audio - 1st Annual NYC Anarchist Bookfair

For more info about these and other panels at the NYC Anarchist Bookfair 2007 see:

http://www.anarchistbookfair.net/wiki/index.php?title=Presentations

For info about the 2008 NYC Anarchist Bookfair (12 April) see:

http://www.anarchistbookfair.net/

Better quality audio files at:

http://www.archive.org/details/1stAnnualNycAnarchistBookfair2007



Don't Leave your Friends Behind: Anarchism & Supporting Parents and Children

Anarchism challenges us to create personal and social change but often provides no support for mothers, fathers, and other caretakers of children who try to do so. Parents need support to continue in the scene. Otherwise, as activists get older and start having kids, they drop out and it remains a movement of 20-somethings. We need to recognize that parents have specific needs in order to continue participating (just as others have needs which are often accommodated). By valuing the involvement and work of radical parents, we form a more vibrant culture of resistance and, by including them in our activities now, we teach the young a vision of a more equitable future. This will be a participatory workshop with discussion between both parents and non-parents on the need for support and how childless allies can support their comrades' continued participation in the movement.


This workshop will be presented by China Martens, Vikki Law, Jennifer Silverman and Amy Hamilton.


China Martens, editor of "The Future Generation" and mom of a 19-year-old, will talk about her experiences in organizing the Kidz Corner at the Mid-Atlantic Radical Bookfair in 2007. Vikki Law is a writer, photographer and mother. For the past two years, she has been interviewing anarchist mothers about the support they receive from their fellow radicals.Jennifer Silverman will address specific ways in which activists can be allies to parents of children with special needs. Amy Hamilton, a parent at the Brooklyn Free School, will discuss intergenerational education models and movement building.

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Revolution in Conflict: Anti-Authoritarian Approaches to Resolving and Transforming Conflict and Harm

This workshop will explore anti-authoritarian approaches to conflict resolution and transformation, and will take a look at methods like mediation and restorative justice from an anarchist standpoint. While we will consider the long-term relevance of these options (replacing functions currently carried out by the state "after the revolution"), our main focus will be on strategies we can use immediately to resolve disputes within our personal and political communities, and to begin to decrease our dependence on the state for intervention in the aftermath of harm. We'll talk about the anarchist theoretical context for these strategies and about practical next steps in our communities for meeting our own conflict resolution and transformation needs.


This workshop will be presented by Danielle.


Danielle is a founding member of the Rock Dove Collective, a radical community health project in New York City. She is currently designing a pilot Restorative Justice project that will serve as a conduit into alternatives to incarceration for serious and violent offenders. She also works with young men returning from Rikers Island, and has engaged in anti- violent, empowerment-based programs with 'at-risk' youth since she was one herself. She has taught creative writing in prisons and jails in Illinois, Georgia, and New York. While in Atlanta, she created a project to teach conflict resolution through the arts in 'inner city' schools and juvenile detention centers, and did extensive gang intervention work in her community. She is currently part of a collective that offers trainings in consensus and facilitation, and has mediated conflicts using a variety of approaches for everything from two-person to large-scale community disputes.

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Anarchism and Its Aspirations

Anarchism, in advocating a free and diverse society, is perhaps the only tradition that has consistently rooted out domination in its many forms, while also attempting to theorize and practice utopian alternatives. It has also been a crucial catalyst for what has become a global movement today, potentially offering an anti-authoritarian alternative to the hegemony of representative democracy and Western capitalism. This talk will survey anarchism's aspirations from its European beginnings during the Industrial Revolution to its reemergence as a postwar and especially contemporary phenomenon in order to illuminate its relevancy (or not) for a globalizing world.


Confirmed Panelists so are Aragorn!, Daniel Cull (AF-IFA) and Wayne Price (Open City Collective, NEFAC). Aragorn! co-produces Anarchy magazine, 8 Days of Anarchy and the BASTARD anarchist conference. He writes on nihilism, race and mythology, and provides tech services to radical projects. He will be speaking from an anarchist perspective beyond the revolutionary tradition. Wayne Price is a longtime activist and writer. He is a member of the Northeastern Federation of Anarchist-Communists (NEFAC) and was previously a member of the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation. He writes a monthly essay for Anarkismo and has been active in the politics of the teachers' union oppositions.

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Protest Tactics/ Disobedient strategy: Lessons of the Italian "tute bianche" (white overalls) movement

The street demonstration has seemingly become the default strategy for change in the face of injustice and reaction. Political protests and manifestations all too often devolve into mere "testimonials to power", and as such have little to no affect on the fundamental structures of power, let alone the practical purpose for which they are scheduled. Has the act of the classic street demonstration lost it's efficacy, or is there a future for large scale, mass demonstrations in the age of SWAT and overwhelming police force?

In this workshop / presentation, TFG Casper, a former participant in the US Overalls movement of 2000-2002, will detail the history of this particular tactic of civil disobedience, its roots in the Italian political experience, the attempt by US radicals to employ the tactic to limited success, and the future possibilities of creative, powerful, and practical modes of mass resistance at political protests and demonstrations.

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'Remembering Spain, Remembering Heroes!'

George Sossenko will talk about "us,- the Anarchists,"-- the only dedicated organization honestly caring about the working class, and also give some examples from my Spanish experience, where entire towns were ran by Anarchists, with order, and efficiency with our libertarian spirit and concern. Of course, I will be ready to answer questions about my ideal for which I fought during 70 years."


George Sossenko is an 88-year old veteran of the Spanish Civil War. At the age of 16, he left his home in France to fight against Franco's fascists with the anarchists of the Durruti column. A dedicated, life-long anarchist, George is still an active organizer as he travels and gives lectures on this important period in revolutionary history

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Insurgent Mexico

While others talk, the poor and indigenous people of Mexico have been acting to take control of their future. The Zapatista movement established a new pattern of antiauthoritarian, nonhierarchical organizing that has inspired organizers around the world. Last year, the people of Oaxaca moved to oust their corrupt governor and establish a new form of horizontal self-government. Despite severe government oppression, communities across the country are launching similar efforts. Meanwhile, the Zapatistas' Other Campaign has galvanized a wide-ranging, community-based discussion about the future of the people of Mexico. Insurgent Mexico brings together two American journalists who have provided some of the most consistent, on-the-ground coverage of Mexico's social movements to discuss the struggle in Oaxaca and the Other Campaign.


Al Giordano, publisher of Narco News (http://www.narconews.com), has lived and reported for the past decade alongside social movements throughout Latin America: Bolivia, Venezuela, Brazil, Central America, the Caribbean, and primarily, Mexico. In 2006 he and a rotating team of 60 volunteer communicators with Narco News' The Other Journalism with the Other Campaign accompanied Zapatista Subcomandante Marcos on a national listening tour throughout Mexico's 32 states and Federal District. This month, Narco News Books publishes The People Decide: Oaxaca's Popular Assembly by Nancy Davies. An anarcho-syndicalist “with Situationist tendencies,” Al is currently on his first US tour in 10 years.


John Ross's latest book is Zapatistas! Making Another World Possible (Nation Books, 2006). He is also the author of the acclaimed memoir Murdered by Capitalism: 150 Tears of Life @ Death on the U.S. Left, which was praised by Thomas Pynchon and chosen as a San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year. Based in Mexico City for the last two decades, Ross’s reporting has appeared in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, The Nation, Texas Observer, Counterpunch, Noticias Aliadas (Lima), La Jornada (Mexico City), Democracy Now, and Flashpoints. He is the winner of an Upton Sinclair Award and an American Book Award. His other books include Rebellion from the Roots, The Annexation of Mexico, and the novel Tonatiuh's People.

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Destroying Black History: The Present and Past Attack on the Black Panthers (J)

This workshop will give an update on the case involving the recent arrests of several Black Panthers in connection to the 1971 killing of police officer Sgt. John V. Young, despite the use of torture to obtain confessions. The workshop will also explore the use and legacy of COINTELPRO and how you can support the San Francisco 8 today. It will give insight into the continuing and current attack on the Black Panthers and political prisoners, in general, so as to contextualize the work of anarchists and radical folks today. The short film “Legacy of Torture” will be shown, as well.


This workshop will be presented by Kamau.


Kamau has worked as a community activist for over ten years in New York City on the issue of police brutality; he has helped to organize community demonstrations against the beating of Rodney King, as well as other local cases such as Anthony Baez, Abner Louima, and Amadou Diallo. He was an original member of the Coalition Against Police Brutality (CAPB), which draws together grassroots organizations from communities of color to develop effective responses to police abuse.In addition to his work as a lawyer, Kamau is a member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM), which is a human rights organization committed to fighting “By Any Means Necessary”.

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Visions of Anarchism in the 21st Century

Anarchism is not a static philosophy or social view: It is constantly evolving and shifting its focus. In the past 20 years, we've seen anarchism play a crucial role in the development of the movement against corporate globalization. Anarchist thoughts and strategies have strongly influenced the environmental and animal rights movements as well. Where will anarchists be concentrating their theoretical, direct action, and organizing energies in the century that's just started to unfold?

Beyond this, how close are we to defining an anarchist "vision" of a free global society? To some, this would be a violation of the fundamental anarchist support for diversity and respect for evolving societies. But other anarchists believe the "search for utopia" is an integral part of this process. This session is devoted to opening up a discussion about these viewpoints and, along the way, developing some indications of the direction of anarchy as an idea and a practice.



Autumn Brown studied Christian and Jewish Theology and Biblical Languages at Sarah Lawrence College and Oxford University and is a practicing Anarcho-Catholic. She has written several papers on the rhetoric of liberation in early Hebrew narratives. A founding member of the Rock Dove Collective, she is a consensus and facilitation trainer and serves as president of the Board of Directors of the Fertility Awareness Center in New York City. She is affiliated with Anarchist People of Color (APOC), the New York Metro Alliance of Anarchists (NYMAA), and the Consensus Collective. She willspeak about what it means to envision a radical new society that includes religion and spirituality.

Andrej Grubacic is a ZNet/Zmagazine author from the Balkans, involved with international project for participatory society, and a part of the Utopistics research group, working on real utopias. Andrej defines himself as an anarchist historian, which means that he writes history from an anarchist point of view – specifically, the history of self-government, mutual aid, and direct action.

Pattrice Jones is the author of Aftershock: Confronting Trauma in a Violent World (Lantern Books) as well as chapters in Terrorists or Freedom Fighters: Reflections on the Liberation of Animals (Lantern) and Igniting a Revolution: Voices in Defense of the Earth (AK Press) – all written from an ecofeminist-anarchist perspective. She operates the Eastern Shore Sanctuary in rural Maryland. She will speak on the need to redefine freedom within an understanding of the natural web of relationships that sustain all life, coming to see liberation as connection rather than separation.

Cindy Milstein is co-organizer of the annual Renewing the Anarchist Tradition conference, a board member of the Institute for Anarchist Studies, and a member of both the Free Society Collective and the all-volunteer Black Sheep Books in Montpelier. She does grassroots political work in central Vermont and public speaking anywhere else. Her essays appear in several books, including Realizing the Impossible: Art against Authority (AK Press, 2007) and Globalize Liberation (City Lights, 2004).