Zaps - June 2010

 
Events

DISARMAMENT SUMMER - Think Outside the Bomb, a youth-led network for nuclear abolition in the U.S., is conducting a national tour, with stops in cities throughout the south and west, culminating in a convergence and encampment on San Ildefonso Pueblo land near Los Alamos, New Mexico, July 30 through August 9.

Contact: www.thinkoutsidethebomb.org; www.totbtour.wordpress.com.

CLASS CONFERENCE - The Center for Study of Working Class Life is hosting its 2010 conference How Class Works June 3-4 at the SUNY at Stony Brook.

Contact: Center for Study of Working Class Life, State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY 11794; 631-632-7536; michael.zweig@stonybrook.edu; www.stonybrook.edu/workingclass.

RELEASE PARTY - A release party for Understanding the Crash, an illustrated book about the economy from Soft Skull Press, by Seth Tobocman, Eric Laursen, and Jessica Wehrle is scheduled for 7 PM on June 4 at Bluestockings Books in Manhattan.

Contact: Bluestockings Books, 172 Allen St., New York, NY 10002; 212-777-6028; bluestockings.com/events.

BENEFIT - A benefit for the War Resisters League is scheduled for June 4 at the Fourth Street Theater in NYC and features a performance of the play Prophecy, written & directed by Karen Malpede, with a discussion afterwards. Attendees also receive admission to another Prophecy talk-back on June 8.

Contact: War Resisters League, 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012; 212-228-0450; wrl@warresisters.org; www.warresisters.org/prophecy.

NUKE ABOLITION - June 5 is World Environment Day and events are planned around the world to mark this year's events as Nuclear Abolition Day, with two protest rallies in California at Vandenberg Space Command and the Los Angeles Air Force Museum as well as a forum in Chicago on nuclear waste.

Contact: macgregoreddy@gmail.com; www.vandenbergwitness.org; www.nuclearabolition.org; www.icanw.org.

GREEN FESTIVAL - The Seattle Green Festival is scheduled for June 5-6, 2010 at the Washington State Trade and Convention Center. A joint project of Global Exchange and Green America, the festival showcases sustainable projects. There will also be a series of events leading up to the festival.

Contact: www.greenfestivals.org/seattle.

BIKING - Join Bikes Not Bombs Sunday, June 6 for their 23rd annual Bike-A-Thon and Green Roots Festival in Boston, Massachusetts.

Contact: Bikes Not Bombs, 284 Amory St., Jamaica Plain, MA 02130; 617-522-0222; mail@bikesnotbombs.org; www.bikesnotbombs.org.

RADIO - The 35th Annual Community Radio Conference is scheduled for June 9-12 in St. Paul, Minnesota, with discussion, affinity groups, and workshops.

Contact: National Federation of Community Broadcasters, 510-451-8200; conference@nfcb.org; www.nfcb.org.

LABOR - The Pacific Northwest Labor History Association's 42nd annual conference, The Union Makes Us Strong: Inspiration, Guidance, and Hope During Hard Times, is scheduled for June 11-13 in Portland, Oregon.

Contact: PNLHA, 27920 68th Ave. East, Graham, WA 98338; 253-875-9498; pnlh1@aol.com; www.pnlha.org.

SOCIALISM - This year's annual Socialism Conference (with two sessions) is scheduled for Chicago (June 17-20) and San Francisco (July 1-4), featuring talks and panel discussions.

Contact: Socialism 2010, c/o Center for Economic Research and Social Change; 773-583-7884 info@socialismconference.org; www.socialismconference.org.

MEDIA - The 12th annual Allied Media Conference will be held June 18-20 in the McGregor Conference Center at Wayne State University in Detroit. Participatory workshops and skillshares will emphasize DIY alternative media to advance visions of a just and creative world.

Contact: Allied Media Projects, 420 Cass Ave., Detroit MI 48201; www.alliedmediaconference.org.

PEOPLE'S SUMMIT - The 2010 People's Summit: Building a Movement for a Just World is scheduled for June 18-20, followed by a week of global justice actions June 21-27, during meetings of the world's elite decision-makers at the G-8/G-20 meetings, which are scheduled for June 25-27 in Toronto.

Contact: coordinator@peoplessummit2010.ca; www.peoplessummit2010.ca; action@torontomobilize.org; www.g20.torontomobilize.org.

CMPP - The Chicano Mexicano Prison Project is organizing a conference, Inside and Outside Prisons: Liberation is a Struggle, to be held June 19 in San Diego featuring discussions and presentations.

Contact: Unión del Barrio San Diego, PO Box 620095, San Diego, CA 92162; 619-398-6648; www.uniondelbarrio.org.

THEATER - The 12th annual Theater of the Oppressed Facilitator Training workshop is scheduled for June 21-26 in Port Townsend, Washington. As created by Brazilian visionary, Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed is a form of popular community-based education which uses theater as a tool for social change.

Contact: Mandala Center, 510 35th St., Port Townsend, WA 98368; 360-344-3435; info@mandalaforchange.com; www.mandalaforchange.com.

U.S. SOCIAL FORUM - The second United States Social Forum is scheduled June 22-26 in Detroit. The social forum movement, started ten years ago in Brazil, has brought together millions of people around the world working for participatory grassroots alternatives to a hierarchical system of corporate exploitation of peoples and the environment. The theme of the USSF is Another World Is Possible, Another U.S. Is Necessary.

Contact: USSF Detroit 2010, 877-515-8773; detroitinfo@ussf2010.org; www.ussf2010.org.

GREEN PARTY - The Green Party of the United States will hold its 2010 Annual National Meeting in Detroit June 24-27, hosted by local Greens and the Green Party of Michigan. National, state, and local Green Party leaders, candidates, and many others will participate in plenaries, workshops, and more

Contact: GPUS, PO Box 57065, Washington, DC 20037; 866-41GREEN; office@gp.org; www.gp.org; www.greenpartymeeting2010.wordpress.com.

EXHIBIT - "Out of the Closet and Into the Street: Posters of LGBT Struggles & Celebration" will be on display at the ONE Archives Gallery & Museum in West Hollywood July 3 through September 26.

Contact: Center for the Study of Political Graphics, 8124 West Third Street, Suite 211, Los Angeles, CA 90048; 323-653-4662; cspgweb@politicalgraphics.org; www.politicalgraphics.org.

CARAVAN - The 21st annual Pastors for Peace Caravan to Cuba is scheduled for July 3 through August 3. Through mid-July, 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 18-20, followed by travel to and from Cuba until August 3. People can participate by attending or hosting local events, donating materials, or traveling along.

Contact: IFCO/Pastors for Peace, 418 W. 145th St., New York, NY 10031; 212-926-5757; cucaravan@igc.org; www.pastorsforpeace.org.

TRAINING - An Earth Activist Training for "social permaculture" July 3-17 in Bellingham, Washington. Co-taught by Starhawk, with guest teachers Bill Aal and Margo Adair of Tools for Change, this course offers a design certificate with a focus on organizing, activism, and social justice.

Contact: Earth Activist Training, PO Box 170177, San Francisco, CA 94117; 800-381-7940; earthactivisttraining@gmail.com; www.earthactivisttraining.org.

PEACE CAMP - Peace of the Action is planning a Summer Camp OUT NOW with Cindy Sheehan from July 5-23 in Washington, DC, featuring direct action and educational events opposed to U.S. occupation and war.

Contact: cindy@peaceoftheaction.org; www.peaceoftheaction.org.

COMMUNITY MEDIA - The Alliance for Community Media 2010 National Conference is scheduled for July 7-10 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Workshops and skillshares will be offered by this grassroots coalition of community media groups.

Contact: ACM, 1100 G Street, NW, Suite 740, Washington, DC 20005; 202-393-2653; www.alliancecm.org.

LA RAZA - The annual National Council of La Raza (NCLR) Conference is scheduled for July 10-13 in San Antonio, Texas, with workshops, presentations, and panel discussions.

Contact: NCLR Headquarters Office, Raul Yzaguirre Building, 1126 16th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036; 202-776-1718; www.nclr.org.

DEMOCRACYFEST - The 7th Annual DemocracyFest will be held July 23-24 in Las Vegas, Nevada. DemocracyFest is a political festival for liberal and progressive activists, which features training, speakers, and entertainment.

Contact: DemocracyFest, info@democracyfest.net; www.democracyfest.net.

ANTI-WAR - A National Antiwar Conference is scheduled for July 23-25 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Albany, New York.

Contact: United National Antiwar Conference (UNAC) Planning Committee, 518-227-6947 or 518-227-6947; UNAC2010@aol.com; www.nationalpeaceconference.org.

BIKE4PEACE - Former Green Party presidential candidate will join others from Bike4Peace in a cross-country tour departing San Francisco on July 24 and arriving in Washington, DC on September 22, World Car-Free Day, for a Critical Mass bike convergence.

Contact: 541-829-9034; bike4peace@googlegroups.com; www.b4p.bbnow.org.

EDUCATION FORUM - The Rouge Forum 2010, Education in the Public Interest, will be held at George Williams College conference center in Williams Bay, Wisconsin from August 2-5.

Contact: fwilson@aurora.edu; www.rougeforumconference.org.

CHIAPAS - The San Cristóbal de las Casas independent collective, Chiapas Against The Grain, is offering programs to learn Spanish and Tsotsil in a socio-cultural context, with visits to different projects, themed discussions, and videos, August 2-13 or August 16-27, with a July 15 registration deadline.

Contact: chiapasacontrapelo@cronopios.org; www.chiapas-a-contrapelo.cronopios.org/en.

CO-OPS - The 2010 National Worker Cooperative Conference is scheduled for August 6-9 at Clark Kerr Conference Center at UC Berkeley in California.

Contact: U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives; 415-379-9201; info@usworker.coop; www.usworker.coop.

COMMUNITIES - The Communities Conference is a networking and learning opportunity for anyone interested or involved in co-operative or communal lifestyles, with workshops, events, and entertainment scheduled for August 13-15 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.

URPE - Each summer, the Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE) holds a 4-day workshop/retreat with papers and workshops, formal and informal. This year's event is titled "Capitalism and Global Climate Change" and is scheduled for August 15-18 in Camp Deer Run in Pine Bush, New York.

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.

VETERANS - Veterans for Peace celebrates its 25th anniversary at this year's annual convention August 25-29 in Portland, Maine, with workshops, talks, and strategy sessions, with a final day rally and march.

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

Campaigns

SURVIVAL - Survival International has launched a global ad campaign in support of the uncontacted tribes of Peru and to stop Peru's government allowing an oil pipeline to be built through the their territory.

Contact: Survival International USA, 2150 Allston Way, Suite 280, Berkeley CA 94704; 202-525-6972; info.usa@survivalinternational.org; www.survivalinternational.org.

Wanted

ESSAYS - The Daniel Singer Millennium Prize Foundation invites submissions to the 2010 Daniel Singer Prize competition, up to 5,000 words, on the topic: "Given the devastating effects of the present crisis on working people, what proposals for radical reform can be raised which are both practical to the vast majority while moving us towards the goal of socialism?" Deadline is July 31.

Contact: The Daniel Singer Millennium Prize Foundation, PO Box 2371, El Cerrito, CA 94530; danielsingerfdn@gmail.com; www.danielsinger.org.

Multimedia

PEOPLE SPEAK - A DVD based on the People's History books by Howard Zinn is now available. Called The People Speak and narrated by Zinn, if features dramatic and musical performances by an all-star cast portraying the words and actions of everyday Americans who stood up for social and political change. An audio CD soundtrack is also available, as is the book which provided the source material, Voices of a People's History of the United States, by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove.
Contact: www.thepeoplespeak.com

Audio

EARTH MINUTE - Global Justice Ecology Project has partnered with KPFK Los Angeles' "Sojourner Truth Show" for interviews every Thursday, and an Earth Minute every Tuesday, also available at the GJEP website.

Contact: Global Justice Ecology Project, PO Box 412, Hinesburg, VT 05461; 802-482-2689; info@globaljusticeecology.org; www.globaljusticeecology.org.

MAKING CONTACT - "Making Contact," produced by National Radio Project, is a 29-minute weekly progressive magazine/documentary-style public affairs program. It is available on over 200 radio stations in the U.S. and around the world and is also available for free to noncommercial stations or directly to listeners through the website.

Contact: National Radio Project, 1904 Franklin St., Suite 405, Oakland, CA 94612; 800-529-5736; makingcontact@radioproject.org; www.radioproject.org.

MUSIC - Why Do We Go To War is a 15-song folk opera about the dilemmas of war by Boston Rock Opera founder and recording artist T Max.

Contact: Dove Records, 24 Beverly Dr, Georgetown MA 01833; 978-352-8656; tmaxnoise@aol.com; www.myspace.com/dreamerswanted.

Video

AFGHANISTAN - The video Why Are We in Afghanistan?, written by Michael Zweig and illustrated by Mike Konopacki, recently won the Studs Terkel Prize for Media and Journalism It is available on DVD or for free download in various formats and with supplementary material.

Contact: Center for Study of Working Class Life, Department of Economics, State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY 11794; 631-632-7536; michael.zweig@stonybrook.edu; www.stonybrook.edu/workingclass/publications.

CANCER - Based on a book by ecologist and cancer survivor Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D., Living Downstream is a documentary that follows Steingraber during one pivotal year as she travels across North America working to break the silence about cancer and its environmental links.

Contact: The People's Picture Company, info@theppcinc.com; www.theppcinc.com; www.livingdownstream.com.

MEAT - Pig Business is a documentary exposing the many negative impacts of factory pig farms and highlighting the increasing globalization of concentrated agriculture feeding operations.

Contact: info@pigbusiness.co.uk; www.pigbusiness.co.uk.

ORGANIZING - Neighbor by Neighbor is a documentary about community organizing among low-income residents of Lewiston, Maine to protect their homes against demolition for "urban renewal" road development.

Contact: craig@roundpointmovies.org; www.roundpointmovies.org.

PLUNDER - In Plunder: The Crime of Our Time, longtime documentary filmmaker Danny Schechter (the "News Dissector") explores how the financial crisis was built on a foundation of criminal activity by still unpunished financial elites.

Contact: Globalvision, 575 8th Avenue #2200, NY, NY 10018; 212-246-0202, ext. 3006; dissector@mediachannel.org; www.disinfo.com; www.plunderthecrimeofourtime.com.

STONE GOES SOUTH - Oliver Stone's documentary South Of The Border is scheduled to be released June 25. It chronicles Stone's 2009 travels to South America and tells the story of the rise to power of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and other leftist South American presidents.

Contact: Cinema Libre Studio, 8328 De Soto Ave., Canoga Park, CA 91304; 818-349-8822; info@cinemalibrestudio.com; www.cinemalibrestudio.com; www.southoftheborderdoc.com.

Books

AFGHANISTAN - Afghanistan in the Cinema by Mark Graham examines Hollywood's evolving yet ethnocentric representations, from The Man Who Would Be King through Charlie Wilson's War and The Kite Runner.

Contact: University of Illinois Press, 1325 South Oak St., MC-566, Champaign, IL 61820; 217-333-0950; uipress@uillinois.edu; www.press.uillinois.edu.

BASEBALL - The Empire Strikes Out: How Baseball Sold U.S. Foreign Policy and Promoted the American Way Abroad by Robert Elias explores baseball and imperialism from the 1800s to the U.S. invasion-occupation of Iraq.

Contact: The New Press, 38 Greene St, 4th flr, New York, NY  10013; 800-343-4499; orderentry@perseusbooks.com; www.thenewpress.com.

END OF THE WORLD - In The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability, longtime environmentalist and co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council outlines radical changes needed to transition from a wasteful consumption-driven culture to sustainability.

Contact: Yale University Press, PO Box 209040, New Haven, CT 06520; 203-432-0960; yalepress.yale.edu.

IMMIGRATION - The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories from the Arizona-Mexico Borderlands by Margaret Regan chronicles the experiences of migrants, activists, and an increasing militarization.

Contact: Beacon Press, 25 Beacon Street Boston, MA 02108; 617-742-2110; BP_Orders@beacon.org; www.beacon.org.

GENOCIDE - The Politics of Genocide, by Edward S. Herman & David Peterson with a foreword by Noam Chomsky, is an investigation of the uses and abuses of the word "genocide" and how it has been politicized in the West as a propaganda tool against official enemies.

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

ITALIAN WOMEN - In Living the Revolution: Italian Women's Resistance and Radicalism in New York City, 1880-1945, Jennifer Guglielmo documents the political activism of two generations of New York and New Jersey women who worked in the needle and textile trades.

Contact: The University of North Carolina Press, 116 South Boundary Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27514; 800-848-6224; www.uncpress.unc.edu.

PM PAMPHLETS - PMPress has a series of low-priced pamphlets for activists and organizers including: Abolish Restaurants: A Worker's Critique of the Food Service Industry, Self-Defense for Radicals: A to Z Guide for Subversive Struggle, The Prison-Industrial Complex and the Global Economy, and The F-Word 03: A Feminist Handbook For The Revolution.

Contact: PM Press, PO Box 23912, Oakland, CA 94623; 510-658-3906; info@pmpress.org; www.pmpress.org.

POVERTY - In Stretched Thin: Poor Families, Welfare Work, and Welfare Reform, Sandra Morgen, Joan Acker, and Jill Weigt study the effects of the neoliberal 1996 "reform" that drastically downsized the welfare state.

Contact: Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State St., Ithaca, NY 14850; 607-277-2338, ext. 251 or ext. 258; www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

SOCIALISM - From Capitalism to Civilization: Reconstructing the Socialist Perspective by Samir Amin, director of the Third World Forum, predicts a second wave of anti-imperialist emancipation of so-called "developing countries," which will change the face of the world.

Contact: Tulika Publishers, kaka@tulikabooks.com; www.tulikabooks.com; www.leftword.com.

VENEZUELA - Who Can Stop the Drums?: Urban Social Movements in Chávez's Venezuela by Sujatha Fernandes offers an ethnography and political history of the barrios, demonstrating that the transformations under way in Venezuela are shaped by negotiations between the Chávez government and social movements with their own forms of historical memory, local organization, and consciousness.

Contact: Duke University Press, 919-687-3600; orders@dukeupress.edu; www.dukeupress.edu.

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