Calendar

Speaker: Stansfield Smith

To Join Zoom Meeting https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87388824824?pwd=QTWNvr8cGeGo1ZDW7x9Y8W0sDaNxRc.1

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Meeting ID: 873 8882 4824
Passcode:  042428
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Sunday, June 22, 2025: 10:30am-12:30pm Pacific Time

With the current occupant in the White House unleashing the Marines and National Guard against immigrants, banning US entry to citizens from nearly 20 non-white countries, flouting court orders, accusing media as “the enemy of the people,” and extending executive power, can the US be said to be fascist or on the brink of becoming so?

To have a provocative discussion on this topic, we have invited long-time activist and past speaker Stansfield Smith to return to present on his recent article (https://orinocotribune.com/trump-fascism-a-reality-check/).

Stansfield Smith was a leader of the Chicago Committee to Free the Cuban 5 and has been active in defense of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua for years. He has put out the Venezuela & ALBA Weekly News since 2013 and the online newsletter for the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition for the past three years. He has published in LA Progressive, Dissident Voice, Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Covert Action, Monthly Review online, and other websites. Smith is a long time anti-war activist, and opposed US interference over the years in Latin America. His website is ChicagoALBASolidarity.org.

Stop Wells Fargo Webinar

Big banks are pouring billions into fossil fuels and blocking the bold climate action we need. Meanwhile, they’re bending the knee to the Trump regime, scheming to privatize our public services, and undermining union power.

On June 24 at 5pm PT / 8pm ET, we’re kicking off the Wells Fargo Campaign with a powerful online event that connects the dots between Wall Street, the U.S. Senate, climate chaos, and corporate authoritarianism — and the growing movement fighting back.

Register here.

We Are CA Teach In: What’s really happening in LA?
Virtual Teach in Tuesday, June 24th, 6:30-8:30PM

• Click here to get the zoom link

The Trump administration has launched an unprecedented and unlawful invasion. Armed militarized federal agents are disappearing our neighbors from job sites, schools, and neighborhoods. Families are terrified.

But through the fear, something powerful is happening: Angelenos are rising. Together. We’ve seen faith leaders kneeling in prayer in front of federal troops. Teachers, small business owners, and neighbors taking to the streets in peaceful resistance. From South LA to the San Fernando Valley, from Boyle Heights to Pasadena, neighbors are showing up for each other.

This virtual session will prepare us for the road ahead by training-up on who’s pulling the strings behind the scenes and how we take action together:

• Know Your Rights info – how to spread power not panic
• Expose the real villains – the billionaires and bullies profiting off our people and future
• A plan for nonviolent resistance to keep ICE out of our communities and to push back on the MAGA murder budget

The dramatic shift in the Trump led U.S. foreign policies, as seen recently in the bombing in Iran, has created enormous confusion and consternation within establishment centers of power. These changes are manifested in the abandonment of both the liberal international order constructed under U.S. hegemony after the Second World War and the long-term strategy of NATO enlargement and proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Imposition of high tariffs and shifting military priorities have put the United States in conflict with even its long-term allies, while the New Cold War on China and the Global South is accelerating.

Guest Speaker: John Bellamy Foster is a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and editor of the Monthly Review. He writes about political economy of capitalism and economic crisis, ecology and ecological crisis, and Marxist theory.  Among his published works: The Vulnerable Planet: A Short Economic History of the Environment; Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature.[8][9] His reinterpretation of Marx on ecology introduced the concept of “metabolic rift” and was widely influential; another is Ecology Against Capitalism, which focused on the critique of capitalist economics from the standpoint of the environment. His 2006 book Naked Imperialism, along with frequent editorials in the pages of Monthly Review, attempted to account for the growing U.S. military role in the world and the shift toward a more visible, aggressive global projection.

Critique of Intelligent Design, Foster’s book co-authored with Brett Clark and Richard York, is a continuation of his research on materialist philosophy and the relationship between ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus and Karl Marx. Drawing on his ecological work, particularly Marx’s Ecology, Foster defends historical materialism as fundamental to a rational, scientific worldview, against proponents of intelligent design and other non-materialist ideologies. Also in his 2020 book The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology (2020), John showed how socialist analysts and materialist scientists in Britain, the United States, from William Morris and Friedrich Engels to Joseph Needham, Rachel Carson, and Stephen Jay Gould, sought to develop a dialectical naturalism, rooted in a critique of capitalism.

FOR  OUR FULL SCHEDULE OF UPCOMING PROGRAMS,

AS WELL AS PAST PROGRAMS, GO TO ICSSMARX.ORG

NOTE: Our past programs have been recorded, and placed on YouTube. For a listing of our past programs, see the “IcssmMarxist” channel on YouTube, and at icssmarx.org.

3. Action Items:

a. Annual Reports 1. CrimeTracer Forensic Logic 2024 (OPD) 2. Cellebrite 2024 (OPD) 3. Pen Register (OPD)

b. Use Policies 1. OPD Community Safety Camera Systems (OPD)

c. Proposed Ordinance 1. The No Stolen Data Ordinance

Members of the public can view the meeting live on KTOP or on the City’s website at https://www.oaklandca.gov/topics/ktop-tv-10. Comment in advance. To send your comment directly to the Privacy Commission and staff BEFORE the meeting starts, please send your comment, along with your full name and agenda item number you are commenting on, to Felicia Verdin at fverdin@oaklandca.gov. Please note that eComment submissions close one (1) hour before posted meeting time. All submitted public comment will be provided to the Privacy Commission prior to the meeting.

To observe and participate in the meeting via Zoom, go to: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85817209915 Or One tap mobile: 1 669 444 9171

The New Parkway is proud and honored to host the premiere of Rahkii “Hyp” Holman’s new documentary about his great uncle, the revolutionary visionary Amilcar Cabra, who led the independence movement in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. To the tune of Lo-Fi Hip-Hop and Afrobeat music, Holman highlights the ways in which Cabra’s philosophical fight against colonialism, racism, and fascism have influenced activists for generations worldwide.  This special screening is an exclusive preview before its submission to the African Studies Association of Africa conference in Cape Verde.

Sat, Jul 5 

Email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com a few days beforehand for the online invite.  All are welcome!

For our July, 2025 meeting we will be reading the first two sections (approximately 115 pages) of Stellar, A World Beyond Limits and How to Get There (Amazon), (Goodreads) For our August meeting, we will finish the book.

A bold re-examination of the past, present, and future of humanity, Stellar challenges conventional thinking and offers a vision of hope and optimism – a necessary antidote to the fear and despair that define our times.

Stellar uncovers the root causes of today’s biggest challenges, from war and economic instability to inequality and environmental collapse. It reveals why solutions to these issues are little more than band-aids, why our political and economic structures are failing, and how to unlock humanity’s full potential.

Stellar reimagines what’s possible – a world that gives rather than takes from both people and planet. A Stellar World where today’s pressing issues simply dissolve, where humanity can thrive, free from fear, scarcity, and despair.

This book will transform how you see the world, and your place in it.

Strike Debt Bay Area hosts this non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Previous readings have included (in chronological order) Doughnut Economics, Limits, Banking on the People, Capital and Its Discontents, How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century, The Deficit Myth,  Revenge Capitalism, the Edge of Chaos blog symposium , Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons, The Optimist’s Telescope, Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, Exploring Degrowth, The Origin of Wealth, Mine!, The Dawn of Everything  A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Beyond Money, Less is More,  Cannibal Capitalism,  Debt, the First 5000 Years , Poverty, By America, End Times, Jackson Rising Redux , The Feminist Subversion of the Economy, How Infrastructure Works, Inside the Systems that Shape our World, Wealth Supremacy, The Persuaders,  The Path to a Livable Future, Solidarity,  Mutual Aid, Breaking Together, Making Sense of Chaos and TechnoFeudalism.

Email strike.debt.bay.area@gmail.com a few days beforehand for the online invite.  All are welcome!

For our July, 2025 meeting we will be reading the first two sections (approximately 115 pages) of Stellar, A World Beyond Limits and How to Get There (Amazon), (Goodreads) For our August meeting, we will finish the book.

A bold re-examination of the past, present, and future of humanity, Stellar challenges conventional thinking and offers a vision of hope and optimism – a necessary antidote to the fear and despair that define our times.

Stellar uncovers the root causes of today’s biggest challenges, from war and economic instability to inequality and environmental collapse. It reveals why solutions to these issues are little more than band-aids, why our political and economic structures are failing, and how to unlock humanity’s full potential.

Stellar reimagines what’s possible – a world that gives rather than takes from both people and planet. A Stellar World where today’s pressing issues simply dissolve, where humanity can thrive, free from fear, scarcity, and despair.

This book will transform how you see the world, and your place in it.

Strike Debt Bay Area hosts this non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Previous readings have included (in chronological order) Doughnut Economics, Limits, Banking on the People, Capital and Its Discontents, How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century, The Deficit Myth,  Revenge Capitalism, the Edge of Chaos blog symposium , Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons, The Optimist’s Telescope, Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, Exploring Degrowth, The Origin of Wealth, Mine!, The Dawn of Everything  A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Beyond Money, Less is More,  Cannibal Capitalism,  Debt, the First 5000 Years , Poverty, By America, End Times, Jackson Rising Redux , The Feminist Subversion of the Economy, How Infrastructure Works, Inside the Systems that Shape our World, Wealth Supremacy, The Persuaders,  The Path to a Livable Future, Solidarity,  Mutual Aid, Breaking Together, Making Sense of Chaos and TechnoFeudalism.