El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s iron-fisted rule swept tens of thousands into dungeons. The National Assembly changed the Constitution to allow unlimited re-election to the presidency. Illegal mass deportations to El Salvador from the U.S. continue without any due process. Tens of thousands of Salvadorans continue to be locked up and tortured in the inhuman prison known as CECOT.
In the absence of successful social revolution, today’s total crisis is shown in a world capitalist order that is falling apart economically, politically, environmentally, and in thought. That does not mean that we can wait for capitalism to collapse and step aside for a new society. On the contrary. Its desperation makes it that much more vicious, and it threatens to doom all of humanity with it.
From Ferguson to Staten Island; Revolutionary Rojava; Youth Protest; Violence Against Women; Detroit Solidarity; Paris March; Recalling Mary Jo
Students at City University of New York and supporters protest and take direct action to save the Guillermo Morales/Assata Shakur Center, and face criminalization of their activities.
So overwhelming has been the past year’s flow of revelations about the U.S. government’s spying on virtually everyone that even President Obama’s hand-picked review panel had to acknowledge it. Though noting the potential for abuse of the state’s mountains of covertly gathered data, nowhere does the report by Obama insiders grapple with the question of just what sort of totalitarian instrument the militarized top secret government has become.
The January-February issue of News & Letters is online. Rampant U.S. surveillance slouches toward totalitarianism; Tahrir three years later; Charles Denby, worker-editor; Syrian revolution ‘brought us together’; Communization theory’s missing link: dialectical mediation; what happens after; Language and death in Juárez; Let RNs give care; …
Royal 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.
“Abolish the slums!” was so clearly and loudly the demand of the Negro Revolt in every single part of the country–North, South, East, West–that even President Johnson couldn’t pretend not to have heard it. In words, the President even claimed that that was part of his “war on poverty.” Hadn’t he asked for rat control, and hadn’t Congress denied him even that piddling sum? … As Commander-in-Chief he need not plead. He orders, and his orders were clear and unequivocal: 1) Shoot first…
The horrific events taking place in Egypt today show the dead end of all alternatives to revolution. The military, led by Deputy Prime Minister General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has been all too happy to retake power and impose capitalist “stability” once again.
Escape 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.
Russian repression of Pussy Riot supporters; Ethiopian Jewish refugee women in Israel given Depo-Provera without their consent; Danica Patrick
Editorial
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 [=>]
[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 [=>]
Below are excerpts of a Nov. 5, 2012, statement by Kurdish prisoners on hunger strike in Turkey since Sept. 12. Now thousands more prisoners are joining the hunger strike, making it one of the largest hunger strike protests in history. [On Nov. 18, after press time, the strike was called off. The strikers won the [=>]
An appeal from the Russian leftists to their comrades in the struggle:
We, the representatives of Russian leftist organizations, turn to our comrades all over the world with an appeal for solidarity. This call and your response to it are very important to us. Right now we are facing not just another instance of dubious [=>]
Los Angeles—On June 28, 75 people from the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN)—a Skid Row organization that agitates for the homeless—and Occupy LA demonstrated outside the downtown Sheraton Hotel where the Central City Association (CCA) was holding a conference. They chanted: “CCA, you won’t push us away!” and held a banner: “If you’re [=>]
by Suzanne Rose
Yaounde, Cameroon—Human rights leaders from Africa united to denounce “Gay Hate Day,” which took place on Aug. 21 in Cameroon, and the ongoing arrests of people suspected of being Gay. The Archbishop of Yaounde contributed to this homophobic backlash calling homosexuality “shameful” and “an affront to the family, enemy of women and [=>]
London—Protest can be violent. Yet whilst violence towards demonstrators often goes unremarked even in an avowedly democratic nation such as Britain, police violence towards foreign officials, as may have occurred during an attempted storming by British police of the Ecuadorian Embassy, seems a little too much to handle.
Foreign Secretary William Hague has since attempted to [=>]
Chinese officials in Sichuan province bowed quickly to mass protests and withdrew plans on July 3 for construction of a $1.6 billion molybdenum copper processing plant in Shifang town. Thousands of demonstrators faced tear gas and police batons beginning on July 1, surrounding government buildings and installations in Shifang to stop the project and the [=>]
Marikana, South Africa–Aug. 18: It’s now two days after the brutal, heartless and merciless cold bloodbath of 45 Marikana mine workers by the South African Police Services. This was a massacre!
Mining has been central to the history of repression in South Africa. Mining made Sandton to be Sandton and the Bantustans of the Eastern Cape [=>]
Los Angeles—Carlos Montes was targeted by the FBI and charged with six felony counts in 2011 for his long history of anti-war and Chicano rights activism since the 1970s. He was facing 18 years. After over a year of struggle—demonstrating, organizing and court hearings—the district attorney offered a plea bargain in which Carlos was to [=>]
Montreal–The Printemps Érable (Maple Spring), named after the Arab Spring, continues in Québec and reverberates throughout Canada in an ever-deepening crisis since the massive Québec student strike began in February. It faces a new wave of brutal repression, whose extreme character accentuates the bankruptcy of Québec’s government.
In mid-May Line Beauchamp, Minister of Education, bad as she was, [=>]
World in View
by Gerry Emmett
Free Angye Gaona!
I collect the rootlets of thought.
I carry them on my eroded back
next to the wild oblivion falling from me.
—Angye Gaona
The U.S.-allied Colombian government has falsely charged Surrealist poet and activist Angye Gaona with “drug trafficking” and “rebellion.” She is being held under house [=>]
Editorial
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 [=>]
Chicago–In a first, both the G-8 and NATO summits will be held in Chicago at the same time, May 15-22, 2012. Chicago’s Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy has already threatened to restrict the civil liberties of demonstrators who will converge from around the world to confront the tottering high priests of capitalism and their dogs of war.
This [=>]
Los Angeles–On June 16, over 100 demonstrators gathered at the Alhambra court building in support of longtime Chicano community activist Carlos Montes. He is charged with six counts, mostly possession of firearms, though his guns are all registered.
After the hearing, he spoke to his supporters outside the court building. He said his arrest is a [=>]
State security forces in China have widened their crackdown on public dissent begun Feb. 17 after online calls for a “jasmine revolution” in China on the model of Tunisia and Egypt. Because calls for anti-government demonstrations each Sunday had originated outside China, in the U.S., the authorities used that as a pretext for ferreting out [=>]
News & Letters, Vol. 56, No. 3
May-June 2011
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2011-2011
Revolution and counter-revolution take world stage
Revolution and counter-revolution have forced their way to the center stage of history. In Tunisia and Egypt, revolutions have opened tremendous possibilities and spread the fire of their passion all across the Arab world and from China to the [=>]
This is the statement that News and Letters Committees issued after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks:
A Statement from the National Editorial Board of News and Letters Committees
Against the Double Tragedy:
Say no to terrorism and Bush’s drive to war!
September 16, 2001
A double tragedy descended upon the world with the barbaric, cruel and inhuman terrorist attack [=>]
Memphis, Tenn.–In response to the roundups of Colombia and Palestine solidarity activists across the Midwest by the FBI, members of the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center (MSP&JC) and the Socialist Party organized a street demonstration last year in front of the Federal Building condemning the Neo-McCarthyite surveillance of peace activists. We waved at passing cars [=>]
Editor’s note: Mark Clements spent 28 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He was one of many tortured under former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge’s reign of terror. Clements is now Chairman of the Wrongful Convictions Committee of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. The following is excerpted from [=>]
On Dec. 9, prisoners throughout Georgia began the largest prisoner strike in U.S. history. They refused to leave their cells for work or other activities, dubbed their strike a “Lockdown for Liberty,” and released a humanist statement of demands. These included: a living wage for work done; educational opportunities; humane health care; an end to [=>]
Protesting repression
Los Angeles–On Sept. 28, over 100 activists from diverse organizations met at the downtown Federal Building to protest the FBI’s Sept. 24 raids on selected activists in Chicago and Minneapolis. The FBI handed out subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury, ransacked homes, and took away boxes of documents, computers and cell phones.
A [=>]
New on the Marxists Internet Archive: Dunayevskaya’s analysis of McCarthyist lawyer Roy Cohn (who also featured as a character in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America). He might remind you of some of the totalitarian wannabes on today’s political scene.
The Gang Lawyer
Source: Correspondence, Feb. 20, 1954. This piece appeared as Dunayevskaya’s regular unsigned column, “Two Worlds.” It [=>]
Readers’ Views
FBI RAIDS–AN ATTACK ON ALL OF US
On Sept. 24, teams of FBI agents from the “Joint Terrorism Task Force” served search warrants and grand jury subpoenas on anti-war and solidarity activists in Illinois and Minne-sota. This attack on the First Amend-ment rights of peaceful activists must be opposed and we should stand with them [=>]
From the Nov.-Dec. 2010 issue of News & Letters:
World in View: Kashmiri youths ‘go for freedom’
by Gerry Emmett
Something new is happening in Kashmir. In August, thousands of Kashmiris took to the streets shouting “Azadi”–freedom! Previously, Pakistan was behind the unrest in this disputed territory between India and Pakistan, but these demonstrations–continuous for three months–are indigenous, [=>]
Here’s a link to the Lead article from the Nov.-Dec. 2010 issue of News & Letters:
It is sadly ironic that at this moment, when the crisis of capitalism has shown itself as both deep and intractable, some of the most reactionary impulses from U.S. history have moved to take center stage. The bankruptcy of bourgeois [=>]
A National Lawyers’ Guild member who subscribes to News & Letters sent this message:
On the morning of Sept. 24, teams of FBI agents from the “Joint Terrorism Task Force” served search warrants and grand jury subpoenas on anti-war and solidarity activists in Illinois and Minnesota. This attack on the First Amendment rights of peaceful activists [=>]
Here is the statement that News and Letters Committees has issued about the recent raids:
28 September 2010
Stop FBI raids!
The FBI raids on anti-war activists’ homes in Minneapolis, Chicago and North Carolina on September 24 recall some of the most reactionary moments in this country’s political history, from the 1919 Palmer Raids to 1950s McCarthyism to [=>]
