[O29] Racism, War, Poverty: Time for An Alternative!

Fri Oct 7 07:55:26 PDT 2005

***Forward Widely*** 

War, Poverty, Racism: Time for An Alternative

Northeast Socialist Conference

www.nesocialistconference.net 

Saturday, November 5; City College; 138th St & Convent; New York City 

         A new opposition is being born. In DC hundreds of thousands turned out in the biggest anti-war demonstration since the start of the Iraq war. The anger and outrage against Bush’s policies at home and abroad were summed-up in the slogans, “Make Levees Not War” and “No Iraqis Left Me on a Rooftop to Die.”

              Millions of people are asking fundamental questions about, in Time Magazine’s words, “system failure.” The free market at home and abroad has produced savage inequalities. Instead of addressing these, the US government has imposed free trade policies that have further impoverished the world’s workers and peasants and pursued vicious attacks on our living standards here at home. To back up its reactionary economic agenda, Bush has diverted hundreds of billions of dollars to war and occupation leaving a trail of devastation in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Haiti.

              These horrors have laid the foundation for the new opposition and a new left. Cindy Sheehan’s stirring protest outside Bush’s ranch in Texas re-galvanized the anti-war movement. Katrina then sealed the end of what remained of Bush’s post-9/11 consensus. The hurricane’s devastation and the government’s callous, repressive and racist response exposed all that’s wrong with American society. 

               In the wake of Camp Casey, Katrina, and the DC March, Bush has gone from winning an election in a polarized country to now becoming the least popular reelected President since Nixon, with solid majorities opposed to all his policies. 

              With increasing urgency, a new generation of activists is looking for an alternative that can explain the crisis in our world and help galvanize a fight for a better society. This year’s North East Socialist Conference, “War, Racism, and Poverty: Time for an Alternative,” addresses today’s burning issues, how to fight for immediate reforms, and organize for a new society, a socialist society built to meet human needs from New Orleans to Baghdad. 

What you can find at the Conference:

Plenary Panels: 
War, Racism, Poverty: The Case for Socialism 
Turning the Tide: Taking on Bush’s Wars at Home and Abroad 

Workshops on Organizing: 
Fighting the Racist Criminal Injustice System; Abortion Rights and the Fight for Women’s Liberation; An Army of None: Building the Counter-Recruitment Movement; Overcoming the Crisis in Education.

Workshops on Marxism: 
System Failure: Why the Free Market Doesn’t Work; What is Imperialism?; Why We Need a Revolution; What is the Real Marxist Tradition?; Why We Need a Revolutionary Party; What Would Socialism Look Like?; Is Socialism Against Human Nature?; Why the Working Class Can Change Society; Slavery and the Origins of Racism.
Workshops on Today’s Pivotal Questions: 
Can the Democrats Be the Party of the People?; The New Bigotry: Islamophobia and Anti-Arab Racism; Che’s Revolutionary Legacy; Chavez, Venezuela, and the Fight For Socialism; War Resisters: from Winter Soldier to Camp Casey; Blood for Oil: US Imperialism in the  Middle East; The Struggle to Free Palestine; Unnatural Disasters: Capitalism’s Destruction of the Environment; Rebels with a Cause: SNCC, SDS, and 60’s Youth Radicalization; “They Died Because They Were Black and Poor:” Race and Class in America Today; Iraq for Iraqis: Why You Should Support the Iraqi Resistance; No Human Being is Illegal: The Fight to Defend Immigrant Rights; Barry Sheppard on “Lessons of Building Revolutionary Organization in the 1960s.”

Party with Radical Rap Star Son of Nun

Conference Schedule

9:00am:                        Registration opens

10:30am:                      Opening Plenary: War, Racism, Poverty: The Case for Socialism 

Noon:                             Workshop Session I

1:45pm:                         Lunch               

3:15pm:                         Workshop Session II 

5:15pm:                         Workshop Session III 

6:45pm:                         Dinner 

8pm:                               Final Plenary: Turning the Tide: Taking on Bush’s Wars at Home and Abroad 

10pm:                            Party!

City College, NAC Building, 137th St. & Convent Avenue 

1/9 trains to 137th St., A/B/C/D trains to 145th Street 

Registration in NAC Ballroom: $5 for those outside NYC and $10 in NYC

For more info: call (212)502-0707 or email nyciso at hotmail.com 

or visit http://www.nesocialistconference.net 

To reserve free on-site childcare, please call by Friday, October 28th