(Found via New York City Anarchoblogs.)

For those of you in and around the capital of capital, here’s an upcoming event at Left Forum at Pace University in New York.

WHAT: What Does the Left Need to Know about Prison? panel with Vikki Law, Asha Bandele, Cleo Silvers, and Laura Whitehorn, moderated by Susie Day.

WHEN: Sunday, March 21, 3pm-5pm

WHERE: Left Forum, Pace University, One Pace Plaza, New York, NY 10038

What Does the Left Need to Know about Prison? (a panel at Left Forum)

Placated by TV-cop-show justice, worried about economic survival, most of the U.S. Left – like the U.S. mainstream – ignores the ongoing reality of prison in the lives of poor people and revolutionaries, alike. Yet prison in this country is the basis for the creation of new forms of increasing government/corporate control. The prison system has already played a critical role in ensuring that popular rebellions, like those of the mid-20th century, do not occur again. What do people who do support work for political and social prisoners have to teach us about building a more viable and oppositional Left?

Panelists: Vikki Law, Asha Bandele, Cleo Silvers, and Laura Whitehorn, moderated by Susie Day.

Asha Bandele: Journalist, editor-at-large of Essence magazine, mother, and author of The Prisoner's Wife, her memoirs of her relationship with a New York State prisoner with whom she had a daughter. She is also the author of other books, including Daughter, a novel about the impact of police brutality. Asha continues her writing and work as a prison activist.

Laura Whitehorn: Political activist who was incarcerated for more than 14 years on political charges, Laura now does support work for U.S. political prisoners. At the request of Wonda Jones, daughter of former Panther, political prisoner, and prison activist Safiya Bukhari, Laura edited a compilation of Bukhari's writings and speeches, just published by the Feminist Press.

Cleo Silvers: Former Black Panther Party member and South Bronx community worker, Cleo has worked for years as a union and labor organizer and has done extensive work on behalf of U.S. prisoners. She is currently a member of the Safiya Nuh Foundation for the Support of Political Prisoners.

Vikki Law: Writer, photographer, and mother. She is a co-founder of Books Through Bars-New York City, an organization that sends free radical literature and books to prisoners nationwide; editor of the !!!@@e2;20ac;2dc;zine Tenacious: Writings from Women in Prison, and author of Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women (PM Press, 2009).

Susie Day: Assistant editor at Monthly Review, writes a regular satire column and has, since 1988, written about political prisoners and prisons.

at Left Forum

Pace University, One Pace Plaza
New York, NY 10038
Sunday, March 21st, 3 to 5 pm, W-504

— Vikki Law, Resistance Behind Bars (2010-03-08): What Does the Left Need to Know about Prison? (a panel at Left Forum)

• Operation Revelation. Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-03-05). Here's the intro to a press release from the sheriff of Bossier Parish, Louisiana: Bossier Sheriff Larry Deen has unveiled a new emergency operations plan that will be a continuation of public safety in Bossier Parish should disaster ever strike here at home. The plan, known as Operation Exodus, will… (Linked Friday 2010-03-05.)
• apophenia » Blog Archive » ChatRoulette, from my perspective. www.zephoria.org (2010-03-06). “. . . I love the way that it mixes things up. For most users of all ages – but especially teens – the Internet today is about socializing with people you already know. But I used to love the randomness of the Internet. I can't tell you how formative it was for me to grow up talking to all sorts of random people online. So I feel pretty depressed every time I watch people flip out about the dangers of talking to strangers. Strangers helped me become who I was. Strangers taught me about a different world than what I knew in my small town. Strangers allowed me to see from a different perspective. Strangers introduced me to academia, gender theory, Ivy League colleges, the politics of war, etc. So I hate how we vilify all strangers as inherently bad. Did I meet some sketchballs on the Internet when I was a teen? DEFINITELY. They were weird; I moved on. And it used to be a lot harder to move on when everything was attached to an email that was paid for. So I actually think that the ChatRoulette version allows you to move on with greater ease, less guilt, and far more comfortably.” (Linked Saturday 2010-03-06.)
• Two-Gun Mutualism and the Golden Rule – Part 3. Shawn P. Wilbur, Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth (2010-03-03). "TWO-GUN" MUTUALISMand theGOLDEN RULE[continued] ARMED AND DANGEROUS Perhaps this has all taken a strangely martial turn, given mutualism's generally peaceful reputation. Isn't the core of mutualism the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you?" Yes, indeed. But there's nothing simple about fulfilling the Golden Rule. The… (Linked Saturday 2010-03-06.)
• Raspberry Cliché Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-03-07). Last night Hollywood held its most rigidly predictable exercise in conventional wisdom: the Golden Raspberry Awards, a.k.a. the Razzies, established to honor the worst films of the year. Sandra Bullock showed up to collect her Worst Actress and Worst Screen Couple prizes for All About Steve, then razzed the crowd… (Linked Sunday 2010-03-07.)

It’s that time of the week again. You know the deal: time to get as Shameless as you wanna be.

What have you been up to this week? Write anything? Leave a link and a short description for your post in the comments. Or fire away about anything else you might want to talk about.

• By: Sheldon Richman. Sheldon Richman, Comments for Mises Economics Blog (2010-03-04). "Sheldon, we are "holding onto" the term because we favor a peaceful, prosperous, cooperative society with a concomitant advanced economy, which will of course be characterized by the widespread "private ownership of the means of production." We need a word for this important concept, for this libertarian and good institution…. (Linked Friday 2010-03-05.)

• Welcome to Statelessness. Roderick, Austro-Athenian Empire (2010-03-01). Gary Chartier is offering an introductory online course on anarchism under the auspices of the Molinari Institute's Center for a Stateless Society. Check it out. (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-02.)
• SWAT Team Endangers Child, Parents Charged With Child Endangerment. The Agitator (2010-03-02). Police are here to keep kids safe: “So smoking pot = ‘child endangerment.’ Storming a home with guns, then firing bullets into the family pets as a child looks on = necessary police procedures to ensure everyone's safety. Just so we’re clear.” (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-02.)
• "Looters" and Food in an Emergency. Matthew Yglesias (2010-03-02). Disaster Statism Vs. Human Survival and Reclamation of Lost and Abandoned Property (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-02.)
• NONVIOLENCE. A REVIEW OF MARK KURLANSKY'S 2006 BOOK. www.wendymcelroy.com (2010-03-02). NONVIOLENCE: A REVIEW OF MARK KURLANSKY'S 2006 BOOK BY THAT NAME By Jim Russell (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-02.)
• HOUSE DEMOCRATS SUPPORT TORTURE. UNDERNEWS (2010-03-02). Keep on Hoping, y’all. (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-02.)
• t r u t h o u t | Alexander Cockburn | The Bogus Crime Wave. www.truthout.org (2010-03-02). Siege Mentality vs. Empirical Reality (Sin Fronteras Edition): In spite of the constant shrill efforts by Anglo nationalists to cultivate a siege mentality, there actually is no empirical evidence of an immigrant crime wave. When you control for age and state of residence, and when you don’t count bogus victimless “offenses” which are directly related to immigration status, young Latin@ men are no more likely to commit violent crimes than young white men. If the undocumented population is significantly undercounted by the census (as many, including the nativist fear-mongers, would generally believe it to be), then the Latin@ crime rate is actually significantly lower than the white crime rate. The American Conservative, of all places (!), has the story. (Via the November Coalition.) (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-02.)
• School district admits installing covert webcam activation software on student laptops, denies wrongdoing. Boing Boing (2010-03-02). In which Perpetual State of Supervision meets Stasi-statism: “The Superintendant of the Lower Merion School District — where parents have initiated a class action suit over the covert use of students’ laptops to surveil them in school and at home — has sent a letter to parents with more information about the spying. The school admits that there was spyware installed on students laptops that allowed for remote, covert activation of their webcams, … They have disabled the system for now and deny that it was misused.” Dude, seriously? Of course they were “misused.” The thing itself IS the misuse. (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-02.)
• Nolan Klein: an innocent man who died of an untreated medical condition inside Nevada´s prison system. NPW, Nevada Prison Watch (2010-03-02). From the January 12 2010 Meeting of the Board of Prison Commissioners:Tonya Brown stated she had a private autopsy performed on Mr. Klein and passed out the updated death certificate to the Board. She stated had he been properly treated, he would still be alive today and the State of… (Linked Tuesday 2010-03-02.)