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Build the Left, Fight the Right: Socialism 2006
by Socialism 2006 Friday, May. 05, 2006 at 4:02 PM
info@socialismconference.org

Socialism 2006 provides a place where activists from today's fights against the Right can come together to discuss how we can rebuild the Left and win a world where ordinary people will decide the priorities of our society. Join us in New York for a weekend of nearly 100 meetings, plus a book fair, activists' tables, parties, and entertainment!

Build the Left, Fight the Right
SOCIALISM 2006
June 22–25, 2006
Columbia University, New York City


AN ENTIRE U.S. city is nearly destroyed while the Bush administration fiddles. Politicians in Washington cut Medicaid and student loans while they add to the nearly $500 billion tab for an overwhelmingly unpopular war in Iraq. Bigots like the Minutemen scapegoat immigrant workers while anti-abortionists try to strip women of the right to choose. Meanwhile, the Democrats seem to offer no alternative to Bush’s attacks.

Clearly, the need for an alternative on the left—an alternative that speaks to the millions of ordinary people who are fed up with war, attacks on workers, and threats to our civil rights—is more pressing than ever. Building that alternative is up to us—and Socialism 2006 is a great place to start.

http://www.socialismconference.org/


Featured Events Include:

"Voices of a Peoples’ History of the United States"

The conference will kick off with a performance of "Voices," readings from the words of fighters for social justice in U.S. history. This special performance will include leading actors from Broadway and Hollywood interpreting the words of great fighters like Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth and Leonard Peltier. If you would like to attend, please order tickets at the special conference price of $10. Only a limited number will be available. Tickets will be delivered when you register for the conference. The performance will be held at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, 64th Street at Central Park West, at 8PM, Thursday, June 22.


Featured Speakers Include:

Justin Akers Chacón, author, No One Is Illegal!
Anthony Arnove, author, Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal
Dennis Brutus, author, Poetry and Protest
Peter Camejo, Green Party, California
Todd Chretien and Aaron Dixon, Green Party candidates from U.S. Senate from California and Washington
Kelly Dougherty, Iraq Veterans Against War
Phil Gasper, editor, The Communist Manifesto: A Road Map to History’s Most Important Political Document
Amy Goodman, host, Democracy Now!
Shujaa Graham, former death row prisoner and activist against the death penalty
Sam Farber, author, The Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered
Joshua Frank, author, Left Out!
Nativo López, Hermandad Mexicana and Mexican American Political Association
Luciana Genro, member of Brazilian parliament, Party of Socialism and Liberty
Suheir Hammad, poet and spoken-word artist
Toufic Haddad and Tikva Honig-Parnass, authors, Between the Lines, an analysis of the current political situation in Israel and Palestine
Mike Marqusee, author, Wicked Messenger: Bob Dylan in the 1960s
Marlene Martin, national director, Campaign to End the Death Penalty
Camilo Mejía, first U.S. soldier to refuse to return to Iraq
Phyliss Prentice, Maryland Campaign to End the Death Penalty
Robert Robideau, American Indian Movement and co-director, Leonard Peltier Defense Committee
Giuliana Sgrena, journalist, Il Manifesto and author of Friendly Fire
Ahmed Shawki, editor, International Socialist Review, and author of Black Liberation and Socialism
Sharon Smith, columnist, Socialist Worker, and author of Subterranean Fire
Toni Smith, Manhattanville College basketball player who protested the Iraq War on court
Jeffrey St. Clair, author, Grand Theft Pentagon and co-editor of Counterpunch
Etan Thomas, Washington Wizards’ center/power forward and author, More Than an Athlete
Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, national coordinating committee, Campus Antiwar Network
David Williams, author, A Peoples’ History of the Civil War
The Welfare Poets, hip hop artists and activists
Dave Zirin, TheNation.com sports columnist and author, What’s My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States

*affiliations for identification only


Meetings Include:

* U.S. politics
Generation "Debt": the criminalization of Youth
Monkey trials: Evolution under attack
"Under Attack, Fighting Back": Free speech and the movement against military recruitment
Addicted to profit: The politics of drugs
Free Leonard Peltier!
The crisis in education
Red, Black, Blue and Green: Building a left alternative to two-party system
The antiwar movement inside the military

* America’s radical history
Slave revolts in the U.S.
The populist movement
The rise and fall of SDS
George Jackson and Attica Revolt
America’s radical working class history
Are US workers different?
Labor’s Giant Step: Class war in the 1930s
Big Bill Haywood and American Socialism

* Women’s and Gay Liberation
Gay oppression: A prop for the family
"You can’t understand my oppression": The politics of identity
Capitalism and sexuality
When abortion was a crime
That's so "reductionist": Do Marxists reduce everything to class?

* Black Politics
Is there a white skin privilege?
From Civil Rights to Black Power
Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary
The politics of blame: Is Bill Cosby right

* Latino and immigration politics
A history of farmworkers' struggles in the U.S.
The Young Lords
Give us your poor huddled masses: the history of U.S. immigration
The new immigrants rights movement
No One is Illegal!

* The ABC's of Marxism
Marx's historical materialism
Marx's theory of alienation
Marx's theory of revolution
Marx's critique of other socialisms

* Questions about socialism
Socialism and War: Are All Wars Bad?
Is Human Nature a Barrier to Socialism?
Are Prisons Necessary?
Is Marxism pro-violence?
Outside agitators? Socialists and movements

* Marxist Classics
Lenin's What is to be Done
Luxemburg's Reform or Revolution
Explaining Marx's Capital
Engels' Origin of the Family
Gramsci's Prison Notebooks

* The lost revolutions
Germany 1918-1923: the lost revolution
Hungary 1956: workers' against the monolith
Iran: Islam and revolution, 1979

* The Russian Revolutionary Movement
Ten Days that Shook the World—the 1917 revolution
Original Sin? Why did the Russian Revolution Fail?
A Party like no other: Lenin and the party
Anarchists and the Russian Revolution

* Trotsky
Trotsky and fight against Fascism in Germany
Trotsky, the Chinese revolution, and the roots of Maoism
Debate on Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution

* Imperialism and war
Iraq: Graveyard of U.S. imperialism?
The classical Marxist theory of Imperialism
Should socialists support intervention in Darfur?
Lords of Poverty: The economics and politics of international aid
Is the earth overcrowded?
Lenin and Right of Nations to Self-Determination

* Latin America in transition
Venezuela: from populism to revolution
Bolivia: the end of neoliberalism?
Land Struggles in Latin America
Cuban Revolution reconsidered

* Culture and art
Myth and reality of Van Gogh
International music of protest
The Juice: Capitalism and Steroids
The politics of sports
Bob Dylan
Woody Guthrie

* Marxist Economics
Will capitalism collapse? The Marxist theory of Crisis
The U.S. economy: when will the bubble burst?
Is the US Becoming a Post-Industrial Society?
The Walmartization of America
India, China, and the changing world economy
Despoiling our earth: have we passed the tipping point?

* Middle East
Israel: a colonial/settler state
Hamas and the future of Palestine
The coming war with Iran?
Myth and reality of Islam

* Our tradition and theirs
The "people’s front" and the tragedy of American Communism
Ending the madness of the market: In defense of socialist planning
"I only drink fair trade coffee": The politics of alternative lifestyle
What Kind of Party do we need?
Change the world without taking power? The new anarchism
Is Marxism a Science?


REGISTRATION

Registration Rates
Early registration (online only—by May 15) $85
Regular registration—whole conference $100
Two day pass $70
Single day pass $35
Single session $10

Online Registration
Visit http://www.socialismconference.org/register.html



FOR MORE INFORMATION
Write: Socialism 2006, c/o ISR, P.O. Box 258082, Chicago, IL 60625
Call: 773-583-8665
E-mail: info@socialismconference.org
Website: http://www.socialismconference.org

Free on-site childcare and Spanish translation are available; see website for details

www.socialismconference.org

a chicken in every pot
by an iceaxe in every trot Tuesday, May. 09, 2006 at 11:25 AM

They're like friggin' trekkies, who managed to leave their parents basement.
Except people (sadly)actually attend Star Trek conventions.