The Crisis of Everything Everywhere — Day 2
Comments Off on The Crisis of Everything Everywhere — Day 2THE CRISIS OF EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE
or WELCOME TO THE NEW PARADIGM
A midwinter retreat, a modular molecular seminar with Everyone
Day 2
Perspectives
On the second day, we will attempt to bring ouselves directly into the present. We will begin with a session organized by Direct Action working group involving a dialogical process where those involved will think and reflect about where this movement may be 6 months from now. And what kind of actions could bring this movement there.
This will be followed up by a presentation by Andrew Ross about a campaign to encourage students and former students to go on a debt strike. Andrew will speak about the debt as a central element in contemporary struggles and responses to the campaign thus far.
This will be followed by an attempt to discuss the recent experience and struggles of students against austerity measures as well as efforts to generalize their struggles into a larger political context. In addition to encouraging students to attend, we have invited several guests like Martha Rosler and Ben Morea to offer some of their own experiences on the role of students in the struggles in the 60’s and 70’s.
The final part of the day, will be a talk by Brian Holmes, where he will try to outline the potential
12-4PM
Welcome to the New Paradigm
— Where is this movement headed, what kind of actions will orient towards these horizons?
This will be a meeting facilitated by the Direct Action working group and oriented toward thinking about the next 6 months and speaking to one another about the types of actions and ideas and questions and horizons people feel would be important to work around / toward.
4:15 -6:15 PM
Debt Refusal–The Next Step in Reclaiming Our Lives from Financial Elites?
This will be a discussion about the politics of debt, and will focus on the problem of student debt–a form of indenture that has mushroomed into a national scandal and will include. As a part of the education and empowerment working group, Andrew Ross and other organizers of the Occupy Student Debt Campaign will present and describe the career of the campaign and analyze some of the responses to the concept of debt refusal from various parts of the political spectrum.
6:15-8:15PM
Student Movements, Past & Present
— Student participation within the occupation movement, what are it’s prospects and limitations?
— Does the student movement have the potential to break out of the identity of ‘student’ and expose the interconnectedness of the university to the larger processes of class consolidation and neoliberal policies?
— What can be learned from the students movements from the 60’s?
The attempt to further indebt and limit the potential for those studying to live outside the constraints of those imposed by the logic and language of capital has lead to strong protest movements and occupations in universities in these last few years. T his session will be an attempt to invite students and former students to reflect on the challenges and questions confronting the role of students in this wider political struggle today. We will be joined by Martha Rosler and Ben Morea.
8:15PM
We have determined that after Saturday’s full discussions, we will keep this slot open, either revisiting the questions from Saturday evening discussion, or keeping this space open for the continuation of the conversation from the prior sessions.
[the below talk is cancelled]
Beyond Financial Governance,
or: Profanity and its Uses
Financially driven globalization was the capitalist answer to the locally and nationally rooted labor movements, political protests and ecological concerns of the 1960s. Computerized trading has now become the highest form of government, and bankers are the secular priests of our era. The act of profanation, according to Giorgio Agamben, means returning that which is sacred to common use.
— Is that what OWS has been doing?
— How do we go further?
About
Welcome to the New Paradigm or The Crisis of Everything Everywhere is the name for a small scale / molecular / modular / horizontally organized effort to think, speak about, and speculate upon our present.
It will unfold over a period of 9 days, between January 7th and 15th. It will involve various groups and individuals who have explored or been directly involved in the movement of the squares, encampments and occupations of 2011.
It will involve artists, thinkers, writers, activists, occupiers, poets, programmers, workers, revolutionaries, students, debtors, laborers and laborless of all kinds into a focused yet open-ended conversation, collective research and analysis of our contemporary social-political movements / struggles.
Given the fact we are in New York, we will make a special effort to address and consider how those movements have impacted the political and cultural landscape of this city, region and country. And by connecting to other histories and places, to begin to build up an image of what kinds of struggles and challenges may lay ahead in the coming weeks, months, even years.