online – Facing our Challenges in Dangerous Times

Saturday, December 3, 2022

Worcester State University

We live at a time characterized by numerous dire threats to justice, peace, and the very stability of our country. Among these threats are rampant militarism, galloping climate change, growing inequality, an ongoing and divisive pandemic, and the emergence of a dangerous right-wing extremist movement. The goal of this Conference is to explore with activists and thought leaders how to address these enormous obstacles to the fulfillment of a progressive vision.

Among the questions we will examine are: How do we speak about militarism as we address inequality, climate change, racism and threats to democratic processes? And how do we understand and overcome the political vacuum which not only led to the exponential growth of corporate power (including the military industrial complex) but also destroyed belief that a collective or government can solve the problems currently undermining our societies?

But we will also draw lessons and encouragement from positive developments brought about by our progressive movement in the face of neoliberal and reactionary onslaught.

This one day Conference will have 2 panels with breakout groups after each. The first panel will address militarism and how the ideology of militarism has impacted all aspects of U.S. society. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has made this task more complex and more critical. The Ukraine War has greatly strengthened NATO specifically and militarist ideology in general and has set off divisions in the peace and social justice movement. Under these difficult circumstances, as political activists, we need to address how the buildup of military resources drains the public treasury, puts us at risk of nuclear holocaust, and short circuits democratic and collective responses to problem solving.

The second panel will address organizing for political power in communities often overlooked by many progressive groups and the Democratic and Republican parties: Black, Indigenous and people of color who have reason to doubt that elected officials will ever deliver for them; and urban and rural communities where working families experience economic insecurity, anger at progressive and Democratic Party elites, and struggle with family instability, drugs and depression. We will hear from organizers in such communities, how they empower residents working with them to adapt progressive policies to meet local needs. We will hear about how union organizing efforts are showing how collective struggle can overcome adversity and build the power needed to make the changes needed.

We invite you to join us and send representatives of your organizations and communities to help grow our movement and to confront these critical issues together.

Speakers

T. J. Jackson Lears is an American cultural and intellectual historian with interests in comparative religious history, literature and the visual arts, folklore and folk beliefs. He is Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers and Editor in Chief of Raritan. He is author of Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920.

Jordan Berg Powers is Executive Director at Mass Alliance. In his over a decade there, he has helped elect new progressive leaders across the state, recruited progressive champions to run, and trained hundreds of grassroots organizers. Jordan is active in campaigns for saving public education, environmental justice, and a more progressive tax system for the Commonwealth.

John Nichols is National affairs correspondent for The Nation. His most recent book is Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers: Accountability for Those Who Caused the Crisis.

Phyllis Bennis is director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. The seventh edition of her Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict : A Primer was published in 2018.

Jean-Luc Pierite is President of the Board of the North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB). A member of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana and originally from New Orleans, he resides in Jamaica Plain.

Maxwell Alejandro Frost is the 2022 Democratic nominee for Florida’s 10th congressional district. He was previously the
national organizing director for March for Our Lives. He was profiled by The Boston Globe on Nov 2.

Remote access to the plenary sessions will be available by Zoom and livestreamed.

Sponsored by the Massachusetts Progressive Action Organizing Committee, whose constituent groups are: Massachusetts Peace Action, Our Revolution Massachusetts, Progressive Democrats of America, Progressive Massachusetts, North American Indian Center of Boston, and Incorruptible Mass.

Register to attend.   Registration fee includes lunch and morning coffee.

Massachusetts progressive organizations are invited to cosponsor or endorse.   See details and sign up.   Cosponsors and endorsers are invited to set up a literature table and one person’s registration is included with the endorsement fee.

Payment can also be made by check payable to Massachusetts Peace Action.  Mail to 11 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 and write “Facing our Challenges” on the memo line.

COVID Protocols

We recommend that all those attending in person be vaccinated and wear a mask.

We recommend getting the bivalent boosters, remembering these take about 2 weeks to take full effect.

We recommend people test themselves before coming to the conference.