New Jersey medical parole passed; Chicago cop shoots autistic teen; films lack characters with disabilities.
police violence
Fighting back against the rise of neo-Nazi hate
August 28, 2017In-person reports of demonstrations in Chicago, Memphis, Oregon, Los Angeles and Halifax in Canada in solidarity with activists in Charlottesville, Va., fighting against neo-fascism and demanding to take down Confederate statues. .
25 years since the Los Angeles Rebellion
June 5, 2017A participant reports on the actions on April 29, the 25th Anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion, when over 500 Latino, Asian, and Black and white mostly youth marched through the streets starting from Florence and Normandie, where the Rebellion began.
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2017-2018: Philosophy and revolt confront Trump’s drive to fascism
May 17, 2017The true alternative to the threat of fascism is the path to a new society based on revolution from below. Can that happen without a unity of practice with theory, without the organization of thought embodied in an actual organization?
Voices From The Inside Out: Resisting Trumpism
May 1, 2017Through the study of theory and philosophy and by solidarizing and striking, prisoners seek a humanist society that rejects Donald Trump, his plutocratic regime and the U.S. criminal injustice system. .
1967 Detroit Rebellion, 50 years later
April 30, 2017“12th and Clairmount” is a new movie created by the Detroit Historical Museum from primary sources and tells the story of the Detroit Rebellion of 1967.
News and Letters Committees Call for Plenum 2017
February 26, 2017Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2017-2018
Lead-Editorial: No to Trump’s counter-revolution! No to fascism! Fight for a new human society!
November 26, 2016Trump’s electoral victory by appealing to racism and sexism menaces all freedom movements. It is the index of this system’s crisis and bankruptcy of thought, which needs to be met with a truly revolutionary vision.
Editorial: Stop the Dakota Access Pipeline now!
The resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline has become a beacon for all opposing the ruling system—and has been assaulted with ferocious repression. It is a powerful manifestation of the vast forces putting American civilization on trial. The time is now to support this struggle in practice and in thought.
No to Trump! No to fascism! Fight for a new human society!
November 12, 2016Trump’s electoral victory by appealing to racism and sexism menaces all freedom movements. It is the index of this system’s crisis and bankruptcy of thought, which needs to be met with a truly revolutionary vision.
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.
Jasmine Richards – Black Lives Matter speaks
July 3, 2016A revolutionary critique of the “lynching” charge against Black Lives Matter activist Jasmine Richards and how it reveals the racism endemic to U.S. society and spotlights the revolutionary Black youth fighting against it.
Queer Notes: May-June 2016
May 7, 2016Queer young women of color show that the Black Lives Matter movement is also about women of color and other marginalized people; Indonesia is becoming inhospitable for LGBTQ people; and Chicago LGBTQ people get peer support from their chapter of the national Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance.
I. Discontent, revolt and reaction in the U.S.
May 6, 2016Part I of the Draft Perspectives 2016: Discontent is seething in the U.S. among workers, youth, Blacks, women, LGBTQ, including elements of the new society. Fear of revolution is powering neo-fascism opposing the revolt.
Readers’ Views: March-April 2016, Part 1
March 30, 2016Readers’ Views on: Environment, Labor, Race and Philosophy; Queer Liberation; Black Lives Matter; Bolivian Social Movements; Trumpery’s Fascism & Racism.
200 at Trans meeting in New York
August 30, 2015Report of a meeting of over 200 Transgender people, their allies and a handful of elected officials who came together at Hostos College in the Bronx in late July for a city- wide conference on the status and situation of Transgender people in New York City.
Workshop Talks: When workers’ own time begins
June 28, 2015How, on the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, does that document speak to what workers and prisoners are facing today?
World in View: U.S. police blotter
May 7, 2015Tulsa: Eric Harris murdered by Sheriff’s “reserve” cop; North Charleston: cop murder of Walter Scott videoed; Chicago: meager reparations for victims of police torture.
Readers’ Views, May-June 2015
May 3, 2015Letters and comments sent in by readers or taken down, to and about the articles in News & Letters or current events.
L.A. march against police brutality
March 11, 2015About 500 people, mostly Black and Latino youth, gathered in Los Angeles. Anti-police brutality and anti-ever growing surveillance society has radicalized youth as well as concerned people from all walks of life.
King March transformed
The annual Martin Luther King march here on Jan. 19 was changed after Michael Brown, the unarmed Black teenager, was shot dead by the police in Ferguson, Mo., under circumstances that some called an outright murder.
Reader’s Views, March-April 2015, Part 2
March 8, 2015The thoughts of News & Letters readers on: MARXIST-HUMANIST PHILOSOPHY IN THE WHIRLWIND OF EVENTS; SAVING THE PLANET; and VOICES FROM BEHIND THE BARS.
News and Letters Committees Call for Plenum 2015
March 3, 2015Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2015-2016
Michael Brown rally
November 25, 2014A participant reports on demonstrations in St. Louis and Memphis over the killing of Michael Brown and others by police.
Readers’ Views, September-October 2014, Part I
August 31, 2014From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
U.S. CRISES: RACISM, POLICE, LABOR STRUGGLES
New York News and Letters Committee prepared a flyer on Eric Garner (see: “NYC Police murder Eric Garner” this issue) headlined: “Wanted For Murder: Daniel Pantaleo.” It denounced the fact that the cops who killed Garner are [=>]
World in View: U.S. imperialism comes home
August 30, 2014As with the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, how imperialist oppression is tied to domestic repression in the U.S. was shockingly apparent in the heavily militarized police presence in Ferguson, Mo.
Justice for Ezell Ford
August 29, 2014From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
Los Angeles—On Aug. 17 over 1,000 protesters gathered at the downtown LA Police Department (LAPD) headquarters. We were there not only in support of Michael Brown, but also to protest the many killings over the years of Black, Brown and even a few white youths [=>]
We march in Oakland for #NMOS14
From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
Oakland, Calif.—Several hundred came out on Aug. 14 to a vigil in Oscar Grant Plaza, as part of a national day of protest over the police murder of Michael Brown. We read out the names of a growing number of unarmed young Black men executed [=>]
Kansas City for Michael Brown
Over 700 people gathered in the Plaza in Kansas City, Mo., to protest the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and the militarized attacks on protesters.
NYC Police murder Eric Garner
From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
New York, N.Y.–There are certain facts in the case of the police murder of Eric Garner which are not in question. The use of the chokehold by the NY Police Department (NYPD) has been illegal for over 20 years. Eric Garner was a 43-year-old father [=>]
Thousands in Chicago: From NY to Ferguson, stop killer cops!
Thousands of people packed into Daley Plaza on Aug. 14 for the National Moment of Silence. Observed in 90 cities, it was called to respond to the police killing of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African American, in Ferguson, Mo.
Photos from National Moment of Silence, Chicago
August 15, 2014Chicago photos here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29775879@N06/sets/72157646490687482/ Send in your own photos and reports to include in our coverage of this nationwide event on Aug. 14, 2014.
Canada’s First Nations against fracking
November 21, 2013Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) attacked men and women of the Mi’kmaq and Elsipogtog First Nation for blocking a New Brunswick highway in protest of Southwestern Energy doing seismic testing to determine whether local shale gas deposits merit fracking.
Readers’ Views, September-October 2013, Part I
October 11, 2013Readers’ Views, September-October 2013, Part I
Racism and the fight against it take center stage in the U.S.
September 5, 2013Nationwide protests erupted immediately after the outrageous July 13 acquittal of George Zimmerman for murdering 17-year-old African-American high school student Trayvon Martin last year. Within three days, thousands of protesters came out in dozens of cities, and a new group called the Dream Defenders began a 31-day occupation of Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s office.
September-October 2013 issue of News & Letters available
September 3, 2013The new September-October 2013 issue of News & Letters is online.
News & Letters, Vol. 58, No. 5
Lead
Racism and the fight against it take center stage in the U.S.
Nationwide protests erupted immediately after the outrageous July 13 acquittal of George Zimmerman for murdering 17-year-old African-American high school student Trayvon Martin last year. Within three days, thousands [=>]
May-June 2013 issue of News & Letters is out
April 29, 2013News & Letters, Vol. 58, No. 3
May – June 2013
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2013-2014
Capitalism’s violence, masses’ revolt show need for total view
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 [=>]
Handicap This! March-April 2013
April 11, 2013Disability rights movement on growth attenuation, One Billion Rising, police killing of Robert Saylor, TSA outrage.
Oscar Grant remembered
February 23, 2013On New Year’s Day 2013 Oscar Grant’s mother, Wanda Johnson, spoke to about eighty people gathered for a vigil at Fruitvale BART station in Oakland, Calif., site of his murder by a BART cop on the same day in 2009. While disappointed by the low turnout, Johnson told us that the race does not go [=>]
Woman as Reason: Rape protests in India
February 8, 2013From the January-February 2013 issue of News & Letters:
by Terry Moon
The recent rape of a 23-year-old medical student in India was brutal: a metal rod was jammed with such force into her vagina that it reached into her diaphragm, destroying her intestines and ultimately killing her. It happened in Delhi, and demonstrations–first against the [=>]
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 [=>]
A voice from Occupy
July 31, 2012Oakland, Calif.—I am an anarchist and believe in acting according to my principles, most recently in Stockton on May 31 in a general strike protesting the murders of three Black men—James Rivera, Jr., Luther “Champ” Brown, Jr., and James Cooke—killed by police. The demonstration showed the community, masked up, willing to defend themselves from the [=>]
In the belly of the beast
May 12, 2012From 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 [=>]
Queer Notes, March-April 2012
April 18, 2012From the March-April 2012 issue of News & Letters:
Queer Notes
by Elise
A California Girl Scout put out a YouTube video asking the public to boycott Girl Scout cookies because she objects to a troop admitting a Transgender girl. While three Louisiana troops disbanded over the issue, a national Girl Scouts spokeswoman for the 100-year-old organization [=>]
Romanians take to the squares
April 14, 2012Bucharest, Romania—Romania and many European countries are living in times of an unprecedented crisis. Politics of economic austerity combined with populist and nationalistic rhetoric occurring in a constant realm of corruption have increased the growing distance between citizens and authorities throughout the continent. Street protests in various countries showed the level of popular disenchantment with [=>]
Reverse convictions by tortured confessions
February 23, 2012Chicago—Twenty-four Black men are still in jail almost 40 years after the first allegations of torture were brought against the Chicago Police Department.
In every case, their confessions were obtained illegally through torture.
On Nov. 5, 30 people, including the mother of Javan Deloney and family members of four or five other torture victims, met at the [=>]
Occupy defies attacks
February 3, 2012Editorial
As 2012 opened, governments from federal to local grabbed more powers of repression, reflecting the failure of their attempts to crush the Occupy Movement with brute force, despite their success in clearing many occupations. The National Defense Authorization Act, signed on New Year’s Eve by President Obama, allows indefinite military detention of citizens and non-citizens [=>]
Remember Oscar Grant
December 22, 2011Remember Oscar Grant
Oakland, Calif.—The Oscar Grant Committee held its first public forum on Sept. 13 at the main hall of Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library to a packed audience of activists and family members-turned-activists. The following is a summary of statements made there.
Organizers Gerald and Lesley said: Oscar Grant was shot in the back while he was [=>]
‘You can’t evict an idea whose time has come!’: The Occupy movement defies police state attacks
November 21, 2011A statement from News and Letters Committees:
‘You can’t evict an idea whose time has come!’
The Occupy movement defies police state attacks
City governments have carried out police raids on occupations across the U.S. in a vain attempt to crush the movement with brute force. A new level of violence was achieved in mid-November, as raids from [=>]
Queer Notes, September-October 2011
September 27, 2011by Suzanne Rose
While returning from a bar last month in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, three men were detained by the police because they thought two of them looked feminine. The three were jailed for a week and two were tortured and abused by the police. One man was released, but the other two were [=>]