The formal end of the U.S. war in Afghanistan at the end of 2014 was just in time for post-war wars to begin in Afghanistan itself, as well as in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen.
Articles
Rage against lawless police murders
Participant reports from several Black Lives Matter protests in different cities.
Workshop Talks: CNA nurses strike to save lives
January 27, 20152,600 mental health clinicians in California carried out a week-long strike over Kaiser Permanente’s “failure to provide timely, adequate care to patients.”
European racism and economic decay
In today’s economic crisis, Europe is haunted by the specters that were supposed to be overcome by the European economic union and the single currency Eurozone: the 20th century tendency to degenerate into vile nationalism, genocidal racism and the barbarism of total war.
Revolt surges against racist system destroying Black lives
Protests erupted following the decision by a St. Louis County grand jury not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for the cold-blooded murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown. Thousands marched under the slogan “Black Lives Matter!” These demonstrations grew in the wake of the equally outrageous decision of a Staten Island grand jury not to indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo for the murder of Eric Garner.
From Ferguson to Staten Island: The logic of racism is genocide
December 5, 2014Protests erupted after the cops who murdered Michael Brown and Eric Garner were let off. They mark a new moment of rebellion against a social order in which Black youth are made to live continuously suspended over an abyss of non-existence.
The passion to tear up this deeply racist society by the roots calls for the fullest development in activity and thought.
November-December 2014 N&L available on the web
December 3, 2014The November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters, Vol. 59, #6, is available on the web.
View the issue online or as pdf.
Lead: Racist election deepens reactionary direction of U.S.
The U.S. government took an ominous, reactionary political turn in the 2014 midterm elections, with Republicans taking control of the Senate. Multiple crises of impending war, ecological catastrophe, and a new global economic [=>]
Handicap This! November-December 2014
November 30, 2014Disability Rights Iowa filed a complaint charging that Governor Terry Branstad is failing to provide services to disabled Iowans; Disability Rights International is fighting the Guatemalan government over dangerous conditions in the Federico Mora psychiatric institution.
Essay: The Syrian Revolution and its philosophy
The confrontation between differing classes and worldviews has been most intense in Syria, making it the test of world politics—and of philosophy and revolution. The Syrian Revolution has pushed thought about revolution to a new level.
World in View: Burkinabe revolution
Some are calling this Burkina Faso’s Revolution 2.0, referring back to Thomas Sankara’s 1983-1987 rule.
World in View: Yemen agreement
Yemen’s Western-backed President, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, announced the long-awaited formation of a new, “technocratic” government Nov. 7. The country has been in upheaval since the 2012 overthrow of dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh. The immediate background to the new agreement is the changed situation resulting from the occupation of large areas of the country by Houthi rebels, including the capital, Sana’a….
World in View: Rousseff wins Brazil’s runoff election
Brazil’s President, Dilma Rousseff, barely won a runoff election against the conservative free-marketeer Aécio Neves. With her election to a second term, the Workers’ Party, first under Lula Da Silva and now under Rousseff, has won its fourth consecutive presidential election. While Lula’s first election was greeted with great hope for a sweeping change in Brazil’s developmentalist trajectory, Rousseff’s cliffhanger illustrated the grave disappointment that much of Brazil’s masses felt recently….
New Spanish Translation of American Civilization on Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard
November 25, 2014Contradicciones históricas en la civilización de los Estados Unidos. Las masas afroamericanas como vanguardia: New Spanish Translation of American Civilization on Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard by Raya Dunayevskaya.
Mexico: Students win at IPN
A general strike by students at the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) reveals a longing for universality, for going deeper and lower within society.
Youth in Action, November-December 2014
Newark high school protests; Egypt bans student movements; students and teachers defy Colorado school board brainwashing; Yemen youths’ political graffiti; Philadelphia high school students strike to support teachers.
Michael Brown rally
A participant reports on demonstrations in St. Louis and Memphis over the killing of Michael Brown and others by police.
Revolutionary Rojava
November 24, 2014A correspondent writes: For years now Rojava (“Syrian Kurdistan”) has been making perhaps the most advanced revolution we will see anywhere in our lifetimes practically alone.
Queer Notes, November-December 2014
Kyrsten Sinema, out Bisexual, elected to Congress in Arizona; Alison Bechdel and Mary L. Bonauto are among the 2014 MacArthur Fellows; same-sex marriage bans upheld in some states and struck down in others, makes it likely that the Supreme Court will have to decide.
Deadly nursing home protested by disabled
Three years ago, state officials vowed to shut the troubled Alden Village North nursing facility in Chicago down after more than a dozen deaths of children and young adults with severe disabilities. But it remains open today. A protester reports on a demonstration there.
Detroit developers flee angry homeowners
Nearly one-third of Detroit’s residential properties are blighted. Participants at an October protest at a Town Hall meeting speak.
Hundreds of thousands throng People’s Climate March
Central Park in New York City was filled with hundreds of thousands at the People’s Climate March on Sept. 21.
Britain’s recognition of Palestine
London—You could be forgiven for being surprised at the recent UK Parliament vote last month, with a sizable majority, to recognize Palestinian statehood. After all, when the Palestinians won a hard-fought campaign for recognition at the UN last year, Britain joined a chorus of nations ambivalent or hostile to their efforts. Look beneath the surface, however, and it becomes clear that the British government has little intention of putting words into action….
Being in the SHU
Crescent City, Calif.—The physical and emotional toll of being in the SHU (prisons’ “Secure Housing Unit”): • Manic guards off their meds. • That last good photograph stamped with a boot. • Classification hearings postponed for potlucks. • The daughter whose eyes fill when you ask innocently, who are you?…
Prison hunger strike commemorated
From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters
Oakland, Calif.—On Sept. 6 about 100 people in Mosswood Park commemorated one year since the suspension of the historic 60-day hunger strike, the third of its kind, by California prisoners opposing the torture of solitary confinement. The Security Housing Units (SHU) prisoners’ unprecedented cross-race [=>]
Stop blaming migrants
Los Angeles—On Oct. 7, 150 Latina/o, Black, Asian and white youths gave public comments at the Board of Supervisors (BOS) meeting against extending Regulation 287g, which was to expire. The regulation allowed the L.A. County Sheriff to act as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents putting into practice the so-called “Secure Community” policy allowing deputies to question anyone who appears to be a Latina/o migrant as a criminal suspect. It has resulted in thousands of working class migrants and even U.S. citizens to be stopped, detained and deported….
Aramark excels in dishing up maggots
Lapeer, Mich.—Recently over 100 Aramark Correctional Services (ACS) employees have been fired and banned from Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) prisons for smuggling in drugs, cell phones and other contraband, sex with prisoners, and, most recently, paying one prisoner to kill another at a prison in Kincheloe. ACS has proven incapable of maintaining sanitary kitchens and food lines and has failed to follow the MDOC menu, consistently running out of food as it’s being served, failing to follow required cooking procedures, and making numerous menu item substitutions—all in violation of its three-year, $145 million contract with the MDOC….
Philosophic dialogue on Dunayevskaya’s May 12, 1953, letter on Hegel’s Absolutes
November 23, 2014Raya Dunayevskaya’s May 12, 1953, letter on Hegel’s Absolutes needs to be read in the context of how what is embryonic is developed, and of the continuity and discontinuity in relationship to her earlier thinking and to the Johnson-Forest Tendency.
Readers’ Views, November-December 2014, Part 2
From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters
Readers’ Views, Part 2
PHILOSOPHY, ACTIVITY, ORGANIZATION AND SOCIALISM
I appreciate how Dunayevskaya relates Hegel’s Absolutes with the concrete tasks of building a revolutionary organization. History is the process of becoming. Hegel said that Being and Nothing are abstractions, whereas [=>]
Readers’ Views, November-December 2014, Part 1
From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters
Readers’ Views, Part 1
WOMEN FIGHT RAPE, HARASSMENT AND ABUSE
When I voted, many posters reminded folks that within 100 feet of the polling place you may not “interrupt” a person, nor “harass” nor even speak about your political views. [=>]
Debate On Middle East, Revolution And Counter-Revolution
From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters
Readers’ Views, Part 3
I loved the way “Israel decimates Gaza as world faces global counter-revolutions” (Sept.-Oct. N&L) begins by highlighting how Gazans’ suffering represents global counter-revolution. The Left often takes the side of the underdog, the “lesser of the evils” fighting “U.S. or [=>]
1953 letters on Hegel’s Absolutes, Part 2 of 3
November 22, 2014Raya Dunayevskaya’s May 12, 1953, letter—presented in two parts, beginning in the previous issue—is one of the historic-philosophic writings included in The Philosophic Moment of Marxist-Humanism.
Detroit: houses lost, pensions looted
etroit—As expected, Judge Stephen Rhodes ruled Nov. 7 that Detroit’s Plan of Adjustment was fair and feasible and allowed the City of Detroit to exit bankruptcy. One retiree termed the jovial press conference with the Mayor, Council President, Emergency Manager and Governor Rick Snyder as “sickening.” Thanks to the media, people believe retirees voted “overwhelmingly” for a 4.5% cut to their pensions. Half the retirees did not vote…
Workers can fix L.A.
Los Angeles—On Oct. 28, several thousand Los Angeles City workers (mostly Latina/o and Blacks) and community supporters marched through downtown to City Hall to protest the city’s proposed 30% cut in workers’ wages and benefits. The cuts included medical coverage, bonuses and retirement benefits, as more and more of the city’s infrastructure deteriorates….
Nurses strike for care
Oakland, Calif.–On Nov. 11 and 12 thousands of California nurses struck Kaiser hospitals over systemic cutbacks in patient care. Speaking at a noon rally in Oakland, a nurse described how she was prevented from giving care by Kaiser policies and quoted the saying, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act,” adding, “we are all revolutionaries.”
UAW shirks campaign at Mercedes-Benz
Detroit—Instead of holding an election of rank-and-file workers at the Mercedes-Benz auto plant in Tuscaloosa, Ala., the United Auto Workers union (UAW) in October simply declared that Local Union 112 was in existence to represent workers at the plant. UAW officials said they hoped to convince a majority of the 3,400 full-time workers there to join the union, and are seeking to persuade Mercedes-Benz management to accept the union as the sole representative of the workers….
Hong Kong youth confront class rule
Hundreds of people in Hong Kong marched to People’s Republic of China government offices on Nov. 9 to demand direct negotiations with the government of China and to oppose sham democratic elections planned for 2017. Marchers began from encampments of thousands of protesters who had been maintaining blockades of major thoroughfares for more than six weeks….
Women WorldWide November-December 2014
From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters
by Artemis
In Guatemala, the Mayan Women’s Movement (MWM), a part of the Council of K’itche People, works with trade unions and farmers to stop mining, hydroelectric dams, monoculture crops, mega-tourism, and infrastructure-building by corporations that destroy natural resources and push them [=>]
Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights — a review
From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters
Pro by Katha Pollitt is a wake-up call to the pro-choice movement to reclaim abortion as a positive social good. Ever since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion, we have allowed religious Right rhetoric to sneak into our own discussions so that even we now [=>]
Stopping violence
Thuma and Kaba focused on reviving a strong movement against the imprisonment of women who have defended themselves against violence—who have injured or killed men who raped and/or abused them. They presented as a model the defense of women of color in the 1970s, like the campaigns for Joanne Little, Inez Garcia and Yvonne Wanrow, all prosecuted for killing men who had attacked them or their children. (All three spoke for themselves in News & Letters.)…
Woman as Reason: Indians protest sexual assault
The vicious gang rape and murder of a young student, Jyoti Singh Pandey, on a Delhi, India, bus in December 2012 was the moment when Indian women’s simmering anger boiled over into rage and a determination to transform society…. Now another militant movement against abuse of women has erupted in Kolkata (Calcutta), where over 100,000 people marched on Sept. 20 for women’s freedom and against police violence. This new eruption began on Aug. 28 when a woman student at Jadavpur University was sexually assaulted and the University’s response was worse than insufficient….
Workshop Talks: Ebola fearmongers
November 21, 2014In the wake of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, only one person, Thomas Eric Duncan, has died on U.S. soil from the virus. But millions have been led to panic. Irresponsible politicians like Gov. Christie of New Jersey created a climate of fear. Ebola spreads only by intimate contact with biological fluids, but Christie called for mandatory quarantines on healthy healthcare workers like Kaci Hickox returning from West Africa….
Mexico at a new moment of revolt
Mexico City—Massive protests have swept across Mexico in response to the brutal state-instigated attack against students from the Escuela Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero. On Sept. 26 six people had been murdered outright, and 43 students were “disappeared” and likely assassinated, incinerated and buried in clandestine graves. October and November have been months of rage, led by hundreds of thousands of students….
Rojava & Syria’s revolution
Today the heroic struggle of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, along with allies of the Free Syrian Army, to defend Kobane from the IS deserves all support. This means first the support of the people, the workers, women, and all who struggle for a better life.
Racist election deepens reactionary direction of U.S.
November 20, 2014The U.S. government took an ominous, reactionary political turn in the 2014 midterm elections, with Republicans taking control of the Senate. Extreme pro-war Senators like Joni Ernst in Iowa and Tom Cotton in Arkansas join veterans like Senator “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran” John McCain, who will now control the Armed Services Committee and is hell-bent for new “boots on the ground” in Syria and Iraq. The whole Republican campaign—including these pro-war, pro-fossil-fuel, pro-“fetus is a person” candidates—ran on a cynically deceptive anti-Obama mantra….
Praxis en America Latina noviembre-diciembre 2014 edición
November 19, 2014La nueva edicion de Praxis en America Latina. Esperamos sus comentarios. Por favor, reenvíenla a sus redes y contactos.
Los normalistas de Ayotzinapa: Asesinato y criminalización de la juventud en México
November 7, 2014A la barbarie del Estado mexicano, sus adherentes y secuaces, nosotros le oponemos la necesidad de construir un nuevo humanismo, la unidad de teoría y práctica —en suma: la revolución en permanencia.
Help us! Paramilitaries in Colombia Threaten Black and Indigenous Communities to Protect Illegal Mining
October 19, 2014An appeal for help from the Afro-Colombian Solidarity Network (ACSN):
Hello. We need the media to help us get this information out. These paramilitaries are going to kill us.
Help us please.
We need many people to write letters to the council of state and to the government of Colombia demanding the protection of the communities of La Toma and the north of Cauca.
On the evening [=>]
Support the people of Kobane’s struggle for self-determination!
October 13, 2014As Marxist-Humanists we call for the support of the ongoing Syrian Revolution. We call for the right of self-determination of the Kurdish people, and we call for military and political support to the heroic defenders of Kobane. This struggle isn’t just local, or sectarian, but rather it cuts deeply into the universal history of humanity’s striving for freedom.
Solidarity had the might to move the mountain of prison torture that kept us isolated and voiceless. We still need you now, even more
An appeal from prison hunger strike activists Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa and Jabari Scott about the unlawful and inhuman conditions at Tehachapi State Prison and the non-implementation of the agreements worked out between prisoners and California Gov. Jerry Brown. News and Letters Committees has been covering the prisoners’ hunger strike even before it began (see Pelican [=>]
Hegel and Black history
September 30, 2014There is compelling evidence that the Haitian Revolution of 1803 was a source for Hegel’s narrative on the master/slave relation in the PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT.