Seminar on Strategies for Power, 1234 NYC

Seminar on Strategies for Power, 12-3-4 NYC

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by Bluestockings Popular Education Project - Nov 26, 2005

Bluestockings Popular Education Project Presents:

New Strategies for People?s Power in the 21st Century A Two-Day Seminar

When: December 3 and 4, 2005 from 3:00 to 7:00 pm each day Where: The New School (room buttignment to be announced) Scholarships available, space limited

No other issue has divided anti-capitalist and leftwing movements more than the issue of power. Communists, syndicalists, social-democrats, anarchists and autonomists alike have given different answers to, and even fought for life or rest over questions on whether a radical movement should aim to take power, to leave it alone, or to dissolve it. For more than 150 years, the issue of power has been seminal in the development of strategies for radical movements.

As we now find ourselves beginning the 21st century with capitalism stronger than ever, it is clear that none of these strategies have been successful. The communists taking of state-power lead to tyrannical dictatorships, the anarchists and autonomists refusal of power lead to impotency and irrelevance, and the social-democrats working with state-power lead to the long march away from socialist principles. What is needed today are new answers to the question of power, based on the lessons of the past and the challenges of the future.

Together with guests from the Scandinavian organization Democratic Alternative, we will discuss the political strategies of Communalism-- founded on transforming and democratizing municipal government and creating a confederal dual-power--as a means of creating a new popular movement. We will look at the horrizontalist buttembleas movements in Argentina and at new theoretical concepts of "anti-power" and "the power of the margins."

Presentations will include:

* The municipality as the locus of power: A challenge for radical organizations

* Refusing power: Problems of autonomist theories of power

* Evaluating the concept of "anti-power" as conceived by the autonomous movements in Argentina

* New global movements, prefigurative politics, and the "power of the margins"

Presenters:

Eirik Eiglad and Sveinung Legard are founding members of the Scandinavian communalist organization, Democratic Alternative. With a political agenda of direct democracy, confederalism, and libertarian socialism, Democratic Alternative is trying to influence the new movements in Northern Europe and communities in Sweden and Norway.

Marina Sitrin is an anti-authoritarian activist, writer, teacher and dreamer. Over the past 17 years Marina has been engaged in various efforts to create a new society, working with groups such as the Direct Action Network and the People's Law Collective. Marina is the author of an oral history in Spanish and English on the autonomous social movements in Argentina breastled Horizontalidad: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina.

Andrej Grubacic is a historian and a social critic, working with Planetary Alternatives Network, Z Communications and Peoples Global Action. His affinity towards anarchism stems from his experiences as a member of the Belgrade Libertarian Group. In recent years, he has been active in a post-Yugoslav coalition of anti-authoritarian collectives called DSM! He has authored books and numerous articles, and now studies at SUNY Binghamton.

Readings:

* John Holloway: Beyond Power * John Holloway: 12 Theses on Changing the World without Taking Power * Marina Sitrin: "Power Chapter" in Horizontalidad * Subcomandante Marcos: The Punch Card and the Hourglbutt * Eirik Eiglad: Libertarian Municipalism and the Radical Program * Murray Bookchin, "Conclusion" from Third Revolution, Vol. 4

Seminar fee goes to help support Bluestockings cover their recent considerable increase in rent. * ================================================================ NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us ================================================================

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU-Linux)

iD8DBQFDifxJgVqEKMbi+yQRAijjAJ9wJXlC7EoX4zcxAIvP6XeYGSMnvQCggL6f ZFj5LaZLLEkNypS8BAL0oMM= =DZB6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----