Under the regime of President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, scientific institutions are falling apart.
Gerry Emmett
Readers’ Views: May-June 2019
May 6, 2019Readers’ Views on: Socialism and a philosophy of revolution; Sudan in revolt; Iran vs. Iranians; Flint, Mich., play captures voices; Notre-Dame and fracking on native land; gun control debate; labor strikes; debate on fascism; Trump and DeVos; and voices from behind bars.
World in View: Samir Flores murder
Thousands marched in Mexico City, Feb. 22, to protest the murder of journalist and environmental activist Samir Flores Soberanes. He had been shot twice, execution style, on Feb. 20, at his home.
World in View: The genius of the Sudanese revolution
The brilliant Sudanese revolution is another in a line of rebellions against reactionary rule.
World in View: East Africa unity?
May 3, 2019Exploitative Chinese capital investment is what the East African Community economic zone has in common–a betrayal of their anthem “Jumiya Yetu,” which speaks of community.
World in View: Fascist massacre in New Zealand
Fascist mass murderer and terrorist who murdered New Zealand worshippers embodies today’s very dangerous ideological confusion, calling for genocide while also calling for workers’ rights and environmentalism.
World in View: European Union elections: mixed signals
Elections to the European Parliament will be held in late May and will be a measure of the strength of the far right, racist anti-immigrant parties that have been gaining political power on the continent.
World in View: Rise of Far Right threatens ‘Europe’
March 13, 2019The Far Right threatens to make significant gains in the European Parliament elections this May. What inheres within the “idea of Europe” that can destroy fascism as idea and reality is the humanism that became its internal critique, Marx’s humanism.
World in View: Trump-Kim summit
The second summit meeting between Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, in Hanoi on Feb. 27, ended without any new agreement. But it achieved what it aimed for as theater.
World in View: Haitians rise up against corruption
Haitians took to the streets Feb. 7 against a long-simmering background of anger at government corruption.
World in View: Netanyahu’s peril
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has allied with the fascist Jewish Strength party, disciples of Meir Kahane. This alliance has crossed a line for many former supporters.
World in View: Prisoners of Rukban
In the Rukban camp along the Jordan/Syria border, at least 41,000 displaced Syrians, including women and children, are suffering the ravages of winter weather, hunger, lack of medicine, and the terror of being threatened by the forces of the genocidal Bashar al-Assad regime.
Readers’ Views: March-April 2019, Part 1
March 11, 2019Readers’ Views on: workers strike back, genocide and Facebook, Mauritius victory, Syrian Revolution under fire, “55 Steps,” debating yellow vests, women’s struggles, and why read News & Letters.
Essay: What is Socialism? Socialism and a philosophy of revolution
March 10, 2019What is socialism? From Left to Right, this question is becoming central to political discussion. For me, it raises another question, too: What is philosophy? This is where I will begin, with the young Karl Marx.
What Is Socialism? Socialism and Philosophy
March 3, 2019This is the first in a series of four presentations on “What is Socialism?” Shorter versions will be published in News & Letters. The second essay is “Socialism, labor and the Black dimension”; the third is “Socialism and ecology”; and the last is “Socialism and Women’s Liberation.”
World in View: Yemen torn by poverty, imperialism
January 28, 2019Yemen’s civil society organizations, representing the revolutionary hopes of 2011, have presented humane terms for a peace agreement. The state powers and non-state actors dependent upon them have their own ideas.
World in View: French ‘Yellow Vests’
The uprising of the gilets jaunes (Yellow Vests) against French President Emmanuel Macron embodies the unity and brutal disunity of our time.
World in View: Sudan rises against genocidal Bashir
Sudan’s genocidal President Omar al-Bashir is being challenged by nationwide protests. The Sudanese people’s struggle is humanity’s struggle.
Essay: How dead thought failed Syrian revolution’s living history
The Syrian Revolution has been the physical and intellectual battlefield that defines our time. As early as 2012 it was clear that what happened in Syria would determine the next stage of world history.
Readers’ Views, November-December 2018
December 14, 2018Readers’ Views on: Capitalism vs. the Planet; Anti-Semitism’s Inhumanity; Kavanaugh Travesty; Youth Rock!; Freedom Movements vs. Fascism across the Globe; Catholic Church Crisis; Voices from behind Bars
Vietnam is in turmoil
In response to massive protests in Vietnam, Communist Party General Secretary and ideologue Nguyen Phu Trong was named president, becoming the newest of the world’s strongman rulers.
Yemen peace talks
Yemeni civil society organizations have released a statement that should become the basis for peace negotiations.
Murder in Venezuela
Days after the Saudi regime murdered Jamal Khashoggi, the Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro murdered its own critic, Fernando Alban Salazar, in equally horrific fashion.
World in View, November-December 2018: Counter-revolution redefines EU, OPEC
December 11, 2018In OPEC powers’ participation in the counter-revolutionary attacks on the revolutions in Syria and Yemen, and in the anti-immigrant reactionary reshaping of European politics, we see the next stage of bourgeois politics taking shape.
World in View, November-December 2018: Raed Fares
Raed Fares, revolutionary martyr of Kafranbel, Syria, is remembered after his assassination.
Editorial: Massacre of Jews and rising racism
December 3, 2018The Oct. 27 massacre of 11 Jewish congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue is the single deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. The motive, as stated by the terrorist himself, was a hatred of Jewish support for Middle Eastern and Latin American immigrants through the organization HIAS.
James Cone (1938-2018)
December 2, 2018Obituary of scholar James H. Cone, who founded Black liberation theology and struggled against racism and white supremacy.
Massacre of Jews measures the inhumanity of capitalism
October 29, 2018The Oct. 27 massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue was a modern pogrom, with assault weapons, social media presence, and poisoned roots in the current stage of world counter-revolution represented by Trump, Putin, and their like.
World in View: Israel’s reactionary nation-state law
September 26, 2018On July 18-19 the Israeli Knesset passed a law creating outrage among Arab and Druze citizens who see it as writing their second-class citizenship into law. It encourages the growth of illegal settlements on the West Bank and the continued dispossession of Palestinians.
World in View: Brazil museum burns
On Sept. 2, Brazil’s National Museum in Rio de Janeiro was devastated by fire after being subject to drastic budget cuts because of its location in the more working class North Zone, as opposed to the South Zone of Rio with its glitzy tourist beaches.
World in View: U.S. prisoners strike
Prisoners in at least 17 U.S. states, and one Canadian prison, took part in a nationwide strike beginning Aug. 21, 2018. The strike presented a list of 10 demands that have been pushed into the national and international consciousness.
World in View: Europe in crisis: Swedish neo-Nazis rise
Europe is at a dangerous crossroads with the rise of Far Right parties rooted in racism and hatred of immigrants. In Sweden’s Sept. 9 elections, the Sweden Democrats, a party rooted in neo-Nazism, received 17.6% of the vote.
Editorial: Stop the coming slaughter in Idlib!
September 17, 2018News & Letters editorial taking up how in Syria, attacks are intensifying upon the three million Syrians, mostly civilians, trapped in Idlib province and how so many in the Left have failed them.
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.