Participant report on a New York teach-in on “Syria in the Context of the Arab Uprisings.”
Author: Franklin Dmitryev
Stay Solid! A Radical Handbook for Youth
Michael Gilbert reviews “Stay Solid! A Radical Handbook for Youth.”
Ukraine: New Unions and Democratic Left meet
February 25, 2014Kiev was host to an historic international gathering of workers’ organizations from four formerly Soviet nations that demonstrated the development of a new independent labor movement in Ukraine, now very active in the huge democratic-revolutionary movement.
Anti-worker robots
February 24, 2014Robotics development has exploded within the past three years. Under capitalism, robotics has made millions unemployed, and robots have also become a means for employers to intimidate workers who oppose management dictates.
L.A. garment dialogue
February 23, 2014Garment workers and organizers from Bangladesh and Los Angeles discussed their labor conditions at the downtown L.A. Garment Center
Cambodian massacre
February 22, 2014Cambodian police attacked workers on general strike, whose nationwide demand was for the minimum wage to be doubled to $160 a month.
McDonald’s walkout
February 21, 2014McDonald’s walkout in Oakland. Photos by David M’Oto.
‘We can’t survive on $7.25’
February 20, 2014NY rally demands $15 minimum wage, fast-food workers’ right to organize a union without fear of being fired.
Women Worldwide, January-February 2014
February 19, 2014Doris Lessing; Margherita Hack; gender segregation at UK universities
Handicap This! January-February 2014
February 18, 2014Vigil for Rights of Persons with Disabilities bill in India; 6.5 million refugees with disabilities; Iraq camp for Syrian refugees with disabilities; Georgia: marginalization of children with disabilities.
Review: Sweetening the Pill
February 17, 2014Sweetening the Pill: or How We Got Hooked on Hormonal Birth Control by Holly Grigg-Spall has provoked controversy among feminists, especially over its contention that the birth control pill and other hormonal contraception are unsafe.
Racism in Israel
February 16, 2014Tens of thousands of African asylum seekers demonstrated in Tel Aviv calling for “Freedom!” for the refugees detained in a Negev desert facility under Israel’s new anti-immigrant laws.
South Korea on strike, North Korea on ‘ice’
February 15, 2014• Over 100,000 South Koreans, mainly workers, demonstrated in Seoul on Dec. 28. They expressed their anger over a number of issues at the government of President Park Geun-hye.
One source of anger is the move to privatize some service by KORAIL (Korean Railroad Corp.). This had already led to the largest-ever walkout by members of the railroad workers’ union. Union officials say moves to privatize will mean fare hikes, service reductions, and safety problems.
On Dec. 22 riot police were sent to attack the Seoul headquarters of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. Without search warrants, they broke down doors and caused serious property damage, including to the adjoining offices of the Kyunghang newspaper, which has been critical of Park’s policies.
Other citizens, outraged by revelations of manipulation by the National Intelligence Service of the 2012 elections when Park was elected, joined protesting workers. Police had confirmed illegal attempts to manipulate the election beforehand, but were ordered to remain silent.
With all these problems and more, South Korean youth have been inspired by the “Why We Aren’t Fine!” campaign. This was launched when a student at Korea University, Ju Hyun-woo, made a poster for his school bulletin board that was picked up and broadcast over social media. He wrote: “I just want to ask, ‘Are you okay?’ Are you fine with ignoring all these issues because they aren’t your problems?…And if you are not ‘fine’ after seeing all these problems, then voice your opinions—whatever they may be.”
Many of these young people joined in the Dec. 28 demonstrations, and also held flash mobs in cities across the country.
Social crisis in Central African Republic
February 14, 2014Violence between Christian majority and Muslim minority communities has torn the social fabric of the Central African Republic, one of the world’s poorest countries. Over 1,000 people have been killed since Michel Djotodia seized power in March 2013. Reciprocal massacres have led many observers to see a real possibility of a Rwanda-type genocide.
Prison privatization is a crime
February 13, 2014On Dec. 1, Aramark Correctional Services will begin running Food Service for the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC), creating another sector of low-wage workers in Michigan. In a state struggling with a high unemployment rate and flooded with low-wage dead-end jobs, 60,000 in the fast-food sector in the metro Detroit area alone, why would the state government choose to add to these statistics?
Woman as Reason: Language and death in Juárez
February 12, 2014The way we construct experience with language has effects on its transmission and on the configuration of subjectivity, not only in aesthetics and ethics, but also in understanding politics. That is the case in the crimes committed against women in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua and other states in Mexico.
Let RNs give care
February 11, 2014On Jan. 6, RNs from the California Nurses Association (CNA) picketed a new state-of-the-art facility at Kaiser Oakland to protest increasing restrictions on access to care while decreasing frontline care staff. The opening was timed to coincide with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
Communization theory’s missing link: dialectical mediation; what happens after
February 10, 2014The impasse in the anti-capitalist movement after Occupy has led to theoretical stirrings over what to do organizationally, not just about the abolition of capitalism, but a positive concept of the future after capitalism. This is an opportunity to engage Marx’s view of these concerns, which was rooted in his 1844 declaration of a revolutionary humanism as the positive in the negative that opens up to a totally new future by refusing to be defined by what it is against.
Syrian revolution ‘brought us together’
February 9, 2014“If there was no revolution in Syria, I almost feel like there would be no reason for me to exist. You don’t get tired of it. Revolution is what brought us together, as Syrians, for the first time.”
Charles Denby, worker-editor
February 8, 2014As a contribution to Black History Month we reprint Raya Dunayevskaya’s memorial for Charles Denby (1907-1983), her comrade of 35 years, Editor of News & Letters from its founding in 1955 until his death and the author of Indignant Heart: A Black Worker’s Journal.
Tahrir three years later
February 7, 2014Three years ago, the Egyptian Revolution was fighting for its life in Tahrir Square. For 18 days and nights, the women and men of the Square faced off against President Hosni Mubarak’s security forces and thugs. In the end Mubarak was forced to follow Tunisia’s President-for-life, Ben Ali, into retirement and shame. The light of freedom spread–Square to Square, occupation to occupation. It was a historic turning point.
It was this global struggle that the military coup that ousted Morsi, and led to the massacre of over 800 of his supporters, was meant to stop short. Now, revolution continues, and the freedom idea lives, but the old world has tried hard to destroy it. Egypt’s newest new Constitution, passed Jan. 15 under the military rule of General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, evokes only faint echoes of Tahrir. As artist Hanaa Safwat said, “The referendum is stained in innocent people’s blood. It has been built on the dead bodies of 800 people in Rabaa al-Adawiya.”
Rampant U.S. surveillance slouches toward totalitarianism
February 6, 2014So overwhelming has been the past year’s flow of revelations about the U.S. government’s spying on virtually everyone that even President Obama’s hand-picked review panel had to acknowledge it. Though noting the potential for abuse of the state’s mountains of covertly gathered data, nowhere does the report by Obama insiders grapple with the question of just what sort of totalitarian instrument the militarized top secret government has become.
January-February 2014 News & Letters online
February 4, 2014The January-February issue of News & Letters is online. Rampant U.S. surveillance slouches toward totalitarianism; Tahrir three years later; Charles Denby, worker-editor; Syrian revolution ‘brought us together’; Communization theory’s missing link: dialectical mediation; what happens after; Language and death in Juárez; Let RNs give care; …
Raya Dunayevskaya en français
December 16, 2013l’Archive Internet de Raya Dunayevskaya section française commence à être construit (the Raya Dunayevskaya in French translation section of the Marxists Internet Archive is beginning to be built):
http://www.marxists.org/francais/dunayevskaya/
Aujourd’hui:
Raya Dunayevskaya
Esquisse biographique
1948
Le cas Eugène Varga
1957
Marxisme et liberté (extraits)
- Préface
- Deuxième section : la scène américaine
1958
Situation mondiale
1960
La crise mondiale et le vide théorique
Bureaucratie et capitalisme d’Etat
1965
Subjectivisme et politique
“La crise mondiale [=>]
Readers’ Views, Nov.-Dec. 2013, Part 2
December 15, 2013Readers’ Views from the Nov.-Dec. 2013 N&L: SYRIA AND WORLD POLITICS; WARS PAST AND PRESENT; PHILOSOPHY AND MASSES; PRISONERS READ & SPEAK
Readers’ Views, Nov.-Dec. 2013, Part 1
December 14, 2013Readers’ Views from Nov.-Dec. 2013 N&L: U.S. RACISM AND BLACK AND LATINO STRUGGLES; LABOR UNDER ATTACK; CTA vs. THE HOMELESS; DISABILITY AND HUMANITY; ABORTION IS A HUMAN NEED; EGYPT’S CONTRADICTIONS; DETROIT CRISIS; NUCLEAR PERIL; WHY A NEWSPAPER LIKE N&L?
Cultural critic Albert Murray (1916-2013)
December 11, 2013Remembering Albert Murray, who set out a vision of the African American as the representative “American,” of Black freedom as the soul of this nation’s culture.
Solidarity with Guantanamo hunger strikers, Part 1
December 10, 2013London, England—Some found it strange that a man voluntarily stopped eating for over 20 days. I found it hard. After all, I like to eat as much as anyone else. Yet my decision to go on hunger strike in support of Guantanamo Bay prisoners had a deeper, political meaning.
I was in good company. The usually [=>]
No to Monsanto!
December 9, 2013Photo by Angela Callicutt
Protesters in Nashville, Tenn., in one of the 400 demonstrations of the second Global March against Monsanto on Oct. 12. Protests were held in 52 countries on all inhabited continents. They were calling for the permanent boycott of genetically modified organisms and harmful agro-chemicals.
Photo by Andrew Guinn
Handicap This! Nov.-Dec. 2013
December 8, 2013Bus discrimination in Leeds, England; school sit-in in Pennsylvania; Russia “psychiatric” repression; Montreal voting rights
Catch-22 for prisoner with disabilities
December 7, 2013The only way to get out of Administrative Segregation is by attending the Gang Renouncement and Dissociation Process. After many months I was told that I could not attend this program because the units do not house inmates with wheelchairs and don’t have cells or showers for the handicapped.
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.
Support prison truce
December 5, 2013Alex Sanchez, co-founder of Homies Unidos in Los Angeles, spoke in support of prisoners’ call to cease hostilities, backing the solutions arrived at by those who used to be part of the problem.
Detroit workers fight for jobs and pensions
December 4, 2013Yesterday, a judge approved Detroit bankruptcy. Emergency manager Kevyn Orr outrageously claimed that the attack on workers’ pensions would be “thoughtful, measured and humane.” Read the News & Letters article for a view from the other side of the class struggle.
AFL-CIO redefines labor movement
The AFL-CIO convention reflected changed realities and the need to adopt new perspectives and goals. Delegates redefined the labor movement as more than union members. For decades the bureaucracy has become more identified with the corporations than the aspirations of the workers.
‘Legalize my parents!’
December 3, 2013Demonstrators representing “Millions of Voices for Immigration Reform” marched through downtown Los Angeles demanding immediate immigration reform and a path to citizenship.
BART workers forced to strike
December 2, 2013Oakland, Cal.—“One day longer, one day stronger!” shouted a transit worker to kick off a noon rally on Oct. 18 at Oakland’s Lake Merritt BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station. SEIU (Service Employees Int’l Union) Local 1021 and ATU (Amalgamated Transit Union) Local 1555 had shut down the trains shortly after midnight.
Photo by [=>]
Youth on the move
December 1, 2013Whenever you go to demonstrations, whether it is fast food workers demanding a living wage and a union where they work, or immigrants demanding total legalization now instead of a phony 14-year “path to citizenship,” or marches after the Trayvon Martin verdict, young people are playing a major role in the struggles for social justice and equal rights.
Queer Notes, Nov.-Dec. 2013
November 30, 2013Queer Notes: Discrimination in Russia; Intersex in Germany; no prison for rape in Iowa; transition surgery in Iran; Lembembe murdered in Cameroon.
Oakland Frackdown
November 29, 2013About 90 members of environmental and community groups gathered at Frank Ogawa Plaza for “Oakland Frackdown” to protest passage of State Senate Bill 4 authorizing hydraulic fracturing in California.
Movements confront climate change
November 28, 2013Occupations of planned fracking sites in Canada and Romania showed the intensification of struggles against the damage fossil fuel exploitation is inflicting. The urgency of stopping the headlong rush to extract and burn fossil fuel was underscored by the latest comprehensive report from the International Panel on Climate Change.
Women Worldwide, Nov.-Dec. 2013
November 27, 2013Women Worldwide: Ada Lovelace Day; Diana Nyad; FEMEN
Christian Nation
November 26, 2013Review of “Christian Nation: a Novel” by Frederic C. Rich, a work of speculative fiction in which the religious Right takes over the U.S., turning it into a brutally totalitarian state.
Sudan’s Arab Spring
November 25, 2013Women are not only fighters in Sudan’s battles to overthrow al-Bashir, but they are also determined to continue the great tradition of women of the Arab Spring: to make sure that their revolution does not stop until all human relationships are transformed.
Terror at Kenyan mall
November 24, 2013In a horrific attack on the upscale Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Somalia-based Islamist terrorist group al-Shabaab killed at least 68 men, women and children. The group claimed this atrocity was a reprisal for Kenyan troops being in Somalia.
Anti-Roma racism
November 23, 2013Racism against Roma infects significant sectors of French society, and now reaches into the innards of the “Socialist” government.
Latin America in continuous struggle
November 22, 2013Resistance by Indigenous groups in Colombia; Indigenous Guatemalans resist Canadian mining company; teachers in Mexico protest “educational reform” law
Canada’s First Nations against fracking
November 21, 2013Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) attacked men and women of the Mi’kmaq and Elsipogtog First Nation for blocking a New Brunswick highway in protest of Southwestern Energy doing seismic testing to determine whether local shale gas deposits merit fracking.
Stop Detroit evictions
November 20, 2013Detroit Eviction Defense is fighting to keep Jerome Jackson in his home in Inkster, Mich. Jackson has been a leading fighter in Detroit Eviction Defense, active in many campaigns to keep others in their homes. We fight with the Hernandez and Orozco families in Southwest Detroit fighting Fannie Mae and its out-of-control efforts to throw families from their homes and cause further damage to our neighborhoods. Resistance is growing; join us! We demand no more foreclosures, no more evictions and good housing for all.
Pelican Bay prisoners suspend their hunger strike
November 19, 2013The PBSP-SHU, Short Corridor Collective Representatives hereby serve notice upon all concerned parties that after nine weeks we have collectively decided to suspend our third hunger strike action on Sept. 5, 2013. To be clear, our Peaceful Protest of Resistance to our continuous subjection to decades of systemic state-sanctioned torture via the system’s solitary confinement units is far from over. Our decision to suspend our third hunger strike in two years does not come lightly. This decision is especially difficult considering that most of our demands have not been met (despite nearly universal agreement that they are reasonable).