THEORY / PRACTICE &

“Human power is its own end”—Karl Marx Vol. 61 No. 3 MAY-JUNE 2016 $1 NEWSDraft for Marxist-HumanistLETTERS Perspectives, 2016-2017 WORKSHOPTALKS The need for new beginnings Alive in struggle in thought and in action by Htun Lin The great need for new beginnings is clear In 1989, a teenager named Wuer Kaixi, then a uni- from the disintegrative tendencies that world Why we print the Draft Perspectives in News & Letters versity student, sat in a big chair in the “People’s Hall” capitalism is displaying at this moment— In 1975 News and Letters Committees printed its Draft Perspec- at a hastily arranged meeting, shaking his finger at ecologically, economically, politically. Massive tives Thesis in News & Letters for the first time. The organization has Premier Li Peng, reading a list of demands from stu- revolts continue to reach for new beginnings continued the practice ever since. What follows is the 1975 explanation dents encamped at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Those but remain incomplete and face counter-revo- of why we decided to take such action and why we continue to do so: demands from students included better dorm food and lutionary onslaught on many fronts. With this special issue News and Letters Committees are breaking living conditions. Many of these students were the What has happened in the five years totally new ground for the Marxist movement. Publishing the Draft Per- offspring of factory workers, or sons and daughters of since the Arab Spring opened a new spectives Thesis for our coming national gathering directly in the pages peasant farmers. worldwide page of freedom? It helped of our paper is unprecedented, not only for all other organizations, but They confronted a rigged state-capitalist system, unleash more revolts from West Africa to even for our own. We do it because our age is in such total crisis, facing in which only those close to the Communist Party in Europe to the U.S., yet its plight weighs a choice between absolute terror or absolute freedom, that a revolution- power thrived off the labor of the masses, at the mo- like a nightmare on the minds of hu- ary organization can no longer allow any separation between theory ment that Chairman Deng Xiaoping announced a re- manity. Counter-revolution is exacting and practice, philosophy and revolution, workers and intellectuals, structuring of the economy. International supporters a deadly toll, from Syria’s nearly half a “inside” and “outside.” We ask you to join in the discussion of these here in the U.S. and elsewhere solidarized with the million slaughtered under the direction Perspectives with us. We are not presenting any “pat answers” to the students and the young workers who unfurled the ban- of Bashar al-Assad, to the massacres and question, “Where Do We Go From Here?” We are raising the questions ners of the Beijing Autonomous Workers Federation in mass imprisonments in Egypt over which that demand answers—and we ask you to help us in working them out. Tiananmen Square as they sang “We Shall Overcome” Abdel Fattah el-Sisi presides, to the cha- and the revolutionary workers’ song “The Internation- otic fighting by militias in Libya and Ye- Far from being an accidental crisis caused only by Wall ale.” men. Rape and enslavement of women are rising Street manipulations, that recession marked the resur- Self-activity was also very prominent where I start- as weapons of war from Iraq to South Sudan. gence of capitalism’s structural crisis that burst out in ed working only a few years earlier at Kaiser. We were Counter-revolution is coming not only from within the 1970s. Three decades of vicious economic restruc- fighting against the two-tier wage system proposed by each country but from without, as in the U.S.-aided turing—through unionbusting, automation, globaliza- management. All of us never felt more alive. Saudi bombing in Ye- tion—drove down wages Support for our picket lines against Kaiser came men, in the Russian and Photo by nathanmac87 and benefits, eliminated from workers in many other unions and professions. It Iranian bombing and jobs, and greatly ag- reminded me of labor solidarity in past strikes, like the ground assaults in Syr- gravated inequality, continued on p. 3 ia, and in U.S. betrayals yielding a temporary of the revolts. The me- rebound in the rate of dia too play a role when profit. That is past and VOICES FROM THE INSIDE OUT they paint the fighting the crisis has deepened. as a contest essentially From this soil have between Islamists like sprung both revolt and ISIS and Al Qaeda and reaction. Support for a Criminal prisons the old repressive estab- candidate like Trump, by Robert Taliaferro lishments, or as if the whose whole career has proved his drive to Extortion. Assault. Price gouging. Manipulation. only important battle dominate and exploit, Lies. Theft. Misappropriation of funds. Substandard is U.S.-Russia vs. ISIS. shows the need for the medical care. Xenophobia. Racism. Slavery. Murder. They systematically hide the liberatory con- working class in the These are some of the attributes of one of the larg- Throngs of youth, Black Lives Matter activists and others close down Donald tent of mass struggles world’s richest economy est criminal organizations in the world. It is multi- Trump’s rally at the University of Illinois in Chicago on March 11. to “pave a road of tiered, multinational and generates billions of dollars and the ideas expressed new world solidarity between in revenue each year. in those struggles, un- themselves and all the ‘immigrants’ of the world. The The mainstream media reports sparingly about its dermining the solidarity that ordinary people feel for first step in that direction is the recognition of the fact operations, if at all, and though this enterprise affects their counterparts suffering the brunt of repression. the lives of tens of millions of people, it is only investi- The indispensability of philosophy is shown negatively that many of them have been repeating the reactionary gated when an egregious act is committed by one of its in this attempt to bury ideas of and struggles for free- ideas of their own exploiters.” (See “Racism, workers patrons—or one of its wards. There is so little account- dom under the ruling ideology—just at the time when and freedom ideas,” p. 4, March-April 2016 N&L.) ability that when Federal agencies attempt to regulate the contradictions of these revolutionary uprisings cry White workers in the U.S. live in the same world the industry, a plethora of lawsuits is sure to be filed. out the need for the philosophy of revolution in perma- as Black and Latina/Latino workers, as undocumented nence. immigrant workers, as workers in Chinese and Indian GOVERNMENT CREATED CRIMINAL INDUSTRY sweatshops, as miners in South Africa and Chile, as The most negative aspect of this criminal enter- I. Discontent, revolt and domestic workers in Mexico and Lebanon, and all are prise—and we are talking about the Prison Industrial on the same exploited side of the class divide. Black Complex as it is aligned with the Criminal (in)Justice reaction in the U.S. and Latina workers, who are overwhelmingly opposed System—is that it is government-sponsored and funded Discontent is seething across this country. Its to Trump and his ilk, are the majority of those driv- and designed to be self-perpetuating. counterpart, the fear of revolution, powers the neo-fas- ing struggles on behalf of the working class in the U.S., The human warehouses that we call prisons are cism heard most loudly in the Trump campaign, with from the fight for a $15 minimum wage to organizing the crowning achievement of that enterprise: a game the Republican Party increasingly following Donald of low-wage workers at fast food restaurants and Wal- of monopolized human trafficking in the guise of law. Trump’s vicious xenophobia, racism and sexism. That Marts, to the militant struggles of teachers in cities like The game begins in cities and towns where the phenomenon is not solely dependent on one person, and Chicago and Detroit. disenfranchised (people of color, the poor, etc.) are im- will not disappear if he loses the election. Trump’s and The fact that an avowed socialist, Bernie Sanders, periled by the lack of proper political representation, Ted Cruz’s embrace of torture and genocidal “carpet- who prominently uses the word “revolution,” is winning housing and standards of life. bombing” are not idle rhetoric but a true reflection of so many votes reflects the simmering discontent and It continues as radically conservative attorneys the brutal counter-revolution they wish to unleash on the desire of many for an alternative to capitalism, es- general, district attorneys, judges and politicians often masses both at home and abroad. pecially among the youth. abuse their authority to secure some obtusely partisan While Trump’s message is not far from the Re- political gain. We see so-called “states’ rights” attempt- YOUTH FIGHT CLIMATE CHAOS publican Party establishment’s, his support does not ing to usurp gains regarding federal laws and decisions Not least in stirring discontent is the sense of loom- come mainly from the 1%—more precisely, the ruling which are designed to allow social parity to all U.S. ing disaster from climate chaos, the sense that the fu- class, which however will bow to his supremacy if their continued on p. 11 ture of today’s youth is being sacrificed on the altar of feckless “Stop Trump” effort fails. (A single grassroots dying capitalism. The coal business provides a perfect ON THE INSIDE demonstration that shut down Trump’s Chicago rally specimen of how capitalism operates. (See “One year for displayed more power than all the maneuvers of the 29 lives,” p. 3.) As coal companies declare bankruptcy, p. 4 Nixon’s ‘racist mayhem’ lingers Republican establishment.) Rather, most of his support miners’ pensions are decimated and communities are p. 3 Solidarity: Chicago teachers strike comes from significant portions of the middle class and left with abandoned mines, polluted water and soil, the working class. and the devastation caused by strip mining and moun- p. 5 On ‘Life’ and women’s liberation THE NON-RECOVERY ‘RECOVERY’ taintop removal. Yet coal continues to be mined and p. 11 N. Carolinians fight anti-LGBTQ law Seven years into the “recovery” after the officially burned, coal plants are being built in China and India, declared end of the 2007-09 Great Recession, the work- coal burning has increased in Europe, and the adminis- p. 12 Brazil meltdown opens door to right ing class in this richest land in the world still suffers tration is pushing more exports. its effects—in unemployment, lost houses, lower wages, At the same time, there is no reason to believe that ONLINE: www.newsandletters.org precariousness of jobs and the stress of everyday life. continued on p. 7 Page 2 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org MAY-JUNE 2016 Exploitative reproductive industry WOMENWORLDWIDE by Terry Moon of which are known carcinogens. It is a painful process by Artemis that includes, besides the dosing with drugs not tested Ever since the medical in- for safety when used the way they are in egg donors, WOMAN dustry has gotten its greedy surgery and many invasive ultrasounds. In short, there hooks into assisted human re- is no concern for these women once their eggs have been AS production, it has objectified taken, no follow-up, no industry-sponsored studies on the women—commonly called health effects. REASON “egg donors”—upon whom the entire business depends. As one of these young women told The New New is that these “egg donors” York Times: “The fertility industry is keenly in- launched a federal lawsuit to do away with industry terested in recruiting new and healthy donors, guidelines that mandate that pay (the industry calls but generally gives little regard to what happens it “compensation”) over $5,000 requires “justification,” to us when the eggs are gone.” The whole promise of human reproductive technol- and over $10,000 is “beyond what is appropriate.” In April in New York, N.Y., an intergenerational ogy and surrogacy has been transformed by capitalism coalition of nonprofits and university institutes special- WOMEN REDUCED TO ‘EGG DONORS’ from a supremely human endeavor where science has izing in social justice for women and girls of color held Supposedly this cap is to protect poor women from advanced to the point of making it possible for infertile selling their eggs (a part of their body) just for money women to bear a child, to an endeavor aimed at making the first national Black Girl Movement Conference. Its without thinking of how their lives may be affected. money for capitalists by dehumanizing, cheating and purpose was to ensure that Black girls, whose needs This is a lie, and not only because in our society you endangering those who make it possible. and social contributions are often ignored, are not left can’t separate money from how your life is affected, es- In any sane world innovation of reproductive tech- out of the current focus on racial social justice. Bring- pecially if you don’t have much. The lie is also seen in nology would be valued for the joy it could bring. In ing together artists, activists, educators, policy makers, a statement by the lawyer representing the American our capitalist society, however, this gift has been trans- and Black girl leaders, the conference addressed the Society for Reproductive Medicine and the Society for formed into its opposite. barriers they face in education, economic and political Assisted Reproductive Technology—the groups that set equality, and the social biases they face. Workshops in- the cap: “If the compensation became too high, there cluded the arts, performance and media as both per- is a concern that it might be incentive for donors to Trans theatre a hit! sonal and political expression. lie about their medical history” (The New York Times, New York City—One of the workers at Services & * * * “Egg Donors Want Room to Name Their Price,” Oct. 10, Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE) commented that a In Warsaw, Poland, in April, thousands of femi- 2015). performance by the Transgenerational Theatre Proj- nist activists demonstrated at the parliament building First, if you’re poor, $5,000 to $10,000 is al- ect drew the larg- against plans by the ruling conservative party to com- ready an incentive to donate eggs if you need to est crowd that they pletely ban abortion in order to bring the country’s law pay off loans, pay for your children’s healthcare, had ever had at one into line with Catholic Church law. They also set up or any other emergency that poor people experi- of their events. Ev- a facebook page encouraging women to call, email, or ence in an ever crueler USA. Second, the lawyer ery seat was taken, use social media to contact Prime Minister Beata Szy- revealed his client’s attitude toward the women from the kitchen to dlo about the status of their menstrual periods. They who donate: watch out, they’re a bunch of poten- the stage, and doz- were inspired by Periods for Pence, a feminist group in tial liars. ens of people stood Indiana sending similar messages to Republican Gov. Recently, egg donor women won their lawsuit and to witness the per- Mike Pence, who had just signed especially invasive an- forced the fertility professional associations to drop the formance. The Proj- ti-abortion legislation. These laws require women who paragraphs concerning compensation for egg donations. ect, an idea conceived by three New York City graduate abort or miscarry to pay for a fetus funeral, allow wom- But the truth is that the whole $80 million egg-donor students, was designed to bring together Trans people en to be prosecuted for feticide if they self-abort, and market, only a part of the lucrative—for the capitalists, of different ages and orientations and make theater. forbid abortion of fetuses with severe abnormalities. that is—reproductive technology industry, dehuman- Over seven weeks, the coaches took a collection * * * izes women who, let’s call it what it is, sell their eggs. of amateurs and made them into a seasoned troupe of The student government at the University of Cali- You can see it in the language they use: fertil- professionals. On the night of the performance, the 16 fornia, Berkeley unanimously passed a bill proposing ity clinics want to start their own “in-house egg Trans, Gender Nonconforming or Agender participants that medical abortions become available on campus programs”; there are “egg-donation businesses”; did skits revealing the life of Trans people in the past, through the University Health Services. The bill states the actual woman whose eggs are being “har- harassment on the job and at school, and a humorous that women attending the university may find an abor- vested,” disappears. You read enough language vision of the Trans experience in the future. There was tion to be necessary for them to continue their educa- like this and realize that if they could, the indus- also a spoken piece with dancing about the reality of tion. While the university’s director of communications try would put “egg donors” in tiny cages stacked suicide in the Trans community, and music, dance, po- and media relations claimed there was a network of on top of each other, so they could be carefully etry, etc. At the end of the performance, all the par- abortion providers in the area, the bill stated that stu- watched, given lie detectors, given drugs at pre- ticipants raised a clenched fist in the air and yelled dents face time, financial, and travel restrictions in at- cisely the right time, and have their body parts “TRANS POWER!” —Natalia Spiegel harvested in the most cost-effective way possible. tempting to access this service. But what really shows the inhuman attitude to- wards mostly poor women in their twenties is the com- plete lack of concern for their health. Push Back: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting Amy Tuteur, a feminist and retired obstetrician, when it is really because they have trouble ac- WOMEN’S HEALTH PURPOSELY IGNORED urges us in Push Back: Guilt in the Age of Natural Par- cessing adequate medical treatment, including It’s been over 35 years since the first baby was born enting (Dey Street Books, 2016), to push back against prenatal care. from the then new science of human reproductive tech- the “natural parenting” movement purporting to be This movement urges women to focus on the sup- nology. There has been no database created to track radically feminist. Natural parenting consists of natural posed “empowering experience” of birth, selling increas- the health of women who have donated eggs—a pro- childbirth, attachment parenting and lactivisim. While ingly dangerous experiences such as giving birth at cess that requires multiple high doses of drugs, some some of these practices can be harmless, the movement home, in a pool of water or with dolphins. While women uses pseudoscience to deliberately make mothers who in the Western world compete in what Tuteur calls the can’t perform all of them feel extremely guilty. “performance art” of “stunt births,” women in develop-

What is News & Letters? HEALTHCARE BECAME SELLING PRODUCTS ing countries struggle for lifesaving access to hospitals. From its very beginning, News & Letters was Tuteur writes that it began with laudable, femi- Tuteur compares attachment parenting to what based on a new idea. This is part of what nist goals as an extension of the feminist feminist author Betty Friedan called the the founder of Marxist-Humanism, Raya Du- health movement which educates women “feminine mystique,” i.e., the 1960s notion nayevskaya, said in 1955 about what this about our own health and how to take part that mothers should spend all their time paper was meant to become: in our own medical decisions. It won rights on housekeeping and child rearing. She for women such as the option of staying says it’s more accurate to call it intensive “Thus the page which carries awake during labor. After achieving its mothering, because it is the mother who his story carries other goals, the natural parenting movement must keep the baby with her at all times. workers’ stories moved the goalposts so its advocates could Breastfeeding, even with the help of a and he sees his sell products and services and its followers breast pump, also takes up an unnecessary amount of time. Lactivists have gone past problem is not an could feel superior to other mothers. the benign goal of making breastfeeding an acceptable Promoters of natural childbirth point out individual one. And choice to spreading scorn for women who cannot con- that male doctors demonized midwives and then the next page car- tinue to breastfeed, even when it is painful or does not medicalized childbirth for financial gain. Once, ries an editorial, or produce enough milk. mothers and newborns were more likely to die Two Worlds contains a from unsanitary hospital conditions. But im- RIGHT-WING ORIGINS page of history, or the provements in medicine transformed childbirth Tuteur states, “The backlash against the eman- front page lead article, from the feared leading killer of young women cipation of women has been expressed on the political which, while based on and babies into a historically new situation in right as a rise of religious fundamentalism and on the what interests the worker, which their survival and health are taken for political left as the rise of natural parenting.” The no- takes him a step further granted. tion that birth is safe and painless comes from Grantly than his own thoughts led Some advocates of natural childbirth now employ Dick-Read and Fernand Lamaze, two racist, sexist men him to. So that this logical the fallacy that everything “natural” is healthful. They who wanted women to stay in the home and white wom- organization of his impulses, this form in idealize traditional cultures when birth was “woman- en to produce more children. centered,” ignoring that many obstetricians are now Today’s leading proponent of this notion is Ina Mae which his articles are printed, give the story women. They falsely claim that birth was always safe Gaskin, the wife of a cult leader at a patriarchal com- he tells a new quality.... The proof is how and that lifesaving techniques such as fetal monitoring, mune called The Farm, where the only skill women we ourselves have developed in this period. pain medications and Caesarean section are dangerous. were allowed to learn was midwifery. People first come alive...” (I would add that they also tend to idealize traditional, Push Back is an important book in that it will save “woman-centered” herbal abortions.) lives. It is also important because it challenges us to re- To order a subscription They claim medicalization is why women of search the possible right-wing origins and implications for only $5/yr for six issues, see page 4 color in the U.S. have the highest rate of moth- of practices and ideas that we believe to be unquestion- er and infant mortality in the developed world ably feminist or Leftist. —Adele WORKSHOPTALKS

MAY-JUNE 2016 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org Page 3 Widespread solidarity with Chicago Teachers Union strike Chicago—The Chicago Teachers Union’s one-day car horns and thumbs up. The college jazz band Mayor Rahm Emanuel to the bargaining table. Yet the strike action April 1 was a real step forward. The CTU played numbers like “St. James Infirmary,” in a day’s events—engaging parents, students, Black Lives was principled in making explicit its support for the funeral valediction for education funding. Matter and unions in solidarity—will prove even more Black Lives Matter movement, in making practical At the NEIU rally, speakers ranged from stu- critical to a CTU strike as early as May 16. alliance with the struggles of Black and Latino com- dents defending aid programs to American Federation —Marxist-Humanist participants munities and low-wage workers, and in sharing plat- of Teachers head Randi Weingarten and Seattle city forms with these forces throughout the day. Perhaps council member Kshama Sawant. The discussion was it is a modest step, considering the depth of capitalist limited to whether current politicians should “do their ‘China on Strike’ jobs” or they should be replaced. There was much criti- Editor’s note: Mi Tu and Fa Gang, two Chinese cism of Illinois’ nihilistic Gov. Bruce Rauner, who has worker-activists in the U.S. promoting their book China decimated state funding for education, healthcare— on Strike: Narratives of Workers’ Resistance, spoke on particularly AIDS, mental health, breast and cervical April 7 at a meeting co-sponsored by News and Letters cancer and disability services—and youth homeless- Committees. Here are excerpts from their talk. ness, among much else. Oakland, Cal.—During our visit to the U.S. we want Many teachers converged at Chicago State Univer- to meet other labor activists and exchange ideas. In sity on the South Side to join students, faculty and other China the All-China Federation of Trade Unions is union members for a teach-in organized by Black Youth the only legal trade union. Workers are automatically Project 100. Just as the CTU calls out the Chicago Pub- members even if they don’t know it, but the union is not lic Schools’ cries of poverty as “Broke on Purpose,” state allowed to intervene in strikes. Many migrant workers colleges have received no state dollars since October. don’t have any idea of a union. Yet there are a lot of Gov. Rauner is holding the budget hostage to anti-union strikes! demands. Chicago State, an historically Black univer- Photo by Franklin Dmitryev for News & Letters Employers want young women 18 to 24. After China sity, is the first to run out of cash and plans an early entered the World Trade Organization, the recruitment shutdown. Chicago State students spoke out, as did fac- became less restrictive and there are workers of ages 18 society’s crisis, but the convergence of labor and Black ulty and supporters from the CTU and other unions. to 40. Young workers, under 25 and unmarried, change struggles is key to any hope for revolutionary change. The more radical logic that underlay the day was their jobs often. Senior workers, This dynamic was seen at the forum on March expressed at an afternoon demonstration against youth 30-40 years old with parents 9 that brought together CTU President Karen imprisonment at Henry Suder School. The speakers, and children to support, are the Lewis with spokespeople for teachers (including mainly young Blacks and Latinos, called the entire rac- backbone of factory work. They university staff), students, Black Lives Matter, ist capitalist system into question. prefer overtime. Because they and the disability rights group ADAPT. The idea Black Youth Project 100 and Assata’s Daughters, have families, they don’t change of labor and Black unity was central to the orga- which have had an impact in fighting police brutality jobs as often. They accept their nizing discussions for April 1. and forcing the removal of Police Commissioner Garry social status and identity as It became a full day of activities for many of us. McCarthy and State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, made workers. Teachers and students who had begun picketing outside the connection between cuts in funding for education Before 2010 typical work- local schools at 7:00 AM then marched to a McDonald’s and the “school to prison pipeline” that has become U.S. ers in the Pearl River Delta at Foster and Kedzie to support mostly Latino workers capitalist society’s default method of dealing with its considered a strike a break in in a Fight for $15 rally. They were joined by members of intractable crisis. their work because there were the Amalgamated Transit Union and Japanese workers At 4:00 PM, many thousands converged on Chica- so many job opportunities. Strikes were spontaneous. in Chicago for the Labor Notes convention. go’s downtown for a massive rally that spilled onto ev- The capitalists mostly gave in easily, offering a wage Following a spirited rally, everyone headed to ery street adjoining the Thompson Center. We marched increase, and seldom suppressed such strikes severely. the Northeastern Illinois (NEIU) campus. Thou- in the rain for miles, ending in muddy Grant Park, rem- Our book documents many of those strikes. iniscent of the nine-day CTU strike of 2012 that forced sands of teachers and students marched through WAGE FREEZES the neighborhood, gaining lots of supportive Following the 2008 financial crisis a lot of factories One year for 29 lives closed. The bosses did not raise wages because there Detroit—In one of the most blatant miscarriages was more competition for fewer jobs. The workers were of justice, Don Blankenship—the Chief Executive of upset because the bosses made a lot of money but did Massey Coal when Massey’s Big Branch Mine in West not increase wages. China on Strike documents several WORKSHOPTALKS Virginia exploded, killing 29 miners—received only of those 2010-2011 strikes. continued from p. 1 one year in prison. The evidence against him was over- In the Pearl River Delta, where the legal minimum caravans of supplies that workers from as far away as whelming, indicating his guilt in the deaths and clearly wage is 2,000 yuan ($300) a month, many strikes since Detroit organized to support the 1949-50 Coal Miners’ revealing that Blankenship had fostered a reign of ter- 2013 were for social insurance and compensation if a General Strike in West Virginia against introduction of ror in his coal mines in West Virginia. He used the color factory closed down or went bankrupt. To demand so- the continuous miner. black as a sign of intimidation, using a black car, dress- cial insurance, the workers have to know more about Our fight against two-tier wages in my shop was ing in black clothing and travelling in a black helicopter labor laws. These strikes tend to last longer, with more a key moment in my life. Self-activity was the essen- to intimidate the miners and their families conflicts between the workers and the government. tial philosophic concrete. Taking matters into our own Blankenship kept two sets of books to list the mine A garment factory founded in 1998 had 3,000 work- hands (and feet), we relied on no one else to “fight for safety infractions in inspectors’ reports. One set of ers. By 2014 there were only 900 workers left, most with us.” We felt we were taking our lives back through our books, for the company’s use, had the actual figures on 15-plus years of experience. The first strike was in De- own concrete struggle, our direct confrontation, with safety hazards; the other set was scrubbed for federal cember 2014 for retirement and housing funds. The the negative. It was an idea whose time had come. coal mine inspectors to look at. All of this and more boss did not pay into social insurance for the workers. But then our picket lines confronting management was revealed in the testimony. The defense attorneys, New worker-activists arose to organize the strike. were superseded by a top-down Labor-Management however, were able to limit Blackenship’s penalty to They went to lawyers, asking about labor law. Ac- Partnership of management and top executives at simply a minor safety violation, which reduced the pun- tivists educated other workers about how the boss was SEIU, for us ushering in the era of restructuring. ishment that Blankenship could have been exposed to. breaking the law and what their rights were. They That idea of self-activity in struggle refuses to Survivors of the miners who died in the coal explo- wrote up their demands, but management ignored die. Chinese workers continue to strike all across sion reacted in outrage. The families of the dead min- them, which is when the workers went on strike. the country. (See “China on strike” on this page.) ers—and all those who care about justice—will remem- On Dec. 17 the boss put up a notice that he Hong Kong youth continue the flames of Tianan- ber this miscarriage of justice. would negotiate the next morning. But that men Square with the Umbrella Revolution. —Andy Phillips morning there were more policemen than work- Here in the U.S., youth have taken this election ers at the factory. More than 30 were arrested, season as the opportunity to continue the grassroots and the rest went back to work. But they slowed political revolution begun by the Occupy Movement Boycott Driscoll’s! down production. The boss agreed to give the and Black Lives Matter. The immigrant workers’ rights Chicago—Supporters of striking farmworkers in workers going back to work a bonus of 100 yuan movement and the Fight for $15 minimum wage move- San Quintín, Baja California, Mexico, gathered at Pete’s and to start paying into their housing fund in six ment are good examples. SEIU wants to take credit Market on Cermak Road on April 5 to protest Driscoll’s years. Only 100 workers continued the slowdown for Fight for $15, as if they’re “fighting for us.” But the berries and to urge shoppers to boycott Driscoll’s, the and wanted to continue negotiating. truth is that workers’ self-activity achieved those gains. brand under which produce from San Quintín is mar- In June 2015 there was a second strike after the Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary under Bill keted (see “Latina worker speaks,” Nov.-Dec. 2015 boss fired a woman worker. The police arrested her be- Clinton, calls Bernie Sanders “the most qualified can- N&L). We first went into the store to request that cause she did not accept being fired and wanted to go didate to create the political system we should have, Driscoll’s strawberries be removed from the shelves. back to work. She fell as they were arresting her and because he’s leading a political movement for change.” We then walked an informational picket line in was accused of attacking the police. In July 2015 police- Granted, there is something which cannot be ignored front of the store, getting a favorable reception from men came to the factory and arrested labor activists when 85% of the youth and new voters are flocking to a shoppers, many of whom were Latin@. Despite keep- who took pictures and spoke for the workers. campaign that they see as a grassroots political revolu- ing the store entrance clear, by the time we ended our tion to expand democracy. picket line no fewer than 12 Chicago police had arrived POLICE IN FACTORY Having said that, I would like to ask Reich, to secure the premises. One cop at the end even claimed The boss offered a very small amount of “comfort” author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not we were illegally using public space. money. The police told the workers that they could sign the Few: At this juncture, is a “political revolu- Participants included several people old enough to the contract or be arrested at home. Even after signing tion” to “save” capitalism what we need? Is a have participated in the campaign of the late 1960s to the contract, some workers sued out of anger. After the focus on economic distribution and forms of re- boycott table grapes that aided farmworkers in gaining strike the factory provided uniforms for seven police de- muneration under current bounds adequate or union contracts, including veteran organizers Al Rojas partments as a “thank you” for their help. appropriate for our times? Has capitalism ever and Marcos Munoz, who recalled the historic march In late December, police started patrolling the fac- been, will it ever be, “for the many, not the few”? from Delano, Cal., that began with 100 marchers and tory floor. Workers gathered at the police station asking I would like my questions for Reich to challenge the arrived in Sacramento with 10,000. But most were for the woman worker to be released, but after two days youth as well. Is a political revolution enough? What youth for whom the hard-fought victories of farmwork- of continuous protest they did not succeed. The woman does a revolution in philosophy mean to you? Are you ers, and even the participation of the late United Farm was detained for four months. Other workers were de- ready for a new continent of thought? What is the ob- Workers union president Cesar Chavez in a rally at this tained for about a month. jectivity of alienation in our daily lives? very location, were only history, but who were enthu- Workers learn from their own experiences. Going Only we can help ourselves overcome that self- siastically supporting the striking San Quintín farm- from one factory that had a strike to another factory, alienation—no one else can. workers today. —Grape boycott veteran they keep adding to their experience. Page 4 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org MAY-JUNE 2016 FROM THE WRITINGS OF Nixon’s ‘racist mayhem’ lingers today Nixon-Agnew-Mitchell—those polluted minds and foul Some of the student Left better ask themselves RAYADUNAYEVSKAYA mouths—have made “manhood” synonymous with war- why it is that, as against the mass demonstrations for mongering, and recorders of facts synonymous with “an the Kent martyrs when no less than 426 campuses were Editor’s note: Our era, when racist police gun effete corps of impudent snobs”? shut down at least in part, only 40 Black students, and down Black men, women and youth, continues a his- Where do we go from here? Is it possible to con- no whites, gathered at the University of Mississippi tory as old as the U.S. The piece excerpted here, Raya clude anything else from these gory events than the fact campus at Oxford to protest the shootings at a Jackson Dunayevskaya’s Lead-Editorial from the June-July that the President and his alter ego have, from the mo- college. It behooves the white students to contrast the 1970 N&L, originally titled “Nixon’s Wars at Home ment they got into the White House, been preparing for fact that Black students at Tuscaloosa sat down spon- and Abroad,” shows some of that history and how rac- the undeclared war abroad to be extended into a civil taneously to show their solidarity with the Kent stu- ism can be spurred on by this country’s leaders and war at home? dents. But, thus far, few white colleges have sprung up would-be leaders, out for power. It takes up how Left to demonstrate their solidarity with the Blacks. movements respond to racism and the attempt to an- LABOR, RECESSION AND WAR swer the question by funneling liberatory impulses into Now that Nixon has shown that his wars abroad STUDENTS MUST LISTEN TO WORKERS the dead end of electoral politics. The relationships be- are but extensions of his wars at home, it becomes im- Along with the revolutionary Black dimension, tween the Black freedom movement, anti-war youth, perative for the New Left, the anti-war movement, the what is needed in the expansion and intensification workers, and philosophy of revolution remain as criti- Black liberation movement and Women’s Liberation of the anti-war movement, is for the youth to begin to cal today as when this article was written. Movement to take a second look at themselves, at their listen, seriously to listen, to the questions that work- theoretical as well as practical activities, for there are ers raise. Thus, some of the workers who did not march On May 14 [1970], some 75 white racist cops and danger signals here too. Not only is there an attempt to said that they were definitely opposed to Nixon’s war, highway patrolmen in Jackson, Miss., facing a group divert the anti-war movement into the political field— wanted all GIs out of Southeast Asia, but did not wish of Black male youth clustered before a Black women’s to vote for “doves”—there are also elitist opponents of to march under a Vietcong flag. They were for self- dormitory at Jackson State College, “heard sniper fire” labor who play up the fact that some construction work- determination of the Vietnamese people, but did and began shooting up the dormitory. When the bul- ers had beat up anti-war youth demonstrators. not want to make it appear that they preferred lets couldn’t penetrate There is no doubt Russia or China to the U.S.A. In a word, they were the walls, they turned that the building work- asking for an independent stand, both against their guns against the ers’ racist union, along the war and for labor’s rights here, against both unarmed males on the with some longshoremen private capitalism and state-capitalism, which street. Phillip L. Gibbs, under Mafia control, are calls itself Communist. 21, a student at the outright reactionaries The pragmatism that permeates the “unideologi- school, and James Earl who must be fought. But cal” Left, who consider any unity of anti-war forces to Green, 17, a high school to portray these as be above an underlying philosophy of liberation, cannot student, lay dead. Fif- characteristic of the for long shut out concern for the international ramifi- teen others were injured. labor movement at cations of the latest stage in the Indochinese war as The racist mayhem this time when strikes well as, and, above all, for the objective revolutionary is not unconnected with on the part of white forces and their search for a totally new way of life. Agnewsticks such as “the and Black workers— Marxist-Humanists know that the class enemy is spawning ground and from the postal work- at home. But they also know that, just as no country can sanctuary of the move- ers to the teamsters be seen outside of a world context, so none can be sepa- ment is the American and from the teachers rated from the underlying philosophy which will give University.” So great a High school students marching through downtown Jackson, Miss., on May to the welfare work- the spontaneous actions of the masses their direction. favorite in the South has 15, 1970, to protest shootings at Jackson State College. This photograph was ers—are at their most In a word, the freedom struggles cannot be separated Vice President Agnew be- taken for Jackson-based Kudzu, edited by David Doggett. militant, is to fly in from the philosophy of freedom, since only as they come that he was chosen the face of the facts, as are united can the creation of the new go hand to be the featured speaker at a Confederate memorial. well as to fall into the old divisive capitalist trap in hand with the overthrow of the old instead of, Kent, Ohio [May 4]; Augusta, Ga. [May 11]; Jack- of separating worker from worker, and workers once again, having the revolution go sour the day son, Miss.—12 dead and some 28 injured—all this has from intellectuals. after the conquest of power. happened in the first two weeks of May, long before Of course, there are some workers who oppose the To fill the theoretic void in the anti-war movement the hot summer has started, long before the student anti-war demonstrators. So does part of the student has become a matter of life and death as we fight the youth who will graduate will first find no jobs waiting body. Of course, there are some sectors, like the con- repressive forces unleashed by the Nixon Administra- for them, and long before the labor contracts will expire struction workers, who are reactionaries. So are the tion against not only its open opponents, but against this year of recession. “Young Americans for Freedom.” Neither fact can the masses who, in order to live at all, must fight reces- Whether it is warmongering National Guardsmen possibly take away from the full truth, and that sion and racism. or racist cops who shoot, bayonet and beat and burn is that a whole generation now opposes the im- youth to death, the point is: who is inciting these “law perialist war games, the capitalist planned reces- and order” men to perpetrate these lawless and mur- sions and the racist fabric of American life. American Civilization on Trial: derous acts? Who inspired the New York police to look More characteristic of the present stage of intensi- Black Masses as Vanguard the other way as some racist construction workers at- fied strike and anti-war struggles are the two Los Ange- by Raya Dunayevskaya tacked the anti-war youth? les Teamster locals who distributed leaflets in opposi- Who, if not the Agnew-Nixon Administra- tion to the construction workers and, at the same time, Also available in Spanish: tion, is manipulating an alleged “silent majority” asked the students to help them in their wildcatting Contradicciones to lash out against the youth “with no more re- against both management and the labor bureaucracy. gret than we should feel over discarding rotten At the same time, it is clear that the struggle against históricas en la apples from a barrel”? If such Agnewsticks are con- the war must deepen to the point where it concerns it- civilización de los sidered vice-presidential prerogative, his “freedom” no self with the struggle against the whole system which Estados Unidos: less, then why shouldn’t the armed Establishment feel produces war—capitalism. Las masas they have the license to act against radical youth that This stage of heightened labor struggles comes at Agnew dares call “the criminal Left that belongs, not in a time when even the administration cannot hide ei- afroamericanas a dormitory, but in a penitentiary”? ther the fact of rising unemployment, or that the in- como vanguardia And what is the purpose other than fascis- flation continues despite the planned unemployment. tic brainwashing for the studied and persistent The economic crisis in the country is inseparable from Only $12, includes post- attacks on the mass media, especially the TV, as the growing Black unrest. These two movements must age. To order, see address they photograph these super-patriots and racists in be joined with, rather than kept poles apart from, the below. their nefarious acts against dissenters? Who other than anti-war struggles. SELECTED PUBLICATIONS FROM NEWS & LETTERS Newspaper and Archives por Raya Dunayevskaya See our website or contact us for fuller listing www.newsandletters.org q Guides to Collection and Supplement to the Raya en Español [email protected] Dunayevskaya Collection Full description of 17,000-page microfilm collection $4.50 q Marxismo y libertad $10.00 by Charles Denby q News & Letters subscription q Filosofía y revolución $10.00 Unique combination of worker and intellectual published 6 times q Indignant Heart: A Black Worker's Journal a year. (Request information about gift subscriptions.) $5/year q Rosa Luxemburgo, la liberación femenina, y la Includes Afterword by Raya Dunayevskaya $14.95 filosofía marxista de revolución $10.00 Mail orders to: q Una trilogía de revolucion todo en un solo libro: Pamphlets published by News & Letters, 228 South Wabash, Suite 230, Chicago, IL 60604, Marxismo y libertad; Filosofía y revolución; y Phone (312) 431-8242 Rosa Luxemburgo la liberación femenina y la News and Letters Committees filosofía marxista de la revolución $25.00 q The Coal Miners' General Strike of 1949-50 and the Enclosed find $______for the literature checked. q La liberación femenina y la dialéctica de la Birth of Marxist-Humanism In the U.S. Please add $2 postage for each pamphlet, $4 postage for books. by Andy Phillips and Raya Dunayevskaya revolución: Tratando de alcanzar el futuro $10.00 $8.00 Illinois residents add 7% sales tax. q El poder de la negatividad: Escritos sobre la q Dialectics of Black Freedom Struggles: Race, Name ______dialéctica en Hegel y Marx $10.00 Philosophy & the Needed American Revolution by John Alan $10.00 Address ______q Contradicciones históricas en la civilización de los City______State_____ Zip______Estados Unidos: Las masas afroamericanas como q Pelican Bay Hunger Strikers:

vanguardia $8.00 'We want to be validated as human' $5.00 Email Address______(05-06/16) MAY-JUNE 2016 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org Page 5 End solitary confinement at Rikers Letter from Mexico New York—Having spent time at Rikers Island in the prison and with those outside it. This practice vio- solitary confinement, I cannot forget that it is a univer- lates international laws and standards, including the On ‘Life’ and feminism by J.G.F. Hector sal problem. Although some nations have abolished it, rights enshrined in the Convention against Torture Amnesty International notes that the U.S. uses solitary and the International Covenant on Civil and Political I loved “Revolutionary Feminism and Hegel’s No- confinement to an extent unequalled in any other dem- Rights to be free from torture and other cruel, inhuman tion of Life,” by Olga Domanski (March-April N&L)! To- ocratic country. Over 80,000 people on any one day are and degrading treatment or punishment. day, many have fallen into what Domanski—following held in isolation, with 25,000 held long-term in super- At Rikers Island the solitary cell is totally isolated Raya Dunayevskaya—calls private enclave, which is maximum security prisons. That’s 22-24 hours a day from other prisoners and even guards. The prisoner in the “attempt to escape from ‘Absolute Method,’” by tak- confined to a cell for months, years or decades in condi- solitary is at the complete mercy of the guards to turn ing “shortcuts” to revolution or by remaining in “fixed tions of severe social and physical isolation. on and off the cell light, to decide when to escort the particulars” such as “lesbian separatism” or “women- Individuals in solitary confinement are deprived prisoner to the showers, when or if to bring food and only spaces,” criticized here by Domanski. of all but the most minimal human contact, both within medication. On more than one occasion I was deprived Yes, the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) is of medication by the official indifference of the guards autonomous. Men can’t tell women what to do. Women and medical personnel at Rikers. are at the front of the struggle for their liberation. This Plutonium and death You are not provided with newspapers or doesn’t mean, however, that feminism can escape from The fate of earth’s biota (we humans included) is reading material, there is no sunlight in the cell, “Absolute Method,” for it is the only methodology to inextricably linked to that of plutonium, element 94 on the only window is small and high, virtually im- help us reach a new society without falling short or get- the periodic table. Before 1941 it wasn’t there and the possible to see out of. The cell is small, and there ting stuck in incomplete revolutions. amount of plutonium on earth was close to none at all. is no communication from one to another. On Sept. 10, 1942, when a trace quantity was iso- How does one end up in solitary? Well, in my case, I ORGANIZATION OF THOUGHT lated, Glenn Seaborg marked the apocalyptic event was 60 years old, not massive or husky, relatively short It is Dunayevskaya who left us a methodology for with these words: “These memorable days will go down and not in my physical prime. In short, I was not a dan- revolution based on the Marxian-Hegelian dialectic. in scientific history to mark the first sight of a synthetic ger to other prisoners or staff. In return, other prison- It is also a woman, Olga Domanski, who points to the element, and the first isolation of a weighable amount ers posed no danger to me. An arbitrary decision by a need of going back to the Absolutes in order to push of an artificially produced isotope of any element.” judge when I was sentenced landed me in solitary. I forward the WLM. She puts it in this awesome manner: The Cold War was about plutonium. The U.S. and had no way to appeal the decision. My only “offense” “If we do not take responsibility for continuing that the USSR were in a race to keep each from bombing was that I am a Transgender woman, a “crime” in the revolutionary dialectic for today, if we think ‘philosophy’ the other with a plutonium explosion. Plutopia: Nucle- eyes of the DOC apparently. is not our job but for someone else, if we don’t see there ar Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and What does solitary do? When you are cut off from is no ‘organizational answer’ for Women’s Liberation or American Plutonium Disasters, by Kate Brown, is the all human contact, you begin to turn within. You be- any other question that doesn’t begin with a profound story of the lengths two governments went to to pro- gin to go through a process called “mental decompen- organization—or a re-organization—of our thought, we duce huge quantities of this deadly material and its un- sation.” You gradually lose your faculties to think and will not yet have escaped the ‘private enclave’ that pre- speakable filth from which nature had protected us for reason. You sleep 18-20 hours a day, only waking for vents us from finding the way out of the deadly retro- about two billion years. Richland, Wash., and Ozersk, food and meds. Your intellectual talents wither. And gression that threatens to destroy us today.” Chelyabinsk, evolved as mirror images. Spills, fires and gradually you go mad. The percentage of prisoners in Domanski concretizes this need to not “es- uncontrollable radiation spread ghastly pollution to the isolation who are mentally ill is astronomical. It takes cape from the Absolute Method” by recreating countryside around both nuclear company towns. a truly strong woman or man not to break. And that is dialectics—more precisely, the section on “Life” Ozersk poured its corruption into the Techa Riv- what the system is designed to do: to break prisoners. from Hegel’s Science of Logic—in the history of er, while Richland emitted radioactive gases into the But it is failing. the WLM just as Marx recreated the Hegelian skies above Walla Walla and soluble isotopes into the In California in the last five years, thousands of dialectic to comprehend capitalist society and its Columbia River and its feeders. Radioactive flakes that prisoners have waged massive hunger strikes demand- uprooting by the workers. spread across North America were not cleaned up, be- ing the abolition of solitary confinement. (See “Cali- Domanski follows the three basic categories from cause it would have slowed the production of plutonium fornia prisoners battle barbaric U.S. ‘justice’ system,” Hegel to understand the dialectical movement: Indi- to make those useless bombs. Nov.-Dec. 2015 N&L.) They have managed to put into vidual, Particular, Universal, reflected in the three mo- Environmental justice was an even lesser con- place a permanent end of hostilities between different ments of the section on “Life”: 1) The Living Individual; cern than environmental health. Dire poverty dogged groups, forging unity out of common oppression. 2) The Life Process; and 3) Kind. These three moments Black families in Pasco, Wash., in the mid-1940s as They have built a strong base of support are not separated from one another (like different spe- they struggled with hard work, low wages, prejudice among family members and others. The prison- cies of a same “genus”), but connected through media- and ghetto life. There were no Blacks with high enough ers in the most notorious of these places, Pelican tion, negation and negation of that negation. rank to live in Richland. Bay, have led the way in fighting to end segrega- Domanski finds these same three moments in the The situation in the suburbs and environs of tion once and for all. history of the WLM itself: 1) When women were drawn Ozersk was even more stark, as slaves from the While any positive changes to the rules governing into the factories “to support the war effort” during gulag were moved in to build homes, dig ditches solitary confinement at Rikers are welcomed, they will World War II; 2) When they refused to be pushed back and construct the Rube Goldberg contraptions not be enough. Malcolm X asked: Does the slave thank out again when the war was over; and 3) The point at that passed as production lines and laboratories. the master for pulling the knife in his back halfway But even before the Cold War, plutonium produc- out? No, we want it all the way out. At Rikers and every which women refused to any longer consider the con- tion in Oak Ridge, Tenn., precluded concerns about prison, that means the complete and total abolition of tradictions of life in a male-dominated society as only environmental health. Denise Kiernan tells the story solitary confinement as cruel and unusual punishment. a private matter. In other words, when Women’s Lib- in The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the I hope we can bring an end to the Guantanamo in New eration moved from an Idea whose time had come to a Women Who Helped Win World War II. Plutonium was York City that we call Rikers Island. —Natalia Movement and tens of thousands of women marched first priority as the U.S. prepared for what turned out down Fifth Avenue in New York in 1970 to announce to be the Hiroshima/Nagasaki drops. Anti-Black preju- the birth of a new WLM for our age. dice worked against some of those “girls” in addition to In the first stage, the “Living Individual” (histori- the other female disadvantages: lower pay and slower Luis V. Rodriguez cally speaking, women on the eve of WWII) gains con- (if any) advancement. sciousness of herself as an individual, but this is just Secrecy became the watchword of the atomic proj- an abstract consciousness, for it has as its opposite an ect in both the USSR and the U.S. Kate Brown explores external being: the “outside” world. However, this op- what it costs in resources and manpower to maintain posite is not just external but constitutes the essence of secrecy. Plutonium production has remained a tight- the subjective individual. It is its negation, and there- lipped endeavor. Corporations using fission to produce fore, the mediation (Particular) is that through which electricity are privileged to keep their activities secret the individual can return to itself. The struggle, or un- from citizens who are physically, deeply, generationally solved contradiction between this new consciousness of affected by nuclear reactors. one’s individuality and the objective (oppressive) world, The USSR did not feel compelled to warn anyone constitutes the second stage in Hegel’s chapter about downwind in 1957 when an underground storage fa- Life: “The Life Process” (historically, the contradiction cility in Chelyabinsk blew foul matter into the atmo- between the new consciousness gained by women dur- sphere and the Techa’s marshes. The descendants of ing WWII and the objective opposition against them). Tatars who live near the river are still reaping what Finally, it is through this struggle with objectivity that whirlwind sowed. And it was not the scientists and that the subject finds its essence, and “conciliates” with engineers at Chernobyl who exposed that disaster, but it, reaching a new phase of development: “Kind.” His- the Swedes who blew the whistle. torically speaking, this would be when women refused Most people still haven’t heard of the 1961 ac- to go back to being housewives: “The personal was cident (or murder/suicide) that William McKeown Luis Valenzuela Rodriguez died on Thursday, April political.” There wasn’t any more separation between recounts in Idaho Falls: The Untold Story of 14, 2016, at 7:28 PM surrounded by his family and private and public, subjectivity and objectivity, but the America’s First Nuclear Accident. Three people friends. He was 60 years old. Luis was Apache-Mestizo. consciousness of both being one and the same essence. suffered quick but grotesque deaths at what is He was a warrior. Convicted of killing two California now the Idaho National Laboratory. Highway Patrol officers, Luis fought with determina- IMPULSE TO KEEP DEVELOPING Kristen Iversen, in Full Body Burden: Growing Up tion to prove his innocence for 37 years. However, this consciousness is not enough. Ab- in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats, describes an area The sad and tragic life of imprisonment befell him solute Method doesn’t stop when one seems to have of Colorado that she knows to be beaming radiation every day while inside prison. They did it all to him reached a new point. Rather, it has contradiction as its turned into the “Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge.” Tourists over a span of long years until his health broke down own essence and, therefore, also the most intimate im- are invited to enjoy the beautiful flowers, birds, and and he couldn’t walk anymore. They wouldn’t give him pulse to keep on developing. reptiles. Fish and Wildlife officials did not promote the a walking cane nor a wheelchair. “Kind,” the last part of the “Life” section, is still opening of the new park, yet insist there is no danger. They had him at Pelican Bay State Prison since not the Absolute Idea—not even the Idea of Cognition, So humans have been able to increase the pluto- it first opened. He was under constant threat by the a step previous to the Absolute Idea in Hegel’s Logic. nium in our environment from near zero to thousands guards who sought revenge and retaliation against him Domanski is demanding that the WLM—and, indeed, of tons of high-level waste. The fissionable isotope every day. He was moved to Mule Creek State Prison every liberation movement—not abandon Absolute plutonium-239 is the most abundant form by far. when a plot by guards at Pelican Bay wanting him elim- Method, thinking that one has reached its climax, but Rosalie Bertell in 1985 published a book with the inated because of a pending lawsuit and FBI investiga- to develop it to its fullest expression. That’s why femi- ironic title No Immediate Danger: Prognosis for a Ra- tion was discovered. nism, Indigenous movements, workers’ movements, dioactive Earth. It’s possible that we have arrived there. Orale Luis R, Rest In Power. etc., need the Absolute Method as the way to create a —January —Bato totally new society, based on human foundations. Page 6 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org MAY-JUNE 2016

forced on myself and my fellow prison- WOMEN AS REASON ers on a continuous basis. Oppression “Women Battle War, Terrorism and in the maximum manner possible is the Anti-Abortion Fanatics” by Terry Moon norm in prison life. It is sickening how (March-April N&L) gives a good pan- prisoner unity is virtually nonexistent. orama of women’s struggles for freedom. It is a common theme for prisoner to op- The struggle of domestic workers shows press prisoner by degrading, slandering, us how even in jobs with “seemingly fighting and bickering with each other. impossible organizing opportunities,” READERS’VIEWS Part of the Bisexual Health Awareness redbannermagazine.com) will continue What is needed is a radical transforma- women are fighting back. The alliance Month observance in March was a re- a shadowy existence as a very gradually tion in the way prisoners think and per- between Trust Black Women Partner- port, Health Disparities Among Bi- expanding archive of our 63 issues. We ceive things. Prisoner ship and Black Lives Matter shows the “ sexual People ” revealing their health- have every intention of doing whatever Graterford, Penn. struggle against rac- , care needs are not being met. Incorrect further service we can to the cause of *** ism and the struggle for socialist revolution in thought and deed. I am a Mexican American from Su- women’s reproductive assumptions about Bisexual people by Like the man said, our last word will al- sanville, Calif. I read about N&L in a justice are merging in straight and Queer people, including ways and ever be: the emancipation of prisoner resource directory and would reality. At the Inter- those in the healthcare fields, are ad- the working class! Red Banner like a sub- national Women’s Day dressed in the report, which advocates Dublin, Ireland scription. I event in Mexico City for more education of healthcare provid- ers. The Bisexual Resource Center ran a am also a pub- women workers were lished writer. at the front, along with month-long campaign aimed at promot- ing programs, policies and services that • Please let me Indigenous women and know if you mothers of disappeared people, as well can prevent or decrease the social, eco- REMEMBERING OLGA DOMANSKI nomic and health issues among Bisexual I regret learning about the death accept written as some youth and students. All these submissions dimensions are united as women. youth. Kaitlin of Olga Domanski. I corresponded with Olga and was very much educated by as well. Activist Chicago her responsive letters. Olga as a Marx- Prisoner Mexico City ist-Humanist revolutionary intellec- Coalinga, Calif. *** tual remained very close to the masses *** I would have spent more time on the • throughout her life and made enormous Editor’s note: Yes, one of our princi- self-movement of the struggles from be- TRANS LIBERATION AND FEMINISM contributions toward developing their ples is presenting the voices of prisoners, low than on critizicing the laws regard- We are having an open dialogue on movements towards full and complete workers, oppressed people, participants ing abortion, which consumes a major “Transgender liberation and feminism” theoretical-practical expression. The in freedom struggles—all in the context part of the first half of “Women Battle for women only. For me, the value of whole of life is also a preparation for of the articulation of a philosophy of War, Terrorism and Anti-Abortion Fa- such a group is that through an honest death. Olga prepared as a Marxist- revolution. While we cannot print every- natics.” Yes, the positive arises from and open dialogue, Trans women will Humanist without exception. thing we receive, please send us your re- the negative, but can’t this negative be come to recognize their oneness with Prisoner ports. You don’t have to be a published the critique found in the actions of the the feminist movement and feminists Terre Haute, Ind. writer to write for N&L. movements themselves, and not just an will come to appreciate that the move- *** *** “external” critique of reactionary laws? ment for Transgender liberation, like Olga Domanski was a significant It’s not only the sort of information Reader the movement for women’s liberation, is influence on my life and social activ- provided by N&L I find useful, but the Mexico ultimately about creating a new society ism. Of course Raya Dunayevskaya was revolutionary perspective that it actu- *** free of transphobia, sexism and patri- a focus for alizes. In comparison to, say, the Revo- Terry Moon’s lead in the last issue archy. This dialogue is particularly im- everyone’s lutionary Communist Party (USA), I shows she is a hell of a writer, and she portant at a time when certain “radical attention, think that the Marxism represented by kicked butts in that lead even more. I’ve feminists” are promoting an anti-trans- with strik- N&L is far more authentic to the basic shared the article with some guys in gender campaign, in some cases in alli- ingly origi- philosophical precepts of Karl Marx, as this prison to mixed reviews per facial ance with reactionary lawmakers. nal thought, it concretely seeks to actualize a truly expressions. I think she hit a nerve that Natalia Spiegel but Olga was liberating praxis. I respect the fact that was close to home in some of them. New York City also a mean- you publish in your paper the thoughts Robert Taliaferro ingful revo- of prisoners. I myself would like to con- Wisconsin lutionary of tribute towards such a project. There’s • a battle of ideas that must be fought be- CHINESE STATE VS. WORKERS consequence! She was a tween incarcerated revolutionaries and I heard two visiting Chinese work- • dedicated and sincere correspondent those prisoners who wish to maintain ers recount a remarkable aspect of the HARRIET TUBMAN with me, even in recent years. She did the gang life. Marxist-Humanism must 1995-2005 wave of strikes by workers I was really happy with the an- not hesitate to give advice to a younger become more available to prisoners so nouncement that Harriet Tubman at state-owned enterprises during the activist, and I always found it to be in- they can break with the gang illusions would be featured on the new $20 bill. ownership reform. Most of the benefits valuable! Olga did not maneuver people, and actively embrace a liberating praxis Her Undergound Railroad work alone offered by the state were revoked by the she did not manipulate people, as if they in order to change as they also struggle makes her one of the greatest heroes of “reform.” According to the Chinese con- were nothing but mechanistic robots. to change the world. Prisoner U.S. history, and she went on to cham- stitution, workers are “the ruling class.” Her advice was from conviction and Imperial, Calif. pion women’s rights against those who In reality they only have their labor pow- friendship. Organizing and preserving *** said it should only be “the Negro’s hour.” er and nothing else. The stated reasons her letters to me would be the best me- We are denied our rights and mis- Now a mob of racists are calling her a for arresting workers were 1) that by morial I could make for her. I hope I may treated at Macon State Prison, next to “terrorist”! Some of these people must surrounding the police station they were continue the work. Séamas Cain the Buckeye Paper Mill, which is one of think that the abolition of slavery was interfering with its emergency response Minn. 182 exposed asbestos sites in Georgia. an undue interference in the “free mar- capabilities, and 2) as punishment for When you live in Georgia, if you are ket.” To them, slavery is freedom. striking. So much for workers being “the poor, you don’t get good legal representa- Revolutionary ruling class”! • tion in court and there are no programs Southern California No fan of state-capitalism HAGGARD BUT NOT TIRED to help inmates. The officers mistreat us and get away with it. Oakland, Calif. The late revolutionary George Jack- Prisoner son wrote that Merle Haggard’s music Oglethorpe, Ga. • was what the white prisoners at San *** RACISM AND INTERNATIONALISM • Quentin listened to, and reactionaries Greetings Comrades, thank you so “Racism, Workers and Freedom NUCLEAR ARMS THREATEN ALL like Nixon wanted to claim him for their much for your timeless services on be- Ideas” by Raya Dunayevskaya (March- The news that the U.S., Russia and own benefit. But we lost a mighty voice half of the prison populace and the sub- April N&L) speaks to revolutionaries in China are now engaged in a new Cold in the tradition of Jimmie Rodgers and scription to N&L, which is priceless be- the “developed” countries, who should War style arms race to create smaller Lefty Frizzell with the death of Hag- yond measure. I would appreciate if you have a deep view in order to work to- and hence easier to use nuclear weap- gard on his 79th birthday. “If We Make can continue my subscription. gether with “their” masses to support ons is totally frightening. This new arms It through December” seemed to be on Prisoner immigrants in their own countries, as escalation needs to be met with a strong the radio both times I was laid off in No- Lancaster, Calif. well as workers in “underdeveloped” and sustained response from all the vember. That song and “In My Next Life” *** lands. It points to the need for a sharp forces of peace worldwide. We should not still relate too well to ongoing factory Could you put me on your subscrip- critique when middle-classers and work- deceive ourselves: nuclear weapons are shutdowns and farm bankruptcies, and tion list, and also send the pamphlet Pel- ers are seduced by racist speeches, as is not keeping peace in the world; rather, “Sing Me Back Home” makes a Death ican Bay Hunger Strikers? I sure would happening now in the U.S. and Europe, they are greatly contributing to the at- Row prisoner’s last day just as human a appreciate it. I’m indigent and can’t pay just as Marx critiziced English work- mosphere of despair, anger, terror, and moment as a love song. for it. I have no one in the free world. ers who rejected supporting the Paris hopelessness crippling the soul of people Bob McGuire Prisoner Commune. Finally, it speaks to revolu- all over the world. There is no more ur- Chicago Americus, Ga. tionaries in the “underdeveloped” coun- gent task for the world than to be freed tries who should have a broad view that from this constant threat of instant TO OUR READERS: Can you allows us to work together with “our” global annihilation. Ramakumar • donate $5 for a prisoner who cannot masses, not against masses in the devel- Fairfax, Calif. VOICES FROM BEHIND THE BARS pay for a subscription to N&L? It oped and richer countries, but together I am a Transgender prisoner at will be shared with many others. A with them, trying to build the so needed a state prison in Pennsylvania, in the donation of $8 pays for a subscrip- internationalism of the 21st Century. • struggle to end all types and forms of tion plus the Pelican Bay Hunger Hector IRELAND’S RED BANNER oppression. Many organizations focus on Strikers pamphlet to be sent to a Mexico City Please find enclosed issue 63 of Red prison reform, to make the prison sys- prisoner. Prisoners are eligible to Banner—the final issue. We would like tem more humane and rehabilitative. to thank you for sending us N&L for I admire their efforts and intentions, continue their free subscriptions • many years now, and we hope that the but as with capitalism, it must be com- when they first get released, a time BISEXUAL HEALTH exchange of our publications has been as pletely demolished so we can start from when the system tries to make them The Bisexual community is mar- fruitful and interesting for you as it has scratch. As a Humanist, it sickens me to forget the struggle. ginalized within the Queer community. been for ourselves. Our website (www. witness the inhumane treatment being MAY-JUNE 2016 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org Page 7 The need for new beginnings in thought and in action continued from p. 1 (who was also notorious for persecuting Occupy Chica- tuted the party-to-lead as the vanguard, rather than the first social democratic President or the first woman go activists) were won by Black Lives Matter activists, the mass social forces Marx had in mind. In contrast, President would be any more able than the first Black who made clear that their sights are set far beyond the Marxist-Humanism singled out Black masses in mo- President to pull U.S. society away from capitalism and electoral field. tion as the vanguard of the U.S. revolution, in a concept imperialism, or to end sexism and racism. The needed Killings by police and by would-be cops like Tray- of multiple subjects of revolution. Black, women, work- change is fundamental, revolutionary, and cannot come von Martin’s assailant, George Zimmerman, were the ers and youth were named in our Constitution from from the top down but only as the result of masses in spark that set off the movement, galvanizing a new the very beginning in 1956. As important as individual motion taking social relations into their own hands and generation of potential revolutionaries. Nevertheless, leaders can be, what is crucial is philosophy as leader- transforming society through their own self-activity what matters about Black Lives encompasses every- ship, in relationship to both individuals and masses in and self-organization. thing from housing conditions to jobs to education to motion. American Civilization on Trial shows, through As American Civilization on Trial: Black Masses as reproductive justice. comprehending U.S. history, how even the greatest Vanguard points out: It includes ending environmental racism, which leaders are not immune to becoming separated from “In office, Jefferson and the Jeffersonians were ful- by no coincidence has returned to center stage after the masses and their underlying humanism. filled Hamiltonians. In office, Jacksonian democracy the catastrophe of lead poisoning in Flint, Mich. Even At the same time the Black Lives Matter move- turned out to be something very different from the rule of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s own handpicked Flint Wa- ment has spurred discussion on the relationship be- farmer and mechanic against Eastern finance capital…. ter Advisory Task Force found that it was a case of “en- tween Women’s Liberation, Black Liberation and Queer “In the same manner, Lincoln, in office, developed vironmental injustice” toward a majority Black, poor Liberation. the ‘American System’ more in line with the concept of community. This in turn cast a spotlight on other cases Perhaps the greatest challenge to the anti-abortion the ‘Great Compromiser,’ Henry Clay, than in the spirit of lead poisoning, often falling mainly on children of juggernaut has been boldly and creatively given by of a ‘Great Emancipator’ heading the Second American color, as in Newark schools and New York public hous- Black women. In February, Black History Month, Trust Revolution.”1 ing. Despite all the efforts of climate change denialists, Black Women offered their “formal solidarity with awareness has been spreading in Black America that Black Lives Matter.” (See “Women battle war, terrorism WARS AT HOME AND ABROAD PERSIST those most at risk, and those already hurt the most, by and anti-abortion fanatics” and Trust Black Women’s President Obama, who never claimed to be a so- global warming are people of color and poor communi- solidarity statement in the March-April N&L.) cialist, acted in accord with his platform of using state ties and countries. BLACK WOMEN AND HUMAN EMANCIPATION intervention to save capitalism from itself and dialing It is easy to forget that just a few years ago some Black Lives Matter has never been separate from back U.S. imperialism’s women’s struggles for freedom. It was begun by women, direct military interven- Queers, disabled and Transgender people, who brought tion abroad. Recent an- something new to the freedom movements in the U.S. nouncements of a halt to Black Lives Matter founders have refused to be erased troop withdrawals in Af- as leaders of a movement, to succumb to the appeal of ghanistan and an expected “leaderlessness.” Insisting on being who and what they increase of troops in Iraq, are, they are breaking new ground in the long struggle along with the failure to for freedom in the U.S. close the Guantanamo de- They are doing so not only by being savvy about tention center, show how social media or giving a united face to a freedom move- little he has moved away ment. They have been changing the movement in pro- from those wars. found ways that may not be immediately apparent. He has, in addition,

Photo by Bridgette For one thing, they have brought Black women to continued and in some cas- the forefront, explicitly. They have helped change the es greatly expanded lower- discourse of police killings of young Black men to fit the profile forms of military reality of the situation and foregrounded the murders intervention, including the of women including Trans women. They have also made use of drones, special op- sure to be clear about who it is they are fighting. In erations forces, mercenar- speaking of the alliance with Trust Black Women, Ali- ies and other private con- Participants in March 24 protest in Raleigh, N.C., against North Carolina’s anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-labor HB2. cia Garza stated that to her reproductive justice tractors, and proxies under “is not just about the right for women to be able to the aegis of other countries. determine when and how and where they want to start This is combined with the continuing militarization of self-assured pundits of the Left pontificated that Black families, but it is also very much about our right to be domestic police forces—pausing recently only due to militancy was a thing of the past. Marxist-Humanism, able to raise families, to be able to raise children to be- the Black Lives Matter movement—and ever more per- however, has always been rooted in the living history come adults….And that is being hindered by state vio- vasive surveillance at home and abroad. The way sur- of the U.S. and world revolts, singling out the fact that lence in many different forms. One form being violence veillance and the forces of violent repression—nation- Black masses have been the vanguard of liberation at by law enforcement or other state forces, and the other ally coordinated with involvement of the Department turning points in U.S. history. We make a category of form of crisis [is] through poverty and lack of access of Homeland Security—were used to smash the Occupy the developing relationships among Black, women’s to resources and lack of access to health communities movement show the fear of revolution on the part of and labor struggles today. The strikes and organizing of that are safe and sustainable. So we certainly under- the rulers, who recognized the dangers to them of the the Chicago Teachers Union catalyzed the coalescence stand that Black Lives Matter and reproductive justice worldwide wave of revolt that opened up in 2010-11. of struggles in Chicago and Illinois by teachers, other go hand in hand.”3 But revolt cannot be forever stifled where its public employees suffering from draconian budget cuts They are consciously breaking from the way a lot of objective bases persist. Today struggles abound, and layoffs, residents dealing with closing of schools Black groups—and for that matter a whole slew of Left from workers demanding a living wage to Trans and clinics, and youth of color at risk from police vio- groups—have worked in the past and, again, are doing people opposing violence and discrimination, lence and the schools-to-prison pipeline. (See “Wide- so explicitly. Patrisse Marie Cullors-Brignac speaks from women squaring off against anti-abortion spread solidarity with Chicago Teachers Union strike,” about why they reject leaderlessness and recognize the fanatics to prisoners bringing attention to sys- p. 3, and “Black youth and labor come together,” March- need, as she says, “to center the leadership of women.” tematic human rights abuses they face. April N&L.) She continues: “Among our movement, mentors were As if to announce that all freedom struggles must The todayness of American Civilization on Trial is Queer and Trans people whose labor had been erased be connected, the North Carolina legislature held a unmistakable: and replaced with an uncontested narrative of male lightning special session in which they passed a bill “American civilization has been on trial from the leadership.” And this female/Queer/Trans leadership mandating that people can only use restrooms and day of its birth. Its hollow slogans of democracy have is also determined to lead differently, a difference that locker rooms corresponding to the sex declared on their been found wanting from the very start of the labor and could be seen in Ferguson, Mo. birth certificates, overturning LGBT rights enacted Black struggles at the beginning of the 19th century. The Cullors-Brignac writes that when she heard about by the city of Charlotte, banning them everywhere in first appearance of trade unions and workingmen’s par- the murder of Michael Brown, “We put a call out to folks the state, and banning any city from passing its own ties in the U.S. paralleled the greatest of the slave revolts on the ground in St. Louis, asking whether it would be of minimum wage. (See “North Carolinians protest anti- and the emergence of the Abolitionist movement. This use to have our team show up. They said yes….We asked LGBTQ laws,” p. 11.) parallelism is the characteristic feature of American them to let us know what their needs were and to tell us Coming from the same legislature and gover- class struggle. Only when these two great movements exactly how our presence could best be utilized to elevate nor who had already attacked everything from voting coalesce do we reach decisive turning points in U.S. de- their plight. Our goal was to amplify their work and not rights and environmental regulations, to unemploy- velopment…. distract attention away from it.” ment benefits and Medicaid, to abortion and education, “The AFL-CIO’s current failure [in 1963] seriously In the aftermath of the work in Ferguson, people this sparked a new wave of protests in a state that has to relate its struggles with those of the Southern student left “hungry to galvanize their communities to end state- experienced regular Moral Monday protests for three youth is not only a result of the organizational failure of sanctioned violence against Black people, the way Fer- years. The very next day, hundreds came out to a pro- ‘Operation Dixie,’ but of the lack of a unifying phi- guson organizers and allies were doing.” test at the governor’s mansion, organized by #Black- losophy. At the same time it must be clear to the young Trust Black Women springs from SisterSong, LivesMatter Queer and Trans People of Color Coalition Freedom Fighters that the many separate organizations which broadened the concept of abortion rights by de- with support from 20 other groups. Five were arrested and their struggle also lack a unifying philosophy. It is manding “reproductive justice.” Reproductive justice is, for chaining themselves together in the street. wrong to think that a ‘coordinating committee’ is all that as Trust Black Women defines it, “It was passed within a twelve-hour period without is needed…. What is needed is a new Humanism.... “an intersectional theory emerging from the expe- a single Trans person of color being allowed to speak. “The elements of the new society, submerged the riences of women of color whose multiple communities That’s why we’re speaking here today. Trans and Queer world over by the might of capital, are emerging in experience a complex set of reproductive oppressions. It people of color demand a living wage and freedom from all sorts of unexpected and unrelated places. What is is based on the understanding that the impacts of race, brutalization and discrimination within the workplace missing is the of these movements from practice unity class, gender and sexual identity oppressions are not and in the bathroom!” said one speaker. with the movement from theory into an overall philoso- additive but integrative, producing this paradigm of However much the media allow election campaigns phy that can form the foundation of a totally new social intersectionality….[In part, reproductive justice] links to drown out the real struggles from below, they con- order.”2 sexuality, health, and human rights to social justice tinue, with Black Lives Matter in particular breaking LEADERSHIP, MASSES AND PHILOSOPHY movements by placing abortion and reproductive health silences and forcing concessions from universities, local The way American Civilization on Trial: Black issues in the larger context of the well-being and health governments, courts and police departments. The elec- Masses as Vanguard challenged dominant concepts of of women, families and communities because reproduc- tion defeats of pro-police-brutality prosecutors Timothy “vanguard” and “leadership” speaks directly to debates tive justice seamlessly integrates those individual and McGinty in Cleveland and Anita Alvarez in Chicago in today’s movements. Post-Marx Marxism had substi- continued on p. 8 1. American Civilization on Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard 3. http://feministing.com/2016/02/12/icymi-reproductive-jus- by Raya Dunayevskaya (News and Letters, 2003), p. 40. 2. American Civilization on Trial,pp. 92, 98. See ad, p. 5. tice-groups-forge-alliance-with-black-lives-matter/. Page 8 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org MAY-JUNE 2016 The need for new beginnings in thought and in action continued from p. 7 Tahrir Square. The latest is his witch-hunt against group human rights particularly important to mar- those in the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, III. Chinese labor in revolt ginalized communities. We believe that the ability of Nazra for Feminist Studies and the United Group. Over the last two decades, as world capitalism has any woman to determine her own reproductive destiny The war in Yemen has devastated the population. restructured to extend its life in the face of recurring is directly linked to the conditions in her community, According to Oxfam, 80% of the country is in “dire crises, a central aspect has been making China the and these conditions are not just a matter of individual need.” This is a famine brought on by capitalism, as world’s workshop. As the key section of the world pro- choice and access.”4 international banks no longer offer credit to importers, letariat that capitalists confront, what happens to Chi- This entails a totally new society where the human who are suspending food shipments in a country where nese workers affects us all. They have demanded and being is the center—showing how deep the transforma- 90% of food is imported. Both Houthis and Saudi Ara- gained some improvements in what were once below- tion must be for Black women to be free. bia target civilians—hospitals, playgrounds, schools subsistence working conditions. This alliance between Black Lives Matter and re- and markets. Thousands have been killed. In fact, U.S. productive justice deepens both movements, and it may arms dealers love what is happening in Yemen. Hu- Chinese workers have forced industrial wages up also give the women’s movement as a whole a more man Rights Watch reports that in just five months the fourfold since 2000, their militancy not pausing even revolutionary view of how to fight against the war on U.S. sold $7.8 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia during the global Great Recession. Workers confront- women, now being led by Republican presidential con- and approved more than $12 billion in arms deals with ed more than their private factory owners funneling tenders, governors and state legislators determined to them at the end of 2015. What brings more horror to production to multinationals ranging from Hitachi to control women’s bodies and minds. Not only is the right what is happening, and despair to those living through Honda to Walmart, including the 1.4 million workers to abortion being pushed out of reach for poor women this hell, is it seems that no one cares. building Apple iPhones and computers for FoxConn. and women of color, but what little healthcare they had Of course women are fighting back. This year’s In- The state and Party have employed the weapons at is being pulled out from under them. ternational Women’s Day (IWD) on March 8 gives us their disposal, from police and even army attacks on The onslaught of repressive, insulting, dangerous a view of how deep and widespread is their struggle picketers, and the court system and incarceration. and misogynist anti-abortion laws, which impact wom- once you get past the state-sponsored panels and photo China’s rulers have continued to wage bloody war en of color and poor women most deeply, continue to opportunities of assorted dictators and presidents, like on any form of autonomous union that workers have be spewed forth from statehouses at incredible rates. Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip tried to organize since the June 4, 1989, massacres of One of the newest and worst bills is Indiana’s House Erdoğan, always pictured standing with a coterie of Tiananmen Square and Chengdu and before. However, Enrolled Act 1337. It bans abortion for genetic abnor- handpicked female flunkies, not one of whom has lifted in 2008 they finally allowed export production workers malities, despite the fact that there are few resources a finger to help free the women living in their countries. into a union—but only the official All-China Federation to help people with abnormalities; abortions based on This IWD, British women gave solidarity to their of Trade Unions, so that it is yet another authoritarian the sex of the fetus, although this seldom if ever hap- sisters in Ireland who must travel to England to have a control on workers’ resistance. pens; research using fetal tissue, even though not one safe legal abortion; in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, women Now China is attempting the greatest restructur- abortion clinic in the entire state provides fetal tissue used the day to honor environmental justice activist ing of its economy since it shuttered great swaths of the for research. That is in addition to the usual barrage Berta Cáceres, who was murdered earlier in the month; Mao Zedong-era state-capitalist steel plants, oil fields of abusive mandates. Tracts on perinatal hospice are and in Tbilisi, Georgia, women demanded “Rights in- and other heavy industry two decades ago in the face of to be forced on parents whose fetus is diagnosed with a stead of flowers!” and an end to violence against them global capitalist competition. Leaders of veteran work- “lethal fetal anomaly.” and to “stop sexual harassment at work.” Women ers demonstrating for their jobs, or at least the sever- A woman who had terminated a wanted but non- marched in every country from India to the U.S., from ance pay and pensions they were promised, paid the viable fetus explained the real life implications of that Egypt to Mexico. price of long prison sentences. part of law: “[HEA 1337] requires us to be subject to Women in Turkey expressed the true spirit of Inter- Once again workers in energy and steel are in the counseling about perinatal hospice care—counseling crosshairs of the state planners, even as that will consist of required language written by the private employers undercut workers’ wage state, that will undoubtedly be coercive in attempting to gains by moving production inland or out of persuade families to carry babies like mine to term, and the country. The current goal of state-capi- that must be delivered at the time of diagnosis. Preg- talist rulers is to remove nearly two million nant women who’ve just learned their babies are dying workers from the coal and steel industry. will be required to participate in this counseling and The demand for energy as GDP increased sign documentation to be filed with the state affirming 13% a year was so insatiable that the lives 5 they have received such counseling.” of 10,000 coal miners were sacrificed each The lie that all these restrictions are imposed out year with a “Safety Last” policy. Now safety, of concern for women’s health is seen in how on March with its associated costs, becomes one of the 23 the Republicans in Arizona’s House passed a bill pretexts for closing mines. In reality the forcing doctors to follow outdated standards on medica- softening of production in China, the global tion abortions that cost more, have more side effects slowdown and plummeting oil prices have and force doctors to follow superseded FDA protocols dropped the price of coal by more than 60%, over 15 years out of date, trashing new best practices.6 Photo by Gulsum Agaoglu driving even U.S. coal giants to bankruptcy. Is it any wonder that anti-abortionists have been International Women’s Day march in Istanbul, Turkey, March 8, 2016. Strikes, job actions and demonstra- provoked into terrorist acts, such as the shooting last tions, never infrequent, doubled in 2014, November at a clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo., which national Women’s Day by defying a virtual ban on cel- then doubled again in 2015. Under Party Chairman Xi killed three people injured nine? Whereas terrorists ebrating it. The ban, announced on March 4, was sup- Jinping, repression has increased sharply. Independent acts like the San Bernardino, Calif., attack five days posedly for the women’s safety against terrorism, but labor observers and human rights lawyers have been later become the pretext to harass all Muslims, anti- no one believed it. Yurdagul Boztas, from the Ankara dragged into the courts and given long sentences, while abortion terrorism is dismissed as isolated acts of men- Women’s Platform, pointed to the skyrocketing number violent police and military attacks on workers’ demon- tally ill people. Congress and the Department of Home- of rapes and sexual harassment and asked: “With all land Security systematically downplay this threat, and these how can you ask women to remain silent and not strations have increased. In both state and private en- virtually eliminated the DHS team studying “domestic take to the streets?” terprises, workers have again and again gone on strike non-Islamic extremism” in response to pressure from Two days after the ban, women marched. In further over broken promises of benefits and severance pay. Tea Party and other right-wing politicos. defiance of Erdoğan, who has been slaughtering Tur- Aggression outside China’s borders betrays the lev- key’s Kurdish population and destroying their homes el of internal resistance. The government is building is- II. The worldwide war and cities, the women’s announcements in Ankara were lands on reefs in the South China Sea to support troops in Kurdish and Arabic as well as Turkish. Chants in- and runways and assert dominance over Vietnam, the against women cluded: “Woman, life, freedom!” “Found Prince Charm- Philippines and other neighbors. This situation recalls While the war against women in the U.S. has not ing and decided not to marry; got pregnant and decided the threats Cuba, Haiti, Grenada, the Dominican Re- yet reached a widespread shooting war—although abor- not to have the baby.” In a direct affront to Erdoğan, the public and so many others have faced in the two cen- tion doctors, clinic workers, and clinic users have been women yelled, “The bans are yours, March 8 is ours!” In turies since the U.S. made the Caribbean an American killed—worldwide, war and terrorism are destroying addition they called for the overthrow of his Justice and lake under President Monroe. women’s lives from Yemen and Syria to South Sudan Development Party. Like gains made by the U.S. labor movement, Chi- and the Central African Republic. So corrupt are the From Istanbul’s Kadikoy district a video went viral nese labor’s gains are not permanent unless we com- troops tasked by the UN to guard endangered civilians, showing a traditional middle-aged woman being pushed plete a revolution that abolishes capitalism. The cur- that they end up beating, raping, and killing those they by a man who yells, “Go home, sit at home, send your rent wave of strikes is a beacon to workers in the West. were sent to protect, as troops from France, the Demo- men out here.” March organizer Gulsum Agaoglu of the cratic Republic of Congo and Burundi have done to pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party said the video IV. Counter-revolution and women in the Central African Republic. To think that “was a turning point....First, the security forces told the UN can be a “peacekeeper” under these conditions us we must go home. We did not.…They harassed us with revolution in the Middle is a cruel joke. slurs and sexually laden threats, but their tactics failed. Women and girls who are Syrian refugees are be- Second, this parade received more attention when the East and North Africa ing sold to men in a futile attempt by their families to security forces said ‘No slogans.’ Now everyone on social Another beacon shines from Syria: the massive, give them a better life. Many are soon abandoned by media knows at least three words in Kurdish, ‘Jin Jiyan countrywide renewal of civilian demonstrations for their much older “husbands” and end up back in the Azadi’ (Woman, Life, Freedom)….It symbolized that the freedom, using the original chants and slogans of the camps, only this time they are considered damaged west of Turkey is not ignorant to the suffering of Kurd- 2011 Revolution: “The people want the downfall of the goods. In Egypt President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is hunt- istan. Women from all groups want peace. Third, this is regime!” “Revolution for Dignity and Freedom!” As rev- ing down, jailing and “disappearing” those who made a women’s march. Women are told to stay out of sight, olutionaries in Kafranbel put it: “A ceasefire is a cease- the Arab Spring and created new human relations in out of mind, not to laugh in public. We demonstrated fire; our peaceful revolution continues until toppling with our colorful outfits and hopeful chants that there is Assad and bringing justice to all Syria.” 4. http://www.trustblackwomen.org/our-work/what-is-repro- 7 ductive-justice/9-what-is-reproductive-justice. solidarity among women, that we are visible.” Exploding into the space opened by a very partial 5. “Indiana’s Anti-Abortion Bill: A Blueprint for Attacks on Implicit in the struggles of women worldwide is “cessation of hostilities,” the revolt was unforeseen Rights Nationwide,” by Katie Klabusich, Truthout, March that very often, what they are fighting for cannot be by any party to the military struggle—whether the 23, 2016, http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35323-indi- realized under our present capitalist, racist, sexist, ho- genocidal Assad, Putin and Iranian Supreme Leader ana-s-anti-abortion-bill-a-blueprint-for-attacks-on-rights- mophobic, anti-trans system—a system which feeds on Ali Khamenei, or the hypocritical Obama administra- nationwide. bigotry, division and hatred, and which, by its very na- tion with its efforts to “vet” and channel the meager 6. “Arizona GOP Sides with Obsolete Medication Abortion ture, has an anti-human direction. Guidelines,” by Nicole Knight Shine, Rewire, March 24, international aid that comes to the Syrian revolu- 2016, https://rewire.news/article/2016/03/24/arizona-house- 7. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/03/turkey- tionaries, or the vicious Islamic State (ISIS) with its votes-restrict-medication-abortion-doctors-opposition/. erdogan-wary-of-women.html#ixzz43a4qU8Ie. continued on p. 9 MAY-JUNE 2016 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org Page 9 The need for new beginnings in thought and in action continued from p. 8 is above all an effort to destroy the possibility of new clear that one of the most vital roles revolutionaries dreams of apocalypse. All state powers were in agree- human relations opened up by the Arab Spring. Fac- have to play is to raise international solidarity as key. ment on one point: that the idea of a revolution can be tions in Yemen that once demonstrated side by side in Change Square now find themselves “represented” THE NECESSITY FOR PHILOSOPHY destroyed by bombs, and if the Free Syrian Army were The continuing Syrian demonstrations are inspir- by Saudi and Iranian-armed military forces that have eliminated, finally, a “solution” could be imposed. ing. However, they are unlikely to gain the needed sup- devastated the country, killing thousands, along with a They overlooked the way democratically elected lo- port for the Revolution that has so far been denied it, growing Al Qaeda presence feeding off the chaos. cal councils continued to organize social life under re- as the problem is as much one of , of ideas, Both Iran and Saudi Arabia have directed vicious philosophy gime and ISIS attacks. Perhaps most telling have been as it is of perception. This is clear in the way the bour- counter-revolutionary force against the Arab Spring the month-long demonstrations in Maarat al-Numan in geois ( ) media have ignored them while uprisings. For their services, both regimes have been and most Left! Idlib, speaking out against both the Assad regime and maintaining an exaggerated focus on the military situ- well rewarded by the U.S. and Russia. the authoritarianism of Jabhat al-Nusra, the Al Qaeda ation—precisely what has been shown as secondary to affiliate that has (like the U.S.) been a treacherous RAMIFICATIONS IN EUROPE the creation of new human relations. Thus the seizure “ally” of the Revolution. The increased flow of refugees into Europe is fed in of Palmyra from ISIS by Assad’s allies is portrayed as As local tensions grew and Jabhat al-Nusra took part by this militarized repression, in which European a great victory. (Not so much for the remaining towns- a number of Free Syrian Army members prisoner, states are complicit by inaction. After a moment of sym- people who have continued to suffer beating and hu- hundreds of Maaratis stormed Nusra’s headquarters pathy symbolized by the drowned Syrian child, Aylan miliation under their imperialist “liberators.”) on March 13, freeing some prisoners and burning the Kurdi, the European debate over the refugees moved The pragmatism of the rulers leads only to disaster building. Mass protests, in which women have been toward the counter-revolutionary ground of the racist and incoherence. We see a tangle in which the U.S. is prominent, have continued. As we go to press, regime- Right. This is due in part to the effects of ISIS’s terror- allied with Iran in fighting ISIS in Iraq; rhetorically, allied warplanes have bombed the market full of fami- ist attacks in France and Belgium, and in part to the at least, opposed to Iran as it props up Assad in Syria; lies, killing scores. Simi- failure of Europe’s in- and allied with Saudi Arabia as it bombs civilians and lar protests have been tellectuals to win a bat- Iranian-supported Houthis in Yemen. Putin’s Russia seen in Darkoush, al-At- tle of ideas for human- has a similar tangle of alliances, without the veneer of areb, and other villages. ism and multi-ethnic “principle.” Maaratis sent mes- society that goes back Rather, what is needed in the face of this “civili- sages of solidarity to the to the struggle against zational crisis” is a body of revolutionary ideas that independent protests genocide in 1990s Bos- comprehends the indispensability of spontaneity in the that have taken place nia. revolution, the question of different cultures, of self-de- in Suweida among the Walls have been velopment, and of non-state forms of collectivity.9 Druze and have also built and military taken up the Revolu- blockades raised in V. Toward organizational tion’s original slogans, Greece, Serbia and including “One! One! Hungary. In Bulgaria new beginnings One! The Syrian people refugees have been So great a need for new beginnings in the world are One!” Russia’s bru- hunted down and beat- Above, Dr. Hasan al-Araj; below, cave hospital in Hama, Syria. also produces an urge to find shortcuts. Funding from tal carpet bombing cam- en by vigilantes who “The last cardiologist in Hama was killed by airstrikes today. Dr. the Chinese state, the enemy of the workers and mass- become celebrated by paign combines with the Hasan al-Araj ran the Syrian American Medical Society Cave Hospital. es of that country and therefore the enemy of workers imperialist presence of Does anyone who isn’t Syrian even understand how phrases like ‘the last right-wing media. The globally, is trickling into the academic Left but is a tens of thousands of Ira- cardiologist’ or ‘cave hospital’ are normal in 2016?” —Lina Sergie Attar Far Right has capital- shortcut to nowhere. So are the simple formulas of the nian troops, Lebanese ized upon the refugees’ fossilized portion of the supposedly revolutionary Left Hezbollah, Iraqi militia misery to make elec- that reduces everything to opposition to U.S. imperial- fighters, Afghan con- toral gains throughout ism. They are busy defending Russia’s decidedly anti- scripts used as cannon Europe, from Greece revolutionary Vladimir Putin, who is so admired by the fodder, and European to Denmark, Poland to Right, from Donald Trump to the many fascist groups fascists. Yet Assad’s re- France. Putin funds in Europe. Yet what of others on the Left gime continues to lose Thus, so many who don’t know how to separate themselves from these what little internal sup- people who have al- anti-revolutionary tendencies, or don’t see the urgency, port it ever had. ready been denied in- revealing their lack of a philosophical rudder and their Even among the ternational solidarity lack of articulation of what they are for? Alawis, Assad’s “own” become subject to a fur- More to the point are actual Left movements, like group, there has been an ther refusal of human the social movements that have been sweeping across effort to dissociate from solidarity. Refugees Latin America for over a decade. The activity of those the regime. An Alawi in “civilized” France movements enabled Left governments to take office, “Declaration of Iden- are shunted into what like those of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Evo Morales tity Reform” attributed to senior community leaders amount to concentration camps, as in Calais, for ex- in Bolivia, and the Workers Party in Brazil. All have attempts to distance the Alawis from the regime (and ample. The discussion opened up around the Roma in revealed grave contradictions, coming into conflict with Iran) and calls for democracy and ethnic equality. Per- France’s Nuit Debout youth movement cries out to be those social movements that were not co-opted. The haps more significant is the continuing exodus of the deepened and extended to refugees from Africa and the sharp electoral gains by the Right in Argentina and Alawis from Syria—either way, they see that the Assad Middle East. The movement has welcomed refugees to Venezuela, the implosion of Brazil’s Workers Party (see regime has no future. its nightly assemblies and is trying to reach out to sub- “Brazil meltdown opens a door to Right,” p. 12), and the urbs populated by oppressed minorities. defeat of Bolivia’s referendum that would have allowed DISMAL FAILURE OF THE PYD Triggered by the Socialist government’s “reform” Seldom has any revolutionary organization been Evo Morales to run for another presidential term—all bill weakening labor protections, Nuit Debout was born given the opportunity and responsibility that history reveal the separation of these Left governments from when over one million people demonstrated across the masses. handed the Democratic Union Party (PYD)—the Kurd- France on March 31. With the aim of “reclaiming a pub- ish group that took the world’s center stage in the he- Yet much of today’s Left disregards, excuses, or ex- lic space for debate,” thousands participate in nightly plains away their contradictions, as they grasp at one roic defense of Kobane against ISIS. general assemblies and wide-ranging debates. The That moment electrified a generation of young straw after another looking for models. All that does is movement has spread to dozens of French cities as well evade the need for philosophy, without which the con- revolutionaries. Unfortunately, since then the PYD has as to Belgium, Germany and Spain. indulged in alliances with imperialism (both U.S. and tradictions cannot fully be confronted, and thereby shift Following a recent surge in workplace and other all responsibility onto the movement from practice, Russian) in order to make petty and unsustainable ter- social struggles, this latest manifestation of the wave continued on p. 10 ritorial gains that will only harm the long-term pros- of revolt announced by the Arab Spring has sought di- pects for Kurdish self-determination. rectly democratic “horizontal” forms of organization in- 9. See Raya Dunayevskaya’s “A Post-World War II view of Marx’s Humanism, 1843-83; Marxist Humanism in the The dynamic of the Syrian Revolution calls for a dependent from political institutions, with no anointed broad, unifying vision. The masses, as we see, do ex- 1950s and 1980s,” in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Achilles Heel of West- leaders. It faces challenges to draw in the lower and ern ‘Civilization’ (News & Letters, 1996). press that in their protests. Meanwhile the “revolution- deeper layers, including workers and youth of Arab and ary vanguard” PYD wastes the lives of hundreds of its African descent, and to clarify desires for a totally new How to contact own dedicated fighters, and of other revolutionaries, in foundation of society incompletely expressed in initia- NEWS & LETTERS COMMITTEES mindless fighting over villages and neighborhoods. In tives like drawing up a new constitution. Thus Nuit North Aleppo, Free Syrians find themselves fighting CHICAGO LOS ANGELES Debout called for large gatherings in squares across 228 South Wabash, #230 MEETINGS the regime, ISIS, and the PYD. France on May Day, the revolutionary labor day. Chicago, IL 60604 Sundays, 6:00 PM Recent fighting in Qamishli between Assad regime The Right has consciously tried to destroy the and PYD forces shows the real prospect of Kurdish self- Phone 312-431-8242 Echo Park United solidarity from below with which refugees have been Fax 312-431-8252 determination as part of the Syrian Revolution. Revo- met by a significant number of Europeans, from Ger- Methodist Church MEETINGS lutionaries will support that, as well as the Kurdish many to Greece. At the very time Greece is mired in 1226 N. Alvarado Call for Information struggle for women’s liberation and economic justice. a crippling economic depression and European fiscal (North of Sunset, side door) CRISIS OF WORLD CIVILIZATION aid hangs by a thread, masses of Greeks met the mi- DETROIT P.O. Box 27205 OAKLAND It is impossible to separate the crisis wracking the grants as humans. While the Greek “radical Left” state Detroit, MI 48227 P.O. Box 3345, Oakland, CA 94609 post-Arab Spring Middle East and North Africa region is rounding up refugees in camps, and the neighboring [email protected] from what Syrian author Robin Yassin-Kassab termed Macedonian police have tear-gassed those gathering at [email protected] a “civilizational crisis.” the border, ordinary citizens have provided immigrants MEETINGS MEETINGS The need to solidarize with the Syrian people’s food and shelter. Conscript soldiers in 50 units issued Sundays, 2:00 PM Sundays, 6:30 PM revolution of freedom and dignity has been the test of a statement last October protesting the inhuman treat- Write for information Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library world politics. Yet little attention has been paid to the ment of refugees and migrants as an attack on the NEW YORK 6501 Telegraph Ave., Oakland revival of civilian protest, as if the media and politi- working class and declared, “We refuse to convert the [email protected] cians are more comfortable with “meaningless” de- Greek army into a repressive apparatus, whether that MEETINGS FLINT, MI struction than human solidarity. This has been obvi- involves confronting migrants or social movements.”8 For Information: 646 578 6210 P.O. Box 3384, Flint, MI 48502 ous in the tolerance for military dictatorship in Egypt, With all the experience gained since 2011, it is INTERNET with its thousands of political prisoners and brutality 8. “Greek conscripts: ‘we won’t take part in fighting migrants,’” Email WORLD WIDE WEB toward any form of dissent. Oct. 19, 2015: https://libcom.org/news/greek-conscripts-we- EMAIL WORLD WIDE WEB [email protected] www.newsandletters.org The increasing militarization of the Middle East wont-take-part-fighting-migrants-31102015. Page 10 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org MAY-JUNE 2016 The need for new beginnings in thought and in action continued from p. 9 Development,” and its Supplement, together with all eration, and Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution— if not to parties that retain a large dose of vanguard- issues of N&L from the beginning, which are also now ’The Philosopher of Permanent Revolution Cre- ism rather than embracing philosophy of liberation as online, our books and the other publications we have ates New Ground for Organization’—will be its leadership. always made available, represent a living body of ideas ground. Indeed, it is this which has permeated As if any confirmation were needed, those who that speak to the current world situation and provide our organization from its beginning. It has mo- sang the praises of Syriza’s anti-capitalist challenge to the missing ingredient needed for truly new beginnings tivated us to reject all elitist parties, any sort of economic austerity in Greece just over a year ago have that would determine the end—but we have to project ‘vanguard party,’ and instead to begin working little of depth to say about why the party transformed them concretely to make it so. out what forms of organization were emerging into the instrument of that austerity. Rather, they con- That includes our work on the new books we will from the unity of theory and practice. Instead of tinue to champion an indiscriminate broad Left unity issue based on the Archives. Next year, on the 100th proclaiming ourselves ‘a party,’ News and Letters without explaining how it would end up differently. anniversary of the Russian Revolution, we will publish Committees concentrated on that missing link, Russia: From Proletarian Revolution to State-Capi- dialectical philosophy.” ROJAVA AT THE CROSSROADS talist Counter-Revolution; and in 2018, the 200th an- One year later, in her June 1, 1987, presentation— With greater promise, the autonomous Kurdish niversary of Karl Marx’s birth, we will publish Marx a first projection of a talk she planned to give at the region of Rojava is at its best trying to work out a new at Two Hundred: The Meaning of His Philosophy of next national gathering—after stressing that the “UN- path to liberation. However, as shown in Part IV, Ro- Revolution in Permanence for Our Day. Both books will TRODDEN PATH…IS ORGANIZATION, the Dialec- java also suffers contradictions including ambivalence include previously unpublished writings and will pro- tics of Philosophy and Organization,” she indicated that toward the revolution in Syria. vide new vantage points on the dialectics of organiza- the work toward Dialectics of Organization and Phi- Nor can we find a solution by substituting hori- tion and philosophy, in addition to illuminating revolu- losophy entailed each member projecting “that mean- zontalism or similar approaches to non-hierarchical, tion in permanence as central to Marx’s whole body of ing, whether of an objective event or the subjective directly democratic forms of organization in place of thought and as relating to the dialectic of revolution activity…because in meaning, i.e., philosophy, is both theory, let alone philosophy. History shows, in fact, that and counter-revolution in ground and roof of all we do, survey, strive for, as we movements from below have, Russia. There is no substitute prepare for that ‘revolution in permanence.’” again and again, spontaneous- for the way Marxist-Human- ly created forms of organiza- DIALECTICS OF ORGANIZATION ism’s vantage point brings out tion as organs of revolt. These the todayness of both Marx’s AND PHILOSOPHY organs of self-determination body of ideas and the histori- She then proposed that in the paper “the book— reach for new human rela- cal significance of the Russian Dialectics of Philosophy and Organization [though not tions, including a more actual Revolution. yet written]—becomes the dominant force not only in democracy than is allowed to essay-articles, but in every activity we undertake, es- function in existing political THE TRILOGY OF pecially in discussions with subscribers, with not-yet systems—and they spontane- REVOLUTION Marxist-Humanists, not just as the recording of the ously search for theory. In the wake of the be- events and their experiences, but the meaning of those Egypt’s experience shows trayal of the Spanish Revolu- events and experiences and their direction in a global an example of how tendencies tion from within and Stalin’s context. That is what we will have to project when we are always present to provide a non-aggression treaty with have conversations with subscribers. That is what has theory that falls short of what Hitler, Dunayevskaya began been missing—the whole new concept of ‘post-Marx is implicit in the spontaneous by working out the concept Marxism as a pejorative’—it just lay there in Rosa Lux- forms. What won out were ten- of state-capitalism. The Ar- emburg, Women’s Liberation, and Marx’s Philosophy of dencies arguing that political chives illuminate how she was Revolution.” democracy had been achieved compelled to reach further for The online availability of thousands of Marx- in the shape of promised elec- a new philosophical basis for ist-Humanist documents gives us a new opportu- tions, which superseded the the Marxist movement, delv- nity to work out a dialectic of organization and organizational forms involved ing into Marx’s Humanism philosophy, a task of objective-subjective signifi- in the occupation of spaces and dialectic and its roots in cance for the revolutionary movement world- like Tahrir Square in Cairo as the Hegelian dialectic. That wide. None can know exactly what would have well as in the self-defense of culminated in “the philosoph- been in the projected book, which Dunayevskaya neighborhoods and workplace ic moment,” when her break- did not write before her untimely death. struggles. That opened the through on Hegel’s Absolutes The hundreds of pages of work she did toward it door to counter-revolution’s revealed the movement from make clear that it cannot be reduced to one or a few assault and its military coup Photo by Kwikwaju practice as well as from the- observations, no matter how important. One key idea is birthed in a bloodbath. Nuit Debout general assembly at the place de la République, ory. The first Marxist-Hu- that the forms of organization created spontaneously by At the same time, the pas- Paris, France, April 18. manist book, Marxism and masses in motion, which were to be central to the book, sion for philosophy has grown Freedom, showed how that are the opposite of the vanguard party, but not the ab- out of the movements and es- movement from practice that is a form of theory was solute opposite. The absolute opposite is philosophy of pecially out of their defeats, as N&L has shown in par- the driving force for development of theory in Marx’s revolution, and that needs to be worked out organi- ticular in Syria.10 Together with the depths of counter- age and our own “age of absolutes”—from the U.S. zationally. A crucial part of the test is to work it out revolution, the passion for philosophy points to both the Abolitionist movement and the Paris Commune to the concretely enough to result in organizational growth. need for and the potential for totally new beginnings in struggles against automation and for Black freedom at The recent inreach to us shows the tip of the ice- the transformation of society. It points to the need for the time of the book’s writing. berg of the passion for philosophy and the search that is new banners of freedom as a polarizing force. Their ab- The second book articulated the integrality going on for what that body of ideas represents. The in- sence has very serious consequences, especially when reach includes not only the essay written unsolicited for counter-revolution is so strong, so vicious, coming from of Philosophy and Revolution, and with it the new category of Absolute Idea as New Beginning. This N&L relating Black Lives Matter to Marx’s Humanism so many directions, including from within the opposi- and Frantz Fanon’s thought, but two projects in Europe tional movements themselves. It therefore challenges cast new light both on revolutionary leaders and to publish new international editions of Marxism and us to make new Marxist-Humanist organizational be- alternatives and on the “new passions and new Freedom, from 1776 until Today and Indignant Heart: A ginnings. forces” of the day, as it ranged from Hegel’s dia- lectic in and for itself to the African revolutions, Black Worker’s Journal. It includes the letters we con- ONCE AGAIN THE NEED FOR NEW BEGINNINGS East European revolts and Black liberation and stantly receive from prisoners reporting on the condi- To achieve truly new beginnings, rather than other 1960s movements in the West. tions they experience and their reactions to theoretical simply a new stage of revolt, we must, as Marxist-Hu- Rosa Luxemburg, Women’s Liberation, and Marx’s articles, and stating that to know the truth of what is manism has always stressed, begin from the Absolute Philosophy of Revolution singled out the new moments happening in the world they depend on N&L, the only instead of only from the immediate situation. That in- in Marx’s last decade, as seen in Man/Woman relations, newspaper whose mission is a concept and practice of cludes, but is not limited to, the need to demonstrate the relationship of the less capitalistically developed presenting voices from below speaking for themselves that total freedom requires putting an end to the divi- countries to the industrialized ones, and the philosoph- in the context of the articulation of a philosophy of revo- sion between mental and manual labor, in organization ical ground for revolutionary organization; and, based lution. Inreach shows us the potential for organization- as in society, in theory as in practice. on the new understanding of Marx’s thought as a total- al growth but cannot substitute for it. As we put it in our Call for last year’s national ity, took the measure of “post-Marx Marxism as a pejo- We have to confront the critical moment we are in gathering: What is needed from an organization rative, beginning with Friedrich Engels.” not only objectively but organizationally. We need, the of the type of a small group like us is what Raya Left unfinished at Dunayevskaya’s death was her world needs, a new generation of Marxist-Humanists Dunayevskaya described as “leadership, not as work on Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy: to be a part of the new generation of revolutionaries. ‘party to lead’ but as revolutionary philosophy to “The Party” and Forms of Organization Born Out of Projection is of the essence. Projection to individuals, raise new banners of freedom that meet the chal- Spontaneity. The Archives, now online, provide a new one on one, where there is the potential for developing lenge of the movement from practice.” In bring- opportunity to dig into that work. As she wrote in pre- the relationship to that individual taking responsibil- ing together members and invited co-thinkers paring for her last Convention, ity for Marxist-Humanism, cannot take second place and co-activists, this year’s national gathering “Chapter XI of Rosa Luxemburg, Women’s Lib- to any other activity, however crucial, from the study will aim (to paraphrase her) to collectively work and inwardization of philosophy to dialogue and debate out our Marxist-Humanist perspectives in such a NEWS & LETTERS with other tendencies, to making political analyses and way that analysis of the meaning of events and VOL. 61/NO. 3 May-June 2016 writing for and distributing the newspaper. We are at a activity in mass movements lead to organiza- News & Letters (ISSN 0028-8969) is published bi-monthly. Subscrip- moment when we strive to unify those crucial activities tional growth as well as the self-development of tions are $5 a year (bulk order of 5 or more, 25c each) from News & with that specific kind of projection, just as we strive masses as Reason as well as Force. Letters, 228 S. Wabash, #230, Chicago, IL 60604. Phone 312-431- for the unity of theory and practice. This raises the need to intervene in all the move- 8242. Fax 312-431-8252. Periodical postage paid at Chicago, IL. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to News & Letters, 228 S. Thus we strive to concretize the dialectics of orga- ments and project philosophy as a force of revolution, as Wabash, #230, Chicago, IL 60604. Articles may be reprinted verba- nization and philosophy as theory, as everyday practice, Dunayevskaya often put it. We have a solid foundation tim if credited to "News & Letters." Raya Dunayevskaya and as the organization of Marxist-Humanism, News to build on in the body of ideas that she developed. We Chairwoman, National Editorial Board and Letters Committees. In these times when the very have a new entry into that body of ideas: the Archives (1955-1987) Charles Denby, Editor (1955-1983) survival of civilization is at stake, what comes to the that our organization made available online, which we Franklin Dmitryev, National Organizer, News and Letters Committees. fore is the urgency of warding off climate chaos; abol- have only begun to use. The Raya Dunayevskaya Collec- Terry Moon, Managing Editor. Felix Martin, Labor Editor (1983-1999). ishing sexism, racism, heterosexism, class divisions, tion, “Marxist-Humanism: A Half-Century of Its World Olga Domanski, National Organizer (1958-2015). John Alan, National Editorial Board Member Emeritus (2008-2011). and war; and establishing new human relations as the 10. See “The Syrian Revolution and its philosophy,” Nov.-Dec. News & Letters is printed in a union shop. very foundation of society. 2014 N&L. News & Letters is indexed by Alternative Press Index. —The Resident Editorial Board, April 19, 2016 MAY-JUNE 2016 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org Page 11 North Carolinians protest anti-LGBTQ law YOUTH IN ACTION Raleigh, N.C.—North Carolina’s House Bill 2 the discrimination is a violation of Title IX. (HB2)—passed in a special 12-hour session March 23 The bill overrides local laws passed to protect LG- by Natalia Spiegel at the cost of 42,000 taxpayer dollars—has been dubbed BTQ people from discrimination in wages, employment, During the week of March 20, hundreds of faculty, one of the most anti-LGBTQ laws to ever hit the books and services and undermines the authority of local students, staff and community members held a variety in our country. Not only does this bill have stagger- communities to pass laws reflecting their values, such of protests at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, ing consequences for LGBTQ North Carolinians in as the ability to decide on the minimum wage. Va., against white supremacist author Charles Murray. the form of discrimination, it also puts those who are North Carolina is now the only state other than Murray, author of Losing Ground and co-author with forced to use public restrooms of the gender on their Mississippi that provides no state protections to work- Richard Herrnstein of The Bell Curve, was invited to birth certificate and not the one they identify as at risk ers whose employers fire them for any discriminatory speak on March 25 by the Virginia Tech administration of being put into a dangerous situation. A bearded and as part of BB&T Bank’s “Capitalism and Freedom” lec- decidedly cis-looking Trans man posted a picture of ture series. Events included a Teach-In Against Hate himself on Twitter and tweeted Gov. Pat McCrory that that drew over 200 people, counter-lectures and a pro- the Governor just made it mandatory for him to share a test at the site when Murray spoke. bathroom with the Governor’s wife. * * * LEGALIZING DISCRIMINATION On March 3, a student group at MIT reached an HB2 makes discrimination against LGBTQ people agreement to end a sit-in in the administration build- in our communities legal. It was a hasty response to an ing that began in October. The students want MIT’s ordinance passed in Charlotte, N.C., set to go into effect endowment to sell off holdings in fossil fuel compa- Photo by Ethan Cicero on April 1 that provided protections from discrimina- nies, and the university refuses to do so. But MIT did tion on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, commit to taking steps toward carbon neutrality on and family status. The ordinance in Charlotte also al- campus, and to work on benchmarks and guidelines lowed people to use the restroom of the gender with for MIT’s engagement with climate change off cam- which they identify. pus, including its ties to government and businesses. * * * Trans and LGBQ people—emboldened by a pow- March 24 protest in Raleigh, N.C. Among those pictured are people who In March hundreds of Minneapolis students erful showing of thousands of young leaders of many were arrested for chaining themselves in the street. races—have taken to the streets with a call: “It’s time walked out of their classes to protest recent immigra- to escalate.” Over 1,000 of us showed up outside Gov. tion raids and the whole U.S. immigration policy un- reason, including race, sex, age, religion, color, or na- McCrory’s mansion in Raleigh the day the General As- der President Obama. They marched through south tional origin. This harms all working North Carolin- sembly sent him the bill. McCrory signed it into law in Minneapolis until they reached Martin Luther King ians and their families. the wee hours of the night. Five Trans or Queer people Jr. Park. At Southwest High School, more than 100 HB2 harms family economic security by restrict- were arrested in a powerful act of civil disobedience. students took part in a sit-in, then joined the march. ing the ability of local governments to raise wages and Close to ten high schools participated in the protest. We chanted, “If we don’t get no justice, you ensure basic job standards in their communities. This don’t get no peace,” “I believe that we will win,” hobbles local efforts to address shortfalls in state law “We are more than pink or blue,” and held signs regarding workers’ rights and wages and places work- like “We are not this NC,” and “Which bathroom ers at greater risk. Criminal prisons do we use when we’re pissed?” and “Pat, you’re continued from p. 1 being a dick.” On March 29, thousands of stu- NATIONAL OUTRAGE ESCALATES citizens regardless of their social, economic, cultural or dents blocked a main intersection in Chapel Hill, More than 80 major businesses and CEOs, includ- religious affiliations. These “states’ rights” reflect the N.C., home to UNC-CH, in what one long-time ac- ing Apple, Red Hat, Google, Lowe’s, American Airlines, views of a few well-placed far-right radical politicians tivist said was the largest student demonstration Facebook, and many more have spoken out against who, by virtue of their position in government, become in the city in over 50 years. HB2. Filmmaker Rob Reiner said he wouldn’t make despotic harbingers of vicious standards based upon Two Transgender people and a Lesbian working movies in N.C. until the bill is repealed. skewed concepts of morality. with several civil liberties groups filed a lawsuit on The N.C. Attorney General himself said that he DEADLY SOCIAL VOLCANO March 27 challenging the constitutionality of HB2. would not defend the “national embarrassment” of HB2 This social volcano has always existed. It gained HB2 puts children over seven at increased risk by in court. impetus with the “War on Drugs” during the Reagan making it illegal for them to accompany their caregiv- The Hurricanes, the state’s ice hockey team, is- administration, highlighted by targeting Black commu- ers into an opposite sex bathroom, forcing parents to sued a statement criticizing HB2, and the NBA said it nities and eroding their already tentative foundations. choose between leaving their child outside the restroom may reconsider hosting the 2017 All Star game in North It bubbled with the magma of Presidential or breaking the law. The bill criminalizes Transgender Carolina. —Social justice activist and Congressional machinations during the Clin- North Carolinians who simply want to use the bath- ton presidency with the enactment of the Prison room in peace. This is ridiculous. Litigation Reform Act and the Antiterrorism and By requiring discrimination in school bathrooms Effective Death Penalty Act which guaranteed and locker rooms, HB2 makes schools less safe for ‘Leaderful’ movements that the poor and disenfranchised would have an Transgender students and places $4 billion in desper- Minneapolis—A predominantly white group of about easy road to prison, regardless of their guilt or ately needed federal education funding at risk because 50 Midwest activists, invited by the Rye House collec- tive, participated in a four-day retreat led by Black innocence, and with less legal means available to facilitators from the local Black Lives Matter (BLM) them to protect rights they maintained. chapter. The Prison Industrial Complex erupted with help The retreat concluded with a protest organized by from the media—which hovered like vultures to embrace BLM and carried out by the mainly white activists. the carrion of fear invoked by power-hungry politicians QUEERNOTES in order to criminalize the poor, or a person of color. We blocked traffic at two intersections next to Target by Elise Field, the Minnesota Twins’ baseball stadium, on April Crime should not be excused or ignored and crimi- Queer women Rachel Williams, of Black Lives Mat- 11, the first home game of the season. Twenty-five of nal conduct should not go unpunished. That is not the ter Chicago, and Kristiana Colon, of #LetUsBreathe the white activists were arrested and released later in argument being addressed. The issue is that criminal- Collective, are among young African-American Les- the day. ization of a particular segment of society for political or bians, Bisexual and Transgender women who are in- capital gain is, in and of itself, a criminal action which creasingly leading and shaping Black Lives Matter, BLACK LIVES MATTER amounts to social genocide We also unfurled two banners inside the stadium raising awareness of police brutality against Black during the playing of the National Anthem. The ban- FAMILIES OF PRISONERS ARE CRIMINALIZED women and marginalized peoples. They take inspira- ners summed up the three main messages of the day’s The exploitation of families and friends of prison- tion from Transgender woman Marsha P. Johnson, who action: “White Silence = Violence”, “Justice for Jamar” ers whose only “criminal” act is to support those prison- resisted police at the Stonewall Riots in 1969, and the and “Target Field: End Slave Labor.” ers is also criminal. Combahee River Collective—Black women who stated Jamar Clark was a Black resident of Min- When prisoners are assaulted, racially pro- their sexual orientation without apology and who is- filed, enslaved, murdered or mistreated by the sued a statement in 1977 identifying the intersection of neapolis fatally shot by police. Prosecutors have refused to press charges against the officer who state, these too are criminal acts, and they are racism, sexism and heterosexism. Alicia Garza, Patrice rarely reported or prosecuted. Cullors and Opal Tometi founded Black Lives Matter in shot him. Slave labor refers to Target Field’s practice of hiring people intermittently to help When a volcano erupts in the natural world, it de- reaction to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the stroys, but it also carries with it the promise of new murder of Trayvon Martin. clean the stadium. There is no guarantee of work and no benefits, and the workers are nearly ex- growth. When the volcano which is the Prison Indus- * * * clusively Black and Brown people. trial Complex erupted, it was a catastrophic force that Indonesia’s Defense Minister Ryacudu called One of the main ideas of the weekend was that will continue to destroy in perpetuity. LGBT rights more dangerous than the possibility of white people are socially conditioned to be heard, to as- Its politically charged magma not only touches the nuclear warfare, the Indonesian Psychiatric Associa- sume leadership, to act individually. (We can also say lives of those directly involved; it touches the life of ev- tion declared Queer people mentally ill, Vice President the same for men, heterosexuals, cisgender people, col- ery single member of the community as well. It touches Kalla asked the UN to cut funding for LGBT rights lege-educated people, etc.) Recognizing this, people of grade schools and high schools that won’t get new fund- education and the national broadcasting commission historically dominant groups can choose to sometimes ing for educational materials or infrastructure; colleges banned TV and radio programs that portray Queer “lean out” and open space for others to “lean in” during whose budgets are cut to pave the way for funding new lives as “normal.” President Widodo ran on a platform group discussions and in organizing. monuments to a culture’s failure; and future genera- of support for human rights, but has remained silent on This approach lets a movement benefit from new tions of children, some of whom are tagged at birth these official actions. perspectives and strategies that could not otherwise by stigmas to be future wards of the Prison Industrial * * * be imagined by the perennial “leaders,” and it allows Complex. This nation spends billions of dollars on pris- The Chicago GLBT Chapter of the national Depres- the usual leaders to practice “followership.” One retreat ons and the Criminal (in)Justice System, and only a sion and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA), a peer-led session posed an overview of the history of Black ac- fraction of that on social services or education. group, provides mental health safe space and support tivism from the Haitian revolution and the Amistad “Distrust all,” Nietzsche wrote, “in whom the im- to the Chicago Queer community and its allies. Chi- takeover to the Underground Railroad, from the Mont- pulse to punish is powerful.” Only politicians have a cago GLBT people have been seeking alternative and gomery Bus Boycott to the Black Lives Matter rallies of vested interest in that solution and only they find ways affordable mental health support since Chicago Mayor recent years. to brag about that national embarrassment, especially Emanuel shut down half the city’s mental health clin- This history demonstrates how successful move- when they are losing an election. ics in 2012 and the State of Illinois has withheld funds. ments for social progress truly have been “leaderful” A society cannot base its present or future on in- Go to www.dbsalliance.org to find a DBSA chapter near movements, not just a few savior figures, but a vast and carcerating its way out of social problems. That is an you or to form a new chapter. All DBSA chapters are diverse array of initiative-takers. irresponsible and impossible process and it is time for volunteer-run. —Buddy Bell us to find another way. Page 12 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org MAY-JUNE 2016 WORLD IN VIEW Brazil meltdown opens a door to Right by Eugene Walker Now millions, including from the middle class, are re- ful campaign to greatly reduce the level of poverty by turning to poverty. increasing the minimum wage, income was transferred Brazil is in a dysfunctional meltdown. President to the poor and credit was made available to the lower Dilma Rousseff has just been impeached and will pos- PT DISAPPOINTS SOCIAL MOVEMENTS and middle class—all made possible because the Bra- sibly face trial in May. The web of political corruption The collapse of the economy combined with the cor- zilian economy was taking off. and scandal involves hundreds of companies, politicians ruption scandals has opened the door for the emergence However, Lula’s economic model was no alterna- and party functionaries. It has in one form or another of a growing right wing in Brazil. Millions have taken tive to capitalism. It was neoliberalism with a large existed over decades, but metastasized in the most re- to the streets in protest against the Rousseff-headed PT state presence: the state’s control of oil with Petrobras, cent period. administration. The impeachment proceeding has been its presence in huge pension plans and banking, its The state oil company Petrobras collected millions called, with some justification, a neoliberal attack by ability to offer close collaboration with private capital. of dollars in bribes from construction companies like politicians and corporations even though the PT admin- Odebrecht, which then obtained lucrative contracts. istrations of Lula and Rousseff have worked hand-in- NEED FOR REAL ALTERNATIVE TO CAPITALISM The money was funneled into the ruling Partido dos glove with private capitalism. At the same time the social movements that had Trabalhadores (PT, “Workers Party”) election cam- We must look beyond the corruption scan- brought the PT to power were weakened, absorbed into paign. In the impeachment case, Rousseff is not directly dals and the collapse of the economy to the prob- the state’s projects or marginalized. Today, with a de- facing charges of graft. She is accused of using money lematic rule of the PT. When Lula finally came pressed economy and vast corruption, the social move- from public banks to cover a budget gap as the Brazil- to power in 2002, it was because of the power of ments are faced with the challenge of beginning anew, ian economy imploded. However, before she was presi- social movements—particularly workers in trade independent of the state rule of the PT, while facing an dent, she headed Petrobras when the corruption was unions as well as peasants in land seizure move- energized reaction from the right. taking place. ments and urban dwellers. For millions, the PT Far from providing an alternative to capitalism, LEGISLATURE RIFE WITH CORRUPTION was the hope of a more just society moving to- the present moment in Brazil demonstrates the severe limitations of a “progressive” government unwilling The present impeachment upheaval has less to do ward socialism. But the Party leaders had other and unable to break free of the confines of capitalism in with stamping out corruption than with an effort to intentions. To his credit, Lula launched a serious and success- its private or state manifestations. shift power by lawmakers with questionable records themselves. Some 60% of Brazil’s 594 members of Con- gress face charges for bribery, electoral fraud, illegal deforestation, and even kidnapping and homicide. Refugee crisis measures world’s inhumanity In the most immediate sense the crisis is about the Causes range from genocide to climate change. But grants from Latin America and the Middle East. Once collapse of Brazil’s economy, including mismanagement at the crux of the world refugee crisis—there are now again, there is that will to deny any responsibility for by the ruling PT. Falling commodity prices devastated over 50 million refugees worldwide, and eight die every centuries of exploitation of Latin America and Africa the rapid economic growth that occurred during Luiz day reaching for a better life—is a demand for new human relations. (Lula) Inácio da Silva’s second presidential term (2006- Photo by Hector Silva 10) and in Rousseff’s first term (2010-2014). Prices of It’s hard to register the numbers, or Brazil’s main exports—iron, soya, oil—have collapsed. the suffering. In mid-April as many as 500 Millions of jobs have been lost with unemployment al- migrants and refugees from Egypt and most 10%. other African countries drowned in the In the Lula years, millions were lifted out of ex- Mediterranean Sea when the ship carry- treme poverty with the Zero Hunger welfare initiative. ing them sank. Over 3,770 people drowned trying to reach Europe last year. In Europe, most refugees are Syrians, ‘Panama’ tip of iceberg Afghans and Iraqis. Much of the world The leak of 11.5 million confidential documents refugee phenomenon flows from the rul- from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca gives a ers’ criminal actions—such as George W. view into ruling class life. The “Panama Papers” show Bush’s reactionary wars, the fundamen- how those with political power hide personal fortunes talist religious forces that grew in their by way of shell corporations. wake, Assad’s genocide and Putin’s rally- For example, Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmun- ing of Europe’s neo-Nazis under anti-im- dor Davio promised to fight corruption in the banking migrant banners. These racist, imperialist industry; however, it was revealed that his wife had a forces both created and profited from the secret interest in some failed banks. He resigned April devastation. That a camp like Idomeni, Greece, can Mexicali, B.C., Mexico: “Dia de los muertos” protest art in solidarity with migrant workers at 5, following huge demonstrations outside parliament. the border with Calexico, California. Mossack Fonseca managed shell companies for be compared by the Greek Interior Minis- relatives of former British Prime Minister Thatcher ter to a Nazi concentration camp is a judg- and current PM David Cameron. Heads of state from ment on Europe’s “civilization.” that is at the root of inhuman attitudes toward refu- China’s Xi Jinping to the Palestinian Authority’s Mah- A similar crisis exists in U.S. politics in this elec- gees, and once again it becomes an opening for the most moud Abbas, Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko, and Paki- tion year, as racists like Donald Trump attack immi- reactionary politicians. —G.E. stan’s Nawaz Sharif, had similar relations. Investigative reports into Vladimir Putin’s regime have shown how shell corporations and political power For prisoners, ‘lack of education is education’ serve to entrench the rule of state-capitalist oligarchies. Berkeley, Calif.—In February the University of Cali- State lovingly hijacked the meeting during the Q&A In Russia, this cronyism extends to those authorities fornia, Berkeley Human Rights Center put together a portion. Anyone wanting a strong Ethnic Studies de- charged with law enforcement—they own and trade talk, “The (In)Justice System: Incarceration, Educa- partment should bring resources to bear on the unmet shell companies that seize former state properties as tion, and Reentry: Reversing the School-to-Prison Pipe- needs of formerly incarcerated people in higher educa- assets. line” as part of a series about imprisonment, arbitrary tion. After all, you cannot talk about ethnic anything in Mossack Fonseca managed half a dozen companies and racist “mass incarceration.” the U.S. without coming back to imprisonment, where for Bashar al-Assad’s cousin, Rami Makhlouf, a sadist Panelists were Violeta Alvarez, Board Member the state cannot hide its disproportionate level of incar- and gangster who owned 60% of Syria’s economy, in- of the Underground Scholars Initiative, a student ceration of Black and Brown people. cluding its telecommunications. These “papers” are services and advocacy program at Berkeley, and Co- Prof. Pat Hilden reminded us that the lack of ed- both a privileged glimpse into illegal machinations, and facilitator of the “Teach in Prison” DeCal class there; ucation in prisons is education, as those living in the an insight into capitalist society’s actual power rela- Danny Murillo, Program Analyst at Vera Institute of intellectual deserts of California’s prison system are tions. —Gerry Emmett Justice and NJ-STEP Mountainview Program; Ronald learning not to learn. Maybe we should be thinking Moss, Executive Director of the Gamble Institute and about Ethnic Studies classes in prison, where they were “Street Scholars Peer-Mentoring Program”; and Simon carried out in secret at the risk of life and freedom. Murder in Honduras Woodard, Program Coordinator of the Prison Univer- NEW RELATIONS KEY TO KNOWLEDGE Six weeks after the murder of the Indigenous lead- sity Project in San Quentin. Honored guests were also Danny Murillo, co-founder of the Underground er and ecological-social activist Berta Cáceres, a three- present. The talk was moderated by Professor Emerita Scholars Initiative, spoke about his path to higher edu- day international gathering celebrating her life took Patricia Hilden of the Ethnic Studies Department. cation, which ironically was made possible by his inde- place in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa. Over 1,300 terminate sentence to the Pelican Bay Security Hous- activists from more than 20 countries attended. On TOO FEW VOICES OF COMMUNITIES ing Unit. He spoke of the breakdown of racial and ethnic the third day of the conference, a peaceful march held Unfortunately it was going to be somewhat inef- barriers that were the result of sharing knowledge be- by the participants was attacked in front of police and fectual from the start because the primary purpose—to military personnel who failed to intervene. The attack create different realities for impacted people including tween himself and his white neighbor who would tu- took place at the Gualcarque River, where the Agua the incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated, and those tor him, and with whom Danny would share “tamales,” Zarca dam is being constructed, a project that Cáceres, yet to be incarcerated—was not made central. This homemade confections of corn chips and whatever was her Lenca people, and her environmental organization event was for people that academia sees as leaders: oth- saved from dinner plates. The event would have been a Copinh opposed. er people in academia. Yet the change academics seek, raving success from this and other anecdotes from the Cáceres had said, “I cannot freely walk on my ter- and the kind of change the panel has the potential to formerly incarcerated people who spoke. ritory or swim in the sacred river, and I am separated create, cannot get at the root cause, and cannot foment The last to speak was Violeta Alvarez. A formerly from my children because of threats. I am always think- a real solution. incarcerated woman, she spoke heartbreakingly of the ing about being killed or kidnapped. But I do not want Nevertheless, there were some real highlights, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilita- to leave my country; I refuse to go into exile. I am a hu- including the honored guests Harrison Suega of tion and its treatment of the women it imprisons. The man rights fighter. I will not give up this fight.” the Asian Prisoner Support Committee, and Jose California prison system, like most, was created with Less than two weeks after Cáceres’ murder anoth- Gonzalez, Bikila Ochoa and Michael Mendoza of men in mind. Because of this, and because of the mon- er member of Copinh, Nelson García, was killed—shot the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, who were given a strous nature of imprisonment, women face extreme in the face by unidentified gunmen. few minutes to speak from the heart on their ex- deprivation in all areas the men do with the added bur- Honduras remains a land out of control, with the periences with incarceration, education and ad- den of being mothers, the physical demands of having police, military, and drug gangs on the loose. It is the vocacy. Formerly incarcerated people often bring a reproductive system in prison, including being denied most dangerous country in the Americas for journal- the heart to events and yet the event was not for supplies, giving birth in shackles, forced sterilizations ists. The country is still living under the shadow of the them, and therefore it missed an opportunity. and rape. Thank goodness for people like Violeta and 2009 U.S.-supported coup which assured continual oli- Cultural relevance and ethnic studies became the other women doing this work. garchy rule and widespread terror. —E.W. topic, as a well-meaning professor from San Francisco —Steven Czifra, Underground Scholars Initiative