CONTENTS TALK 16 BEAVER THIS SUNDAY 07.31.11 (1-5pm)

CONTENTS:

1. About Sunday
2. Some of Sunday's Contributors
3. First Resolution of the Direct Democracy Assembly in Athens
4. Conversation with Participants of the General Assembly in Athens
5. Conversation with Sabu Kohso about a post-Fukushima world
6. Useful Links

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1. About Sunday

When: 1:00 pm - 5:00pm
Who: Free and open to all
Where: 16 Beaver Street, 4th floor
What: Meeting / Discussion

Attempt 1 : (to summarize this event into one line) Anti-austerity/pro-democracy groups and individuals meeting at 16Beaver

Attempt 2 : A day devoted to exploring the inter-relations of recent global/local struggles through first-hand accounts

Attempt 3 : A day dedicated to create short-circuits in our imaginaries

Attempt 4 : (breaking the one line rule)

To attempt to recount the signs and cracks that have appeared over the last decade in the facade of the worlds of power would require a book length introduction. But one senses that in the midst of a crisis that has called into question the last 20 years of post-historical and post-political proclamations, the last 7 months have catapulted humanity back into a global dimension of struggle and revolt.

One senses that at this juncture, in the midst of the revolutionary struggles across North Africa, the Middle East, and now the Mediterranean, there is renewed understanding of what non-representative politics can look like.

What does a democratic multitude look like? And how does it invent a new vocabulary for praxis? How does this general intellect, that has strengthened over the last few decades, transform into political action?

On what grounds can this emergent politics be conjoined across disparate sites and struggles? How does one express solidarity with the events in Tunisia or Egypt, for example? How do those struggles and approaches get translated elsewhere? How were they put into play in Spain? And how did the events in Spain inspire a resurgence of political strategies in the most recent developments in Greece?

How do the euphoric dimensions of these successes hold up to the grim prospects of a post Fukushima reality? What can we learn about and from the nuclear disaster which has unfolded since March and are there prospects to use some of this knowledge in our movements?

This Sunday is a special day at 16 Beaver, as we will be attempting to bring together reports on various struggles from North Africa, Spain and Greece, post-Fukushima Japan, and trying to connect them to contemporary struggles right here in New York and the US. The event comes together out of the interest of various individuals and groups here in New York to build upon some of these developments globally, learn from them, and put them into play here.

The event also takes place in the background of various calls to mobilization, which include a call for a People's Assembly, in front of the bull near Beaver Street, on August 2nd, as well as a call to occupy Wall Street on September 17th, and an effort to mobilize an occupation in Washington beginning on October 6, 2011.

What can be learned from these global experiences within movements here in the US? This afternoon will begin with reports from various individuals speaking on behalf of struggles from specific international contexts and here in New York. Then we will proceed to open up to questions and allow a discussion to unfold.

As a part of the event, we conducted two conversations in preparation.

A few of the organizers of this event conducted an interview with a few of the participants of the General Assembly in Athens.

And we also recorded a conversation with Sabu Khoso about post-Fukushima Japan.

The recordings have been posted as a resource - especially for those friends who live in distant places but are nonetheless inspired,
concerned, and interested in these processes.

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2. Some of Sunday's Guests

We are still in the process of confirming people who will be coming and speaking. And of course, we have no idea who will get this invitation and come. But we make an attempt below to give an idea of some people who will be joining us.

New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts
http://nocutsny.wordpress.com/

Antonio Poudereux Velasco lives in Madrid and has participated in the occupation of Puerta del Sol. He is a member of the World Extension Team created during that occupation. He will not speak in this event as a representative of neither that team or #acampadasol, but as an individual.
He works as a sound engineer.

Georgia Sagri is an artist and non-employed activist. From early age she has been a member of the Void Network, a cultural, political and philosophical collective in Athens Greece with the aim the radicalization of every day life, the participation to the emancipatory social struggles, the creation of social centers, self-organized autonomous spaces and the construction of situations in Public Space.

Sabu Kohso is an independent writer and translator, a native of Japan, living in NYC since 1980. He has written three books in Japanese on social movements and progressive culture of NYC in relationship with the formation of urban space, as well as a book on the geographical and deterritorial lineage of anarchist thought across the world. He has also translated books by Kojin Karatani, Arata Isozaki (Japanese to English), David Graeber and John Holloway (English to Japanese). Being active for many years in establishing a global network of anti-authortaian movements in and out of Japan, Kohso is currently working on the blog Jfissures for the exchange of critical voices between the disaster stricken Japan and elsewhere.

Costas Panayotakis is Associate Professor of Sociology at the New York City College of Technology of the City University of New York. Originally from Greece, he has written many articles on Greece, been interviewed by radio and TV programs in the US and abroad and is the author of Remaking Scarcity: From Capitalist Inefficiency to Economic Democracy, which will be published this fall by Pluto Press.

Luis Moreno-Caballud is a member of the group/assembly Democracia Real Ya - NYC, which is part of the Spanish May-15 movement. He also researches and teaches Spanish contemporary history and culture at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia.

Larry Hales is a community activist and fighter. While living in Denver, Larry was one of the founders of Colorado United Communities Against Police Brutality, and an organizer of the Recreate 68 Coalition, organized to protest last year's Democratic National Convention. In November 2007, Denver police broke into Hales' house and arrested him on false charges arising from his giving shelter to a victim of police brutality who was out on parole. Months later and after a strong people's campaign, the charges against Larry were finally dropped. Presently, Larry Hales is an organizer for the Bail Out the People Movement and the youth group Fight Imperialism Stand Together (F.I.S.T.), and a contributing editor with Workers World newspaper.

Doug Singsen is active in the movement against budget cuts in New York City and in the student movement against tuition hikes at the City University of New York (CUNY). He helped organize the National Day of Action to Defend Public Education on March 4, 2010, the Day of Rage Against the Cuts on March 24, 2011, and the recent Bloombergville occupation. He is a member of New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts and the International Socialist Organization and is a PhD student in the Art History Program at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Mohammed Serbout was born and raised in Morocco from a working family, went to school and studied hard in order to have a better future, but the reality is there are no chances left there, so he decided to participate with the youth in changing the status quo of the actual regime...

Yotam Marom is a member of the Organization for a Free Society and the New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts Coalition, and has been active in the anti-austerity struggle in New York City, most recently through the Bloombergville occupation. Yotam is a co-founder of Without Walls - a democratic, social-justice oriented educational collective - and has experience in communal living. He is also a writer and musician.

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3. First Resolution of the Direct Democracy Assembly in Athens

For a long time decisions have been made for us, without us.
We are workers, unemployed, retirees, youth, who have come to Syntagma Square to fight and struggle for our lives and our future.
We are here because we know that the solutions to our problems can come only from us.
We call all residents of Athens , workers, unemployed and youth, to come to Syntagma Square , and all of society to fill the public squares and to take life into its own hands. In these public squares we will shape our claims and our demands together.
We call on all workers who are going on strike in the coming days to show up and remain in Syntagma Square .
We will not leave the squares until those who compelled us to come here go away:　 Governments, Troika (EU, ECB and IMF), Banks, IMF Memoranda, and everyone that exploits us.　 We send them the message that the debt is not ours.

DIRECT DEMOCRACY NOW!

EQUALITY - JUSTICE - DIGNITY!

The only struggle that is lost is the one that is never fought!
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4. Conversation with 'Some of the Participators of the General Assembly of the Direct Democracy in Athens'

This conversation is an attempt to open up the process of the General Assemblies taking place in Athens on Syntagma Square, like an engine, in order to understand how it developed, and how it works. It touches on the problems they have faced, the barriers of having fixed ideological agendas, the question of restricting media access, of formulating respect, creating the form for a new political speech, drawing lots, voting, making resolutions, taking collective actions, establishing different thematic groups, working groups, allowing conflict and arguments, constructing a non-representative political agency, avoiding demands, ..

For listening to the conversation, please visit:
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5. Conversation with Sabu Kohso about a post-Fukushima world

This is an attempt to speak with Sabu Kohso, a writer, translator from Japan, living in New York. Since 3-11, Sabu has been working with others to run and maintain jfissures (jfissures.wordpress.com) one of the few websites to attempt to translate pertinent texts into and from Japanese related to Fukushima and connecting it to a global context. This is an impromptu conversation which took place in preparation for Sunday's event.
Sabu tries to speak about his own relation to what has happened in Japan, the reflections and fissures within Japanese society, the potential questions which emerge from that experience, and how they might also connect to other historical experiences of struggle in Japan.

For listening to the conversation, please visit:

If you are interested in reading some recent texts from Sabu, please
read:

Notes for Understanding What is Happening in Japan
http://th-rough.eu/writers/kosho-eng/notes-understanding-what-happening-japan

Fangs Hiding in the Green -- Impressions of Post 3/11 Japan
http://th-rough.eu/writers/kosho-eng/fangs-hiding-green-impressions-post-311-japan

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6. Useful Links

http://amesi-dimokratia.org

http://takethesquare.net/

http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=174935459243842

http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=144937025580428

http://october2011.org/

Facebook Event: 
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=260933550588622
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16 Beaver Group
16 Beaver Street, 4th fl.
New York, NY 10004

for directions/subscriptions/info visit:

http://www.16beavergroup.org

TRAINS:
4,5 Bowling Green
R,W Whitehall
2,3 Wall Street
J,Z Broad Street
1,9 South Ferry

Building Real Democracy Now in NYC. Talk at Bluestockings, June 3rd

Around 75 people gathered at Bluestockings bookstore (NYC, 172 Allen St) on Friday June 3^rd to participate in the talk “They Don’t Represent Us! The Movement for a Real Democracy in Spain.” This was the first in a series of informative events planned by the Democracia Real Ya – NYC group. These events aim to update the US audience interested in the development of the protests in Spain and, more importantly, to open different avenues of collaboration between the Democracia Real Ya – NYC group and NYC social movements and organizations.

                                                                                                                                  Pictures: William Bourassa Jr

Slideshow Talk at Bluestocking

The talk was presented by Lucas Shapiro (US/Spanish activist Families United for Racial & Economic Equality), who offered a timeline of the main recent events, and commented on different dimensions of the 15M movement that could be of interest for US activists. James D. Fernandez (Associate Professor in the NYU Spanish Department) explained the recent wave of mobilizations within a larger historical framework. Vicente Rubio (member of Democracia Real Ya – NYC) introduced the range of organizations supporting the protests, and offered further details on its main constituencies.

But far from being a conventional, top-down, event, with predefined roles of speakers and audience, the gathering reflected the horizontal character of the 15M movement itself. Thus, an intense and exciting atmosphere of discussion soon emerged, with many participants sharin  their views on the movement’s political and social character, as well as its aims. A broad sense of the need to link the meaning of the Spanish protests to a global context - and particularly to the economic and political situation in the US - was shared by many attendees.

This 120 minutes video includes most of the interventions:

                                                                         
                                                                                                                                Video: Jaime Puerta
Video streaming If you don´t see here this VIDEO Ustream DRYNYC

Democracia Real Ya – NYC considers this first event to be an important first step in a broader process of connection with NYC social movements.

Please contact us at takeoverthequarenyc@gmail.com to meet and discuss possibilities of organizing future events.

SPANISH REVOLUTION

SPANISH REVOLUTION

WHAT?

The 2011 May Spanish protests, also referred to as the 15-M Movement,

Spanish revolution or "Indignados" (Spanish for outraged) are a series

of demonstrations in Spain also known as Democracia real

YA' (Democracy now).   The movement does not support, and is not supported by, any political party: it is

a movement by the citizens and for the citizens.

WHY?

Spanish people are tired of unfulfilled promises from politicians,

tired of government corruption, tired of

politicians using their power to enrich themselves instead of working for

the country and finding solutions to our problems.

And now, there are no candidates whom we can

trust, for whom we can vote. For years, they haven’t respected our opinion

or worked in our interests.

These are the main reasons why we believe that DEMOCRACY (from greek:

the power of the people, “demos” –citiziens, “kratos” – power) is in

DANGER.

WHEN? AND WHERE?

Starting on May 15, 2011 with an initial call in 58 Spanish cities and

gathering thousands of people without the backing of any entity,

political party or union, the series of peaceful protests demand a

radical change in Spanish politics. From that date people have been

camping out spontaneously in the main squares of Madrid, Barcelona and

more than 90 other cities in Spain and all around the world.

Demonstrations also took place in different cities of the USA, like in San

Francisco and in New York.

HOW?

First of all, we want to bring about change by saying NO with a single voice, with

the strength of thousands of people all around the world.

Now we are organizing and working on concrete proposals to make a

change in the system. We are doing it by a rigorous consensus, being

in contact internationally via social networks and different platforms

that have been created with the purpose of moving from indignation to action.

YOU AND ME?

We would like you, as an American, with whom we share democratic principles, to be aware of the situation not only in Spain, but

also in other European countries. We would like you to know, to

understand, to be critical and to feel solidarity with our concerns.

These problems and this revolution belong to democratic citizens, like you and me.

For more information see:

democraciarealyanyc.blogspot.com