Essay: Marx’s Marxism vs. Trump-Putin’s barbarism

March 21, 2017

Trump’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.

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Inauguration of neo-fascism faces widespread revolt

January 23, 2017

The lightning move by Republicans in Congress to prepare to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare—before Donald Trump even took office, with only the vaguest idea of what is to replace it, and with full knowledge that a large majority of Americans oppose the repeal of its most important provisions—gave a sign of how far the new single-party government intends to roll the clock back, with dizzying speed.

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Revolt surges against racist system destroying Black lives

January 27, 2015

Protests erupted following the decision by a St. Louis County grand jury not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for the cold-blooded murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown. Thousands marched under the slogan “Black Lives Matter!” These demonstrations grew in the wake of the equally outrageous decision of a Staten Island grand jury not to indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo for the murder of Eric Garner.

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From Ferguson to Staten Island: The logic of racism is genocide

December 5, 2014

Protests erupted after the cops who murdered Michael Brown and Eric Garner were let off. They mark a new moment of rebellion against a social order in which Black youth are made to live continuously suspended over an abyss of non-existence.
The passion to tear up this deeply racist society by the roots calls for the fullest development in activity and thought.

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Readers’ Views, November-December 2014, Part 1

November 23, 2014

From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters

Readers’ Views, Part 1

WOMEN FIGHT RAPE, HARASSMENT AND ABUSE

When I voted, many posters reminded folks that within 100 feet of the polling place you may not “interrupt” a person, nor “harass” nor even speak about your political views. [=>]

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Musicians rally Oct. 1, 2013, to mark one year of the lockout. https://scontent-b-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/t1.0-9/1383632_514114728680754_613801427_n.jpg Musicians rally Oct. 1, 2013, to mark one year of the lockout. https://scontent-b-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/t1.0-9/1383632_514114728680754_613801427_n.jpg

Locked out Minnesota musicians return

March 26, 2014

On Feb. 1, 2014, the Minnesota Orchestral Association [MOA] ended its lockout of striking union musicians. The lockout began on Oct. 1, 2012, the longest work stoppage in U.S. orchestra history. in a focus that would not have been possible without union and community solidarity, the Tea Party destruction of nonprofits everywhere in Minnesota and in the U.S.

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Tea Party wreaks havoc

November 15, 2013

That a minority faction of one party in one chamber of one branch of the U.S. government could pose a grave threat to the world economy reflects the depth of the capitalist crisis. The sheer nihilism of that Tea Party faction reflects the depravity of American racism, which, as Patrick Buchanan threatened, would not hesitate to “bring down like Samson” the world around it.

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Demonstration in Chicago, Aug. 24, 2013, shortly after Assad used sarin gas on civilians killing over a thousand.

The Syrian Revolution as the test of world politics

November 13, 2013

On Aug. 21 the genocidal regime of Bashar al-Assad murdered over a thousand civilians, mostly women and children, with sarin gas in the Damascus suburbs of Eastern Ghouta. It committed this crime in full view of the world—images of hundreds of murdered children, still in pajamas, laid out in temporary morgues, shocked viewers across the world.
Since April 2011 the world has looked on as over 115,000 Syrians have been killed, and over 7.2 million have been made refugees. When Assad’s regime resorted to illegal chemical weapons, it seemed to many that this would change. It seemed that the images of so many murdered innocents might compel some action.

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November-December 2013 News & Letters online

November 11, 2013

The new November-December 2013 issue of News & Letters is online.

News & Letters, Vol. 58, No. 6
November – December 2013

Lead
The Syrian Revolution as the test of world politics

On Aug. 21 the genocidal regime of Bashar al-Assad murdered over a thousand civilians, mostly women and children, with sarin gas in the Damascus suburbs of Eastern Ghouta. [=>]

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Obama’s re-election doesn’t end clash of two worlds

November 26, 2012

by Franklin Dmitryev

The two worlds of the rulers and the ruled shone through the suffocating blanket of propaganda surrounding the election in which Barack Obama won a second term. A pronounced gender gap and long lines at the polls in African-American and Latino areas reflected the determination to defeat the reactionary Republicans and retain the [=>]

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November-December 2012 issue of News & Letters is now available on the web

November 24, 2012

Lead
Obama’s re-election doesn’t end clash of two worlds

The two worlds of the rulers and the ruled shone through the suffocating blanket of propaganda surrounding the election in which Barack Obama won a second term. A pronounced gender gap and long lines at the polls in African-American and Latino areas reflected the determination to defeat the [=>]

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Historic roots of far Right threat to U.S.

September 11, 2012

From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya

Editor’s Note: Originally the lead article in the June-July 1964 issue of News & Letters, this article analyzed trends and events of retrogression and the resistance to it that are still remarkably current in today’s Tea Party-infested USA. Footnotes are added by the editors.

* * *

The easy victory of Barry Goldwater [=>]

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Reactionary U.S. election shows capital’s contradictions

September 10, 2012

by Ron Kelch

“We built it!” roared the delegates at the Republican Party convention in Tampa. It was the perfect expression of the presidential campaign and of capitalist thinking in general. The truth is that workers built the social wealth. Capitalists take it from the workers, and the government gets a portion.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan [=>]

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September-October 2012 issue of News & Letters is online

September 9, 2012

Lead

Reactionary U.S. election shows capital’s contradictions

“We built it!” roared the delegates at the Republican Party convention in Tampa. It was the perfect expression of the presidential campaign and of capitalist thinking in general. The truth is that workers built the social wealth. Capitalists take it from the workers, and the government gets a portion.
Mitt Romney [=>]

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In the belly of the beast

May 12, 2012

From 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 [=>]

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Readers’ Views, September-October 2011

October 7, 2011

From the September-October 2011 issue of News & Letters:

Readers’ Views

Contents:

  • REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION: ARAB SPRING AS CROSSROADS IN HISTORY
  • KARL MARX AND WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
  • REMEMBERING CHRISTINA SANTIAGO
  • THELONIOUS MONK
  • CANADA AS ‘CONTESTATAIRE’ SOCIETY
  • MAN-MADE DISASTERS: NUCLEAR POWER AND WORLD WAR
  • LABOR STRUGGLES IN 2011
  • WHY WRITE FOR N&L?
  • VOICES FROM BEHIND THE BARS

REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION: ARAB SPRING AS CROSSROADS IN HISTORY

The West supports any revolution where they [=>]

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Political spectacles cannot hide reality of deranged capitalism

September 11, 2011

by Ron Kelch

At the end of a months-long political spectacle in Washington–manufactured over irrelevancies concerning what should have been a routine raising of the national debt limit before the Aug. 2 deadline–reality struck with a bombshell: the anemic “jobless” recovery in the U.S. has stalled. The economy is getting worse and there is no solution [=>]

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Mainstreaming of hate leads to Norway’s tragedy

July 24, 2011

Statement from News and Letters Committees on the events in Norway:

24 July 2011
The death toll currently stands at 93 in the mass murder carried out by Norwegian Rightist Anders Behring Breivik on July 22. Most of the victims were young people attending the Norwegian Labor Party’s summer camp. Breivik cold-bloodedly fired upon hundreds of innocent [=>]

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CUNY student walkout

May 31, 2011

New York–Over 100 students at Queens College City University of New York (CUNY) walked out of classes on March 31, protesting state budget cuts that would affect not only the cost but the quality of their education. Students are alarmed at the impending teacher layoffs and the curtailment of curriculum. The students marched onto one [=>]

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Abortion and the Left

May 16, 2011

From the new issue of NEWS & LETTERS, May-June 2011:

Woman as Reason
Abortion and the Left
by Terry Moon

Our Draft for Perspectives in this issue contains these paragraphs: “It is not only that women’s human rights are under siege by the U.S. Congress and state legislators, it is that the barriers put up, the requirements women face, are themselves [=>]

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The wars at home

May 8, 2011

From the new issue of NEWS & LETTERS, May-June 2011

Part II of

Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2011-2012
Revolution and counter-revolution take world stage

Contents:

  • I. The Arab Spring
  • II. The wars at home
  • III. Japan: earthquake, tsunami and meltdown
  • IV. Revolution, organization and philosophy
  • V. Marxist-Humanist Tasks

(Part I was posted yesterday.  Parts III through V to come in the next few days)

II. The [=>]

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Michigan support rally

April 7, 2011

Lansing, Mich.–It was a dreary, overcast, cold day at the Capitol building here on Feb. 26 when over 2,000 came from all over the state to show solidarity with workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere. Driving in from Detroit, one could pick out those heading for the rally by the bumper stickers on their cars.

The sound [=>]

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Readers’ Views (March-April 2011)

April 2, 2011

THE MIDDLE EAST EXPLODES: WHAT HAPPENS AFTER?

The Middle East events are bringing lots of people to talk about 1979 as well as the 2009 movements in Iran. I appreciated Raha’s essay in the Jan.-Feb. issue, Philosophy and Iran’s revolution: Where to now? because it raises the question of what could go wrong right now in [=>]

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World in View: Neo-fascists in Israel

March 10, 2011

by Gerry Emmett

Dutch Rightist Geert Wilders, who has also visited New York to attack the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque,” visited the West Bank settlements last month to declare that Palestinians should leave, to live in Jordan. “There already is a Palestinian state, and that state is Jordan,” he lied. Wilders, who sometimes tries to present [=>]

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Readers’ Views (Jan.-Feb. 2011)

February 28, 2011

THE OPPOSITE OF WAR IS NOT PEACE BUT REVOLUTION

Your Statement, War threat over Korea,” issued on your website on Dec. 9 had it just right! “The continuing threat of war on the Korean Peninsula underscores the urgency of the Marxist-Humanist perspective that the opposite of war is not peace but revolution.”

And you had it right [=>]

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Bloody reality of reactionary ideas

February 8, 2011

Editorial:
How predictable was the Jan. 8 massacre in Tucson, Arizona? So much so that shooter Jared Loughner’s primary target, Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, had this to say last year: “We’re on Sarah Palin’s target list, but the thing is, that the way she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our [=>]

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Campaigns intensify counter-revolutionary onslaught

November 6, 2010

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 [=>]

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