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ICSS 20210404 Sun, April 4, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific  Understanding the Mass Psychology of Neofascism Fascist rulers in the 20th century, as well as Neofascist forces across the globe in the early 21st century have managed to attract mass support from significant sections of working people. This is despite the fact that these reactionary projects intensify capitalist exploitation and undermine the material interests of many of their own followers. To understand this contradiction, we need to supplement current political economy analyses of Neofascism with a grasp of mass psychology processes, which are powerfully manipulated by neofascist leaders.Our speaker ...
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ICSS 20210411 Ten Things for US to Understand about Latin America Sun, Apr 11, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific Our speaker, Laura Wells, just returned from two weeks in Nicaragua with a delegation sponsored by Sanctions Kill, Alliance for Global Justice, and Friends of the ATC. When she received the announcement for the delegation, she felt instantly inspired. She had already visited the other two countries named as the "Troika of Tyranny" by Trump's Secretary of State Pompeo. She knew "tyranny" was a lie about Cuba and Venezuela and wanted to see if it was also a lie about Nicaragua. She ...
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ICSS 20210418 Mihir Desai on Law and People’s Rights in  India Sun, Apr  18, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific  Our speaker writes: I will be speaking about legislative and policy changes during the Modi Government affecting rights of people. This will include the new labour codes, farmers laws, laws concerning citizenship, love jihad laws, education policy, AADHAR act, changes in laws affecting NGOs, Environmental laws, laws concerning elections, demonetisation, etc. This will include the erosion of parliamentary democracy and  federal structure. The talk will also include the use of existing and new draconian laws. It will be in the overall context of ...
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ICSS 20210425 Grover Furr on Issues in Soviet History Sun, Apr  25, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific Grover writes that he will discuss two subject in his talk. First, he will talk about his new book Trotsky and the Military Conspiracy, available from Amazon.com. Second, he will discuss the issues concerning evidence:  what evidence is; how to analyze it; what logical fallacies and false arguments are employed to avoid facing the evidence.Resources: ...
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ICSS 20210502 Socialism: Scientific and Utopian - Eugene E Ruyle Sun, May  2, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific  Just as Darwin discovered the law of motion of biological evolution, so Marx and Engels discovered the law of motion of human history and with it, placed the science of human society on a firm, working class basis. In 1880, Engels published Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, explaining how socialism had been transformed from a utopia into a science. This science was further developed by Lenin who led the world historic October Revolution and is continuing to develop in other world historic revolutions ...
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ICSS 20210509 Theory of Revolution - Mehmet Bayram Sun, May 9, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific The recent events call us to revisit Historical Materialism to understand what is happening.  The COVID-19 Pandemic, the re-emergence of the cold-war racing towards a real war, the Minneapolis murders by the police, the US police force becoming the third largest army in the world, the Amazon workers’ organizing efforts, the struggle of the health care workers, the Indian Farmers’ Strike, the failure of the world capitalist system to deal with a simple and preventable disease, and to allow millions of people ...
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ICSS 20210516 Biden’s Foreign Policy – Hope or Horror? Sun., May 16, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm PDT Biden bellicosely proclaimed, “American is back,” in his major foreign policy priorities speech, reaffirming the bipartisan consensus of regime change, forever wars, and the NATO alliance. Republican neo-cons now shelter in the Democrat’s big tent, today’s party of war. Regardless of  the changing of the guard in Washington, the Biden’s policies will follow his predecessor, but will more effectively target official enemies such as Venezuela and Iran and will double down on Russia and China. The US empire is the main ...
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ICSS20210523 The Significance of the Alabama Amazon Union Struggle: Building Solidarity in a Time of Transformation for the Working Class Judy Greenspan, a member of Workers World Party and the San Francisco Bay Area local organizing committee to support Alabama Amazon workers Our discussion of this important topic will be led by Judy Greenspan, a member of the Peace and Freedom Party, the Bay Area Chapter of Workers World Party, and the San Francisco Bay Area local organizing committee to support Alabama Amazon workers.Resources: Recommended background reading: WWP message on May Day 2020 is Organize! By Larry Holmeshttps://www.workers.org/2020/05/48257/ ...
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 The ICSS has hosted a number of Marxist intellectuals addressing imperialism and how is it manifest in the Ukraine conflict. There is a broad consensus on the left against weapons for endless war and for diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine – a conflict that risks nuclear conflagration. Progressive groups like the Peace In Ukraine Coalition (https://www.peaceinukraine.org/) oppose spending for militarism and support funds for jobs, healthcare, and housing. InPeace Talks Essential as War Rages on in Ukraine (https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/09/05/peace-talks-essential-war-rages-ukraine), Benjamin and Davies write how the US and its allies sabotaged a possible peace agreement in the early stages of the conflict and argue that one is ...
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Michael Roberts will analyse the latest developments in the major economies as inflation rates reach 40-year highs and economic activity heads towards stagnation or worse.  What are the causes of this and what policies are needed to end this crisis? Our speaker, Michael Roberts, worked in the City of London as an economist for over 40 years. He has closely observed the machinations of global capitalism from within the dragon’s den. At the same time, he was a political activist in the labour movement for decades. Since retiring, he has written several books.  The Great Recession – a Marxist view(2009); The Long Depression (2016); Marx 200: ...
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Our program will address current events in Iran and the international reaction to them. US-led forces are exploiting events in Iran to push for violent regime change. Unilateral and illegal economic sanctions imposed by the US are killing Iranians. These sanctions are responsible for much of the Iranian people’s suffering and anger. They have served as a background for the outburst of different protests and are intentionally aimed at destabilizing the Iranian society through instigating a “velvet revolution.” Iran is targeted by the imperialists because of its key role in an emerging multipolar world through strategic alliances with countries and ...
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Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine on the 24th of February 2022. As of now, hundreds of civilians and thousands of soldiers of both sides have lost their lives. Oil Prices have risen steeply. Working classes in the US and Russia and in fact all over the world will be poorer as a result of additional inflation, which in the past year in the US was already very high, at 7.9%. However, this war did not start in 2022, but rather in 2014, with the Maidan counter Revolution aided and encouraged by the US. There is a great present danger ...
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Secretary Blinken has recently asserted that conflict in the South China Sea (SCS) between the Philippines and China could justify US war against China, due to a mutual defense treaty. This pronouncement comes as the US rallies its allies to form a bloc against China, escalates economic war, and heightens rhetoric against China. This presentation will explain: Why the SCS--and the Phillipines--are critical to US global geostrategy The SCS arbitral tribunal decision that the US claims as justification for Phillipine claims The history & context of the current cold war against China How the war would unfold Sunday, July 18, 2021: ...
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This session will discuss Joseph Stalin’s “Marxism and Problems of Linguistics” and the language policies of socialist states and some other leftist movements. Our speaker is Yusuf Gürsey who is originally from Istanbul, Turkey and currently lives in New Haven, CT. He is a member of the CPUSA, as well as a member of the US Peace Council in Connecticut and a member of the Steering Committee of the Center for Marxist Education centered in Cambridge, MA. After retiring from being an associate professor of physics in Turkey, he studied graduate level linguistics online at the Virtual Linguistics Campus broadcast ...
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