Takes up: The public outcry that restored a talk by a gay actor to middle school students in Pennsylvania; a bill signed by Great Britain to deport people to Rwanda, a country not safe for the LGBTQI+ community; LGBTQ+ curricula being included in Washington state’s public schools; and three extraordinary support groups for 2SLGBTQ+ in Latin America.
Takes up: The shutting down of Great Britain’s Rainbow Badge Scheme, designed to reduce barriers Queer people face in healthcare; the beating and sexual assault of a Gay man and Lesbian by Serbian police; and the imprisonment of British-Mexican Gay man Manuel Guerrero Avina in Qatar.
People with disabilities protest UK anti-protest law; Senegal woman with disabilities works to ensure access for disabled children; Saskatchewan people with disabilities demand better access and benefits.
Great Britain is in a cost of living crisis. Newspapers are publishing “Heat or Eat Diaries.” Brexit has been an important catalyst for Britain’s dire economic situation. Hopefully the labor militancy now taking place can show a way forward.
Social media’s effects on young women’s mental health; Mexican Supreme Court bans criminalizing abortion; FiLiA2021 conference in Europe; and women boycott bars and clubs in Britain demanding better training for staff to protect women from rapists.
Nigerians protest rape and violence against teenage girls; Feminist Coalition Feministe statement on Nova Scotia mass killings; Texas Equal Access Fund sues anti-abortion group for defamation; NatCen Social Research finds girls between 16-34 from the poorest backgrounds more likely to harm themselves; a rally demands action on the year-old proposals by Canadian inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
Excerpts of a talk by Polish Amazon worker/organizer Agnieszka Mróz, on a U.S. tour seeking cross-border solidarity among Amazon workers worldwide.
Women have changed the world through an incredible and sustained activism based on a humanism that runs like a revolutionary red thread through an amazing array of actions, demonstrations and statements. This development is based on over 50 years of a movement that the founder of Marxist-Humanism, Raya Dunayevskaya, characterized as “Woman as Revolutionary Force and Reason.” .
An in-depth Marxist-Humanist view of the state of the women’s movement in the U.S. and worldwide as it responds to the rising fascism of U.S. President Trump and other world leaders.
Review of White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg.
What has for 50 years been a secret site in the Indian Ocean—Diego Garcia, the most beautiful atoll in the world, the site of the most hideous U.S. military base—is suddenly being exposed to public scrutiny. LALIT is calling for your support for reunification of the Republic of Mauritius and for the right to return.
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.
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.
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.
With Trump’s appeal to racism and reaction winning support from part of the working class, we present Dunayevskaya’s letter taking up Enoch Powell’s racist speeches and their impact on the working class.
Worldwide, the refugee crisis is unprecedented and is fueled by war, terrorism and climate change. The worldwide response is paltry with country after country turning away or deporting frantic and desperate people in search of a safe haven.
London—You could be forgiven for being surprised at the recent UK Parliament vote last month, with a sizable majority, to recognize Palestinian statehood. After all, when the Palestinians won a hard-fought campaign for recognition at the UN last year, Britain joined a chorus of nations ambivalent or hostile to their efforts. Look beneath the surface, however, and it becomes clear that the British government has little intention of putting words into action….
Hundreds of people in Hong Kong marched to People’s Republic of China government offices on Nov. 9 to demand direct negotiations with the government of China and to oppose sham democratic elections planned for 2017. Marchers began from encampments of thousands of protesters who had been maintaining blockades of major thoroughfares for more than six weeks….
ISIPE; Ché Café; Lindsey Stocker; Australian students protest fee increases.
It’s been dubbed a “political earthquake” that has struck the heart of the European Parliament. Yet this surprising victory for the right—where Britain’s own United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) made unprecedented electoral gains–signifies not merely disillusionment with mainstream politics, but growing intolerance across Europe.
UK protests by WinVisible vs. ATOS profiteering; Harris v Quinn at US Supreme Court
From the July-August 2014 issue of News & Letters
RESPONSES TO MARXIST-HUMANIST PERSPECTIVES
The Marxist-Humanist Perspectives (N&L, May-June 2014) give a critical assessment of the polarization between the oppressive forces of capital’s social relations and humanity’s efforts to realize human dignity. It shows humans are not just passive victims of capital. First [=>]
Roundup on advances and resistance on same-sex marriage in churches and states.
We are living in contradictory times, especially when it comes to women’s struggle for freedom. On the one hand you have a Women’s Liberation Movement that has never been more radical, unified and global. On the other hand there is more repression, and the violence is more brutal and deadly than ever before.
“We are going through the biggest squeeze in living standards since my granddad was born in this city in the 1920s,” said Jones, who cites his grandfather’s conversion to trade unionism precisely through his experience working in Portsmouth.
The “bedroom tax” will force those living in a property with a spare bedroom to take a cut in their housing benefit. Those in under-occupied properties can face a reduction of up to 14% in housing benefit for single rooms and 25% for two unoccupied rooms.
From the January-February 2013 issue of News & Letters:
Why ‘green on blue’ attacks?
London, England—Richard Walker was described by family as a “proud, patriotic man.” No doubt believing Britain’s role in Afghanistan as vital to the curtailment of terrorism, Walker deployed to the war-torn country as part of the 28 Engineer Regiment. His death on Jan. [=>]
London, England—The leader of the opposition, Ed Miliband, was heckled on Oct. 20 at a mass demonstration here against austerity cuts.
The Labour Party leader had addressed the crowd to garner support for his stand against the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic and Conservative parties. Mr. Miliband claimed the government’s cutbacks were “too far and [=>]
London—Protest can be violent. Yet whilst violence towards demonstrators often goes unremarked even in an avowedly democratic nation such as Britain, police violence towards foreign officials, as may have occurred during an attempted storming by British police of the Ecuadorian Embassy, seems a little too much to handle.
Foreign Secretary William Hague has since attempted to [=>]
