"Young Marx's Theory of Revolution"

Michael Lowy

New York City, Feb. 24, 2006

Marxist Theory Colloquium at NYU

Place: (due to continuing strike at NYU) UAW Local 2179 (not the same union hall as in the Fall) 400 Lafayette Street (one block east of Broadway, between Astor Place and 4th Street nearer to 4th Street), 4th Floor Conf. Room NYC - l0003.

[#6 to Astor Pl.; R/W to 8th St.; B, D, F, V to B'way–Lafayette]

Date/Time — Friday, Feb. 24th — 4:00 pm

Seaker — Michael Lowy

Research Director in Sociology at the National Center of ScientificResearch (CNRS), Paris, France; one of France’s and probably one of the world’s most important Marxist scholars and thinkers; author of numerous books, several of which have been translated into English, including Theory of Revolution in the Young Marx; Lukacs, From Romanticism to Revolution, and On Changing the World: Essays in Political Philosophy From Karl Marx to Walter Benjamin.

TOPIC: “Young Marx’s Theory of Revolution”

"Time for a Radical Party?"

A Talk by Stanley Aronowitz

New York City, Thursday, March 2 at 7:00 p.m.

The Left is fragmented into a large number of single issue movements around solidarity, against the Iraq war, and in community organizations, and others who either try to push the Democratic Party to the left or work in small organizations that often call themselves parties or projects. The United States does not have a radical political formation dedicated to linking these movements and addressing broad national and global questions.

Aronowitz will argue that such a formation is especially vital in this period of growing authoritarianism, the lack of a visible opposition, the decline of the labor movement and absence of alternatives to capitalist domination. This talk will outline the problem, discuss a specific proposal and make suggestions about how to achieve it.

JTC writes:

"Writing the Future\Reading the Self"

Horst Hutter

New York City, Feb. 11, 2006

The Nietzsche Circle with the support of Mercy Manhattan College presents

"Writing the Future\Reading the Self"
A Talk by Horst Hutter

to celebrate the release of his new work,Shaping the Future: Nietzsche’s New Regimes of the Soul

Moderted by Rachel Sotos, New School University


At this event, Horst Hutter will explore Nietzsche’s usage and advocacy of reading and writing as ascetic techniques of self-shaping. Mr. Hutter argues that Nietzsche did not consider writing to be the same as philosophy, but that reading and writing were instruments of philosophy. Philosophy itself is a striving for wisdom and for self-transformation to which reading and writing are important but not the only means.


Nietzsche is identified as a late heir of a long tradition of writing the self, in which the formation of personal identities involved references to interpretations of texts authoritative within the tradition. He was raised within a worldview based on a religion of the book. He was trained within the Christian religion of the book to become an exegetical mediator between textual authority and the shaping of personal identities. However, he came to experience Christian identity, both in himself and in his culture, as a structure that was disintegrating into decadence and nihilism. He diagnosed this process of disintegration as a general malaise of which his own dis-ease was a symptom and focal point. Understanding himself as a decadent, he also understood himself as possessing within himself the means for overcoming decadence and thus to move toward the “great health”. In his effort to heal himself and to become the philosophical therapist of his culture, he saw that convalescence required first a deconstruction of old modes of self and identity, to be followed secondly by envisioning new forms of selfhood. This required an attack on those historical figures that he perceived to be at the origin of the Christian written self, namely Jesus and St. Paul, as well as Socrates and Plato. His war for a new healing culture thus required a dislodging of these figures as founding icons of decadent Socratism and decadent Christianity.


Nietzsche’s problem was that he had to become his own Plato to his own Socrates, as well as, and to a lesser extent, his own evangelist to his own Jesus. He had to recover the orality that lay at the origin of a powerful tradition of writing. Moreover, he had to do this in writing. This in turn required him to develop new styles of writing in which the author Nietzsche would imitate and supplant the authority of St. Paul and of Plato. His aphoristic books are meant to move beyond the Platonic dialogues, and his Zarathustra is the “fifth gospel” meant to replace St. Paul and the evangelists. Thereby he hoped to initiate a new authoritative tradition in which books had to carry readers beyond all books. Free spirited disciples of Nietzsche are exhorted to use his books to deconstruct themselves and then to move toward new versions of selfhood beyond books. Reading Nietzsche then is to move toward an explicit affirmation of oneself in amor fati, based on an implicit No to one’s slavish features.

Saturday, February 11th at 7 PM
Mercy Manhattan College

66 W 35th St, Rm. 704 (near Broadway)

Admission: $5

http://nietzschecircle.com"

Black Liberation and Socialism Book Launch
New York City, Feb. 3, 2006

Black Liberation and Socialism

Friday, February 3rd,
7pm

St. Mary’s Church
126th bet Old Broadway & Amsterdam

Featuring: Ahmed Shawki, author of Black Liberation and Socialism (Haymarket Books, 2005)

Forty years after the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the United States remains a deeply segregated society. The horrific aftermath of Hurricane Katrina revealed the continued legacy of racism and poverty in our society. Most major indicators, whether it be family income, incarceration rates or infant mortality show that America remains a profoundly unequal and racist society.

How can the Black Freedom struggle be strengthened and rebuilt? Beyond that, how can we get rid of racism entirely? What strategies are capable of winning a new round of battles? What contribution can Marxism make to that struggle?

In Black Liberation and Socialism Ahmed Shawki, editor of the International Socialist Review gives a sharp and insightful analysis of historic movements against racism in the United States-from the separatism of Marcus Garvey, to the militancy of Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party, to the eloquence of Martin Luther King, Jr. He will lead a discussion of the significance of these struggles and what lessons we can bring to the fight against racism today.

Black Liberation and Socialism will be available for sale for $12 at the meeting (checks and credit cards accepted, but cash is preferred)

For more info on Haymarket Books, see www.haymarketbooks.com


For more info on the International Socialist Review, see www.isreview.org

This meeting is sponsored by the International Socialist Organization. For further information, please contact nyciso@hotmail.com or (212) 502-0707

Benefit Show for Daniel McGowan

Brookyn, NY, Saturday, February 11

7pm, Saturday, February 11
$5–15 sliding scale

Asterisk
258 Johnson Ave, Brooklyn

Take the L to
Montrose, Walk down Bushwick,left on Johnson, a block
and a half and it's on the right, look up and you'll
see the big asterisk *

With:

The Cankickers — Old-timey punk from CT
(cankickers.com)

Snaked — Pop punk from Brooklyn

Oogle Orphanage — 3 punks, no facial tats, really good

Ghost Mice — Folk punk, duh.

Dance party to follow with DJ Thadeaus.

Info about Daniel McGowan:

Daniel McGowan is an environmental and social justice
activist, unjustly arrested and charged in federal
court on multiple counts of arson, property
destruction, and conspiracy, relating to two incidents
that occurred in Oregon in 2001. Daniel asserts his
innocence by pleading not guilty to all charges. He is
facing a minimum of life in prison if convicted.

Daniel is from New York, and has been an active member
of the community, working on diverse projects such as
the demonstrations against the Republican National
Convention, Really Really Free Markets, and supporting
political prisoners such as Jeff "Free" Luers and
others. Daniel was a graduate student earning a
Master's degree in acupuncture and was working at
Women's Law, a nonprofit group that helps women in
domestic abuse situations navigate the legal system,
which is where he was arrested by federal marshals on
December 7th, 2005.

Daniel had originally been indicted separately, but
his arrest comes in the context of a well-coordinated,
multi-state sweep of numerous activists by the federal
government, who has charged the individuals with
practically every earth and animal liberation case
left unsolved. Many of the charges, including
Daniel's, are for cases whose statute of limitations
were about to expire.

In order to help Daniel, his family and friends have
created a support network (Family and Friends of
Daniel McGowan) in order to help fund Daniel's legal
representation which is expected to be hundreds of
thousands of dollars. We are asking his friends and
supporters to donate what they can to help Daniel's
family with the legal bills. The support group will
also be covering the cost of postage and telephone
calls, travel expenses for prison visits, reading
material for Daniel, his commissary fund, and whatever
other needs might arise.

Daniel was released on bail on January 25th, and is
coming back to NYC. Despite his being on house arrest,
his friends and family are thrilled that they can once
again be with him and that he is not in jail, but he
still needs tons of support.

Please come celebrate his temporary release and show
your support for him. Donations are kindly accepted
at the door and inside the show for his legal defense
costs.

The Commons Conference

An Academic-Community Event on Privatization and the Public Domain

April 28--30, 2006

University of Victoria, BC

A committee of students, researchers, and community members are organizing an interdisciplinary conference on contemporary definitions of "the commons" to be held at UVic the weekend of April 28-30th, 2006.

The concept of the commons derives from the system of collective ownership of pastureland in England, which thrived until a series of enclosure acts divided them in the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Enclosure acts transformed society -displacing labourers, forcing peasants into the market society, providing a new economic base for trade, and ecologically disrupting a diverse arrangement of cultivation, grazing, and wild lands.

The idea of the commons was revived in the 1960s and 70s by the burgeoning environmental movement. It usefully provided a way to express awareness that nature does not respect property lines. New forms of political and economic organization were needed to address the perils of environmental destruction and social alienation. In recent years, advocates of a digital or electronic commons have taken up the term "commons," as well. For example, databases offering open access to medical or scholarly research at public institutions belong "in common" ownership to citizens. However, intellectual property erects new fences around these collective agreements.

In the paths and circuits between these commons - in physical and digital space - lie important, under-theorized ideas about the meaning of the public, collectivity, and communal life that could provide powerful antidotes to the steady encroachments of the private sector into the public domain. This conference seeks to explore these spaces.

Our keynote speaker will be Dr. George Caffentzis, Chair of Philosophy at the University of Southern Maine and outspoken activist on issues of imperialism and war. Caffentzis' critical work exposes the co-optation of "commons" language and activism by those angling to replace neo-liberalism with yet another hegemonic ideology. Caffentzis submits that the critical position to taking up the commons would be that which calls into question the global circulations of capital and power. Caffentzis will be speaking on the evening of Friday, April 28th in an open event that is free to the public.

"Paradise Now: The Living Theater in Amerika" (1968)

A Film by Marty Topp
Produced for Universal Mutant by Ira Cohen

"Ira Cohen and Marty Topp's film of 'Paradise Now' reveals how the
theories of revolutionary change and the experience of sexual
liberation are not separate paths to the beautiful nonviolent
anarchist revolution. Together they form a single thrust encompassing
both political action and sensual joy, leading to the dreamed-of
terrestrial paradise." — Judith Malina

New DVD release forthcoming from BASTER/ARTHUR Magazine

SUNDAY FEB. 5th

@ Zebulon Concert/Cafe

(for directions click below)

IRA COHEN'S 71ST BIRTHDAY PARTY

come celebrate with Ira Cohen & friends

an evening of Poetry, Film, & Music

Zebulon Concert Cafe

"Paradise Now: The Living Theater in Amerika" (1968)

A Film by Marty Topp
Produced for Universal Mutant by Ira Cohen

"Ira Cohen and Marty Topp's film of 'Paradise Now' reveals how the
theories of revolutionary change and the experience of sexual
liberation are not separate paths to the beautiful nonviolent
anarchist revolution. Together they form a single thrust encompassing
both political action and sensual joy, leading to the dreamed-of
terrestrial paradise." — Judith Malina

New DVD release forthcoming from BASTER/ARTHUR Magazine

SUNDAY FEB. 5th

@ Zebulon Concert/Cafe

(for directions click below)

IRA COHEN'S 71ST BIRTHDAY PARTY

come celebrate with Ira Cohen & friends

an evening of Poetry, Film, & Music

Zebulon Concert Cafe

"Paradise Now: The Living Theater in Amerika" (1968)

A Film by Marty Topp
Produced for Universal Mutant by Ira Cohen

"Ira Cohen and Marty Topp's film of 'Paradise Now' reveals how the
theories of revolutionary change and the experience of sexual
liberation are not separate paths to the beautiful nonviolent
anarchist revolution. Together they form a single thrust encompassing
both political action and sensual joy, leading to the dreamed-of
terrestrial paradise." — Judith Malina

New DVD release forthcoming from BASTER/ARTHUR Magazine

6:30 PM, SUNDAY FEB. 5th

@ Zebulon Concert/Cafe

(for directions click below)

IRA COHEN'S 71ST BIRTHDAY PARTY

come celebrate with Ira Cohen & friends

an evening of Poetry, Film, & Music

Zebulon Concert Cafe

Anonymous Comrade writes:

Cuba Documentary "Bloqueo" Screening
New York City, Feb. 2, 2006

Thursday, February 2nd @ 7PM — $5 Suggested
Bluestockings

"Bloqueo: Looking At The U.S. Blockade Against Cuba"

Independent New York filmmakers Rachel Dannefer and Heather Haddon traveled to Cuba with Pastors for Peace to discover the story behind the 40-year-old embargo. The result is "Bloqueo", a documentary which explores the considerable effects of the blockade upon the Cuban people. The film surveys the successes in healthcare, organic farming, and conservation that Cuba has managed over the last decades. Rachel Dannefer coordinates the National Immigrant Farming Initiative. Heather Haddon is a journalist and photographer for the "Norwood News," an award-winning Bronx community newspaper.