Zaps July-August 2011

Events

COPWATCH - The 2nd International Copwatch Conference is scheduled for July 22-24 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Designed to help activists share strategies to take back their communities from oppressive and abusive police, the conference is open to anyone except law enforcement officials.
 

Contact: Winnipeg Copwatch, 2F-91 Albert Street Winnipeg Manitoba Canada R3B 1G5; 204-942-1588; wpgcopwatch@gmail.com; www.conference.winnipegcopwatch.org.
 

LA RAZA - The annual National Council of La Raza (NCLR) Conference is scheduled for July 23-26 in Washington, DC, 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.
 

POPULAR ECONOMICS - The Center for Popular Economics is holding its 2011 Summer Institute July 24-30 at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. No background in economics is needed for this intensive training. This year’s theme is Media, Democracy, and the Economy.
 

Contact: Center for Popular Economics, PO Box 785 Amherst, MA 01004; 413-545- 0743; programs@populareconomics.org; www.populareconomics.org.
 

COMMUNITY MEDIA - The Alliance for Community Media 2011 National Conference is scheduled for July 27-30 in Tucson, Arizona. Hands-on workshops and skillshares will be offered by this grassroots coalition of community media groups.
 

Contact: ACM, 1760 Old Meadow Road, Suite 500, McLean, VA 22102; www.alliancecm.org.
 

VETERANS - Veterans for Peace is holding this year’s annual convention August 3-7 at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. This year’s theme is Resilience, Resistance, and Non-Violent Revolution.
 

Contact: Veterans For Peace, 216 S. Meramec Ave., St. Louis, MO 63105; 314-725- 6005; www.vfpnationalconvention.org.
 

GREEN PARTY - The 2011 Annual National Meeting of the Green Party US is scheduled in conjunction with the NY Green Fest in Alfred, New York from August 5-7, with a fair, workshops, and forums open to the public besides the membership meeting.
 

Contact: Green Fest, info @nygreenfest.org, www. nygreenfest.org; GP-US Membership Meeting, registration@gp.org; www.gp.org.
 

FESTIVAL - The Dissident Arts Festival is scheduled for 4-11 PM on August 13 at the Brecht Forum in NYC, a celebration of radical Left culture with Upsurge!, Radio Noir, Secret Architecture, Judy Gorman, Gwen Laster, Raging Grannies, plus radical poets and satirists and a screening and discussion of Salt of the Earth.
 

Contact: John Pietaro, 646-599-0060; leftmus@earthlink.net; theculturalworker.blogspot.com; www.brechtforum.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 19-21 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.
 

CLASS WAR - “The War on the Working Class” is the title of a conference scheduled for October 1 at St. Francis College, Brooklyn. Sponsored by Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE), it aims to bring together activists and theorists.
 

Contact: Union for Radical Political Economics, Gordon Hall, University of Massachusetts, 418 N. Pleasant St., Amherst, MA 01002; 413-577- 0806; urpe@labornet.org; www.urpe.org.
 

OCCUPATION - Over 50 populist organizations and thousands of activists are planning protests on Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC starting on October 6, when the senseless invasion of Afghanistan begins its 11th year. Organizers are hoping for a mass demonstration and long-lasting occupation to force a change from policies of domestic austerity, billionaire plunder, and imperial slaughter.

Contact: october2011.org.

Books

ART & POLITICS - Something to Say features 15 profiles of artists and activists on issues surrounding the intersection of art and politics, featuring text by Richard Klin with photographs by Lily Prince, with subjects from Pete Seeger to Jen Sorensen.
 

Contact: Leapfrog Press, PO Box 2110 Teaticket, MA 02536; leapfrog@leapfrogpress.com; www.leapfrogpress.com.
 

CONGO - In Consuming the Congo: War and Conflict Minerals in the World’s Deadliest Place, journalist and author Peter Eichstaedt describes the deadly resource conflict and ethnic and political clashes in Eastern Congo.
 

Contact: Lawrence Hill Books, Chicago Review Press, 814 N. Franklin St., Chicago, IL 60610; 312-337-0747; www.chicagoreviewpress.com.
 

CUBAN MUSIC - In Buena Vista in the Club: Rap, Reggaetón, and Revolution in Havana, Geoffrey Baker traces the trajectory of the Havana hip hop scene from the late 1980s to the present and analyzes its partial eclipse by reggaetón.
 

Contact: Duke University Press, 905 W. Main St., Suite 18B, Durham, NC 27701; 888-651- 0122; www.dukeupress.edu.

DICTIONARY - Shocked and Awed: A Dictionary of the War on Terror by Fred Halliday offers the definitions and context for the rhetoric of endless war, from famous quotes and phrases to euphemisms, stereotypes, and more.
 

Contact: University of California Press, 2120 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94704; 510-642- 4247; www.ucpress.edu.
 

FEMINIST ACTIVISM - My Dream is to be Bold: Our Work to End Patriarchy by the group South African activist group Feminist Alternatives documents their organizing for real social transformation away from capitalist patriarchy, amid anti-apartheid struggle and regime change.
 

Contact: Fahamu Books, 2nd floor, 51 Cornmarket Street, Oxford OX1.
 

GLOBAL LABOR - In Workers, Unions and Global Capitalism: Lessons from India, Rohini Hensman examines the labor movements that have grown alongside corporate globalism using the varied cultural and political terrain of India as a model.

Contact: www.leftword.com.
 

IMPERIALISM - In Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games, Eric Walberg describes a dangerous competition between major industrial powers, with Eurasia at the center of the current (and past) playing field.
 

Contact: Clarity Press, Inc., Ste. 469, 3277 Roswell Rd. NE, Atlanta, GA. 30305; 404-647- 6501; www.claritypress.com.
 

LAW - The People’s Lawyer: The Center for Constitutional Rights and the Fight for Social Justice, From Civil Rights to Guantánamo by Albert Ruben is a history of the radical and innovative CCR, in its defense of the U.S. constitution and human rights.

Contact: Monthly Review Press, 146 W. 29th Street, #6W, New York, NY 10001; 800-670-9499; bookorder@monthlyreview.org; www.monthlyreview.org.
 

MEXICO - In To Die in Mexico: Dispatches from Inside the Drug War, John Gibler offers on the ground reporting and discussions with people on the frontlines that address the causes and consequences of Mexico’s multibillion-dollar drug-trafficking business and deadly conflict.
 

Contact: City Lights Publishers, 261 Columbus Ave., San Francisco CA 94133; 415-362-1901; staff@citylights.com; www.citylights.com.
 

NUKE REPORT - Nuclear Roulette: The Case Against a Nuclear Renaissance is a report by journalist Gar Smith (edited by Ernest Callenbach with a foreword by leading Japanese anti-nuclear activist, Aileen Mioko Smith) offering a rigorously researched rebuttal to the misleading claims of the nuclear industry and government boosters about nuclear power’s viability, sustainability, and safety.
 

Contact: International Forum on Globalization, Thoreau Center for Sustainability, 1009 General Kennedy Avenue #2, San Francisco, CA 94129; 415-561-7650; ifg@ifg.org; www.ifg.org.
 

PEACE ACTIVISTS - In Our Way to Fight: Israeli and Palestinian Activists for Peace, Michael Riordon interviews Israeli and Palestinian peace activists who break stereotypes while engaging in the dangerous work for small victories.
 

Contact: Chicago Review Press, 814 N. Franklin St., Chicago, IL 60610; 312-337-0747; frontdesk@chicagoreviewpress.com; www.chicagoreviewpress.com.
 

PUBLIC SPACE - In The Beach Beneath the Streets: Contesting New York City’s Public Spaces, Benjamin Shepard and Gregory Smithsimon examine activist struggles for community in New York City as an example of the tensions between privatization and public uses of space.
 

Contact: State University of New York Press, 22 Corporate Woods Boulevard, 3rd Floor, Albany, NY 12211; 866-430- 7869;  info@sunypress.edu; www.sunypress.edu.
 

SOUTH AFRICA - No Land! No House! No Vote! Voices from Symphony Way by the Symphony Way pavement dwellers chronicles and anthologizes a historic and ongoing anti-eviction campaign outside of Cape Town.
 

Contact: Fahamu Books & Pambazuka Press, 2nd floor, 51 Cornmarket St., Oxford OX1 3HA UK; info@fahamu.org; www.fahamubooks.org.
 

TEACHERS - In Reds at the Blackboard: Communism, Civil Rights, and the New York City Teachers Union, Clarence Taylor documents the radical union’s battles until the infamous Red Squad and other undercover agents worked with the Board of Education to bring them down.
 

Contact: Columbia University Press, 61 West 62nd Street, New York, NY 10023; 800-343-4499.
 

WARMING - The Global Warming Reader, edited and with an introduction by Bill McKibben, offers a collection designed to answer three main questions: what has climate change already done to our planet, what comes next, and what can we do about it?

Contact: Or Books, info@orbooks.com; www.orbooks.com.

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