The battle against the COVID-19 pandemic is a battle over how society will change, mirroring the battle over how to confront and adapt to the climate and extinction crisis. Strikes are erupting across the world.
Franklin Dmitryev
Essay: Ecosocialism and post-Marx Marxism
March 8, 2020Franklin Dmitryev explores the limitations of how “ecosocialism” rethinks, partially, post-Marx Marxism, focusing on theoreticians Michael Lowy and Joel Kovel.
Australia’s megafires lay bare capitalism’s climate death march
January 21, 2020Australia’s megafires show that the climate crisis is upon us and powerful people are forcing humanity into a death march toward climate catastrophe–in sharp contrast to the passion and urgency of the youth climate strikes that have spread across the globe.
Chicago climate strike confronts the specter of climate chaos
December 11, 2019Participant report of the Dec. 6, 2019, climate strike in Chicago, part of global climate strike.
Greta Thunberg: No One Is Too Small
November 17, 2019A review of the book “No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference” by Greta Thunberg. .
Voices of young and old from the Global Climate Strike
November 4, 2019On the first day of the third Global Climate Strike, Sept. 20, 2019, millions of people, mostly teenagers, marched across the world—the biggest climate action ever. Hear the voices of youth and adults in Chicago, Detroit and San Francisco.
Global Climate Strike–Chicago
September 21, 2019Participant report on the Sept. 20, 2019, Global Climate Strike event in Chicago.
Readers’ Views, September-October 2019, Part 1
September 1, 2019Readers’ Views on: Youth revolt, from China to climate strikes; Gunning for immigrants; Circling the abyss; Queer Notes; A prisoner responds; 1619 and today; Reading ‘N & L’; Elena Grigorieva; and Deborah Morris
Essay: What is Socialism? Socialism and ecology
August 31, 2019The last of a series of essays on What is Socialism? This time, taking on the relation of anticapitalistic social transformation and climate chaos, in order to grasp what is essential to capitalism and its destructive environmental effects, and what kind of new society can transcend that.
Collapse of the Radical Left in Greece
August 9, 2019Syriza’s defeat illustrates the inevitable devolution of those who want to achieve revolutionary changes without a revolution.
Demanding a future, youth lead fight for climate justice
June 26, 2019Schoolchildren continue to hold Fridays for Future strikes weekly across the world, demanding “that governments immediately provide a safe pathway to stay within 1.5°C of global heating.” The Right’s attempts to co-opt this passion highlight capitalism’s contradictions and the need to center a liberatory direction.
Chicago vigil for Syria, Yemen and Crimea
April 27, 2019Participant report of a Chicago vigil in solidarity with the people of Syria, Yemen, Crimea, and other lands.
Chicago vigil for Syria
March 26, 2019Participant report of a Chicago vigil in solidarity with the Syrian people against Assad.
Bruno Latour’s ‘Down to Earth’ buries human revolt
March 11, 2019Bruno Latour’s new book “Down to Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime” wants to comprehend the era of global warming but takes a very wrong turn, substituting “Earth” for human subjects of revolution.
Readers’ Views: March-April 2019, Part 2
Readers’ Views on: Rosa Luxemburg’s revolutionary life; the Green New Deal; and voices from behind bars.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2019, Part 2
February 3, 2019Readers’ Views regarding: Thought-diving into revolution in permanence; murky waters[ the Church and oppression; why read N&L; and voices from behind bars.
Chicago teachers win first strike against charter schools
January 24, 2019Chicago teachers speak for themselves, explaining why they fought and won the first strike against charter schools.
The Green not-so-great New Deal
Calls for a “green new deal” risk the kind of state/party co-optation of movements from below that was involved in the 1930s New Deal.
Rally to end war in Yemen
December 16, 2018Rally in Chicago calling for end to war in Yemen, including U.S.-supported Saudi military campaign. 44 blue backpacks represent children killed when the Saudi coalition dropped a U.S.-supplied bomb on a school bus packed with children.
First ever charter school teachers’ strike
Teachers speak about why they struck Chicago’s Acero charter schools on Dec. 4-9, expanding the wave of teacher strikes to the first charter school strike in the nation.
Essay: Marx’s concept of permanent revolution as philosophy: Exploring it today with Dunayevskaya
December 5, 2018On the occasion of the publication of the new book “Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution in Permanence for Our Day: Selected Writings by Raya Dunayevskaya,” this essay explores Marx’s ideas on the basis of Dunayevskaya’s writings on them as a philosophy of revolution needed for our age.
Masses vs. capitalism: Climate chaos hangs in the balance
September 28, 2018With disastrous consequences of climate change making themselves felt, both scientists and movements are pointing to the need for a radically different direction, but capitalism has blocked the way and even put a cult of climate denial in the White House.
Climate change, capitalism, and Trump
September 5, 2018Climate change, capitalism, and Trump
Presentation to the Chicago Local of News and Letters Committees
By Franklin Dmitryev, August 27, 2018
“…the spirit of the time, growing slowly and quietly ripe for the new form it is to assume, disintegrates one fragment after another of the structure of its previous world. That it is tottering to [=>]
Now published in paperback…
July 25, 2018Special offer for the book “Russia: From Proletarian Revolution to State-Capitalist Counter-Revolution: Selected writings by Raya Dunayevskaya.”
Readers’ Views, July-August 2018, Part 2
July 23, 2018Readers’ Views on: Marx’s New Moments and Today’s Need for Revolution and Philosophy; Fetish of Property vs. Humanity and the Planet; Voices from Behind Bars
Voices From the Inside Out: Prisoner reviews Specters of Revolt
July 22, 2018Prisoner-columnist Faruq reviews the book “Specters of Revolt: On the Intellect of Insurrection and Philosophy from Below” by Richard Gilman-Opalsky.
Editorial: Trump-Kim ‘peace’ threatens masses
July 18, 2018Marxist-Humanist analysis of the Trump-Kim summit and G7 summit shows Trump is not charting a path to world peace but rather toward a more openly brutal world order. .
‘Families belong together’: Chicago protests
June 27, 2018In-person report of one of the demonstrations in Chicago, Ill., on June 23, against Trump’s inhuman policy of separating children from their parents at the U.S. border.
Chicago March For Our Lives
March 25, 2018On a bitter cold morning on March 24, 2018, over 85,000 of us jammed into Union Park on Chicago’s west side to be part of the March For Our Lives and to join with protesters in 800 other cities across the U.S. and the world.
Review: Specters of Revolt
March 12, 2018Richard-Gilman Opalsky is a rare intellectual who recognizes revolt as a form of theory. Does his book “Specters of Revolt” grasp theory in a one-sided way and restrict the movement of negation of the negation? .
Readers’ Views: January-February 2018, Part I
January 31, 2018Readers’ views on: U.S. Racism on trial, the right’s crocodile tears, creeping fascism, climate change, nuclear alarms, teachers as labor, Pat Hunt Presente! and Judy and Dan presente!
In Memoriam: Narihiko Ito (1931-2017)
January 30, 2018We honor the life of Narihiko Ito, one of the world’s foremost scholars on Rosa Luxemburg and a correspondent of Raya Dunayevskaya, and mourn his death.
#2ndDayofRage4Syria in Chicago
On the Second Day of Rage for Syria, Chicago, like several cities across the world, held a demonstration in solidarity with the people of Syria fighting for freedom and against their genocidal ruler, Bashar al-Assad.
New book–Russia: From Proletarian Revolution to State-Capitalist Counter-Revolution: Selected writings by Raya Dunayevskaya
November 14, 2017New collection of writings by Raya Dunayevskaya on the 100th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution titled: Russia: From Proletarian Revolution to State-Capitalist Counter-Revolution. .
Puerto Ricans suffer as Donald Trump plays to his racist base
November 12, 2017Puerto Rico is devastated by hurricanes, with climate change a factor, and by the administration’s racist malign neglect, atop an existing debt crisis the masses did not create. Real solidarity came from below. .
World in View: China and U.S. extend internet censorship
September 3, 2017China extended its state censorship. Meanwhile, facebook may be the world’s biggest censor, especially of voices from the Left..
New book: Dunayevskaya on Russian Revolution
August 29, 2017On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, a new book collects writings by Raya Dunayevskaya on the Revolution, counter-revolution, and their consequences, aiming to help create new revolutionary beginnings today. .
Handicap This! July-August 2017
July 6, 2017“No cuts to Medicaid” sit-in; UK official endorses forced institutionalization; nursing homes dump people with disabilities; rally at Illinois Capitol demanding budget; four prisoners with disabilities executed in Arkansas.
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.
Reader’s Views: March-April 2017, Part 1
March 16, 2017Readers’ Views on Trumpism and the many facets of resistance; Fear of immigrants; Specters of internment; War on Queers; Women Fight Back; Women´s Liberation Debates.
Standing Rock: the struggle continues
March 14, 2017The fight against the Dakota Access pipeline continues despite military-style destruction of resistance camps. The movement for Native American liberation from colonialism and for stopping the fossil-fuel exploitation that drives climate change is still growing.
Inauguration of neo-fascism faces widespread revolt
January 23, 2017The lightning move by Republicans in Congress to prepare to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare—before Donald Trump even took office, with only the vaguest idea of what is to replace it, and with full knowledge that a large majority of Americans oppose the repeal of its most important provisions—gave a sign of how far the new single-party government intends to roll the clock back, with dizzying speed.
Readers’ Views, November-December 2016, Part 2
November 27, 2016Readers’ Views on The Dialectic of History Vs. Retrogression; Prisoners, Supporters Speak.
Solidarity with Standing Rock: Water Is Life
November 26, 2016Participant reports of Chicago and Oakland actions in solidarity with the Standing Rock Lakota who are fighting to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. #NoDAPL
Chicago solidarity action with Native resistance to oil pipeline in North Dakota
September 22, 2016As part of over 200 solidarity actions on Sept. 13, 150 people gathered in Chicago to support the people of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe fighting to halt construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Essay: Epigones discard Marxist-Humanist philosophy
September 12, 2016The retreat of former Marxist-Humanists into post-Marx Marxism is analyzed by Franklin Dmitryev through the books “Marx at the Margins” by Kevin Anderson and “Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism” by Peter Hudis, which appropriate some of Raya Dunayevskaya’s conclusions while quietly dismantling their philosophical framework.
Lakota protest Dakota Access oil pipeline
September 6, 2016Citizens of the Standing Rock Lakota Nation and allies are maintaining a Camp of the Sacred Stones along the proposed route of the Dakota Access oil pipeline to defend the water, sacred and burial sites and wildlife habitat despite having their water and medical care removed as well as threats from the state government.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2016, Part 1
July 7, 2016Readers’ Views on Hate: Orlando to Brexit; Black Lives Matter; Muhammad Ali and Dr. King; Duterte in the Philippines; News & Letters Readers Unite!; and Deadly Assault on Women From the U.S. to Israel.
Fires in Canada, drought in India inspire creative revolt
July 3, 2016The wildfires sweeping Alberta’s tar sands region provide a window onto the state of the environment and the multidimensional worldwide struggle against pollution and climate chaos fueled by capitalism’s drive for production for the sake of production.
Oil: bad both ways
March 12, 2016People’s suffering, no matter the price of oil, demonstrates capitalism’s inherent deep ties with climate change and economic destruction.