Abahlali baseMjondolo calls on all to oppose border closures and xenophobia and build solidarity among the oppressed.
Articles
Pandemic changes education
January 14, 2021The pandemic challenges assumptions about the purpose of schooling, creating an opportunity to address basic issues, including ways to help students reflect and build on what they have learned, in school or out, and to figure out how to allow those experiences to “count.”
Trumpist coup reveals fascist threat and Left’s philosophic void
January 11, 2021The Jan. 6 Trumpist coup reveals the depth of the far-right threat, compliticy of major institutions, and the philosophic void of the Left. A liberatory banner of a new society on truly human foundations is needed if we are not to be thrown right back into more oscillations between fascist horrors and the crumbling “normal” of capitalist liberal democracy.
Trump’s election obsession shreds a flawed democracy
Amid COVID-19 deaths and economic decline, a fascist mob stormed the Capitol. If U.S. democracy lives to see another day, it was because of the unprecedented turnout of Black voters, reflecting the mass movement on the streets that continues to put that democracy on trial.
Free Maâti Monjib, arrested again in Morocco!
January 10, 2021The Moroccan Association for the Defense of Human Rights denounces the arrest and unjustified detention of the Moroccan historian and human rights activist Maâti Monjib and invites you to sign a statement in his support.
Argentina’s feminist revolution
At four in the morning on Dec. 30, the Argentine Senate finally passed an abortion rights bill, making it legal to terminate a pregnancy in the first 14 weeks. The procedure will be free in government hospitals, crucially important for poor women.
Zapatista Declaration for Life
January 2, 2021The Zapatistas have just issued a new declaration signed by hundreds of organizations regarding their work in the last several months establishing contacts with many groups and discussing what unites and divides them and working out what allows them all to move forward. They agreed to continue to have meetings around the globe, inviting those [=>]
Women WorldWide: November-December 2020
November 29, 2020Women in Lima, Peru, demonstrate against a judge who ruled a woman could not have been raped because of her red underwear; a plaque was given to honor Mary Heaton who spent years in an insane asylum for interrupting a vicar’s sermon; a Nigerian woman started an organization in Italy to support trafficked survivors of prostitution; and in Egypt, the Cairo Criminal Court began hearings on a male university student from a wealthy, influential family accused of rape by hundreds of women worldwide who gave anonymous testimonials on social media.
Review: Women Are Blamed for Everything
A feminist review of a book by Jessica Taylor, ‘Women Are Blamed for Everything: Exploring the Victim Blaming of Women Subjected to Violence and Trauma’ that explores how and why each victim of abuse was always blamed in some way although it was never her fault, even internalizing self-blame.
‘Virtual’ teaching or hazardous workplace
A teacher of six-year-olds in a low-income Illinois suburb tells of her experience teaching during COVID-19 and how those who run the schools have no comprehension of what the job entails and no interest in protecting the mental and physical health of teachers, staff, or children.
Editorial: Polish women’s revolutionary moment
What is happening in Poland is revolutionary as women lead a movement that is protesting the Catholic Church’s inhuman attack on women’s freedom as well mounting a deep challenge to the fascist-leaning Polish government.
Uber and Lyft put drivers in peonage with the passage of Proposition 22
Proposition 22 will allow app-based transportation and delivery sector employers to keep classifying their employees as private contractors. They will not have to offer workers any of the benefits afforded to employee-classified workers under state law.
Ethiopia civil war fears
Armed conflict broke out in Ethiopia, two years in the making. It remains to be seen whether it will become a full-blown civil war, and possibly engulf other countries of the region.
LA voters dump killer cop protector Jackie Lacey
November 28, 2020Los Angeles activist Basho tells of the electoral defeat of District Attorney Jackie Lacey, who protected killer cops, and the years of demonstrations and pain that led to her welcomed defeat.
P.O. workers thwart Trump’s vote thefts
Postal workers were at the front line of resistance to Trump’s rigging of the November 3 election.
Voices from the Inside Out: Damage left by Trump
Prisoner Robert Taliaferro gives his view of the Trump Administrations legacy and hopes for the Joseph Biden Kamala Harris Presidency.
Readers’ views, November-December 2020: part two
John Lewis, today’s struggles, and the needed philosophic dialogue; Remembering Ruth Bader Ginsburg; Putin: an opposing view; Amy Barrett’s fanaticism; Torture at Soledad; Pipeline battles.
Trump’s immigrant policies challenged
Both the “Remain in Mexico” policy, in which border guards stop asylum seekers from approaching U.S. border stations, and the family separation policy on the border which has failed to unite families of over 650 children are being challenged by immigrant rights activists and organizations.
Readers’ views, November-December 2020: part one
Election battles, reaching for the future, and the pull of the past; Sabotage of the post office; Food recycling workers strike; Anti-labor statue downed; Oil and biden; COVID-19: where’s the vision?; Racism and fascism; Polish women’s revolutionary moment; News & Letters is back in print!
Workers oppose China’s forced labor camps
Labor unions and human rights groups demand action against China’s incarceration of Uyghurs and forced labor.
Philosophic dialogue: New perspectives on Marx’s Humanist Essays
Three presentations on why Marx’s 1844 Humanist Essays are critical to meet today’s challenges, by a high school student, a former prisoner who participated in the Pelican Bay Hunger Strikes, and a long-time Marxist-Humanist looking at 1844 from a feminist perspective.
News from Mexico: November-December 2020
Guanajuato has 2,587 missing persons, and 3,438 intentional homicides in the first nine months of 2020; President López Obrador claims to be against neoliberalism, but combines it with state-capitalism in developmentalist projects; many states and communities are COVID-19 hot spots with high levels of deaths, particularly in maquiladoras; and the Zapatistas report on their situation vis-a-vis COVID-19, and their resistance along with CNI against developmentalist projects.
Queer Notes: November-December 2020
Thailand’s LGBTQ Pride Parade demanded resignation of Prime Minister and limitations on King; Black and Brown Trans, non-binary and gender nonconforming people on the South and West Sides of Chicago have a new mutual aid organization; Nigerian Queer rights activist Pamela Adie’s Lesbian love story film “Ife”; and Trans Sistas of Color Project locked out of their venue for their awards brunch.
Count every vote!
In virtually every Bay Area city at least several hundred came out to “Count Every Vote” rallies on Nov. 4, the day after the election with the feeling, as one speaker put it, “vacillating between anxiety and hope.”
Black-led revolt ensures defeat of Trump’s racist campaign
November 27, 2020Racism and the resistance to it permeated the election, from the Trump campaign’s appeal to white supremacy to the outpouring of Black organizing and votes, energized by the new stage of revolt sparked by the police murder of George Floyd. However, grave questions remain about where the U.S. and the world are heading. Movements from below will be challenged to resist the calls for “unity” under the capitalist umbrella and to continue to deepen their revolt against a “return to normal.”
Youth in Action: November-December 2020
Youth and others in several places in Nigeria protest against the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) who rape, extort, and otherwise abuse youth; residential advisors at several big name universities are striking over COVID-19 related issues; and students at Hong Kong Polytechnic University creatively used hundreds of padlocks hanging on a bridge to spell: “Save the 12,” referring to 12 Hong Kong youth abducted from a boat who are now being held in mainland China.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: What is philosophy? What is revolution?
This Political-Philosophic Letter of Raya Dunayevskaya speaks to the need to return to philosophical roots at times of deep crisis, including addressing the question of how to maintain independence when fighting counter-revolution.
Detroit voters speak truth to power
November 26, 2020People in Detroit, Mich., involved in counting the vote of the 2020 presidential election speak for themselves of their pride in fighting Republican intimidation and their anger and determination to keep fighting against racism.
Editorial: Caucasus war concerns all of humanity
Humanity needs to take head of the warfare that broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan in late September, over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh which took the lives of thousands of soldiers, and hundreds of innocent civilians, on both sides.
Latin America Notes
November 25, 2020Chileans voted by 80% to get rid of the 1980 Constitution and begin the process of writing a new one; Bolivia’s presidential election repudiated the right wing that had taken over the government when Evo Morales was forced to flee last year; and in Colombia, thousands of Indigenous people marched hundreds of miles to Bogotá demanding a meeting with the president to protest extreme violence against their peoples.
Biking Mexico Diary: Indigenous protect the forest, land and water
Travelers learn how the Indigenous people of San Marcos, Veracruz, Mexico protect the forest, land and water.
World in View: EU enables fascism
The European Union has once more proved its feckless inability to halt the destruction of democracy by Hungary and Poland, who caused a crisis by vetoing the EU budget, needed to fund the bloc’s COVID-19 recovery plan.
World in View: ISIS in Mozambique
November 24, 2020In early November, terrorists linked to the “Islamic State,” beheaded up to 50 villagers, men and boys, in Mozambique’s northern province of Cabo Delgado. They are looking to exploit extensive energy resources, along with mineral wealth. High unemployment helps fuel the insurgency.
World in view: Massive student-led protests cover Thailand
Tens of thousands of Thai students, many from high schools, have been carrying on massive demonstrations for months demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha; rewriting the Constitution that Prayut foisted on the country, including a Senate appointed by the military; and reining in the vast privileges and protections of the monarchy.
Maryland prisoners organize a union
A prisoner’s expose of the North Branch Correctional Institution; and the demands of a new chapter of the Maryland Prison Labor Organization.
Workers vs. Proposition 22
November 10, 2020Gig companies pushed through California’s Prop 22 denying workers recognition as employees, and want similar laws in other states and countries. Other workers are bracing to see if the “gig economy” will be able to overtake their own industry.
Philosophic dialogue: New perspectives on Marx’s Humanist Essays
A high school student, a former prisoner, and a long-time Marxist-Humanist discuss why Marx’s 1844 Humanist Essays are critical to meet the total challenges to humanity today.
Biking Mexico Diaries: The devil’s bridge
November 3, 2020Continuing with their bike trip throughout Mexico, the author and his friend have to cross “The Devil’s bridge” and they meet a family that has suffered the consequences of developmentalism.
Mexico News: The clandestine graves of Guanajuato
October 31, 2020‘Mexico news’ takes up the thousands of missing people in Mexico and the found clandestine graves; the resistance to Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s developmentalist capitalism; how COVID-19 affects Mexico; and how fare the Zapatistas and their future plans.
Polish women’s revolutionary moment
October 30, 2020While what is happening in Poland may not be a revolution, it is revolutionary. Women are leading a movement protesting the Church’s inhuman attack on women’s freedom, and mounting a deep challenge to the fascist-leaning Polish government.
Trump re-election battles concentrate system’s myriad crises
October 24, 2020In addition to pandemic, climate, and economic disasters, we face the specter of pre-emptive counter-revolution. Self-activity of masses in motion is needed not only to defeat Trump but to move beyond society that breeds Trumpism.
Women WorldWide
October 21, 2020Girls revolt against discriminatory dress code at Wisconsin high school; the death of Shere Hite, author of “The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality”; the struggle against mass hysterectomies performed without informed consent on immigrant women detained in Georgia; and in Mexico City feminists seized the National Human Rights Commission building for five days, renaming it “House of Refuge Ni Una Menos.”
Queer Notes
October 10, 2020The new event, Trans Empowerment Month; Trans founded and run dairy farm colony in Manthithoppu, India; and the alarm in the LGBTQ+ community over the nomination of anti-human-rights judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Biking Mexico Diaries: A story of resistance
October 6, 2020As part of his bike journey throughout Mexico, the author and his partner encounter an amazing local resident and all his tales and knowledge, including the struggle of the people of San Marcos in defense of their water.
Detroit Dispatch #10: Concerns about the election
October 4, 2020Against bureaucratic hurdles, community leaders and activists in Detroit, Michigan are trying to encourage the vote for the November election, especially among young adults.
Support Hlengiwe Gasa
September 29, 2020In an attempt to intimidate Hlengiwe Gasa for leading a peaceful march on July 25 protesting the terrifying levels of violence against women in the community of uMthwalume in South Africa, she was arrested and charged with violating Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.
World in view: Belarus thaws in a world in flames
August 29, 2020President Alexander Lukashenko, “Europe’s last dictator,” has ruled Belarus for 26 years. His time may be up, as hundreds of thousands of protesters have filled the streets of the capital, Minsk.
Youth in action: September-October 2020
Starbucks barista fired for demanding that police also wear masks in the store; California State University in Los Angeles students rally in support of hiring organizer Melina Abdullah as Dean of the College of Ethnic Studies; Dallas, Ga., high school student suspended and threatened by classmates for taking a picture of a crowded school hallway and posting it on social media.
Detroit teachers vote safety strike
The Detroit Federation of Teachers voted to authorize a safety strike, which means they will not teach face-to-face but are willing to work remotely. Most parents, students, and educators want to return to classroom learning, but COVID-19 forces everyone into choices unthinkable six months ago, choices that could mean life or death.
News and Letters Committees office damaged
You can help us recover after a fire near our office caused extensive damage.