Left Forum 2010 will kick off on March 19, 2010 at Pace University in downtown New York City. This year’s theme: The Center Cannot Hold: Rekindling the Radical Imagination. Headliners and big names in this wall-to-wall, three-day forum on leftist and progressive thought include Noam Chomsky, Jesse Jackson, Simon Critchley, Greg Palast, Michael Albert, Barbara Epstein, Chris Spannos, Bill Fletcher, Christian Parenti, the Yes Men and more. Dozens and dozens (and dozens and dozens…) of leftist intellectuals, activists, and journalists will be holding court in panels on a dizzying array of topics. Left Forum is a veritable bonanza of fresh thinking and alternative perspectives to the status quo.
The Mantle will be there in full force, reporting and recording numerous tidbits of intellectual prowess—and hopefully some humor too. Check back throughout the weekend for extended coverage. Over the course of our three-day, wall-to-wall coverage, re-visit my blog, as well as those of JK Fowler (Passages on the Verge) and Ed Hancox (The 101) who’ll be helping out on the coverage. Maybe… just maybe we might see a surprise entry from Corinne Goldenberg (Ms. Smith Goes to Bollywood) as well.
Last year’s Left Forum boasted over 200 panels, more than 600 speakers and 3,000 attendees, plus art, film, and theater performances. Among the hundreds of participants this year will be the intellectual heavyweight, father-son duo of Richard D. Wolff (the elder) and Max Fraad Wolff (the younger). Keep an eye for these two as they are both scheduled to appear on multiple panels.
Max Fraad will be on the opening plenary with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, “The Center Cannot Hold: Rekindling the Radical Imagination,” and “Power from Below” on day two. And by my count, Richard D. is on 4(!) panels, including: “Capitalism, Crisis and Alternative Possibilities,” “Capitalism, Economy, and Religion: A Christian-Marxist Dialogue,” “Roundtable on Left Strategies in the Core Capitalist Countries,” and “A Dialogue on Class.” It’s a Wolff feast!
I certainly enjoy Max Fraad’s many appearances on Democracy Now. He keeps a regular column on Huffington Post too (though I don’t dally on that site often enough to know what he’s been saying over there). M.F. speaks eloquently and thoughtfully on the current economic crisis, but I also appreciate how he brings in the current wars into the discussion, ruminating on the vicious downward pressing cycle the two phenomena have on each other. He also speaks to the pressures being put on the working class and homeowners, or, I should say, ex-homeowners. On discussing the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, for example, M.F. muses:
…the federal government is going to be in the business now of making sure to collect home mortgage payments from Americans, who are not doing so well, and take that money and give it to investors, who they just bailed out, and take that money and give it to foreign investors, who they just bailed out. So the US government is going to take over some of the collection agency duties otherwise done by banks and other intermediaries and help make that money available to affluent investors and foreign investors.
His breakdowns reveal the injustice in an economic system that puts profits before people, which makes one ask: where is the outrage? I hope M.F. addresses this burning question in his two appearances. The radical imagination certainly needs rekindled in this country, let’s hope M.F. lights a fuse (with Jesse Jackson!).
On to the big bad Wolff. Those informed of leftist, political-economic thought should be no stranger to Richard D. Wolff. Well-known for his Marxist perspectives and analysis of economics, trade, and societal structures, one need only drop into Wolff’s slick website for an education in Marxist thought. A seemingly bottomless well of articles, audio files and videos will take the viewer from introductions to Marxist economics to class consciousness to consumer debt to the current economic crisis to…
I’d like to hear R.D. speak to political alienation—or, is it, defeatist complacency—of the working class, at least in the core capitalist countries. R.D. wrote, for instance, about the meager turnout of registered Democratic voters for the September 2009 NYC mayoral primary:
Mass alienation from governance and politics has reached remarkable levels in a city inundated with media attention to these issues. Moreover, New York City has some good-quality and also some genuinely diverse media; serious coverage and real criticism have at least some outlets. They are less ignored, repressed, or marginalized than in so many US cities and towns.
So, why the mass alienation in NYC? I ask further: why the complacency? The working class of the U.S. does not have a viable labor party to act and speak on their behalf. Yet there is very little movement afoot (save Cindy Sheehan?) to actually get one up and running. And so, without a labor party to act at least politically, why doesn’t the working class take other measures, such as those being played out in the streets of Athens now? Why doesn’t the working class protest en masse, in the streets, for social and economic justice? Where is the spark? I’d like to see R.D. take up this question. I hope he has an answer, because I am flummoxed!
We’ll see soon enough what these two gentlemen have to say about the myriad of issues on their Left Forum plates. Check back with The Mantle often for the latest updates from the bastion of leftist thought and action in downtown NYC!
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