By Fourth International Bureau On 20 September 2017, the Civil Guard and the Spanish National Police arrested 14 senior officials of the Generalitat (the Catalan government) and carried out 40 searches of public buildings and private homes. A police operation then seized propaganda material of the CUP (Candidatura de Unidad Popular, the main party of…
By MARTY GOODMAN Below is the text of a speech that the author delivered at a Sept. 13 forum in New York City sponsored by Socialist Action. What is fascism? Let’s consult an expert, Adolf Hitler. Hitler cut to the chase at a 1933 meeting of German industrialists when he told them: “Private enterprise cannot…
By BARRY SHEPPARD Trump made this unprecedented threat not in a tweet or off the cuff remark but in a written speech before the United Nations General Assembly. No other country in the U.N. has ever openly stated its intention to destroy another country. Coupled with his earlier threat to rain down “fire and fury”…
The New Democratic Party Socialist Caucus strives for a socialist Canada in a socialist world. For nearly 20 years it has uniquely and successfully advanced this goal inside North America’s only mass, labour-based political party. From convincing the NDP to fight for public pharma care, for public dental care and free post-secondary education, to getting Canadian troops…
By JOHN LESLIE On Nov. 3, 1979, members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party (ANP) attacked an anti-Klan march in Greensboro, N.C., that was organized by the Communist Workers Party (CWP). Five members of the CWP were murdered and 10 others were wounded with the collusion of federal and local law…
Soon after hurricane Irma devastated islands in the Caribbean and parts of Florida, Socialist Action reporter Ernie Gotta interviewed Omar Pérez Figueroa about the effects of the storm on Puerto Rico. Pérez, a native of Puerto Rico, is a member of the Juventud Hostosiana, the youth group of the Hostosian National Independence Movement. He is an…
By ANN MONTAGUE In August, Ali Feruz was sentenced in a night court in Russia to be deported to Uzbekistan. He will spend time waiting for his appeal in a new prison for foreigners in Moscow, often known as the Russian Guantanamo. His parents and siblings are all Russian citizens. He had returned to Uzbekistan…
INTERVIEW BY ERNIE GOTTA Puerto Rico has suffered for generations under the direct and indirect rule by the United States. The wealth of the island has been stripped by corporate interests while farmers and workers on the island have struggled with political, economic, and environmental degradation. Activists both at home and in the diaspora are…
By MARTY GOODMAN “Go out of the shadows. Go out and fight.” — Amanda Morales-Guerra, Guatemalan immigrant Amanda Morales-Guerra, a Guatemalan immigrant living in New York City, faces deportation and separation from her three children, but she is not alone. Amanda has found sanctuary for herself and her three children within the Holyrood Church in…
By JEFF MACKLER The organization of massive united-front-type counter-mobilizations to challenge the planned Aug. 26-27 far-right demonstrations in the San Francisco/Berkeley Bay Area proved to be key to exposing these currents for the tiny groups of isolated and pathetic reactionaries that they are. In Berkeley, on Sunday, Aug. 27, the newly formed Bay Area Against…
By CHRISTINE MARIE Many cheered when Connecticut joined other states in proclaiming that they would stick to the Paris Agreement although the U.S. was pulling out. Unfortunately, the limits of that gesture became clear very soon. On July 26, the Connecticut Department of Energy and the Environment released a long-awaited report, a draft Comprehensive Energy Strategy. The…
By MARK BRUNT Much has been made—and quite astutely—of connections between the current lead-up to a potential war with North Korea and the events before the Iraq War: the collusion of mainstream media with a president that earlier they had largely disliked; massive fear-mongering about their weapons; and a narrative about the brutality of the…
By ERNIE GOTTA Thousands of people are pledging to boycott the NFL this year under the banner #NoKaepernickNoNFL. Not since Mohammed Ali has a professional athlete had such a political impact on American culture. Despite overwhelming support for the embattled player, owners of every football team have blacklisted the activist/athlete for his public opposition to…
By MICHAEL SCHREIBER After swamping Houston and the Galveston Bay region, Tropical Storm Harvey wheeled into eastern Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Residents of Tyler County, Texas, were told by authorities, “Get out or die!” Over two feet of water was dumped on cities and towns that were still rebuilding from the legendary Hurricane Katrina in…
By ANN MONTAGUE On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, many people are rereading the history of the revolution that brought forth the very first worker’s state in history. Since 1991, however, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics no longer exists. The former USSR has splintered into 15 independent capitalist states. The Russian Federation…
By MANOS SKOUFOGLOU — ATHENS — During recent years, the debate on Greece has not been just a debate among the other ones. The particular intensity of the crisis, of the capitalist attack and of the social fightback, as well as the emergence of a party of reformist origin that finally managed to take power,…
By JOE AUCIELLO “You can become a Communist only when you enrich your mind with a knowledge of all the treasures created by mankind” (V.I. Lenin, “The Tasks Of The Youth Leagues,” Selected Works, Vol. 3, p. 413). “… we can still learn from Balzac and Tolstoy, but should we really be urging comrades to…
By MICHAEL SCHREIBER In the week following the white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, which ended with the murder of Heather Heyer, anti-racist and anti-fascist protests erupted in hundreds of cities and towns across the United States. About 3000 marched in Philadelphia on Aug. 16, and 1000 rallied in Portland, Ore., two days…
Heather Heyer, presente! Socialist Action condena el asesinato de Heather Heyer, de 32 años, por un terrorista de ultraderecha, que embistió un coche contra una multitud de manifestantes antifascistas durante la manifestación del 12 de agosto contra el mitin “Unite the Right”. Más de 30 manifestantes antirracistas sufrieron heridas durante el transcurso del día. Heather,…
By MIKE ALEWITZ Following are major excerpts from a Facebook post by activist and political muralist Mike Alewitz. They are reprinted with permission from the author. When I first read Malcolm X, and then heard a recording of him speaking, it was electrifying. Malcolm X confronted the racist ideology of the U.S. ruling class. He…
By STEVE XAVIER ¡Heather Heyer, presente! Socialist Action condemns the murder of Heather Heyer, age 32, by an ultra-right terrorist, who plowed a car into a crowd of anti-fascist protesters during the Aug. 12 counter-mobilization against the so-called “Unite the Right” rally. More than 30 anti-racist protesters sustained injuries during the course of the day.…
By WAYNE DELUCA Only days after threatening “fire and fury” against North Korea, President Donald Trump said, “We have many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option, if necessary.” Trump was improvising, with no back-up from the Pentagon, and seems to be inventing his militaristic bombast as he goes. But we cannot dismiss the…
By BILL ONASCH The United Auto Workers’ organizing drive at the giant Nissan plant in Canton, Miss., once showed promise of becoming the biggest union victory in the Deep South since the United Food & Commercial Workers won bargaining rights—and a contract—at Smithfield’s huge hog plant in Tar Heel, N.C., in 2008. A win at…
By ANN MONTAGUE On June 20, 691 PepsiCo workers in Buenos Aires arrived at work to see a piece of paper on the door notifying them that the plant was being relocated and they were all out of a job. In Argentina it is illegal to just close a factory and lay off workers. Companies have…
By JEFF MACKLER “Trump Ends Covert Aid to Syrian Rebels Trying to Topple Assad,” read a July 19 New York Times headline. Citing The Washington Post as its source, the article noted that the official termination of the “secret” U.S. program “was never publicly announced, just as the beginnings of the program four years ago…
By JUAN CRUZ FERRE This article is reprinted from leftvoice.org. — AUG. 5 — The National Convention of the Democratic Socialists of America is currently under way. An estimated 700 to 800 delegates representing 25,000 members nationwide are participating in the four-day event at the University of Illinois in Chicago. In the weeks preceding the…
