[act-ma] 7/30 Elections, Democracy, & the Left: Victor Wallis & Medea Benjamin; 8/6 Greg Grandin & Avi Chomsky

[Suren Moodliar]

Elections & the Left, Victor Wallis & Medea Benjamin
Zoom Conference
<https://encuentro5.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=53fe7b10944568ab8724330ae&id=dd01fdd98b&e=197ff7c2ec>,
July 30, 2020, Thursday, 7:00 p.m. (Eastern)
or join the Facebook Livestream
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Victor Wallis
<https://encuentro5.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=53fe7b10944568ab8724330ae&id=6c03ed0121&e=197ff7c2ec>,
author of *Democracy Denied* and *Red-Green Revolution*, reflects on how
the Left can and should relate to elections and to threats to democracy. He
will be joined the renowned organizer and writer Medea Benjamin of Code
Pink.

   - What are the opportunities and dangers represented by the 2020
   Election?
   - How should socialists relate to the Republican and Democratic Parties?
   To third party efforts?
   - What can we learn from history in terms of how the Left can
   effectively engage the electoral process without undermining our goals and
   values?
   - What are the threats to electoral democracy?
   - Why is it important to defeat the Right even while recognizing the
   true nature of the "alternative"?
   - What needs to be done to defend democracy in the USA, via the ballot
   box and beyond?

CLICK HERE TO JOIN w/

*ZOOM*
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*Last week's show on apocalyptic & dystopian narratives will be shared
shortly. Apologies for the delay!*
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Continuing the conversations begun in The Movements of Movements
<https://encuentro5.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=53fe7b10944568ab8724330ae&id=ad9fc5ff6b&e=197ff7c2ec>
(PM
Press, Jai Sen, editor), this event (7/24/20) brought together Rose Brewer
(People's Strike) & Johanna Fernandez, & several contributors: Gina Vargas,
Laurence Cox, Michal Osterweil, Guillermo Delgado-P, Ousseina Alidou, &
Matt Meyer.

Co-sponsored by Shelter & Solidarity, *encuentro5*, *Socialism and
Democracy*, Resistance in Brooklyn.
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*Thursday, August 6, 2020, 7:00 p.m.*

Beyond Trump's Walls: Greg Grandin in conversation with Avi Chomsky
<https://encuentro5.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=53fe7b10944568ab8724330ae&id=ca640d1034&e=197ff7c2ec>
Join us on Thursday, August 6th, from 7:00 - 8:30 p.m. (EDT) for a deep
dive with 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winner Greg Grandin, author of *The End of
the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America* (among
other books).   We will also be joined by scholar and activist Aviva
Chomsky, (author of *Undocumented* and *"They Take Our Jobs!" and 20 Other
Myths about Immigration*).

   - How do we understand the rise of Trumpism and Trump's Border Wall and
   the way it is re-shaping US politics?
   - How has U.S. American history from the beginning been shaped by the
   way that the edges of the country have been imagined and constructed--often
   through racism and violence?
   - How does grappling with the long and bloody American history of the
   "frontier" and the border change the way we see the present politics and
   future possibilities for the USA in the 21st century?
   - How does studying the history of the border help us see the
   connections between US "domestic" and "foreign" policy
   - What will the "end" of the long-standing myth of perpetual American
   economic and geographic expansion mean for contemporary politics?
   - What can be done to refuse a future defined by rising border walls and
   to instead reimagine global human liberation in this era of crisis?

We'll take on these and other questions with our expert author guests, and
you can join the conversation!
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Organized by encuentro5, *Socialism and Democracy*, Hard Ball Press, and
the Labor Press.
*Our mailing address is:*
encuentro5
565 Boylston Street
4th floor
Boston, MA 02116