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
Sep 16, 2024
In early September, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that in 2023 two million more people were living below the official poverty line than the previous year. That brought the number of people living in poverty up to 43 million, or more people than the entire state of California.
Other official reports confirmed the fast spread of poverty and misery in 2023. The Agriculture Department reported that three million more people did not have enough money to pay for food on a consistent basis, compared to the year before. Food banks, the first line of defense for families in danger of going hungry, also reported an explosion in demand last year, often running out. And the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported skyrocketing homelessness in many parts of the U.S. Homelessness was up 61% in Southeast Texas from the year before, 35% in Rhode Island, 20% in both Tennessee and Tulsa, Oklahoma.
This economic disaster is not just happening to the great mass of jobless, or workers without steady work. Increasingly, workers with jobs, even supposedly decent paying jobs, can no longer pay their bills. These include plumbers, factory workers, airline flight attendants, pizzeria managers, not to speak of people who deliver groceries, sell eyeglasses and unload trucks at Amazon.
Working full-time, or two or three jobs, doesn’t guarantee being able to afford the basics.
This year, economic conditions are getting worse. The number of full-time jobs in the U.S. is shrinking. The official rate of unemployment is increasing. This spells even more widespread impoverishment, hunger and homelessness.
Government officials, top economists and the news media say the growth of unemployment is merely a “soft landing,” a supposed transition to a slower economy from the supposed “hot job market” of 2023! In fact, the growth of unemployment is the next stage in the ongoing war of the capitalist class against the working class.
For the capitalist class, times have never been better. Corporate profits are at record levels. Every year, companies dole out trillions of dollars to their biggest shareholders, through dividend payouts and stock buybacks. The stock market, bond market and real estate markets are hitting record highs.
The capitalist class is stealing all that money and wealth from the working class. They are robbing workers on the job, at the store, in our homes. They are turning increasing parts of the working class into paupers.
This is election time. Democrats and Republicans, from Harris and Trump on down promise to be the workers’ champions. They promise to supposedly “fix” things. Of course, it’s all just a scam to get our votes. These are the same brand of lying politicians who have presided over this thievery for more than a hundred years.
No, there are no saviors from up high.
The working class needs its own independent party, not just in the election, but to help organize workers as a powerful class. That party has to be built. That may seem impossible. But sometimes the hardest thing is for workers to take the first step in order to regain confidence in our own forces.
In the coming election, a vote for the candidates of the Working-Class Party in Michigan, as well as working class candidates running for office in Chicago and Los Angeles, can send a message to other workers that there are people ready to join that fight. Workers can defend our interests by uniting and organizing collectively. Workers can push the capitalists back on their heels. Workers can even run the society ourselves. Workers do all the work. We produce everything. Workers don’t need the capitalists at all.
Our big problem is that most of our class doesn’t know what our real potential is. But the history of the working class in this country, including the massive strike waves of the 1930s and the struggle of black people in the 1950s, the 1960s and 1970s show what kind of powerful fights the working class can carry out. Moreover, the history of workers’ movements and revolutions in other countries show how workers can organize their own powerful independent parties and can actually take the power away from the capitalist class.
No, there is nothing inevitable about the crises that workers in this country face today. When working people organize together, they can open up the possibility of a new future not only for themselves, but for all of humanity.
Sep 16, 2024
U.S. Representative Lauren Boebert claimed the federal government is giving undocumented families $2,200 a month. Other viral social media clips claim they’re getting $6,000 a month, maybe in cash, maybe in food stamps.
There are a few programs that do help refugees: for instance, Michigan gives a few qualifying refugees $500 a month to help with rent for one year. But in general, refugees and undocumented immigrants get much less government aid than even the little available to U.S. citizens. Most can’t get Social Security, Medicare, or even big parts of Medicaid.
These lies about immigrants cover for the people really stealing our tax money and starving the programs we need of funding—the capitalist class that runs this country.
Sep 16, 2024
Many migrants are arriving in areas where services were already stripped to the bone.
Migrant children need to learn English—but the schools in the working class areas already don’t have enough teachers.
Children arrive with psychological problems from trauma—but there aren’t nearly enough counselors to help the kids already here.
Migrants arrive with no place to stay, but the homeless shelters are already overfull and understaffed.
Migrants need medical treatment, while the medical system that serves working class people is already underfunded and understaffed.
So, working class people are being encouraged to blame the migrants for taking the few resources available.
In reality, this country has plenty of money to ensure an excellent education, healthcare, and housing for all. That money has been stolen by the corporations and the wealthy capitalist class that owns them. They turn every pot of government money into a cash machine. They privatize what they can and cut the rest. They use one loophole after another to avoid paying taxes.
When workers and poor people fight over the crumbs the billionaires drop, it just lets the rich keep on eating the whole cake.
Sep 16, 2024
The Chicago Teachers Union has lobbied for more than a decade to take the school system out from under mayoral control and to impose some democracy in Chicago education. For the first time, this November, ten members of the school board will be elected, while ten other members and the school board president will still be appointed by the mayor.
Activists hoped that the elected school board would defend public education against the attacks that have been carried out under one Chicago mayor after another, such as closure of public schools to be replaced by charter schools and other funneling of education money to private organizations.
But two pro-charter school Political Action Committees, or PACs, have raised three and a half million dollars between them. That’s more than six times all of the money raised by the 32 school board candidates, combined!
One PAC, run by the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, has collected big donations from Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, as well as from a member of the Walton family (the family that started Walmart). A Chicago auto executive gave almost a million dollars—it just so happens that he runs a set of charter schools.
The other PAC is run by Juan Rangel, who was in charge of one of the largest charter school networks a decade ago. Rangel was forced to resign when it came out that he was routing money for his schools to contractor cronies.
This is the kind of democracy we are allowed under capitalism. Yes, it is better to have a vote than not. But the capitalists and their cronies, with their access to money, are much better equipped to make their “voice heard” in this system’s elections.
Sep 16, 2024
Driving across a long bridge, you will see places where there are interlocking steel fingers with air gaps between. These are expansion joints. When the steel bridge girders heat up, the girders expand and lengthen. The joints allow the girders to heat and lengthen, then cool and shorten, safely, while we drive over.
But the size of the gaps between the teeth are designed for normal regional heating and cooling patterns. Temperatures are rising beyond normal! When gaps are too small to accommodate the extra-hot steel expansion, the teeth meet and jam together, and steel has to expand someplace else. The bridge girders bend, twist, and warp.
The forces drive into the concrete bridge foundations and crack the concrete. Rain and river water get inside the cracks and the internal steel structure rusts out. The bridge weakens and can’t support its normal loads. “These bridges can fall apart like Tinkertoys,” says one civil engineer.
Another engineer studying Colorado bridges found a 29-year-old bridge, and an 18-year-old bridge, and even a 10-year-old bridge already showing this kind of damage.
Workers use bridges all the time to get to and from work or driving on the job. We will be the first hurt in any bridge failure.
We may be killed like the six road workers in the Baltimore bridge collapse. Or we may be like the thousands of workers who had to spend many unpaid hours daily, detouring to get back and forth to work.
But we don’t have the means to get these hazards inspected, upgraded, and fixed.
Who has the money? The companies we work for, and the wealthy class that reaps the corporate profits. All the companies depend on all these bridges for their just-in-time supply chains, and their constant movement of goods from factory to warehouse to consumer.
These companies and their owners, combined, have trillions of dollars available to put to use, to make sure bridges are safe. But their eyes are only on the monthly profit margins!
They also have a government system at their beck and call, to make sure that their trillions are not tapped for something as unprofitable as public safety and welfare.
Their philosophy in their factories is “run it ‘til it breaks.” And as thousands of bridges head for the breaking point, overheating, jamming, and crumbling, they stand as symbols of capitalism’s global system.
Sep 16, 2024
For decades, there have been complaints lodged regarding conditions for juveniles detained in Wayne County, Michigan. The county just opened a new jail facility in Detroit that includes a juvenile detention facility, and early reviews suggest conditions are not likely to be much better than at the old juvenile jail.
Inmates have been held in lockdowns in crowded cells due to short-staffing. This has led to fights and prisoners busting up fire sprinklers in protest. One inmate complained of having to defecate in a bag due to defective plumbing in the cells.
Attorneys have complained about the new facility having only five booths for them to meet with their clients, compared to 25 in the old jail, and that passersby can easily overhear confidential conversations with clients, including details of their cases.
All this despite the fact that the city gave Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock company prime real estate in downtown Detroit where the previous construction of a new jail failed, in exchange for building the new facility away from the downtown. The city contributed over 500 million dollars of the 670 million dollars it took Gilbert’s company to build the new jail, and this is the outcome!
Sep 16, 2024
Baltimore, Maryland has been referred to as the overdose capital of the U.S. by the media and some politicians. It does, for now, have more deaths due to drug overdoses than other cities. But the underlying causes of this crisis exist in cities and towns across the country.
Starting around 2010, pharmaceutical reps pushed doctors to prescribe their pain pills. These pain pills—opioids—are highly addictive. That means that even after the prescription runs out, patients would need more or suffer painful withdrawal.
Many older workers got hooked on opioids often because their doctors prescribed them for pain caused by working in a factory or mill. Many younger workers have gotten hooked because they see no future in this society. This is happening not just in Baltimore but in Detroit, Flint, Los Angeles, Chicago, and all over the world.
Baltimore and its closest suburbs were once home to vast manufacturing facilities operated by Bethlehem Steel, General Motors and Martin Marietta. In 1970, around 33% of the labor force in Baltimore was employed in manufacturing. Working class families migrated from Europe and the American South in order to fill all those jobs. But by 2000, only 7% of city residents had manufacturing jobs, and the losses have continued since. They are left with low-paying service jobs, retail, fast-food with few or no benefits, and often only part-time.
The children of workers used to be able to get a decent-paying job when they were old enough. Now, they are “lucky” if they can get a job flipping burgers at McDonalds. In other words, they have no future.
Now these large pharmaceutical companies and some drug stores that sold these opioids, like oxycodone, have to pay out billions of dollars to cities for the crisis they fueled.
The opioids were like gasoline on a fire. Are these billions of dollars going to bring back decent paying jobs or help workers recover from addiction or even bring back loved ones who died from overdose? The answer is no!
Sep 16, 2024
U.S. political activists who spoke out about the war in Ukraine have come under attack by federal prosecutors. Four leaders, who have long opposed what they call “colonial domination” and have criticized U.S. foreign policy, were forced to defend themselves at a trial that began on September 2 in Tampa, Florida.
The four worked with the African People’s Socialist Party, a pan-African organization advocating for reparations for slavery and black empowerment. Formally, they were accused of “election interference” in charges brought in 2023, because of accepting money from an anti-globalization NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) based in Russia.
Jurors handed down a verdict on September 12. The defendants were cleared on the most serious charges, but the four were found guilty of “conspiring to act as unregistered Russian agents,” which can lead to a 5-year prison term.
A defense attorney stated, “This case has always been about free speech.” He explained the four were prosecuted for having pro-Russia views. The defendants plan to appeal.
The fight against government censorship is necessary. It will be in the future of all who wish to oppose the inhumane policies of the rulers of this society. The economic crisis and the wealthy’s increasing fear of any opposition is translating into U.S. government policies promoting repression, no matter if Democrats or Republican hold elected office.
Sep 16, 2024
Across the country, about 25 million sick and disabled people lost Medicaid health insurance since the COVID benefit expansion ended.
In 2020, due to COVID, there was a bi-partisan decision. Anyone getting Medicaid would keep it. THAT ended last year. One study showed 69% of the 25 million who lost coverage ARE ELIGIBLE. Most lost due to “procedural problems.”
In this country, the wealthiest country in the world, it is a disgrace that so many people no longer have health insurance!
Sep 16, 2024
The following is the text of a presentation given at the Spark Festival on August 11, 2024.
The federal government announced new pollution standards for cars in March 2024. Federal officials say that these new standards will force car manufacturers to make cleaner and cleaner cars—so that, by 2032, more than half of the cars sold in the U.S. are “zero-emission” vehicles. What’s called zero-emission are battery electric vehicles (EVs), plug-in hybrid EVs, and fuel-cell electric EVs. For simplicity, all of these will be referred to as “EVs” or “electric cars” in this presentation.
Before this announcement from the federal government, in 2022, the state of California had announced its own standards for cars, which amount to a ban. California has mandated that, by 2035, all new cars and light trucks sold in California must be EVs. And since 2022, 13 other states and the D.C. have jumped on the bandwagon and adopted California’s EV mandate.
This mandate, which is being imposed on nearly one-third of the U.S. population, is quite drastic. In 2023, less than 8% of all cars sold in the U.S. were electric. So, according to these state bans, more than 92% of all vehicles sold in the U.S. last year would not be allowed to be sold in about 10 years from now.
This means auto manufacturers would have to change the way they build the majority of their cars and restructure the majority of their plants. It would be costly, but the federal government has a huge handout for the auto companies. Under the pretext of “investing in clean energy,” the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will be funneling more than 200 billion dollars to the coffers of big companies over the next ten years.
That’s not all. The federal government is giving car buyers a subsidy for the purchase of electric cars assembled in the U.S.—a tax credit of $7,500 for the purchase of a new car, or up to $4,000 for used cars no older than two years, if purchased from a licensed dealer. This subsidy might enable some people to buy an electric car, but since customers can use this money only to buy an electric car and nothing else, this money is really an additional gift to car manufacturers.
Taxpayers are supposed to pay for this huge handout to auto companies. And that means lower-income people, that is the working class, would shoulder a disproportionately large share of the burden.
Politicians who run the government say they want to promote electric cars because they are cleaner and better for the environment. Yes, gasoline-powered vehicles cause large amounts of pollution and put a lot of carbon dioxide gas into the air, which speeds up the warming of the earth. But still, this is a false argument. Electric cars also cause pollution and carbon dioxide emissions—and not necessarily less than gas-powered vehicles do.
One source of pollution in cars is the fine dust that is produced by wear and tear of car tires and brakes. EVs generally cause more pollution of this kind than gas-powered vehicles, because EVs are generally heavier than gas-powered vehicles of similar size.
In addition, the Big 3 auto companies prefer to build and sell large cars that are more profitable than smaller cars, whether electric or gas-powered. Currently, two-thirds of electric cars produced in the U.S. are SUVs or large vehicles, with large, heavy batteries. So, there will be more wear and tear in the tires and brake pads of these cars, and more dust in the air. This kind of pollution is actually very hazardous; it causes serious health problems and premature death in millions of people. But for auto companies, their profit comes first—so we all get to inhale air that’s more sickening.
As for the warming of the earth, it is not clear if EVs cause less carbon dioxide emissions either. Yes, EV engines don’t emit carbon dioxide, but where does the electricity needed to charge EVs come from? More than half of the electricity generated in the U.S. comes from burning fossil fuels (mainly natural gas and coal). And the energy used to work the metals and build the devices used in cars—for that also, we mainly burn fossil fuels.
The extraction process of metals used in electric cars, such as lithium, cobalt and so-called rare metals, is another source of pollution. These metals typically are found in small proportions in rocks, bonded together with other, more abundant metals such as iron, copper, zinc or lead, from which they have to be separated.
This whole process—the extraction and purification of these metals—is extremely polluting. After crushing the rocks in which these metals are found, mining companies use very hazardous chemicals, such as sulfuric and nitric acids, along with thousands of gallons of water, to separate them from other substances. Rivers, lakes, the soil and the underground water all get poisoned with these nasty acids.
In the U.S., for example, the company Lithium Americas is set to mine for lithium in a pristine high desert, Thacker Pass in Nevada. This company also uses massive amounts of sulfuric acid and underground water to separate the lithium. Lithium Americas not only has permission to do this, but it is actually getting a 2.26-billion-dollar, low-interest loan from the U.S. Dept. of Energy for it, and General Motors will be paying 650 million dollars for the mine’s lithium. And all this is happening with federal IRA funding, supposedly in the name of “clean energy.” It’s a cruel joke.
Local residents have been protesting, but it is an uphill battle. With billions of dollars of federal money up for grabs, mining companies are lined up at the trough. According to Center for Biological Diversity data, there are more than 120 lithium mines in the western U.S. alone, most of them in Nevada. Anticipating a big bonanza, the mining companies are already calling Nevada the “Silicon Valley of lithium.”
Can such massive pollution be avoided? Yes, if not completely, then at least significantly—by using different, less hazardous chemicals during the separation of minerals, for example, or by using other metals in batteries. But that would mean for the mining companies to spend more money on their operations and on research. So, they don’t do it.
It’s not just pollution. The mining companies’ operations—and profit drive—can have other, horrendous effects on millions of human beings, as in the case of cobalt. About 80% of the world’s cobalt ore comes from one single country, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In the south-east of the country, militias have been fighting for control of the mines, with big multinational mining trusts behind them. This never-ending, brutal war has cost more than 6 million lives since 1996, and more than 6 million people remain internally displaced in eastern DRC.
In addition, the mining of cobalt involves the worst kind of exploitation. While most cobalt is produced in giant industrial mines, nearly 20% of cobalt mined in the DRC is extracted by individual miners, including some 40,000 children, according to an estimate by Amnesty International.
This is the kind of massive human suffering and exploitation that lies at the root of the enormous profits big capitalists in the major industrialized countries—and their spokespersons in the media who comment on the economy—brag about.
One of the biggest issues associated with EVs is charging them. Charging an EV consumes as much as 10,000 watts at any given time, which is more than eight times the power U.S. households consume on average. And an EV has to be hooked to power for hours to fully charge its battery. In other words, only a very small, wealthy percentage of the U.S. population can safely charge their electric car at home without jeopardizing the entire power supply of the house.
Then there are the millions of people who live in apartment buildings where they can’t charge their EVs. So, for most working-class people, even if they were somehow able to afford an electric car (which itself is not likely, considering that millions of working-class people can’t afford a car—any car—in this country today), they would not be able to charge their cars at home.
And then consider the people who will be traveling. If electric cars are to replace gas-powered cars, millions of public charging stations would be needed, both in cities and along highways. Millions more than what’s there today, because even today, with only a small percentage of the cars on the road being electric, there are not nearly enough public charging stations.
But installing millions of charging stations alone would not be enough either—the power these charging stations draw would have to be supported by the electric grid. Not so long ago, in the fall of 2022, California banned charging of EVs during peak hours.
The existing electric grid can’t even meet the needs of the population in the U.S. today—think of all the power failures, pre-emptive blackouts, etc. So, with millions of more electric cars, the electric grid would have to be extended a lot AND upgraded a lot too—which utility companies have not been doing for decades. That’s why the existing grid is in such a sorry state in the first place.
In the end, with or without electric cars, the big problem in capitalist society is that electricity in particular, and energy in general, is produced and distributed by private companies. Such vital resources need to be produced and distributed in planned fashion, and according to the needs of the whole society, not the profit calculations of a small number of speculators—as is the case today.
Pollution, climate change and the destruction of the environment are serious problems linked to the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas). Lately, politicians and media commentators have been saying that driving electric cars (instead of gas-powered ones) can solve, or at least ease, these problems: A technological solution for a technological problem.
But as discussed above, we can’t really call electric cars clean, at least not now, and probably not in the near future either. So, electric cars, and also the electric power grid, need to be made cleaner.
But the same can be said, and could have been done, for gas-powered vehicles as well. And auto companies have not done that.
The engines of gas-powered vehicles could have been built in a way that they are more fuel-efficient and produce less pollution and carbon dioxide. Knowledge and technology to make this possible has existed for decades and can be further developed. But auto companies have never made fighting pollution or climate change their priority. So, they have never chosen to invest money into that kind of research and development. No, their priority is profit.
Instead of investing into building cleaner car engines that generate energy more efficiently, the auto companies chose to lie. For decades, these companies denied that the vehicles they made contributed to the warming of the earth—even though, as we now know, scientists working for auto companies told company executives about the rising danger of climate change as early as the 1970s. The big bosses suppressed these reports and continued to pay scientists and institutions who denied that burning fossil fuels contributed to the warming of the earth.
Now the same auto companies are telling us that they will make and sell more electric cars, because they want to reduce pollution and carbon dioxide emissions. But who can believe anything they say?
It’s not even certain yet if the auto companies will produce electric cars on a bigger scale. Electric car sales took a downturn within the past year—which is perhaps not a surprise, considering the problems such as the difficulty of charging an electric car. And the auto companies themselves may have been reacting to this development, when they announced that their plans for battery plants were “on hold” for now—the same battery plants that they had been hyping up just months ago.
Companies make all their decisions behind closed doors, based on their own profit calculations. And that’s where the core problem is—not in what kind of engine is used in cars. In capitalist society, everything is produced for private profit. As long as profit, and not the needs of the whole society, is the driving force behind the economy, we can’t expect things to get better in terms of pollution, the destruction of the environment—or, in general, the future of human society.
Sep 16, 2024
After the Israeli military found the bodies of six of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, the largest union in Israel called a one-day general strike. Workers disrupted municipal services, the country’s main airport, banks, and even hospitals.
The strikes were accompanied by demonstrations across the country, demanding that Netanyahu agree to a cease-fire to save the remaining hostages.
These demonstrations and this strike are quite limited, first of all in their extent, and second of all in that they are demands about the hostages only, not about the horror being inflicted on the Palestinian population.
Nonetheless they show that there is widespread anger within the Israeli population about the war being carried out in their name.
There can be no Israeli military solution to the danger of more attacks like that of October 7, or to the fact that the whole Israeli population lives in a permanent garrison state. Neither can a cease-fire guarantee the safety of the Israeli population—any cease-fire signed by this Israeli government can only be a temporary pause between wars.
This permanent war is a product of the very way Israel was built as a state for only the Jews. They are only one of the peoples who share the country, and the Israeli state has condemned many of the others to live behind walls and barbed wire. The leaders of that Israeli state cannot solve this problem, fundamental to its existence as currently constructed.
Nonetheless, the mobilization of part of the Israeli population and especially its working class against some of the horrors that this situation means for them—even if those horrors pale in comparison to what has been inflicted on the Palestinians—is the only possible way out.
Sep 16, 2024
On September 6, an Israeli soldier shot Ayşenur Eygi in the head and killed her. Eygi was a 26-year-old American peace activist who had traveled to the West Bank just three days before, to protest efforts by Israeli settlers to seize land from Palestinians there.
Eygi was killed in the village of Beita, not far from the city of Nablus. More than a decade ago, Israeli settlers established an outpost on land the villagers of Beita used as a communal olive grove. The settlers had the goal of breaking apart the Palestinian lands.
The Israeli government originally considered the Israeli outpost as illegal and demolished the outpost several times. Each time the settlers quickly rebuilt the outpost. In 2023, Israeli militants, led by far-right Israeli government ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Belazel Smotrich, carried out protests demanding the Israeli government legalize the outpost. The Netanyahu government yielded to the demand and declared the land state property and authorized the outpost and four others.
The day Eygi was shot was not the first time the Israeli military has violently attacked the villagers of Beita, who have carried out weekly protests there since 2021. On July 9, 2021, Israeli soldiers fired on peace activists there, wounding almost 400 people. Just two weeks before Eygi was killed, an Israeli sniper had shot another American activist, Daniel Santiago, in the leg. Israeli soldiers apparently routinely shoot Palestinian protesters in the leg to discourage them from future protests.
After Eygi was killed, the Israeli military claimed she was part of a violent protest and had thrown rocks at its soldiers. President Biden claimed the bullet that killed Eygi “ricocheted off the ground and hit her.” Witnesses who were there tell a different story.
Wary of the Israeli soldiers’ violence, Eygi and her friend Helen held back in an olive grove some 200 yards from a park where Palestinians held a prayer session. Israeli soldiers encircled the Palestinians, sprayed them with tear gas, and took up positions on a hill and on the roof of a villager named Ali Maali. One Israeli sniper shot a young Palestinian 20 yards from Eygi in the leg. Ali Maali heard the sniper fire again and the shot hit Ayşenur Eygi in the head, and she died shortly thereafter in a hospital in Nablus.
Ayşenur Eygi’s murder has gotten international attention because she was an American. But she’s just one of many who’ve been killed by Israelis, whether right-wing settlers or the Israeli military. And the Israeli government gives tacit approval as Israeli settlers seize more and more Palestinian lands in the West Bank, just as the Israeli military is in the process of doing today in Gaza.
And make no mistake; they’re doing so with the complete approval of U.S. imperialism.
Sep 16, 2024
The U.S. government and the NATO countries that follow behind it seem ready to approve Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles to attack far inside Russian territory. That would be another escalation by the U.S. of the war in Ukraine, which has gone on for over two and a half years now.
From the beginning, the U.S. has dictated how Ukraine fights this war. The U.S. and NATO have provided the Ukrainian government with almost all of the weapons, including missiles. Russian president Putin has warned that if Ukraine uses NATO missiles to attack Russian territory, that he would consider it to be an attack by the U.S. and NATO.
Sometimes the U.S. has put some restrictions on what Ukraine does with the missiles and other weapons, claiming they did not want to provoke Russia into a bigger war. But then the U.S. government continues to cross these so-called “red lines,” like approving the use of cluster bombs and invading Russian territory. They keep pushing Russia to see how far they can go. Now the U.S. looks ready to risk a response by Russia that could explode into a wider war, even direct war between the U.S. and Russia.
This war in Ukraine came out of the rivalry between the U.S. ruling class and Russia. Ever since the Russian workers’ revolution in 1917, the U.S. government has been threatening the Soviet Union and then Russia. Since World War Two, the U.S. has put military bases and U.S. troops all over Europe, right up to the Russian border. The U.S. has missiles and bomber squadrons in Europe, aimed at Russia, pushing against Russia.
Putin finally reacted to these threats with his own brutal response, invading Ukraine. Putin was the neighborhood gangster, protecting his turf against the U.S. ruling class, the big gangster which is trying to control the entire world.
Ordinary working people are caught in the middle of this rivalry between gangsters. Already, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians have died. Millions of civilians have been displaced. Towns have been blown up and destroyed.
Now this rivalry between gangsters threatens even more and wider destruction. The longer this war goes on, the more the war escalates, the more likely it explodes into a bigger war. The people of the entire world are being held hostage by this rivalry between these gangsters, because it can lead to a world war.
This threat of a world war flows out of the normal functioning of the capitalist system. But the ordinary people of the world have no reason to fight each other. The working people of every country—the U.S., Ukraine, Russia and everywhere else—are the victims in any war.
Working people have the power to get rid of these gangsters and their system that thrives on war, but only when they are ready to challenge the capitalists’ control of society.
Sep 16, 2024
This article is taken from La Voix des Travailleurs, issue #318, September 6, 2024, published in Haiti by the Organization of Revolutionary Workers (OTR-UCI).
Encouraged by the latest combat equipment received from the United States, Prime Minister Gary Conille and National Police Director Normil Rameau have launched an eviction operation in the stronghold of one of the criminal groups, “Viv Ansanm,” in Bel-Air, Bas de Delmas, and Solino. This offensive stance contrasts sharply with the previous years when the police would capitulate at the first sign of gunfire from the gangs. After sharp criticism directed at the United States for providing insufficient resources to the government and the Multinational Security Support Mission in their fight against gangs, new armored vehicles and other combat materials have arrived in Port-au-Prince. It is a reinvigorated and optimistic Prime Minister, acting like a war leader, who has welcomed the start of these operations, which he claims aim to clear out the gangs house by house, neighborhood by neighborhood, city by city.
Six days later, the public knows little about the progress of these battles. The government communicates infrequently. On social media, gangs are spreading information suggesting that they still control the situation, while other reports indicate the contrary. In the Solino neighborhood, under the pressure of a gang, there is also talk of some residents showing sympathy for the police. However, this is far from the shockwave of April 24, 2023, which awakened the consciousness of a portion of the popular masses in Port-au-Prince and other cities. The capture and incapacitation of a dozen extremists had initiated Operation “Bwa Kale.” Mobilized with all available resources and supported by local police officers, the population quickly routed the gangs, who fled in all directions, abandoning their weapons along the way.
Time has passed. The gangs have resurfaced with the complicity of the elite, politicians, and the police. Today, they may be more numerous, better armed, better organized, and more experienced. But among the popular masses, they are only a minority. Their strength is tied to the lack of initiative from the population.
While the need of the popular masses to end gang violence may align with the current rhetoric of the police and government, it would be naive to trust these leaders. Subject to various influences, infiltrated and corrupted, they have repeatedly shown that they lack both the will and the means to defeat the criminals.
The fight against gangs must involve the popular masses organizing themselves, with their own plan, knowing that they will be the most determined to see it through to the end; to uproot all exploitative criminals, big or small.
Sep 16, 2024
What follows is the editorial that appeared on the front of all SPARK’s workplace newsletters, during the week of September 9, 2024.
We are caught in the grip of a deadly capitalist system, ruled by its drive for profit.
This system creates inflation, driving down our standard of living—letting the corporations, banks and financial groups take an even bigger share of society’s wealth.
We are caught in the grip of a system which not only cheats our schools, roads and water systems to spend money on war; it is preparing to take us to more and bigger wars.
War today is a giant commercial enterprise. Military spending props up the profits of almost every big corporation in the country, depriving us of needed schools and services. But it’s not just money. Working people pay the full price for capitalism’s wars unless workers take control away from capitalists who head us to war.
Excerpts from the Program Issued by the Working Class Party
Sep 16, 2024
The 273 workers of Teamsters Local 283 have been on strike since September 4 against Marathon Petroleum’s refinery and storage operation in southwest Detroit, Michigan.
They have been trying for months to get a contract negotiated. Marathon won’t budge. The contract expired last January. Marathon’s delaying tactics are so outrageous, they can be classed as unfair labor practices. Workers’ picket signs and shirts say, “My patience is on EMPTY!”
Marathon has brought in replacement workers from its other operations. But workers say that no two refineries are exactly alike. At the Detroit location, it takes new hires approximately one year of location-specific training, merely to qualify at the base level.
Even at the same refinery, moving to a new job at a different section requires at least a year of consultations with on-site experienced workers. But strikers say that Marathon’s substitute workers have been given only a month’s training. Even though they have to deal with highly explosive fuel! With a residential neighborhood nearby!
“It’s potentially very dangerous,” said an interviewed worker. “You start doing some searches on refinery explosions. You see them in the news every couple of years. It’s bad. And that can happen if you’re not properly trained or if you’re not doing the maintenance that you need to do.”
A 39-year-old relief operator said: “Capitalism at its worst. They care more about their shareholders. Every quarter they release their financials, and they’re offering billions of dollars in stock buybacks. And they’re only offering us pennies on the dollar.”
Sep 16, 2024
Haitian immigrants in Springfield have been living in fear and tension for over three weeks. Many families have already left the city due to violent verbal threats from racist groups. Bomb threats and rising tensions in this Ohio town led to the lockdown of some elementary schools on Friday, September 13. For over a week, Haitian parents had already decided not to send their children to school.
This situation originated from a Facebook post by a Springfield resident named Erika Lee, accusing Haitians of stealing and eating the dogs and cats of Springfield residents, a city suffering from a 22% unemployment rate. This absurd and baseless accusation quickly spread across social media and accelerated on September 9, when J.D. Vance, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, claimed that Springfield residents had reported that their pets had been “abducted and eaten by Haitian migrants.”
During the presidential debate on September 10, Donald Trump repeated the claim. Trump also targeted Venezuelan migrants living in Aurora, Colorado, blaming them for the rise in crime in that area. The Republican presidential candidate is aiming to stir up the basest instincts of American society to win the upcoming November presidential election.
This insidious strategy is not new, particularly for the Republican Party. Remember, during his 2016 campaign, Donald Trump labeled Mexicans as “rapists” and “drug traffickers.”
Immigrants, whether they are Haitians, Venezuelans, Mexicans, Africans, Asians, Latinos, or others, are primarily workers fleeing poverty, wars, and oppressive regimes, often created or supported by American imperialism.
The true culprits behind unemployment, poverty, economic insecurity, and crime are the capitalists and multinationals from imperialist countries like the U.S., which exploit both American workers and immigrants from abroad. This is why the fight against racism and xenophobia cannot be separated from the fight against capitalism. Attacking immigrant workers is, in reality, an attack on the entire working class.
Sep 16, 2024
At midnight on Thursday, September 12, 33,000 workers at Boeing aircraft company began walking off their jobs after overwhelmingly rejecting a new four-year contract and voting to strike. The new contract had been pictured by the company and the officials of the IAM (International Association Machinists) as a very good one with a 25% wage increase over the life of the contract and increased job security.
But the bargaining agreement does not begin to make up for all the pay and benefit concessions over the last 20 years. The proposed pay raises certainly don’t make up for all they have lost to inflation, their health benefits haven’t been restored, and their pensions aren’t coming back after having been replaced by 401(k) plans.
Boeing claims it does not have the money due to all its problems. For example, the 20-month grounding of its best-selling plane due to design flaws and terrible safety record, among other things. Boeing created its problems, including by getting rid of its experienced workforce in order to increase its profits on the backs of workers.
The capitalist class feasted on these profits to the tune of 31 billion dollars in stock dividends. Boeing even continued the dividend payouts when it was already losing massive amounts of money in 2019 and 2020. They also paid out 43.5 billion for stock buy backs in order to enrich the capitalists even more.
Boeing may not have the money right now. But the capitalist class and investors who enriched themselves all these years, do. That’s the workers’ money. But for the Boeing workers to get their hands on the money, they are going to have to go beyond Boeing and make it a class fight.
Sep 16, 2024
Health insurers pocketed $50 billion from Medicare for diseases no doctor treated, as the Wall Street Journal recently found out. These big-time robbers are among the largest companies in the world, including UnitedHealthcare, Humana, Anthem, and BlueCross BlueShield.
Since Medicare pays Medicare Advantage health insurers more for sicker patients, the insurers are “incentivized” to find more sickness. They send nurses to peoples’ homes, under the guise of a free health evaluation. They instruct these nurses to diagnose diseases that people don’t have and sometimes cannot have.
In one example, the Wall Street Journal found that health insurers diagnosed more than 66,000 Medicare Advantage patients with diabetic cataracts, a relatively rare disease, even though these patients cannot have cataracts because their lenses have already been previously replaced through cataract surgery. The health insurers jacked up charges to the government by about $2,700 more each year per insured member diagnosed, anyway.
Such phony diagnoses by the health insurers even included deadly diseases, such as AIDS. Although the insured were diagnosed with AIDS by health insurers, they received no subsequent care. Often, neither the patients nor their doctors had any idea about such a severe diagnosis. Later, the physicians determined that their patients did not really have AIDS. But the insurers charged the federal government and got paid anyway.
In total, Medicare paid these giant insurance companies about 50 billion dollars for bogus diagnoses in the three years ending in 2021.