The May-June 2014 issue of News & Letters is online.
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2014-2014
From the U.S. to Ukraine, crises and revolts call for philosophy
Revolution and counter-revolution contend now, while the prolonged global capitalist economic crisis refuses to end. The question arises: where is the needed banner of total uprooting of the system and creation of new human relations as the goal? This objective need is present in every struggle from outright revolution in the Middle East to movements in the U.S. Beset by attacks and contradictions, they have in turn sparked counter-revolutions.
Contents:
- I. Dialectics of revolution and counter-revolution
A. Revolt and invasion in Ukraine
B. From Bosnia to Turkey: ‘Mental sediment’
C. Egypt and Syria at historic crossroads - II. Revolt and retrogression at home
A. Women under attack
B. Many dimensions of revolt - III. Capitalism’s political and economic degeneracy
A. Karl Marx haunts capitalism’s stagnation
B. The race toward climate chaos - IV. Philosophy and organization
A. The philosophic moment of Marxist-Humanism
B. Organizational tasks
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya:
Unchaining the revolutionary dialectic
Marx, by unchaining the dialectic, discovered a whole new continent of thought and of revolution. Marx’s critique of Hegelian dialectic meant not merely a substitution of materialism for idealism, but an extension of the dialectic from its seeming burial in Thought alone by the presence of the dialectic in the development of reality.
Workshop Talks
Measured to death
Reliance on metrics in healthcare has become a new Taylorism, or management by time study. Everything in the hospital workplace is now tracked by sophisticated computer programs, down to every last pill, gauze and penny, and down to every last motion. This vast pool of information becomes Big Data.
Bolivia’s two worlds
A new conflict broke out in Bolivia at the end of March. Thousands of miners blocked highways in five departments of Bolivia to protest a pending new mining law. Three miners were killed by the national police, while the miners took dozens of police hostage.
Woman as Reason
Birth control and being human
The war against birth control is a war against the idea that women are actually human beings who have a right to control their fertility and plan when and if to have a child.
Fukushima protest
Demonstrators gathered in front of the Japanese Consulate in Chicago on the third anniversary of the first meltdown at the Daiichi nuclear plant at Fukushima. The purpose of the protest was to shine a spotlight on the continuing crisis: that radiation continues to be released into the water and into the air, despite the efforts of workers who at risk of life and health are quickly acquiring lifetime doses of radiation.
Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe
Chernobyl is a compendium of 23 years of scientific observations generated between the 1986 accident and 2009. The book is encyclopedic, beginning with an overview as the contamination swept west through Europe and east through the Caucasus, northern Africa, northern South Asia and across the Pacific to California.
World in View
Bosnians develop revolutionary democracy
A revolutionary movement in Bosnia is bringing new life to the ideas that meant everything to supporters of the 1990s people’s struggle there. Despite the efforts of bureaucrats and tyrants, the fundamental character of multiethnic Bosnia has continued to develop. At its core, the current movement is directed against the rule of capital.
MORE ARTICLES … (see the pdf version)
p. 2:
“Godless Americana”
“We do change in prison”
“Women World Wide”
“Equal Pay Day rally”
p. 3:
“UPS drivers risk jobs for solidarity”
“Minimum wage is a starvation wage”
“South Africans: don’t vote for messiahs!”
“Kissinger’s holocausts”
p. 4:
“From the Preface to The Philosophic Moment of Marxist-Humanism”
p. 5:
“NYC fighting the test”
“Québec election the ‘dirtiest campaign'”
“Disabled demand services from DHS/DRS”
“Handicap This!”
p. 6:
“Readers’ Views”
p. 10:
“Third anniversary of the Syrian Revolution”
“Same-sex marriage”
p. 11:
“Peace activist veteran run down”
“Stop the spies and lies”
“Queer Notes”
p. 12, World in View:
“India’s Modi: ‘free market’ authoritarian”
“Massacres continue in Central African Republic”