By ERNIE GOTTA and ERWIN FREED — STAMFORD, Conn. — Like any capitalist enterprise, hotel companies hate losing profit margins to benefit the workers who make them rich. Industry professionals debate about the type of model they need to make the most profit. Currently, hotels in the Stamford area are running on very lean models.…
By GARY PORTER The Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) is a heavily funded spy agency. With a $500 million (CDN) annual budget, it operates gunslinger-style, spying on Canadians and others it considers a security risk, gathering information from the dozens of innocent people their suspects contact, such as friends, relatives, neighbours, and co-workers. This…
By BARRY SHEPPARD Three mass shootings in a little over a week have changed the political discussion in the U.S., bringing to the fore white supremacy and the terrorist mass murder it has produced. Many in the media and Democratic presidential candidates have cited Trump’s racist themes and actions as furthering white supremacy and white…
By RUWAN MUNASINGHE Late on Sunday, Aug. 4, with hardly a notice, India moved tens of thousands of troops into what is already the most militarized region on the planet. In Indian-administered Kashmir, politicians, especially opposition leaders (but even some loyal to India), were placed under house arrest. Internet and landline service have been cut. Free…
By MARTY GOODMAN “We are the only ones fighting for the total destruction of capitalism.” — South Africa’s Socialist Revolutionary Worker’s Party spokesperson, Phakamile Hlubi-Majola The May 8 National and Provincial elections in South Africa revealed deepening—potentially explosive—fault lines of class and race. The once overwhelming choice of South Africa’s working class, the African National…
Following are major excerpts from an interview with Socialist Action’s vice presidential candidate Heather Bradford that appeared on the Third Party Second Bananas website. See: https://thirdpartysecondbananas.blogspot.com/2019/06/heatherbradford-2020-vp-social-action.html Heather Bradford is the running mate with presidential candidate Jeff Mackler on the Socialist Action ticket for 2020. She is the organizer of the Socialist Action branch in Duluth,…
By BRUCE LESNICK On April 11, the Ecuadorian government revoked asylum protection for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Within minutes, British gendarmes entered the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, arrested Assange, and seized his computers, documents, and other materials. He is now being held in London’s Belmarsh prison for bail violation. That spurious charge stems from a…
By WYATT MUND The island of Puerto Rico has been the site of massive unrest and protest for over the past two weeks. Hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets in the largest demonstrations in the island’s history. After a fierce struggle, the initial call from the streets for the resignation of Ricardo Rossello…
By STEVE XAVIER Beginning in December, demonstrations and strikes paralyzed Sudan for months, leading to the removal of the dictator, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir on April 11. The coup was an attempt by the military to preserve the regime by putting on a new face. Al-Bashir’s military-installed replacement lasted less than 48 hours as the…
By LISA LUINENBURG As the 2020 presidential election draws ever closer, the Trump administration has continued to ramp up its attacks on undocumented immigrants and on refugees seeking asylum in the United States. The president has launched attacks on immigrants across multiple fronts, and when he is blocked by Congress or the courts, he issues…
By JOHN LESLIE As the socialist movement grows, independent socialist candidates for local office will be faced with challenges. How to advocate for the oppressed and exploited effectively without adapting to bourgeois politics? Once elected to local office, a socialist candidate can use the megaphone offered by their office to be what Lenin referred…
By KEITH LESLIE Anti-government protests continue to spread in Hong Kong, despite violent attacks on demonstrators by police and right-wing thugs. A number of protests are planned on the weekend of July 26-28, including at the airport (with the support of some airline unions) and in rural areas. An earlier article follows, which will be…
By MITCHELL SHORE — TORONTO — On Sat., June 22, members of Socialist Action (Canada) joined union members, feminists, LGBTQI+ activists, anarchists, and others at the “Celebrate Pride—Fight Fascism” rally near Toronto City Hall. We were there to protest against the anti-immigrant group PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against Islamization of the West), the Canada Yellow Vests,…
By HEATHER BRADFORD Zillah Eisenstein, “Abolitionist Socialist Feminism: Radicalizing the Next Revolution” (New York, Monthly Review Press), 2019, 160 pp. Heather Bradford is the Socialist Action candidate for vice president of the United States in the 2020 elections. An astonishing three to five million people participated in the 2017 Women’s March in the United States,…
By MARTY GOODMAN — UPDATE, July 18 — On the 5th anniversary of the police murder of Eric Garner, July 17, the “Justice Department” announced, as the five-year statute of limitations expired, that they would not prosecute Officer Daniel Pantaleo, who had placed a chokehold on Garner, causing his death. The decision to end a…
By ROZWELL SIMMONS — NEW YORK — In the years since Stonewall, corporations have jumped on the opportunity to use Pride as a means of profit; it has been perverted into a cash grab for companies. This corporatization has played a large role in the depoliticization of Pride. Naturally, it is in the best interests…
By NICK BAKER As U.S. imperialism ceaselessly spreads its tentacles around the globe, its latest victim, yet again, is Iran, the strategically located oil-rich Middle Eastern nation that has resisted U.S. and British colonial domination for over a century. Since its 1979 Revolution that ousted the murderous dictatorship of Shah (meaning “King”) Reza Pahlavi, imposed…
By NICK BAKER Twenty Democrats faced off during two nationally televised “debates” last month, each armed with a few stock phrases they hoped would instantly boost their poll ratings and associated capacity to win additional hundreds of millions of dollars sufficient to defeat Donald Trump for the presidency. The combined 2020 presidential election expenditures are…
By STEVE XAVIER — UPDATED JULY 6 — Reports indicate that the military and civilian opposition forces have reached an accord to end the months of unrest. Under the agreement an 11-member Sovereign Council (SC) would be formed, consisting of five civilians and five representatives of the military. The 11th member would be a civilian…
By MICHAEL SCHREIBER Days after a devastating oil-refinery fire and explosion, Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) announced on June 26 that it would close the facility in 15 days. PES is the largest refinery on the East Coast, turning heavy shale oil from North Dakota into gasoline. But it is ridden with debt and only emerged…
By STEVE XAVIER Political prisoner Eddie Goodman Africa, a member of the MOVE 9, was released from prison on the morning of June 2, after 40 years of unjust incarceration. Janet Holloway Africa and Janine Phillips Africa were also released recently (on May 25), becoming the third and fourth MOVE members to be set free…
By ERNIE GOTTA The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) has launched multiple attacks in the last seven months against Chinese assets in Balochistan, Pakistan. On Sunday May 12, gunmen from the Majeed Brigade of the BLA claimed responsibility for an attack on a hotel in Gwadar. This most recent attack occurred days after an attack at…
By HEATHER BRADFORD Zillah Eisenstein, “Abolitionist Socialist Feminism: Radicalizing the Next Revolution” (New York, Monthly Review Press), 2019, 160 pp. Heather Bradford is the Socialist Action candidate for vice president of the United States in the 2020 elections. An astonishing three to five million people participated in the 2017 Women’s Marches in the United States,…
By RUWAN MUNASINGHE On May 25, the day of the swearing-in of incumbent Prime Minister of India Nahrendra Modi, a 30-year-old man from Bihar, Mohammad Qasim, was bedridden in a hospital in Begusari. A bullet had to be removed from his back. Qasim was one of many victims of a wave of violence against minorities…
By BARRY WEISLEDER On Saturday, May 18, the first Pan-Canadian Day of Action for Palestinian rights took place. In Toronto, close to 500 people rallied and marched to demand justice for the Palestinian people. Shortly after 2 p.m., the gathering at Yonge and Dundas heard the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, listened to music, then speeches…
By JEFF MACKLER We reprint here the introduction to Socialist Action’s new pamphlet entitled, “The Worldwide Crisis of Capitalism and the Relevance of Socialism.” Authored by Socialist Action’s 2020 candidate for the U.S. presidency, Jeff Mackler, the article reviews the central ideas adopted by Socialist Action at its October 2018 Eighteenth National Convention in Minneapolis.…
