American civilization never ceases to put itself on trial, as shown once again by the revolt in Minneapolis that quickly spread nationwide, a new moment of revolt in an unprecedented situation.
Alerts & Appeals
Outrage in San Francisco
May 31, 2020Since May 29, there have been ongoing demonstrations sparked by the outrage over the police murder of George Floyd. They spread throughout the many San Francisco Bay Area cities including ones not especially known for activism like Walnut Creek.
Special coverage of COVID-19 pandemic
Special coverage of COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Watch this space for periodic additions. Latest: Detroit Dispatch #6: Hospitalizations, funerals and the need for justice; Discussion article: Neoliberal necropolitics and Indian migrant workers; Detroit Dispatch #5: Education and individualism; COVID-19 has generated a lot of “free time” for workers, but how can we create full, human “free time”?; Detroit dispatch #4: The rush to reopen; Detroit dispatch #3: a pall over the city; Woman as Reason: Abortion in the time of COVID-19; Detroit Dispatch: Easter Sunday.
Detroit Dispatch #6: Hospitalizations, funerals and the need for justice
May 26, 2020In Detroit most people have been practicing social distancing, enforced by the police who recovered from their own COVID-19 outbreak. The most difficult situations are hospitalizations and funerals, and sadly, Detroit’s “Right to Literacy” case was short-lived, overturned by the full panel of judges. Plaintiffs are regrouping to resume the struggle.
Discussion article: Neoliberal necropolitics and Indian migrant workers
May 18, 2020The coronavirus crisis has compelled the Indian state to haphazardly effectuate a lockdown in order to properly practice social distancing. But it has unaccountably forgotten that social distancing is a privilege of the elite class if well-thought-out arrangements are not made.
Detroit Dispatch #5: Education and individualism
May 14, 2020Susan Van Gelder reports on Detroit including: a Supreme Court ruling saying Detroit children have been “deprived of access to literacy”; how children are faring in obtaining internet access so they participate in distant learning; and how “individualism” needs to be framed in relationship to society as a whole.
COVID-19 has generated a lot of “free time” for workers, but how can we create full, human “free time”?
May 12, 2020The measures adopted in the face of the spread of COVID-19 in the world have caused billions of people to suddenly have excess “free time.” But this is not a full “free time,” conducive to the enjoyment and development of new skills, but a “time without work” that is exacerbating the enormous economic contradictions already existing in our society. Is it possible to imagine and bring about a form of free time that is truly human time?
Letter to subscribers
May 8, 2020Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the print edition of News & Letters is suspended until it is safe to resume it.
The May-June 2020 issue of News & Letters is online
May 7, 2020Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2020-2021: Shattered by pandemic, world needs new beginnings in revolutionary activity, thought; Thoughts from the outside: A mind of one’s own vs. COVID-19; Woman as reason: The torture of abortion bans; From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: The methodology of Perspectives; Canada on trial: War on Wet’suwet’en Nation; Duterte uses COVID-19 pandemic to further fascist rule, and more.
Detroit dispatch #4: The rush to reopen
Many in Detroit are concerned about the rush to reopen and the false dichotomy between “the economy” and health. The death rate is still high.
Detroit dispatch #3: a pall over the city
April 27, 2020Two weeks of chilly weather—including a little late-spring snow—combined with increasingly dangerous Presidential “leadership,” a quarter of Michigan’s workers claiming unemployment, and more deaths of friends and relatives has cast a pall over the city and state.
Woman as Reason: Abortion in the time of COVID-19
April 15, 2020Abortion bans during the COVID-19 pandemic are cruel, based on lies, and constitute torture against women, causing not only more deaths, but also revealing the contempt with which women are held and the danger in forcing women to give birth against their will at this time.
Detroit Dispatch #2: Easter Sunday
April 13, 2020As elsewhere, in Detroit numbers of cases and deaths continue to rise, the lockdown is intensified, school is on hold, Black citizens are sick and dying in large numbers, and unemployment grows.
Prisoners make COVID-19 Masks but can’t use them
Press release from the California Coalition for Women Prisoners reporting on the incarcerated women at the California Institution for Women, who are producing masks to protect people from COVID-19 but report that the vast majority of incarcerated people are not receiving these masks for their own use.
With COVID-19 prisons become ‘death camps’
Report on the #ClemencyCoast2Coast virtual town hall held on April 8, in which former prisoners took the floor to speak about the “death camps” that prisons have turned into in the midst COVID-19 pandemic and to demand early release.
Capitalism is the real pandemic
April 6, 2020Neither the coronavirus nor the ongoing climate changes are merely “acts of nature.” Rather both have emerged at this moment because humanity is grounded—entrapped—in the economic-social-political system(s) of capital/capitalism. It is the behemoth that we must examine: the monster we must free ourselves from.
Uber, Lyft, Amazon workers revolt!
April 2, 2020Uber, Lyft, and Amazon workers struggle to hold their employers to account and demand protection from COVID-19 as well as a living wage and sick days.
Thoughts of COVID-19 in prison
April 1, 2020In prison here in Wisconsin, the guys are not as engaged as people in the community simply because of the nature of where we are. We are still in a relatively sterile environment which would change dramatically if someone comes in from the world and is a carrier. Healthcare inside is marginal during the best of times.
Coronavirus: A Call for Solidarity in a Time of Crisis from Abahlali baseMjondolo
Shack dwellers, and other poor people, including street traders, casual workers and undocumented migrants, have not been taken into consideration when it comes to the prevention of the coronavirus, or included in decision-making about the crisis.
Pandemic as battlefield
March 30, 2020The battle against the COVID-19 pandemic is a battle over how society will change, mirroring the battle over how to confront and adapt to the climate and extinction crisis. Strikes are erupting across the world.
International Women’s Day 2020
March 26, 2020What was new this International Women’s Day was larger marches, greater militancy of women participants, the new places where they took place, and the attacks against them which escalated significantly from previous years.
El COVID-19 evidencia la crisis del capitalismo, muestra la urgencia de una nueva sociedad humana
March 24, 2020Más allá de la mayor o menor eficacia de la respuesta de uno u otro gobierno ante la pandemia, es el capitalismo en su conjunto el que muestra su incapacidad para darle solución a los problemas que amenazan la vida humana.
COVID-19 manifests the crisis of capitalism, shows the urgency of a new human society
Beyond the greater or lesser effectiveness of the response of one or the other government to the pandemic, it is capitalism as a whole that shows its inability to solve the problems that threaten human life.
Revolution in Permanence in Syria, After the Uprisings
March 22, 2020Review-essay (longer version) on the book ‘Syria After the Uprisings: The Political Economy of State Resilience’ by Joseph Daher. With a combination of ruthless criticism and consistent solidarity, the author situates the Assad regime and Syria’s three counter-revolutions into a broader trend of global neoliberalism.
COVID-19 Detroit dispatch
March 21, 2020Most Detroiters are adjusting to new habits of sanitation and social distancing required because of the coronavirus, but the response of city government has been mixed.
March-April 2020 issue online; and a note on the pandemic
March 18, 2020Lead: Women’s movements reach for new global stage; Editorial: Trump after impeachment; COVID-19: A world-historic threat; Voices from the inside out: On becoming human; From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: African revolutions at the crossroads; Essay: Ecosocialism and post-Marx Marxism; Copper miners strike; Torture of immigrants in the U.S.; World in view: France, Ireland & the ‘idea of Europe’; Review: ‘Syria after the Uprisings’; more…
The Power of Women’s Liberation in Mexico
March 10, 2020Participant report of women’s strike in Mexico City, March 9, 2020.
News and Letters Committees Call for Convention 2020
March 2, 2020POSTPONED: Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2020-2021
Nuevo número de Praxis en América Latina (febrero-marzo 2020)
February 11, 2020Los diálogos revolucionarios de los zapatistas y el CNI: ¿Cuál es el desafío para nosotr@s? * Voces del Foro en Defensa del Territorio y la Madre Tierra * ENSAYO: El Foro en Defensa de la Madre Tierra, la unidad de las luchas desde una perspectiva dialéctica y ¿qué sigue ahora? * Crónicas de dos asistentes al Segundo Encuentro Internacional de Mujeres que Luchan * De los escritos de Raya Dunayevskaya: Notas preliminares sobre la Ciencia de la lógica de Hegel * Además, textos sobre los megaincendios en Australia; la huelga en las maquilas de Chihuahua, Durango y Zacatecas; la rebelión continua en Hong Kong y varios más…
January-February 2020 issue of News & Letters is online
January 30, 2020A changed world spurs wars and decimates the earth: • Lead: Australia’s megafires lay bare capitalism’s climate death march, • Editorial: The death of counter-revolutionary Qassem Soleimani; World in View: Revolution and genocide in Idlib, Syria; From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Crises of retrogressive Changed World; Voices from the inside out: A ‘free world’ view; Rebellion in Hong Kong spreads; Woman as Reason: Anti-femicide goes global; Google and Amazon workers rebel; Essay: Revolution in Permanence, Trotsky, Marx, Dunayevskaya; The fall of Evo Morales; Whither Bolivia?; Mass protests challenge India’s Modi; World in View: Reactionary Brexit; more…
COVID-19 and the specter of pandemic
January 27, 2020The spread of the coronavirus cannot be viewed in isolation from the corruption of China’s state-capitalism and the danger the virus poses especially to the poor, homeless and refugees.
Editorial: The death of counter-revolutionary Soleimani
January 5, 2020An Editorial in News & Letters taking up who General Qassem Soleimani was, what he did in aiding counter-revolution in the Middle East, and ramifications of his death.
Reseña: La revolución en permanencia
Reseña publicada en La Jornada Semanal del libro La filosofía de la revolución en permanencia de Marx en nuestros días, Escritos selectos de Raya Dunayevskaya.
Voices from Chicago climate strike–December 2019
January 2, 2020News & Letters interviews some of the Global Climate Strike participants.
Healthcare workers strike!
December 31, 2019On 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.
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 climate strike confronts the specter of climate chaos
December 11, 2019Participant report of the Dec. 6, 2019, climate strike in Chicago, part of global climate strike.
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.
November-December 2019 issue is online
November 18, 2019Lead article: GM strikers fight capital’s drive to impoverish workers; Editorial: The Arab Spring is ongoing; From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya–Urgently needed in a time of political crisis: Philosophy and revolution as process; Essay: Black August, from 1971 to 2011-13; Voices from the inside out: Generations in jail; Kurds in U.S protest Trump’s betrayal; Voices of young and old from the Global Climate Strike; L.A. plans gains for rideshare drivers; World in View: Ecuadorians resist austerity, repression; Sexism, racism and incarceration in Brazil; Frightening refineries; Greta Thunberg: No One Is Too Small; More…
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.
Nuevo número de Praxis en América Latina (oct.-nov. 2019)
October 10, 2019Dice Praxis en América Latina:
Nuevo número
Incluye textos sobre
- a) Los nuevos caracoles zapatistas
- b) La huelga climática global, socialismo y ecología
- c) Dos encuentros de mujeres
- d) Egipto, Kashmir y Hong Kong
Entre muchos textos más.
Comentarios y colaboraciones a este correo.
Praxis en América Latina
Ayotzinapa, a cinco años
September 24, 2019De Praxis en América Latina:
Como adjunto el editorial de Praxis. Por favor, comparta con sus contactos y redes.
Agradecemos sus comentarios.
https://newsandletters.org/PDF-ARCHIVE/PraxisEnAmericaLatina/Suplemento_Ayotzinapa.pdf
Voices from Global Climate Strike
September 23, 2019News & Letters interviews some of the Global Climate Strike participants.
Global Climate Strike–Chicago
September 21, 2019Participant report on the Sept. 20, 2019, Global Climate Strike event in Chicago.
Toward Freedom: Intervening in a World on the Brink–A Marxist-Humanist series of classes
September 19, 2019(See printable pdf brochure here.)
As crises shake the world, it is clear that we are living in a dangerous time. Vibrant movements have arisen to challenge the destructive path that powerful rulers like Donald Trump, Valdimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi, Bashar al-Assad, Ali Khamenei, etc., are trying to force on us all. The challenge [=>]
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.
September-October 2019 issue of News & Letters is online
September 3, 2019Lead article: Hong Kong masses fight rulers’ grab for power; Editorial: Supremacists are ‘coming for you!’; Editorial: Kashmir in our changed world; Help ‘News & Letters’ survive and thrive; From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Permanent revolution and the dialectic; Voices from the Inside Out: Promises broken; Women as Reason: Women, terrorism and misogyny; Essay: Socialism and ecology; World in View: Puerto Ricans stand up for dignity; Letter from Mexico: Chiapas Indigenous join Zapatistas; Iran workers jailed; Mexican and U.S. teachers’ dialogue; More…
The revolution in Sudan is far from over
August 18, 2019Today, the Sudanese military and civil opposition are signing a political agreement — meanwhile the revolution is carried forth by grassroots neighborhood councils and labor organizations.
Collapse of the Radical Left in Greece
August 9, 2019Syriza’s defeat illustrates the inevitable devolution of those who want to achieve revolutionary changes without a revolution.
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.