IV. International crises

May 17, 2017

The 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.

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.

News and Letters Committees Call for Plenum 2017

February 26, 2017

Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2017-2018

Trump’s American fascism must be defeated!

January 30, 2017

Protests 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.

Lead-Editorial: No to Trump’s counter-revolution! No to fascism! Fight for a new human society!

November 26, 2016

Trump’s electoral victory by appealing to racism and sexism menaces all freedom movements. It is the index of this system’s crisis and bankruptcy of thought, which needs to be met with a truly revolutionary vision.

No to Trump! No to fascism! Fight for a new human society!

November 12, 2016

Trump’s electoral victory by appealing to racism and sexism menaces all freedom movements. It is the index of this system’s crisis and bankruptcy of thought, which needs to be met with a truly revolutionary vision.

Fascism rising from Russia to India, from the U.S. to the Philippines

September 7, 2016

An expansive look at the rise of fascism worldwide beginning in the U.S. with Donald Trump and the U.S. election, and taking in European fascism, and the situations in India, the Philippines, China, Japan and the opposition by rulers worldwide to those fighting for a free existence and new human relations.

World In View: Jo Cox (1974-2016)

July 16, 2016

On June 16, Labour Party Member of Parliament Jo Cox was murdered by a neo-Nazi. Cox was murdered for opposing the rising reactionary tendency in European politics.

Editorial: Brexit emboldens the Far Right

July 3, 2016

An Editorial on how Brexit has emboldened the Far Right, not only in Britain but also in the U.S., bringing out blatant expressions of racism, homophobia, sexism and anti-immigrant hatred; and the importance of people’s own self-organization to counter this moment in history.

Britain’s hate-driven referendum a victory for the Far Right

June 26, 2016

With Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, the Far Right has been emboldened worldwide. As the economic and social crisis deepens, so does the brutality, while the Right seeks scapegoats for the results of capitalism’s objective laws, which only have force as long as humanity’s struggle to be free is not yet complete. The only solid ground for opposing this latest stage of reactionary retrogression is that of revolution in permanence.

Mass Killing in Florida is a Measure of Society’s Dehumanization

June 14, 2016

We stand in solidarity with those murdered and wounded in the attack on a Gay Florida nightclub, and their families and communities. The struggle for LGBTQI freedom must continue unabated. A response requires developing, practically and philosophically, the uncompromising assertion of human freedom and dignity common to the Black Lives Matter movement, the Arab Spring and the Syrian Revolution, which has long struggled against ISIS and its related ideologies. It means uncompromising solidarity with the LGBTQI community, the target of reactionary attacks across the world, from Trump’s America to Putin’s Russia to ISIS’s “caliphate.”

IV. Counter-revolution and revolution in the Middle East and North Africa

May 13, 2016

Part IV of the Draft Perspectives 2016: The renewal of Syrian demonstrations for freedom refuted the state powers’ belief that the idea of revolution can be destroyed by bombs, and highlighted a civilizational crisis and the need for international solidarity.

Russian imperialism’s genocidal attack on Syria aims to destroy the revolution

March 3, 2016

Russian airstrikes create havoc in Syria, embodying a philosophy of unfreedom. Revolutionary unity in Syria isn’t just a tactical issue, but a philosophic question, on the revolution’s ground of freedom and dignity, needing philosophic as well as material solidarity.

World In View: Paris massacre heralds more reaction

January 26, 2016

The fascist terror attacks in Paris herald further reaction. Syria and its tortured twin, Iraq, have become the umbilical cord connecting ISIS to the bourgeois imperialism that is its model.

Kansas City confronts anti-immigrant Nazis

March 6, 2014

More than 300 people of all races came out to confront a handful of Nazis rallying in Kansas City.

Anti-Roma racism

November 23, 2013

Racism against Roma infects significant sectors of French society, and now reaches into the innards of the “Socialist” government.

Tea Party wreaks havoc

November 15, 2013

That a minority faction of one party in one chamber of one branch of the U.S. government could pose a grave threat to the world economy reflects the depth of the capitalist crisis. The sheer nihilism of that Tea Party faction reflects the depravity of American racism, which, as Patrick Buchanan threatened, would not hesitate to “bring down like Samson” the world around it.

Readers’ Views, January-February 2013, Part 2

March 10, 2013

ARCHIVES AS LIVING

I have been following the readings for the 2012-2013 Marxist-Humanist discussions with great enthusiasm. I was especially energized by the “Women as force and reason of revolution” selections. Raya Dunayevskaya’s 1970 piece “The Women’s Liberation Movement as Reason and as Revolutionary Force” was fresh and relevant to today. This is no surprise [=>]

Undoing Michigan election

February 6, 2013

Editorial

With lightning swiftness a super-majority of Michigan lame-duck Republicans passed a series of oppressive bills at the end of December. Defying voters’ expressed views, they passed an anti-union “right-to-work” law, an anti-abortion bill and a dictatorial emergency manager act. This was accomplished despite a record number–over 12,500–of protestors who stormed and occupied the legislative chamber [=>]

Historic roots of far Right threat to U.S.

September 11, 2012

From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya

Editor’s Note: Originally the lead article in the June-July 1964 issue of News & Letters, this article analyzed trends and events of retrogression and the resistance to it that are still remarkably current in today’s Tea Party-infested USA. Footnotes are added by the editors.

* * *

The easy victory of Barry Goldwater [=>]

Spain, Greece, Europe: capitalist crisis and revolt

July 10, 2012

by Franklin Dmitryev

When the bailout of banks in Spain, the Eurozone’s fourth largest economy, was announced on June 9, the immediate reactions revealed the two worlds that exist in every country. The Spanish masses intensified their protests, marching directly on both banks and government, while Greek and Spanish workers exchanged messages of solidarity against the [=>]

Racism in Arizona

April 4, 2012

World in View

by Gerry Emmett

Racism in Arizona

Arizona’s effort to ban ethnic studies continues with attacks on Tucson’s Mexican American studies program. The Right proposes to ban works ranging from Shakespeare’s The Tempest to Sandra Cisneros’ Woman Hollering Creek. Some of the books banned from ethnic studies courses will be allowed for use in other, college [=>]

Breivik whitewash?

February 13, 2012

World in View
by Gerry Emmett

Breivik whitewash?

Norway may not try Anders Behring Breivik for murdering 69 young people on Utoya Island last July 22. He was first declared psychotic and unfit to stand trial. After wide public outrage, the government has agreed to seek a second opinion. A no-trial decision would deny [=>]

Women as Reason: No power for bishops or mullahs!

September 24, 2011

by Terry Moon

The racist U.S. Right has used the specter of terrorism in attacking Muslim religious law, Sharia, as a way to build and deepen fear of all Muslims and forward their reactionary agenda of racism against all minorities, sexism, and anti-immigrationism. Genuine feminist organizations like the decades-old Women Living Under Muslim Laws and the [=>]

New September-October 2011 issue of News & Letters now available online

September 10, 2011

News & Letters, Vol. 56, No. 5
September-October 2011

Lead

Political spectacles cannot hide reality of deranged capitalism

At the end of a months-long political spectacle in Washington–manufactured over irrelevancies concerning what should have been a routine raising of the national debt limit before the Aug. 2 deadline–reality struck with a bombshell: the anemic “jobless” recovery in the U.S. [=>]

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