US foreign policy

Saturday, October 8, 2011, 5:00 - 6:30 p.m. Join filmmaker Jason Glaser for a conversation about agricultural workers and Chronic Kidney Disease in Nicaragua. For more information, see the website of the La Isla Foundation.

Thursday, September 8th, 2011, 6:30 p.m. Wendy Call visited the Isthmus of Tehuantepec—the lush sliver of land connecting the Yucatan Peninsula to the rest of Mexico—for the first time in 1997. She found herself in the midst of a storied land, a place Mexicans call their country's “little waist,” a place long known for its strong women, spirited marketplaces, and deep sense of independence. She also landed in the middle of a ferocious battle over plans to industrialize the region, where most people still fish, farm, and work in the forests. In the decade that followed her first visit, Call witnessed farmland being paved for new highways, oil spilling into rivers, and forests burning down. Through it all, local people fought to protect their lands and their livelihoods—and their very lives.

Thursday, July 7th, 2011, 7:00 p.m.  As millions of people across the Middle East and North Africa fight for freedom against tyrannical regimes, US warplanes bomb Libya with the stated aim of protecting civilians. But what are the real aims of our government's intervention? How do they relate to its wars and other policies in the Middle East? And what can those of us inspired by the democratic uprisings do to help?

Friday, June 24, 2011, 6:30 p.m. Join activist historian Mark Solomon for reflection on the racial justice battles of the 1940s and 50s - that great in-between period that provided the connective tissue between the great upsurges of the 1930s and powerful peace and justice movements of the 1960s. Going beyond mere generational analysis, this personal account integrates race, class and gender dimensions with a global perspective in an era when such transformative figures as Paul Robeson and W.E.B du Bois were still widely recognized and respected. In a period largely defined by the Cold War, other exciting processes ranging from epic national liberation struggles in the Global South to block-by-block tenant organizing in the US. Mark takes us back to that period and our discussion will help draw lessons for today's challenges. The event will be followed by a wine-and-cheese-style reception. 

Friday, May 13, 2011, 7:00 p.m. Join author Dan Rasmussen for a discussion of the largest American slave uprisng and its suppressed history. Speaking to his book, American Uprising, Dan will tell a story that reveals the strategic and intellectual creativity of a multinational slave population in rebellion.

Friday, November 12, 2010, 4:00 p.m. Speakers, film clips, music & discussion on the major questions affecting Haiti, 10 months on. Despite the earthquake, cholera, and hurricanes, why is aid money still held up? What do Haitians see as a vision for their future? How can we support them?

Come meet with a diverse group of students, Haiti activists, and community members. Discussion will focus on the key issues facing the 1.5 million displaced living in camps, what they have to say, and what our government has to do with it. We will draw connections between historical policy and the current aid effort. We hope to emerge with action ideas on how, as a group, we can work to effect concrete change.

E-mail, haiti.insolidarity@gmail.com for more information.

25th Annual New England Regional Gathering of War Tax Resisters and Supporters

Sunday, November 7, 2010, 8:00 - 5:00 p.m. [NOTE: This is Day 3 of the meeting, Days 1 & 2 take place in Cambridge at the Friends Meeting House, 9 Longfellow Park] The New England Regional Gathering of War Tax Resisters provides an opportunity to gain the information and make the connections necessary in successfully doing war tax resistance/refusal/redirection (WTR). The gathering is for both new and experienced war tax resisters, as well as for those just testing the waters. Together we will share and expand our community of resistance to rampant US militarism and endless war.

Thursday, November 4, 2010, 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. José Brito formerly worked at the Cerrejon mine in Colombia. He is a trade unionist representing thousands of workers at giant surface strip-mines. The Drummond and Cerejon mines produce 90% of Colombian coal exports. These help fire Massachusetts' Salem and Somerset electrical generating plants in addition to other generating stations in the United States.

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.

April 20, 2010, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Join organizers and activists in Cochabamba, Bolivia and New York City for a live interactive conversation as part of the Climate and Mother Earth Rights conference (hosted by the people of Bolivia).  This global interaction is part of the Cochabamba Expanded conversation organized by May First/People Link.

Wednesday, March 31, 2010, 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm The continued wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the conflict in the Middle East and the bloated Pentagon budget are sucking billions of tax dollars that should be spent on health, education, jobs and the environment. Yet under Obama, the peace movement has lost its steam. What strategies can be effective to rebuild the peace movement? Where can we find new allies? What are the most effective tactics we can use?

Saturday, March 27, 2010, 7:00 p.m. Join us for a talk and photo presentation with economist, Garry (ommiting last name for security purposes), who has just returned from Gaza. Dinner catered by MESA sin fronteras.*

What is the current political and socio-economic situation in the Gaza Strip? What were the transformative points in the conflict's history? And what is the role of international aid agencies? Garry will be sharing his thoughts and experiences with a photo presentation in an informal Q&A setting open to discussion.

For the past three years, Garry has been working as an economist on poverty-, vulnerability-, and labor-market- related issues in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in various organizations. Recently he completed his first assignment in the Gaza Strip for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. More generally, as a social scientist, Garry studies dynamic complexity and change in social systems.

Friday, March 5, 2010, 8:00 p.m. [Updated flyers attached] Join  Paul Baker Hernandez (from Nicaragua), Sergio Reyes, Dave Scandurra & The Excited People, The Grass Gypsys.

Paul Baker Hernandez - Eco-Minstrel performing Songs of Loveliness and Courage

Paul has invaded Queen Elizabeth II’s private castle heading a posse of bishops and other church leaders protesting nuclear weapons, confronted popes with protest songs for global justice, joined Hollywood stars on Central American picket lines in Los Angeles, and helped fight off death squads attacking Salvadoran exiles right in the heart of the USA.

He now lives in Nicaragua where he has founded Echoes of Silence, a network of “artists with broken nails” who support community health, education, ecological and cultural projects, and with whom he continues to write irreverent songs about cell phones, dictators, Starbucks, and more.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 7:00 p.m. "My name is Martha Lucia Giraldo Villano and I was born on June 22, 1978 in Cauca, Colombia. I am the daughter of José Orlando Giraldo, a small-scale farmer who was the victim of an extrajudicial killing by the National Army. In my country, there have been many extrajudicial killings that are also categorized as false positives (the killing of innocent civilians to pass them off as guerrillas killed in combat within the context of Colombia's armed conflict). The execution of my father is an example of a 'false-positive' murder."

"I am part of the Victims of State Crimes Movement. Along with other victims, we work together on organizing and training in order to demand our rights to truth, justice and reparation."