In the Wake of the Democratic Victory, an Urgent Need for Stepped Up Revolutionary Work and Investigation Among the People

The Democrats quickly gained control of the House of Representatives last Tuesday night, and the Senate a few days later. The Republicans lost due to the huge problems they are having in Iraq and their inability to lessen that. There is tremendous anger by many against the war. Many who voted saw their vote as a vote against Bush (even if they were not for the Dems). During this past period, Bush and his gang have held fast to pushing forward on the war and on their whole program, including pushing through the Military Commission Act. However, the day before the election, top Army figures openly advocated for Rumsfeld's resignation, representing ruling class forces who were worried about how the war is proceeding and wanted to reassess. The Democrats talk of a new direction tapped into a very broad sentiment among the people against the war, and people were led into thinking the elections was the arena for change. Now, post election, if things continue in the same way, what people thought they were voting for and what actually happens in the future will be a very sharp contradiction. Already there's talk that the Democrats may not be able to change much about the war. And nowhere are they talking against militarizing the Border, or against the Military Commissions Act. There's also the anti-abortion Democrats who were elected. What the Democrats do or don't do now could result in more passivity and paralysis, if conscious forces aren't actively out there engaging people on these questions, including with the pages 3 and 5 articles of this current Revolution.

The situation is still urgent, not less with the success of the Democrats. Billions on the planet live under very horrible conditions, including those created and nurtured by U.S. imperialism. WCW's indictments need to be put out even more - "your governments" - the disastrous course they're on, and also that the World Can't Wait, Drive out the Bush regime, bring all this to a halt. There need to be a massive repudiation of the regime and this whole program, to break the out of the stifling framework.

We need to continue to do active investigation. What are people's sentiments to this post-election situation and how do they see our analysis and vision. We need to be scientific. After this Democrat victory, when people say to us "what do you say now?", we should say "what do YOU say? And what will you DO?" This should spark off a good and meaningful discussion, and we should be able to get deeply into some of the analysis brought out in this issue of Revolution.

For the next few weeks, we need to be out among the people. Look to WCW's website for plans and actively support them. Very important is the promotion of the Chairman Bob Avakian’s Talks, and also the DVD and the memoir). Of course, we need to continue to distribute Revolution newspaper. Everyone should write reports to on their experiences.

11/14

7PM. Gwendolyn Beetham and Jessica Valenti talk about the role of the
Internet in modern activism with bloggers Lauren Spees and Michelle
Riblett (Hollaback), Liza Sabater (Culture Kitchen), and others. 11/14
Barnard College, Altshul Hall, 3009 Broadway nr 117th St.
(212-854-2067) ; free

8 PM. The veteran actress and activist discusses the life experiences that
informed her memoir, My Life So Far. 92nd Street Y, 1395
Lexington Ave (212-415-5500) $25.

9:15 PM - New York Arab American Comedy. Headliner show, hosted by Pete Dominick and featuring Ahmed Ahmed, Dean Obeidallah, Maysoon Zayid, Aron Kader, Maysa Abouzeid, Joe DeRosa, and Helen Maalik. Gotham Comedy Club 208 West 23rd Street New York, NY 10011(212) 367-9000. Between 7th & 8th Avenues November 15, 2006 7:00 PM - New York Arab American Comedy Festival. Stand-up Comedy Night @ Gotham Comedy Club. New Faces of Arab Comedy, hosted by Aron Kader featuring Amer Zahr, Maysa Abouzeid, Mohamed Masoud, Suzy Salamy, Maria Shehata, Amanda Baramki with guest appearances by Dean Obeidallah and Maysoon Zayid. 9:00 PM - Headliner show, hosted by Kerri Louise and featuring Dean Obeidallah, Maysoon Zayid, Aron Kader, Amer Zaher, Maysa Abouzeid, Joe DeRosa, and Helen Maalik. Gotham Comedy Club 208 West 23rd Street New York, NY 10011 (212) 367-9000. Between 7th & 8th Avenues November 16, 2006 5:00 PM and 6:45 PM Screnings. New York Arab American Comedy Festival. Short Comedic Film Night & Party, including a film produced by Emmy award winning actor Tony Shalhoub; The Two Boots Pioneer Theater,155 East 3rd Street (bet. Avenues A and B)New York, New York (212) 591-043 8:00 PM Party presented by the Network of Arab-American Professionals (NAAP-NY) Short Comedic Film Night & PartyNYAACF, Le Caire, 189 E. 3rd Street, Bet. Aves A&B, New York, New York (212) 777-7447 November 17, 2006 8:30 PM. Theatre for the New City Presents Sketch Comedy Nights . Show featuring short comedic plays written by Bethel Karam, Neil Potter, Dean Obeidallah, Lena Rizkallah, Marie-Therese Abou-Daoud, Ronnie Khalil and others. Theater for the New City155 First Avenue (bet 9th and 10th Streets) New York, NY. November 18, 2006 8:30 PM. Theatre for the New City Presents Sketch Comedy Nights. New York Arab American Comedy Festival. show featuring short comedic plays written by Bethel Karam, Neil Potter, Dean Obeidallah, Lena Rizkallah, Marie-Therese Abou-Daoud, Ronnie Khalil and others. Theater for the New City155 First Avenue (bet 9th and 10th Streets) New York, NY. November 19, 2006 6:00 PM. New York Arab American Comedy Festival. Theatre for the New City Presents Sketch Comedy Nights. Show featuring short comedic plays written by Bethel Karam, Neil Potter, Dean Obeidallah, Lena Rizkallah, Marie-Therese Abou-Daoud, Ronnie Khalil and others. Theater for the New City155 First Avenue (bet 9th and 10th Streets) New York, NY.

Iraq in Fragments. Film Forum. See movie website for times. Sunnis, shia and Kurds give voice to the ambivalence, anger and trauma of life in a post-Saddam Iraq. In Arabic, and Kurdish with English Subtitles.

Two Trains Running. Play by August Wilson. Previews begin on November 7 with an official press opening on December 3. Performances will now play through January 7 at Signature Theatre Company's Peter Norton Space.

Two Trains Running is set in Pittsburgh in 1969 and tells the story of the regulars at a popular local diner, grinding out an existence against the backdrop of a turbulent world and rapidly changing city. Memphis Lee looks to prevent the demolition of his restaurant in the face of a municipal project while across the street, Mr. West, the local funeral director, has more business than he can handle. Faced with racial inequality, a depressed economy and the threat of violence, the local residents fight to hang on to their solidarity and sense of community.
The cast for Two Trains Running includes Leon Addison Brown (On the Waterfront, Prelude to a Kiss), Chad L. Coleman (Force Continuum, North Atlantic), Frankie Faison (The Wire, The Thomas Crown Affair), Arthur French (Kinsey, Music of the Heart), Ron Cephas Jones (Satellites, The Wooden Breeks), January LaVoy (Joy,
The Piano Lesson) and Ed Wheeler (Zooman and The Sign, East Texas Hot Links).

The Peter Norton Space • 555 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036 • (212) 244-PLAY (7529)
Performance Schedule:November 7, 2006 – January 7, 2007Tuesday at 7pm, Wednesday – Saturday at 8pm, Saturday & Sunday at 2pm Wednesday Matinees November 22, December 20 and December 27 at 2pmNo show on November 23 and December 24 at 8pmAdded shows November 20 at 8pm and November 12,December 10 & December 17 at 7pm

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

6:00-7:30 p.m. THE CENTER ON LAW AND SECURITY, NYU SCHOOL OF LAW, OPEN FORUM SERIES Presents THE 2006 ELECTION: A DEBRIEFING
Featuring: SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL, Columnist, The Guardian ( UK ), Fellow, Center on Law and Security and HENDRIK HERTZBERG, Author and Columnist, The New Yorker
Presider: STEPHEN HOLMES, Faculty Co-Director, Center on Law and Security, Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law, NYU School of Law
*THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC*
NYU School of Law, Furman Hall, Room 216, 245 Sullivan Street
To RSVP, email CLS@juris.law.nyu.edu or call 212-992-8854
PANELISTS: Sidney Blumenthal is a regular columnist for the UK newspaper The Guardian and a frequent commentator on contemporary politics. His columns have appeared on OpenDemocracy.net, and he was recently the Washington bureau chief for Salon.com, for which he has written over 1800 pieces online. He is currently a fellow for the Center on Law and Security at NYU School of Law. Following the end of the Clinton presidency, Blumenthal subsequently wrote a book titled The Clinton Wars (Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux, 2003), which focuses on his years with the Clintons and in the White House. Other books by Blumenthal include The Permanent Campaign, The Rise of the Counter-Establishment, Pledging Allegiance: The Last Campaign of the Cold War, and the recently published How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime (Princeton University Press, 2006).
Hendrik Hertzberg is best known as the principal political commentator for The New Yorker magazine. He has also been a speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter and editor of The New Republic, and is the author of Politics: Observations & Arguments. As a San Francisco correspondent for Newsweek in 1966, he covered the rise of the hippies, the emergence of rock groups such as the Grateful Dead, Ronald Reagan’s successful campaign for governor of California , and the Beatles’ last concert. Hertzberg served as an officer in the U.S. Navy from 1966 to 1969. Upon his discharge he was hired by William Shawn, then the editor of The New Yorker, as a reporter for "The Talk of the Town" department. In 1977 he joined the White House speechwriting staff and was Carter’s chief speechwriter for the final two years of his term.
Hertzberg was twice editor of The New Republic, from 1981 to 1985 and then from 1989 to 1992. He was a fellow at two institutes at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, at the Institute of Politics and the Shorenstein Institute for the Press, Politics, and Public Policy. Under his editorship The New Republic twice won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence, the magazine world’s highest honor. Hertzberg is a senior editor and staff writer at The New Yorker and is the main contributor to "Comment," the weekly essay on politics and society in "The Talk of the Town." In 2006, his articles won The New Yorker a National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary. Hertzberg is the author of, Politics: Observations and Arguments, a collection of essays and reports chronicling four decades of American politics and culture, from the Johnson years to the Bush years.
PRESIDER: Stephen Holmes is a Faculty Research Director at the Center on Law and Security and the Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law at NYU School of Law. His fields of specialization include the history of liberalism, the disappointments of democratization after communism, and the difficulty of combating terrorism within the limits of liberal constitutionalism. In 2003, he was selected as a Carnegie Scholar. From 1997 to 2000, he was a professor of politics at Princeton . From 1985 to 1997, he was professor of politics and law at the Law School and Political Science Department of the University of Chicago . From 1979 to 1985, he taught at the Department of Government at Harvard University . He was also the editor-in-chief of the East European Constitutional Review from 1993-2003. He is the author of Benjamin Constant and the Making of Modern Liberalism (Yale University Press, 1984), The Anatomy of Antiliberalism (Harvard University Press, 1993), Passions and Constraint: On the Theory of Liberal Democracy (University of Chicago Press, 1995), and co-author (with Cass Sunstein) of The Cost of Rights: Why Liberty Depends on Taxes (Norton, 1999). His new book, The Matador’s Cape: America’s Reckless Response to the War on Terror will be published in spring 2007.
ABOUT THE OPEN FORUM SERIES
The Open Forum Series brings to public attention voices in the fields of law and security to debate and discuss the major policy issues of our time. The events are free and open to the public and provide an opportunity for the public to learn about major policy issues.
ABOUT THE CENTER ON LAW AND SECURITY
Founded in 2003, the Center on Law and Security is an independent, non-partisan, global center of expertise designed to promote an informed understanding of the major legal and security issues that define the post-9/11 environment. Towards that end, the Center convenes policymakers, practitioners, scholars, journalists and other experts to address major issues and gaps in policy discourse and to provide concrete policy recommendations.
Through its many activities, the Center generates local, national, and international awareness of the legal dimension of security issues. These activities include:
Public events--Open Forums, Conferences and the Distinguished Speaker Series--bring together experts in the fields of law and security to debate and discuss the major policy issues of our time.
Policy groups—Conferences, Roundtables and Research Groups—allow for in-depth analyses of and policy recommendations on current issues.
Publications—The NYU Review of Law and Security, The Bulletin on Law and Security, Terrorist Trial Report Cards and numerous books—address timely topics.
Fellowships—bring high-ranking legal scholars, policy officials, law enforcement officials, journalists and others to the Center for a period of time to work on a policy project of their choice before resuming their official duties.
For further information, please visit www.lawandsecurity.org, NYU School of Law, Center on Law and Security www.lawandsecurity.org cls@juris.law.nyu.edu 212 992 8854 [ph] 212 995 4769 [fx]

November 30 and Friday, December 1, 2006

Punishment: The U.S. Record. The Land of the Free? A conference on who, what, why and how we punish. Our nation's prison population has soared by more than 600% since the 1970s, despite a drop in crime rates. As of 2005, over two million people were imprisoned in this country: almost one in every 136 U.S. residents. Black men, who make up 6% of the U.S. population, comprise over 40% of our prison population. A black male born today has a 32% chance of spending time in prison. Eleven states do not allow ex-cons to vote. Nearly 2,800,000 American children have at least one parent in prison or jail. What does this mean for our democracy? Where do our concepts of punishment come from? What is the effect on our families, communities and the economy of our staggeringly high incarceration rate? Join us as we examine the foundations of our ideas of punishment, explore the social effects of current practices and search for viable alternatives to our carceral state. This conference is supported by the Russell Sage Foundation, The Open Society Institute’s U.S. Justice Fund, the Ford Foundation and The J.M. Kaplan Fund and is also cosponsored by the ACLU. Ticket prices: Full Conference $50; Single Session $12 Full-time Students (with valid ID) and New School Alumni: Full Conference $15; Single Session $5 New School Students, Staff and Faculty (with valid ID):Full Conference and Single Sessions are freeACLU members:Full Conference $35; Single Session $8

Conference Agenda (Speakers and times are subject to change. Click on paper titles for a summary of the paper)

Thursday, November 30

10:30 A.M. - 1:15 P.M.Session I: Why We Punish: The Foundation of Our Concepts of PunishmentHistorical and Comparative Perspectives on Punishment PracticesJames Q. Whitman, Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law, Yale Law SchoolThe Legacy of Theology (Transgression, redemption, atonement, retribution and forgiveness)Moshe Halbertal, Professor of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University and the Gruss Professor at NYU Law SchoolPunishment and the Spirit of Democracy George Kateb, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Princeton UniversityBeyond the Cultural Turn: 21st Century Meditations on PunishmentBernard E. Harcourt , Professor of Law and Faculty Director of Academic Affairs at The Law School, University of ChicagoModerator: Suzanne Last Stone, Professor of Law, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and Director of Jewish Law and Interdisciplinary Studies

2:15 P.M. - 5:00 P.M.Session II: What and How We Punish: Law, Justice and PunishmentChanges in the Law: From the Present to the Past to the PresentMichael Tonry, Marvin J. Sonosky Professor of Law and Public Policy, University of Minnesota Law School Economic Models of PunishmentJohn J. Donohue III, Professor of Law, Yale Law SchoolRetribution: Does the Punishment Fit the Crime?Andrew von Hirsch, Honorary Professor of Penal Theory and Penal Law, Cambridge University and Director of the Centre for Penal Theory and Penal EthicsThe Forms and Functions of American Capital PunishmentDavid Garland, Arthur T. Vanderbilt Professor of Law and Professor of Sociology, New York UniversityModerator: James Jacobs, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Professor of Constitutional Law and the Courts Director, Center for Research in Crime and Justice, New York University

5:00 P.M. - 6:00 P.M. Reception

6:00 P.M. - 7:00 P.M. Session III: Special Event Richard Gere and Carey Lowell Read Prison Writings(The PEN America Center is cosponsoring this event)

Friday, December 1

10:00 A.M. - 12:45 A.M.Session IV: Who We Punish: The Carceral State The Rise of the Carceral StateJonathan Simon, Associate Dean, Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program, and Professor of Law, University of California, BerkeleyInequality and PunishmentBruce Western, Professor of Sociology, Princeton UniversityWhen is Imprisonment Not a Punishment?: Immigrants and ImmigrationMark Dow, Author of American GulagTechnologies of PunishmentLorna A. Rhodes, Professor of Anthropology, University of WashingtonModerator: Susan Tucker, Director, The After Prison Initiative, Open Society Institute

1:45 P.M. - 4:30 P.M.Session V: Consequences of a Carceral StateThe Social Effects of Imprisonment: A Labor Market PerspectiveDavid Weiman, Alena Wels Hirschorn '58 Professor of Economics, Barnard CollegeSocial Effects of Imprisonment (On the communities, disenfranchisement)Todd Clear, Distinguished Professor, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New YorkSocial Effects of Imprisonment (On the family)Elizabeth Gaynes, Executive Director, The Osborne AssociationIncarceration and Reentry Reforms in an Era of Robust DemocracyJeremy Travis, President, John Jay College of Criminal JusticeModerator: Deborah Mukamal, Director, Prisoner Reentry Institute, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York

5:00 P.M. - 7:00 P.M.Session VI: Round-table Discussion on Alternatives to a Carceral State Gordon Bazemore, Professor of Criminal Justice, Florida Atlantic UniversityStephen B. Bright, President and Senior Counsel, Southern Center for Human Rights, Visiting Lecturer in Law, Harvard and Yale Law SchoolsNancy Gertner, Judge, U.S. District Court, BostonMarie Gottschalk, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of PennsylvaniaJames Jacobs, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Professor of Constitutional Law and the Courts Director, Center for Research in Crime and Justice, New York UniversityMarc Mauer, Executive Director, The Sentencing ProjectChristopher Uggen, Professor of Sociology, University of MinnesotaModerator: Brent Staples, Editorial Writer, Member of the Editorial Board, The New York Times This conference is supported by the Russell Sage Foundation, The Open Society Institute's U.S. Justice Fund, the Ford Foundation and The J.M. Kaplan Fund. The conference is also Cosponsored by the ACLU.