An inperson report on how people in Oakland, California, creatively protested President Trump on Presidents’ Day.
Articles
Statement on Venezuela by the Anti-War Committees in Solidarity with The Struggles for Self-Determination
February 19, 2019We share the Statement on Venezuela by the Anti-War Committees in Solidarity with The Struggles for Self-Determination, which looks at the situation today, its history, and takes the measure of today’s Left.
January-February 2019 issue of News & Letters is now online!
February 4, 2019Lead article: Trump aids capitalism’s attack on labor, and workers strike back; Editorial: Brazil under Bolsonaro’s heel; From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Rosa Luxemburg’s revolutionary life and legacy; The Green not-so-great New Deal; Voices From the Inside Out: Wisconsin’s prison system on trial; Woman as Reason: Anti-Semitism mars Women’s March; Essay: How dead thought failed Syrian revolution’s living history; Unity in Los Angeles teachers’ strike; Sudan rises against genocidal Bashir; Women in Spain say: ‘We are all Laura!’; Former prisoners speak on contradictions in support work; World in View: French ‘Yellow Vests’; more…
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Rosa Luxemburg’s revolutionary life
Jan. 15, 2019, marked the 100th anniversary of the day Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were murdered by the forces that suppressed the 1918-19 German Revolution. To highlight how Luxemburg’s revolutionary life and thought are pertinent today, we present a critical review by Raya Dunayevskaya of “The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg,” edited by Stephen Eric Bronner.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2019, Part 2
February 3, 2019Readers’ Views regarding: Thought-diving into revolution in permanence; murky waters[ the Church and oppression; why read N&L; and voices from behind bars.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2019, Part 1
Readers’ Views addressing: challenging fascism across all borders; charter teachers strike; pitfalls of bourgeois politics; women on the march; prison strikes big and small; and the racist criminal injustice system.
Prisoners endangered
January 31, 2019Families of prisoners and supporters rallied in front of the California Department of Corrections and rehabilitation’s (CDCr) headquarters against the CDCr-induced violence that many of their loved ones are experiencing.
Review of ‘55 Steps’
A review of the movie, “55 Steps,” directed by Bille August, which tells the story of Eleanor Riese, a mental health patient, and her court case, which won the right for California’s acute, competent mentally ill patients to have informed consent about their medications.
Former prisoners speak on contradictions in support work
Report of the Dec. 5, 2018, Impact Justice panel of former prisoners addressing contradictions in prisoner support.
Three years after Ashker vs. Governor of California
Pelican Bay Prisoners speak of the third anniversary of the landmark agreement in the class action lawsuit that ended indefinite solitary confinement in California prisons.
Pondering the idea of freedom
Prisoner Faruq ponders the idea of freedom as an idea that has its own development and, if grasped, will help transcend capitalist relations.
Review: ‘Always Color Outside the Lines’
Review of Robert Taliaferro’s wonderfully illustrated book, “Always Color Outside the Lines: Freedom for the Artist Within”–a book that shows his philosophy of art and his expertise with different media and techniques.
No to U.S. Intervention in Venezuela! No to 21st Century State-Capitalism! Yes to Self-Determination of Venezuela’s Masses!
Maduro’s authoritarian rule must not give a green light to intervention from without, or to supporting a coup from within. That cannot be allowed to cover up the way that the attempt to construct socialism from the top down was no substitute for a social transformation from below.
Review: ‘Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator’
January 30, 2019Review by January of “Confessions of a Rogue Nuclear Regulator” by Greg Jaczko.
Tlahuelilpan deaths not accidental
The horrendous tragedy in Tlahuelilpan, Mexico, when an oil pipeline explosion killed over 100 people, has shaken all of Mexico.
World in View: Yemen torn by poverty, imperialism
January 28, 2019Yemen’s civil society organizations, representing the revolutionary hopes of 2011, have presented humane terms for a peace agreement. The state powers and non-state actors dependent upon them have their own ideas.
World in View: French ‘Yellow Vests’
The uprising of the gilets jaunes (Yellow Vests) against French President Emmanuel Macron embodies the unity and brutal disunity of our time.
World in View: Sudan rises against genocidal Bashir
Sudan’s genocidal President Omar al-Bashir is being challenged by nationwide protests. The Sudanese people’s struggle is humanity’s struggle.
Essay: How dead thought failed Syrian revolution’s living history
The Syrian Revolution has been the physical and intellectual battlefield that defines our time. As early as 2012 it was clear that what happened in Syria would determine the next stage of world history.
Handicap This!: January-February 2019
January 26, 2019A roundup of actions around people with disabilities: Secretary of Education’s drive to rescind federal guidelines ensuring that disabled and minority students not face unfair discipline; Japan’s plans to use the 2020 Paralympic Games to make Tokyo hotels and public transportation more accessible; the insufficiency of Social Security Disability Insurance; and how charter schools are less likely than public to respond to enquiries regarding disabled students.
Youth in Action: January-February 2019
Peking University Marxist Society students protest to support their detained club president; student workers at Grinnell College vote to be represented by a union; and a movement against climate change started by three Australian high school girls has spread to students in Japan, the UK, U.S. and Belgium.
The Cuban Revolution: a great divide
The Left press and many others have been commenting on this important date: Jan. 1, 1959, the day that Fulgencio Batista was overthrown. The great difficulty is that the focus has been far too narrow…
Queer Notes: January-February 2019
Protests in Tunisia against non-implementation of Transgender human rights bill; Brazil’s new president threatens crackdown on homosexuality and same-sex marriage; new Tunisian documentary “Subutext” about homosexuality, poverty, illness and drugs in Tunisia’s slums; and a Chicago protest against Antwan Haywood being thrown out of the Powerhouse International Ministries supposedly over the way he was dressed.
Detroit celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Participant report from Detroit’s 16th Annual Martin Luther King Day Rally.
Predatory lending
A Detroit, Michigan, resident reports on the harm that predatory lending is doing to the city and its residents.
Women in Spain say: ‘We are all Laura!’
Women in Spain are outraged by the brutal murder of Laura Luelmo and have filled the streets of El Campillo.
Chicago teachers win first strike against charter schools
January 24, 2019Chicago teachers speak for themselves, explaining why they fought and won the first strike against charter schools.
Review: ‘Lesbian Revolution’
Adele reviews “The Lesbian Revolution: Lesbian Feminism in the UK 1970–1990,” by Sheila Jeffreys, the first book documenting the history of British Lesbian feminism.
Women World Wide: January-February 2019
5.5 million women formed a 400-mile-long “wall” the length of India’s Kerala state for women’s freedom; Zimbabwe’s first all-woman anti-poaching squad; the opening of “Free Women’s Land,” a village built and occupied by women and children in the war zone of Syrian Kurdistan: and a remembrance of the founder of the field of African-American women’s history, Rosalyn Terborg-Penn.
The Green not-so-great New Deal
Calls for a “green new deal” risk the kind of state/party co-optation of movements from below that was involved in the 1930s New Deal.
Unity in Los Angeles teachers’ strike
Activist and teachers’ strike supporter Basho reports on the Los Angeles teachers’ strike which is also a strike against charter schools and for better education for Los Angeles’ children.
Voices From the Inside Out: Wisconsin’s prison system on trial
Prisoner Robert Taliaferro looks forward to what a new governor in Wisconsin may mean for prisoners, especially prisoners of color, who have suffered under Governors Tommy Thompson and Scott Walker.
Editorial: Brazil under Bolsonaro’s heel
Marxist-Humanist Editorial that takes up Brazil’s new president, Jair Bolsonaro, including his attack on the landless workers movement, on the environment, on those who are LGBTQ, and his support for capitalism and neo-fascism.
Trump aids capitalism’s attack on labor; workers strike back
A Marxist-Humanist analysis of the state of the U.S. economy and the revolt of labor in the wake of country-wide teachers’ strikes, an historically long government shutdown, and an unsteady, uncertain worldwide economy.
Detroit women rally to fight for our freedom
January 23, 2019Participant report of how women in Detroit celebrated the Women’s March by highlighting diverse women fighting for fundamental changes and challenging racism, sexism, and capitalism.
Woman as Reason: Anti-Semitism mars Women’s March
January 21, 2019Woman as Reason columnist Terry Moon discusses the anti-Semitism among the leadership of the Women’s March, attacking the excuse they have given, and what it means to abandon the principles of women’s liberation.
Capitalism’s failures, and the struggles against it
December 26, 2018We post this Dec. 24, 2018, commentary by Mohammed Elnaiem as a discussion article which begins: “On these holidays, we mourn for the Kurds in Syria who hopelessly fear an upcoming Turkish invasion, we mourn for the yellow vests in France who rise up in an empire built on colonial wealth but which continues to make destitute its working and unemployed poor…”
Michigan post-election voter suppression
December 18, 2018Report from Detroit about the Michigan legislature passing bills to reverse the results of the election, and about plans to oppose from below the suppression of democracy.
Rally to end war in Yemen
December 16, 2018Rally in Chicago calling for end to war in Yemen, including U.S.-supported Saudi military campaign. 44 blue backpacks represent children killed when the Saudi coalition dropped a U.S.-supplied bomb on a school bus packed with children.
First ever charter school teachers’ strike
Teachers speak about why they struck Chicago’s Acero charter schools on Dec. 4-9, expanding the wave of teacher strikes to the first charter school strike in the nation.
November-December 2018 issue of News & Letters is now online!
December 15, 2018Lead article: Election deepens illegitimacy of Trump’s minority rule; New book: Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution in Permanence for Our Day; From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Karl Marx’s continuous development of the philosophy of revolution in permanence; Essay: Marx’s concept of permanent revolution as philosophy: Exploring it today with Dunayevskaya; Editorial: Massacre of Jews and rising racism; Immigrant caravan born in the USA; Voices From the Inside Out: Learning the meaning of parole; Women as Reason: Solidarity with Trans; California fires are not ‘natural’ disasters; Counter-revolution redefines EU, OPEC; Letter from Mexico: Rejecting fake choice in airport referendum; Bolsonaro’s fascism threatens Brazilians; more…
Iranians remember
December 14, 2018Iranians gathered in Santa Monica in remembrance of the victims of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s 1979-1989 regime.
New book: Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution in Permanence for Our Day
New book published for the 200th anniversary of Marx’s birth–Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution in Permanence for Our Day: Selected writings by Raya Dunayevskaya
Readers’ Views, November-December 2018
Readers’ Views on: Capitalism vs. the Planet; Anti-Semitism’s Inhumanity; Kavanaugh Travesty; Youth Rock!; Freedom Movements vs. Fascism across the Globe; Catholic Church Crisis; Voices from behind Bars
Youth in Action: November-December 2018
Yale Law School students sit in to protest the rush to confirm Brett Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court; three Australian eighth-graders boycott school over plan to open coal mines on indigenous land overlooking the Great Barrier Reef; and California high school students attend school board meetings en masse to demand the right of 16-18 year olds to vote in school board elections.
Women Worldwide, November-December 2018
Women Worldwide column on a rape trial in Cork, Ireland; the women student movement Pinjratod or “Break the Cages” in India; and forced sterilization of Indigenous women in Saskatchewan, Canada.
Protesters slandered
Just before the final confirmation vote elevating Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put out messages that slandered the act of protest itself.
Review: Feminist Awakening in China
An account of #MeToo in China is documented in a new book by Leta Hong Fincher, “Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China.”
‘Striking to Survive’ in China
Report on a talk in Oakland by worker-activists from China, including Fan Shigang, author and editor of “Striking to Survive: Workers’ Resistance to Factory Relocations in China.”
Letter from Mexico, November-December 2018: Rejecting fake choice in airport referendum
The elected government of Morena party organized a National Consultation on Mexico’s New Airport from Oct. 25-28. How are the Indigenous people resisting it?