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.
Articles
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.
Fracking cannibalizes our future
The fracking boom turned to bust and a wave of bankruptcies reveals the current operation of decaying capitalism in miniature: cannibalizing the economy, people and the planet, destroying our future, in order to funnel wealth to the favored few.
Soledad families say: “We Are Their Voice!”
Voices of family members of prisoners and other supporters speaking out as they demonstrated in front of Soledad prison.
Thoughts from the outside: Black August, an evolving Idea
For many New Afrikan Revolutionaries August has a profound significance. For me Black August attempts to set forth a new humanism.
COVID-19 at San Quentin
Several hundred people, including many family members of prisoners at San Quentin Prison, Calif., demonstrated for the fifth time in the last three months to protest the state’s murder of prisoners by COVID-19.
Amid election battles, masses demand no return to normal
Nationwide Black-led revolt and white supremacist backlash, class struggles and the ravages of a pandemic and economic collapse are taking place amid election battles and attacks on democracy.
Readers’ views, September-October 2020, part one
Readers’ Views takes up: Black revolt and racism; dialectics of liberation; school battles; election victories; history and freedom; class struggles; and fighting the Right wing.
Readers’ views: September-October 2020, part two
Readers’ Views takes up: Queer safety is a human right; fake green politics; women in India; women in the U.S.; shameless evictions; voices from behind bars.
Essay: The Forum in Defense of Territory and Mother Earth–Unity of the struggles from a dialectical perspective, and what comes next?
In light of the Zapatistas’ Forum in Defense of Territory and Mother Earth, Héctor explores the search for unity by diverse movements in relation to Hegel’s dialectic of the whole and the parts.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Remembering John Lewis and Bloody Sunday–Racist barbarity spawned new forms of revolt
In the wake of the March 7, 1965, “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Alabama, where the recently deceased John Lewis was one of the freedom marchers clubbed and beaten, News & Letters issued this statement highlighting both the new revolt that was sparked and the contradictions between the leaders and ranks in the Freedom Now movement in a way that speaks powerfully to today’s movement.
Queer Notes, September-October 2020
Camila Falquez’s photo manifesto of Trans and Queer Black and Brown people; the arrest in Poland of Transgender rights activist Małgorzata Szutowicz, and the rally to support her; Mexico City’s outlawing of conversion therapy; and a remembrance in Allentown, Pa., for 20 Black, Transgender and Indigenous people murdered for being who they were.
Letter from Mexico: Ecological protest in Xochimilco
Participant report of a protest against the construction of a bridge that would destroy the wetland of Xochimilco, one of the few natural zones remaining in Mexico City.
Handicap This!: September-October 2020
Staggering COVID-19 death toll in New York nursing homes and nationwide in nursing homes housing the disabled; impact of school closures on special needs students; Team Brit allows people with disabilities to participate in motorsports.