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
May 20, 2024
Demonstrators at colleges and universities across the U.S. have been calling for an end to the bombings in Gaza that have killed over 35,000. Details are emerging about the violent attacks on demonstrators at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) by thugs that occurred in the middle of the night on April 30.
At UCLA, the demonstrators had built an encampment on the Quad for protection. In the middle of the night, a gang of men attacked the camp, attempting to tear it down to get at the protestors. They launched a violent attack, using wooden and metal rods, and their fists. Throwing bottles and firecrackers, the attackers tore away at the protective barrier, finally reaching student demonstrators and injuring at least 30. The attack lasted five hours during which the demonstrators attempted to call police and emergency services only to be hung up on, ignored and told that they were not going to receive help.
Officials at UCLA waved away offers of help from state authorities while campus security moved to the side to avoid involvement in the melee. Finally, when LAPD and the California Highway Patrol did arrive some hours later, they mostly stood and watched as demonstrators were beaten.
Some of the attackers have now been identified. Some appeared organized together and wore dark clothes, masks and badges identifying themselves as pro-Israel. By their actions and rhetoric, it was clear that in their majority they support the bombings in Gaza. At the end of the attacks, it was not these attackers who were arrested, it was 200 demonstrating students.
In a situation that is reminiscent of the demonstrations and confrontations following the murder of George Floyd, the actions of these right-wing vigilantes appear to have been welcomed by authorities up and down the line. After all, colleges have used police violence repeatedly against demonstrators. After all, the university had signaled their own plans to destroy the camp and eject the demonstrators. After all, in college after college, members of staff, professors and administrators have been called upon to repress any anti-war activity, and punishment has been doled out to those who fail to comply.
After all, President Biden himself has spoken out against the demonstrations. What did he say about violence? That violence against property would not be tolerated. What about violence toward demonstrators who protest his horrific policy of supporting bombings against Palestinians?
The beatings at UCLA and the indifference of authorities to the behavior of police and security forces serve as a warning to all. Those who govern, those who control the wealth and the war machinery, those who arm Israel to serve as their very own private army in the Middle East, are making it clear that they intend to continue that war and others. Support for the Israeli state machine is non-negotiable. The U.S. ruling class, and the ruling classes of Britain and France and others have no intention to allow the Middle East ever to belong to those who live there, not Arab, not Jew, not any nationality. They intend to forever control and exploit this important geographic region with its vast reserves of oil and other resources.
They are ready to impose their plans for broader war here and abroad and they are signaling “loud and clear” that if you want to join in support of the Palestinians, you will wind up under attack with them. Not just to the students, but to all who dare disagree.
Their spokespersons right and left encourage divisions and encourage workers to oppose the student movement. Trump and others like him will mobilize workers against those they call elite or privileged, because they can go to university while workers have to work, or can’t afford college.
Will the workers build leadership that can steer past this trap? Will the student movement remain bravely opposed to the current and future wars? Will some of these students look to join workers in building a revolutionary party in the working class, the only class that can bring down capitalism? Certainly, that is the only way forward.
The future for us depends on being clear in front of the working class that in situations of struggle, in situations of attack, we cannot depend on the politicians nor their state apparatus, police and army, to protect us.
For that, working people can only depend on themselves.
May 20, 2024
Ilan Pappé, until recently an Israeli history professor, came to Detroit to speak on the war in Gaza. Government agents stopped him at Detroit Metro Airport and grilled him about his opinions on Israel’s attacks on Gaza and his connections with Arabs and Muslims in the Detroit area. They confiscated his phone and copied its contents before returning it to him.
Pappé is the son of Holocaust survivors who fled to Palestine from Nazi Germany and has long been an outspoken critic of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, but has also been critical of Hamas. He currently lives in England after being forced out of his university position in Israel over his stance. After being let go, Pappé spoke to pro-Palestinian protesters in Ann Arbor on the 76th anniversary of the Nakba, when Palestinians were first driven out of large parts of the newly-formed Israel. He later also spoke in Dearborn, Detroit and Ferndale.
The government’s mistreatment of Pappé is just the latest in a widespread pattern of attacks on academics who have dared to criticize U.S.-Israeli treatment of Palestinians. Professors at Columbia University, Texas Tech, New York University, University of Arizona, University of North Carolina, and Washington University in St. Louis have been suspended or fired over comments they’ve made critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza—some for simply discussing civilian casualties there, and some never even given clear reasons for being disciplined.
In late March, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order claiming to address acts of antisemitism on college campuses, calling on universities to establish “appropriate punishments, including expulsion from the institution.” He specifically named the Palestine Solidarity Committee and Students for Justice in Palestine, and said they should be disciplined for violating these principles. Like so many supposed “fighters” against antisemitism, he failed to mention anything about the violence directed against Palestinians in Gaza by the Israelis.
All these attacks on academic freedom being carried out at colleges across the country represent the latest version of the McCarthyism of the 1950s. Fortunately, faculty members at several schools have taken up the examples provided by the many student protests and begun fighting back themselves. They have conducted walkouts and work stoppages at Columbia, Barnard College, and the University of Texas, among others. They are right to do so.
These protests may seem distant in the lives of many workers, but we should all take note that the same wealthy ruling class behind these attacks will be even more ready to attack workers when we carry out fights to improve our own wages and working conditions.
May 20, 2024
Tesla boss Elon Musk says that the company is planning to lay off over 10% of its workforce worldwide. That would mean more than 14,000 workers will be losing their jobs, including over 6,000 in Texas and California.
Some of the people getting laid off are people working on building the fast-charging stations for electric vehicles. Tesla has already gotten over 29 million dollars from the U.S. government (meaning from the taxpayers) to build charging stations. But Musk has decided to build fewer charging stations, although he is not planning on giving the money back to the workers who paid for this through their taxes.
Throwing people out of work, cutting back on building infrastructure, ripping off the taxpayers, it’s just another day at the office for one of the richest people in the world. As a matter of fact, all the Wall Street investors who own Tesla stock think that Musk is doing a great job. In fact, they are so happy with him that they are planning to give Musk a pay package of 55 billion dollars. No, that’s not a misprint. That is not 55 million; that is 55 billion with a B!!! To one man!!! Musk said that he is worth that obscene amount of money because running Tesla “takes up the majority of my work time.”
Don’t worry, the Wall Streeters who own the Tesla stock can afford to pay Musk. The market capitalization of Tesla (the total worth of all the Tesla stock) is over a half trillion dollars. That’s trillion with a T! At one time, the market capitalization of Tesla was more than GM, Ford, VW, Toyota and Daimler, combined!
Musk and these wealthy few owners are bathing in money while they are throwing people into the street. This is capitalism at its finest!
May 20, 2024
Harrison Butker, a placekicker for the Kansas City Chiefs professional football team, gained a certain kind of fame for a commencement speech he gave at a small Catholic college. He says “all of my success is made possible because” of “my wife” who embraces “one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.”
How nice for a guy who reportedly earns three million six hundred thousand dollars per year. For the majority of women, who MUST work outside the home, and whose average wages were about $50,000 per year, life is not quite so nice. They want partners who earn money and help them with the children, the shopping, the chores and all the running around they have to do every single day. And in the state he lives in, abortion is banned and legal rights for gay people are iffy.
Kansas City men might improve their chances with women liking them, dating them or marrying them, if they did not talk like Harrison Butker.
May 20, 2024
A FedEx cargo plane landed in Istanbul, Turkey last week without its front wheels. The pilot managed to land the Boeing 767 without hurting anyone. That’s no thanks to Boeing, which has been in the news for producing dangerously defective planes.
It’s yet ANOTHER multi-billion-dollar company that overworks its employees and short-changes its operations for profits.
May 20, 2024
Attention all moms and dads facing the prom season! You know this conversation:
“Mom! Prom time! Got $700 for a suit, or $2,000 for a dress?” “No!”
May 20, 2024
On Monday, child care workers shut their doors for “A Day Without Child Care” in over 23 states to promote awareness of the need for better wages for child care workers and lower prices for parents. Child care workers were joined in their protest by many parents who agree with them.
Child care workers should be joined by all workers because in the end it affects us all.
May 20, 2024
The prosecutors in the Donald Trump hush money trial are close to wrapping up their case, after his former “fixer” Michael Cohen finished his testimony.
Trump’s defense attorneys spent a long time establishing what everybody already knew: Cohen is a liar. After all, he spent time in prison for lying to Congress. Of course, as Cohen pointed out, he then did his lying in the service of one Donald Trump, so pointing out his lying may or may not help the defense to impugn his credibility.
That’s been the theme of this trial, and the big ‘revelation.’ Much of the ‘juicy’ details, about Trump’s night with Stormy Daniels, the hush money payment, the “catch and kill” scheme with the National Enquirer, came out years ago, even during Trump’s presidency. Nothing new has been revealed.
Spoiler alert: Trump, and the election process, and the political system, are sordid and rotten. Spoiler alert: Cohen, and Trump, and politicians are liars.
And spoiler alert, the trial is seen completely differently by Democrats and Republicans. Democrats see it as a slam dunk and hope that Trump will do jail time before the election. Republicans see it as a ‘sham,’ and many have loudly voiced that view in their auditions to be Trump’s running mate.
Workers have no interest in either view. Sure, Trump deserves jail time, though maybe not for this particular crime. But so do many other politicians, including Biden, who have rained destruction on workers here and on much of the rest of the world.
For working people, it’s all one more distraction keeping us focused on choosing one enemy over the other.
May 20, 2024
Nursing home providers in Maryland were finally sued by some residents this May for the disgusting care some of them have received. The lawsuit alleged residents left sitting in their own excrement for hours, bedsores developing, with call buttons left unanswered due to inadequate staffing. The lawyers pointed out that Maryland is second worse in the entire country for the backlog on nursing home inspections. And Maryland is a solidly Democratic state, solidly blue in its elected officials, plus having the highest income in the entire country, according to government statistics. But, like every other state in the union, legislators and officials claim there is not enough money for the health needs of even the most vulnerable people in the state.
And if Maryland has this problem, imagine the care the sick, the elderly, the demented and the handicapped are receiving in the rest of the country.
The United States so-called health care system is outstanding in surgery and device innovation—only. Otherwise, health care here is worse than in many poor countries in services delivered, not to mention all the services denied. When Medicare or Medicaid stops paying for a patient, they end up in their relatives’ homes—if they are lucky. In fact, millions of women and a number of men, ARE health care in the U.S. They learn nursing skills out of desperation for the lack of care available.
If a patient lacks a family member to go to, they are literally on the street, taken sometimes to a shelter, and treated as if “you are just piece of garbage,” as one outraged patient put it. Vans from the California Department of Public Health drop off thousands of homeless sick people at shelters, and have been doing so since before the pandemic. At the Union Rescue Mission in Los Angeles, the vans come so frequently, the mission set up a camera, which they call the “dump cam,” to try to capture evidence to use for suing hospitals and nursing homes which have evicted patients.
At the other end of the scale, where people pay for assisted living, the average monthly cost has reached $5,000. That amount is higher than the average wage of individuals in the U.S. Dementia care units already average $10,000 per month. If an older person has some assets, such as a paid-for home, or a pension, they have to use every single penny up at assisted living facilities before they qualify for Medicaid, which then forces many into under-staffed nursing homes.
While nursing homes are still regulated—supposedly and only occasionally by the government, as the lawsuit in Maryland shows—assisted living is NOT regulated at all. Its lack of staffing and care makes it quite profitable, so it has become a favorite component of big investment funds. These assisted living chains have been profitable up till now, but they are pricing themselves right out of the market. Not only current baby-boomers but the following generations of much worse-paid workers will not be able to pay for any assisted living facilities as they operate today. As one official at the California Association of Health Facilities, said: “Society’s problems are manifesting themselves on the doorsteps of nursing homes.”
May 20, 2024
About one third of Amazon workers in a national study reported using government funded programs—primarily food stamps or Medicaid—in the last three months. This study, funded by Oxfam, the Ford Foundation and The National Employment Law Project, obtained responses from Amazon workers in 42 states. Half of warehouse workers who responded said they struggle to afford enough food or a place to live. Most reported wages between 16 to 20 dollars an hour.
Those most likely to report having trouble paying their bills were those taking unpaid time off work due to getting hurt on the job.
Amazon is the second-largest private employer in the U.S. behind Walmart. Researchers found that about 29% of warehouse industry workers are employed by Amazon.
On April 30, Amazon reported record-breaking first quarter profits of 10.4 billion dollars. The company has the equivalent of 73 billion dollars in cash on-hand. The money is there for all Amazon workers to live decently!
May 20, 2024
In December, 10 people in Alabama state prisons sued the state, two cities, and a number of companies like McDonalds and Wendy’s for exploiting their labor. State prisons have forced thousands of people to work unpaid inside the prisons. Especially since 2017, the state has also denied thousands of people parole while also declaring them safe and reliable to work outside the prison walls for public and private employers. They have worked as landscapers, janitors, drivers, and even as teachers. They have worked in the governor’s mansion, the state capitol, and the state supreme court—more than 100 public sector employers. They have worked in factories, meatpackers, and food service—560 private employers. For $2 a day!
We are told that the practice of “leasing” convicted people to employers to work for them was abolished in the state almost a century ago. But these public and private exploiters save hundreds of millions of dollars each year by exploiting prison labor.
May 20, 2024
The signs that society is in crisis are all around us. One way we see this is by the dramatic increase in domestic violence. A recent study done by a Chicago-based organization called The Network said that the number of phone calls to their hotline increased by 90% from before the pandemic.
Yet a lack of funding to the few organizations that exist to deal with these calls means that people aren’t able to get the help that they need. In 2023, there were only 97 beds and cribs available for those fleeing abusive situations in the entire city of Chicago! It’s clear that this society does not prioritize the safety of its most vulnerable populations.
May 20, 2024
A 76-year-old man died after Beth Israel hospital in New York City refused him service and he was transported to another hospital and then another, where he collapsed. His wife is suing.
Beth Israel used to be a full-service hospital, whose parent company Mount Sinai is currently trying to close it and laying off employees. In addition, more than a dozen New York hospitals have closed in recent years, following a national trend, not only in big cities, but especially in rural areas. At a neighboring hospital to Beth Israel in New York, the emergency room has seen a ridiculous 32% increase.
The Mount Sinai system, which calls itself non-profit, is a huge system, with a medical school and 7,000 providers in the New York area. It says the problem is Medicaid, which pays much lower reimbursement than private insurance.
Yes, in the richest country in the world, health care is run like a business. So, whether or not you die depends on having private insurance.
May 20, 2024
Detroit residents are sounding the alarm. Up until now, state government officials and the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) have been ignoring residents’ concerns. A dangerous change to a local highway—disingenuously named the I-375 Reconnecting Communities Project—could delay urgent access to the Detroit Medical Center.
The I-375 current design allows for fast access of emergency vehicles from East Side Detroit neighborhoods to the vital Detroit Medical Center. The proposed MDOT re-design will change a one-mile stretch of expressway into a surface street with nine lanes. This surface street will create intersections “offering” gridlock and danger to pedestrians at multiple points.
A group calling themselves the ReThink I-375 Coalition just delivered petitions with 500 signatures from local residents and small business owners to Mayor Duggan, Governor Whitmer and MDOT. In short, it says, “we are telling you that aspects of this current plan are not improvements at all. In fact, the project will result in an uglier, less safe, less economically viable, less inclusive city fabric—one that would even delay medical services….”
The Mayor and Governor had announced the project stating that this was something “neighbors” had asked for. This petition signed by 500 neighbors puts the lie to that! “This is a project that’s being imposed on the neighborhood that none of us asked for,” said one small business owner.
If the mayor and governor could only share which big business corporate “neighbors” DID ask for this project in the first place, things might become crystal clear!
May 20, 2024
Cities in California paid more than 100 million dollars to private companies, typically construction and hazardous waste removal companies, to take down homeless tent cities. This, according to a survey done by The Guardian newspaper and Type Investigations. The survey covered only 14 municipalities, so the actual amount is much higher.
City officials say they will provide housing to the homeless, but they usually don’t even know the whereabouts of most people they kick out of the homeless camps. Most of them just find another place to set up camp—until the next sweep.
As for the contractor companies, since their goal is to make a quick profit, they do the sweeps in a careless and haphazard manner. So, homeless people often lose essential belongings, including tents, furniture, bicycles and bicycle parts. One woman said that her car keys were gone, and that her daughter’s car was destroyed. Others lost belongings they used to earn money, such as tools and recyclable scrap metal.
So, while the sweeps cause added loss and trauma to a population that already is extremely vulnerable, contractors are making a killing just sweeping camps. The Singh Group, for example, a San Francisco Bay Area construction company, was paid 23 million dollars for a single contract. Tucker Construction got 10 million dollars over the last decade. Another construction company, Marinship, got 3.4 million dollars to sweep an encampment of about 200 people.
Capitalists constantly try to squeeze profit out of everything, including the poverty and suffering that the capitalist system itself creates. And elected “representatives of the people” are always ready to hand them public funds they oversee.
May 20, 2024
In February of 1934, in the midst of the depression, several hundred workers at auto parts plants in Toledo, Ohio went out on strike. Many strikes in the automobile industry in the years before had failed. But in Toledo, the workers were joined on the picket lines by thousands of unemployed, who fought police, then company deputies, then hundreds of National Guard. The working class of Toledo, led by socialist militants, refused to back down. By early June, they had fought their way to a partial victory—with their battles and success inspiring others around the country to take the fight to the bosses.
Working people in Toledo were hit particularly hard by the depression. The largest manufacturer in town shut down for good, putting 28,000 workers on the street in a city of 280,000. Four local banks failed. Thousands of workers had to wait in long lines for relief. Unemployment ran as high as 80%.
The auto parts companies used the high unemployment to threaten those still on the job: they imposed a vicious, killing pace of work. Fed up, a few workers at some of the plants began to organize.
Late in 1933, workers at four parts plants began holding meetings, forming a union through the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The main organizer had union experience in the IWW. They started small with just a dozen or so workers. By early 1934, the union meetings drew hundreds to meeting halls around town.
Late in February, 4,000 workers at the plants struck for three demands: a 20% raise, a procedure for bargaining, and recognition of their union. A good proportion of the strikers were women. Less than half of the workers struck—but production was nonetheless shut down at three of the plants. At Electric Auto-Lite, the largest plant, employing 1,800, production continued.
Roosevelt’s government wanted to get out in front of worker unrest. The New Deal created a board that sent mediators, who succeeded in getting the workers to accept a 5% raise to go back to work. They were led to believe they had an understanding that the company would negotiate on outstanding issues, like union recognition, by April 1st.
April 1st rolled around—with no word from the companies. The workers set a deadline for the companies of April 11th. Meanwhile, executives at Auto-Lite stockpiled teargas for a battle they could see coming. The workers went out again. Four hundred workers struck at the Auto-Lite plant—not enough to shut down production there. The company hired scabs to cross the picket line.
There were many unemployed, so the company could find people desperate enough to scab. But at the same time socialists, communists and other activists—many organized around A.J. Muste—had set up organizations of the unemployed in Toledo. In 1933, these organizations fought to establish and improve relief for the unemployed in the city. The union bureaucracy at the AFL offered little to no support for the strike, but the Unemployed Leagues enthusiastically brought workers out to bolster the picket lines.
In response, Auto-Lite repeatedly went to a friendly judge to get injunctions, limiting the picket to 25 strikers for each gate of the plant—and banning the unemployed from picketing. After one injunction was handed down on Saturday, May 5th, Sam Pollock, a militant with the Unemployed League, wrote the court, and published the letter in the local papers: “On Monday morning May 7, at the Auto-Lite plant, the Lucas County Unemployed League, in protest of the injunction issued by your court, will deliberately and specifically violate the injunction….” The court maneuver backfired—defying the injunction became a kind of sport in town. Hundreds of workers, unemployed or otherwise, joined the picket lines and packed the jails, making the injunction unenforceable.
A newspaperman reported, “It’s nothing new to see organized unemployed appear in the streets, fight police, and raise hell in general. But usually they do this for their own ends, to protest against unemployment or relief conditions. At Toledo, they appeared on the picket lines to help striking employees win a strike, though you would expect their interest would lie the other way—that is, in going down and getting the job the other men had lain down.” The strike became a battle between the working class of Toledo and the company. Auto-Lite found the city police to be too friendly to the strikers, so they got the same judge to deputize 150 goons, and paid them directly out of the company’s pocket.
A thousand, then four thousand, then six thousand packed the lines around the factory, refusing to allow scabs in or out. On May 23rd, scabs threw a hinge from a high floor, badly injuring a woman striker. The workers rushed the factory, barring the scabs and deputies inside. The crowd spent the day breaking out the plant’s windows, giving those inside a good dose of Auto-Lite’s own teargas.
The next morning over a thousand of the Ohio National Guard rolled in, trying to push the strikers away from the plant. For days, the crowd did battle with the Guard, pushing up and down the streets around Auto-Lite. The Guard shot two men dead, and still the picketers refused to disperse. The plant could not run, and then other unions in the city threatened a general strike. Finally, the National Guard was withdrawn.
June 3rd, workers came away with an agreement: a 5% raise, no discrimination against union members, and recognition of the union. Workers went back June 4th. In money terms, it may not have been a huge victory. But the working class of Toledo had put up a determined fight. Faced with repression by the police, by company goons and the National Guard, they continued to battle, refused to accept defeat and brought large numbers of Toledo workers to engage in the fight. This was a point where the tide turned for the working class in the country. Their fight inspired the Teamsters in Minneapolis, who struck in May, and then the dockworkers in San Francisco. Soon the whole country would be engulfed in battles by workers. And it was those battles, class battles, that changed the situation for the whole working class.
May 20, 2024
When the NLRB was first created in 1935, its main aim was never to interfere with any capitalist. On the contrary, it was to protect the interests of the capitalist class against a rebellious working class, that was organizing increasingly more massive strikes and protests, despite the threats and violence of companies, police, private armies and the National Guard.
Of course, the labor officials at the time, along with politicians, led by President Franklin Roosevelt, claimed that the NLRB was to protect workers, by granting workers the right to strike and the right to form unions. But the only reason why the government claimed it was “granting” these rights was because the workers were already taking them, by striking in a massive way and forming their own unions in labor battles that were being led by Communists, Socialists and other radicals.
The year before Roosevelt and the Democrats had called for the creation of the NLRB, workers had already carried out four gigantic general strikes in San Francisco, Toledo, Minneapolis and in the entire textile industry. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) was an attempt at taming the movement. It was a way of saying to workers that instead of fighting in open rebellion, the workers could look to the government and the labor friendly politicians to protect them. Congressional support for the NLRA was overwhelming, with the Senate voting 63–12 for it.
But the National Association of Manufacturers and a large portion of the capitalist class opposed the NLRA. These capitalists wanted the government to crack down on labor with a much firmer hand in order to forestall the threatening unionization of their workforces. The DuPont family, which controlled General Motors, and conservative leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties, formed the American Liberty League in open opposition to the Roosevelt administration’s labor policies.
However, in 1936 and 1937 the workers movement surged ahead with factory occupations, which began in rubber and culminated in auto. GM, controlled by the same DuPont family that had opposed Roosevelt’s policy, was hit by sit-down strikes that quickly spread throughout the Midwest. This led an important part of the U.S. bourgeoisie to finally come around to support Roosevelt’s policy of seeking officials inside the union movement to collaborate with, making them junior partners ready to get the workers’ movement to willingly submit to government authority and tie the unions to the Democratic Party and its supposed “left-wing” bureaucrats at the NLRB and the state. Certainly, there were revolutionary militants inside the working class who opposed this policy. But there were not nearly enough of them to have a lasting impact.
Over the following decades the workers’ movement was increasingly channeled and contained, with the collaboration of a union bureaucracy whose main goal was to partner with the capitalists and government officials. By tying the workers up in the red tape and bureaucracy of the NLRB and the grievance procedure, they sought to strangle any attempt by the workers to take their own independent initiative. As the workers movement receded, the union apparatuses themselves shrank and weakened, and were increasingly dependent on the Democratic Party and the state, a degeneration that continues to this day.
What the workers movement of the 1930s shows is that this will not happen automatically. The working class desperately needs revolutionary militants, militants who understand that the only way for the working class to defend its interests in the short-term is to have a perspective to get rid of capitalist rule altogether.
May 20, 2024
Families who worked in the seafood industry in rural Crisfield in Somerset County, Maryland, finally succeeded in May in their two-year struggle to have the state erect a marker commemorating the crab pickers strike of 1938.
The 1938 strike involved 600 predominantly Black women who struck for five weeks in what was called “the Seafood Capital of the World.” They faced violence by white cannery owners and local politicians, including home invasions and the burning of union activists’ cars. On May 10, 1938, they won, defeating wage cuts and achieving union recognition. This strike was one of a number of strikes on Maryland’s Eastern Shore marking a wave of unionization from 1931 to 1990.
May 20, 2024
This article is translated from the May issue, #314 of La Voix des Travailleurs (Workers Voice), the paper of Organisation des Travailleurs Revolutionaires (Organization of Revolutionary Workers), a Trotskyist group active in Haiti.
The ruling classes and their political henchmen have allowed criminal gangs to proliferate throughout the country. For them, it’s better to deal with criminal gangs and murderers who sow grief and terror in their wake, but who are also part of the defense of imperialism, than to confront millions of workers and the unemployed, who are revolting against the hell of the capitalist system of exploitation.
For several years now, the working masses have been living to the rhythm of massacres and terrorist acts, each more heinous than the last. Entire neighborhoods have been razed to the ground and emptied of their inhabitants. Hundreds of thousands of people become homeless overnight, some forced to live in camps or flee to provincial towns. Hospitals, schools and public markets are set on fire.
The bourgeoisie is not moved by this, as it continues to amass wealth, even if it means paying armed groups handsomely to protect its business. In any case, it’s the workers who will foot the bill in the form of higher prices. Then as now, the distress of the population has always been the least of the political class’ concerns. Despite the almost total disintegration of the country, they continue to fight for power like scavengers to satisfy their greed.
Imperialism, master of the scene through its embassies, is not concerned by the rotting situation. If things stall, contingents of foreign soldiers can be dispatched to protect its interests and evacuate its nationals, as they are currently doing.
Despite the country’s apocalyptic situation, large-caliber weapons, drones and grenades continue to arrive from the U.S., the Caribbean and Santo Domingo into the hands of criminal gangs. As a result, some say that Haiti and its working classes are the victims of a conspiracy.
Far from being the victim of a conspiracy, Haiti has been the victim of capitalist domination of the planet since the landing of mercenaries in the pay of the rising bourgeoisie in Europe, from 1492 to the present day. In this, Haiti is no exception. But for having, on the one hand, stood up to the French slave-owning colonists by wresting their freedom the hard way, and, on the other, inflicting a humiliating defeat on Napoleon by gaining their independence, the Haitian masses, victims of slavery, have singled themselves out as the symbol of the struggle against oppression.
If armed gangs have not yet taken over all the country’s major cities, this is largely due to the vigilance of the population. And even in Port-au-Prince, despite the omnipotence of the criminal gangs, certain neighborhoods such as Canapé-Vert, Juvenat, the town of Mirebalais, etc. are resisting. In some neighborhoods, people are getting organized and achieving some success.
It was through the general revolt of the population that the slaves obtained their freedom and proclaimed their independence from the French colonists and their allies. It’s the general uprising of the working masses that will put an end to the barbarity of the armed gangs and the system of exploitation that has given birth to them.
May 20, 2024
This article is translated from the May 15 issue, #2911 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in France.
Since Tuesday, May 7, bombs and shells have been falling on the town of Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army has also launched an offensive against the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north of the Palestinian enclave, supported by tanks and aerial bombardments.
Other fighting is also taking place in Gaza City, even though the Israeli army took control of the area in the first weeks of the war. The army claims to be carrying out these operations to prevent Hamas from reconstituting its forces. Above all, however, they show that the Islamist organization is far from being “eradicated,” contrary to the proclamations of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. “We have seen Hamas return to the areas Israel has liberated in northern Gaza,” declared U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
In reality, Israel’s leaders are waging war first and foremost on the Palestinian population, subjecting them to indiscriminate bombardment and depriving them of food and medical care. Since the start of the operation against Rafah, the situation has worsened still further, as humanitarian aid no longer enters Gaza at all. According to UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, almost 450,000 people have been forced to leave the Rafah area, having already fled several times in the face of advancing Israeli troops.
U.S. President Biden, campaigning for re-election, is seeking to avoid alienating the segment of his electorate that is outraged by his support for an army that has been massacring an entire population for seven months. After suspending a shipment of bombs, he threatened in an interview on CNN on Wednesday, May 8 to stop delivering bombs and shells to Israel in the event of a major offensive in the densely populated areas of Rafah because, he claimed, American weapons had already caused civilian casualties, and “that’s wrong.” CNN also broadcast a report on Sunday, May 12, denouncing torture-like detention conditions in a Palestinian prison camp in the Negev desert.
Netanyahu replied to Biden’s threats by saying that the Israelis would know how to fight “with their fingernails.” But in reality, he knows he can count on continued American military aid. The latest illustration of this guaranteed support was a State Department report submitted to Congress on May 10, which concluded that American weapons had “probably been used” by Israel in “violation of international law.” But since this has not been formally demonstrated, arms shipments can continue, allowing the Israeli state to continue massacring Palestinians in Gaza with impunity.
May 20, 2024
Last week, President Joe Biden—who’s been everywhere in the media lately—announced he was raising the tariff on Chinese electric vehicles from 25% to 100%. He also announced additional tariffs on solar panels and other high-tech manufactured goods.
Imposing these tariffs, Joe Biden is working for the American auto companies first of all. The tariff is a virtual ban on less expensive Chinese-made electric vehicles—insulating American companies from competition, making it easier for them to make money. The American and Chinese economies are deeply intertwined. Nonetheless, both countries have been handing subsidies to their own home “green manufacturers.”
Biden also has the fall election in mind. He poses these tariffs as “defending American jobs.” That’s a bunch of malarkey, as “Uncle Joe” himself might say! The tariffs mean goods and services cost more—they end up being a tax on working people. They do nothing to create or protect jobs in this country.
But Trump got a hearing from some in the 2016 and 2020 elections by talking about jobs. Biden saw this. Lo and behold: he has not ended any of Trump’s tariffs—in fact, we see him making more!
This nationalism seeks to line U.S. workers up with U.S. companies against Chinese workers. In fact, both the U.S. and the Chinese working class face the same enemy: the capitalist class. Chinese workers could be a great ally in taking on all the bosses. Biden and Trump’s attempts to divide us are a bunch of hooey meant to distract us from that fact.
May 20, 2024
This article is translated from the May 15 issue, #2911 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in France.
In Guadeloupe, the curfew for minors came into force on April 22 following an announcement by Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, who was visiting the island.
Since then, in several districts of Pointe-à-Pitre and Les Abymes, young people under the age of 18 have been banned from being outdoors between 8pm and 5am, unless accompanied by an adult exercising parental authority.
This measure was ostensibly introduced to combat rising crime rates. The state has also set up “Clean Sweep” operations, involving unannounced police raids in certain neighborhoods.
Almost a month later, the toll from the weekend of May 10 to 12 was heavy: five gun attacks in five different towns left two people injured and three dead. The victims were aged between 24 and 35. Two of these communes currently apply a curfew to minors. Proof, if proof were needed, that the curfew and “Clean Sweep” are not enough to curb crime.
These are nothing but publicity stunts for Macron and Darmanin. An effective fight against delinquency can only come from the workers and the exploited, if they build a world free of capitalism and the artificial paradises in which some of our young people are drowning, forced to live in misery, destitution and trafficking of all kinds.
May 20, 2024
Biden announced a “temporary pause” in a small shipment of bombs that Israel has been using in Gaza. But this is not an end to U.S. complicity in the tragedy of Gaza, nor in the wider tragedy of which Gaza is emblematic.
Israel’s war on Gaza, funded by the U.S., is a war on Gaza’s people. Of the 35,000 corpses found in Gaza, 70% were either women or children or very old men. Over 80% of civilian housing is unlivable. All but one of Gaza’s hospitals have been obliterated. Most of Gaza’s water, electrical and communication systems barely function. Gaza’s people have been turned into refugees—driven from north to south, now back to north.
The tragedies we see today, including the one of October 7 when Hamas attacked Israeli civilians, were produced by policies of the two big capitalist powers that control the region, the U.S. and Britain.
In order to defend their interests in this oil-rich region, which is at the center of world trade, both countries long depended on their own armies. They carved up the Middle East into countries that divided peoples from each other. They put in place Arab dictators who answered to them. And at the end of World War II, both also sought to use Zionism, the nationalist movement that worked to carve a Jewish state out of Palestine.
Theodor Herzl, one of the early founders of Zionism, called the part of Palestine that would become Israel, “a land without people for a people without land.”
But Palestine was not a land without people. Some millions of people were living there. In order to turn the region into a Jewish-only state, Zionist militias drove Palestinians out of what became Israel, just as people in Gaza today are being violently driven away by the Israeli army.
The migration of Jews from Europe to Palestine at the end of World War II started as a way to escape the fascist savagery that capitalism let loose throughout Europe. Israel was established at a time when the big powers of the world had all closed their borders to Jewish migrants.
It was not inevitable that the migration of the Jewish people would end up in today’s tragedies. The Jewish people who came to Palestine at the end of World War II might have coexisted in a multi-ethnic state with the Arab peoples already there. In fact, it was the goal of many Jews who came to Palestine.
But the organized Zionist movement, funded by wealthy Britons and Americans, attacked the Palestinian people living there. Vigilante terrorism, carried out by the Zionist militias, tried to turn Palestine into this “land without a people.”
Zionist policies allowed the Jewish migrants to exist inside their own nation, but only by pitting them against other peoples of the region, requiring the Jewish people themselves to live in an unending state of war.
The Zionist project guaranteed that Israel, in order to maintain itself in a world it had forced to become hostile to it, would look to the biggest capitalist powers of the world to arm it and back it up. In exchange, it became the instrument of those big powers, their watchdog in the region.
Zionism has created tragedy on top of tragedy for the Palestinian people, but also for the Jewish people. And Zionism has led the Jewish people into a dead end. But Zionism is not the root cause of all these tragedies. Capitalism is.
We won’t see an end to such wars so long as society is organized by the capitalist class.
In other words, the end to wars, like the end to all the barbaric practices produced by capitalism, depends on the working class. It is the only force that has the capacity to get rid of capitalism. When the working class regains a true sense of its own power, and of its own capacities, it will build a collective society in its own image, based on mutual self-respect among all the world’s peoples.
May 20, 2024
This movie is based on the true story of DuPont Chemical, which manufactured Teflon. DuPont dumped its waste in West Virginia, affecting hundreds. Numerous people from the community appear in the film.
DuPont knew and hid for decades the adverse effects of this “new miracle” forever chemical. As a result of the people of this community fighting and exposing the true nature of this chemical, with the help of lawyers, they forced DuPont to take some responsibility for the damage they caused.
This book makes available in gripping, straightforward and at times humorous writing the history of racism in the world from 1415, when Portugal “took” part of Morocco, to the dark tale of its American events. The book takes the material from Kendi’s award-winning book Stamped from the Beginning and presents it clearly for all readers, including young teens. The author says it’s not a history book, it’s about the here and now. But to understand the here and now, we have to re-visit the past. The book marvelously and energizingly presents the historical events and debates which haunt us yet today.
May 20, 2024
It was ten years ago, on April 25, 2014, that the city of Flint, Michigan switched the source of its drinking water to the dirty and polluted Flint River. This move set off a disastrous series of events which caused, among other things, the lead poisoning of thousands of young children in Flint.
Previously, water was provided from a much cleaner source, Lake Huron, through the city of Detroit’s water system. A tunnel system had been built in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The news media in Michigan marked the ten-year anniversary of the Flint Water Crisis with a number of stories.
In reality, the events that started this crisis began more than ten years ago. One was the appointment of a series of governor-assigned “Emergency Financial Managers” to oversee budget cuts in the City of Flint. It was this un-democratic move that most directly led to the lead-in-the-water crisis.
The citizens of Michigan, in a referendum in 2012, voted against having Emergency Financial Managers, but the legislature at that time ignored the wisdom of voters. They passed more laws allowing for Emergency Financial Managers to overrule local leaders. The Emergency Financial Manager of Flint approved the switch to the Flint River for drinking water to save money.
It was obvious from the beginning that there was a problem with the new water source. To save a few dollars, the necessary corrosion control was never added to the water. Residents started complaining immediately, but the officials in charge ignored complaints and insisted the water was safe.
The General Motors factories in Flint stopped using Flint city water right away in 2014, due to the corrosive effect it had on engine blocks. That in itself should have set off alarm bells—why were people drinking water that is too corrosive for vehicles?!
It was more than just lead poisoning. There was also an outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease in the area. Some believed it was related to the dirty drinking water.
There was soon a movement among some Flint residents against this dirty water. They contacted water experts from other parts of the country and set in motion scientific investigations into what was going on. Still, it took about two years for the water to be switched back to the Lake Huron water that previously had been used.
In the meantime, it meant that the citizens continued drinking this water for a significant period of time. This was most dangerous to children, who are most susceptible to lead poisoning. The doctor that first spoke out and raised alarms about the lead poisoning was Dr. Mona Hanna-Atisha, an area pediatrician. Initially, she was loudly criticized for being “hysterical”. It wasn’t until later that government officials apologized to her and admitted she was correct all along.
It was Dr. Hanna-Atisha—along with courageous Flint residents and national water experts invited in by Flint residents—that finally ended the use of the Flint River water. By then, the damage had been done. It became a national news story.
What has still never been fully investigated in this whole tragedy is the role of money. The reason for the switch to Flint River water initially was a short-term solution while the area built a new water treatment tunnel from Lake Huron, a second system paralleling the first system. (This new water intake system is named Karegnondi Water Authority.)
Why was this even being built in the first place? The original tunnel and water system still had the capacity to supply the area. There were complaints about the cost of the original system and people were told their rates would go down with a new water system.
What happened in Flint happened in plain sight. The fault for what happened went all the way to the governor’s office. However, to this day, no one has really been held accountable. A few low-level officials were charged and disciplined, but that is about all.
May 20, 2024
Recently several extreme and deadly weather events have swept the planet. In the U.S. there were multiple devastating tornado outbreaks from Oklahoma to Michigan. The central U.S. was slammed, homes obliterated. People’s lives turned upside down. And wildfires have begun again in Canada, with its smoke and bad air quality affecting Canada and parts of the U.S. And this is only a partial list.
Then there are the cases of unprecedented flooding in various countries, including: Brazil, Afghanistan, Dominican Republic, Kenya, Mongolia, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Bolivia, and Argentina. Water suppliers destroyed, farmland flooded, livestock and children swept away in flash flooding, thousands of homes destroyed, people evacuated, uprooted, without shelter.
For the last several years so-called 100-year storms have been happening more frequently. We see all the devastation happening on TV where it is presented as the new normal. With climate change and a warming planet, it IS the new normal. But this doesn’t mean that this situation is acceptable.
Action has to be taken to mitigate the situation. But the tiny handful of billionaire families who control the wealth offer no solutions, no protections. From their high places, they make it clear that a toothbrush and a blanket from the Red Cross is enough for us.
Capitalism turns natural and unnatural weather events into catastrophes!