The Institute for the Critical Study of Society
at the 
Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library

 

Sunday Morning at the Marxist Library

 

OUR CURRENT SCHEDULE

 

(NOTE: These are all tentative and may be changed. Please check back the week before, or sign up for our weekly reminders/updates at cuyleruyle@mac.com)

 

Sun, May  2, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Socialism: Scientific and Utopian
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 in China, Vietnam, and Cuba, and well as revolutionary movements throughout Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Unfortunately, some comrades have chosen to reject science and revert to utopianism. We will examine this question in Group Discussion in which everyone may participate fully.
Organizer:
Eugene E Ruyle is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies at CSU, Long Beach; President  of Veterans For Peace, East Bay Chapter 162 (Berkeley/Oakland); and active in a variety of working class organizations, including ICSS and the Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality and State Repression.

A link to Ruyle’s Writings on Anthropology and Marxism can be found at cuyleruyle.com

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LOGIN INFORMATION
We Intend to start the presentation as close to 10:30 am as possible, but the Zoom room will be opened up, as usual, at 10:15 for anyone to join and discuss technical matters, catch up with each other, say Hi, etc.. The program (and recording) will end at 12:30, but the Waiting Room will remain open until about 1 pm for informal discussion.

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Raj Sahai is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

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PLANNED FUTURE PROGRAMS

The following programs are in various stages of planning.

 

Sun, May  9, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Theory of Social Revolution.

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 to die from it shows the world, as we know it, is bubbling and boiling.  “A Change is gonna’ come,” for sure, but why, how, when, or where?  Where are the “Locomotives of History,” the revolutions, as Marx called them?
As the saying goes, there is no revolutionary action without a revolutionary theory. 
We will not offer solutions or chart a path to revolution in this session.  However, we will visit Historical Materialism and see why revolutions are a way of life, a natural phenomenon, a natural way for anything, including human societies, to evolve and change.  When, how, or do the dialectically consequential evolutionary and revolutionary stages of development merge into one?  We will discuss the assertion of the inevitability of revolutions, the development, needed conditions, the necessary organizations for societal change and revolutions.  The possibility of change without violence, a peaceful transition, will be discussed alongside what constitutes a revolution.  We may even talk about what happens if a change does not occur in the current human societies.
Our speaker will be Mehmet Bayram of the ICSS group is an activist, journalist, photographer, videographer, and translator.  His writings, news articles, and commentaries could be found in https://Sendika.org, or in English, https://sendika.org/kategori/english/, a progressive site that survived for more than 20 years, even after the Turkish government shut it down 62 times.

Sun, May  16, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
TENTATIVE: Roger Harris on Biden’s Foreign Policy: Hope or Horror
More info soon!

Sun, May  23 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
TENTATIVE  The Significance of the Alabama Amazon Strike,
with Judy Greenspan, 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, on Building Solidarity for the Amazon Union Struggle.

Sun, May  30, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
TENTATIVE:
Tulsa race massacre OF 1921

Wadi’h Halabi of CME has offered to organize a memorial for the 100th Anniversary of what has been called "the single worst incident of racial violence in American history," The attack, which happened the week of  May 31 and June 1, 1921, was carried out on the ground and from private aircraft, destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the district—at that time the wealthiest Black community in the United States, known as "Black Wall Street.”

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Sun, Jun 6, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
TENTATIVE: Ecology and Critique of Science
ICSS member Raj Sahai is working on this. More info soon.

TENTATIVE: Sun, Jun 13, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Communists in the Auto Workers Union

Sun, Jun 20: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Jun 27, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Jul 4, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Jul 11, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Jul 18, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Jul 25, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Aug 1, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Aug 8, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Aug 15, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Aug 22, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Aug 29, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Sep 5, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Sep 12, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Sep 19, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Sep 26, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Oct 3, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Oct 10, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Oct 17, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Oct 24, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Oct 31, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Nov 7, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
FALL BACK: DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME ENDS
POSSIBLY: Open discussion on the October Revolution

Sun, Nov 14, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Nov 21, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Nov 25, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Dec 5, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Dec 12 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Dec 19, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Dec 26, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Jan 2, 2022: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Jan 9, 2022: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Jan 16, 2022: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Jan 23, 2022: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

Sun, Jan 30, 2022: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm Pacific
Open

UNDER CONSIDERATION

Sun, Jan xx, 20XX: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
AS NEEDED: Group Reading: The Communist Manifesto

This is the foundational work of Marxism and we will go through it paragraph by paragraph, with ample opportunity for discussion. Be prepared to voice, and defend, your views!

Sun, Jan xx, 20XX: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
PERHAPS: Is Facebook Rewiring Our Brains? "If you are not paying for the product, you are the product."
Open discussion of Netflix film. The Social Dilemma. Gene might organize.

Sun, Jan xx, 20XX: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
PERHAPS?: The Social Metabolism of Imperialism 
This will continue the theoretical work of ICSS member Eugene E Ruyle which applies Marx’s labor theory of value to the analysis of non-capitalist as well as capitalist systems, leading to a theoretic framework Ruyle calls social thermodynamics or social metabolism. Ruyle’s talk will be part of a larger project,  “The Evolution of Human Energetic Systems”

Sunday near May 3, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
TENTATIVE Postponed from last  year: Elazar on the Scientific Analysis of Stalinism.
(Elazar 88th Birthday celebration after)

Sunday, Sep 5, 2021: 10:30 am to 12:30 
Possible: Reclaiming the True Legacy of Labor Day
This will an updated repeat of a talk given at the San Jose Peace Center in 2017 by ICSS member Eugene E Ruyle.

 

 

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