side gallery and arts
center, will be holding a benefit art sale, the
Clothesline Show, on Thursday December 14 and Friday
December 15 from 7:00 to 10:00pm, on both nights.

This benefit event will feature affordable works on
paper by emerging artists. Work will be presented on
clotheslines strung through ABC No Rio's gallery
space, and will be unframed, two-dimensional work, and
no larger than 11" X 17". Prices will range from $25
to $50.

Proceeds from this benefit art sale will go towards
ABC No Rio's Building Renovation Fund.

SPACE Course Listing for Spring 2007

The New SPACE (The New School for Pluralistic Anti-Capitalist Education)
presents:

MARX’S CAPITAL, VOLUME I

Andrew Kliman

Thursdays, Feb. 15 - May 24, 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

(No class March 22)

Tuition: $150–$180, sliding scale

This 14-week course is devoted to Volume I of Karl Marx's _Capital: A
critique of political economy_. Marx analyzes the capital relation as a
process of “self-expanding value.” Throughout the course, we will stress
the relevance of this concept to the contemporary expansionism of the
capitalist system and the new movements against global capitalism. The
specific character of Marx's critique of capital, and its differences from
others' critiques, will also be highlighted.

Revolutionary Literature
Victor Serge and Communist Totalitarianism
A Talk by Richard Greeman

Sunday Nov. 19 at 7:00 p.m.
New York City

Victor Serge, author of “Birth of Our Power,” “Men in Prison” and other works, participated in the Spanish Civil War, the Russian Revolution, and the Mexican Revolution. He spent over 10 years in French and Russian prisons. Born in 1890 of Russian émigré parents in Brussels, he died a refugee in Mexico 57 years later
—a man with no possessions and no nationality. His work captures with rare authority the spirit and life of the revolutions of the first half of the 20th century.

The translator and biographer of Victor Serge, Richard Greeman is now based in Montpellier, France, where he is Secretary of the International Victor Serge Foundation. He is also a member of Praxis Center (Moscow). He was a professor at Columbia, Wesleyan and the University of Hartford, as well as an activist since the 1950s in anti-racist, anti-war, human rights and labor struggles in the U.S. and internationally.

Free admission. All welcome. Open discussion.

Location: 39 West 14th Street, Rm. 205 (Identity House—ring buzzer 205 and come to second floor), Manhattan (north side of 14th St., between 5th and 6th Aves.; take any train to 14th St. or Union Square).

Emilia Sixtensson writes:

"Black Gold"
Wake up and Smell the Coffee

Official Invite: Screening

Do you know where your coffee comes from?
We promise that it will never taste the same again after watching.
This documentary style film which probes into the global grind behind your indulgent Latte and asks blunt questions like:
Why does just 1 or 2 cents of the $4 we pay for designer caffeine go to the bean farmers?

The film follows Tadesse Meskela (the General Manager of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Co-operative Union in Ethiopia ) on his mission to save 74,000 struggling coffee bean farmers from bankruptcy. Against the backdrop of Tadasee's journey around the world, trying to find buyers willing to pay fair market price, the enormous power of the players that dominate the world's coffee trade becomes apparent.

At the end of this film you will have a whole new understanding of Fair Trade and you will probably view your corner coffee shop in a whole new light, but you may also see how a single consumer can help change the destiny of thousands of people.

The film is followed by an in-theater Q&A session attended by the films leading role Mr. Tadesse Meskela

We continue discussion at Smorgas Chef Restaurant & Lounge.

Support for Lynne Stewart

New York City, Oct. 15-16, 2006

Paul H. Zulkowitz

Friends & Americans

Throughout American history, a number of attorneys have placed people's needs and human rights before personal desire for wealth and position. Most toil in obscurity, defending the indigent in criminal cases that few lawyers care to touch, others support mothers and children in the least glamorous of civil cases, helping them to remain in their homes and to put food on the table.

A few, like the late Bill Kunstler, rise to fame, devote themselves to people's movements, and live their later days, with no lack of stress, but in the comfort of family and friends.

Rarely does an attorney find herself in a controversy as notorious as that of her best known clients; rarely does a grandmother, suffering from cancer, disbarred from her livelihood, ever-vigilant for the rights of all of us, face the fate of a political prisoner, face the abyss of the American (could it happen here?) gulag.

"Foucault and the Iranian Revolution"

A Talk by Kevin B. Anderson

Wednesday, October 25 at 7:00 pm

Suggested Donation: $7–$10

The New SPACE (The New School for Pluralistic Anti-Capitalist Education)

Beginning in 1978, Michel Foucault covered the mass unrest against the Shah in Iran as a journalist for Italian and French publications. He paid particular attention to the Islamic wing of the Iranian Revolution, which he rightly identified as a major new force in world politics. His search for an alternative to Western liberal democracy led him to favorably judge the first
major victory of radical Islam as a new "political spirituality." His support for this movement raises an important question about how Foucault, a major theorist of modern power, could have overlooked the repressive nature of Khomeini’s movement.

With Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism, Janet Afary and Kevin Anderson have written the definitive English account and analysis of this episode. They suggest some troubling connections between Foucault's political judgment and his theoretical critique of modernity. They also discuss the sharp differences between his position on the Iranian Revolution (and radical Islamism) and those of the feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir,the Marxist historian Maxime Rodinson, and the feminist writer Kate Millett. As Iran and its allies grow in prestige as a counter power to American hegemony, what relevance might the relation of this major Western critical theorist to the political Islamist movement
have for today?

Kevin B. Anderson, Associate Professor of Political Science, Sociology, and Women’s Studies at Purdue University, is author of Lenin, Hegel and Western Marxism. Anderson is co-editor of Marx on Suicide, The Rosa Luxemburg Reader, Erich Fromm and Critical Criminology, and a forthcoming volume of Marx’s writings on non-Western societies and gender.

New SPACE classes and talks meet at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center: 107 Suffolk Street, NYC (located between Rivington and Delancey Streets). F train to the Delancey Street station or J, M, Z to Essex Street station. See the New SPACE website for a map.

The New SPACE
(The New School for Pluralistic Anti-Capitalist Education)
http://new-space.mahost.org
new-space@mutualaid.org
Tel: 1 (800) 377-6183

Autonomous African Communities in Latin America?

New York City, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., Sunday September 24, 2006

MXGM Unity Brunch
388 Atlantic Avenue 3rd flr
Brooklyn, New York 11217

718-254-8800
A or C train to Hoyt [Hoyt-Schermerhorn]

What is the status of Latin Americas Quilombos and Palenques in the 21st century? What are their current political, cultural, and economic challenges? How can communities in the Diaspora work more effectively to achieve Pan-African and revolutionary unity?

A screening of "Quilombo Country" @ 11:30 and Unity Brunch @ 1 p.m. beginning with MXGM general updates and discussion with activists Jesus Chucho Garcia and Gilberto Leal.

"Quilombo Country," a documentary film shot in digital video, provides a portrait of rural communities in Brazil that were either founded by runaway slaves or began from abandoned plantations. This type of community is known as a quilombo, from an Angolan word that means "encampment." Contrary to Brazil's national mythology, Brazil was a brutal and deadly place for enslaved Africans. But they didn't submit willingly. Thousands escaped, while others led political and militant movements that forced white farmers to leave. As many as 2,000 quilombos exist today. "Quilombo Country" provides a glimpse into these communities, with extensive footage of ceremonies, dances and lifestyles, interwoven with discussions about their history and the issues most important to them currently.

Unity Brunch: Discussion with Guest Speakers

Working extensively in Venezuela's palenques, Jesus "Chucho" Garcia is the founder and director of the Afro-Venezuela Network (Fundacion Afroamerica), and a world expert on the impacts of globalization and militarism on Latin America.

Gilberto Leal is a geologist and founder of the Bahian NGO, NIGEROKAN, which works closely with numerous quilombo communities. Mr. Leal also works closely with the Palmares Cultural Foundation in Brasilia.

Nicole Lavonne Smith, who will be facilitating the discussion, has taught language arts, financial education, neighborhood development, urban design and capoeira from Brooklyn to Brasil. Her masters thesis is entitled "Brasil's Disenfranchised: Quilombos and Agrarian Reform Black."

“Bolivia ­TBD”

A Speech by Evo Morales

Thursday, Sept. 21, 2006, 3:00–5:00 p.m.

Miller Theatre, Columbia University

New York City

A talk by His Excellency Evo Morales, President of Bolivia. President Morales is the first indigenous head of state elected in South America in over 500 years. His address will be followed by a question-and-answer session moderated by Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger

CALL FOR PAPERS, COLLABORATIONS AND INTERVENTIONS: AESTHETICS AND
RADICAL POLITICS

Fri 2nd Feb 2007, University of Manchester

There has always been a strong connection historically between
aesthetics and radical politics, and this is no less true for the
global justice movement's current preoccupation with cultural
approaches to political action. This conference seeks to bring
radical artists, activists, theorists and academics together to
discuss past and present convergences between the theories and
practices of artists and writers and the theories and practices of
movements for radical social change.

There is already a massive amount of literature on Marxist
approaches to aesthetics, art and literature, and whilst we welcome
papers engaging with such approaches, we would also encourage
presentations and discussions that address these issues from other
radical critical positions - whether they be anarchist, autonomist,
ecological or otherwise. Such perspectives have often been
overlooked historically, but it is arguable that they now more
centrally influence the activities of radical artists and
activists.

The event will be defined by those who participate. What would you
like to see happen? What kind of discussions do you think are
important? Would you like to present a paper, facilitate a
discussion, propose a panel presentation, organise a workshop or
contribute in other ways?