<div dir="ltr"><div>Five male speakers, really?<br><br></div>James<br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr">James Kilgore<br>Research Scholar<br>Center for African Studies<br>University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign)<br></div><div>Author of <a href="http://www.understandingmassincarceration.com/" target="_blank"><i>Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People's Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time</i></a><br></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div></div></div></div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Mar 6, 2016 at 6:39 PM, David Green via Discuss-CommunityCourtwatch <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:discuss-communitycourtwatch@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank">discuss-communitycourtwatch@lists.chambana.net</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div style="color:#000;background-color:#fff;font-family:garamond,new york,times,serif;font-size:16px"><div dir="ltr"> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/762579180539887/?action_history=null" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/events/762579180539887/?action_history=null</a></div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><span style="color:black;font-family:"Garamond",serif;font-size:12pt">The local
Prairie Green Party and the Bernie Sanders campaign is organizing a forum with
local scholars and activists to address the politically pertinent question:
“What is socialism?”</span></div><div dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background:white;margin:0in 0in 6pt;line-height:normal"><span style="color:black;font-family:"Garamond",serif;font-size:12pt">Our
motivation extends from the current political context; from debates about
socialism in relation to the intersections of class, race, and gender; from
debates about “social democracy” vs. “democratic socialism”; from debates about
anarchism in the wake of the Occupy movement; from the ongoing struggles of the
labor movement; and from debates about practical challenges to capitalism and
socialist vision as articulated, for example, at <a href="http://jacobinmag.com" target="_blank">jacobinmag.com</a>.</span></div><div dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background:white;margin:0in 0in 6pt;line-height:normal"><span style="color:black;font-family:"Garamond",serif;font-size:12pt">The
references below are among those that motivated me to suggest organizing this
forum:</span></div><div dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background:white;margin:0in 0in 6pt;line-height:normal"><span style="color:black;font-family:"Garamond",serif;font-size:12pt"><a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/12/erik-olin-wright-real-utopias-anticapitalism-democracy/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(0,102,204)">Erik Olin Wright</span></a> argues
that capitalism can be “tamed” and “eroded” in “the only viable options” in
building “real utopias.” He defines “tamed” and “eroded” in specific,
programmatic ways.</span></div><div dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background:white;margin:0in 0in 6pt;line-height:normal"><span style="color:black;font-family:"Garamond",serif;font-size:12pt"><a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/01/olin-wright-real-utopias-socialism-capitalism-gramsci-lenin-luxemburg/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(0,102,204)">Dylan Riley</span></a> respectfully
but sharply responds to Wright that “The basic problem is that Wright tells us
nothing about what is still the central task of any viable strategy for
winning socialism: destroying the entrenched political and economic power
of the capitalist class.”</span></div><div dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background:white;margin:0in 0in 6pt;line-height:normal"><span style="color:black;font-family:"Garamond",serif;font-size:12pt"><a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/12/hilary-wainwright-feminism-socialism-womens-liberation-england/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(0,102,204)">Hillary Wainwright</span></a> has
recently asserted that: “I’m repeatedly shocked by the fact that the relevance
of feminism for the rethinking of socialism hasn’t been taken on board, and
that the Left has trudged on as usual, making its usual mistakes, pretty much
as if feminism had never really done more than put women on the agenda. The
Left adopted policies toward women, but has not carried out a fundamental
rethink of socialism, which is what I felt feminism was enabling us to do.”</span></div><div dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background:white;margin:0in 0in 6pt;line-height:normal"><span style="color:black;font-family:"Garamond",serif;font-size:12pt"><a href="http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/ta-nehisi-coates-blackwashing-reparations-brand-and-last-refuge-scoundrels" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(0,102,204)">Bruce Dixon</span></a>, a writer at
the Black Agenda Report and an activist in the Green Party, has responded
critically to Ta-Nehisi Coates advocacy for reparations for African-Americans:
“</span><span style="color:black;font-family:"Garamond",serif;font-size:12pt" lang="EN">I'm a lifelong socialist, somebody who
believes political mountains can and must be moved. But when proponents of
reparations don't even try to discuss what the needed political coalitions
might look like, what sectors of society we need to win over to make
reparations happen, or how many years or decades all this might take, are they
acting like a political movement, or like something else? What kind of
political movement advances no measures, discusses no plans, takes no
responsibility for advancing its own just cause? The answer is that movements
don't behave like that at all. But brands do.”</span></div><div dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin:0in 0in 8pt"><font face="Calibri"> </font></div><div dir="ltr"><font face="Times New Roman">
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