The peace march on Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to commemorate over 70,000 lives lost at the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on Aug. 9 in Livermore, Calif., bring up questions of Marxism, humanism, and the alternative necessary new society.
Donald Trump
Rising U.S. racism challenges all freedom movements
September 2, 2017A Marxist-Humanist analysis of the history and meaning of the rising of the right-wing neo-Nazi white supremacist movement, its relationship to President Donald Trump and his administration, and its challenge to the freedom forces arrayed against it who are fighting for a humanist world. .
Chicagoans defend Genoveva Ramirez against ICE
August 31, 2017Hundreds demonstrated Aug. 31 outside Chicago offices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, supporting Genoveva Ramirez and all others being threatened with deportation.
Brexit is a portmanteau
August 28, 2017Poem by Paul Geist begins: Brexit is a portmanteau word/ so is brunch/ but I’m bored with politics/ unless it’s about human emancipation…
Fascism declares civil war in Charlottesville, Virginia
August 13, 2017Analysis of the violent invasion of Charlottesville, Va., the significance of the broader advance of fascism, and the opposite to it in human forces and reason.
Venezuela, ‘Chavismo’ in total crisis—which way out?
August 8, 2017As Venezuela’s social crisis deepens, the contradictions always present in Chavismo are coming to a head. A look at the Bolivarian Constitution, Chavismo’s relationship to the Arab Spring, and its dependence on high oil prices and a top leader illuminate the crisis.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2017, Part 2
July 6, 2017Readers’ Views on Cooperative Form of Labor vs. Abstract Labor; Marx vs. Trump-Putin; Voices From Behind Bars
“Science Not Silence”
About 1,000 people rallied on Earth Day at the campus of Cal Tech in Pasadena, Calif., under the banner of “Science Not Silence,” part of nationwide protests.
Editorial: Trump’s attack on climate and labor
Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change is an attack on labor, not, as he claims, for the good of workers. The solution is not to spread illusions about international negotiations. What is needed is to confront capitalism’s suicidal path both in immediate battles and in raising the banner of a new society of freely associated labor. .
The struggle for immigrants’ rights challenges humanity
The massive increase in inhuman attacks against immigrants and undocumented people in the U.S. is spurring new activism and urgency. .
Counter-fascist rally in Portland, Oregon
July 4, 2017Participant report on the June 4 rally against the fascists’ “Free Speech Rally” in Portland, Oregon, and the police intervention on the side of the fascists. .
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.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2017, Part 1
Readers’ Views on Philosophy and Revolt vs. Trumpism; Trump and the Left; Injustice to Immigrants; Anti-Woman, Anti-Labor Uber; ACT UP; From Iran; To Mexico; Why Read News & Letters?
World in View: Saudi threat to Qatar
June 30, 2017Qatar isn’t Yemen, and the Saudis won’t attack it. Qatar will not accept the Saudi demands.
Protesters counter fascist rally in Portland, Oregon
June 9, 2017An activist reports on the June 4, 2017, action by anti-fascist protesters against a rally of hate made up of Proud Boys, Militiamen, and Nazis who were protected by Portland cops who attacked anti-fascists.
Thousands demand Trump release his tax returns
June 5, 2017Participant report of the April 15, 2017, thousands strong protest in Los Angeles demanding that Donald Trump release his tax returns.
‘Science Not Silence’
June 4, 2017Participants report on the April 22 Science Not Silence demonstration where about 1,000 people rallied at the campus of Cal Tech and made ready to march in defense of science and of rational thought itself.
IV. International crises
May 17, 2017The people’s revolutionary struggles form the ground for approaching developments including Trump’s attack on a Syrian military base. The human-to-human communication found in places like Kafranbel has been a form of theory in itself. The deadliest weapon of mass destruction in the Syrian conflict has been the lie that there is “no good alternative” to Assad, echoing the bourgeoisie’s “no alternative” to capitalism. The state of Europe today illustrates the central importance of revolutionary solidarity.
III. U.S. forces of revolt as reason; philosophy as force of revolution
The unprecedented Women’s March on Washington the day after Trump’s inauguration revealed the blossoming of a universal movement with many particulars, from women’s demand to control their own bodies, to Black Lives Matter, to the struggle at Standing Rock.
II. The capital relation
The capital relation is spelled out as alienated labor, automation, destruction of jobs, unraveling of the social fabric–fertile ground for reactionary ideology, scapegoating, and fascism. Yet the human Subject’s quest for freedom continues.
I. Trumpism as an excrescence of world capitalism’s crises
Trumpism’s self-perpetuating disorder is based on negation of social movements, trying to stifle the positive in their negation of this exploitative society. His deceit and power grabs express capitalism’s disintegration, exuding racism, sexism, and fascism.
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2017-2018: Philosophy and revolt confront Trump’s drive to fascism
The true alternative to the threat of fascism is the path to a new society based on revolution from below. Can that happen without a unity of practice with theory, without the organization of thought embodied in an actual organization?
World in View: French elections
May 15, 2017France’s national elections will head to a run-off between fascist Marine Le Pen of the National Front party and liberal bourgeois centrist Emmanuel Macron of the En Marche party.
World in View: Korea war threats
The U.S. is increasing its military activity in the far East as tensions rise between it and North Korea that could lead to an unthinkable and devastating nuclear and chemical war that could affect multiple nations.
Day Without Women
May 2, 2017In-person report of a rally in New York’s Washington Square Park on International Women’s Day denouncing the anti-woman steps of Trump’s administration.
Letter from Mexico: Zapatistas support U.S. migrants
Zapatistas in Mexico issued a statement and provided material support for immigrants resisting expulsion, especially from the U.S. .
Voices From The Inside Out: Resisting Trumpism
May 1, 2017Through the study of theory and philosophy and by solidarizing and striking, prisoners seek a humanist society that rejects Donald Trump, his plutocratic regime and the U.S. criminal injustice system. .
Workshop Talks: Don’t let germs and capitalists win
Excluding some people from healthcare, as well as vaccinations and treating infectious diseases, puts even those with health coverage at risk. Battling healthcare exclusions is essential to confronting capitalism’s class rule. .
Queer Notes: May-June 2017
April 30, 2017Lesbian feminist Azza Sultan’s Bedayaa and Mesahat Foundation for Sexual and Gender Diversity fights for Queer rights in Egypt and Sudan; LGBT federal workers and senior citizens face rollback of their rights by President Trump; straight male politicians of The Netherlands solidarize with a Gay couple who were assaulted; Chechnya is arresting, detaining in concentration camps and killing men who are suspected of having a “nontraditional sexual orientation.”
Futureless people
April 27, 2017For-profit CoreCivic prison inmate’s lament on lack of hope because of slave-like treatment in prison and outside of jail, if one is lucky enough to be paroled.
‘Care not cages’
Immigrant rights and prisoner rights activists held a demonstration outside the largest immigrant detention facility in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Immigrants and allies challenge Trump’s inhumanity
April 22, 2017As the Trump administration ramps up deportations and related abuses, strikes, protests, and sanctuary cities are proliferating. The oppression of a lower caste of workers and the discrimination and violence faced by immigrants present a challenge to the Left, labor and the rest of humanity.
Trump won’t smash Assad’s genocidal regime—support the Syrian Revolution!
April 9, 2017Assad’s chemical attack on civilians reveals the lie the world has been living. Trump’s limited counterstrike was a response to the unprecedented mass opposition to him, not an abandonment of his counter-revolutionary agenda. It is crucial to take the living freedom struggles in Syria and globally as our basis, to oppose the lie that “there is no alternative,” and to clarify what we are for, not just against.
The view from Mexico
March 23, 2017In Mexico, U.S. President Donald Trump’s rhetoric and actions are close to the number one topic of discussion and have inspired protest marches and rallies.
Queer Notes: March-April 2017
March 21, 2017News on LGBTQ struggles: the first judge to rule for equal protection for Gay women and men, dies; Lebanon Judge rules that courts must protect homosexual people; a fundraiser for Chicago LGBT Asylum Support Partners; Tennessee legislators introduce several anti-Queer bills; the Center for Victims of Torture provides therapy for victims of torture, including LGBTQ people.
Essay: Marx’s Marxism vs. Trump-Putin’s barbarism
Trump’s barbarism in power is a crisis for bourgeois democracy and revolutionary thought. Opposition from below is far deeper than bourgeois opposition to Trump. To have efficacy today, Marx’s body of ideas must be grasped and projected as a whole. The movement from theory needs to meet the challenge of history, of freedom struggles and revolution.
End degenerate fascist private prisons!
March 19, 2017For-profit private prisons need direct action by the people to close them down permanently, a task made much harder now that Jeff Sessions is the Attorney General.
Scientists march to safeguard the truth
March 17, 2017Report on the March for Science and other actions from scientists to protest the Trump administration’s attack on science.
Chicago, NYC rally for Transgender students
Reports on rallies at New York’s Stonewall Inn and in Chicago to denounce the Trump administration’s decision to cease to protect and defend the rights of Transgender students in U.S. schools.
Youth in Action, March-April 2017
March-April 2017 Youth in Action column, including reports on youth activities in Minneapolis, New York City, Kerala (India) and Tehran.
Mass rallies denounce Trump and defend immigrants: Los Angeles
March 16, 2017Los Angeles youth march against the xenophobic deportations of Mexicans, Muslims and undocumented workers by Trump.
Mass rallies denounce Trump and defend immigrants: ‘City of immigrants’
March 15, 2017Immigrants, Muslims and their supporters in New York rally against Trump and his immigrant ban and in support of all immigrants.
Close to 5,000 celebrate International Women’s Day in New York
March 12, 2017On March 8, International Women’s Day, Washington Square Park in New York City was overflowing as close to 5,000 women, many dressed in red, rallied to hear speakers denounce the anti-woman steps taken by the Trump administration and to speak of the need to deepen women’s sense of unity.
Mass rallies denounce Trump and defend immigrants: N.Y. Yemenis strike
Yemeni immigrants walk away from their jobs and rally in support of immigrants and against Trump’s first immigrant ban.
Women take the lead against world retrogression
March 8, 2017An in-depth Marxist-Humanist view of the state of the women’s movement in the U.S. and worldwide as it responds to the rising fascism of U.S. President Trump and other world leaders.
News and Letters Committees Call for Plenum 2017
February 26, 2017Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2017-2018
Readers’ Views: January-February 2017, Part I
January 31, 2017Readers’ Views on: environmental and social crises; Martin Luther King Day; healthcare crisis, Donald Trump and the election; brutal “justice”; and who reads News & Letters.
Trump and unrest confront China
Just 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.
Trump’s American fascism must be defeated!
January 30, 2017Protests against Trump’s Muslim ban, and his reorganization of the National Security Council after the model of Hitler’s Reich Main Security Office, signal a profound struggle to be waged over what kind of society the U.S. will be.
Columbia University stalls union victory
Graduate workers at Columbia University who won representation with the UAW in an historic August 2016 NLRB election face further delays as Columbia seeks to overturn the results, seeking to stall union certification until after Trump stacks the NLRB with anti-union appointees.