News & Letters editorial taking up how attacks are intensifying upon the three million Syrians, mostly civilians, trapped in Idlib province and how so many in the Left have failed them.
Gerry Emmett
Idlib: Syria’s 21st century concentration camp
September 10, 2018Syria’s Idlib province faces imminent slaughter by Russia, Iran, and Assad regime forces, which have already made it into the model of the 21st century concentration camp. We call upon all of humanity to oppose this and to demand protection for these millions whose only “crime” was to fight for freedom against a fascist regime.
World In View: Iran’s working class speaks from prison
May 9, 2018The pretenses of Iran’s greedy and murderous ruling class continue to be exposed by political prisoners like Esmail Abdi, teachers’ union activist, and Narges Mohammadi, engineer and women’s rights proponent.
World In View: After Italy, European Right coalesces
The victory of Far Right and “populist” parties in Italian elections, preceded by that in Austria, and followed by that in Hungary, emphasizes the current threat of neo-fascism which means to take power in the EU.
World In View: Colombia Humana raises questions
Colombia Humana presidential candidate Gustavo Petro, a former M19 guerrilla, has caught the imagination of Indigenous people, Afrocolombians, and many other poor Colombians.
World In View: Gaza March of Return challenges Israel
The March of Return is a Palestinian national event—reaching toward a new politics that would transcend the failures both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
World In View: Moishe Postone, 1942-2018
In Memoriam for Moishe Postone whose critique of anti-Semitism as a fetishized form of anticapitalism came alive for those struggling with the betrayal of the Syrian Revolution by many “Leftists.”
World In View: UK’s present racism
In April UK Prime Minister Theresa May and her Conservative government were forced to apologize for the racist persecution of Caribbean-born citizens.
World in View: Arctic ice meltoff
March 12, 2018Some climate scientists estimate that the Arctic may be ice-free in summer within a few decades. Nations are already assuming this will happen, as seen by their competition for mineral rights.
World in View: Reaction rises in Brazil and Costa Rica
Racist and homophobic politicians have moved from the fringes to contend for state power in Brazil. Fabricio Alvarado in Costa Rica and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil represent a further step down an anti-human path.
World in View: Libya and Italy chaos
On Feb. 7, 2018, many Libyans celebrated the seventh anniversary of the revolution that overthrew long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi. But the dictator’s toxic influence has outlived him.
World in View: Syria and International solidarity
As this is being written, Russian and Assad regime war planes continue to pound the working-class communities of East Ghouta. Every idea of human solidarity, every faith or philosophy, is being tested.
Fight for $15 and labor’s full potential
March 8, 2018On Feb. 12, workers across the country marched in Fight for $15 demonstrations held to commemorate the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers’ strike and Dr. King’s visionary, multi-racial Poor People’s Campaign. It is a struggle to realize labor’s full potential.
World in View: Visage of Hitler rises in Austria
February 2, 2018Far Right racist parties have continued to make inroads into mainstream politics. 40,000 people marched in Austria against the new governing coalition of the anti-immigrant Austrian People’s Party and the neo-Nazi Freedom Party.
World in View: Australia’s castaways
Since 2012 Australia has held around 2,000 refugees and asylum seekers in brutal detention camps. Afghans, Iranians, Iraqis, Uighurs, Rohingya and Kurds, thrown together, have been subjected to stress, violence, and rape.
World in View: Zimbabwe’s coup
One goal of the military coup of Nov. 24, 2017, that deposed Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe was to end a growing protest movement.
World in View: Another brutal winter of war in Yemen
Yemenis face another winter of war, hunger, disease, and the brunt of Saudi and Iranian imperial rivalry. Over half the population urgently needs humanitarian assistance.
World in View: Honduran election
The U.S.-supported right-wing Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, stole the Nov. 26, 2017, election. At least 31 people were killed by military police people after they took to the streets in response.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2018, Part II
February 1, 2018Readers’ Views on Women’s Liberation struggle continue and voices from behind bars.
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!
Iranian workers, youth reach for new radical beginnings
January 28, 2018The recent uprisings in Iran start where the 2009 revolt left off. This analysis focuses on the rebellious working-class youth as well as the interconnections to the Arab Spring, Vladimir Putin’s interference, Donald Trump’s racist agenda, and the philosophic-historic significance of the Bosnian and Syrian struggles against genocide.
World in View: Kurdistan setback
November 16, 2017A shaken President Masoud Barzani was forced to resign Nov. 1 as the independence referendum he promoted in Iraqi Kurdistan blew up in his face.
World in View: U.S. ‘democracy’ enters crisis mode
Trump-style neo-fascism has been gestating for decades, as seen in Reagan-era photos of Paul Manafort side by side with Lee Atwater, who in 1981 described the rhetoric of “tax cuts” as “abstract racism.” .
World in View: Japan, North Korea in Asian military spiral
Trump makea genocidal threats to “completely destroy” North Korea, as in a similar way, North Korea’s doctrine of “self-defense” is based on the threat to destroy Seoul, South Korea, and its 10 million people.
World in View: U.S. military in Africa
At least 358 civilians were killed and over 400 wounded in a truck bombing by al-Shabaab in Mogadishu, Somalia, Oct. 14, 2017.
World in View: Venezuela’s human toll
The social crisis in Venezuela has taken a toll and earlier this year, Health Minister Antonieta Caporale was fired for releasing statistics showing that the number of women dying in childbirth had increased by 65% and children’s mortality increased 30%.
World in View: Kurdish referendum
September 3, 2017Iraqi Kurds are scheduled to vote on Sept. 25, 2017, in a referendum on independence for Iraqi Kurdistan, which is expected to pass easily.
World in View: Sellout in Burma
Despite the electoral victory of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party over the dictatorship in Myanmar (Burma), for the Muslim Rohingya minority in this Buddhist majority country there has only been an intensification of repression which is occurring with the acquiescence of Aung San Suu Kyi.
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. .
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
Editorial: Imperial carve-up of Syria?
June 30, 2017The maneuvering of imperial powers to carve up Syria amid the regime’s ongoing bloodbath reveals the logic that results when the masses are not allowed their self-activity. .
World in View: European voters hold off fascism
The recent elections in France and Britain have been a welcome setback for that fascist Right which saw Trump and Brexit as a cresting wave carrying them to state power.
World in View: Saudi threat to Qatar
Qatar isn’t Yemen, and the Saudis won’t attack it. Qatar will not accept the Saudi demands.
World in View: Nigerian girls freed
Following long negotiations, the fundamentalist cult Boko Haram released 82 Chibok schoolgirls it kidnapped in 2014, but questions and deep divisions in Nigerian society remain.
World in View: Colombian uprising
During years of peace negotiations between the government and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, grassroots groups pushed for issues of racial and economic justice. With Colombia entering a new stage, the struggle continues.
World In View: War-torn Congo faces new round of violence
May 15, 2017Congo’s President Joseph Kabila finally agreed to step down after his second term after large protests in Kinshasa; however, tribal militias Kamuina Nsapu and Bundu kia Kongo arose and many thousands are perishing from wars as the world looks the other way.
World in View: French elections
France’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.
World In View: The crisis of Turkish democracy
May 3, 2017Protests occur across Turkey in resistance to the controversial constitutional referendum/power grab of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he has devolved into a capitalist counterrevolutionary ruler. .
Women for Syria
May 2, 2017Recollection of voices from the April 13, 2017, Day of Action for Syria, in which the Women’s March movement came together with supporters of the Syrian people.
Essay: Marx’s Marxism vs. Trump-Putin’s barbarism
March 21, 2017Trump’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.
World In View: In 2017 ‘The world is a Syrian issue’
March 2017 marks the sixth anniversary of the Syrian Revolution. Syrian revolutionaries have articulated a necessary step in organizing outside and beyond the aims of state powers.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2017, Part 2
February 2, 2017Readers’ Views on: Practical and Theoretical Intervention; Syria and Humanism; International Crises; and Prisoners Speak.
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.
World in View: The past is prologue
The first mass Black protest meeting in the U.S. was held at Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church in Philadelphia, in January 1817—200 years ago.
Morocco rises up against the Makhzen
December 2, 2016Report on the protests that exploded in Morocco after the murder of fish vendor Mouhcine Fikri by the police. The article also explores the connections between these protests and the 2011 Arab Spring.
Where to now for the Middle East?
November 30, 2016A look at the situation in the Middle East in light of Donald Trump’s election that takes up Syria, Yemen and the arming by the U.S. of varying forces–some of whom are fighting each other.
World in View: Syrian Revolution: humanity on trial
September 17, 2016As the big powers push toward their desired “settlement” in Syria, the world is witnessing the most vicious war crimes and there are calls to end the dehumanization that allows this genocide to become accepted as “inevitable.”
World in View: Zimbabwe in crisis
As President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party continues to be roiled by the question of his potential successor, mass protests and strikes have also erupted over unemployment, electoral reform, and failure to pay doctors’, nurses’, and teachers’ salaries.