By MARK UGOLINI — CHICAGO — On Sept. 28, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) House of Delegates announced plans to strike on Oct. 11. Negotiations with Chicago Public Schools on a new contract have made little progress since they began over 22 months ago. The union has been without a contract since June 30, 2015.…
Socialist Action reporter Ernie Gotta recently interviewed Francisco A. Santiago of Juventud Hostosiana (JH), a youth group for Puerto Rican independence affiliated with the Movimiento Independista Nacional Hostosiano (MINH). This article continues a series that Socialist Action is publishing on the movement against the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA). You can…
By MARK UGOLINI — UPDATED, Sept. 24 — The deeply racist character of police operations in Black communities is again on display with two horrific murders by cops occurring within just four days of each other. The latest victims are Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Okla., and Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, N.C. Large-scale protests have…
By ANN MONTAGUE Sept. 9 saw thousands of incarcerated men and women go on strike to take a stand against civil and environmental injustice in their respective prisons. The multi-state strike was organized both inside and outside of the prisons. Some unions have begun addressing the twin issues of racial justice and economic justice with…
By BARRY WEISLEDER British Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn is on track to retain his job and defeat the right-wing challenge to his leadership. The 67-year-old, self-described Marxist campaigns for re-nationalization of public utilities and railways, and for unilateral disarmament of nuclear weapons. Corbyn beat out three other MPs to become Leader in October…
By LAZARO MONTEVERDE Sept. 11, 2016, marks the 43rd anniversary of the violent 1973 coup in Chile against the elected left popular front government of Salvador Allende. Like the ancient Roman god Janus, imperialism has two faces. One face is political, the other economic. We must, if we wish to change the world, understand both…
By MARK UGOLINI Thousands of retired miners and supporters converged on Washington, D.C., on Sept. 8 to demand government action to shore up retiree pension and health care benefits. These benefits have been under a constant barrage of attacks from coal companies, which are determined to shed themselves of responsibility for the health and security…
By KAREN SCHRAUFNAGEL Karen Schraufnagel is the Socialist Action candidate for vice president of the United States in 2016. The indigenous-led fight is heating up to stop the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline that has been devastating sacred native burial grounds. Resistance continues to grow at the Sacred Stone and Red Warrior camps, undeterred by…
By JEFF MACKLER San Francisco 49er superstar quarterback Colin Kaepernick roiled the racist establishment when he “took a knee” rather than stand and salute the American flag during the playing of the National Anthem on Aug. 26 before the 49ers final pre-season game against the San Diego Chargers. This was the fourth time, but the…
By MARK UGOLINI — CHICAGO — On Aug. 29, the defense case of 69-year-old Palestinian rights activist Rasmea Odeh took an unexpected and potentially ominous turn when presiding Federal Judge Gershwin Drain ruled that Odeh will be subjected to up to 18 hours of intensive psychological testing by an appointed government forensic examiner whose job is…
By BILL ONASCH Below are major portions of the trade-union report that Bill Onasch presented to the Socialist Action National Convention on Aug. 20 in Kansas City, Mo. We’re gathered here in the hometown—or at least home metropolitan area—of James P. Cannon. It’s common to personify important historical trends. Without a trace of hero worship,…
The Seventeenth National Convention of Socialist Action was held Aug. 19-21 in Kansas City, Mo. The convention was preceded by the party’s traditional three-month pre-convention discussion period, which included some 50 written contributions from SA members. Delegates from across the country presented reports of their work in many movements—including struggles against global warming and for climate justice,…
By MANUEL AGUILAR MORA On July 18, in the National Palace at the enactment ceremony of a package of laws to create the National Anti-Corruption System (SNA), in front of an audience composed of hundreds of public officials, and flanked on both sides by the presidents of the houses of the Congress and secretaries of…
Por MANUEL AGUILAR MORA El 18 de julio en el Palacio Nacional, en la ceremonia de promulgación de un paquete de leyes para crear el Sistema Nacional de Anticorrupción (SNA) ante un auditorio compuesto por centenas de funcionarios y personajes del mundo oficial flanqueado a ambos lados por los presidentes de las cámaras del Congreso…
By CHRISTINE MARIE “People gonna rise like the water,” the most poignant of the new songs of the climate justice movement, makes a strong prediction. And the potential breadth and power of that people was on display in a new way on July 24, as close to 10,000 marchers took to the streets on a…
By ANN MONTAGUE In Richmond, Va., on Aug. 12-13, the new chapter of the Fight For 15 and a Union movement once again expanded its reach and broadened its scope. The first Fight For 15 and a Union Convention was called to bring together low-wage workers from across the country to energize the Fight For…
By LAZARO MONTEVERDE The political revolution has been postponed. For the second time in six months Spanish voters went to the polls to vote in national elections on June 26. The big winner was the hard right and the biggest loser was the new left-populist party Podemos. An earlier election held on Dec. 20 resulted…
By Y. FIKRET KAYALI A significant section of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) attempted to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP (Justice and Development Party) government on the night of July 15-16. Over 265 people died in fighting. It was a serious putsch attempt, which came very close to success, but was thwarted.…
By JEFF MACKLER Let’s assume for the moment that a fascist is an extremely evil person. Indeed, in the muck and mire of U.S. politics today the term fascist has been used quite often, but virtually always to describe the “extremely evil” candidates of the Republican Party. Recall Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater or the…
By WILLIAM WOOD — CHICAGO — On July 28, 75 people gathered in the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago to Celebrate Cuba’s July 26 holiday and to demand that the U.S. government “End the Blockade of Cuba” and “Return Guantánamo.” As the most important revolutionary holiday in Cuba, the Day of National Rebellion commemorates the…
By MARK UGOLINI On July 27, Baltimore prosecutors dropped remaining charges against three cops awaiting trial for involvement in the death of Freddy Gray. Gray, a 25-year-old Black youth, died of injuries sustained while in police custody a week following his arrest on April 12, 2015. Officers Garret Miller, William Porter, and Sgt. Alicia White…
By GAETANA CALDWELL-SMITH “Free State of Jones,” directed by Gary Carr. “The Free State of Jones” is based on a true Civil War story, a little known story, because its subject matter is in a controversial gray area. Here we have Newton Knight (a spot-on Matthew McConaughey at his scraggly, unkempt, bearded best), a Confederate…
By MARK UGOLINI — CHICAGO — On July 20 over 200 Chicago teachers, students and parents gathered at City Hall to demand full funding for public schools and an elected school board. Protesters crowded inside City Hall’s second-floor lobby for a press conference with a host of local media. Later, they formed a militant picket…
By THE EDITORS Working people around the world face are facing strong social, economic, and environmental crises. That’s true even in the richest country in history, the United States. The cause of these crises can be traced to a single source—a social system ruled by exploiting employers and ruthless bankers. In the U.S., this tiny…
By JEFF MACKLER When a June 16 New York Times front-page article blared, “51 U.S. Diplomats Urge Strikes Against Assad in Syria,” I could almost hear the war drums beating at the U.S. State Department and White House. These “mid-level diplomats,” with varying U.S. government Syria assignments over the years, “urged the United States to…
By BILL ONASCH Trump Close to White House—The highest profile current real estate project of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is the conversion of the historic Washington, D.C., Old Post Office, within sight of the president’s residence, into a luxury hotel. Trump does not own the new Trump International Hotel—he is leasing the property from…
