Two flashpoints in Asia between North and South Korea and between India and China erupted in threats and deadly clashes.
North Korea
World in View: Trump-Kim summit
March 13, 2019The second summit meeting between Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, in Hanoi on Feb. 27, ended without any new agreement. But it achieved what it aimed for as theater.
Essay: How dead thought failed Syrian revolution’s living history
January 28, 2019The Syrian Revolution has been the physical and intellectual battlefield that defines our time. As early as 2012 it was clear that what happened in Syria would determine the next stage of world history.
Editorial: Trump-Kim ‘peace’ threatens masses
July 18, 2018Marxist-Humanist analysis of the Trump-Kim summit and G7 summit shows Trump is not charting a path to world peace but rather toward a more openly brutal world order. .
III. The reality and the myth of contemporary capitalism
May 5, 2018We look at the world economic situation that must be changed: the role of state-capitalism, labor, climate change, the law of value, exploitation, alienation, and revolution and counter-revolution in Syria.
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2018-2019: Fighting Trump and his fascist allies in practice and theory
May 1, 2018Part I of the Draft Perspectives Thesis: Trump’s war show.
The real threat of war reflects Trump’s extremeness as a product of failing capitalism, which is not an aberration but an index of the nature of U.S. capitalist imperialism.
World in View: Japan, North Korea in Asian military spiral
November 16, 2017Trump makea genocidal threats to “completely destroy” North Korea, as in a similar way, North Korea’s doctrine of “self-defense” is based on the threat to destroy Seoul, South Korea, and its 10 million people.
Readers’ Views: September-October 2017, Part 2
September 5, 2017Readers’ Views: Marx’s concept of theory; we are not a game; voices from behind bars.
Humanity confronting annihilation
September 3, 2017The peace march on Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to commemorate over 70,000 lives lost at the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on Aug. 9 in Livermore, Calif., bring up questions of Marxism, humanism, and the alternative necessary new society.
China’s tentacles
July 2, 2017Report on the Belt and Road Forum held in May in China and its connection with China’s imperialist and anti-labor actions.
I. Trumpism as an excrescence of world capitalism’s crises
May 17, 2017Trumpism’s self-perpetuating disorder is based on negation of social movements, trying to stifle the positive in their negation of this exploitative society. His deceit and power grabs express capitalism’s disintegration, exuding racism, sexism, and fascism.
World in View: Korea war threats
May 15, 2017The U.S. is increasing its military activity in the far East as tensions rise between it and North Korea that could lead to an unthinkable and devastating nuclear and chemical war that could affect multiple nations.
Readers’ Views: September-October 2016, Part 1
September 14, 2016Readers’ Views on: Racism and Revolt Put U.S. on Trial; Life and Death Under the Class Divide; Environmental Struggles; War and Atrocities; and Women’s Lives at Stake.
World in View: North Korea executions
September 6, 2015North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, has eliminated another member of the ruling party elite, vice-premier Choe Yong-gon. It is likely that Choe was eliminated for his connection to the North’s joint business ventures with South Korea.
South Korea on strike, North Korea on ‘ice’
February 15, 2014• Over 100,000 South Koreans, mainly workers, demonstrated in Seoul on Dec. 28. They expressed their anger over a number of issues at the government of President Park Geun-hye.
One source of anger is the move to privatize some service by KORAIL (Korean Railroad Corp.). This had already led to the largest-ever walkout by members of the railroad workers’ union. Union officials say moves to privatize will mean fare hikes, service reductions, and safety problems.
On Dec. 22 riot police were sent to attack the Seoul headquarters of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. Without search warrants, they broke down doors and caused serious property damage, including to the adjoining offices of the Kyunghang newspaper, which has been critical of Park’s policies.
Other citizens, outraged by revelations of manipulation by the National Intelligence Service of the 2012 elections when Park was elected, joined protesting workers. Police had confirmed illegal attempts to manipulate the election beforehand, but were ordered to remain silent.
With all these problems and more, South Korean youth have been inspired by the “Why We Aren’t Fine!” campaign. This was launched when a student at Korea University, Ju Hyun-woo, made a poster for his school bulletin board that was picked up and broadcast over social media. He wrote: “I just want to ask, ‘Are you okay?’ Are you fine with ignoring all these issues because they aren’t your problems?…And if you are not ‘fine’ after seeing all these problems, then voice your opinions—whatever they may be.”
Many of these young people joined in the Dec. 28 demonstrations, and also held flash mobs in cities across the country.
Readers’ Views, September-October 2013, Part II
October 12, 2013Readers’ Views, September-October 2013, Part II
The politics of degenerate capitalism
May 2, 2013The rulers are not about to sit back and let revolt freely develop. All sorts of reactionary ideas and attitudes have been ushered into the mainstream of politics and the media.
Capitalism’s violence, masses’ revolt show need for total view
May 1, 2013The world today is riven between the creativity of masses in revolt and the violent degeneracy of counter-revolution, whose destructiveness even extends to the revived specter of nuclear war two decades after the collapse of the USSR. Such is the degeneracy of the globalized capitalist system, laden with destructive forces and sunk into structural crisis. The deep crisis is seen in the U.S. and abroad, economically, in unemployment and poverty, homelessness and hunger. It is seen politically, in new laws attacking workers and women, and new outbursts of racism. It is seen environmentally, with the advance of climate disruption and fake capitalistic solutions. It is seen in thought, as the lack of philosophy, of a total view, hampers the development of struggles from the U.S. to the revolutions of the Arab Spring facing counter-revolutions.
Escape from Camp 14
April 10, 2013Escape from Camp 14 is the story of Shin Dong-hyuk, the only person born in a North Korean slave labor camp to escape, doing so at the age of 23 in 2005. Shin’s life is testament to the putrid essence of that militarized, state-capitalist totalitarian society.
State of the U.S. wars
March 19, 2013Editorial
The opening of Barack Obama’s second term made it clear that, despite all talk of ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is to be no end to the state of permanent war either abroad or at home.
President Obama promises to end the war in Afghanistan after 13 years. But the Afghan people have [=>]
News and Letters Committees Call for Plenum 2013
March 7, 2013OFFICIAL CALL FOR PLENUM
to Work Out Marxist-Humanist Perspectives for 2013-2014
February 24, 2013
To All Members of News and Letters Committees
Dear Friends:
The world today is riven between the creativity of masses in revolt and the violent degeneracy of counter-revolution, whose destructiveness even extends to the revived specter of nuclear war two decades after the collapse of [=>]
Syrians against all odds
September 13, 2012Editorial
Daraya, Aug. 25: the Assad regime continues its genocide, with 300-600 estimated killed in this Damascus suburb. The dead are unarmed men, women and children of the working class. This massacre was committed to terrorize the revolutionary people of Syria, and to guarantee the security of the nearby military airfield that Assad will use in [=>]
Kim dynasty drags on
February 11, 2012From the January-February 2012 issue of News & Letters:
World in View
Kim dynasty drags on
by Gerry Emmett
The body of late North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il will be placed on display in Pyongyang, beside that of his father Kim Il-sung. The official news agency reported “natural wonders” following Kim’s death, including that “…a Manchurian crane [=>]
Widening labor and peasant revolts threaten Chinese rulers
January 30, 2012Lead article in the new January-February 2012 issue of News & Letters:
Widening labor and peasant revolts threaten Chinese rulers
by Bob McGuire
Open rebellion in the village of Wukan in December revealed the forced land seizures that have underpinned China’s industrial expansion as it has risen to serve as the world’s workshop. What rulers in [=>]
January-February 2012 issue of News & Letters now available on the web
January 29, 2012Lead
Protests began in September in Wukan, a village of 20,000 people in Guangdong province on the South China Sea, against seizure of more than 100 acres of Wukan’s common land to be sold to those with insider ties to the village Communist Party leadership. Village authorities escalated the conflict by identifying protest leaders and hauling [=>]
July -August 2011 Readers’ Views
September 2, 2011From 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 [=>]
The wars at home
May 8, 2011From the new issue of NEWS & LETTERS, May-June 2011
Part II of
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2011-2012
Revolution and counter-revolution take world stage
Contents:
- I. The Arab Spring
- II. The wars at home
- III. Japan: earthquake, tsunami and meltdown
- IV. Revolution, organization and philosophy
- V. Marxist-Humanist Tasks
(Part I was posted yesterday. Parts III through V to come in the next few days)
II. The [=>]
World in View: Famine in North Korea
April 21, 2011by Gerry Emmett
North Korea is approaching another famine with reports of 50% to 80% of the barley and wheat harvest wiped out by cold weather. Malnutrition has increased.
Part of the problem is the cut-off of food aid by South Korea and the U.S. over the recent military escalation. This hasn’t cut supplies to the military, [=>]
Back to the nuclear brink
February 10, 2011From the Jan.-Feb. 2011 issue of News & Letters:
Editorial:
Back to the nuclear brink
The continuing threat of war on the Korean Peninsula, the nature of debate over the just-ratified New START nuclear arms reduction treaty, and the “wisdom” Homeland Security has shared with us on surviving a nuclear attack, all underscore the urgency of the [=>]
War threat over Korea
December 9, 2010The continuing threat of war on the Korean Peninsula underscores the urgency of the Marxist-Humanist perspective that the opposite of war is not peace but revolution. North Korea seized the focus of war, peace and nuclear annihilation on Nov. 23 by raining deadly artillery shells down on South Korean-controlled Yeonpyeong Island. The artillery attack appeared [=>]