Participant report: 60,000 demanded “Families Belong Together!” in Chicago, with 700+ protests nationwide.
Articles
‘Families belong together’: Chicago protests
June 27, 2018In-person report of one of the demonstrations in Chicago, Ill., on June 23, against Trump’s inhuman policy of separating children from their parents at the U.S. border.
Los Angeles Rebellion revisited
June 18, 2018Report of a meeting in Los Angeles to commemorate the April 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion, which was a reaction to an accumulation of racist actions and policies in Los Angeles and the country, directed against Black people day after day and generation after generation.
Inhuman Iraqi rush to judgment
May 28, 2018Iraq’s court system has been blind to the element of coercion as they rush to put to death not only ISIS fighters but their hostages as well. On one April afternoon, two hours was all a judge needed to convict 14 women…
Release prisoner activists in solitary!
May 14, 2018Lawyers in the lawsuit brought by California prisoners against indefinite solitary confinement filed a motion for the monitoring to continue because the four drafters of the Agreement to End Hostilities have been removed from general population to Administrative Segregation Units, based on fabricated information created by staff and/or collaborating inmate informants.
V. Organizational Tasks
It is a question of working out how to actualize for this moment the relationship of philosophy, spontaneity, organization. We look at concrete tasks.
IV. Marx, Lenin, Marxist-Humanism, and the Philosophy of Revolution in Permanence
Lenin’s philosophic break and his Great Divide in Marxism illuminate the need for a new divide in the Left today, as does a new Marxist-Humanist view of Marx’s philosophy of revolution in permanence.
Hershu Habeel, a story by Najm Aldin Samman
May 11, 2018Hershu 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.
The end of ‘Urban Shield’
May 10, 2018First-hand report of a demonstration to end Urban Shield in San Francisco Bay Area, California, on March 27, 2018.
Students in Vermont decry campus racism
Report on a series of meetings at the University of Vermont (UVM) in Burlington on Feb. 13 and 14, 2018, of several hundred students who gathered to protest school administrators’ lack of response to campus racism and to support a UVM staffer who was on a hunger strike.
Youth March for Our Lives
Participants at the March for Our Lives against gun violence in the Bay Area, Calif., Detroit, Mich., and Chicago, Ill. report on the militancy and humanism in the marches in their areas.
Readers’ Views, May-June 2018
Readers’ Views takes up: women’s liberation, youth in the battle, Blacks vs. racism, border cop thugs, Middle East struggles, and voices from behind bars.
Readers’ Views, May-June 2018: Remembering Andy Phillips, 1924-2018
Rememberances of a News and Letters Committees founder, Andy Phillips, coal miner, activist, writer, thinker.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: New moments in Marx form trail to today
To observe the 200th birthday of Karl Marx, we present excerpts of a speech given by Raya Dunayevskaya for the Marx centenary year, originally titled “Marxist-Humanism, 1983: The Summation That Is a New Beginning, Subjectively and Objectively.”
World In View: Iran’s working class speaks from prison
May 9, 2018The pretenses of Iran’s greedy and murderous ruling class continue to be exposed by political prisoners like Esmail Abdi, teachers’ union activist, and Narges Mohammadi, engineer and women’s rights proponent.
Voices From the Inside Out: ACCESS/KEEFE robs prisoners’ families
Prisoner Robert Taliaferro writes of how the predatory company ACCESS/KEEFE is now the most expensive, convoluted and ONLY way Wisconsin prisoners can receive funds from external sources.
World In View: After Italy, European Right coalesces
The victory of Far Right and “populist” parties in Italian elections, preceded by that in Austria, and followed by that in Hungary, emphasizes the current threat of neo-fascism which means to take power in the EU.
World In View: Colombia Humana raises questions
Colombia Humana presidential candidate Gustavo Petro, a former M19 guerrilla, has caught the imagination of Indigenous people, Afrocolombians, and many other poor Colombians.
World In View: Gaza March of Return challenges Israel
The March of Return is a Palestinian national event—reaching toward a new politics that would transcend the failures both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
World In View: Moishe Postone, 1942-2018
In Memoriam for Moishe Postone whose critique of anti-Semitism as a fetishized form of anticapitalism came alive for those struggling with the betrayal of the Syrian Revolution by many “Leftists.”
World In View: UK’s present racism
In April UK Prime Minister Theresa May and her Conservative government were forced to apologize for the racist persecution of Caribbean-born citizens.
III. The reality and the myth of contemporary capitalism
May 5, 2018We look at the world economic situation that must be changed: the role of state-capitalism, labor, climate change, the law of value, exploitation, alienation, and revolution and counter-revolution in Syria.
50 Years later…The 1968 French general strike–its meaning today.
A participant looks at the 1968 French general strike, filled with potential to transform society, and discusses why it failed and the ramifications of that for today.
SF walk against rape
Many survivors of rape, and their supporters including youth from City College of San Francisco, and Transgender people took part in the 13th annual San Francisco A Walk Against Rape.
Fight against Duterte’s fascism
May 4, 2018In-person report of the situation in the Philippines. The fragmented Left complicates the struggle against President Duterte and his fascist rule.
Queer Notes: May-June 2018
May 3, 2018A roundup of GLBTQT news including: Trinity College Dublin students march for quality healthcare for Transgender people; study reveals that Bisexual female youth are more subject to depression and suicide than straight women and Lesbians; Lesbian refugees living in an East African refugee camp will soon have a chicken farm; Queer people and their supporters in Bermuda want tourists to support their businesses, rather than boycotting them.
II. Spreading revolt opens new doors
We look at the true opposition to Trumpism: mass revolt worldwide of women, youth, Black people, labor…–the context to work for new beginnings.
Letter from Mexico: Zapatista and other women meet
May 2, 2018The First International Gathering of Politics, Art, Sport, and Culture for Women in Struggle, organized by the Zapatista Indigenous women, took place in Chiapas from March 8-10. More than 5,000 women from all over the world shared their thoughts on feminism, art and work.
Transgender Children
Review of Heather Brunskell-Evans’ and Michele Moore’s book Transgender Children and Young People: Born in Your Own Body.
L.A. vendors protest
Women street vendors and their supporters demonstrated for legalization, elimination of fees and freedom from police harassment on March 9 as part of International Women’s Day.
Women Worldwide: May-June 2018
A roundup of women’s news including: the Boston Women’s Health Collective will no longer update the iconic Our Bodies Ourselves; Maxine Hammond is fundraising to preserve the Suppressed History of Archives of women resisting oppression; protests against the murder of Black Lesbian Brazilian feminist Marielle Franco; and Belfast Feminist Network’s protest outside an Ulster Rugby team match after players were acquitted of rape.
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2018-2019: Fighting Trump and his fascist allies in practice and theory
May 1, 2018Part I of the Draft Perspectives Thesis: Trump’s war show.
The real threat of war reflects Trump’s extremeness as a product of failing capitalism, which is not an aberration but an index of the nature of U.S. capitalist imperialism.
In Memoriam: Andy Phillips (1924-2018)
We mourn the loss of a founding member of News and Letters Committees, who participated in the first national strike against automation in the coal mines and later co-wrote its history in “The Coal Miners’ General Strike of 1949-50 and the Birth of Marxist-Humanism in the U.S.”
Only revolt grows in Iran’s deserts
Iran’s planned ecological self-destruction has brought poverty, displacement and mass unemployment and mass revolt to local populations as the regime reduces mighty rivers to trickles by diverting water to be used by the oil industry.
Why teachers strike
Public school teachers, historically underpaid as “women’s work,” have been striking or threatening strikes from West Virginia and New Jersey to Oklahoma, Kentucky, Colorado and Arizona.
Remembering Andy Phillips
Kevin O’Brien takes up Andy’s role in the 1949-50 Coal Miners’ General Strike, the overlooked history of African-American miners, and living up to Wendell Phillips, from whom he took his pen name.
Students in Vermont decry campus racism
April 5, 2018Students 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.
Philippines: Human rights vs. Duterte’s fascism
In-person report from the Philippines.
Chicago March For Our Lives
March 25, 2018On 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.
Vendors march for their rights on International Women’s Day
March 24, 2018In-person report of the demonstration of women street vendors in Los Angeles on International Women’s Day fighting for their jobs and for dignity.
March-April 2018 issue is now online!
March 12, 2018Lead: #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…
Handicap This!–March-April 2018
Handicap This! takes up how the U.S. House of Representatives voted to gut the Americans with Disabilities Act with HR Bill 620; that Springfield College in Massachusetts renovated its baseball field and incorporated an “ability field” designed for students with special needs; and that blind students won a discrimination lawsuit against the education company BarBri.
Review: Specters of Revolt
Richard-Gilman Opalsky is a rare intellectual who recognizes revolt as a form of theory. Does his book “Specters of Revolt” grasp theory in a one-sided way and restrict the movement of negation of the negation? .
Uprising in Honduras
Protesters in Honduras consider the Nov. 26, 2017, reelection of President Juan Hernandez to be fraudulent. In the capital, Tegucigalpa, people lay down day after day to block the streets in front of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.
World in View: Arctic ice meltoff
Some climate scientists estimate that the Arctic may be ice-free in summer within a few decades. Nations are already assuming this will happen, as seen by their competition for mineral rights.
World in View: Reaction rises in Brazil and Costa Rica
Racist and homophobic politicians have moved from the fringes to contend for state power in Brazil. Fabricio Alvarado in Costa Rica and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil represent a further step down an anti-human path.
World in View: Libya and Italy chaos
On Feb. 7, 2018, many Libyans celebrated the seventh anniversary of the revolution that overthrew long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi. But the dictator’s toxic influence has outlived him.
World in View: Syria and International solidarity
As this is being written, Russian and Assad regime war planes continue to pound the working-class communities of East Ghouta. Every idea of human solidarity, every faith or philosophy, is being tested.
Letter from Mexico: How will Indigenous movement organize?
The National Indigenous Congress did not collect enough signatures to allow María de Jesús Patricio to run as an independent candidate for President of Mexico in 2018. This has deepened discussions of how to create horizontal, autonomous organizations born from below.
In Syria only solution: ‘revolution, revolution’
As Assad regime and Russian forces continue slaughter in Ghouta with bombs and chemical weapons while world powers refuse to interfere, supporters of Free Syria staged emergency vigils in Chicago on Feb. 18 and 25 demanding the bombing of Ghouta end and the blockade be lifted.