SOLIDARITY CADRE SCHOOL 2011 REGISTRATION FORM

1. Name/Location:

-Ben Callahan/Murfreesboro, TN

2. Do you expect to be able to attend the entire cadre school (from Thursday, January 6th to
Sunday the 9th)? If not, which days?

-Yes.

3. Pre-fundraising, the current registration fee is $180 per person (includes food/board). Will
you be able to meet this fee? If costs are an obstacle for your attendance, how much financial
assistance would you need to make your attendance possible?

-Yes.

4. Are you able to donate additional money to assist in the attendance of other comrades?

-I’m willing to offer assistance to comrades if finances permit although unable to commit at this
time. Middle TN is working on a fundraising benefit show for late November and if the cost of
attendance drops significantly I may be in a better position, personally, to throw some extra
funds into the pot.

5. Do you plan on bringing children? How many?

-None.

6. Do you have any special dietary needs/preferences?

-None personally; although I’m in favor of meatless/vegan/gluten-free options!

7. Are there any special needs you may have that we can help with?

-None, thanks for asking! 

8. Is there anything not mentioned that may be an obstacle for you attendance that we should
consider?

-Generally speaking with registration fees as such transportation costs may be a hindrance.

The following questions will be reviewed by our curriculum committee. We encourage any
input.
1. What are some great readings that turned you on to revolutionary politics?

- The process of my radicalization began in high school when I developed a fascination with the
“counter-cultural” and antiwar movements of the 1960’s. At that time I lived by Timothy
Leary’s adage, “Think for yourself: Question Authority.”

When I entered college and began studying philosophy, the works of Plato, Nietzsche, Jean Paul
Sartre, the Pre-Socratics, and various so-called “Eastern thinkers” strengthened in me this
tendency to question the status quo, and encouraged me to attempt to understand the ways in
which we are socialized, to become aware of the numerous social biases/prejudices and
assumptions which are imprinted in our minds from early childhood in order to critically analyze
and unlearn the most caustic, and oppressive of these .

That said, it was this philosophical foundation which eventually led to my becoming politicized.

A few of the readings which aided in my political development: Soren Kierkegaard’s The
Present Age, Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, Barbara Ehrenreich’s What is Socialist
Feminism?, Clayborne Carson’s In Struggle, Rosa Luxemberg’s The Mass Strike, Ernest
Mandel’s An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory, Lenin’s State and Revolution, Trotsky’s
An Appeal to the Toiling, Oppressed & Exhausted Peoples of Europe (a collection of Trotsky’s
speeches), Daniel Bensaid’s Strategies of Resistance & ‘Who are the Trotskyists?’ and various
works of Slavoj Zizek, Noam Chomsky and, of course, Marx and Engels.

2. What are some political concepts/writings that you've always wanted to understand better?

- I’d like to learn more about: Left Regroupment (in terms of current/past efforts and their
successes/failures); Intersectionality (specifically the ways in which various institutionalized
forms of oppression are interdependent and how to articulate these complex relationships in such
a way so as to make “the bigger picture” visible to fellow activists doing issue specific work)

3. What sort of new skills or knowledge would you like to walk away from the cadre school
with?

4. Is there something that you’d like to understand better about Solidarity as an organization?

5. How do you feel about your connection to Solidarity? Where would you like to see the
organization go?

Any additional questions/comments: