A teacher of six-year-olds in a low-income Illinois suburb tells of her experience teaching during COVID-19 and how those who run the schools have no comprehension of what the job entails and no interest in protecting the mental and physical health of teachers, staff, or children.
What is happening in Poland is revolutionary as women lead a movement that is protesting the Catholic Church’s inhuman attack on women’s freedom as well mounting a deep challenge to the fascist-leaning Polish government.
Election battles, reaching for the future, and the pull of the past; Sabotage of the post office; Food recycling workers strike; Anti-labor statue downed; Oil and biden; COVID-19: where’s the vision?; Racism and fascism; Polish women’s revolutionary moment; News & Letters is back in print!
Guanajuato, Mexico, has 2,587 missing persons, and leads nationally in the number of intentional homicides—3,438 in the first nine months of the year; President Andrés Manuel López Obrador claims to be against neoliberalism, but practices neoliberalism with state-capitalism in his developmentalist projects in many parts of Mexico; many states and communities are COVID-19 hot spots with high levels of deaths, particularly in maquiladoras; and the Zapatistas report on their situation vis-a-vis COVID-19, and their resistance along with the Congreso Nacional Indigena against the Federal government developmentalist projects.
Racism and the resistance to it permeated the election, from the Trump campaign’s appeal to white supremacy to the outpouring of Black organizing and votes, energized by the new stage of revolt sparked by the police murder of George Floyd. However, grave questions remain about where the U.S. and the world are heading. Movements from below will be challenged to resist the calls for “unity” under the capitalist umbrella and to continue to deepen their revolt against a “return to normal.”
People in Detroit, Mich., involved in counting the vote of the 2020 presidential election speak for themselves of their pride in fighting republican intimidation and their anger and determination to keep fighting against racism.
The European Union has once more proved its feckless inability to halt the destruction of democracy by Hungary and Poland who caused a crisis by vetoing the EU budget, needed to fund the bloc’s COVID-19 recovery plan.
‘Mexico news’ takes up the thousands of missing people in Mexico and the found clandestine graves; the resistance to Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s developmentalist capitalism; how COVID-19 affects Mexico; and how fare the Zapatistas and their future plans.
While what is happening in Poland may not be a revolution, it is revolutionary. Women are leading a movement protesting the Church’s inhuman attack on women’s freedom, and mounting a deep challenge to the fascist-leaning Polish government.
In addition to pandemic, climate, and economic disasters, we face the specter of pre-emptive counter-revolution. Self-activity of masses in motion is needed not only to defeat Trump but to move beyond society that breeds Trumpism.
Starbucks barista fired for demanding that police also wear masks in the store; California State University in Los Angeles students rally in support of hiring organizer Melina Abdullah as Dean of the College of Ethnic Studies; Dallas, Ga., high school student suspended and threatened by classmates for taking a picture of a crowded school hallway and posting it on social media.
The Detroit Federation of Teachers voted to authorize a safety strike, which means they will not teach face-to-face but are willing to work remotely. Most parents, students, and educators want to return to classroom learning, but COVID-19 forces everyone into choices unthinkable six months ago, choices that could mean life or death.
You can help us recover after a fire near our office caused extensive damage.
The fracking boom turned to bust and a wave of bankruptcies reveals the current operation of decaying capitalism in miniature: cannibalizing the economy, people and the planet, destroying our future, in order to funnel wealth to the favored few.
Voices of family members of prisoners and other supporters speaking out as they demonstrated in front of Soledad prison.
For many New Afrikan Revolutionaries August has a profound significance. For me Black August attempts to set forth a new humanism.
Several hundred people, including many family members of prisoners at San Quentin Prison, Calif., demonstrated for the fifth time in the last three months to protest the state’s murder of prisoners by COVID-19.
Nationwide Black-led revolt and white supremacist backlash, class struggles and the ravages of a pandemic and economic collapse are taking place amid election battles and attacks on democracy.
Readers’ Views takes up: Black revolt and racism; dialectics of liberation; school battles; election victories; history and freedom; class struggles; and fighting the Right wing.
Readers’ Views takes up: Queer safety is a human right; fake green politics; women in India; women in the U.S.; shameless evictions; voices from behind bars.
Staggering COVID-19 death toll in New York nursing homes and nationwide in nursing homes housing the disabled; impact of school closures on special needs students; Team Brit allows people with disabilities to participate in motorsports.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, for the first time on record all sections of the world economy are expected to contract in 2020.
Diana Russell remembered; Hawaii’s Feminist Economic Recovery Plan for COVID-19; Turkish women protest moves to withdraw from Istanbul Convention; women social health workers strike in India; women contest stolen election in Belarus; demands for release of Sanaa Seif in Egypt.
Prisoner rights activist Tasha Williams relays reports from prisoners at Soledad State Prison of a brutal attack by guards on Black prisoners. Guards beat them, used chokeholds on them and several other attacks as well as being maskless and yelling at the Black men: “By the time this is over, you N—ers will have COVID-19!”
Educator Susan Van Gelder breaks down the difficulties and political realities of what happens to school children, teachers, and others trying to educate children during the crisis caused by the pandemic and Donald Trump’s and Betsy DeVos’ attempts to destroy public education.
A new generation of revolutionary youth, led by Black youth, joined by youth of all races and many older people, created the most widespread, sustained revolt since the 1960s. Its militance reflected the depth of its challenge to this deadly racist society and the breadth of its support.
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.
Nigerians protest rape and violence against teenage girls; Feminist Coalition Feministe statement on Nova Scotia mass killings; Texas Equal Access Fund sues anti-abortion group for defamation; NatCen Social Research finds girls between 16-34 from the poorest backgrounds more likely to harm themselves; a rally demands action on the year-old proposals by Canadian inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
A statement of solidarity with the U.S. movement against racism and police brutality by the shackdwellers movement in South Africa, Abahlali baseMjondolo.
Detroit is still struggling with the pandemic as water is still shut off to over 3,000 residents. Funerals and hospitalizations are the most difficult for families because they can’t be together in a meaningful way.
In India, labor in general, migrant workers and daily wage earners in particular, are vulnerable to the impact of COVID-19. Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers are desperately trying to return to their hometowns, battling hunger and scorching heat.
Readers’ views on American civilization on trial, coast to coast; Cops in schools; Police and power; Style and meaning; Sports fans speak; Revolt: where to now? and Health workers speak
Protests of George Floyd’s murder and police brutality in general have erupted all over the U.S. Here are in-person reports of demonstrations in Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Ex-prisoner Faruq writes about the meaning of looting in racist, capitalist Amerika where police brutality runs rampant.
Trump’s administration directed border agents immediately to deport immigrants, no hearing required. Refugees in the border region of northern Mexico, already waiting in line for months, are now stranded indefinitely.
Protesters in front of San Quentin prison demanded freedom for Chanthon Bun. Instead of honoring the board’s decision that he was suitable for parole, the California Department of Corrections and rehabilitation intends to transfer him to an ICE detention center.
Capitalism is exacerbating the havoc being wreaked by COVID-19 in Latin America. In the projected largest recession in its history, 12 million more people will lose their jobs, leaving 29 million more in poverty.
“Queer Notes” author Elise explains how the COVID-19 pandemic is hitting minority communities especially hard and that the LGBTQ community is no exception.
Residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities–0.6% of the population–have made up an estimated 43% of U.S. deaths from COVID-19. In any other situation these numbers would raise the specter of genocide.
Two flashpoints in Asia between North and South Korea and between India and China erupted in threats and deadly clashes.
Detroit dispatch #7 saw a multiplicity of daily Black Lives Matter protests, in both city and suburbs, illuminating revelations of and resistance against systemic racism. Art flourishes while evictions loom, Fiat-Chrysler workers walk out while speed-up of workers continues and social distancing and mask wearing fall by the wayside.
The COVID-19 pandemic is hitting minority communities especially hard. The LGBTQ community is no exception and Transgender people are particularly hard hit. This is an international phenomenon.
American civilization never ceases to put itself on trial, as shown once again by the revolt in Minneapolis that quickly spread nationwide, a new moment of revolt in an unprecedented situation.
Special coverage of COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Watch this space for periodic additions. Latest: Detroit Dispatch #6: Hospitalizations, funerals and the need for justice; Discussion article: Neoliberal necropolitics and Indian migrant workers; Detroit Dispatch #5: Education and individualism; COVID-19 has generated a lot of “free time” for workers, but how can we create full, human “free time”?; Detroit dispatch #4: The rush to reopen; Detroit dispatch #3: a pall over the city; Woman as Reason: Abortion in the time of COVID-19; Detroit Dispatch: Easter Sunday.
In Detroit most people have been practicing social distancing, enforced by the police who recovered from their own COVID-19 outbreak. The most difficult situations are hospitalizations and funerals, and sadly, Detroit’s “Right to Literacy” case was short-lived, overturned by the full panel of judges. Plaintiffs are regrouping to resume the struggle.
The coronavirus crisis has compelled the Indian state to haphazardly effectuate a lockdown in order to properly practice social distancing. But it has unaccountably forgotten that social distancing is a privilege of the elite class if well-thought-out arrangements are not made.
The measures adopted in the face of the spread of COVID-19 in the world have caused billions of people to suddenly have excess “free time.” But this is not a full “free time,” conducive to the enjoyment and development of new skills, but a “time without work” that is exacerbating the enormous economic contradictions already existing in our society. Is it possible to imagine and bring about a form of free time that is truly human time?
Depending on the state and their prison system, healthcare inside is marginal during the best of times. Some prisons in Wisconsin are better than in most states, but that care is not consistent throughout Wisconsin’s facilities.
Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruling against Peruvian government in favor of Trans woman Azul Rojas Marin; LGBTQ Asians fighting hate crimes; and a coalition of LGBTQ people demanding California enact the Emergency Transgender Wellness and Equity Fund.
Dominican-American youth protest in New York City; Emma Theofelus, 23, Namibia’s youngest cabinet member; and Sudanese dancers, DJs, and musicians performing in public after a popular women’s and youth movement toppled the regime of al-Bashir and its “morality police.”
