Weekly Free Speech Forum established Jan. 6, 1951
75th Anniversary in 2026
College of Complexes
The Playground for People Who Think
sustaining the academic tradition of “One Fool at a Time”
Every Saturday at 5:00 PM CT
Dapper's Restaurant
2901 W. Addison, Chicago, Free Parking Please Note: The college will cease
operation on a weekly basis after the
CTA Route 152 Addison current schedule is exhausted on Feb. 7th,
with meetings scheduled on an occasional
Tuition $3.00 and food/drink purchase basis, probably once a month on the first
Saturday All meetings open to the public, no membership is maintained
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Meeting ID: 812 1646 7150
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Upcoming Presentations:
January
January 31st
US Military Actions to Overthrow the Venezuelan Revolution
Meeting # 3,853 - Stansfield Smith, expert on central and South American affairs
Since September 2025, the U.S. military has conducted several missile strikes on vessels in international waters near Venezuela. U.S. officials assert these attacks target "narco-terrorists" and are part of a counter-narcotics campaign.
The Trump administration has designated the Venezuela-based gang Tren de Aragua as a "foreign terrorist organization" and has repeatedly accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of being involved in drug trafficking.
For 26 years the US government has been trying to overthrow the democratically elected government of Venezuela, put an end to its popular revolution, and take control of its oil, the largest reserves in the world. The US has tried coups, assassination attempts, economic blockade, even inventing their own president, but nothing has worked. Now Washington accuses Venezuela of flooding the US with cocaine, even though the 2025 reports of both the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and the US Drug Enforcement Agency 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment do not even mention Venezuelan involvement. Now, every few days Washington seeks to provoke incidents in order to justify a military invasion, creating a new US war for oil. Provocations include CIA activity and bombing Venezuelan origin boats without justification, heinously murdering their occupants in international waters.
Stansfield Smith has been publishing the Venezuela & ALBA Weekly News since May 2014 (on ChicagoALBASolidarity.org). He has written in a variety of publications and has been active in the movements in defense of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and other Latin American countries since about 1978.
February
February 7th
Marching as a Vehicle for Social Change, a Report on the
"Save America March" to build unity, one step at a time
Meeting # 3,854 -
Ed S. Fallon is an American activist, former politician, talk show host, author and urban farmer from the State of Iowa. He was previously a Democratic candidate for Governor of Iowa and the U.S. Congress, and served as a member of the Iowa General Assembly from 1993 to 2006.
Fallon’s history of marching as a vehicle for social change dates back to 1986, when he organized the Iowa stretch of the coast-to-coast Great Peace March. Since then, Fallon has organized five long marches and walks.
“Our democracy is being supplanted by authoritarian rule,” said Fallon. “We’ll never address the existential threats of climate change and nuclear weapons, or any other pressing issue for that matter, without a functional democracy. Violence isn’t the answer. The approach of leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, and Dorothy Day is what will save us.”
“Authoritarianism has been spreading for a while,” added Fallon. “This year, it’s gone from bad to worse. The civility that used to define public engagement is being supplanted by name-calling, lying, and flouting the Constitution.”
Please Note: The college will cease operation on a weekly basis after the current schedule is exhausted on Feb. 7th, with meetings scheduled on an occasional basis, probably once a month on the first Saturday
February 21st
Special Presidents' Day Speaker on
How to Remove a President
Meeting # 3,855 -Paul Street, author
Paul Street is a member of the Executive Board of the national organization Refuse Fascism.
Street is the author of ten books to date, including
Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis: a Living Black Chicago History (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007);
Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics (Routledge, 2008);
The Empire’s New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of Power (Routledge, 2010);
They Rule: The 1% v. Democracy (Routledge, 2014);
Hollow Resistance: Obama, Trump, and the Politics of Appeasement (CounterPunch Books, September 2020);
This Happened Here: Neoliberals, Amerikaners, and the Trumping of America (Routledge, 2021).
Paul writes regularly for Counterpunch and has a regular Substack, The Paul Street Report at https://paulstreet.substack.com/
March
March 7th
The God-question: Arguments for and against
the Existence of God
Meeting # 3,855 - Prof. Bob Lichtenbert, Ph.D
The existence of God, called "the God-question," is one of the most meaningful questions that all people ought to ask every day all their adult lives because of the immortal afterlife implied.
I will briefly make these three arguments for God's existence:
1) the universe needs a supernatural cause to make it exist,
2) the Earth has a grand plan that only God can design, and
3) literally millions of people have experienced God in advanced mental states.
I will then make these arguments against the existence of God:
1) there is too much evil for God to exist, and
2) the universe has recently been discovered to be so unimaginably vast that God would not care about one person on Earth.
I will state my own position on the God-question at the end of my talk.
March 21st
Democracy Was the First Casualty:
How America Learned to Treat Losing as an Act of War
Meeting # 3,856 - college regular Tim Bolger
What can we learn from history?? – Tim Bolger will develop parallels and reflections on what needs to be done.
The speaker stats that "The American Civil War began the moment Americans decided democracy was only legitimate when it delivered the “correct” outcome. Decades before cannon fire, the country normalized contempt for compromise, weaponized grievance, and taught itself to believe that defeat was fraud, tyranny, or betrayal. By placing the moral rot of the 1850s side by side with the Trump era, this talk makes a blunt claim: America is not flirting with crisis—it is repeating a pattern it already knows leads to catastrophe. The most dangerous lie in American politics is not that the other side is wrong, but that they are illegitimate. Once a nation accepts that idea, the question is no longer whether the system survives, but how much damage is done before it breaks."
April
April 18th
Seeking Special Earth Day Speaker on the Environment
contact the Program Coordinator Charles Paidock if you would like to speak at (312) 842-5036 office or (312( 714-7790 cell, or by email to cpaidock@hotmail.com
May
May 2nd
Seeking Special May Day Speaker on organized labor / activist issues
contact the Program Coordinator Charles Paidock if you would like to speak at (312) 842-5036 office or (312( 714-7790 cell, or by email to cpaidock@hotmail.com
September
September 12th
25 Years Later: the Full Story of September 11th
Meeting # 3,8?? - the well-researched Bill Lee returns
Bill Lee, noted 9/11 Scholar will explain all aspects of September 11th, 2001, will answer all questions, and clear up any lingering, erroneous conspiracy theories. Not to be missed.
College of Complexes
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"College of Complexes" is a registered trademark with the State of Illinois which may not be used without expressed written permission.
Wanted: Program Coordinator Trainees / Assistants - if you would like to help locate speakers for the CoC for an upcoming specified period of time, for example, 3 upcoming dates in 2026, hopefully people who haven't spoken before on topics not covered, contact Charles Paidock at cpaidock@hotmail.com or (312) 842-5036, (312) 714-7790 cell
