The May-June 2018 issue of News & Letters, Vol. 63, #3, is available on the web.
View the issue online or as pdf.
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2018-2019: Fighting Trump and his fascist allies in practice and in theory
Contents:
I. Donald Trump’s war show
II. Spreading revolt opens new doors
III. The reality and the myth of contemporary capitalism
IV. Marx, Lenin, Marxist-Humanism and the philosophy [=>]
Hershu Habeel is a story by Syrian Najm Aldin Samman that attempts to show the the extent of Syrians’ love of their homeland, and the genocide that is happening in Syria at this moment.
Students demonstrate at the University of Vermont in Burlington over racial inequality on campus, calling for mandated diversity and equity training for university staff as well as increased recruitment and retention of faculty and staff of color.
In-person report from the Philippines.
On a bitter cold morning on March 24, 2018, over 85,000 of us jammed into Union Park on Chicago’s west side to be part of the March For Our Lives and to join with protesters in 800 other cities across the U.S. and the world.
In-person report of the demonstration of women street vendors in Los Angeles on International Women’s Day fighting for their jobs and for dignity.
Lead: #MeToo, Women’s Marches show the resistance deepens; Editorial: China–Xi Jinping’s global power grab; Editorial: Youth confront the NRA; From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Rosa Luxemburg as feminist; Fight for $15 and labor’s full potential; Uprising in Honduras; Woman as Reason: Iranian women embody revolt; Charles Denby’s life story: the story of the struggle for freedom; Review: Specters of Revolt; Voices From the Inside Out: What is the objective of prisoner unity?; Struggle against solitary confinement continues!; World in View: Syria and International solidarity; More…
OFFICIAL CALL FOR CONVENTION
to Work Out Marxist-Humanist Perspectives for 2018-2019
February 25, 2018
To All Members of News and Letters Committees
Dear Friends:
The deeply ingrained rape culture, already widely known but often hushed up, has been exposed in the broadest way yet by the #MeToo movement. How deep and total is the needed uprooting [=>]
It is no accident that the most recent wave of protests in Iran was preceded by a brave act of a woman in Tehran taking off her hijab in a very public way. Ever since Iran’s Revolution was usurped by Islamic clerics, women have been at the heart of every movement.
Lead: Iranian workers, youth reach for new revolutionary beginnings; Editorial: Alabama Blacks beat Trump-Moore; Help keep News & Letters behind bars; Voices from the inside out: Prisoners discuss impact of 13th Amendment; From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya–Iran: Unfoldment of, and contradictions in, revolution; New French edition of Indignant Heart: A Black Worker’s Journal; World in View: Visage of Hitler rises in Austria; Woman as Reason: The humanism of #MeToo; In Memoriam: Narihiko Ito (1931-2017); Syrians & Iranians unite in D.C. rally; Letter from Mexico: Zapatistas and science for humanity; Another brutal winter of war in Yemen; more …
LALIT reports on their banned protest of U.S. military base on Diego Garcia, and our statement of solidarity.
Students and others rally in support of an immigrant former staff member of Christian college Azusa Pacific University, after he suffered retaliation for reporting sexual harassment.
Puerto Ricans suffer as Donald Trump plays to his racist base; Editorial: Save the Rohingya, stop the genocide!; Editorial: Abuser-in-chief trashes women; On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution: Historic initiative of the masses and Lenin’s philosophic break; New book–Russia: From Proletarian Revolution to State-Capitalist Counter-Revolution: Selected writings by Raya Dunayevskaya; Detroit Women’s Convention shows women persist; World in View: U.S. ‘democracy’ enters crisis mode; Workers’ revolts threaten Xi Jinping; Woman as Reason: #MeToo; Letter from Mexico: Earthquake: Mexico’s wake-up call; Kris Kobach has something to hide; Judy Tanzawa (Judy Tristan), 1939-2017; Dan Perron, 1959-2017; more…
Women’s liberationist and managing editor of News & Letters Terry Moon writes about why she posted #MeToo on social media and how women’s experiences must impact what revolution has to mean.
We condemn the racist response of the Trump administration to the desperate situation in Puerto Rico. What we are seeing there is nothing less than a physical and moral apocalypse.
An in-person report of the recent devastating earthquakes in Mexico and how social conditions including capitalism, government corruption, etc., negatively affect rescue efforts; how everyday people’s self-organization makes a significant difference.
The September-October 2017 issue of News & Letters, Vol. 62, #5, is available on the web.
View the issue online or as pdf.
Lead article: Rising U.S. racism challenges all freedom movements
A Marxist-Humanist analysis of the history and meaning of the rising of the right-wing neo-Nazi white supremacist movement, its relationship to President Donald Trump and his administration, and its challenge to the [=>]
Hundreds demonstrated Aug. 31 outside Chicago offices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, supporting Genoveva Ramirez and all others being threatened with deportation.
Web-only articles: Fascist show of force in Charlottesville; Chicago auto mechanics strike; Venezuela crisis; Keolis Transit strike; online Archives Guide.
A striker speaks from one of the auto mechanics’ picket lines at 140 car dealerships in the Chicago area. .
Analysis of the violent invasion of Charlottesville, Va., the significance of the broader advance of fascism, and the opposite to it in human forces and reason.
As Venezuela’s social crisis deepens, the contradictions always present in Chavismo are coming to a head. A look at the Bolivarian Constitution, Chavismo’s relationship to the Arab Spring, and its dependence on high oil prices and a top leader illuminate the crisis.
Mechanics went on strike at Foothill Transit in Pomona, Calif., and were joined on the picket line by bus drivers.
The new online Guide with links to all the documents is an extremely useful finding tool that helps the reader or researcher locate items and grasp the structure of the Archives. The website of the Raya Dunayevskaya Memorial Fund presents the Raya Dunayevskaya Collection as she organized it, together with the Supplement.
The July-August 2017 issue of News & Letters, Vol. 62, #4, is available on the web.
View the issue online or as pdf.
Lead article: The struggle for immigrants’ rights challenges humanity
The massive increase in inhuman attacks against immigrants and undocumented people in the U.S. is spurring new activism and urgency.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: A concrete [=>]
An activist reports on the June 4, 2017, action by anti-fascist protesters against a rally of hate made up of Proud Boys, Militiamen, and Nazis who were protected by Portland cops who attacked anti-fascists.
From a prisoner’s perspective, Faruq reviews “I Am Not Your Negro,” a documentary film and companion book produced by Raoul Peck that concentrates on the writings and life of James Baldwin.
The May-June 2017 issue of News & Letters, Vol. 62, #3, is available on the web.
View the issue online or as pdf.
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2017-2018: Philosophy and revolt confront Trump’s drive to fascism
Contents:
Introduction
I. Trumpism as an excrescence of world capitalism’s crises
II. The capital relation
III. U.S. forces of revolt as reason; philosophy as force of revolution
IV. International crises
V. Lies, facts and ground
VI. [=>]
As the Trump administration ramps up deportations and related abuses, strikes, protests, and sanctuary cities are proliferating. The oppression of a lower caste of workers and the discrimination and violence faced by immigrants present a challenge to the Left, labor and the rest of humanity.
Assad’s chemical attack on civilians reveals the lie the world has been living. Trump’s limited counterstrike was a response to the unprecedented mass opposition to him, not an abandonment of his counter-revolutionary agenda. It is crucial to take the living freedom struggles in Syria and globally as our basis, to oppose the lie that “there is no alternative,” and to clarify what we are for, not just against.
The deadline for the May-June 2017 issue of News & Letters is Sunday, April 16.
Share your story with the world! Send in reports on your workplace, your town, your country; conditions, events, ideas, and debates. Send in Readers’ Views responding to articles in News & Letters and/or to what is happening in the world. Demonstrations and discussions have mushroomed since the [=>]
Workers striking Spectrum-Charter explained that they had struck at the end of March because the new corporation was slashing pension and health plans and because the workers had not had a union contact since 2013.
The March-April 2017 issue of News & Letters, Vol. 62, #2, is available on the web.
View the issue online or as pdf.
Women take the lead against world retrogression
An in-depth Marxist-Humanist view of the state of the women’s movement in the U.S. and worldwide as it responds to the rising fascism of U.S. President Trump and other world leaders.
Women’s liberation, in fact [=>]
On March 8, International Women’s Day, Washington Square Park in New York City was overflowing as close to 5,000 women, many dressed in red, rallied to hear speakers denounce the anti-woman steps taken by the Trump administration and to speak of the need to deepen women’s sense of unity.
An International Women’s Day March in Flint in solidarity with the Selma-to-Montgomery March 52 years ago highlighted Flint residents’ ongoing struggle for civil and human rights.
Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2017-2018
The deadline for the March-April 2017 issue of News & Letters is Sunday, February 26.
Share your story with the world! Send in reports on your workplace, your town, your country; conditions, events, ideas, and debates. Send in Readers’ Views responding to articles in News & Letters and/or to what is happening in the world—such as Trump’s moves to pull the world far [=>]
Links to articles found only on our website. Topics include: African American History Month; Trump’s American fascism; reports of ongoing U.S. protests; Youth in Action; Mexico teachers’ union statement; Chinese “Marxism and Freedom” book.
Report of the “Emergency Community Meeting on School Closings” in Detroit, MI, taking up and condemning Gov. Rick Snyder’s plan to close 38 schools, most of them in Detroit.
Participant report of a 500-strong student rally at the University of South Florida in Tampa in support of immigrants and calling for divestment from companies whose products harm the environment or which produce weapons and supplies for the military.
Prisoner Faruq looks at how African-American History Month came to be, stressing the importance of Dr. Carter G. Woodson’s vision and how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy included a critique of cultural and social relations as well as race, concluding that history is necessary for formerly enslaved people to move towards freedom.
The January-February 2017 issue of News & Letters, Vol. 62, #1, is available on the web.
View the issue online or as pdf.
Lead: Inauguration of neo-fascism faces widespread revolt
The lightning move by Republicans in Congress to prepare to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare—before Donald Trump even took office, with only the vaguest idea [=>]
Protests against Trump’s Muslim ban, and his reorganization of the National Security Council after the model of Hitler’s Reich Main Security Office, signal a profound struggle to be waged over what kind of society the U.S. will be.
Breaking news: participant report of New York protests against Trump’s anti-immigrant actions.
NATIONAL COORDINATION OF EDUCATION WORKERS
PRESS RELEASE January 9, 2017
Translated by David Turpin Jr.
The National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) recently celebrated 37 years of struggle. Throughout these years we have fought for three strategic objectives: union democracy, democracy in education, and democracy in our country. Within and outside our ranks it is recognized that the [=>]
Now available at the News and Letters Committees website as a pdf file:
Marxism and Freedom, from 1776 until Today: Chinese translation
Raya Dunayevskaya’s classic explication of Marxism in Chinese. The first book on Marxist-Humanism, it was originally published in 1958 and has been in continuous publication. It has been translated into Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, [=>]
The November-December 2016 issue of News & Letters, Vol. 61, #6, is available on the web.
View the issue online or as pdf.
Lead-Editorial: No to Trump’s counter-revolution! No to fascism! Fight for a new human society!
Trump’s electoral victory by appealing to racism and sexism menaces all freedom movements. It is the index of this system’s crisis and bankruptcy of thought, which needs [=>]
The November-December 2016 issue of News & Letters has been mailed out and can be viewed online in pdf form.
The Lead-Editorial of this new issue takes up the election results: “No to Trump’s counter-revolution! No to fascism! Fight for a new human society!” A second editorial on the struggle over the Dakota Access Pipeline is [=>]
Trump’s electoral victory by appealing to racism and sexism menaces all freedom movements. It is the index of this system’s crisis and bankruptcy of thought, which needs to be met with a truly revolutionary vision.
Participant report from Indigenous Peoples Day observation in Tucson, celebrating expanding human freedom rather than colonialism and imperialism.