Article highlighting the continued dismantling of Detroit public schools by Gov. Rick Snyder as well as the taking away any power of Detroit parents to have a say in the education of their own children.
Articles
Taking a stand on reproductive justice
demonstration supporting reproductive justice and Planned Parenthood
UAW workers vote down Chrysler deal
UAW workers reject Chrysler contract and force an improved one, showing the power of their strike.
Women Worldwide: November-December 2015
A roundup of short notices of women’s actions and thoughts worldwide including women at Access Living in Chicago creating a reproductive health guide for women with disabilities; women fighting femicide in El Salvador, and how the Ada Developers Academy is helping women learn coding.
Editorial: Putin’s retrogressionism
Putin found a formula: to participate in genocide while claiming to be fighting “terrorism.” This says everything about the nature of his retrogressive rule, and about the hypocrisy of the U.S. and Europe
World in View: South African protests
Students at University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg opposed a proposed 10,5% fee hike, and defying some student leaders to march on ANC headquarters, demanding no increase. Students at University of Cape Town had in April forced removal of racist imperialist Cecil Rhodes from campus.
Against ISIS attacks in Paris and Beirut: Counter-revolution must be defeated everywhere!
November 23, 2015We condemn these horrific massacres and the reaction that feeds upon them. To destroy ISIS and all other counter-revolutionary forces will require a battle of ideas, even more than a struggle of arms.
In-person report: Yemenis battle war, famine, disease, sectarianism
November 22, 2015Economic problems are worsening crazily because of this war, but that is no longer the only major problem in Yemen. There are at least four major problems/risks being horribly worsened as the war continues. They are: famine, epidemics, the expansion of extremist groups, and sectarianism.
Philosophic basis of News & Letters
November 20, 2015On the 60th anniversary of News & Letters we discuss its philosophic basis and invite readers to participate.
November-December 2015 N&L available on the web
November 1, 2015The new issue is available on the web. Lead: California prisoners battle barbaric U.S. ‘justice’ system; Philosophic basis of News & Letters; From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Black masses, youth, and the needed U.S. revolution: philosophy and reality; much more…
Workshop Talks: Workers not robots
October 26, 2015The workplace at Amazon.com is making employees physically and mentally ill which is a hallmark of production under capitalism. What happens at Amazon.com is not unusual and can be seen even in areas like healthcare, for example, at Kaiser.
California prisoners battle barbaric U.S. ‘justice’ system
In California the ongoing struggle of prisoners against the U.S.’s barbaric criminal justice system reached a milestone in the effort to totally transform a society in which millions of poor, unemployed and people of color end up in an inhuman gulag.
Russia aims to crush internal dissent
October 18, 2015The situation in Russia is getting worse. The hysteria of propaganda against “external and internal enemies” is escalating, as well as pressure on opposition and civil society in general. All opposition rallies in the center of Moscow are now forbidden; organizers of Boris Nemtsov’s murder are protected by the state (while everybody knows that [=>]
Support Maati Monjib! — update
October 11, 2015Updated: Join the campaign to end the harassment of Maati Monjib in Morocco! Support him while he is on hunger strike, and demand protection of his right to travel, speak and write freely.
A Restatement of Some Fundamentals of Marxism against ‘pseudo-Marxism’
September 28, 2015Excerpt from the polemic Raya Dunayevskaya wrote in 1943 against a leading theoretician of the Workers Party, Joe Carter, on Marx’s concept of capitalist “production for the sake of production.”
Support Maati Monjib, who is on hunger strike!
September 19, 2015Join the campaign to end the harassment of Maati Monjib in Morocco! Support him while he is on hunger strike, and demand protection of his right to travel, speak and write freely.
September-October 2015 N&L available on the web
September 7, 2015The September-October 2015 issue of News & Letters, Vol. 60, #5, is available on the web.
View the issue online or as pdf.
Lead: Counter-revolution in Middle East shows crisis of humanity
From the signing of a nuclear weapons agreement by the U.S. and Iran, to the ongoing war in Syria including the roles of Turkey and of the Left, this wide-ranging article delves into [=>]
Handicap This! September-October 2015
September 6, 2015A roundup of the situation of people with disabilities and how they are fighting for their rights including in Mexico, a prison in Carlisle, Penn., outrage against the shackling of two young students with disabilities in Covington, KY, the banning of a child with cerebral palsy and autism in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, and disabled people in Iraq who face neglect and isolation.
Stop charter schools!
The expansion of charter schools comes at the expense of unionized teachers, students and public education. It is a money making venture for the few while destroying public education in the process for the many.
Youth in Action, September-October 2015
A roundup of youth activism worldwide including hunger striking students at Tufts Univ., students at Rio Grand High School protesting standardized tests, students in Puerto Rico marching against the government cutting education, and more.
‘If you ship it we will block it’ stopping the bomb trains
Report of a lively demonstration in the San Francisco Bay Area against trains carrying tons of coal that can cause huge explosions and yet travel through highly populated areas.
Horrors of Hiroshima linger 70 years later
Excerpts of a talk given by Darrell Miho on Aug. 2, to commemorate the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Egypt’s new pharaoh
Since overthrowing the Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohamed Morsi in 2013, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has surpassed former dictator Hosni Mubarak. Despite this, the U.S. has resumed military aid.
Puerto Rico: U.S. exploitation and austerity
Puerto Rico’s debt has become unsustainable. The roots of the financial and human crisis lie within the island’s 117-year history as a U.S. colony.
World in View: North Korea executions
North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, has eliminated another member of the ruling party elite, vice-premier Choe Yong-gon. It is likely that Choe was eliminated for his connection to the North’s joint business ventures with South Korea.
Latin America ‘statism’ challenged by movements
Governments which could never have come to power without the social movements’ mobilizations are using vague expressions of anti-capitalism, socialism, resource nationalism, anti-imperialism, etc., to impose developmentalism on their populations, often in collaboration with neoliberalism.
Hugo “Yogi” Pinell (1945-2015)
September 3, 2015On Aug. 12, Hugo “Yogi” Pinell (1945-2015) was killed in the California State Prison-Sacramento. Pinell was a comrade of George Jackson, W.L. Nolen, James Carr, and other founders of the modern prison movement.
Queer Notes, September-October 2015
A roundup of struggle of LGBTQ people including around immigration, prison, sports, as well as examples of forward movement in the fight for equality and freedom.
Pricey water in Flint
How the high water bills payed by the people of Flint, Michigan, are the result of manipulation from Detroit and the City of Flint.
LGBTQ gains in Africa
A roundup of progressive legislation and legal victories involving LGBTQ people in Mozambique, Kenya, Botswana, and Zambia.
Sandra Bland speaks for herself
Excerpts of videos of Sandra Bland speaking for herself. She made the videos in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Bland died in Waller County, Texas, after being thrown in jail there for a manufactured traffic violation.
Nate Wilks’ life matters
A report of the protest in Oakland, Calif., over the police killing of Nathaniel WIlks.
Voices from the Inside Out: Racism and the nine murders in South Carolina
A prisoner speaks about the murders in South Carolina, President Obama’s reaction to them, and the needed philosophical direction for those still yearning for freedom.
California prisons’ punitive ‘wellness checks’
Pelican Bay Prison guards use court-ordered “wellness checks” to harass prisoners. They make it impossible for anyone to get any sleep as they rampage through each SHU pod for 10-20 minutes.
Disappearing coalminers
August 31, 2015Escalating bankruptcies in the nation’s coal industry paint a grim future for the industry and for coal miners and their families. The bankruptcies, sweeping the coal fields everywhere, have affected the largest and smallest mines. As a result, thousands of coal miners have been laid off.
Letter from Mexico: CNTE teachers’ goal: autonomous learning
The National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) has been struggling for autonomy, new labor relationships and a non-capitalist educational model. In September 2013, tens of thousands of people—teachers outside the CNTE, students, parents and activists—demonstrated throughout Mexico to show their rejection of the government’s privatizing educational reforms.
Readers’ Views, Sept.-Oct. 2015, Part 2
Readers’ thoughts on “Dialectics of Philosophy and of Forces of Revolution”; “Free Mumia!”; “Federico Arcos, 1920-2015”; and a section of “Voices from Behind the Bars.”
Huge explosions in Tianjin, China, heat up ongoing unrest
Workers and residents reacted to the huge explosion of Tianjin in China of a hazardous chemical warehouse that killed and injured hundreds of firefighters, neighbors and factory workers. At the same time, Chinese economic troubles engender revolt.
Readers’ Views, Sept.-Oct. 2015, Part 1
Readers’ thoughts on “Srebrenica, Bosnia, 1995; Europe and the World, 2015”; “Struggles against Racism”; “After Cecil, People Are Next”; “Teachers and Children”; “Workers, Customers Pay.”
Debates on Gay Marriage and Queer Liberation (Readers’ Views)
Readers debate Gay marriage, Queer liberation and Caitlyn Jenner.
Women WorldWide, September-October 2015
August 30, 2015A brief look at women worldwide including the case of a child raped in Kenya and denied an abortion; Chief Inkosi Kachindamoto from Malawi who annulled child marriages; and how Women on Waves is using drones to send women abortion pills if they live where the procedure is illegal.
200 at Trans meeting in New York
Report of a meeting of over 200 Transgender people, their allies and a handful of elected officials who came together at Hostos College in the Bronx in late July for a city- wide conference on the status and situation of Transgender people in New York City.
Review of Feminism Unfinished
A review by Adele of “Feminism Unfinished: A Short, Surprising History of American Women’s Movements,” by Dorothy Sue Cobble, Linda Gordon, and Astrid Henry (W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.: New York, 2014). This book is a brief overview of the history of the feminist movement in the U.S. from the period after women’s right to vote was won in 1920 until the present.
Greek crisis: austerity, revolt and illusions
Although the Greek masses reject the austerity program imposed on them by the European institutions, Syriza inexorably took a path to capitulation because it is rooted in the search for state power rather than the power of mass self-activity.
Voices from the inside out: Racism and the Confederate flag
A Black prisoner looks at the meaning of U.S. racism and the struggle to remove the Confederate flag from the capitol grounds of South Carolina.
Editorial: Planned Parenthood under siege
Dishonestly edited videos accusing Planned Parenthood of illegally selling aborted fetal organs for profit have now become fodder for politicians who vow to destroy Planned Parenthood, and who mislead and grovel before their Right-wing anti-woman base.
Philip Zimbardo and Marx’s Humanism
A discussion with Philip Zimbardo followed the San Francisco premiere of “The Stanford Prison Experiment,” a movie based on his notorious 1971 experiment. It raises questions about the meaning of being human, which for Marx turned on needing human beings as free beings whose self-determining, free, conscious activity is not a mere means but the first necessity of life.
Occupy: Democracy, revolution and philosophy
“The Democracy Project” presents a close-up view of the activity and the thinking of OWS, and a contemporary treatise on revolutionary organization, yet dismisses philosophy in favor of “anarchist” process.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: A revolutionary attitude to Archives
To highlight the new online availability of the Raya Dunayevskaya Collection, we present excerpts of her 1985 Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, which take up the development of the Marxist-Humanist concept of Archives out of the category made of the totality of Marx’s Archives as a new beginning for today.
Editorial: Evolving Black Lives Matter movement
August 29, 2015One year after the murder of Michael Brown by Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson, the Black Lives Matter movement continues to challenge racist U.S. society. In doing so, it deepens itself in both content and thought.