Baridi, one of the signers of the 2012 “Agreement to End Hostilities,” talks about the contradictions of the U.S. prison system.
Articles
Mental health strike
Four thousand mental health workers at Kaiser Permanente HMO held a five-day strike, once again calling attention to a serious lack of resources to provide timely care.
Queer notes, March-April 2020
Queer notes on youth in Vietnam; anti-LGBTQ actions at the University of Louisville; and the firing of two teachers at John F. Kennedy High School after announcing their engagements to same-sex partners.
Voices from the inside out: Impeachment and injustice
Prisoner Robert Taliaferro’s column on the meaning of the Senate’s impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump.
Prison slave labor
Federal prisoner slave labor is producing comic books and other materials for the U.S. market. UNICOR corporation pays federal prisoners from 23¢ to $1.15 per hour, often working 15½-hour shifts, with unpaid lunch and dinner times, but no other breaks.
AMLO and Trump join forces to oppress
Despite Mexican President López Obrador’s sweet words about humanitarian treatment of Central American immigrants entering Mexico, the truth is horribly different.
‘Leftover Women’
Review of ‘Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China’ by Leta Hong Fincher, which debunks the Chinese government’s propaganda that the status of women has been soaring since the introduction of corporate capitalism.
Zapatistas host ‘Women Who Fight’
Report by two women who attended the Zapatista Second International Gathering of Women Who Fight in Chiapas, Mexico.
World in view: In Syria, righteous hours expose evil years
Free Syrians continue to fight the regime and Russia, and regime supporters keep pressing for genocide. They cannot coexist.
World in view: Notes on a pandemic
Every aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic can be expected to highlight the class nature of society. The more important thing to remember is human solidarity.
Youth in action, March-April 2020
Youth in action column on the Valentine’s Day’s Fridays 4 Future and Climate Strike protests, and the student group Teens Take Charge’s actions against segregation in New York schools.
Review of Joseph Daher’s ‘Syria After the Uprising’
Review of the book ‘Syria After the Uprisings: The Political Economy of State Resilience’ by Joseph Daher. The author situates the Assad regime and Syria’s three counter-revolutions into a broader trend of global neoliberalism.
World in view: France, Ireland, & ‘the idea of Europe’
March 11, 2020With Brexit, the rise of the far right, Macron’s vacuous French nationalism, and Sinn Fein’s victory in Irish elections, the “idea of Europe” is under great strain.
Torture of immigrants in the U.S.
As millions of immigrants improve the U.S. in various ways, Donald Trump continues a crusade to keep his most vile campaign promises, like stopping dark-skinned immigrants.
Copper miners strike
The strike of more than 1,500 copper miners and smelters in Arizona and Texas against Asarco/Grupo Mexico has entered its fifth month, part of a new wave of labor solidarity and revolt.
Voices from the inside out: On becoming human
Faruq reflects on the question of social interaction in the modern capitalist world, seen from the point of view of someone who has spent several years in prison.
The Power of Women’s Liberation in Mexico
March 10, 2020Participant report of women’s strike in Mexico City, March 9, 2020.
Essay: Ecosocialism and post-Marx Marxism
March 8, 2020Franklin Dmitryev explores the limitations of how “ecosocialism” rethinks, partially, post-Marx Marxism, focusing on theoreticians Michael Lowy and Joel Kovel.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: African revolutions at the crossroads
This 60th anniversary of the “Year of Africa,” the turning point of the African revolutions, sheds light on today’s dilemmas. We reprint for the first time Dunayevskaya’s Weekly Political Letter written immediately after her 1962 trip to Africa.
Editorial: Trump after impeachment
In the aftermath of Trump’s impeachment trial, impunity and purges rage while checks and balances failed. Armed with a philosophy of freedom, the opposition to Trump and to the capitalist system that spawned him would give Trump the challenge that fellow politicians could not.
Women worldwide, March-April 2020
Women worldwide column on Wet’suwet’en women fighting Coastal GasLink Pipeline; the Murang’a County Women savings and credit cooperative in Kenya; artist Jimini Hignett; dress codes for women in Japan; and Indian women demonstrating against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new racist citizenship law.
COVID-19: A world-historic threat
March 7, 2020Gerry Emmett analyzes the meaning of the current coronavirus pandemic from the point of view of what Karl Marx called humanity’s metabolism with nature, which formed the basis of his critique of capitalism.
Women’s movements reach for new global stage
March 6, 2020What has become clear in 2020 is the global nature of the women’s movements. It is a new stage which has announced itself by the international fight against femicide; the Women’s Marches; and by the National Women’s Meetings in Latin America, also called Encuentros.
Readers’ views, March-April 2020: Part two
Readers’ views on philosophy and the retrogressive changed world; pandemics and social control; mental illness and criminal ‘justice’; culture’s bizarre normal; and voices from behind bars.
World in view: South Africa cuts
South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa plans to cut the wages of public sector workers. He has come to represent the contradictions of post-apartheid society.
#FixTheElevators
March 4, 2020A coalition of students and workers at Wayne State University in Detroit have been conducting a campaign since November 2019 for the elevators on campus to be repaired. It is a disability, safety, and working conditions issue.
Indigenous protest megaprojects
Report from Mexico on the three Days of Action “In Defense of Territory and Mother Earth,” by a participant in Mexico City.
Workers strike Aptiv!
More than 18,000 workers at the U.S. company Aptiv’s maquiladora plants in Mexico walked out because, after a 120-peso wage increase, Aptiv withheld much more than that for taxes.
Letter from Mexico: Indigenous create tools of resistance
Report on the Assembly from Oaxaca in Defense of the Land and Territory, held as part of the three Days of Action called by the Zapatistas and the National Indigenous Congress to commemorate one year since the murder of Indigenous activist Samir Flores.
News and Letters Committees Call for Convention 2020
March 2, 2020POSTPONED: Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2020-2021
Nuevo número de Praxis en América Latina (febrero-marzo 2020)
February 11, 2020Los diálogos revolucionarios de los zapatistas y el CNI: ¿Cuál es el desafío para nosotr@s? * Voces del Foro en Defensa del Territorio y la Madre Tierra * ENSAYO: El Foro en Defensa de la Madre Tierra, la unidad de las luchas desde una perspectiva dialéctica y ¿qué sigue ahora? * Crónicas de dos asistentes al Segundo Encuentro Internacional de Mujeres que Luchan * De los escritos de Raya Dunayevskaya: Notas preliminares sobre la Ciencia de la lógica de Hegel * Además, textos sobre los megaincendios en Australia; la huelga en las maquilas de Chihuahua, Durango y Zacatecas; la rebelión continua en Hong Kong y varios más…
COVID-19 and the specter of pandemic
January 27, 2020The spread of the coronavirus cannot be viewed in isolation from the corruption of China’s state-capitalism and the danger the virus poses especially to the poor, homeless and refugees.
Voices from the inside out: Impeachment reveals flaws of democracy
January 22, 2020Prisoner Robert Taliaferro reflects critically on the myth of democracy in the U.S., revealed by Trump’s impeachment.
Queer notes, January-February 2020
The death of Charlot Jeudy, president of Haiti Queer rights group Kouraj; anti-LGBTQ+ norms in Turkey; anti-Trans laws in India; and the largest-ever art exhibit about Southeast Asian LGBTQ+ people in Bangkok.
The fall of Morales; whither Bolivia?
Important human forces in Bolivia are strongly opposing the threat of a developing fascism, and at the same time have not shied away from criticizing the contradictions of Evo Morales’s rule.
Readers’ Views, January-February 2020, Part Two
Readers’ Views on Philosophy and Revolution; disorder is the order; anti-Semitism; Black August, and voices from behind bars.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2020, Part One
Readers’ Views on Capitalism and climate; Mideast upheaval; Trump the Mullah?; war crime hero; Trump’s judges; detransition debate; and women’s liberation.
Handicap this!: January-February 2020
Handicap This! takes up: Mistreatment of disabled patients at Iowa’s Glenwood Resource Center; Venezuela’s ongoing economic collapse hitting the sick and disabled; the Accessible Materials in Higher Education Act; and the removal of a mural depicting struggles for rights at the University of Chicago.
Essay: Revolution in Permanence: Trotsky, Marx, Dunayevskaya
Review from Mexico of the book ‘La filosofía de la revolución en permanencia de Marx en nuestros días’ (Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution in Permanence for Our Day. Selected Writings by Raya Dunayevskaya).
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Crises of retrogressive Changed World
Raya Dunayevskaya explores the concept of the “Changed World’ of the 1980s, which followed the economic crisis and the restructuring that capitalist rulers imposed, with political retrogression, intensified militaristic imperialism, and ideological pollution.
Art out of genocide
January 21, 2020Review of the multimedia exhibit: “Stories Never Told: Yemen’s Crises and Renaissance,” in which Yemeni artists and hundreds of others spoke truth to power through their art.
Honda workers sit in
Report on the strike by Honda workers in Faridabad, India, in opposition to the company’s demand for signing a good conduct bond before entering the factory.
CTU’s partial victory
Report on the partial victory of the Chicago Teachers Union’s 11-day strike in mid-November.
Right’s war on voters
Republican state officials around the country are enacting policies to depress the vote of poor people, students, and people of color to extend their minority control of state and federal government.
Google and Amazon workers rebel
Google and Amazon tech workers organize around the companies’ complicity in war, environmental destruction, and workplace safety.
Women Worldwide, January-February 2020
International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in France; ecofeminists in Uganda; and protests against the gang-rape of a 19-year-old British girl in Cyprus.
Review: ‘Without Apology’
Review of ‘Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now’, on the history of the women’s liberation movement’s struggle for full reproductive justice.
Woman as Reason: Anti-femicide goes global
Women are deepening a global movement to combat violence against us, from violent rapes to domestic battering to outright femicide. Demonstrations have spread across the globe.
World in View: Putin after Putin?
Russian President Vladimir Putin is laying the groundwork for his own continued hold on state power.
World in View: Reactionary Brexit
The Dec. 12 general elections in Britain were a victory for world reaction, reinforcing the racist 2016 vote to leave the European Union.