A remembering of the revolutionary life of Kei ‘Basho’ Utsumi (1935-2022), written by Buddy Bell, who knew Basho and worked with him in the last years of his life.
News and Letters Committees
Kei “Basho” Utsumi (1935-2022): in remembrance
August 24, 2022Kei 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.
Johnny Rogers (Robert Ellery), in memoriam
March 15, 2022Johnny Rogers (Robert Ellery), was one of the founding members of News and Letters Committees. The way he exemplified the immediate post-World War II generation of youth as a revolutionary force speaks to all generations.
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2021-2022: Part VI. Tasks
September 1, 2021The urgency of crises underscores the urgency of projecting Marxist-Humanism.
Need for a Total Uprooting: Down with the Perpetrators of the Palestinian Slaughter
June 12, 2021In light of the ongoing Israel-Palestine crisis, we present a piece that takes up the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the connected slaughter of Palestinians at Sabra and Shatila in Beirut. This piece goes beyond exposé to explore the treacherous nature of halfway revolutions, which set the stage for counter-revolution. It thus illuminates today’s crisis.
Rally for Amazon workers’ union drive
March 11, 2021Participant report of a solidarity demonstration in Oakland in front of a Whole Foods store, as part of a national day of solidarity to support Bessemer, Alabama, Amazon workers struggling for union recognition.
Ray Bazmore 1926-2020
January 31, 2021Raymond Bazmore, who died Nov. 4 at the age of 93 in Detroit, was active and engaged all his life in numerous social justice struggles.
Woman as Reason: Sarah White (Sarah Hamer) 1958-2020
January 30, 2021The movement lost a powerful voice for workers’ liberty, self-development and freedom when Sarah White died of a heart attack on Oct. 5, 2020.
News and Letters Committees office damaged
August 29, 2020You can help us recover after a fire near our office caused extensive damage.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: From Black mass revolt to Freedom
July 1, 2020Excerpt from the pamphlet ‘Black Mass Revolt,’ issued in October 1967 following uprisings in Detroit and Newark: “Has Whitey got the message?” asked one of the Black militants. “Have our own leaders? The system has got to go.”
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
Deborah Morris 1946-2019
August 31, 2019In memoriam to Deborah Morris, writer, activist and powerful thinker in the women’s liberation movement and in her participation with News and Letters Committees.
Help ‘News & Letters’ survive and thrive
Help News & Letters fight the dystopian reality of these extreme times!
San Francisco Youth Climate Strike
May 3, 2019Bay Area youth exuberantly join in a global march for the climate, raising awareness of climate change.
Essay: What is socialism? Socialism, labor, and the Black dimension
May 1, 2019Marxist-Humanist Bob McGuire looks through history to Marx’s relationship to labor and the Black movement for freedom and then to our day and the relationship of Marxist-Humanism to labor and the Black struggle for freedom in speaking to the question many are asking today: What is socialism?
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.
News and Letters Committees Call for Plenum 2019
February 25, 2019Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2019-2020
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
Discussion article: The Left’s response to Syrian genocide
October 7, 2018A U.S. activist in Syria solidarity criticizes the broad Left’s failure to practice revolutionary solidarity and outlines the dangerous political consequences.
Readers’ Views, September-October 2018: Part 2
September 29, 2018Readers’ Views Part 2 takes up: the needed return to Marx’s Humanism, and Voices from behind prison bars.
V. Organizational Tasks
May 14, 2018It is a question of working out how to actualize for this moment the relationship of philosophy, spontaneity, organization. We look at concrete tasks.
Call for Convention 2018
February 25, 2018OFFICIAL 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 [=>]
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Iran–Unfoldment of, and contradictions in, revolution
January 30, 2018Excerpt from Dunayevskaya’s March 25, 1979, Political-Philosophic Letter “Iran: Unfoldment of, and Contradictions in, Revolution” that gives a history of revolt and speaks to today’s rebellions in that country by workers, women and youth.
Mauritius demonstration prohibited
December 16, 2017LALIT reports on their banned protest of U.S. military base on Diego Garcia, and our statement of solidarity.
Readers’ Views: Remembering Judy Tanzawa and Dan Perron
November 15, 2017Basho, S.B., and Terry Moon remember their Marxist-Humanist comrades, Judy Tanzawa and Dan Perron.
Dan Perron, 1959-2017
News and Letters Committees lost a wonderful comrade when Dan Perron (Oct. 12, 1959-Sept. 7, 2017) died. Dan was a lifelong activist for freedom and justice.
Judy Tanzawa (Judy Tristan) 1939-2017
November 12, 2017In Memoriam for Judy Tanzawa who was a radical union organizer, Los Angeles Local Organizer for News and Letters Committees, fighter for human liberation in all its dimensions. .
Appeal: Your help is needed to change the world
September 5, 2017An appeal for funds to keep Marxist-Humanism alive and to help News and Letters Committees continue to grow. .
VII. Tasks
May 17, 2017Although we do not have a daily newspaper, this crisis-ridden period compels us to strive to act as if we do. Organizational tasks as always are meant to include, not exclude, friends and new contacts who are not yet Marxist-Humanists.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2017, Part 2
February 2, 2017Readers’ Views on: Practical and Theoretical Intervention; Syria and Humanism; International Crises; and Prisoners Speak.
Shut down all of today’s Alcatrazes!
September 14, 2016On Aug. 23, California’s Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition leafletted the staging area for trips to Alcatraz prison raising discussions with locals and tourists about how solitary confinement is torture.
Essay: Epigones discard Marxist-Humanist philosophy
September 12, 2016The retreat of former Marxist-Humanists into post-Marx Marxism is analyzed by Franklin Dmitryev through the books “Marx at the Margins” by Kevin Anderson and “Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism” by Peter Hudis, which appropriate some of Raya Dunayevskaya’s conclusions while quietly dismantling their philosophical framework.
Help keep News & Letters going and growing
September 7, 2016An appeal for funds to help keep the paper, News & Letters, going and growing; and to help us expand our subscriptions to prisoners.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2016, Part 2
July 14, 2016Readers’ Views on Needed New Beginnings in Philosophy and Revolution; Making One Year Count; Subjugated Knowledge; Free Syria/May Day; and Voices From Behind the Bars.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Racism, war and Muhammad Ali
July 4, 2016On the same day that General William Westmoreland waved the flag before Congress, Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the Army. While the general was applauded even by the doves, Ali was, within hours, stripped of his title of World Heavyweight Boxing Champion. War exposed the open nerve—”the Black Question”—which has always been the touchstone of U.S. history. It placed American civilization on trial before the world much more seriously than the “war crimes tribunal” in Stockholm.
Message to LALIT for their Labor Day (May Day) gathering
May 18, 2016April 30, 2016
Dear Sisters and Brothers of LALIT,
We in News and Letters Committees are honored to send you whole-hearted revolutionary greetings and hopes for a successful Labor Day gathering. Your struggles against capital in league with the Mauritius government are a reminder of how capital is now global, and so are the struggles [=>]
Letter from Mexico: On ‘Life’ and feminism
The late Revolutionary Olga Domanski is remembered for reminding us that Absolute Method is the only way for feminism, as part of a totally new society built on truly human foundations, to be completely realized.
‘China on Strike’
Chinese worker-activists reveal the recent history of laborers in action for their rights and seek an exchange of ideas with U.S. labor activists.
V. Toward organizational new beginnings
May 13, 2016Part 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.
The need for new beginnings in thought and in action
April 25, 2016Contents: Introduction; I. Discontent, revolt and reaction in the U.S.; II. The worldwide war against women; III. Chinese labor in revolt; IV. Counter-revolution and revolution in the Middle East and North Africa; V. Toward organizational new beginnings. The fact that the old, crumbling order will not go away quietly explains why we print the Marxist-Humanist Draft Perspectives in the pages of the paper of News and Letters Committees. It is an open window onto the needed philosophy of revolution, without which all revolutions and freedom movements remain incomplete.
Olga Domanski’s revolutionary life, 1923-2015 (March-April 2016 Readers’ Views)
March 22, 2016Readers’ Views from the March-April 2016 N&L marking the revolutionary life of Olga Domanski.
Black youth and labor come together
March 18, 2016The Chicago Teachers Union, Black Lives Matter, Labor and disability rights movements work together to oppose racism, government cutbacks and austerity
Voices From The Inside Out: Olga Domanski’s passion for justice and freedom
March 11, 2016Prisoner Robert Taliaferro remembers Olga Domanski as a pillar of News and Letters Committees who helped define the organization for decades and wrote a remarkable letter to his parole board.
Olga Domanski: Part of ‘a generation of revolutionaries’
Gerry Emmett remembers Olga Domanski as one who embodied “revolutionary” in organizational form, making the idea of freedom exist.
Call for Convention 2016
February 28, 2016Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2016-2017
Comrades and friends remember Olga
January 25, 2016Remembrances of Olga Domanski by comrades and friends.
Olga Domanski’s revolutionary life, 1923-2015: Readers’ Views
Readers’ Views on the revolutionary life of Olga Domanski.
In memoriam Olga Domanski, 1923-2015
January 24, 2016The 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.
Woman as Reason: Olga Domanski: embodiment of Woman as Reason
January 23, 2016An in memoriam to Olga Domanski from a women’s liberationist’s point of view.
Olga Domanski, 1923-2015
January 7, 2016The 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.