This is the Call issued for a Convention of News and Letters Committees at a moment when the rulers are inflaming one crisis after another more recklessly and thoroughly than they have done since World War II.
Ukraine
The war on Iran and beyond: Trump drives for a new fascist world order
March 8, 2026The war on Iran and the Venezuela coup are part of Trump’s attempt to reorganize the world order and grasp for absolute power. In countering this tumble toward world war, can we build a movement that is not only against Trump and capitalism, but keeps developing the fullness of what we are for?
World in View: War, mass murder, genocide and capitalism’s culpability
November 3, 2025The horrendous realities in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Congo, Rio de Janeiro and Venezuela are connected. Several of the world’s powers are implicated. The global capitalist system allows mass murder, rape and genocide to become “normalized.”
Antiwar message
August 3, 2025News and Letters Committees’ response to the call for solidarity messages to the 63rd International Antiwar Assembly held yearly in Japan.
Women World Wide: June 2025
May 24, 2025Takes up: A UN Women report about women-led and women’s rights organizations in humanitarian crisis zones; an ongoing epidemic of hundreds of domestic violence cases, including eight femicides, in Nova Scotia, Canada; and UK modernizing its voyeurism laws to keep up with abuses of advances in technology.
Draft Perspectives 2025-2026, Part II: What new world order?
May 2, 2025What kind of new world order is Trump heading for? Forced annexation of territories (as in Russia’s war on Ukraine), genocide (as in Israel’s war on Gaza), and neocolonialism (as in the Democratic Republic of Congo) are crucial parts of it. The word “multipolar” cannot hide its imperialist nature.
Official call for convention to work out Marxist-Humanist Perspectives for 2025-2026
March 2, 2025Trump’s return is a manifestation of capitalism’s tendency toward fascism when destabilized by systemic crises. The questioning of the foundations of this decaying society is linked to a search for an alternative. We have a responsibility to help the movement set its direction by working at the concrete projection of a liberatory banner.
World in View: Trump to Ukraine/Europe: Drop dead
February 20, 2025In its latest incursion into Europe, the Trump administration ranted against European liberalism, calling it the greatest threat to Europe, “the threat from within.”It not only campaigned for far-right parties but demanded their elevation to power. Trumpism aims to remake the world under the domination of new forms of fascism.
Editorial: Stop Trump’s grab for total power
September 6, 2024Trump’s intention to rule indefinitely must be blocked. His plans would worsen living and working conditions. The new bureaucracy of MAGA loyalists would be used to crush resistance. Resorting to the electoral system is a necessary defense, but it cannot be separated from joining and building movements whose challenge to the system goes beyond electoral politics.
Draft Perspectives, 2024-2025: Part Three, Russia’s war on Ukraine and the worldwide drive toward fascism
May 4, 2024Part III of the 2024-2025 Draft Perspectives. Takes up Putin’s war on Ukraine and its connection with fascism worldwide, especially seen on Israel’s war on Gaza, the ongoing genocide in Sudan and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s religious chauvinism.
Draft Perspectives, 2024-2025: Part Four, The crisis in thought
Part IV of the 2024-2025 Draft Perspectives. Takes on the retrogression in Left thought, especially on the questions of Israel’s war on Gaza and Putin’s war on Ukraine.
Solidarity with Ukraine: for its self-determination and against world fascism
March 17, 2024The solidarity of revolutionaries with Ukraine, from vigils to material support, helps the defense against Russia’s invasion continue. Oppose the Putin/Trump/Republican blocking of aid! With international support, including enough weapons, Ukrainians may be spared the need to fight alone.
Call for Convention of News and Letters Committees, 2024
February 25, 2024Call for Convention of News and Letters Committees, 2024
COP28 climate summit submits to oil capital’s war against movements and science
January 24, 2024Scientists and climate movements highlighted the urgent need to take real climate action. Opposed are fossil fuel industries and their nation-states, who dominated COP28 and guaranteed its emptiness. The path forward can be built on the movements from below, posing liberation from capitalist exploitation and the release of full human development.
Discussion article: Netanyahu’s war against Gaza
December 21, 2023Luis M. Saenz writing in ‘Trasversales’ argues this is not a war between Israel and Hamas, but a brutal operation by the Netanyahu government against the population of Gaza. Any vision leaving no Palestinians, or no Israelis, in historical Palestine is reactionary. Solidarity with the Palestinian population—which is not solidarity with Hamas—is a duty.
To the 61st International Antiwar Assembly
August 4, 2023Message in solidarity with the annual international antiwar assembly
Climate toll sparks revolt
July 23, 2023The climate crisis is already disrupting billions of lives. Yet the economic and political powers are more concerned with eliminating safeguards for workers and pushing more fossil fuels. It is no time to despair. It is a time of crisis that opens the door to a revolutionary transformation of society.
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2023-2024: Polycrisis and the need to transform reality. Part III
June 15, 2023Putin’s war on Ukraine has shaken up world politics, sharpened the divide in the Left and nurtured Red-Brown alliances. That Putin’s genocidal but threadbare ideology could have such an impact reflects the Left’s philosophical disorientation. It is necessary to listen to the voices and actions within Ukraine for social transformation toward freedom.
An atrocity: Assad welcomed back
June 7, 2023It is an atrocity that Bashar al-Assad was welcomed back to the Arab League Summit on May 19. This is one more attempt to bury the Syrian Revolution, which has heard its obituary pronounced again and again since the first mass demonstrations of Arab Spring, March 15, 2011.
Cyclone spotlights disasters in Burma, China
June 5, 2023After Cyclone Mocha devastated Rakhine State in Myanmar (Burma) on May 14, the National Unity Group representing civilian opposition and armed resistance reported 200 Rohingya Muslims had been killed as the storm hit with 130-mile-per-hour winds.
World in View: ‘Peace’ rallies spurn Ukrainian freedom
March 21, 2023While tens of thousands across the globe marked the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with support rallies for Ukraine’s fight for self-determination, there were a few disturbing “anti-war” rallies bringing together far-right with Left groups calling for an end to supplying arms to Ukraine.
Resistance in Burma
A Burmese woman activist speaks about the war against civilians by the Tatmadaw and the need for solidarity.
Boycott ‘Rage Against the War Machine’
News and Letters Committees is one of many signatories to this statement. More such events are sure to be held, and it is vital to be aware of their reactionary “red-brown” nature.
Readers’ Views: March-April 2023, Part Two
Readers’ Views on: Ukrainian Self-Determination and the Idea of Freedom; N&L for the Study Group; Sharing the Paper; Climate Movements vs. Summits; Unsanitary Prison Conditions; Prison Exploitation; Voices from behind Bars
Why we’re here for Russian dissidents
March 20, 2023Voices from a California solidarity action with Russian dissidents who expressed their opposition to Putin’s war within Russia.
Propping up fascists
March 17, 2023To 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.
Call for Convention, 2023
February 26, 2023Call for Convention of News and Letters Committees, 2023
Readers’ Views: January-February 2023, Part One
January 24, 2023Readers’ Views on: Women’s Struggles for Freedom; Open Season on Lgbtq+ ; Healthcare Workers on Strike; Lois Curtis; Immigrant Solidarity Needed; Putin vs. Ukraine; U.S. Right vs. Ukraine; Water and Humanity’s Future
Essay: Ukrainian self-determination and idea of freedom
Ukrainians’ self-organizing drew in all layers of the population, acting on their passion for independence and freedom from imperial overlords. The new life they have brought to the idea of democracy is deeper than political democracy. Marx’s humanist idea is a future determined by fully realizing that deeper content.
Leading Canadians off the cliff
November 11, 2022Canada’s Conservative Party and Alberta province’s United Conservative Party have both chosen racist, anti-immigrant leaders, moving Canada to the Right.
Readers’ Views: November-December 2022, Part One
Readers’ Views on: Iran: Woman, Life, Freedom; Election Threats and Battles; Women’s Marches and Enemies; Sexist Supreme Court; Ukrainians Fight for Freedom; Para-Transit Disservice; Mike Davis; Labor Struggles, from Amazon…to the Bank.
60th International Antiwar Assembly
Excerpts of the appeal from the Executive Committee for the 60th International Antiwar Assembly, together with the message of solidarity sent to the Assembly from News and Letters Committees. Against Putin’s war and for revolutionary new beginnings!
Editorial: Ukraine makes gains, Putin brandishes nukes
November 6, 2022Putin failed to terrorize Ukraine into submission with massive bombing of civilians and social infrastructure. Ukrainian social solidarity, resilience and massive participation of all layers of the population inspired the world that a people do not have to cave to extortion and terror.
Readers’ Views: September-October 2022, Part One
September 13, 2022Readers’ Views on Abortion Rights Struggles; Ukraine, Russia and the Left; Marx and Transgender; World Food Crisis; Normalized Domestic Violence, and Ecuador’s Uprising
Will China make war on Taiwan?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan provoked controversy. Times may have changed since Nixon met Mao but then as now, look to internal reasons in both nations for their foreign policy stances.
Editorial: Ukraine is a beacon against fascism & war
September 9, 2022Ukraine is afraid of losing European supporters after having fought off a Russian invasion for six months in the largest war in Europe since World War II. Ukrainians are also fighting imposed rotten compromises at the expense of Ukrainians! Yes to Ukrainian self-determination and freedom from Russian imperialism!
Handicap This!: July-August 2022
July 20, 2022The difficulties people with disabilities are experiencing in Ukraine as it is being attacked by Russia; the newly formed Marion County (Oregon) Advisory Group will help the disability community connect with emergency management during emergencies; and the Australian Disability Enterprises refused to raise their sub-minimum wage for disabled workers.
Stop the food crisis! Build food sovereignty NOW!
July 19, 2022Excerpts from the June 3, 2022, statement by La Via Campesina, “Stop the food crisis! Build food sovereignty NOW!” and a link to the full statement.
War is excuse to ravage the climate
Country after country reacted to the war by increasing oil and gas trade and production. Only movements from below can keep the fossil fuel capitalists from turning the opportunity for a greener, freer future into opposite.
Left Apologetics for Putin
July 17, 2022This appendix to “Society in the Grip of Genocidal Ideology” details Putin’s genocidal ideology and how prominent Left journal “Monthly Review,” its editor John Bellamy Foster, and Noam Chomsky echo Putin’s propaganda in their apologetics for Russia’s war on Ukraine.
War, climate chaos, capitalism, COVID: World food crisis spreads
July 7, 2022With Russia’s war on Ukraine, a food crisis is emerging globally with lightning speed. Capitalism, with its agricultural-industrial system of commodity food production for the world market, is the cause of, and suffers from the consequences of, multiple, linked crises of war, COVID, and climate. There is radical opposition to this perfect storm of capitalist crises.
Essay: Society in the grip of genocidal ideology
July 5, 2022Genocidal ideology, which was manifested differently in the Buffalo mass shooting and in Putin’s war on Ukraine, has spread throughout our society, pervading the Right but also polluting the Left. How to fight this retrogression in all its forms?
Film review: ‘Good Luck to You, Leo Grande’
June 18, 2022Review of ‘Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,’ states that it missed a great chance to be political in a meaningful way. Writer Katy Brand left out the hard part, creating characters who live in a safe world that doesn’t exist. You can’t comprehend prostitution, sex work and sex workers without talking about capitalism and how it alienates and destroys human relationships.
LGBTQ+ are under fire in Ukraine
May 20, 2022LGBTQ+ Ukrainians are reacting in a variety of ways to the Russian invasion. Some are fleeing, others have enlisted or been drafted to fight; and others are staying to help their country in other ways.
What tyrants fear the most: revolution
May 19, 2022Like repression in Iran, the war against Ukraine is, more than anything else, understandable on the basis of fear of revolution and the overthrow of the existing order.
Where’s the solidarity with Syria?
Free Syria areas have repeatedly demonstrated solidarity with Ukrainians fighting their common enemy, but have had to carry on their fight, for freedom and to avert extermination, without the international support their struggle has deserved.
Readers’ Views: May-June 2022, part one
Readers’ Views on: Abortion Bans vs. Women and Freedom; Anti-War, Pro-Democracy Voices from Russia; Patriarchy Attacked; Putin’s Brutal War
Russian invasion and Ukrainian resistance shake up the world
May 15, 2022Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resistance to it are shaking up the world and revealing the ideological pollution of society, including of the Left.
Women WorldWide: May-June 2022
May 11, 2022Takes up: feminist-led protesters in London hurling 1,000 rape alarms at Charing Cross police station on the first anniversary of the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah Everard; the launch of Somalia’s first all-female media house, Bilan; a worldwide roundup of actions on International Women’s Day; and Women Take the Wheel, an all-woman volunteer service driving women fleeing Ukraine to homes or shelters in Poland.
May-June 2022: Women WorldWide
April 29, 2022Takes up: feminist-led protesters in London hurling 1,000 rape alarms at Charing Cross police station on the first anniversary of the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah Everard; the launch of Somalia’s first all-female media house, Bilan; a worldwide roundup of actions on International Women’s Day; and Women Take the Wheel, an all-woman volunteer service driving women fleeing Ukraine to homes or shelters in Poland.