Volume 24, Number 12
Occupations
Various Contributors
Commentary
PLEDGING
War Party Persists
Ramzy Baroud
FOG WATCH
Internal Refugees
Edward S. Herman
CRACKDOWN
The War on Drugs
John Whitehead
NUCLEAR NEWS
U.S. Nuclear Nightmare
John Raymond
GENDER & SEXUALITY
Critique
Donovan Lessard
Activism
TOURING
All Occupations Are Local
Arun Gupta
LESSONS & POTENTIAL
Occupations
Roger Bybee
Features
NARRATIVES
Real Populism
Paul Street
ECONOMIC REPORT
Deficits and Debts
Jack Rasmus
SPECIAL REPORT
Resistance In Occupied Iraq
Nicolas J.S. Davies
INTERVIEW
Kurdish Communalism
Janet Biehl
INTERVIEW
Agitate the Hood
Jilian Suarez
Reviews
BOOK REVIEW
Cultural Items of Note
Various Reviewers
Zaps
Progressive events
Various Contributors
NOTE: Z Magazine subscribers and sustainers have access to all Z Magazine articles here and in the archive. The latest Z Magazine articles available to everyone are listed in the Free Articles box at the top of the table of contents, and are starred in the list below. Questions? e-mail Z Magazine Online.
Progressive events, programs, and new book releases
OCCUPY TOGETHER - Occupy Together is the unofficial hub for the various occupations springing up across the country in solidarity with Occupy Wall St. Over 1,000 cities and towns are currently participating.
Contact: http://www.occupytogether.org/.
SOCIAL SERVICES - The Emergency Labor Network has issued a call for actions December 3-10 to preserve and expand the social safety net under the banner, “No Cuts To Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Other Social Programs.”
Contact: http://www.laborfight back.org/.
HAITI - Media Alliance will host a benefit for the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund on December 3, in Oakland, CA.
Contact: http://www.haitiemer-gencyrelief.org; http://www.media-alliance.org/index.php.
ZINN - Noam Chomsky and Anthony Arnove will speak at SUNY New Paltz’s Honoring Howard Zinn: An Historian Who Made History program on December 4.
Contact: http://www.newpaltz.edu/news/news.cfm?id=5616.
MUMIA - On the 30th Anniversary of Mumia Abu Jamal’s incarceration, a Free Mumia Now! event will be held at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Speakers include Cornel West and Ramona Africa.
Contact: http://www.freemumia.com/.
CLIMATE - Climate Connections is a blog from the Global Justice Ecology Project. The blog carries hard-to-find daily news from around the world on the impacts of, and people’s resistance to, social and ecological injustice, including live blogging from the UN Climate Conference, November 27-December 10.
Contact: http://climate-connections.org/.
CLASS - The Center for Study of Working Class Life has announced the “How Class Works - 2012 Conference,” to be held at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, July 7-9, 2012. Proposals for papers, presentations, and sessions are welcome until December 12, 2011.
Contact: Dept. of Economics, SUNY at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794-4384; 631- 632-7536; workingclass@notes.cc.sunysb.edu; http://www.stony brook.edu/workingclass/.
OCCUPY - Left Forum is now calling for panel proposals for their 2012 conference, Occupy the System: Confronting Global Capitalism, to be held March 16-18 at Pace University in New York City. Submissions are accepted until January.
Contact: 212-817-2003; panels@leftforum.org; http://www. leftforum.org.
RACISM/MIGRANTS - December 18 is the Global Day of Action Against Racism and for the Rights of Refugees, Migrants and Displaced People, as ratified at the 2011 World Social Forum. Actions are planned worldwide.
Contact: info@globalmigrantsaction.org; http://globalmigrantsaction.org/.
ACTIVISTS - The UK- based group, People & Planet, issued a Christmas appeal to Adopt-An-Activist. For £3 a month, your chosen activist will tackle the root causes of social and environmental injustice. People & Planet sponsors activist students.
Contact: http://peopleand planet.org/.
Books
SCHOLARSHIP/DEFAMATION - Who’s Afraid of Frances Fox Piven? is Piven’s first substantial public response to the verbal attacks, death threats, and scapegoating she has been subject to since early 2010, since interview clips of her appeared on Glenn Beck’s TV show.
Contact: The New Press, 38 Greene Street, 4th FL, New York, NY 10013; 212-629-8802; http://thenewpress.com/.
UNIONS - All Together Different is a new book by Professor Daniel Katz about the phenomenon of interracial union building and worker education during the Great Depression. The book investigates why immigrant Jewish unionists in the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) appealed to an international force of coworkers, tracing their ideology of a working-class based cultural pluralism back to the revolutionary experiences of Russian Jewish women.
Contact: 212-992-9991; betsy.steve@nyu.edu.
INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM - In Greg Palast’s Vultures’ Picnic, a crew of journalist-detectives chase down British Petroleum bag men, CIA operatives, nuclear power con men and “The Vultures,” billionaire financial speculators who, through bribery, flim-flam and political muscle, take entire nations hostage for mega-profits.
Contact: 212-505-5566; interviews@gregpalast.com; www.vulturespicnic.org.
SANDINISTA - Adios Muchachos is an insider’s account of the leftist Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua by Sergio Rami- rez, former vice-president of Nicaragua. During the 1970s, Ramirez led prominent intellectuals, priests, and business leaders to support the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) against Anastasio Somoza’s dictatorship.
Contact: Duke University Press, 905 W. Main Street, Suite 18B, Durham, NC 90660; 919-687- 3639; lsell@dukeupress.com; http://www.dukeupress.edu/index.php.
LATIN AMERICA - The New Mole, by Emir Sader, is a new analysis of recent developments in Latin American politics. Sader explains the resurgence of radicalism in terms of the region’s history, while exploring its theoretical underpinning and the obstacles the Latin American left faces.
Contact: Verso Books, 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201; 718-246-8160; jessica@versobooks.com; http://www.versobooks.com/.
MARXISM - Jose Carlos Mariategui: An Anthology is a collection from one of Latin America’s most profound thinkers. Jose Carlos Mariategui was a self- taught journalist, social scientist, and activist from Peru, who was one of the first to emphasize adapting classical Marxist theory to the particular conditions of Latin America.
Contact: Monthly Review Press, 146 W 29th St, Suite 6W, New York, NY 10001; 212-691- 2555; scott@monthlyreview.org; http://mrzine.monthly review.org/.
IMMIGRATION - The 1996 U.S. Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act has led to the forcible deportation of more than thirty thousand Dominicans from the United States. In Banished To The Homeland, professors David C. Brotherton and Luis Barrios follow thousands of Dominican deportees over a seven-year period, to capture the experience of emigration, imprisonment, banishment, and repatriation.
Contact: Columbia University Press, 61 West 62nd Street, New York, NY 10023; 212-459- 0600; dw2216@columbia.edu; http://cup.columbia.edu/.
CIVIL RESISTANCE - Sharp’s Dictionary of Power and Struggle is a new reference work, by Gene Sharp, which explains the terminology of civilian struggle. Nearly 1,000 entries describing the ideologies, political systems, strategies, methods, and concepts that form the center of nonviolent action are provided.
Contact: Oxford University Press, 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016-4314; 212-726-6113; aryana.fargo@oup.com; www.oup.com/us.
ESSAY - In Revolutions in Reverse: Essays on Politics, Art, Violence and Imagination, David Graber explores political strategy, global trade, debt, aesthetics and alienation in the wake of the globalization movement and the rise of the war on terror.
Contact: david.graeber@mac.com; http://www.minorcompositions.info/?p=284.
AFRICAN WOMEN - I Dare To Say: African Women Tell Their Stories of Hope and Survival is a collection of accounts illuminating the daily struggles of contemporary African women. The book covers issues such as rape, HIV/AIDS, war and domestic abuse.
Contact: Independent Publishers Group, 814 N. Franklin St., Chicago, IL 60610; 312-337-0747; mmiller@jpgbook.com; http://www.ipgbook.com/.
CHE/CIA - In Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away With Murder, Michael Ratner and Michael Steven Smith recount in detail the life and death of Che Guevara using internal U.S. government documentation.
Contact: OR Books; info@orbooks.com; http://www.orbooks.com/.
DEMOCRACY - In Democracy Unleashed! How Americans Can Organize to Govern, Robert Kubala examines why genuine democracy is needed in the U.S., how it has been denied, and presents ways to build it.
Contact: kubala.bob@gmail.com; available at lulu.com.
Films
CIVILIZATION - The Crisis of Civilization is a new documentary film investigating how global crisis like ecological disaster, financial meltdown, dwindling oil reserves, terrorism and food shortages are converging symptoms of a single, failed global system.
Contact: http://crisisofcivilization.com/.
SHORT FILM - Media That Matters 11 is the 11th annual release of short films from independent and youth filmmakers. Titles include It’s Their Life: LGBT Teens In Chicago and Burning Barriers.
Contact: http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/.
Music
OCCUPY WALL STREET - Music For Revolution is accepting and posting submissions of original songs written in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street.
Contact: http://musicforrevolution.com/.
PEACE - Musicians For Freedom is accepting submissions for its website. Music, comedy, visual arts, poetry, performance, drama, readings-anything representing a peaceful revolutionary voice.
Contact: 720-298-1524; http://musicians4freedom.com/.
Z Magazine Archive
Announcements
OCCUPY TOGETHER - Occupy Together is the unofficial hub for the various occupations springing up across the country in solidarity with Occupy Wall St. Towns and cities worldwide are participating.
Contact: http://www.occupytogether.org/.
MAY DAY - May 1 is May Day, also International Workers Day, celebrating the successful fight of workers for rights such as the eight-hour workday. A General Strike is called for May Day by many groups, and events are planned worldwide.
Contact: http://maydayunited.org/; http://www.may1.info/; info@maydayunited.org.
LABOR - The 2012 Labor Notes Conference, themed Solidarity for the 99%, will be held May 4-6, in Chicago. Thousands of union members, officers, and grassroots labor activists will attend the event, which features workshops, meetings and organizing opportunities.
Contact: 313-842-6262; http:// labornotes.org/conference.
MARIJUANA MARCH - On the first Saturday of May (this year: May 5) marijuana legalization activists will hold informational and educational events, rallies and marches in over 300 cities around the world.
Contact: http://globalcannabismarch.com; http://cannabis.wikia.com.
AMERICAN MUSLIMS - KinderUSA will celebrate its 10th Anniversary with a Fundraising Banquet Dinner in Los Angeles on May 5. The keynote speaker will be Norman Finkelstein. KinderUSA was founded as a group of concerned humanitarians and physicians, and has become a leading American Muslim charity organization helping families through health development and emergency relief.
Contact: http://www.kinder usa.org/.
SEXUAL VIOLENCE - SWAN (Service Women’s Action Network) will present Truth and Justice: The 2012 Summit on Military Sexual Violence in Washington, D.C. on May 8. The conferences will give survivors the opportunity to share their stories with congressmembers, policy experts and the general public; with key panels by military law and policy experts on major topics involving military sexual violence and survivors’ access to justice.
Contact: http://truthandjustice summit.org/.
MEDIA - The Alliance for Community Media Youth Summit 2012 will be held May 8 at Pierce College in Philadelphia, PA. The summit will consist of four one-day symposia that provide a public forum for discussion about media and news literacy in America. Participants will include educators, community leaders, media professionals, journalists, nonprofit leaders, policymakers and students.
Contact: http://www.allcommunitymedia.org.
MOMS/BOMBS - Moms Against Bombs and the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action will honor the long history of women’s resistance to injustice, war and nuclear weapons on May 12. A full day of activities is planned, including Orientation to the Trident Nuclear Weapons System, Nonviolence Training, Action Planning and Preparation, Mother’s Day Proclamation for Peace, and a Vigil and Nonviolent Direct Action at the Bangor Trident Submarine Base.
Contact: Anne Hall, 206- 545-3562, annehall@familyhealing.com; gznonviolencenews@yahoo.com; www.gzcenter.org.
MOTHER’S DAY/PEACE - The Mother’s Day Walk for Peace began in 1996 for families who had lost their children to violence. On a day that celebrates mothers and children, the Walk became a place for families and friends to feel support and love with thousands of others who pledge their commitment to peace.
The day has also become a way for thousands of people to financially support the work of the Louis Brown Peace Institute. Mother’s Day is May 13.
Contact: http://www.kintera.org/faf/home/; http://www.ldb peaceinstitute.org/.
BRECHT FORUM - The Beginning Is Near: An Evening with Michael Moore & Cornel West, a special benefit for the Brecht Forum, will be held May 18 at Hunter College in New York City.
Contact: https://brechtforum.org.
LABOR - The Pacific Northwest Labor History Association’s 44th annual conference, A Century of Bread and Roses, is scheduled for May 18-20 in Tacoma, WA.
Contact: PNLHA, 2402-6888 Station Hill Drive, Burnaby, BC, V3N 4X5; 604-540-0245; pnlha@shaw.ca; www.pnlha.org.
HOMELESSNESS - PM Press and First Presbyterian Church will host author Summer Brenner at the Conference on Homelessness on May 19 in Palo Alto, CA.
Contact: First Presbyterian Church, 1140 Cowper Street, Palo Alto, VA 94301; http://www.pmpress.org/.
NATO/G8 - The Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda is organizing protests at the NATO and G8 meetings being held in Chicago, May 19-21. A legal, permitted, family-friendly march and rally are planned for May 19. An Occupy Chicago month-long occupation is being planned to begin May 1. The Network for a Nato-Free Future and American Friends Service Committee will also be hosting a Counter-Summit for Peace and Economic Justice May 18-19 at People’s Church in Chicago.
Contact: http://cang8.wordpress.com/about/; http://www.natofreefuture.org/.
ANARCHY FEST - A month-long Festival of Anarchy is scheduled for May in Montreal. The festival includes The Montreal Anarchist Bookfair (May 19-20).
Contact: http://www.radical montreal.com/;http://www.anarchist bookfair.ca/.
TRUTHDIG - Truthdig.com will be gathering May 20-25 in New Mexico with other concerned people to assess current prospects for progressive change. Speakers include Dennis Kucinich and Chris Hedges.
Contact: http://www.truthdig.com/event/santafe.
FEMINIST SCI-FI - The feminist science fiction convention WisCon 36 is scheduled for May 25-28 in Madison, Wisconsin, featuring discussion and debate of sci-fi/fantasy ideas relating to feminism, gender, race and class.
Contact: WisCon, c/o SF3, PO Box 1624, Madison, WI 53701; concom35@wiscon.info; www.wiscon.info.
MULTICULTURE - The 25th Annual National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE) holds its annual conference May 29 -June 2 in New York City.
Contact: Southwest Center for Human Relations Studies, 3200 Marshall Avenue, Suite 290, Norman, OK 73072; 405- 325-3694; www.ncore.ou.edu.
BIKING - Bikes Not Bombs is holding its 24th annual Bike-A-Thon and Green Roots Festival in Boston, MA on June 3, with several bike rides scheduled, music, exhibitors and more.
Contact: Bikes Not Bombs, 284 Amory St., Jamaica Plain, MA 02130; 617-522-0222; mail@bikesnotbombs.org; www.bikesnotbombs.org.
RADIO - The 37th Annual Community Radio Conference is scheduled for June 13-16 in Houston, TX with discussions and workshops.
Contact: National Federation of Community Broadcasters, 1970 Broadway, Suite 1000, Oakland, CA 94612; 510-451 -8200; conference@nfcb.org; www.nfcb.org.
PEOPLE’S SUMMIT - The People’s Summit for Social and Environmental Justice during Rio+20 is an event by global civil society that will take place between the 15 and the 23 of June at Flamengo, in Rio de Janeiro—alongside the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), Rio+20.
Contact: contato@rio2012. org.br; http://cupuladospovos.org.br/en/.
ADC CONFERENCE - The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ACD) holds its annual conference June 21-24 in Washington, DC, with panel discussions and workshops on civil rights, media, the Mideast, etc.
Contact: ADC, 1732 Wisconsin Ave., NW, Washington DC, 20007; 202-244-2990; convention@adc.org; www.adc.org/convention.
MEDIA - The 14th annual Allied Media Conference will be held June 28-July 1 at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. Participatory workshops and skillshares will emphasize DIY alternative media to advance visions of a just and creative world.
Contact: Allied Media Projects, 4126 Third St., Detroit, MI 48201; www.alliedmediacon ference.org.
LA RAZA - The annual National Council of La Raza (NCLR) Conference is scheduled for July 7-10 in Las Vegas, with workshops, presentations and panel discussions.
Contact: NCLR Headquarters Office, Raul Yzaguirre Building, 1126 16th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036; 202-785-1670; www.nclr.org.
PEACESTOCK - On July 14 the 10th Annual Peace- stock: A Gathering for Peace will take place at Windbeam Farm in Hager City, WI. Peacestock (formerly “Pigstock”) is a mixture of music, speakers, and community for peace. The event is sponsored by Veterans for Peace, Chapter 115 and has a peace-themed agenda.
Contact: Bill Habedank, 1913 Grandview Ave., Red Wing, MN 55066; 651-388-7733; billhabedank@yahoo.com; http://www.peacestockvfp.org.
POPULAR ECONOMICS - The Center for Popular Economics is holding its 2012 Summer Institute July 23-27 at Columbia University in New York City. No background in economics is needed for this intensive training. This year’s theme is Economics for the 99%.
Contact: Center for Popular Economics, PO Box 785 Amherst, MA 01004; 413-545-0743; programs@populareconomics.org; www.populareconomics.org.
CUBA/PASTORS - The 23rd annual Pastors for Peace Friendship Caravan to Cuba is scheduled for
July1-July 31. Volunteers will travel across the U.S and Canada collecting aid and educating about the unjust blockade against Cuba, before an orientation in Texas July 15-18, followed by an education program in Cuba July 21-29, and finally a return back to the U.S. People can participate by attending or hosting local events, donating materials, or sponsoring a traveler.
Contact: IFCO/Pastors for Peace, 418 W. 145th St., New York, NY 10031; 212-926- 5757; cucaravan@igc.org; www.pastorsforpeace.org.
COMMUNITY MEDIA - The Alliance for Community Media 2012 National Conference is scheduled for July 31-August 2 in Chicago. Hands-on workshops and skillshares will be offered by this grassroots coalition of community media groups. This year’s theme is Collaborate!
Contact: ACM, 1760 Old Meadow Road, Suite 500, McLean, VA 22102; www.alliancecm.org.
VETERANS - Veterans for Peace is holding the 27th annual convention August 8-12 in Miami, FL. This year’s theme is, Liberating the Americas: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean.
Contact: Veterans For Peace, 216 S. Meramec Ave., St. Louis, MO 63105; 314-725-6005; www.vfpnationalconvention.org
COMMUNITIES - The Communities Conference is a networking and learning opportunity for co-operative or communal lifestyles, with workshops, events and entertainment; scheduled for August 31-September 3 at the Twin Oaks Community in Louisa, Virginia.
Contact: Twin Oaks Communities Conference, 138 Twin Oaks Road, Louisa, VA 23093; 540-894-5126; conference@ twinoaks.org; www.communitiesconference.org.
