Part V of the Draft Perspectives 2016: Together with the depths of counter-revolution, the passion for philosophy points to both the need for and the potential for totally new beginnings in the transformation of society, for new banners of freedom as a polarizing force.
News and Letters Committees
The need for new beginnings in thought and in action
April 25, 2016Contents: Introduction; I. Discontent, revolt and reaction in the U.S.; II. The worldwide war against women; III. Chinese labor in revolt; IV. Counter-revolution and revolution in the Middle East and North Africa; V. Toward organizational new beginnings. The fact that the old, crumbling order will not go away quietly explains why we print the Marxist-Humanist Draft Perspectives in the pages of the paper of News and Letters Committees. It is an open window onto the needed philosophy of revolution, without which all revolutions and freedom movements remain incomplete.
Olga Domanski’s revolutionary life, 1923-2015 (March-April 2016 Readers’ Views)
March 22, 2016Readers’ Views from the March-April 2016 N&L marking the revolutionary life of Olga Domanski.
Black youth and labor come together
March 18, 2016The Chicago Teachers Union, Black Lives Matter, Labor and disability rights movements work together to oppose racism, government cutbacks and austerity
Voices From The Inside Out: Olga Domanski’s passion for justice and freedom
March 11, 2016Prisoner Robert Taliaferro remembers Olga Domanski as a pillar of News and Letters Committees who helped define the organization for decades and wrote a remarkable letter to his parole board.
Olga Domanski: Part of ‘a generation of revolutionaries’
Gerry Emmett remembers Olga Domanski as one who embodied “revolutionary” in organizational form, making the idea of freedom exist.
Call for Convention 2016
February 28, 2016Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2016-2017
Comrades and friends remember Olga
January 25, 2016Remembrances of Olga Domanski by comrades and friends.
Olga Domanski’s revolutionary life, 1923-2015: Readers’ Views
Readers’ Views on the revolutionary life of Olga Domanski.
In memoriam Olga Domanski, 1923-2015
January 24, 2016The world has lost a great fighter for liberation. Olga Domanski, one of the founders of News and Letters Committees, whose life’s work was the development and projection of Marxist-Humanism and the growth of its organizational expression.
Woman as Reason: Olga Domanski: embodiment of Woman as Reason
January 23, 2016An in memoriam to Olga Domanski from a women’s liberationist’s point of view.
Olga Domanski, 1923-2015
January 7, 2016The world has lost a great fighter for liberation. Olga Domanski, one of the founders of News and Letters Committees, whose life’s work was the development and projection of Marxist-Humanism and the growth of its organizational expression.
From The Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Black masses, youth and the needed U.S. revolution: philosophy and reality
December 10, 2015From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: “Black masses, youth and the needed U.S. revolution: philosophy and reality” looks at the possibility of revolution in the U.S. and the importance of Black masses as vanguard.
Taking a stand on reproductive justice
demonstration supporting reproductive justice and Planned Parenthood
Philosophic basis of News & Letters
November 20, 2015On the 60th anniversary of News & Letters we discuss its philosophic basis and invite readers to participate.
Readers’ Views, Sept.-Oct. 2015, Part 2
August 31, 2015Readers’ thoughts on “Dialectics of Philosophy and of Forces of Revolution”; “Free Mumia!”; “Federico Arcos, 1920-2015”; and a section of “Voices from Behind the Bars.”
Deborah Cunningham, 1945-2015
June 29, 2015When Deborah Cunningham, an ADAPT activist and Executive Director of the Memphis Center for Independent Living, died on May 7, the movement lost a tireless, creative, committed activist, feminist and thinker.
Marxist-Humanist organization and philosophy
May 6, 2015Spelling out the philosophical breakthrough on Hegel’s Absolutes as the total uprooting of the old and the creation of new human relations, in concrete relationship to struggles for freedom in practice and in theory, is at the heart of projecting Marxist-Humanism, and therefore of its organizational life.
Greek masses in peril
The rulers’ economic squeeze on Greece is intended to be an ideological prison for the working masses of Europe. Left tendencies aim to use the state to save capitalism or move toward socialism—rather than releasing self-activity of masses in motion as the prime mover of social transformation.
Things fall apart
In the absence of successful social revolution, today’s total crisis is shown in a world capitalist order that is falling apart economically, politically, environmentally, and in thought. That does not mean that we can wait for capitalism to collapse and step aside for a new society. On the contrary. Its desperation makes it that much more vicious, and it threatens to doom all of humanity with it.
Decaying social order shows need for philosophy, revolution
Introduction; I. Black Lives Matter; II. Things fall apart (A. Arab Spring: Revolution and war; B. Economic weakness and shifts in global politics; C. Whiff of fascism); III. Greek masses in peril; IV. Marxist-Humanist organization and philosophy.
The fact that the old, crumbling order will not go away quietly explains why we mark the 60 years of activity of the Marxist-Humanist organization News and Letters Committees—not as an anniversary but as an open window onto the needed philosophy of revolution, without which all revolutions and freedom movements remain incomplete.
Readers’ Views, May-June 2015
May 3, 2015Letters and comments sent in by readers or taken down, to and about the articles in News & Letters or current events.
Black Lives Matter
The long-simmering outrage of Black masses has broken out into a movement against this racist society, particularly its pattern of racist killings by the police. It has not only reverberated internationally, but also made itself felt in the battle of ideas and the sphere of theory.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: The dialectic and women’s liberation
April 30, 2015The article excerpts a summary of a talk by Dunayevskaya to a conference on Women’s Liberation in Detroit. The purpose of the meeting was to help Dunayevskaya work out the final chapter of her book then in progress, Philosophy and Revolution. That last chapter would take up the “New Passions and New Forces” for the reconstruction of society. The Conference was also the beginning of the News & Letters—Women’s Liberation Committee.
Review of ‘She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry’
She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry is a documentary of the women’s liberation movement (WLM) in the U.S., from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. Filmmaker Mary Dore used a wealth of historical news coverage to give a sense of the breadth of organizations and depth of demands in the explosive growth of the WLM. Activists, identified within archival footage—including women like Fran Beal of the Civil Rights Movement’s Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Lesbian rights activist Karla Jay, and Judith Arcana of the abortion underground organization Jane—gave contemporary interviews interspersed in the film.
Workshop Talks: 1949 coal miners’ general strike today
We workers see from the inside that capitalism is coming apart. The 1949-50 Coal Miners’ General Strike is significant, not only because it highlights resistance to the early stage of automation, but because the miners’ self-activity signified “The Emergence of a New Movement from Practice That Is Itself a Form of Theory.”
60 Years of News & Letters (Readers’ Views, March-April 2015)
March 8, 2015Readers’ Views on the 60th anniversary of News & Letters and Terry Moon’s column on it.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Miners inspired Marxist-Humanism
March 7, 2015From the News and Letters pamphlet The Coal Miners’ General Strike of 1949-50 and the Birth of Marxist-Humanism in the U.S. we excerpt from Raya Dunayevskaya’s “The Emergence of a New Movement from Practice that Is Itself a Form of Theory,” on miners’ contributions to the philosophic birth of Marxist-Humanism.
News and Letters Committees Call for Plenum 2015
March 3, 2015Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2015-2016
Philosophic Dialogue on Dunayevskaya’s May 12, 1953, Letter on Hegel’s Absolutes and Gramsci’s “organic party”
January 31, 2015Unlike vanguard parties, our goal is not the incorporation of a cadre into a certain fixed structure that Lenin advocated for in 1902 and rejected in 1905, but the development of “organic intellectuals,” thinkers and philosophers from the ranks of the Black masses as vanguard, women, youth, and workers.
Readers’ Views, January-February 2015, Part 1
January 30, 2015From Ferguson to Staten Island; Revolutionary Rojava; Youth Protest; Violence Against Women; Detroit Solidarity; Paris March; Recalling Mary Jo
Women as Reason: 60 years of News & Letters, the women’s dimension
January 28, 2015As we celebrate 60 years of publishing News & Letters, a look back at the Women’s Liberation Movement encountering Marxist-Humanism and how the women’s movement was anticipated as well as documented in its pages. It is an ongoing perspective.
From Ferguson to Staten Island: The logic of racism is genocide
December 5, 2014Protests erupted after the cops who murdered Michael Brown and Eric Garner were let off. They mark a new moment of rebellion against a social order in which Black youth are made to live continuously suspended over an abyss of non-existence.
The passion to tear up this deeply racist society by the roots calls for the fullest development in activity and thought.
Readers’ Views, November-December 2014, Part 2
November 23, 2014From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters
Readers’ Views, Part 2
PHILOSOPHY, ACTIVITY, ORGANIZATION AND SOCIALISM
I appreciate how Dunayevskaya relates Hegel’s Absolutes with the concrete tasks of building a revolutionary organization. History is the process of becoming. Hegel said that Being and Nothing are abstractions, whereas [=>]
Solidarity had the might to move the mountain of prison torture that kept us isolated and voiceless. We still need you now, even more
October 13, 2014An appeal from prison hunger strike activists Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa and Jabari Scott about the unlawful and inhuman conditions at Tehachapi State Prison and the non-implementation of the agreements worked out between prisoners and California Gov. Jerry Brown. News and Letters Committees has been covering the prisoners’ hunger strike even before it began (see Pelican [=>]
Readers’ Views, September-October 2014, Part I
August 31, 2014From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
U.S. CRISES: RACISM, POLICE, LABOR STRUGGLES
New York News and Letters Committee prepared a flyer on Eric Garner (see: “NYC Police murder Eric Garner” this issue) headlined: “Wanted For Murder: Daniel Pantaleo.” It denounced the fact that the cops who killed Garner are [=>]
Write, sell, be a bundle dealer for NEWS & LETTERS
July 7, 2014Every page of News & Letters is meant to be part of an ongoing discussion about freedom with you, our readers. If you have a story to tell about your work, about demonstrations happening where you live, about an article you’ve read in this paper, send it to News & Letters, 228 S. Wabash [=>]
Readers’ Views, July-August 2014, Part 1
From the July-August 2014 issue of News & Letters
RESPONSES TO MARXIST-HUMANIST PERSPECTIVES
The Marxist-Humanist Perspectives (N&L, May-June 2014) give a critical assessment of the polarization between the oppressive forces of capital’s social relations and humanity’s efforts to realize human dignity. It shows humans are not just passive victims of capital. First [=>]
From the Preface to The Philosophic Moment of Marxist-Humanism
May 26, 2014Integral to Dunayevskaya’s work of 1986-87 was her concentration on a crucial problem of our era—the relationship between the search for non-elitist forms of organization and the dialectics of philosophy. That relation is crucial to work out if we are to overcome the legacy of unfinished, aborted, transformed-into-opposite revolutions. In singling out these 1953 Letters [=>]
Kissinger’s holocausts
May 18, 2014People from a dozen or more anti-war organizations gathered in front of the Hyatt Regency Hotel to confront former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, named keynote speaker for the Awards Banquet of the Illinois Holocaust Museum.
Philosophy and organization
May 10, 2014Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2014-2015. IV. Philosophy and organization. A. The philosophic moment of Marxist-Humanism. B. Organizational tasks.
From the U.S. to Ukraine, crises and revolts call for philosophy
May 5, 2014Revolution 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.
May-June 2014 News & Letters online
May 2, 2014May-June 2014 News & Letters online: “From the U.S. to Ukraine, crises and revolts call for philosophy”; “Unchaining the revolutionary dialectic”; much more…
Readers’ Views, March-April 2014, Part 1
April 8, 2014Readers’ Views from the March-April 2014 issue of News & Letters, part 1.
On THE Philosophic Point and Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy
March 14, 2014To understand today we must begin at the beginning, that is to say, as always, with Marx. Specifically the two periods are: the first and the last, the first being the philosophic moment, 1844 [Marx’s Humanist Essays or Economic-Philosophic Manuscripts]. That laid the ground for all future development. The last being the long hard trek and process of developments–all the revolutions, as well as philosophic-political-economic concretizations, culminating in Capital. Yet the full organizational expression of all came only then, i.e., the last decade, especially the 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program. Why only then?
March-April 2014 News & Letters online
March 12, 2014March-April 2014 News & Letters: Women fight for freedom against growing retrogression; On THE Philosophic Point and Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy; Capitalist economy is failing; Ukraine and Bosnia: historic uprisings; more…
Call for News and Letters Committees Convention, 2014
March 11, 2014News and Letters Committees has posted its
OFFICIAL CALL FOR CONVENTION
to Work Out Marxist-Humanist Perspectives for 2014-2015
February 23, 2014
To All Members of News and Letters Committees
Dear Friends:
The sharpness of revolution and counter-revolution contending now, while the prolonged global capitalist economic crisis refuses to end, cries out for a philosophical [=>]
Kansas City confronts anti-immigrant Nazis
March 6, 2014More than 300 people of all races came out to confront a handful of Nazis rallying in Kansas City.
Maroon the Implacable
December 6, 2013Faruq, a prisoner at Pelican Bay State Prison in California, reviews “Maroon the Implacable: The Collected Writings of Russell Maroon Shoatz” (PM Press, 2013), written by a revolutionary theorist forced to endure the psychological and physical torture of solitary confinement for the past 40 years.
November-December 2013 News & Letters online
November 11, 2013The new November-December 2013 issue of News & Letters is online.
News & Letters, Vol. 58, No. 6
November – December 2013
Lead
The Syrian Revolution as the test of world politics
On Aug. 21 the genocidal regime of Bashar al-Assad murdered over a thousand civilians, mostly women and children, with sarin gas in the Damascus suburbs of Eastern Ghouta. [=>]