By JOHN LESLIE On June 9, 2017, a Philadelphia police officer, Ryan Pownall, shot David Jones multiple times in the back as he ran away. Pownall had stopped to search Jones, who had been riding a dirt bike. While police claim that Jones had a gun, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, he “had already dropped…
By BARRY SHEPPARD In regard to the charges about Trump‘s collusion with Russia to throw the election his way, and Russian meddling in the elections, we can mention that the list of the elections in all the countries Washington meddled in is far too long to for this post. In fact, the U.S. is the…
By BILL ONASCH A Bundle Including DirecTV—After mass informational picketing, the Communications Workers of America won a renewed contract for 17,000 AT&T workers in California and Nevada that includes modest wage and benefit improvements and, for the first time, covers employees of the satellite television competitor with cable the carrier acquired in 2015. Follow the…
By ERNIE GOTTA For two months, 50,000 students on campuses across Puerto Rico participated in a strike against the U.S.-imposed Fiscal Control Board, which was proposing $500 million in cuts. Mikael Rosa, a member of the student movement at the University of Puerto Rico, shares his experiences. Ernie Gotta: What demands pushed students to go…
By MARCO DAVILA Below is the presentation by Marco Dávila to the meeting in defense of public housing, on July 6 in the Glendale neighborhood of South East Minneapolis. For more information about the campaign in the defense of Glendale, visit the webpage: www.defendglendale.weebly.com . I’m just here to say: It feels good to be on…
Por MARCO DAVILA Discurso por Marco Dávila durante el mitin en defensa de la vivienda pública en Minneapolis, realizado el jueves 6 de julio (2017) a las 5:30pm en el vecindario Glendale del sureste de Minneapolis. Para más información sobre la campaña de defensa del vecindario Glendale, visite la página: www.defendglendale.weebly.com . Me encuentro aquí para…
By JEFF MACKLER — RICHMOND, VA. — Three hundred antiwar and social justice activists and leaders from 31 states registered for the 2017 national conference of UNAC (United National Antiwar Coalition). The conference was entitled “Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad: Building a Movement Against War, Injustice and Repression.” The unifying and optimistic conference,…
Comrades of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), We read with great interest and alarm the June 29 article/report in your newspaper, Liberation, entitled, “The reactionary attack against the PSL in Albuquerque” (see below). Know that Socialist Action stands in full solidarity with the PSL in opposition to the physical intimidation, disruption, and threats to “Shut…
By WAYNE DELUCA The special House election in Montana at the end of May saw Republican Greg Gianforte defeat Rob Quist, a Bernie Sanders-endorsed progressive Democrat. This feat was made remarkable by the fact that Gianforte had physically assaulted Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs the day before the election. Exactly how Quist, a folk singer noted…
By JOHN LESLIE As Socialist Action goes to press, the health-care debate in Washington is on hold. The GOP plan, which was hatched in secret in a Senate back room, is wildly unpopular. Yet the Republicans seem intent on passing something that will give the appearance that Trump kept his campaign promise to “repeal and…
By JEFF MACKLER The lie that the U.S. is fighting Islamic State (ISIS) terrorism in Syria was publicly exploded on June 18 when a U.S. F/A-18 “Super Hornet” fighter jet launched from the George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier shot down a Syrian government aircraft. Syria said its plane had carried out a mission against ISIS…
By JERICHO JONES This time of year we have reason to look with rejoicing at Gay Pride celebrations around the world. Their number, persistence, and exuberance were unimaginable to this lonely queer kid growing up in the 1970s. To think there was any place you could be openly, even flagrantly gay was like oxygen. Today,…
By MITCH USMC 05-09 The author is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq and a member of Socialist Action. Can hazing build strong bonds in military, school, or athletic associations? No it cannot. The opposite is true. Hazing is about breaking down an individual to conform. Its about fear and obedience. It…
By ANN MONTAGUE The British Labour Party has emerged with more than 200,000 new members and 30 additional seats in Parliament. This has surprised the Tories as well as some of the Labour Party Members of Parliament (MPs), who were shocked to hear union members shouting, “We killed Blairism.” The party’s resurgence gathered steam with…
By BILL ONASCH Off the Job Training—Of the 700,000 members of the Communications Workers of America, 150,000 work for AT&T—making them second only to UPS as the biggest unionized private sector employer in the U.S. But since deregulation “broke up” the virtual telephone monopoly of Ma Bell in the 1980s, a single national contract has…
By CHRISTINE MARIE and ANN MONTAGUE This is a particularly important moment to be considering the meaning of the Russian Revolution for women, LGBTQI activists, and gender politics. We have seen the protests against the Misogynist in Chief by more than 3 million U.S. women being channeled into clubs to rebuild the Democratic Party in…
By MARTY GOODMAN “Chasing Trane,” a documentary film by John Scheinfeld. “Trane is now a scope of feeling. A more fixed traveler, whose wildest onslaughts are gorgeous artifacts not even deaf people should miss.” — Amiri Baraka, poet, jazz critic, and activist In July 1967, I heard on a late night jazz radio show in…
By ANDY STOWE Elizabeth Windsor, the English queen, isn’t supposed to make political statements, but on June 16 she announced to the world that she thinks Tory Prime Minister Theresa May is a morally gutless coward and a useless leader. Of course, she didn’t quite put it that way. Instead, she met survivors of the Grenfell…
By JOHN SCHRAUFNAGEL — ST. PAUL, Minn. — Four to five thousand people rallied at the State Capitol and marched through the streets of St. Paul on June 17, outraged over the unfair trial and unjust verdict in the case of Officer Jeronimo Yanez. Many said they had been hopeful but were not surprised that…
A displaced resident of the now destroyed Grenfell Tower in London told the press after the June 14 pre-dawn fire: “A building like that wouldn’t fly in a rich area. But because everyone here is poor and working class—that’s why it happened.” For years, residents of the 24-story tower block had complained to local government…
By KAREN SCHRAUFNAGEL On Saturday, June 10, the Islamophobic group ACT (American Congress for Truth) for America held “Marches Against Sharia” in over two dozen cities across the United States. Emboldened by President Donald Trump and his strong anti-Muslim rhetoric, the group that the Southern Poverty Law Center considers one of the top hate groups…
By MARK UGOLINI Democratic Party Mayors Eric Garcetti and Rahm Emanuel proudly declare that they run “Sanctuary Cities.” They claim that Los Angeles and Chicago offer “sanctuary” for immigrants; that local police will neither ask about immigration status, nor will they detain immigrants for ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). These reassurances are phony, designed to…
By MARTY GOODMAN Beginning on May 19, thousands of textile sweatshop workers in Haiti walked off the job or laid down inside their textile assembly plants to protest their starvation wages. The workers are demanding a raise from $4.67 per day to $12.47 per day, a raise not tied to increased production quotas for workers.…
CHRIS HUTCHINSON interviews JEAN ROCH-FORT Emmanuel Macron, a French banker and longtime establishment politician, emerged victorious on a “third party” ticket in this year’s French elections. His victory follows the breakdown of the traditional center left and right capitalist parties through major corruption scandals. The candidate of the Republicans, a center right-wing party, Nathan Fillon,…
By RALPH SCHOENMAN The scope of the murderous assault by U.S. imperialism on the Iraqi city of Mosul—with its genocide-scale war crimes—was beginning to filter into the mainstream media. And then—just as Trump, the Democratic Party, the Joint-Chiefs of staff, and the U.S. intelligence apparatus were about to be indicted for these war crimes before…
By MICHAEL SCHREIBER “We’re getting out!” President Trump declared before the press and a knot of governmental officials who had gathered in the White House Rose Garden on June 1. “In order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord.” Trump characterized…
