September 26, 2021— “Let them in! Let them in!” chanted protesters in Miami, demanding asylum for Haitian refugees, nearly 30,000 of whom recently flocked to the United States by crossing the Rio Grande and seeking shelter under the Del Rio International Bridge in Texas.
CHICAGO, September 25, 2021—At an unprecedented and critical juncture in the fight for women’s right to choose safe, legal abortion, Women’s March has called for rallies in every state on October 2. This call for coordinated national demonstrations should be championed by every defender of women’s rights.
What lessons can we draw for today from the Russian Revolution of 1917—the first socialist revolution and one of the most important events in modern human history? The Bolshevik Party, which led that revolution, viewed it as the beginning of the worldwide struggle to overturn capitalism and open the door to the socialist transformation of society by working people. This is the topic of a recent debate between Eric Blanc, a socialist historian and activist, and Mike Taber, editor of a number of books related to the history of revolutionary and working-class movements. This second part of the debate includes the article by Mike Taber.
What lessons can we draw for today from the Russian Revolution of 1917—the first socialist revolution and one of the most important events in modern human history? The Bolshevik Party, which led that revolution, viewed it as the beginning of the worldwide struggle to overturn capitalism and open the door to the socialist transformation of society by working people. This is the topic of a recent debate between Eric Blanc, a socialist historian and activist, and Mike Taber, editor of a number of books related to the history of revolutionary and working-class movements. This first part of the debate includes the article by Eric Blanc.
On August 29, 2021, caravans opposing the U.S. blockade of Cuba took place in more than a dozen cities across the United States, as well as Canada, United Kingdom and other countries in Europe and elsewhere in the world. This is a round-up report, along with photos, from four of these actions in the U.S.
A national campaign of mass action to defend a woman’s right to choose abortion is now necessary. This has been true for some time. But the September 1 U.S. Supreme Court 5-4 decision that refused to block a Texas law prohibiting abortion after cardiac activity is detected—which can be as early as six weeks after the onset of pregnancy—underlined the urgency of the moment. Many women are not even aware they are pregnant at that time.
Describing it as a blow to women and all abortion rights supporters nationwide, coalition calls for reversal of the Texas Law SB8, and demands “No Abortion Bans Anywhere: Not Now; Not Ever! Defend Roe!”
Several Chicago groups that have recently begun mobilizing to defend abortion rights are outraged by the extreme Texas abortion ban that just went into effect, banning abortions after the 6th week, when most women do not even know they are pregnant. Approximately 85% of abortions performed in Texas take place after 6 weeks.
WASHINGTON, D.C., September 2, 2021—More than 500 relatives of victims slain by the police across the United States, and their supporters, participated in a powerful testimonial rally here on August 28. They demanded that authorities “prosecute police who brutalize and/or kill” and “reopen and re-investigate all cases that allege police violence,” as a press release for the action stated. Members of families impacted by cop violence called for an end to what many described as the “ongoing scourge” of police brutality. The most compelling deterrent to such violence is to prosecute the cops responsible and put them behind bars, they emphasized.
Washington’s setback in Afghanistan is only the latest in a long list of examples pointing to the decline of U.S. imperialism, signaled in 1975 by its defeat in Vietnam.
The chaotic withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops from Afghanistan, which has had deadly consequences for many Afghans and some U.S. troops, is another sign of the decline of U.S. imperialism. While Washington remains the number one military power in the world, its domination and influence are diminishing.
WASHINGTON, DC, August 28, 2021—Below is an initial gallery of photos from the magnificent rally and march to the Justice Department today. More than 500 members of families who have lost loved ones to cop violence, arriving from 44 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, took part in the rally at the Washington Monument and subsequent march to the Department of Justice to demand: Reopen All the Cases, where justice has been denied! Prosecute and Jail the Killer Cops!
This article appeared in Cubadebate, a Cuban news agency, on August 10, 2021. World-Outlook is publishing it because it helps counter the misinformation and lies the big-business media have unleashed this summer against the Caribean nation. This campaign of slanders, exaggeration, and manipulation of facts is part of Washington’s 60-year-long economic war against the socialist country and the unceasing efforts by the U.S. government and its imperialist allies to undermine and overthrow the Cuban Revolution. The article also provides invaluable scientific information on how to confront the Covid-19 pandemic.
This is a petition being circulated widely around the world by Cuban scientists as an open letter to U.S. president Joe Biden. World-Outlook encourages readers to join this campaign by sharing the petition with fellow workers, unions, and other organizations, as well as anyone else who may be interested, to maximize the number of signatures we can get to back our Cuban sisters and brothers.
August 4, 2021—The violent protests that erupted in Cuba in early July were the first serious social disturbances since the “Maleconazo” of 1994, 27 years ago. Both these periods were characterised by deep economic crises. I was living in Havana in the mid-90s and witnessed the conditions that triggered the uprising: empty food markets, shops and pharmacy shelves, regular electricity cuts, production and transport ground to a halt. Such were the consequences of the collapse of the socialist bloc, which accounted for about 90% of the island’s trade.
CHICAGO, August 8, 2021—Abortion rights activists here and across the nation are headed to a showdown with anti-abortion forces because of the U.S. Supreme Court decision to hear arguments in the Mississippi case “Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.” On the high court’s docket since May 17, oral arguments could take place as soon as this fall.
SEATTLE, August 6, 2021—An important and in some ways unique demonstration against police violence will take place in Washington DC on August 28, the anniversary of the historic 1963 civil rights March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
NEW YORK, August 3, 2021—Crafting it from footage of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, Summer of Soul director Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson unearthed a treasure that captures a pivotal moment in U.S. culture and politics. This invaluable film archive had not seen the light of day until now. The movie includes performances, interviews with artists and attendees, as well as historical footage of events from that time period.
This is a round-up of some of the marches, rallies, and car caravans that took place in more than a dozen U.S. cities, as well as Canada and other countries, on July 25, 2021. Protesters demanded an end to Washington’s 60-year-old economic war on Cuba, which has been recently intensified with 243 new sanctions imposed under the Trump administration that are now enforced by U.S. president Joe Biden. These punitive measures are aimed at strangling the Caribbean nation economically and increasing the hardships caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Haymarket Books has just published “Under the Socialist Banner: Resolutions of the Second International, 1889-1912.”
This review, introduced by the book’s editor Mike Taber, takes up questions such as: Should socialists accept positions as ministers in capitalist governments? What stance should they take toward bourgeois parties?
HAVANA, July 20, 2021—On Sunday 11 July, dozens of anti-government protests, apparently coordinated via social media, took place simultaneously throughout Cuba. In several places, including in San Antonio on the outskirts of Havana and in Matanzas, where Covid-19 cases have been surging, protests turned violent, with windows smashed, shops looted, cars overturned, rocks thrown and people assaulted.
This article appeared on July 14, 2021, in the English-language online edition of the Cuban daily Granma (en.granma.cu), the newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba.
World-Outlook is publishing it as another act of solidarity with revolutionary Cuba in confronting Washington’s 60-year-long unrelenting economic war that has been intensified under the administrations of Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
This Op-Ed is based on a Facebook post released in Cuba July 12, 2021. The author, Ernesto Limia Díaz, is First Vice-president of the Writers Association of UNEAC (National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba).
World-Outlook is publishing it to amplify the voice of Cuba’s revolutionary leadership in confronting a barrage of lies and disinformation unleashed in recent days by the U.S. government, the Democratic and Republican
This statement released July 12, 2021, by the International US-Cuba Normalization Committee “denounces in the strongest terms the latest campaign of bipartisan Washington to subvert and politically destabilize the Cuban government.”
This statement, issued July 12, 2021, by the Cuba Solidarity Campaign (CSC) in the United Kingdom, “calls on the US government to suspend the blockade of Cuba to allow emergency medical and humanitarian aid into the country in order to ease the economic and health crisis the island is experiencing.”
This article republished from the July 12, 2021, English-language online edition of the Cuban daily Granma, starts as follows: “For 60 years the example of the Cuban Revolution has bothered the United States, stated First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, yesterday, during a special message from the Palace of the Revolution explaining to the people the most recent provocation orchestrated by small groups of counterrevolutionaries.”
LOS ANGELES, July 9, 2021—With flashers blinking and horns blaring, scores of bicycles and cars, plastered with signs and banners demanding an end to the U.S. blockade of Cuba, made their way through the streets of 70 cities in more than 25 countries on June 20. They were the latest of what have now become monthly and expanding protests around the world pushing for normalization of relations with Cuba and an end to Washington’s economic war.
This is part 2 of an article by Marxist scholar George Novack, written in 1963 as the civil rights movement was dismantling the Jim Crow system of segregation through the sustained mass action of Black working people and their allies. Almost 60 years later it remains relevant to today’s ongoing battles against racism as well as to understanding the vital history of the African American nationality and its indomitable battle for freedom and equality.
This is part 1 of an article by Marxist scholar George Novack written in 1963 as the civil rights movement was dismantling the Jim Crow system of segregation through the sustained mass action of Black working people and their allies. Almost 60 years later it remains relevant to today’s ongoing battles against racism as well as to understanding the vital history of the African American nationality and its indomitable battle for freedom and equality.
This is part 3 of an abridged version of the speech African American leader Frederick Douglass gave on July 5, 1852, at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. He had been invited there to address the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society on the occasion of the July 4 national holiday.
This is part 2 of an abridged version of the speech African American leader Frederick Douglass gave on July 5, 1852, at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. He had been invited to address the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society on the occasion of the July 4 national holiday.
This is part 1 of an abridged version of the speech African American leader Frederick Douglass gave on July 5, 1852, at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. He had been invited to address the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society on the occasion of the July 4 national holiday.
July 1, 2021—Despite the backbreaking obstacles stemming from Washington’s economic war, Cuba has achieved a stunning scientific accomplishment by rapidly developing five vaccines against the SARS-COV2 virus. This is the direct result of an initiative the central leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, promoted in the 1980s to prioritize government investment in developing a domestic biotechnology industry.
July 1, 2021—Cuba has set an unparalleled example of how humanity can fight a pandemic, while the impact of the Covid-19 crisis has highlighted the degree to which capitalism is incapable of protecting the vast majority from a devastating epidemic.
LOS ANGELES, June 29, 2021—The Saving Lives Campaign, a broad coalition of local and national organizations opposed to the U.S. embargo against Cuba, and Global Health Partners, a U.S.-based nonprofit with a long history of sending humanitarian medical donations to Cuba, recently launched a broad-based, urgent drive to send vaccine syringes to Cuba.
The is an Op-Ed based on a Facebook post the author, James Mac Warren, released June 17, 2021. World-Outlook is publishing it to mark the centennial of this horrible milestone in African-American history. Above all, we believe the ideas expressed below have genuine political importance for today, in addition to setting the historical record straight on the Tulsa massacre.
We want to express our heartfelt thanks for your contributions to World-Outlook.com. We have been very gratified by the response to our financial appeal. In the three months since we asked for your help, readers have sent in donations exceeding $1,300 so far. While most people sent in one-time donations, several have made monthly pledges. (We encourage everyone who can to join the monthly pledge club, which will enable us to sustain our efforts long-term.)
This is the second part of an essay Marxist scholar George Novack wrote in 1950. The post-Civil War period known as “Radical Reconstruction” is among the most important in U.S. history. It receives far too little attention in the country’s educational system. Its promise of genuine democracy was enormous. The “struggle to determine whether the southern revolution would be consummated according to the needs of the masses or be manipulated and restrained by the big bourgeoisie, came to the fore during this period,” wrote Novack.
This is the first part of an essay Marxist scholar George Novack wrote in 1950. World-Outlook is publishing it to celebrate Juneteenth (short for June 19th), an annual holiday marking the end of slavery at the conclusion of the Civil War. On June 17, 2021, more than a century and a half since African Americans began celebrating Juneteenth, the U.S. government declared it a federal holiday.
CHICAGO, June 17, 2021—“We have spent our whole lives working towards our futures, and without our input and without our consent, our control over our futures has been stripped away from us. I hope you can feel how gut-wrenching it is. I hope you can feel how dehumanizing it is, to have the autonomy over your own body taken from you.” These words spoken by Paxton Smith at her May 30 high school graduation in Dallas, Texas clearly express the sentiments of large numbers of people in this country, especially youth. They reflect the problems the ruling rich and their government face as they try to push back women’s right to choose abortion and deny us access to safe and legal procedures.
This is part 3 of an essay Marxist scholar George Novack wrote in 1961, in the thick of the mass struggle to end Jim Crow segregation in the United States. World-Outlook is publishing it to mark the 160th anniversary of the start of the U.S. Civil War, and in celebration of Juneteenth (short for June 19th), an annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery at the conclusion of the Civil War.
This is part 2 of an essay Marxist scholar George Novack wrote in 1961, in the thick of the mass struggle to end Jim Crow segregation in the United States. World-Outlook is publishing it to mark the 160th anniversary of the start of the U.S. Civil War, and in celebration of Juneteenth (short for June 19th), an annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery at the conclusion of the Civil War.
This is part 1 of an essay Marxist scholar George Novack wrote in 1961, in the thick of the mass struggle to end Jim Crow segregation in the United States. World-Outlook is publishing it to mark the 160th anniversary of the start of the U.S. Civil War, and in celebration of Juneteenth (short for June 19th), an annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery at the conclusion of the Civil War.
This article was first published June 8, 2021, by GroundUp, a news agency based in Cape Town, South Africa. World-Outlook is reproducing it by permission. The authors, Ilan Baruch and Alon Liel, are both former Israeli ambassadors to South Africa.
DENVER, CO, June 7, 2021—On May 6, Amazon worker Linda Rodriguez filed a complaint with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment for Amazon’s “systematic failure to comply with even the most basic safety precautions necessary to protect her and her co-workers from exposure to the [Covid-19] virus” at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic. “Amazon just wanted to pressure people to keep coming to work during the pandemic, even though we were terrified, and they didn’t tell us whether we’d been exposed and didn’t even explain to my Spanish-speaking co-workers…that they shouldn’t come to work if they were sick.”
May 28, 2021—The recent explosion of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and oppression, as well as to legalized discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel, has sparked some solidarity from Israeli Jews. While modest, this response points in the right direction.
The trial of the police murder that shook the world was barely days old before the police killed another unarmed civilian just miles away from where George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police. While the verdict was being announced another civilian, 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant was killed in Columbus, OH. 13-year-old Adam Toledo of Chicago was killed while his hands were up, Andre Brown, Jr was killed by North Carolina police, and video has just emerged showing the brutal and fatal arrest of Ronald Greene in Louisiana. Every day across the United States, unabated, another civilian is killed by police.
Hundreds of impacted families are joining together to say enough! They are demanding that the police that have killed their loved ones be put in jail. They are demanding that all past cases of police brutality be reopened.
May 25, 2021—On the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s brutal death at the hands of Minneapolis police, all opponents of cop violence and racism can rejoice in seeing Floyd’s executioner locked-up behind bars. We can celebrate the prospect of a long sentence awaiting former police officer Derek Chauvin. His conviction by a Minneapolis jury on April 20 was a victory for the mass movement against police brutality and racism that Floyd’s homicide sparked across the United States and around the world.
This interview with Hanan Ashrawi was given to Argiris Malapanis by telephone on April 9, 1991. Ashrawi was in Ramallah, West Bank, and Malapanis in East Jerusalem at the time.
While first published 30 years ago, many of the issues Ashrawi addresses in this interview remain central to the Palestinian struggle for national self-determination that has erupted now again. It is a timely reminder of the political context in which the most recent events have developed.
May 21, 2021—For the first time in 16 years, the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and for an end to Israeli occupation and oppression has exploded again into the center of world politics.
This statement was issued by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) on May 14, 2021. JVP describes itself as “a national, grassroots organization inspired by Jewish tradition to work for a just and lasting peace according to principles of human rights, equality, and international law for all the people of Israel and Palestine.”