Takes up: Opening of the Disability Cultural Center in San Francisco; ‘Everyone Is Good at Something’ by Indian photographer Vicky Roy; and new steps in the struggle for the rights of people with disabilities in Ireland.

Takes up: Opening of the Disability Cultural Center in San Francisco; ‘Everyone Is Good at Something’ by Indian photographer Vicky Roy; and new steps in the struggle for the rights of people with disabilities in Ireland.
A view of the educational situation in several states of the U.S., from budget cuts and ideological repression to language discrimination and the introduction of AI in classrooms.
Takes up: proliferation of womenâs âco-living spacesâ in China; 51st anniversary of Studio D, the only publicly-funded feminist filmmaking studio in Canada; a march in Spain demanding worldwide abolition of reproductive surrogacy; and the Women Against the Far-Right campaign in Great Britain.
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 UNâs 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.
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-Bashirâs 30-year dictatorship.
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.
Takes up: an orphanage who cares for children with disabilities in Uganda; Nova Scotiaâs New Student Code of Conduct; a protest against President Trumpâs big bill on Capitol Hill; and Alberta’s Premier Danielle Smith stealing money from the Canada Disability Benefit.
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 Orbanâs law banning public displays of homosexuality is illegal; Black Pride Colorado’s fund raise for âDiana,â a Trans woman attacked with acid in Philadelphia; and Kashish Pride Film Festival in Mumbai, India.
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 youthsâ protests the government fears the most.
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 âincidentâ was particularly ominous as both nuclear-armed powers seemed close to further escalation.
Takes up: A UN Women report about women-led and womenâs 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 womenâs hard-won rights were deemed easy to destroy. Trump has acted accordingly but is running into âthe resistance,â with women leading the way.
Takes up: the opening of Polandâs first abortion clinic; International Womenâs 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 âbuggery lawâ 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 Trumpâs return? And what is the âLeftâ 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 workersâ 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.
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 TeuchitlĂĄn, Jalisco, where hundreds may have been executed. The camp was not discovered by the State, but by families of the disappeared.
Takes up: the life of feminist philosopher Sandra G. Harding, who coined the term âstandpoint theoryâ; 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.
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 âBlack Disability Historyâ webinar.
Takes up: Three Thai women rescued from a human egg farm in the country of Georgia; the third African Women in Dialogue conference; and the UN Human Rights Committee ruling Ecuador and Nicaragua responsible for violating the human rights of three girls denied abortions.
Trumpâs return is a manifestation of capitalismâs tendency toward fascism when destabilized by systemic crises. The questioning of the foundations of this decaying society is linked to a search for an alternative. We have a responsibility to help the movement set its direction by working at the concrete projection of a liberatory banner.
In its latest incursion into Europe, the Trump administration ranted against European liberalism, calling it the greatest threat to Europe, âthe threat from within.âIt not only campaigned for far-right parties but demanded their elevation to power. Trumpism aims to remake the world under the domination of new forms of fascism.
Takes up: Transgender Day of Remembrance in Chicago; Russian LGBTQ+ activist Andrei Kotov; filmmaker of ‘Crossing’ not showing it in home country, Georgia; and the Constitutional Court of Lithuania striking down âanti-LGBT propagandaâ law.
Maria Teresa Horta, one of the feminist authors of âThe Three Mariasâ who were freed in the Portuguese Revolution, died on Feb. 4. The book was explicitly revolutionary and made clear that to change womenâs lives revolution would have to be so deep as to transform human relationships, including sexuality.
President Donald Trump is encouraging deadly hate toward women, Blacks, people of color, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, and immigrants. It is grassroots responses and mutual aid that can block Trumpâs power grab. More forms of revolt will erupt in the face of the downward spiral of this capitalist world in crisis.
Takes up: International Criminal Court prosecutors investigating the Talibanâs horrific laws oppressing women as war crimes; the formation of a âmorality policeâ to enforce new restrictions on women in Libya; and âdeepfakeâ porn targeting girls in Toronto, Canada.
The Pelican Bay State Prison hunger strike documentary, The Strike, will air on PBS on Feb. 3. Faruq, a participant interviewed for the documentary, sees the strike as more than historyâas an opportunity to reflect on the present and help determine the future.
In California’s worst wildfires in its history, important factors include a century of land and water mismanagement and fossil fuel use that generates global warming. The fires brought out the best, mutual aid from below, and the worst, hateful scapegoating disguising climate denial. A global vision and humane principles in organizing ourselves are fundamental to a sustainable future.
Adele reviews ‘The Cult of Trump,’ whose author explains how so many people could support Trump for President in spite of his criminal activity, bullying personality, and nonsensical campaign speeches.
Farsi translation of the lead article “The U.S. election as manifestation of counterrevolution.”
Facing Trumpist attack on public schools, teacher Susan van Gelder traces history of the struggle in the U.S. for free education, from Reconstruction to the present. She highlights what we must fight for and the forces of retrogression.
Susan van Gelder reviews ‘Peregrina,’ a multimedia 80-minute one-woman performance, telling the story of femicide in Mexico and the movement of Mexican women to combat it.
Takes up: Sixteen days of activism in Ivory Coast opposing violence against women; a demonstration against violence against women in Kenya; technology intended to monitor wildlife in Northern India being misused to harass and intimidate women; and the European Court of Human Rights rejects the challenge against Franceâs anti-prostitution law.
Takes up: a program in Southeast Asia to help people with disabilities migrate without barriers; scrutiny of abusive educational practices in England against children with learning disabilities and severe mental disorders; and students with disabilities win a Disabled Student Bill of Rights at the American University in D.C.
The Syrian revolution rose again, ousting Bashar al-Assad. While the HTS played a key role, so did the people rising up. What is urgent now is solidarity with these revolutionary masses, making a category of them, helping them be heard, and opposing all efforts to subordinate them.
Takes up: Students in Seoul protest plans by Dongduk Womenâs University to become co-ed; London conference by the feminist organization Nordic Model Now!, debunking the sex industry; and a mass demonstration in Rome against violence against women.
It is crucial both to oppose Israelâs attacks on the Lebanese people and to confront the state of the resistance and its contradictions. To grapple with how the 1970s failed Lebanese revolution set the stage for today, we present this 1976 piece by Raya Dunayevskaya on the dialectic of developments, from regional rulersâ maneuvers, to the ambivalence of the Left, to the masses in motion.
The trial of Dominique Pelicot, who arranged for 82 men to rape his wife, Gisele Pelicot, over 200 times began in September. Gisele successfully fought for the judges to open the trial to the public, igniting a new wave of a women’s movement fighting mysogyny and sexual violence worldwide.
Takes up: Draft law for civil partnerships in Poland; Gay men and Trans people attacked in Ivory Coast; Trans woman Jin Xing’s adaptation of the play ‘Sunrise’ blocked in China; and Lesbian writer Sylvia Townsend Warner honored with a statue in Dorchester, England.
View of the struggle and rights of people living with disabilities: an art series depicting youth with disabilities in Nigeria, Kenya and Senegal; a seminar for women with disabilities in Tanzania; Disability Pride in the U.S. and Canada; a protest in Brussels against segregation in residential care homes.