Report on the increase of large protests and mass unrest in Russia caused by economic conditions, reports of slave labor and the government’s refusal to allow opposition candidates on the ballot for Moscow city council elections.
Vladimir Putin
Freedom has to mean we control our own bodies
May 30, 2019“Woman as Reason” columnist Terry Moon writes about the state of abortion rights in the U.S. in light of the draconian attacks against it and relates women’s struggle to control their bodies to the thingification of women, the poor response of the U.S. left, Karl Marx’s devastating critique of capitalism, and what revolution must come to mean.
Readers’ Views: May-June 2019
May 6, 2019Readers’ 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.
Essay: What is socialism? Socialism, labor, and the Black dimension
May 1, 2019Marxist-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?
Chicago vigil for Syria
March 26, 2019Participant report of a Chicago vigil in solidarity with the Syrian people against Assad.
Editorial: Is nuclear war on the horizon?
March 6, 2019The retreat from even modest efforts to control nuclear weapons has brought humanity closer than ever to annihilation. President Donald Trump’s suspension of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Vladimir Putin’s Russia gins up an already accelerating new arms race.
Women bearing the brunt of reaction lead the resistance
In a year marked by the contradiction between deepening women’s revolt and activism and neo-fascism rising across the globe, women have been fighting back in unprecedented numbers and ways.
Essay: How dead thought failed Syrian revolution’s living history
January 28, 2019The 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.
World in View, November-December 2018: Counter-revolution redefines EU, OPEC
December 11, 2018In OPEC powers’ participation in the counter-revolutionary attacks on the revolutions in Syria and Yemen, and in the anti-immigrant reactionary reshaping of European politics, we see the next stage of bourgeois politics taking shape.
Discussion article: The Left’s response to Syrian genocide
October 7, 2018A U.S. activist in Syria solidarity criticizes the broad Left’s failure to practice revolutionary solidarity and outlines the dangerous political consequences.
Editorial: Stop the coming slaughter in Idlib!
September 17, 2018News & Letters editorial taking up how in Syria, attacks are intensifying upon the three million Syrians, mostly civilians, trapped in Idlib province and how so many in the Left have failed them.
Idlib: Syria’s 21st century concentration camp
September 10, 2018Syria’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.
Stop genocide against Syrians
July 25, 2018Free Syria activists gathered in Chicago on June 8 in a vigil opposing the ongoing genocide against civilians who are ignored by most of the world.
Editorial: Trump-Kim ‘peace’ threatens masses
July 18, 2018Marxist-Humanist analysis of the Trump-Kim summit and G7 summit shows Trump is not charting a path to world peace but rather toward a more openly brutal world order. .
World In View: After Italy, European Right coalesces
May 9, 2018The victory of Far Right and “populist” parties in Italian elections, preceded by that in Austria, and followed by that in Hungary, emphasizes the current threat of neo-fascism which means to take power in the EU.
III. The reality and the myth of contemporary capitalism
May 5, 2018We 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.
World in View: Visage of Hitler rises in Austria
February 2, 2018Far Right racist parties have continued to make inroads into mainstream politics. 40,000 people marched in Austria against the new governing coalition of the anti-immigrant Austrian People’s Party and the neo-Nazi Freedom Party.
Editorial: Alabama Blacks beat Trump-Moore
January 28, 2018Black voters in Alabama, led by Black women, overcame blatant voter suppression—including discriminatory voter ID laws—to flood the polls and block Roy Moore from the Senate seat he expected that God would anoint him to.
Iranian workers, youth reach for new radical beginnings
The recent uprisings in Iran start where the 2009 revolt left off. This analysis focuses on the rebellious working-class youth as well as the interconnections to the Arab Spring, Vladimir Putin’s interference, Donald Trump’s racist agenda, and the philosophic-historic significance of the Bosnian and Syrian struggles against genocide.
World in View: U.S. ‘democracy’ enters crisis mode
November 16, 2017Trump-style neo-fascism has been gestating for decades, as seen in Reagan-era photos of Paul Manafort side by side with Lee Atwater, who in 1981 described the rhetoric of “tax cuts” as “abstract racism.” .
Fascism declares civil war in Charlottesville, Virginia
August 13, 2017Analysis of the violent invasion of Charlottesville, Va., the significance of the broader advance of fascism, and the opposite to it in human forces and reason.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2017, Part 2
July 6, 2017Readers’ Views on Cooperative Form of Labor vs. Abstract Labor; Marx vs. Trump-Putin; Voices From Behind Bars
China’s tentacles
July 2, 2017Report on the Belt and Road Forum held in May in China and its connection with China’s imperialist and anti-labor actions.
IV. International crises
May 17, 2017The people’s revolutionary struggles form the ground for approaching developments including Trump’s attack on a Syrian military base. The human-to-human communication found in places like Kafranbel has been a form of theory in itself. The deadliest weapon of mass destruction in the Syrian conflict has been the lie that there is “no good alternative” to Assad, echoing the bourgeoisie’s “no alternative” to capitalism. The state of Europe today illustrates the central importance of revolutionary solidarity.
Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2017-2018: Philosophy and revolt confront Trump’s drive to fascism
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?
Trump won’t smash Assad’s genocidal regime—support the Syrian Revolution!
April 9, 2017Assad’s chemical attack on civilians reveals the lie the world has been living. Trump’s limited counterstrike was a response to the unprecedented mass opposition to him, not an abandonment of his counter-revolutionary agenda. It is crucial to take the living freedom struggles in Syria and globally as our basis, to oppose the lie that “there is no alternative,” and to clarify what we are for, not just against.
Women WorldWide: March-April 2017
March 21, 2017Movement du Nid’s fake escort service raises awareness of violence against women; Argentinian feminist collective Ni Una Menos organized the first regionwide Latin American march against femicide; Russia’s new law reduces first-time domestic violence assaults to civil offenses; huge outcry of Arab-Israeli women against fundamentalist Muslims’ claims that 19-year-old Arab-Israeli Lian Zaher Nasser deserved to be murdered for celebrating a Christian holiday with men where alcohol was served.
Essay: Marx’s Marxism vs. Trump-Putin’s barbarism
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.
Women take the lead against world retrogression
March 8, 2017An in-depth Marxist-Humanist view of the state of the women’s movement in the U.S. and worldwide as it responds to the rising fascism of U.S. President Trump and other world leaders.
Trump and unrest confront China
January 31, 2017Just weeks after Donald Trump claimed his Electoral College victory, he put the spotlight on U.S.-China relations by taking a call from Taiwan’s President, creating the possibility that the U.S. might abandon the “one China” policy.
Editorial: Freedom and terror define Syria
January 26, 2017Editorial 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.
Inauguration of neo-fascism faces widespread revolt
January 23, 2017The 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.
East Europe elections
December 2, 2016Article about the recent elections in Bulgaria and Moldova and their possible connection with Vladimir Putin’s fascist influence in East Europe.
Where to now for the Middle East?
November 30, 2016A look at the situation in the Middle East in light of Donald Trump’s election that takes up Syria, Yemen and the arming by the U.S. of varying forces–some of whom are fighting each other.
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?
Free Russian radical Ildar Dadin!
In-person report of a vigil in Chicago against the torture of Ildar Dadin and other political prisoners in Russia.
Lead-Editorial: No to Trump’s counter-revolution! No to fascism! Fight for a new human society!
November 26, 2016Trump’s electoral victory by appealing to racism and sexism menaces all freedom movements. It is the index of this system’s crisis and bankruptcy of thought, which needs to be met with a truly revolutionary vision.
No to Trump! No to fascism! Fight for a new human society!
November 12, 2016Trump’s electoral victory by appealing to racism and sexism menaces all freedom movements. It is the index of this system’s crisis and bankruptcy of thought, which needs to be met with a truly revolutionary vision.
Workshop Talks: Why allow Assad to kill the sick?
September 7, 2016Healthcare 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.
Fascism rising from Russia to India, from the U.S. to the Philippines
An expansive look at the rise of fascism worldwide beginning in the U.S. with Donald Trump and the U.S. election, and taking in European fascism, and the situations in India, the Philippines, China, Japan and the opposition by rulers worldwide to those fighting for a free existence and new human relations.
Workshop Talks: Bleak future if no labor solidarity
July 3, 2016Workshop 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.
Britain’s hate-driven referendum a victory for the Far Right
June 26, 2016With Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, the Far Right has been emboldened worldwide. As the economic and social crisis deepens, so does the brutality, while the Right seeks scapegoats for the results of capitalism’s objective laws, which only have force as long as humanity’s struggle to be free is not yet complete. The only solid ground for opposing this latest stage of reactionary retrogression is that of revolution in permanence.
Save Aleppo! May Day Solidarity with Free Syrians
May 18, 2016Participant report of Chicago May Day demonstration in solidarity with the Syrian Revolution.
IV. Counter-revolution and revolution in the Middle East and North Africa
May 13, 2016Part IV of the Draft Perspectives 2016: The renewal of Syrian demonstrations for freedom refuted the state powers’ belief that the idea of revolution can be destroyed by bombs, and highlighted a civilizational crisis and the need for international solidarity.
V. Toward organizational new beginnings
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.
II. The worldwide war against women
May 7, 2016Part II of the Draft Perspectives 2016: The worldwide war against women includes attacks on abortion rights, counter-revolution in Egypt, attacks on women by UN troops. Women celebrated International Women’s day in Turkey and other countries.
World in View: Refugee crisis measures world’s inhumanity
April 29, 2016At the crux of the world refugee crisis is a demand for new human relations. The will to deny any responsibility for centuries of exploitation of Latin America and Africa is at the root of inhuman attitudes toward refugees, and it becomes an opening for the most reactionary politicians.
World in View: United Arab Emirates’ two-tier society
March 18, 2016The United Arab Emirates, a Gulf state ally of the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, is the perfect model of a two-tier society.
Oil: bad both ways
March 12, 2016People’s suffering, no matter the price of oil, demonstrates capitalism’s inherent deep ties with climate change and economic destruction.
Russian imperialism’s genocidal attack on Syria aims to destroy the revolution
March 3, 2016Russian airstrikes create havoc in Syria, embodying a philosophy of unfreedom. Revolutionary unity in Syria isn’t just a tactical issue, but a philosophic question, on the revolution’s ground of freedom and dignity, needing philosophic as well as material solidarity.