4/15/19 Save The Date: Why CT Needs to Get Youth out of Adult Prison 10am – 12pm
Happening at the Legislative Office Building, 300 Capitol Avenue, Hartford, from the organizer “Save The Date! We are hosting an event with Senator Gary Winfield to discuss the abysmal conditions of confinement in the Department of Corrections for young people. More Information to Come!!! christina@ctjja.org”
4/16/19 Generation One - The Search for Black Wealth 5:30pm – 8:30pm
Happening at Gateway Community College, 20 Church Street, Community Room N-100, New Haven, the Urban League of Southern Connecticut in partnership with Project Longevity-New Haven will host a screening and panel discussion of the critically acclaimed Generation One - The Search for Black Wealth.
4/16/19 What would the transition to an independent PR Look like? 6pm – 8pm
Happening at the New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Elm Street, New Haven, join the discussion on the details of how Puerto Rico could transition into an independent country with Adrian Gonzalez of the Puerto Rican Independence Party(PIP) Adrian was a young activist during the fight to liberate Vieques from being a military bombing site, and he will share how that experience led him to become a leader in the fight for Puerto Rican Independent.
4/17/19 Volunteer Night in New Haven! 5:30 pm – 8:30pm
Interested in volunteering with Planned Parenthood in New Haven? Join them on the third Wednesday of every month from 5:30-8:30 PM at their admin office in New Haven, CT (345 Whitney Ave) for their monthly Volunteer Night! Dinner is on them! Bring your friends, they have lots of fun projects to work on.
4/17/19 Spoken Word & Social Justice 6pm – 8pm
Happening at Stetson Library, 200 Dixwell Avenue, New Haven, for an evening of spoken word, poetry, and music ruminating on the theme of home. Stay tuned for announcements of local poets to perform!
4/18/19 Storytelling & Justice 5:30pm – 8:30pm
Happening at Fair Haven Library, 182 Grande Avenue, New Haven to join Karen DuBois-Walton (Storytellers New Haven) and Bill Graustein (William Casper Graustein Memorial Fund) in conversation with LWT's new Artistic Director Jacob Padrón as they explore the intersection of storytelling and social justice.
4/18/19 End Discrimination in Reentry Community Conversation 6pm – 8pm
Come down to 782 Orchard Street, New Haven (the Beulah Heights First Pentecostal Church in New Haven) for a Community Conversation on Ending Discrimination for people impacted by the justice system. Join the ACLU of Connecticut Smart Justice campaign, State Representative Robyn Porter, and more for a community conversation about stopping discrimination against people on the basis of their criminal record.
4/19/19 Solidarity Film Series: The Revolution Will Not be Televised 7:30pm – 10:30pm
Happening at the People’s Center, 37 Howe Street, New Haven for this free event. From the organizer “April 2002, the democratically elected Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, faces a coup d'état by an American-backed opposition party. The two-day coup fails to topple Chávez, but the tumultuous event proves to be great dramatic material for two Irish filmmakers who happen to be making a documentary about Chavez as the coup erupts. They capture footage of the massive opposition and pro-Chavez crowds and analyze how Venezuelan TV manipulated images for propaganda purposes. Released 2003.”
4/20/19 "OPERATION LOVE-A-FAIR" 12pm – 5pm
Happening at Scantlebury Park, New Haven, Free community event for the
Homeless and whole needy Community "WE ARE HONORING" Vets,Widows & Kids Of Veterans And The Whole Needy Community All Are Welcome To Give Back, Churches,Schools,Organizations,Businesses And Groups Of All KINDSFor more info call Jesse Jhop Hardy @ (203)821-1957
4/20/19 NHV Watch Party: Eyewitness Venezuela ft. Antiwar Heroes 3pm – 4:30pm
Join the ANSWER Coalition online for a special Eyewitness Venezuela Livestream Panel featuring:
Ajamu Baraka — Black Alliance for Peace
Medea Benjamin — CODEPINK
Max Blumenthal — Editor at Grayzone Project
Claudia De La Cruz — Popular Education Project
Gloria La Riva — Cuba-Venezuela Solidarity Committee and ANSWER Coalition
Anya Parampil — Grayzone Project
The livestream will be nationally broadcast from the former Venezuelan Embassy building in Washington, D.C., on the Facebook page of the ANSWER Coalition. The panel presentation will feature prominent anti-war and peace activists, and progressive journalists based in the United States who have just returned from Venezuela or have firsthand knowledge. They will discuss the reality of the situation in Venezuela, taking on the myths portrayed in the corporate media, what lies behind the U.S. war drive and how we can stop it.
4/22/19 Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting with our Youth Committee 6pm – 8pm
Join students at 35 Lyon Terrace, Bridgeport as they demand their voices and input be included in the Master Plan at the Planning and Zoning Commission. For more information alison.martinez@maketheroadct.org
4/22/19 Tell Your Story: Finding Home 6pm – 9pm
Happening at New Haven Free Public Library, 133 Elm Street, New Haven, for a city-wide story slam on the theme of "Finding Home." All are welcome to share their stories. Stories will be shared from the Young Leadership Program at IRIS - Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services, "Survivors of Society Rising" at State of Connecticut Connecticut Mental Health Center, One Tower East, and YOU!
Please sign up online in advance here: https://forms.gle/ytPjv9CBHnuv9Kjf9
4/25 – 4/27/19 Undoing Racism Workshop 9am – 1pm
Happening at Beulah Heights First Pentecostal Church 782 Orchard St, New Haven, participate in the Undoing Racism/Community Organizing. This intensive workshop focuses on racism and educates, challenges, and inspires people to undo the race-based structures that block social change. We focus on what racism is, where it comes from, how it functions, why it is persists, and what we can do to dismantle it: Analyzing Power Recognizing Internalized Racial Oppression Defining Racism Understanding the Manifestations of Racism Learning from History Sharing Culture Organizing to Undo Racism This New Haven workshop is organized locally and offered with the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, a national, multiracial, anti-racist collective of veteran organizers and educators dedicated to building an effective movement for social change. Since its founding in 1980, The People’s Institute has led workshops for over 500,000 people in hundreds of communities throughout the United States and internationally (including many from New Haven and across Connecticut). More about the people’s institute at www.pisab.org. Breakfast and lunch provided Thursday and Friday. Light refreshments provided Saturday. Gluten-Free, Vegetarian, and Vegan options will be available.
4/25/19 Immigration Legal Clinic, Bridgeport 5pm – 8pm
For more information contact mary.smith@maketheroadct.org Make the Road has an ongoing need for volunteers in different capacities. For more information contact mary.smith@maketheroadct.org
4/26/19 Monthly Meeting 10am – 11:30am
Come down to Russell Library, Room 2, 123 Court Street, Middletown for the monthly Middlesex Immigrant Rights Alliance meeting.
4/27/19 The Thirteenth Annual Transgender Lives Conference 8am – 5pm
The Thirteenth Annual Transgender Lives: The Intersection of Health and Law Conference being held at the UConn Health Center, 263 Farmington Avenue, Hartford. This all-day conference is geared towards Service Providers, Medical and Legal Professionals, Trans and Gender non-conforming community, allies and all those interested in the Health and Law issues facing the Trans and gender non-conforming communities. General Registration price is $25 per person (including lunch), $50 for anyone seeking CEC credits from the National Association of Social Workers of CT (NASW/CT). Can't afford it? There will be scholarships available the day of the event. The first 25 walk-ins will receive a free lunch.
4/27/19 Rock to Rock Earth Day Ride 9am – 2:30pm
Rock to Rock is New Haven's biggest Earth Day celebration. You and about a thousand of your neighbors travel from West Rock and East Rock, with celebrations on both sides of the city. Along the way, eat tasty food, hear great music and explore our city's parks and neighborhoods. 30+ Organizations. One Cause.
Rock to Rock brings together more than 25 organizations, all doing high-impact work to create a healthier, greener community. When you collect pledges, you decide where these donations go: one of these organizations, or divided evenly among all these great groups?
To learn about all of the partner organizations:
To register:
To sponsor:
” Strategy = Power
The young people who started Otpur had a clear conception of how domination works. They saw their society as a pyramid, with Milosevic and his cronies at the top, in alliance with business owners, party leaders, and generals. The direction of power was typically top-down, and included both obvious repression (the army, police, secret police) and subtle repression like a monopoly of the media and school curricula. Here's where Otpur activists diverged from conventional wisdom about power. They noticed that each layer of domination was in fact supported by the layer below; that the orders that were given were only carried out because those below were willing to carry them out. Rather than buy into the top-down version of power that Milosevic wanted them to believe, they decided instead to picture Serbian society as organized into pillars of support holding up the dictator. If the pillars gave way, Otpur believed that Milosevic would fall.
This alternative view of power became so central to Otpur that it was taught in all the trainings of new Otpur members. (All new Otpur members were expected to go through the training so they could understand the winning strategy.) Since the top power-holders depend on the compliance of those beneath them to stay on top, Otpur's strategy was to weaken the compliance and finally to break it. First, Otpur needed to ask: which are the pillars of support needed by the dictatorship? Then: what are the tactics that will weaken those pillars? Activists in other countries can follow this methodology to begin to create their strategy.3
Here's just one example of how it worked in Serbia. One pillar of support for Milosevic was his police. Otpur systematically undermined that pillar. The young activists knew that fighting the police would strengthen police loyalty to Milosevic (and also support the mass media claim that the young people were hoodlums and terrorists). So they trained themselves to make nonviolent responses to police violence during protests. One of the slogans they learned during their trainings was: “It only hurts if you're scared.” They took photos of their wounded. They enlarged the photos, put them on signs, and carried the signs in front of the houses of the police who hurt them. They talked to the cop's neighbors about it, took the signs to the schools of the police officers' children and talked with the children about it. After a year of this, police were plainly reluctant to beat Otpur activists even when ordered to do so, because they didn't want the negative reactions of their family, friends, neighbors.
The young people joked with the plainclothes police assigned to infiltrate them and reminded the cops that everyone would get their chance to act for democracy. Through the assertive outreach of the activists, relationships were built with the police, even into the higher ranks. When the movement ripened into a full-fledged insurgency in Belgrade, many police were sent out of the city by their commanders while other police simply watched the crowds take over the Parliament building.
It wasn't easy, as one of my Otpur friends who had been beaten repeatedly told me. It was, however, simple; the strategy guided the young activists to develop creative tactics that took away one of the key pillars of the dictator's support. Can this alternative view of power work other places? One reason why the Otpur activists worked so efficiently at undermining the various pillars of Milosevic' support was because many knew their view of power had already worked in other places. Consider what had happened within the lifetime of Otpur teenagers: the Philippine dictator Marcos had been overthrown by what was called “people power” in 1986; Communist dictatorships had been overthrown by people power in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland in 1989; commanders in the KGB, army, and Communist Party were prevented by people power from establishing a coup in Russia in 1991; a mass nonviolent uprising in Thailand prevented a top military general from consolidating his power in 1993; the South African whites' monopoly political rule was broken in 1994 after a decade of largely nonviolent struggle. In all these places the power-holders found their power slipping away because those they depended on refused any longer to follow the script.” George Lakey (Strategizing For A Living Revolution).
Remember - The People United Will Never Be Defeated – you can achieve anything, change anything, be anything, do anything you put your mind to – you are power – united we stand, divided we fall.
Fist up, smile on,
CJ
Comments