Doug Allen has served on the faculty in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Maine since 1974. He is a scholar of the phenomenology of religion, and has written and spoken extensively on the application of Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy to today’s struggles of violence, war, and peace.

Most recently Doug is the author of the new volume just out from Reaktion Books and the University of Chicago Press, Mahatma Gandhi, a new perspective on Gandhi, which allows us to rethink our basic values and priorities. Please download a flyer for the book with an order form HERE, or visit press.uchicago.edu for more information.

Doug is a founding member of the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine.

Doug spoke October 6, 2011 at the Memorial Union on the University of Maine campus in Orono as part of the Fall 2011 Socialist and Marxist Studies Thursday series. The main part of the full title of Doug’s talk, Bring Our War $$ Home: 9/11, the Afghanistan War, and the Killing of Osama Bin Laden comes from a project developed in Maine last year by Bruce Gagnon of space4peace.org, the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine and many others. It has broadly been adopted by diverse groups, from Code Pink to the U.S. Conference of mayors. For more information, please visit bringourwardollarshome.org.

Thank you to John Greenman for recording the program.

This podcast features a talk University of Maine graduate Sarah Bigney gave on Thursday September 25, 2008:

“The Two Fair Trade Movements: Bridging the Divide Between Buying Coffee and Repealing NAFTA”

Sarah Bigney is organizer at the Maine Fair Trade Campaign, a statewide coalition of 50 organizations for building a just, sustainable, and democratic economy. (Check out their site for information on current campaigns, including the one to oppose the Panama Free Trade Agreement.)

This talk was part of the Fall 2008 Thursday controversy series sponsored by the Marxist-Socialist Studies Interdisciplinary Minor, and co-sponsored by the Maine Peace Action Committee (MPAC) and Campus Activities and Events, with support of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University.

Additional photos (described in the talk) are posted below the fold.

(These will be updated with more descriptions if they become available.)

The previous post included the full-length keynote talk by Joseph Gerson. There is more information HERE.

Download, rss, and iTunes links are found at this site. The download links are directly below each post. Rss and iTunes links are below near the end of the righthand column.

The first half of this WERU-broadcast version is part of the keynote given by Joseph Gerson of AFSC in New England. He is introduced first by Ilze Pertersons of the , then by Bruce Gagnon of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.

Four additional speakers from the event then address a wide range of local activism on war & peace, environmental, labor, and foreign policy issues. They include:

• Mary Beth Sullivan of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space who discusses economic conversion of Bath Iron Works
• John Banks, Natural Resources Dir. of the Penobscot Nation on local environmental issues
• Steve Husson of Food AND Medicine in Brewer discussing Labor and the Employee Free Choice Act
• Professor Doug Allen of the University of Maine, who ties everything together.

Please also visit the marvelous audio archive site at WERU where you can listen to any WERU public affairs program in case you miss it over the air (or live outside the WERU signal range).

Two additional links that may be of interest are Bruce Gagnon’s excellent blog, Organizing Notes, and the Peace and Economic Security Program for the American Friends Service Committee in New England.

Cheri Honkala just left Maine after an extensive tour. Information about the tour is posted at the Maine Association of Independent Neighborhoods, HERE. Below is additional (pre-tour) information from local organizer, Larry Dansinger.

Economic Human Rights: A Solution to Poverty in Maine
If you don’t know what economic human rights are or how they can be a way to end poverty, provide good jobs, get universal and equitable health care, affordable housing, and more, here’s your chance to find out and use the ideas to change Maine. And, if you do know what they are, here’s your chance to change Maine too.

Cheri Honkala, national coordinator of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, will speak in various towns and cities in Maine as part of a week-long tour, from April 2-8, to bring the potential and power of economic human rights to Maine people.

Her schedule (see below for a complete list of public events) includes talks in Orland and Orono on April 2, Brewer on April 3, April 5-6 in Portland, April 7 in Lewiston, and April 8 in Augusta and Waterville. On April 4, there will be a statewide gathering/workshop in Augusta to create an action plan to promote and establish an economic human rights campaign in Maine.

Honkala is a former homeless single mother and now an anti-poverty organizer and housing rights activist. She has been a leader of demonstrations against policies that maintain poverty, including dozens of arrests for nonviolent civil disobedience, and has been profiled in several films on poor people’s movements against poverty.

What are economic human rights? They include: quality health care, a job paying a living wage or equivalent income, ability to join a labor union, affordable housing, adequate and nutritional food, free education, and a decent standard of living.

This post includes the full-length talk by Joseph Gerson, about 65 minutes.

The event was sponsored by many active Maine peace, health care, labor, and environmental groups. The Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine was the lead planning organization.

Joseph Gerson is introduced first by Ilze Pertersons of the Peace and Justice Center, then by Bruce Gagnon of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. (See also Bruce Gagnon’s blog)

Please visit peacectr.org for more information about the event.

Here are information, links, and the podcast for the peacecast.us/WERU Weekend Voices election special featuring the University of Maine panel presentation, “What are the Key Issues in the Nov. 4th Election?”

This program explores some big ideas that ought to be part of our national discussion–if we think we have a democratic society–even if they seem to be missing or distorted in major party campaigns.

Among the most distorted ideas now running wild in the campaign is that of socialism. While this term is almost universally batted around as a pejorative, our panel make a powerful case in favor of democratic socialism–for the weakened forms we already have, for the stronger forms found in other developed countries, and for comprehensive democratic socialism that would be of great benefit to the American people.

This radio special/podcast is produced by Eric T. Olson. It was recorded at the University of Maine on Thursday October 30, 2008 and broadcast on WERU Weekend Voices for November 1. Panelists include U Maine faculty and Bangor/Orono area community organizers. They are

• Professor Amy Fried, Political Science
• Professor Michael Howard, Philosophy
• Ilze Petersons, Program Coordinator, Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine
• Professor Doug Allen, Philosophy

The event was part of the Fall 2008 Socialist & Marxist Studies Thursday Controversy series.

Here are links to online resources mentioned in the program.

Bailout! A Case for Economic Democracy And Clearing the Path to Socialism
By David Schweickart – Progressives for Obama

“Washington can act with breathtaking urgency when the right people want something done. In this case, the people are the Wall Street titans, who are scared witless at the prospect of their enormous implosion. Congress quickly agreed to enact a gargantuan bailout, with more to come, to calm the anxieties and halt the deflation of the Wall Street giants. Put aside partisan bickering, no time for hearings, no need to think through the deeper implications. We haven’t seen ‘bipartisan cooperation’ like this since Washington decided to invade Iraq.” –William, Greider, The Nation, August 18, 2008

TrueMajority.org
“Wall Street has actually convinced a lot of us that what’s good for the Dow Jones Average is good for us real people. But for eight years while bankers raked in billions, ordinary Americans have seen their real wages drop, jobs sent overseas, health insurance rates skyrocket, and now thousands are losing their homes.

We need our government to actively work for US in fixing this mess, so let’s tell Congress it’s time to start over and pass a New Deal for Main Street.”

National Priorities Project
“According to a new report from National Priorities Project (NPP), the United States is spending between $97 and $215 billion dollars annually on military action to defend access to oil and natural gas reserves around the globe. The Military Cost of Securing Energy provides a critical analysis of the military cost of defending U.S. energy concerns overseas. The report estimates that the military spends up to 30 percent of its annual budget to secure access to energy resources internationally.”

Shot at the Labor Temple in Brewer, Maine, this video is a trip through the Underworld featuring job stress, pension loss, health care failure, & crushing debt. Worker solidarity is the only way to slay these monsters. Created by William Rice for the Eastern Maine Labor Council & Food AND Medicine, October 2007.