Readers’ Views on Hegel’s Third Attitude; Capital, Fascism & Revolution, Grasping the Spirit of the Times, and Voices from Behind Bars
Eugene Walker
Readers’ Views: September-October 2022, Part One
Readers’ Views on Abortion Rights Struggles; Ukraine, Russia and the Left; Marx and Transgender; World Food Crisis; Normalized Domestic Violence, and Ecuador’s Uprising
World in View: Progressives elected in Colombia
July 19, 2022The stunning electoral victory of Gustavo Petro as President and Francia Márquez as Vice President marks a new moment for Colombia.
World in View: Militant truckers strike in South Korea
July 12, 2022More than 7,000 truckers took part in an eight-day strike for better pay and fewer hours. A measure dubbed the “Safe Trucking Freight Rate,” which ensures minimum pay, is set to expire this year.
World in View: India’s unemployment stirs youth revolts
Double-digit growth in India’s economy cannot hide the gravest of contradictions—massive unemployment especially among the youth.
World in View: Why Haiti is so poor
A new series by the New York Times paints a picture of Haiti’s stark, painful, preventable history of more than 200 years. Slaves who freed themselves in revolution were subverted first by Napoleon’s France—supported by the U.S.—demanding outlandish sums of money as ransom.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2022, Part Two
Readers’ Views on: Dialectics of Philosophy and Organization; Pelican Bay Hunger Strike Pamphlet; Prison and Slavery; On Lockdown; Prison Censorship; Voices from behind Bars
War, climate chaos, capitalism, COVID: World food crisis spreads
July 7, 2022With Russia’s war on Ukraine, a food crisis is emerging globally with lightning speed. Capitalism, with its agricultural-industrial system of commodity food production for the world market, is the cause of, and suffers from the consequences of, multiple, linked crises of war, COVID, and climate. There is radical opposition to this perfect storm of capitalist crises.
Readers’ Views: May-June 2022, part two
May 19, 2022Readers’ Views on: Philosophy vs. Capitalism; Education for What?; Homelessness and Humanism; Religious Oppression; Voices from Behind Bars
World in View: Will Yemenis survive the proxy war?
After seven years of war in Yemen, the UN estimates that almost 400,000 people, primarily civilians, have died, 60% from hunger and disease, with children being 70% of the deaths. The war has become a proxy for the Saudi Arabia-Iran Middle East conflict.
World in View: Latin American Notes
El Salvador: President Bukele’s response to a spike in gang violence was to arrest 18,000 people, mostly youth, and suspend civil liberties.
Peru: a state of emergency was declared at the Cuajone copper mine, where nearby residents shut down the mine’s water supply, demanding compensation and a share of future profits.
World in View: Citizens’ revolt erupts across Sri Lanka
A massive citizens’ revolt is taking place in Sri Lanka. It is focused against the authoritarian President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his family members, who occupy many government posts. Tens of thousands of Sri Lankans have taken to the streets in the capital, Colombo, demanding that the President leave.
World in View: Tunisia in turmoil
Ever since Tunisian President Kais Saied suspended parliament in July 2021, followed in March 2022 by the dissolution of parliament, Tunisia has been in turmoil. Masses in the street protest the lack of jobs and a shortage of basic food items, especially bread for lack of wheat, massive corruption with black markets and Saied’s single-handed decision-making.
World in View: Resistance in Myanmar
The military junta is detaining 10,000 political prisoners while at the same time there is a growing resistance movement. Tens of thousands of youth from the cities have left for the countryside to join the hundreds of civilian militias across Myanmar, organized loosely into what are called the People’s Defense Forces.
Readers’ Views: March-April 2022, Part One
March 19, 2022Readers’ Views on: Putin’s Brutal War on Ukraine; War on Yemen; Canadian Convoy; Trucks and Tribes; and Abortion Politics.
Climate change report
March 16, 2022A new report issued by a body of scientists convened by the UN, gives the most detailed description of the dangers posed by the climate crisis: a frightening future of flooding, fire and famine which will displace millions, species extinctions and the earth irreparably damaged.
World in View: Ongoing resistance to coup in Sudan
More than four months after the military coup in Sudan last October destroyed the transition to civil rule, dozens of resistance committees continue to launch demonstrations, marches and protest meetings, issue manifestos, and hold assemblies to debate how to defeat military rule
World in View: What way will Xiomara Castro take Honduras?
March 15, 2022The first woman president elected in Honduras, Xiomara Castro, took office after a 12-year rule by the corrupt, conservative National Party. Will she focus her attention on the powerful grassroots movement which brought her to the presidency allowing its actions to be a determining new beginning for Honduras?
World in View: IMF loan scam
The International Monetary Fund, which is supposed to lend money to struggling nations in time of need, ends up just like any private capital money-grubbing bank: charging extra fees for the “privilege” of getting a large loan.
Brazil: floods and inequality
A Brazilian city of over a quarter of a million people close to Rio de Janeiro, was hit in February by a huge rainstorm, the heaviest in nearly a century—almost 10 inches in two hours. It caused 26 landslides which killed 176 people, with more than 100 still missing.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2022, Part One
February 5, 2022Readers’ Views on: Labor: Teachers Face Politician Bosses; Labor: Automation and the New Humanism; Socialism, Statism and Philosophy; Fake ‘Right to Life’; Eviction Tsunami; Agribusiness vs. Planet; Afghanistan Exploited; Taiwan Faces China and U.S.; Desmond Tutu; With the Migrant Caravan; U.S. vs. Palestinians
Chile’s final break with Pinochet-ism?
January 26, 2022The decisive victory of the leftist presidential candidate Boric in December’s election put one more nail in the coffin of Chilean dictator Pinochet’s fascist legacy. There is a vast difference between a Left electoral power and the powerful Left movement that has grown in the streets.
Mapuche people fight for their land in Chile
November 19, 2021In October, right-wing Chilean President Sebastián Piñera twice decreed a 15-day state of emergency for several provinces which directs the armed forces to provide support for policing and surveillance of the Mapuche people. We include part of the Mapuche people’s declaration.
U.S.-Mexico collusion against immigrants
Once again a migrant caravan—primarily Central Americans and Haitians—is proceeding from southern Mexico towards Mexico City, with hopes of reaching the U.S. While Mexico has historically been a safe haven for exiles the Haitians are facing Mexican government hostility, including National Guard soldiers who have attacked caravans near Mexico’s southern border.
Readers’ Views: November-December 2021, Part One
Readers’ Views on Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives 2021-2022; Labor shortage?; Workers as reason; Support El Milagro workers!; Detroit women’s march; Chapelle’s sexism; Afghans dead and buried; Betrayal of Haitians; and Which side are you on?
Readers’ Views: November-December 2021, Part Two
November 17, 2021Readers’ Views on Philosopher-revolutionaries; Youth, climate and the freedom idea; Climate crisis; California fires, FDA fails women, and Voices from behind bars.
Latin America Notes: September-October 2021
September 21, 2021Cubans revolt and students speak out amid food and medicine shortages and human rights violations; and Latin America suffers under climate change.
Ocotlán residents defy criminal mine company
September 20, 2021Community authorities and residents of the Ocotlán Valley, Oaxaca, are demanding that the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources not give in to pressure from Compañía Minera Cuzcatlán, a subsidiary of Canada’s Fortuna Silver Mines, to expand their San José II mining project.
Abiy Ahmed’s bloodbath in Tigray
July 5, 2021Ahead of parliamentary elections, Ethiopia’s President Abiy Ahmed proclaimed that he was aiming for a country “where every Ethiopian moves around relaxed, works and prospers.” but instead he launched a brutal civil war against the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray.
Ortega jails dissidents
July 3, 2021Nicaragua’s President (for life?) Daniel Ortega, who has won three consecutive terms since returning to office 14 years ago, ruthlessly moved to consolidate his absolute hold on power in advance of the November elections by jailing four of his possible opponents, including Cristiana Chamorro.
Mexico Notes: July-August 2021
June 29, 2021Mexico Notes on Precarious Labor; Zapatistas in Spain, and The collapse of the Mexico City Metro-line.
Colombian strikers reject dispossession and repression
In-person report on the revolt in Colombia and the history of displacement, repression and revolt from which it flows.
Peru: Election conflict during COVID
A Peruvian post-presidential election battle is raging between Pedro Castillo, a union activist and former schoolteacher, and Keiko Fujimori, a right-wing neoliberal and daughter of the jailed authoritarian former President Alberto Fujimori.
Colombia: The struggle for a better country
June 17, 2021In-person report on the revolt in Colombia and the history of displacement, repression and revolt from which it flows.
Central America deal: troops at borders
May 8, 2021Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico agreed with the Biden administration to put more military at their borders to stop immigrants.
Russia threatens Ukraine invasion
A seven-year-old war in Ukraine–involving Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists, with Russia’s ominous, close presence–recently underwent an escalation. Ukrainians are caught within this developing new Cold War, subject to competing powers, West and East, far away from any genuine self-determination.
Latin America notes, March-April 2021
March 11, 2021Coal mines continue to kill in Mexico; the Mapuche nation is resisting Chile’s government and logging companies.
Readers’ views, January-February 2021: part two
January 31, 2021Readers’ Views on: What Is Philosophy? What Is Revolution?; Prisoners’ Quest for Self-Development; Voices from Behind Bars; Why Read N&L?
Pompeo worsens war on Yemen’s masses
In huge swaths of Yemen—particularly in areas controlled by Houthi rebels—famine and mass starvation are rampant. To add to this tragedy, U.S. President Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s parting shot before leaving office was to declare the Houthis a terrorist organization, thus creating draconian difficulties for food aid to reach famine-suffering masses.
Latin America Notes: January-February 2021
Honduran migrants from the first caravan since Joseph Biden’s election speak about why they are leaving their homeland; and São Paulo, Brazil residents, thrown out of work by the pandemic, are occupying buildings in order to have a place to live.
News from Mexico: January-February 2021
While the U.S. and Mexico argue whether General Salvador Cienfuegos and former Mexican President Peña Nieto were involved in abetting a narco-trafficking cartel, the Mexican army and navy have a despicable history of human rights violations never honestly investigated. The Zapatistas issued a “Declaration for Life” and intercontinental call for meetings.
Argentine women win abortion rights
January 29, 2021After years of struggle by women, the Argentine Senate finally passed an abortion rights bill, making it legal to terminate a pregnancy in the first 14 weeks. Abortion will be free in government hospitals, crucially important for poor women.
Argentina’s feminist revolution
January 10, 2021At four in the morning on Dec. 30, the Argentine Senate finally passed an abortion rights bill, making it legal to terminate a pregnancy in the first 14 weeks. The procedure will be free in government hospitals, crucially important for poor women.
Ethiopia civil war fears
November 29, 2020Armed conflict broke out in Ethiopia, two years in the making. It remains to be seen whether it will become a full-blown civil war, and possibly engulf other countries of the region.
Readers’ views, November-December 2020: part two
November 28, 2020John Lewis, today’s struggles, and the needed philosophic dialogue; Remembering Ruth Bader Ginsburg; Putin: an opposing view; Amy Barrett’s fanaticism; Torture at Soledad; Pipeline battles.
News from Mexico: November-December 2020
Guanajuato has 2,587 missing persons, and 3,438 intentional homicides in the first nine months of 2020; President López Obrador claims to be against neoliberalism, but combines it with state-capitalism in developmentalist projects; 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 CNI against developmentalist projects.
Latin America Notes
November 25, 2020Chileans voted by 80% to get rid of the 1980 Constitution and begin the process of writing a new one; Bolivia’s presidential election repudiated the right wing that had taken over the government when Evo Morales was forced to flee last year; and in Colombia, thousands of Indigenous people marched hundreds of miles to Bogotá demanding a meeting with the president to protest extreme violence against their peoples.
World in view: Massive student-led protests cover Thailand
November 24, 2020Tens of thousands of Thai students, many from high schools, have been carrying on massive demonstrations for months demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha; rewriting the Constitution that Prayut foisted on the country, including a Senate appointed by the military; and reining in the vast privileges and protections of the monarchy.
Mexico News: The clandestine graves of Guanajuato
October 31, 2020‘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.
Readers’ views, September-October 2020, part one
August 29, 2020Readers’ Views takes up: Black revolt and racism; dialectics of liberation; school battles; election victories; history and freedom; class struggles; and fighting the Right wing.