Author: icsswpadmin

ICSS 20210214 – Communism and the Left in Turkey – Yusuf Gursey

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. I am also very knowledgeable about the struggles in other Middle East countries, particularly the Arab World and I am involved in Middle East Solidarity work. I had become first familiar with Left Movements in Turkey through the students of my parents in Middle East Technical University since 1967 when I was in junior high school and that was also the year I became a supporter of the Palestinian cause.:
We are more or else certain that Ekim Kılıç an officer in the Labour Party (Turkey) of the Kurdish nationality will join us. Also a comrade from the TKP but this is not confirmed.

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ICSS 20210207 – Dope + Capitalism = Genocide – Danny Shaw

ICSS 20210207 Dope + Capitalism = Genocide – Danny Shaw
Sun., Feb. 7, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm

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 of New York. He holds a master’s in international affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He is fluent in Spanish, Haitian Kreyol, Portuguese, Cape Verdean Kreolu, and has a fair command of French. He works as an international affairs analyst for TeleSUR, RT, and other international news networks. He has worked and organized in seventy different countries, opening his spirit to countless testimonies about the inhumanity of the international economic system. He is a senior research fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (https://www.coha.org/).

Danny is also a retired Golden Gloves boxer, who fought twice in Madison Square Garden for the NYC heavyweight championship. He teaches boxing, yoga and nutrition, and works as a Sober Coach. He works to keep young people out of the military and prison industrial complex. He is a mentor to many guiding them through the nutritional, ideological, social, and emotional landmines that surround us. He is the father of two young Life Warriors, Ernesto Rafael and Caũa Amaru.

Danny Shaw is the author of six books, which are available on the web: 365 Days of Resistance; Shedding that which is Not Us: A Working-Class Guide to Life Foods Training and Healing; The Saints of Santo Domingo: Dominican Resistance in the Age of Neocolonialism; My Son Blazes within Me: So Many Contradictions, So Little Time; Paisajes de Amor y Combate; and Los Santos de Santo Domingo.

In preparation for this program, we recommend two of his articles on Marxism and generational trauma:

https://liberationschool.org/50-years-since-the-panthers-formed-capitalism-drugs-still-genocide/

https://www.hamptonthink.org/read/to-live-among-broken-men-theorizing-rape-and-incest

Or check out this video of Danny being interviewed by Max Blumenthal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcfsxE5ARqQ&t=781s

#ModerateRebels: Revolutionary anti-imperialist struggle from the Bronx to Venezuela, Dominican Republic to Haiti.

#drugs #capitalism #BlackPanthers #Genocide #epidemic #heroin

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ICSS 20210124 – The US Capitol Building Riot – Roger Harris

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 2016 presidential election and, for the last four years, supported politicians ever vigilant against détente breaking out with the second most powerful nuclear state.

The US state has not been meeting the needs of its people, its naked dysfunctionality is bare for all to see, and the ruling circles are experiencing a crisis of legitimacy. The response of the rulers to mass discontent is not to address the root causes but to step up suppression. The aftermath of the events of January 6 has precipitated blowbacks by the ruling elites, such as proposed anti-domestic terrorism measures, in anticipation of popular resistance to the intensifying contradictions of the US imperial project.

Our speaker, Roger D. Harris, will begin the discussion with an abbreviated presentation followed by a Q&A period and robust group discussion on the many issues raised by the Capitol building riot. Was it a riot or a coup? Was it a trap for Trump and did the police collude with the rioters? What is the danger of fascism? What does the rising right-wing insurgency signify and what should be the response to it? Whither Trump and what about the Squad? And most of all, what do the developments of January 6 and its blowback mean for left organizing and progressive social change?

Roger is a member of the ICSS program committee and the human rights organization, the Task Force on the Americas. Roger recently wrote on the US Capitol riot of January 6: https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/01/13/the-only-thing-scarier-than-qanon-is-the-reaction-to-it/

Also recommended is the US Peace Council’s statement on the event and its aftermath, People’s Movement is Faced with a Serious Threat (Roger was one of the authors):

http://wpc-in.org/statements/people%E2%80%99s-movement-faced-serious-threat

Additional recommended reading are the blogs by the inimitable Caitlin Johnstone, who tells us “Modern liberalism is just QAnon for people with diplomas on their walls.” See on today’s topic:

https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/stop-trivializing-the-term-coup-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix-fdc49a95fdd2

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