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ICSS 20200823 Sun, Aug 23, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Drastically Cutting the Military Budget Why Is It Not a Campaign Issue? Hunger and homelessness stalk the poor. Jobs lost in the pandemic and the resulting economic collapse may not come back or will be even lower wage than before. Public education and transportation along with protecting the environment are on the chopping block, while the billionaires are raking in money. Our cities and states are economically strapped. Yet, elected officials have no idea how to run them without raising local taxes, laying off workers, or slashing benefits. Meanwhile ...

Both parties prepare for war to stall the decay of U.S. world domination — and since 1999 alone, these parties have overseen wars of aggression in Europe, Africa and Asia and imposed coups and sanctions worldwide. Both parties support NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine against Russia. Both support and arm Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Lebanon. Both back surrounding China with U.S. air and sea power as well as economic war against China. What working-class organizations must analyze and prepare for is how to confront the post-election period. Since the two parties have real differences in composition and tactics, the ...

Sun, Nov 21, 2021: 10:30 AM Pacific Time Elections in Nicaragua: a Report Back From an On the Ground Observer - Rick Sterling  ...

The U.S. has for decades had a strongly enforced two-party system. While there are differences, they both support US imperialist domination of the world — militarily and economically — and have earned their description as "two parties of War and Wall Street." This presentation will focus on the opportunities and hurdles of creating an anti-imperialist political party that can serve as the electoral arm of the movement. Butch Ware sees five areas which need to be addressed and developed with the goal of winning power to change the United States’ direction: vertical integration, culture, fundraising, team-building and demographics. Butch Ware ...

Our speaker, John Parker began his trip to the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine on April 27 as part of a fact-finding mission organized by Struggle-La Lucha newspaper in the U.S. to gather eyewitness observations and testimony of Lugansk residents. He also visited Russia, where he conducted interviews and was present at the May 9 Victory Day parade, commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany and honoring the 27 million Soviet people who died fighting fascism. John Parker was a candidate for U.S. Senate in the June 7th election. He recently returned from Russia and the Donbas region on a fact-finding ...

 Rick will speak about his recent trip to Russia and especially Crimea. In 2014, following the coup in the Ukrainian capital, Crimea had a referendum and decisively decided to secede from Ukraine and "re-unify" with Russia.  In many ways, the situation in Crimea is emblematic of the Ukraine conflict.  Rick will describe what he saw and learned on this trip. Rick Sterling is a Bay Area journalist, active with Mt Diablo Peace and Justice Center and Task Force on the Americas.  ...

American labor is deindustrialized, deunionized, fragmented, and pauperized. Its debased condition is a prisoner of its form: that of a commodity, forever cheapening, like all others. Bereft of political leadership, labor instinctively grasps at populist rhetoric, rejecting the neoliberalism and “new world order” of America’s oligarchs. Indignant, the ruling class shames it as “deplorable”, “far-right”, and “Putin’s puppets”. In a culture devoid of class identity, America proffers individual identity as the new religion, as the new “sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world”. Labor, the unifying property of humanity, is submerged beneath the media’s vilification by ...

Sun., April 20, 2025, 10:30 am-12:30 pm PDT From Shanghai to Xinjiang Speakers: Elicha Gastelumendi & Rick Sterling Elicha Gastelumendi and Rick Sterling will talk and show photos from their October 2024 visit to China. They were on their own in Shanghai and will describe what they saw in a regular community far from the booming downtown. Following that, they joined a delegation to Xinjiang organized by retired San Francisco Judge Julie Tang. Xinjiang is a large "autonomous region" thousands of miles west of Shanghai. This was a central gateway in the times of the Silk Road and in the ...

Recently back from a humanitarian mission to besieged Gaza, which was denied entry by Egyptian authorities, our speaker will explain how the ongoing genocide against the Palestinians is a natural outcome of Zionism. The social dynamics of domination inevitably lead to genocide given sufficient time. This is the logical consequence of exceptionalism. The resistance forces of the Palestinians and their allies have planned for a confrontation of unlimited duration, while Israel plans only short, massive attacks designed for a quick, decisive victory, which in this case is illusive. This is the main reason they have chosen genocide as a tactic ...

Victor Grossman, born in 1928, is an American journalist, writer, and popular speaker, who defected to the USSR in 1952.  He has since lived in East Germany, then the reunified Germany chronicling life, politics, and humanity ...

ICSS20200906 Group Discussion: Before and After November 2020 There are increasing concerns as to what will happen before, during, and after our November election so this is an opportunity to express our concerns. Our group discussion will be introduced by Gene Ruyle and other ICSS members with ample opportunity for discussion. Be prepared to voice, and defend, your views  For background, we will post a list of recommended sources in early September, for example in Democracy Now, the New York Times, and elsewhere ss they develop. ICSS member Sharon Rose will moderate. Resources: Session resources ...

Palestinian-American Professor Rashid Khalidi has described Gaza as "a pressure cooker" that "had to explode." Israeli holocaust scholar Raz Segal has decried Israel’s assault on Gaza as “a textbook case of genocide.”The Palestinian military action in Gaza this week shows that "the colonial powers can no longer believe they can force people to live under the conditions Israel has subjected Palestinians to and expect no retaliation of the oppressed" says Khalidi. The Palestinian rebellion is a historic development in the Palestinian struggle that also signals a paradigm shift in the world situation. After brief presentations, ICSS will host an open ...

Group Discussion on the future of ourSunday Morning Programs - Sunday, January 2, 2022 HAPPY NEW YEAR! After a brief review of the history of the Marxist Library and the ICSS and the relationship between them, we will ask for input on our programs and suggestions for improvement. We are also seeking input on possible future programs ...

ICSS group discussion: the communist manifesto Sunday, July 11, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific  We will go through this foundational work of Marxism reading selective paragraphs  with ample opportunity for discussion after each selection. Be prepared to voice, and defend, your views!    Our discussion will be led by ICSS member Gene Ruyle. In preparation, please re-read the Manifesto itself, and if there are particular passages you want the group to consider, please send the full text of those passages to <cuylerluyle@mac.com> by Saturday morning so they can be included—and bring your own copy to our Zoom meeting (available on the Marx-Engels Internet ...

 The US is spearheading an effort to reinvade and reoccupy Haiti, according to our speaker who last visited the island republic last month. Danny Shaw will report on the different ingredients in the neocolonial hybrid war in Port-au-Prince; the guns, the so-called gangs, and the neocolonial state. He has been working with the Haitian left both in Haiti and in the diaspora since 1998 and speaks Kreyòl. Our speaker, Danny Shaw,  teaches Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Race, Ethnicity, Class and Gender at the City University of New York. He holds a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University. He has ...

July 29, 2022, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), raided the offices and homes of members of the Uhuru Movement. They broke down doors, broke windows, used flashbang devices and drones and threatened residents with automatic weapons. The US Govt has recently filed indictments against 3 Uhuru Movement leaders.This is a call to everyone to defend the right of African people and the Chairman of the African People's Socialist Party, Omali Yeshitela, to free speech. Speakers Mwezi (Michelle) Odom, Chair of the Hands Off Uhuru Committee and member of the African People's Socialist Party. Penny Hess, Chair of the ...