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US aggression toward China is escalating and China is shedding its usual restraint to more clearly call out this aggression and warn the US not to overstep its red lines. K. J. Noh, an activist, journalist, and scholar on the geopolitics of the Asian continent, will discuss the renewed belligerence of South Korea under President Yoon Suk-yeol, the increasing militarization of Japan, shifting alliances in Western Asia, and how China, including Taiwan, is responding. Noh will also speak about efforts in the United States to prepare for a war against China and how that is increasing violence against Asian Americans, ...

Sun, Feb 27, 2022: 10:30am-12:30pm How the US Instigated the Ukraine Crisis Russia recognized the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk, and sent troops into Ukraine this week. In a one hour address, President Putin said the goal was the "de-Nazification" of Ukraine. It is now clear the Russian statements and proposed peace treaty in December 2021 were deadly serious. At that time the Russians said the US and NATO were crossing red lines, they felt threatened and would not abide this endlessly. Now they have taken action. Join us at Sunday Mornings at the Marxist Library on zoom (link below) ...

Our program addresses the rapidly changing world order. This last year has been a time of summits: BRICS, G20, and G77 and the UN General Assembly. That these summits have been so hectic and have felt like such a whirlwind of events is because each marks the accelerated tempo of change on the international plane. At the NATO summit in July, Zelensky failed to get even a timetable to get into NATO. The BRICS summit in Johannesburg in August admitted six new members. Then Putin hosted the vitally important meeting of the Eastern Economic Forum to showcase Russia’s own pivot ...

ICSS 20200830  The Past and future of US policing.  By: Tony Platt Sun, Aug 30, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pmThe past and future of U.S. policingNoted historian and criminologist Tony Platt will share his long research and insights into the carceral state known as the USA. Tony Platt has been involved since the 1960s in issues relating to criminal justice, race, inequality, and social justice in American history. He taught at the University of Chicago, Berkeley, and California state universities. He is currently a Distinguished Affiliated Scholar at the Center for the Study of Law & Society in Berkeley’s Law School. A founding ...

ICSS 20200913 Sun, Sep 27, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Labor and Immigration David Bacon will talk about the struggles of farmworkers on the West Coast to organize, and the way it's affected by their work lives and status as immigrants. He'll include photographs and a description of his documentary work process. Our speaker, David Bacon is a photojournalist, author, political activist, and union organizer who has focused on labor issues, particularly those related to immigrant labor. He has written several books and numerous articles on the subject. Bacon's parents were strong supporter of unionism and his early interest ...

Sun, Jan 10, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Michael Roberts, The Story of the Year of the COVID: But What Now for 2021? 2020 will go down in history - a worldwide pandemic from a previously unknown virus deadly to humans, killing millions or leaving them with permanent health problems; forcing lockdowns across the world that destroyed the world economy in the worst slump in the history of capitalism; and driving millions globally into poverty and loss of livelihood. Where did all this come from? Can capitalism come out of this unscarred? With vaccines on the way is the ...

Sun, Jan 17, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm The Farmer’s Movement in India Present protests of farmers have grown with tens of thousands in opposition to the three farm laws government of India passed in the parliament where the ruling BJP has majority, taking advantage of the Covid pandemic lockdown period which restricted the movements and thus also protests. These 3 laws have the purpose of denying fair prices to farmers, to the advantage of big (capitalist) privately owned corporations both Indian and foreign. They will be allowed to take over agricultural land, to hoard agricultural produce and sell them ...

Sun, Jan. 24, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm The US Capitol Building Riot and Its Blowback: The Only Thing Scarier than QAnon Is the Reaction to It The right-wing riot at the US Capitol on January 6 was a spectacle, complete with Confederate flags and a QAnon shaman in red-white-and-blue face paint. Some half of the active electorate sympathized with the belief that the 2020 presidential election was a steal. The other half of the active electorate was abhorrent, speaking with semi-religious reverence about the desecration of sacred institutions. The true blue had suspected that the Russians stole the ...

ICSS 20210131 Master of Space - Bruce Gagnon Sun, Jan 31, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Master of Space: Corporate plans for the militarization & privatization of space DESCRIPTION: Bruce Gagnon will reveal the deadly connections between the corporate drive to 'control and dominate' space as spelled out in the US Space Command's 1997 planning document called Vision for 2020. https://thecommunity.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Vision2020.pdf The gold rush is now underway as space technologies have matured to the point where mining the sky for precious resources becomes possible. Corporate forces intend to use the newly formed 'Space force' to guard the front gate ...

Sun., Feb. 7, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Dope + Capitalism = Genocide The title of this program comes from a slogan by the Black Panther Party. Without a class analysis, we can never understand the epidemics of violence, addiction, and trauma that plague our communities. Join Danny Shaw, author of My Son Blazes within Me: So Many Contradictions, So Little Time for a discussion of the intergenerational trauma that is inherent to capitalism and imperialism and how we fight back, all day, every day. Our speaker, Danny Shaw, teaches Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the City University ...

ICSS 20210214 History of Communist and Left Movements in Turkey   Sun, Feb 14, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm History of Communist and Left Movements in Turkey Comrade Yusuf Gürsey is organizing this with some other possible speakers. Yusuf writes: “I am Turkish and born in Turkey but now residing in New Haven, CT. I am a member of of the US Peace Council and CPUSA and an associate of Communist Party of Turkey (TKP). I am a retired physicist from Middle East Technical University Ankara, Turkey but lately I have become an independent researcher in linguistics and history ...

ICSS 20200830  The Past and future of US policing.  By: Tony Platt Sun, Aug 30, 2020: 10:30 am to 12:30 pmThe past and future of U.S. policingNoted historian and criminologist Tony Platt will share his long research and insights into the carceral state known as the USA. Tony Platt has been involved since the 1960s in issues relating to criminal justice, race, inequality, and social justice in American history. He taught at the University of Chicago, Berkeley, and California state universities. He is currently a Distinguished Affiliated Scholar at the Center for the Study of Law & Society in Berkeley’s Law School. A founding ...

ICSS 20210228 Peace and Solidarity Movements Phyllis Bennis Sun, Feb 28, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific Time The Recent Past and Future of Peace and Solidarity Movements, 2008 - 2021 and Beyond The anti-war movements in the US and across the globe were at their peaks through the first years of the post-9/11 wars. They were broad, diverse, international, and powerful. They did not succeed in preventing the 2003 US/UK invasion of Iraq, but they set the stage for future movements and future victories, including stopping US bombing campaigns in Syria and escalation in Iran, parts of the ...

ICSS 20210307 Capitalism, Ecology, and Socialism Forest fires in California, thawing of ice in the arctic, Glacier melting in The Himalayas, floods and bitter cold in Texas; and the Covid pandemic are all tied to the global warming from cumulative effects of capitalist commodity production over the past 200 years. Air pollution in much of world has worsened. Since the collapse of the USSR in 1991, and China taking the role of a biggest commodity producer for the world; other than tiny Cuba, there is no model of development that does not contribute to worsening of the ecological crisis all over the world ...

ICSS 20210307 Capitalism, Ecology, and Socialism   Sun, Mar 21, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific The Great Labor Rebellion of the 1930s. The topic will be the history of the 1930s. Not the Great Depression but the *responses* to it. Firstly the Great Labor Rebellion: the CP-led California farmworkers strike, the three left-led general strikes of 1934, the sitdown strikes, and the rise of the CIO. And secondly the capitalist response, the New Deal and FDR, how the capitalist class coopted Labor’s Giant Step, and how black people, Chicanos and women were mistreated under New Deal legislation. Our speaker ...

ICSS 20210328 What is Going on in Myanmar - KJ   Sun, Mar 28, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific What’s going on in Myanmar? On Feb 1st, 2021, the Myanmar military (Tatmadaw) instituted a coup of the civilian government on the eve of the seating of the newly elected parliament,. Since then, the situation has resulted in mass protest while devolving into bloodshed. Journalist K.J.Noh will join us to discuss the history, geopolitics, and political economy of Myanmar to better understand the situation, what forces--historical, political, material-- are at play and what is at stake in this critical ...