by Terry Moon
The racist U.S. Right has used the specter of terrorism in attacking Muslim religious law, Sharia, as a way to build and deepen fear of all Muslims and forward their reactionary agenda of racism against all minorities, sexism, and anti-immigrationism. Genuine feminist organizations like the decades-old Women Living Under Muslim Laws and the [=>]
by Htun Lin
A patient shows up in the emergency room, expecting care, and wanting to be seen by a doctor. But the gulf between the patient’s expectations and the reality of HMO practice is right out of “The Twilight Zone.”
Even before the patient gets to see the doctor, a healthcare worker like me walks in [=>]
by Gerry Emmett
The killing of 24-year-old Mark Duggan by London police on Aug. 6 set off the largest urban rebellion in Britain in decades. The situation was made worse by police lies that Duggan had pointed a gun at them, and by their rude, smirking response to family and community members who came to the [=>]
by Gerry Emmett
Israel has seen an unprecedented protest movement grow in the wake of the Arab Spring. Around 250,000 people marched through Tel Aviv, Israel, on Aug. 6 in the biggest protest rally the country has ever experienced. Another 50,000 participated in other cities and towns. It is being seen as a direct challenge to [=>]
by Gerry Emmett
Protests against deteriorating economic conditions, fuel shortages and government repression were met with brutal force by authorities in Malawi on June 20-21. Police fired on large crowds in a number of cities, attacking with tear gas, and forcing protest leaders into hiding. At least 19 people were killed in two days of clashes [=>]
From the September-October 2011 issue of News & Letters:
World in View: Students awaken Chile
Hundreds of thousands of students–teenagers, and college students–have taken to the streets of Santiago, the capital, and the cities of Concepción, Valparaíso and Temuco, among others, to demand a decent public education. Hundreds of schools have been taken over. Students have been [=>]
The famine in the Horn of Africa is finally getting attention, though it has been years in the making, now that shocking pictures of starving Somali children have become a regular feature on the nightly news. So far tens of thousands of people have died, half of them children under the age of five.
The suffering [=>]
Essay
by Erica Rae
From college level all the way down to pre-school, education is in crisis across the U.S. Teachers are made the scapegoats for why students are not “measuring up” to keep our country competitive in a global market that is falling apart across the globe. But, what is the reality?
At the college level: many students [=>]
Editorial
While the world’s attention focused on the long-expected fall of Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi, the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad has conducted a Ramadan massacre that ranks as one of the greatest atrocities of the counter-revolutionary reaction to the Arab Spring. The Syrian masses will certainly take heart at Qaddafi’s defeat, however he might [=>]
Los Angeles–On Aug. 13, 30 youths, mostly young women, gathered at the County Twin Towers Prison to support the Pelican Bay prisoners’ hunger strike. With the drumbeat and the performance of Aztec dancers, the protesters held individually made signs that read: “Prisoners are human beings, give them their rights”; “We stand in solidarity for prisoners’ [=>]
Pelican Bay, Calif.–Here in Pelican Bay State Prison’s Security Housing Unit (SHU), a number of us prisoners decided to launch a peaceful collective protest in the form of a hunger strike starting July 1. This action is necessary due to the anti-human, draconian institutional policies implemented by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).
According [=>]
Pelican Bay, Calif.–The hunger strike among California prisoners, consigned to perpetual solitary confinement in Security Housing Units (SHU), was suspended on July 20. The conditions that drove many prisoners to severely endanger their health by not eating for three weeks persist. According to prison officials themselves, at one point 6,600 inmates in at least 13 [=>]
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya
Editor’s note: Written in the midst of the last double-dip recession in the U.S., the piece excerpted here was originally titled, “In the U.S. and globally: deep recession, military buildup and the pulling apart of political alliances.” It was published as the lead article in the April 1982 N&L.
The depth of [=>]
by Ron Kelch
At the end of a months-long political spectacle in Washington–manufactured over irrelevancies concerning what should have been a routine raising of the national debt limit before the Aug. 2 deadline–reality struck with a bombshell: the anemic “jobless” recovery in the U.S. has stalled. The economy is getting worse and there is no solution [=>]
News & Letters, Vol. 56, No. 5
September-October 2011
Lead
Political spectacles cannot hide reality of deranged capitalism
At the end of a months-long political spectacle in Washington–manufactured over irrelevancies concerning what should have been a routine raising of the national debt limit before the Aug. 2 deadline–reality struck with a bombshell: the anemic “jobless” recovery in the U.S. [=>]
From the July-August 2011 issue of News & Letters:
Readers’ Views
Contents:
AS REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION TAKE WORLD STAGE
Congratulations on a fine May-June issue. Thanks especially for [=>]
Chicago–On June 22 the police, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) security and construction crews showed up at La Casita, the field house on the grounds of Whittier Dual Language Academy in Pilsen (see “Chicago Latinas demand a library,” Nov.-Dec. 2010 N&L). As the construction workers set up fencing that blocked access to La Casita from three sides, [=>]
Oakland, Calif.–On June 12 over 150 demonstrators marched to downtown Oakland from Fruitvale BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station, dubbed “Oscar Grant Station” by community activists. We were protesting the mild charge and minimal sentence handed down to Grant’s killer, former BART cop Johannes Mehserle. Mehserle was released from a Los Angeles County jail the [=>]
Warner Brothers presents Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser directed by Charlotte Zwerin. Produced by Charlotte Zwerin and Bruce Ricker. Executive Producer Clint Eastwood.
Art is the eternal particular, the unmediated, mediating term in which the human face is recognized. A familiar tune, like a familiar face, catches us unawares and we smile in recognition. We find ourselves whistling.
To [=>]
When Gil Scott-Heron passed on May 27, we lost one of the great artists of our time. As the “Winter In America” of which he sang stretches on, cold and brutal, his voice remains as relevant as his presence is missed.
Coming out of the Black Power movement, he had a keen understanding of where Black [=>]
The blog Nothing but a Human by L Boogie has posted a thoughtful review of Part I of Charles Denby’s book Indignant Heart: A Black Worker’s Journal. A continuation reviewing Part II is yet to come.
Themes from Indignant Heart: A Black Workers’ Journal (Part 1)
The continuing problem of racist, unaccountable police violence is highlighted by a recent pair of outrageous shootings in Arizona and Florida. Both illustrate the militarized, “search and destroy” mentality so prevalent among police officers, supported by the racist political climate in the U.S. today.
A Pima County Regional SWAT team killed Jose Guerena in his Tucson [=>]
New York–I have been actively involved in the tenant movement since 1997, when rent laws actually expired, albeit temporarily. Many tenants woke up then and a massive demonstration took place in front of then-Governor Pataki’s office. The stage was set for even bigger demonstrations, but tenant groups (closely allied with the Democrats) decided not to [=>]
by Elise
Students at Mona Shores High School in Muskegon, Mich., won gender-neutral proms. After Oak Reed, a Transgender boy, was nominated prom King and school administrators threw out the ballots saying Reed is technically a girl, students protested by creating a Facebook page, “Oak is my king,” and passed out petitions.
* * *
The International [=>]
Here are links to some local news coverage of a recent meeting of the Chicago Local of News and Letters Committees:
Windy City Times: Community groups continue to focus on Lakeview
Gay Chicago: Panel addresses Lake View’s summer turmoil
Here’s the flyer for the meeting:
News and Letters Committees invites you to a forum on:
The panel of [=>]
This past spring, Mumia Abu-Jamal’s 1982 death sentence was, again, ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. In violation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1988 decision in Mills v. Maryland, the jury was improperly led to believe that only evidence on which the jury unanimously agreed could be considered to reach [=>]
The area of the world where the right to water is perhaps most severely abused is the Gaza Strip. Since 2003, no piped water has existed. Out of Gaza’s 145 wells, only 55 are functional. The World Health Organization reported that 80% of the “drinking” water in Gaza is unsafe for consumption. Since the closure [=>]
Los Angeles–On June 16, over 100 demonstrators gathered at the Alhambra court building in support of longtime Chicano community activist Carlos Montes. He is charged with six counts, mostly possession of firearms, though his guns are all registered.
After the hearing, he spoke to his supporters outside the court building. He said his arrest is a [=>]
From the July-August 2011 issue of News & Letters:
Fukushima’s ‘man-made disaster’
Editor’s note: Below are excerpts of a report sent to us from Narihiko Ito in Japan. Along with it, he sent an “Urgent Proposal” on assistance to the earthquake victims and reconstruction of the devastated area, issued by the Peace Constitution Committee of the 21st [=>]
Chicago–Thousands of people rallied on June 14 under the banner, “Give It Back!” Three separate marches downtown, each led by a 12-foot-tall “corporate welfare king” puppet, met up outside a Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce summit. Then 24 people sat down in the street and were arrested. There were contingents of teachers, healthcare workers, janitors, anti-eviction [=>]
Following the May 2 federal elections, Canadians woke up to a very different Canada. In this “new” Canada the polarization of Canadian society has finally fully revealed itself, polarized by social class, between English-speaking and French-speaking, and between the “Right” and “Left” ends of the political spectrum. The Conservatives, a true right-wing Party under Stephen [=>]
Los Angeles–On June 14, 1,000 mostly young grocery workers and their supporters gathered and marched for a fair contract at the East Hollywood Vons Supermarket. They represented 60,000 workers of the UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers) at Vons, Ralph and Albertson Supermarkets who have been without a contract for over three months.
Management has demanded [=>]
Detroit–Many challenges face the rank-and-file auto workers as the stage is being set for auto contract negotiations in July. Their future is not promising, despite the rhetoric of United Auto Workers union President Bob King that emphasizes the restoration of benefits lost through contract concessions and the General Motors (GM) and Chrysler bankruptcies.
The losses began [=>]
Forest Park, Ill.–Over 1,000 people gathered on May Day in Waldheim (Forest Home) Cemetery at the Haymarket Martyrs Monument to witness its rededication on the 125th anniversary of Haymarket. It memorializes eight radicals that capitalist sham justice convicted for the bomb at Haymarket Square in Chicago on May 4, 1886, during a workers’ protest over [=>]
Chicago–On June 10, several dozen activists from FSPA Justice & Peace Coordinating Committee, 8th Day Center for Justice, News and Letters Committees and others marched to Obama’s campaign headquarters here to forcefully remind the President of the promise he made as a candidate in 2008 to “oppose the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA)” while trade [=>]
A special report from News and Letters Committees:
Stop torture in California prisons!
The hunger strike among California prisoners, consigned to perpetual solitary confinement in Security Housing Units (SHU), officially ended on July 20th but what persists are the conditions that drove many prisoners to severely endanger their health by not eating for three weeks. Prisoners we [=>]
by Artemis
The reactionary majority of the U.S. Supreme Court gutted all future class action suits by throwing out the case against Wal-Mart, which has discriminated against over 1.5 million women workers as well as implemented extreme anti-union policies. Not surprisingly, big business was delighted with the verdict.
The International Criminal Court at the Hague, Netherlands, issued [=>]
Editorial
Following his triumphant announcement on May 1 that Osama bin Laden had been killed in al Qaeda’s secret headquarters in the garrison town of Abbottabad, Pakistan, President Obama as Commander-in-Chief had enough political cover from the warmongering right wing that he probably could have declared “Mission Accomplished” and ordered an abrupt departure from Afghanistan. His [=>]
Chicago–SlutWalk came to downtown on June 4, a gorgeous hot day. Over 1,000 participated, including many GLBTQ folks. SlutWalk originated in Canada when a Toronto police officer told students at York University in January that if women don’t want to be raped, they should “avoid dressing like sluts.” That ignorant statement, uttered in 2011 by [=>]
Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader’s Eye-Opening Journey across the Life Line by Abby Johnson with Cindy Lambert (SaltRiver, 2011).
The religious Right has hailed Unplanned as an anti-abortion classic for a new era. It signals more cooperation between ultra-conservative Catholics and evangelicals. The book claims that newer anti-abortion protesters are non-violent [=>]
From the July-August 2011 issue of News & Letters
by Terry Moon
The time is now for the movements in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, and other countries engaged in revolt, to make sure there’s no repetition of what happened to women after the revolutions in Algeria and Iran. In the Algerian revolution, 1954-1962, hundreds of thousands [=>]
From the July-August 2011 issue of News & Letters:
On socialism and freedom in Morocco
by Richard Greeman
Morocco, where the Arab Spring has opened up a space of relative freedom to discuss and demonstrate, is an exciting place to be, where every day new groups are getting organized and putting forward their grievances. The Feb. [=>]
Defying laws against public demonstrations, tens of thousands of protestors, self-described “indignados,” occupied Madrid’s Puerta del Sol and gathered in 162 squares in towns and cities across Spain protesting unemployment, government austerity and a political system that serves only the banks and big business. Following are excerpts from an in-person participant-observer sent to us by [=>]
by Gerry Emmett
The Arab Spring has galvanized resistance to European governments’ aim of resolving capitalism’s crisis on the backs of the working class. Revolutionary ideas communicate across greater barriers than the Mediterranean Sea. Across southern Europe, resistance to austerity has begun to express itself in terms learned from Tahrir Square.
On May 15 a mass movement [=>]
Thousands of migrant workers exploded onto the streets in the industrial suburb of Zengcheng in Guangdong province and vented their rage for a week. Security forces had thrown to the pavement a 20-year-old pregnant migrant worker from Sichuan, while clearing the street and removing her peddler’s cart.
Migrant workers walked out of factories and demonstrated, burning [=>]
The presidential election in Peru is more important for who was not elected, Keiko Fujimori, than for who was, Ollanta Humala. Fujimori, daughter of the former president who now sits in jail, was narrowly defeated. She had surrounded herself with her father’s advisers, bent on returning Peru to a repressive, rightist regime.
The Indigenous of the [=>]
After 50 years in which millions have died, Southern Sudan becomes an independent nation on July 9. It is a momentous occasion marked by contradictions.
In Southern Sudan: While the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement has been the primary organization in the liberation struggle, a number of splits occurred recently, and it remains to be seen how [=>]
by Htun Lin
When the popular game show Jeopardy featured IBM’s “Watson,” a computer, Watson won against the best human players. For capitalists this was not just entertainment, but serious business–a way to replace masses of workers.
As Christopher Caldwell of the Financial Times put it: “If you get paid to answer questions in a structured context, it is [=>]
You don’t need a weatherman to know the wind has blown in another year of disasters: record flooding of the Lower Mississippi River, a record Texas drought, a record Arizona wildfire, the worst fire season in U.S. history. This comes after 2010, the planet’s hottest year in history, which brought record flooding in Pakistan and [=>]
Since May 25, a people’s assembly has been in session in Greece’s Syntagma Square outside of parliament. Through an open mike, tens of thousands from all walks of life have been coming to express their total indignation with Europe’s politics of austerity. The people’s assembly of self-described “angry ones” is a new dimension to the [=>]
