Category Archives: Uncategorized

Jerry Harris: Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Democracy

Saturday July 9 at 2:30 pm
Lincoln Park Public Library (corner Racine)
1150 W. Fullerton Ave. Chicago,
free parking, (Red Line: Fullerton)

Jerry Harris: Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Democracy
Open University of the Left welcomes back Jerry Harris. Democracy is in crisis. Throughout the world millions suffer under neo-liberalism and austerity but are unable to force their governments to address their needs. This book undertakes the examination of capitalist democracy, globalization and of the emergence of a transnational capitalist class and what is needed to develop a strategy for implementing democracy beyond the current impasse.
Worker ownership and cooperatives may be the first step in constructing such a society alongside sustainable economics and governmental public financing.
Harris’ book will spark productive controversy among theorists and activists precisely as to what is required if we are to find progressive non-capitalist alternatives. He makes a critical contribution to understanding the times in which we live and possible solutions to the increasingly acute crisis of global capitalism. His ideas should be widely studied and debated.
Jerry Harris is the National Secretary of the Global Studies Association and on the International Executive Board of the Network for Critical Studies of Global Capitalism. He is the author of The Dialectics of Globalization: Economic and Political Struggle in a Transnational Era. His research on globalization has been translated into several languages.
He is a former professor of History at DeVry University in Chicago.

All prior video programs are viewable on our archive YouTube page at
https://www.youtube.com/user/OpenUnivoftheLeft/

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All Open University of the Left programs are free and are open to all.

Dr. William Pelz presents: A People’s History of Modern Europe

Join Open University of the Left on Saturday June 18 at 2:30 pm at the Lincoln Park Public Library 1150 W. Fullerton Ave. (corner Racine) Chicago, free parking, (Red Line: Fullerton)

Open University of the Left welcomes back Dr. William Pelz. From the monarchical terror of the Middle Ages to the mangled Europe of the twenty-first century, A People’s History of Modern Europe tracks the history of the continent through the deeds of those whom mainstream history tries to forget. Europe provided the perfect conditions for a great number of political revolutions from below.

The German peasant wars of Thomas Muntzer, the Bourgeois revolutions of the eighteenth century, the rise of the industrial worker in England, the turbulent journey of the Russian Soviets, the role of the European working class throughout the Cold War, the student protests in 1968 and through to the present day where we continue to fight to forge an alternative to the barbaric economic system. With a focus on the role of women, we sweep away the tired platitudes of the privileged and provide an opportunity to see our history differently.

William Pelz is the Director of the Institute of Working Class History in Chicago and a Professor of History at Elgin Community College. His recent works include Wilhelm Liebknecht and German Social Democracy (Haymarket Books, 2016), Karl Marx: A World to Win (Pearson, 2012) and Against Capitalism: The European Left on the March (Peter Lang Publishing, 2007).

(A People’s History of Modern Europe) — “Presents a challenging alternative to the conventional narratives of European history, putting the sufferings and the resistance of working women (often written out of history) and men at the centre of the story.” – Ian Birchall, author of The Spectre of Babeuf.

All prior video programs are viewable on our archive YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/user/OpenUnivoftheLeft/

All Open University of the Left programs are free and are open to all.

OUL Open University of the Left goes to the Left Forum 2016

This past weekend, May 20th through May 22nd saw  the reconvening of the Left Forum. 
The event was held at the John Jay College, the City University of New York, CUNY, in New York City. This event is the largest annual gathering in North America of the US and international Left. Around 4,000 people were in attendance. The Left Forum was founded in 1981 and was originally called the Socialist Scholars Conference. 
In brief, the Left Forum brings together activists, academics and intellectuals whose purpose is, among other things, to share their perspectives, experiences, strategies and visions.
 
Below are links to our YouTube page with seven sessions and the Closing Plenary out of 
over 380 scheduled events.
These sessions represent a small sample yet also a very broad perspective of current left political thinking. The thoughts and ideas heard and seen here will serve not only as a critique of neoliberalism but, by extension, promote radical alternatives to capitalism itself.   

You Tube Channel info
 
 https://www.youtube.com/user/OpenUnivoftheLeft/videos?shelf_id=1&sort=dd&view=0
Short URL: https://goo.gl/Kkjr6o
Individual links:
Saturday – 5/21/2016
Session 1: How Universal Sovereignty Threatens World Peace – URL: https://youtu.be/KZXKWQ7eLbI

Session 2: A Dialogue on Israel and Palestine With Tariq Ali and Norman Finkelstein – URL: https://youtu.be/C3AYLGyr908

Session 3: Forging the Radical and Principled Black Movement of the 21st Century – URL: https://youtu.be/F8XFDb2tsCw

Session 4: Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century – URL: https://youtu.be/Ku92kdTRjEI

Sunday – 5/22/2016

Session 5: Neoliberalism and its Discontents: Political Parties, Social Movements and  Organized Labor In France and the US in the Neoliberal Era – URL: https://youtu.be/JrEea37tXHU

Session 6: Marxist Laws of Motion and Today’s Economic Collapse – URL: https://youtu.be/AtQTLmK6lnQ

Session 7: Is Sanders the Answer to Building Left and Black Power? –  URL: https://youtu.be/JvAJ2WrJm3Q

Closing Plenary: Rage, Rebellion, Organizing New Power: A Hegelian Triad Slavoj Zizek, Amy Goodman URL: https://youtu.be/IZlM8uV_lRk

Dr. Kim Scipes, “Building Workers Power in the Philippines”

 

The YouTube video of Saturday, March 19, 2016, is now available for viewing here and on the YouTube channel of the Open University of the Left.

All prior video programs are viewable on our archive YouTube page. at https://www.youtube.com/user/OpenUnivoftheLeft/
Open University of the Left

On Saturday, March 19 at 2:30 pm at the Lincoln Park Public Library 1150 W. Fullerton Ave. Chicago, Open University of the Left welcomed back Dr. Kim Scipes, former Chair of the National Writers Union, UAW local #1981 and Associate Professor of Sociology at Purdue University North Central who has been studying the KMU Labor Center for over 30 years. The May First Labor Movement or KMU is an independent labor body that promotes militant unionism in the Philippines. Dr. Scipes argues that the KMU is one of the most dynamic and developed labor organizations in the World. He attended the KMU’s annual International Solidarity Affair last May Day and afterwards, traveled to rural Mindanao and Negros regions to update his studies on the KMU. He will share from his latest trip and will argue that there are things the US labor movement could and should learn from the KMU.

 Dr.Scipes’ latest book Building Global Labor Solidarity in a Timeof Accelerating Globalization will be published by Haymarket Books and will be available at the end of March.
All Open University of the Left programs are free and are open to all.

Paul Street,”Murder in the Streets: Laquan McDonald, Rahm Emmanuel…”Sat. Dec. 12th, 2:30 pm

Join Open University of the Left on Saturday, Dec., 12th at 2:30 pm

On December 12, 2015 at the Open University of the Left, the noted left political commentator Paul Street will speak on  “Murder in the Streets: Laquan McDonald, Rahm Emmanuel, and the Racist Political Economy of the U.S. Mass Arrest and Incarceration State.”

Street is the former Vice President for Research and Planning and Director of Research at The Chicago Urban League (from 2000 through 2005), where he published numerous grant-funded studies including The Vicious Circle: Race, Prison, Jobs and Community in Chicago, Illinois, and the Nation (October 2002) and Still Separate, Unequal: Race, Place, Policy and the State of Black Chicago (2005).

 Street is an independent radical-democratic policy researcher, journalist, historian, author and speaker based in Iowa City, Iowa, and Chicago, Illinois.  Street is a regular political commentator at teleSur English and has been heard and seen in more than 70 radio and television interviews. He is the author of seven books to date: Empire and Inequality: America and the World Since 9/11 (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2004); Segregated Schools: Educational Apartheid in the Post-Civil Rights Era(New York: Routledge, 2005); Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis: a Living Black Chicago History (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007); Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2008); The Empire’s New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of Power (Paradigm, 2010); (with Anthony DiMaggio) Crashing the Tea Party: Mass Media and the Campaign to Remake American Politics (Paradigm, 2011); and They Rule: The 1% v. Democracy (Paradigm, 2014)

Street’s essays, articles, reviews, interviews, and commentaries have appeared in numerous outlets, including Counterpunch, Truthout, the Chicago Tribune, Capital City Times, In These Times, Chicago History, Critical Sociology, Journal of American Ethnic History, Social History, Temas (Cuba),  Review of Educational, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, Dissent, Black Agenda Report, Economic & Political Weekly (India), Tinanbantu (South Africa), New Left Project (United Kingdom), Press TV (Iran), The Times of India (India),  Morning Star (England), Al-Alkhbar (The News in Beirut, Lebanon), Dissident Voice, Black Commentator, Monthly Review, History News Network, TomDispatch, AlterNet., the Capital City Times (Madison, WI), the Iowa City Press Citizen, and (above all) ZNet and Z Magazine. .  Street’s writings, research findings, and commentary have been featured in a large number and wide variety of media venues, including The New York Times, CNN, Al Jazeera, the Chicago Tribune, WGN (Chicago/national), WLS (ABC-Chicago), Fox News, and the Chicago Sun Times.

Street has taught various aspects of U.S. history at a large number of Chicago-area colleges and universities.

https://openuniversityoftheleft.com/

All prior video programs are viewable on our archive YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/user/OpenUnivoftheLeft/

Open University of the Left

SPECIAL LOCATION THIS EVENT

Open University of the Left

Logan Square Branch Public Library

3030 W.Fullerton Ave.

Chicago IL 60647

Anthony DiMaggio, Post-2008 Neoliberalism and Social Change

Join Open University of the Left on Saturday, Nov., 14th at 2:30 pm

Audio here:  http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/83783

Anthony DiMaggio discusses The Neoliberal System, Post-2008: What are the Impediments to Social Change?

 In this talk, Anthony DiMaggio discusses his recent research seeking to understand under what conditions the American populace might rise up in opposition to neoliberal politics. DiMaggio argues that declining economic prospects for the average American are associated with growing rejection of the corporate dominated political-economic system. However, as it stands, the public is nowhere near achieving a sustained movement for rejecting neoliberalism. He will also discuss the importance of Occupy Wall Street and service worker protests as representative of growing economic insecurity and anger. His discussion will also draw on Marx and his contemporary relevance to our economic beliefs and the lack of class consciousness among most Americans.

Anthony DiMaggio earned his PhD in political science at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He is the author of numerous books, including Mass Media, Mass Propaganda (Lexington Books, 2008), When Media Goes to War (Monthly Review Press, 2010, The Rise of the Tea Party (Monthly Review Press, 2011), Crashing the Tea Party (Paradigm Publishers, 2011), and Selling the War, Selling Hope (SUNY Press, 2015). He has also written for numerous progressive publications, including Counterpunch, Truthout and Z Magazine.

https://openuniversityoftheleft.com/

All prior video programs are viewable on our archive YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/user/OpenUnivoftheLeft/

Open University of the Left
Lincoln Park Public Library
1150 W. Fullerton Ave, Chicago (corner Racine)
across from DePaul University
free parking, (Red Line: Fullerton)

Margaret Aguilar, Abortion Rights: Who is in Control?

Join Open University of the Left on Sat., Sept., 19th at 2:30 pm

Margaret Aguilar, Abortion Rights: Who is in Control?

 Abortion has always been a control issue. Throughout human history, fertility control has been one of the critical issues facing human groups to ensure their survival. There are two aspects to fertility control. One is the “big picture” or social/governmental/religious control done for the benefits it brings to the agencies of control. The other aspect of fertility control impacts the individual woman and man and family which are influenced, more or less by social forces as well as individual wants and needs. At times, the wants and needs of these interested parties are in conflict. In some situations the fertility of group members may be restricted because of the lack of social, environmental and economic resources. In other more typically totalitarian systems, the state itself as a matter of policy may bring pressure to bear on women to provide more or less births to suit the perceived needs of the state. When women can take their rightful role as a principal in the decision-making the results are fairer and more humane. We will look at how these factors have affected women’s lives and human history specifically in the United States and how they are affecting our current political situation.

Margaret Aguilar recently retired after 37 years as a Registered Nurse. She spent the last 17 years as a Certified Family Nurse Practitioner after earning a Masters degree in Science in Nursing. She has been Pro-choice all her adult life. She currently participates as a volunteer clinic escort at a clinic on the north side of Chicago, where abortions are performed.

https://openuniversityoftheleft.com/

All prior video programs are viewable on our archive YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/user/OpenUnivoftheLeft/

Open University of the Left
Lincoln Park Public Library
1150 W. Fullerton Ave, Chicago (corner Racine)
across from DePaul University
free parking, (Red Line: Fullerton)

Joe Iosbaker, “The Case of Rasmea Odeh”

Open University of the Left presents “The Case of Rasmea Odeh” on Saturday, August 15th at 2:30 pm at The Lincoln Park Public Library, 1150 W. Fullerton Ave. in Chicago.

Rasmea Odeh is the latest victim of the U.S. government’s war on Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims. A leader in the Palestinian community in Chicago, the 68 year old woman was arrested in October 2013 by the Dept. of Homeland Security. Using the pretext of a violation of her application for citizenship 10 years ago, the U.S. Attorney in Detroit has put her through a political trial, found her guilty of being a Palestinian and is preparing to deport her after she serves an 18 month sentence in a federal prison. All of this because she was arrested by the Israeli occupation forces, sadistically tortured and confessed to a crime that she did not commit.

A broad movement involving many thousands of people has rallied to defend her. She appears before a federal appeals court this fall in Cincinnati and hundreds will travel from Chicago and around the country to support her.

The case against her emerged out of the unconstitutional investigation by the U.S. Attorney in Chicago of the 23 anti-war and international solidarity activists raided by the FBI and subpoenaed to a federal grand jury in 2010.

Joe Iosbaker is one of those 23 activists raided by the FBI in 2010 and subpoenaed to a federal grand jury for anti-war and international solidarity work. He was one of the national coordinators for the protest against the NATO Summit in Chicago in 2012, is a leader in the United National Antiwar Coalition and works in the Anti-War Committee – Chicago. He has traveled on peace delegations to Syria, Lebanon, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, China, Mexico, Belgium and Nicaragua over his almost 40 years of political activism. He is a coordinator for the Committee to Stop FBI Repression in their campaign for Justice for Rasmea Odeh. He is now a member of the Steering Committee of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

https://openuniversityoftheleft.com/

All prior video programs are viewable on our archive YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/user/OpenUnivoftheLeft/

Open University of the Left
Lincoln Park Public Library
1150 W. Fullerton Ave, Chicago (corner Racine)
across from DePaul University
free parking, (Red Line: Fullerton)

“Precariat = Precarious + Proletariat”, by Earl Silbar

The YouTube video of Saturday, July 18, 2015 is now up and available for viewing on the YouTube channel of The Open University of the Left.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3jXK-ATuNY

Join Open University of the Left on Saturday July 18th at 2:30 pm

 A presentation by Earl Silbar

“Precariat = Precarious + Proletariat“

Open University of the Left
Lincoln Park Public Library
1150 W. Fullerton Ave, Chicago (corner Racine)
across from DePaul University
free parking, (Red Line: Fullerton)

Open University of the Left presents Precariat = Precarious + Proletariat, by Earl Silbar on Saturday July 18th at 2:30 pm at The Lincoln Park Public Library, 1150 W. Fullerton Ave. in Chicago.

It’s a growing reality…dominating workplaces from university classrooms to taxicabs, factory floors to computer programming. It’s the pattern of choice for employers in the U.S. and around the world which began to emerge during the 1970’s. How large is the precariat? What has been its impact on workers’ pay, benefits, work injuries and workloads? As workers have begun to fight back what responses, if any, have been successful? Does the rise of the precariat spell the end for working class solidarity and socialism?

Earl Silbar is a lifelong socialist. He has been politically active for over 50 years. Beginning with Friends of (SNCC) the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, to Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) all in the 1960’s. Then, to anti-racist, Central American and South African solidarity work in the 1970’s and 1980’s to worker organizing in factories and classrooms until he retired as a GED teacher and chief steward for AFSCME local 3506 at Truman College in 2006. He is currently an active member of Fox Valley Citizens for Peace and Justice.

https://openuniversityoftheleft.com/

All prior video programs are viewable on our archive YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/user/OpenUnivoftheLeft/

Open University of the Left
Lincoln Park Public Library
1150 W. Fullerton Ave, Chicago (corner Racine)
across from DePaul University
free parking, (Red Line: Fullerton)