Takes up: the opening of Poland’s first abortion clinic; International Women’s Day in Argentina; and a march in South Africa demanding the government declare escalating levels of femicide and violence against women and children a national emergency.
Poland
Queer Notes: November 2024
November 15, 2024Takes up: Draft law for civil partnerships in Poland; Gay men and Trans people attacked in Ivory Coast; Trans woman Jin Xing’s adaptation of the play ‘Sunrise’ blocked in China; and Lesbian writer Sylvia Townsend Warner honored with a statue in Dorchester, England.
Queer Notes: July 2024
July 26, 2024Queer Notes columnist Elise presents a bird’s-eye view of the advances and retrogressions in the struggle for freedom of LGBTQI+people worldwide, from Uganda and South Africa to Indonesia, from Poland and Czech Republic to the U.S. and Canada.
World in View: Can Poland overcome its reactionary history?
January 7, 2024After eight years of ultra-nationalist, reactionary rule, Poland’s Law and Justice Party was defeated in parliamentary elections. However, the country’s future direction is by no means assured. Two areas are key: women’s and LGBTQ+ rights.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Need for a Total Uprooting: Down with the Perpetrators of the Palestinian Slaughter
November 29, 2023In 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.
Women World Wide: November 2023
November 18, 2023Takes up: International Safe Abortion Day; elections in Poland; ‘Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK, 1970–1990’, the first major art museum show covering the feminist art movement; and El Salvador’s anti-abortion laws.
Handicap This! December 2022
December 8, 2022Asian-American disability rights activist Alice Wong’s memoir “Year of the Tiger”; In Poland, caregivers of children with disabilities called for the right to work part-time jobs while keeping government stipends; and disability rights activists critique California’s CARE Courts Act, where courts can order involuntary treatment plans for people with psychotic disorders.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2022, Part One
July 12, 2022Readers’ Views on: Supreme Court’s Attack on Women’s Freedom; Abortion, Healthcare and Women’s Movement; Abortion Unseparated from All Freedom Struggles; Gay Pride: Whose Bodies? Ours!; Colonizers Past and Present; Let Them Eat Rockets; Oppression of Homeless; Only 14 More Mass Shootings!; Church, State and Football
LGBTQ+ are under fire in Ukraine
May 20, 2022LGBTQ+ Ukrainians are reacting in a variety of ways to the Russian invasion. Some are fleeing, others have enlisted or been drafted to fight; and others are staying to help their country in other ways.
Women WorldWide
December 10, 2021Women WorldWide takes up: Afghan women MPs set up an organization in exile to help other activist women escape; the thousands who marched in Istanbul, Turkey demanding action against widespread violence against women; women in Poland marching again against restrictions on abortion; and the 7,000 women who gathered in Madrid, Spain, protesting male violence against women.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Need for a Total Uprooting: Down with the Perpetrators of the Palestinian Slaughter
July 1, 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.
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.
Queer Notes: May-June 2021
May 8, 2021Pro-LGBTQ+ Solidarity Workouts in Poland; Transgender girl Kai Shappley testifies to the Texas Senate; Queer-Art hosts “Response to Anti-Asian Shootings in Atlanta” exhibit; International Transgender Day of Visibility.
Worldwide attacks on freedom of thought
March 11, 2021Governments across the world are conducting a war against the freedom of thought, from France’s assault on critical race theory to U.S. criminalizing of Indigenous water protectors to Poland’s legal enshrinement of Holocaust denial.
Anti-abortion violence
Women needing abortions face violence, from harassment by fanatics to oppressive laws. Countless deaths, misery and increased poverty caused by forced pregnancy have forced some countries to abandon anti-abortion laws.
Editorial: Polish women’s revolutionary moment
November 29, 2020What is happening in Poland is revolutionary as women lead a movement that is protesting the Catholic Church’s inhuman attack on women’s freedom as well mounting a deep challenge to the fascist-leaning Polish government.
Readers’ views, November-December 2020: part one
November 28, 2020Election battles, reaching for the future, and the pull of the past; Sabotage of the post office; Food recycling workers strike; Anti-labor statue downed; Oil and biden; COVID-19: where’s the vision?; Racism and fascism; Polish women’s revolutionary moment; News & Letters is back in print!
World in View: EU enables fascism
November 25, 2020The European Union has once more proved its feckless inability to halt the destruction of democracy by Hungary and Poland, who caused a crisis by vetoing the EU budget, needed to fund the bloc’s COVID-19 recovery plan.
Polish women’s revolutionary moment
October 30, 2020While what is happening in Poland may not be a revolution, it is revolutionary. Women are leading a movement protesting the Church’s inhuman attack on women’s freedom, and mounting a deep challenge to the fascist-leaning Polish government.
Amazon workers organize cross-border solidarity
June 27, 2019Excerpts of a talk by Polish Amazon worker/organizer Agnieszka Mróz, on a U.S. tour seeking cross-border solidarity among Amazon workers worldwide.
Karol Modzelewski, 1937-2019
May 10, 2019We mourn the passing of a great revolutionary, Karol Modzelewski, one of the leaders of Solidarity in Poland when it was a mass organization of workers against the state.
World in View: French ‘Yellow Vests’
January 28, 2019The uprising of the gilets jaunes (Yellow Vests) against French President Emmanuel Macron embodies the unity and brutal disunity of our time.
World in View: Reaction and racism in the ‘new’ Europe
July 24, 2018Update on the reaction, racism and anti-immigrant and anti-refugee laws growing in Poland, Italy and Hungary.
II. Spreading revolt opens new doors
May 3, 2018We look at the true opposition to Trumpism: mass revolt worldwide of women, youth, Black people, labor…–the context to work for new beginnings.
World in View: Visage of Hitler rises in Austria
February 2, 2018Far Right racist parties have continued to make inroads into mainstream politics. 40,000 people marched in Austria against the new governing coalition of the anti-immigrant Austrian People’s Party and the neo-Nazi Freedom Party.
Women take the lead against world retrogression
March 8, 2017An in-depth Marxist-Humanist view of the state of the women’s movement in the U.S. and worldwide as it responds to the rising fascism of U.S. President Trump and other world leaders.
Woman as Reason: Polish women show path forward
November 26, 2016As women in the U.S. face a bleak future when it comes to abortion rights, they can learn from Polish women who recently stopped anti-abortion legislation in its tracks, showing the need for revolutionary thought and activity.
IV. Counter-revolution and revolution in the Middle East and North Africa
May 13, 2016Part IV of the Draft Perspectives 2016: The renewal of Syrian demonstrations for freedom refuted the state powers’ belief that the idea of revolution can be destroyed by bombs, and highlighted a civilizational crisis and the need for international solidarity.
WomenWorldWide: May-June 2016
April 27, 2016A roundup of women’s activism includes artists, activists, educators, policy makers and Black girl leaders seek to make visible the needs and social contributions of Black girls at the first national Black Girl Movement Conference; Thousands of feminists demonstrate in Poland against the ruling conservative party’s plans to completely ban abortion; and University of California–Berkeley’s student government demands that the university make medical abortions available through the University Health Services
Comrades and friends remember Olga
January 25, 2016Remembrances of Olga Domanski by comrades and friends.
Same-sex marriage
May 20, 2014Roundup on advances and resistance on same-sex marriage in churches and states.