Free Speech TV and Deep Dish TV are teaming up June 7th – 9th to bring you live coverage of the 2013 Left Forum. A unique phenomenon, Left Forum convenes the largest annual gathering of a broad spectrum of left and progressive intellectuals, activists, academics, organizations and the interested public. Conference participants come together to engage a wide range of critical perspectives on the world, to discuss differences, commonalities and alternatives to current predicaments, and to share ideas for understanding and transforming the world. The conference is held each year in New York City.The streaming schedule is below.

 

 

 

 ALL TIMES EASTERN

 Saturday, June 8th

• 10:00am – 11:50am – What can Environmentalism do? 

The prospect of environmental crises, including but not limited to climate change, has become a dominant concern of the left. On this panel, which coincides with a Dissent special issue about environmentalism, we provide a broad-spectrum look at what kind of environmental advocacy is happening now, what activists hope to achieve, and what their chances for success are. Panelists will address local as well as national efforts.

• 10:00am – 11:50am – The Making of Global Capitalism

In this conversation, Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin demonstrate the intimate relationship between modern capitalism and the American state, including its role as an “informal empire” promoting free trade and capital movements.

• 12:00pm – 1:40pm – Obama’s Second Term: Assessments and Criticism

This panel will discuss Obama’s second term.

• 12:00pm – 1:40pm -Harnessing Humor to Turbo Charge Engagement

Constant appeals to supporters for activism and donations, the overwhelming amount of pressing issues that need to be addressed, and the ongoing recession, have many activist movements and nonprofits concerned about supporter fatigue. Is there another way to engage activists and non-activists alike AND lessen activist susceptibility to burnout? Yes. Can humor really make your issue or campaign stand out and drive your supporters to act? Yes. Is humor appropriate when your issue is so serious and so critical? Yes. Really? Yes, and we will show you the psychological, and psycho-social reasons why humor works and how you can harness it. Join us for a useful, insightful, and powerful training session in which you will learn how to use humor to attract supporters, re-energize your existing base, create clear and memorable messaging and help activists avoid falling victim to supporter fatigue. We’ll also teach you how to get your boss to agree to it.

• 2pm – 3pm – Special Event with Noam Chomsky

After an inspiring speech at his last visit to Left Forum in 2010, Noam Chomsky is returning to address conference participants. He will provide a global political analysis and will speak to the theme “Mobilizing for Ecological/Economic Transformation”. 

• 3:40pm – 05:20pm – Occupy the Future of the Left

Speakers: Frances Fox Piven, CUNY Sociology Bhaskar Sunkara (editor, Jacobin) Joseph M. Schwartz (Political Science, Temple) Sarah Leonard (associate editor, Dissent magazine, co-editor Occupy: the OWS Gazette Yates McKee, Tidal Magazine: Occupy Theory, Occupy Strategy the panel will analyze Occupy as a “flash” movement of mass discontent against neo-liberal inequality. While all the panelists participated actively in “Occupy,” they will analyze how and why those involved in Occupy must now work to link a movement rooted primarily among young, indebted, college educated youth with the immigrant rights movement and the emerging low-wage justice movement. In short, can the spirit of Occupy (and its continuing, decentered networks) help contribute to the building of a multi-racial, multi-national class-based anti-corporate movement?

• 3:40pm – 05:20pm – Mass Incarceration: A National Shame and Call for Action

The sheer numbers, racial disparity and consequences of mass incarceration in the US should make it a national shame. In this panel, we will explore the historical development and current status of this problem. We will also explore approaches to dealing with this problem.

• 5:30pm – 07:10pm – Ecosocialism – Coming to a Horizon Near You

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy and other recent so-called natural disasters, many people on the Left are awaking to the magnitude of climate change, and to the importance of an ecological critique of capitalism. What is the next stage in the evolution of anti-capitalist thought, action, and organization, in this new era of climate chaos? What is the ecosocialist movement, and what is ecosocialism as a political and ideological orientation? Join some of the co-founders of Ecosocialist Horizons, a group that has been organizing around these questions for many years, nationally and internationally. We invite you to a join a conversation, an organization and a movement.

• 5:30pm – 07:10pm – Activist Filmmaking and Academia

How can academic research motivate activism through film? Filmmakers Ron Harpelle and Kelly Saxberg are historians who have made several films that teach, challenge and inspire change. Greg Scott teaches sociology and is an activist filmmaker at Sawbuck Productions inspiring social change through film, photography, and sound. Joe Davidow is an American composer/film director living in Finland since 1978. His documentaries deal with social issues of poverty, discrimination, HIV and Aids. His film Dreams Deferred – legacy of American apartheid deals with the US Criminal Justice System and Mass Incarceration and its effects on the African American community. Ron’s latest film Hard Time is a documentary about Robert King, the only freed member of the Angola 3. The film emerged from research for, In Security, a film about how barbed wire, a simple 19th century invention, has evolved into a silent sentinel that acts as a means of control over people and spaces – a historical journey from Texas to the battlefields of Europe, South Africa, the Golan Heights and West Bank, the U.S border with Mexico and finally the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Kelly will discuss Under The Red Star – a feature length docu-drama about the history of the left in Canada from 1910-1939. It features the story of Sanna Kannasto, a founding member of the American Socialist party and ends with Jules Paivio, Canada’s last remaining veteran of the Spanish Civil War.

• 7:30pm – 9:30pm – Untold History of the United States with Oliver Stone, Peter Kuznick, Bill Fletcher Jr., Dpnna Murch, and Greg Wilpert

Writing in a recent issue of Counterpunch Michael D. Yates says, “Oliver Stone’s Showtime series, Untold History of the United States, is the most radical mainstream television I have ever watched.” Join Oliver Stone, co-writer Peter Kuznick, Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Donna Murch in a discussion of the 10-part series and the political challenges it raises today.

Sunday June 9th

• 10:00am – 11:50am – Imagine Living in a Socialist USA Part 1

Imagine what life would be like if capitalism was overthrown in America, if we replaced it and were able to live in a genuinely socialist society. Imagine a society of ecological sanity, material abundance and social equality, a society where social relations were premised on human solidarity, not capitalist exploitation and human competition, where people are not set against each other, where production for profit, driven by private greed and accumulation of capital, has given way to production for public use. The first panel is an indictment of American capitalism and presentations intended to inspire hope: The panelists imagine multiple aspects of the new world: art, health care, housing, food, emotional life, sexuality, racism, criminal justices, law, religion, education, science and technology, women, and the democratic organization of a publicly owned and directed self-managed economy. The second part will be on how to get there from here, how to make the American socialist revolution.

• 10:00am – 11:50am – Nothing About Us Without US: Sex Work Activism

Sex workers and activists discuss what they have accomplished to transform the dominant perspectives on sex work in NYC.

• 12:00pm – 01:50pm – Workplace democracy and democratic ownership: Moving from theory to Strategy

Workplace democracy and various forms of community and public ownership are now enjoying a surge in popularity as a notion and in practice, as more and more people come to terms with the moral and political bankruptcy of dominant economic ideas and institutions. Wolff and Alperovitz are two thought leaders of this movement for a new economy, and will discuss and debate the strategic questions being posed at this critical historical juncture. How can we build this movement and generalize and expand promising experiments and increasingly popular notions of economic democracy? How do these relate to new overarching systemic visions and how can such visions help animate and guide on the ground developments? Moderated by Maliha Safri

• 12:00pm – 01:50pm – Imagine Living in a Socialist USA Part 2

Imagine what life would be like if capitalism was overthrown in America, if we replaced it and were able to live in a genuinely socialist society. Imagine a society of ecological sanity, material abundance and social equality, a society where social relations were premised on human solidarity, not capitalist exploitation and human competition, where people are not set against each other, where production for profit, driven by private greed and accumulation of capital, has given way to production for public use. The first panel is an indictment of American capitalism and presentations intended to inspire hope: The panelists imagine multiple aspects of the new world: art, health care, housing, food, emotional life, sexuality, racism, criminal justices, law, religion, education, science and technology, women, and the democratic organization of a publicly owned and directed self-managed economy. The second part will be on how to get there from here, how to make the American socialist revolution. 

• 2pm – 3pm – Report from Greece with Mihalis Spourdalakis, Eirini Dourou – meember of Parliament and Leo Pan Panitch

• 3:00pm – 04:50pm – The Transformative Dimensions of Local and International Politics

Panel will address the transformative dimensions of local in relation to international politics. It will identify the ruptures in existing political institutions, among elites, and neo-liberal logics. What is a viable approach to negotiating emerging changes in power, culture, and economy? How are emerging movements transformative, revolutionary, naorrowly or radically reformist? What are the challenges to building transformative movements from the political conditions of local politics, electoral, community forms in an international context?

• 3:00pm – 04:50pm – The F Word

Fascism is a strong and jarring word, but Benito Mussolini famously said “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” Given that understanding, how else can we honestly describe the hyper-militarism of domestic policing, the disdain for basic human rights, the scapegoating of immigrants (especially those with brown skin), imperialist foreign policy, harassment and intimidation of those who dare to speak truth to power and the growing concentration of wealth and power in a smaller and smaller group in the United States? This caucus will expose the intersections between efforts to strip actual human persons of constitutional rights while expanding the illegitimate doctrine that allows corporations to claim constitutional rights. We will also explore tactics for building power to confront national and local law enforcement agencies’ participation in domestic surveillance or intelligence collection, immigration enforcement, profiling in any form, undercover infiltration of activist groups and religious institutions, and cooperation between law enforcement agencies and military personnel. This will highlight the grassroots initiative of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Defending Dissent Foundation’s work rejuvenating national action to confront corporate driven attacks against animal rights activists, and Move to Amend’s campaign to abolish corporate personhood.

• 5:30pm – 7:30pm – Closing Plenary with Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera, John Bellamy Foster, and Tadzio Muller