Nicaraguans rally in San Francisco to raise awareness and support for the spreading anti-government protests in Nicaragua against President Ortega and his government’s brutal oppression.
revolution
Editorial: Stop the coming slaughter in Idlib!
September 17, 2018News & Letters editorial taking up how attacks are intensifying upon the three million Syrians, mostly civilians, trapped in Idlib province and how so many in the Left have failed them.
In Syria only solution: ‘revolution, revolution’
March 12, 2018As Assad regime and Russian forces continue slaughter in Ghouta with bombs and chemical weapons while world powers refuse to interfere, supporters of Free Syria staged emergency vigils in Chicago on Feb. 18 and 25 demanding the bombing of Ghouta end and the blockade be lifted.
“Spartans, this is the beginning of our revolution”
February 7, 2018Michigan State students marched in protest of the enablers of sexual abuser Dr. Larry Nassar, and demanded immediate, deep-rooted changes in campus culture.
Letter from Mexico: Zapatistas and science for humanity
February 6, 2018At the second gathering of “ConSciences for Humanity,” scientists shared with the Zapatista Indigenous communities their views of “Science in the face of the wall [capitalism].”
Readers’ Views: January-February 2018, Part II
February 1, 2018Readers’ Views on Women’s Liberation struggle continue and voices from behind bars.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2018, Part I
January 31, 2018Readers’ views on: U.S. Racism on trial, the right’s crocodile tears, creeping fascism, climate change, nuclear alarms, teachers as labor, Pat Hunt Presente! and Judy and Dan presente!
Readers’ Views: The Dialectic and the Meaning of the Russian Revolution
The dialectic and the meaning of the Russian Revolution.
Editorial: Venezuela: Which way forward?
September 5, 2017Editorial on the situation in Venezuela including the deterioration of living conditions; the repression practiced by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and their attempt to gut Venezuela’s Bolivarian Constitution; and the personality cult built around Hugo Chávez, revealing contradictions in the movements for freedom. .
Readers’ Views: July-August 2017, Part 2
July 6, 2017Readers’ Views on Cooperative Form of Labor vs. Abstract Labor; Marx vs. Trump-Putin; Voices From Behind Bars
Futureless people
April 27, 2017For-profit CoreCivic prison inmate’s lament on lack of hope because of slave-like treatment in prison and outside of jail, if one is lucky enough to be paroled.
Essay: Marx’s Marxism vs. Trump-Putin’s barbarism
March 21, 2017Trump’s barbarism in power is a crisis for bourgeois democracy and revolutionary thought. Opposition from below is far deeper than bourgeois opposition to Trump. To have efficacy today, Marx’s body of ideas must be grasped and projected as a whole. The movement from theory needs to meet the challenge of history, of freedom struggles and revolution.
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: Syrian women as force and revolutionary Reason
January 26, 2017Women’s Liberationist Terry Moon writes about the revolutionary force and reason of Syrian women including those in Raqqa fighting ISIS, in East Aleppo fighting Bashar al-Assad, in Salamiya and Daraya–documenting the forms they chose to fight for freedom.
Voices From the Inside Out: Castro absolved?
Black prisoner Faruq looks critically at Fidel Castro’s legacy, especially his turn to a one party state and the importance of freely associated labor for a true revolutionary process.
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.
Voices From The Inside Out: Wisconsin prison destroys books
Prisoner Robert Taliaferro tells of how a Wisconsin prison destroyed all library books that had been damaged in any way, thus depriving prisoners of their rights and adding “fuel to the fires of revolution.”
How can we, once and for all, end sexism?
September 17, 2016From the September-October 2016 issue of News & Letters
Art by Paul Tanzawa
Women have been fighting for our freedom for centuries and yet we are still raped, beaten, enslaved–treated as less than human. We will never be free under capitalism, which has only made women’s lives worse and now threatens our existence [=>]
Readers’ Views: September-October 2016, Part 2
September 16, 2016Readers’ Views includes: Politics; revolution and the power of philosophy; remembering Olga Domanski; the sports section; national prison action; and voices from behind the bars.
From the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Nigeria: a retreat, not a victory
September 11, 2016Raya Dunayevskaya gives a revolutionary history of the war for independence of Biafra from Nigeria while commenting on Conor Cruise O’Brien’s article published in the New York Review of Books, Dec. 21, 1968.
Turkey’s Erdoğan – the pious dictator
September 7, 2016A view of what the failed coup in Turkey has wrought, including mass arrests of teachers, trade unionists, doctors, medical personnel, and others as Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, makes a grab for total power.
Fascism rising from Russia to India, from the U.S. to the Philippines
An expansive look at the rise of fascism worldwide beginning in the U.S. with Donald Trump and the U.S. election, and taking in European fascism, and the situations in India, the Philippines, China, Japan and the opposition by rulers worldwide to those fighting for a free existence and new human relations.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2016, Part 2
July 14, 2016Readers’ Views on Needed New Beginnings in Philosophy and Revolution; Making One Year Count; Subjugated Knowledge; Free Syria/May Day; and Voices From Behind the Bars.
Youth in Action: July-August 2016
July 9, 2016In West Auckland, New Zealand, Massey High School students and their parents petition for weather-appropriate summer uniforms; 82 Huntsville, Alabama, Grissom High School students defy the dress code for girls because the code endorses rape culture and violates Title IX rights; across the USA Muslim youth are harassed in a variety of ways making them feel unsafe, so much so that the majority of Muslim youth believe that reporting the harassment won’t make a difference.
‘Workless’ capitalism?
July 4, 2016Universal Basic Income is posed by some as a solution to the robotization of work and a “workless society” but this ignores Marx’s liberatory vision of a society in which labor is completely transformed so as to become life’s prime want.
Workshop Talks: Bleak future if no labor solidarity
July 3, 2016Workshop Talks columnist Htun Lin looks at the world situation from the massacre of LGBTQ people in Orlando to the murder of Jo Cox in Britain to Brexit and to how workers are reacting, suggesting that there is no exit from global capitalism without international labor solidarity.
Woman As Reason: Will Stanford rape be a turning point?
July 2, 2016Terry Moon explores how the rape of a woman by a Stanford University student can become a turning point, rather than a stopping point, in the struggle to end rape culture, and the necessity for revolution to be total from the start and to be permanent.
Letter from Mexico: On ‘Life’ and feminism
May 18, 2016The late Revolutionary Olga Domanski is remembered for reminding us that Absolute Method is the only way for feminism, as part of a totally new society built on truly human foundations, to be completely realized.
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.
III. Chinese labor in revolt
May 7, 2016Part III of the Draft Perspectives 2016: Strikes and workers’ uprisings in China have forced industrial wages up, not pausing even during the global Great Recession, as a window on capitalism and its crises.
Olga knew ‘what a revolution entails’
March 11, 2016A remembrance of Olga Domanski by Kevin O’Brien, who felt that Olga knew what revolution meant and strove persistently, tirelessly and cheerfully for it.
Witnessing revolution in Rojava
January 26, 2016Eyewitness report of a trip to Rojava in Syria in mid-2015.
Editorial: Erdogan slaughters Kurds
January 23, 2016Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s slaughter of Kurdish civilians and activists is viewed in the context of world revolution and counter-revolution.
Editorial: Putin’s retrogressionism
December 10, 2015Putin found a formula: to participate in genocide while claiming to be fighting “terrorism.” This says everything about the nature of his retrogressive rule, and about the hypocrisy of the U.S. and Europe
After the referendum: The ongoing Greek crisis
July 8, 2015The two opponents facing off in Greece for five years have been the Greek masses vs. the European rulers and their institutions. The No vote manifested the revolt against austerity. We explore the meaning of these events.
Voices from the Inside Out: Selma’s mindset
May 7, 2015In reading Charles Denby’s “Continuing Magnolia Jungle terror exposes reality of ‘Great Society,’” one is struck by how poignant and presciently modern Denby’s thoughts were and how very little has changed today.
Things fall apart
May 6, 2015In 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.
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.
Review of Unspeakable Things
March 7, 2015Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution by Laurie Penny (Bloomsbury Publishing Plc., 2014) describes how neoliberalism is the new face of capitalist patriarchy. Even feminism has been repackaged once again as the opportunity for middle-class women to climb the corporate ladder and earn more money with which to buy more products.
Women as Reason: 60 years of News & Letters, the women’s dimension
January 28, 2015As we celebrate 60 years of publishing News & Letters, a look back at the Women’s Liberation Movement encountering Marxist-Humanism and how the women’s movement was anticipated as well as documented in its pages. It is an ongoing perspective.
Comments from the new News & Letters website
August 31, 2014From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
Regarding “New York City and Ferguson, Missouri, police show pattern of violence against Black people” (Aug. 11 N&L web statement): In 2009 in the UK we saw something similar. Police officers killed a man in the vicinity of a political protest, then told the press [=>]
Israel decimates Gaza as world faces global counter-revolutions
August 27, 2014The loss of lives and vast destruction visited In Israel’s war on Gaza has surpassed the horror of 2008’s “Operation Cast Lead.” Over 2,000 Palestinians have been killed to date, mostly civilians, including hundreds of children…
Stop Israel’s war on Gaza: the need for revolution in life and thought
July 28, 2014The war crimes being committed by the Israeli government in its current assault on Gaza are reminiscent of 2008’s brutal “Operation Cast Lead.” The bombing has not spared hospitals, UN compounds, schools or homes for the disabled. A huge percentage of the dead and injured are children. This is collective punishment on a vast, criminal [=>]
WOMAN AS REASON: Isla Vista murders fueled by misogyny
July 5, 2014When you are despised for who you are, as those murdered by Elliot Rodger were—and women are not the only ones on a list that includes any differently sexed person, immigrants and all minorities but especially Blacks, people with disabilities, and that’s only in the U.S.—then a revolution has to be more than an economic change, it even has to be more than “from each according to his or her ability, to each according to his or her need.” Revolution has to be so deep and total that all human relationships are transformed. To do so, it must be total from the start…
WORLD IN VIEW: New imperialism founders on Iraq
A lightning offensive saw Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, fall to the insurgents. The pattern extended itself to Tikrit, farther south, then Samarra, and the battle spread to the oil refining center of Baiji. Most of this was first attributed to ISIS. The question was asked, then: Why and how could a well-armed force of 20,000 Iraqi troops, armed and trained by the U.S., dissolve in the face of 800 terrorists?
‘A Dreadful Deceit’ and unceasing rebellion
March 30, 2014Jacqueline Jones’ new book, A Dreadful Deceit: The Myth of Race from the Colonial Era to Obama’s America, is not a call to ignore effects of the concept of race in law and practice. She finds the definition of race repeatedly twisted to suit the needs of the ruling class and wielded as a tool for subjugation of Black and white labor alike.
Stay Solid! A Radical Handbook for Youth
February 26, 2014Michael Gilbert reviews “Stay Solid! A Radical Handbook for Youth.”
Readers’ Views, September-October 2013, Part II
October 12, 2013Readers’ Views, September-October 2013, Part II
School’s out! Where’s my next job?
July 9, 2013People may imagine that teachers here hit the beach or kick up their heels poolside, sipping cocktails and working on a suntan. For me and many other teachers, though, Monday will be the kickoff to the summer routine of registering for unemployment benefits and looking for work, as, once again, a year’s contract has come to an end.
Violence ‘normalized’
May 17, 2013We are living in contradictory times, especially when it comes to women’s struggle for freedom. On the one hand you have a Women’s Liberation Movement that has never been more radical, unified and global. On the other hand there is more repression, and the violence is more brutal and deadly than ever before.