Author: icsswpadmin

The world working class and unions of the world are facing a major global struggle as the crisis of capitalism drives towards dictatorship and world war. Steve Zeltzer will look at the declining US imperialist empire and the intensifying inter-imperialist rivalry and the growing move towards a world war that threaten workers and people of the world.
He will also look at the increasing attacks on the unions and the escalation of attacks on the working class to pay for the crisis.
This also takes place in the midst of the frenzied development of AI and the likely loss of hundreds of millions of jobs as not only the skilled manual worker but writers, doctors, architects, software engineers, and attorneys face
loss of jobs. It also plays a key role in the military-industrial complex and preparation for war.
This is also combined with the global climate crisis, which is threatening the lives and jobs of workers and people worldwide.
This presentation will look at the global attacks on unions, how they are fighting back, and what is required for unions and the working class not only to defend their jobs and livelihood but to go on the offensive on a global scale. The internet, which is a tool for greater profits by the capitalist class, can also be a tool for internationalism and the development and advance of a new world working class that fights for power and resolves this historic struggle for survival not only of the working class but humanity.
This is also the first time in history that the world working class can be linked up simultaneously in not only organizing but using these tools in the fight for power.

Our speaker, Steve Zeltzer, is a member of CWA NewGuild Pacific Media Workers Guild and founder of LaborNet, Labortech, and Laborfest. He is a member of the United Front Committee For A Labor Party and a producer of WorkWeek on KPOO.com and with Pacifica Radio Network where he is a producer ofmCovid, Race, and Democracy.

The loss of socialism is not as permanent as it appears and until capitalism’s inherent contradictions are resolved, its resurgence is not as improbable as Dugin suggests. Until then, we as Marxists should not dismiss those who have picked up the mantle of anti-imperialism since the demise of the former Soviet Union, no matter which political form it takes shape. By denouncing Dugin as a “fascist” and treating his work as unworthy of serious consideration, one is only showing that he is right to say that Marxism has become irrelevant in today’s world and Western capitalism is here to stay. The challenge has been issued, it remains to be seen whether we are up to it.

Speaker will be Max Parry, an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst based in New York. His writing has appeared widely in alternative media. Max may be reached at maxrparry@live.com

In Africa as in the rest of the world, US machinations undermine its goals and bring other nations together as they seek to protect themselves from a desperate empire. See: https://www.laprogressive.com/africa/us-shoots-itself-in-the-foot

Our Speaker, Ann Garrison, is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area, who publishes regularly on the Black Agenda Report. In 2014, she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region.

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

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 spreading contagion to US regional banks as well as to European banks. The SVB is just the tip of the current financial instability iceberg. In Europe the focus is the now collapsed big Credit Suisse bank announced today, March 19, by Switzerland’s central bank. The problem is thus now not just US regional bank centric, but is rapidly becoming global systemic.

What then are the systemic forces responsible for the SVB collapse and now spreading instability to US regional banks and European banks?

Dr. Jack Rasmus, Ph.D Political Economy, teaches economics at St. Mary’s College in California. He is the author and producer of the various nonfiction and fictional workers, including the books The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Economic Policy From Reagan to Bush, Clarity Press, October 2019; Alexander Hamilton & The Origins of the Fed, Lexington books, March 2019; Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression, Clarity Press, August 2018; Looting Greece: A New Financial Imperialism Emerges, Clarity Press, Sept. 2016; Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy, Clarity Press, January 2016; ‘Obama’s Economy: Recovery for the Few‘, Pluto Press, 2012, ‘Epic Recession: Prelude to Global Depression‘, Pluto Press, 2010, and ‘The War at Home: The Corporate Offensive from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush‘, Kyklosproductions, 2006. He has written and produced several stage plays, including ‘Fire on Pier 32‘ and ‘1934‘. Jack is the host of the weekly radio show, Alternative Visions, on the Progressive Radio Network, and a journalist writing on economic, political and labor issues for various magazines, including European Financial Review, World Financial Review, World Review of Political Economy, ‘Z‘ magazine, and others. Before his current roles as author, journalist and radio host, Jack was an economist and market analyst for several global companies for 18 years and, for more than a decade, a local union president, vice-president, contract negotiator, and organizer for several labor unions, including the UAW, CWA, SEIU, and HERE. Jack’s website is www.jackrasmus.com.