Free Speech and the Left conference
Nadine Strossen: Conference Keynote
Nadine Strossen reviews the history and importance of free speech as she welcomes participants and viewers of Plebity's Free Speech and the Left conference.
Nadine Strossen is past president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),1991-2017. She is Professor of Law Emerita at New York Law School, Senior Fellow of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) and author of the book HATE: Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship. Her latest book is: Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press fall 2023)
Personal experiences and thoughts on identity politics, cancel culture and free speech
Moderator: Tara Henley
Panelists: Amna Khalid, Jeff Snyder
Description: Tara Henley leads a discussion with Professors Amna Khalid and Jeff Snyder on their personal thoughts and experiences with identify politics, cancel culture and free speech.
Tara Henley is a Canadian writer and podcaster, and the author of the national bestseller Lean Out: A Meditation on the Madness of Modern Life. Over the past two decades, her work has appeared on CBC Radio and TV, and in dozens of newspapers and magazines across the country and around the world.
Amna Khalid is a history professor at Carleton College and writer on her substack Banished.
Jeff Snyder is a history professor at Carleton College with a strong interest in the issues of academic freedom and free speech.
Noam Chomsky on What Defines the Left and on the Principle of Free Speech
Panelists: Noam Chomsky
Moderator: Mark White
Description: Noam Chomsky offers his thoughts on what defines the left and on the enduring principle of free speech. Noam Chomsky is a longtime scholar, author, teacher, intellectual, activist and social critic.
Noam Chomsky is a longtime scholar, author, teacher, intellectual, activist and social critic.
Is the Left Still Relevant?: A Conversation with Professors Clara Mattei and Rick Wolff
Panelists: Clara Mattei, Rick Wolff
Moderator: Daphna Whitmore
Description: Economics professors Clara Matttei and Rick Wolff discuss the relevancy of the left in today's context.
Rick Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a visiting professor at the New School University in New York City. He's the founder of Democracy at Work, the host of the nationally syndicated show Economic Update and author of numerous books on Marxism and socialism.
Professor Clara Mattei is Assistant Professor in the Economics Department of the New School for Social Research. She is the author of the book Capital Order, How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism.
Daphna Whitmore writes for the site Redline and resides in Auckland, New Zealand.
Media ownership, censorship and hate speech laws – with Paul Jay and Freddie deBoer
Panelists: Paul Jay, Freddie deBoer
Moderator: Jyotishman Mudiar
Description: A discussion about independent media and ownership, censorship, self-censorship in media AND a discussion about hate speech laws.
Paul Jay is an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker. He is the founder, editor-in-chief, and host of theAnalysis.news - a site of political commentary and interviews. He is currently working on a documentary entitled series with Daniel Ellsberg titled “How to Stop a Nuclear War” which is based on Ellsberg’s book, “The Doomsday Machine.”
Freddie deBoer is an independent journalist based in Brooklyn, New York. He’s the author of The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice and his newest book is How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement. Freddie is a self-styled old-school Marxist and writes regularly on his Substack about politics, Marxism, education, police reform and other topics.
Jyotishman Mudiar is a co-founder of the YouTube podcast India & Global Left (IGL).
Race, Identity politics, and the Traditional Left with Norman Finkelstein and Sabrina Salvati
Panelists: Sabrina Salvati, Norman Finkelstein
Moderator: Jyotishman Mudiar
Description: Recently on her podcast, Sabrina reacted to comments Norman made, which in her view minimized the relative differences in the lives and experiences of blacks and whites in the United States today. In that podcast, Sabrina expressed strong disagreement and mentioned an interest in talking directly with Norman about these issues. Today we bring them together as part of Plebity’s Conference.
Norman Finkelstein is a longtime author and scholar. His academic career has spanned many decades since his PhD from Princeton University in 1987. He has written numerous books, among them The Holocaust Industry, which generated significant controversy. Norman has written and spoken extensively on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Norman is a lifelong scholar and activist of the left. His latest book, I Will Burn That Bridge When I Get to It, is a critique of current day identity politics and can be purchased here:
https://www.sublationmedia.com/books/i'll-burn-that-bridge-when-i-get-to-it
Sabrina Salvati is the host of Sabby Sab's podcast and the co-host of Revolutionary Blackout Network. She is an activist and former educator. Sabrina writes on her substack https://sabbysabs.substack.com/ and provides leftist commentary and interviews on her youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/sabbysabs.
Jyotishman Mudiar is a co-founder of the YouTube podcast India & Global Left (IGL).
Left is Not Woke author Susan Neiman in conversation with Freddie deBoer
Panelists: Susan Neiman
Moderator: Freddie deBoer
Description: Susan and Freddie discuss issues of racism, identity and U.S. politics and why today’s woke has veered so far from traditional principles that identify the Left.
Susan Neiman is an American philosopher and writer. She has written extensively on the Enlightenment, moral philosophy, metaphysics, and politics. She is director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam. She is the author of nine books, translated into 15 languages, which have won prizes from, among others, PEN, the Association of American Publishers, and the American Academy of Religion. Her shorter pieces have appeared in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Globe and Mail, The Guardian, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and many other publications. Her latest book, the subject of this discussion, is Left is not Woke.
Freddie deBoer is an independent journalist based in Brooklyn, New York. He’s the author of The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice, and his newest book is How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement. Freddie is a self-styled old-school Marxist and writes regularly on his Substack about politics, Marxism, education, police reform and other topics.
*Note: Participation by any panelist does not indicate their agreement with or endorsement of the opinions of any other conference participant. The presence of any panelist does not mean Plebity endorses or shares their opinions.
Nadine Strossen on the History and Importance of Free Speech
Panelists: Nadine Strossen
Moderator: Sasha White
Description: Nadine Strossen, former president of the ACLU, responds to a range of questions regarding the historical and enduring importance of the principle of free speech.
Nadine Strossen is past president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) from 1991-2017. She is Professor of Law Emerita at New York Law School, Senior Fellow of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) and author of the book HATE: Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship. Her latest book is: Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press fall 2023).
Sasha White became a free speech advocate in 2020 after being fired for her personal comments on transgender ideology. She has written for Spiked online, Tablet Magazine, and 4W. She co-founded the Plebity Free Speech Fund and hosts interviews on the Plebity Youtube channel.
Holocaust Denialism and the Limits of Free Speech with Norman Finkelstein and Daniel Ben-Ami
Panelists: Daniel Ben-Ami, Norman Finkelstein
Moderator: Sasha White
Description: Norman Finkelstein and Daniel Ben-Ami exchange opinions about Holocaust denialism, hate speech laws and the boundaries of permissible speech.
Daniel Ben-Ami runs the Radicalism of Fools website, which is about rethinking antisemitism. In over 30 years as a journalist, he has written for many publications, including The Australian, The Economist, Financial Times, The Guardian and Spiked. He has also written two books and contributed to several others.
Norman Finkelstein is a long time scholar and author of numerous books, including the Holocaust Industry, which generated significant controversy when it came out in the year 2000. Norman has written and spoken extensively on the Israel Palestine conflict, and his latest book is called I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It! Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom and can be purchased here: https://www.sublationmedia.com/books/i'll-burn-that-bridge-when-i-get-to-it.
Sasha White became a free speech advocate in 2020 after being fired for her personal comments on transgender ideology. She has written for Spiked online, Tablet Magazine, and 4W. She co-founded the Plebity Free Speech Fund and hosts interviews on the Plebity Youtube channel.
Transgender ideology and free speech – Stella O’Malley, Arty Morty
Panelists: Stella O’Malley, Arty Morty
Moderator: Sasha White
Description: Stella and Arty discuss the difficulties of speaking up and being heard on the topic of transgender ideology.
Stella O'Malley is an Irish psychotherapist and author, with three books on parenting and mental health. She is a regular contributor to Irish national newspapers, podcasts, and TV. Her latest book is What Your Teen is Trying to Tell You.
Stella O'Malley's BBC documentary 'Trans Kids - it's time to talk': https://vimeo.com/304866757
Arty Morty is a commentator, writer and YouTuber who reports on gender ideology and its effects on children, women and the gay rights movement. Arty co-hosts an online show called The Mess We're In with Graham Linahan and Helen Staniland. He's known for his clarity and breaking down complex and contentious issues, and for his strong advocacy for gender non conforming individuals. He's written for Plebity, Lesbian and Gay News and on his substack artymorty.substack.com.
Sasha White became a free speech advocate in 2020 after being fired for her personal comments on transgender ideology. She has written for Spiked online, Tablet Magazine, and 4W. She co-founded the Plebity Free Speech Fund and hosts interviews on the Plebity Youtube channel.
Ukraine and Forever Wars with Jill Stein and Dimitri Lascaris
Panelists: Jill Stein, Dmitri Lascaris
Moderator: Zain Raza
Description: Jill Stein and Dmitri Lascaris discuss the war in Ukraine and today’s Left
Animal Rights with Wayne Hsiung and Dušan Pajović
Panelists: Wayne Hsiung, Dušan Pajović
Moderator: Rozali Telbis
Description: Discussion on how animal rights are a free speech issue as well as a core concern for the Left.
Wayne Hsiung is an American attorney and environmental and animal rights activist. He is co-founder of the animal rights network Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) and most currently The Simple Heart Initiative dedicated to animal rescue. Wayne has a long history of non-violent direct action in support of his activist convictions.
Dušan Pajović is a Montenegrin activist and author. He is the Campaigns Coordinator and a member of the Coordinating Collective of the pan-European leftist organization DiEM25. Previously, Dušan led DiEM25’s Green New Deal for Europe campaign. In 2021, Wayne wrote this article: Why we need to liberate animals as part of the Green New Deal.
Rozali Telbis writes about society, technology, culture, propaganda, and more. She is a regular contributor to Plebity and Nevermore. To get the latest updates on her work, subscribe to her mailing list at Growing up Alienated.
Anti-fascism: Descendants of Spanish Civil War Veterans Compare Their fathers’ Left to Current Identity Politics, Language Policing and Social Activism
Panelists: Janette Higgins, Dov Osheroff
Moderator: Willy Maley
Description: Three descendants of Spanish Civil War veterans sit down to talk about their fathers, their working class backgrounds their growing political consciousness and how they literally went off to fight fascism in the international brigades of the Spanish Civil War.
Janette Higgins is the daughter of Spanish Civil War veteran Jim Higgins. She resides in Toronto and is the editor of her father’s memoir Fighting for Democracy, the true story of Jim Higgins (1907-1982) published in 2020.
Dov Osheroff is a carpenter, son of Spanish Civil War veteran Abe Osheroff and lives in the San Francisco Bay area.
Willy Maley is the son of James Maley, veteran of the Spanish Civil War. Willy is a professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow, Scotland as well as a playwright, poet and co-author of the book Our Fathers Fought Franco.
Ukraine, Empire, and Forever Wars with Matt Hoh, Larry Wilkerson
Panelists: Lawrence Wilkerson, Matthew Hoh
Moderator: Sasha White
Description: Discussion about the war in Ukraine and the power and influence of censorship and propaganda
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson is a retired army colonel and former chief of staff to Colin Powell. He served 31 years in the US Army and worked as a distinguished adjunct professor of government and public policy at the College of William and Mary, and taught National Security Affairs in the Honors Program at George Washington University.
Matthew Hoh is a Marine Corps veteran and former Department of Defense and State Department official. In 2009, Matthew resigned from his post in Afghanistan with the State Department in protest against the American escalation of the war. He was also a Green Party candidate in 2022 for the US Senate in North Carolina. He is the associate director of Eisenhower media network which ran a full page ad on May 16 in the New York Times, urging diplomacy and not more war in Ukraine.
Reflections on Covid: One of the Most Elaborate Propaganda Campaigns in Modern History?
Panelists: Max Blumenthal, Christian Parenti
Description: An exploration of the Covid propaganda from March 2020 to the present day; how the official Covid Narrative is unraveling (or not), the left’s support for authoritarianism, democratic societies’ descent towards authoritarianism, the rapid adoption of digital tech under the guise of public health, inequities created by Covid, capitalism and the wealth disparity, the psychology behind conformity, the conflation of ‘freedom’ and far-right beliefs, the state of health care, and more.
Max Blumenthal is a journalist and editor of the independent site The Grayzone. He is the author of several books and documentaries and is based in Washington, DC.
Christian Parenti is a professor at John Jay College and a journalist. He has written a number of articles about the pandemic, including How the organized Left got Covid wrong, learned to love lockdowns and lost its mind: an autopsy. Christian is author of the book The Soft Cage: Surveillance in America, from Slavery to the War on Terror.
Religion and Free speech – Daniel Ben-Ami and Jacob Mchangama
Panelists: Daniel Ben-Ami, Jacob Mchangama
Moderator: Daphna Whitmore
Description: Jacob Mchangama and Daniel Ben-Ami discuss the limits to free speech with focus on blasphemy, anti-semitism, and islamophobia.
Cartels, Corruption and Investigative Reporting – Ioan Grillo – Luis Chaparro – Katherine Corcoran
Panelists: Luis Chaparro, Katherine Corcoran
Moderator: Ioan Grillo
Description: Independent journalists and authors discuss their investigations into the power of cartels and government collusion.
Ioan Grillo is a journalist and writer based in Mexico City, working for outlets including the New York Times, France 24 and National Geographic. He has been covering Latin America since 2001 for news media such as Time Magazine, Esquire, CNN, Reuters, Al Jazeera, The Houston Chronicle, The Associated Press, GlobalPost, France 24, The Sunday Telegraph, Letras Libres and many others. Grillo is author of the books Blood Gun Money: How America Arms Gangs and Cartels (2021), Gangster Warlords: Drug Dollars, Killing Fields and the New Politics of Latin America (2016), and El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency (2011).
Katherine Corcoran is a former Associated Press bureau chief for Mexico and Central America. She has been an Alicia Patterson fellow, the Hewlett Fellow for Public Policy at the Kellogg Institute at the University of Notre Dame, and a Logan Nonfiction Program fellow. At the AP, she led an award-winning team that broke major stories about cartel and state violence and abuse of authority in Mexico and Central America. Corcoraan is author of the book In the Mouth of the Wolf: A Murder, a Cover-Up, and the True Cost of Silencing the Press.
Luis Chaparro is a bilingual journalist who reports in English and Spanish on the drug wars and the cartels at CNN, Business Insider, The Daily Beast, Vice World News, The Guardian, Univision, Playboy, and others outlets. Chaparro's YouTube channel is here https://www.youtube.com/luischaparro and his website is https://www.lchaparro.com/.
Class Solidarity not Cancel Culture with Jay Lesoleil and Clementine Morrigan
Panelists: Jay Lesoleil, Clementine Morrigan
Moderator: Scott Costen
Description: Today’s identity politics is a toxic morass but it is possible to work towards a leftist vision of a society based on solidarity and mutual tolerance.
Jay and Clementine produce the fuckingcancelled podcast.
Scott Costen is a freelance journalist based in Nova Scotia, Canada
Preview next week’s Free Speech and the Left conference
View this 5 minute preview of next week’s Free Speech and the Left conference
Our panelists discuss censorship, cancel culture, identity politics, the relevance of today’s left and other issues during the upcoming Free Speech and the Left conference.
The online event will take place June 17 to 24 and feature authors, academics, journalists and activists from a dozen countries. The conference will consist of pre-recorded presentations, panel discussions and livestream segments.
Participants include Nadine Strossen, Richard Wolff, Freddie deBoer, Noam Chomsky, Jill Stein, Susan Neiman, Tara Henley, Paul Jay, Jacob Mchangama, Norman Finkelstein, Wayne Hsiung, Katherine Corcoran, Ioan Grillo, Matthew Hoh, Lawrence Wilkerson and others…
Co-hosted by Plebity, India & Global Left, Redline, and acTVism Munich, the conference will be broadcast on Plebity’s YouTube channel.
The full list of panels and conference schedule can be found here: https://www.plebity.org/conference-2023-free-speech-and-the-left/.