Speakers

Join us and members of Treasure City Thrift for a discussion on the global trade system and how we can empower ourselves to build sustainable and just alternatives to corporate globalization. In addition to the discussion, we will be screening a documentary "China Blue," which takes viewers inside a blue jean factory in southern China.

Treasure City Thrift is a collectively run thrift store that is dedicated to transforming waste into resources which benefit our community. They also seek to provide alternative strategies and environments for the Austin community to learn about horizontal and consent based organizing.

The monthly "Meet a Community Group" series is put together to help bring supporters and community members together with local organizations working on various issues in the Austin area.

www.treasurecitythrift.org

WikiLeaks recent posting of more than 90,000 documents detailing the war in Afghanistan was perhaps the most important such disclosure since the Pentagon Papers.  The Afghan War Logs, combined with leaked footage of U.S. personnel killing civilians and reporters in Iraq, has made WikiLeaks an important source for unfiltered information on the U.S.'s ongoing wars.  Backlash to the leaks has been swift, with top administration officials implying that WikiLeaks founders have "blood on their hands."

Join University of Texas journalism professor Robert Jensen, Texas Observer managing editor and former AP war correspondent Chris Tomlinson, and members of the newly revived Austin Indymedia for a discussion on the importance of the WikiLeaks documents, backlash, and open-source journalism. 

This event is sponsored by MonkeyWrench Books, Austin Indymedia and CodePink.

www.wikileaks.org
www.austin.indymedia.org

Join us for a conversation with Afghan war veterans Jacob George and Spencer Hindmarsh. They will share personal stories from the front lines, recount how they turned from soldiers to peace activist and show "Sir! No Sir! (2005), a documentary about the Vietnam-era anti-war movement within the US military, in order to provide a history of solider resistance. George and Hindmarsh will also welcome questions from the audience.

George and Hindmarsh are riding their bikes across the country on a "Ride Till the End," until all troops are withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan. Read more about their ride at www.operationawareness.org

AUSTIN'S ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT DISCUSSION Scott Swearingen reads from his new book, Environmental City: People, Place, Politics, and the Meaning of Modern Austin. An open discussion of our city's environmental efforts follows. 7:30pm. MonkeyWrench Books, 110 E. North Loop, 407-6925. Free. www.monkeywrenchbooks.org (Civic Interest)

Environmental City: People, Place, Politics, and the Meaning of Modern Austin

By William Scott Swearingen, Jr.

Drawing on his own experience, Ashanti will speak about the relevance of black liberation, the Zapatistas, and anarchism to modern radical organizing in the US.

Ashanti Alston is a former member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, and was a political prisoner for over 12 years. Residing in New York, he is presently the national co-chair of the Jericho Amnesty Movement, and an active member of Estacion Libre, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and Critical Resistance. Ashanti publishes the zine “Anarchist Panther” and has spent time in Chiapas, Mexico, studying the autonomous structure of Zapatista communities.

How are Austin artists resisting, depicting-- and sometimes participating in-- gentrification? Come hear Michael Schliefke (author/artist of Tales of the Really White Vigilante), Shea Little (artist and co-founder of the East Austin Studio Tour), and Ben Reed (writer and former 'Accidental Gentrifist' columnist for the Austinist) talk about urban politics, what's going up and coming down on the east side, and what artists have to say about it.

Introductory remarks by Eliot Tretter, local urban geographer, dramatic reading, and discussion of what gentrification is doing to Austin.

Scott Parkin from Rainforest Action Network and Rising Tide North America will be discussing the direct action campaign in southern West Virginia and other parts of Appalachia currently being waged to end mountaintop removal. Mountaintop removal is a form of strip mining that literally explodes the tops off of mountains to get at seams of coal. So far over a million acres of forest have been destroyed, more than 1,000 miles of rivers and streams buried and numerous mountain communities harmed by extraction and waste disposal. Since February, over 120 people working with coalfield residents and direct action groups like Climate Ground Zero and Mountain Justice have been arrested shutting down mountaintop removal operations in the Coal River Valley of southern West Virginia. Evening will include a short video, talk and discussion.

A panel led by three intellectuals on 'Estado de Accesao,' or states of exception, in Latin American literature. Featuring Thiago Lima Nicodemo (University of Sao Paulo), Jossianna Arroyo (University of Texas, Austin), and Rodrigo Lopes de Barros (University of Texas of Austin).

The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben defined the state of exception as a legal civil war, which allows physical elimination of not only political enemies, but also plain categories of citizens that for any reason are not suitable for the contemporary political system. According to Walter Benjamin, this state of exception has become the rule.

Celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the Battle of Seattle, a 50,000-person protest that targeted the World Trade Organization and sparked a fierce anti-globalization movement, with panelists Heather Mitchell and Michael Balliro. Speakers will share films, photos and their stories of the planning and action that took place on November 30, 1999 (N30) in Seattle. A discussion of the creative and controversial tactics that took place, the aftermath, what was won and lost, and what we should take from N30 into future actions will follow.

John Gibler, a writer who has been covering politics and popular movements in Mexico for more than three years, will share stories of the underdogs and rebels who put their lives on the line to build justice from the ground up and the powers attempting to repress them.

In his recent book, Mexico Unconquered, Gibler probes the overwhelming divisions in contemporary Mexico, home to the world's richest man, Carlos Slim, and to destitute millions. He explores the concept of the Rule of Law in a land known for its implacable corruption and impunity; the political machinations behind Mexico's devastating economic disparities; the implications and consequences of the annual exodus of half a million Mexicans to the United States; the unprecedented civil disobedience uprising in Oaxaca state; and the continuing Indigenous Present that resists the government's attempts to confine Mexico's 10 million indigenous peoples to calm and controlled corners of the past.