WEDNESDAY: Lessons from Movement for a New Society
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Alex Knight
Mar 7, 2010, 8:35:30 PM3/7/10
to Philly SDS, drex...@googlegroups.com, temp...@googlegroups.com, upen...@googlegroups.com, Matthew Graber, philly...@googlegroups.com
Come learn from Philly's radical history!!!
Join former MNS members Lynne Shivers, George Lakey, Nancy Brigham, Betsy Raasch-Gilman and Bob Irwin while they discuss the history, political practice, and lessons learned from the Movement for a New Society. Then, we'll open the floor for an intergenerational dialogue on movement building today.
The Movement for a New Society (MNS) was a national network of feminist radical pacifist collectives that existed from 1971 to 1988. Headquartered in West Philly, the MNS established many of the infrastructure that still exists there today, such as the Mariposa food co-op, what is now the A-Space, and the LCA land trust that included many MNS collective houses, some of which still exist!
Though rarely remembered by name today, many of the new ways of doing radical politics that MNS promoted have become central to contemporary anti-authoritarian social movements. The group popularized consensus decision making, introduced the spokescouncil method of organization to activists in the United States, and was a leading advocate of a variety of practices—communal living, unlearning oppressive behavior, creating cooperatively owned businesses—that are now often subsumed under the rubric of “prefigurative politics.”
Participants synthesized their experiences in the 1960s civil rights movement with aspects of anarchism and an array of other influences to develop an experimental revolutionary practice that attempted to combine multi-issue political analysis, organizing campaigns, and direct action with community building and personal transformation. However, these innovative approaches to making a “living revolution” eventually presented challenges of their own which contributed to the dissolution of MNS and have impacted more recent political initiatives such as the global justice movement and the new Students for a Democratic Society.
This event is apart of the Justseeds Bring Down the Walls! series, which celebrates radical movements that struggle to collapse the boundaries of class, race, gender and generation. The majority of events will take place at two locations blocks apart on Baltimore Avenue in West Philadelphia. An Independent Project of Philagrafika 2010, Bring Down the Walls! is organized in collaboration with local activists. For more info:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=296940365381
To read a history of MNS check out:
"Anarchism and the Movement for a New Society: Direct Action and Prefigurative Community in the 1970s and 80s"
- By Andrew Cornell
http://www.anarchiststudies.org/node/292
This event co-sponsored by Marginal Notes Study Group and Philly Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).
BOOKFACE: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=310170563565
--
Alex Knight
organizer, teacher, writer
book-in-progress: "The End of Capitalism"
http://endofcapitalism.com
484.213.6747
Believe in yourself. Trust in one another.
Join former MNS members Lynne Shivers, George Lakey, Nancy Brigham, Betsy Raasch-Gilman and Bob Irwin while they discuss the history, political practice, and lessons learned from the Movement for a New Society. Then, we'll open the floor for an intergenerational dialogue on movement building today.
| Date: | Wednesday, March 10, 2010 |
| Time: | 8:00pm - 11:00pm |
| Location: | Studio 34 |
| Street: | 4522 Baltimore Avenue |
The Movement for a New Society (MNS) was a national network of feminist radical pacifist collectives that existed from 1971 to 1988. Headquartered in West Philly, the MNS established many of the infrastructure that still exists there today, such as the Mariposa food co-op, what is now the A-Space, and the LCA land trust that included many MNS collective houses, some of which still exist!
Though rarely remembered by name today, many of the new ways of doing radical politics that MNS promoted have become central to contemporary anti-authoritarian social movements. The group popularized consensus decision making, introduced the spokescouncil method of organization to activists in the United States, and was a leading advocate of a variety of practices—communal living, unlearning oppressive behavior, creating cooperatively owned businesses—that are now often subsumed under the rubric of “prefigurative politics.”
Participants synthesized their experiences in the 1960s civil rights movement with aspects of anarchism and an array of other influences to develop an experimental revolutionary practice that attempted to combine multi-issue political analysis, organizing campaigns, and direct action with community building and personal transformation. However, these innovative approaches to making a “living revolution” eventually presented challenges of their own which contributed to the dissolution of MNS and have impacted more recent political initiatives such as the global justice movement and the new Students for a Democratic Society.
This event is apart of the Justseeds Bring Down the Walls! series, which celebrates radical movements that struggle to collapse the boundaries of class, race, gender and generation. The majority of events will take place at two locations blocks apart on Baltimore Avenue in West Philadelphia. An Independent Project of Philagrafika 2010, Bring Down the Walls! is organized in collaboration with local activists. For more info:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=296940365381
To read a history of MNS check out:
"Anarchism and the Movement for a New Society: Direct Action and Prefigurative Community in the 1970s and 80s"
- By Andrew Cornell
http://www.anarchiststudies.org/node/292
This event co-sponsored by Marginal Notes Study Group and Philly Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).
BOOKFACE: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=310170563565
--
Alex Knight
organizer, teacher, writer
book-in-progress: "The End of Capitalism"
http://endofcapitalism.com
484.213.6747
Believe in yourself. Trust in one another.
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