Prisoner Robert Taliaferro reflects critically on the myth of democracy in the U.S., revealed by Trump’s impeachment.
Author: PraxisAmericaLatina
Queer notes, January-February 2020
The death of Charlot Jeudy, president of Haiti Queer rights group Kouraj; anti-LGBTQ+ norms in Turkey; anti-Trans laws in India; and the largest-ever art exhibit about Southeast Asian LGBTQ+ people in Bangkok.
The fall of Morales; whither Bolivia?
Important human forces in Bolivia are strongly opposing the threat of a developing fascism, and at the same time have not shied away from criticizing the contradictions of Evo Morales’s rule.
Readers’ Views, January-February 2020, Part Two
Readers’ Views on Philosophy and Revolution; disorder is the order; anti-Semitism; Black August, and voices from behind bars.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2020, Part One
Readers’ Views on Capitalism and climate; Mideast upheaval; Trump the Mullah?; war crime hero; Trump’s judges; detransition debate; and women’s liberation.
Handicap this!: January-February 2020
Handicap This! takes up: Mistreatment of disabled patients at Iowa’s Glenwood Resource Center; Venezuela’s ongoing economic collapse hitting the sick and disabled; the Accessible Materials in Higher Education Act; and the removal of a mural depicting struggles for rights at the University of Chicago.
Essay: Revolution in Permanence: Trotsky, Marx, Dunayevskaya
Review from Mexico of the book ‘La filosofía de la revolución en permanencia de Marx en nuestros días’ (Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution in Permanence for Our Day. Selected Writings by Raya Dunayevskaya).
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Crises of retrogressive Changed World
Raya Dunayevskaya explores the concept of the “Changed World’ of the 1980s, which followed the economic crisis and the restructuring that capitalist rulers imposed, with political retrogression, intensified militaristic imperialism, and ideological pollution.
Art out of genocide
January 21, 2020Review of the multimedia exhibit: “Stories Never Told: Yemen’s Crises and Renaissance,” in which Yemeni artists and hundreds of others spoke truth to power through their art.
Honda workers sit in
Report on the strike by Honda workers in Faridabad, India, in opposition to the company’s demand for signing a good conduct bond before entering the factory.
CTU’s partial victory
Report on the partial victory of the Chicago Teachers Union’s 11-day strike in mid-November.
Right’s war on voters
Republican state officials around the country are enacting policies to depress the vote of poor people, students, and people of color to extend their minority control of state and federal government.
Google and Amazon workers rebel
Google and Amazon tech workers organize around the companies’ complicity in war, environmental destruction, and workplace safety.
Women Worldwide, January-February 2020
International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in France; ecofeminists in Uganda; and protests against the gang-rape of a 19-year-old British girl in Cyprus.
Review: ‘Without Apology’
Review of ‘Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now’, on the history of the women’s liberation movement’s struggle for full reproductive justice.
Woman as Reason: Anti-femicide goes global
Women are deepening a global movement to combat violence against us, from violent rapes to domestic battering to outright femicide. Demonstrations have spread across the globe.
World in View: Putin after Putin?
Russian President Vladimir Putin is laying the groundwork for his own continued hold on state power.
World in View: Reactionary Brexit
The Dec. 12 general elections in Britain were a victory for world reaction, reinforcing the racist 2016 vote to leave the European Union.
World in View: Mass protest challenges India’s Modi
Massive protests in India met the Citizenship Amendment Act, which introduces religious qualifications for immigrants to become citizens and excludes Muslims.
Canada after the 2019 election
Canada’s federal election showed class issues had come to the fore.
Youth in Action, January-February 2020
The students’ strike at Syracuse University; the attacks of pro-Iran militias against demonstrations in Nasiriya, Iran, and the U.S. Youth Climate Strike.
Free Sitawa Jamaa
It is more important than ever to free Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa, one of the four main representatives in the historic 2011-13 hunger strikes initiated in Pelican Bay prison’s Security Housing Unit, after his stroke.
World in View: Revolution and genocide in Idlib, Syria
If there are any two realities that absolutely compel human solidarity, it is the two that are manifest in Syria today—revolution, the human struggle for freedom against oppression—and genocide, the absolute negation of humanity.
Editorial: The death of counter-revolutionary Qassem Soleimani
The death of counter-revolutionary Qassem Soleimani, together with Donald Trump’s war moves, illuminate this changed world.
Voices from the inside out: A ‘free world’ view
Former prisoner Faruq writes of how in prison he “figured out how to become truly myself” and how that is manifested while on parole.
Rebellion in Hong Kong spreads
New Year’s Day, a million people took to the streets in Hong Kong despite police repression. Marchers called for Hong Kong to “resist tyranny, join a union.”
Australia’s megafires lay bare capitalism’s climate death march
Australia’s megafires show that the climate crisis is upon us and powerful people are forcing humanity into a death march toward climate catastrophe–in sharp contrast to the passion and urgency of the youth climate strikes that have spread across the globe.
Oakland meeting: Impeachment, constitutionalism, and humanity’s search for a way out
January 4, 2020Jan. 12 6:30PM 6501 Telegraph, Oakland
A look back at a Marxist-Humanist perspective during the Nixon impeachment and forward to new beginnings in the idea of self-liberation in our time of political crises.
Nuevo número de Praxis en América Latina (diciembre 2019-enero 2020)
December 12, 2019Con artículos sobre a) las rebeliones continuas en América Latina; b) el Segundo Encuentro zapatista de Mujeres que Luchan;
c) editorial: Bolivia bajo la extrema derecha, y d) una sección especial sobre mujeres.
Chicago meeting: WOMEN’S LIBERATION AS RESISTANCE AND AS REVOLUTIONARY FORCE AND REASON
December 4, 2019How can hearing the ideas of women’s liberation and the philosophy of human liberation enable the movement’s reorientation? How can the humanism that shone forth from the Women’s Marches help inspire the entire movement for liberation?
Greta Thunberg: No One Is Too Small
November 17, 2019A review of the book “No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference” by Greta Thunberg. .
Rebuilding our lives
A report on meeting on a re-entry program for women rebuilding their lives after prison.
Save the rainforest!
Participant report on a California protest against the burning of the Amazon rainforest and the Brazilian government’s negligence.
A different me from 20 years ago
A prisoner thinks through how she will approach life after prison.
‘For Sama’: video as Syrian revolt
A report on a speech by documentary filmmaker Joshka Wessels, who talks about the book “Documenting Syria”.
Queer Notes, November-December 2019
Stabbing of a Palestinian Transgender teenager; vandalization of the Women and Children First bookstore in Chicago; a Shoreline, Wash. Christian school’s new policy stating the Bible is inerrant, and rainbow crosswalks in Ames, Iowa.
Frightening refineries
Dangers of refineries to nearby inhabited areas. .
Handicap this, November-December 2019
Domino’s Pizza inaccessible website; disability rights advocate Marca Bristo dies; Orange County, California, residential care homes owing over $1 million in back wages, and British rock climber Jesse Dufton leading the ascent of the Old Man of Hoy.
The 5th anniversary of Ayotzinapa
In 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?
Letter from Mexico: Women fight violence
Women who demonstrated against the escalating gender violence in Mexico City are aiming for a society where being a woman would no longer mean being an object.
CTU teachers strike!
Chicago teachers went on strike to end their terrible working conditions.
L.A. plans gains for rideshare drivers
Lyft and Uber drivers forced Los Angeles to move toward a minimum wage for them.
Illinois NOW Meets
Report on a conference by the Illinois National Organization for Women, and on the status of the Violence Against Women Act.
Women Worldwide, November-December 2019
Laws against abortion and sex outside of marriage in Morocco; violence against women in South Africa; Ontario’s Provincial Police will no longer release the genders of crime suspects and victims, and abortion laws in Mexico.
Sexism, racism and incarceration in Brazil
A report on a forum with Brazilian Black women activists in San Francisco on sexism, racism and incarceration in Brazil.
Voices from the inside out: Generations in jail
Robert Taliaferro takes up the high rate of incarceration in the U.S., focused on its effects on children whose parents are in prison.
Readers’ Views, November-December 2019, Part Two
Readers’ Views on permanent revolution and the dialectic, and voices from behind bars
Readers’ Views, November-December 2019, Part One
Readers’ Views on youth climate strike; Socialism and ecology; counter-revolution and revolution in the Middle East; auto and teacher strikes, and Brexit and labor
Essay: Black August, from 1971 to 2011-13
In the spirit of Black August Memorial, Faruq talks about the conditions of Black prisoners, the need to break race divisions between them and white prisoners, and the quest for the Idea of Freedom.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Urgently needed in a time of political crisis: Philosophy and revolution as process
November 13, 2019Recalling the Watergate break-in and cover-up that led to President Richard Nixon’s 1974 resignation, the text goes into the discussion of practicing dialectics and working out the unity of philosophy and revolution for the current moment of crisis.