Author: organizer

This summer, over 300 higher ed faculty, staff, and student leaders and activists from dozens of union locals in 30 states (representing over 400,000 higher ed workers!) came together to form a new nation-wide coalition: Higher Ed Labor United (HELU). Coming from across faculty ranks and staff job categories, including both tenure track and contingent…

Following a successful national convention (August 2021), Democratic Socialists of America faces a still pandemic-ridden nation, beset with extractive inequalities, political dysfunction, and the rapid onset of catastrophic climate change. As the largest organized, left-wing formation, the moment poses special strategic and organizational challenges, ones surfaced in Bill Fletcher, Jr.’s “The Modern Tecumseh” essay. In…

Join The Saturday Bookshelf in a conversation with Nicole Aschoff about her book, “The Smartphone Society: Technology, Power, and Resistance in the New Gilded Age” on Saturday, August 21st at Noon EST (https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5999353012)! From Beacon Press: “Our smartphones have brought digital technology into the most intimate spheres of life. It’s time to take control of…

Makers of two of the world’s most consequential revolutions, the people of Cuba and Haiti have paid the price for attempting to set forth a freer and more just world – with forced reverse-reparations, sanctions, invasions, and constant threats of “regime change.” By July 2021, in diverse ways, these matters have come to a head….

A Saturday Bookshelf Event: A People’s Guide to Greater Boston reveals the region’s richness and vibrancy in ways that are neglected by traditional area guidebooks and obscured by many tourist destinations. Affirming the hopes, interests, and struggles of individuals and groups on the receiving end of unjust forms of power, the book showcases the ground-level…

Join Shelter & Solidarity for a discussion with special guests, novelist Christine Smallwood (author of The Life of The Mind) and scholar Maggie Doherty (author of The Equivalents and the recent Nation article on “Adjunct Hell”) as we explore the relationship between art, experience and activism in a contemporary higher education system increasingly characterized by…

Reports of anti-Asian racism throughout the U.S. have surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, but have not been the subject of sustained public attention until recent months. The deadly March 16th Atlanta spa shootings, along with a spike in lethal attacks against persons of Asian descent, have brought increased visibility to a form of racism that…

Join Shelter & Solidarity and independent socialist magazine Monthly Review for a live conversation with path-breaking radical thinker, activist, and best-selling, world-famous author Marge Piercy. For the past fifty years, few creative writers have been in deeper dialogue with the movement for emancipatory revolution than poet and novelist Marge Piercy. Author of over 20 books…

Paula Rauhala and Kira Moodliar join in conversation with Ranabir Samaddar to explore Ranabir’s new book, “Karl Marx and the Postcolonial Age.” From Palgrave MacMillian: This book seeks to explicitly engage Marxist and post-colonial theory to place Marxism in the context of the post-colonial age. Those who study Marx, particularly in the West, often lack…

Join David Cobb and Nicola Walters to preview “The Post Capitalism Conference: Building the Solidarity Economy” (part of EarthDayMayDay.org) at Humboldt State University – but open to anyone with online. The conference kicks off on Earth Day, Thursday, April 22, 2021, and includes movement luminaries like Wende Marshall, Richard Wolf, Kali Akuno, Melodie Meyer, Emily Kawano,…

Live performances and discussions with socially engaged artists from across the country, including radical poets Matt Sedillo and Raymond ‘Nat’ Turner, Philadelphia-based musician Melanie Hsu, progressive folk singer-songwriter David Rovics, and somatic artist Marina Lopez. Co-hosted with Tim Sheard (of Hard Ball Press) and Linda Liu, this show will provide a chance to engage both…

Join Co-hosts Rachel Patten and Bobbi-lee Smart in a conversation with David Roediger, Saturday, April 3rd at 12 PM EDT, about his new book, The Sinking Middle Class. Joe Biden’s current emphasis on the “American middle class” is typical of centrist Democrat strategy. It is used as a cudgel to defend the party against more…

Throughout modern history, struggles against Black oppression have generated some of our most powerful and persuasive radical voices, often resonating across lines of race and nation. How do black revolutionary thinkers of the past–from black Marxists like Richard Wright to Black Panther participants like Fred Hampton and Assata Shakur–to contemporary voices like Mumia Abu Jamal,…

The 2020s may prove to be “The Decisive Decade.” But what are the origins of the movements of these times? And what difference do those histories make today? We often are called to look back to the 1960s for lessons. But what of the 1990s and the movements at the turn of the millennium? Join Bill…

In an era of growing corporate control over “the news” (from TV to social media platforms), the role played by independent, alternative, and left media is more precious than ever.  Yet the corporate-dominated media landscape, compounded by the Covid19 crisis, creates new barriers and challenges for left and independent media alike.  How are independent and…

The freeze set in, and the lights went out! And Texans found that free-market fundamentalists can’t keep you warm and definitely won’t keep the water running. Also, climate change does not care about ideology! It might be too early to talk about the numbers, the suffering, and the resistance, but neighbors are helping neighbors. Even…

In the yawning gap between the crises of economy, environment, and survival on the one hand, and ruling class responses, on the other hand, is there space for socialist solutions and the movements that can deliver them? If so, how will it be filled? We answer these questions with a thoughtful and diverse group of…

Shelter & Solidarity’s host, Joe Ramsey hosted Chris Hedges at an event organized by the Community Church of Boston Correction: Dean Stevens is the Community Church of Boston’s Administrator & Musical Director. Contrary to the opening credits, he is not the Congregational Director. This was an editing error on our part. During Chris Hedges’s talk…

Join Shelter & Solidarity on Thursday, Dec. 17, from 7-8:30 pm EST, as we close out 2020 with a very special roundtable featuring return visits from some of the great guests we’ve had on S&S in our first year. A panel of experienced organizers, activists, scholars and artists will help kick off a community discussion…

Featuring performances and conversations with revolutionary artists:Demetrius Noble, Eartha Watts Hicks, Rafael Medina, Raymond Nat Turner, Linda Liu, Ricardo Levins Morales, Tracy Garrison, Tim Sheard, & Dean Stevens

On November 19th we will take a deep dive into the history, myths, practices, and legacies of popular politics and “small-d” democracy in the United States with scholar and public historian Michael Lansing.The populist tradition is a significant, controversial, and often misunderstood strain of U.S. history. Lansing’s book, Insurgent Democracy: The Nonpartisan League in North…

On Thursday, November 5, 2020, DSA-affiliated David Duhalde, The Nation’s Liza Featherstone, the Green Party’s Jill Stein, and sociologist Ben Manski engaged in a lively conversation about the US elections – together with host Joe Ramsey.

We take 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 many other books). We will also be joined by scholar and activist Aviva Chomsky, (author of Undocumented and “They Take Our Jobs!” and 20…

October 1 marks the fifty-fifth anniversary of the beginning of one of the worst episodes of mass murder in the twentieth century: the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians in 1965-1966. Organized and directed by Indonesia’s military, the killings targeted people associated with the country’s communist party, the world’s largest outside of China and…

Amid a resurgence of xenophobic nationalism, Islamophobia, Antisemitism, and racism more generally, how do we refute charges of Antisemitism that are broadly leveled against advocates for Black liberation, immigrant justice and national self-determination for the Palestinian people? To help us navigate these questions, Lara Kiswani from Beit Iksa and Aqir, Palestine, and Executive Director of…

Recent years have seen a resurgence of right-wing nationalism and authoritarian political movements, from Trump in the US to Bolsanaro in Brazil and to Modi in India. How are we best to grasp the nature of these contemporary political trends? Are Trump and the movement to support him usefully understood as a form of neo-fascism?…

Feeling stressed? Seeking strategies for keeping healthy and connected during this period of protracted pandemic, economic crisis, and physical isolation? Join us for our third Shelter & Solidarity social hour – a community discussion about how we can best sustain ourselves, each other, our organizations and movements during these pandemic times. We’ll be led into…

Building on a recent paper by John W. Lawrence, “Organizing the Democratic Capacity for Transformative Change: The 2020 Election and Beyond” published in Socialism and Democracy, this conversation discusses and debates the organizational and political requirements for the left to grow and become an organized voice and transformative force based in the working class. Speaker…

As we roll into late August, the start of the school year is upon us. What will this Fall look like for students, for teachers and staff, for parents and our communities? What threats to safety, to the quality and equity of education, and to working conditions are people facing? And how are they responding…

Avi Chomsky, Marie Cruz Soto, Joseph Gerson & Gar Alperovitz consider the legacy of the Hiroshima, its roots in Empire and colonial rivalries. They also examine resistance to empire from Vieques to Okinawa and across diasporas and homelands.

Join us Thursday, July 30, at 7pm EST for a deep dive with Victor Wallis (author of Democracy Denied, and Red-Green Revolution) about how the Left can and should relate to elections and to threats to democracy in the United States. Victor will be joined in conversation by nationally renowned organizers Medea Benjamin (Code Pink)….

As the Covid-19 pandemic rages on, this episode explores the significance of apocalyptic and dystopian narratives for our current crisis-laden moment. While typically associated with large-scale death and destruction, the word ‘apocalypse’ also means a revelation or uncovering of what was hidden in plain sight. Joined by noted science and speculative fiction and film scholars…