A R E A

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AREA's Another Chicago Newsletter
Monday, November 5 2007
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:::Please Repost and Spread the Word Widely, We Never Know Who Knows What:::

Hey folks! It is a busy month here in Chicago! Please come out tonight to AREA's Infrastructure lecture with Z-Magazine's Michael Albert. If you miss him tonight, check out the forum on tuesday @ the art Institute with AREA contributors Brian Holmes and Chris Cutrone. Then come meet up with AREA representatives this weekend on Saturday @ the TSJ Curriculum Fair - We will have a table with the latest issue of AREA Chicago#5 available (now also online here). Then please mark your calendar and spread the word about our Dec. 8 party and auction. If you think AREA is a worthwhile project then we really encourage you to come out and support - the auction and entertainment will be very stellar! See details below and Have a great month.

11.5-12.08 Summary
1) 11.5 Michael Albert on Participatory Economics @ the Hull House w/ AREA
2) 11.6 Public Forum: RRR: Reform, Revolution and Resistance @ SAIC
3) 11.9-11.11 Movement for a Democratic Society Conference @ Loyola
4) 11.10 Teachers for Social Justice Curriculum Fair - Come see AREA's Table!
5) 11.10 SNCC Freedom Singers Free Concert
6) 11.12 Peace Party: Drink for Arab Jewish Partnership for Peace & Justice
7) 11.17 Government Accountability Conference - This is Important Stuff!
8) 11.07 The Dill Pickle Food Co-op BENEFIT CONCERT & MEMBERSHIP DRIVE
9) 12.01 Paving New Roads: Chicago Orgs Against Violence Conference
10) 12.08 AREA Chicago announces first WANTS and NEEDS BENEFIT PARTY
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Event Details
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1)============
Funding the Revolution?
Participatory Economics and Funding Activist Organizing in Chicago
A discussion with Z-Mag's Michael Albert (Author of Par-Econ: Life After Capitalism)
Monday, November 5 2007
6pm-8pm
at Jane Addams Hull House Museum's Dining Hall
800 S. Halsted St. (On the campus of UIC)

Co-Sponsored by 49th St Underground, AREA Chicago, Jane Addams Hull House Museum, and CAPES (Chicago Area Participatory Economics Society).

About the Speaker:
Michael Albert (born April 8, 1947) is a longtime activist, speaker, and writer, is co-editor of ZNet, and co-editor and co-founder of Z Magazine. He also co-founded South End Press and has written numerous books and articles. He developed along with Robin Hahnel the economic vision called participatory economics, or parecon for short. Albert identifies himself as a market abolitionist[1] and favors democratic participatory planning as an alternative. Please check out background on Parecon here.

About Funding Issues:
In recent months Chicago has seen many critical community gatherings and discussions focusing on the challenge of funding important and critical organizing in a climate of privatization, neoliberalism and the rise of the so called "non-profit industrial complex." The Hull House museum hosted a whole workshop series with Incite! Women of Color Against Violence - the authors of "The Revolution Will Not Be Funded" and this summer AREA Chicago and Fire This Time Fund held a large discussion "How We Fund" to discuss different alternative funding strategies being employed throughout the city.

At this event, the organizers would like to attempt to connect the critiques and challenges around resource sharing and funding critical organizing in a capitalist society with one of the most potent proposals for en economic system outside of capitialism. This event should be relevant to students of economics and non-profit management, artists and activists and concerned curious people alike! Come on out and join the discussion.

This event is part of AREA Chicago's irregular "Infrastructure" lecture series about self-organized infrastructure, strengthening critical networks and activist organizational structure. www.AREAchicago.org

Contact Mitchell Szczepanczyk, mitchell@chicagomediaaction.org for more details.

2)================
The 3 Rs: Reform, Revolution, and "Resistance"
The problematic forms of "anticapitalism" today

Tuesday, November 6, 2007, 7-9PM
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
280 S. Columbus Drive main auditorium

"[After the 1960s, the] underlying despair with regard to the real efficacy of political will, of political agency [. . .] in a historical situation of heightened helplessness..became a self-constitution as outsider, as other [. . .] focused on the bureaucratic stasis of the [Fordist/late 20th Century] world: it echoed the destruction of that world by the dynamics of capital [with the neo-liberal turn after 1973, and especially after 1989].

The idea of a fundamental transformation became bracketed and, instead, was replaced by the more ambiguous notion of 'resistance.' The notion of resistance, however, says little about the nature of that which is being resisted or of the politics of the resistance involved - that is, the character of determinate forms of critique, opposition, rebellion, and 'revolution.' The notion of 'resistance' frequently expresses a deeply dualistic worldview that tends to reify both the system of domination and the idea of agency.

'Resistance' is rarely based on a reflexive analysis of possibilities for fundamental change that are both generated and suppressed by [the] dynamic heteronomous order [of capital]. ['Resistance'] is an undialectical category that does not grasp its own conditions of possibility; that is, it fails to grasp the dynamic historical context of which it is a part."

- Moishe Postone, "History and Helplessness: Mass mobilization and contemporary forms of anticapitalism" (2006)

A moderated panel discussion and audience Q&A on problems of strategies and tactics on the Left today. Panelists: Michael Albert (Z Magazine), Chris Cutrone (Platypus), Stephen Duncombe (Gallatin School of New York University), Brian Holmes (Continental Drift and Universite Tangente), and Marisa Holmes (new Students for a Democratic Society).

3)======================
MDS Conference Friday, November 9 - Sunday, November 11

Where: Loyola University (North Shore Campus)
6525 North Sheridan Road, Chicago, IL

A NATIONWIDE CONVERGENCE OF MOVEMENT FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY (MDS)

With Panels/Speakers/and Discussion on: War & Peace/Building a New Movement/Saving the Planet/Abolishing Prisons/Ending Racism/Building Our Own Media/Gay Rights & Human Rights/Women & Work/Comics & Popular Culture/SDS Today!

Featuring: Manning Marable, Kathy Kelly, Carl Davidson, Bill Ayers, Muhammad Ahmad, Peter Linebaugh, Gale Ahrens, David Roediger, Kate Khatib, Paul Buhle, Amanda Klonsky and many others!

At Loyola University's North Shore Campus 6525 North Sheridan Road, Chicago, IL 60626

For further information write: MDS, 1740 W. Greenleaf Ave, Chicago IL 60626
Or: info (at) movementforademocraticsociety.org
dmoore (at) riseup.net

4)======================
Teachers for Social Justice - Saturday, November 10.

Come stop by the AREA Chicago table and pick up our new AREA Chicago #5: How We Learn @ The Teaching for Social Justice Curriculum Fair is like a Science or History Fair, except volunteer educators "present" and share ideas for bringing topics of social justice into the classroom.

The day's schedule also features Education for Liberation-oriented workshops, resource tables, lunch, and an open forum on "Teachers as Activists" (1-2:45).

Saturday, November 10.
11-5PM
Orozco Academy
1940 W. 18th Street
Chicago, IL 60608

5)======================
Saturday,  November 10 · 1:30 p.m. Chicago Area Friends  of SNCC
(The Student  Nonviolent Coordinating Committee)
and the SNCC  History Project present
~  a free public concert ~
The Carter  G. Woodson Regional Library
9525 S.  Halsted St., Chicago

THE  FREEDOM SINGERS LET IT  SHINE!
THE MUSIC  OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT & WHAT IT MEANS TODAY

This  award-winning, five-member vocal group, veterans of the freedom movement  in the South in the 1960s and active in struggles for social justice ever  since, will be in Chicago to participate in a series of workshops for  high school students learning to conduct oral-history interviews in their communities. Music was part of every meeting, protest march, and rally in  the 1960s, and the Freedom Singers will share their songs, stories, and  insights about the importance of the music to the Movement - then and now.

Please bring with  you to the concert any memorabilia you may have of the Civil Rights  Movement in Chicago - leaflets, buttons, photographs, etc. - especially  material relating to the Chicago Area Friends of the Student Nonviolent  Coordinating Committee (CAFSNCC), so those items can be archived in the  Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection of Afro-American History and  Literature at the Woodson Library. The Chicago SNCC History Project is an  intergenerational effort to collect oral histories, memorabilia, and  family and community archives from the early 1960s.The Project recruits and trains Chicago public high school students to obtain oral-history  interviews with community elders, and promotes self-empowerment to change  communities and the world.

The Chicago SNCC  History Project gratefully acknowledges the generous support of ARIEL CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, BLACK UNITED FUND OF ILLINOIS, CROSSROADS FUND, POLK BROS. FOUNDATION and Community Partners & Friends

6)======================
Monday, Nov 12 Peace Party at Danny's Tavern
10PM - 2AM
1951 W. Dickens

DJ's: Amy, Jocelyn, Naomi & Tomas
Beneficiary: Your Drinks support: Arab Jewish Partnership for Peace & Justice in the Middle East

7)======================
Friday, November 16th, 2007 2007 Government Accountability Conference
Access Living, 115 West Chicago Avenue

Leaders and staff from organizations throughout Chicago will be coming together on Friday, November 16th to spend the day learning about:

-Ways to analyze and work with Chicago's new City Council
-How to use elections to build organizational power
-How to research campaign contributions of an Illinois politician
-How to dissect and impact the Budget of the City of Chicago

Also, attendees will participate in a discussion with Aldermen Munoz, Jackson and Fioretti about potential collaboration opportunities between City Council members and community residents.

For more detailed information on all the panel discussions and workshops please see: http://registration.dgapchicago.org/?page_id=7
If you haven't already done so, please go to www.dgapchicago.org and register, or call 312.698.5024.

9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Conference Session
4:00 p.m. Organizers, Leaders & Speakers Networking Reception
(Registration begins at 8:30 a.m.)
Breakfast, lunch and refreshments will be provided.
Reasonable accommodations provided upon request.

Conference Sponsors: DGAP Network, Crossroads Fund, and Access Living

8)======================
The Dill Pickle Food Co-op BENEFIT CONCERT & MEMBERSHIP DRIVE

8pm Saturday, November 17th
at AV-aerie
2000 W. Fulton
(formerly Open End)

$15 suggested donation - all ages

With Performances by PIT ER PAT + BOBBY CONN & MONICA BOUBOU + WILLIS P JENKINS

The 125 members of The Dill Pickle Food Co-op are raising funds in order to open a store at 3039 W. Fullerton, across the street from the Logan Square Library.  We hope to open the storefront in 2008 with  money from members, local loans, and national grants. The money will be used to renovate the space, obtain all necessary permits, and purchase equipment.  For more information, join the co-op's free email list at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foodcoop.

For membership info see http://www.dillpicklefoodcoop.org

9)======================
December 1 - Paving New Roads: Communities Engaged in Resisting Violence.
This is your opportunity to hear about innovative, creative & grassroots strategies in Chicago to end violence against women & girls!

Groups from around Chicago will be holding hands-on workshops with concrete ideas, tools and strategies to resist violence, including:
Media Justice & How to Deconstruct the Media
Performance as a Means of Activism & Resistance
Engaging Young Men as Allies: Lessons Learned
Using Platica & Storytelling around issues of Violence & Reproductive Justice
Creating Alternative Responses to Violence against Girls & Women of Color in the Sex Trade & Street Economies
Inclusion of People with Disabilities in Anti-violence Work
Violence & the Prison Industrial Complex
Queer Youth Resisting Violence
Educación Popular y Violencia de Género
Participating and presenting groups include: Access Living, AquaMoon, Broadway Youth Center, Casa Segura, Females United for Action, FIRE, Latinas Organizing for Reproductive Equality, the Rogers Park Young Women's Action Team, Take Back the Halls, and the Young Women's Empowerment Project.

The event will take place on Saturday, December 1st, 2007, from 11:30 - 4 pm, at DePaul University SAC - 2320 N. Kenmore

The event is FREE and open to the public, but space is limited, so if you haven't already, RSVP today to pavingnewroads@gmail.com

This event is sponsored by Women & Girls CAN, the Community Accountability Planning Group and DePaul University Program in Women & Gender Studies.

10)======================
AREA Chicago announces first WANTS and NEEDS BENEFIT PARTY -
PLEASE Help Us Spread The Word To Your Contacts!


For Immediate Release - Media Contact: Kristen Cox kristengcox@gmail.com

AREA Chicago will host its first annual WANTS and NEEDS Benefit Party on Saturday, December 8, 2007 at Green Lantern Gallery, 1511 N Milwaukee Ave., 2nd Floor. Pease note this is not an ADA accessible venue. 8 pm til late; $10-$20 (sliding scale) before 10 pm. $20 thereafter for Dance Party with DJs Naomi Walker, Kim Soss and Charlie Vinz!  Admission includes homemade goods and one free drink.

At 10 pm, the hilarious Micah Maidenberg will emcee a Live "Wants-and-Needs" Auction of Skill and Resource Sharing donated by AREA friends, contributors and advisors. Bids for the Service and Skill Sharing Auction will start as low as $5.

This is a current list of auction services (and their contributors):

Three photoshop/illustrator tutorial workshops (Dave Pabellion); volleyball coaching (Dave Pabellion); Tres Leches Cake plus tea service (Vanessa Roanhorse); Singing Telegram with banjo accompaniment (Charlie Vinz); refurbished Pentium 3 computer (Dave Marques); Blog creatiion plus fancy graphics header (Dave Marques); Oral history collection plus knitting basics and lunch (Cassee Fennell); Self-Guided Tour from Location of Choice to Parking Lot of Choice plus map and instructions (Ryan Giffis); Bicycle Tune-Up and Mechanic Lesson plus special bike beer (Sarah Miller); Hand-sewn  Pillow with the embroidered design of your dreams (Rachel Wallis); Audiotape and editing education services (Aaron Sarver); Edition of Hand Set, Letterpress printed event Posters (Dan Wang): Qi Gong Sessions (Ryan Hollon); Typographic Design and Hand Printing on choice "correspondence stock" (Dakota Brown); Editing and  Translating services (Leticia Cortez);  Swimming lessons courtesy of YMCA membership (Kristen Cox); Starter kit for the Web 2.0 participatory corporate internet (Daniel Tucker); Theraputic body work session (Kate Sheehy); Video documentation, editing and 3 copies of event plus interviews of your choice (Laura Klein); Historical tour of Chicago's Haymarket monuments (Nicolas Lampert).

AREA Chicago is a publication and event series dedicated to networking and researching local art, education and activist work.  In its first two years, AREA Chicago has published five magazine issues and organized 40 events. AREA Chicago is dedicated to gathering and sharing information, history and analysis about local social and cultural movements. Through this very practice, it seeks to create an independent network for organizations and individuals committed to radical social transformation within the city.

Proceeds from AREA's WANTS and NEEDS Party will benefit AREA's sixth issue. This issue will document the local economic justice issues and create a "How to easily understand the last 30 years of public policy toolkit for local activists".  This issue will be published in Spring 2008.

For more information, visit www.areachicago.com