[Peace-discuss] special invitation!

[martin smith]

You are cordially invited to join us for our Socialist Happy Hour this Friday, May 9, from 7-9pm at the Blind Pig in downtown Champaign.  We plan to celebrate several graduations, the end of the semester, and discuss and debate politics and current events as usual.
 
However, we also want to invite you to come tomorrow night to learn more about our annual educational and activist conference, Socialism 2008.  The reduced rate for registration is fast approaching.  Tomorrow night, we want to answer any questions that you may have about what is the largest gathering of the Left in the United States and an event that is a critical part of changing the political landscape in this country.  Stop by and pick up a brochure--and get excited about the real possibility for change.
 -Champaign ISO


SOCIALISM 2008
June 19-22, Crowne Plaza Chicago O'Hare
"A weekend of revolutionary politics, debate and entertainment."
http://www.socialismconference.org
  
Register by May 15 for reduced rate!


In 1968, an unpopular war and opposition to a discredited political establishment led millions around the world to join the struggle for a socialist society.  Forty years later, building the global resistance to US empire could not be more urgent.  But the scale of the challenges we face today—entrenched occupations throughout the Middle East and a military-industrial complex that caters to the needs of the wealthy—makes the socialist case even more urgent than it was in '68.
 
Take part in Socialism 2008 to learn the hidden history of international struggle against empire and occupation.  Antiwar activists from around the country—and the world--will participate, including members of Iraq Veterans Against the War and the Campus Antiwar Network.  Below are just a few of the hundreds or workshops and discussions about changing the world and defeating US imperialism:
  
Saturday Night Plenary: 
Class Struggle and Resistance in the Middle East, with strikers from Egypt, Ahmed Shawki, Salam Hassan, interpreter of Dahr Jamail, along with Amira Hass and Sherry Wolf on Palestine. 
 
Workshops:
GIs Speak Out Against Occupation
Lessons from the Vietnam GI Movement
Building a GI Movement Today
Iraq: Eyewitness to the Occupation
Islamophobia in America
Torture from Guantanamo to Chicago
  Live From Gaza
Class Struggle in the Middle East
Forging of the American Empire
Black Soldiers and the Vietnam War
Rogue State: US Imperialism Since 9/11
Afghanistan: The Hidden Disaster
Iran and the Middle East
  and many more


Featured speakers (affiliations for identification only):
Camilo Mejía, first U.S. military resister in the Iraq war, author of Road from ar-Ramadi

Adrienne Kinne, New England Regional Coordinator, Iraq Veterans Against the War, testifier at Winter Soldier and featured on Democracy Now!
 
Mohammed Omer is an award-winning journalist living and working in Gaza, Palestine. He writes and photographs the impact of the U.S.-sponsored Israeli occupation. His reporting appears on the BBC, in the Independent (UK), New Statesman, electronicintifada. net, Democracy Now! and elsewhere.
 
Dahr Jamail, independent journalist and author of Beyond the Green Zone

Amira Hass lives in Ramallah in the West Bank, where she covers Palestinian affairs for the Israeli daily newspaper Ha'aretz, making her the only Jewish Israeli correspondent on Palestinian affairs to live among the people about whom she reports.
 
Jeremy Scahill, author, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army

Anthony Arnove is the author of the acclaimed Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal and the editor, with Howard Zinn, of Voices of a People's History of the United States (Seven Stories). He is also editor of Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War
 
Laura Flanders is the host of "RadioNation" heard live, weekends, 7-10 pm ET on the national Air America Radio network. The program is also syndicated to non-commercial affiliates across the United States. She is the author of Blue Grit: True Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians. Justin Akers Chacón, co-author, No One Is Illegal!
 
Dr. John Carlos, founding member, Olympic Project for Human Rights, bronze medal winner who raised a black-gloved fist at the '68 Olympics

Mark Steel, comedian, Guardian columnist and author, Vive La Revolution!
 
Barbara Becnel, Campaign to End the Death Penalty, She co-produced the award-winning TV film Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story, based on her partnership with Stanley Tookie Williams.

Paul D'Amato, author, The Meaning of Marxism, managing editor, International Socialist Review
 
The Freightliner Five trade union activists from Cleveland, N.C.

Phil Gasper, editor, The Communist Manifesto: A Road Map to History's Most Important Political Document

Samuel Farber, author of The Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered
  
Marlene Martin, national director, Campaign to End the Death Penalty

Ahmed Shawki, editor, International Socialist Review, author, Black Liberation and Socialism

Sharon Smith, columnist, Socialist Worker, and author of Subterranean Fire and Women and Socialism
  
Dave Zirin, Nation.com sports columnist and author, What's My Name Fool? and Welcome to the Terrordome

Jeffrey St. Clair, co-editor of Counterpunch and author of Been Brown So Long it Looks Green to Me, and Joshua Frank, co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush speak on their new book, Green Scare.
 
Socialists from France, Greece, Egypt, Venezuela, Mexico

and many more!

For help with child care, housing, travel, directions to the conference or to ask any other question, please write us at info at socialismconference.org or call 773-583-8665.
  
Sponsored by the Center for Economic Research and Social Change, publisher of International Socialist Review and Haymarket Books. Co-sponsored by the International Socialist Organization, publisher of Socialist Worker and Obrero Socialista.


       
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