Chicago marches in solidarity with Baltimore protesters

May 7, 2015

On April 28, hundreds gathered outside Chicago Police Department headquarters, at 35th and Michigan, to show love and respect for Rekia Boyd, Freddie Gray, Michael Brown, and all the others whose Black lives matter. The crowd was largely young and multicultural. What is the truth about Freddie Gray’s death? The truth is that he was murdered by the notoriously racist and brutal Baltimore Police. Baltimore has exploded in anger because of the attempt to obscure this obvious fact, to pretend that the basic life experience of Black people over the last five decades, if not the entirety of U.S. history, can be dissolved into a social mystery. This generation serves notice: that shell game is over.

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Chalking charges dismissed!

March 7, 2013

Supporters celebrate outside the court. Photo by Franklin Dmitryev for News & Letters.

Chicago—At an Oct. 9 protest at the Federal Building, a Homeland Security officer had Occupy activist Marissa Brown charged with property destruction for writing political messages on the premises with chalk. (See “Chalking a felony?” in Nov.-Dec. 2012 N&L.) At her [=>]

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March against violence

February 25, 2013

Chicago—Dozens of people marched on Chicago’s South Side to take a stand against violence on Jan. 15, followed by a speakout and vigil. Occupy the Southside organized this “King on King march” down Martin Luther King Jr. Drive from 63rd to Emmett Till Road.

“We’re here,” explained a Black woman activist with Occupy the Southside, “because [=>]

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Teachers and parents talk education

February 9, 2013

Editor’s note: Below we print excerpts from the News and Letters Committees panel discussion of teachers and education activists on the September strike by members of the Chicago Teachers Union. Daily mass demonstrations and solidarity from teachers and city residents extracted some concessions from the previously intransigent Chicago Public Schools and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Chicago–While [=>]

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Chalking a felony?

December 14, 2012

[Update: If in Chicago, please support Marissa Brown at her court date, Monday, Dec. 17, at 2:30 PM, at 2452 W. Belmont, Chicago.  Details here: https://www.facebook.com/events/206707866130402/]

Chicago—On Nov. 9 we held a “Budget Showdown” protest at the Federal Building. We were protesting the threatened budget cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, rallying around the Robin Hood tax [=>]

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November-December 2012 issue of News & Letters is now available on the web

November 24, 2012

Lead
Obama’s re-election doesn’t end clash of two worlds

The two worlds of the rulers and the ruled shone through the suffocating blanket of propaganda surrounding the election in which Barack Obama won a second term. A pronounced gender gap and long lines at the polls in African-American and Latino areas reflected the determination to defeat the [=>]

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Readers’ Views, September-October 2012, Part 1

October 15, 2012

CAPITALIST CRISIS AND REVOLT

I appreciated Franklin Dmitryev’s Lead article in the July-August N&L, on “Spain, Greece, Europe: Capitalist crisis and revolt,” for showing how the so-called “radical Left” is not really so radical. They think they can solve things through managing the economy and redistributing wealth, and channel energy into politics.

The boldfaced paragraph in the [=>]

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Tensions over race in Occupy Chicago

October 12, 2012

Chicago—Tensions over race came to a boiling point within Occupy Chicago (OC) in August. A working group making plans for four days of protests at President Obama’s campaign headquarters here, to coincide with the Democratic Party convention in North Carolina, included in the plans the burning of voter registration cards. This was opposed by a [=>]

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Occupy Movement faces racism

August 2, 2012

Chicago—On June 18, Occupy Chicago held the first of a series of discussions on “The Elephant in the Room: A workshop about dismantling racism in the Occupy Movement.”

Discussion was lively, and comradely, among the majority Black, Latino and Native American participants, but represented just the beginning of an effort to “voice the unvoiced.” One Latino [=>]

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Chicago Spring vs. NATO summit

July 19, 2012

Chicago–“Some of us killed innocents. Some of us helped in continuing these wars from home. Some of us watched our friends die. Some of us are not here because we took our own lives. We did not get the care promised to us by our government. All of us watched failed policies turn into bloodshed. [=>]

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July-August 2012 issue of News & Letters is on the web

July 8, 2012

News & Letters, Vol. 57, No. 4
July-August 2012

Lead: Spain, Greece, Europe: capitalist crisis and revolt

When the bailout of banks in Spain was announced on June 9, the immediate reactions revealed the two worlds that exist in every country. The Spanish masses intensified their protests, marching directly on both banks and government, while Greek and Spanish [=>]

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In the belly of the beast

May 12, 2012

From the May-June 2012 issue of News & Letters:

Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2012-2013
II. In the belly of the beast

A. Occupy and anti-Occupy

The very new phenomenon of the Occupy Movement brought this moment of revolutionary new beginnings squarely to the U.S. Though not now a revolution, it nevertheless transformed the political atmosphere in the [=>]

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New May-June 2012 issue of News & Letters is online

May 3, 2012

Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2012-2013

Counter-revolution’s rise shows need for a total philosophy

Revolution, having forced its way to center stage over the last year and a half, cannot easily be bottled up. That explains the viciousness of the counter-revolution, whether the violent police attacks on occupations from New York to Oakland or the Syrian state’s torture [=>]

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Parents, students protest schools hit list

April 15, 2012

From the March-April 2012 issue of News & Letters

Chicago—Several hundred people rallied against Chicago’s school “turnarounds” on Feb. 20 and marched to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s house. Many marchers wore stickers over their mouths that read “Silenced” or “Ex­cluded,” symbolizing how the mayor and his school board have run roughshod over schools without listen­ing [=>]

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Situationists and Absolute Negativity

April 13, 2012

Philosophic dialogue

It was good to have Ron Kelch’s Essay, “Absolute Negativity, Occupy and Situationists,” in the Jan.-Feb. News & Letters open an overdue philosophic dialogue. As someone who discovered the work of Guy Debord and Raya Dunayevskaya at about the same time, I’ve given a lot of thought to their relation.

I consider Debord’s work, especially [=>]

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Occupy Wall Street, Oakland, Chicago

March 22, 2012

Oakland–In the past I have been involved in a lot of struggles: workers’ and immigrants rights, animal rights, etc. They were all single issues, isolated by their demands. The Occupy Movement brings them all together and addresses the cause of the problems, the whole system.

What was most important during the encampment of Occupy Oakland was [=>]

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March-April 2012 News & Letters is online

March 13, 2012

Lead

Syrian revolution fights Assad’s genocide, world powers watch

The Syrian Revolution is a serious challenge to the order in the region and beyond. Israel, Iran, and Saudi Arabia all have much to lose from the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s Baathist family dynasty, as do their imperialist patrons.

From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya

Women as thinkers and revolutionaries

Working-class [=>]

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Speakout for the 99%

March 1, 2012

Chicago—Dozens of activists from Occupy Chicago, Jobs with Justice, the Jane Addams Senior Caucus, Iraq Veterans Against the War, News and Letters Committees and other groups rallied outside the American Economic Association (AEA) conference here on Jan. 6.

The establishment economists were invited to share a sidewalk meal of Rahm-en noodles (named in honor of anti-labor [=>]

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January-February 2012 issue of News & Letters now available on the web

January 29, 2012

Lead

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 [=>]

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Occupy Wall Street strikes deep chord, challenges rulers

November 8, 2011

by Gerry Emmett and Susan Van Gelder

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. On Oct. 15, Occupy demonstrations took place in 951 cities in 82 [=>]

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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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