More than 25,000 women in red cloaks and white bonnets formed human chains in 70 locations across Israel on March 8, combining commemorating International Women’s Day with protests in opposition to the proposed laws to turn Israel into a theocratic dictatorship. Yet Palestinian women’s voices were missing.
Efforts to declare an end to the COVID pandemic are part of a drive to return to a pretended normal, to keep anything fundamental from changing–even if it means leaving the door wide open for the next pandemic
Fearing defeat in the 2021 Presidential elections, Ortega’s solution was to jail or deport every possible presidential candidate, along with others opposing his rule, including ex-Sandinistas from the revolution like well-known Sandinista Comandante Dora María Téllez.
While tens of thousands across the globe marked the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with support rallies for Ukraine’s fight for self-determination, there were a few disturbing “anti-war” rallies bringing together far-right with Left groups calling for an end to supplying arms to Ukraine.
A Lesbian mother in Mexico was reunited with her young children thanks to Lesbian Mothers in Mexico and All Out; about 50 high school students of the Wyoming Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) met with state legislators on the GSA’s biannual Civics Day; and in Tunisia, NGOs circulated a petition demanding freedom for a Trans woman and Trans man sentenced to prison for suspicion of taking part in an LGBTQ+ event.
Tunisia’s President Saied demonized Black immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa as the latest move in his authoritarian takeover.
With the world’s highest incarceration rate, El Salvador is rounding up young men by the thousands and throwing them into its gigantic new prison with shocking inhumanity.
On Feb. 14, 2023, a small but vigorous demonstration in front of Cass Technical High School called by the Detroit People’s Platform protested tax increment financing (TIF) for downtown development projects, which flourish while tax-funded public libraries and schools struggle to make ends meet.
A Burmese woman activist speaks about the war against civilians by the Tatmadaw and the need for solidarity.
Students from 47 schools in Iowa walk out of class on March 1 to protest “Don’t Say Gay” bills; state legislatures are rolling back child labor laws; Scottish youth protest cuts to a youth assistance and engagement program.
News and Letters Committees is one of many signatories to this statement. More such events are sure to be held, and it is vital to be aware of their reactionary “red-brown” nature.
Comrade Easley reports that an LAPD cop was murdered by fellow officers after submitting reports from a woman who claimed four officers raped her.
Dozens of protesters marched in downtown Detroit chanting: “Stop Cop City!” They opposed the expansion of Camp Grayling to more than double its current police training grounds.
People with disabilities protest UK anti-protest law; Senegal woman with disabilities works to ensure access for disabled children; Saskatchewan people with disabilities demand better access and benefits.
Readers’ Views on: This Society’s Ingrained Violence; After the Murder of Tyre Nichols; Women and Girls Face Oppression; Church Sexism and Hypocrisy; Fundamentalism vs. Women; Call to Action; Censorship Here and Now; Brexit Catastrophe; China’s Workers and U.S.; Iran Revolt Continues; Azadkar, In Memoriam
Readers’ Views on: Ukrainian Self-Determination and the Idea of Freedom; N&L for the Study Group; Sharing the Paper; Climate Movements vs. Summits; Unsanitary Prison Conditions; Prison Exploitation; Voices from behind Bars
Voices from a California solidarity action with Russian dissidents who expressed their opposition to Putin’s war within Russia.
Israeli settlers carried out a pogrom against the Palestinian town of Hawara with the complicity of the Israeli military.
Two prisoners speak for themselves, one on the lack of respect for Black lives on the streets and in prison; the other on how prisoners at Georgia’s Forest Hays Jr. State Prison are deprived of justice.
The race for mayor of Chicago is now between Brandon Johnson, a teacher endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), and Paul Vallas, a former boss of the Chicago Public Schools who trashes the CTU at every opportunity. The runoff election on April 4 will be in part a referendum on rank-and-file unionism.
The Norfolk Southern train that derailed on Feb. 3, 2023, in East Palestine, Ohio, threatening the health and lives of thousands of residents, can’t be called an accident. Not when railroad workers were cut out of negotiating over safety, and not when decisions by the railroad made this and other ecological disasters predictable rather than surprising.
It is status quo for police, judges, and the general public, to doubt accusations made by women of abuse by men. But the idea that women are seeking money, and commonly lie about partner violence and sexual abuse, is a myth. Fraudulent accusations are rare, and assaults are vastly underreported.
Like Electra, the character from the Greek tragedy, my mother, the first born and only daughter of my grandmother and grandfather, struck back. She acquired legal custody of my grandmother to protect her from my so-called “uncles,” who have patronized my mother until this point. Now they are “dazed and confused.”
Adele reviews “Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood,” by Michele Goodwin, Goodwin describes the increasing wave of legislation regulating pregnancy and criminalizing miscarriages, stillbirths and supposed “endangerment” of the fetus.
For the 60th anniversary of the groundbreaking “American Civilization on Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard,” we present a section from the introduction to the pamphlet’s first edition–at the very time when right-wing forces are trying to prevent the teaching and discussion of the true history of the U.S. and especially the freedom movements that run through that history.
“American Civilization on Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard” is a Marxist-Humanist classic that speaks directly to today’s situation.
The U.S. Youth Risk Behavior Survey of 17,000 high school students revealed “America’s teen girls are engulfed in a growing wave of sadness, violence, and trauma”; women and girls in Iran are revolting against the regime by uncovering their hair and throwing out hijab; and the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team and the Canadian Women’s National Soccer Team turned their match into a labor solidarity action.
So much is happening regarding abortion—since the reactionary U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, trashing women’s right to abortion, a human right we’ve had for 50 years—that it is almost impossible to keep track of. For help, you can turn to the splendid blog of Jessica Valenti, “Abortion Every Day.”
Twin earthquakes on Feb. 6 decimated a vast area of Turkey and Syria. They produced a catastrophe with human tragedies over hundreds of square miles. But it was the man-made disaster on top of the natural one that killed more than half of the over 50,000 victims accounted for so far.
To avoid Russia’s outright defeat in its brutal war against Ukrainians, the alliance of nations–Russia, Iran, and China, now with North Korea–that for 12 years has united to suppress the Syrian Revolution for freedom and dignity seems to be firming up again.
The murder of Tyre Nichols by Memphis police reveals the racism permeating police departments and sparked protests across the U.S. calling into question the system in which the violence is rooted. The police murder of tree-sitter Tortuguita in Atlanta showed how deep the rot is and the uprooting needs to become.
The revolution in Iran has been continuous since the funeral of Jina (Mahsa) Amini on Sept. 17, 2022. To the dismay of the Iranian rulers, new strata of the population keep joining the revolt, which was already tremendously diverse.
States are replacing personal mail with digital scans or copies, violating rights and undermining rehabilitation.
Call for Convention of News and Letters Committees, 2023
Congress has done its best to become the nation’s strikebreaker by forcing a five-year contract on railroad workers who had been set to go on strike on Dec. 12.
Misogyny is ingrained in society, as are disdain, discrimination and abuse. Sexism works for the Catholic Church and they are determined to keep it.
Adele reviews the book “Radius: A Story of Feminist Revolution” by Yasmin El-Rifae, taking up Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment and Assault during the Arab Spring in Egypt.
Susan Van Gelder reviews the book “A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto” by China Miéville.
A prisoner speaks out “to raise awareness of how everything here in Utah’s prison system is going to hell.”
Feminists in Armenia and Azerbaijan aim to break the cycle of violence between the countries; hundreds of acid attack survivors held a seminar in Delhi, India; Iranian women played soccer in London to support the uprising, and protested Qatar’s homophobic, sexist, and racist regime; Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter held a vigil for at least 10 women murdered by current or former male partners in British Columbia.
Supporters of a Winnipeg cafe opposed threats made against a drag story hour; Granbury, Texas, school district is investigated after ordering librarians to remove all LGBTQ+ books; Indian photographer Nishat Fatima’s exhibition seeks to raise awareness of the various dimensions within the LGBTQ+ community.
A member of the Socialist Youth of Germany (The Falcons) discusses their aim for a liberated society where people have ruptured the logic of capitalist exploitation in thought and action and taken on responsibility for themselves and their environment.
A popular rebellion by Peruvian Indigenous and peasants demands self-determination and opposes plutocracy but faces repression under the reactionary Congress and the establishment’s president who replaced the elected president.
Tooraj Haji Moradi (1952-2022), whose pen name was Azadkar, was a revolutionary to his core and remained so throughout his life. Upon his return from the Iranian Revolution, he influenced a whole generation of Iranian youth who became Marxist-Humanists.
From the January-February 2023 issue of News & Letters
It hurts to hear that Azadkar has passed. He was slightly built, but a giant in making the Iranian Revolution indigenous to Marxist-Humanism, and Marxist-Humanism indigenous to the Iranian Revolution. He and I participated in an international summit of farmers in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, [=>]
Truck drivers in Jordan were on strike during most of December, as soaring fuel prices have left them unable to work. Other Jordanians, especially youth, who are fed up with energy prices and high unemployment, held protests which blocked two highways.
School support workers in Ontario, members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, ratified a four-year contract on Dec. 6, after weeks of defying both school administrators and provincial politicians.
At last over 600,000 Michigan workers will receive increased minimum wages and earn paid sick leave, thanks to a court ruling this summer overturning a 2018 law the state legislature had quickly and cynically passed.
Readers’ Views on: Women’s Struggles for Freedom; Open Season on Lgbtq+ ; Healthcare Workers on Strike; Lois Curtis; Immigrant Solidarity Needed; Putin vs. Ukraine; U.S. Right vs. Ukraine; Water and Humanity’s Future
Bob McGuire reviews the book “Sweet Years of Protest: 1990-2021; A Chronicle of Actions, Ideas, and Events” by Séamas Cain.
