Tens of thousands of people in Hong Kong defied a ban on demonstrations to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre. Thousands came out to oppose the Beijing government’s intention to impose a National Security Law directly on Hong Kong.
Bob McGuire
Meatpacking workers sacrificed
May 1, 2020Workers in meatpacking plants across the country are being sacrificed to what Karl Marx called capital’s “werewolf hunger for surplus labor” as packing companies try to reap the benefits of the prevailing level of automation—but substituting intensified sweated labor for the capital investment of automation. If workers die from COVID-19, the capitalist doesn’t care.
Copper miners strike
March 11, 2020The strike of more than 1,500 copper miners and smelters in Arizona and Texas against Asarco/Grupo Mexico has entered its fifth month, part of a new wave of labor solidarity and revolt.
Editorial: Trump after impeachment
March 8, 2020In the aftermath of Trump’s impeachment trial, impunity and purges rage while checks and balances failed. Armed with a philosophy of freedom, the opposition to Trump and to the capitalist system that spawned him would give Trump the challenge that fellow politicians could not.
Rebellion in Hong Kong spreads
January 21, 2020New Year’s Day, a million people took to the streets in Hong Kong despite police repression. Marchers called for Hong Kong to “resist tyranny, join a union.”
‘For Sama’: video as Syrian revolt
November 17, 2019A report on a speech by documentary filmmaker Joshka Wessels, who talks about the book “Documenting Syria”.
Hong Kong defiance
November 4, 2019Bob McGuire describes the ongoing protests in Hong Kong, triggered five months ago against a colonialist extradition bill to mainland China.
GM strikers fight capital’s drive to impoverish workers
October 30, 2019A Marxist-Humanist analysis of the 40-day strike by the autoworkers at General Motors and its ramifications for the labor struggle in the U.S. and abroad.
Hong Kong masses fight rulers’ grab for power
August 31, 2019An account of the development of the Hong Kong protests to block a proposed extradition bill, which could send residents of Hong Kong to face pre-determined injustice before Beijing courts, tracing them back to the 1989 Tiannamen Square Massacre.
Readers’ Views, July-August 2019: Part 1
June 27, 2019Readers’ Views on rising threat of the Right; corruption of the criminal injustice system; abortion bans attack women; support Maâti Monjib!; nursing home blues; why read ‘N&L?’; and support Crimean Tatars!
Millions in Hong Kong challenge Xi’s ambitions
June 26, 2019This year’s commemoration of the Tiananmen Square massacre was followed by more than a million people protesting the Extradition Bill that would legalize dissidents in Hong Kong being sent to face China’s injustice system.
Essay: What is socialism? Socialism, labor, and the Black dimension
May 1, 2019Marxist-Humanist Bob McGuire looks through history to Marx’s relationship to labor and the Black movement for freedom and then to our day and the relationship of Marxist-Humanism to labor and the Black struggle for freedom in speaking to the question many are asking today: What is socialism?
People of Taiwan wary of China’s reach
March 14, 2019China Airlines pilots in Taiwan won a strike over safety and staffing, while survivors of the bloody repression perpetuated by Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang beginning Feb. 28, 1947, demonstrated to remember those killed 72 years ago and to campaign against the threats of forced reunification under Xi Jinping.
Chicago teachers win first strike against charter schools
January 24, 2019Chicago teachers speak for themselves, explaining why they fought and won the first strike against charter schools.
First ever charter school teachers’ strike
December 16, 2018Teachers speak about why they struck Chicago’s Acero charter schools on Dec. 4-9, expanding the wave of teacher strikes to the first charter school strike in the nation.
Readers’ Views, November-December 2018
December 14, 2018Readers’ Views on: Capitalism vs. the Planet; Anti-Semitism’s Inhumanity; Kavanaugh Travesty; Youth Rock!; Freedom Movements vs. Fascism across the Globe; Catholic Church Crisis; Voices from behind Bars
‘Striking to Survive’ in China
Report on a talk in Oakland by worker-activists from China, including Fan Shigang, author and editor of “Striking to Survive: Workers’ Resistance to Factory Relocations in China.”
Iran strike solidarity
Workers at Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane in Iran have been on strike for most of November. This is the latest of their walkouts this year over unpaid wages.
Nurses on strike
Licensed practical nurses and supporters rallied at the University of Illinois Hospitals during their unfair labor practices strike.
Election deepens illegitimacy of Trump’s minority rule
December 3, 2018A Marxist-Humanist view of the 2018 U.S. midterm elections that highlights the illegitimacy of Trump’s rule, showing how it is the rule of a minority won because of anti-democratic voter suppression, gerrymandering, racism, sexism, extreme anti-immigration rhetoric, hate speech and lies. It highlights the other America that opposes such neo-fascism.
Chicago hotel workers on strike
September 27, 2018Striking hotel workers by the thousands traded their picket line duties for a rally and march through downtown Chicago on Sept. 13, 2018. They were striking over health insurance among other demands.
Chicago Vigil for the Rohingya
Over 100 people gathered in Chicago’s Federal Plaza on Aug. 25, 2018, for a vigil on the one-year anniversary of the massacre of the Muslim minority Rohingya in Burma.
Jasik workers organize in China
September 26, 2018This 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.
Readers’ Views, July-August 2018, Part 1
July 23, 2018Readers’ 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
In Memoriam: Andy Phillips (1924-2018)
May 1, 2018We mourn the loss of a founding member of News and Letters Committees, who participated in the first national strike against automation in the coal mines and later co-wrote its history in “The Coal Miners’ General Strike of 1949-50 and the Birth of Marxist-Humanism in the U.S.”
Readers’ Views: January-February 2018, Part II
February 1, 2018Readers’ Views on Women’s Liberation struggle continue and voices from behind bars.
Editorial: Alabama Blacks beat Trump-Moore
January 28, 2018Black voters in Alabama, led by Black women, overcame blatant voter suppression—including discriminatory voter ID laws—to flood the polls and block Roy Moore from the Senate seat he expected that God would anoint him to.
Help Puerto Rico now
November 15, 2017In person report on a demonstration in Chicago in support of the people of Puerto Rico, and to demand the Trump Administration give them the help they need.
NFL players defy owners and Trump
A hundred people marched to Soldier Field before the Chicago Bears’ first game this season, to “Stand with Kaepernick” for his taking a knee during the National Anthem before games of the 2016 season.
Workers’ revolts threaten Xi Jinping
Xi Jinping was not merely elected to a second term as Party Secretary, he got his name and his thought into the Constitution. .
Editorial: Save the Rohingya, stop the genocide!
November 12, 2017The genocide against the Rohingya in Burma (Myanmar) by the Buddhist majority is egged on by the military as well as by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. .
Readers’ Views: September-October 2017, Part 1
September 5, 2017Readers’ Views: facing far right’s threat; don’t scapegoat; Canadian strike; Transgender troops; women’s liberation; homeless in Los Angeles; defend dissidents; why read N&L.
China border controls
August 29, 2017China: protests against Hong Kong repression, border push into Bhutan vs. India, repression of Uyghurs.
Fighting back against the rise of neo-Nazi hate
August 28, 2017In-person reports of demonstrations in Chicago, Memphis, Oregon, Los Angeles and Halifax in Canada in solidarity with activists in Charlottesville, Va., fighting against neo-fascism and demanding to take down Confederate statues. .
China’s tentacles
July 2, 2017Report on the Belt and Road Forum held in May in China and its connection with China’s imperialist and anti-labor actions.
O’Hare workers push for union rights
May 18, 2017Women workers at O’Hare Airport spoke out on their conditions of labor working for private contractors.
Northwest Indiana demands “No Ban! No Wall!”
March 21, 2017Syrians, Mexicans and Iranians were among the 100 who gathered in East Chicago, Indiana, to demand–under the banner of No Ban! No Wall!–the end of Trump’s demonization of immigrants in his effort to gain support from some white workers.
Trump and unrest confront China
January 31, 2017Just weeks after Donald Trump claimed his Electoral College victory, he put the spotlight on U.S.-China relations by taking a call from Taiwan’s President, creating the possibility that the U.S. might abandon the “one China” policy.
Cry ‘Free Syria!’
November 27, 2016First hand account of Chicago demonstration on the International Day of Solidarity with Aleppo on Oct. 1, 2016.
Free Russian radical Ildar Dadin!
In-person report of a vigil in Chicago against the torture of Ildar Dadin and other political prisoners in Russia.
Solidarity with Standing Rock: Water Is Life
November 26, 2016Participant reports of Chicago and Oakland actions in solidarity with the Standing Rock Lakota who are fighting to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. #NoDAPL
Wukan defies China’s state-capitalist rulers
July 4, 2016Five years later, residents of China’s Wukan village continue to protest the stealing of their land by developers who are paid by village officials and the Chinese Communist Party.
Readers’ Views, May-June 2016
May 17, 2016Readers’ Views on Women as Reason; Harriet Tubman; Racism and Internationalism; Bisexual Health; Trans Liberation and Feminism; Chinese State vs. Workers; Nuclear Arms Threaten All; Ireland’s Red Banner; Remembering Olga Domanski; Haggard but Not Tired; Voices from Behind the Bars.
Olga Domanski’s revolutionary life, 1923-2015 (March-April 2016 Readers’ Views)
March 22, 2016Readers’ Views from the March-April 2016 N&L marking the revolutionary life of Olga Domanski.
China in crisis moves to crush dissent
January 26, 2016In the face of an upsurge of strikes, China struck back with new weapons against the spread of job actions and demonstrations.
Kurds rage at Erdogan
December 10, 2015Kurds protest at Chicago’s Turkish consulate against recent massacre in Ankara
Huge explosions in Tianjin, China, heat up ongoing unrest
August 31, 2015Workers 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.”
South China Sea dispute
June 29, 2015The exchange of threats between China and the U.S. over specks of land and submerged reefs in the South China Sea has heated up as China has expanded its ambitious campaign of dredging, land reclamation, garrisoning troops and erecting military facilities in the Spratly Islands.
Chicago teachers prepare to strike
Over 1,000 teachers and labor supporters rallied three weeks before the Chicago Teachers Union contract expires. The Thompson Center plaza was a sea of red T-shirts with teachers and other unionists chanting “This means war!” about the contract battle ahead.