On Sept. 11, 1973, the Chilean army brutally overthrew the elected government headed by Salvador Allende. This coup should have destroyed, but evidently did not fully destroy, the illusion that bourgeois democracy will allow any authentic socialist transformation process to proceed peacefully.
Torrential rains on Sept. 12-13 caused the collapse of two dams in Derna, Libya. 11,000-plus people were swept away in the flood and over 30,000 displaced. A government spokesman insisted the collapse was “a natural disaster.” Was it?
In-person report of the Sept. 15 mobilization in Chicago to protest political inaction in the face of climate emergency.
Takes up: Disability Pride Month; inaccessibility in Montreal’s light-rail stations; proposing cuts to disability payments in the UK, and Case Dominique School in Congo-Brazzaville for children with autism and Down Syndrome.
In memoriam Paul Knopf (1927-2023), a jazz composer and performer; a revolutionary activist, philosopher and Marxist-Humanist; a poet, a lifelong learner with an encyclopedic mind and a friend and comrade to people both famous and unsung.
The contributions and contradictions of the African revolutions of the 20th century speak to today’s very different situation. These excerpts from Dunayevskaya’s ‘Philosophy and Revolution, from Hegel to Sartre and from Marx to Mao’ aim not only to recapture the greatness of those revolutions, but also grapple with why they retrogressed after independence, so as to aid the creation of new beginnings now.
There is an “Eastern route” for migrants from Africa that crosses Yemen and lands in Saudi Arabia. A new report from Human Rights Watch documents the violence of Saudi border guards against Ethiopian migrants. The U.S. has chosen not to raise the issue publicly.
On Aug. 25, the flag of revolution flew high in villages, towns and cities across Syria. The Syrian revolutionary process of the second decade of the 21st Century was one of the most important developments to arise from the Arab Spring. Now is the time to solidarize with it, a solidarity that has been sorely missing.
The military coup against Gabon President Ali Bongo on Aug. 29, 2023, was welcomed with jubilation in Gabon’s capital, Libreville. Whether that leads to a move toward civilian participation and something approaching democracy remains to be seen.
Reauthorization of funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has been abruptly bogged down by Republican legislators under the false claim that it supports abortion providers.
The crucial question after the military coup in Niger is what will it mean for Niger’s 25 million plus people? What is their attitude to the present moment? This is the difficult question which few seem interested in exploring.
The stories told by 12 women who bravely sued Texas over its draconian so-called “exception” in its abortion ban, show that the point of the ban is to cruelly strip women of the right to control our own bodies and lives. Freedom is the enemy of the anti-abortion fanatics.
Eight South American countries met in Brazil for a summit to combat deforestation in the Amazon basin. The summit’s failure to agree on a pact protecting Amazon forests points to the global failure of forging concrete agreements to combat climate change.
Students in Pine Ridge, S.D., changed their school’s name to Maȟpíya Lúta, after the Oglala Lakota leader who defeated a contingent of the U.S. Army in 1866.
Takes on: Lebanese woman-led media platform “Khateera”; a fine in Chihuahua, Mexico, for singing lyrics in live performances that sexually objectify or promote violence towards women, and the deaths of Dr. Susan Love and Sinéad O’Connor.
Takes up: New ultraconservative members to the board of trustees of New College of Florida, once known for its Queer-friendly progressive education; transphobia increasing in Pakistan; and Pride marches across the Philippines during Pride Month 2023.
On Aug. 9 we honor women who gave their lives in struggle. We cannot continue to accept the violence that is all around us. We need to build a peaceful society in which there is full equality between men and women, a society in which land, wealth and power are shared.
‘Succession’ is a TV series vaguely based on the family running the Fox Corporation. It shows the immense influence of such a company in the daily life of U.S. citizens, but what shocked the reviewer most is how it depicts the dehumanization of human relationships in today’s world.
San Diegans defended books about sexual orientation and gender identity when queerphobic Amy Vance and Martha Martin removed almost all the books from Rancho Penasquitos library.
More than 50,000 migrants are known to have died worldwide since 2014, revealing inhuman conditions that force so many people to flee their homes, indifference of governments, and official acts that caused the deaths of hundreds of migrants.
Message in solidarity with the annual international antiwar assembly
The climate crisis is already disrupting billions of lives. Yet the economic and political powers are more concerned with eliminating safeguards for workers and pushing more fossil fuels. It is no time to despair. It is a time of crisis that opens the door to a revolutionary transformation of society.
Since the April outbreak of fighting between rival forces in Sudan, civilians have suffered and died. Willfully forgotten is the Sudanese Revolution of 2018-19 and the powerful participation of the Sudanese masses who carried it out.
Marxist, activist and defender of the Indigenous movement, Peruvian revolutionary Hugo Blanco (1934-2023) died in June. His history shines a light on the needed exploration of the conflictive, contradictory story of Marxism and the Indigenous movement in Latin America today.
60,000 Hollywood actors joined the 70-day-long screenwriters’ strike. Despite the glamor, all who work in this $134-billion entertainment industry under the capitalist system are subject to exploitation and alienation like any other worker.
Takes up: the Taiwanese TV drama that is inspiring a #MeToo movement; the struggle to get authorities in India to take seriously accusations of rape and harassment against the chief of the Wrestling Federation of India; the legislation passed by Maine to help survivors of prostitution rebuild their lives; and Canada’s failure to implement the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls after three years of federally ordered hearings and testimonies from survivors and victims’ families.
The Israeli military occupation of Jenin is the latest manifestation of the state terrorism the government is carrying out against the Palestinian population. What is new about this repression? How can continued occupation and neo-fascist tendencies in Israel be overcome?
After Nahel Merzouk, a teenager of Algerian-Moroccan descent, was killed by police at a traffic stop in a Paris suburb, French youth, many of North African descent, responded with outrage. How did France come to this explosive moment?
On March 4, over 2,000 women marched through London, organized by Million Women Rise (MWR). This organization is led by a collective of Black women in the UK with regional subgroups. It is autonomous, run by volunteers on donations with no corporate funding or ties to political parties.
Worldwide domestic violence has intensified: The Strangulation Clinic was opened in Surrey, B.C. Canada, as this form of violence has increased since 2014; Iraqi women and allies demonstrated at the Supreme Judicial Council in Baghdad demanding a strict law to deal with increasing domestic violence and “honor killings”; and there has been an explosion of femicides in several countries, including Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan, and Sudan.
“You’ve heard of a POWER OUTAGE—we are calling for a PAYMENT OUTAGE.” A flyer circulated by Detroit activists responds to more frequent and longer-lasting widespread power outages AND an eight percent rate increase request by DTE Energy (the gas and electric supplier for Detroit and the surrounding suburbs).
Takes up: Canadian Dawn Dumont Walker’s struggle to keep her son and escape her abusive ex-partner; the Spanish parliament passing legislation for paid leave for debilitating menstrual pain and decriminalizing abortion, including for minors; and the life-altering and horrendous suffering of women in Bangladesh due to climate chaos.
People with disabilities make up 15% of the population. They are in every country and culture on earth. One thing that unites the disabled is that capitalism is a world not made for us, and communism is the only way to establish true freedom and equality for everyone.
Across the U.S., many Republican lawmakers are proposing and passing transphobic legislation. This year alone, 498 such laws have been proposed, and 46 passed, compared to 149 proposed and 17 becoming law in 2022. Utah began its year by passing a law that denies hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgeries to people under 18, even when [=>]
More than 25,000 women in red cloaks and white bonnets formed human chains in 70 locations across Israel on March 8, combining commemorating International Women’s Day with protests in opposition to the proposed laws to turn Israel into a theocratic dictatorship. Yet Palestinian women’s voices were missing.
It is status quo for police, judges, and the general public, to doubt accusations made by women of abuse by men. But the idea that women are seeking money, and commonly lie about partner violence and sexual abuse, is a myth. Fraudulent accusations are rare, and assaults are vastly underreported.
Call for Convention of News and Letters Committees, 2023
Here are links to a number of Farsi translations of Marxist-Humanist writings.
El régimen iraní debería tener mucho miedo. Los gritos de: “¡Mujeres, vida y libertad!” “¡Muerte al hijab!” “¡Muerte al dictador!” llenan las calles. Las mujeres iraníes han inspirado al mundo y han advertido a los oligarcas de Irán que su régimen represivo está en grave peligro.
Today’s revolt in Iran is illuminated by Raya Dunayevskaya’s March 1979 Political-Philosophic Letter, “Iran: Unfoldment of, and Contradictions in, Revolution.” The first two parts were published in the November-December 2022 issue. The concluding two parts are published here. Written shortly after the massive women’s revolt that tried to open a second chapter of the revolution, this letter was part of a series written during and after the 1979 Iranian Revolution and published in both English and Farsi.
Asian-American disability rights activist Alice Wong’s memoir “Year of the Tiger”; In Poland, caregivers of children with disabilities called for the right to work part-time jobs while keeping government stipends; and disability rights activists critique California’s CARE Courts Act, where courts can order involuntary treatment plans for people with psychotic disorders.
Congress has done its best to become the nation’s strikebreaker by forcing a five-year contract on railroad workers who had been set to go on strike on Dec. 12. Union members in four of the 12 unions had voted to reject a tentative agreement that negotiators had reached with six major rail carriers in September.
It wasn’t alone the question of abortion rights that helped Democrats do so well in the midterm elections, but also what made women and so many others furious was the extreme cruelty and sickening glee with which Republicans imposed their draconian abortion laws and bans. Women could feel the hate.
Gavur Imam and his liberation struggle are a great example of a deliberately hidden past that could help all Cypriots to unite and fight for the island against its occupiers.
Rainbow Migration demanded the UK Prime Minister “end immigration detention for all LGBTQ+ people,” “scrap the Rwanda plan” and “reverse changes to the standard of proof for LGBTQ+ people’s asylum claims”; Twelve Republican-led states banned Transgender girls and women from competing in sports; and a long awaited center serving LGBTQ+ people opened on Chicago’s South Side.
The Iranian hardline regime should be very afraid. The cries of: “Women, life and freedom!” “Death to the head scarf!” “Death to the dictator!” fill the streets. Iranian women have inspired the world and put Iran’s oligarchs on notice that their repressive regime is in grave danger.
Hundreds of youth participated in the Oakland event of the international climate strike on Sept. 23, 2022.
Over 1,000 people gathered at UC Berkeley to express their solidarity with the growing movement of women in Iran.
Kei Utsumi touched many lives before his death on July 15, a few days shy of his 87th birthday. In conversations with friends, in being present at countless demonstrations, or in putting pen to paper, his was a passionate, unyielding voice for freedom movements, which will be sorely missed.
On Women’s Day, August 9 in South Africa, Abahlali baseMjondolo will celebrate all the women whose names are not remembered in the official celebrations who struggled in community organisations and trade unions and held families together under a brutal system of oppression.
