the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jan 29, 2024
The line-up for the 2024 presidential election is almost set. Joe Biden is cruising to the Democratic nomination. Donald J. Trump is close to wrapping up the Republican nomination.
Most workers are already sick and tired of both of these guys, even before the general election has begun. With good reason.
Both Biden and Trump stand for disgusting policies.
Just look at Biden’s record. For over a year, he bragged about a supposed economic recovery. He called his policies, “Bidenomics”.
This sales pitch went over like a lead balloon. Billionaires and big business certainly made huge profits. But only because they robbed the working class, driving down our standard of living with huge price increases and job cuts. And Biden helped big business in a million ways. He imposed a rotten contract on railroad workers, getting Congress to pass a law making a railroad workers strike illegal, thus taking the bosses’ side against the workers, despite his false claims to being pro-union and pro-worker.
Biden has made a big deal about claiming to be the last line of defense of democracy against a Trump and Republican takeover. Vote for Biden to save democratic rights from Trump’s dead hand, says Biden.
What a liar! Biden doesn’t oppose Republican policies. Look at how quickly Biden adopted the Republicans’ full program of new and bigger attacks against migrants—that is, our fellow workers from other countries. Biden’s attacks against one set of workers quickly spreads to all workers. Just like the attacks by Trump and the Republicans.
Biden serves the U.S. super-power’s drive to dominate the global economy. He fuels bloody wars. He ramps up U.S. confrontations against Russia, China, and Iran, bringing much bigger wars in the service of U.S. imperialism ever closer. Young workers in this country will be sent to fight and die in these wars, while workers here at home sacrifice ever more—sacrifices that will be imposed by violence and repression.
No, Biden is an enemy of the working class. And so is Trump.
Just look at the racist filth that spills from Trump’s disgusting mouth. He promises jobs … by attacking migrants, black people, and women. All his talk about how well workers did when he was president is a complete lie. Only the billionaires and big business profited, as Trump delivered huge tax cuts, paid for by the hard-earned tax dollars of the working class. And don’t fall for Trump’s reactionary, isolationist garbage about keeping America from war overseas. When Trump was in office, the U.S. bombed Syria and Afghanistan, while Trump attacked Venezuela and ramped up a trade war with China. Trump is a corrupt, self-serving degenerate. He openly encourages and fans the flames of extreme-right violence against working people and all those who oppose him.
Of course, in the end, both these politicians are little more than puppets of big business, the banks, the oil companies, real estate developers, etc. Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, said it best in a recent interview on CNBC from Davos, Switzerland. “Whoever wins in the fall, I will be prepared for both. We will deal with both. My company will survive and thrive in both,” said Dimon.
Many voters say Biden and Trump are old. But it is the capitalist system, the rule of the tiny minority of billionaires, that is senile and rotten to the core. Capitalism should have been swept away a long time ago, replaced by a system under the collective control of the working population. But history shows that no ruling class departs willingly, no matter how destructive and reactionary its rule is. It has to be overthrown by revolution, a historic task that can only be accomplished by the organized working class.
Jan 29, 2024
The media and the politicians, especially Biden, keep telling us how great the economy is. They say, “Unemployment is down, inflation is down.” They pretend the reason most people don’t agree is just a “feeling,” a feeling that some call a “vibe-session.” This is complete bull shit.
Corporate America made over three trillion dollars (a 3 followed by 12 zeroes) last year. That’s after taxes!
For us, our mortgages have gone way up, rent hit the roof, car loans are up and above all, the cost of food is outrageous. Anyone walking into a grocery store knows they walk out with less groceries after paying a lot more money. The wealthy class has found all these ways of increasing prices to take even more money from our pockets and put it in theirs.
Jan 29, 2024
The UAW top leadership has now endorsed Joe Biden running for president.
For decades, the UAW and most union leaders have aligned themselves with the Democratic party and automatically supported Democratic party candidates. For the 2024 election, most unions had already endorsed Biden months ago. But Shawn Fain, the new UAW president, had held back. Fain said that Biden would have to “earn” the union’s support.
So, what did Biden do to “earn” this endorsement? Well, let’s see. Biden did do a photo op on a picket line during the UAW strike against the auto companies. Maybe Biden hoped to make people forget that last year he stood against the railroad workers and had stopped their strike. Apparently, the UAW leadership did forget, or didn’t care.
Listening to Fain and the UAW leadership, the main reason they supported Joe Biden is that he is better than Donald Trump. But’s that’s not much of an endorsement! Trump and the Republican party have certainly proved themselves to be on the side of the corporate elite and against the working class. But what have the Democrats done that is really much different?
By their own actions, both the Republican and the Democratic parties have shown themselves to be on the side of the capitalist class. Supporting either of those parties is not in the interests of the working class. The working class needs its own party and can build its own party.
Jan 29, 2024
A recent study from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that the outcomes of an operation called coronary artery bypass grafting (C.A.B.G.) varies depending on whether you are male or female. C.A.B.G restores blood flow to and from the heart by taking arteries from patients’ arms or chests, and veins from their legs, and using them to replace or bypass the blocked blood vessels.
This is the most common cardiac operation in the United States, taking place 200,000 to 300,000 times a year, according to the lead author of the study. Twenty-five percent to 30% of C.A.B.G. patients are women. After analyzing the results from about 1.3 million patients from 2011 to 2020, researchers determined that women had more complications, including deaths from this surgery.
What is causing these negative outcomes? Most of the studies are done on men, with less than 20% of women in clinical trials. It means what doctors are learning is essentially based on research about men. Contrary to a popular misconception that heart disease is a man’s disease, it is the number one killer of women in the U.S. and in the world. Women with heart disease are more likely to be misdiagnosed and/or undertreated than men. There is often a delay in treatment because women present with different symptoms when having a heart attack than men. Many doctors believe the misconceptions about women and heart disease. Some doctors dismiss women’s complaints. Almost 85% of cardiologists are men.
How can this happen when women comprise half the population and mothers to future generations? With all the technical and scientific advances of the past decades, with this knowledge available about negative results of C.A.B.G. surgery for women, why has this not been addressed? It is all the disgusting attitudes about women that capitalist society promotes, affecting doctors and the medical profession. Discrimination against women is the oldest of all discriminations. If women want something different, we have to begin to fight for revolution.
Jan 29, 2024
Lately, weather conditions have been horrible. Numerous states have been hit with snow, sleet, rain, and then freezing temperatures. And at the same time the local weather reporters are letting us know what to expect, school closings announcements are at the bottom of the TV screen. Closed, because there is no heat—the boilers went out. Closed because bus drivers can’t get out on the icy roads. And often the announcements come at the last minute.
The only thing that doesn’t close, however, is workplaces. And people who have pre-school and school-age kids have to go to work. As one working class parent put it, “What are women supposed to do?” She is right.
This parent may have said “women” because it is women who by far carry the most responsibility for the care of children in this society. But whether it is single parents, or most working class families, people have to work in order to provide for their families. And they are faced with expensive childcare arrangements. They are faced with schools having been permanently closed altogether in their neighborhoods, requiring their children to have to oftentimes be driven further in order to get an education. Then, when the weather hits with a vengeance, these parents are faced with no good choices: do I stay home and lose income because my kids are not in school; do I risk losing my job; OR, do I scramble at the last minute in order to find some kind of alternative child care arrangements that may be unsatisfactory or more costly?
In a rational society, when bad weather hits, it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing answer. Schools would be properly maintained with heating systems that would work. More schools and other child care facilities would be built in people’s immediate neighborhoods, that wouldn’t require extensive commuting.
And even with these improvements, if schools are forced to close due to inclement weather, workers with children should be able to stay home from work and not lose a day’s pay!
If we want a rational society, we will have to throw out the current one and build anew. The bosses won’t pay for it and the politicians—forget it!
Jan 29, 2024
There were over 90 deaths, coast to coast, during the big winter storms that began on January 14. Tennessee had the highest death toll with 36 killed. Most of these deaths were the result of hypothermia and car crashes. There were over 800 crashes and 200 involved injuries. One woman was found dead in her own home of hypothermia. A box truck driver was killed when his truck slid into a tractor-trailer.
None of these people needed to die. Yes, it’s true the below-zero temperatures and icy road conditions are extreme for Tennessee. Pipes burst, water pressure was low, making it hard to cook, wash dishes, and flush toilets. The power grid was on overload and people were asked to reduce usage because of the high demand.
But there were things that could have been done. Schools were closed. They could have been used as warming centers. The National Guard could have been called on to transport people to warming centers, which also could provide food and water and working toilets. The Guard also could have been used to make the roads passable.
In this society you are expected to fend for yourself in these conditions. The point of living in societies is to cooperate. People dying in their homes makes no sense. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Jan 29, 2024
In early January there was a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the area of Detroit known as Corktown for a newly-constructed seven story, 188-unit building along with seven new three-story town homes. It’s known as “Perennial Corktown.” At the ribbon-cutting event, the mayor and Detroit City Council president praised the fact that 10% of the apartment building, about 19 units, would be earmarked for affordable housing. In 2021, developers were approved for nearly 6 million in state brownfield tax credits and a Commercial Rehabilitation Tax Act Abatement of 10.6 million by the city of Detroit.
Meanwhile, the asking prices for rents start at $1,560 a month for the studios, “about $2,000” for one bedroom units and in the mid-$3000s for two bedrooms. The rents for the townhomes START at $7,520 a month.
About 19 affordable housing units in the 188-unit building—as if that would make a dent in the growing problem of people being priced out of their existing apartments, whose rents are going sky-high, competing with “market prices.” As if another luxury housing development subsidized by tax breaks and sweetheart land deals to billionaires in Detroit has anything to do with the vast majority of the city’s population that already struggles with homelessness, overcrowding, and overpaying for substandard housing.
Jan 29, 2024
Parents in Bowie, Maryland, a suburb outside Washington, D.C., just won a fight to keep the neighborhood elementary school open. Pointer Ridge Elementary School will also gain a program for autistic children. District officials had threatened to close the school, claiming it was underutilized. For several months, parents turned up the heat on school board officials and took their demands to the local media. Parents kept saying growth in the neighborhood will bring in more students. Finally, the school board heard them.
Going forward, the fight will be to make sure the school’s student-to-teacher ratio remains low, so the children get the attention they need. The lesson here is, there is power in numbers!
Jan 29, 2024
Tenants at the Charlestowne North apartment building in Greenbelt, Maryland are upset about the worsening conditions there. The high-rise where half the tenants are seniors was bought one year ago by an out-of-state landlord. The new landlord quickly cut maintenance staff from three to one, replaced the longtime apartment manager, and stopped paying the security service. A backlog of maintenance requests shot up, including broken pipes, damaged walls and ceilings, and mold on carpets.
The landlord made tenants pay utilities on top of their rent, where before utilities were included in the rent. Tenants in nearly a quarter of the 178 apartments left. More and more of the others have been speaking out. With code violations accumulating, officials voided the property rental license. Maryland sued the landlords over the violations. Tenants in New Jersey just won a lawsuit against the same landlord in December over similar conditions.
If left to their own devices, investors like these are happy to take tenants’ rent money to make a quick buck and let the conditions deteriorate. In this case, more than 80 tenants filled the Greenbelt, Maryland library meeting room outside Washington, D.C. to demand city and state officials do something about the deplorable conditions.
They’re right. They refused to simply be quiet and accept to continue to be ripped off. More of us need to follow their example.
Jan 29, 2024
In mid-January, Chicago temperatures sunk below zero degrees. Many owners of electric vehicles were in sudden need of a charge—since extremely cold temperatures drain their batteries at a much faster rate.
Needless to say, this created chaos at Chicagoland Tesla Supercharger stations.
Lines stretched for hours as Tesla drivers hoped to get to a charging post that wasn’t out of order in time before their battery died. Some cars couldn’t hold up during the wait, causing one charging station to be flooded with dead Teslas. People were left stranded in the freezing weather waiting for a tow.
Many Tesla owners in Chicago don’t have access to a home charging station. And there are only a handful of Tesla Supercharger stations throughout the city.
The auto companies propose EVs as the grand solution to the world’s climate change crisis, and the politicians are only too willing to provide them with billions in subsidies to ensure their profits. The corporations are more than willing to sell consumers EVs at prices out-of-reach for most workers and leave it up to them to figure out how to make them work in less-than-ideal conditions. Their motto is, “Buyer beware”.
Do we dare leave it up to the bosses and their politicians to deal with climate change that endangers the future of humanity?
Jan 29, 2024
In California, landlords of more than 350,000 privately owned low-income housing units are increasing their rents well above what workers can afford, in some cases close to 20% more within one year.
The State of California excludes these affordable housing units from the state’s rent cap. As such, these landlords can increase the rents anytime with rates that please them. The affordability of low-income units is not their concern.
But, even California’s rent cap, if it were applied to all these low-income rentals, would not have been affordable to the workers. This rent cap was 10% in 2023. Who could afford a ten percent rent increase? Whose wage increases more than 3% a year?
Rubbing salt into the wound, the landlords build these affordable housing units by receiving tax credits from the Federal Government for at least 15 years. These tax credits amount to about 11 billion dollars annually, which workers pay through our taxes. So, workers are already paying for our rent through our taxes. The landlords’ pure profit is any rent we pay in addition to our taxes.
Because of such scheming, many workers spend nearly 50% of their income for rent. These high rents push workers to live in housing units crowded with more than one family or out of the cities in faraway areas.
These so-called affordable housing units are so profitable that giant investment firms are getting into the bonanza. Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager with one trillion dollars in assets, bought 83,000 apartments in the New York area, built or modified by federal tax credits for low-income housing.
So, under the guise of “affordable” housing, the Federal Government put a get-rich-forever scheme for companies into play. Capitalism in action!
Jan 29, 2024
Over the last year, tens of thousands of Venezuelans have arrived in Chicago and other cities like New York and Boston.
These Venezuelans have been driven from their homes, first of all, by U.S. policies aimed at making sure U.S. corporations can continue to extract the maximum amount of profit from that country.
Venezuela has huge oil reserves—the biggest in the world. The wealth that oil produced has long been dominated by U.S. companies and a small Venezuelan ruling class. But starting in 1998, a series of Venezuelan presidents tried to keep a little bit more of that oil wealth in their own country.
The U.S. first reacted by trying to organize a coup in 2002, and then another in 2019—but those didn’t work. So instead, the U.S. has destroyed the Venezuelan economy. The Obama Administration first imposed sanctions and worked to undermine the Venezuelan oil company. The Trump administration imposed much harsher sanctions which pushed the Venezuelan economy into the free fall from which it has still not recovered. And the Biden administration has maintained the sanctions put in place by Trump.
While the U.S. claimed these moves were aimed against Venezuela’s leaders, the population bore the brunt. There are shortages of food and the prices are so high that ordinary workers cannot afford to buy enough for their families. Medicines have disappeared. Even many formerly privileged people have been reduced to poverty, and huge numbers of workers even lost the low-paying jobs that used to exist. In short, Venezuela has become unlivable for a large share of its population.
That’s why more than seven million people have fled Venezuela in the last decade. Most remain in nearby countries like Colombia, but hundreds of thousands have attempted the dangerous trek through Central America to reach the U.S.
U.S. politicians talk about this migration crisis as if it’s caused by Venezuela’s leaders. But in reality, the crisis in Venezuela was created here, by those same politicians’ actions in support of U.S. corporations’ quest for profit.
Jan 29, 2024
The number of workers and poor from the African continent seeking refuge at the U.S. southern border has grown dramatically over the last year. During 2023, 58,462 African migrants were arrested at the border, more than four times the number from the previous year.
Migrants are fleeing rampant joblessness, economic chaos, brutal military rule, effects of global warming, and growing dominance of armed gangs that prey on the population.
Europe has increasingly blocked Africans from getting there. Recently France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain have struck deals with Tunisia and Morocco to intercept migrants in transit to Europe. And in late 2023, the European Union signed a pact to facilitate the deportation of asylum seekers and limit migration.
So, more are trying to get to the U.S., despite the difficulties of the trip. African migrants often fly from Morocco to Nicaragua. Then they try to trek to the U.S. through Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico.
Over the last century, the forces of imperialism have heaped unimaginable misery on the African population. Just one result is that Africa is the poorest continent in terms of living conditions. Yet it remains the richest in terms of its underground resources and one of the biggest targets of the imperialist vultures today. No wonder large sections of the population attempt to flee to one of the rich countries that has plundered their continent.
Jan 29, 2024
Alderman Anthony Beale, representative of some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, attacked Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s proposal to spend some COVID relief money on migrants. He said: "We’re playing a shell game with millions of dollars while the people of Chicago are hurting. COVID relief money was supposed to go toward relief for the people of Chicago, not migrants…."
Beale’s ward includes neighborhoods where almost half of the population lives below the poverty line, neighborhood schools have been closed, and health services are underfunded. Other areas are just as bad—in 2021, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless estimated that almost 70,000 people in Chicago experienced homelessness.
Since then, about 35,000 migrants have arrived in the city, and they are getting some city services, even though long term residents aren’t getting nearly what they need. This has allowed politicians to play an ugly game, blaming the new arrivals for the poverty and lack of services facing long term residents.
But what are these migrants really getting?
More than 14,000 people are crammed into 28 city shelters. These lack sufficient bathrooms and some have no showers—migrants have to bus to another facility for that. Disease has been reported spreading through some of these shelters, and at least one young boy already died.
The city only allocated enough money to fund the current woefully inadequate shelter system through April, and it threatens to start kicking out people who have been in shelters more than 60 days. Chicago has not set up new shelters since November, even though busloads of migrants continue to arrive, forcing more overcrowding and pushing more people onto the streets, or to sleep in city buses or at the airports.
Migrants were promised work permits by the Biden administration. But hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants are already in Chicago without work permits, many having arrived 30 years ago or more—some ask why these new arrivals should get something they have wanted for decades? Well in reality, 70% of the migrants aren’t even eligible for these promised permits, and only 284, or less than 1%, had actually gotten them as of January.
So, while Beale is right that Chicagoans are hurting, it’s not because the migrants are getting so much. The migrants begging with their families in front of the grocery stores and Walgreens obviously don’t have it. The capitalists do! They’re the only ones who benefit when working class people fight over the few scraps they drop from their overfull table.
Jan 29, 2024
Cracking down on immigrant workers is framed as a way to save “American” jobs and drive up “American” wages. Both Democrats and Republicans, for instance, have pushed greater use of the “e-verify” system to make sure workers entered in the Social Security and tax systems have the legal right to work. They say this will stop bosses from hiring undocumented immigrants, forcing them to hire people who are legally allowed to work. And without those desperate undocumented workers, politicians in both parties pretend that the bosses will have to pay more.
But this is the opposite of reality.
What’s true is that bosses use the most desperate workers to drive down everyone’s wages and benefits. But that is exactly why anti-immigrant rhetoric and anti-immigrant attacks hurt all workers, since they make these workers more desperate.
For instance, in the last two years, about 400,000 children have crossed the border into the U.S. without their parents. They can’t get many services, they are often in debt, and their families are desperate, so they have to work.
Bosses use subcontractors to hire these children to work in the meatpacking and roofing industries, for instance—under the table of course, so e-verify would never catch them. Increasing numbers of teenagers and children, sometimes as young as 10 years old, carry heavy bundles of shingles around hot roofs without safety training or safety harnesses, sometimes falling to their deaths or suffering severe injuries. Or they clean machines that cut up chicken carcasses, sometimes losing fingers or hands.
But no matter how dangerous the job, no matter how low the wages, because these child workers are threatened with deportation, the bosses know that they have little to worry about from OSHA and the Department of Labor. Who will call the government when you know the government is out to get you?
The threat of deportation hanging over the heads of these workers hurts all workers, including those born in this country. If the bosses can get immigrants to do the job for dirt cheap—and with no complaints—why would they hire an adult for decent wages? Child labor may be the most shocking aspect of this, but the same logic holds for all undocumented workers—and even workers with legal rights, who are also pressured by the anti-immigrant rhetoric we hear to keep their heads down and not complain.
Attacks on immigrants cannot stop desperate people from trying to get here or from looking for work to survive. These attacks can only make people more desperate—and that hurts us all.
Jan 29, 2024
Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott continues his efforts to appear as the most militant opponent of immigration. In December, Abbott flew 120 migrants from Texas to Chicago and signed a law giving police the power to arrest anyone they suspect of entering the country illegally.
Earlier this month, when the Biden administration ordered Texas to cut down razor wire Texas troopers had put up along the U.S.–Mexico border, Abbott refused. He then ordered state troopers to deny access to the area to U.S. Border Patrol agents. They did this even when U.S. Border Patrol agents attempted to come to the assistance of migrants trying to cross the border when a mother and two children drowned.
How barbaric can you get, preventing agents from possibly rescuing migrants whose lives are in danger simply to make a political show?
A few days later, the Biden Administration asked the Supreme Court to order Texas to remove the razor wire on the Border and allow Border Patrol agents to the area, and the Supreme Court agreed. For now, however, Texas is refusing to do either.
Donald Trump and Republicans attempt to draw on the worst anti-immigrant attitudes among voters who have been led to believe immigrants are to blame for taking jobs from them and lowering wages.
In taking a stance against the most horrific tactics, like Abbott’s use of razor wire to endanger anyone who might dare cross the border, Biden attempts to appear a bit “kinder and gentler” on the issue of immigration. But in the end, his policies mean little for immigrants attempting to cross the border looking for a better life. The recent drowning of this woman and her two kids at the border are just one example among many. In 2022, the bodies of 853 people who died trying to cross the border were found. According to the Border Patrol, this was the most ever. The previous record was 568, set just one year before, Biden’s first year in office. The United Nations International Organization for Migration called the U.S.–Mexico border the world’s “deadliest migration route.”
Immigrants attempting to cross the border to flee difficult circumstances in their home countries are potential allies for workers in this country. Neither the openly hateful attitudes of demagogues like Trump, Abbott, and most other Republican politicians, nor the slightly more “refined” yet equally anti-immigrant actions of Biden and the Democrats, serve workers interests. Workers need to oppose them all.
Jan 29, 2024
On January 13, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Washington, D.C. demanding an end to the war in Gaza. In cities around the world, hundreds of thousands of people protested Israel’s war on Gaza as it reached the 100-day mark.
Women and children account for 70% of the 26,000 estimated deaths in Gaza. The Israeli army has been indiscriminately killing people day and night. The devastating number of women and children slaughtered exposes this terror campaign for what it is. That Israel is at war primarily against Hamas is a lie told to condone barbarism.
About 85% of the 2.2 million people in Gaza have fled their homes and are living in schools, hospitals, tents or in the street. January is rainy in Gaza. The average overnight temperature is 49 degrees Fahrenheit. Most are without a winter coat or blanket. Some are burning garbage to cook and stay warm.
Most of the 36 hospitals in Gaza have been destroyed. Only 8 are still accepting patients. Without much in the way of medical supplies, children are having amputations without anesthesia. Women are also going without anesthesia when having cesarean sections.
Much of the water and sewage system in Gaza has been destroyed. Rainwater is a main source of drinking water. To prevent mass outbreaks of cholera, dysentery, and typhoid in densely populated areas, basic sanitation is needed. In just over 100 days, life in Gaza has been slammed backwards by over 100 years!
The fruit trees, olive groves and greenhouses with food have been bombed to smithereens. People are starving to death in the streets in Northern Gaza. According to a United Nations report, 80% of the people experiencing “famine” levels of hunger in the entire world—are in Gaza. The amount of drinking water available per person is below recommendations for human survival.
Israel has dropped almost 30,000 bombs and shells on Gaza in 4 MONTHS. This is 8 times more than the U.S. dropped on Iraq in over 6 YEARS.
According to a December report in an Israeli newspaper, the U.S. government has sent 230 cargo planes and 20 entire shiploads of U.S. military supplies to Israel. This includes artillery shells, armored vehicles, and other weapons.
The recent ruling of the International Court of Justice might give the impression that aid delivery might increase and Israel will take steps to prevent genocide. But the war will continue.
This barbaric slaughter of so many innocents carried out by the Israeli military in Gaza is being waged with U.S. weaponry. If the U.S. government wanted it to stop, the delivery of weapons would stop. But the Israeli regime is the top enforcer of U.S. imperialism in the region, and, as such, it is more important to the U.S. than the lives of those being slaughtered in Gaza.
Jan 29, 2024
U.S. military forces in the Middle East have continued their war against the Houthi militias in Yemen. Since January 11, U.S. ships and warplanes have been firing missiles and dropping bombs in Yemen, supposedly to destroy sites from which the Iranian-backed Houthis have tried to attack commercial ships in the Red Sea.
The Red Sea connects to the Suez Canal. It is a shorter ocean route between Asia and Europe. The Houthi attacks on ships going through the Red Sea have caused little to no damage, but some shipping companies have now chosen to send their ships around the southern end of Africa, which is a longer and more costly route.
The U.S. government claims that it is attacking the Houthis to protect commercial shipping. But the bigger picture here is that the U.S. government is making a statement and issuing a warning, not just to the Houthis, but to all the peoples in the region. It is a show of force aimed at Iran and at every regime in the Middle East. The U.S. government is showing that it is always ready to use its military forces to maintain its domination over the Middle East.
The Middle East is thousands of miles from the United States. But it is front and center for the profits of U.S. oil companies, banks and other corporations. That’s why the U.S. currently has over 45,000 troops, plus thousands more military contractors and mercenaries, stationed in the Middle East. That’s why U.S. has military bases in Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Israel and other countries; that’s why the U.S. has naval task forces and warships in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and in the Red Sea. The U.S. maintains a military presence in the Middle East that is far stronger than anyone else in the region.
The U.S. has increased this military presence during the current war in Gaza. The Israeli government’s continued slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank has provoked anger among millions of people in the region. This anger is often directed, not just at Israel, but also at the U.S. government, which is the main military and financial supporter of the Israeli government.
The Houthis, Hezbollah, and other militias in the region say they are firing rockets and drones at Israel and at U.S. bases in the Middle East as a show of support for the Palestinian people. These militias may have their own reasons to make a show of defiance toward Israel and the U.S. But it is also a reflection of a situation that could easily explode into a wider war.
The U.S. government is saying that they don’t want to have an escalation of the war in the Middle East. But the policies of the U.S. government and their overwhelming military presence in this region can only increase the chances that this current war could explode into a much bigger war at any moment.
Jan 29, 2024
In December, the U.S. and Finland signed an agreement giving the U.S. military access to 15 Finnish military bases. They include the largest military training area in Western Europe and a base only 31 miles from Russia. In the last two years, Sweden let the U.S. use 17 bases and Norway let the U.S. use four. Now the U.S. has access to 36 military bases near the Russian border.
The U.S. has taken advantage of the fighting between Ukraine and Russia in 2014 and 2022 to beef up its military presence and domination in Europe. U.S. troops now “have authority to exert authority over Norwegian citizens.” Last year for the first time a U.S. B-2 stealth bomber landed in Norway. U.S. aircraft more frequently use the U.S.’s former base in Keflavik, Iceland, upgraded for that purpose in 2016. Last year U.S. nuclear submarines also began docking at Iceland. In Poland last year the U.S. Army opened a weapons depot and began permanently stationing troops for the first time in the country as well.
The U.S. makes its allied “host” countries pay for upgrades on U.S. bases, so this increasing U.S. occupation is subsidized by European taxpayers. Germany spends over 100 million dollars for this each year, around half on construction. Poland similarly spent 300 million dollars last year. American companies take home the profits. The U.S. capitalist class is waging an increasingly sharp economic war on its European rivals, under the pretext of protecting them from the Russian bogeyman.
This kind of economic war sets the stage for a wider world war.
Jan 29, 2024
This article is translated from the January 2, 2024, issue #312 of La Voix des Travailleurs (Workers Voice), the paper of the revolutionary workers group active in Haiti.
Grafted onto the exploitation of working-class labor, the theft of the country’s resources, and corruption, the war of armed gangs has only added to the reign of barbarism of the bourgeoisie that has been in place for ages. Only the struggles of those who suffer and pay the highest price, that is, only the struggles of workers, poor peasants and the unemployed, can put an end to this infamy.
The end-of-year festivities showed the contrast. For the big retailers, it was the time to make their sales for the year. Their advertising was all over the media. The movement of their goods, though disrupted, was even made possible by paying a high price to the gangs. Small-scale festivities were held in some parts of the capital. In some hotels, in their beautiful homes, the privileged minority had a good time.
The leaders of the armed gangs were not to be outdone. They too feasted. In their rat holes, they brought in prostitutes and booze, not forgetting to throw a few wads of cash or small trinkets at a few locals.
The situation is quite different for the overwhelming majority, who are the victims of gang violence and exploitation by the ruling classes. For, despite a few crocodile tears shed over the deteriorating situation and the country’s descent into an abyss, the ruling classes put up with the gang violence that crushes the working class and the exploited masses. The thugs have given them a reign of impunity, chaos, anarchy, and the fear they crave to enrich themselves.
Workers in the industrial zone spent the festive season with little or nothing. Many workers expressed their anger at the pitiful end-of-year bonuses they received, which are useless because of the high cost of living. Hundreds of workers at André Apaid Junior’s Premium factory are still fighting against their boss, who wants to reduce their severance pay to a mere pittance.
Inhabitants of Mariani, Carrefour Feuille, Cité Soleil, Croix-des-Bouquets and many other neighborhoods are subjected to the barbarity of bandits who attack their neighborhoods, set fire to their homes, rape their daughters and kill their fathers. For these people, there was no respite even during the festive season. The gangs and the bourgeoisie are constantly at war with them.
This situation is likely to get worse in 2024 for the working classes. Nobody is going to do them any favors. They must not rely on the circuses of politicians, on the illusions of the supporters of imperialism, who have only one aim: to prolong their suffering. The only force capable of turning the tide will come from the organized mobilization of all the exploited masses throughout the country. Let’s resist and prepare this counter-offensive.
Jan 29, 2024
What follows is the editorial that appeared on the front of all SPARK’s workplace newsletters, during the week of January 22, 2024.
Coming into 2023, there was the opportunity for the working class to start a fight to gain back what we have lost after years of concessions. The UAW auto contracts and the Teamster UPS contract were up. These two groups of workers and their unions play a big role in the whole economy and in the working class, a role much bigger than their numbers. A fight by these workers together could have opened the door for a fight by all the workers who are also facing a declining standard of living.
Both the Teamsters and the UAW had a new union president. Both were promising a more militant fight to turn back years of concessions. But the results were much less than what was promised.
When the UAW leadership ended the strikes at GM, Ford and Stellantis, they declared “victory” for auto workers. They said they had achieved a “historic” contract. But in December, just weeks after the contracts were ratified, thousands of auto workers were told they that they would soon be getting laid off, unsure if they would ever return.
Then on January 12, over 500 temporary supplemental workers at Stellantis who believed they would be getting full-time jobs, instead received a text message from the company saying they had been fired, effective immediately. They were told, in effect, “hit the street, don’t come back, good luck with paying your bills.” The next day, the UAW top leadership said that another 1,600 supplemental workers at Stellantis would be terminated in the coming months. There was certainly no “victory” for these workers.
Last summer, the Teamsters union leaders had also declared a “victory” after they settled a contract with UPS without a strike. They said they had “ended 2-tier". But this new contract still left half of the UPS workers working part-time jobs at much lower wages. If this is not 2-tier, then what the hell is??? The Teamsters leaders had said they would not extend the strike deadline. But then they backed down and accepted a contract that continued a 2-tier system.
The union leaders at both the Teamsters and the UAW never used the full power of the workers against the bosses.
The UAW top leadership did call a strike, but it was a partial strike that did not use all the forces of the auto workers. This strike did achieve some monetary gains. But the new UAW leaders said the contract was more than it really was. It did not catch wages up to inflation and did not address working conditions. The UAW leaders misled the supplemental workers at Stellantis. They did not tell them what the top union leaders already knew—that many supplemental workers would soon be terminated. The fact that the UAW leaders did not propose any kind of fight to stop these outrageous layoffs showed that they already knew about them. The union leaders at the UAW and Teamsters declared a “victory", even as 2-tier continued and workers were getting laid off. Workers don’t need “victories” like these. Workers need something better than this.
Workers everywhere are facing the same low wages and bad working conditions as the auto workers and UPS workers. Many workers face even worse. We live in an economy that does not provide a decent life for working people. We live in a system that is moving toward a world war, a war that would be paid for on the backs of workers.
To make better lives for ourselves and our families, it will take a fight by workers against our capitalist bosses. The corporations and Wall Street are together as one class. Our class, the working class, has to be together to make a fight against them. We can make this fight because workers, union and non-union, make everything run. We make up the majority of society. But to mobilize our full power, we need to know what we are up against and we need to be able to make our own decisions. We don’t need leaders who don’t tell us the truth, leaders who call something a “victory” when it is not. We don’t need leaders who would hold back a fight.
When the working class is ready to make a fight, we will have to find workers from our class to be leaders. We will need working class leaders who are ready to take a fight as far as it can go.
Jan 29, 2024
Book: My Soul Is Rested: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement in the Deep South, compiled by Howell Raines, 1983.
This book is a compilation of oral histories and interviews with basic background information of over 100 people who took part in the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Some are well known, some are not. Some were workers, some well-to-do. Some were students, religious, and not religious, old and young—all have incredible stories to tell. The author lets them tell it in their own words. It’s a very powerful and moving set of histories.
Film: Becoming Frederick Douglass, a 2022 PBS documentary also streaming on YouTube
This roughly one-hour documentary gives the highlights of his life and shows how events formed him to become the revolutionary that he was. He was born a slave, saw reading for slaves was illegal, so he taught himself to read. He had opportunities others did not have, and he realized he had to use them to help his fellow man. He escaped to the north. He became an eloquent speaker, and he traveled from city to city to raise his voice against injustice. He founded his own newspaper. The film quotes from one of his most famous speeches on the Fourth of July: “Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us…. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn." He penned books and pamphlets whose words still resonate today.
Jan 29, 2024
Europe’s top climate agency just announced 2023 was the hottest year in recorded human history. And the last ten years have been the hottest temperatures on record. Earth’s average temperature in 2023 was 2.66 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than before humans developed industry and began to warm the planet by burning fossil fuels.
These hotter temperatures seem to be bringing us record weather events.
In the first three months of 2023, California experienced 12 separate “sky rivers,” leading to severe flooding, mudslides and record snowfall in the mountains. The governor declared a state of emergency.
Summer brought heat domes. Some cities experienced over 100 degrees for several days. Almost 600 people died in one Arizona county. Germany had 3,000 people die from heat-related causes. Spain had high heat, while Greece suffered wildfires.
August saw at least 100 people die when wildfire hit the island of Maui in Hawaii, destroying the city of Lahaina.
Canadian wildfires in the summer brought dangerous levels of smoke to the U.S. East Coast.
Heavy rain, extreme flooding and mudslides became common in parts of Africa. For six days in early March, a tropical storm killed close to 700 people in Malawi, over 100 died in Rwanda and over 400 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This led to the displacement of thousands of people in these African states.
In September, Storm Daniel killed at least 4,300 people in Libya, in North Africa. In the city of Derna, two dams burst and flooded the city due to a lack of maintenance.
Around the world, weather events are doing more and more damage. Scientific agencies tie these events to global warming. The fuels burned especially in the richer countries, like oil and natural gas, lead to this warming. But they remain basic in the capitalist economy, making not millions but billions of dollars of profits for a few huge corporations.
Meanwhile, the capitalist system offers humanity torrential rain, floods, sweltering heat, life-threatening storms, wildfires, and smoke that could kill us. Displacement and death.
Jan 29, 2024
Recently, University of California at San Diego scientists found a massive number of discarded military weapons, including munition boxes, smoke floats, and depth charges on the 3,000-foot-deep ocean floor next to the Southern California coast. The U.S. Navy has confirmed that these weapons “are likely a result of World War II-era disposal practices” and “disposal of munitions at sea at this location was approved at that time to ensure safe disposal when naval vessels returned to U.S. port.”
In fact, in total, thirteen other areas off the Southern California coast had also been approved for such dumping — including 3 million metric tons of petroleum waste. Nobody knows the extent of the damage that has been and will be caused by such callous dumping. But for sure our life is endangered by it.
In 2021, University of California at Santa Barbara scientists identified half a million barrels of toxic DDT acid waste sitting on the ocean floor between Catalina Island and Los Angeles. The DDT dump was so powerful that it poisoned vast numbers of birds, fish, and other sea animals. DDT is a pesticide banned because it is toxic to human life. Earlier this month, a WWII-era practice bomb washed ashore in Santa Cruz County after an exceptionally high tide.
Capitalist business practices as usual.
Jan 29, 2024
The Baltimore Sun, the city’s main daily newspaper, has been bought by David Smith, a multi-millionaire television executive of Sinclair Broadcast Group, who has lived in the city his entire life. For the past three years the paper had been owned by Alden Global Capital, a financial-management company. But Baltimore Sun employees aren’t so happy with the paper’s new owner.
In a meeting with 60 of the paper’s staff, Smith said he hadn’t read the Sun for the past 40 years! Yet he had many criticisms of the 186-year-old paper. He said he wanted the Sun to run more articles about crime and government dysfunction. He wanted the paper to be more like Fox 45 news, a local TV station owned by Sinclair with a politically conservative bent.
Smith’s family foundation has contributed a lot of money to conservative groups, including over $500,000 to Project Veritas, a right-wing group that has carried out sting operations on journalists, government officials and political activists.
What exactly will happen at the Baltimore Sun now is not clear. But what is clear is that the chances of having a major local newspaper that provides something more than simply “fake news” are growing dimmer.