Readers’ thoughts on “Dialectics of Philosophy and of Forces of Revolution”; “Free Mumia!”; “Federico Arcos, 1920-2015”; and a section of “Voices from Behind the Bars.”
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Readers’ Views, Sept.-Oct. 2015, Part 1
Readers’ thoughts on “Srebrenica, Bosnia, 1995; Europe and the World, 2015”; “Struggles against Racism”; “After Cecil, People Are Next”; “Teachers and Children”; “Workers, Customers Pay.”
Greek crisis: austerity, revolt and illusions
August 30, 2015Although the Greek masses reject the austerity program imposed on them by the European institutions, Syriza inexorably took a path to capitulation because it is rooted in the search for state power rather than the power of mass self-activity.
Editorial: Planned Parenthood under siege
Dishonestly edited videos accusing Planned Parenthood of illegally selling aborted fetal organs for profit have now become fodder for politicians who vow to destroy Planned Parenthood, and who mislead and grovel before their Right-wing anti-woman base.
After the referendum: The ongoing Greek crisis
July 8, 2015The two opponents facing off in Greece for five years have been the Greek masses vs. the European rulers and their institutions. The No vote manifested the revolt against austerity. We explore the meaning of these events.
Readers’ Views, July-August 2015
July 4, 2015Black lives as Subject; Russia in crisis; Nothing about us without us; Homelessness in L.A.; Central Canada Alliance; Perspectives and philosophy; Elderly to the streets?; Women and Yemen half-peace; Labor and climate justice; Dialectic and women’s liberation; Voices from behind the bars
UAW makes new effort to organize Volkswagen
June 29, 2015The United Auto Workers, claiming to represent over 55% of the workers at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., has demanded exclusive bargaining rights for the workers. The company, however, is resisting.
Workshop Talks: When workers’ own time begins
June 28, 2015How, on the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, does that document speak to what workers and prisoners are facing today?
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: The meaning of revolutionary archives
June 27, 2015In celebrating the online publication of the Raya Dunayevskaya Collection, we present excerpts of her Introduction/Overview to Volume XII, which takes up the Marxist-Humanist concept of archives as not only retrospective but perspective, in the quest to establish “continuity with the historic course of human development.”
Greek masses in peril
May 6, 2015The rulers’ economic squeeze on Greece is intended to be an ideological prison for the working masses of Europe. Left tendencies aim to use the state to save capitalism or move toward socialism—rather than releasing self-activity of masses in motion as the prime mover of social transformation.
Readers’ Views, May-June 2015
May 3, 2015Letters and comments sent in by readers or taken down, to and about the articles in News & Letters or current events.
Fight for $15 and Dr. King
April 30, 2015In Chicago, thousands march for a living wage, while in Los Angeles, protesters of all races marched downtown on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s 1968 assassination. They included low-wage workers campaigning to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, uniting with the movement against police killing of unarmed Black and Brown youth.
Workshop Talks: 1949 coal miners’ general strike today
We workers see from the inside that capitalism is coming apart. The 1949-50 Coal Miners’ General Strike is significant, not only because it highlights resistance to the early stage of automation, but because the miners’ self-activity signified “The Emergence of a New Movement from Practice That Is Itself a Form of Theory.”
Readers’ Views, March-April 2015, Part 1
March 8, 2015Revolt and Counter-Revolution, from Greece to Syria; Here Come the Reformers; Women’s Freedom; Against Racism
Will UAW represent rank and file again?
There will be a laundry list of grievances presented at the United Auto Workers (UAW) union bargaining convention to be held in Detroit, Mich, in March. Many of these grievances have been festering throughout auto plants in the country since 2009, when General Motors and Chrysler went bankrupt.
CTU strike frames vote
Election Day in Chicago, Feb. 24, made the historic nine-day Chicago Teachers Union strike in 2012 a pivotal issue again as the candidate supported by the CTU forced Mayor Rahm Emanuel into a runoff.
Coal and Its People
March 7, 2015In acquainting readers with News & Letters over its first 60 years, we spotlight here the regular feature “Coal and its People” which featured the voices of coal miners, many from West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Editorial: Syriza’s many challenges
The electoral victory of Greece’s Syriza party was an important first step in resisting austerity imposed on the Greek and European working classes as capitalism’s response to its own intractable crisis. Nothing could be in greater contradiction to the movement that lifted Syriza to prominence than the parliamentary alliance with the racist, theocratic Independent Greeks party.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Miners inspired Marxist-Humanism
From the News and Letters pamphlet The Coal Miners’ General Strike of 1949-50 and the Birth of Marxist-Humanism in the U.S. we excerpt from Raya Dunayevskaya’s “The Emergence of a New Movement from Practice that Is Itself a Form of Theory,” on miners’ contributions to the philosophic birth of Marxist-Humanism.
Solidarity with striking oil workers
The first national oil refinery strike since 1980 manifested safety-related demands by the workers and garnered much labor, community, and environmentalist support.
Workshop Talks: Reclaim our labor
Working in healthcare has been transformed in a very alienating way. The workplace is drowning in fancy hi-tech machines. Cadres of bureaucrats spend their working hours promoting the product of healthcare with marketing campaigns. The rank and file hear daily admonitions to smile more and are told, “Just be glad you have a job.” Bureaucrats preach “customers come first,” while cutting service and staffing. Hospital and HMO executives are in a race to eliminate labor as much as possible in their “product.”
From Turkey to USA, women as force & reason fight inhumanity
March 5, 2015Another savage sexual assault and murder—this time in Turkey—brought forth thousands of demonstrators, mostly women, throughout the country and beyond. Özgecan Aslan was a student taking a bus home. Worldwide, women are not only railing against sexism and challenging men to change what is often deadly behavior and when not deadly, deeply oppressive; they are as well explicitly extending their critique to the state itself.
Readers’ Views, January-February 2015, Part 2
January 30, 2015Dunayevskaya’s letters on Hegel’s Absolutes; Bhopal toxic disaster; Voices from behind the bars
Chicago teachers’ strike reviewed
January 29, 2015Review of “Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity” by Micah Uetricht and “How to Jump-Start Your Union: Lessons from the Chicago Teachers” from Labor Notes.
Murderous King Coal on trial
Don Blankenship—owner of the Upper Big Branch Massey mine in West Virginia in 2010 when the mine exploded, killing 29 coal miners—was indicted. Nevertheless, the coal lobby still exerts considerable power in the state, and uses that power to support mountaintop mining and to thwart environmentally progressive programs that try to minimize the many dangerous aspects of coal mining.
Workers can fix L.A.
November 22, 2014Los Angeles—On Oct. 28, several thousand Los Angeles City workers (mostly Latina/o and Blacks) and community supporters marched through downtown to City Hall to protest the city’s proposed 30% cut in workers’ wages and benefits. The cuts included medical coverage, bonuses and retirement benefits, as more and more of the city’s infrastructure deteriorates….
UAW shirks campaign at Mercedes-Benz
Detroit—Instead of holding an election of rank-and-file workers at the Mercedes-Benz auto plant in Tuscaloosa, Ala., the United Auto Workers union (UAW) in October simply declared that Local Union 112 was in existence to represent workers at the plant. UAW officials said they hoped to convince a majority of the 3,400 full-time workers there to join the union, and are seeking to persuade Mercedes-Benz management to accept the union as the sole representative of the workers….
Hong Kong youth confront class rule
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….
Readers’ Views, September-October 2014, Part I
August 31, 2014From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
U.S. CRISES: RACISM, POLICE, LABOR STRUGGLES
New York News and Letters Committee prepared a flyer on Eric Garner (see: “NYC Police murder Eric Garner” this issue) headlined: “Wanted For Murder: Daniel Pantaleo.” It denounced the fact that the cops who killed Garner are [=>]
Workers paid weakly
August 29, 2014From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
New York—It insults our intelligence to claim that the proposed increase in the minimum wage from the existing $7.25 an hour to $10.10 in 2016 is enough to keep a family above the poverty line. President Obama signed an executive order raising the minimum wage [=>]
Picketing for jobs
From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
Chicago–Altgeld Gardens residents picketed the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) on June 26. They told News & Letters that the CHA contracts with Walsh Construction to work on housing projects like Altgeld Gardens, which is 97% Black. But Walsh refuses to follow Section 3, which requires 30% [=>]
Review — ‘Steel Closets: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Steelworkers’
Review of the book “Steel Closets: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Steelworkers” by Anne Balay.
Tiananmen Square Massacre 25 years later
July 8, 2014From the July-August 2014 issue of News & Letters
Crowds filled Hong Kong’s Victoria Park on June 4 to remember the massacre in Tiananmen Square 25 years ago. Under Hong Kong’s separate administration they bore witness to the two-month-long mass movement of students and workers that spread to city after city across China, and [=>]
Readers’ Views, July-August 2014, Part 1
July 7, 2014From 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 [=>]
Detroit retirees fight for public workers
Intense pressure builds as 38,000 retired Detroit City workers approach a voting deadline on the fate of their pensions and healthcare benefits under the Plan of Adjustment of the unelected Detroit Emergency Manager for the city’s bankruptcy filing.
Which side is UAW on?
From the July-August 2014 issue of News & Letters
Detroit—The United Auto Workers (UAW) union elected Dennis Williams, former UAW secretary-treasurer, as president for a four-year term during the union’s Constitutional Convention held in Detroit on June 4-5. Following his election, Williams pledged to eliminate the existing two-tier wage system that pays new hires [=>]
Fast food workers betrayed by so-called ‘leaders’
New York—Last year, when thousands of fast food workers walked off their jobs defying their corporate bosses and marched and rallied for a $15 minimum wage and the right to organize a union, many people who have spent their lives fighting for justice in the workplace were excited.
WORKSHOP TALKS: Veteran Affairs care is for data
July 5, 2014Healthcare reform took cost-control ideology to a whole new level. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been transformed into its opposite by the HMO industry which sacrifices the lives of patients and workers alike for the sake of fiduciary health.
EDITORIAL: In the Ukrainian cauldron
Facts on the ground threaten to spin out of control, increasing the danger of a full regional war in the eastern region, the possibility of dismemberment of Ukraine, and an intensification of U.S.-Europe vs. Russia saber-rattling. However, these are only the latest moments of the “pseudo-concrete”–the false alternatives that have arisen, seeking to usurp the movement of self-determination that was manifest in the Maidan Nezaleznosti (Independence Square) occupation in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev.
Low-wage workers strike, reach for a new way of life
July 1, 2014The recent wave of strikes at Walmart and fast food restaurants signals the discontent brewing among the growing number of low-wage U.S. workers. They give notice that the far-reaching restructuring of jobs that was accelerated by the Great Recession also has a subjective side of revolt.
A week of strikes and demonstrations at Walmarts across the country peaked with events in 20 cities on June 4 alone. Chants of “Respect! Now!” joined the official demands of “$25,000 per year and enough hours to support our families” and an end to retaliation against workers who strike or speak up.
The Left Agenda at the Maidan and After
June 30, 2014On April 12, 2014, Kyiv hosted a conference The Left and the Maidan which brought together activists from anarchist, socialist and communist organisations that had been involved in the Maidan movement in late 2013–early 2014. The large number of participating activists who represent the various political groups and initiatives evolving as a part of the Maidan movement is clear evidence against the alleged absence of the Left in the Maidan movement. The discussion was centered on why the Left failed to take an organisational form and become as visible a factor of the Maidan as the right.
Readers’ Views, May-June 2014
May 25, 2014LABOR AND IMMIGRATION
On April 8, about 100 people, the majority young Latinas/os, gathered in front of Los Angeles City Hall to protest the deportation of immigrants. Obama’s administration has aggressively deported 2,000,000 immigrants. We held signs reading: “Not Even One More!” and “No Separation of Family!” Separation of family members has serious adverse effects [=>]
Minimum wage is a starvation wage
May 17, 2014Wages have stagnated for several decades— the standard of living of Americans today is less than it was in 1972. The average wage of a worker today is $20.39, not the $38 an hour it would be if wages had kept up with inflation.
UPS drivers risk jobs for solidarity
When driver Jairo Reyes was fired by UPS at one of its Queens locations, 250 drivers did what any class-conscious union member would do: a protest rally demanding that Reyes be rehired. UPS fired all 250 workers.
India’s Modi: ‘free market’ authoritarian
May 14, 2014Narendra Modi states openly that his program will be to unleash “free market” reform coupled with authoritarianism in government. Modi’s history tells us what his authority portends: the massacre of 2,000 Muslims in Gujarat.
Bolivia’s two worlds
May 11, 2014A new conflict broke out in Bolivia at the end of March. Thousands of miners blocked highways in five departments of Bolivia to protest a pending new mining law. Three miners were killed by the national police, while the miners took dozens of police hostage.
Capitalism’s political and economic degeneracy
May 7, 2014Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2014-2015. III. Capitalism’s political and economic degeneracy. A. Karl Marx haunts capitalism’s stagnation. B. The race toward climate chaos.
Revolt and retrogression at home
May 6, 2014Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2014-2015: From the U.S. to Ukraine, crises and revolts call for philosophy. II. Revolt and retrogression at home. A. Women under attack. B. Many dimensions of revolt
May-June 2014 News & Letters online
May 2, 2014May-June 2014 News & Letters online: “From the U.S. to Ukraine, crises and revolts call for philosophy”; “Unchaining the revolutionary dialectic”; much more…
Readers’ Views, March-April 2014, Part 2
April 9, 2014Readers’ Views from the March-April 2014 issue of News & Letters, part 2.