FSU: Past Teach-Ins

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 PAST TEACH-INS                                                                                                            

Occupy Boston Community Gathering

Occupy Boston Community Gatherings are held weekly on Monday evenings at St Paul's Cathedral on Tremont Street, from 6:00 to 8:30 PM. It will be broadcasted live on obr.http://obr.fm by Bob Funke, of VFP-Radio on OBRadio. Listen online if you can't make it! The first half hour of the Community Gatherings are set aside for socializing. FSU will be hosting the following community gathering:

Peace & Economic Justice: What's the Connection Between War & the Economy?

Monday, April 23, 2012 (6:00pm, St. Paul’s Cathedral - 138 Tremont St, across from Park St T Stop): The teach-in will begin at 6:30 with a short presentation from the New Priorities Network, "The Price of War" and a panel discussion with activists from various movements who will discuss the impact of war on communities. Click here to download a poster to print and share. Panelists included:

Educational Programs on Occupy Boston Radio

Occupy Boston Radio is currently available by internet only. FSU-RADIO is an educational series by Occupy Boston's Free School University. Our Wednesday night program consists of TALK radio featuring educational content such as lectures, panel discussions and interviews, with host David Knuttunen. Call 617-506-9726 with questions or comments. Visit occupyboston.org/radio for more information about OB Radio and to join IRC chat during broadcasts. To propose a guest for the program or to be a guest host, please email fsu@occupyboston.org, or call David Knuttunen at 617-558-5853. To listen to archived recordings of the broadcast, click here (under construction).

FSU-RADIO

  • June 13, 2012: "Money, Debt, and the Federal Reserve" with Arjun Jayadev (originally aired on February 15). Dr. Arjun Jayadev is a young Assistant Professor of Economics at U. Mass – Boston with a strong commitment to progressive policies to make the economy work for the 99%. He explains what money “really” is, and discusses matters such as how banks “create” money, why we don’t want to be on a “gold standard”, the role of the Federal Reserve Bank, the differences from a policy standpoint between household and national debt… and what genuinely progressive policies on money, debt and banking would look like.
  • June 6, 2012: "Race and Economic Inequality - Building a Multiracial Movement for Justice" with Camilo Vivieras. The Occupy movement has always been much about economic inequality and economic injustice, but the racialization of inequality has not always been emphasized. The mainstream media loves to highlight stories of middle class families losing their jobs or their homes, but people in racial minority or immigrant communities bear a disproportional burden: first fired, last hired, hugely targeted by predatory mortgage lenders in good times, their communities decimated by foreclosures during the crisis. How can we educate ourselves about the racialized aspects of economic inequality? How are working class people of color organizing themselves to fight injustice? And how can we learn from them, and work with them to build a truly global, multi-racial movement for economic justice? Community organizer Camilo Vivieros will help us explore and answer these questions.
  • May 30, 2012: Eden and David from the Free School University discuss "Occupy and Education". The radical reconstruction of society envisioned by the Occupy movement, with people taking responsibility for the world we live in through horizontal democratic structures and relationships, requires that we educate ourselves so that we can make good and informed decisions about the issues that confront us. But traditional educational structures are often hierarchical, and best serve the goal of forming citizens who are compliant, rather than participatory. What should an Occupy educational model look like? How have Occupations around the country been addressing this need for self-education? What is, should, and will be the role of Occupy Boston's Free School University working group in this effort?
  • May 23, 2012: Rebroadcast of "Nativism & Paranoia" wiith historian Lester “Africanus” Lee (originally aired on February 21).
  • May 16, 2012: Jerry Friedman (University of Massachusetts-Boston) on "The Idea of Democracy," a discussion of democratic theory.
  • May 9, 2012
  • April 17, 2012
  • April 11, 2012: William C. Coughlan, Jr. will join David to talk about "Cooperation". Coughlan has spent more than 40 years in the cooperative movement, written six books, and currently teaches at the Tri-C Community College, Metro Campus, in the Cleveland, Ohio area. He will talk about his experience in the Cooperative movement, ESOPS, consensus, and related topics.
  • April 4, 2012: Jeremy Thompson, as part of our coverage of Occupy Boston's A4 Day of Action for Public Transportation.
  • March 28, 2012: Emmett Schaefer is a senior lecturer in sociology at UMass Boston. His classes all center around race, gender and social class. He talked about the racial divide in this supposedly post-racial country of ours, and the need, in building unity among the 99%, to address issues that if not acknowledged could divide us, such as structural or institutionalized racism. We, the 99% really do have much in common, and our common purpose can only be strengthened by attention to structural inequalities among us.
  • March 14, 2012: Gordon Fellman (PhD), Professor of Sociology at Brandeis, will be talking with us about Marxism and its ongoing relevance to understanding how Occupy helps clarify the meaning of central Marxian concepts like alienation, ruling ideas, false consciousness, genuine consciousness, and social class. He will reason that one's understanding of Occupy is greatly enhanced by applying Marx to it.
  • March 7, 2012: On the day before International Women’s Day, our guest will be feminist economist Randy Albelda (PhD), Professor of Economics at University of Massachusetts-Boston, who will be discussing women and poverty (and what we need to do about it).
  • February 29, 2012: "Nativism & Paranoia in American Politics: Past & Present" wiith historian Lester “Africanus” Lee. Lee has studied at Antioch College, The University of Ghana,The Bologna Center, Bologna, Italy (Johns Hopkins University), and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He is a Senior Lecturer of History at Suffolk University.What better day than a Leap Day to think about the curiosities of time, and what bigger curiosity than the way history seems inevitably to repeat itself? Why don’t people learn from the past?
  • February 22, 2012: Grace Ross, activist, author and former Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Grace Ross will be discussing her book, Main Street $marts: Who got us into this economic mess and how we get through it? The book is a comprehensive survey of the damage done to the 99% by an economy managed for the benefit of the few, and provides common sense prescriptions for solving the problems, ranging from banking, foreclosures and homelessness, to health care, to jobs - all the while empowering people and building a more democratic society.
  • February 15, 2012: "Money, Debt, and the Federal Reserve" with Arjun Jayadev (PhD), assistant professor of Economics at University of Massachusetts-Boston, whose areas of expertise include international economics, economics of distribution, development, political economy, macroeconomic dynamics, and economics of power.
  • February 8, 2012Grace Ross is a lifetime activist in democratic people’s movements and a two-time candidate for Governor of Massachusetts. She is presently the coordinator of the Mass Alliance Against Predatory Lending, the statewide coalition working to reverse the foreclosure-crisis in our Commonwealth. She has written a book on the current economic crisis entitled “Main Street $marts – Who got us into this economic mess and how we get through it?” We will be discussing some of these issues in a conversation that includes, “How did we get here?” “What do we do about it?” and “What is the role of the Occupy movement in solving these problems?”
  • February 1: "Anarchism, Democracy, and Occupy" with Dennis Fox, retired professor of Legal Studies and Psychology University of Illnois-Springfield and co-founder of the Radical Psychology Network. Dennis Fox is an anarchist and social psychologist who has been involved with Occupy Boston since the beginning. Back in the fall, he taught a number of courses for FSU on the intersections of anarchism, psychology, and law, topics he began exploring in the 1970s while participating in the Boston Clamshell Allianceand Coalition for Direct Action at Seabrook. The conversation was about anarchism and democracy, and the lessons that are being learned from the Occupy movement.
  • January 25, 2012: Cooperative Businesses and Low Cost Computing with Wayne Clark and Marlene Archer of Occupy Newton. Wayne Clark has been involved with cooperative businesses over many years, and will talk about what a cooperative is and is not, and how by organizing production in cooperatives we can build for a non-capitalist future. Marlene Archer works with a non-profit that acquires old computers, including relatively recent ones being replaced by corporations and rich institutions, and recycles them to make low cost computers available to individuals and smaller non-profits. She will talk about computer recycling, and other ways of accessing computing power on a limited budget.
  • January 18, 2012: Jerry Friedman (University of Massachusetts-Amherst) will be on OB Radio with David from FSU to talk about the economy as part of our new weekly broadcast.

Wall Street's Global Reach

Friday, December 16, 2011: Kevin Gallagher and Tim Wise discuss how Wall Street lobby groups affect the Eurozone and food crises on Occupy Boston Radio with Free School University. Kevin Gallagher is an associate professor of international relations at Boston University and research associate at the Global Development and Environment Institute(Tufts University). Tim Wise is Director of the Research and Policy Program at the Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University, and leads its Globalization and Sustainable Development Program.

VFP-RADIO

This weekly Veterans For Peace (VFP) radio broadcast, organized and hosted by Bob Funke a Vietnam veteran and member of the Smedley D. Butler Brigade of Veterans For Peace and Occupy Boston's Action For Peace Working Group, streams live on OB Radio every Monday night at 6:00pm. Call 617-506-9726 with questions or comments during the show, or join the IRC chat at occupyboston.org/radio

  • April 30, 2012: Live broadcast of FSU's Peace & Economic Justice Community Gathering
  • April 30, 2012
  • April 23, 2012
  • April 16, 2012
  • April 9, 2012
  • April 2, 2012
  • March 26, 2012
  • March 19, 2012
  • March 12, 2012
  • March 5, 2012
  • February 27, 2012: Bob will be joined by Rachel McNeill, member of the FSU Working Group at Occupy Boston and Iraq Veteran For Peace. The discussion will focus on women in the military. 
  • February 20, 2012: On the military suicide epidemic and hunger in the United States.
  • February 13, 2012
  • February 6, 2012: Bob will introduce VFP, talk about what the organization stands for and how they support various community peace organizations and community groups, including Occupy Boston. Veterans For Peace affirm a greater responsibility to serve the cause of world peace, working with others to this end
  1. Toward increasing public awareness of the costs of war
  2. To restrain our government from intervening, overtly and covertly, in the internal affairs of other nations 
  3. To end the arms race and to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons
  4. To seek justice for veterans and victims of war
  5. To abolish war as an instrument of national policy.

To achieve these goals, members of Veterans For Peace pledge to use non-violent means and to maintain an organization that is both democratic and open with the understanding that all members are trusted to act in the best interests of the group for the larger purpose of world peace. Veterans For Peace is a non-profit educational and humanitarian organization dedicated to the abolishment of war employing the motto "De Oppresso Liber" (Liberate the Oppressed).

The Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture Series

For video archive of all recorded lectures from The Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture Series at Occupy Boston, click here.

Lectures at Dewey Square

  • Saturday, December 10: Rich Levy, professor of history at Salem State University, "The Legacy of the Sixties and Occupy"
  • Wednesday, December 7Avi Chomsky, professor of history at Salem State University
  • Wednesday, November 30: Norman Finkelstein
  • Tuesday, November 29: Bruno Bosteels
  • Tuesday, November 22: Mike Denning: The Culture of Debt
  • Wednesday, November 9: Elaine Bernard: From Heroes to Zeros, The War on Public Employees & Their Unions
  • Friday, November 4: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz: The City on a Hill, Where it all Began
  • Thursday, November 3: Luis Jimenez: The Perils of American Democracy, The Institutional Basis Behind Our 'Broken Politics'
  • Sunday, October 30: Anthony Arnove: co-authored "Voices of a People's History of the United States"  with Howard Zinn
  • Friday, November 18: Paul Le Blanc
  • Thursday, November 17: Richard Wolf 
  • Saturday, November 12Noel Ignatiev: Race and Occupy
  • Saturday, October 29: Fred Magdoff
  • Friday, October 28: Chad Montrie, author of "A People's History of Environmentalism in the United States"
  • Monday, October 24: Tom Ferguson: Money and Politics
  • Sunday, October 23: Vijay Prashad, author of "The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World"
  • Saturday, October 22: Noam Chomsky
  • Thursday, October 20: Gary Leupp: Elite Control Over US Foreign Policy, Lessons from Vietnam, to Iraq, to Today
  • Saturday, October 15: Nicole Aschoff: Neoliberal Dispossession and the Demand for Demands
  • Thursday, October 13: Victor Wallis: Roots of the Current Crisis

Left Forum

These panels are sponsored by the Monthly Review and the Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture Series. Location: Community Room at Harvest Co-Op in Central Square (581 Mass Ave, Cambridge).

Occupy Consciousness: Meszaros’ Toolbox

Saturday, March 10, 2012 (10am): Doug Enaa Greene (Occupy Boston activist, member of the Kasama Project), Irv Kurki (coordinator for essential discussions on advanced theory), and Mario Rendon (American Institute of Psychoanalysis) will offer their reflections on Istvan Meszaros' latest work and relate it to the current situation. The presenters contend that the American mind is stocked with the categories, symbols, and rules of the 1 percent, and that it is absolutely necessary to start discarding and restocking with the relevant structures of the 99 percent. (VIDEO)

Radical Theory in Social Change: The Work of Michael Lebowitz

Sunday, March 11, 2012 (1pm): Chair Irv Kurki (coordinator for essential discussions on advanced theory) and speakers Amy Hendrickson (activist with Brookline Peaceworks, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and Boston Stop the War) and Jim Barton (independent scholar and co-author of Thinking on Paper and Thinking Together) will discuss the separation of radical theory from practical struggles as a weakness that can be overcome. Michael Lebowitz's recent work (Build It Now: Socialism for the 21st Century) elucidate the powerful potential of integrating radical theory and practice as in the trasformative struggles in revolutionary Venezuela. The speakers will illustrate universal lessons in Lebowitz's work and discuss possible applications.

OCCUPYfilm: Occupied Peoples | People's Occupations

This FREE series of films and discussions presented by the organizers of The Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture Series will take place at the Community Church of Boston (tentatively) every Thursday nights at 7:30pm through Thursday, May 10, 2012. This series is being organized with the intent to shed historical and social light on our current situation, by bringing people together to reflect on past and present people's struggles, in particular those struggles which are most often buried in the mainstream historical narrative. Check back soon for more details about the Occupied Peoples | People's Occupations series. The following films have been shown:

Three Thousand Years and Life

Thursday, February 23, 2012 (POSTER): Three Thousand Years and Life is a breath-taking 1973 documentary, featuring original footage of the occupation of Walpole prison. Two years after the massacre at Attica, prison guards at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Walpole walked out in response to progressive reforms at the facility. Bobby Delello (a former prisoner who participated in the event) and Jamie Bisonette, author of When the Prisoners Ran Walpole: A True Story of the Prison Abolition Movement (a book about the event) will both be present for discussion after the film. Bisonette wrote of the event: "The prisoners stepped ably into the void—and all-out peace ensued. They shrank the murder rate from the highest in the country to zero. Even more significantly, they worked hard to bury racial antagonism and longstanding feuds so even 'lifers' with no hope of going home could find ways to live together, learn, and grow—to regain the humanity that the system intended to squash."

Left on Pearl

Thursday, February 16, 2012 (POSTER): Left on Pearl, a work in progress directed by Susie Rivo, is a film that honors the International Women's Day marchers who turned left on Pearl on March 6, 1971 to take over a Harvard building at 888 Memorial Drive, declaring it the first Women's Center. The film employs multiple perspectives to tell the story of this little-known but highly significant chapter in the history of the Second Wave of the Women's Movement. The event marked a surprise ending of that year’s International Woman’s Day march and through the occupation, hundreds of women tranformed the hopes, glories, conflicts and tensions of Second Wave feminism into the establishment of the longest continually operating Women’s Center in the United States and sparked the development of many other feminist and community organizations both locally and nationally.

Occupy Boston Economics Forum

For video archive of recorded lectures from the Occupy Boston Economics Forum, click here.

Teach-Ins at Dewey Square

Saturday, December 3, 2011: Gar Alperovitz, America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, & Our Democracy, book launch
Monday, November 28, 2011: How to Redistribute Wealth: Lessons from the 20th Century, a discussion with Molly Geidel and Patricia Stuelke
Saturday, November 26, 2011: Right on the Marx: New Insights From Some Old Ideas with Gordon Fellman (POSTPONED)

Saturday, November 19, 2011: 
Sunday, November 13, 2011: 

Friday, November 11, 2011: Capitalism at a Dead End, synopsis of lecture given by Fred Goldstein, with Gerry Scoppettuolo
Friday, November 4, 2011: Responsible Investing, with Shelley Alpern and Catherine Pargeter (Trillium Asset Management), and Libby Edgerly (MSCI)
Wednesday, November 2, 2011: Big Pharma: Another Big Player on Wall Street
Tuesday, November 1, 2011: Gerald Friedman, Money, Banking, and Democracy
Sunday, October 30, 2011: Dr. Ben Tafoya, The Decline of Middle Class Incomes and Political Inequality

Thursday, October 20, 2011: 
Wednesday, October 19, 2011: Catherine Finnoff: 10 Phoney Facts About the US Economy, Keeping it Real for the 99 (CANCELLED)
Sunday, October 16, 2011: 
Saturday, October 15, 2011: Julie Matthaei: Occupy the Economy: An Introduction to the Solidarity Economy

Friday, October 14, 2011:
  • Alejandro Reuss: Class and the Shift in the Distribution of Income Against Workers and in favor of Capitalists
  • Juliet Schor: Why Unemployment Is So High and How We Can Reduce It
Tuesday, October 11, 2011:
  • Bryan Snyder: A Primer on Financialization
  • John Miller: Up Against the Wall Street Journal
Monday, October 10, 2011: 

Sunday, October 9, 2011: 


Climate Action, Sustainability & Environmental Justice

The Principle of Carbon Fee & Dividend and the Save Our Climate Act

Thursday, March 15, 2012 (7:00pm @ Emanuel Church, 15 Newbury St, Boston, near the Arlington T Stop): At Occupy Boston's General Assembly, Gary Rucinski of Citizens Climate Lobby will present the principle of Carbon & Fee Dividend and describe Pete Stark's Save Our Climate Act. The presentation is sponsored by the Occupy Boston Climate Action, Sustainability, and Environmental Justice (CASEJ) Working Group. There will be a 15 minute presentation followed by a 15 minute discussion. A longer presentation is currently being organized that will include a broader comparative discussion of strategies for carbon emission reduction in response to resolutions passed by Occupy Boston General Assembly acknowledging the increasingly destructive impact of the accumulation of atmospheric carbon emissions, and the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions as quickly as possible. Occupy Boston highlighted the contribution of corporate abuse to climate change and supports fossil fuel nuclear subsidiesFor further information on fee and dividend, please see the following links, provided by Gary Rucinski

  • The Case for Carbon Fee and Dividend: The economic rationale for taxing the carbon in fossil fuels (Carbon Fee and Dividend) to avoid the worst effects of climate change, which would gradually increase the cost of fossil fuels while shielding low income households from the resultant rise of energy costs. Implementation of this policy would stimulate economic growth to help undo the effects of the Great Recession.
  • CCL Boston Resource Library: A collection of useful links to articles that explain different dimensions of the climate change problem focusing primarily on economic and policy issues rather than the science. 

Citizens United & Elections

For video archive of recorded teach-ins from the Occupy Boston Citizens United Forum, click here.

Saturday, January 21, 2012: Citizens United Summit to Unite Citizens for Democracy on the anniversary of the Citizens United decision, the wide coalition of groups standing together to get money out of politics include Boston Amendment Group, Coffee Party in Boston, Common Cause, Corporate Accountability International, Dollars and Sense, Free Speech for People, Greater Boston Move to Amend, Massachusetts Nurses Association, MassVote, Progressive Massachusetts, Public Citizen, and Root Strikers.

  • Community Gathering 
  • Lawrence Lessig
  • Break-out Session: Where do We Go Next? 
  • The Supreme Court & Citizens United: How Did We Get Here? (Donna Palermo) 
  • Powermapping (with Patrick Frank and Grace Morris)
  • Break-out Group Proposals 
  • Citizens Lobbying Training Workshop (Grace Ross, Avi Green, Pam Wilmot) 
  • Next Steps (Jules Levine) 
  • Working Groups Open House 

Friday, January 20, 2012: Rally to Unite Citizens for Democracy

  • We the People (Representative Cory Atkins) 
  • Cross-Partisan Organizing: Finding Areas of Agreement (Szelena Gray) 
  • Break-out Groups: Corporate Influence: Financial Industry, Environment, Military Spending, Immigration, Agri-Business, and more... 
  • Occupy Legislation Handbook From Progressive Massachusetts (Senator Jamie Eldridge) 
  • Corporate Personhood 101: A Panel Discussion (John Bonifaz and Malia Lazu) 
  • Q & A Session
  • Break-out Groups: Citizens United in Context, Money in Politics: Communication Strategies, Campaign Money, Lobbying Industry, Corporate Personhood-Supreme Court, Corporate Accountability, Corporate Personhood pros and Cons. 
  • Reception & entertainment 

Teach-Ins at Dewey Square

Non-Violence & Civil Disobedience (NVCD)

Training with Linda Stout, organized by the Anti-Oppression and Nonviolence and Civil Disobedience Working Groups. For more information about Linda and the visioning idea, visit powerupnetworks.org

  • Saturday January 14, 2012: Collective Visioning Workshop, breathe, reflect, and envision together where we want to be, how to get there
  • Saturday January 14, 2012: Train the Trainers Session, share ideas about strategy, movement-building, and etc

Training facilitated by members of the New England Nonviolence Trainers NetworkAlliance of Community Trainers and the Health Justice Working Group

Preparedness in Actions, Strengthening Our Spirit & Building Community - Training facilitated by members of the NVCD Working Group

  • Friday, November 25: presented by John Bach
  • Monday, November 21: presented by Catherine Hoffman
  • Saturday, November 19
  • Friday, November 18: presented by Minga Clagget-Borne

What is Violence? What is Nonviolence? - Roundtable Discussion co-facilitated by members of the NVCD Working Group

  • Saturday, November 12 
  • Monday, November 7

The Practice of Nonviolence and Civil Disobedience - Workshop presented by Rick Colbath-Hess

  • Wednesday, November 9
  • Saturday, October 29
  • Saturday, October 22
  • Monday, October 10

Military & Veteran's Issues

  • Monday, February 13, 2012: Black Soldiers in the War of the Slaveowners' Rebellion with Quentin Davis
  • Sunday, January 15, 2012: Getting Things Straight on Iraq: Peace Movement Briefing with Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi-Palestinian architect, blogger, political analyst

Lectures at Dewey Square

Cost of War Forum

Saturday, November 12, 2011: Military family and veteran speakout organized by the Action for Peace Working Group at Occupy Boston

Introduction
  • Sarah Fuhro, mother of soldier who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan: Opening Remarks
  • Wayne Jaquith: How the Wars Started, their Impact, and Lessons to Learn to Avoid Future Wars
  • Native American Drumming: Songs for Healing and New Beginnings
  • 22-year-old Iraqi Refugee

Veteran Listening Sessions

             Military Family Listening Sessions

  • Alice Copeland Brown, mother of Army officers from Canton, Massachusetts
  • Joyce and Kevin Lucey, parents of Corporal Jeff Lucey, who committed suicide in 2004
  • Carlos and Melida Arredondo, parents of Lance Corporal Alexander Arredondo, who was killed in 2004 in Iraq

Health Justice Forum

For video archive of recorded teach-ins from the Occupy Boston Health Justice Forum, click here.

Sunday, November 20, 2011: Reproductive Justice and Economic Justice, with Marlene Fried, organized by the Women's Caucus
Saturday, November 12, 2011: Health Justice Speak Out, organized by the Health Justice Working Group
Saturday, November 5, 2011: Health Justice Forum, organized by the Health Justice Working Group
  • Jim Recht and Mardge Cohen: Reoccupy the Health System through Single Payer Health Reform
  • Jeremy Barofsky, Jacob Bor, and Ashley Winning: Economic Crisis, Austerity, and the Health of the 99%
  • Katrina Ciraldo: How a Financial Transaction Tax Can End AIDS

Immigration Forum

Sunday, December 4, 2011: Teach-In on Secure Communities (presented by Centro Presente and the Immigration Working Group)

Sunday, October 23, 2011: Immigration Forum

  • Neighbors United for a Better East Boston (NUBE): Opening Address and Welcome
  • Tania Bruguera, Immigrant International Movement
  • Peter Lowber: Opposing Secure Communities and Other Anti Immigrant Attacks; Vigils; Support for Human Rights and Immigrant Workers Rights
  • Heloisa Maria Galvao, co-founder and the Executive Director of the Brazilian Women’s Group
  • Carlos Rosales, Immigrant Worker Center Collaborative
  • Break Out Discussion Group

Anarchist Forum

For video archive of recorded teach-ins from the Occupy Boston Anarchist Forum, click here.

Series by Dennis Fox, retired professor of Legal Studies and Psychology, University of Illinois-Springfield:

Documentary Film Screenings

  • Monday, December 19, 2011: The Take, a film by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klien about thirty unemployed auto-parts workers who walk into their idle factory, roll out sleeping mats and refuse to leave.
  • Saturday, December 17, 2011: This Is What Democracy Looks Like, a film about the mass demonstrations and coordinated direct actions in Seattle in 1999 that shut down the World Trade Organization's ministerial meeting
  • Saturday, December 10, 2011: We Interrupt This Empire, a film documenting the mass coordinated direct action in San Francisco after the start of the Iraq War
  • Wednesday, November 9, 2011: How To Start A Revolution, followed with commentary by Ruaridh Arrow (director) and Jamila Raqib (Albert Einstein Institute)

Other Teach-Ins

 MARCH 

After Dewey Sq: Where is The Occupy Movement Going in MA?

Sunday, March 4, 2012 (1:30-3:30pm) at The Democracy Center, 45 Mt Auburn St, Cambridge (Central Square): This panel is sponsored by the Boston local of Democratic Socialists of America; cosponsored by Free School University working group (Occupy Boston). The event is free and open to the public. Non-members are welcome. There will be a brief business meeting before the panel discussion during which Boston DSA members will elect a new Executive Board. David Knuttunen of Occupy Newton

  • Chris Faraone began his writing career by free-lancing Hip Hop reviews for such publications as Yellow Rat BastardThe Sourcethe Weekly Dig and the Boston Herald before becoming a staff reporter for the Boston Phoenix, where his coverage of the Occupy movement on both coasts resulted in his debut book--99 Nights With The 99%
  • Katie Gradowski is an organizer with Occupy Boston, where she focuses on outreach and anti-foreclosure work as well as the Occupy The T campaign. Her “real job” is in Somerville, where she helps run a kid’s community science workshop and “spends time making things, tinkering, and taking stuff apart." 
  • Betsy Boggia has helped establish Occupy Natick. She also  has long experience with grassroots organizations, political campaigns, local non-profits  (most recently with Girl’s LEAP Self-Defense), has been a legislative aide for State Senator Cheryl Jacques, and a co-founder of the Greater Boston Chapter of the Million Mom March for sensible gun control.

 FEBRUARY 

Understanding the MBTA Fee Hike (Occupy UMass Boston)

Wednesday, February 15, 2012 (1pm, U Mass Boston Campus Center terrace): Occupy Boston's Free School University, in solidarity with Occupy UMass Boston presents "Understanding the MBTA Fee Hike," a teach-in by Stuart Spina (T-riders Union member and UMass Boston student). This teach-in will address the following questions: Why is the MBTA proposing these rounds of service cuts and fare increases? Who gets burdened by this? Why does the blame and responsibility for fixing the T's finances actually rest with the Governor and MA legislature? The deficits are a chronic problem and we'll be in the same position next year, why is any form of a fare increase and service cuts futileWhat actions can people take and what long-term policy fixes are out there?

 JANUARY 

Friday, January 13, 2012 (Saint Paul's Cathedral, 138 Tremont St, Boston, MA): Starting a Non-Profit: The Nuts and Bolts, this teach-in considered the various types of non-profits, including public lobbies, foundations, and charities, as well as nuts-and-bolts non-profits that provide direct services to the public (such as affordable housing, alternative medicine, and ground-up job training). It also focused on how the formation of non-profits helps the public lobby and protest movements. The program included a discussion of what it's like to be developing and working for a non-profit that provides open-structured learning environments for adults. Lachlan Youngs is a volunteer peer worker who teaches ceramics, beaded jewelry, and modern music in an open-structured learning environment for adults.  He directs a federal non-profit charity, "The Cape Workshop Collaborative."

DECEMBER 

Saturday, December 31, 2011: Roving Soap Box Street Corner Teach-Ins at First Night New Year's Eve Celebration in Boston
Monday, December 19, 2011: Antonio Gramsci and the Occupy Movement, Lecture / Discussion with anthropologist Elizabeth Ferry (POSTPONED)
Wednesday, December 14, 2011: OWS Forum on Jobs for All: Proposed Demand
Sunday, December 11, 2011: Adopt an Occupier, hosted by Occupy Newton
Saturday, December 3, 2011: Corporate Negligence & Bhopal, India: An Ongoing Disaster with The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (VIDEO)
Thursday, December 1, 2011: Reading Group Planning Meeting (meet in front of the Library)

 NOVEMBER 

Sunday, November 20, 2011: 

Friday, November 18, 2011:


Sunday, November 13, 2011:
Thursday, November 10, 2011:
Wednesday, November 9, 2011: Workshop: Your Rights at Work with Anneta Argyres and Tess Ewing

Monday, November 7, 2011:
Sunday, November 6, 2011: Workshop: Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, games and exercises for social justice

Saturday, November 5, 2011:
Friday, November 4, 2011: Lessons from the Wisconsin Uprising (CANCELLED) 
Tuesday, November 1, 2011: C.T. Butler, Consensus: So That All Voices May Be Heard

 OCTOBER 

Monday, October 31, 2011:  C.T. Butler, Consensus: So That All Voices May Be Heard

Sunday, October 30, 2011:
Saturday, October 29, 2011: Glenn Greenwald: With Liberty and Justice for Some (CANCELLED) 


Friday, October 28, 2011:
Thursday, October 27, 2011: Van Jones, author of "The Green Collar Economy" (VIDEO)

Wednesday, October 26, 2011: 

Sunday, October 23, 2011:

Saturday, October 22, 2011:

Thursday, October 20, 2011: Dennis Fox, Challenging Basic Assumptions

Sunday, October 16, '2011: Occupy Boston: Talking to People Passing By

SaturdayOctober 15, 2011:

Wednesday, October 12, 2011:

MondayOctober 10, 2011: 

Sunday, October 9, 2011:

Friday, October 7, 2011: