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View Searchable PDF of the Issue THEORY / PRACTICE & “Human power is its own end”—Karl Marx Vol. 64 No. 3 May-June 2019 $1 DraftNEWS for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2019-2020LETTERS Humanity’s choice: Freedom and revolution or fascism, war and genocide They don’t want to face the facts— I. Two opposite we need to change the system if we Why we print the Draft Perspectives in News & Letters are to try to act on the climate crisis. In 1975 News and Letters Committees printed its Draft Perspec- directions: Climate This movement had to happen, we tives Thesis in News & Letters for the first time. The organization has didn’t have a choice. The vast ma- continued the practice ever since. What follows is the 1975 explanation jority of climate strikers taking ac- of why we decided to take such action and why we continue to do so: strike and genocide With this special issue, News and Letters Committees are breaking Two events that happened almost simultane- tion today aren’t allowed to vote…. totally new ground for the Marxist movement. Publishing the Draft Per- ously on March 15 dramatically reveal the tectonic Despite watching the climate crisis spectives Thesis for our coming national gathering directly in the pages forces ripping at this disintegrating capitalist so- unfold, despite knowing the facts, of our paper is unprecedented, not only for all other organizations, but ciety: the international climate strike carried out we aren’t allowed to have a say in even for our own. We do it because our age is in such total crisis, facing by youth and the racist massacre at New Zealand who makes the decisions about cli- a choice between absolute terror or absolute freedom, that a revolution- mosques. mate change….The kind of changes ary organization can no longer allow any separation between theory The first reveals a profound reach for a new hu- that need to happen mean everyone and practice, philosophy and revolution, workers and intellectuals, man future. The second a reach in the opposite di- recognizing that this is a crisis and “inside” and “outside.” We ask you to join in the discussion of these rection for a mythic past—one rooted in the actual committing to radical transforma- Perspectives with us. We are not presenting any “pat answers” to the past of slavery and oppression, but purged of the tions. We strongly believe that we question, “Where Do We Go From Here?” We are raising the questions freedom struggles. can fight off the most damaging effects of climate change—but we that demand answers—and we ask you to help us in working them out. A. The global youth have to act now.”1 Sophie Sleeman, 17, of the UK, assurances by government and industry. It keeps climate strike counterposed the Youth Strikes, as a “movement un- moving toward more and more production because Greta Thunberg and seven other teenage wom- restricted by walls,” to the far right’s growth. “Go- its inherent spirit and motive force is, as Karl Marx en leaders of the climate strike released a brief ing across borders,” she wrote, “young people from pointed out, “production for production’s sake.” manifesto explaining the strike actions that took around the world are weaving a new social fabric place in over 120 countries and involved as many as in which climate justice is our connecting force—a B. The deadly escalation of 1.5 million pre-teen and teenage students, as well as sledgehammer to the walls around us.”2 older supporters. This is not only a new level of mass white supremacist counter- The clarity of the Redfish activity around climate. It is a new point reached in climate actions cuts revolution the thought of the movement. through politicians’ If the youth in the “The system we have right now is failing and corporations’ climate strikes are us,” they wrote. “We have watched as politi- show of pretending reaching for a totally cians fumble, playing a political game rather to do something, as transformed future, than facing the facts that the solutions we need the youth have their the massacre of 50 cannot be found within the current system. eyes focused on the people in two New Zea- already unfolding di- land mosques reveals sasters. As opposed a pull in the exact op- VOICES FROM THE INSIDE OUT to outright denial of posite direction. That the science and the shooter’s manifesto shell game of fret- makes clear that the ting over costs to “the logic of that direction Served the time economy” to put off is genocide. It is the real action to protect logic of how the sys- but kept in prison human beings, the tem hits back at forces Climate Strikers in Cape Town, South Africa, on March 15, 2019. reaching for the future by Robert Taliaferro youth are grounded in solid knowledge and tries to chain the On April 28, 1994, Wisconsin’s Governor Tommy that puts to shame most politicians. On April 12, present to the past of slavery, conquest, exploitation Thompson sent a letter to the Secretary of the Wis- several leading climate scientists released a letter and domination. This was part of an alarming wave consin Dept. of Corrections Secretary which said, of support declaring that the youth’s “concerns are of successful, attempted, or planned mass killings by “…I recently proposed and subsequently signed into justified and supported by the best available science. white supremacists. law a bill to end mandatory parole for violent offend- The current measures for protecting the climate and Trump tried to hide this genocidal logic, which ers in Wisconsin. In enacting that important change, biosphere are deeply inadequate.”3 is inherent in his obsession with white national- legal counsel advised that any retroactive change in The reality pierces the show. Greenhouse gas ism—about which he desperately lied, “I think it’s the law would be unconstitutional.” emissions continue to rise, with only a slight pause a small group of people that have very, very serious In Wisconsin, people confined under its older after the 2008 crash. Emissions of both carbon di- problems.” No one could escape remembering his laws were given legislatively enacted good time based oxide and methane have actually accelerated, de- discovery of “very fine people on both sides” at the on their sentence, reducing the time that a person spite the pitiful measures under the Kyoto Accord, far right’s deadly 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Va. would spend in prison. Though a prisoner could get the Paris Agreement, and individual governments. Fact-checkers got busy reminding Trump of the discretionary parole that would release them early, Some 40% of the increase in carbon dioxide in the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, the anti-Mus- there were no guarantees this would occur. Once a atmosphere has occurred since the 1992 Earth Sum- lim killings in Quebec City and London in 2017, the prisoner reaches their mandatory release date, the mit, out of which came the first world treaty promis- 2011 slaughter of 77 people by a far-right terrorist in state had to release them under parole supervision ing to limit global warming. Norway as well as the U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant to serve out the remainder of their time. Half of emissions are due to resource ex- arrested in February for plotting to copy the Nor- THOMPSON—NOT ABOVE THE LAW traction like mining, oil drilling and deforesta- way attack. They could have added the huge spike in Thompson would have liked the law to apply tion. Resource extraction and energy produc- hate crimes that individually fall short of mass kill- retroactively to people sentenced before the law’s tion keep rising faster than population. Plastic ings, ever since Trump started campaigning against passage, but that would have violated the federal production has increased twenty-fold in the Mexicans, Muslims and women, which spiked again and state constitutions. To avoid that violation, he past 50 years and is set to rise 40% more in after he “won” election. Trump-fueled hate crimes “strongly suggested” that the department find all the next decade as petrochemical companies have targeted immigrants, Jews, Muslims, African- legal means possible to ensure that certain pris- vastly increase plastic manufacture based on Americans, Latinx people, women, Gays, Transgen- oners in Wisconsin did their maximum sentences, cheap fracked oil and gas. der people, people with disabilities, homeless people, writing: “Therefore, although I have ended manda- At the behest of oil companies, the Trump ad- anyone viewed as outside the “right” people. The tory parole for violent offenders, there are some in- ministration sabotaged UN negotiations on reducing long history of anti-abortion terrorism continues, mates already in prison who are still governed by plastic use and production in March. New chemicals and is tacitly supported by Trumpism. the old release law. I believe that mandatory release keep being brought to market despite lack of knowl- To Trump, the true emergency, other than the continued on p. 11 edge of their effects. U.S. recycling systems are col- threats to his personal fortune and prestige, is not lapsing. The capitalist economy keeps moving in the the stream of disasters fueled by climate change. Nor ON THE INSIDE direction opposite to what is needed, despite empty is it the war clouds over Iran or building conflict with 1. “Think we should be at school? Today’s climate strike is China, and even North Korea. It is certainly not the p. 4 Economy & dialectics of liberation the biggest lesson of all,” by Greta Thunberg, Anna Taylor, never-ending police execution of Black Americans p.
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