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 John Willich was a Prussian army career officer who quit after 25 years to become a carpenter. He was a German 48er who formed the proletarian army in the German Revolution with Friedrich Engels as second-in-command. He was exiled to England, where he joined Marx and Engels. Polemics between Willich and Marx-Engels led to his joining an opposing communist faction. In the 1850s he emigrated to the US where he become involved in communist clubs. He was an abolitionist who worked with free African Americans. In the Civil War, he started an innovative and highly praised German regiment. Conclusion: along ...

Silicon Valley Bank - previously the 16th largest bank in the US and reportedly a source of funding for half of all the tech startups in the US - has collapsed. It’s now become clear the more general banking crisis that has emerged is not due simply to a rogue, mismanaged bank that over-extended itself during the recent tech boom and then somehow mysteriously imploded in just 72 hours, March 7-9, until seized by the FDIC on the morning of March 10, 2023. Deeper, more systemic forces are at play—in the case of both the SVB collapse and the now ...

BRAZIL ON THE RAZOR´S EDGE The fight for sovereignty under imperialist and fascist attack The victory of President Lula in 2022 put a brake on the fascist crescendo in Brazil. But the government faces enormous challenges to keep up to its campaign promises. There are combined pressures from the financial market and the business elites, which are intertwined with and dependent on international financial capital. The increased size and strength of agribusiness, with fascist ideas and the power of local landlords, is also linked to extremist factions of the military. In the cities, the alt-right recruits followers from the ranks ...

The Lao People’s Democratic Republic came into being in 1975, after a decade of relentless US bombing. Laos is per capita the most bombed country in the world. 10% of its population were killed directly by US bombs and a similar number left the country. US-financed opium traffickers and terrorist attacks continued up to the end of 20th century. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a CIA cut-out, still maintains a presence in Laos. Building socialism in this context was, and is, not an easy task. With close relationships to Vietnam and China, the ruling the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary ...

The University of California, Berkeley—widely known as “Cal”—is admired worldwide as a bastion of innovation and a hub for progressive thought. Far less known are the university’s roots in plunder, warfare, and the promotion of white supremacy. As Tony Platt shows in his latest book, The Scandal of Cal, these original sins sit at the center of UC Berkeley’s history. Tony Platt is the author of thirteen books dealing with issues of inequality, power, and justice in American history. Platt, a longtime activist, is currently a Distinguished Affiliated Scholar at Cal Berkeley’s Center for the Study of Law & Society ...

Campaign for Socialism 2024 Workers in the Socialist campaign of Claudia De La Cruz & Karina Garcia for President & VP will speak about their campaign. Website: votesocialist2024.com/ ...

This program will address how the Korean peninsula was tragically split, why it remains so, and its contemporary implications. Once part of the Japanese Empire, the Korean conflict degenerated into a stalemate. Most important was the admission by then US Secretary of State Dean Rusk on how the 38th Parallel was agreed to as the infamous demarcation line; why the decision was made to cross the 38th parallel; and how George Kennan urged Truman not to. This last development is most significant. And, how the stalemate in Korea impacted whether the U.S. would intervene in North Vietnam in April-May 1954 ...

After brief presentations by three ICSS members, Raj Sahai, Gene Ruyle, and Roger Harris, we will have an open discussion on this important topic ...

Nora Barrows-Friedman of The Electoric Intifada will present and lead our discussion Nora Barrows-Friedman is a journalist, editor, radio broadcaster, musician, and mother. Since 2012 she has served as associate editor and audio production director for The Electronic Intifada, an independent publication focused on Palestinian issues. She is the author of In Our Power: US Students Organize for Justice in Palestine (Just World Books, 2014) ...

On September 1, 1987, some of the most dedicated peace activists in the nation – including our two guests – were protesting outside the Concord Naval Weapons Station trying to block a Navy munitions train loaded with weapons bound for Nicaragua and El Salvador. Instead of stopping the train and arresting the protestors, authorities ordered the train to speed up. While some barely made it off the tracks, S. Brian Willson was run over. He suffered horrific injuries, but survived. He lost both legs and now walks via prostheses. Join us for a half-century reflection on the “American War” in ...

Sunday Morning at the Marxist ForumSun., January 19, 2025: 10:30 am-12:30 pm PSTCompatible Left in Service of ImperialismSpeaker: Stansfield Smith The CIA helped to build and subsidize a “compatible left” in the 1940-1960s to help counter the Communist bloc and associated organizations. This anti-communist compatible left still exists today, giving backhanded defense of US imperialism’s endless wars. They harshly criticize the same nations the US seeks to overthrow and cover up US covert operations and economic warfare against these countries; e.g., Qaddafi’s Libya, Assad’s Syria, Iran, Chavistas in Venezuela, Sandinistas in Nicaragua. They condemn Russia or China (or both) as ...

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ICSS 20200712 Sun, Jul 12, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Covid-19 and the crisis of neoliberalism - Basudev Nag Choudhary The COVID-19 disease caused by the novel corona virus has turned into a global pandemic with almost 5.5 million people confirmedly infected and over 3.5 hundred thousand deaths around more than a hundred countries. Irrespective of the fact whether the virus is a bio-weapon or naturally mutated, our aim is to show how it has impacted upon the global capitalist economy. Contrary to what is being campaigned from the mainstream institutions, it will be shown that the capitalist economy already ...

ICSS 20200816 Sun, Aug 16, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Coronavirus: Scientific Realities vs. Economic Fallacies We are pleased that Georgi Marinov, Stanford postdoc in Genetics, , has accepted our invitation to speak about his recent article in LEFTEAST on this subject. Georgi Marinov, a post-doc researcher in Genetics at Stanford, has written one of the most prescient, widely-read, and important articles written from a Left perspective on COVID-19 pandemic and what we need to do to address it. Dr. Marinov describes the virus and the difficulties of knowing whether people will develop lasting immunity to it, and of developing ...

On November 25, Dr. Ranjeet Brar and three members of the UK CPGB-ML were arrested at the national Palestine solidarity demo for manning a table selling a book critical of the history of Zionism that was published nine years ago and has since been distributed widely.  They were told that the book might constitute an ‘incitement to racial hatred’ for which they were held in isolation for 24 hours before being released on bail. While imprisoned, their families were subjected to 3:00 AM raids, during which police seized phones, laptops, and party literature. When they were set free the following day, ...

Bring your ideas, comments, and questions on current politics and anti-imperialist struggles, including the attacks on immigrants and the working class, imperialist wars, increased repression and the danger of fascism.  Share your ideas about how to resist, and the fight for socialism. \ ...