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“HumanNEWS power is its own end”—Karl Marx LETTERS Vol. 66 No. 4 July-August 2021 $1 Republicans savage democracy and history Solidarity with Palestinians The whole of American civilization was put on trial after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. The pro- needed as state powers scheme tests were unprecedented in scope, depth and creativity. by Gerry Emmett tions at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem that were met by While Black Lives Matter certainly laid the ground for the usual heavy-handed Israeli response. Hamas used this The brief, dirty war that broke out May 10-21 be- such a movement, what transpired went way beyond the as an excuse to launch thousands of Iran-supplied rockets tween the Israeli government and Hamas, the Islamist organized groups and drew in in attacks against Israel. group ruling Gaza—alleg- hundreds of thousands of oth- @PalesAbroad They may have imagined edly over a housing dis- ers: white, Black and other this would have a huge im- pute in the Sheikh Jarrah EDITORIAL people of color, in the U.S. and pact on regional politics. It neighborhood of East Jeru- worldwide, including high school-age youth led especially did not. The peace accords salem—had many reaction- by young women of color. Israel has signed with vari- ary consequences. But this outpouring for freedom and justice also ous regional powers were First and foremost sparked a new intensity in Republican-led determina- unaffected. is the sheer human trag- tion to erode, stifle, obfuscate, erase from memory and What is, perhaps, edy. Casualties include repress democracy. Republicans have clearly decided that most telling is that—fol- 256 Palestinians killed, democracy must be destroyed so that they can rule in per- lowing the Israeli bomb- including 66 children, petuity, representing the 1% in the name of white Chris- ing and misfired Hamas and 1,900 injured. Thir- tian America. rockets (about one in teen Israelis were killed, every five) that fell on TRASHING HISTORY TO FIT AN AGENDA including two children, Gaza—the Hamas lead- To this end they willingly attack not only democratic with over 200 injured. ers were forced to apolo- institutions but any challenge to their racist, sexist, class- An Indian citizen and gize to the Palestinian biased version of history. Rewriting history and creating two Thai guest workers people. Sincere or not, it Big Lies has always been a favorite tactic of dictators and in Israel also died. fascists because the truth threatens their authority. Free- This wasn’t just a re- shows the independence dom movements have long fought these falsifications. peat of past Gaza wars— of the Palestinian work- The arenas of contention can feel overwhelm- another “mowing the lawn,” ing class that remains ing. Even community activists who traditionally as a dehumanized Israeli the real core of the na- concentrate on “get out the vote” found in 2020- military official called the tional liberation move- 21 how that is but one small step. The entire vot- recurring conflicts. It is ment. These people are not ing process, from registration to ballot counting, necessary to look closely May 17, 2021, demonstration in support of Palestinians held in Turin, Italy; one was and is threatened. Black, Brown, and poorer at the reactionary results of many held around the world. willing to enlist in battles communities now confront bills to restrict voter as insight into the current they don’t initiate them- access. Some limit mail and early voting; others state of the capitalist world. This starts with the three selves. make it easier to overturn election results. “The major actors, the Palestinians, Israel, and the shadowy ISRAEL’S EXISTENTIAL CRISIS continued on p. 9 player in the wings, Iran. In 2011, in the wake of the Arab Spring, protests for PALESTINE: CAPITAL VS. LIBERATION social and economic justice in Israel resulted in the oc- The most obvious reactionary consequences of these cupation of Rothschild Boulevard. This moment saw the VOICES FROM THE INSIDE OUT events fall on Palestinians and their movement for na- tentative but real possibility of unity between Israeli and tional and social liberation. The stage was set on April Palestinian workers. It saw many Israelis beginning to 29 when Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud question the costs of military rule of the West Bank and Abbas canceled elections he had previously agreed to hold Gaza. Targeting anti-racism Hard as it may be to remember now, this is the by Robert Taliaferro on May 22. This outraged many Palestinians, including Hamas, the reactionary group that has ruled in Gaza power that can be unleashed when humanity rises In the early 1980s white prisoners in a Midwestern since 2007. above the suffocating dreck of capitalist rule. This prison sent a request to the warden seeking permission to Neither of these organizations truly represents chance at progress was met by some concessions, form a “white culture group” similar to the other culture Palestinians. The PA has developed a capitalist rul- and some repression; but most relevant for today, groups in the prison at the time. The warden, who was ing class in the West Bank that is tied to Saudi and the Israeli Right in response introduced the reac- white, refused the request, responding, “...America is our Israeli capital, sometimes even hiring Israeli secu- tionary law declaring Israel to be “the nation-state white culture group.” rity companies to defend against its own workers. of the Jewish people,” reserving the right of self- Today there is a heated debate over the teaching of Hamas, in contrast, gets more funding and weaponry determination to Jewish citizens. critical race theory, especially in some areas of the coun- from Iran. It has developed a somewhat smaller capital- This controversial law, barely passed by the Knesset try still influenced by Donald Trump and his supporters. ist class, running shopping centers and other enterprises, in 2018, was directed against any revolutionary unity be- Critical race theory discusses issues like white privilege and levying taxes on Palestinian workers. tween Jews and Palestinians. It is exactly that fault line and systemic racism, but it also helps a nation to under- Abbas, who was elected in 2005 for a four-year term, that snapped on May 10, when anti-Arab riots and po- stand how far it has come, and how far it needs to grow, has refused to hold elections since then. This “coup” led groms exploded in Lod. These spread to Haifa, Beersheba, when it comes to issues of racial equality. Hamas, which hoped to make gains, to call for demonstra- continued on p. 10 RACISM AS A MEASURE OF U.S. SOCIETY Opponents of the idea argue that teaching critical race theory in schools would create a conclave of people Native Americans challenge Line 3 who would be taught to hate America. Those opponents Enbridge calls this a “replacement” of the Line also argue that teaching about systemic racism and white by Franklin Dmitryev 3 pipeline built in the 1960s, but the new pipeline privilege gives the impression that all white Americans The protests in Minnesota over the Enbridge Line 3 is being built along a new 340-mile path and would are racist, which is as far from the truth as it would be to pipeline are the latest front in a long struggle. It is part nearly double Line 3’s current capacity. It would say that this country is a “flawless” utopia. of the decolonization and liberation struggle of Native carry 760,000 barrels of diluted bitumen daily from Systemic racism is not about singular incidents Americans. At the same time, it is part of the movement to confront climate change, and to make sure it is done in Alberta’s tar sands to Superior, Wisconsin. of discrimination propagated within a culture; it is The land it crosses in Minnesota is mostly treaty land about defined ideas that are adopted by a society a way that benefits Black, Indigenous and People of Color, women, workers and youth, rather than narrowly aimed where the Anishinaabe people have hunting, fishing, and as a whole, based on misinformation and the reli- gathering rights. Wild rice, which the Anishinaabe gath- ance on “allowed” racial and cultural stereotypes, to help capital. The June 5-8 Treaty People Gathering of thousands er for both sustenance and culture, grows in lakes and that are not acknowledged because they have been rivers in much of Minnesota. Many of its habitats are at institutionalized and cemented within the nation’s of water protectors was followed by a march to the Missis- sippi River headwaters, establishment of the Fire Light risk from construction as well as climate change and pol- consciousness. lution, and even more from potential spills of tar sands Systemic racism is about definitive acts supported Camp, and a pump station blockade. They were assaulted oil. Line 3 has suffered major spills, including 1.7 million by institutions—regardless of their societal affiliation— by police—federal as well as from multiple counties and gallons in Grand Rapids, Minn., in 1991. Enbridge is also and how the inadequacies of those institutions relate to states—and 247 were arrested. A low-flying Customs and responsible for the 2010 spill in the Kalamazoo River in continued on p. 8 Border Protection helicopter was used to harass water protectors, prompting an internal investigation of this Michigan, which, after over $1.2 billion of cleanup, is still abuse. Police, who are being funded by Enbridge, also contaminated. ON THE INSIDE wielded a sound cannon known to cause injuries. Women in the struggle call attention to the sexual violence and trafficking associated with the

p. 4 Palestine: Need for total uprooting YEARS-LONG RESISTANCE ESCALATES “man camps” of pipeline construction workers, al- p. 2 Abortion rights at crossroads These dramatic actions drew attention to a years- most all male, where machismo and rape culture long resistance to Line 3, led by Indigenous women and prevail. (See “Women WorldWide,” March-April 2020 p. 3 Chinese youth, labor and Marxism Two-Spirit people. After construction began in November, N&L.) p. 3 Volvo workers strike, defying UAW resistance camps were set up beginning in January in the In 2016, the struggle at Standing Rock over the Da- p. 12 French generals threaten civil war frigid northern Minnesota winter. Other recent actions kota Access Pipeline manifested a new chapter in revolu- included an April 1 Indigenous youth rally in Washing- tionary Indigenous movements and gave impetus to In- ton and a campaign to pressure banks not to finance the digenous and anti-extractivist movements worldwide. “I ONLINE: www.newsandletters.org pipeline expansion. continued on p. 3 Page 2 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org JULY-AUGUST 2021 WOMAN Abortion rights at crossroads ‘Men Who Hate Women’ by Adele AS by Terry Moon ture will no longer matter.” She expressed her outrage at This important book, Men Who Hate Women: From REASON By now you may be one of a bill that outlaws abortion before a woman would even Incels to Pickup Artists: The Truth About Extreme Misog- the hundreds of thousands who know she was pregnant when she said: “And so, before yny and How It Affects Us All by Laura Bates, exposes the listened to Lake Highlands High they have the time to decide if they are emotionally, physi- extreme damage School Valedictorian Paxton Smith’s graduation speech cally, and financially stable enough to carry out a full- caused to society by where she decided to talk about abortion rights rather term pregnancy, before they have the chance to decide if online misogynist than her school-approved comments on the effect of the they can take on the responsibility of bringing another hu- communities, or the media. Her immediate impetus was a new bill signed by man being into the world, that decision is made for them “manosphere.” Texas Governor Greg Abbott that outlaws abortion after by a stranger. A decision that will affect the rest of their The involun- six weeks for every reason except the life of the woman. It lives has been made by a stranger!” And that “stranger” tary celibate com- also opened the door for anybody to sue any and everyone in this case is a man who will never face the questions munity of “incels” involved in the entire abortion process—from mothers that Paxton Smith and every woman, pregnant when she is an echo chamber driving their daughters to get the procedure to janitors doesn’t want to be, faces. attracting lonely who clean the clinic where it takes place, not to mention Smith ended her talk by rightly calling the at- young men, trap- the woman having the procedure. tack on abortion rights a “war on my body and…my ping them in a TERRIFIED AND OUTRAGED rights,” and “a war on the rights of your mothers… cycle of self-hatred. What struck me was Smith’s outrage because it mir- your sisters…a war on the rights of your daughters. Its simplistic self- rored that of generations of women, including those like We cannot stay silent.” contradicting phi- me who came of age when abortion was illegal. Then, What gives hope for the future was not only Paxton’s losophy is that talk but the reaction women are evil, to it by her audience of disgusting, and pro- students and parents. miscuous, choosing There was some ap- successful men over plause during the talk incels, who should itself, but when it end- rape them. It con- ed there was a roar of nects with white supremacism, stating that white women cheering and clapping. destroy civilization by procreating with other races. For years abor- The Pink House tion rights activists HATRED OF WOMEN LEADS TO MASS MURDERS have bemoaned the Incels committed many mass murders in recent de- fact that many wom- cades, writing in manifestos or online comments that en, including those they wanted revenge on society, especially women. Online who live at a time incels encouraged them and gave them “sainthood,” but Clinic defenders standing in front of the parking lot to the “Pink House,” the last abortion clinic left in the entire state when abortion has law enforcement and the media ignore the connection. of Mississippi. The case now before the U.S. Supreme Court was brought by the Pink House director to challenge a always been legal (al- Men committing domestic violence and rape have also Mississippi bill that would have outlawed abortion before a woman could even know she was pregnant. though it is now be- committed mass murder. In both cases, openly misogy- coming almost impos- nist motives are ignored, and the crime is not called ter- rorism, although it fits that legal definition. The media most of us who were older than 18 knew at least one sible for many to obtain) have not comprehended the fact that the legal right to abortion is in serious pities white terrorists but not Muslim men committing friend or acquaintance who either had or wanted to have the same crime. an abortion; and we had felt the fear of having to answer danger of being overturned. That the right to con- Pick Up Artists (PUA) also believe that women the question of what would we do if we became pregnant trol our own bodies can be stripped away from us only exist to be men’s property. They sell lucrative when we didn’t want to be. “by a stranger.” Smith’s talk shows that this igno- courses and hold conventions on how to “manipu- Smith put it this way: “I am terrified that if my con- rance is in the past. When the U.S. Supreme Court decided to take a case late and control all of your women” and “create a traceptives fail, I am terrified that if I’m raped, then my state of obedience.” The general public thinks PUAs hopes and aspirations and dreams and efforts for my fu- where they could rule on whether it is legal for the state of Mississippi to ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnan- encourage casual, consenting sex, but they actually cy, most court watchers agreed that they did so in order teach sexual harassment and rape. Bates points out to either gut Roe v. Wade (the case that legalized abor- that young men wanting to learn how to connect WOMENWORLDWIDE tion) or overturn it completely. They did this despite the with women will instead learn to put up barriers. fact that the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling stated that Men Going Their Own Way avoid relationships with by Artemis states cannot ban abortion before a fetus is viable outside women, viewed as intellectually inferior parasites (al- though all of these groups are also homophobic). Believ- On May 1, International Workers’ Day, members of the womb—about 23 weeks of pregnancy, a decision that has been upheld although tested numerous times by anti- ing all accomplishments of civilization were by men, they the BC Women’s Alliance, a coalition of feminist groups say ours is in decline because women don’t know their and individuals in British Columbia, Canada, dropped abortion fanatical laws passed in Republican-controlled legislatures. place and “feminized” it. They popularized the term “red banners from bridges, government buildings and other pilled,” meaning realizing society is controlled by women, locations throughout the province reading #Women De- WOMEN IN POLAND, ARGENTINA SHOW THE WAY who lie about economic and sexual oppression. They use mand Guaranteed Livable Income. The Guaranteed Liv- Perhaps Republicans think that this must be a good debunked studies, influencing men to push women out of able Income (GLI) would give a livable amount to all thing for them—helping them to win votes in the culture careers and to disbelieve the #MeToo movement. Famous residents of Canada, regardless of citizenship or status, war when they continue to be bankrupt with regard to academics using unsound logic give an appearance of re- without a means test or job search requirement. It would health and childcare, labor rights, anti-discrimination spectability. be given to individuals, not families, a crucial protection legislation—in short, anything that could help Ameri- Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs) split from the 1970s to prevent women from being trapped in abusive relation- cans who don’t fall into the rich-white-man category. But men’s liberation movement, which continues supporting ships. Feminists have fought for the GLI for decades and voices like Paxton Smith’s show they may well be in for feminism and fights men’s problems caused by patriar- published an explanation, The Pictou Statement, in the a rude—and extremely timely—awakening. Hundreds of chy and capitalism. This is more effective than the MRAs Canadian Woman Studies journal in 2004. thousands of women have shown us the way in Ireland, blaming feminists for men’s job loss, dangerous and low- * * * Poland, and Argentina: they would bring down a govern- paying jobs, mental illness, suicidality, and relationship In May, Alix Dobkin, founder of the genre of Women’s ment that would try to “dehumanize” (Paxton’s word) problems. Music, died at age 80. A folk singer/guitarist in the 1970s, them by having “the autonomy over your own body taken she was part of the Women’s Liberation Movement, form- from you.” WOMEN ATTACKED ON SOCIAL MEDIA Bates describes “trolls” targeting female politicians ing the group Lavender Jane with classical musician Kay Paxton characterized what Governor Greg Abbott did and women speaking out about sexism and racism. They Gardner. Deciding to write songs and perform for women, as a “war” against women and “a problem that can’t wait.” send thousands of vulgar social media messages threat- especially Lesbians, no record label would hire her, so The anti-abortion, anti-women reactionary movement is ening rape and murder, causing women to cancel speak- she formed her own production company, Women’s Wax led by Republicans who think they are on the brink of a ing events and leave careers. The mainstream media and Works. In 1973, she produced the first recorded album of victory with a Supreme Court now packed with anti-abor- politicians, including past President Donald Trump, re- Lesbian music, “Lavender Jane Loves Women” with an tion zealots. Time will tell if they are right, or if they have peat manosphere propaganda uncritically, blaming vic- all-woman team, including performers, sound engineer, unleashed millions of American women who, like Paxton tims for violence and trivializing feminism. Candidates and record pressers, gluing copies of her own illustra- Smith, will flood the streets and demonstrate that control have run for office on platforms with manosphere goals tion to the cardboard sleeves. She recorded six albums, of one’s own body is something so fundamental to being such as legalizing rape. touring U.S. feminist coffeehouses, clubs, bookstores, and human that we are willing to overthrow a government to music festivals and performing for women worldwide. A create it. Bates describes solutions for government, mother and grandmother, she was codirector of Old Lesbi- tech companies, media, and especially education. How to contact She explains that the manosphere reached out to ans Organizing for Change and wrote a memoir, My Red propagandize boys with misogynist extremism (un- Blood. NEWS & LETTERS COMMITTEES CHICAGO LOS ANGELES fortunately, she incorrectly uses the term “radi- * * * calize”). Pro-feminist men and boys’ groups like The COVID-19 lockdown contributed to a worldwide 228 South Wabash, #230 MEETINGS Alternate Sundays, 3:30 PM Promundo, the Good Lad Initiative, and the White increase in violence against women, including the prac- Chicago, IL 60604 Call or email for information Ribbon Campaign equip boys to resist sexism. They tice of female genital mutilation (FGM), but grassroots Phone 312-431-8242 MEETINGS Call for Info about virtual meetings teach healthy relationship skills, questioning of activists are fighting back. Lucy-Ann Ganda, a director at Lanewsandletters masculine stereotypes, and critical thinking to Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation, uses funds from OAKLAND @gmail.com question any propaganda. the Global Media Campaign to End FGM to train a net- P.O. Box 3345, 213-627-7086 Bates says it’s a slow process but describes positive work of 60 journalists. Their TV programs include doctors Oakland, CA 94609 DETROIT change in high schools where she has lectured. She previ- using visual aids explaining damages of FGM and sur- [email protected] ously observed boys imitating behavior they had learned vivors giving testimonies. By showing the health, social, detroitnewsandletters@gmail. MEETINGS com online. This book aims to alert readers to the roots of and economic implications she says, “We have weakened Sundays, 6:30 PM MEETINGS many social problems and guides us towards solutions. the silence. Now people talk. The media is powerful—you Email for info about meetings Sundays, 2:00 PM are compelled to listen and you begin to understand and Write for information see FGM is not good.” In Somalia, Ifrah Ahmed has used SF BAY AREA YOUTH Sisters – Share your experiences of her Ifrah Foundation to train over 5,000 university stu- COMMITTEE FLINT, MI struggle and learn about others’ in PO Box 7676, Flint, MI 48507 dents, government officials, leaders of community and re- [email protected] each issue of News & Letters. See ligious groups and 80 women in settlements for internally INTERNET page 7 for how to subscribe, or go to displaced persons. They speak out, often using personal experiences and debunking myths. She also distributes EMAIL WORLDWIDE WEB newsandletters.org radios to receive anti-FGM programs. [email protected] www.newsandletters.org JULY-AUGUST 2021 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org Page 3 Chinese youth, labor and Marxism Volvo workers defy “Since there has never really been a trend of thought All through society Chinese youth depression that exalts human subjectivity in this land, I can create it rates have skyrocketed from 1989 through 2018. UAW to resume strike for myself. Lying down is my wise man movement” Since the COVID-19 epidemic, it has only gotten UAW workers on June 7 resumed their strike at the —kind hearted traveler worse. Experts who conducted this study blame Volvo Truck Plant in Dublin, Va., the day after rejecting This post on Chinese social media is a part of a huge workers’ social conditions. China’s youth’s condi- for the second time the tentative agreement that Local movement. “Lying flat” is a form of protest by Chinese tions are similar to the U.S.: high housing prices, 2069 Bargaining Committee presented to them. The vote youth and workers alike. They are rebelling against their demand for ever-harder work, low fertility rate to reject, like the vote on May 16 to strike, was by more inhumane working conditions and alienation. They either due to lack of income for young people and stress than 90%. slow down their labor or do nothing at all. of overwork. WORKERS DESPISE TWO-TIER SYSTEM CCP ATTEMPTS TO DESTROY REVOLT As Raya Dunayevskaya writes in Marxism and Free- Little wonder the workers were so united, when both This growing movement has many shirts and other dom, “Labor is first of all the function of man. But la- tentative contracts would have maintained the hated per- symbols to openly show their resistance to the Chinese bor under capitalism is the very specific function of man dictatorship, which is desperately trying to censor them, working at machines to which he becomes a mere append- manent two-tier wage system that currently freezes work- threatening anyone who mentions it online or offline. age” (p. 56). ers with less than 15 years seniority at around 70% of the The authoritarian Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is What we are witnessing in China is a reaction full wage. now aiming to crush dissent among workers and youth. to the capitalist mode of production and the alien- Local 2069 officials also included for ratification by They no longer “cut anyone slack” as they used to. Now ation, sexism, racism and depression that it brings. its 3,300 members Volvo’s insistence, while a pandemic is they meet protest with quick police violence and impris- As Dunayevskaya wrote in 1953, authorities know still ongoing, on raising healthcare out-of-pocket payouts onment. that workers’ “low productivity [...] is a sign of re- to $2,000/$4,000. The company may count on the fact that Why is the CCP ramping up their crackdown volt.” the worldwide chip shortage, which has intermittently on protests? According to Chinese economists, “ly- As we see these movements get bigger, the CCP will forced vehicle production shutdowns across the auto and ing down” could lower productivity, consumption learn, as the USSR did, that you cannot “manipulate the truck industry, could work in its favor. and the birth rate. They demand workers produce dialectic to fit arguments both pro and con on any subject” RESISTANCE IN SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA constantly, because it is that inhuman intense la- (M&F, p. 43). Soon the CCP will see the Subject is not the If Volvo expected to better control its workforce and bor that is growing China’s economy at the cost of Party or capital but human beings. —William Smith avoid Black worker resistance by choosing to open its the human beings’ lives. truck plant nearly 40 years ago in Pulaski County, with a Workplace practices in China have been “overwork, Black population under 6%, it must have been disappoint- abuse and injury.” Deaths of two young tech workers, one Free Hong Kong rally ed. Ford absorbed Volvo in 1997, then unloaded it to the collapsing from overwork, the other by suicide, prompted Chinese company Zhejiang Geely Holding Group in 2010. young Chinese tech workers to launch a “996 ICU” cam- UAW bureaucrats—who have over the years paign. The name refers to a popular saying: if you work deflected worker criticism and obstructed inter- from 9 to 9, 6 days a week, you’ll end up in an ICU. Over national solidarity by blaming Japanese workers, the last two years, the movement to expose brutal condi- and lately Chinese workers—have proved in Dub- tions has spread to over 200 companies. Young workers want the world to know about their total alienation from lin, Va., that they are willing to make deals as eas- the way China’s tech companies have turned coding into ily with Chinese capitalists as with nominally U.S. mechanical, non-innovative drudgery. (See “Down and capitalists. out in China’s tech boom,” Financial Times, 6/12/2021.) UAW workers continuing their renewed strike have forced Volvo Truck back to the bargaining table at the end of June. Time will tell if the company dares to make yet LA police insist on another offer that workers would emphatically reject. —Former auto worker their right to kill for News & Letters Bob McGuire Los Angeles—Both the Los Angeles Police Association Native Americans and Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva are be- hind the petition to recall progressive LA County District Attorney George Gascon. Gascon defeated DA Jackie Lac- Chicago—Activists from Hong Kong along with emi- challenge Line 3 ey—who the LAPA and Villanueva overwhelmingly sup- gres from Tibet and the China mainland joined support- continued from p. 1 ported—in the November 2020 election. ers of freedom for Myanmar and Thailand on June 12 to think that the resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline As District Attorney, Jackie Lacey refused to pros- mark two years since millions filled the streets to protest set the tone for the rest of the environmental movement,” ecute hundreds of cases of LAPD Police and Sheriff bru- a threatened extradition law. said Tara Houska, one of the Line 3 resistance leaders. tality, including murders of unarmed Black and Brown Public protest declined during the pandemic Some of the Standing Rock veterans, like people. Black Lives Matter and their multi-ethnic sup- and, as of July 1, 2020, under the boots of the Na- Houska, are participating in the Line 3 movement. porters protested weekly for her removal as DA. She tional Security Law imposed on Hong Kong. Ar- These and other struggles, like the fight to stop the also railroaded hundreds of Black and Brown youth into rests of the opposition have followed, from students Trans Mountain Pipeline in Canada, brought to the prison and onto death row, helping the Prison Industrial and workers to billionaires like Jimmy Lai, owner fore the clash between the reach for liberation and Complex after Three Strikes and You’re Out passed in of banned Apple Daily newspaper. an entrenched system holding onto its exploitative In spite of the law, many in Hong Kong mourned the 1984. ways even at the price of climate chaos. June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square Massacre with indi- These movements defeated the Keystone XL, anoth- TANKING RODNEY KING CASE vidually lit candles. Chicago rallies have demonstrated er tar sands oil pipeline, and Enbridge Line 5 is on the While Lacey was a prosecutor, she was responsible solidarity with those fighting for freedom in Myanmar ropes. Trans Mountain was only saved—for now—by be- for moving the trial of the four LAPD police officers, who and Thailand against regimes backed by Xi Jinping, and ing nationalized by Canada’s federal government. But the in 1990 beat Rodney King almost to death, to Simi Valley. Tibetans, Uyghurs and Hong Kongers more directly op- Biden administration, which could easily have shut down There, the all-white jury’s “not guilty” verdict resulted in pressed by Xi’s forces. —Bob McGuire Dakota Access, refused to take action, and is defending the April 29, 1992, LA Rebellion that spread throughout Line 3 in federal court. This would commit the U.S. and the nation. Canada to decades more tar sands emissions at the very Police brutality and murders have continued Forcing workers back time when even such oil-friendly establishment organiza- in the U.S. as District Attorneys rarely prosecute tions as the International Energy Agency declared that criminal police. An exception was the Oakland po- it is urgent to stop new fossil fuel developments immedi- lice murder of Oscar Grant, who was handcuffed to unlivable wages ately. Yet under capitalism, governments from Biden’s to and face down when police shot him in the back in Kansas City, Mo.—Missouri is one of 25 states on track the Chinese Communist Party’s keep pushing new devel- 2010. The trial was moved to Los Angeles, where he to reject by July the $300 a week federal supplemental opments while promising to transition away from fossil was found guilty of manslaughter, not murder, and unemployment insurance. The payments issued to shore fuels. released from prison after serving a few months up the economy in response to the pandemic, and in fear of unrest that unemployment levels unseen since the Great NEW LAWS CRIMINALIZE PROTESTERS of a maximum 14-year sentence. Both the Depart- The sense of urgency the state lacks there has been ments of Justice and law enforcement in this coun- Depression of the 1930s might create, were not scheduled to end until September. shown instead in the passage of a raft of laws criminaliz- try have a long history of white supremacist rac- ing protest and designating fossil fuel extraction, process- ism. You would normally expect even the most anti-worker politicians to fear backlash from these workers whose ing and distribution sites, including pipelines, as critical While BLM-LA has promoted “defund the LA Po- infrastructure. lice Association and LAPD,” LA Mayor Eric Garcetti has pockets are being picked, including at the ballot box. This just proves how much Republican legislators are counting Where the state sees criminals interfering with pushed a 3% raise for LAPD. Several months ago, the Los oil profits and the material structure of capital, In- Angeles City Council voted to cut LAPD’s budget by $150 on voter suppression to avoid paying a political price from workers who rightly have multiple concerns with return- digenous activists see a struggle for decolonization million dollars. Erika Smith, a Black woman journalist ing to work before workplaces can be made safe. and sovereignty, against what some like Houska for the Los Angeles Times, wrote: “More cops would equal Workers in restaurants and healthcare can look call “cultural genocide.” The climate movement has more George Floyds. Lawless cops can’t continue to be the for jobs with higher wages, the way European peas- developed tremendously in the past two decades, norm.” ants who survived the Great Plague returned to and one of the most important changes is the rise The major focus of the LAPD and police work with improved wages and conditions. Taking of a new generation, many of them women of color throughout this country seems to be on criminal- away unemployment benefits is the modern ver- where previously white men dominated. izing and killing mostly Black and Brown people. sion of the vagrancy laws by which English work- That is closely linked to the self-construction of the They rarely prevent the rising incidence of mass ers were forced into the clutches of the factories at Indigenous Subject of revolution, as seen in movements shootings in schools, theaters, churches, and so the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. like Standing Rock and Idle No More, and also in a new many other places where people gather. While Gov. Mike Parson has moved full steam ahead crop of revolutionary books like Our History Is the Future: Many see the concentration of LAPD police as a war to push workers back on the job, he is making political Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the on Black and Brown people. LAPD’s so-called “communi- capital out of displaying his indifference to the continued Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance by Nick Estes, ty policing” is based on a provisional LAPD program that incarceration of provably innocent prisoner Kevin Strick- The Red Deal, and Red Nation Rising. Front and center includes a few community people—rather than a com- land. He said there were 30,000 appeals for clemency is a vision that goes way beyond stopping pipelines to the munity agenda written by progressive Black and Brown that he would review before even considering an end to construction of a new kind of sovereignty that breaks with activists such as Black Lives Matter and approved by a Strickland’s injustice after 45 years. The Jackson County capitalist economics and relationships, recaptures tradi- majority of community residents. Real community polic- District Attorney has vowed to be in court at 9:00 a.m. on tional ecological knowledge worked out over millennia of ing is very unlikely under today’s profit-making class di- August 28, the first moment she is allowed to intervene experience, and transforms the relationships of human visions which include a huge LAPD budget with military without the Governor’s action—but every added day com- beings to nature and to each other. weapons and tactics. —Basho pounds this miscarriage of justice. —Warehouse worker Say no to Line 3 and yes to a new human society! PHILOSOPHIC DIALOGUE

Page 4 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org JULY-AUGUST 2021

FROM THE WRITINGS OF Need for a Total Uprooting: RAYADUNAYEVSKAYA Down with the Perpetrators of Editor’s note: Understanding the latest world cri- sis in Israel-Palestine (see “Solidarity with Palestinians the Palestinian Slaughter in Lebanon seemingly easier. Bashir Gemayel, on whom such barbarism. Opposition, and even putting an end to Needed as State Powers Scheme,” p. 1) requires grasp- Israel seemed fully dependent, had not only begun to these uncivilized acts, cannot, however, be sufficient unto ing that today’s global society is so riddled with deep say that it was necessary to get all foreign troops out of the day without, at one and the same time, showing how crises and contradictions that everything is imbued it had resulted from a transformation into op- with its own opposite. That is seen in the transforma- posite of what Israel was at its birth in 1947-48, tion of the search for a homeland for the Jews after and what it is today, 1982-83…. the Holocaust into a state-capitalist, imperialist state How quickly forgotten (if, indeed, Begin or imposing a military occupation on Palestinians. How- Irgun ever knew them) are the true origins of ever, the critique of Israel, even when factually correct, the idea of an “Israeli nationality.” The Nazi is insufficient by itself, when (1) every revolution, every Holocaust, which they invoke today for reac- movement, contains contradictions that can become the tionary purposes, is the fact of history that basis for a transformation into opposite, which is just changed the position of Marxists who had al- as true of the Palestinian struggle as of any other, and ways been for cultural assimilation to the point (2) that stopping at a halfway point ensures just such where nothing deviated from straight social- retrogression, so what becomes an absolute necessity ist goals. (See Leon Trotsky’s articles on why, is the banner of genuine liberation, and a philosophy though still fully opposed to Zionism, he now— of liberation. Today the total contradiction is seen also i.e., 1937—had to be for a “homeland for the within movements for solidarity with Palestinians, in Jews.” That was the Marxist position on Israel, which Assadist Leftists are jostling to put themselves on the question of national self-determination.) at the head of each movement despite their support for The same was true for those who weren’t Marx- Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad all the time that he ists. A good essay by a liberal, Alfred Friendly, was killing and repressing Palestinians as well as Syr- describes the shock of today, even of those who ians of all backgrounds. What both Assadists and anti- still favored Israel in the war of 1967. Semitism reveal is the treacherous nature of the gap Aftermath of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, September 1982.. In “Israel: Paradise Lost” (The Guardian, between coming together to be and working out against July 11, 1982), Alfred Friendly recalls the 1967 a really liberatory . It shows why stop- what we are for Lebanon, but was beginning to look to the U.S., since war, when he was for Israel and when the attitude was ping at halfway points can be so retrogressive. All that it, too, was criticizing its prime ally in the Middle East, how temporary the occupation was: 1) As one Colonel is spoken to by the piece below, dated Sept. 19, 1982. It Israel. Even before Gemayel made these new sounds, it put it, “There won’t be any struggle getting Sinai back was originally the lead article in the October 1982 issue was clear that Israel’s support of Gemayel wasn’t as total to Nasser quickly”; 2) A short while later, Israel enthusi- of News & Letters. as his rhetoric made it appear. astically accepted UN Resolution 242; 3) Israel categori- Ever since 1978, it was Major Saad Haddad who was cally denied the Arab accusation that the Zionist objective by Raya Dunayevskaya Israel’s direct puppet. Israel’s support of Gemayel was was a so-called “Eretz Israel,” as the Bible expressed it The crocodile tears of Ronald Reagan—and even any based on: 1) the fact that he had the Phalangist Army (“a realm extending from the Nile to the Euphrates”), in- genuine outrage he may have felt at the slaughter of the behind him (which Israel had largely armed); and 2) sisting instead that only the “crazies” talked about “Eretz Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps— the fact that he had some indigenous support. But ever Israel” in that Biblical manner. But, in fact, says Friendly, will not wash the blood from Begin-Sharon, who paved since the June invasion of Lebanon it was Major Haddad, we were soon to see the “Dayan Plan” which proposed the way for the butchers of Saad Haddad’s private army whose ambition had always been to carve out a piece of “garrison settlements,” which was followed by the “Allon and the breakaway Phalangists, both of whom had been Lebanon with him as lord over it, that General Sharon Plan” which talked of Biblical Judea and Samaria, and armed by Israel for years.1 Nor can they clear Reagan had been encouraging.2 Israel had been artificially swell- now we have the “Likud-Sharon Plan” or “the triumph of of responsibility for the neo-fascistic acts perpetrated in ing Haddad’s militias by taking arms from the Lebanese the Eretz Israel boys.” The result is the genocidal invasion Lebanon. Nor can they excuse the whole Western impe- Army in the South and turning them over to Haddad, who of Lebanon. rialist camp which so hurriedly pulled out its so-called began to talk of increasing his “army” from a few thou- The transformation of Israel into an imperialist state international peacekeeping force the minute the Pales- sand to fifty thousand. is a very different point of departure from what we have tine Liberation Organization (PLO) guerrillas and their Did Israel think that the invasion of Beirut could ac- always used as proof of the transformation into opposite leaders were safely out of west Beirut. The truth is that a complish its aim of totally destroying the PLO? Even that when we pointed to the first workers’ state turning into solemn pledge was given to the PLO for the safety of the Great Delusion—which matches the Grand Illusion that a state-capitalist society. It is true that Israel, too, is a unarmed civilians, which included women and infants as an insignificant puppet like Haddad could be installed as state-capitalist society. It is true, also, that, at its birth, well as men. In varying degrees all of them bear respon- ruler over the whole of Lebanon—did not seem to exhaust it certainly wasn’t anywhere as clear a social revolution sibility for the fact that the so-called “law and order” they General Sharon’s schema for the Middle East. as was 1917. Methodologically as well as practically, the brought to Lebanon was a form of holocaust, instead. The fantastic lengths to which Begin-Sharon point here is that we could—and did—express the con- The only serious opposition to the barbarism is were willing to go included entering the Soviet Em- tradictions at its birth. We refused to be silent even when seen in the mass demonstrations within Israel itself, de- bassy itself, and risking nothing short of a confron- we most enthusiastically supported the establishment of manding the removal of the Begin-Sharon government. tation between the two superpowers. Even if that “a homeland for the Jews,” by pointing sharply to the fact But that, too, is only a beginning. Even if the Labor and proves to have been only a symbolic gesture with that the land contained the presence—as a minority, it is Peace parties gain power, that will not change the state- which they wished to threaten the U.S., does Israel capitalist nature of Israel which resulted in the neo- wish to imitate the Nazis and translate “Deutsch- fascistic Begin-Sharon regime. Nor can we forget that the land über alles” as “Eretz Israel über alles”? reason Begin gained a clear majority was due to the sup- The latest events bring new urgency to the Marxist- port of Geula Cohen’s extreme Right party, Tehiya. In ex- Humanist Perspectives which were set at the Labor Day change for its three votes on July 25, Tehiya was guaran- Convention of News and Letters Committees, in which the teed several thousand new homes in the occupied region; analysis of Israel’s first barbarous invasion was tightly seven new settlements on the West Bank; and General integrated not only to a total opposition to Begin-Sharon, Ariel Sharon’s sponsorship of the whole idea of settling but to making that total opposition inseparable from the West Bank as if it were part of Israel. working out what principles one is fighting for. The focus It was precisely for that aim of annexing the is on the imperative of new human relations in this age of West Bank that the latest imperialist venture into myriad crises, which calls for a total uprooting of the old, Lebanon was taken. It is not just the PLO that exploitative, anti-national-liberationist forces—be they Begin-Sharon are out to destroy, but the very the U.S. or Russia, Israel or Western Europe. No solution idea of Palestinian national self-determination. can be found among any of the contending powers, all of The whole talk of so-called autonomy in the Camp whom have their own global imperialist purposes. David Peace Treaty was a sham and a snare. This is Here is what was presented on Sept. 4, 1982, as Part clearly not the time for any “halfway houses.” The I of our Perspectives:3 The King David Hotel in Jerusalem, after the Irgun, Begin-Sharon government must be overthrown! commanded by Menachem Begin, bombed it on July The events are moving so fast that we no sooner con- › 22, 1946. front one horror than we are confronted with a worse atrocity. Thus the latest atrocities came only three days Israel’s Genocidal Invasion true, but a presence, nevertheless—of the reactionary Ir- after Israel’s invasion of west Beirut that immediately gun, whose leader was the terrorist, Begin. What a trans- followed the assassination of the President-elect, Bashir of Lebanon: Opposition formation into opposite of the Israel of Exodus, 1947-48, Gemayel. Far from its claim that its mission was “the Needed against Building into the imperialistic state-capitalist Israel of 1982-83! restoration of law and order” in the “sovereign state of Lest anyone have any illusions that Reagan’s “pres- Lebanon,” Israel’s goal was the same as in its first in- Any Halfway Houses suring” Begin to back away from the dehumanized contin- vasion of Lebanon in June—not the “sovereignty” of Nothing but horror and utter disgust characteriz- uation of the war in Lebanon meant opposition to Israel’s Lebanon, but the establishment of a puppet regime there, es the world’s reaction to Israel’s gruesome invasion of invasion of Lebanon or the present attempt by Israel to under the illusion that its army could destroy the idea of Lebanon. Each day of the endless string of Israel’s lying saddle Lebanon with a fascist regime, it is necessary to freedom. excuses for the destruction of that land—from the claim remind them that that was precisely the U.S. position for Gemayel’s assassination and the fact that all of the of securing a “25-mile security zone” for Israel and empty Lebanon ever since the 1975-76 Civil War there. It isn’t “international peacekeeping forces”—the U.S., France talk of the PLO as “terrorists” at a moment when not the Reagan who stopped Begin. What actually stopped Begin and Italy—had been pulled out, made the original PLO, but Begin-Sharon’s Israel, was the one commit- is the totality of the world opposition and the emergence Israeli aim of installing its own government into power ting the atrocities; to the claim of being for Lebanon’s of an opposition within Israel that has appeared there, for the first time ever during an ongoing war. 1. The Phalange is a primarily Christian party in Lebanon mod- “integrity” as a nation, freed of Syria’s and the PLO’s eled after fascist parties in Spain and Italy. The party and its mi- invasions—only heightened and widened the world’s op- It is good that a peace movement has arisen in Is- litia were allied with Israel during and after the invasion. Saad position to Israel’s ghoulish attack. History will not forget rael demanding an end to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon at Haddad was a Christian rightist who led an Israeli-controlled once. It is even better that some of that Left has raised militia that took over part of southern Lebanon from 1979 until 2. See two articles that develop this point, both in The New York the question of self-determination for Palestinians in Is- his death in 1984, which was followed by Israeli military occupa- Times, Sept. 16, 1983: “Gemayel’s Impotence” by Guy Sitbon; and rael—or, rather, the part Israel occupies illegally. (Indeed, tion until 2000. In September 1982, elements of the Phalangists “Living by the Sword” by Anthony Lewis. what Israel is now trying to annex is Palestine.) But that, and of Haddad’s militia massacred hundreds, up to 3,500, civil- 3. Dunayevskaya excerpted this from “What to Do Facing the too, will hardly solve much if, at the same time, a new ban- ians in the Sabra neighborhood and adjacent Shatila Palestinian Depth of Recession and the Myriad Global Political Crises as ner of genuine liberation is not unfolded. refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon, in plain sight of the Israeli Well as the Philosophic Void,” her Perspectives Report to the army. —ed. 1982 Convention of News and Letters Committees. —ed. continued on p. 5 PHILOSOPHIC DIALOGUE DISCUSSION ARTICLE

JULY-AUGUST 2021 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org Page 5 Crossroads of History: Marxist-Humanist writings on the Middle East by Raya Dunayevskaya Foreword by Gerry Emmett 1. The Syrian Revolt: The Cold War in the Middle East 2. The Arab-Israeli Collision, the World Powers and the Struggle for the Minds of Men See page 7 to order 3. Anti-Semitism, Anti-Revolution, Anti-Philosophy: Crossroads of History. U.S. and Russia Enter Middle East Cockpit 4. Middle East Cauldron Explodes Limited time offer: $19 5. The Middle East Erupts 6. The UN Resolution on Zionism – and the Ideologi- for Crossroads of History cal Obfuscation Also on the Left AND the new Marxist- 7. Lebanon: The Test Not Only of the PLO but the Whole Left Humanist pamphlet 8. Iran: Unfoldment of, and Contradictions in, Revolution What Is Socialism? 9. Letter on Organization to an Iranian Revolutionary (postage included) 10. What Is Philosophy? What Is Revolution? 1789- 1793; 1848-1850; 1914-1919; 1979 A $5 saving! 11. Religion in General and Jerusalem in Particular in Mail order to: News & Letters, 228 S. This State-Capitalist Age Wabash, Suite 230, Chicago, IL 60604. 12. Special Introduction for Iranian Edition of Marx’s Illinois residents add 7% sales tax. Humanist Essays Name 13. What Has Happened to the Iranian Revolution? 14. The Struggle Continues: What Kind of Revolution Address Is Needed in the Battle against the Khomeini-IRP Counter-revolution? City 15. Begin’s Israel Moves Further and Further Backward to His Reactionary, Terrorist Beginnings State______Zip 16. Need for a Total Uprooting: Down with the Perpetrators of the Palestinian Slaughter Email Address 17. The Changed World ME 7-8/21 Need for a total uprooting: Down with the slaughterers of Palestinians continued from p. 4 On the contrary. It only assures the transformation of Lebanese under Kamal Jumblatt, Stalinists, Trotsky- that type of bare opposition into one form or another of ists—followed the PLO lead. Here is what we wrote in The immediate, urgent question now is: What kind of a halfway house. That is true both when we look at the that Political-Philosophic Letter: regime in Lebanon? Does anyone doubt that Begin-Sharon failure of bourgeois democracy and when we look at fas- wanted that small-time neo-fascist, Bashir Gemayel, to …the New Left, born in the 1960s, so disdain- cism. Both brought on World War II. Such a victory over become its President? What is needed is to see to it that ful of theory (which it forever thinks it can fascism only laid the ground for the restoration of state- genuine national liberation is the predominant demand pick up “en route”), has a strange attitude to- capitalism—Gaullism as well as Stalinism. Indeed, state- and that none will stand for any colonization anywhere— ward imperialism. It is as if imperialism were capitalism became a universal. be it by Britain in the Malvinas/Falklands or Israel in not the natural outgrowth of monopoly capi- As we know from World War I, even the magnificent Lebanon and the West Bank and the Golan Heights. talism, but was a “conspiracy, organized by a opposition that was successful—the Russian Revolu- Let’s keep in mind that precisely because Prime Minis- single imaginary center, rather as the Nazis ter Margaret Thatcher thought she could revive British tion—once it didn’t spread beyond national borders, end- used to refer to the Judeo-Catholic-Masonic chauvinistic patriotism—especially when it had U.S. sup- ed in the transformation of the first workers’ state into its Alliance, or Communists under Stalin to the port and is so militarily dominant over technologically opposite, state-capitalism. conspiracy of the Trotskyists and Rightists in backward lands like Argentina—she thought a military Today, we cannot evade asking: What Now? Is the league with the imperialist secret service.”… victory would assure her holding onto the Falklands/ PLO the absolute opposite of Israel, or just one more nar- Malvinas. Nothing could be further from the truth. The row nationalism? In our age, when a nuclear war threat- [And even, it should now be added, as Khomeini reason that even militaristic neo-fascist Argentina could ens civilization as we have known it, we cannot, must not, now refers to the U.S. and Israel as the Great threaten Britain with transformation of her military vic- accept halfway houses as the answer. Nor do I mean only Satan.] outright nuclear holocaust. Rather, the immediate crises tory into a defeat, and Argentina’s military defeat into a Evidently nationalism of the so-called Third victory, is the Third World’s implacable opposition to neo- of today are both in the “Love Canals” of the world and at 4 World is of itself revolutionary even when it colonialism; it will not allow Britain to keep its war booty. the point of production…. We cannot satisfy ourselves with detailing only what is under the banner of a king, a shah, or the Here, too, philosophy is no abstraction. Its concreti- emirates, or the Syrian Army. Thereby they we are against or with enlarging atrocity stories. They zation, as politicalization, warns that whole New Left canonize nationalism, even when it is void of surely abound in Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.5 Many not to stop at halfway houses, not even when that mani- working-class character, as national liberation. fests deep sensitivity to Third World desires for freedom atrocity stories, I’m sure, can also be told of the PLO unless they are willing to transform that desire into an and its fantastic covenant “to drive the Israelis into the It is not that class is the sole characteris- outright revolution. I’m referring to that part of the New sea.” Nor should our support of the Palestinians for self- tic of national liberation movements that Left which uncritically accepts the unfinished Latin determination and the PLO as a bargaining agent lead us revolutionaries can support. It is that the American revolutions as if that is the answer—i.e., what away from re-examining what happens to aborted revolu- working-class nature is its essence and it will destroy imperialist capitalism. There was a special tions—in this case, specifically Lebanon and specifically is that the revolutionary and international issue of Contemporary Marxism (Winter, 1980), edited as aided by the PLO in the 1975-76 Civil War there. Which impact emerges from masses in motion… by Immanuel Wallerstein, in which Samir Amin, in an is why we correctly entitled our Political-Philosophic Let- essay on Nicaragua, concluded that the primary task is ter (August 6, 1976): “The Test Not Only of the PLO but This does not mean that we give up the “revitalization of the economy.” No one needs a reminder of the Whole Left.”6 struggle for self-determination, Palestinian that the counter-revolution in Poland, headed by General That the Left did not meet the challenge but followed especially. It is that we do not narrow our Wojciech Jaruzelski, is using precisely that excuse for de- the PLO is one substantial reason for the totality of the vision of the revolutionary struggle for a to- stroying Solidarity. crisis today. Just at the point when there was a near suc- tally different world, on truly new Human- cess by the indigenous Lebanese Left, and the outcome ist foundations, the first necessity of which Why Being against ‘What Is’ of the 1975-76 Civil War hung in the balance, the PLO is the unity of philosophy and revolution.7 insisted that the concentration must be, not on the native As has now become painfully clear, Begin-Sharon, Is Incomplete without the ruler-oppressors represented by the so-called Christian, bent on the mad delusion that an Army can kill the idea Corollary, What One Is for i.e., neo-fascist, Phalangists, but on Israel alone, though of freedom, were not stopped even though their invasion of at the moment Israel was nowhere present in Lebanon Because the economic and political crises wrack- west Beirut assured a clear road for the massacre of hun- and Syria was all ready to invade. It is Syria the PLO had ing the capitalist-imperialist world are so horrendous— dreds upon hundreds of Palestinians by Major Haddad dubbed “liberators” instead of a new imperialistic force. whether we look at the acknowledged, official 10% unem- and the breakaway Phalangists. Just as the Polish mass- The great tragedy was that the whole Left—indigenous ployment (which is not 10% but 17% in industrial centers, es never forgave Russia during World War II for staying outside the gates of Warsaw in 1944, waiting for the Nazis and fully 50% among Black youth—and which character- 4. See “A Worker Looks at the Anti-Nuclear Movement” in our izes not only the U.S. but circles the world with 30 mil- to complete their destruction before moving in to “save” Pre-Convention Discussion Bulletin (excerpts to appear in News them, so the masses of the world will never forgive Begin’s lion now unemployed in the industrialized nations!), or & Letters, November 1982, p. 5); and my letter to the Youth in Israel for the Lebanon massacre. whether we look at the many recently ongoing wars, from Pre-Convention Discussion Bulletin Number 4. Both are avail- Iran–Iraq to the Falklands/Malvinas to Israel’s genocidal able from News and Letters Committees. What is necessary is to see that the opposition to this invasion of Lebanon—it is all too tempting to express one- 5. In her interview with that neo-fascist, so-called Defense Min- horror does not stop with being against Begin-Sharon. It must demonstrate what it is —which can only be self solely in opposition to what is, without ever specifying ister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, Oriana Fallaci reveals his insane, for nightmarish vision: “Israeli strategic interests…must be broad- the total uprooting of the state-private capitalism that what one is for, so weighted down does one become by all ened to include countries such as Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, regions brought this horror into being, and the unfolding of the these crises crying out for an end. such as the Persian Gulf and Africa, particularly the countries of History, however, warns us of other critical periods kind of “revolution in permanence” that Marx projected, north and central Africa.…” and will not stop until we have truly human relations. which give us historic proof that mere opposition to such 6. That letter is included as chapter 7 in Crossroads of History: monstrous degeneration does not lead to new societies. Marxist-Humanist Writings on the Middle East. —ed. 7. Quoted from ch. 7 of Crossroads of History, pp. 52-54. —ed. Page 6 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org JULY-AUGUST 2021

ery person who is working for it. We can’t WHAT IS SOCIALISM? give up the struggle. Women and girls are Regarding “What Is Socialism?” worth it. (March-April 2021 N&L), along with mass For WL in Rogers Park movements against capitalism, there are Chicago usually counter-revolutionary agendas that take power after capitalism has been ousted. READERS’VIEWS • Too often, Power.” Even after serious theoreticians School and Billy Mills from Haskell Insti- COMING OUT IN SPORTS the mass have debunked all the planks of his argu- tute. But U.S. schools, too, have recently When Las Vegas Raiders defensive movement ment! The fact that he calls nuclear power been exposed for children unaccounted for end Carl Nassib made an announce- unknow- “clean electricity” speaks volumes about or who never returned to their families, in ment that he was Gay, news reports de- ingly al- his lack of commitment to the truth. But I addition to those scarred by physical and scribed the five-year veteran as the first lows the don’t believe that Sunkara or Jacobin get sexual abuse. active NFL player to come out, with self- counter- money from the nuclear industry. Rather, Bob McGuire congratulatory observations on how much revolution- this is based on a kind of socialism that Chicago more welcoming pro football and the me- ist—in the views the masses as backward. So the an- dia are now. We can hope that is so, but no form of a swers to all problems center on technol- games are leader—to ogy, technocrats and the state. This type • played in take power of socialism simply rules out self-activity INDIGENOUS LIBERATION June. Just within the from below and revolution, and wants to The American Indian Movement seven years movement. manipulate the masses into following the (AIM), itself inspired by the civil rights ago Michael To avoid program. movement of Black Americans, concret- Sam’s com- counter- Franklin Dmitryev ized deeply radical new human relations ing out to revolu- Chicago in the new society envisioned by and root- his team- tions, the ed in Indigenous American culture. These mates at movement concepts reappear in the movements to- the Univer- should engage in dialectical philosophy, • day. At the same time, thanks to U.S. sity of Mis- based on Hegel’s philosophy of freedom, NUCLEAR CAPITALISM government “divide and conquer” policies, souri dur- Marx’s dialectical analysis of capitalism, Michael Sam. Photo by Marcus A new report by the Nuclear, Plasma fierce opponents to change have always Qwertyus. ing the 2013 Dunayevskaya’s Marxist-Humanist unity & Radiological Engineering department come from within Indigenous populations, season had of theory and practice and mass struggles of the University of Illinois (NPRE) con- like the many tribal council leaders who not inter- for a new human society. cludes that nuclear power is critical to benefit financially from suppressing revo- fered with his winning Defensive Player of Basho Illinois meeting its climate goals. There lution and endorsing pipeline and extrac- the Year in the Southeastern Conference. Los Angeles is not a single disinterested party giv- tive projects. And yet Sam was almost not drafted when *** ing voice to that view! Right on down the Supporter of Indigenous struggles NFL teams learned that he was Gay— N&L is a wonderful newspaper. I line: NPRE and its Advanced Reactors Michigan and he was quickly cut in training camp. wish you would have more articles about and Fuel Cycle Analysis group, and the I fear that, unless things have seriously Marxist-Humanists from various people report’s co-author, the Principal Deputy changed, the Raiders will suddenly decide in the organization. For example, I would Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy at • Nassib has lost a step. like an article about state-capitalism in the Department of Energy; or the people RACISM TAKES ITS TOLL Not a Raiders fan the Soviet Union, and what a true social- quoted in NPRE’s PR release: the Presi- After Chicago cops shot Anthony Al- Kansas City ist society would look like. dent of the International Brotherhood varez in the back during a foot chase, his Prisoner of Electrical Workers and family built a memorial, which the cops White Deer, Penn. Nuclear Matters Advo- trashed. They lied that they didn’t do it • *** cacy Council, and Bob but video footage proved they did. The COLONIALISM AND LIBERATION Just want you to know that I appreci- Rosner from the Uni- family built another memorial, which the “The People of Myanmar Unite ate N&L. It gives me a better and unique versity of Chicago’s cops trashed. This is how they roll. First, against the Military Coup” (May-June way of looking at other people and our hu- departments of they kill you. Then they kill your reputa- 2021 N&L) brings up difficult questions. man species. Also your N&L helps me to Astronomy & tion by telling outrageous lies about you, Now there are counter-revolutions in na- become more knowledgeable in what is Astrophysics who you were and how you died. Then tions which had gotten freedom from colo- socialism, women’s liberation and revolu- and Physics. they repeatedly destroy the memorial lov- nialism. After the great rebellions against tion. Hopefully I can continue to receive Every single ingly built for you. colonial nations, overt colonialism was this valuable knowledge. Whenever my one of them Furious overthrown but national liberation move- inheritance funds reach me, I will be con- is making money from the U.S. fission Chicago ments turned into their opposite. It’s a tributing to N&L. project, unlike Benjamin Sovacool, a Brit *** worldwide phenomenon: colonies putting Prisoner who has participated in an independent U.S. capitalism has a history—and a forth powerful ideas against colonialism Beeville, Texas study. This is how self-interest informs pre-history—of racism, legal and politi- and the focus now seems to be struggle “scientific” studies. cal, against the Black population of over within these liberated countries. Marx January 400 years, since the beginning of the slave foretold this—it’s the beginning, not the • Chicago trade. It continues today with white su- end, of the revolution. New categories are WHAT IS MARXIST-HUMANISM? premacist police murders of unarmed developing. At the bottom is capitalism Raya Dunayevskaya’s article, “Ri- Black and Brown youths, and white su- prevailing; state, military or gangsterism val Approaches to Marxist Humanism” • premacist attacks on Asians. (including brutal Islamism). Even after (May-June 2021 N&L), holds so much FLAT EARTH SOCIETY Asian American centuries of India fighting for freedom truth: “Communism is not the goal” is as Rep. Louie Southern California and winning independence in 1947, it was profound as it gets. It is human relations Gohmert of Texas, a *** broken up into religious units. Stripping that need fixing rather than an economic lackey of oil compa- On one hand we have Veep Kamala off old-fashioned imperialism brings forth model. We can all see the destruction of nies, asked an expert Harris saying “Don’t come, don’t come!” new dangers and new opportunities, as capitalism, and agree that the abolition witness if climate to refugees from Central America. On the the revolution continues; great leaders of private property is necessary. But I am change could be ad- other hand is the inscription on the Statue compromise and turn into their opposite. reluctant to say that communism will be dressed by chang- of Liberty in New York harbor, written by All capitalism’s forms still dehumanize preferable because greedy, lazy people ing the orbits of the Emma Lazarus in 1883: “Give me your the laboring producers. A new kind of will still be there to exploit others. We earth or the moon. Does he not realize tired, your poor / Your huddled masses thought has to come into being to reclaim can take money away, but what is it in the that proposing to change the “orbits” as- yearning to breathe free / The wretched the call for freedom and humanity. exploiters that can’t be taken? It is the sumes that the earth is round? He of all refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, Subscriber feeling of inadequacy in incompetent or people should realize that the earth is the homeless, tempest-tossed to me / I lift New York ignorant individuals that causes them to flat. my lamp beside the golden door.” Boy have tear us down. They latch onto those that Wag times changed! are capable of providing for themselves Memphis Retired postal worker To our incarcerated readers and mooch, steal, and exploit in any way Kalamazoo, Mich. they can, because they fear they can’t pro- Prisoncrats sometimes choose vide for themselves. That is what we must • to return an issue to us undelivered, defeat. Our job is to change the intrinsic INDIGENOUS GENOCIDE • but if you have been moved—to an- nature of exploiters because they are on a Discovery of 751 unmarked graves RAPE CULTURE other prison, or within the same path to exterminate us all. The exploiters in June at the Marieval Indian Residen- Rape culture is worldwide, as demon- prison—the USPS will not forward among us will use every last drop of water tial School in Saskatchewan, presumably strated by both Artemis’s Women World- newspapers. Help us keep N&L in on the planet before they allow an equal First Nations children, added to the hor- Wide piece on Frenchwoman “Julie,” who share. Who is Trump without his mate- your hands by letting us know your rors exposed in May when 215 unmarked was repeatedly raped and never received rial wealth? Something less than human, change of address, including when graves were found at Kamloops Resi- justice, and and he knows it too. That is why he tries you are released. When you leave dential School in British Columbia. Who Adele’s review to accumulate more than he needs. How knows how much more gruesome the tally of Emily Joy prison, your donor subscription can many are exactly like Trump? Dunayevs- could be? There were more than 130 resi- Allison’s book continue to your new address for one kaya and Marx are right; Communism is dential schools run by churches, mostly #CHURCH- additional year. not the goal. The goal is a unified human Catholic. The Canadian government forc- TOO. (See race of equality, for the sake of freedom, We welcome your contributions ibly kidnapped First Nations children to May-June and now for the first time in history, for to N&L and for our website. There those schools, as they erased their lan- 2021 N&L.) To our very survival on this planet. are some things we cannot provide. guage and culture. Survivors, whose voic- hear from folks Prisoner es had been little heard, testified to the in the U.S., as We do not match up pen pals. N&L Calipatria, Calif. violence children endured to the point of my friend and cannot help prisoners with individ- homicide and routine rape by the religious I have, that ual legal cases, and we cannot offer • figures who sometimes cast newborns there is no rape culture, that there is no legal advice or access to attorneys. into incinerators to wipe out evidence of such thing as sexual harassment, reveals This paper is a place where people NUCLEAR SOCIALISM? crimes. Indian Schools in the U.S. might the great denial that exists, as does also engaged in struggles inside and out- The Guardian published an opinion have had a more favorable image by ex- the—very frightening—concept of “Purity piece by Bhaskar Sunkara, editor of Ja- ploiting the accomplishments of Olympic Culture.” We have a very long way to go side prison walls can be heard speak- cobin, headlined, “If We Want to Fight the champions Jim Thorpe at Carlisle Indian for true women’s liberation. I thank ev- ing for themselves. Climate Crisis, We Must Embrace Nuclear JULY-AUGUST 2021 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org Page 7

spread Marx’s message. Sadly, I’m around issues by a former tenant leader who is re- for. I have yet to figure that out. We pay for COVID-19 IN PRISONS some very fascist Trump-obsessed people. verting to drug dealing and pimping from all we need, like travel to funerals and the I was recently released from Alex- Prisoner the building. A liberal aid organization salaries of the guards. Not all can afford to ander MCU medium custody unit. There Ionia, Mich. will not stop paying his rent because they spend $500 or more for such a thing, and were three deaths there due to lack of con- are opposed to evictions. welfare funds are never used to enable an cern by those Steve “indigent” prisoner to travel to a funeral. in charge. • Detroit The care and custody fund account is used Almost ev- LABOR AND CAPITALISM by the ADC to hold money they have stolen ery guard I In the past a lot of musicians drove in order to “take care of” inmates. Taxpay- came into con- cabs to supplement their income. No • ers already pay for our care, so the fund tact with told more. Drivers work 12 hours a day (not CENSORSHIP is just a way to rob prisoners with a pen. me they had including travel to work which is lengthy Why isn’t censorship a major issue In addition to these things, Hutchinson COVID-19. We because they can’t afford to live in Man- for the Left? The idea that I should cheer stopped those on unemployment from get- were tested hattan), 6-7 days. What kind of life does because those on the right are being cen- ting the stimulus funds that were sent by and not told that leave you? Cab drivers had a union, sored on Facebook and Twitter does not the federal government for that very pur- the results. not anymore. May Day celebrates the legal sit well. Do people learn nothing from the pose. A few days ago, he announced that Finally, two of the three pods were full of shortening of the workday—that’s gone. past? When the rights of the “other” are the State of Arkansas has its largest sur- sick inmates. While the sick guards were I’m humbled to read taken, it is only a matter of time before plus in his- off for two weeks, probably with pay, most N&L: it brings day- your rights soon follow. We are even be- tory, $980 of them were hoping to catch COVID so to-day life together ing censored as individuals on Google and million! they could have the time off—and yet two with the way the sys- all of the other high-powered technology Robin Hood people in my pod were sent off to die. In tem is. It shows both that rules our world. When I tried to get was a hero the closed custody unit, a man made the the Individual and information about COVID-19 as well as because he paper when he died. I documented the the Universal. the vaccines, I was deterred by Google stole from times and days guards handed items back Musician and YouTube. I’ve had better luck on the the rich and and forth between the pods without gloves. New York search engine DuckDuckGo. If the outcry gave to the I had to tell one guard to put his plastic *** is not stronger against censorship, I fear it poor. What suit and mask on after he just walked in, Economic in- will get worse. According to history and oh do you call thinking we either didn’t care or didn’t sights have been so many dystopian films, this is only the those who matter. Most of the guards were Trump revealed by the pan- beginning. steal from supporters and racist. I wish I knew what demic and the ways Alarmed the poor and give to the rich? I think you to do or whom to speak with to take legal capitalism exploits Chicago know the answer. action against this institution. I am posi- people. Marxist-Hu- P.S. Our prison mailroom has decided tive I would not be alone. manism connects it that the latest issue of News & Letters “in- Prisoner all to world capitalist • cites violence” and I can’t have it. Taylorsville, N.C. exploitation of labor. POLITICS OF SNITCHING Prisoner *** Surplus labor is re- Faruq’s “Fred Hampton and the Idea Calico Rock, Ark. I am from Benton Harbor, Mich. I’m vealed by migrant camps worldwide and of freedom” (May-June 2021 N&L) is *** white, but growing up I saw so much sys- detention and incarceration in the U.S. I such a powerful antidote to the politics of It brought me a great deal of joy re- temic racism. I’ve experienced financial saw a report about 3-D printed houses. snitching. It’s great to have in the paper. ceiving two editions of N&L today. I’m prejudice from people in the rich white It’s staggering to think of the job loss in Faruq never loses sight of a true Marxist- thrilled the hard copies are being sent out area outside of what was stereotypically construction and material production if Humanist vision of what human relation- again at all. I would like to go on receiving nicknamed Benton Harlem by the upper houses were primarily produced by 3-D ships can be in a new society. them if a donor can be found. classes. That was in the 1980s and 1990s. printers. Susan Prisoner Now the hate and overt fascism is blatant- Retired teacher Detroit Newnan, Ga. ly on display everywhere. I have always Midwest been a devout anti-fascist. The institution I’m at is currently • TO OUR READERS: Can you inundated with COVID. We had the B-1- • VOICES FROM BEHIND BARS donate $5 for a prisoner who cannot 1-7 variant, and were on daily 15-minute WEEDS AND FLOWERS pay for a subscription to N&L? It will rapid testing by the National Guard for Recently Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed Today it seems like counter-revolution be shared with many others. A dona- more than two weeks earlier this year Arkansas Act 1110. It allows the Arkan- has so many specific forms: proxy militias, and are being told nothing. We saw it on sas Department of Corrections to steal tion of $8 pays for a subscription plus fundamentalists—a garden with weeds the news before we were told. Other than every last penny of stimulus money from the Pelican Bay Hunger Strikers and one flower. We have to combat it not your paper, all the media we get is corpo- those within its care. First the money will pamphlet to be sent to a prisoner. only externally but within ourselves. Peo- rate sponsored and does not tell us about be used to pay fines, restitution, etc. If ple speak well but then there’s a counter- Prisoners are eligible to continue the working class and our comrades such an inmate has none of those, then every revolutionary idea. What does one do with their free subscriptions when they as y’all and the true struggle. I’ve stud- penny of his stimulus money will be split all of that when you have a concrete need ied Bakunin-Kropotkin, and am drawn between an “inmate welfare” fund and an first get released, a time when the for change in order to survive: as an in- back to the true genius of Marx and Raya “inmate custody and care” fund. Inmates system tries to make them forget the dividual, a species, a tendency? In my Dunayevskaya. I will continue to try to see none of those funds. 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A carefully researched report re- for a country “where every Ethiopian moves around re- cently identified some 150 massacres carried out by sol- laxed, works and prospers.” How does he achieve this? By diers, paramilitaries and insurgents. Ages of those killed launching a brutal civil war against the northern Ethiopi- ranged from infants to 90 years old. It is a war against not an region of Tigray that is in its ninth month. Massacres, only the TPLF but the Tigrayian people. sexual assault and ethnic cleansing have been the mode The offensive against the TPLF earlier this year of operating. And now there is the threat of mass starva- opened the door for other ethnic conflicts in all of tion. Abiy’s hands are indeed bloody. Tigray. Thus, tens of thousands of Tigrayians are He launched an offensive in the Tigray region reported to have been driven from their homes by against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) last Amhara militia over a land dispute. It is estimated

that more than two million people have been dis- Urszula Wislanka for News & Letters placed within Ethiopia’s Tigray region since fight- ing erupted, with about half fleeing after their Oakland, Calif.—On June 22, Decarcerate Alameda Celebrating Juneteenth homes were burned down. County called on Oakland’s City Council to move $43 mil- At present the UN and food agencies are reporting lion from the sheriff’s proposed budget and designate a that some 350,000 Tigrayians are at risk of famine, the total of $122 million to fund mental health and housing. highest number in a single country over the past decade. It was one of many local efforts to shift resources from po- Armed groups are blocking food distribution. lice to community needs. The City Council voted on June 24 to take $18 million from the police budget and invest in RAPE IS A WEAPON OF WAR violence prevention and mental health programs. Sexual assaults are rampant. A senior UN official We remember Agustin (Augie) Gonsalez, shot and reported in March that more than 500 Ethiopian wom- killed by Hayward police on Nov. 15, 2018, and Dujuan en had formally reported sexual violence in Tigray, al- Armstrong, killed on June 23, 2018, by Santa Rita jailers though the actual toll is likely far higher, she added. In who used restraints that asphyxiated him. Those are just the Tigray capital city of Mekelle, health workers say new a couple of the many people killed by police in Alameda cases emerge every day. County. —Urszula Wislanka Abiy won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending a decades- long conflict with Eritrea. But in his war against Tigray, he has invited Eritrean forces to join the Ethiopian mili- tary in Tigray. Eritrean forces have done so eagerly, join- THOUGHTS FROM THE OUTSIDE ing in the slaughter, carrying out their own massacres Urszula Wislanka for News & Letters and rapes. Oakland, Calif.—We celebrated Juneteenth 2021 with And the elections? Abiy is striving to consoli- Capital is out of control a couple hundred booths selling food, clothing, beauty date his power. Tigray, with over six million peo- by Faruq ple, will be excluded from the vote. In Oromia, his products, etc. But there were also book stalls featuring In our time it seems humanity has sunk to its low- home region, Abiy launched a crackdown against Black history and tables staffed by people from various est point. I can see why youth are so worried about any any opposition with thousands of arrests and future. All the things we value, our most basic humanity movements. Among them were All of Us or None, Under- extrajudicial killings. As a result, two opposition and relations with others, having a viable natural envi- ground Scholars’ Initiative, and UNITE (Unique Natives parties withdrew from the elections. Some regions ronment, seem like idle talk. Interacting Together to Elevate). will not vote until September. The most urgent plea came from young Black Abiy will certainly “win” these elections but only with THE MISERY OF PRECARIOUS EXISTENCE women seeking recognition of the plight of people in much blood on his hands, and an extremely fragmented Everywhere one looks, there is misery. All existence Tigray. (See article this page.) Find out more at linktr.ee/ Ethiopia in place. —E.W. is precarious. This monster, global capital, is out of con- trol. Its most ardent defenders just feed it. Some of the BayAreaTegaruYouth. —U.W. defenders are even at the bottom. They want to secure their own next meal, nothing more. Capitalism has been VOICES FROM THE INSIDE OUT able to keep many Black people in a vicious cycle of pur- MEXICO NOTES suing food, clothing and shelter. They can’t think about tomorrow because of the immediate need to survive today. by Eugene Walker Targeting anti-racism Where I work among the homeless on the street, continued from p. 1 Precarious Labor—Salaries below the minimum I see the infinite degradation experienced by those their members. Eventually those obtuse concepts affect necessary for food, education, health and housing are discarded by capitalist society and barely surviv- all members of the community regardless of their race. the most prevalent in two decades. These jobs include ing on its margins. The Tenderloin neighborhood Most of all, systemic racism is about being supportive of few benefits, lack written contracts and have little social in San Francisco has women who smell bad. I know revisionist history, which critical race theory is designed protection. This is not simply a question of living under there are places you can get clean, so I was wonder- to challenge. This is what many opponents of the theory the COVID-19 pandemic. The increasing trend of precari- ing what that is about. I found out that the Tender- seem to find the most disturbing. ous labor was evident well before the pandemic hit. Most loin is known for sexual predators. Smelling bad is Critical race theory is more than teaching about sys- vulnerable are working women, two-thirds of whom are on purpose, hoping it will keep predators away. receiving poverty-level wages. Well over half of the work temic racism as it is applied to the Black community; it is This is as American as apple pie: the filth, the degra- force today is in the informal economy, with no union and about systemic racism being propagated in all communi- dation of humanity has been a blight especially in urban no benefits. ties of color; it’s about sharing those lessons with whites areas. It is not new, but it is at a new low. Animalistic and people of color alike. * * * behavior is accepted as “human.” Selfishness is accepted Zapatistas in Spain—A delegation of Zapatistas THE POISON OF SYSTEMIC RACISM as being an individual. has arrived in Spain after an ocean voyage from Mexico. Critical race theory is about discussing “The Trail We, those who came out of prison, have an obli- They are being greeted by dozens of social movement or- of Tears,” where several Indian nations were forcibly re- gation to try to make sure re-entry programs work, ganizations. Spain is their first stop on an extensive tour moved from their homelands; it’s about the 1890 massa- that we can help people coming out of prison find of dozens of European nations, where they will be shar- cre of old men, women and children at Wounded Knee, their way. We want to help people become indepen- ing their experiences in constructing autonomy in Mex- S.D., by government troops; it’s about the persecution and dent. Teach people to have patience. ico, hoping to strengthen solidarity and relations with murder of Chinese immigrants who helped build railroads The city of San Francisco does give you a hand up. autonomy-building movements and organizations. “The during the late 19th century; it’s about the unprosecuted There are programs to help in various ways. People are Zapatista Tour for Life” begins with the Other Europe. lynchings of thousands of Blacks in this country and the able to get together to ask the city for funds to establish 1921 massacre of Blacks in Tulsa, Okla., and the 1923 such programs. Housing might be doable for a few: you * * * massacre of Blacks in Rosewood, Fla., and yes, it’s about can enter a lottery and if you win it, you’re set, paying The collapse of the Mexico City Metro-line— “The collapse was caused by poor execution of the work. slavery and its lasting effects. only a few hundred dollars a month. Even so, the system The appropriate or sufficient materials were not used.” Though we have taken positive steps forward regard- is not working for most people. This was the preliminary statement of the Norwegian ing race, for every step forward, the country also takes ‘AFFORDABLE HOUSING’ IS NONEXISTENT company hired to investigate the tragic accident on May two steps back. This year we celebrate Juneteenth as a For 50 years I have been hearing the phrase “afford- 3, in which 26 people were killed and dozens injured when national holiday; at the same time we allow race norm- able housing.” It means nothing, at least in San Fran- a subway overpass of line 12 collapsed, sending several ing, and other processes, to institutionally marginalize cisco. A torn-up small house that had been vandalized, subway cars crashing down. Damnificados Unidos de la people of color. Despite marking the end of chattel slav- has holes in the walls, etc., still sold for a million dollars. Ciudad de México (United Victims of Mexico City), formed ery, a remnant of that era is still codified in our national Is this freedom? Why would you want to continue to be a after the September 2017 earthquake, issued a statement Constitution as a current legal premise. slave to such a way of life? which said in part: “Damnificados Unidos de la Ciudad While we herald a new understanding of many This is the way of the world now. The Third de México reiterates our total solidarity with the victims national tragedies visited upon people of color World is here. It has always been here. There were and their families due to the fall of line 12 of the subway. throughout the nation’s history, over 400 proposed always those who live on the edge. Karl Marx was Likewise, we denounce the Government of Mexico City for partisan laws designed to complicate or abrogate describing the lack of transparency in social re- not having been able to guarantee safety in constructions, one’s right to vote—especially if you are poor, el- lations: what appears to be a free decision to sell neither now nor in previous administrations… Those in derly, or a person of color—are currently being dis- your labor is nothing of the kind. Yet people stay charge of the work deliberately used less material and of cussed in nearly every state in the country. away from thinking about how all labor, even paid The future of this country is not set in stone or de- lower quality than promised, and instructed the workers to labor, is forced labor. fined by the worn partisans who now occupy federal and perform faster and cut costs on the tasks. Those responsible Marx was right to say that no man fights against state legislatures; it is as fluid as the multitude of rivers for supervising companies and officials were accomplices. freedom, at most they fight against the freedom of others. which flow within its borders. The voracity of construction companies that increase their But we don’t need to fight each other. There is enough for The future of this country lies within its youth and profit by reducing quality once again cost lives as in the all if/when we can decide what to make and how much. It their ability to take the present, and past, and mold it earthquake of September 19, 2017….We cannot continue will take a revolutionary change in society, a change in into a viable future. This cannot be done if the past is to allow impunity to prevail in the punishment of those re- our human relations, beginning with the self. People kill whitewashed, with the brush of half-truths, by fools who sponsible for the loss of human life. We condemn the claim when they feel threatened. They are trying to hold on to are afraid of change. of Marcelo Ebrard, who was head of the government dur- illusions, while the reality passes them by. ing the construction of the so-called Golden Line, to hold The human tragedy is immense. You can really see companies and institutions responsible, exempting his Subscribe to News & Letters, what Marx meant that it will take a revolution to clear own responsibility. Construction companies and supervi- the only Marxist-Humanist away all the muck. Our social relations can become con- sors should be sanctioned, but also officials responsible newspaper in the U.S.! scious and free, where, as Marx put it, the free develop- for guaranteeing proper execution, starting with the head Still only $5 per year. ment of each becomes the basis for the free development of the government...” of all. JULY-AUGUST 2021 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org Page 9 Colombian strikers reject dispossession and repression Medellin, Colombia—A strike was called on March 28 The population has now organized into first, second zations, but low-income peasants have not spoken much. involving the entire oppressed population of Colombia. and third lines with defined functions. The first line de- However, they support the strike and the routes are open The strikers opposed a new law taxing basic articles and fends the neighborhood. The second is in charge of food, for the transport of food. health and education. The third manages The Indigenous minga (collective organization supplies. There are also managers of live and action) remains active, since they have been transmissions and social networks. Deci- the most affected by the previous violence that the sions are made in the Outdoor Neighbor- state, paramilitaries and drug trafficking groups hood Assembly. that control coca planting and production have Intellectuals, opposition members carried out. of Congress, alternative TV and radio For the Colombian people it is clear, from their suf- channels, street and graffiti artists have fering and struggle, that beyond Uribismo (from right- joined these actions. The movement wing ex-President Uribe) a better country is possible that learned from struggles in Chile to use la- includes democracy, peace, industrialization, education, sers to obstruct helicopter pilots and riot healthcare, housing, food, sovereignty, and the end of cor- control personnel and to hurl paint-filled ruption and abuse of the population. That society is the balloons at police tanks and agents. aspiration of us who are human beings and citizens and The most violent confrontation oc- for whom this condition is unknown in the streets today. curred in the towns of Cali, Yumbo, Buga, —Praxis Colombia Team, June 10, 2021 Tuluá and Palmira. There the contra- Translated by Eugene Walker dictions are most visible. In this region geography favors ranches and land in- vasions. Racism has marginalized the Republicans savage services, while exempting big businesses, especially the Afro-Colombian population. The region is close to Bue- financial sector, which had received state aid during the naventura, the country’s main port, where the main raw democracy and history COVID-19 pandemic. materials come in and can be blockaded. continued from p. 1 The health crisis and subsequent quarantine groundswell began early this year….according to increased the hardships of informal workers. It CALI RESISTANCE UNION In Cali, the inhabitants participate in popular as- the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice…[and] also disrupted the protests that had begun in No- semblies that have declared themselves Autonomous rose to at least 389 bills in 48 states as of May 14.” vember 2019 demanding food and state aid. Communes, forming the Cali Resistance Union, winning Another 225 bills considered in 45 states would re- The current situation in Colombia must be under- strict protests, expanding the definitions and penalties of stood from the history of the last 40 years. From the ac- recognition by the mayor’s office as the population’s rep- resentatives. “violence” or “riot” for justice cumulation of urban miseries came the current social ex- seekers while shielding the in- In slums and densely-populated areas, people plosion in the cities. The population is concentrated in big dividuals who violently attack solve their own needs for food, health and educa- cities in conditions of extreme poverty, dispossessed of the EDITORIAL people who are demonstrating tion. In Loma de la Cruz (Hill of the Cross), now land that supplied their means of work and income. in the streets, for example mowing them down with cars. called Loma de la Dignidad (Dignity Hill), a po- There has been violence, particularly against peas- These bills even garnered some Democratic support. lice station was converted into a library. Puerto ants, who have been dispossessed of their lands through At the same time as they savage our present democra- Rellena is now Puerto Resistencia, where people massacres. This came as drug traffickers countered cy, white conservatives want to abolish teaching “critical have created their own health center. agrarian reforms in order to launder money, take land for race theory” (which holds that racism is systemic, deeply In La Luna, teachers carry out recreational activi- large legal investments and carry out a dirty war against embedded in institutions from hospitals to courts, police, ties for children and the general public. The University guerrilla groups. banks, schools, all levels of government—everything) be- to the Street, led by university students, gives academic cause they want to destroy the freedom movements. (See RESISTANCE MET WITH REPRESSION training in an open field. In the streets the impoverished Mobilizations have taken place in 640 localities of Co- “Targeting anti-racism,” page 1.) population is building a new country. lombia’s 1,103 municipalities and 18 special areas. The For the future, uncertainty reigns. The unarmed pop- EDUCATORS FIGHT BACK! government response has been brutal repression: attacks ulation faces brutal repression. The popular movement In response to this attack on history and reality, on on homes, illegal arrests, deaths, disappearances and might be defeated. Though the right-wing government June 12 thousands of educators gathered virtually and in sexual abuse. is discredited, nationally and internationally, it has the person at historic locations in more than 20 cities to make This provoked a huge social reaction with pro- option of a self-coup that would prevent the presidential clear that they would resist efforts going on in at least 15 test carried out mainly by young people, who live election of 2022, which they will surely lose. The elites Republican-led states to restrict what teachers can say without a future. Whole families and neighbors also fear that they will be brought to justice for their in class about racism, sexism and oppression in America. joined, demanding a return of the disappeared, crimes. On May 24, Tennessee approved a law that intimi- detained, injured and dead. They were demanding dates teachers into lying to students about the role of rac- an end to the repression. These clashes have esca- INDIGENOUS AND PEASANT ORGANIZING ism, sexism, and oppression throughout U.S. history. lated. The countryside has been linked by agrarian organi- The organizers of the Memphis event issued this call to action: “Unfortunately, a lot of American history is uncomfortable…we should never lie to students in order The injustice of India’s surging COVID-19 deaths to preserve comfort over truth.…Imagine having to teach by Yanis Iqbal (BBI)—raised the prices of vaccines by two to six times about the massacres, lynchings, and systemic oppression Aligarh, India—India is in the throes of the second wave in just a week. The center transferred the job of vacci- of Black Americans that all went unpunished by the U.S. of the COVID-19 pandemic. There are horrific scenes of nation to the states, without providing any funding—in Justice System—but instead of prioritizing historical fact people dying due to the lack of medical oxygen, hospital fact making them pay higher prices. It has set up a pric- and legacy, teachers must prioritize appeasing state regu- beds and so on. There is neither enough space for the dead ing system whereby state governments, already short of lations that ban divisive history, whatever that means…. in the crematoriums and graveyards, nor enough wood for finances, have to pay up to four times what the central “Educators understand what this is, a threat from the pyres. The bodies of more than 100 people have been government pays for the same vaccines. state politicians: teach the history we don’t like and you’re dumped into the river Ganges. Meanwhile, private vaccination centers— breaking the law in Tennessee.” Since late April, India has consistently recorded where two-thirds of Indians receive their health- Likewise, an important document, “The 1619 Proj- ect”—published by The New York Times Magazine and more than 300,000 COVID-19 cases daily, with an aver- care—are buying at an even higher level and charg- available as a podcast, a book, and a set of curriculum age death toll of 2,000-3,000. Medical experts say that the ing exorbitant prices. The vaccine prices are now materials—brought down the wrath of conservative poli- actual deaths and infections could be ten times the of- so unaffordable that informal workers are forced ticians bent on banning it from U.S. classrooms. It em- ficial numbers. to spend about half of the household’s monthly sal- phasizes that U.S. history was born and shaped irrevoca- While the corpses of poor citizens kept piling ary on vaccinating all its adult members. No won- up, the wealthiest were able to fly in private jets bly when the first shipload of Black Africans were sold as der Adar Poonawalla, CEO of SII, increased his slaves in Virginia. to Europe and other places to secure themselves. personal wealth by 85% during the pandemic. They were the same people who in 2020 lobbied the What Marxist-Humanism singled out in Raya The central government has allowed BBI to be a mo- Dunayevskaya’s American Civilization on Trial: government to ease curfews and restrictions. nopoly producer of this vaccine and has even supplied pub- Manufacturing, construction, shopping malls and Black masses as Vanguard is that 1619 was also lic money (Rs 1,500 crore or $205 million) to this private the beginning of Black revolt and U.S. liberation many other sectors were permitted to resume without company to expand capacity so that it can strengthen its serious measures to ensure workers’ safety. The wealth struggles. Racism is America’s Achilles Heel. The monopoly position. It has similarly given Rs 3,000 crore of India’s bourgeoisie has increased astronomically since inseparability of freedom ideas and struggles is ($410 million) to SII to expand capacity, while keeping its the pandemic, while working people struggle with inad- what white supremacists are desperately trying monopoly position as the producer of Covishield intact. equate medical facilities. to bury, and trying to keep white workers, women NEOLIBERAL HEALTHCARE FAILS and youth away from, by spewing an avalanche of CHAOTIC VACCINATION CAMPAIGN The Indian government spends only 1.3% of its Gross lies and manipulation. The first reason behind the Indian health crisis is a Domestic Product on the healthcare system, while it has The attacks on education furnish just one example chaotic vaccination campaign. As of mid-May, only 141.6 the world’s third largest military budget—$73 billion per of the multi-sided conservative onslaught being felt in million people have received at least one vaccine dose, every facet of American life today. The Republicans are year. In late 2020, the Indian government stated that it which is about 10% of India’s population of 1.35 billion. tailending former President Trump’s fascist base. Trump- had eight medical doctors, 17 nurses and 5.3 beds for ev- The country has fully vaccinated just over 40 million peo- ism drives their direction. Key Senate Democrats, and ery 10,000 Indians. It had just 2.3 critical care beds for ple, or 2.9% of its population. Joe Biden himself, enable them by opposing an end to the 100,000 people, and a mere 48,000 ventilators. Indians One factor behind the slowdown is the government’s filibuster, precisely because capitalists like the way the pay exorbitant amounts of their income in out-of-pocket decision to plan the vaccine rollout over the internet, ask- filibuster blocks legislation that would hurt their profits ing residents to create an account on the government’s healthcare expenses because of this destruction of public by increasing taxes or regulations. The forms may have “CoWin” website, and then register for an appointment. healthcare, the growth of for-profit hospitals and the un- changed but the fight remains critical. But half the population doesn’t have internet access. derdevelopment of medical insurance schemes. Forces of retrogression, organized around racism, Apart from this, the structural dynamics behind the vac- In a 1966 speech to the Medical Committee for Hu- have a stranglehold on one of the two major political cination failure are located in the initiation of market lib- man Rights, Martin Luther King Jr. declared: “Of all the parties, nearly half of state governments, the Supreme eralization. forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most Court, and an effective veto power in Congress. As Ameri- In April 2021, the central government deregulated shocking and inhumane.” This is most visible in India can Civilization on Trial showed in 1963, Black masses vaccine prices, directing manufacturers to supply 50% today, where innumerable people are dying due to a sys- in motion have been in the vanguard effectuating social of vaccines to the central government at the set price of tem torn apart by murderous, profit-making impulses. It progress throughout American history. Only when white Rs 150 ($2) per dose, and to distribute the remainder to is high time that we recognize the deleterious impact of labor—and all freedom movements—come together with states and private hospitals at whatever cost they wish. neoliberal rationality on the health sector of India. If not, them can a turning point be reached. Such a revolution- Accordingly, the two Indian vaccine producers—Serum the country will keep reeling under the impact of the pan- ary turning point is needed now, and not only to stop the Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech International demic. May 29, 2021 destruction of even the flawed democracy we have left. Page 10 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org JULY-AUGUST 2021 Solidarity with Palestinians Ortega jails dissidents Nicaragua’s President (for life?) Daniel Ortega, who continued from p. 1 weaponry have been integrated into a “Eurasian” capital- has won three consecutive terms since returning to of- Tiberias, Acre and Jerusalem. This ethnic violence rep- ist order that has arisen in this century. fice 14 years ago, ruthlessly moved to consolidate his ab- resents an existential crisis for Israel. The revolutionary Thus, Israel also has solid relations with China, solute hold on power in advance of the November elec- potential opened by the Arab Spring had given Israeli Russia, and India. It has a clandestine relation to Saudi tions by jailing four of his possible opponents, including society the most precious of gifts—the opportunity to re- Arabia over mutual hostility to Iran. Israeli arms sales to Cristiana Chamorro. Ortega jailed former guerrillas who think its history in the light of a more human world in the Azerbaijan were a major factor in that country’s recent participated in the original Sandinista revolution: Dora absolute movement of becoming in Egypt, Syria, Yemen, war with Armenia. María Téllez, known as Commander 2, and retired Gen- as well as among Palestinian workers and youth. This is a new reality that most Western com- eral Hugo Torres, Commander 1, and other militants and This was a tragic missed moment for Israel, as it has mentators have not understood. With all its many journalists. been for the world. The general strike waged by Palestin- internal contradictions and rivalries, this “Eur- ian workers in May in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza is asian” capitalism has become a major determi- TARGETING OPPOSITION VOICES nant in world capitalism. Ortega claimed that those arrested received foreign (Much of the turmoil in financing and published false information, and that he U.S. and European bour- was only following the law. A number of those arrested geois politics can be were from the Unión Democrática Renovadora-Unamos traced to this fact.) The party, made up of dissidents from the ruling party. Israel-Palestine conflict, Dora María Téllez—who at the age of 22 participated like Armenia and Azer- as third in command in the August 1978 assault on the baijan, now exists within Managua Palace that accelerated the fall of the Anastasio this framework. Somoza dictatorship—spoke of the present moment in La Both the Alt-Right fol- Jornada (June 14, 2021): lowers of Russian neofascist If today someone comes and tells me that Nicaragua Alexander Dugin, and neo- is a left-wing government, and that it should not be criti- Fady Harona via OXFAM Fady Harona Stalinist “Leftists” who dis- cized, then what conclusion are we going to reach: that graced themselves through the Left should have a free hand to murder? That is not apologetics for genocidal Left, that is a form of Stalinism....Dictator, with all that monsters like Serbia’s Slo- that implies. Unscrupulous characters who can go to any Devastation in Gaza from Israeli bombs. A Palestinian citizen says of the scene: “Day after day we watch the bodan Milosevic and Syria’s lengths—up to repressing or murdering thousands of peo- bombs fall on homes where our friends and family live and buildings where our colleagues work, wondering if Assad, can be seen to have ple. It is the characteristic of every dictatorship and that of we’ll be next.” anticipated aspects of this Daniel Ortega has it, without a doubt.... new reality. We, since 1995, have been warning that Ortega a poignant reminder of what might have been. That is, they have grasped the anti-human, oppres- was taking all the steps to, first, enthrone himself The new government of Prime Minister Naftali Ben- sive and violent logic of capitalism as it crushes and rede- in the Sandinista Front and then, since 2007, to en- nett, who openly boasts of being “several degrees to the fines human relations. throne himself in power and never abandon it. I do not feel betrayed by Ortega because I did not fight, right” of former PM Benjamin Netanyahu, illustrates the MARX AND MARXIST-HUMANISM nor join the Sandinista Front, for him. I got in- decline of Israeli politics. His shaky coalition of Right, As against that dead end of dead thought, a new be- volved to fight against the Somoza dictatorship and “Left,” and Islamic parties is likely to fall apart at its first ginning must arise. for revolutionary changes in Nicaragua.... crisis, with Netanyahu in waiting to return. Marx himself anticipated as much in his last decade, Ortega not only betrayed the Sandinista Front. He A wrong turn in history, as the world is learning to its as seen in his 1881 letter to Russian revolutionary Vera completely destroyed it. Precisely to impose a dictatorship sorrow, leaves one stuck between a rock and a hard place, Zasulich on the possible anti-capitalist potential of the of blood and fire against the Nicaraguan people. struggling for breath. village commune. His Ethnological Notebooks and obser- IRAN: THE WAGES OF GENOCIDE vations on Arab society were also anticipations of today. ANTI-IMPERIALIST COUNTER-REVOLUTION In 2011, in the wake of the Syrian Revolution, Hamas They form a bridge from Marx’s time to our own.1 It is outrageous that a number of Latin American in- briefly distanced itself from Iran. It was forced to do this The entirety of Marx’s thought must now come alive, tellectuals as well as some of the U.S. Left continue to by the Palestinian people’s overwhelming support for the from the 1843 essay “On ‘The Jewish Question’”—where defend Ortega in the name of anti-U.S. imperialism. Syrian people’s struggle to overthrow the fascist Bashar he first articulated the concept of revolution in perma- —Eugene Walker Al-Assad family dynasty, which was and is supported by nence, full human emancipation—through his develop- Iran. ment of the law of capitalist accumulation, with its ab- It is significant that the May fighting came solute inhumanity and necessary overthrow, in Capital. THE RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA at the moment the genocidal Iranian regime was Marxist-Humanists have opposed the reaction- holding talks with the Saudi regime. These talks aries of Right and “Left” with this philosophy of COLLECTION undoubtedly touched on Saudi Arabia’s intention human liberation. It is why we singled out the rev- of whitewashing the Assad regime’s infinite crimes olutionary implications of the struggle to defend a www.rayadunayevskaya.org against the lives and dignity of Syrians, and rein- multi-ethnic society in Bosnia, as a humanist chal- Contains a wealth of material from troducing Assad into the Arab League. lenge to capitalism’s growing racism and dehuman- 1923-1987, including: Thus, one determining aspect of Hamas’ missile cam- ization. It is why we singled out the significance of paign was the Iranian regime’s regional imperialist am- the Syrian Revolution as challenging the entirety ● 1947-1951 — From the “Interim Period” to bitions. Iran not only supplied the ammunition, but also of the world imperialist system. the Final Split from the Socialist gave the green light to its use. In her 1983 Introduction to American Civilization on Workers Party Iran is also anticipating negotiations with the U.S. Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard, Raya Dunayevskaya ● Leon Trotsky: Letters, Conversations, wrote: “The Black dimension in the U.S. as well as in Af- about lifting sanctions and reinstating the nuclear deal of Unpublished Documents 2015-2017. They are hoping to be rewarded by world im- rica showed that we had, indeed, reached a totally new perialism for Iran’s services as a premier hangman of the movement from practice to theory that was itself a new Arab Spring, participating in the Syrian genocide, mass form of theory. It was this new movement from practice— murder of Iraqi protesters, and the devastation of Yemen. those new voices from below—which we heard, recorded, It seems fitting then that Ebrahim Raisi, the and dialectically developed. Those voices demanded that president-elect of Iran, is a bloodthirsty hangman who a new movement from theory be rooted in that movement presided over the executions of thousands of political pris- from practice and become developed to the point of philos- oners in 1988. He not only did the deed, but is inhuman ophy—a philosophy of world revolution.” enough to have laughed about it since. Faced with today’s Middle Eastern/“Eurasian” It should be noted that this election was widely development of oppressive state-capitalism, impe- rialist rivalries, multi-ethnic societies, genocidal Raya Dunayevskaya with boycotted by Iranian voters out of disgust with the Natalia Sedova Trotsky, 1937 ruling regime. Ayatollah Khamenei and the Revo- crimes; vast, exploited working classes; millions lutionary Guards run a corrupt, state-capitalist re- of multinational guest workers and refugees; high gime that insults and impoverishes Iranian work- technology, peasant farmers, and tribal cultures; ● 1959-1964 — The Emergence of a Third ers, women, youth, and minorities. It is despised. and memory of the crimes of the “Communist” re- Afro-Asian, Latin American A measure of this hatred is the fact that even the gimes of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, this remains our World and a New Generation of most secure government facilities are subject to sabo- challenge in theory and practice. Revolutionaries Also in the U.S. Sporadic attacks and reciprocal threats have con- tage—including the Bushehr nuclear power plant, Na- ● 1964-1968 — As Against Decadent Capitalism tanz uranium enrichment plant, and various petrochemi- tinued between Hamas and the new Israeli government. on the Rampage, New Stages of cal facilities. As at all such imperialist fault lines, these aftershocks are also omens of worse to come. This demands urgent Mass Revolt A ‘JEWISH QUESTION’ ONCE MORE? internationalist solidarity, attention to the real voices of ● 1976-1978 — Forces of Revolution as Reason; It isn’t only in the Middle East that this latest war revolt, and a philosophic clarity that will not compromise had reactionary consequences. The legitimate solidarity Philosophy of Revolution as Force the needed revolutions in Palestine, Israel, Iran and the with Palestinian national liberation expressed in demon- ● 1979-1981 — What is Philosophy? What is world. strations across the U.S. and Europe was also marred by Revolution? How the Revolutions instances of the most disgusting anti-Semitism. 1. In Rosa Luxemburg, Women’s Liberation, and Marx’s Philoso- of Our Age Relate to Those Since From New York to Los Angeles, there were phy of Revolution (1982), Dunayevskaya demonstrated the neces- Marx’s Age: Rosa Luxemburg, attacks on synagogues, Jewish businesses, and sity of a return to Marx’s Marxism as a totality to work out new revolutionary beginnings in the face of our changed world. Women’s Liberation, and Marx’s randomly selected Jews. There were instances of Philosophy of Revolution swastika graffiti. This is only possible in a world NEWS & LETTERS ● 1983-1985: From the Marx Centenary Year reeling backward politically, acclimating itself to VOL. 66/NO. 4 July-August 2021 dehumanization and violence as the currency of to Women’s Liberation and the News & Letters (ISSN 0028-8969) is published bi-monthly. Dialectics of Revolution, and from human relations. Subscriptions are $5 a year (bulk order of 5 or more copies, 25c These words and deeds must be condemned. Not only each) from News & Letters, 228 S. Wabash, #230, Chicago, IL Reagan’s Invasion of Grenada to this, but responsibility to history and revolutionary soli- 60604. Phone 312-431-8242. Fax 312-431-8252. Periodical postage Raya Dunayevskaya’s Work on darity demands a serious reckoning with why they were paid at Chicago, IL. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to News & Letters, 228 S. Wabash, #230, Chicago, IL 60604. “Dialectics of Organization and done. Once again, silence is death. Articles may be reprinted verbatim if credited to "News & Letters." Philosophy” Raya Dunayevskaya, Chairwoman, National Editorial Board (1955-1987). THE RISE OF ‘EURASIA’ CAPITALISM Charles Denby, Editor (1955-1983). ● Correspondence with: C.L.R. James, Adrienne It is worth asking why the peace accords between Is- Franklin Dmitryev, National Organizer, News and Letters Committees. Rich, Herbert Marcuse, Erich rael, the United Arab Emirates, and other regional pow- Terry Moon, Managing Editor. Felix Martin, Labor Editor (1983-1999). Fromm, Nnamdi Azikwe, Sékou ers were unaffected by the May fighting. A key thing to Olga Domanski, National Organizer (1958-2015). John Alan, National Editorial Board Member Emeritus (2008-2011). Touré and many more understand is that Israeli capitalism, technology, and News & Letters is indexed by Alternative Press Index. JULY-AUGUST 2021 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org Page 11 China out of Burma, support revolution! ‘Generation on fire’ by Michael Sladnick and of a growing number of other authoritarian states around Southeast Asia and beyond. youth march The picture on the right is Kyal Sin. She was 19 years In the 21st century there is no such thing as old when she was shot in the head and killed for protest- non-interventionism—the only question is whether ing against the military intervention will take coup in Myanmar (Burma). the form of solidarity And on the left is Khant with the oppressed or Nyar Hein, an 18-year-old support for those who medical student who was are killing people, the beaten to death the day oppressors. Sunrise Movement the Chinese Embassy in The Chinese Com- Myanmar urged the re- munist Party (CCP) ad- gime to take more effective vocates for the idea that measures against protests. different nationalities and These are the people who ethnicities and religions inspired me to devote my have distinct interests and time and energy to support- separate destinies. Yet we ing the Spring Revolution see people of Chinese heri- in Myanmar and the Milk tage at the forefront of the Tea Alliance.1 fight for the rights of all Something else they people around the world, have in common is they San Francisco—I participated in the Sunrise Move- inspiring millions every- were both ethnic Chinese. ment youth march, “Generation on Fire,” June 10-14, where. from Santa Rosa to San Francisco, around 80 miles. It CCP’S DEADLY HYPOCRISY The struggle against the CCP’s racist vision was a part of a 266-mile march that began in Paradise, The dictatorship in China is the loudest voice insist- and the struggle against white supremacy in the the site of the 2018 Camp fire, one of the most devastating ing that we should stay out of other countries’ affairs, yet U.S. go hand in hand. The fight for social justice in California history. In May another march like it went they are the main backers of the coup regime in Myanmar in the U.S. will remain hollow unless we also stand 400 miles across the U.S. Gulf Coast. with those fighting the worst injustices abroad. 1. According to Wikipedia, “The Milk Tea Alliance is an online All of them mean to raise awareness of how The Milk Tea Alliance shows us the way forward. democratic solidarity movement mainly made up of netizens the climate movement relates to every other is- from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, and Myanmar (Burma). It The coup regime in Myanmar thinks it can suppress sue: economy, racism, socialism, etc. Some of the was originally started as an internet meme, created in response the revolution the same way the CCP did in Hong Kong. younger people were asking what is socialism and to the increased presence of Chinese nationalist commentators But we will use our democratic rights to support the peo- we had lively discussions about it. The socialism we on social media and has evolved into a dynamic multinational ple of Myanmar in their determination to fight, no matter discussed was what a truly post-capitalist society protest movement against authoritarianism and advocating how long it takes. The CCP thinks it has won in Hong democracy. Aside from the four main countries mentioned, the would look like, not just social democracy. Kong just because large scale protests ended during the movement has also established a significant presence in South The person I spoke to most, from National Sunrise COVID pandemic. But it will be our determination to con- Korea, the Philippines, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Belarus and Movement, went on all of the Sunrise trips. We walked 10 tinue standing with the people of Hong Kong, even in the Iran.” miles the first day. He was on board with what we have most difficult times, and our efforts to jump on every op- to say. He is interested in the ideas. I explained negation portunity to renew the revolution there, that will one day of the negation as a way to talk about a new society not inspire the Chinese people themselves to rise up against as an end, but as a new beginning. There are not “ends,” YOUTH IN ACTION their oppressors. And then we will stand with them too, the only constant is change. There is no “end of history.” and will fight side by side as a common humanity. This is At overnight stops there were a lot more discus- by Buddy Bell the only alternative to the barbarism and danger of impe- sions. Some concentrated on what could be called On June 4, the anniversary of the 1989 crackdown rialist war which is currently plaguing the world. “socialist experiments,” like Venezuela. It is clear on student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, thou- Kyal Sin – Say Her Name! Khant Nyar Hein – Say that establishing socialism is not easy. Even if/ sands of Chinese students began protesting against a His Name! June 16, 2021 government plan to merge private colleges with voca- when you can overthrow the existing government, tional schools. By June 7, over 1,000 students at Nanjing what then? It is a wonderful experience to see activism combined Normal University had occupied a large lecture hall for Peru: Election conflict with a real discussion of ideas of where we’re going and 30 hours until they were attacked by police with batons what our activism means. —Alex and pepper spray. Following this incident, the education department of Jiangsu province (where Nanjing is locat- during COVID ed) suspended the merger plan for an unspecified period. As we go to press, a Peruvian post-presidential elec- After years of paying a premium in tuition, the private tion battle between Pedro Castillo, a union activist and college students face a likely downgrade of their future former schoolteacher, and Keiko Fujimori, a right-wing degrees which would effectively hold them in the state- neoliberal and daughter of the jailed authoritarian for- QUEERNOTES capitalist blue-collar labor market they had been trying mer President Alberto Fujimori, is raging. Competing to transcend. demonstrations have been organized in the streets of by Elise Lima, the capital. The results, which have not been final- Brave Iranians are protesting the murder of Gay man * * * ized, show Castillo leading by a little over 40,000 votes Rural youth in eSwatini (formerly Swaziland) dem- Alireza Fazeli Monfared, beheaded by his family in a so- from the millions cast. Fujimori’s party, Fuerza Popular, onstrated on June 19 for the right of the people to vote for called honor killing as he attempted to flee Iran. Protest- has filed hundreds of demands against alleged electoral their own prime minister, a post which has been appoint- ers are wearing Pride flags in public, knowing they’re fraud without any proof. ed by the monarchy since 2005. Police fired stun grenades taking their lives in their hands in a country where a Dozens of former military officers have direct- and live bullets when the young protesters blocked a road person can be executed for being Gay. Journalist Masih ly called on the military not to accept a Castillo vic- in the town of Manzini. One protester, Melusi Dlamini, Alinejad, who Fazeli Monfared followed on Twitter, pro- tory, in a seeming appeal for a military coup. told Agence France-Presse: “We demand multi-party de- vided a platform for youth to speak for themselves and Fujimori has made it clear that she intends to contin- mocracy now.” Residents in rural areas are thought to broadcast videos of those protesting his death. She said, ue neoliberal economic rule, which has led to an economic be more supportive of the king than in cities, but rela- “Iran’s LGBTQ community is brutalized both by the re- disaster in the year-plus of the COVID-19 pandemic. Be- tions soured when the unelected government reneged on gime and by bigotry in certain families.” After hearing of fore the pandemic Peru was declared “an economic suc- a promise to transfer ownership of land to farmers who Fazeli Monfared’s murder, many Gay Iranians are email- cess,” due to increased mining and agricultural exports. have cultivated it for the past 20 years. ing messages to Okan Sengun of the LGBT Asylum Proj- But the hollowness of this claim has been exposed during ect, fearing for their lives. * * * the pandemic. In addition to Paxton Smith of Dallas (see “Abortion * * * Much of the economy is dependent on informal Students at Pendleton Heights High School in In- rights at crossroads,” p. 2), some other examples of 2021 workers with no safety net, who could not work but high school graduates standing up include: diana created an online petition that has gathered over could not stay home if they wanted to survive. Tens 3,500 signatures to protest the administration demand • Salutatorian Rachel Cheng of Davie, Fla., made of thousands left Lima and other cities—many on that Pride flags be removed from classrooms. The petition use of her time by enlightening the audience about foot—to return to their home villages to survive. calls for them to be restored in three classrooms. Other The neoliberal Peruvian government provided no the bullying she suffered as a Chinese-American school districts’ teachers and some Pendleton alumni aid, and has invested almost nothing in healthcare. “They student during the coronavirus pandemic. She have praised the petition. Some administrators justified asked us to stay at home, but a lot of people have no sav- went on: “to anyone else that is part of a marginal- the ban to “maintain viewpoint neutrality,” arguing that ings so that was impossible. They asked us to wash our ized community or has faced discrimination of any if Pride flags could be displayed, so could white suprema- hands, but only one in three poor households has access kind, whether it be anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, cist flags. Student Bryce Axel-Adams called displaying to running water,” noted one Peruvian researcher. Half of sexism, racism, or any other discrimination, I ap- the flag a sign of support for LGBTQ students. plaud you for getting here today.” A subsequent Peruvian homes do not have refrigerators, meaning fami- * * * bullying campaign by online trolls got her kicked lies need to go daily to crowded markets. Under these con- Nonbinary genderqueer Tryfan Morys Eibhlyn Ll- off Instagram until she was reinstated amidst an ditions COVID-19 infections, followed by deaths, exploded wyd, fighter for Gay liberation and the end of racism, online petition drive. to one of the highest death-per-population ratios in the world. Hospitals were overwhelmed, with people dying for died at age 70 in their home state of Kentucky. Llwyd Ever Lopez was the first of his family to graduate • lack of oxygen. helped organize against imperialism and racism, includ- high school in Asheboro, N.C., and wore the flag of What Peru is experiencing is not alone a health ing against the KKK’s recruiting in the prisons. Llwyd Mexico over his graduation gown. Administrators and sanitation crisis, but a devastating social-eco- took the Central American Pledge of Resistance to U.S. then withheld his diploma, and Lopez walked off nomic crisis. interference in Central America. They saw the intersec- the stage with an empty folder. On the Friday and It is under these conditions that the Presidential tions between racism, imperialism and homophobia. Ll- Monday after graduation, Ever’s classmates held elections have been held. Who is Pedro Castillo? That wyd helped raise awareness of AIDS through militant ac- rallies to support him in front of their school, which is not yet clear. Fujimori, in typical red-baiting fashion, tivism in San Francisco by participating in a blockade of finally released the diploma on Monday, June 8. calls him a Communist. Certainly, the neoliberal Right traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge while raising a banner • Southwest Edgecombe High School senior class fears his “socialist” plans. But a number of Latin Ameri- saying, “AIDS Genocide; Silence Death; Fight Back” and president Marvin Wright in Pinetops, N.C., was can countries have recently experienced a type of “social- helped disrupt the San Francisco Opera’s 1989 opening approached on the morning of graduation by his ism” which only ended up in statism. Whether Castillo, night. Llwyd also protested drug maker Burroughs Well- principal, who handed him a very generic, five- if he survives Fujimori and friends’ attempt at a coup, come’s high price for AZT. sentence speech to read. Instead, Wright delivered can construct—with social movements, unions and Indig- the speech he stayed up all night to compose. “I felt enous organizations—a viable alternative to neoliberial Become a bundle dealer for News & Letters ! robbed of a chance to say my own words.” His di- authoritarian rule without falling into statism, remains Contact us to find out how to receive bulk orders. ploma was withheld until the following Sunday. to be seen. —Eugene Walker Page 12 NEWS & LETTERS – www.newsandletters.org JULY-AUGUST 2021

WORLD IN VIEW COVID-19, philosophy, and revolution big tech monopolies making trillions. any opposition to the despotic plan of capital. His by Gerry Emmett • Increased deaths from despair during lockdowns— highest aspiration is to be a successful commodity “The veil is not removed from the countenance of the a word that could have been borrowed from the prison- himself, the best product of the system. social life-process, i.e., the process of material production, industrial complex. These In addition, it shows how much was lost when radi- until it becomes production Victoria Pickering. flickr.com/photos/vpickering/50539749158/ include suicides, mur- cal, self-determining organizations like the AIDS Coali- by freely associated men, ders, and drug and alcohol tion to Unleash Power (ACT UP) were replaced by Bill and stands under their deaths. Gates-funded “health” NGOs. Gates himself profited conscious and planned con- • Increased deaths greatly from the pandemic. trol.” from undiagnosed illnesses —Marx, Capital HUMANITY AND NATURE like cancer and heart dis- There is more. Even the fact that COVID-19 may The possibility that ease. have been a lab leak illustrates how capitalism can turn COVID-19 leaked from • Increased levels of our deepest insights into our own nature towards our own a laboratory in Wuhan, domestic abuse. destruction. Just as modern physics led to the extinction- China, has been a heated • Children losing a level threat of nuclear weapons, so here we see a similar subject of debate since the precious year of educa- potential biological threat. publication of Nicholas tion and sometimes left There is a profound reason Marx wrote, in his Wade’s article, “The Origin to the streets. Disabled of COVID,” in the May 5 In America, How Could This Happen is a project by artist Suzanne Brennan Critique of the Gotha Program, that nature is a Firstenberg on the Armory Parade Grounds. There is a flag planted for each children losing a year of Bulletin of the Atomic Sci- source of wealth, as well as labor. In order to make death, with more flags added each day as the death toll increases. social skill development. production by freely associated human beings pos- entists. It is a strong pos- • The normalization sible, it is necessary to comprehend nature in and sibility. of civil and human rights violations and corporate cen- for itself. This is part of breaking down the division It is certain, however, that the ruling class response sorship. between mental and manual labor that will allow to the pandemic was to lie, obfuscate, and manipulate the This centralization of wealth and power embodies us to say, “From each according to their ability, to public in its own interest. The clarity of the class line, Marx’s general law of capitalist accumulation; it was also however, drawn as it was through humanity and nature, each according to their needs.” an opportunist, piratical, cruel war of primitive accumula- Even the best Marxists had difficulty grasping his should be a philosophic moment for the world. tion of capital. It shows the necessity of revolution. We are point about this. We are suffering it with every breath, THE EXTENT OF THE CRIME living through Capital as if it was written in our blood. every step, and every new revelation. This is the matu- State-capitalist power claimed to protect us. Here is Donald Trump’s acceptance of all this shows rity of our age. It is why the current pandemic must be a the price we paid: the futility of looking to a “populist” like him for philosophic moment for all humanity. • Over three million people and counting, dead. The pandemic continues to ravage India, Africa, and parts of Latin America. Rogue generals send France a chilling message • The greatest wealth transfer in history, with count- This April 21 was the 60th anniversary of a failed tled by elections, but by changed human relations. less small businesses wiped out and Amazon and other coup attempt by French generals opposed to President EUROPE’S DEEPENING REACTION Charles de Gaulle’s negotiations with the Algerian Na- As of now, the technocratic elite of the European tional Liberation Front. It also marked the publication of a chilling letter to the current government of President Union are still able, barely, to block the Far Right from RIP Bunny Wailer Emmanuel Macron. gaining too much power. The Left has little influence and Reggae pioneer Bunny Wailer (born Neville Livings- The letter, signed by 25 retired generals and revolution seems a distant prospect. ton) passed away March 2, in Kingston, Jamaica, after about 1,000 service personnel, claimed that the If French history is any indication, then gen- suffering a series of strokes. nation’s “civilizational values” are threatened by erals and their arms may well find new patrons Born in 1947, as a child he made his first gui- immigrants from Africa and the Middle East; Is- among these factions; as they have from the days of tars, as he said, from bamboo, sardine tins, and lamism; “anti-racism”; and attacks on the police discarded electrical wire. His musical inspirations Napoleon, the massacre of the Paris Commune of and military. It also criticized repression of the gi- included Fats Domino, Little Richard, Curtis May- 1871, or de Gaulle’s return to power with the mili- let jaunes (Yellow Vests) protests. tary’s aid in 1958. field, and gospel music. He was also an avid reader, It said: “Civil war will break upon this growing chaos, including of Shakespeare. and the deaths, for which you will be responsible, will The Wailers came together in the early 1960s, when number in the thousands.” The neofascist Marine Le Pen Bunny introduced his childhood friend Bob Marley to an- Tunisia youth protest expressed her support for this letter. other local guitar player, Peter Tosh. Their music reflect- On June 9, Tunis police arrested a 15-year-old boy. ed the buoyancy of Jamaica’s 1962 independence from BOURGEOIS POLITICS AT AN IMPASSE He was beaten and stripped naked before being shoved Britain. A second letter appeared in a right-wing magazine into a police car—all of it caught on video. This created on May 9. It was alleged to represent the views of active VOICE HEARD ’ROUND THE WORLD outrage when it hit social media sites. duty soldiers who had served in Africa and Afghanistan. Police accused him of public intoxication. The boy In the 1970s, the Wailers adopted Rastafarianism It read, “If civil war breaks out, the army will maintain said, “They kept beating me at the security center, and as their songs addressed the disappointments of post- order on its own soil. No one can want such a terrible situ- accused me of inciting riots and chaos.” colonial Jamaica—“Concrete Jungle,” “Burnin’ and Loo- ation—our elders no more than we—but yes, civil war is tin’,” “Get Up, Stand Up.” These resonated not only in the In response to public outcry, the Ministry of brewing in France and you know it perfectly well.” Caribbean, but in postcolonial Africa as well. Interior announced that the officers had been sus- France has suffered brutal, mass casualty ter- pended and the incident would be investigated. By the mid-1970s, Bob Marley had become a rorist attacks. The military patrols airports, train This didn’t satisfy the many youths who entered worldwide star, and Tosh and Bunny left the Wail- stations, and synagogues throughout the country. into violent clashes with police on June 13. ers for solo careers. At this time, too, reggae became Macron has made gestures to the anti-immigrant Human rights activist Jamal Muslim said, “Unfor- a major influence on a new generation of British Right. But there is no evidence that the French tunately, the scenes of a young Tunisian citizen being youth that was experiencing the capitalist crisis people desire a civil war. dragged naked in a public street and violently assaulted that began in 1974, and feeling their own promised In the June 20 first round of regional elections, Le raise doubts about the police reform plan launched after futures slipping away. Pen’s National Rally party lost support, receiving only the 2011 revolution.” For many, the rhythms of Bunny Wailer’s 1976 Black- 18% nationally. Macron’s En Marche party was devas- This year over 2,000 youths have been arrested in heart Man album sounded like the beating heart of a protests, many having been beaten and some tortured. heartless world. Spark lit from embers of a fallen empire, tated, receiving only 10%. There was a record low 33% Ten years ago, it was an unexpected revolt in Tunisia the influence of reggae and Black consciousness on punk voter turnout, with most votes going to the center-left and that began the Arab Spring revolutions that shook the rock bands like The Clash remains one of the great mo- center-right. world. Many of the social and economic problems around ments in popular culture. Nihilism lost a round. Voters rejected both Macron’s current direction, and the world—food and housing prices, arrogant elites—are In 2017 Wailer turned his home into a museum com- Le Pen’s reactionary nationalism. The crisis of bourgeois at 2010 levels or worse. memorating The Wailers’ history. politics reflects the crisis of capitalism, and won’t be set- NEWS AND LETTERS COMMITTEES Who We Are And What We Stand For News and Letters Committees is an or- The articulation of the relationship be- Marx’s body of ideas from his discovery of a con- to reject what is, but to further work out the ganization of Marxist-Humanists. It has always tween the movement from practice which is tinent of thought and of revolution in his youth revolutionary Humanist future inherent in the stood for the abolition of capitalism, both in itself a form of theory and the movement from to the “new moments” of his last decade. Writ- present. The recreation of Marx’s philosophy as its private property form as in the U.S., and in theory to philosophy is reflected in Dunayevs- ten for our time of revolutions in developing Marxist-Humanism is recorded in Dunayevska- its state property form calling itself Commu- kaya’s three major works. countries, the rise of the international women’s ya’s archives, The Raya Dunayevskaya Collection— nist, which appeared as the Russian Revolution Marxism and Freedom, from 1776 until Today liberation movement, and global economic cri- Marxist-Humanism: A Half-Century of Its World De- was transformed into its opposite. That retro- (1958), established the American roots of Marx- sis, it reveals the absolute challenge to make real velopment, deposited at Wayne State University gression anticipated the next stage of develop- ism while presenting a comprehensive attack Marx’s “revolution in permanence” as the deter- in Detroit and available to all. ment—the age of state-capitalism. We stand for on present-day Communism, which is a form of minant for the relationship of theory and prac- We aim to continue to develop Marxist- a society of new human relations, what Marx state-capitalism. It re-established Marxism in its tice and as ground for organization. Humanism and make it available to all who called a new Humanism. original form as “a thorough-going Naturalism or These works spell out the philosophic struggle for freedom. In opposing this capitalist, Humanism,” while pointing to the new Human- ground of Marx’s Humanism. American Civilization News & Letters was founded in 1955, the racist, sexist, heterosexist, class-ridden society, year of the Detroit wildcat strikes against au- ist philosophy expressed by the working class. It on Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard (1963, 1983) we have adopted a committee form of organiza- tomation and the Montgomery Bus Boycott presented history and theory as emanating from concretizes it on the American scene and shows tion rather than any elitist party “to lead.” against segregation—activities which signaled a the movement from practice. the two-way freedom road between the U.S. and new movement from practice that was itself a Philosophy and Revolution: From Hegel to Sar- Africa. We participate in all class and freedom form of theory. News & Letters was created so tre and from Marx to Mao (1973), written after In 1989 News and Letters Committees struggles, nationally and internationally. As our that the voices of revolt could be heard unsepa- the failed revolts of the 1960s, articulated the published Dunayevskaya’s original 1953 philo- Constitution states: rated from the articulation of a philosophy of integrality of philosophy and revolution as the sophic breakthrough—her two letters on “It is our aim…to promote the firmest liberation. characteristic of the age and, tracing it historical- Hegel’s Absolutes—and her 1987 Presentation unity among workers, Blacks and other minori- Raya Dunayevskaya (1910–1987), founder ly, caught the link of continuity with the Human- on the Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy ties, women, youth and those intellectuals who of the body of ideas of Marxist-Humanism, was ism of Marx. As against the vanguard party, the in The Philosophic Moment of Marxist-Humanism. have broken with the ruling bureaucracy of both Chairwoman of News and Letters Commit- integration of dialectics and organization reflects This body of ideas challenges all those de- capital and labor.” We do not separate mass ac- tees from its founding to 1987. Charles Denby the revolutionary maturity of the age and the siring freedom to transcend the limitations of tivities from the activity of thinking. (1907–1983), a Black rank-and-file autoworker, passion for a philosophy of liberation. post-Marx Marxism. In light of the crises of our Send for a free copy of the Constitution of author of Indignant Heart: A Black Worker’s Journal, Rosa Luxemburg, Women’s Liberation, and nuclear-armed world, climate change, and failed News and Letters Committees or see it on our was editor of the paper from 1955 to 1983. Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution (1982) explores revolutions, it becomes imperative not only website: www.newsandletters.org.