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.
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.
After 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.
On 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.
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.”
‘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.
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.
Small 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.
Participant 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
News and Letters Committees’ response to the call for solidarity messages to the 63rd International Antiwar Assembly held yearly in Japan.
Muhammad 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.
The 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.
Takes 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.
Takes 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.
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.
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.
The genocidal undertone of anti-immigrant politics, from the U.S. to Iran and from India to Germany, reinforces the fact that Israel’s genocide in Gaza is not some outlandish exception. In the aftermath of Israel’s war on Iran and Iran’s rulers crackdown on their own people, the question arises: Is Israeli’s genocide in Gaza the signal of where this stage of world capitalism is heading if it is not stopped?
On July 7, mostly young men and women marched in Kenya calling for the resignation of the autocratic corrupt government of President William Ruto. Police responded by killing 31, wounding hundreds, and arresting over 500 revealing that it’s the youths’ protests the government fears the most.
Reports from participants in the June 14, 2025, “No Kings” demonstrations across the nation. Thousands took to the streets, plazas and sidewalks, not only in every state and every significant sized city, but in tiny towns and suburbs. No one wanted to miss the opportunity to oppose Trump’s cruel, inhuman, destructive policies.
The May conflict between these two countries was only the latest of a long series of clashes, indeed wars, over the Kashmir region which both claim. However, this “incident” was particularly ominous as both nuclear-armed powers seemed close to further escalation.
Anthony Davis’ 2019 opera tells the story of five boys from East Harlem, New York, wrongly convicted of the beating and rape of Trisha Melli. The composer blends an incredible range of musical styles in a “frank engagement with race, gender and power in America.”
On April 19, over 300 people demonstrated against Trump and Musk in Memphis, Tenn. People of all ages were there, including families with children and many students. These ongoing demonstrations show optimism and a desire for solidarity in these times that are frightening for the whole country.
Takes up: A UN Women report about women-led and women’s rights organizations in humanitarian crisis zones; an ongoing epidemic of hundreds of domestic violence cases, including eight femicides, in Nova Scotia, Canada; and UK modernizing its voyeurism laws to keep up with abuses of advances in technology.
Revoking the right to abortion relegated women as less than full human beings. All human rights are up for grabs, and women’s hard-won rights were deemed easy to destroy. Trump has acted accordingly but is running into “the resistance,” with women leading the way.
Spiced with clever dark humor and depicted through beautiful cinematography, endearing acting and a powerful soundtrack, ‘Humanist Vampire’ is a modest masterpiece, especially recommended to dreamy, romantic, humanist spirits—that is, to the ones who still believe that, despite this shattered society, human relationships should be put front and center on our agenda.
April 30, 2025, marked the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war. But what is there to celebrate? Even the talking heads can’t figure out a way to “spin” this in defense of American imperialism. We are still haunted by the ghosts of Vietnam even as we perpetrate genocide against the Palestinians.
Takes up: the opening of Poland’s first abortion clinic; International Women’s Day in Argentina; and a march in South Africa demanding the government declare escalating levels of femicide and violence against women and children a national emergency.
Takes up: 2025 International Transgender Day of Visibility; the organization Free Mom Hugs; LGBTQ+ people in Germany; and the reinstatement of a colonial-era “buggery law” in Trinidad and Tobago.
From immigrants to Transgender people, from workers to students to women, no one is safe. Attacks on many fronts are part and parcel of what is widely recognized as a Trump/Musk coup, but is usually portrayed as normal politics in the media. Institutions cannot be trusted to save us and they need to feel the pressure from people fighting back.
What kind of new world order is Trump heading for? Forced annexation of territories (as in Russia’s war on Ukraine), genocide (as in Israel’s war on Gaza), and neocolonialism (as in the Democratic Republic of Congo) are crucial parts of it. The word “multipolar” cannot hide its imperialist nature.
What it is about this moment of this capitalist society that brought a creature like Trump to the top? The crumbling of society goes beyond economic measures. The symptoms are everywhere of a system that increasingly does not believe in its own future.
Why did the massive resistance eight years ago not prevent Trump’s return? And what is the “Left” today? More important than the unity of the Left is the unity of the movement from theory and the movement from practice.
The 20th century revealed statist socialism to be a dead end. It is a substitute for the self-activity of the masses in motion, which is the only basis for workers’ control of the labor process. Without revolutionary humanist philosophical mediation capitalism will reconstitute around us and block the total reorganization of society. The philosophy of revolution demands an organizational expression.
Takes up: Administrators, teachers, staff, parents and supporters protest bills in Indiana that would reduce public education funding; the fight against a program that separates low-performing schools from their geographical districts in Tennessee; and Trump misusing Title IX to strip Maine of education funding.
Harvard’s rejection of Trump administration demands has become a focus for resistance. However, the silence on Israel’s genocide in Gaza reveals an anti-Palestinian bias at Harvard despite a strong presence of Jewish students and faculty who reject equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
Participant’s report of the “Hands Off” protest in Oakland, California. New is the totality of the issues coming together in this moment. Can civil society’s multiple struggles find their own unifying non-state-oriented idea of freedom?
A new turning point has been reached as the Sudanese army has just forced the Rapid Special Forces out of Khartoum. Amid the horrendous level of carnage, not to be forgotten is the need for the Sudanese masses to return to their revolutionary moment.
Letter issued by activists, searching families, artists and writers following the recent discovery of an extermination camp in Teuchitlán, Jalisco, where hundreds may have been executed. The camp was not discovered by the State, but by families of the disappeared.
Participants’ report of a Hands Off march in Detroit, where thousands converged at the Detroit Institute of Arts. It was one of over 1,200 that took place on April 5 in the U.S.
Participants’ report of a HANDS OFF demonstration in Evanston, Ill. The protest was one of over 1,200 taking place in every state of the Union–a first step in taking control of our destiny and creating the kind of world that will make it impossible for fascism to ever rise again.
Takes up: the life of feminist philosopher Sandra G. Harding, who coined the term “standpoint theory”; researched effects of online misogyny on British primary and secondary school students; and increasing global rates of incarceration of women.
Anti-Semitism is being fomented by Trumpism and extreme right-wing parties in Europe. At the same time they attack Palestine solidarity as “anti-Semitic.” Its weaponization endangers Jews, for it obscures the line between false anti-Semitism, and the very real anti-Semitism that exists today and that must be fought.
Participant report from one of hundreds of popular “Tesla Takedown” actions on March 29 around the world. Resistance is growing as more people are exposed to the anti-Trump movement and experience its indispensability.
Why war? To keep the current Israeli government in power. The less democracy, the more power to Netanyahu. But good news: mass protests by Israelis, reserve soldiers not showing up when they receive draft notices, and The Supreme Court holding firm.
DOGE is slashing grants, contracts and jobs in federal agencies. Especially Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility, climate change, education and food safety. Resisting fascism means looking for ways to fight for real reform as steps toward revolutionary development by and for humanity.
Takes up: potential budget cuts in New Jersey affecting people with disabilities; a plan in Nova Scotia, Canada, to relocate all of its citizens living with disabilities from institutional settings; and Frances Vicioso, a Black-Latina storyteller with mental illness and physical disabilities, leading a “Black Disability History” webinar.
