From centermarxisteducation at gmail.com Sat Apr 29 06:50:43 2017 From: centermarxisteducation at gmail.com (Center for Marxist Education) Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2017 13:50:43 -0000 Subject: [act-ma] May 2017 Center for Marxist Education Events Schedule Message-ID: Center for Marxist Education May 2017 Events Schedule Thursday, May 4 | 7:00 ? 8:30 PM BookTalk: Capital Sandeep Choubey Capital is Karl Marx's magnum opus, and remains the best explanation of how capitalism works and why this system is prone to cycles of booms and busts. Join us for an engaging discussion of this still relevant text, twenty pages at a time. Wednesday, May 10 Committee for International Labor Defense Business Meeting| 6:30 PM (All are welcome.) Educational | 7:00 ? 8:00 PM Defense Efforts in the McCarthy Era, Part 2 John Vago, decades-long activist for peace, democracy, labor, social justice, against racism and imperialism, for socialism; in New York, Philadelphia, and now in the Boston area. At the last CILD educational, John Vago provided the historical back drop for the McCarthy period. For the upcoming May 10 educational, John Vago will finish the presentation and we?ll learn how he and his family were impacted under McCarthyism. In this way we?ll get a glimpse of what imprisonment for communists meant for the prisoners, their families, and defense efforts. Saturday, May 13 | 3:00 ? 4:30 PM Report Back From China Wadi?h Halabi, Economics Commission, CPUSA and CME The Russian Revolution of 1917 was the greatest step forward in the history of humanity, not so much because it solved problems immediately (although it did some, such as land reform), but for making it possible to address problems that capitalism is incapable of doing, from jobs for all to environment. Among thousands of legacies, the Revolution also created the Communist Parties and the Communist International, and led to the formation or transformation of unions worldwide. The Communist Party of China is organizing forums to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. This is a report from one such forum, in Wuhan in late April. Tuesday, May 16 | 7:00 ? 8:30 PM BookTalk: State and Revolution, Part 2 Eddie Carson, CPUSA, CME Delve into Lenin?s premier work on the role of the state, the dire need for a proletariat revolution, and the weaknesses of social democracy vis-?-vis a capitalist framework in granting the rise of a working-class state. Lenin addresses the criticisms of Karl Marx?s Communist Manifesto, while offering a crucial critique of bourgeoisie power. Sunday, May 21 | 2:00 - 3:30 PM Overcoming the Culture of Exploitation Wadi'h Halabi, Economics Commission, CPUSA and CME Strands of a spider's web can trap and kill long after the spider has died. The same applies to the web of exploitation that ruling classes began to weave from their earliest days. The Russian Revolution broke the main strands of exploitation, such as the exploiters' 'bodies of armed men' and their system of miseducation. But finer strands remained, from idealism to inequalities such as between men and women or between intellectual and manual labor. Remaining strands of capital's 'web of exploitation' affected leaders' ability to speak the truth, and played a role in the collapse of the Soviet Union and several other states like it. Identifying the many strands of the culture of exploitation will help workers strengthen conscious expression of working class power and avoid further defeats. Based on presentations in China and dedicated to the memory of Richard Levins. Wednesday, May 24 | 7:00 ? 8:30 PM BookTalk: Capital Sandeep Choubey Capital is Karl Marx's magnum opus, and remains the best explanation of how capitalism works and why this system is prone to cycles of booms and busts. Join us for an engaging discussion of this still relevant text, twenty pages at a time. Saturday, May 27 | 3:00 ? 4:30 PM Red, Black and Queer ?Gerry Scoppettuolo, Workers World Party, ACT-UP Red, Black and Queer is a slideshow presentation which demonstrates how socialists and revolutionaries of all backgrounds brought the LGBTQ struggle into the labor movement, deepening the class struggle in the process. While extolling the leading role of the queer community, Red, Black and Queer is careful to show that this fighting history of working class people from all nationalities didn't happen by accident. The class conscious intervention of socialists and communists in the labor movement - and history itself - over many decades, was crucial in advancing LGBTQ civil and human rights and liberation. It is these type of struggles that will eventually contribute to establishing socialism in the area now known as the United States and internationally. Sunday, May 28| 6:00 ? 8:00 PM Lumumba ( Watch the trailer.) Richard Pendleton, CME The story of political leader Patrice Lumumba, Congo's first prime minister who helped lead his country to independence from Belgium in the late 1950s. Lumumba's vision of a united Africa gained him powerful enemies: the Belgian authorities, who wanted a much more paternal role in their former colony's affairs, and the CIA, who supported Lumumba's former friend Joseph Mobutu. This was in order to protect U.S. business interests in Congo's vast resources and their upper hand in the Cold War power balance. During the tenuous first six months of Congo's independence when civil war threatened to erupt, Lumumba tried to quell hostilities but was eventually betrayed by Mobutu whom he had appointed as head of the army. In 1961 with several conspiracies occurring at once, Lumumba met a brutal death--a mere nine months after becoming the country's first Prime Minister. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: