Voices from a California solidarity action with Russian dissidents who expressed their opposition to Putin’s war within Russia.
Urszula Wislanka
Readers’ Views: November-December 2022, Part One
November 11, 2022Readers’ 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.
Climate strike, Oakland, Sept. 2022
September 26, 2022Hundreds of youth participated in the Oakland event of the international climate strike on Sept. 23, 2022.
Solidarity with Iran: Woman, Life, Freedom
September 25, 2022Over 1,000 people gathered at UC Berkeley to express their solidarity with the growing movement of women in Iran.
The debt owed to Haiti
September 24, 2022A demonstration by Haiti Action Committee called on Citibank to stop funding death squads and others who massacre Haitians demanding the right to even stay on their own land.
Essay: State-capitalism and the idea of freedom
September 13, 2022Wislanka reviews Lea Ypi’s ‘Free,’ a testimonial of experiencing both “socialism” and then a Western style of life in 1990’s Albania, and relates it to the present moment. The book asks what freedom means and the essay takes it deeper in the new context of wars, fascism, resistance from below and the self-development of the idea of freedom.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2022, Part One
July 12, 2022Readers’ Views on: Supreme Court’s Attack on Women’s Freedom; Abortion, Healthcare and Women’s Movement; Abortion Unseparated from All Freedom Struggles; Gay Pride: Whose Bodies? Ours!; Colonizers Past and Present; Let Them Eat Rockets; Oppression of Homeless; Only 14 More Mass Shootings!; Church, State and Football
Nationwide marches for abortion rights
July 5, 2022March participants report on the thousands of women, men and gender diverse people who demonstrated across the U.S., including Chicago and the Bay Area. They were protesting the Supreme Court decision that decimated women’s right to an abortion and thus to control over their own bodies.
San Francisco holds May Day rally
May 20, 2022Participant report: the San Francisco May Day demonstration addressed labor organizing, bread and butter issues, and political repression in Iran and Turkey.
Tens of thousands march for abortion rights
May 19, 2022In San Francisco on May 14 over 10,000 people marched for the right to abortion and against the U.S. Supreme Court which has now lost all legitimacy. A million people marched in over 450 events across the U.S. to show their anger at the Supreme Court’s impending reversal of Roe v. Wade, which had legalized women’s right to abortion.
Prisoner strikes and struggles through Marxist-Humanist lens
Commemorating the 10th anniversary of the historic prison hunger strikes that ended California’s permanent solitary confinement, Faruq and Urszula Wislanka give a retrospective/perspective on our involvement in prison issues with two talks on “Historic hunger strikes: 10 years after” and “Listening to women prisoners with Marxist-Humanist ‘ears’”
Youth hold Climate Strike in San Francisco
November 10, 2021As part of the ongoing Fridays for Future, on Aug. 27 several hundred, mostly youth, gathered in San Francisco to call attention to environmental racism, the climate crisis, and public health.
Youth Vs Apocalypse
September 29, 2021As part of the ongoing Fridays for Future, on Aug. 27 several hundred, mostly youth, gathered in San Francisco to call attention to environmental racism, the climate crisis, and public health.
Medicare for all!
September 12, 2021A high-school student from San Jose read her poem castigating lousy U.S. health insurance at a Medicare For All (M4A) Rally in San Francisco on July 24.
Youth demonstrate for Medicare For All
July 26, 2021A high-school youth from San Jose read her poem castigating lousy U.S. health insurance at a Medicare For All (M4A) Rally in San Francisco on July 24.
‘Care, not jail’
July 5, 2021On June 22, Decarcerate Alameda County called on Oakland’s City Council to move $43 million from the sheriff’s proposed budget and designate a total of $122 million to fund mental health and housing.
Celebrating Juneteenth
Oakland, Calif., celebrated Juneteenth 2021 with a couple hundred booths selling food, clothing, beauty products, etc. But there were also book stalls featuring Black history and tables staffed by people from various movements.
No funding to Tatmadaw
May 8, 2021Mostly Burmese protesters gathered in front of Chevron’s headquarters in San Ramon, Calif., to say stop funding the bloodshed in Burma. Every week since the coup, the Free Burma Action Committee holds a protest in San Francisco.
The Bay Area celebrates May Day
May 4, 2021A participant describes the May Day demonstrations in San Francisco Bay Area, especially in San Jose.
Rally for Amazon workers’ union drive
March 11, 2021Participant report of a solidarity demonstration in Oakland in front of a Whole Foods store, as part of a national day of solidarity to support Bessemer, Alabama, Amazon workers struggling for union recognition.
Women, incarceration and justice
January 29, 2021Participant report of a seminar on ongoing abuses of women in prison, women’s organizing against the abuses, and the limitations of reforms.
Philosophic dialogue: New perspectives on Marx’s Humanist Essays
November 28, 2020Three presentations on why Marx’s 1844 Humanist Essays are critical to meet today’s challenges, by a high school student, a former prisoner who participated in the Pelican Bay Hunger Strikes, and a long-time Marxist-Humanist looking at 1844 from a feminist perspective.
Count every vote!
In virtually every Bay Area city at least several hundred came out to “Count Every Vote” rallies on Nov. 4, the day after the election with the feeling, as one speaker put it, “vacillating between anxiety and hope.”
Philosophic dialogue: New perspectives on Marx’s Humanist Essays
November 10, 2020A high school student, a former prisoner, and a long-time Marxist-Humanist discuss why Marx’s 1844 Humanist Essays are critical to meet the total challenges to humanity today.
Soledad families say: “We Are Their Voice!”
August 29, 2020Voices of family members of prisoners and other supporters speaking out as they demonstrated in front of Soledad prison.
COVID-19 at San Quentin
Several hundred people, including many family members of prisoners at San Quentin Prison, Calif., demonstrated for the fifth time in the last three months to protest the state’s murder of prisoners by COVID-19.
Prison Truth
July 14, 2020Urszula Wislanka reviews the book “Prison Truth: The Story of the San Quentin News” by William J. Drummond. Prisoners’ humanity is not alone their individual transformation or “personal redemption” as a “human interest” story, as shown by the Pelican Bay hunger strikes.
Free Chanthon Bun! Stop ICE transfers!
July 1, 2020Protesters in front of San Quentin prison demanded freedom for Chanthon Bun. Instead of honoring the board’s decision that he was suitable for parole, the California Department of Corrections and rehabilitation intends to transfer him to an ICE detention center.
Outrage in San Francisco
May 31, 2020Since May 29, there have been ongoing demonstrations sparked by the outrage over the police murder of George Floyd. They spread throughout the many San Francisco Bay Area cities including ones not especially known for activism like Walnut Creek.
Prisons = death
April 29, 2020Report on the #ClemencyCoast2Coast virtual town hall held on April 8, in which former prisoners took the floor to speak about the “death camps” that prisons have turned into in the COVID-19 pandemic and to demand early release.
Readers’ views, May-June 2020
Readers’ views on The dialectic in thought and in liberation; labor and pandemic; pandemic and ecology; pandemic and school; women’s liberation; and voices from behind bars.
With COVID-19 prisons become ‘death camps’
April 13, 2020Report on the #ClemencyCoast2Coast virtual town hall held on April 8, in which former prisoners took the floor to speak about the “death camps” that prisons have turned into in the midst COVID-19 pandemic and to demand early release.
Free Lyris Wolfe!
March 17, 2020After almost three years in jail, Lyris Wolfe was finally released. There is video evidence that the offense was an accident.
Oakland meeting: Revolutionary journalism and Prisoner Human Rights Movement
February 11, 2020Sunday Feb. 16th, 6:30PM 6501 Telegraph, Oakland
We’ll explore the contrast between the practice of revolutionary journalism shaped by freedom as human essence and freedom as a “special privilege” in press freedom under censorship.
Discussion led by: Urszula Wislanka, long-time prisoner-activist, writer/editor for The Fire Inside, publication of California Coalition for Women Prisoners, and journalist for News & Letters.
Faruq, Marxist-Humanist writer-participant in the 2011-2013 hunger strikes at Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit.
Rebuilding our lives
November 17, 2019A report on meeting on a re-entry program for women rebuilding their lives after prison.
Sexism, racism and incarceration in Brazil
A report on a forum with Brazilian Black women activists in San Francisco on sexism, racism and incarceration in Brazil.
Karol Modzelewski 1937-2019
June 26, 2019Modzelewski‘s living legacy is that he never wavered, in theory or practice, from the principle of a freedom-filled future rooted in the self-activity of the masses of workers themselves.
Karol Modzelewski, 1937-2019
May 10, 2019We mourn the passing of a great revolutionary, Karol Modzelewski, one of the leaders of Solidarity in Poland when it was a mass organization of workers against the state.
Presidents Day 2019 demonstration in Oakland, Calif.
March 10, 2019With just 72 hours notice, over 50,000 people came together in 48 states in almost 300 events to protest Donald Trump on Presidents Day. While the events were organized by MoveOn.org as a response to Trump’s fake emergency declaration, their call was answered spontaneously by many.
How to celebrate Presidents’ Day
February 21, 2019An inperson report on how people in Oakland, California, creatively protested President Trump on Presidents’ Day.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2019, Part 1
February 3, 2019Readers’ 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.
Prisoners endangered
January 31, 2019Families of prisoners and supporters rallied in front of the California Department of Corrections and rehabilitation’s (CDCr) headquarters against the CDCr-induced violence that many of their loved ones are experiencing.
Former prisoners speak on contradictions in support work
Report of the Dec. 5, 2018, Impact Justice panel of former prisoners addressing contradictions in prisoner support.
Review: Feminist Awakening in China
December 14, 2018An account of #MeToo in China is documented in a new book by Leta Hong Fincher, “Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China.”
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.
Say ‘No!’ to life without parole
September 27, 2018On Aug. 6, 2018, a new chapter in activism around Life Without a Possibility of Parole (LWOP) in California was opened with a rally at the state capitol steps.
Nicaraguans rise up against Ortega
September 20, 2018Nicaraguans 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.
Women demand: ‘End money bail!’
July 23, 2018For Mothers’ Day 2018, Essie Justice Group; Young Women’s Freedom Center; Transgender, Gender-variant, Intersex Justice Project; and other mostly Black women demonstrated in front of the Oakland courthouse demanding an end to money bail. .
The end of ‘Urban Shield’
May 10, 2018First-hand report of a demonstration to end Urban Shield in San Francisco Bay Area, California, on March 27, 2018.
SF walk against rape
May 5, 2018Many survivors of rape, and their supporters including youth from City College of San Francisco, and Transgender people took part in the 13th annual San Francisco A Walk Against Rape.