News & Letters | Marxist-Humanist Newspaper

May-June 2012 News & Letters

The May-June 2012 issue of News & Letters is now available on line.

Draft for Marxist-Humanist Perspectives, 2012-2013: Counter-revolution's rise shows need for a total philosophy

The Syrian Revolution is a serious challenge to the order in the region and beyond. Israel, Iran, and Saudi Arabia all have much to lose from the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad's Baathist family dynasty, as do their imperialist patrons.

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From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: On political divides and philosophic new beginnings

The abysmal depths that the ... retrogression has sunk the world into ... have polluted the ideological air, not only of the ruling class, but have penetrated the Left itself. Such a deep retrogression urgently demands that, along with the economic and political tasks facing us, we look for philosophic new beginnings. In the midst of the work I am doing on my new book, Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy, I have been digging into research on two opposed forms of organization, that is, our opposition to the vanguard party-to-lead, and our support of forms of organization born out of the spontaneous activity of the masses.

Woman as Reason: Adrienne Rich--a voice for freedom

The world lost a passionate, beautiful voice for freedom and self-determination with the death of the feminist Lesbian poet Adrienne Rich on March 27. Whether it be the precision of her poetry or essays, what is always inescapable is that Rich not only spoke for herself, but articulated the desire of legions for a different, a profoundly human existence.

Workshop Talks: Spy on workers, but overlook patients

We're constantly counting so much that our world has lost sight of what really counts. Our company has invested billions of dollars in a super computer system which is able to count everything, from how many pieces of gauze are used on a patient to how much nurse-time each patient expends. Everything is tracked for cost control, up to the minute and down to the penny. The company pretends to monitor "quality" of healthcare.

Voices from the Inside Out: Sham response to prison hunger strike

After we read the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) "Prevention, Identification and Management Strategy," we had a tier discussion of it. To a man, we believe that document is nothing more than a public relations stunt by CDCR to regain public support.

Security Housing Unit prisoners react

In March, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) finally released a proposal for a new policy: "Security Threat Groups, Prevention, Identification and Management Strategy." We visited Pelican Bay SHU prisoners a few days later.

Justice for ALL the Trayvon Martins

Protests against the murder on Feb. 26 of unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, an armed neighborhood watch volunteer in a gated community in Sanford, Fla., exploded across the U.S. Zimmerman, who remained free for weeks, claiming he killed Martin in "self-defense" and hiding behind Florida's Stand Your Ground law, was finally arrested for Trayvon's murder on April 11.