Trump expanded both the war on Venezuela and the world’s spiral into war. Its connection to his war to subdue the people in the U.S. was brought home by an ICE agent’s murder of Renee Nicole Good.
Articles
Venezuela, oil, and great power politics: A Marxian political economy analysis
The U.S. capture of Venezuela’s president by the U.S. on Jan. 3 was framed as a fight against criminal networks. Beneath the surface, the event is part of a broader geopolitical struggle: a contest over resources, a selective application of international law, and the enduring hierarchies of global capitalism.
Review: ‘Abortion in the Age of Unreason’
A physician who performed abortions for over 50 years describes his patients’ experiences and the evolving political situation. It reminds activists to be unapologetic about fighting for abortion rights: “Opposition to and psychological warfare against abortion is the principal organizing tool in America for imposing a totalitarian state.”
Queer Notes: December 2025
December 31, 2025Takes up: U.S. stopped federal protections for Trans and Intersex prisoners; International Transgender Day of Remembrance 2025; protests in Turkey against a bill criminalizing same-sex relations and gender-affirming surgery; and Russian LGBTQ+ people fleeing to Argentina.
Women WorldWide: December 2025
December 23, 2025Takes up: spread of the Nordic Model in Europe, i.e., decriminalizing victims of prostitution while criminalizing pimps and customers; and 2025 International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
Free Ibtissame Betty Lachgar!
December 8, 2025Appeal to help free Ibtissame Betty Lachgar, a Moroccan feminist and human rights defender imprisoned for a peaceful act of expression.
Handicap This!: December 2025
Takes up: UK stories of artists and activists living with disabilities; women in Moldova and Armenia helping women with disabilities be independent; and Sylvain LeMay receiving the Canadian Union of Public Employees National Disability Rights Activism Award.
World in View: The Mapuche Autonomist Struggle
November 30, 2025Excerpts from a statement issued by Internationalist Solidarity with the Mapuche Autonomist Struggle calling to stand with the Mapuche people resisting occupation and extractivism in Chile and Argentina.
Women World Wide: November 2025
November 29, 2025Takes up: Mary “May” McGee, who won a 1973 Irish Supreme Court case legalizing contraceptives; Despite a Nov. 6 protest of over 10,000, the Latvian parliament voted to exit the Istanbul Convention against violence against women; Women for Change in South Africa organized a protest against a femicide rate five times higher than the global average.
World in View: Indigenous peoples challenge climate summit
November 24, 2025Indigenous peoples came en masse to this year’s climate summit, protesting, meeting, and insisting on radical participation. However, they were met with open resistance, feeble responses, and indifference from many countries, especially the rich ones.
Review: ‘We Choose To: A Memoir of Providing Abortion Care Before, During, and After Roe’
November 22, 2025Authors Dr. Curtis Boyd and Dr. Glenna Halvorson-Boyd describe experiences in providing abortion care. The book provides hope that we can defeat authoritarianism and create a compassionate, connected society.
Starbucks workers on strike
November 17, 2025Two Starbucks workers speak about their strike that began Nov. 13. Workers demand resolution of their unfair labor practice complaints and better wages, staffing, hours, and working conditions.
Protest AT&T support for ICE
Participant report of a protest in Evanston, Ill., demanding AT&T end its contracts with ICE and Homeland Security.
Don’t wait to demonstrate against ICE/CBP
November 3, 2025On Nov. 1, over 1,000 people rallied in Evanston, a suburb of Chicago, to protest the inhumanity and brutality of Trump and Kristy Noem’s ICE and Customs and Border Patrol. Fascism is here and now is the time for us all to step forward and be antifa.
World in View: War, mass murder, genocide and capitalism’s culpability
The horrendous realities in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Congo, Rio de Janeiro and Venezuela are connected. Several of the world’s powers are implicated. The global capitalist system allows mass murder, rape and genocide to become “normalized.”
Queer Notes: October 2025
October 31, 2025Takes up: UK Supreme Court ruling that sex assigned at birth determines legal sex; anti-gay legislation in Burkina Faso; a Takatapui exhibit in Aotearoa/New Zealand; advances for rights of Intersex people in Europe; and protection of Trans and Intersex people in Pakistan.
No Kings Day 2
October 26, 2025A roundup of participant reports: an estimated 7 million rallied for No Kings Day 2 in 2,700 locations on Oct. 18, 2025. The joy of collective revolt mixed with oppressive awareness of the paramilitary occupation of cities like Chicago. But hardly a day goes by without new episodes of self-organized resistance.
Women WorldWide: October 2025
October 25, 2025Takes up: the life of anti-gender violence activist Susan Xenarios; South Korean women suing the U.S. military for maintaining a network of prostitution; World Women’s March in Canada; and an anti-femicide march in Argentina.
Lead article: Climate justice demands solidarity with Gaza
October 20, 2025Tracing the development of the climate movement—from its focus on environmental issues to divisions over opposing genocide in Gaza—Franklin Dmitryev argues that the climate justice movement inherently reaches for a broader understanding of the roots of the climate crisis and the need for a deep social transformation.
Women in Afghanistan stand defiant
October 19, 2025Four years after the Taliban took over Afghanistan women have been reduced to non-persons with no future possible under their fascist rule. But women continue to fight, declaring: “the fall of Afghanistan was not the fall of our will.”
Chicagoans—old and young—fight back against ICE
October 7, 2025Participant’s report of a Community Defense Workshop on Oct. 4 at a Chicago school. Responding to the feds’ ongoing attacks on immigrants, our goal: “to keep our city’s people safe and supported as well as to manifest that we, the people, have the power to resist and organize against our increasingly fascist federal government.”
Editorial: Make Americans ignorant? Not in our name!
October 6, 2025From food safety to public health, from immigration to Black history to Israel’s war on Palestinians, the Trump administration is stripping access to important information. But every strategy to attack information and thought has generated new resistance.
Handicap This! October 2025
Takes up: Opening of the Disability Cultural Center in San Francisco; ‘Everyone Is Good at Something’ by Indian photographer Vicky Roy; and new steps in the struggle for the rights of people with disabilities in Ireland.
Thousands march in Philippines for accountability
October 5, 2025Participant’s report of the “Trillion Peso March”, which took place on Sept. 21 in Manila and other cities in Philippines, to protest corruption in the awarding of government contracts to fake flood control projects.
👀 Eyes on Education: Back to school
A view of the educational situation in several states of the U.S., from budget cuts and ideological repression to language discrimination and the introduction of AI in classrooms.
In-person report: The People’s Conference for Palestine
September 28, 2025The second annual People’s Conference for Palestine brought 4,500 Palestinian and U.S. student-activists and their allies together in Detroit, focused on the urgent need to stop Israel’s genocide in Palestine and to end the suffering in Gaza and the West Bank.
Young Voices from the Second People’s Conference for Palestine
A collection of participants’ voices in the the second annual People’s Conference for Palestine, which took place in Detroit August 29-31.
Nepal’s Gen-Z Protests: A Marxian Lens on a Generation’s Outrage
September 27, 2025Nepal’s 2025 protests reflect a generation’s deep frustration with economic, social, and political marginalization. Youth recognizing their collective disadvantage even without formal organization is an emerging “class consciousness,” though it has not yet achieved a revolutionary transformation.
Women WorldWide: September 2025
September 20, 2025Takes up: proliferation of women’s “co-living spaces” in China; 51st anniversary of Studio D, the only publicly-funded feminist filmmaking studio in Canada; a march in Spain demanding worldwide abolition of reproductive surrogacy; and the Women Against the Far-Right campaign in Great Britain.
Unpaid work is over
August 31, 2025Days after going on strike, flight attendants at Air Canada won a tentative contract that stops unpaid work hours and increases their wage. Their defiance of Section 107 of the Labour Relations Code, meant to force all the picketers back to work, strengthens other strikers to resist it.
Queer Notes: August 2025
Takes up: Flame Con comics convention in NYC; the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court ruling St. Lucia’s colonial-era anti-gay-sex laws unconstitutional; resistance against Trump’s anti-Transgender policies; United in Pride, a grassroots organization in Ottawa; and Graeme Reid renewed as the UN’s LGBTQ+ expert scholar and author.
Women WorldWide: August 2025
Takes up: a demonstration in Lippstadt, Germany, against Evangelical Lippstadt Hospital’s decision to stop providing abortions; a Superior Court Justice in Ontario, Canada, finding five men not guilty of sexual assault; and police removing migrants, mostly women and children, from a makeshift encampment outside the City Hall in Paris, France.
The collapse of Bolivia’s Movement for Socialism
August 28, 2025After 20 years in power, the Movement for Socialism was dealt an electoral blow in Bolivia. The seeds were planted in the three terms of Evo Morales as president, beginning in 2006. The substitution of an electoral pathway for a full social uprooting blunted the Indigenous mass protest as a pathway to freedom.
Israeli masses demand end to war
August 22, 2025On Aug. 17, Israelis throughout the country demanded a ceasefire, a deal to free the hostages, the provision of food and aid into Gaza, and not to further invade and occupy Gaza. Throughout the day there was civil disobedience.
Oakland residents fight gerrymandering, defend democracy
Participant’s report of the Aug. 16 demonstration in Oakland to support California’s Congressional redistricting. The demands ranged from “save democracy” to solidarity with those raided by ICE, “protect trans kids” and “resist fascism” to “defy, rebel, resist, disobey.”
Review: ‘Plundered: How Racist Policies Undermine Black Homeownership in America’
‘Plundered,’ a study of housing in Detroit, reveals widespread predatory governance: local governments raise public dollars through racist policies. Its author spearheads a dozen community groups that assist individuals to regain their property.
World in View: Sudan, from revolutionary upsurge to humanitarian crisis
People in Sudan are experiencing the worst cholera outbreak in years, as well as destroyed villages and rape as a weapon of war. The upsurge of Sudanese masses in 2019 showed an emancipatory pathway forward when they overthrew Omar al-Bashir’s 30-year dictatorship.
Hope for Gaza
August 18, 2025Small signs of defiance: Israel’s military Chief of Staff refused to authorize an expanded assault on Gaza. Israel’s Attorney General defied Netanyahu’s anti-democratic orders. 74% of Israelis support an agreement with Hamas that would release all the hostages in exchange for an end to the Gaza war.
Detroiters demand an end to genocide in Gaza
August 8, 2025Participant report of the Coalition Against Genocide’s protest in Detroit on Aug. 2: “We are determined to stop the Israeli government’s ongoing siege and murder of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.” said the author.
World in View: El Salvador intensifies authoritarianism
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s iron-fisted rule swept tens of thousands into dungeons. The National Assembly changed the Constitution to allow unlimited re-election to the presidency. Illegal mass deportations to El Salvador from the U.S. continue without any due process. Tens of thousands of Salvadorans continue to be locked up and tortured in the inhuman prison known as CECOT.
World in View: Bangladesh one year after
A year ago, a massive student-led movement overthrew the dictatorial rule of Sheikh Hasina. One year on, where does Bangladesh stand? Women’s experiences show that Bangladesh has a long way to go.
Columbia University settles with fascism
August 3, 2025Columbia University acquiesced to the Trump administration which restores their federal funding and grant money but agreed to punish students exercising their free speech against the genocide in Gaza. In addition, Columbia will have to pay $221 million to the federal government. This “is a disaster for higher education,” says Todd Wolfson, National President of the American Association of University Presidents.
Handicap This!: July 2025
Takes up: an orphanage who cares for children with disabilities in Uganda; Nova Scotia’s New Student Code of Conduct; a protest against President Trump’s big bill on Capitol Hill; and Alberta’s Premier Danielle Smith stealing money from the Canada Disability Benefit.
Antiwar message
News and Letters Committees’ response to the call for solidarity messages to the 63rd International Antiwar Assembly held yearly in Japan.
Guest Essay: The Pedagogical Crisis of Political Economy
July 29, 2025Muhammad Adel Zaky argues that neoclassical economics aims to produce knowledge devoid of humanity, conflict, or memory. Schools and universities have become a theater of indoctrination. To liberate political economy and education from this prison is a civilizational emergency.
Education roundup: What did you do over summer vacation?
July 26, 2025The Trump administration has doggedly tried to destroy public education by cutting its funding, barring children of undocumented parents from Head Start, sabotaging school lunch programs, as well as what is taught. His national school voucher program continues the attack.
Women WorldWide: July 2025
July 25, 2025Takes up: the life of feminist activist Susan Brownmiller; the UK government announcing a bill that would criminalize pornography depicting strangulation; and International Domestic Workers Day.
Queer Notes: July 2025
July 20, 2025Takes up: Hungarian Supreme Court ruling that President Orban’s law banning public displays of homosexuality is illegal; Black Pride Colorado’s fund raise for “Diana,” a Trans woman attacked with acid in Philadelphia; and Kashish Pride Film Festival in Mumbai, India.
The totalitarian attack on thought
Part I of Franklin Dmitryev’s Organization Report, The Idea of Freedom Strikes Back, given to the Convention of News and Letters Committees on May 31, 2025, takes up the attacks on freedom movements as not just an attack on facts. It is a rush to totalitarian thought control. It is an attempt by the oppressors to project the false idea that resistance is futile, and you are powerless. It is also a confession that radical ideas are dangerous which implies a recognition that the ideas, imagination and philosophy are consequential.
Editorial: Welcome to police-state USA
For immigrants—documented or undocumented—the U.S. is becoming a police state. Next year, it could be for the rest of us. The real opposition can only come from citizens and non-citizens protesting and organizing, putting their minds and bodies against a growing fascist state.