Readers’ Views on the economy and dialectics of liberation; environmental racism; no nukes!; and voices from behind the bars.
Susan Van Gelder
Pride confronts Nazis
June 26, 2019Participants at Detroit’s Motor City Pride March were shocked and horrified to confront 15 armed Nazis protected by a cordon of mostly Black police officers.
Readers’ Views: March-April 2019, Part 1
March 11, 2019Readers’ Views on: workers strike back, genocide and Facebook, Mauritius victory, Syrian Revolution under fire, “55 Steps,” debating yellow vests, women’s struggles, and why read News & Letters.
Detroit women rally
March 10, 2019An in-person report of the Jan, 19, 2019, “sister march”–sponsored by Women’s March Michigan, a separate organization from the National Women’s March–which brought nearly 1,000 women to a rally at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History.
‘Poverty and Profit’
March 9, 2019Matthew Desmond’s book “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City” is an important contribution to understanding the workings of exploitative housing, although he fails to appreciate that, under the capitalist system, the best-intentioned programs will always become conduits to extract money from the poor.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2019, Part 2
February 3, 2019Readers’ Views regarding: Thought-diving into revolution in permanence; murky waters[ the Church and oppression; why read N&L; and voices from behind bars.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2019, Part 1
Readers’ Views addressing: challenging fascism across all borders; charter teachers strike; pitfalls of bourgeois politics; women on the march; prison strikes big and small; and the racist criminal injustice system.
Detroit celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
January 26, 2019Participant report from Detroit’s 16th Annual Martin Luther King Day Rally.
Predatory lending
A Detroit, Michigan, resident reports on the harm that predatory lending is doing to the city and its residents.
Detroit women rally to fight for our freedom
January 23, 2019Participant report of how women in Detroit celebrated the Women’s March by highlighting diverse women fighting for fundamental changes and challenging racism, sexism, and capitalism.
Michigan post-election voter suppression
December 18, 2018Report from Detroit about the Michigan legislature passing bills to reverse the results of the election, and about plans to oppose from below the suppression of democracy.
Readers’ Views, November-December 2018
December 14, 2018Readers’ Views on: Capitalism vs. the Planet; Anti-Semitism’s Inhumanity; Kavanaugh Travesty; Youth Rock!; Freedom Movements vs. Fascism across the Globe; Catholic Church Crisis; Voices from behind Bars
Review: The Feeling of Being Watched
December 2, 2018The film “The Feeling of Being Watched” exposes the FBI’s “Operation Vulgar Betrayal,” which tracked Muslim organizations only because they were Muslim, and reminds its audiences of other FBI investigations.
Readers’ Views, September-October 2018: Part 1
September 29, 2018Readers’ Views takes up: attacks on immigrants; Syria and the Left’s failure; Democratic Party’s selling out women; Women’s Liberation; Serena Williams; ending money bail the right way; Trump-Kim “peace”; genocide and war heroes; and a discussion on sex crimes and their fallout.
The ‘Power of Pink’
September 27, 2018Report of Planned Parenthood’s “Power of Pink” volunteer training conference, which drew over 2,000 young women to Detroit July 27-29, 2018.
Review: ‘Labor Notes’ on fighting ‘open shops’
The journal “Labor Notes” published a special issue on organizing strategies which aims to guide members of public sector unions to a concept of an inclusive, participatory unionism.
Voting is broken in Michigan
September 26, 2018Michigan voters describe examples of how voting in Michigan is seriously flawed, leading to voter disenfranchisement.
Readers’ Views, July-August 2018, Part 1
July 23, 2018Readers’ Views on: Fighting Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Hysteria; Women’s Liberation; Attacks on Gays; Support Restaurant Workers; Swords into Plowshares; Human Rights Struggles in Iraq…; …And in Russia; Arthur Gursch in Memoriam
Youth March for Our Lives
May 10, 2018Participants at the March for Our Lives against gun violence in the Bay Area, Calif., Detroit, Mich., and Chicago, Ill. report on the militancy and humanism in the marches in their areas.
Why teachers strike
May 1, 2018Public school teachers, historically underpaid as “women’s work,” have been striking or threatening strikes from West Virginia and New Jersey to Oklahoma, Kentucky, Colorado and Arizona.
Flint: a TV movie
March 12, 2018The TV movie “Flint” presented the human tragedy created by the Flint, Michigan, emergency manager, switching the city to water from the Flint River and rendering it all poisonous and undrinkable.
Readers’ Views, March-April 2018, Part 1
March 11, 2018Readers’ Views on Women’s Marches; Iran in Revolt; Around the Globe; Race and Freedom; Queer Oppression; Why Read N&L?
MSU students rally against Larry Nassar
March 10, 2018While over 200 girls and women gymnasts testified against long-time sexual abuser Dr. Larry Nassar, less has been heard of the hundreds of MSU students who marched against their university.
Review of “Flint,” a Lifetime TV movie
February 2, 2018A review of the Lifetime TV movie “Flint,” which brings to life the ongoing four-year battle by four women who became activists against the State of Michigan in the face of serious water pollution in Flint, Michigan.
Readers’ Views: The Dialectic and the Meaning of the Russian Revolution
January 31, 2018The dialectic and the meaning of the Russian Revolution.
Martin Luther King Day in Detroit
A diverse crowd at Detroit’s Martin Luther King Day rally and march was even larger than last year’s turnout, proving that we refuse to acquiesce to the blatant anti-humanism of the 45th president.
Convention shows women persist
November 15, 2017Report on the Oct. 27, 2017, Women’s Convention in Detroit, Michigan, one of the followups to the Jan. 21 Women’s March on Washington, D.C. .
Dan Perron, 1959-2017
News and Letters Committees lost a wonderful comrade when Dan Perron (Oct. 12, 1959-Sept. 7, 2017) died. Dan was a lifelong activist for freedom and justice.
‘Detroit’ offends Detroit
September 5, 2017Detroit activists reviews the film, “Detroit,” and finds it insulting to actual history and a “brilliantly filmed wasted opportunity.”
Which vision for rebuilding Detroit?
June 30, 2017Does housing in Detroit in 2017 mean large tracts of vacant land and substandard houses ripe for development and easy slumlord profit, or a focus for community organizing to take back our city? .
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.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2017, Part I
January 31, 2017Readers’ Views on: environmental and social crises; Martin Luther King Day; healthcare crisis, Donald Trump and the election; brutal “justice”; and who reads News & Letters.
Democracy in the streets votes Trump out!
January 23, 2017Reports from the huge Women’s March from participants in Chicago, Ill., Detroit, Mich., Oakland, Calif., Nashville, Tenn., Memphis, Tenn., Los Angeles, Calif., and New York City.
Readers’ Views, November-December 2016, Part 1
November 27, 2016Readers’ Views on Election Stirs Battles in Thought and in Life; Deep Racism in the USA; Women Fight Back; Indigenous Struggles; Global (In)Humanity; Why Read N&L?
Detroiters insist: water is a human right
September 12, 2016The book Mapping the Water Crisis: The Dismantling of Black Neighborhoods in Detroit and the film Detroit Minds Dying, expose that the preponderance of water shutoffs in Detroit occur in poor neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color, the lies of Detroit city officials, and the difference determined activists can make.
Detroit schools need new ideas, political will
March 18, 2016Detroit public school teachers and students win some needed school building repairs, but all Detroit schools need regulation, ideas and political will so that all students receive a high-quality education.
Detroit teachers’ sick-out
January 25, 2016Teachers in Detroit held a sick-out closing 60 schools, directed against Gov. Snyder and his Emergency Manager for Detroit schools.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2016, Part 2
Philosophy, theory and News & Letters; Flint Part Ii; Mumia Abu-Jamal; Voices from behind the bars.
Readers’ Views: November-December 2015, Part 1
December 16, 2015readers views nov dec 2015 part 1
Flint water crisis
December 15, 2015Flint water was contaminated with dangerous lead levels.
How not to defend schools
December 10, 2015Detroit public school teachers rally in support of school boiler operators.
Readers’ Views, July-August 2015
July 4, 2015Black lives as Subject; Russia in crisis; Nothing about us without us; Homelessness in L.A.; Central Canada Alliance; Perspectives and philosophy; Elderly to the streets?; Women and Yemen half-peace; Labor and climate justice; Dialectic and women’s liberation; Voices from behind the bars
Seeking justice for 43 in Ayotzinapa
May 1, 2015“Caravana 43” includes some of the parents of 43 students who were “disappeared” in September from the Normal Rural School Raúl Isidro Burgos in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, Mexico, and are touring the U.S. Here are in-person reports from their trips to Berkeley, Calif., and Detroit, Mich.
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.
Detroiters fight to keep their houses
March 7, 2015The number of Detroiters helping their neighbors resolve property tax foreclosure has grown by leaps and bounds as community groups all over the city host meetings on what can be done.
Chicago teachers’ strike reviewed
January 29, 2015Review of “Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity” by Micah Uetricht and “How to Jump-Start Your Union: Lessons from the Chicago Teachers” from Labor Notes.
Detroit developers flee angry homeowners
November 24, 2014Nearly one-third of Detroit’s residential properties are blighted. Participants at an October protest at a Town Hall meeting speak.
Detroit: houses lost, pensions looted
November 22, 2014etroit—As expected, Judge Stephen Rhodes ruled Nov. 7 that Detroit’s Plan of Adjustment was fair and feasible and allowed the City of Detroit to exit bankruptcy. One retiree termed the jovial press conference with the Mayor, Council President, Emergency Manager and Governor Rick Snyder as “sickening.” Thanks to the media, people believe retirees voted “overwhelmingly” for a 4.5% cut to their pensions. Half the retirees did not vote…
Detroit says ‘Water is a Human Right!’
August 29, 2014“Water is a Human Right!” chanted over 1,000 on July 18. Detroit’s Water and Sewerage Dept. had shut off water to 15,000 residents.
‘Borderlands/La Frontera’ — a review
Review of the book “Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza,” by Gloria Anzaldúa, 25th anniversary 4th edition.