encuentro 5

Saturday, September 11, 2010, 7:00 p.m. Join Sergio Reyes of the Boston May Day Committee and Latin@s for Social Change for a survey of the radical changes and advances in Latin American constitutional development. Using his firsthand impressions of the process in Bolivia and a textual analysis of the new constitution of the Plurinational Republic of Bolivia, Reyes will provide his assessment and lead the conversation. Additional speakers and experiences will be announced shortly. Sponsored by the Boston May Day Committee.

Sunday, September 19, 2010, 1:00 p.m. Peace movement organization, New England United, will hold its regular regional meeting in Boston this month. It focuses on Civil Liberties. More information and agenda details can be found at http://newenglandunited.org/.

Friday, September 10, 2010, 7:00 p.m. The Community and Resistance Tour seeks to communicate about current struggles for justice and liberation, from the current BP Oil Drilling Disaster devastating the Gulf Coast to nooses hung in the northern Louisiana town of Jena. From women organizing inside prisons to cultural resistance. The tour also seeks to connect communities of liberation, and to build relationships between grassroots activists and independent media. This tour is for anyone interested in issues of health care, education, criminal justice, housing, or the ways in which systems of racism, patriarchy and other forms of oppression intersect with these struggles.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010, 6:30 p.m. Radical author and historian  Paul Street speaks about his new book: The Empire's New Clothes: Barack Obama and the Real World of Power. Paul is an independent radical-democratic policy researcher, journalist, historian, and speaker based in Iowa City, Iowa, and Chicago. He is the author of four books to date: Empire and Inequality: America and the World Since 9/11 (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2004); Segregated Schools: Educational Apartheid in the Post-Civil Rights Era (New York: Routledge, 2005); Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis: a Living Black Chicago History (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007); and (most recently) Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics.

Street’s essays, articles, reviews, and commentaries have appeared in numerous outlets, including the Chicago Tribune, Capital City Times, In These Times, Chicago History, Journal of American Ethnic History, Social History, Review of Educational, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, Dissent, Black Agenda Report, Dissident Voice, Black Commentator, Monthly Review, History News Network, Tom’sDispatch, AlterNet., and (above all) ZNet and Z Magazine.

For more on Paul and his work, go to http://www.paulstreet.org/

Sponsored by the Authority Smashers Collectivehttp://www.authoritysmashers.wordpress.com and Mass. Global Action.

Saturday, August 21, 2010, 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. Join the eminent scientist and activist Richard Levins for a thought-provoking conversation on "Failures, Errors & the Boundaries of Our Minds"

Celebrating the 35th anniversary of the New York's Brecht Forum, Richard Levins will speak to how the dialectical method allows us to understand and learn from our inevitable failures, errors and misunderstandings of both nature and society.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010, 7:00 p.m. The NAACP, SEIU 1199, La Raza and Green Jobs for All have called upon the peace and justice movement to join a mass mobilization in Washington DC, October 2. This is a large national protest demonstration for jobs, justice and progressive change, and to counter the right wing. It will be the largest progressive mobilization in years.

Thursday, July 8, 2010, 6:00 p.m. Ana Justo has been a leader of Brazil 's Landless Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra - MST) for 23 of its 25 years. The largest social movement in Latin America, the MST has 1.5 million members. The MST struggles for land reform, access to healthcare, schools, organic production and infrastructure by promoting ground-up sustainable development based in the needs of all Brazilians. Ana coordinates the Secretariat of the MST's Florestan Fernandes National School located in Guararema, Sao Paulo. This event is sponsored by Grassroots International.

Dedicated to Hope

Monday, July 26th, 2010 7:00 p.m. Year after year, e5 provides an open and dynamic space for hundreds of meetings, events, and social gatherings of a broad and diverse social justice community. e5 keeps the doors open and the lights on through numerous funding streams, one of which is a planned series of concerts and fundraisers. With the generous support of musicians and artists, these events bring income and build community. Celebrate all the amazing organizing that takes place at encuentro 5 with a musical fundraiser, featuring Dan Reed, as a special guest performer, along with beloved local musicians, Rafael Medina, Simon Rios and others. Lengua de Mi Barrio, Colombian Hip Hop and Spoken Word Artists will be joining us as well.

Saturday, June 5, 2010, 1:00 p. m.  - 6:00 p.m., An open agenda gathering designed to bring technologists, organizers, and community advocates together to explore the range of options and challenges facing collective actions in the use of media and information tools. This event is sponsored by the Organizers' Collaborative, see the Tech for Social Change webpage for more information and links to the event wiki.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010 7:00 p.m. Lecture by author Peter Gelderloos. The author of How Nonviolence Protects the State, presents his new book, Anarchy Works. He will discuss various topics such as, nonviolence, the war on terror and revolution; democratization and insurrection in Europe; and democracy as totalitarianism.

Every 2nd Sunday (Postponed Until Further Notice)

Celebrate the great traditions of Latin American and local radical culture through song and music in our next Opeña Folklórica, combining traditional Peñas with an Open mic. Bring your voice, history, song and spirit!

Musicians: Rafael Medina et al. TBA + Open Mic.

Light snacks and refreshments offered for suggested donations by MESA sin fronteras, a burgeoning worker-run social club @ e5.

Our connection with Cochabamba for the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth was successful! Not only did we connect with folks at the summit, but we also joined meetings in New York, Chicago and Olympia. All of this was made possible by the technological wizardry and organizing elan of our friends from May First/People Link.

To be sure we learned several lessons about both aspects of the event. While our audio quality was generally good, the video left a lot to be desired. Similarly, it will take some time to develop the ideal meeting format for these expanded transnational dialogs. Fortunately, we kept good notes (which we plan to share here soon) and will have a chance to explore this methodology again soon: the United States Social Forum. 

A Story of Mexico City

Thursday, April 29, 2010, 7:00 p.m. Join renowned journalist John Ross for an evening connecting the people of Latin America and the United States... Nor ordinary scribe, Ross’ writing and presentations blend beat generation poetry with magical realist prose all while rooted in concrete social struggles and real politics... Ross leaves his audiences inspired to action and craving social change...