Hi everyone,

Well, here’s something out of the blue!!!

It is, of course, annoying getting this now.  But I do have to say, it’s attractive.  Indeed, it’s the type of thing that I had hoped to solicit from the beginning but didn’t know how.  It would also be a very big draw for Winnipeggers.  I await your comments.  We should try to discuss this, as much as possible, on the listserv rather than wait until our Feb. 9 meeting to address it.

Jim

James Naylor

Professor

Department of History

Brandon University

270 18th Street

Brandon, MB R7A 6A9

Canada

Office: 204 727 9664

Cell: 204 720 2117

Naylor@BrandonU.ca

people.brandonu.ca/naylorj/

From: Leo Panitch <lvpanitch@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2019 10:39 PM
To: Brandon University 1919strikeconference <1919strikeconference@BrandonU.CA>
Cc: Meyer Brownstone <meyerb@look.ca>; Greg Albo <albo@yorku.ca>; Lawrie Cherniack <cherns@mts.net>; Cy Gonick <gonick@cc.umanitoba.ca>; Sam Gindin <sam.gindin@gmail.com>; Melanie Panitch <mpanitch@ryerson.ca>; Jim Silver <j.silver@uwinnipeg.ca>; gail singer <zingerfilm@sympatico.ca>; Donald Swartz <Donald_Swartz@carleton.ca>; lvp >> Leo Panitch <LVPanitch@gmail.com>
Subject: proposal for panel

Dear James Naylor,

A rather large group of us have consulted and would all very much like to come to the conference, for which are proposing the following panel. It would be in the format of a round table with each participants addressing the theme outlined below with an opening 5 minute statement followed by discussion.

The Legacy

What was the legacy the 1919 strike in terms of the political culture it spawned for those who grew up in the following decades? Winnipegers and ex-Winnipegers who were born and grew up there in diverse circumstances and different parts of the city from the 20 to 60s (some of whom still live there, some long since in exile) will discuss what propelled them  - through their various experiences with the contradictory class, institutional and cultural nature of that legacy (including not only that of the ILPers,  CCFers, CPCers or the labour movement but also the specific ethnic and gendered dimensions of that political culture) - into doing the various kinds of work they subsequently engaged in so as to try to build on but also get beyond those limits and contradictions.

Participants:

Greg Albo, political economist, York University, co-editor The Socialist Register, co-author of In and Out of Crisis: The Financial meltdown and Left Alternatives

Meyer Brownstone, former Deputy Minister, Saskatchewan CCF/NDP governments,  emeritus professor University of Toronto, Chair Emeritus Oxfam Canada

Lawrie Cherniak, former Winnipeg city councillor, lawyer, yiddish oral historian, author of Rebel without a Pause

Cy Gonick, founder and editor of Canadian Dimension, emeritus professor University of Manitoba, author of Canada Since 1960: A People's History

Sam Gindin, former Research Director CAW, co-author of The Making of Global Capitalism and The Socialist Challenge Today

Melanie Panitch, School of Disability Studies, Office of Social Innovation, Ryerson University, author, Disability. Mothers and Organization: Accidental Activists

Jim Silver, Urban & Inner-City Studies, Merchants Hotel Campus, University of Winnipeg, co-author of Indians Wear Red: Colonialism, Resistance and Aboriginal Street Gangs

Gail Singer, Filmmaker, True Confections, first feature film on growing up in Winnipeg; documentary You Can't Beat a Woman on the culture of violence screened PBS and CBC

Donald Swartz, emeritus professor Carleton University, co-founder Ottawa Committee for Labour Action, co-author of From Consent to Coercion:The Assault on Trade Union Freedoms

Chair, Leo Panitch, emeritus professor York University, co-editor The Socialist Register, author of Crisis of Working Class Politics and Renewing Socialism

We hope you will be as excited about this as we are. We really appreciated the online deadline of early February for panel submissions which made it possible to take the time to get a group like this on board. We see the panel's importance not only in terms of discussing the limited "diversity" of Anglo, Italian and Jewish communities in a radical political culture from which indigenous people were largely excluded or at least marginalized, but also the contradictions of growing up with prominent labour leaders (e.g. Donald Swartz, the grandson of John Blumberg) as well as the contradictory experiences with disability and gender discrimination in the context of a working class, trade union and socialist culture that could be positively built on yet also needed to be transcended. 

Looking forward to hearing from you. I will be happy to take on the responsibility of making sure everyone gets registered in good time. Since you already have a draft program up so much ahead of that deadline, I hope you will to be able to indicate, especially for those of us having to make flight arrangements, when this session would be slotted into the program.

Thanks so much for taking on the hard work of organizing this terrific conference.

Best regards,

Leo Panitch