Readers’ Views on rising threat of the Right; corruption of the criminal injustice system; abortion bans attack women; support Maâti Monjib!; nursing home blues; why read ‘N&L?’; and support Crimean Tatars!
Author: PraxisAmericaLatina
Readers’ Views, July-August 2019: Part 2
Readers’ Views on the economy and dialectics of liberation; environmental racism; no nukes!; and voices from behind the bars.
All power to the Sudanese revolutionaries!
The Sudanese Revolution demonstrated its depth, maturity and resilience as masses once again took to the streets following the June 3 massacre of protesters in Khartoum.
Editorial: Stop Assad’s genocide!
Free Syrian revolutionaries are being pushed to the limit. But humanity is being put to the test.
Trumpism aims to bleach the census
June 26, 2019The Trump administration’s attempt to manipulate the census could undercount some communities by 17% in an effort to calcify white minority rule.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: China’s youth revolt vs. Mao’s legacy
This article anticipated the 1989 Tiananmen Square movement in a way that sheds light on today’s realities by tracing the youth and labor revolt in 1980s China as well as the post-Mao Chinese Communist Party’s maneuvers in politics and ideology.
Voices From the Inside Out: Prisoners debate socialism and capitalism
Over the past several years there has been a heated debate in the U.S. regarding socialism. These same issues are discussed nationwide within its prisons, with an interesting level of diversity which rivals opinions beyond the prison walls.
The truth of the ‘Woolsey Fire’
The Santa Susana Field Lab’s impact on the dangerous chemicals and isotopes released by the so-called “Woolsey Fire” are just the latest in an historic string of insults perpetrated by that lab on the environment of southeast Ventura County and Simi Valley.
Queer Notes: July-August 2019
Murders of two Trans women in Dallas; Transgender woman Layleen Polanco dies in a Rikers Island prison cell; and a boycott against Goldfinger, Tokyo’s largest annual party for Japanese women that discriminated against Transgender woman.
Demanding a future, youth lead fight for climate justice
Schoolchildren continue to hold Fridays for Future strikes weekly across the world, demanding “that governments immediately provide a safe pathway to stay within 1.5°C of global heating.” The Right’s attempts to co-opt this passion highlight capitalism’s contradictions and the need to center a liberatory direction.
Britain and USA: get out of Chagos!
The U.S. backs the UK’s refusal to return the Chagos Islands back to the Chagossians, blocking the complete decolonization of Africa. Diego Garcia must be decolonized and demilitarized!
LGBT: ‘Lives in Transition’
The photographs and captions in Slobodan Randjelovic’s “Lives in Transition” exhibit show a Queer community that hopes, fears, desires, loves and struggles.
Millions in Hong Kong challenge Xi’s ambitions
This year’s commemoration of the Tiananmen Square massacre was followed by more than a million people protesting the Extradition Bill that would legalize dissidents in Hong Kong being sent to face China’s injustice system.
Youth in Action, July-August 2019
Students protest in Brazil; students protest in Spain; and a sit-in at Princeton University’s Title IX administration against the way the university adjudicates reports of sexual assault.
Pride confronts Nazis
Participants at Detroit’s Motor City Pride March were shocked and horrified to confront 15 armed Nazis protected by a cordon of mostly Black police officers.
World in View: A tale of two democracies in crisis
Elections in India and the European Union show the deep crisis in bourgeois society.
Trump plays with fire in his ‘golden era’
Donald Trump’s threats to Iran analyzed in light of his use of capitalism’s lifeblood commodity, oil, and the continuity and discontinuity of U.S. imperialism.
Algerians in revolt
The creative presence of women, youth, workers and national minorities in the Algerian freedom movement promises much for the future.
Karol Modzelewski 1937-2019
Modzelewski‘s living legacy is that he never wavered, in theory or practice, from the principle of a freedom-filled future rooted in the self-activity of the masses of workers themselves.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Women’s liberation, experimentation and revolution in permanence
March 10, 2019An interview of Raya Dunayevskaya by Katherine Davenport which aired on WBAI radio in New York City on International Women’s Day, March 8, 1984. It brings together women’s liberation and revolution in permanence, as Dunayevskaya discusses what life might be after revolution.
Essay: What is Socialism? Socialism and a philosophy of revolution
What is socialism? From Left to Right, this question is becoming central to political discussion. For me, it raises another question, too: What is philosophy? This is where I will begin, with the young Karl Marx.
Venezuela is at the crossroads
Many in Venezuela oppose both U.S. intervention—in league with the right wing and Juan Guaidó—and the government of President Nicolás Maduro and his generals. At the same time we cannot forget that what passed for constructing “21st Century socialism” has been a problem.
Presidents Day 2019 demonstration in Oakland, Calif.
With just 72 hours notice, over 50,000 people came together in 48 states in almost 300 events to protest Donald Trump on Presidents Day. While the events were organized by MoveOn.org as a response to Trump’s fake emergency declaration, their call was answered spontaneously by many.
Queer Notes: March-April 2019
Queer Notes on the Auckland Pride Festival; Denise Ho Wan-sze; two newly-elected Democratic governors making strides for Queer rights; and a history of Compton’s Transgender Cultural District in San Francisco.
Youth in Action, March-April 2019
School students in Oakland, Calif. support striking teachers; Belgian environment minister resigns after attacking Strike 4 Climate Action; high school students walk out in Vancouver, Canada, protesting tar sands; medical students’ direct action at Gandaki Medical College in Pokhara, Nepal, against tuition theft.
Voices from the Inside Out: Importance of community support
March 9, 2019In Madison, Wisc., during the 1980s, a solitary Black woman roamed the hallways of the Dane County Courthouse for the purpose of attending trials of Black defendants. Her goal was to ensure that every Black woman, man, and child would see at least one Black face in the courtroom other than their own.
‘Poverty and Profit’
Matthew Desmond’s book “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City” is an important contribution to understanding the workings of exploitative housing, although he fails to appreciate that, under the capitalist system, the best-intentioned programs will always become conduits to extract money from the poor.
Handicap This!, March-April 2019
Handicap This! column on Black Disability History; maltreatment of children with disabilities; and bill aimed at phasing out the subminimum wage paid to over 150,000 disabled workers.
Women Worldwide, November-December 2018
December 14, 2018Women Worldwide column on a rape trial in Cork, Ireland; the women student movement Pinjratod or “Break the Cages” in India; and forced sterilization of Indigenous women in Saskatchewan, Canada.
Protesters slandered
Just before the final confirmation vote elevating Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put out messages that slandered the act of protest itself.
Review: Feminist Awakening in China
An account of #MeToo in China is documented in a new book by Leta Hong Fincher, “Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China.”
‘Striking to Survive’ in China
Report on a talk in Oakland by worker-activists from China, including Fan Shigang, author and editor of “Striking to Survive: Workers’ Resistance to Factory Relocations in China.”
Letter from Mexico, November-December 2018: Rejecting fake choice in airport referendum
The elected government of Morena party organized a National Consultation on Mexico’s New Airport from Oct. 25-28. How are the Indigenous people resisting it?
Iran strike solidarity
Workers at Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane in Iran have been on strike for most of November. This is the latest of their walkouts this year over unpaid wages.
Nurses on strike
Licensed practical nurses and supporters rallied at the University of Illinois Hospitals during their unfair labor practices strike.
Gig road to poverty
Contrary to the boosterism that we always hear from Trump, an MIT study revealed that on average an Uber-type driver’s income declined last year from $1,469 per month to $783, a drop of 47%.
Vietnam is in turmoil
In response to massive protests in Vietnam, Communist Party General Secretary and ideologue Nguyen Phu Trong was named president, becoming the newest of the world’s strongman rulers.
Yemen peace talks
Yemeni civil society organizations have released a statement that should become the basis for peace negotiations.
Murder in Venezuela
Days after the Saudi regime murdered Jamal Khashoggi, the Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro murdered its own critic, Fernando Alban Salazar, in equally horrific fashion.
Bolsonaro’s fascism threatens Brazilians
December 13, 2018Jair Bolsonaro, elected President of Brazil, is a racist, misogynist, homophobic admirer of Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship. The coming months will tell whether the masses will mount a crucial resistance.
World in View, November-December 2018: Raed Fares
December 11, 2018Raed Fares, revolutionary martyr of Kafranbel, Syria, is remembered after his assassination.
Woman as Reason, November-December 2018: Solidarity with Trans
The Trump administration’s latest outrage is its attempt to erase Transgender people. Its tactic this time is to declare that Trans people do not exist, subverting the spirit of Title IX, enacted in 1972.
Chicago hotel workers on strike
September 27, 2018Striking hotel workers by the thousands traded their picket line duties for a rally and march through downtown Chicago on Sept. 13, 2018. They were striking over health insurance among other demands.
Flint water battles
Michigan’s Attorney General chose the easy route of spending money prosecuting 15 scapegoats as a substitute for replacing the lead service lines that continue to poison citizens of Flint, Michigan.
Review: ‘Labor Notes’ on fighting ‘open shops’
The journal “Labor Notes” published a special issue on organizing strategies which aims to guide members of public sector unions to a concept of an inclusive, participatory unionism.
Say ‘No!’ to life without parole
On Aug. 6, 2018, a new chapter in activism around Life Without a Possibility of Parole (LWOP) in California was opened with a rally at the state capitol steps.
Behind ‘that door’
Prisoner’s view of what is on the other side of that door “they bring your family member through to court, shackled at the waist and feet, wearing that pumpkin orange jumpsuit.”
Chicago Vigil for the Rohingya
Over 100 people gathered in Chicago’s Federal Plaza on Aug. 25, 2018, for a vigil on the one-year anniversary of the massacre of the Muslim minority Rohingya in Burma.
Stand up for change
Prisoner expresses the difficultly with organizing his fellow inmates and the importance of working together “to stand up (or ‘sit down’) for your rights.”
End the Oura Bay landfill in Japan
Activists in Okinawa began walking from town to town, meeting with citizens, mayors and city councils to convince them to stop the Japanese government’s extraction of their soil to be used as bay fill in the construction of two new airport runways at Henoko (U.S. Camp Schwab) on pristine Oura Bay, Okinawa Island.