On Dec. 16, 4,000 mental health workers at Kaiser Permanente HMO in Oakland went on a five-day strike, calling attention to a serious lack of resources to provide timely care.
Author: Terry Moon
Bolivia’s extreme right consolidates power
December 3, 2019Important 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.
L.A. students march for DACA
December 1, 2019Participant report on the Nov. 12 students’ march protesting Trump’s repeal of DACA, which allowed undocumented migrants brought to this country as children the human right to work, to go to school and to live free of deportation.
Free Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa!
November 10, 2019It 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, from prison as in early November 2019 he suffered a stroke.
Essay: Black August, from 1971 to 2011-13
September 4, 2019Ex-prisoner Faruq takes up the revolutionary history of Black August Memorial and relates it to his life and the historic Pelican Bay Hunger Strike.
Reducing recidivism
August 6, 2019When someone is arrested again and sent back to prison after being released, it is known as recidivism, and is a huge problem. This article is part of the discussion.
Lyft and Uber drivers demand their rights!
July 21, 2019Over 30 Lyft drivers and their supporters rallied at the Lyft office in Los Angeles for their labor rights and to reverse pay cuts forced by the company.
Youth in Action, Sept.-Oct. 2019
July 17, 2019Moroccan medical students boycott their exams; boys in a New Zealand rugby team’s solidarity for the team’s one girl; and a high school senior makes a documentary film about the protest against a U.S. Navy base on Okinawa.
Revolution in Sudan Under Attack!
June 3, 2019This is a video from our comrade Mohammed Elnaiem who is on the ground in Sudan.
https://www.facebook.com/elninomoody/videos/10157727204511535/
Readers’ Views: May-June 2019
May 6, 2019Readers’ Views on: Socialism and a philosophy of revolution; Sudan in revolt; Iran vs. Iranians; Flint, Mich., play captures voices; Notre-Dame and fracking on native land; gun control debate; labor strikes; debate on fascism; Trump and DeVos; and voices from behind bars.
Queer Notes: May-June 2019
International Transgender Day of Visibility; Puerto Rico bans gay reparative conversion therapy administered to minors; a Catholic hospital’s discrimination against Oliver Knight; and Chuck Kramer’s exhibit, “Faces Out & Proud.”
Essay: What is socialism? Socialism, labor, and the Black dimension
May 1, 2019Marxist-Humanist Bob McGuire looks through history to Marx’s relationship to labor and the Black movement for freedom and then to our day and the relationship of Marxist-Humanism to labor and the Black struggle for freedom in speaking to the question many are asking today: What is socialism?
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: The economy and dialectics of liberation
April 23, 2019Raya Dunayevskaya’s archives column explores taking “a further look into the [1976] economy, to measure the depth of the recession, not for statistical purposes, but for the relationship of dialectics of liberation to economic ills.” It bears striking relevance for what is happening in 2019.
Voices From the Inside Out: Served the time but kept in prison
Robert Taliaferro writes of the harm done to prisoners by then Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson’s actions in the 1990s to keep prisoners behind bars despite the laws for mandatory release.
Review: Birth Strike: The Hidden Fight Over Women’s Work
Adele reviews “Birth Strike: The Hidden Fight Over Women’s Work,” by Jenny Brown.
Women WorldWide: May-June 2019
30,000 in Italy protested World Congress of Families; Sudan’s first female-run radio show; survivors of prostitution marched from France, arriving to Germany for Survivor’s Day; Women Advocates Research and Documentation Center in Nigeria provides pro bono legal services and research to fight civil rights violations and violence against women.
Woman as Reason: Algerian women at the forefront
There is no question that women are a vital part of the movement in Algeria since it erupted on Feb. 22, fighting to bring down le pouvoir—the power structure—that has been running the country and their lives since 1999.
California Uber/Lyft workers strike!
April 4, 2019Ex-Lyft driver reports on the strike of Uber and Lyft drivers in California and explains the hell that ridesharing businesses are foisting on their workers, the environment, and their customers.
Gaza’s Twin Reality/Brutality
April 1, 2019Palestinians in Gaza face a double brutality: Israel’s blockade and bombardment, and Hamas’ brutal repression.
Pipeline tragedy in Mexico
March 11, 2019The horrendous oil pipeline explosion in Tlahuelilpan, Mexico, which killed over 100 campesinos and injured many more, has shaken all of Mexico. This was a tragedy long in the making.
Readers’ Views: March-April 2019, Part 2
Readers’ Views on: Rosa Luxemburg’s revolutionary life; the Green New Deal; and voices from behind bars.
Readers’ Views: March-April 2019, Part 1
Readers’ Views on: workers strike back, genocide and Facebook, Mauritius victory, Syrian Revolution under fire, “55 Steps,” debating yellow vests, women’s struggles, and why read News & Letters.
Review: ‘Politically Incorrect Feminist’
March 10, 2019Feminist Adele reviews Phyllis Chesler’s book “A Politically Incorrect Feminist: Creating a Movement with Bitches, Lunatics, Dykes, Prodigies, Warriors, and Wonder Women,” seeing in it an important first-person history that can help today’s movement.
Detroit women rally
An in-person report of the Jan, 19, 2019, “sister march”–sponsored by Women’s March Michigan, a separate organization from the National Women’s March–which brought nearly 1,000 women to a rally at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History.
Women WorldWide: March-April 2019
Women WorldWide takes up the South Korean Escape the Corset movement, Greta Thunberg’s work against global warming, and the struggle by BethAnn McLaughlin to draw attention to the harassment of women in science by prominent men.
Woman as Reason: Church abuses nuns
The rape, forced abortion, and sexual abuse of nuns is the newest scandal to plague the Catholic Church. The do-nothing attitude of the Church on this abuse has continued for centuries. Will anything change now?
Editorial: Fighting gun violence
March 6, 2019New passions and forces alive in the U.S. ensured that the toll of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last year would not fade into the political ether.
Editorial: Is nuclear war on the horizon?
The retreat from even modest efforts to control nuclear weapons has brought humanity closer than ever to annihilation. President Donald Trump’s suspension of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Vladimir Putin’s Russia gins up an already accelerating new arms race.
Women bearing the brunt of reaction lead the resistance
In a year marked by the contradiction between deepening women’s revolt and activism and neo-fascism rising across the globe, women have been fighting back in unprecedented numbers and ways.
What Is Socialism? Socialism and Philosophy
March 3, 2019This is the first in a series of four presentations on “What is Socialism?” Shorter versions will be published in News & Letters. The second essay is “Socialism, labor and the Black dimension”; the third is “Socialism and ecology”; and the last is “Socialism and Women’s Liberation.”
How to celebrate Presidents’ Day
February 21, 2019An inperson report on how people in Oakland, California, creatively protested President Trump on Presidents’ Day.
Statement on Venezuela by the Anti-War Committees in Solidarity with The Struggles for Self-Determination
February 19, 2019We share the Statement on Venezuela by the Anti-War Committees in Solidarity with The Struggles for Self-Determination, which looks at the situation today, its history, and takes the measure of today’s Left.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2019, Part 2
February 3, 2019Readers’ Views regarding: Thought-diving into revolution in permanence; murky waters[ the Church and oppression; why read N&L; and voices from behind bars.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2019, Part 1
Readers’ Views addressing: challenging fascism across all borders; charter teachers strike; pitfalls of bourgeois politics; women on the march; prison strikes big and small; and the racist criminal injustice system.
Prisoners endangered
January 31, 2019Families of prisoners and supporters rallied in front of the California Department of Corrections and rehabilitation’s (CDCr) headquarters against the CDCr-induced violence that many of their loved ones are experiencing.
Review of ‘55 Steps’
A review of the movie, “55 Steps,” directed by Bille August, which tells the story of Eleanor Riese, a mental health patient, and her court case, which won the right for California’s acute, competent mentally ill patients to have informed consent about their medications.
Former prisoners speak on contradictions in support work
Report of the Dec. 5, 2018, Impact Justice panel of former prisoners addressing contradictions in prisoner support.
Three years after Ashker vs. Governor of California
Pelican Bay Prisoners speak of the third anniversary of the landmark agreement in the class action lawsuit that ended indefinite solitary confinement in California prisons.
Pondering the idea of freedom
Prisoner Faruq ponders the idea of freedom as an idea that has its own development and, if grasped, will help transcend capitalist relations.
Review: ‘Always Color Outside the Lines’
Review of Robert Taliaferro’s wonderfully illustrated book, “Always Color Outside the Lines: Freedom for the Artist Within”–a book that shows his philosophy of art and his expertise with different media and techniques.
Handicap This!: January-February 2019
January 26, 2019A roundup of actions around people with disabilities: Secretary of Education’s drive to rescind federal guidelines ensuring that disabled and minority students not face unfair discipline; Japan’s plans to use the 2020 Paralympic Games to make Tokyo hotels and public transportation more accessible; the insufficiency of Social Security Disability Insurance; and how charter schools are less likely than public to respond to enquiries regarding disabled students.
Youth in Action: January-February 2019
Peking University Marxist Society students protest to support their detained club president; student workers at Grinnell College vote to be represented by a union; and a movement against climate change started by three Australian high school girls has spread to students in Japan, the UK, U.S. and Belgium.
The Cuban Revolution: a great divide
The Left press and many others have been commenting on this important date: Jan. 1, 1959, the day that Fulgencio Batista was overthrown. The great difficulty is that the focus has been far too narrow…
Queer Notes: January-February 2019
Protests in Tunisia against non-implementation of Transgender human rights bill; Brazil’s new president threatens crackdown on homosexuality and same-sex marriage; new Tunisian documentary “Subutext” about homosexuality, poverty, illness and drugs in Tunisia’s slums; and a Chicago protest against Antwan Haywood being thrown out of the Powerhouse International Ministries supposedly over the way he was dressed.
Detroit celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Participant report from Detroit’s 16th Annual Martin Luther King Day Rally.
Predatory lending
A Detroit, Michigan, resident reports on the harm that predatory lending is doing to the city and its residents.
Women in Spain say: ‘We are all Laura!’
Women in Spain are outraged by the brutal murder of Laura Luelmo and have filled the streets of El Campillo.
Chicago teachers win first strike against charter schools
January 24, 2019Chicago teachers speak for themselves, explaining why they fought and won the first strike against charter schools.
Review: ‘Lesbian Revolution’
Adele reviews “The Lesbian Revolution: Lesbian Feminism in the UK 1970–1990,” by Sheila Jeffreys, the first book documenting the history of British Lesbian feminism.
Women World Wide: January-February 2019
5.5 million women formed a 400-mile-long “wall” the length of India’s Kerala state for women’s freedom; Zimbabwe’s first all-woman anti-poaching squad; the opening of “Free Women’s Land,” a village built and occupied by women and children in the war zone of Syrian Kurdistan: and a remembrance of the founder of the field of African-American women’s history, Rosalyn Terborg-Penn.