Challenges Facing the Labour Movement Today

Wed. June 4

SFU Harbour Centre (downtown)

515 west Hastings

7.00 pm

Sam Gindin: is a former Assistant to the President of Canadian Auto
Workers (CAW), and is now the Packer Chair in Social Justice at York
University in Toronto. He writes widely on the labour movement
(notably on developments in the auto sector), and on the US empire.

Greg Albo: teaches political economy at York University in Toronto. He
is also on the editorial boards of Canadian Dimension, Relay and
Socialist Register. He writes on contemporary capitalism and the
political economy of North America.

Both speakers are prominent thinkers on how to re-orient our unions
and social and political movements to face an increasingly savage
system of capitalism.

Sponsored by Vancouver Socialist Forum

For more information:
www.vancouversocialist.com
778-554-2730
vancouver_socialist_Forum@yahoo.com

 

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Hype

Gordon Campbell's provincial government has undergone a conversation to environmentalism. -First carbon tax in North America -Transit improvements

Reality

Campbell's government remains committed to the profits of big business. Their environmental policies amount to nothing more than greenwashing. -Carbon tax lets biggest corporate emitters off hook, hits working people hardest -Transit spending dwarfed by Gateway port and roadway expansion -Regressive impacts of private hydro power -Oil and gas expansion a la Alberta tar sands

Needed

An independent, forceful movement to address climate change by placing onus on those who caused the problem in the first place - greedy corporations and compliant governments.

This kind of public pressure recently stopped: -Upper Pitt River private hydro power project -Fish farm expansion on North Coast

How can we take on even bigger issues? How can we prevent the burden of climate change from being shifted onto the backs of working people, or violating the rights of indigenous peoples?

…Join a discussion on what needs to be done

Organized by Vancouver Socialist Forum (call 778-858-5179 or 778-554-2730)

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Vancouver Socialist Forum Presents:

Building Movements Against War:
Past and Present Anti-war Activists Speak

A Free Public Forum, commemorating the 5th anniversary of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq

Sunday March 16th 2008, at 3 pm SFU Harbour Centre
515 West Hastings Street
(Hastings and Granville, downtown Vancouver)

Guest speakers

Mable Elmore: Mable is a leading antiwar activist in Vancouver and is a Co-chair of stopwar.ca. She was a leading figure in putting together the Canada wide tour of Malaila Joya (an outspoken Afghan critic of the war in Afghanistan and member of the Afghan parliament) which was a huge success drawing hundreds to the numerous events across the lower mainland. She has been active in stopwar since its creation and is an avid supporter of social justice and human rights.

Barry Sheppard: Barry was active in the antiwar movement in the US during the 60s and
70s. He was in Vietnam during the war to interview GI’s and was in Iran during the Iranian revolution that threw out American imperialism. He was also one of the first western journalists to interview the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Barry continues his work as an author and activist based in San Francisco, and is a regular contributor to Green Left Weekly. He was a prominent leader in the US Socialist Workers Party for many years, and left that organization in 1988. One of his written works is a recently-published book on his decades of experience as an activist, called The Party: A Political Memoir.

For more information call: 604-779-7430

Email: vancouver_socialist _forum@yahoo. com

Anti War Rally

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Venezuela at Crossroads:
New Initiatives for People's Power and Social Justice

Saturday, Feb. 16,
3.00 pm
SFU Harbour Centre (Downtown Vancouver),
515 W. Hastings St.;
Speakers:

Suzanne Weiss : Venezuela We are With You Coalition, Toronto

John Riddell : Venezuela We are With You Coalition, Toronto;p Editor of Socialist Voice http://www.socialistvoice.ca/

Weiss and Riddell, who were in Venezuela during the referendum campaign late last year, will discuss the social gains of the Bolivarian Revolution, the emerging system of communal councils, the draft program of the new United Socialist Party of Venezuela, and Venezuela's growing role in world struggle for social justice. See their report at www.venezuelawearewithyou.blogspot.com/

Sponsored by Vancouver Socialist Forum

for information: 778-858-5179 or 778-554-2730

Featured Speakers:

Ian Angus
Editor of the online journal Climate and Capitalism and managing
editor of Socialist Voice. He is a founder and coordinating committee
member of the Ecosocialist International Network.

Macdonald Stainsby
Coordinator of oilsandstruth.org in Edmonton.
He has been reporting extensively on the
impacts of the oil sands, as well as working with
directly affected communities, workers, and
environmental groups to expose and bring to
light the devastation of oil sands development.

Over 11,000 people 187 countries from gathered in Bali, Indonesia last
month to begin planning for a post-Kyoto treaty on climate change.
Canada played a key role, in alliance with the USA, in ensuring that
the meeting was all talk and no action. Result: a roadmap to nowhere,
a vague statement with no targets and no plan for cutting greenhouse
gases.
The only concrete measure approved in Bali was a fraudulent "forest
protection" fund organized by the World Bank, a scheme that makes the
poorest countries pay for the damage caused by the richest, an attack
on the rights of indigenous people everywhere.

Why did the Bali conference fail?
Will the next climate treaty be worse than Kyoto?
Why is Canada blocking action?
Can we impose a people's roadmap for climate justice?
How can we act to prevent climate catastrophe?

Organized by
Vancouver Socialist Forum
For more info: 778-554-2730

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Vancouver Socialist Forum educational:

OPPOSING IMPERIALIST WAR, THEN AND NOW

In August, 1914, war broke out in Europe. Although the existing socialist parties had p ledged  to wage revolutionary struggles against world war, most of them failed to do so. A patriotic wave swept through Europe, America and Japan, infecting the socialist parties themselves. The majority of the socialist movement  supported the war, siding with “their" capitalist governments, including in wars of conquest against the colonized peoples.

Three years later after 1914, revolution was on the rise throughout Europe and America, and the colonized peoples  found  strong allies in a transformed working class and socialist vanguard.   

 What had changed? Why did the majority of the existing working class parties fail in 1914, and how were new parties built? What are the lessons we can draw today as colonial wars are once again on the rise?

Vancouver Socialist Forum invites you to an education discussion with Ian Angus. He is the author of the groundbreaking history of the early communist movement in Canada, Canadian Bolsheviks: The Early Years of the Communist Party of Canada , and the  director  of the Socialist History Project .

Date: Sunday, January 20

Time: 11 am to 1 pm

For location, please phone 778-554-2730 or 778-858-5179.

 

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