Attitudes to the climate crisis and technology

November 10, 2022

Today’s divide in attitudes to technology and climate solutions is more than a political question. It is a deep divide in philosophy. As crucial as are technological advances and the “energy transition,” they are liable to turn into their opposite if they are the focus instead of struggles of people trying to take control over their own lives.

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Kei “Basho” Utsumi (1935-2022): in remembrance

August 24, 2022

Kei Utsumi touched many lives before his death on July 15, a few days shy of his 87th birthday. In conversations with friends, in being present at countless demonstrations, or in putting pen to paper, his was a passionate, unyielding voice for freedom movements, which will be sorely missed.

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Jonathan Spence (1936-2021)

February 3, 2022

Remembering Jonathan Spence, a noted China scholar at Yale and the author of more than a dozen books on Chinese history spanning centuries and social classes.

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Chinese youth, labor and Marxism

July 4, 2021

A U.S. youth looks at the “lying flat” movement in China seeing it as a revolt against the capitalist mode of production and the alienation, sexism, racism and depression that it brings….Soon the Chinese Communist Party will see the Subject is not the Party or capital but human beings.”

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From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Rival approaches to Marxist humanism

May 8, 2021

Since the term “Marxist humanism” has once again become current, but subject to the most varying, and often sanitized, meanings, we present Raya Dunayevskaya’s 1961 writings on “Marxist Humanism in New Books and Reviews.” Once more, we face the questions she explored then: Why now, and how did these writers end up so opposite to where they seemed to be starting from?

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Youth: Marx speaks to youth alienation

Young people keep taking matters into our own hands. Our time of total crises calls for a philosophy to help us understand the problems at the root of our misery and give us hope we can create a new society. This makes Marx a contemporary for youth, looking for a way out of life under capitalism’s hopeless future.

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Readers’ Views, July-August 2019: Part 1

June 27, 2019

Readers’ Views on rising threat of the Right; corruption of the criminal injustice system; abortion bans attack women; support Maâti Monjib!; nursing home blues; why read ‘N&L?’; and support Crimean Tatars!

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Call for Convention 2018

February 25, 2018

OFFICIAL CALL FOR CONVENTION
to Work Out Marxist-Humanist Perspectives for 2018-2019

February 25, 2018

To All Members of News and Letters Committees

Dear Friends:

The deeply ingrained rape culture, already widely known but often hushed up, has been exposed in the broadest way yet by the #MeToo movement. How deep and total is the needed uprooting [=>]

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V. Toward organizational new beginnings

May 13, 2016

Part V of the Draft Perspectives 2016: Together with the depths of counter-revolution, the passion for philosophy points to both the need for and the potential for totally new beginnings in the transformation of society, for new banners of freedom as a polarizing force.

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In memoriam Olga Domanski, 1923-2015

January 24, 2016

The world has lost a great fighter for liberation. Olga Domanski, one of the founders of News and Letters Committees, whose life’s work was the development and projection of Marxist-Humanism and the growth of its organizational expression.

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Olga Domanski, 1923-2015

January 7, 2016

The world has lost a great fighter for liberation. Olga Domanski, one of the founders of News and Letters Committees, whose life’s work was the development and projection of Marxist-Humanism and the growth of its organizational expression.

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Marxist-Humanist organization and philosophy

May 6, 2015

Spelling out the philosophical breakthrough on Hegel’s Absolutes as the total uprooting of the old and the creation of new human relations, in concrete relationship to struggles for freedom in practice and in theory, is at the heart of projecting Marxist-Humanism, and therefore of its organizational life.

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Things fall apart

In the absence of successful social revolution, today’s total crisis is shown in a world capitalist order that is falling apart economically, politically, environmentally, and in thought. That does not mean that we can wait for capitalism to collapse and step aside for a new society. On the contrary. Its desperation makes it that much more vicious, and it threatens to doom all of humanity with it.

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Hegel and Black history

September 30, 2014

There is compelling evidence that the Haitian Revolution of 1803 was a source for Hegel’s narrative on the master/slave relation in the PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT.

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New publications of Marxist classics

March 8, 2013

A new South Asian edition of Marxism and Freedom, from 1776 until Today by Raya Dunayevskaya has been published in India.

South Asian readers can order it from Aakar Books, http://aakarbooks. com/, 28-E, Pocket-IV, Mayur Vihar Phase-I, Delhi-110 091, India. Phone: 91-11-2279-5505. Telefax: 91-11-2279- 5641. Email:aakarbooks@gmail.com.

Franklin Dmitryev

Chicago

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In Mexico, there has come to light a [=>]

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New Russian edition of Marxism and Freedom: Praxis Center needs your help

February 20, 2012

New Russian edition of Marxism and Freedom

Russian Marxism and Freedom

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From Readers’ Views, January-February 2012 issue of News & Letters:

NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN RUSSIA: IN REVOLT, IN THEORY

I heard the news of the largest protests in Russia since the dissolution of the USSR twenty years ago at just about the same time I heard [=>]

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The masses as Reason

November 14, 2011

As Others See Us

This review by Abe Cabrera is excerpted from a Sept. 20, 2011, post on his blog, The Rose in the Crosshttp://elblogdelpelon.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/the-masses-as-reason/

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Raya Dunayevskaya’s book, Marxism and Freedom: From 1776 Until Today, is the founding document of a small political movement, Marxist-Humanism. Opposed equally to the tyranny of “ordinary” capitalism and its counterpart in the [=>]

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Spontaneity and new beginnings

November 11, 2011

From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya

Editor’s note: As the world experiences a new stage of revolt–from the Arab Spring to Wall Street–and seeks ways to make it a revolutionary new beginning, we present excerpts of Raya Dunayevskaya’s Perspectives Report to the 1977 national gathering of News and Letters Committees. Originally titled, “IT’S LATER, ALWAYS LATER–except when [=>]

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November-December 2011 issue of News & Letters available on the web

November 6, 2011

November-December 2011 issue of News & Letters now on the web…
Lead: Occupy Wall Street strikes deep chord, challenges rulers

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, since beginning in New York City’s Zuccotti Park–renamed Liberty Plaza–on Sept. 17, has spread to hundreds of cities and towns across the U.S. and linked with the occupation movements in Europe. [=>]

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From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Deep recession, rate of profit and the supreme commodity, labor power

September 12, 2011

From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya

Editor’s note: Written in the midst of the last double-dip recession in the U.S., the piece excerpted here was originally titled, “In the U.S. and globally: deep recession, military buildup and the pulling apart of political alliances.” It was published as the lead article in the April 1982 N&L.

The depth of [=>]

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July -August 2011 Readers’ Views

September 2, 2011

From the July-August 2011 issue of News & Letters:

Readers’ Views

Contents:

  • AS REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION TAKE WORLD STAGE
  • CHINESE ART PROJECT
  • HEALTHCARE IN 2011
  • NEW RIGHT=OLD LEFT?
  • FREEDOM RIDES, 50 YEARS AFTER
  • WOMEN’S LIBERATION SPEAKS IN MANY VOICES
  • BURMA AND NORTH KOREA
  • FIGHTING FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
  • VOICES FROM BEHIND THE BARS

AS REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION TAKE WORLD STAGE

Congratulations on a fine May-June issue. Thanks especially for [=>]

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On socialism and freedom in Morocco

August 2, 2011

From the July-August 2011 issue of News & Letters:

On socialism and freedom in Morocco
by Richard Greeman

Morocco, where the Arab Spring has opened up a space of relative freedom to discuss and demonstrate, is an exciting place to be, where every day new groups are getting organized and putting forward their grievances. The Feb. [=>]

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Arabic translation of Marxism and Freedom available on pdf

July 21, 2011

Now available at the News and Letters Committees website as a pdf file:

 

New Arabic translation of Marxism and Freedom by Raya Dunayevskaya

Raya Dunayevskaya’s classic explication of Marxism is finally available in Arabic. The first book on Marxist-Humanism, it was originally published in 1958 and has been in continuous publication. It has been translated into Spanish, French, Italian, Chinese, [=>]

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Voices from the Inside Out: Remembering John Alan

May 18, 2011

by Robert Taliaferro

John’s writings are strikingly poignant and timeless, with a prosody that is uniquely old-school. The body of his work is eloquently instructive and historically prescient.

In reading his columns we are challenged to look upon his words as more than philosophical constructs; there is a timelessness that reminds us that history–if left to its [=>]

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Subjects of revolution: theory/practice

May 12, 2011

From the new issue of NEWS & LETTERS, May-June 2011:

From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya
Letter to the youth
Subjects of revolution: theory/practice

Editor’s Note: Excerpted from Jan. 15, 1971, letter to Will Stein and other young revolutionaries in News and Letters Committees who had questions about the relationship of theory and practice, and about the “Subject.” The [=>]

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Marxism and the U.S. Civil War

February 11, 2011

From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya

Editor’s note: 2011 marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the U.S. Civil War. The piece excerpted here, originally titled “Marxism and Freedom: From the Industrial Revolution to Automation–An Outline of a Book in Preparation,” shows the profound impact of the war on Marx’s thought. It can be found [=>]

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