On July 18-19 the Israeli Knesset passed a law creating outrage among Arab and Druze citizens who see it as writing their second-class citizenship into law. It encourages the growth of illegal settlements on the West Bank and the continued dispossession of Palestinians.
On Sept. 2, Brazil’s National Museum in Rio de Janeiro was devastated by fire after being subject to drastic budget cuts because of its location in the more working class North Zone, as opposed to the South Zone of Rio with its glitzy tourist beaches.
Prisoners in at least 17 U.S. states, and one Canadian prison, took part in a nationwide strike beginning Aug. 21, 2018. The strike presented a list of 10 demands that have been pushed into the national and international consciousness.
Europe is at a dangerous crossroads with the rise of Far Right parties rooted in racism and hatred of immigrants. In Sweden’s Sept. 9 elections, the Sweden Democrats, a party rooted in neo-Nazism, received 17.6% of the vote.
This generation of Chinese workers, going on strike repeatedly to demand wages and benefits they are owed or fighting to control their own jobs, together with young intellectuals reclaiming Marx’s work, may be a threat to today’s Chinese rulers.
Argentina has been bouncing this year from one crisis to the next. Today it needs a movement that refuses to separate the slogan “They all must go!” from building an authentically new kind of society.
Nicaraguans rally in San Francisco to raise awareness and support for the spreading anti-government protests in Nicaragua against President Ortega and his government’s brutal oppression.
Hundreds of South Korean students and adults hold a three-day protest against the building of a second airport in the city of Jeju-Doin in defense of the environment, an elementary school and farmers.
University of North Carolina students and workers bring down statue of generic Confederate soldier; Swedish pro-asylum student Elin Errson prevents deportation of Afghan refugee; Iraqi youth and women protest unemployment, electricity shortages and lack of clean water.
The Zapatistas called for a gathering Aug. 3-5 in Chiapas of the support networks that participated in trying to register the spokeswoman of the Indigenous Governing Council as an independent candidate for the presidential election in Mexico.
On Sept. 5, 2018, a march of tens of thousands of students and other social groups flooded the UNAM campus in Mexico City to demand an end to porrismo, or pro-government thugs, used against students’ movements. Voices of several striking students are featured.
On Sept. 8 over 30,000 came out in San Francisco for the Rise for Climate, Jobs and Justice, which had counterparts worldwide.
Prisoner Faruq writes about new beginnings after the California prisoners’ hunger strike and the need for unity for any new movement forward.
Editorial that takes up the evil that the Catholic Church has imposed on children and women; how movements from below, especially by women, have challenged it; and how future church crimes will be revealed, signaling the beginning of the end of the Catholic Church.
News & Letters editorial taking up how in Syria, attacks are intensifying upon the three million Syrians, mostly civilians, trapped in Idlib province and how so many in the Left have failed them.
Syria’s Idlib province faces imminent slaughter by Russia, Iran, and Assad regime forces, which have already made it into the model of the 21st century concentration camp. We call upon all of humanity to oppose this and to demand protection for these millions whose only “crime” was to fight for freedom against a fascist regime.
Climate change, capitalism, and Trump
Presentation to the Chicago Local of News and Letters Committees
By Franklin Dmitryev, August 27, 2018
“…the spirit of the time, growing slowly and quietly ripe for the new form it is to assume, disintegrates one fragment after another of the structure of its previous world. That it is tottering to [=>]
Nearly 200 students and 150 adults participated in a three-day march in opposition to the construction of a second airport on Jeju-Do, South Korea.
The July-August 2018 issue of News & Letters, Vol. 63, #4, is available on the web.
View the issue online or as pdf.
Lead article: Millions denounce Trump’s heinous immigration abuses
Marxist-Humanist analysis of the nature of President Donald Trump’s inhuman immigration policy, the damage it is causing and the outcry against it, including from his own base.
Editorial: Trump-Kim ‘peace’ threatens masses
Marxist-Humanist analysis of [=>]
Landless people in Tembisa near Johannesburg, promised housing by the municipality, occupied empty land and put up houses since February, only to rebuild them with each destruction and eviction by police.
Harley-Davidson workers found that Trump’s corporate tax cuts made it easier for the company to plan to shutter the Kansas City plant. Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum gave Harley-Davidson an incentive to move more jobs to a new plant in Thailand.
Youth in action column on a student demonstration in Delhi, India; a student rally against the alt-Right at Michigan State University, and revolt in Nicaragua headed by students.
“Families Belong Together!” was the rallying cry for in over 700 cities and towns across the U.S. and some in other countries. Rallies of tens of thousands were held June 30 in Chicago, Los Angeles, and several other cities.
Queer notes on Delaware’s anti-Transgender legislation; Gay asylum seeker and detainee Udoka Nweke; Lesbian activist Constance Kurt; Aryman Menem, founder of Tea and Talk for Syrian LGBT; and Baltic Pride’s Pride Parade in Riga, Latvia.
Free Syria activists gathered in Chicago on June 8 in a vigil opposing the ongoing genocide against civilians who are ignored by most of the world.
Since leftist López Obrador won the Presidency of Mexico, the masses will watch him and raise their voices if he fails in his promises for workers and Indigenous and against violence and corruption.
Special offer for the book “Russia: From Proletarian Revolution to State-Capitalist Counter-Revolution: Selected writings by Raya Dunayevskaya.”
What is bringing all reactionary forces together at this moment is the recognition by creatures like Donald Trump that women are the implacable enemy of emerging fascism.
Women Worldwide column on Equal Playing Field organization; 30,000 women marching in South Korea against “molka”; and forced marriage in Sudan.
Massive demonstrations in 30 major cities of Spain occurred after the five rapists in the La Manada case were set free from prison on June 22.
Los Angeles was one of hundreds of cities in mass protests in June against Trump’s “zero tolerance” agenda against migrant refuges looking for asylum.
Review of the book “Reproductive Justice: An Introduction” by Loretta Ross and Rickie Solinger.
Nicaragua is in deep crisis. Almost 150 have been killed by government forces, and thousands injured. The Nicaraguan masses will need to create an emancipatory alternative.
Since protests began on March 30, at least 135 Palestinians have been murdered by Israeli sharpshooters who targeted medical workers and youth.
The election of right-winger Iván Duque is a threat to the peace agreement that ended Colombia’s decades-long war between the government and the country’s largest guerrilla insurgency.
Update on the reaction, racism and anti-immigrant and anti-refugee laws growing in Poland, Italy and Hungary.
Readers’ Views on: Marx’s New Moments and Today’s Need for Revolution and Philosophy; Fetish of Property vs. Humanity and the Planet; Voices from Behind Bars
Readers’ Views on: Fighting Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Hysteria; Women’s Liberation; Attacks on Gays; Support Restaurant Workers; Swords into Plowshares; Human Rights Struggles in Iraq…; …And in Russia; Arthur Gursch in Memoriam
Prisoner Fredd rails against the ridiculous censoring of reading material taking place at the Hutchinson Correctional Facility, including books as well as personal mail.
Iraq’s court system has disregarded 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 who had been rounded up from areas liberated from ISIS and sentence them to hang.
Review of “The End of Policing” by Alex S. Vitale by a prisoner who sees it as “a wake-up call as to the world in which [we] live: the police state Amerika.”
For Mothers’ Day 2018, Essie Justice Group; Young Women’s Freedom Center; Transgender, Gender-variant, Intersex Justice Project; and other mostly Black women demonstrated in front of the Oakland courthouse demanding an end to money bail. .
In “Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism” Kohei Saito brings to light some of the volumes of Marx’s unpublished research and growing concern over capitalism’s deleterious effect on the environment but wrongly rejects Marx’s 1844 philosophic moment.
At a time when the social crisis is total—political, economic, cultural, ideological—this clarion call for a return to the original form of the Humanism of Marxism speaks to today’s need for more than just political change, but for a total view and a total solution to global retrogression.
Prisoner-columnist Faruq reviews the book “Specters of Revolt: On the Intellect of Insurrection and Philosophy from Below” by Richard Gilman-Opalsky.
With his victory in the June 24, 2018, presidential election, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has consolidated his one-man rule of Turkey’s 80 million-plus population. He had already eliminated the office of prime minister and created a powerful executive presidency.
Marxist-Humanist analysis of the nature of President Donald Trump’s inhuman immigration policy, the damage it is causing and the outcry against it, including from his own base.
Marxist-Humanist analysis of the Trump-Kim summit and G7 summit shows Trump is not charting a path to world peace but rather toward a more openly brutal world order. .
Participant report: 60,000 demanded “Families Belong Together!” in Chicago, with 700+ protests nationwide.
In-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.
