We Are the Crisis

NEW UNIONISM: HOW WORKERS CAN FIGHT BACK
A dayschool hosted by Workers’ Liberty
Saturday 18 February 2012, 11:30-17:30

Highgate Newtown Community Centre, 25 Bertram Street, London N19 5DQ (Archway tube)

http://www.workersliberty.org/newunionism for more details and to pay online Facebook event: New Unionism: how workers can fight back

In the late 1880s, workers (often unskilled or semi-skilled, often migrants and often working in casualised and precarious environments) organised militant industrial unions to fight back against their bosses. Faced with increasingly similar conditions today, can we build a New Unionism for the 21st century that transforms and revolutionises the modern labour movement?

Registration: £15 waged, £8 low-waged/ student, £4 unwaged.

Speakers and sessions are:
* How the socialists organised: the life and times of Tom Mann (Cathy Nugent and Charlie MacDonald)
* The movement for working-class self-education (Colin Waugh, further education activist, author of Plebs, the Lost Legacy of Independent Working-Class Education)
* Finding a political voice: from New Unionism to Labour representation (Martin Thomas and Sam Greenwood)
* Organising the unorganised: (Mick Duncan, Unite p.c; Ruth Cashman, Lambeth Unison p.c.)
* From the Matchworkers to the Chainmakers – how women organised (Jill Mountford and Louise Raw, author of Striking a Light, The Bryant and May Matchwomen and their Place in History)
* What came next – The Great Unrest 1911-1914 (Edd Mustill)
* Organising at work today: using the ‘Troublemakers’ Handbook’ (Kim Moody, founder of Labor Notes magazine, academic, author — most recently US Labor in Trouble and Transition — and activist)
New Unionism 2012? How can we reinvigorate the labour movement?
Speakers include Eamonn Lynch (Bakerloo Line driver tube driver victimised for his union activity and reinstated following an RMT campaign) and Jean Lane (Workers’ Liberty and Tower Hamlets Unison)

Creche, cheap food and bookstalls

**END**

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

‘Maximum levels of boredom

Disguised as maximum fun’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub,Bangor, northWales)  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

Critique

LONDON CONFERENCE IN CRITICAL THOUGHT – CALL FOR PAPERS

Call for Papers for London Conference in Critical Thought 2012
29th and 30th of June, 2012
Birkbeck College, University of London

Abstracts need to be submitted until 19th of February to londoncriticalconference@gmail.com with the Stream name in the subject line.

Stream/Panel: Thinking Egalitarian Emancipation
Stream Organisers: Matthew Cole, Svenja Bromberg

In light of the current state of the situation—the rapid increase in socio-economic inequalities, the crisis of state sovereignty, the broader crisis of global financial capitalism, and the lack of a radical counter-praxis on the Left—this stream/panel attempts to think political/social/economic emancipation through the ideal of egalitarianism. Given the unipolarity of capitalist realism, there is a desperate need for an intervention that breaks this ruse of the one-all, that forces us to think an other, an outside, or a beyond. The idea of egalitarian emancipation stands opposed to both the state of nature as well as the capitalist state. Contemporary social theory must reassess, rethink and reinvent the problems, solutions, paradoxes and attempted syntheses in order to move past the plateau of late Twentieth century post-structuralism. We aim to think the primacy of egalitarianism as an emancipatory force against the inherent stratification of the capitalist world. We aim to think the possibility of a novel foundation or grounding beyond the ‘post’.

Stream/panel papers could address the following topics and questions:

    • Revival of a dead concept: How to think emancipation in the contemporary conjuncture of late-capitalism?
    • Demos [the commons, common people] and kratos [power]: What does it mean to take power under the guise of ‘the common’?
    • Politics beyond the state, beyond class ‘relations’, beyond capitalism: Revolution or Reformation?Full Communism or …? Dealing with emancipation’s Marxian legacy.
    • The subject after post-structuralism [or, Human all too inhuman]: How may we think a subject for egalitarian emancipation? What are the implications of this for race, sex, gender, etc.?
    • Relation of freedom and emancipation: What are the implications of egalitarian emancipation forthe social contract? [or, must we force [wo]man to be free?]
    • Emancipation in practice: What do we learn from contemporary struggles about the possibility and implications for theorizing this concept today?

Relevant thinkers include Badiou, Rancière, Balibar, Laclau, Fanon, Agamben, Nancy, Frankfurt School, Zizek, De Beauvoir and many others.

**END**

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon

‘HUMAN HERBS’ – BY COLD HANDS & QUARTER MOON – A NEW REMIX & VIDEO

“I believe in the afterlife

It starts tomorrow

When I go to work”

The new remix was produced on 29^th January 2011, in eastLondon.

The new remix: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

Live, original version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk

MySpace recording of ‘Human Herbs’: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon

‘STAGNANT’ – BY COLD HANDS & QUARTER MOON – A NEW REMIX & VIDEO

“Psychology is a modern politician”

“Maximum levels of boredom

Disguised as maximum fun”

A new remix from the album track.

Mix made on 28th January 2012.

Copyright CHAQM. 

The new remix: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo

Live at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ

MySpace recording of ‘Stagnant’: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic   

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Andrew Kliman

ANDREW KLIMAN TALK – NEW YORK CITY

Monday February 6th, 2012 @ 7:00 PM:
Bluestockings Books
172 Allen St.
New York, NY 10002
212.777.6028

Andrew Kliman will discuss his just-published book, The Failure of Capitalist Production (Pluto Press 2011), and how he was frequently surprised by what he uncovered when doing the research behind it. Much conventional wisdom on the left attributes the Great Recession to free-market policies, “financialization” of the economy, and stagnant wages. Kliman himself is a leftist economist, yet the more he delved into the data, the more he came to reject such explanations. In the end, he concluded, Karl Marx’s theory of economic crisis fits the facts.

The Great Recession and its persistent after-effects are the results of a half-century-long decline in profitability and the consequences of that decline––decades of weak investment, sluggish economic growth, and mounting debt problems. Kliman will also explore possible pathways out of this crisis of profitability.

See: http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745332406&

Biography: Andrew Kliman, a Professor of Economics at Pace University in New York, is the author of Reclaiming Marx’s “Capital”: A Refutation of the Myth of Inconsistency” (Lexington Books 2007) and other writings on crisis theory, value theory, and related topics.

Interview on the recently released book: http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/entry/2011-11-07T00_29_14-08_00

I bought Kliman’s book: it’s brilliant! It cleared up so many formerly perplexing issues regarding the ‘current’ crisis of capital. I urge one and all to buy it! — Glenn Rikowski (University of Northampton).

**END**

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

‘Maximum levels of boredom

Disguised as maximum fun’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales)  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Global Economy

THE GLOBALISED ECONOMY

‘THE GLOBALISATION LECTURES’
Winter 2012
Organised by the Department of Development Studies
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
University of London
Convenor: Professor Gilbert Achcar

INCLUSION AND PARTICIPATION: A NEW AGENDA FOR THE GLOBALISED ECONOMY

HEINER FLASSBECK
Director on Globalization and Development Strategies, UNCTAD

Wednesday 1st February, 6:30pm
SOAS, Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre
Free entrance, no booking, first come first seated

Heiner Flassbeck obtained a Ph.D. in Economics from the Free University, Berlin in July 1987, and was appointed honorary professor at the University of Hamburg in 2005. He worked successively at the German Council of Economic Experts, Wiesbaden from 1976 until 1980, the Federal Ministry of Economics, Bonn until January 1986, the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), Berlin, between 1988 and 1998.

Dr. Flassbeck was State Secretary (Vice Minister) at the Federal Ministry of Finance, Bonn, from October 1998 to April 1999 when Oskar Lafontaine was Minister of Finance. He joined UNCTAD in 2000, where he heads since 2003 the Division on Globalisation and Development Strategies. He is the principal author of the team preparing UNCTAD’s Trade and Development Report.

**END**

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Higher Education

UNIVERSITIES AND THE STATE

SRHE Higher Educational Policy Network

Monday 19th March, 4-6.30pm, Room GC1-08

London Metropolitan University, Holloway Road, London N7

Changing Expectations of Universities and the Role of the State: A Historical and Contemporary Analysis

This seminar will explore changing expectations of universities through two different but complementary papers. Questions of the relationship between universities and society as well as issues of governance, purpose, participation and equality are raised.

Andrew M Boggs, University of Oxford    

Changing Concepts of ‘The University’ and Oxford’s Governance Debates, 1850s-2000s

This paper offers a historical exploration of changing ideas of the university and wider higher education policy debates through an analysis of the Universityof Oxford’s governance structures over a 150 year period. It offers a narrative of wider changes in the relationship between the university and society over this period.

Professor Penny Jane Burke, Roehampton University

Examining the im/possibilities of widening participation

This paper moves the focus on to the present where the relationship between universities and the state is undergoing a new period of change and uncertainty. The paper explores possibilities for maintaining a commitment to social justice, equality and widening participation in a policy context characterised by increased marketisation and competitiveness.

Tea and coffee will be available at 4pm and the event will start at 4.15. After each paper there will be time for questions and discussion, followed by an opportunity to discuss issues raised in both papers over a glass of wine or juice.

Event booking details

To reserve a place at this seminar please register at www.eventdotorg.co.uk/events.asp or telephone +44 (0) 207 4472525.  SRHE events are open to all and free to SRHE members as part of their membership package. The delegate fee for non-members is £25 [full time students £20]. Non-members wishing to join the Society may do so at the time of registration and the delegate fee will be waived. Please note that places must be booked in advance and that a £25 for non-attendance will be charged if a place has been reserved but no notice of cancellation/non-attendance has been given in advance.

For further details about the Higher Education Policy Network, please contact the network convenor, Professor Carole Leathwood, Institute for Policy Studies in Education, London Metropolitan University: c.leathwood@londonmet.ac.uk  

Yours sincerely

Francois Smit, SRHE Event Manager, Society for Research into Higher Education, 73 Collier Street, London N1 9BE, Telephone 0207 427 2350; Fax number 0207 278 1135; srheoffice@srhe.ac.uk; http://www.srhe.ac.uk

**END**

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

‘Maximum levels of boredom

Disguised as maximum fun’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales)  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Posthuman

SRHE DIGITAL UNIVERSITY NETWORK

SRHE Digital University Network

Friday 2 March 2012

9.30 – 12.30 followed by lunch

Digital Disaggregation:  Assessing the Uncanny Posthuman

Dr Sian Bayne, School of Education, University of Edinburgh

To learn and teach across multiple digital spaces can be to experience uncertainty, disorientation and fragmentation in both generative and disturbing ways. This presentation will draw on notions of the uncanny and of the posthuman in theorising the ‘strangeness’ of these new modes of being in education. In particular, it will discuss the ways in which assessment practices in online learning can explicitly engage with disaggregation, spectrality and posthuman pedagogy, as critical moves in re-thinking teaching, learning and assessment for the digital mode.

Dr Bayne’s research focuses on the impact of the digital on higher education, museum education and lifelong learning. Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Edinburgh, she has held awards from the British Academy, the Higher Education Academy, the AHRC and the Royal Society of Edinburgh for a range of projects concerned with the ways in which technological change prompts us to re-think what education is and can be. Dr Bayne is a member of the University of Edinburgh Digital Cultures and Education research group (http://www.education.ed.ac.uk/dice/), Programme Co-Director of the University of Edinburgh MSc in E-learning (http://www.education.ed.ac.uk/e-learning/), and Associate Dean (digital scholarship) for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Edinburgh (http://www.digital.hss.ed.ac.uk/).

Education as Sociomaterial Practices – Posthuman Frontiers for Educational Technology

Professor Tara Fenwick, School of Education, University of Stirling
The materiality of everyday interaction is too often ignored, dismissed, or isolated in educational research. Objects and technologies are often assumed to be separate and distinct from human desire and action, in ways that lead to other unhelpful distinctions between virtual and real, designers and users, and knowledge and action. In this presentation I argue for a different configuration, showing how the social and material not only are entangled in assemblages of the human and nonhuman, but also constitute the practices and knowings that comprise education. Sociomaterial analyses trace how and why particular practices and knowledges in educational processes become naturalized or stabilised, what is holding them together, what is excluded and what inequities are created. Capacities for action are more-than-human, they are relational, distributed, and enacted through particular dynamic assemblages. This is a posthuman, not anti-human approach – a sociomaterial sensibility opens radical new questions and imaginative possibilities for education and educational technology.
Professor Fenwick has written extensively about theories of learning and gender in relation to work practices and education, most recently focusing on what some call ‘socio-material’ theories, particularly actor-network theory and complexity sciences. Her book Learning Through Experience: Troubling Assumptions and Intersecting Questions (Krieger, 2003) was granted the 2004 Cyril Houle Award of the American Association for Adult and Continuing Education for Outstanding Contribution to Adult Education Literature. Recent large projects funded by Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council include (1) an examination of older professionals’ informal learning and its relation to aging and generational issues; (2) a study exploring knowledge networks and practices of ‘portfolio’ workers (independent and mobile professionals who work with multiple employers and organizations simultaneously); and (3) a participatory research project studying social responsibility learning among small business owners, including professional firms. Her current project with Canadian colleagues Kathryn Church, Elizabeth Lange, Taylor Webb is comparing knowledge-creation practices of nurses, social workers and teachers in changing organizations, using an activity theory framework.

Event booking details

To reserve a place at this seminar please register at: www.eventdotorg.co.uk/events.asp

Or telephone +44 (0) 207 4472525.  SRHE events are open to all and free to SRHE members as part of their membership package. The delegate fee for non-members is £25 [full time students £20]. Non-members wishing to join the Society may do so at the time of registration and the delegate fee will be waived. Please note that places must be booked in advance and that a £25 for non-attendance will be charged if a place has been reserved but no notice of cancellation/non-attendance has been given in advance.

Yours sincerely

Francois Smit, SRHE Event Manager

PLEASE NOTE THAT SRHE HAS MOVED TO NEW OFFICES. OUR NEW TELEPHONE NUMBER

OUR NEW OFFICE DETAILS ARE: Society for Research into Higher Education, 73 Collier Street, London N1 9BE

Telephone 0207 427 2350; Fax number 0207 278 1135; srheoffice@srhe.ac.uk; http://www.srhe.ac.uk

**END**

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

‘Maximum levels of boredom

Disguised as maximum fun’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Stagnant’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLjxeHvvhJQ (live, at the Belle View pub, Bangor, north Wales)  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

'Exile' - by Van Pace

‘EXILE’ – By VAN PACE

Exile is the second exiting short novel in the Theomachy series, which began with Heretic and the series continues with Enforcer.

Fourteen years ago, Brother Stefan made a terrible mistake. A single vengeful act, fuelled by grief and hatred and fear, in a lifetime of hard work and good intentions … He has spent every waking moment since then serving the Beneficent Numina, and trying to make up for his error of judgement in the worst possible way – by eradicating himself and leaving an empty husk in place of his heart.

Stefan took shelter with the gods because they could forgive worse sinners than him. Seven centuries earlier, the Numina had forgiven the worst of the lot: Rory Kempe, first-and-only prophet to grace Xerxes – a planet forgotten by all others, and ruled over by a theocracy which had gladly turned its back on the Universe.

Then, through the machinations of Hathor – the Numina’s Primary Servant, and Xerxes’ ruling artificial intelligence – Stefan was sent off-world to retrieve Kempe’s own account of his conversion, known simply as the Book. Life beyond Xerxes proved to be more confusing and dangerous than he could have imagined.

Now Brother Stefan returns to Rock Point Abbey with two responsibilities: Kempe’s journal, stolen from his homeworld centuries before, and a four-year-old orphan called Yuki. He delivers the Book to his superiors at Rock Point Abbey with relief, hoping to be allowed to take up his old life of walking and preaching.

But life has other plans for him.

Stefan used to be a clever and compassionate man. A strong man who would fight for his friends; would shelter the unfortunate and protect the innocent. He was a deep and passionate lover – he was loyal and caring and brave. And if it were not for that one terrible mistake, made so long ago, he could be all those things again …

Stefan has spent fourteen years denying his past. When he gets the chance to change his future, it will take courage to make the right choice.

How does a man regain his honour, once he loses it?
How does he reclaim the woman for whom his love has never wavered?
How does he make amends for the death of a true friend?

This time, Stefan is going to have to fight.

Amazon.co.uk: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Exile-Theomachy-Series-ebook/dp/B0070PNJN8/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327624416&sr=1-1

Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Exile-Theomachy-Series-ebook/dp/B0070PNJN8/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327624897&sr=1-4  

**END**

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Karl Marx

MARXISM 2012: REVOLUTION IN THE AIR

Thursday 5 – Sunday 8 April (Easter) in Melbourne, Australia
Details at: http://marxismconference.org/

The conference features over 70 sessions on a huge range of topics – from radical history to women’s and LGBTI liberation, imperialism and the Middle East, socialist theory, the global economic crisis and workers’ struggles today.

Speakers include:
Malalai Joya. Outspoken Afghan critic of the American war and occupation. 
John Pilger. Multi award winning left-wing film maker 
Leia Pettey. New York unionist and socialist involved in Occupy Wall Street 
Gary Foley. Legendary Aboriginal activist
Chie Matsumoto. Tokyo based journalist, trade unionist and political activist 
David Meienreis. Activist in the German left party Die Linke 
John Tully. Author of The Devil’s Milk: A Social History of Rubber

Plus radical music and poetry
http://marxismconference.org/

**END**

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

'Heretic' - by Van Pace

‘HERETIC’ – By VAN PACE

Seven centuries after conquest of the human colony on Xerxes by the alien Numina, Brother Stefan’s religious order act as watchdogs against revolt. As he attends the deathbed of a heretic, the Numina give Stefan a warning to deliver to his superiors at Rock Point Abbey. The message is greeted with anger and distrust, and Stefan is forced to rely on an unlikely ally for protection: Hathor, the sole surviving artificial intelligence on Xerxes.

The price of Stefan’s safety is the retrieval of a stolen book, and the task will take him on a lengthy and dangerous journey to La Infanta – an off-world way-station on the verge of a bloody coup. Even away from Xerxes, other forces are in motion. The Numina may be stirring, but their ancient enemy the Berefhi are already advancing towards Xerxes. Between the two opposing alien sides, their agents and servants are poised, like pieces on a chessboard.

At the centre of all their actions, the stolen book exerts its hold over monks and rebels alike. This most holy of texts is flawed, and to read it is to invite the taint of heresy. By the end of their journey, neither Stefan nor any of his fellow passengers will remain unchanged. Some will survive and some will not, but all will be altered irrevocably.

Heretic is the first gripping short novel in the Theomachy series. The second is Exile.

Amazon.co.uk: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Heretic-Theomachy-Series-ebook/dp/B006ZENW3C/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327235126&sr=1-1

Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Heretic-Theomachy-Series-ebook/dp/B006ZENW3C/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327623678&sr=1-3

**END**

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

The Ockress: http://www.theockress.com

Egypt

EXPLOITATION, DEBT AND AID IN EGYPT AND TUNISIA

MONDAY JANUARY 23^rd – Exploitation, Debt & Aid in Egypt and Tunisia: What Direction for the Revolutions? with Dr Adam Hanieh

At The Gallery, Farringdon, London
70/77 Cowcross Street, London, EC1M 6EJ. (near Farringdon Tube station)
note new start time at 6.45 p.m. to 8.45 p.m.

We suggest you arrive 15 minutes beforehand in order to settle in with your glass of wine.
Entrance fee: £3 (£2 concessions)

In the wake of the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, international financial institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, in partnership with the Gulf Arab States, have rushed to offer loans and investment packages to the new transitional regimes. The possible conditionalities attached to these aid packages have provoked widespread concern from the region’s political movements, and need to be seen in the context of ongoing struggles to achieve the social and economic demands that underpinned the uprisings.

Dr. Adam Hanieh will examine the logic of financial aid in the Middle East, locating the discussion within the political economy of the uprisings and the neoliberal transformation of the region over the past two decades. Dr. Hanieh is a Lecturer in Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), and is author of the recently published Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States (Palgrave-MacMillan 2011).

Friends of Le Monde Diplomatique is a UK-based affiliate of the Les Amis Le Monde Diplomatique which supports the writings and tradition which has evolved over 50 years of publication of the Le Monde Diplomatique Newspaper. Our “Cafe Diplo” meetings at The Gallery at Farringdon, in the City of London on selected Monday evenings, are presented (in English) in the context of our global anti neo-conservative-liberal tradition, and give an opportunity for lively debate between speakers and audience.

See: http://mondediplofriends.org.uk/calendar.htm

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