Category - No 4

Science for the People Activities

Last summer a number of us began to work as a support and education group in the area of computers. Some but not all of us were members of SESPA; we included people in math and sociology as well as computer workers.  So far, we have worked on two specific projects: development of a mailing list program for processing...

Pushing Professionalism

Computer programmers and other computer specialists are about to become professionalized after fewer than thirty years as a distinct occupational group. What makes the professionalization of programmers especially interesting is the fact that programmers are about to be professionalized behind their backs. In fact...

Fascist Junta Strangles Chilean Health Care

"On September 17th [six days after a right-wing coup toppled the Chilean Popular Unity (UP) government] a military operation ordered the entire hospital staff of the Barros Luco Hospital to line up along a corridor. The lieutenant in charge, with collaboration of a National Party (far right) doctor, began one by one...

The Politics of Health

The health care system and the industrial health and safety conditions in America can only be described as institutional murder. In recent years radicals have worked to create alternatives to present health structures, to confront and expose the capitalist health system, and to organize around health and safety issues...

Future Directions for Science for the People

SftP magazine began as an outgrowth of the antiwar movement and since its inception in August 1970, has appeared regularly and dependably every two months. As the anti-war movement faded and political perspectives have deepened the magazine has tended to reflect these changes. During these few years, SftP has been the...

Science Teaching

You asked about how we are struggling with the teaching of nature's science and math at Old Westbury. First of all, Old Westbury is comprised of 75% Black, Puerto Rican and Asian students and 20% white working class students. Their average age is 27. We are a youthful faculty, also largely Third World. We do not have...

Review: Complaints and Disorders – The Sexual Politics of Sickness

The authors focus separately on women of the upper and upper-middle class, and on working-class women. And they are clearer about the effects of the medical system as it applied to affluent women [probably because wealthy women were more directly affected by the medical system]. In addition, Ehrenreich and English...

SftP Activist Rejects National Academy

Thank you for your letter informing me of my election to the National Academy of Sciences.  During this past week I have consulted with friends in and out of the Academy, discussed the situation with some of my students, examined a number of Academy reports and correspondence, and met with my comrades in Science for...

Philippines: The Next Vietnam?

Since the declaration of martial law in the Philippines 23 September 1972, many people in the United States have been alarmed about the growing repression in that country and continued U.S. involvement there. With this in mind, representatives from ten eastern seaboard cities held a conference in Philiadelphia on 20...

About This Issue

When we first came together to discuss the focus of this issue, our feeling was that, of late, the magazine had been pretty theoretical. We wanted our issue to be more of a political tool, to focus on the strategy and tactics of people's daily struggles. We particularly wanted practical articles, articles on political...