THURSDAY * OCTOBER 28 * 7PM
HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE
893 West St., Amherst, Mass.
Franklin Patterson Hall (FPH)
East Lecture Hall
Sponsored nationally by Haymarket Books and Demos
Co-sponsored locally by the International Socialist Organization (ISO), Students for a Just and Stable Future (SJSF), Population and Development Program, school of Critical Social Inquiry (CSI), Mixed Nuts, New Leaf
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Heather Rogers is a journalist and author. She has written for The New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, and The Nation. Her first book, Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage, traces the history and politics of household rubbish in the United States. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. She will be speaking at Hampshire College's East Lecture Hall (in Franklin Patterson Hall) followed by a discussion of the material.
While world leaders respond to dire environmental ills with one derisory greenhouse gas cap-and-trade proposal after another, growing numbers of consumers are taking the cause into their own hands. Part fashion, part reaction, a popular movement to reduce the average person’s “carbon footprint” has officially arrived.
As individuals turn to environmentally responsible forms of consumption, a new dynamic green marketplace has exploded in the West: the trade in organic food has continued its surge despite the economic downturn; hybrid automobiles and biofuels are now in full production; and an increasing number of companies offer the service of neutralizing consumers’ CO2 emissions. Implicit in these efforts at “going green” is the promise that global warming can be stopped by swapping out dirty products for “clean” ones, with little disruption to daily life. But can earth-friendly goods really save the planet?
Reporting from the front lines where the new enviro-economy is taking shape, Green Gone Wrong takes a critical look at the products and practices that pledge to remedy today’s environmental woes. Reporting from a large-scale export-driven organic farm in Paraguay, a super low-energy “eco-village” in Germany’s Black Forest, biodiesel plantations in the slashed and burned rainforests of Borneo, and drought-plagued Southern India where trees are being planted to offset carbon emissions in the United States and Europe, Green Gone Wrong pieces together a global picture of what’s happening in the name of today’s environmentalism.
PRAISE FOR GREEN GONE WRONG
"Well written and exhaustively reported."
—The New York Times
"The climate crisis is far too urgent to squander another decade on false solutions. This carefully researched, deeply human, and eminently sensible investigation arrives just in the nick of time. Let's hope it inspires a radical course correction."
—Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine
"Heather Rogers reminds us with vivid examples that there's no way we can just subcontract our environmental conscience to the new breed of green marketers. We have a very narrow window to preserve some version of our planet, and we can't afford the kind of egregious mistakes this volume identifies with such precision. If it's too good to be true, it's not true--even if it comes with a shiny green wrapper."
—Bill McKibben, author Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet
Co-sponsored locally by the International Socialist Organization (ISO), Students for a Just and Stable Future (SJSF), Population and Development Program, school of Critical Social Inquiry (CSI), Mixed Nuts, New Leaf
----------------
...
Heather Rogers is a journalist and author. She has written for The New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, and The Nation. Her first book, Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage, traces the history and politics of household rubbish in the United States. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. She will be speaking at Hampshire College's East Lecture Hall (in Franklin Patterson Hall) followed by a discussion of the material.
While world leaders respond to dire environmental ills with one derisory greenhouse gas cap-and-trade proposal after another, growing numbers of consumers are taking the cause into their own hands. Part fashion, part reaction, a popular movement to reduce the average person’s “carbon footprint” has officially arrived.
As individuals turn to environmentally responsible forms of consumption, a new dynamic green marketplace has exploded in the West: the trade in organic food has continued its surge despite the economic downturn; hybrid automobiles and biofuels are now in full production; and an increasing number of companies offer the service of neutralizing consumers’ CO2 emissions. Implicit in these efforts at “going green” is the promise that global warming can be stopped by swapping out dirty products for “clean” ones, with little disruption to daily life. But can earth-friendly goods really save the planet?
Reporting from the front lines where the new enviro-economy is taking shape, Green Gone Wrong takes a critical look at the products and practices that pledge to remedy today’s environmental woes. Reporting from a large-scale export-driven organic farm in Paraguay, a super low-energy “eco-village” in Germany’s Black Forest, biodiesel plantations in the slashed and burned rainforests of Borneo, and drought-plagued Southern India where trees are being planted to offset carbon emissions in the United States and Europe, Green Gone Wrong pieces together a global picture of what’s happening in the name of today’s environmentalism.
PRAISE FOR GREEN GONE WRONG
"Well written and exhaustively reported."
—The New York Times
"The climate crisis is far too urgent to squander another decade on false solutions. This carefully researched, deeply human, and eminently sensible investigation arrives just in the nick of time. Let's hope it inspires a radical course correction."
—Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine
"Heather Rogers reminds us with vivid examples that there's no way we can just subcontract our environmental conscience to the new breed of green marketers. We have a very narrow window to preserve some version of our planet, and we can't afford the kind of egregious mistakes this volume identifies with such precision. If it's too good to be true, it's not true--even if it comes with a shiny green wrapper."
—Bill McKibben, author Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet
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WESTERN MA SOCIALISM CONFERENCE:
THE REVOLUTIONARY IDEAS OF KARL MARX
THE REVOLUTIONARY IDEAS OF KARL MARX
Join the International Socialist Organization and other activists from around the area for a day of revolutionary politics! This public day school will offer an in-depth examination of marxism and its relevance for activists today. Guest speakers will provide introductions to each topic and will be followed with discussion.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30th
10am - 5pm
UMASS CAMPUS CENTER ROOM 163
10am - 5pm
UMASS CAMPUS CENTER ROOM 163
RSVP on Facebook:
Session 1:
Marx's Theory of Working Class Revolution
10am-12pm
10am-12pm
We are usually taught that change is the prod- uct of enlightened, courageous minorities working on behalf of the grateful masses. Marx’s was a 180-degree change in approach. “All previous historical movements,” he wrote, “were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.”
Unlike the anti-democratic regimes of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, Karl Marx put working class at the center of his vision for a socialist society. He also explained how capitalism is prone to major crises and those very workers who make the system run are positioned to not just overthrow the capitalist system, but run society themselves, in the interests of all classes of oppressed and subjugated people.
Session 2:
Can the Working Class Unite?
12:30-2:30pm
Can the Working Class Unite?
12:30-2:30pm
Its hard to deny that workers today, are not very united. From the attacks on immigrant workers, the scapegoating of Arabs and Muslims, discrimination against LGBT people, and with racial profiling and police brutality a common feature of city life, there are many obstacles standing in the way of bringing workers together to fight for their common rights. Some have concluded that its not possible at all.
However, we believe that neither human nature nor the intelligence (or lack thereof) of workers is to blame. Capitalism divides the working class, based on sexual, gender, racial, national and other distinctions. The specially oppressed groups within the working class suffer the most under capitalism.
Glimpses of unity can be seen, from the election of the first black president in US history to the appearance of immigrant rights and LGBT rights movements in the past few years. Join us for a discussion on whether the working class can unite and how can we work now to make it a reality.
Session 3:
Marxism and Political Organization
2:45-4:45pm
Marxism and Political Organization
2:45-4:45pm
When people in the United States think of political parties, they think chiefly, if not exclusively, of the Democratic and Republican Parties, and in relation to these, they see politics purely as tedious electoral campaigns and vacuous mudslinging between two organizations that represent a narrow band of interests.
This negative idea of political parties was at one time also reinforced by the experience of the Stalinized Communist Parties of the world--which were top-down, command-structured organizations that blindly supported Stalin’s bureaucratic state capitalism, which bore little or no resemblance to the socialism from below of Karl Marx.
Struggle changes consciousness, gives workers confidence in themselves and their ability to change things. In the process of fighting together with others who have not yet decided to become socialists, we are able not only to advance the struggle and win concessions, but we are able to win wider layers of people to the socialist project the fight for a world without exploitation or oppression.
To achieve socialism, the most militant workers must be organized into a revolutionary socialist party. Join us for a discussion on what kind of organization is needed to fight for a better world.
Sponsored by the International Socialist Organization
