Tues 5.06.08 through Wed 5.21.08

{Audio presented during KPFA Fund Drives often originates elsewhere and therefore is not posted. Resources relating to Fund Drive programs are provided to the right.}

R e s o u r c e s

Left Forum 2008

Mon 5.05.08| Too Hot to Handle?

Twentieth century civilization is about to collapse, argues Colin Duncan, because of the imminence of rapid and vast climate change. The environmental historian laments the decades-long delay in grasping the urgency and magnitude of what he calls the global defrosting crisis. Duncan believes a mass collective project must arise to plan a necessary transition to a new sustainable society.

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R e s o u r c e s

Colin Duncan, "The Practical Equivalent of War?, or, Using Rapid Massive Climate Change to Ease the Great Transition Towards a New Sustainable Anthropocentrism" Berkeley Workshop on Environmental Politics

Colin Duncan, The Centrality of Agriculture: Between Humankind and the Rest of Nature McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996

Wed 4.30.08| Torture, Empire, Algeria

When empire is in decline, does the use of torture, or the motivations behind it, change? For Marnia Lazreg, what the French colonial forces did to people in Algeria during that nation's war of independence in the 1950s speaks volumes about the relationship between torture, power, empire, and even democracy. In Torture and the Twilight of Empire, Lazreg also draws parallels between French colonial conduct then and US military conduct today.

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R e s o u r c e s

Marnia Lazreg, Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad Princeton University Press, 2008

Marnia Lazreg, "History Repeats Itself: France in Algeria, the US in Iraq" History News Network

Tues 4.29.08| Wallerstein II; Miller's Memoir

In this second part of an extended, recorded interview with Immanuel Wallerstein, the eminent Left scholar shares his opinions on the USSR's collapse; on George W. Bush and the decline of US power; and on opposition movement strategy. He also describes the basic contours of world-systems analysis, which he innovated. Also, Adam David Miller has written a memoir about growing up African American in the Jim Crow South.

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R e s o u r c e s

Immanuel Wallerstein

Adam David Miller, Ticket to Exile Heyday, 2007

Mon 4.28.08| Immanuel Wallerstein

The influential scholar and author Immanuel Wallerstein argues that the US was the sole global superpower from 1945 to around 1970, after which US hegemony went into decline. He also talks about the 1968 revolutionaries' critique of the Old Left movements that had taken state power, and contends that capitalism "is doomed." Also, Patrick Wilkinson's new video takes on aerial pesticide spraying.

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R e s o u r c e s

Immanuel Wallerstein's biweekly commentaries

Immanuel Wallerstein, The Essential Wallerstein The New Press, 2000

Immanuel Wallerstein, European Universalism: The Rhetoric of Power The New Press, 2006

LBAM Takes San Francisco, a video by Patrick Wilkinson

Wed 4.23.08| Beyond Wage Labor

Is a new kind of class consciousness taking shape? Many people, writes Chris Carlsson, are transcending their lives as wage-workers and in the process building community, learning skills, and doing right by the environment. In Nowtopia, Carlsson describes the political potential of activities like vacant-lot gardening, "outlaw" bicycling, and biofuels tinkering.

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R e s o u r c e s

Chris Carlsson, Nowtopia: How Pirate Programmers, Outlaw Bicyclists, and Vacant-Lot Gardeners Are Inventing the Future Today AK Press, 2008

Chris Carlsson

Shaping San Francisco

Mon 4.21.08| Taking (Artistic) Aim

Ellen McLaughlin has written an adaptation of one of the oldest anti-war plays, The Trojan Women by Euripides. McLaughlin's play suggests that the enemy targeted for destruction isn't that different from ourselves. Sara Shelton Mann and Jo Kreiter have created dance theater pieces that address environmental crisis and government lies, respectively.

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R e s o u r c e s

The Trojan Women at Aurora Theatre

For the Record: Dancers Debate the Body Politic, an ODC Theater festival

Sara Shelton Mann

Jo Kreiter and Flyaway Productions

Wed 4.16.08| New Energy Order

In his new book Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet, Michael Klare argues that a global political realignment of historic proportions is under way, based on ever-more-intense competition for reliable energy supplies. Klare describes emerging Big Power alliances and rivalries in energy-rich sites like the Caspian basin and Africa.

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R e s o u r c e s

Michael Klare, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy Metropolitan, 2008

Michael Klare speaks in Berkeley

Tues 4.15.08| Poor Moves

A federal program that demolishes public housing projects moves their residents to other neighborhoods, in the name of reducing poverty. According to Susan Greenbaum, poverty is not in fact alleviated and the communal capacities of poor people are damaged by relocation. Also, radical historian Eric Hobsbawm discussed socialism, democracy and the USSR in a 1981 Pacifica Radio interview.

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R e s o u r c e s

Susan Greenbaum

Rethinking Marxism

Eric Hobsbawm, Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life Pantheon, 2007

Mon 4.14.08| Abortion Wars

Who would kill an abortion provider? Why did a violent wing of the anti-abortion movement emerge in the 1990s? And how did Buffalo become, for a time, ground zero in this nation's culture wars? Eyal Press examines the abortion debate and how it affected his father, an abortion provider, in Absolute Convictions. Mary Schwartz founded the Buffalo chapter of NOW in 1969. (Encore presentation.)

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R e s o u r c e s

Eyal Press, Absolute Convictions, My Father, a City, and the Conflict That Divided America Picador, 2007

Eyal Press in The Nation

Wed 4.09.08| Soils Imperiled

According to Saed Engel-Di Mauro, a global crisis in soil degradation threatens our very survival. He describes the contours of the crisis, its causes, and the impact of social arrangements on soil health and integrity. And Paul Paz y Miño discusses a breakthrough in a lawsuit against Chevron for damage done to Ecuador's Amazon rainforest.

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R e s o u r c e s

Saed (Salvatore) Engel-Di Mauro

Capitalism Nature Socialism

Amazon Watch

ChevronToxico

Tues 4.08.08| Solidarity with Africa

The US-based campaigns against South African apartheid attracted a lot of attention, but they did not of course constitute the only activism around Africa solidarity. William Minter has co-edited a volume that tells the story of five decades of solidarity between Africans and Americans. In a chapter about the 1950s, Lisa Brock profiles three committed organizers.

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R e s o u r c e s

Minter, Hovey & Cobb Jr., eds., No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century, 1950-2000 Africa World Press, 2008

AfricaFocus

Lisa Brock

Mon 4.07.08| Lessons from Clamor

Clamor Magazine, an award-winning quarterly covering radical culture and politics, engaged with a young left audience and provided a non-sectarian forum for radical discussion until it closed shop in 2006. Clamor co-founder and publisher Jen Angel talks about the nuts and bolts lessons that can be gleaned for media and left institutions from that publication's experience.

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R e s o u r c e s

Jen Angel

Jen Angel, Becoming the Media: A Critical History Of Clamor Magazine PM Press, 2008

Wed 4.02.08| Faces of "Labor"

If workers of the world have yet to unite, and if there exists a great variety of people doing different kinds of work around the world, are references to a global labor force useful? Michael Denning talks about what he sees as the imaginative crisis of labor. He also emphasizes the importance of wageless people: their existence, their organizing activity, and their political potential.

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R e s o u r c e s

Initiative on Labor and Culture at Yale University

Michael Denning, Culture in the Age of Three Worlds Verso, 2004

Social Text

Sebastiao Salgado

Tues 4.01.08| The Case for Chechnya

Is Chechnya, so often associated with lawlessness, Islamic extremism, and failed statehood, entitled to independence? Tony Wood has written about the long tradition of Chechen resistance to Russian imperial designs. He also links the most recent invasion of Chechnya with Vladimir Putin's rise to power and his authoritarian agenda.

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R e s o u r c e s

Tony Wood, Chechnya: The Case for Independence Verso, 2007

Tony Wood, "The Case for Chechnya" New Left Review

Mon 3.31.08| Sowing, Reaping

Whoever controls the future of seeds controls the future of life on earth. So asserts Claire Cummings in a new book, which takes on industrial farming and genetic engineering and points the way toward a sustainable, earth-friendly agriculture. One of Cummings's heroes is Wes Jackson, who's working to transform the major grain crops into hardy, diverse perennials.

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R e s o u r c e s

Claire Hope Cummings, Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and The Future of Seeds Beacon, 2008

The Land Institute

Wed 3.26.08| Oil, Class, "Enclosure"

Peak Oil, with its assertions that oil production is or soon will be in permanent decline, is all the rage. But from a radical, anticapitalist perspective, does Peak Oil hold water? The philosopher George Caffentzis offers a critique that emphasizes the role of workers and displaced communities in oil production.

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R e s o u r c e s

George Caffentzis, No Blood For Oil! Energy, Class Struggle, and War, 1998-2004 radicalpolYtics, 2005

Tues 3.25.08| Stiglitz on the Iraq Occupation

Nobel laureate and former chief economist for the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz, talks about the costs of the invasion of Iraq and the gloomy prospects for the US economy with journalist Doug Henwood.

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R e s o u r c e s

Joseph Stiglitz

Joseph E. Stiglitz & Linda J. Bilmes, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict W.W. Norton, 2008

Doug Henwood's Behind the News

Mon 3.24.08| Rising in the East?

Does dissent happen in Japan, an economic powerhouse around which stereotypes of Japanese homogeneity and obedient conformity abound? Sabu Kohso is organizing resistance to the upcoming G8 summit in Hokkaido; he's also written about recent social movements and workers' struggles in Japan. Workers are also struggling in China, in places like Shenzhen; Robert Weil describes recent developments.

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R e s o u r c e s

Yoda & Harootunian, eds., Japan After Japan: Social and Cultural Life from the Recessionary 1990s to the Present Duke University Press, 2006

No! G8 Action

Robert Weil, "City of Youth" on the China Study Group website

Wed 3.19.08| Disaster? Success? Both?

What have we wrought in Iraq? Has the troop surge worked, can Baghdad's neighborhoods be resucitated, has the US oil grab succeeded, and would a Democratic president withdraw the troops? Michael Schwartz and A.K. Gupta provide in-depth commentary, and Brian Edwards-Tiekert gets arrested at an antiwar protest in San Francisco.

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R e s o u r c e s

Michael Schwartz, "Why Did We Invade Iraq Anyway?" TomDispatch.com

Michael Schwartz

Articles by A.K. Gupta in The Indypendent

Tues 3.18.08| Russell Banks; Mountaintop Removal

In his new novel The Reserve, Russell Banks examines class, politics, love, and madness in a privatized wilderness in the Adirondacks. Another kind of madness, called mountaintop removal coal mining, is taking place in the Appalachians. Lenny Kohm describes what's being done and the impact on local ecologies and communities.

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R e s o u r c e s

Russell Banks, The Reserve HarperCollins, 2008

End Mountaintop Removal

Mon 3.17.08| Change Agents

For eight months Sujatha Fernandes lived in a popular barrio in Venezuela, where she learned about the roles played by barrio women in that nation's urban social movements. She's also written about the political sensibilities of cultural workers in Cuba. Frances Tran took a CUNY course taught by Fernandes about immigrant workers, including street vendors, in New York City.

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R e s o u r c e s

Sujatha Fernandes

Sujatha Fernandes, Cuba Represent! Cuban Arts, State Power, and the Making of New Revolutionary Cultures Duke U. Press, 2006

The Peopling of New York City: Class Papers

Wed 3.12.08| War & Feminization

Are the logics of war and neoliberalism compatible with the empowerment of women and the pursuit of feminist goals? Mary Hawkesworth describes what happens to women, social attitudes, and political structures both during war and after demobilization. She also cites processes of feminization that affect labor, patterns of poverty, and even men.

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R e s o u r c e s

Hawkesworth & Alexander, eds., War and Terror: Feminist Perspectives U. of Chicago Press, 2008

Ferguson & Marso, eds., W Stands for Women: How the George W. Bush Presidency Shaped a New Politics of Gender Duke U. Press, 2007

Mary Hawkesworth

Tues 3.11.08| Michael Albert Remembers

A political renegade, a man deeply committed not just to combating social ills but to developing a vision that might guide the Left, has produced a memoir. In Remembering Tomorrow, Michael Albert writes about his Sixties activism, his institution-building feats, his radical theorizing, and his understanding of worker self-management efforts in places like Venezuela and Argentina.

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R e s o u r c e s

Michael Albert, Remembering Tomorrow: From SDS to Life After Capitalism Seven Stories, 2007

Parecon

Mon 3.10.08| Right of Return

A Palestinian longs to return to his former house. He meets the woman who moved into that house when Israel was established sixty years ago. He is jailed for many years; she becomes a peace activist. In The Lemon Tree, Sandy Tolan tells the big-picture story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the parallel, very personal story of Bashir and Dalia.

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R e s o u r c e s

Sandy Tolan, The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East Bloomsbury, 2007

Wed 3.05.08| Target Practice

Intolerance takes many forms. Anna Stubblefield describes how white elites in the US used eugenicist ideas to target "tainted" whites and, specifically, white women deemed feebleminded. And Heather MacDonald's film Ballot Measure 9 documents the violence and invective that accompanied a Religious Right-directed assault on gay rights in Oregon in 1992.

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R e s o u r c e s

Anna Stubblefield

Anna Stubblefield, Ethics along the Color Line Cornell University Press, 2005

Ballot Measure 9, a film by Heather Lyn MacDonald

Tues 3.04.08| Charisma and the Cultural Revolution

What moves people to get involved on a societal level, to push for reform or perhaps even carry out a revolution? Joel Andreas examines the role of charisma in mobilizing people; he takes as a case study the rebel movements of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. He also discusses the relevance of his findings to how recent and current social movements, with their charismatic and bureaucratic tendencies, can be evaluated.

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R e s o u r c e s

Joel Andreas

Joel Andreas, "The Structure of Charismatic Mobilization: A Case Study of Rebellion During the Chinese Cultural Revolution" American Sociological Review

Dawn Gable's PPJC-sponsored talk in Palo Alto

Mon 3.03.08| The Enemy of Nature

Are we headed toward human-caused eco-catastrophe, and if so, how do we change direction? In The Enemy of Nature, Joel Kovel argues that capitalism is inherently anti-ecological, and that no reform -- whether recommended by Al Gore, "green" companies, Kyoto backers, or eco-localists -- that leaves its operation intact can effectively address the growing ecological crisis.

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R e s o u r c e s

Joel Kovel

Joel Kovel, The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or The End of the World? Zed Books, 2007

Capitalism Nature Socialism

Wed 2.27.08| Radical Teach-In

Is truly effective education being delivered, or encouraged, in our public schools? If not, why is No Child Left Behind still around, and what would be a saner alternative? Monty Neill critiques NCLB and suggests ways of improving education. Kai Lundgren-Williams argues for radical changes to education based on what he calls complex communication.

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R e s o u r c e s

FairTest

Tues 2.26.08| Zapatista Women, Mexican Movements

Integral to the Zapatista movement has been the concept of building power from below, in part through a process of dialogue and listening. Hilary Klein and Marina Sitrin attended the most recent Zapatista-sponsored gathering, a women's encuentro in December 2007. Gustavo Esteva talks about the Oaxacan uprising and where that movement stands now.

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R e s o u r c e s

Hilary Klein, "'We Learn As We Go' -- Zapatista Women Share Their Experiences" Toward Freedom

Chiapas and the Zapatista Rebellion

Mon 2.25.08| Cultural Turn to the Right?

Seen as radical to many of its adherents, the set of ideas often known as cultural theory, postmodernism, or poststructuralism have been reviled by conservatives as subversive and dangerous. Timothy Brennan argues, however, that these ostensibly left theories have actually fed into the ascendancy of the right.

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R e s o u r c e s

Timothy Brennan

Timothy Brennan, Wars of Position: The Cultural Politics of Left and Right Columbia University Press, 2006

Wed 2.06.08 through Wed 2.20.08

{Audio presented during KPFA Fund Drives often originates elsewhere, and therefore is not posted. Resources relating to Fund Drive programs are provided to the right.}

R e s o u r c e s

Paul Robeson: Portraits of the Artist

John Henrik Clarke: A Great and Mighty Walk

Michael Yates

Chalmers Johnson

Stephen Bezruchka

Tues 2.05.08| The Power of Narrative

How important is the telling of stories to politics in general, and to social movements in particular? And why do activist groups choose the organizational forms that they do? The sociologist Francesca Polletta has investigated these issues and many others; she's also written about how consensus-based decision making came to be associated with whites.

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R e s o u r c e s

Francesca Polletta

Francesca Polletta, It Was Like a Fever: Storytelling in Protest and Politics U. of Chicago Press, 2006

Francesca Polletta, ""How Participatory Democracy Became White" Mobilization: An International Journal

Mon 2.04.08| Race and Mother(ing)

How can white people bring up white children committed to racial justice? Rebecca Aanerud addresses the challenge of white antiracist mothering and suggests activities crucial to that practice. And in a talk that followed the publication of her book Acolytes, Nikki Giovanni spoke about the death of her mother and about slavery in the US.

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R e s o u r c e s

Global Voices for Justice

Nikki Giovanni

Rebecca Aanerud

Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy

Wed 1.30.08| Democracy & Social Forums

If US-style electoral democracy doesn't satisfy you, Michael Menser suggests we consider an alternative: radical democracy like the kind practiced in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Menser likewise sees the World Social Forum as a crucial experiment in democracy. The social forum movement has also inspired the poet and arts activist Alice Lovelace.

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R e s o u r c e s

Michael Menser, "The Global Social Forum Movement" Situations: Project of the Radical Imagination

Alice Lovelace

World Social Forum

Tues 1.29.08| Identity, Class, Acequias

What are the limits of identity politics, and how might an emphasis on people's class location help us understand widening inequalities? Martha Gimenez has written an article entitled "Back to Class." And Devon Pena explains how acequia communities in the Southwest practice local democracy, social equity, and sustainable development.

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R e s o u r c e s

Michael Yates, ed., More Unequal: Aspects of Class in the United States Monthly Review Press, 2007

The Acequia Institute

Boyce & Shelley, eds., Natural Assets: Democratizing Environmental Ownership Island Press, 2003

Mon 1.28.08| Onward Corporate Servants

Neoliberal capitalism immiserates millions of people, so you might envision its practitioners as soulless profiteers. But Bethany Moreton argues that neoliberalism has a robust emotional dimension rooted in Protestant evangelism. And Martha Gimenez calls attention to what she calls "self-sourcing": corporations getting consumers to do unpaid work.

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R e s o u r c e s

Bethany Moreton, "It Came from Bentonville: The Agrarian Origins of Wal-Mart Culture" Wal-Mart Watch

Martha Gimenez, "Self-Sourcing: How Corporations Get Us to Work Without Pay!" Monthly Review

Wed 1.23.08| Islam, Race, Bangladesh

Is Islamophobia a purely religion-based hatred? Junaid Rana explains how racism and racial thinking has affected the way Muslims are viewed and treated. And in her new novel A Golden Age, Tahmima Aman portrays a family caught up in the Bangladesh War of Independence.

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R e s o u r c e s

Junaid Rana

Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture, and Society

Tahmima Anam, A Golden Age HarperCollins, 2008

Tues 1.22.08| Interrogations

Things like war, patriarchy, and gentrification disturb a lot of people, including artists. In the group exhibition We Interrupt Your Program, curated by Marcia Tanner, artists like Claudia X. Valdes and Gail Wight interrogate dominant narratives of war, technology, and gender. And hip-hop theater pioneer Danny Hoch takes on gentrification in his new solo show Taking Over.

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R e s o u r c e s

We Interrupt Your Program at Mills College Art Museum

Danny Hoch's Taking Over at Berkeley Rep

Danny Hoch

Mon 1.21.08| Du Bois & Robeson

African American giants W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson were tireless opponents of racial oppression and colonialism. Du Bois was the most prominent black intellectual leader and political activist of the early twentieth century, while the vastly talented Robeson was a brilliant athlete, multilingual actor, and singer. Murali Balaji talks about how their legacy of radicalism has been largely rewritten.

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R e s o u r c e s

Murali Balaji, The Professor and the Pupil: The Politics and Friendship of WEB Du Bois and Paul Robeson Nation Books, 2007

Wed 1.16.08| Reclaim the City

Has the city been taken away, in any meaningful sense, from ordinary people? How far has the process of marginalizing and dispossessing certain populations in urban areas come? Bob Catterall, editor of the journal CITY, talks about how global and local processes are affecting cities. He also points to efforts to reclaim cities, efforts that include those of Joel Bergner, an award-winning muralist.

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R e s o u r c e s

CITY, a journal

El Immigrante, by Joel Bergner

De Frontera a Frontera, by Joel Bergner

Robert F. Williams: Self-Defense, Self-Respect & Self-Determination Freedom Archives

Tues 1.15.08| People Movers

Myths about immigration abound, as does a myopic focus on immigration to the US. Henrik Lebuhn reveals how migrants are being targeted by draconian European immigration and border regimes that are increasingly implemented within Europe. And in her new book Aviva Chomsky addresses 21 myths about immigration.

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R e s o u r c e s

Henrik Lebuhn

Aviva Chomsky, "They Take Our Jobs!" and 20 Other Myths about Immigration Beacon, 2007

Mon 1.14.08| What Really Ails Us

According to Stephen Bezruchka, we have an invisible plague in the US, a plague of depression, anxiety and mental illness. He argues that the root cause of this plague is not chemical imbalances but the widening gap between the haves and have-nots. Bezruchka also raises questions about the rampant use of drugs to treat mental disorders.

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R e s o u r c e s

Stephen Bezruchka

Population Health Forum

Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?

Wed 1.09.08| Footloose Investors

US trade laws lead African nations to offer huge incentives to multinational investors. What happens to the rights of African workers? Esther de Haan has written about foreign garment corporations in Africa. June Hartley worked for many years with the trade union movement in southern Africa. Also, Nirmala Erevelles examines what happens to women and people with disabilities in the Global South under neoliberalism.

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R e s o u r c e s

"Footloose Investors: Investing in the Garment Industry in Africa," a report of the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations

International Labor Rights Forum

Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology South End Press, 2006

Tues 1.08.08| State of Spying

It's been called Big Brother in the Sky, and it's an unprecedented expansion of the government's power to spy on US residents. Tim Shorrock describes a proposed program that would use military spy satellites for domestic surveillance. And Melvin Goodman contends that CIA clandestine operations have actually harmed US security over the years.

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R e s o u r c e s

Tim Shorrock

Tim Shorrock, "Revisiting Intelligence Reform" Foreign Policy in Focus

Melvin Goodman, "Crimes of the Central Intelligence Agency: How Covert Action Harms U.S. Security," a report of the Center for International Policy

Mon 1.07.08| Money, Power, Action

How much influence do super-wealthy people and entities have over who gets elected, and how they act once elected? William Tabb discusses the relationship between money and power, and shares his insights into the current Presidential race. Also, playwright Adam Bock talks about his new play The Shaker Chair, which contrasts political complacency with activism.

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R e s o u r c e s

William Tabb, "The Power of the Rich" Monthly Review

Michael Yates, ed., More Unequal: Aspects of Class in the United States Monthly Review Press, 2007

The Shaker Chair by Adam Bock at Ashby Stage

Encore Theatre Company

Wed 1.02.08| Selling Weapons to Religious States

Over the past eight years, Saudi Arabia has been the world’s largest buyer of US arms – purchasing a total of $13.3 billion worth of weapons. Israel comes in fourth place, having bought $8.5 billion of armaments. Lenni Brenner talks about a campaign to oppose military sales to both Saudi Arabia and Israel as a part of an effort to challenge the arming of religious states.

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R e s o u r c e s

Petition to Stop Arming Israel and Saudi Arabia

Lenni Brenner, "Rice Compares Israeli Occupation to Infamous US Segregation" M RZine

Tues 1.01.08| Alternatives to Incarceration

From the 1920s to the 1960s, America incarcerated about one in every 1,000 people. Yet something changed in the 1970s and by the year 2000, five in every 1,000 people were incarcerated. Critical Resistance organizer Rachel Herzing talks about why prisons are being built apace and about the movement for their abolition.

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R e s o u r c e s

Critical Resistance

Mon 12.31.07| Guernica & Total War

Picasso began to paint Guernica five days after the Spanish town of Guernica was obliterated by aerial bombardment. In Guernica and Total War, Ian Patterson writes about Guernica's significance as an unprecedented event and as a cultural symbol. He also examines the history of bombing civilians as well as efforts to express and address what was then a new horror of war.

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R e s o u r c e s

Ian Patterson, Guernica and Total War Harvard U. Press, 2007

Wed 12.26.07| Punk and the Legacy of Joe Strummer

The Clash's Joe Strummer embodied for many the marriage of music, radical politics, and internationalism. Joel Shalit and Craig O'Hara talk about the times in which The Clash and other political punk rock bands were spawned and examine the thorny issues that arise from the commercial success of rebel cultural groups and movements.

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R e s o u r c e s

Antonino D'Ambrosio, ed., Let Fury Have the Hour: The Punk Rock Politics of Joe Strummer Nation Books, 2004

Craig O'Hara, The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise AK PRess, 1999

Tues 12.25.07| Eco-Localism

If your goal is ecological sustainability, how often have you been urged to get active on the local level? Greg Albo critiques localist projects that deny or ignore the extra-local capitalist and neoliberal context. He also questions whether small-scale enterprises and local political practice are in fact more environmentally responsible and democratic. And Leo Panitch shares some of the other insights offered in the anthology Socialist Register 2007. (Encore presentation.)

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R e s o u r c e s

Panitch & Leys, eds., Socialist Register 2007: Coming to Terms with Nature Monthly Review Press, 2006

Gregory Albo

Mon 12.24.07| Battles Against Gentrification

In the past decade, cities like San Francisco and Oakland have witnessed skyrocketing housing costs and the ejection of poor and working class people from affordable dwellings to make room for high income tenants and owners. Dawn Phillips and Gilda Haas talk about the dynamics of capital that fuel gentrification.

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R e s o u r c e s

Right to the City Alliance

Just Cause Oakland

Wed 12.19.07| Big Easy Problems

Should the poor, low-lying neighborhoods of New Orleans be rebuilt? Environmental racism activist Azibuike Akaba asserts it isn't in the residents' long-term interests. And how might Katrina have reinforced a feeling of entitlement on the part of white America? Dylan Rodriguez contends that Katrina reveals the logic of white racial thinking and black disposability.

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R e s o u r c e s

Azibuike Akaba, "Reconsidering the Rush to Rebuild the Big Easy" CorpWatch

South End Press Collective, eds., What Lies Beneath: Katrina, Race, and the State of the Nation South End Press, 2007

Dylan Rodriguez

Tues 12.18.07| Hillary, Women, Work

Would Hillary Clinton be better than George W. Bush on Iraq, on military policy, and on international law? Stephen Zunes provides a detailed analysis. And Mark Brenner of Labor Notes describes the continuing plight of working-class women, and why collective strategies are needed.

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R e s o u r c e s

Stephen Zunes, "Hillary Clinton on Military Policy" Foreign Policy in Focus

Stephen Zunes

Michael Yates, ed., More Unequal: Aspects of Class in the United States Monthly Review Press, 2007

Labor Notes

Mon 12.17.07| Troubled Waters

Glenn Switkes and Aviva Imhof of International Rivers discuss Brazilian government plans to build dams on the Madeira River, the Amazon's most important tributary. Also, acclaimed novelist and British leftist China Miéville shares his thoughts about libertarian seasteading and describes recent proposals for floating utopias.

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R e s o u r c e s

Davis and Monk, eds., Evil Paradises: Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism The New Press, 2007

China Miéville, "The Lies That Aren't Meant To Deceive Us" Socialist Review

International Rivers Madeira River page

Wed 12.12.07| Stanley Aronowitz

Which way forward for the US Left? What does history tell us about what works and what doesn't? Does a new radical party formation need to emerge? And from what recent working-class struggles can the Left draw inspiration? The influential theorist and activist Stanley Aronowitz, author most recently of Left Turn, holds forth on these questions and much more.

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R e s o u r c e s

Stanley Aronowitz

Stanley Aronowitz, Left Turn: Forging a New Political Future Paradigm Publishers, 2006

Tues 12.11.07| Paradise?

Landscapes of wealth and geographies of exclusion in this turbo-capitalist era are explored in the book Evil Paradises. Jon Wiener examines the environmental record of Ted Turner, this nation's largest landowner. Rebecca Schoenkopf sounds off about Orange County's politics and its affluent youth. And Sara Lipton explains how monastic retreats echo and legitimate neoliberal values. (Encore presentation.)

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R e s o u r c e s

Davis and Monk, eds., Evil Paradises: Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism The New Press, 2007

Jon Wiener

Commie Girl Collective

Mon 12.10.07| Natural Assets

James Boyce thinks poverty reduction efforts should include the building of natural assets -- assets based on what nature provides to humans -- in the hands of low-income people and communities. Stephen Brush, a contributor to Natural Assets (which Boyce co-edited), suggests ways of both protecting crop genetic diversity and helping poor farmers.

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R e s o u r c e s

Boyce & Shelley, eds., Natural Assets: Democratizing Environmental Ownership Island Press, 2003

James Boyce

Stephen Brush, Farmers' Bounty: Locating Crop Diversity in the Contemporary World Yale U. Press, 2004

Wed 12.05.07| Enemy-Creation; Emma Goldman

What if we construct enemies based on how we see ourselves? Gordon Fellman argues that hated and rejected parts of the self are projected onto others. If we can change the way we handle emotions like anger, he asserts, perhaps there's a way to end our adversarial compulsions. Also, Sharon Rudahl discusses her new graphic biography of the great anarchist Emma Goldman.

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Gordon Fellman

Gordon Fellman, Rambo and the Dalai Lama: The Compulsion to Win and Its Threat to Human Survival SUNY Press, 1998

Sharon Rudahl, A Dangerous Woman: The Graphic Biography of Emma Goldman The New Press, 2007

Tues 12.04.07| Workers Under Siege

Many corporations don't want their employees to form or join unions. Some will use pernicious tactics to prevent workers from organizing. American Rights at Work's Erin Johansson has written reports detailing the anti-union activities of FedEx and Verizon. Peter Ranis urges workers to use eminent domain to prevent corporations from closing down plants in US communities.

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R e s o u r c e s

Erin Johansson's reports on Verizon and FedEx for American Rights at Work

Peter Ranis

WorkingUSA

Mon 12.03.07| Driven Out

Rounded up, terrorized, and ethnically cleansed: those words come up frequently in human rights discussions, but rarely in relation to Chinese Americans. In Driven Out, Jean Pfealzer describes the purging of all of the Chinese residents of more than a hundred towns across the American West in the 1800s. The anti-Chinese campaigns were often directed by trade-union groups. Pfaelzer also tells the story of courageous Chinese resistance.

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R e s o u r c e s

Jean Pfaelzer, Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans Random House, 2007

Wed 11.28.07| Regulating Intimacy

The US is not the only nation with a politically powerful Christian Right. In Taiwan, a crusade in the name of protecting children has victimized sexual minorities and has consolidated disturbing alliances between Christian NGOs and Taiwan's diplomatically insecure government. Radical feminist Josephine Ho contends that the key champion of human rights in Taiwan is now the sex rights movement.

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Josephine Ho

The Center for the Study of Sexualities at National Central University in Taiwan

Mon 11.26.07| Pakistan: The Back Story

Pakistan's president Pervez Musharraf imposed emergency rule on November 3. Two former leaders have returned from exile. Pakistan is a key ally of the US in its so-called war on terror. What's the historical context of these developments? Veteran political analyst Tariq Ali spoke recently in Los Angeles about Pakistan and Afghanistan.

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Tariq Ali

Global Voices for Justice

Wed 11.21.07| Is Microcredit the Answer?

The awarding of last year's Nobel Peace Prize to the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh and its founder has generated intense interest in a development tool called microcredit. Is microcredit, as some of its advocates claim, a key part of the solution to global poverty? Sam Daley-Harris directs the Microcredit Summit Campaign. Radical economist Robert Pollin has serious reservations about microcredit as it's currently practiced. (Encore presentation.)

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R e s o u r c e s

The Microcredit Summit Campaign

Political Economy Research Institute

Daley-Harris, Pollin & Montgomery, "Debate on Microcredit" Foreign Policy in Focus

Tues 11.20.07| Toxic Tactics

It's been called a stealth assault on public health research. Industry groups are working to block the release to the public of key information about carcinogenic chemicals. The EPA, in at least one arena, apparently has the corporations' backs: it has dramatically reduced their toxics reporting burdens. OMB Watch's Clayton Northouse discusses both developments.

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R e s o u r c e s

"An Attack on Cancer Research," an OMB Watch report

OMB Watch’s Toxics Release Inventory Resource Center

Mon 11.19.07| Liberating Sex

What does capitalism do to sex and sexuality? And what does socialist theory have to say about sexual desire and sexual arrangements? In his essay in Toward a New Socialism, Michael Hames-Garcia reviews various socialist perspectives on gender and sexuality, with an emphasis on same-sex desire. He also comments on certain trends in gay and lesbian organizing since the 1970s.

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