The pamphlet ‘A We without State” by Yásnaya Aguilar Gil, a voice of the Mixe people, deconstructs the word “Indigenous” and poses the idea of a world “not as a sum of national States…but as an ever-changing, collaborative and adaptable conglomerate of tiny social structures, as my community.”
Mexico
Queer Notes: January 2024
January 15, 2024Takes up: Transgender Awareness Week 2023 worldwide; Intersex people’s rights; a LGBTQ+ art exhibit in Sao Paulo; the aftermath of the murder of nonbinary Mexican Justice Jesús Ociel Baena Saucedo; and the Lynchburg, Va., City School Board rejecting a grant awarded by the “It Gets Better Project” to high school students to create a safe space.
World in View: Immigration: the view from Mexico
January 9, 2024The situation for migrants in Mexico is dire: the National Guard is used against newly arrived immigrants; gang members kidnap them and demand ransom from relatives in the U.S.; Mexican and U.S. authorities make the journey to the border excruciating.
World in View: Hurricane Otis and the ‘Other Acapulco’
November 18, 2023Hurricane Otis on the coast of Guerrero on Oct. 25 left more than 80% of the hotel infrastructure unusable and hundreds of houses without roofs. The population was already suffering from hunger and organized crime.
Women WorldWide: October 2023
October 3, 2023Takes up: Mexico’s Supreme Court ruling state laws against abortion are unconstitutional; Britain’s first cohousing community exclusively for women over 50; and #SeAcabo, (It’s Over), the Spanish women athletes’ #MeToo movement.
Women WorldWide: August 2023
August 9, 2023Takes 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.
World in View: Migrants die on treks to Europe and U.S.
August 4, 2023More 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.
Capitalism profits off immigrants’ woes
June 8, 2023U.S. President Joe Biden simultaneously put in place a proposal different from Donald Trump’s Title 42 that required asylum seekers to wait in Mexico until their asylum hearing appointment. Biden used another of Trump’s laws: to require refugees to prove that they sought asylum in the first country they encountered. In both proposals human rights are trampled.
Queer Notes: March-April 2023
March 21, 2023A Lesbian mother in Mexico was reunited with her young children thanks to Lesbian Mothers in Mexico and All Out; about 50 high school students of the Wyoming Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) met with state legislators on the GSA’s biannual Civics Day; and in Tunisia, NGOs circulated a petition demanding freedom for a Trans woman and Trans man sentenced to prison for suspicion of taking part in an LGBTQ+ event.
Indigenous Resistance in Mexico
November 11, 2022The Xonacatlan Indigenous Council (Juanacatlán, Jalisco State) issued a declaration establishing their territory “free of industry, free of megaprojects, free of mining and material banks.”
Women Worldwide: July-August 2022
July 21, 2022No Birth Behind Bars “feed-in” in London; Cross-Border Network of Mexico and U.S. abortion rights groups formed; Montreal protest of the prostitution common at Grand Prix auto race; study finds women less likely to receive credit for their scientific work.
Handicap This!: May-June 2022
May 19, 2022Takes up: Difficulty for a disabled raped women in Kyrgyzstan to get justice; Mexican women marching on International Women’s Day for disabled women’s rights; the Disability Rights Coalition of Nova Scotia hailing a victory; and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons’ ad seeking psychologists boasted of all the mentally ill people in U.S. prisons.
Biden complicit in border brutality
May 14, 2022Trump’s national health emergency, continued by Biden, had asylum seekers wait in Mexico for processing. This breaks U.S. law and though other pandemic emergency measures have lifted, virtually all Republicans and a growing number of Democrats are urging the Biden Administration to keep breaking this law past May 23, despite the suffering it causes.
Biden complicit in border brutality
April 30, 2022Trump’s national health emergency, continued by Biden, had temporarily superseded certain statutes so that asylum seekers had to wait in Mexico for an appointment. While other pandemic emergency measures have lifted, virtually all Republicans and a growing number of Democrats are urging the Biden Administration to keep breaking the law past May 23.
Women in defense of the territory
March 19, 2022A call from women living in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico, to meet together to fight developmentalist capitalism, and stop the rampant violence against women in the area.
Discussion Article: Towards a dynamic unity of struggle
Discussion article on the question of unity and diversity of struggles, theory and practice, Marxism and other currents of thought, exploring briefly the Zapatista Indigenous movement from 1994 to the present.
‘The Isthmus Is Ours’
March 4, 2022A call from women living in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico, to meet together to fight developmentalist capitalism, and stop the rampant violence against women in the area.
With the migrant caravan in Mexico
November 29, 2021An in-person report from an Accompaniment Brigade which joined a Migrant Caravan crossing southern Mexico on its way to Mexico City and encountered a great deal of difficulty from the Mexican government and little to no aid from agencies charged with helping them.
Women Worldwide: November-December 2021
November 19, 2021Social media’s effects on young women’s mental health; Mexican Supreme Court bans criminalizing abortion; FiLiA2021 conference in Europe; and women boycott bars and clubs in Britain demanding better training for staff to protect women from rapists.
U.S.-Mexico collusion against immigrants
Once again a migrant caravan—primarily Central Americans and Haitians—is proceeding from southern Mexico towards Mexico City, with hopes of reaching the U.S. While Mexico has historically been a safe haven for exiles the Haitians are facing Mexican government hostility, including National Guard soldiers who have attacked caravans near Mexico’s southern border.
Woman as Reason: Violence against women on the rise
November 16, 2021After over 50 years of a Women’s Liberation Movement unthinkable numbers of women continue to be brutally raped and murdered worldwide—with the COVID-19 pandemic spiking that number even higher. What can help us gain that needed confidence is to understand the meaning of our own actions and thoughts which is the role of a philosophy of human liberation.
Latin America Notes: September-October 2021
September 21, 2021Cubans revolt and students speak out amid food and medicine shortages and human rights violations; and Latin America suffers under climate change.
To build a new society
From Mexico, a search for agroecology, food autonomy and a truly human world after an experience with green capitalism.
Ocotlán residents defy criminal mine company
September 20, 2021Community authorities and residents of the Ocotlán Valley, Oaxaca, are demanding that the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources not give in to pressure from Compañía Minera Cuzcatlán, a subsidiary of Canada’s Fortuna Silver Mines, to expand their San José II mining project.
Youth in Action: July-August 2021
June 29, 2021On June 4, the anniversary of the 1989 crackdown on student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, thousands of Chinese students protested a government plan to merge private colleges with vocational schools; rural youth in eSwatini demonstrated on June 19 for the right of the people to vote for their own prime minister; and several high school graduates spoke out at graduation for an end to anti-Asian racism, the right to give your speech, not the principal’s, and for pride at being the first in your family to graduate.
Central America deal: troops at borders
May 8, 2021Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico agreed with the Biden administration to put more military at their borders to stop immigrants.
Women from India to the USA fight against misogynist violence
March 11, 2021Violence against women has worsened in the era of COVID-19. Sexism, like racism, is systemic to almost every culture. Nevertheless women fight back with creative activism and thought. What is new is the internationalization and deepening of that struggle. This year’s International Women’s Day shows women deepening our fight for full freedom and new human relationships.
Racism still core to immigration policy
Despite immigration reforms by President Biden that made a significant impact on people’s lives, they fall short in some ways and racism and exploitation continue–not only in abuses by ICE officers but in the overall concept and design of the system.
Latin America notes, March-April 2021
Coal mines continue to kill in Mexico; the Mapuche nation is resisting Chile’s government and logging companies.
Biking Diaries: Mexico’s pandemicide
Almost one year after the declaration of the COVID-19 alert in Mexico, the way the government has been “managing” the situation is genocidal.
Argentine women win abortion rights
January 29, 2021After years of struggle by women, the Argentine Senate finally passed an abortion rights bill, making it legal to terminate a pregnancy in the first 14 weeks. Abortion will be free in government hospitals, crucially important for poor women.
Argentina’s feminist revolution
January 10, 2021At four in the morning on Dec. 30, the Argentine Senate finally passed an abortion rights bill, making it legal to terminate a pregnancy in the first 14 weeks. The procedure will be free in government hospitals, crucially important for poor women.
Zapatista Declaration for Life
January 2, 2021The Zapatistas have just issued a new declaration signed by hundreds of organizations regarding their work in the last several months establishing contacts with many groups and discussing what unites and divides them and working out what allows them all to move forward. They agreed to continue to have meetings around the globe, inviting those [=>]
Biking Mexico Diary: Indigenous protect the forest, land and water
November 25, 2020Travelers learn how the Indigenous people of San Marcos, Veracruz, Mexico protect the forest, land and water.
Biking Mexico Diaries: The devil’s bridge
November 3, 2020Continuing with their bike trip throughout Mexico, the author and his friend have to cross “The Devil’s bridge” and they meet a family that has suffered the consequences of developmentalism.
Biking Mexico Diaries: A story of resistance
October 6, 2020As part of his bike journey throughout Mexico, the author and his partner encounter an amazing local resident and all his tales and knowledge, including the struggle of the people of San Marcos in defense of their water.
Essay: The Forum in Defense of Territory and Mother Earth–Unity of the struggles from a dialectical perspective, and what comes next?
August 29, 2020In light of the Zapatistas’ Forum in Defense of Territory and Mother Earth, Héctor explores the search for unity by diverse movements in relation to Hegel’s dialectic of the whole and the parts.
The Forum in Defense of Mother Earth: The unity of the struggles from a dialectical perspective and what comes next?
July 29, 2020In light of the Forum in Defense of Territory and Mother Earth, J.G.F. Héctor explores the search for unity by diverse movements in relation to Hegel’s dialectic of the whole and the parts.
Latin America under COVID-19
July 1, 2020Capitalism is exacerbating the havoc being wreaked by COVID-19 in Latin America. In the projected largest recession in its history, 12 million more people will lose their jobs, leaving 29 million more in poverty.
COVID-19 has generated a lot of “free time” for workers, but how can we create full, human “free time”?
May 12, 2020The measures adopted in the face of the spread of COVID-19 in the world have caused billions of people to suddenly have excess “free time.” But this is not a full “free time,” conducive to the enjoyment and development of new skills, but a “time without work” that is exacerbating the enormous economic contradictions already existing in our society. Is it possible to imagine and bring about a form of free time that is truly human time?
International Women’s Day 2020
March 26, 2020What was new this International Women’s Day was larger marches, greater militancy of women participants, the new places where they took place, and the attacks against them which escalated significantly from previous years.
El COVID-19 evidencia la crisis del capitalismo, muestra la urgencia de una nueva sociedad humana
March 24, 2020Más allá de la mayor o menor eficacia de la respuesta de uno u otro gobierno ante la pandemia, es el capitalismo en su conjunto el que muestra su incapacidad para darle solución a los problemas que amenazan la vida humana.
COVID-19 manifests the crisis of capitalism, shows the urgency of a new human society
Beyond the greater or lesser effectiveness of the response of one or the other government to the pandemic, it is capitalism as a whole that shows its inability to solve the problems that threaten human life.
AMLO and Trump join forces to oppress
March 17, 2020Despite Mexican President López Obrador’s sweet words about humanitarian treatment of Central American immigrants entering Mexico, the truth is horribly different.
Zapatistas host ‘Women Who Fight’
Report by two women who attended the Zapatista Second International Gathering of Women Who Fight in Chiapas, Mexico.
The Power of Women’s Liberation in Mexico
March 10, 2020Participant report of women’s strike in Mexico City, March 9, 2020.
Women’s movements reach for new global stage
March 6, 2020What has become clear in 2020 is the global nature of the women’s movements. It is a new stage which has announced itself by the international fight against femicide; the Women’s Marches; and by the National Women’s Meetings in Latin America, also called Encuentros.
Indigenous protest megaprojects
March 4, 2020Report from Mexico on the three Days of Action “In Defense of Territory and Mother Earth,” by a participant in Mexico City.
Workers strike Aptiv!
More than 18,000 workers at the U.S. company Aptiv’s maquiladora plants in Mexico walked out because, after a 120-peso wage increase, Aptiv withheld much more than that for taxes.
The 5th anniversary of Ayotzinapa
November 17, 2019In the 5th anniversary of the forced disappearance of 43 students in Mexico. Can the fight against the “corruption” of the new administration change anything fundamental?