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
Nov 10, 2025
The federal government shutdown is now stretching into its second month, the longest in history. The Republican and Democratic politicians blame the other party for the shutdown. What liars! Each in their own way engineered the shutdown. These are the same politicians who have waged class war against the working population all along.
Close to 1.5 million government workers and employees are not getting paid. About half are being forced to work without a paycheck. The other half are out on furlough and face the very real possibility that they may not have a job, when the government is reopened.
Vital SNAP benefits, previously known as food stamps, have been interrupted, a gigantic attack against the 42 million people who depend on them. SNAP benefits are not handouts. They go to working families with low-paying jobs, the elderly, and people with disabilities living on extremely low fixed incomes.
Over 18 million of those on SNAP work full time and make up an important part of the workforce, both in the private and public sectors, including Walmart, Amazon, McDonald’s. The wealth these workers produce is stolen from them in order to make billionaires like the Waltons and Bezos even richer. In fact, SNAP is a taxpayer-funded subsidy to employers that pay such low wages their workforce would starve without them.
These families’ refrigerators and cupboards were already bare when SNAP benefits ran out on November 1. As the shelves of the charities and food banks emptied, desperate parents climbed into dumpsters, searching for unspoiled food to feed their children.
The politicians claim there’s no money, supposedly because of the shutdown that they themselves engineered. Yet, the government still collects all the taxes from the working population. It still pays out hundreds of billions to all the big companies and capitalists through fat, profit-heavy contracts. It still pays for all the salaries and perks of the politicians, the cabinet secretaries, the judges and the generals. The government just bought brand new jets for Kristi Noem so she can carry out Trump’s witchhunts against immigrants in luxury, and it paid for Trump’s fancy new gold-plated bathroom in the White House’s Lincoln Bedroom. All the other crooks and scammers, starting with the Trump family, continue to feast at the government trough.
The government finds plenty of money when it wants to, especially to fund the priorities of the capitalists, the super-rich and the billionaires. Right in the middle of the shutdown, the Treasury found a “spare” 40 billion dollars to bail out all the U.S. speculators and billionaires who own Argentina’s national debt and to help out Trump’s extreme-right-wing buddy, Argentine President Javier Milei. It continues to bankroll the rapid expansion of ICE and the Border Patrol, along with their growing network of internment camps and prisons, meant for immigrants … and anyone who dares oppose these policies. And it continues to fund the gigantic military build-ups aimed at Venezuela and China, as well as the myriad other wars on all the continents, wars that threaten to give way to a much bigger conflagration.
No, for the politicians, the wealthy and the privileged, there is no shutdown. Government is still very much open for business. Not for a second has their government stopped doing what it always does, defending the interests of the capitalist class, the wealthy and the elite, as they plunder and rob the working class here and abroad, reaping poverty and destruction, running the entire society worldwide into the ground.
The government shutdown, and the toll that it is taking, is only these latest chapter in the capitalists’ ongoing war against the working class.
Today, the working class is stunned and disoriented and has yet to respond to these attacks except in a few protests. But the history of capitalism is not just the history of exploitation and oppression, but the history of the human beings who stood up against this oppression and organized enormous struggles.
Capitalism is not the be-all and the end-all. Another future is possible. The forces of the working class and its potential for struggle are under the surface, just waiting to erupt.
Nov 10, 2025
The Tesla Board of Directors just gave Elon Musk a pay package of One Trillion Dollars. What???? Who can even understand how much money that is?
Here’s one way. One Trillion Dollars is more than the GDP (Gross Domestic Product), the entire national economy, of Belgium, more than the GDP of Ireland, more than Sweden and Argentina and Austria and Norway and Denmark and South Africa and Portugal and Egypt and Chile. More than the GDP of over 170 countries in the world. If Musk was his own country, he would rank number 22 in the entire world.
If there is anything that shows the insanity of this capitalist system, it would be one man having more money than an entire country. And it shows another good reason to get rid of this system.
Nov 10, 2025
Two species of coral off the Florida coast have become so few in number that they can no longer reproduce and will become extinct, scientists reported in late October. As with many current extinctions, human activity under capitalism is the fatal factor.
Elkhorn and staghorn corals have been forming colonies of thickets in shallow water in the Caribbean for the last 5,000 years. They provide habitats for very diverse fish. In turn they depend on hosting photosynthetic algae, which give them their tan color and provide chemicals they need to live, like oxygen.
These algae are very sensitive to small changes in water temperature. They don’t survive when the ocean heats up. But the oceans are warming because of heat-trapping gases that human practices under capitalism release willy-nilly into the atmosphere. The 2023 and 2024 heat waves killed off the corals that had survived earlier white band pox bacterial outbreaks in the 1980s—which were apparently caused by waste dumped into the ocean.
Coral reefs are not just beautiful places to visit. They are part of fragilely balanced ecosystems that capitalism is incapable of preserving.
Nov 10, 2025
Since “Operation Midway Blitz” began in September, masked federal agents have terrorized immigrants and citizens alike across Chicago and its suburbs. Agents have smashed car windows, beaten up protestors or people just recording, pointed guns at unarmed people on the streets or in their cars, and tear-gassed hundreds of people, including cops and a priest shot in the head with a pepper ball from close range.
This “Operation” has been justified by one lie after another.
Homeland Security boss Kristi Noem claimed no U.S. citizens have been detained during the operation. That’s an outright lie—dozens have been arrested, beaten up, interrogated on the streets.
Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino was caught lying about getting hit in the head by a rock before tossing a tear gas canister into a protesting crowd.
The biggest lie of all is the claim that this operation targets “the worst of the worst.” Far from targeting criminals, they’ve grabbed street vendors, workers at Home Depot, families in parks, a daycare worker in her place of work. They broke through a fence to arrest workers doing repairs. In other words, they are targeting ordinary working class people.
In fact, much of this Operation is a show, made for right-wing social media. Homeland Security has released video after video, with lying captions and voice-overs about who they’re targeting, all celebrating these agents’ brutality.
On the other side, the Democrats who run Chicago have been putting on their own show. The mayor and governor have given many tasty sound bites calling out the Trump administration. The Democrats have called for probes into agents’ tactics. A few city council members have gotten into highly visible confrontations. And Democrats have sued to restrict what these agents can do, though to little effect even when they win, since these agents just ignore court orders.
But the state forces that the Democrats actually control have been cooperating with and even protecting this operation.
Chicago and suburban police, state police, Cook County sheriffs—all are controlled by Democrats. Yet not one ICE or Border Patrol agent has been arrested for the numerous and obvious cases of assault or property damage.
ICE agents have been videotaped driving with no license plates—none have been pulled over or ticketed.
State police and county sheriffs guard the ICE processing facility where detainees are taken and housed, often for many days, in filthy conditions with no beds and no hot food. When a ring of suburban women protestors blocked the entrance to this facility, Cook County sheriffs arrested them.
But while the Democrats’ opposition has amounted to little more than a show, that doesn’t mean these operations are being carried out with impunity. Increasingly, wherever agents have appeared in the city or the suburbs, people have followed them, honking horns, blowing whistles, alerting anyone without papers to stay away. Crowds surround agents almost wherever they appear, shouting at them, sometimes throwing things at them. One woman reported that while she was in their vehicle after agents grabbed her off the street, the agents complained that they couldn’t find anywhere to go where they wouldn’t be followed and shouted at.
This operation is designed to divide the working class, to set those born here against immigrants. But workers can draw a different lesson. For all its power, the state apparatus can be confronted, not by the Democrats, but by the mobilized population itself.
Nov 10, 2025
Five weeks into the government shutdown, air traffic controllers are still working without pay. Struggling to pay their bills, rent or mortgage, and put food on the table, hundreds of controllers across the U.S. are driving for Uber and Lyft, delivering food, or working in restaurants to try to make ends meet.
One controller explained that most days he works a shift from 4 a.m.to 10 a.m. stocking ice cream and frozen vegetables at a local supermarket. Then he heads straight to the airport, where he directs traffic from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Air traffic controllers are not eligible to collect unemployment benefits during the shutdown because they are still employed, even though they are not getting paid.
Even before the shutdown, the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) was short some 3,500 controllers. As a result, many controllers in the busiest airspaces were already working 10 hour days, six days a week, leaving little time for a second job.
All this means that air traffic controllers are exhausted and potentially distracted by just trying to survive. Controllers themselves say the shutdown is adding risk to the system.
“It does degrade that margin of safety if a bunch of people are sick and not at work and I’m having to do their jobs along with my own,” explained a controller who handles traffic around a major airport.
Another said, “It’s clear that the government only pays lip service to the value of our profession. Otherwise, why would they jeopardize hundreds of thousands of people’s lives every day this way?”
Air traffic controllers are working overtime without pay while Congress is getting paid for not working. Fire Congress and pay controllers!
Nov 10, 2025
As the federal budget shutdown approaches six weeks in length, Trump and the Democrats continue to claim the fight is about health care.
The Democrats say they are holding out to protect subsidies that make Obamacare affordable for many people. Trump says he wants to “fix” healthcare, by which he means to eliminate Obamacare altogether, while saying nothing about how he would replace it.
Access to health care is certainly a problem in this country. Even with Obamacare in place, there are 24 million people who remain uninsured. In addition, the U.S. continues to spend nearly twice as much per person on health care on average compared to other high-income countries yet ranks low down the list of such countries in measures of health, such as life expectancy.
It’s certainly true that the Obamacare subsidies have made it more affordable for some people. They reduced monthly premiums to $0 for the poorest participants. For others with incomes up to four times the poverty level, who don’t have health insurance from their employer, it capped the cost of Obamacare plans at 8.5% of their yearly income.
The Democrats, though, could have avoided the current showdown by making the subsidies permanent before now. They controlled the presidency and had majorities in both houses of Congress when they first passed the subsidies in 2021, and again when they extended them in 2022. Instead, they deliberately set them to expire in 2025, knowing they could be in the minority now.
Subsidies or no subsidies, extending them does nothing for those with employer-provided health insurance, the premiums for which are expected to increase by 9%, according to multiple surveys.
In the end, none of the politicians are about to address the real problem with American health care: profits. The seven biggest health insurers made 500 billion dollars in profits under Obamacare from 2014 to 2024, according to Wendell Potter, a former health industry executive turned consumer advocate. These big insurers even found a way to skirt restrictions on their profits contained in Obamacare by buying up health care delivery companies and paying them more than they pay to providers they don’t control!
Pharmaceutical companies have also taken in huge amounts under Obamacare, with their revenues increasing between 2010 and 2021 from 245 billion to over 1.1 trillion dollars and their profits increasing by over 300% in that time. And that’s not to mention all the other players who continue to reap huge profits off of health care in this country.
So, the Democrats winning and simply extending Obamacare subsidies will not “fix” the health care system in the U.S., no more than Trump’s imaginary plans to eliminate it altogether and replace it with who knows what.
In the richest country of the world, everyone should be able to expect to have access to health care but getting it will require a fight by the working class and the poor against those who profit off of the current capitalist health care system.
Nov 10, 2025
Voters in New York City have elected Zohran Mamdani to be their new mayor after he focused on correcting problems that workers and many young people are facing. His proposals include a freeze on rent prices and building more affordable housing in a city in which it is extremely expensive to live. He advocated free universal childcare for parents and free bus service in a city in which most people use public transportation.
All the things Mamdani proposed need doing, and much, much more.
And there is plenty of money to pay for these reforms. Taxing the wealthy and the corporations, who pay little or no taxes, is completely reasonable. So, it is no surprise that Mamdani was able to excite many people.
Because he dared to say he would tax the rich, and maybe also because he called himself a socialist, Mamdani was bitterly attacked by part of the capitalist power structure and its corporate media. But another section of so-called “progressive” wealthy people funded and supported him.
Perhaps the obscenely wealthy capitalist class which controls New York City will come off a little bit of money to pay for some of what Mamdani proposes. But the capitalist system is built on the exploitation of labor—ever increasing, ever transferring wealth to the billionaires, snatching every possible penny from the population.
Socialists know that this system has to be overthrown, to free the means of production from capitalism and put them in the hands of the organized working class.
That will take a fight of the masses. And that is one thing that Mamdani is neither saying, nor proposing.
Nov 10, 2025
November 21 marks the 80th anniversary of the entry of General Motors workers into the enormous post-war strike movement of 1945–1946. This largest strike wave in American history involved more than five million workers in almost 5,000 walkouts in auto, steel, oil, trucking, and beyond.
But this massive outbreak of determination and solidarity did not end the labor movement’s policy of dividing workers by industry and company.
Workers started striking even during World War II. Wildcat strikes sprang up in nearly every industry throughout the war, with workers defying their union heads and the No Strike Pledge they had given to the Roosevelt government. Workers fought for better working conditions.
When World War II ended and war orders stopped, bosses raised prices sharply and cut back on jobs and hours. Rebellion broke out among workers, who had suffered years of frozen wages, forced overtime, and rationing of meat, sugar, and gas.
Seeing this, union heads decided that their best course of action to keep control of the situation was to call strikes themselves and make them official. But the tool those labor leaders used in their fight was not a class-wide organization, but separate unions established to cover specific groups of workers fighting against their particular bosses.
Oil workers struck in August and September 1945. The United Automobile Workers (UAW) chose to fight each of the three leading automakers separately, one at a time. Ford proactively locked out 50,000 workers. The UAW had them bide their time, along with Chrysler workers. UAW’s GM director Walter Reuther had 320,000 workers at 96 plants strike on November 21. Isolated, they held out as weeks went by.
Unions in other industries negotiated with companies for months. In December, 120,000 miners, steel workers, and rail workers around Pittsburgh went on strike. Only in January 1946 did union leaders raise the nationwide floodgates. At Ford and Chrysler, 300,000 workers struck; and 174,000 electrical workers, 93,000 meatpackers, and 750,000 steel workers struck. Suddenly, the power of workers as a class loomed before the capitalists.
The unions did not propose to force a joint settlement by all bosses for all workers. But quickly the packinghouse, steel, electrical, and rubber bosses settled. Ford and Chrysler settled. Again, the GM workers were fighting on their own—until March 13, 1946, when GM finally settled after 113 days.
The vast strike movement gained some wage increases and health coverage and preserved jobs. It shows what workers could gain when mobilized across a range of sectors. But labor leaders never proposed for workers to spread the movement from one sector to another, or to the rest of the working class not organized in unions. In fact, they helped set the pattern of controlled, separate, corporatist strikes that they have followed ever since. Workers were forced into that structure by their union heads.
Only the bosses win when workers remain divided and their fights remain separate. We need a new struggle—one that pushes beyond the artificial barriers that divide the working class.
Nov 10, 2025
The Detroit Institute of Arts museum has reinstalled their African American Art collection in a prominent section of the museum, right next to the Rivera Court. Known as Reimagining African American Art, thisexhibit uses painting and sculpture as an eye-catching vehicle to guide audiences through the complexities of African American history and culture. It contains works from the 1800s through the 1980s. The chronological layout of the exhibit beckons viewers through time, highlighting how the changing material conditions of Black people throughout the centuries affected artistic practices.
Reimagining African American Art contains works by notable artists such as Hale Woodruff, Augusta Savage, and Robert S. Duncanson, among other talented creators. Wadsworth Jarrell’s 1972 color screenprint of Angela Davis, Revolutionary, is featured in one of the rooms.
With a variety of figurative and abstract works, the exhibit displays the breadth of African American visual art. Many works were created in order to overtly address the political realities of Black personhood and combat the many white supremacist images of Black people which infected visual culture.
The gallery also displays many works which seem more principally aimed at exploring abstract form and color. Detroit Artist Allie McGhee’s 1967 “Black Attack” utilizes an abstract expressionist style and depicts a self-determined image of one of the many rebellions against racism during the ‘60s. McGhee’s work is one of many works of art on display produced during the Black Arts movement, accompanied by works born of the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights era.
Entrance to the museum is free for residents of Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb Counties.
Nov 10, 2025
This article is translated from the November 7 issue, #2988 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in France.
Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo Musa’s Rapid Support Forces besieged the capital of Sudan’s Darfur region, el-Fasher, for 18 months before entering it on October 26 and massacring its inhabitants.
Sudan has been gripped since April 2023 by a civil war pitting two military leaders against each other for power: Dagalo, nicknamed Hemedti, and Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. The confrontation between these two predators has already claimed nearly 150,000 lives. Thirteen million men, women, and children—one in four Sudanese—have been forced to flee their homes, hunted down by killers from both sides.
After starving the population of el-Fasher by isolating them from the rest of the country with a sand wall, Hemedti’s men machine-gunned its inhabitants from their vehicles. They raped and murdered women in a maternity ward. They videoed their atrocities and posted them online to terrorize the rest of the country. They engaged in ethnic cleansing, targeting non-Arab populations against whom they wage nonstop war. They are the successors of the former Janjaweed cavalry, militias that ravaged the Darfur region some 20 years ago. Then-dictator Omar al-Bashir relied on them, equipped them with modern weaponry, and at one point deployed them to fight in Yemen.
Al-Burhan was head of the official army in 2019 when a powerful mass movement led to al-Bashir’s overthrow. The movement began as a protest against an IMF-imposed hike in the price of bread. As heads of the two branches of the army, Hemedti and al-Burhan decided to get rid of the embattled dictator rather than be brought down with him. At first, they judged it safer to share the government with selected civilians supposedly representing the mass movement. It was understood that real power remained in their gloved hands. As soon as possible, the two warlords launched a brutal crackdown, drowning the mass mobilization in a bloodbath. After crushing the population, they quickly turned on each other. Since then, the entire country has been experiencing the horrors of war, region by region. Last May, al-Burhan’s forces relentlessly bombarded and recaptured Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.
This horrific conflict would not have lasted so long if it were not fueled by neighboring states, which wage a proxy war at the expense of the Sudanese people. Fighters on both sides have no difficulty rearming themselves with the help of these allies. The United Arab Emirates supplies the Rapid Support Forces with sophisticated anti-aircraft equipment and Chinese-made drones. They outfit their armored vehicles with equipment manufactured by French companies. They also facilitated the arrival of Colombian mercenaries, who fought in el-Fasher. Al-Burhan’s so-called regular army is supplied by Egypt with fighter jets and drones. All the regional powers benefit from gold mined in Sudan.
The major imperialist powers, and especially the U.S., content themselves with issuing platonic calls for peace and enacting embargoes that exist only on paper, while they watch the country sink. This is not indifference or passivity. It is their deliberate policy. They are waiting to see who the victor will be—or the victors, as a new partition of Sudan into two states is by no means out of the question. Similar conflict led to the secession of South Sudan in 2011.
The major powers put no pressure on their allies in the region, who are on both sides, to stop fueling the conflict. The United Arab Emirates and Egypt are among the top clients of Western arms industries. They are much too valuable pawns in the game the U.S. is playing in the region for the U.S. to risk even slightly upsetting them.
Nov 10, 2025
This article is translated from the November 7 issue, #2988 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in France.
Early on October 28, nearly 2,500 police officers with armored vehicles and helicopters invaded the Rio de Janeiro outskirts of Penha and Alemão, allegedly to neutralize the Red Commando (“Comando Vermelho” in Portuguese) and “secure the city.” The state’s far-right governor was quick to boast about the “success” of the operation, although none of the gang leaders targeted, like Edgar Alves Andrade, were captured.
Brazil, one of the most unequal countries in the world, has no real housing policy. Millions of poor people, mostly black, are reduced to surviving on land without building permits. These neighborhoods, called favelas, lack all services: drinking water, sanitation, reliable electricity, garbage collection, and so on. One in four residents of Rio lives in a favela. A big part of the working class lives in them.
Gangs indeed plague the population. But this operation was not a “fight against crime.” It was an attack on the city’s poor, crammed in favelas. The raid became a genuine massacre, the worst in Brazil’s history: 132 dead (including four police officers).
The operation took place in densely populated areas. Residents recount bursts of gunfire amidst homes and schools. Entire families were caught in the crossfire. Once the police left, people spent the night searching for bodies in the alleyways and surrounding brush. They gathered dozens of corpses in a public square. Several victims had been executed with a bullet to the back of the neck. Others had been bound or tortured.
Brazil’s openly racist police are often described as the “most violent in the world.” In 2023, they killed more than 6,300 people, 87% of whom were black. The killing by cops of a three-year-old girl during a traffic stop in Rio shocked the nation. Nothing has changed since then. Any poor person might be shot dead in the street during a routine stop. Every day young people, often black and unarmed, are killed in the shopping malls, streets, and favelas.
The far right seeks to strengthen itself through security-focused demagoguery about getting tough on gang violence. No matter that some cops are in gangs! The cops use the pretext of securing the favelas to deploy machine guns, armored vehicles, and helicopters.
This massacre has not weakened the gangs at all. Drug money is still laundered with impunity in banks and businesses. Gangs will recruit other young people to replace their slain members. Many poor youth see no other prospect than joining criminal gangs.
These operations aren’t really aimed at fighting crime. They serve to terrorize the working class and gain votes through fear. For favela residents, the police are just another armed gang living off their backs. In today’s Brazil led by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, no solution will come from above. The residents will have to organize and arm themselves to avoid falling prey to the gangs, legal and otherwise, that extort and kill them.
Nov 10, 2025
This article is translated from the October 29 issue #1358 of Combat Ouvrier (Workers Fight), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in Guadeloupe and Martinique, two islands that are French overseas departments in the Caribbean.
Hundreds of workers at the Industrial Development Company (CODEVI) industrial park in Ouanaminthe in Haiti went on strike on October 7.
The industrial park is in a free trade zone near the border with the Dominican Republic. Nearly 18,000 workers work in textile factories that export primarily to the Dominican Republic. The bosses reap enormous profits by exploiting the workers and also make deals with gangs.
Haitian comrades from the Revolutionary Workers’ Organization wrote a newsletter addressed to workers on October 15, translated below from Haitian Creole.
Strikes, demonstrations, and sit-ins: Eighteen thousand workers voiced their anger in the CODEVI industrial park in Ouanaminthe. Workers went on strike for four days against government deductions and taxes on their meager wages. These taxes eat up 20% of the minimum wage of just under $5.25 per day (685 Haitian gourdes).
Workers denounced poor working conditions and deteriorating living standards while corrupt bosses and politicians live comfortably. Strikers demanded a minimum wage of 19 dollars a day (2,500 gourdes), lower prices for basic necessities, and the elimination of payroll taxes. Faced with their anger and the support of local poorer people, the government quickly backed down and told employers to stop withholding taxes. But the workers remained mobilized to force bosses to comply with the government’s decisions.
The CODEVI workers are right to fight. This anger should spread throughout the capital, to the capital’s industrial park, small businesses, gas stations, and shops, and across the island. It’s the only way for workers and farmers to avoid starvation and live better.
Gangs have unleashed unrestrained violence against the working class and the entire population for over six years. This violence has let a small group of murderers enrich themselves, while bosses and politicians became even richer.
Our struggle can let us escape this trap of exploitation. This struggle must be waged to rid ourselves of the ruling class and the murderers who ruin our lives. We must seize power and the means of production to establish a classless society in the service of all workers.
Strikes, demonstrations and all forms of resistance are good training to prepare for battles to liberate the exploited throughout the country.
Let’s rely on our own strength!
Nov 10, 2025
This article is translated from the November 7 issue, #2988 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in France.
Israeli aircraft bombed Gaza once again on October 28, killing more than 100 people, including 46 children. Since the Trump-brokered ceasefire went into effect on October 10, 240 Palestinians were killed.
Each time, Israeli leaders cited Hamas attacks against their soldiers to justify their bombings. Trump’s plan allows Israel to occupy more than half of Gaza beyond a “yellow line” that its army is currently constructing, transforming it into a new border. The line confines two million Gazans who survive crammed into makeshift shelters over the ruins of their homes. Armed drones constantly patrol the unoccupied zone.
Anyone crossing this yellow line is considered an “immediate threat” justifying lethal fire, even when they are simply looking for fuel for cooking. The search for the remaining bodies of Israeli hostages—buried in tunnels likely buried under tons of rubble—inevitably takes time. This too provides the Israeli army with another pretext to resume bombing Gaza.
Despite the agreements, food deliveries remain intermittent and insufficient, even though they are again entrusted to United Nations teams. According to the spokesperson for the UN World Food Program, there are only 44 distribution sites when 145 are needed. One million people have received food parcels, but 1.6 million still urgently await them. Hundreds of trucks loaded with food aid are ready, but Israel only allows two border crossing checkpoints, which are regularly closed.
Unsurprisingly, Netanyahu and his staff received Trump’s support. Trump justified the bombings by claiming that Israel was only retaliating after the death of a soldier, and that he was certain, “Peace will hold!” Trump is reportedly negotiating with Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and other countries in the region to join in establishing a U.S.-led security force. Until this force is formed, the only all-powerful force in the Palestinian enclave is the Israeli military. The Israeli army will remain the supreme policeman, wielding absolute power. This will be so even if Trump’s plan to establish a “transitional administration” in Gaza under the auspices of a “Peace Council” chaired by himself comes to fruition—an American protectorate.
Israel acts the same in southern Lebanon, despite the ceasefire declared on November 27, 2024. Israeli artillery fire, airstrikes, ground incursions, and drone attacks have never let up since then. Under the pretext of eliminating Hezbollah operatives on Lebanese soil, the Israeli army regularly causes widespread destruction and kills civilians. In the past year, 270 people have been killed and 540 wounded. If there is a terrorist state in the Middle East, it is Israel.
Nov 10, 2025
On Saturday, November 1, an assassin gunned down Carlos Manso, the mayor of Uruapan, a city in Michoacan, Mexico. The nineteen-year-old gunman shot the mayor seven times in the middle of a popular Day of the Dead celebration, while he was surrounded by a big crowd, including his family.
Carlos Manso was a deputy for the ruling Morena Party from 2021 to 2024. Then he ran for mayor of Uruapan, the second largest city in the state of Michoacan. He ran on a platform of directly attacking the cartels that dominate the region and cleaning out the corrupted officials who are tied to them. As mayor, Manso gave a big wage increase to the municipal police force with the condition that they dedicate themselves to fighting organized crime.
Since 2006 when former president Felipe Calderon declared war against the cartels, the situation has only gotten worse. Michoacan is now the center of a dispute between different cartels, including the CJNG (Jalisco New Generation Cartel), the Caballeros Templarios (Knights Templar), the Viagras, and the Family. Many officials are either tied to the cartels directly or look the other way at their activity.
And though Manso was in the same party as Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and said her politics are OK, he criticized her for not doing enough about the crime that exists in many states in Mexico. He demanded weapons and support from the central government she leads, for his fight against the cartels.
After Manso was gunned down, a big angry crowd stormed the city hall of Uruapan chanting “Fuera Morena,” “Fuera Sheinbaum,” (Out with Morena, Out with Sheinbaum), demanding that the governor and the president of Mexico resign. Riots have since spread across the state of Michoacan. People are fed up with so many years of fraud, crime, and impunity.
The question remains how far people can go. The cartels and the corrupted officials tied to them in the Mexican government are very powerful, linked to the businesses and parties that control the whole country.
But a fight against the cartels could start a fight against the whole system, toward the real transformation that Mexican workers need in the entire country.
Nov 10, 2025
Hurricane Melissa hit the island of Jamaica with sustained winds racing up to 185 miles per hour. The storm ripped roofs from concrete homes, uprooted trees, drove flood waters to the roofs of two-story houses, and snapped enough power poles to cut electricity to three-quarters of the island. Killing at least 32 people on Jamaica and 43 on Haiti and causing up to seven billion dollars in damage, Melissa was the most devastating area storm in more than 60 years.
What made Melissa so destructive was abnormally warm Caribbean waters, which sped up its wind speeds by 11 miles per hour. The warmer ocean results from the air being warmer and wetter. That is due to capitalist activity releasing record levels of greenhouse gases into the earth’s atmosphere.
Disastrous storms are getting more intense. Melissa is one of at least five storms since 2013 powerful enough to merit adding a new higher rating to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale: Category 6.
Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holmes insisted, “Every repaired bridge, re-roofed home and rebuilt road must be designed for the storms of tomorrow, not the storms of yesterday.” But how likely is this to happen? The capitalist system is only set up to do damage control for the benefit of profit. Jamaican military helicopters landed in the completely destroyed town of Black River—not to deliver aid, but to deliver troops with machine guns who cleared residents from taking necessities from the ruined pharmacy and grocery store.
What about the massive U.S. naval presence in the Caribbean, which includes nine Navy ships including the world’s largest aircraft carrier, carrying no fewer than 6,000 personnel? They are not there to help with storm repair and rebuilding. They are in the Caribbean to bomb Venezuelan boats, killing at least 66 people in 16 known bombings as of November 6. That’s about oil, not about aid.
After more than 500 years of colonialism, the capitalist system offers no future for the people of the Caribbean but more ravaging.
Nov 10, 2025
What follows is the editorial that appeared on the front of all SPARK’s workplace newsletters, during the week of November 2, 2025.
Some of the biggest companies in the U.S. are carrying out major layoffs. Amazon announced it is cutting 30,000 jobs. UPS is slashing 48,000 positions. Intel is cutting 25,000 jobs. Microsoft, General Motors, Target, Paramount and ConocoPhillips also announced big layoffs.
That’s just the beginning. According to the news media, many more companies are lining up to announce big job cuts. Don’t fall for the hype from corporate executives and the news media about AI (Artificial Intelligence) taking the jobs. It’s simply an excuse for these companies to force fewer workers to do much more work.
All these companies announcing layoffs are extremely profitable. Take Amazon, for example. On October 30, two days after it announced big layoffs, Amazon reported that its profits over three months were over 21 billion dollars, an increase of 39%. And those are net profits, after taxes.
Amazon is incredibly rich. It has the money to keep everyone on the job. It has the money to hire more workers and spread the work around. It has the money to pay workers much more than the measly wages that it pays now.
Of course, that would cost Amazon some of its profits. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s biggest stockholder and the third richest billionaire on the planet, might not increase his fortune as fast.
So, Amazon does what every company does. It tries to make sure that all the sweat and hard work by the workforce goes to make a few billionaires even richer.
All these companies are throwing hundreds of thousands of workers into the teeth of a worsening unemployment crisis. Most younger workers looking for work can’t find jobs, at least jobs that pay. Workers who have already lost their jobs are not finding new ones. The rate of long-term unemployment is higher than at any time since the pandemic.
To make matters worse, the safety net for unemployed workers is being shredded to pieces. With the federal government shut down this is getting much worse. The federal workers, who are supposed to provide vital services, are themselves getting laid off, furloughed, or are being forced to work without a paycheck. Vital programs, like food stamps and WIC, that are supposed to keep tens of millions of working people from starving, are being interrupted and could be slashed further in the future. Long lines are forming in front of food banks. As for whatever little health care coverage there is for big parts of the working class and poor, it is also being threatened.
In other words, the same kinds of attacks against the working class that are being carried out by big companies to increase their profits are being carried out by politicians of both parties. And these attacks are being carried out for the same reason, in order to provide ever more support, bailouts, and tax breaks for big corporations and the capitalist class.
It’s a total disaster that only gets worse.
But there is nothing inevitable about this crisis. Certainly, there is more than enough wealth to ensure that everyone has a decent job, that no one is threatened by hunger, homelessness, or the lack of health care.
But that can only happen when the working class overcomes its divisions and brings its forces together to challenge the control over the economy by the capitalist class, and its politicians and servants at the head of the government.
Certainly, the working class has the power to defend its interests against the capitalist class. It is the working class that produces everything and keeps the economic machine running. The working class is not only powerful; it also is able to take control of society away from the capitalist class and lead it for the benefit of all humanity.
Nov 10, 2025
Over 600 workers at Libbey Glass in Toledo, Ohio went on strike on August 23 and were still on strike as of November 8. The workers belong to union locals of the IAM (International Association of Machinists) and the USW (United Steelworkers).
These workers gave up big wage, retirement, and healthcare concessions in 2020, when the company declared bankruptcy. The company agreed then to a “snap back” provision in 2024. But Libbey not only refused to honor that commitment, but is now demanding much deeper cuts, including forced 12-hour shifts, loss of seniority rights, and what the union calls “total control” over daily scheduling and work pace.
The USW and IAM workers are on an Unfair Labor Practice strike, now the longest strike in the company’s history.
On Sunday, October 26, 3,200 workers at Boeing Defense plants near St. Louis voted down a FOURTH company offer and stayed on strike. They have been out since August 4.
Workers are demanding that they get the same contract as the Boeing Seattle workers. But the company has set lower terms and is refusing to bargain further. A union spokesperson said that the difference amounts to 8 million dollars over 4 years, which is only a “rounding error” to a company as wealthy as Boeing!
The workers make parts for the Boeing 777X, and for fighter jets including the F-15EX.
About 750 nurses and case workers have been on strike against Genesys Hospital in Grand Blanc, Michigan. Members of Teamsters Local 332, the workers are demanding safer staffing levels and proper compensation. They rejected a company offer by 93% on August 21 and began their strike September 1.
The hospital was recently bought by Henry Ford Health, one of the largest hospital chains in Michigan.
Nov 10, 2025
In the face of all the legal and political wrangling over SNAP benefits, 42 million human beings in the U.S. have had to figure out how to get food.
And it is food bank and food pantries all over the country that were already hard-pressed to address food insecurity, that have the primary burden of trying desperately to fill the gap left by this government shutdown.
These food distribution non-profits have raised the alarm: Donate—especially money. Volunteer. Check in on neighbors. Consider joining a mutual aid group.
And national news commentators urge people to “Think of your fellow man and lend him a helping hand.”
And so, yes, as always, ordinary people have “lent a helping hand”—often people who may be one paycheck away from needing to depend on food donations themselves. And it’s a tribute to all of these people who are unwilling to just sit back and watch children and elders and the disabled go without food.
But even the very existence of food pantries and food banks implicitly means poverty is a given in this society.
And it doesn’t have to be. Not in the richest country in the world. Not even anywhere in the world.
But this capitalist class society we live in underpays workers for their labor. It throws people out of work.
It causes the conditions whereby people need food aid, and places the costs on family, friends and neighbors to take up the slack through food pantries and Salvation Army buckets.
All so that billionaires can become trillionaires.
The long term answer to food insecurity is nothing short of a working class revolution to replace this system with one where everything that human beings need to lead a full existence, like food, housing, health care, is a right. To a system where there is no such thing as poverty or hunger.
Nov 10, 2025
After an ICE shooting that injured two people in South Los Angeles, students of a nearby high school, Santee Education Complex, walked out in protest.
On-campus protests began on Wednesday, October 22, one day after the shooting. Students were angry at the school principal and L.A. school district officials for lifting a lockdown after only a half hour, even though the ICE raid still continued, and some students were still arriving at the school.
District officials removed the principal, but that did not stop the students. The next day, on Thursday, students walked out at 10 a.m., taking their protest into the neighborhood, where residents had also protested and confronted the ICE agents on Tuesday. On signs and in chants, students demanded a safe school and ICE out of their neighborhood. Protests continued for a third day on Friday, with the participation of students at all levels.
When the ICE raids began in June, school district officials declared L.A. schools “sanctuaries” and promised to protect their students from ICE. But Santee students found out how empty those promises were. So, they took matters into their own hands and showed up the authorities’ hypocrisy.
Nov 10, 2025
This book exposes how the Roman Empire rotted from within. It shows that the ownership class, the landowners, moved from using native serf labor or the labor of citizens. They instead moved to using slave labor, slaves acquired in their foreign wars. This left the workers unemployed, landless and destitute. And it left the slaves without any protections, driven to work to death.
Unrest roiled every generation. The situation was ripe. When finally about 50 gladiators staged a revolt and escaped, slaves and the unemployed were quick to follow. Over the coming months, the insurrectionists spread to a huge mass of around 200,000.
The book examines what these revolutionaries could accomplish. Was it possible to build a utopia in the midst of a rotting Roman empire?
This fictional story considers the all too real possibility of a nuclear attack on mainland U.S, in this film on the city of Chicago. Who launched the missile? It was not captured on satellite; it is unknown. Can the missile be blown up before impact? Will our defense systems work? If not, how will the U.S. retaliate? How many will die? How will the U.S.’s “allies and enemies” react?
What is great about the film is that it shows the human side of the equation. It shows the layers of stifling bureaucracy in our country and around the world. It shows the importance and huge role of the individual and yet, at the same time, their miniscule role in the immense, horrific war machine. A very timely movie in today’s world.