Native Americans challenge Line 3

July 1, 2021

The protests over the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota are the latest front in a long struggle of Native Americans. It is also part of the movement to confront climate change in a way that benefits Black, Indigenous and People of Color, women, workers and youth, rather than narrowly aimed to help capital.

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Biking Mexico Diaries: A story of resistance

October 6, 2020

As part of his bike journey throughout Mexico, the author and his partner encounter an amazing local resident and all his tales and knowledge, including the struggle of the people of San Marcos in defense of their water.

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Stop Nestlé water grab

July 1, 2020

Nestlé Corporation is now being allowed to withdraw up to 400 gallons of water per minute from three wells in northern Michigan, including a well near the headwaters of Twin and Chippewa Creeks, Michigan. It is unsustainable.

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Stop Nestlé’s water grab!

June 12, 2020

Nestlé Corporation is now being allowed to withdraw up to 400 gallons of water per minute from three wells in northern Michigan, including a well near the headwaters of Twin and Chippewa Creeks, Michigan. It is unsustainable.

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The fall of Morales; whither Bolivia?

January 22, 2020

Important human forces in Bolivia are strongly opposing the threat of a developing fascism, and at the same time have not shied away from criticizing the contradictions of Evo Morales’s rule.

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Green Detroit!

September 2, 2019

Susan Van Gelder reports on a rally of youth, workers, and native people in Detroit demanding ”Make Detroit the Engine of a Green New Deal.”

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Readers’ Views: May-June 2019

May 6, 2019

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.

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Detroit women rally

March 10, 2019

An in-person report of the Jan, 19, 2019, “sister march”–sponsored by Women’s March Michigan, a separate organization from the National Women’s March–which brought nearly 1,000 women to a rally at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American History.

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Review of “Flint,” a Lifetime TV movie

February 2, 2018

A review of the Lifetime TV movie “Flint,” which brings to life the ongoing four-year battle by four women who became activists against the State of Michigan in the face of serious water pollution in Flint, Michigan.

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Essay: The masses in Latin America face a duality

The essay takes a critical look at the “Latin American Pink Tide” (a decade of progressive governments in South America), its limits and contradictions, and poses the question: Is there a way forward that does not substitute statism for the action and thought of the masses?

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Detroiters insist: water is a human right

September 12, 2016

The book Mapping the Water Crisis: The Dismantling of Black Neighborhoods in Detroit and the film Detroit Minds Dying, expose that the preponderance of water shutoffs in Detroit occur in poor neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color, the lies of Detroit city officials, and the difference determined activists can make.

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Flint water still not safe to drink

September 11, 2016

Citizens of Flint, Michigan, continue to be poisoned by lead in their water and pipes as Governor Rick Snyder requests grossly inadequate funding for needed repairs and refuses to take responsibility for the crisis.

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Lakota protest Dakota Access oil pipeline

September 6, 2016

Citizens of the Standing Rock Lakota Nation and allies are maintaining a Camp of the Sacred Stones along the proposed route of the Dakota Access oil pipeline to defend the water, sacred and burial sites and wildlife habitat despite having their water and medical care removed as well as threats from the state government.

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Upheaval and crisis in Latin America

July 14, 2016

Venezuela is in ever-deepening crisis–including electricity shortages, outrageous inflation, food shortages–because of neoliberal politics. Colombia sees a cease-fire agreement signed between the government and Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia/FARC while agricultural injustice, a major cause of increasing poverty, remains. Peru elects Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a right-wing neoliberal, as their new president, defeating Keiko Fujimori, daughter of jailed former president Alberto Fujimori, who committed many human rights abuses while in office.

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Women WorldWide: July-August 2016

July 2, 2016

Stanford University students protest the light sentence given to the rapist of a woman student; Nepalese girls and the charity WaterAid create a photo exhibit documenting unjust restrictions during menstruation and childbirth; Amina Zioual and her feminist organization, The Voice of the Amazigh Woman, fight against patriarchal customs and sharia law.

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Pricey water in Flint

September 3, 2015

How the high water bills payed by the people of Flint, Michigan, are the result of manipulation from Detroit and the City of Flint.

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Detroit: houses lost, pensions looted

November 22, 2014

etroit—As expected, Judge Stephen Rhodes ruled Nov. 7 that Detroit’s Plan of Adjustment was fair and feasible and allowed the City of Detroit to exit bankruptcy. One retiree termed the jovial press conference with the Mayor, Council President, Emergency Manager and Governor Rick Snyder as “sickening.” Thanks to the media, people believe retirees voted “overwhelmingly” for a 4.5% cut to their pensions. Half the retirees did not vote…

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Readers’ Views, September-October 2014, Part I

From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters

U.S. CRISES: RACISM, POLICE, LABOR STRUGGLES

New York News and Letters Committee prepared a flyer on Eric Garner (see: “NYC Police murder Eric Garner” this issue) headlined: “Wanted For Murder: Daniel Pantaleo.” It denounced the fact that the cops who killed Garner are [=>]

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Tar sands pipeline vs. human future

November 6, 2011

Tar sands pipeline vs. human future

The battle over the Keystone XL pipeline reveals two opposite futures. The push to complete the pipeline, which is to carry tar sands oil 1,980 miles from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico, represents capital’s drive to keep expanding production for production’s sake, no matter how disastrous it may be [=>]

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For the people of Gaza

August 19, 2011

The area of the world where the right to water is perhaps most severely abused is the Gaza Strip. Since 2003, no piped water has existed. Out of Gaza’s 145 wells, only 55 are functional. The World Health Organization reported that 80% of the “drinking” water in Gaza is unsafe for consumption. Since the closure [=>]

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World in View: Whither Bolivia?

April 22, 2011

It took five days of protests, but the social movements, which brought Evo Morales to power in 2006 forced his government to back off of a huge increase in the price of gasoline at the end of 2010. In El Alto, government offices were broken into and striking bus drivers stridently enforced their stop-work action [=>]

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