Economic Justice Forum

A filmed lecture and live discussion

Tuesday, May 24th - 7:30 p.m.

William Pitt Union, Dining Room B

University of Pittsburgh

Sponsored by the Economic Justice Committee of the Thomas Merton Center

and the Pitt ISO

CUTBACKS IN LIVING STANDARDS, EDUCATION & HUMAN SERVICES:

AUSTERITY . . . OR CLASS WAR . . . OR WHAT?

MONDAY, April 18th, 8:00 p.m.
University of Pittsburgh, Wm. Pitt Union,
Dining Room A

SEAN CHAMPAGNE (Pitt undergraduate student),
International Socialist Organization
ALICIA WILLIAMSON (Pitt graduate student),
Pittsburghers for Public Transit
Dr. PAUL LeBLANC (Pitt alumnus),
Economic Justice Committee, Thomas Merton Center

JOIN THE DISCUSSION - ALL ARE WELCOME

Here’s our e-mail address: isopitt@gmail.com
(and also find us on Facebook)

War and the Working Class: Lessons From the Past For Activists of Today

Saturday, March 26 · 4:00pm - 5:30pm

Stephen Foster Community Center

286 Main Street (between Butler Street & Penn Avenue – Lawrenceville)

Pittsburgh, PA

Join the Pittsburgh branch of the International Socialist Organization in welcoming Sharon Smith, author of Subterranean Fire: A History of Working-Class Radicalism in the United States and Women and Socialism, for a talk and discussion on the lessons from the U.S. labor movements’ involvement in earlier movements for peace and justice. Leading U.S. radical Mike Davis has called Smith a “brilliant worker-intellectual” and said that her Subterranean Fire “brilliantly addresses the crisis of the labor movement, skewering those who believe that renewal can from the top down, and encouraging those who are fighting to rebuild it from the bottom up.”

The Revolution in Egypt and Beyond

Popular movements across the Middle East and North Africa are sweeping away decades-old dictatorships. Activists all over the world - including right here in Pittsburgh - have marched and rallied in solidarity with these popular, democratic movements. The link between many of these repressive regimes and the U.S. government has placed an added urgency to the solidarity movement here. No link is more direct than the one the U.S. government has historically shared with the Egyptian dictatorship. After Israel, the repressive Mubarak regime is the second largest recipient of U.S. military aid - he's shored up his government with guns and influence bought with U.S. dollars for three decades.

Come join the Pittsburgh International Socialist Organization for a presentation and discussion on the revolutionary movements sweeping the Middle East and North Africa.

Where: William Pitt Union, Dining Room A

When: Monday Feb., 14 from 7:30 to 9:30

The Politics of Food

Thanksgiving is in less than a week, and ISO Pittsburgh member Russell Pryor has put together a fantastic presentation-and-discussion event entitled "The Politics of Food" that we'll be hosting on Tuesday, November 23rd at 7:30 p.m.

Below is a preview of Russell's presentation.

The modern food industry is inherently inhumane and unsustainable. The herbicides, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, and, increasingly, genetically modified crops that make the modern industrial agricultural system run hurt most everyone and everything involved. The production process destroys groundwater and soil and disrupts local ecosystems while simultaneously poisoning farm workers, rural communities, and, eventually, consumers. Much of the grain produced in this agro-industrial system ends up in antibiotic-laced feeds for livestock and poultry. "Confined animal feeding operations" (or CAFOs, as these factories are called) produce millions more tons of waste than rural ecosystems can take on, and serve as ideal breeding grounds for pathogens. Debt-strapped contract farmers operate under the iron hell of fewer and fewer corporations, and the men and women who catch and process their animals work in some of the lowest paying, most dangerous jobs in the country. The regulatory system in this country is, in many ways, a cruel joke. More than anything, it provides us with a false sense of security.

On the retail and restaurant end of the system, millions of workers, many of them young and virtually all of them underpaid and highly exploited, cook and serve our food, stock the shelves, or ring us up every day. Obesity and related diseases have reached epidemic proportions, along with other eating disorders. Nicely arranged supermarket aisles, colorful, eye-catching advertisements, and pleasant, seemingly sterile packaging obscure all of this from view. Chicken McNuggets, after all don't have a backstory; they're just Chicken McNuggets... Not so much.

Join the Pittsburgh branch of the International Socialist Organization for a presentation and discussion about how we all got into such a sad state and, most importantly, how we work to remake our food system.

Ecology and Socialism

We're excited to announce that longtime environmental activist Chris Williams will be taking part in an event on Saturday, November 6th entitled ECOLOGY AND SOCIALISM. Williams is professor of physics and chemistry at Pace University and chair of the science department at Packer Collegiate Institute. In addition he is a frequent contributor to the International Socialist Review (ISR) magazine. Ecology and Socialism is his first book, and ISO Pittsburgh is happily hosting him to speak on the issues that it raises.

Williams writes, in the first part of his 2008 piece "Hothouse Earth: Capitalism, climate change, and the fate of humanity":

Solving the problem of global warming requires understanding the relationship between capitalism and the environment, examining the solutions on offer within the framework of the system, and determining whether those solutions are up to the task of preventing a runaway greenhouse effect. The world system of capitalism has been, and will continue to be, largely impotent in the face of climate change, not because there are evil, uneducated, backward individuals in power--though this is arguably true in many cases--but because capitalism's own social relations prevent effective solutions from being realized. The blind, unplanned drive to accumulate that is the hallmark of capitalist production--the profit motive--has created the problem of climate change, not individuals' profligate natures or overpopulation. Therefore, the system of economic production and distribution needs to be transformed or we will be living on a much less hospitable planet.

The intersection of environmental issues and economics is especially relevant to us as Pittsburghers--our region's natural resources and the multifaceted industrial history of the area have exposed generation after generation to the realities of the nature of capitalism. From the early days of glass production, to the steel industry that swept over a huge swath of northern Appalachia and then sharply contracted, to the nascent growth of high-tech and "green industry" that could be reshaping the Rust Belt, Pittsburgh has reflected America's economic and industrial pulse.

Currently, the issue of hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") has come to the fore, as numerous energy companies vie for leasing rights to drill into the ground and pump rock deposits with chemicals that release natural gas. The chemicals--kept as trade secrets--are flammable and toxic. In a piece for Socialist Worker entitled "Don't frack with Pittsburgh", ISO Pittsburgh members Russell and Nick outlined the issues surrounding fracking from a region-specific perspective: "Energy corporations are again on the prowl in rural Pennsylvania."

ECOLOGY AND SOCIALISM will be held on Saturday, November 6th at 4:00 p.m. at University of Pittsburgh's Frick Fine Arts Building, room 202.

Socialism In Our Time, a day school event

On Saturday October 23rd, we are hosting a comprehensive event that we call a "day school"--three engaging talks by three active members of the ISO, all under the heading "Socialism In Our Time." The work shop-style event will focus on Marxist ideas and experiences to effect social change. It's to take place from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the Frick Fine Arts Building, room 202. But come whenever you can, and stay as long as you're able! We'll have pizza delivered for lunch, and all of our literature to peruse and purchase will be on hand. The following is our schedule for the day:

10:30 a.m. Ashley Smith will speak on "The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx"

1:00 p.m. Sherry Wolf will speak on "Overcoming Divisions in the Working Class"

2:45 p.m. Paul Le Blanc will speak on "Marxist Perspectives on Revolutionary Organization"

And here's a bit about each of our featured speakers:

Ashley Smith is an activist, co-founder of the Burlington, Vermont Anti-War Coalition, secretary of the Vermont chapter of the United Writers Union (UAW 1981), northeast regional organizer for the ISO, editorial boardmember of the International Socialist Review magazine, and contributor to the Socialist Worker newspaper, among other publications. Check out this video of a presentation entitled "Socialism 101" he gave recently at the Burlington, Vermont branch of the ISO.

Sherry Wolf is a member of the ISO, associate editor of the ISR magazine, long-time activist for LGBTI equality, and author of "Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics and Theory of LGBT Liberation," which was named one of The Progressive's favorite books of 2009. She was a leading organizer for the 2009 National Equality March, as well as a founding organizer of the resulting Equality Across America coalition. She keeps a blog here, and you can see a video of her talk "Sex Wars," given at the Socialism conference in 2010, here.

Paul Le Blanc is a professor of history and a life-long revolutionary socialist activist based in Pittsburgh. He serves as the national coordinator of the ISO's anti-war fraction. He is the author of several books, including Lenin and the Revolutionary Party, A Short History of the U.S. Working Class, and Black Liberation and the American Dream, and most recently co-edited Leon Trotsky, Writings from Exile, which comes out in 2011.

Hope to see you there!