During this time of economic, political and societal crisis, including shortages of food and medicine, can Venezuela’s people build a society that is truly human, thus showing the way for the rest of the world?
Author: Kathleen Drury
No to police during mental health crisis!
May 3, 2017A forum on “Responding to Mental Health Crises without Police” heard from a number of local groups attempting to organize our communities to deal with mental health crises.
World In View: The crisis of Turkish democracy
Protests occur across Turkey in resistance to the controversial constitutional referendum/power grab of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he has devolved into a capitalist counterrevolutionary ruler. .
Youth In Action: May-June 2017
May 2, 2017Students in Puerto Rico agitate against government slashing funds to higher education; classmates and parents of high school student Hunter Bailey, who committed suicide, protest memorials to him being destroyed by his high school’s superintendent; students of North Carolina’s Salem College sit in demanding diversity training; students of the University of North Texas successfully rallied for the university to become a sanctuary campus.
Handicap This!: May-June 2017
ADAPT takes over Thompson Center in Chicago to demand a meeting with Governor; 40 Guatemalan girls killed in a fire where disabled and children were housed in inhumane conditions; a British conservative councilor and special needs teacher accused disabled persons who protested cuts and privatization of the National Health Service of making false claims to avoid work.
Stop jail censorship!
May 1, 2017Prisoner invites readers to fight for the right of prisoners to read all ideas, including those that critique the criminal injustice system. The Mecklenberg County, North Carolina, Sheriff’s Office is violating this right. .
Voices From The Inside Out: Resisting Trumpism
Through the study of theory and philosophy and by solidarizing and striking, prisoners seek a humanist society that rejects Donald Trump, his plutocratic regime and the U.S. criminal injustice system. .
1967 Detroit Rebellion, 50 years later
April 30, 2017“12th and Clairmount” is a new movie created by the Detroit Historical Museum from primary sources and tells the story of the Detroit Rebellion of 1967.
Queer Notes: May-June 2017
Lesbian feminist Azza Sultan’s Bedayaa and Mesahat Foundation for Sexual and Gender Diversity fights for Queer rights in Egypt and Sudan; LGBT federal workers and senior citizens face rollback of their rights by President Trump; straight male politicians of The Netherlands solidarize with a Gay couple who were assaulted; Chechnya is arresting, detaining in concentration camps and killing men who are suspected of having a “nontraditional sexual orientation.”
Fukushima is never going away
Problems from the damaged nuclear reactors at Fukushima are not going away because the government is not dealing with them seriously and refuses to ask for international help.
Futureless people
April 27, 2017For-profit CoreCivic prison inmate’s lament on lack of hope because of slave-like treatment in prison and outside of jail, if one is lucky enough to be paroled.
New York healthcare rally
Supporters of universal healthcare rally for proposed bill that will provide single-pay healthcare for New York state residents.
‘Care not cages’
Immigrant rights and prisoner rights activists held a demonstration outside the largest immigrant detention facility in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Mass rallies denounce Trump and defend immigrants: Florida students rally
March 23, 2017Florida college students rally for immigrants, against U.S. President Donald Trump’s first immigrant ban and against the University of South Florida’s support for companies that harm the environment or support the military.
The view from Mexico
In Mexico, U.S. President Donald Trump’s rhetoric and actions are close to the number one topic of discussion and have inspired protest marches and rallies.
Queer Notes: March-April 2017
March 21, 2017News on LGBTQ struggles: the first judge to rule for equal protection for Gay women and men, dies; Lebanon Judge rules that courts must protect homosexual people; a fundraiser for Chicago LGBT Asylum Support Partners; Tennessee legislators introduce several anti-Queer bills; the Center for Victims of Torture provides therapy for victims of torture, including LGBTQ people.
Michigan prisoners rise up!
Michigan prisoners protest in various ways–including a hunger strike–the inhumane, unhealthy, unlivable conditions in Michigan Department of Corrections prisons.
I just want to be free!
A prisoner speaks against the U.S. criminal injustice system and declares that he–like so many other prisoners–is a boy who just wants to be free.
Women WorldWide: March-April 2017
Movement du Nid’s fake escort service raises awareness of violence against women; Argentinian feminist collective Ni Una Menos organized the first regionwide Latin American march against femicide; Russia’s new law reduces first-time domestic violence assaults to civil offenses; huge outcry of Arab-Israeli women against fundamentalist Muslims’ claims that 19-year-old Arab-Israeli Lian Zaher Nasser deserved to be murdered for celebrating a Christian holiday with men where alcohol was served.
End degenerate fascist private prisons!
March 19, 2017For-profit private prisons need direct action by the people to close them down permanently, a task made much harder now that Jeff Sessions is the Attorney General.
Prisoners: ‘Shout Their Names’
March 17, 2017Families of two prisoners at the California Institution for Women whose deaths were declared suicides testify.
‘The Disappearing L’
Adele’s review of Bonnie Morris’ “The Disappearing L,” which takes up why the Lesbian culture of the 1970s through the 1990s is disappearing and what was worthwhile in it.
Mass rallies denounce Trump and defend immigrants: Los Angeles
March 16, 2017Los Angeles youth march against the xenophobic deportations of Mexicans, Muslims and undocumented workers by Trump.
Mass rallies denounce Trump and defend immigrants: ‘City of immigrants’
March 15, 2017Immigrants, Muslims and their supporters in New York rally against Trump and his immigrant ban and in support of all immigrants.
Mass rallies denounce Trump and defend immigrants: N.Y. Yemenis strike
March 12, 2017Yemeni immigrants walk away from their jobs and rally in support of immigrants and against Trump’s first immigrant ban.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2017, Part 2
February 2, 2017Readers’ Views on: Practical and Theoretical Intervention; Syria and Humanism; International Crises; and Prisoners Speak.
Chelsea Manning is not yet free
January 29, 2017Chelsea Manning received a Presidential commutation but deserves much more. She is owed a pardon, compensation and an apology
Handicap This!: January-February 2017
India: fight for institutionalized women with disabilities; England: cuts to the personal budgets of disabled people; U.S.: standard of education for many disabled children could be raised if Supreme Court rules that they should receive “meaningful benefit” in education; and Transgender African-American woman Kayla Moore, who had schizophrenia, is killed by police.
Justice still denied for Stephon Watts
January 28, 2017The murder by police of African-American autistic boy Stephon Watts shows the need to change by direct action the way this society responds to people with mental and physical disabilities.
Continued discussion of “Prisoners’ Human Rights Movement Blueprint”: What is our true human nature?
Prisoner Baridi continues a dialogue about humanism with Urszula Wislanka sparked by California prisoners’ struggle to end the torture of long-term solitary confinement.
The movie Loving, Karl Marx and ‘real life’
Review of the movie “Loving” and the relationship the review’s author sees to Marxism. The movie recounts the interracial romance and interracial marriage between African-American Mildred Jeter Loving and white Richard Loving and the groundbreaking Supreme Court decision which outlawed the ban on interracial marriage.
An open letter to the Prisoner Human Rights Movement – The power of humanism: where do we go from here?
September 17, 2016At this moment of rethinking, Urszula Wislanka ask prisoners to share their ideas on humanism, as the Prisoners’ Human Rights Movement Blueprint reasserted the humanism upon which the prisoners’ movement was founded.
Letter from Mexico: Education for the service of society
Teachers, parents and their supporters hold a national strike, protesting Mexico’s so-called “educational reform” and working for education that truly serves society.
Humanism: a way forward for prisoners
Prisoner and hunger striker Faruq looks at the way forward after the historic California prisoners’ hunger strike and emphasizes the importance of “the banner of our humanism that allowed the forging of a tremendous unification across the racial divides.”
Voices from the inside out: Wisconsin prisoner hunger strike
Prisoner Robert Taliaferro writes of the Wisconsin maximum security facility prisoners’ hunger strike to end the inhumane practice of long-term solitary confinement and for improved medical care for prisoners with mental illness in segregation.
Youth In Action: September-October 2016
A look at youth activism including factory workers protest the murder of child laborer Sagar Barman; women’s skateboard team Las Brujas finds creative ways to fight male domination in the sport of skateboarding; Helena High School students supporting Kaitlyn Juvik in her right to choose not to wear a bra; and activists who protested two years ago in Hong Kong for freer elections are sentenced and vow to continue the struggle.
Nuclear waste traveling to your neighborhood
Anti-nuclear activists expose the dangers of high-level radioactive waste (HLRW) being shipped around the country, the conundrum of what to do with it and the lies the U.S. Department of Energy tells to make HLRW appear safe.
Queer Notes: September-October 2016
September 14, 2016Queer rights supporters at a Pride beauty pageant in Uganda are victims of police brutality; protests break out in Turkey in outrage over murder of Transgender woman, sex worker and LGBT rights activist Hande Kader; LGBT rights activists protest continued discrimination and brutality by Nepalese citizens which is in violation of Nepal’s outlawing of same based on sexual orientation and gender identity; the Court of Arbitration for Sport sets aside the International Association of Athletics Foundation’s limit on naturally occurring testosterone for athletes to compete in women’s events.
Chicago air show opposed
Chicago anti-war activists protest the annual Air and Water Show’s message that war planes and war are cool, simultaneously educating the public on the wars the U.S. is involved in.
Murdering the disabled
Mass murder of disabled in Japan demonstrates humanity’s willingness, all over the world into the U.S.’s Illinois, to ignore the complete humanity of the differently abled.
Shut down all of today’s Alcatrazes!
On 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.
Landless women meet
September 12, 2016Abahlali baseMjondolo Women’s League South Africa commemorates the 60th anniversary of women who marched against apartheid Pass laws and for gender and racial equality as they plan for future economic development for women.
Slutwalk nixes shame
Women and men showed their opposition to rape culture and support for victims of sexual harassment, assault and rape by marching in the annual Slut Walk, in Chicago.
Kaepernick sit-down ‘bigger than football’
San Francisco 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s sit-down during the USA’s national anthem draws criticism and support while protesting racism and police brutality.
Detroiters insist: water is a human right
The book Mapping the Water Crisis: The Dismantling of Black Neighborhoods in Detroit and the film Detroit Minds Dying, expose that the preponderance of water shutoffs in Detroit occur in poor neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color, the lies of Detroit city officials, and the difference determined activists can make.
Flint water still not safe to drink
September 11, 2016Citizens of Flint, Michigan, continue to be poisoned by lead in their water and pipes as Governor Rick Snyder requests grossly inadequate funding for needed repairs and refuses to take responsibility for the crisis.
Women WorldWide: September-October 2016
A roundup of women’s actions including: Feminists in Chile demanded access to abortion by participating in International Day of Action for Women’s Heath events; Immigrant women in detention at Pennsylvania’s Berks County Residential Center on hunger strike protesting both the Department of Homeland Security’s lies and terrible living conditions; women prisoners in Egypt including lawyer Mahieour El-Massry join Basma Refaat in her hunger strike to demand visitations with her children; women throughout Peru march protesting violence against women and the light sentences given to perpetrators; feminist station Radio Shaista, in Kunduzu, Afghanistan, returns to the air after the Taliban burned it to the ground.
Upheaval and crisis in Latin America
July 14, 2016Venezuela is in ever-deepening crisis–including electricity shortages, outrageous inflation, food shortages–because of neoliberal politics. Colombia sees a cease-fire agreement signed between the government and Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia/FARC while agricultural injustice, a major cause of increasing poverty, remains. Peru elects Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a right-wing neoliberal, as their new president, defeating Keiko Fujimori, daughter of jailed former president Alberto Fujimori, who committed many human rights abuses while in office.
The Syrian Revolution continues
The author is reminded of Arab poet Al-Ma’arri as the inspiring Syrian revolutionaries in Maarat al-Numaan keep up their struggle for freedom against the Assad regime, despite the world ignoring them .
Polarization in Brazil
The impeachment of Brazil’s President Rousseff by right-wing forces in Congress betrays longstanding divisions in Brazil along lines of race and class, but was made possible because Rousseff’s Workers Party tried to demobilize the social forces that had brought it to power, leaving street agitation to Right-wing militants.