Past Posts by Descending Date

North Korea has declared that South Korea is no longer an appropriate counterpart for peaceful reunification. Furthermore, it declared South Korea its main enemy. To understand this moment---beyond the demonizing of North Korea---we must understand its causes and effects as well as what we must do for peace in the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia. Dae-Han Song joined the peace and reunification movement in 2003 when US bombs fell over Baghdad. He joined the East Bay Korean Americans United for Peace to prevent preemptive attack against North Korea. He has organized for API Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership (AYPAL) ...

It is thirty years since the Rwandan genocide.  The presentation will explain this horrific but poorly understood crime and its aftermath.  One consequence that will be discussed in greater detail is the tight-knit relationship between Rwanda and Israel.  Both countries depend on their victimization narratives to justify what they do in Gaza and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ann Garrison is a journalist who focuses on the countries of the  African Great Lakes Region.  She is a Contributing Editor of the Black Agenda Report, a contributor to Pacifica Radio and many other platforms.  Her previous presentation at ICSS can be found at https://icssmarx.org/us-shoots-itself-in-the-foot-in-africa-again-ann-garrison-sunday-april-16-2023-1030am-pacific-time/ ...

Our speaker, international human rights advocate and lawyer Dan Kovalik, just returned from observing the March 17th presidential elections in Russia. He was in the Kherson Oblast, which experienced terrorist attacks designed to disrupt the election. Dan will report back on the current Ukraine conflict in light of historical developments, in particular the break-up of the Soviet Union, the fight against fascism dating back to WWII, and the missed opportunities for peaceful resolutions in that region; in short, the continuing efforts of the US and its allies to weaken Russia. Dan will also report on his investigations of popular sentiment ...

Campaign for Socialism 2024 Workers in the Socialist campaign of Claudia De La Cruz & Karina Garcia for President & VP will speak about their campaign. Website: votesocialist2024.com/ ...

In 1981 Paul Robeson’s son, Paul Robeson Jr, claimed that his father had told him privately that in June 1949 he, Paul Sr, learned about the persecution of some prominent Jews in the Soviet Union, but had never publicly revealed this fact and had asked his son to promise not to reveal it during his, Paul Sr’s, lifetime. In later years Paul Jr repeatedly confirmed this story. In a recent article Grover Furr checked this story against the evidence that is now available and drew the only possible conclusion: that Paul Jr’s story is untrue. In their latest book, Stalin ...

Neoliberalism began in the last quarter of the 20th century, when the accumulated capital in the G-7 was allowed to penetrate much of the world that had closed its doors to foreign capital: Eastern Europe, Russia, China, Vietnam. India, Africa and Latin America.  These are the countries which together today have the vast majority of the global low wage working class in numbers. Yet, only after a decade and a half, the economic crisis returned in 2008. It was then postponed by a huge expansion of credit. But as is evident by new wars and tensions rising between major powers of ...

The University of California, Berkeley—widely known as “Cal”—is admired worldwide as a bastion of innovation and a hub for progressive thought. Far less known are the university’s roots in plunder, warfare, and the promotion of white supremacy. As Tony Platt shows in his latest book, The Scandal of Cal, these original sins sit at the center of UC Berkeley’s history. Tony Platt is the author of thirteen books dealing with issues of inequality, power, and justice in American history. Platt, a longtime activist, is currently a Distinguished Affiliated Scholar at Cal Berkeley’s Center for the Study of Law & Society ...

Our program is about the México Solidarity Project (https://mexicosolidarityproject.org/), which recognizes the 2018 presidential election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) as a watershed moment. AMLO and his progressive Morena party offer the first opportunity to end the corruption, impoverishment, and subservience to US interests that has marked the 70 years of neoliberal dominance. The project offers critical support for Morena, a left-leaning populist political party rooted in anti-neoliberalism and a staunch defender of national sovereignty. It is immersed in the social movements in México struggling for basic rights for workers and people in all marginalized groups. These voices for ...

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 ...

The ongoing genocide in Gaza is not being perpetrated by the Zionist regime alone but with the full involvement and complicity of the United States and its partners, including Germany, Canada, the UK and France. At the same time, however, it has also strikingly illustrated the rise in the regional resistance, from the sharpening battle on the borders between Lebanon and occupied Palestine and the role of the Yemeni people, government and armed forces (and the AnsarAllah movement) in defending the Red Sea against complicity with genocide. We will discuss the role of Palestine and the rise of the regional ...

Two years of ‘Slava Ukraine’ from every corner, two years of ‘unprovoked invasion’ lies, two years of ‘Russia is losing’. We have seen it all unfolding in front of our eyes. But what exactly happened in February 2022, was it really necessary to start the Special Military Operation? Why is a Ukrainian Marxist on the side of Russia? Speaking: Slava Jalili is a Ukrainian Marxist-Leninist, correspondent at The Revolution Report, and member of Chicago Workers School ...

Harpal Brar will be speaking on his latest book, Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: Marketisation of the Chinese Economy. which explores the path of China after Mao's death, considering the role of the Great Leap Forward in China's economic development and current success, and the truth behind the political events of the Cultural Revolution. Brar tackles the ultimate question: would China have been better off having continued to use centralized planning, or were the reforms and marketization necessary and beneficial? Harpal Brar, former Chairman of the CPGB-ML, is a prominent political economist, author, and journalist ...

On November 25, Dr. Ranjeet Brar and three members of the UK CPGB-ML were arrested at the national Palestine solidarity demo for manning a table selling a book critical of the history of Zionism that was published nine years ago and has since been distributed widely.  They were told that the book might constitute an ‘incitement to racial hatred’ for which they were held in isolation for 24 hours before being released on bail. While imprisoned, their families were subjected to 3:00 AM raids, during which police seized phones, laptops, and party literature. When they were set free the following day, ...

According to the dominant ideology, fascism constitutes an exceptional break with the protocols of liberal democracy, which has only happened at rare moments in the history of the West, such as in Mussolini’s Italy and Nazi Germany. Liberalism is thereby postulated as a bulwark against fascism, an idea that’s been consolidated through the massive perpetuation of a historical narrative regarding the supposed democratic defeat of Nazism in WWII. This presentation will critically interrogate these assumptions by re-examining the historical relationship between liberal democracy and fascism. Have they always been opposed to one another, or do they sometimes work in concert ...

As we head into election 2024, the Biden administration, Democratic Partypoliticians, and media pundits have has launched an aggressivecampaign touting the "accomplishments of Bidenomics." Yetaccording to an AP News poll, only 34 percent of Americans say theyapprove of Biden's handling of the economy. Democratic Partypoliticians and pundits echo the theme that the economy is doinggreat, decry unfounded pessimism, and insist that expressions ofdiscontent are reflections of misinformation and MAGA propaganda. This Sunday,Economist Dr. Jack Rasmus will set the record straight for working people: what is going on in the economy in 2024? What is the basisin reality for peoples' discontent ...

For more than a century, a trend within Western Marxism has been to retreat from endorsing actually existing socialist projects such as the Soviet Union and retheorizing their significance in relation to capitalism. In this context, these scholars have begun to, in effect, reject imperialism as a driving force of capitalism, while obscuring the central regressive role of the US in particular. Such re-theorization downplays the historical significance of actually existing socialism and especially socialist projects in the Global South, often by reframing them as part of global capitalism or global modernity. Recent versions of Western Marxism often conflate capitalism ...