WEDNESDAY AUGUST 26, 7pm – FILM AND DISCUSSION – $5
VIEW FROM A GRAIN OF SAND

The war of aggression against Afghanistan initiated by George W. Bush in October 2001 and now maintained and expanded by Obama is “NOT THE GOOD WAR“.

Philadelphia World Can’t Wait is proud to present a showing of the film “View From A Grain of Sand” and a discussion of why this war must be opposed and how it can be resisted.

Shot in refugee camps of Pakistan and the war-torn city of Kabul, three remarkable Afghan women lead us through the maze of Afghanistan’s complex history, informing this examination of how international interventions, war and the rise of political Islam have stripped Afghan women of their freedom over the last thirty years. Combining verité footage, interviews and rare archival material, this evocative film is a harrowing, thought-provoking and movingly intimate portrait of a still divided and brutalized nation. Addressing timely issues of women, Islam, and US foreign policy, the film is a compelling and vital addition to the global dialogue of our times.

“View From a Grain of Sand”
Today I had the experience of seeing one of the most moving documentaries I have ever seen, ‘View from a Grain of Sand’ which focuses on three Afghani women, telling the story of all women in Afghanistan. All I can say is that everyone should see this film, absolutely everyone. The status of women now in Afghanistan is a DIRECT result of the US and Saudi Arabia funding the mujahadin in order to drive the Soviets out. It is OUR fault the women of Afghanistan have gone through this. If our country is occupying Afhanistan, YOU need to know what has gone on there.

thehollytree.blogspot.com/2009/02/view-from-grain-of-sand.html

Moonstone Inc. & Drexel University Present

We Have It In Our Power To Begin The World Over Again

A Panel Discussion on the life and influence of Thomas Paine
with ERIC FONER, JACK FRUCHTMAN, Jr. and HARVEY J. KAYE

“The story of Thomas Paine – then and now, for the man and his ideas are very much alive today – stirs the heart, moves the mind, and routs the demon of despair.”
Bill Moyers

ERIC FONER is the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University. Tom Paine and Revolutionary America has been recognized as a classic study of the career of the foremost political pamphleteer of the Age of Revolution, and a model of how to integrate the political, intellectual, and social history of the struggle for American independence.

JACK FRUCHTMAN, JR. is Professor of Political Science at Towson University and author of Thomas Paine: Apostle of Freedom, which is both a biography of the controversial Founding Father and an analysis of his works. His other books include Atlantic Cousins: Benjamin Franklin and His Visionary Friends.

HARVEY J. KAYE is Ben and Joyce Rosenberg Professor of Social Change and Development at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. His books include Why Do Ruling Classes Fear History? and Other Questions, The British Marxist Historians, Thomas Paine: Firebrand of the Revolution, and Thomas Paine and the Promise of America.

Moderated by Michael Coard, Esquire, an adjunct professor in the African Studies Department and the Urban Studies Department at Temple University, a volunteer instructor of Criminal Justice in the university’s Pan African Studies Program, a recipient of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s prestigious Thurgood Marshall Award, a founding member of the ACLU, and a founding member of Judging The Judges, as well as a member of the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Philadelphia Bar Association, and the NAACP.

Councilmember Blackwell will present City Council Resolution 090448, Recognizing June 8, 2009 as Thomas Paine Day in Philadelphia in Appreciation of the Tremendous Influence of Paine’s Life and Words upon the City of Philadelphia and the Nation on the Occasion of the 200th Anniversary of His Death.

Mast Community Charter School students Torri A. Yeargins and Rebecca Nathan will read their essay which won the Thomas Paine Essay Contest.

Steve Gulick will perform several of Paine’s writings.

A reception will follow.

Paine championed representative democracy, argued that government should act for the public good and influenced American rebels and reformers from William Lloyd Garrison and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Emma Goldman and Eugene Debs. He was quoted by Ronald Reagan in 1980: “We have it in our power to begin the world over again,” and by Barack Obama in 2009: “Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at the common danger, came forth to meet and repulse it.”

For more information please go to our website: forgottenfoundingfather.net

This project is made possible by a grant from the Pennsylvania Humanities council. Additional support for Moonstone comes from the Barra Foundation, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Samuel S. Fels Fund, the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and the William Penn Foundation.

WILLIAM C. AYERS and BERNADINE DOHRN
authors of Race Course: Against White Supremacy ($19.95 Third World Press)

White supremacy and its troubling endurance in American life is debated in these personal essays by two veteran political activists. Arguing that white supremacy has been the dominant political system in the United States since its earliest days – and that it is still very much with us – the discussion points to unexamined bigotry in the criminal justice system, election processes, war policy, and education. The book draws upon the authors’ own confrontations with authorities during the Vietnam era, reasserts their belief that racism and war are interwoven issues, and offers personal stories about their lives today as parents, teachers, and reformers.

William C. Ayers is a distinguished professor of education and a senior university scholar at the University of Illinois-Chicago. He is the author of To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher and Fugitive Days, a memoir about his life with his wife, Bernardine Dohrn. Bernardine Dohrn is the director of the Children and Family Law Justice Center and a clinical associate professor of law at Northwestern University. She is the coauthor of A Century of Juvenile Justice and Zero Tolerance.

and HAKI R. MADHUBUTI
author of Liberation Narratives: New and Collected Poems 1966-2009 ($29.95 Third World Press)

Haki R. Madhubuti: Poet. Publisher. Editor. Educator. Innovative Entrepreneur. Activist. Founder and President of Third World Press. Spanning a long career, these poems helped define and sustain a movement that added music and brash street language to traditional poetics. Like Amiri Baraka (aka LeRoi Jones), this poet and social activist has long combined the personal and the political by adding anger, activism, and outside art to well-crafted poems. Spoken-word poetry (which recently garnered the author a Grammy nomination) and “message” poetry aimed at community healing are innovations in the later works, and as a whole the poems provide an overview of emerging Black culture as they borrow language from Black consciousness, hip-hop, political speeches, and motivational talks. Haki R. Madhubuti has been a pivotal figure since the 1960s in advocating a strong black literary tradition. He is the founder of Third World Press, the founder and director emeritus of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing, and the director of the MFA degree program in creative writing at Chicago State University. He is the author of Claiming Earth: Race, Rage, Rape, Redemption, Groundwork: New and Selected Poems, and YellowBlack: The First Twenty-One Years of a Poet’s Life.