RadFest 2002

RadFest 2002 was held May 31-June 2 at Aurora University's George Williams Lake Geneva Campus.

Bacground

RadFest is sponsored by the A.E. Havens Center for the Study of Social Structures and Social Change. Its director, Patrick Barrett, said that “the central goal of the conference is to provide an opportunity for progressive activists, organizers and intellectuals to come together to discuss issues of mutual interest and concern, strengthen networks and devise strategies for progressive social, economic and political change.”

Barrett noted that RadFest is growing. Last year’s event drew about 200 people and this year’s was the largest to date. Barrett calls it “an important annual gathering for progressives.”

The opening plenary, featured such well-known national figures as Global Exchange’s Medea Benjamin and Middle East activist Rania Masri, addressing the recent extremes of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and Central Asia, and was immediately followed by a workshop offering on the post-Sept. 11 world.

The various workshops were devoted to issues such as gay and lesbian rights, tax policy and religious freedom, as well as strategy and skill-building sessions.

But “the subtext of RadFest is the media,” said communications expert Robert McChesney, author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy. McChesney has spoken at every RadFest since 1999. The foreign policy plenary, for example, “discussed how media have given distorted impressions of events overseas,” he said.

Numerous workshops were devoted to such issues as the intrusion of corporate marketing into public education, which University of Illinois expert Dan Cook called “an aggressive commercial colonization of our children.” Others focused on the building of progressive media alternatives.

A hopeful note was sounded at the second conference plenary, which concerned progressive strategy and featured Medea Benjamin, David Newby of the South Central Wisconsin Coalition of Labor (AFL-CIO), Madison-based Nation columnist John Nichols, Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) and the Green Party USA’s George Martin. “We’re all here to see how we can make this a bigger movement when we leave here,” said Martin.

Participants

The opening event of the program was a plenary panel on Friday evening, titled “U.S. Foreign Policy, the Middle East, and Central Asia.” The panel was composed of Medea Benjamin (Global Exchange); Zoltan Grossman (South-West Asia Information Group), Jennifer Lowenstein (Jews for Equal Justice), and Rania Masri (Iraq Action Coalition).

On Saturday evening, there will be a second plenary panel, titled “The State of Progressive Politics: Where Are We? Where Are We Going?” The panelists were Tammy Baldwin (US House of Representatives), Medea Benjamin (2000 Green Party Senate Candidate, California), George Martin (Greater Milwaukee Green Party), David Newby (AFL-CIO), and John Nichols (The Nation magazine).

The remainder of the program was primarily devoted to more than two dozen workshops and panels addressing a wide array of social, political, and economic topics on Saturday and Sunday, including:

• “The Burgeoning U.S. Media Reform Movement” (with Liz DiNovella, Robert McChesney, Fred McKissack, and John Nichols)
• “Creating Independent Media” (with Jessica Clark, Kristian Knutsen, Brian Rothgery, John Anderson, and Danielle Chynoweth)
• “Ablism and the Left” (with Darrell Price and Sarah Triano)
• “Organizing Workers Under Corporate Globalization” (with John Peck, Leila Pine, and Bonnie Strauss)
• “We Are All Theatre: A Workshop in Applied Theatre Techniques” (with Jenny Wanasek and Mark Weinberg)
• “Advertising and Commercialization” (with Inger Stole, Dan Cook, and Carrie McLaren)
• “Why are Wisconsin Schools Failing African American Children?” (with Stan Woodard, Kimm Hurley-Smith, Valencia Douglas, and Jerry Smith)
• “Fundraising for Social Change” (with Karen Kubby)
• “Encouraging and Empowering Women as Leaders” (with Amy Heart and Amy Mondloch)
• “Alternatives to Corporate Globalization” (with Steve Watrous and Merritt Bussiere)
• “Race, Class, and the Left” (with Rose Brewer and Ben Márquez)
• “Abolish Corporate Personhood!” (with Jan Edwards and Molly Morgan)
• “Confronting Globalization” (with Mike Prokosch)
• “Deepening Local Democracy” (with Ben Manski)
• “The Enemy of Nature” (with Joel Kovel)
• “LGBT Issues, Civil Rights, and Progressive Coalition Building” (with Jessica Brown, Shamus Khan, Mark Pocan, and Debbie Weill)

Other topis included Middle East activism, reparations, reproductive rights, dismantling racism, fair trade, nuclear issues in war and peace, and the Zapatista movement.

References

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