Watch Open University of the Left events on YouTube
You can now watch Open University of the Left events on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/OpenUnivoftheLeft.
FILM: American Casino
Jan 30, Saturday, 2:30 pm
Open University Of The Left
Lincoln Park Library
1150 W Fullerton
Open University presents the new award-winning documentary from Leslie and Andrew Cockburn that explains the sub-prime mortgage crisis, how Wall Street traders created it, how it has impoverished homeowners, and how the banks intend to make us pay for it.
"Investigative reporters Leslie and Andrew Cockburn have spent nearly 30
years uncovering major stories (for PBS, CBS Reports, 60 Minutes, et alia),
but with American Casino they take on the biggest economic crisis of our lifetime: the subprime mortgage meltdown that has caused more than a million Americans to lose their homes. The Cockburns interview Wall Street wizards who are as nervous about revealing their identity as any mobster in the witness protection program; they rewind to Phil Gramm (R, Texas) calling us '"a nation of whiners … (facing) a mental recession"; they replay Alan Greenspan's admission that his ideology was "flawed"; and they put a human face on the victims of bankers who targeted minority communities with no income verification loans, adjustable rates (that adjusted upwards, dramatically), and complex language that even the pros can't fathom. Out of this mess, the filmmakers build a case against those who used government deregulation to make a fortune for the few and create havoc for the many."
— IndieWire.com
"… powerful and shocking look at the subprime lending scandal. If you want
to understand how the US financial system failed and how mortgage companies ripped off the poor, see this film."
— Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prize-winning economist
"… this smart, touching documentary traces the connections between Wall
Street’s high-flying practices and the countless citizens on Main Street who
now face bankruptcy and eviction."
— John Powers, Fresh Air
"A damning documentary which makes a convincing case that neither the
federal government nor the corporate elite could care less about the plight
of the working class."
— NewsBlaze.com
"Terrific…the Cockburns fill in the lines of connection.… The movie is a
lucid and comprehensive picture of a rotten system."
— David Denby, New Yorker
"… a real gem of a movie…a fascinating, and occasionally heartrending,
morality play of predatory greed in the crazy world of derivatives and
collateralized debt obligations and its brutal impact on hardworking
African-American home owners in Baltimore."
— Lloyd Grove, Daily Beast
"A meticulously structured film…The dire financial statistics paraded in the
documentary American Casino are infuriating…"
— New York Times
"For those who ever been mystified by what the terms collateralized debt
obligation or credit default swaps mean (including me most of the time),
The American Casino will bring you up to speed … Although the movie focuses exclusively on Bush's role, attention must be paid to the failure of the new administration in keeping people in their homes."
— Louis Proyect, The Unrepentant Marxist
Remembering Daniel Bensaïd
Feb 13, Saturday, 2:30 pm
Open University of the Left
Lincoln Park Library
1150 W Fullerton
The French radical philosopher and political leader, Daniel Bensaïd, who died in January 2010, was one of the most prominent figures of the European Left of the last half-century. To review his life and work, Open University welcomes two of Daniel's Chicago colleagues, Patrick Quinn and Dr. Willaim A. Pelz.
A leader of the French student revolt of 1968, Daniel maintained a vigorous anti-capitalist and anti-Stalinist politics. He was an outspoken proponent of the 1995 revival of labor and student movements in France, an incisive and internationalist critic of neo-liberal globalization, and was especially involved in developments within the radical left in Latin America. Most recently Daniel worked to found, in 2009, the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) in France.
Beyond his activism, Daniel was a prolific writer. His most important theoretical work, Marx l'intempestif, was published in 1995. The book was translated into English and published in 2002 under the title A Marx for Our Times: Adventures and Misadventures of a Critique (Verso Books, www.versobooks.com/books/ab/b-titles/bensaid_marx_times.shtml). It offered an unconventional reading of Marx, clearing him of the accusation of determinism. Daniel became a frequent author of op-eds in Le Monde and Libération, and appeared regularly on radio and TV.
A bibliography of Daniel's English language writings may be viewed at: http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article9410.
In 2009, Daniel wrote: "The specific historical form of Stalinism has died, but the lessons to be drawn from this experience are actually more relevant than ever. It is a matter of ensuring the development of socialist democracy at all levels ... The "short twentieth century" has ended and a new cycle of class struggles is just beginning. Crucial new questions are being raised, beginning with the ecological challeng ... [We must] bring together a range of experiences and currents on the basis of the events and tasks of the new period. To go the distance, though, [we] will need history and memory."
Open University welcomes Historian and author Dr. William A. Pelz, whose forthcoming book is a biography of Karl Marx (Spring 2010). His most recent publication is Against Capitalism: The European Left on the March (2007). Other books include The Spartkusbund and the German Working Class Movement (1988), and Wilhelm Liebknecht and German Social Democracy (1994). He also edited the Eugene V. Debs Reader (2000, 2007). Bill's articles and book reviews have appeared in the American Historical Review, International Labor and Working Class History, German History, Sozialismus, JahrBuch fuar Forschungen zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung, and International Labor History Yearbook, among others.
Open University also welcomes veteran activist Patrick Quinn, who is Northwestern University Archivist Emeritus, a novelist and frequent contributor to The Wisconsin Magazine of History, and a colleague of Daniel's in the international socialist current Fourth International (www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article351).
FILM: Capitalism hits the Fan
Feb 27, Saturday, 2:30 pm
Open University Of The Left
Lincoln Park Library
1150 W Fullerton
University of Massachusetts Economics Professor Richard Wolff breaks down the root causes of today's economic crisis, showing how it was decades in the making and in fact reflects seismic failures within the structures of American-style capitalism itself.
Wolff traces the source of the economic crisis to the 1970s when wages began to stagnate, and American workers were forced into a dysfunctional spiral of borrowing and debt that ultimately exploded in the mortgage meltdown. By placing the crisis within this larger historical and systemic frame, Wolff argues convincingly that the proposed government "bailouts," stimulus packages, and calls for increased market regulation will not be enough to address the real causes of the crisis, in the end suggesting that far more fundamental change will be necessary to avoid future catastrophes.
Richly illustrated with graphics and charts, this video is a superb introduction that allows ordinary citizens to comprehend, and react to, the unraveling crisis.
Richard Wolff has been a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts since 1981. He is a member of the editorial board of several academic journals including Rethinking Marxism. He also publishes regular analyses of current economic events on the websites www.globalmacroscope.com and www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine. He has co-authored several books with Stephen Resnick, including The Economics of Colonialism: Britain and Kenya; Rethinking Marxism: Struggles in Marxist Theory; Knowledge and Class: A Marxian Critique of Political Economy and Economics: Marxian versus Neoclassical. He also co-authored Bringing it all Back Home: Class and Gender in the Modern Household with Harriet Fraad and Stephen Resnick.
"…a rich and much needed corrective to the views of mainstream economists
and pundits. It would be difficult to come away from this viewing with
anything but an acute appreciation of what is needed to get us out of this
mess."
— Stanley Aronowitz, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Urban
Education, City University of New York
"…a real tour de force."
— Hobart Spalding, Socialism and Democracy
"…electrifying explanation of how the 'American Dream' evolved into the
'Nightmare on Wall Street.'"
— BuzzFlash