The climate crisis, biodiversity, food, water, and human health are so closely linked that efforts to address one without taking the others into account often backfire. This finding from scientists reflects their hearing climate justice movements.
Indigenous peoples
Oaxaca towns against mining projects
August 3, 2024Statement by the No to Mining for a Future for All Front against the attempt of the Cuzcatlán company to start mining in El Llano, Sitio Santiago, Oaxaca.
World in View: Kenyan youth storm the system
July 19, 2024On June 25, young protesters stormed the National Assembly in Kenya protesting a bill raising taxes and prices on imported staples. The protests forced the president to cancel the bill. Grave contradictions exist in this supposedly “stable” country, including multiple dimensions of revolt.
Mexico: The Struggle for Self-Determination in Ostula
July 12, 2024Statement with demands by the Nahua community of Santa María Ostula, Michoacán, who in July were brutally attacked by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, with no response from state and federal authorities.
Review: A We without State
March 15, 2024The pamphlet ‘A We without State” by Yásnaya Aguilar Gil, a voice of the Mixe people, deconstructs the word “Indigenous” and poses the idea of a world “not as a sum of national States…but as an ever-changing, collaborative and adaptable conglomerate of tiny social structures, as my community.”
World in View: Guatemala’s Indigenous-led strike defeats ‘Pact of the Corrupt’
January 25, 2024On Jan. 15, Bernardo Arévalo was inaugurated President of Guatemala. It was by no means assured that he would be able to take office. What finally allowed Arévalo to do so was a massive Indigenous outpouring. Now, many questions remain, for his government is far from being revolutionary.
World in View: Hurricane Otis and the ‘Other Acapulco’
November 18, 2023Hurricane Otis on the coast of Guerrero on Oct. 25 left more than 80% of the hotel infrastructure unusable and hundreds of houses without roofs. The population was already suffering from hunger and organized crime.
Handicap This!: November 2023
November 14, 2023Takes up: The right of disabled people to be part of the reproductive justice discussion; Indigenous Disability Awareness Month in Canada; and European Union countries requiring people to prove their percentage of disability in order to have free access to culture.
World in View: Amazon Summit–Much talk, little action
August 19, 2023Eight South American countries met in Brazil for a summit to combat deforestation in the Amazon basin. The summit’s failure to agree on a pact protecting Amazon forests points to the global failure of forging concrete agreements to combat climate change.
Youth in Action: August 2023
August 10, 2023Students in Pine Ridge, S.D., changed their school’s name to Maȟpíya Lúta, after the Oglala Lakota leader who defeated a contingent of the U.S. Army in 1866.
Hugo Blanco (1934-2023), Peruvian Revolutionary
July 19, 2023Marxist, activist and defender of the Indigenous movement, Peruvian revolutionary Hugo Blanco (1934-2023) died in June. His history shines a light on the needed exploration of the conflictive, contradictory story of Marxism and the Indigenous movement in Latin America today.
World in View: Mexico Notes, May-June 2023
June 16, 2023Takes up: how Mexico has increased the number of migrants it has detained five-fold, most at the behest of the U.S.–from 88,000 a year a decade ago to 450,000 now; and that Lopez Obrador is pushing the mega-project “Mayan train” that is invading Indigenous communities, as well as a new airport outside Mexico City, a huge oil refinery, a thermo-electric plant.
World in View: Chile moves to the right
June 2, 2023In a stunning reversal on May 7, voters in Chile elected a majority of far-right candidates responsible for drafting a new constitution. The first draft, written by a progressive coalition of elected representatives from below, had insisted on gender equality and Indigenous rights. It was rejected after an extensive negative campaign of misinformation and right-wing media manipulation.
Detroiters demand: ‘Stop Cop City!’
March 21, 2023Dozens of protesters marched in downtown Detroit chanting: “Stop Cop City!” They opposed the expansion of Camp Grayling to more than double its current police training grounds.
Peru’s Congress targets Indigenous
January 25, 2023A popular rebellion by Peruvian Indigenous and peasants demands self-determination and opposes plutocracy but faces repression under the reactionary Congress and the establishment’s president who replaced the elected president.
COP15 and COP27: Ecology summits hide two worlds clashing
January 22, 2023Two hotly anticipated global summits on ecology and climate papered over a raging war of capital against humanity and Planet Earth—a war manifested in open conflict between “developed” and “developing” countries, but more deeply in a war of the two worlds of rulers and ruled within each country.
Leading Canadians off the cliff
November 11, 2022Canada’s Conservative Party and Alberta province’s United Conservative Party have both chosen racist, anti-immigrant leaders, moving Canada to the Right.
Maasai evictions
September 13, 2022Tanzania is violently evicting Indigenous Maasai people in the name of “conservation” to create a game preserve for United Arab Emirates royalty.
Strikes and rage at murders in Amazon
July 19, 2022After journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous solidarity activist Bruno Pereira were murdered in the Brazilian Amazon, condemnations and calls for justice rang out around the world.
Ecuador’s Indigenous fight for means of life
July 8, 2022Ecuador’s Indigenous people are in revolt over the rising cost of living. In addition to price controls they are demanding access to healthcare and education and challenging continued discrimination against Indigenous people.
Ecuador’s Indigenous movement wins concessions
July 2, 2022On June 30, after 18 days of protests, the government of Ecuador sat at the negotiating table with the leaders of the Indigenous movement. A representative of the Catholic Church asked reluctant Indigenous leaders to sign the agreement prepared by the government.
Editorial: Sham trucker convoys
March 19, 2022The “Freedom Convoy” in Canada was part and parcel of the white Christian nationalism that is a marker of today’s fascism, and not a working-class movement of truck drivers.
Canadian convoy fuels fascism, not freedom
February 11, 2022Despite 90% of Canadian truckers being vaccinated, organizers counted on a couple hundred semis to mask the fascist movements and money propelling this “freedom convoy.” The mask came off quickly, as participants paraded Nazi and Confederate flags, and even TRUMP 2024 banners, while others desecrated national memorials.
COP26: Rulers strive to stifle youth response to climate emergency
January 24, 2022In the face of climate justice movements from below, the rulers are determined to keep control in their hands. With creative new actions and thinking raising the possibility of alternative, anti-capitalist paths of development, the powers that be are working hard to reduce that to a mere “energy transition.”
Mapuche people fight for their land in Chile
November 19, 2021In October, right-wing Chilean President Sebastián Piñera twice decreed a 15-day state of emergency for several provinces which directs the armed forces to provide support for policing and surveillance of the Mapuche people. We include part of the Mapuche people’s declaration.
Youth hold Climate Strike in San Francisco
November 10, 2021As part of the ongoing Fridays for Future, on Aug. 27 several hundred, mostly youth, gathered in San Francisco to call attention to environmental racism, the climate crisis, and public health.
Youth Vs Apocalypse
September 29, 2021As part of the ongoing Fridays for Future, on Aug. 27 several hundred, mostly youth, gathered in San Francisco to call attention to environmental racism, the climate crisis, and public health.
Ocotlán residents defy criminal mine company
September 20, 2021Community authorities and residents of the Ocotlán Valley, Oaxaca, are demanding that the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources not give in to pressure from Compañía Minera Cuzcatlán, a subsidiary of Canada’s Fortuna Silver Mines, to expand their San José II mining project.
Women Worldwide: September-October 2021
September 12, 2021Women Indigenous leaders in Canada; forced sterilization of Indigenous women in Canada; organic farming collective Green Girls in Gaza; dangers of prenatal sex selection.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2021, part one
July 2, 2021Readers’ Views on: What Is Socialism?; What Is Marxist-Humanism?; Nuclear Socialism?; Nuclear Capitalism; Flat Earth Society; Indigenous Genocide; Indigenous Liberation; Racism Takes its Toll; Rape Culture; Coming Out in Sports; Colonialism and Liberation
Native Americans challenge Line 3
July 1, 2021The protests over the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota are the latest front in a long struggle of Native Americans. It is also part of the movement to confront climate change in a way that benefits Black, Indigenous and People of Color, women, workers and youth, rather than narrowly aimed to help capital.
Colombian strikers reject dispossession and repression
June 29, 2021In-person report on the revolt in Colombia and the history of displacement, repression and revolt from which it flows.
Colombia: The struggle for a better country
June 17, 2021In-person report on the revolt in Colombia and the history of displacement, repression and revolt from which it flows.
Women Worldwide: May-June 2021
May 8, 2021Five Canadian feminist activists released The Care Economy Statement proclaiming that caregiving is a societal responsibility; through February, thousands of feminists demonstrated across France in support of “Julie,” a 25-year-old woman who when younger was raped over 100 times by 20 firemen; in memoriam for Nawal El Sadaawi, an Egyptian radical feminist, Marxist, writer and activist; and the Illinois Prison Project launched the Women and Survivors Project.
Cáceres, Presente!
March 11, 2021March marks the fifth anniversary of the assassination of Berta Cáceres, Honduran defender of the rivers, the Lenca people and life.
News from Mexico: January-February 2021
January 31, 2021While the U.S. and Mexico argue whether General Salvador Cienfuegos and former Mexican President Peña Nieto were involved in abetting a narco-trafficking cartel, the Mexican army and navy have a despicable history of human rights violations never honestly investigated. The Zapatistas issued a “Declaration for Life” and intercontinental call for meetings.
News from Mexico: November-December 2020
November 28, 2020Guanajuato has 2,587 missing persons, and 3,438 intentional homicides in the first nine months of 2020; President López Obrador claims to be against neoliberalism, but combines it with state-capitalism in developmentalist projects; many states and communities are COVID-19 hot spots with high levels of deaths, particularly in maquiladoras; and the Zapatistas report on their situation vis-a-vis COVID-19, and their resistance along with CNI against developmentalist projects.
Latin America Notes
November 25, 2020Chileans voted by 80% to get rid of the 1980 Constitution and begin the process of writing a new one; Bolivia’s presidential election repudiated the right wing that had taken over the government when Evo Morales was forced to flee last year; and in Colombia, thousands of Indigenous people marched hundreds of miles to Bogotá demanding a meeting with the president to protest extreme violence against their peoples.
Mexico News: The clandestine graves of Guanajuato
October 31, 2020‘Mexico news’ takes up the thousands of missing people in Mexico and the found clandestine graves; the resistance to Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s developmentalist capitalism; how COVID-19 affects Mexico; and how fare the Zapatistas and their future plans.
Essay: The Forum in Defense of Territory and Mother Earth–Unity of the struggles from a dialectical perspective, and what comes next?
August 29, 2020In light of the Zapatistas’ Forum in Defense of Territory and Mother Earth, Héctor explores the search for unity by diverse movements in relation to Hegel’s dialectic of the whole and the parts.
Why some statues must go
July 13, 2020Italian American Tom Siracuse argues that statues of Christopher Columbus in New York should be torn down and more worthy Italians could be honored.
Latin America under COVID-19
July 1, 2020Capitalism is exacerbating the havoc being wreaked by COVID-19 in Latin America. In the projected largest recession in its history, 12 million more people will lose their jobs, leaving 29 million more in poverty.
Canada on trial: War on Wet’suwet’en nation
April 29, 2020With work stoppages and shutting down rail service, the Indigenous Wet’suwet’en people resist construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline on Wet’suwet’en First Nation territory despite the COVID-19 crisis in Canada.
Indigenous protest megaprojects
March 4, 2020Report from Mexico on the three Days of Action “In Defense of Territory and Mother Earth,” by a participant in Mexico City.
Letter from Mexico: Indigenous create tools of resistance
Report on the Assembly from Oaxaca in Defense of the Land and Territory, held as part of the three Days of Action called by the Zapatistas and the National Indigenous Congress to commemorate one year since the murder of Indigenous activist Samir Flores.
News and Letters Committees Call for Convention 2020
March 2, 2020POSTPONED: Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2020-2021
The fall of Morales; whither Bolivia?
January 22, 2020Important human forces in Bolivia are strongly opposing the threat of a developing fascism, and at the same time have not shied away from criticizing the contradictions of Evo Morales’s rule.
Readers’ Views, January-February 2020, Part Two
Readers’ Views on Philosophy and Revolution; disorder is the order; anti-Semitism; Black August, and voices from behind bars.
Bolivia’s extreme right consolidates power
December 3, 2019Important human forces in Bolivia are strongly opposing the threat of a developing fascism, and at the same time have not shied away from criticizing the contradictions of Evo Morales’s rule.
Letter from Mexico: Chiapas Indigenous join Zapatistas
September 1, 2019Analysis of the new moment arrived at by the Zapatista Indigenous movement, which now has 11 more units of self-government in the southearstern state of Chiapas, Mexico.