On Aug. 25, the flag of revolution flew high in villages, towns and cities across Syria. The Syrian revolutionary process of the second decade of the 21st Century was one of the most important developments to arise from the Arab Spring. Now is the time to solidarize with it, a solidarity that has been sorely missing.
To avoid Russia’s outright defeat in its brutal war against Ukrainians, the alliance of nations–Russia, Iran, and China, now with North Korea–that for 12 years has united to suppress the Syrian Revolution for freedom and dignity seems to be firming up again.
In Daraa, the birthplace of the Syrian Revolution, resistance has continued. Fifty Syrian revolutionaries and their families were forced to leave the city to join other revolutionaries in the Free Syrian enclave in the country’s northwest.
The brief, dirty war that broke out May 10-21 between the Israeli government and Hamas, the Islamist group ruling Gaza had many reactionary consequences.
There is danger of neo-fascist parties gaining or taking control in several European countries including Germany, France, The Netherlands and Italy.
Humanity needs to take head of the warfare that broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan in late September, over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh which took the lives of thousands of soldiers, and hundreds of innocent civilians, on both sides.
In the aftermath of Trump’s impeachment trial, impunity and purges rage while checks and balances failed. Armed with a philosophy of freedom, the opposition to Trump and to the capitalist system that spawned him would give Trump the challenge that fellow politicians could not.
Readers’ Views on Capitalism and climate; Mideast upheaval; Trump the Mullah?; war crime hero; Trump’s judges; detransition debate; and women’s liberation.
If there are any two realities that absolutely compel human solidarity, it is the two that are manifest in Syria today—revolution, the human struggle for freedom against oppression—and genocide, the absolute negation of humanity.
The death of counter-revolutionary Qassem Soleimani, together with Donald Trump’s war moves, illuminate this changed world.
An Editorial in News & Letters taking up who General Qassem Soleimani was, what he did in aiding counter-revolution in the Middle East, and ramifications of his death.
Readers’ Views on permanent revolution and the dialectic, and voices from behind bars
We will discuss not just the needed critique to those on the Left who defend Bashar al-Assad, but also the pragmatic philosophy that underlies the broader Left. The resulting search for a new orientation in the Syrian revolution demands a dive into dialectical philosophy.
Gerry Emmett writes on the crossroads reached by the Sudanese Revolution, with the accord between the revolutionary Forces for Freedom and Change and the genocidal Transitional Military Council signed on Aug. 4. He sees a parallel between the Left’s response to the Sudanese Revolution and the Syrian Revolution.
Free Syrian revolutionaries are being pushed to the limit. But humanity is being put to the test.
Readers’ Views on: Socialism and a philosophy of revolution; Sudan in revolt; Iran vs. Iranians; Flint, Mich., play captures voices; Notre-Dame and fracking on native land; gun control debate; labor strikes; debate on fascism; Trump and DeVos; and voices from behind bars.
Marxist-Humanist Bob McGuire looks through history to Marx’s relationship to labor and the Black movement for freedom and then to our day and the relationship of Marxist-Humanism to labor and the Black struggle for freedom in speaking to the question many are asking today: What is socialism?
Participant report of a Chicago vigil in solidarity with the people of Syria, Yemen, Crimea, and other lands.
The Far Right threatens to make significant gains in the European Parliament elections this May. What inheres within the “idea of Europe” that can destroy fascism as idea and reality is the humanism that became its internal critique, Marx’s humanism.
Readers’ 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.
What is socialism? From Left to Right, this question is becoming central to political discussion. For me, it raises another question, too: What is philosophy? This is where I will begin, with the young Karl Marx.
This is the first in a series of four presentations on “What is Socialism?” Shorter versions will be published in News & Letters. The second essay is “Socialism, labor and the Black dimension”; the third is “Socialism and ecology”; and the last is “Socialism and Women’s Liberation.”
The Syrian Revolution has been the physical and intellectual battlefield that defines our time. As early as 2012 it was clear that what happened in Syria would determine the next stage of world history.
On the occasion of the publication of the new book “Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution in Permanence for Our Day: Selected Writings by Raya Dunayevskaya,” this essay explores Marx’s ideas on the basis of Dunayevskaya’s writings on them as a philosophy of revolution needed for our age.
Syria’s Idlib province faces imminent slaughter by Russia, Iran, and Assad regime forces, which have already made it into the model of the 21st century concentration camp. We call upon all of humanity to oppose this and to demand protection for these millions whose only “crime” was to fight for freedom against a fascist regime.
Readers’ Views takes up: women’s liberation, youth in the battle, Blacks vs. racism, border cop thugs, Middle East struggles, and voices from behind bars.
We look at the world economic situation that must be changed: the role of state-capitalism, labor, climate change, the law of value, exploitation, alienation, and revolution and counter-revolution in Syria.
The genocide against the Rohingya in Burma (Myanmar) by the Buddhist majority is egged on by the military as well as by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. .
An appeal for funds to keep Marxist-Humanism alive and to help News and Letters Committees continue to grow. .
The 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?
Protests occur across Turkey in resistance to the controversial constitutional referendum/power grab of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he has devolved into a capitalist counterrevolutionary ruler. .
Reader’s Views on Women vs. Reaction; Women and Philosophy; Syria and Humanity; Support Trans Children!; Animals and Us; Repression vs. Justice; Why Read “N&L”; Voices from Behind the Bars
March 2017 marks the sixth anniversary of the Syrian Revolution. Syrian revolutionaries have articulated a necessary step in organizing outside and beyond the aims of state powers.
Readers’ Views on Trumpism and the many facets of resistance; Fear of immigrants; Specters of internment; War on Queers; Women Fight Back; Women´s Liberation Debates.
Editorial taking up the present situation in Syria where the smoke of destroyed East Aleppo, of ravaged Free Idlib, East Ghouta, Wadi Barada, and other revolutionary communities raises Trump’s fascist banner. While President Obama is no friend to the Syrian Revolution, Trump delivered: surrender or death.
Healthcare worker Htun Lin takes up the relationship between workers in healthcare in the U.S. who are told “not everyone can be saved,” and what is happening in Syria where the Syrian government, Russia and Iran are bombing civilians including–or especially–hospitals and healthcare workers.
Domestic terrorist Omar Mateen’s killing and injuring of Queer people in Orlando exposes racist and anti-Muslim sentiments but also, in reaction to his act, solidarity with the Queer community worldwide. The challenge is whether humanity will create a truly human society where Queer people are considered human.
Workshop 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.
Participant report of Chicago May Day demonstration in solidarity with the Syrian Revolution.
Part V of the Draft Perspectives 2016: Together with the depths of counter-revolution, the passion for philosophy points to both the need for and the potential for totally new beginnings in the transformation of society, for new banners of freedom as a polarizing force.
The Syrian Revolution has brought forward a generation of citizen journalists who risk everything to report the truth, like the late Ruqia Hassan.
Workers often ignore borders to solidarize with fellow humans. Solidarity needed now against atrocities against Syrian civilians and in support of Larycia Hawkins risking tenure to stand with Muslims under attack.
From the signing of a nuclear weapons agreement by the U.S. and Iran, to the ongoing war in Syria including the roles of Turkey and of the Left, this wide-ranging article delves into the Middle East situation with an emphasis on the forces fighting for genuine freedom and a multi-ethnic society.
The affinity of so many, including Black, Latino and Third World youth, with the struggle of Rojava’s Kurds—like that in Chiapas before—can be of the utmost philosophic importance.
The world’s attention was once more belatedly drawn to the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus, Syria, by the invasion by IS/Daesh terrorists, facilitated by another fundamentalist faction, Jabhat al-Nusra.
Spelling out the philosophical breakthrough on Hegel’s Absolutes as the total uprooting of the old and the creation of new human relations, in concrete relationship to struggles for freedom in practice and in theory, is at the heart of projecting Marxist-Humanism, and therefore of its organizational life.
The electoral victory of Greece’s Syriza represents resistance to brutal austerity. Alarms are raised by Syriza’s alliance with the racist, theocratic Independent Greeks party.
From Ferguson to Staten Island; Revolutionary Rojava; Youth Protest; Violence Against Women; Detroit Solidarity; Paris March; Recalling Mary Jo
The confrontation between differing classes and worldviews has been most intense in Syria, making it the test of world politics—and of philosophy and revolution. The Syrian Revolution has pushed thought about revolution to a new level.
From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters
Readers’ Views, Part 3
I loved the way “Israel decimates Gaza as world faces global counter-revolutions” (Sept.-Oct. N&L) begins by highlighting how Gazans’ suffering represents global counter-revolution. The Left often takes the side of the underdog, the “lesser of the evils” fighting “U.S. or [=>]
