Call for Convention of News and Letters Committees, 2024
News and Letters Committees
In Memoriam Erica Rae (Erica Sufritz) 1958-2024
February 8, 2024As youth, woman, and educator, Erica Rae (Erica Sufritz) made many contributions to News and Letters Committees since she was a teenager. We will miss the comrade who loved music passionately and sang with the North Shore Choral Society and who cheerfully worked alongside us for revolution for her whole life.
In Memoriam Dan Bremer
November 14, 2023Dan Bremer passed away in October. We remember his kindness, his profound grasp of world and local politics, and his steadfast commitment to a more humane world based on the Marxist-Humanist philosophy of human liberation.
Angela Terrano, 1929-2023
October 17, 2023Angela Terrano died on Oct. 1. She was the managing editor of ‘News & Letters’ from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s and the co-editor of the 1976 Marxist-Humanist pamphlet ‘Working Women for Freedom’. She made an important contribution to Charles Denby’s 1960 pamphlet ‘Worker’s Battle Automation’.
To the 61st International Antiwar Assembly
August 4, 2023Message in solidarity with the annual international antiwar assembly
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2023-2024: Polycrisis and the need to transform reality. Part I
June 15, 2023Society’s crying need for radical transformation makes itself felt day after day. In response, ruling classes across the globe have split into two main factions with differing strategies for heading off the threatened transformation from below: counter-revolution spawning new flavors of fascism with rough new figureheads, or non-transformational transformation to patch up the status quo while saving the powers that be. This thesis is about what is happening in the world and what to do about it.
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2023-2024: Polycrisis and the need to transform reality. Parts VI & VII
Where will even the greatest movements from below lead so long as they lack a philosophy of revolution that would give these revolutionary struggles a direction? Any mass movement and any organization can regress and even transform into its opposite. This historic problem cannot be solved by the right program, leadership, or even form of organization. It highlights the indispensability of the need for a philosophy of revolution, the need for the organization of thought and its demand to be embodied in organizations based on the movement from theory.
Boycott ‘Rage Against the War Machine’
March 21, 2023News and Letters Committees is one of many signatories to this statement. More such events are sure to be held, and it is vital to be aware of their reactionary “red-brown” nature.
Call for Convention, 2023
February 26, 2023Call for Convention of News and Letters Committees, 2023
Azadkar (Tooraj Haji Moradi), 1952-2022
January 25, 2023Tooraj Haji Moradi (1952-2022), whose pen name was Azadkar, was a revolutionary to his core and remained so throughout his life. Upon his return from the Iranian Revolution, he influenced a whole generation of Iranian youth who became Marxist-Humanists.
60th International Antiwar Assembly
November 11, 2022Excerpts of the appeal from the Executive Committee for the 60th International Antiwar Assembly, together with the message of solidarity sent to the Assembly from News and Letters Committees. Against Putin’s war and for revolutionary new beginnings!
‘Women, Life, Freedom!’ The transformation of Iran
September 28, 2022The 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.
Kei ‘Basho’ Utsumi (1935-2022)
September 6, 2022A remembering of the revolutionary life of Kei ‘Basho’ Utsumi (1935-2022), written by Buddy Bell, who knew Basho and worked with him in the last years of his life.
Kei “Basho” Utsumi (1935-2022): in remembrance
August 24, 2022Kei 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.
Johnny Rogers (Robert Ellery), in memoriam
March 15, 2022Johnny Rogers (Robert Ellery), was one of the founding members of News and Letters Committees. The way he exemplified the immediate post-World War II generation of youth as a revolutionary force speaks to all generations.
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2021-2022: Part VI. Tasks
September 1, 2021The urgency of crises underscores the urgency of projecting Marxist-Humanism.
Need for a Total Uprooting: Down with the Perpetrators of the Palestinian Slaughter
June 12, 2021In light of the ongoing Israel-Palestine crisis, we present a piece that takes up the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the connected slaughter of Palestinians at Sabra and Shatila in Beirut. This piece goes beyond exposé to explore the treacherous nature of halfway revolutions, which set the stage for counter-revolution. It thus illuminates today’s crisis.
Rally for Amazon workers’ union drive
March 11, 2021Participant report of a solidarity demonstration in Oakland in front of a Whole Foods store, as part of a national day of solidarity to support Bessemer, Alabama, Amazon workers struggling for union recognition.
Ray Bazmore 1926-2020
January 31, 2021Raymond Bazmore, who died Nov. 4 at the age of 93 in Detroit, was active and engaged all his life in numerous social justice struggles.
Woman as Reason: Sarah White (Sarah Hamer) 1958-2020
January 30, 2021The movement lost a powerful voice for workers’ liberty, self-development and freedom when Sarah White died of a heart attack on Oct. 5, 2020.
News and Letters Committees office damaged
August 29, 2020You can help us recover after a fire near our office caused extensive damage.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: From Black mass revolt to Freedom
July 1, 2020Excerpt from the pamphlet ‘Black Mass Revolt,’ issued in October 1967 following uprisings in Detroit and Newark: “Has Whitey got the message?” asked one of the Black militants. “Have our own leaders? The system has got to go.”
News and Letters Committees Call for Convention 2020
March 2, 2020POSTPONED: Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2020-2021
Deborah Morris 1946-2019
August 31, 2019In memoriam to Deborah Morris, writer, activist and powerful thinker in the women’s liberation movement and in her participation with News and Letters Committees.
Help ‘News & Letters’ survive and thrive
Help News & Letters fight the dystopian reality of these extreme times!
San Francisco Youth Climate Strike
May 3, 2019Bay Area youth exuberantly join in a global march for the climate, raising awareness of climate change.
Essay: What is socialism? Socialism, labor, and the Black dimension
May 1, 2019Marxist-Humanist Bob McGuire looks through history to Marx’s relationship to labor and the Black movement for freedom and then to our day and the relationship of Marxist-Humanism to labor and the Black struggle for freedom in speaking to the question many are asking today: What is socialism?
Readers’ Views: March-April 2019, Part 1
March 11, 2019Readers’ Views on: workers strike back, genocide and Facebook, Mauritius victory, Syrian Revolution under fire, “55 Steps,” debating yellow vests, women’s struggles, and why read News & Letters.
News and Letters Committees Call for Plenum 2019
February 25, 2019Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2019-2020
Readers’ Views, November-December 2018
December 14, 2018Readers’ Views on: Capitalism vs. the Planet; Anti-Semitism’s Inhumanity; Kavanaugh Travesty; Youth Rock!; Freedom Movements vs. Fascism across the Globe; Catholic Church Crisis; Voices from behind Bars
Discussion article: The Left’s response to Syrian genocide
October 7, 2018A U.S. activist in Syria solidarity criticizes the broad Left’s failure to practice revolutionary solidarity and outlines the dangerous political consequences.
Readers’ Views, September-October 2018: Part 2
September 29, 2018Readers’ Views Part 2 takes up: the needed return to Marx’s Humanism, and Voices from behind prison bars.
V. Organizational Tasks
May 14, 2018It is a question of working out how to actualize for this moment the relationship of philosophy, spontaneity, organization. We look at concrete tasks.
Call for Convention 2018
February 25, 2018OFFICIAL CALL FOR CONVENTION
to Work Out Marxist-Humanist Perspectives for 2018-2019
February 25, 2018
To All Members of News and Letters Committees
Dear Friends:
The deeply ingrained rape culture, already widely known but often hushed up, has been exposed in the broadest way yet by the #MeToo movement. How deep and total is the needed uprooting [=>]
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Iran–Unfoldment of, and contradictions in, revolution
January 30, 2018Excerpt from Dunayevskaya’s March 25, 1979, Political-Philosophic Letter “Iran: Unfoldment of, and Contradictions in, Revolution” that gives a history of revolt and speaks to today’s rebellions in that country by workers, women and youth.
Mauritius demonstration prohibited
December 16, 2017LALIT reports on their banned protest of U.S. military base on Diego Garcia, and our statement of solidarity.
Readers’ Views: Remembering Judy Tanzawa and Dan Perron
November 15, 2017Basho, S.B., and Terry Moon remember their Marxist-Humanist comrades, Judy Tanzawa and Dan Perron.
Dan Perron, 1959-2017
News and Letters Committees lost a wonderful comrade when Dan Perron (Oct. 12, 1959-Sept. 7, 2017) died. Dan was a lifelong activist for freedom and justice.
Judy Tanzawa (Judy Tristan) 1939-2017
November 12, 2017In Memoriam for Judy Tanzawa who was a radical union organizer, Los Angeles Local Organizer for News and Letters Committees, fighter for human liberation in all its dimensions. .
Appeal: Your help is needed to change the world
September 5, 2017An appeal for funds to keep Marxist-Humanism alive and to help News and Letters Committees continue to grow. .
VII. Tasks
May 17, 2017Although we do not have a daily newspaper, this crisis-ridden period compels us to strive to act as if we do. Organizational tasks as always are meant to include, not exclude, friends and new contacts who are not yet Marxist-Humanists.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2017, Part 2
February 2, 2017Readers’ Views on: Practical and Theoretical Intervention; Syria and Humanism; International Crises; and Prisoners Speak.
Shut down all of today’s Alcatrazes!
September 14, 2016On Aug. 23, California’s Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition leafletted the staging area for trips to Alcatraz prison raising discussions with locals and tourists about how solitary confinement is torture.
Essay: Epigones discard Marxist-Humanist philosophy
September 12, 2016The retreat of former Marxist-Humanists into post-Marx Marxism is analyzed by Franklin Dmitryev through the books “Marx at the Margins” by Kevin Anderson and “Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism” by Peter Hudis, which appropriate some of Raya Dunayevskaya’s conclusions while quietly dismantling their philosophical framework.
Help keep News & Letters going and growing
September 7, 2016An appeal for funds to help keep the paper, News & Letters, going and growing; and to help us expand our subscriptions to prisoners.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2016, Part 2
July 14, 2016Readers’ Views on Needed New Beginnings in Philosophy and Revolution; Making One Year Count; Subjugated Knowledge; Free Syria/May Day; and Voices From Behind the Bars.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Racism, war and Muhammad Ali
July 4, 2016On the same day that General William Westmoreland waved the flag before Congress, Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the Army. While the general was applauded even by the doves, Ali was, within hours, stripped of his title of World Heavyweight Boxing Champion. War exposed the open nerve—”the Black Question”—which has always been the touchstone of U.S. history. It placed American civilization on trial before the world much more seriously than the “war crimes tribunal” in Stockholm.
Message to LALIT for their Labor Day (May Day) gathering
May 18, 2016April 30, 2016
Dear Sisters and Brothers of LALIT,
We in News and Letters Committees are honored to send you whole-hearted revolutionary greetings and hopes for a successful Labor Day gathering. Your struggles against capital in league with the Mauritius government are a reminder of how capital is now global, and so are the struggles [=>]
Letter from Mexico: On ‘Life’ and feminism
The late Revolutionary Olga Domanski is remembered for reminding us that Absolute Method is the only way for feminism, as part of a totally new society built on truly human foundations, to be completely realized.
‘China on Strike’
Chinese worker-activists reveal the recent history of laborers in action for their rights and seek an exchange of ideas with U.S. labor activists.