By MARTY GOODMAN — NEW YORK — Jose Lasalle of the Bronx’s Copwatch Patrol Unit (CPU) was awarded a $925,000 settlement with the NYPD on two lawsuits he filed. Cops were caught with their pants down because Lasalle had audio and video to prove his case against the Bronx’s PSA 7 police station. Lasalle had … Continue reading Bronx NYPD settles with Copwatch
By LAZARO MONTEVERDE “America’s War for the Greater Middle East,” by Andrew J. Bacevich. (New York: Random House) 2016. In Joe Haldeman’s award-winning 1974 science fiction novel “The Forever War,” elite United Nations troops fight an alien enemy that they don’t understand for reasons that are obscure. Haldeman based the novel on his own experience … Continue reading America’s Forever War
By LUCAS ALAN DIETSCHE April 26, 2019 marked the one-year anniversary of the day that the Husky Refinery, in Superior, Wis., exploded and caught fire. For nine hours, toxic fumes blew 30 miles to the south. Eleven workers were injured but soon recovered. Most of this city along the shore of Lake Superior had to … Continue reading Protests on anniversary of Husky chemical explosion
By CHRISTINE MARIE Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Nancy Fraser, “Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto” (London and New York: Verso, 2019), 85 pp. Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Nancy Fraser have a mission. They are collaborating to bring the lessons of a new global feminist uprising to the United States. Their latest effort is … Continue reading A manifesto of the new global feminism
By NICK BAKER “The U.S. ruling-class multi-billionaire elite have two parties, the Democrats and Republicans—the twin parties of war, racism, poverty, and environmental destruction,” said Jeff Mackler, Socialist Action’s 2020 candidate for the U.S. presidency. “We need a party of our own—a mass working-class party based on an independent, reinvigorated, democratic, fighting trade-union movement allied … Continue reading Socialist Action launches 2020 presidential campaign
By JEFF MACKLER “Nobody said regime change was going to be easy,” read the first line on the front-page New York Times article of May 2 entitled, “Pressure Rises After Failure In Venezuela.” The article, billed as “news analysis,” continues, “President Trump’s top advisers woke up Tuesday [April 30] believing that a rebellion in … Continue reading Venezuela: U.S. coup makers fail
By ERWIN FREED and ERNIE GOTTA The UFCW’s historic 11-day strike that involved over 31,000 Stop and Shop workers and covered all stores in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts came to an end on April 21. As covered at socialistaction.org (April 11), the demand of the union was to maintain all wage, benefit, and work … Continue reading After 11-day strike in New England — Stop & Shop workers win gains
By BARRY WEISLEDER Federal Secretary, Socialist Action (Canada) May Day is OUR day. “Labour Day” treats Labour like a commodity. May 1 honours workers as a class, as a conscious, fighting movement. We are a living, creative force with the power to change the world. On May Day, even in the pouring rain in downtown … Continue reading May Day address: Build a workers’ opposition!
By STEVE XAVIER Mass protests leading to the downfall of long-term rulers in Sudan and Algeria have evoked memories of the Arab Spring protests eight years ago. That wave of protests began in Tunisia with the December 2010 self-immolation suicide of a street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi. The Tunisian government of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali … Continue reading Mass protests shake regimes in Sudan and Algeria
By JOHN LESLIE On the evening of April 30, a contentious meeting of the Falls Township Board of Supervisors denied the site plan application for the Israeli-based Elcon Recycling to build a 32-acre toxic waste “treatment” plant in lower Bucks County, Pa. Hundreds of area residents turned out to oppose construction of the toxic facility. … Continue reading Pa. toxic waste plant defeated — for now
By JEFF MACKLER Two months in the planning, the April 6 public forum at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Berkeley represented a profound contribution to renewing the justice and freedom struggle of the innocent and framed for murder political prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal. A capacity-filling multi-racial and multi-generational crowd of 400 people, including a broad range … Continue reading Mumia Abu-Jamal: An Evening for Justice and Freedom
By LUCAS ALAN DIETSCHE and ADA RITSCHER The Twin Ports of Superior, Wis., and Duluth, Minn., have had to confront several incidents by white nationalist groups in recent years. In one notable event, in 2012, one of the groups had a public event at Duluth City Hall, which was protected by the police when some … Continue reading Duluth protesters: ‘Say no to hate!’
By LAZARO MONTEVERDE “The Long Honduran Night: Resistance, Terror, and the United States in the Aftermath of the Coup,” by Dana Frank. (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2018). Activist and scholar Dana Frank has given us a useful book to help us understand the present events in Honduras, at the U.S.-Mexico border, and elsewhere in Latin America. … Continue reading Before Venezuela, there was the coup in Honduras
By JOHN LESLIE In the suburban Philadelphia neighborhoods surrounding a two now-closed U.S. Navy air bases, residents are faced with a drinking water crisis. Groundwater contaminated with carcinogens linked to a fire fighting foam forced the closing of both public and private wells. The Department of Defense (DoD) knew as early as 2001 that fire … Continue reading Polluted water near air bases endangers Pa. communities
By JEFF MACKLER The sensational news on April 17 that Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner withdrew his appeal of Superior Court Judge Leon Tucker's granting of new appeal rights to Mumia Abu-Jamal represents a major breakthrough in Mumia’s 37-year freedom struggle. Krasner’s decision opens the door wide to re-building a broad and decisive movement in … Continue reading Mumia Abu-Jamal victory: Philadelphia DA withdraws his appeal
By DAVID RIEHLE Four score and seven years ago … Franklin Roosevelt brought forth in this country a New Deal. Not a Square Deal (Teddy Roosevelt) or a Fair Deal (Truman) but a NEW DEAL. New York Governor Roosevelt was nominated for president at the Democratic Party national convention in Chicago on July 2, 1932. … Continue reading The New Deal: Roosevelt’s answer to ‘radicalism’
By IVAN DOLPHY All across New England, workers in over 240 Stop & Shop stores have declared that they will not tolerate the attacks to their wages, benefits, and jobs being made during contract negotiations by their employer. Some 31,000 employees have moved to strike and join the picket lines at their shops. On April 11, … Continue reading Stop & Shop strike: One huge fist
“Equality, work and land” is the slogan of the new radical political party in South Africa that seeks to revolutionize South African politics and contest elections this coming May. The Socialist Revolutionary Workers Party (SRWP) held its launch congress from April 4-6 in Johannesburg, South Africa with attendance from over a thousand of the party’s … Continue reading Socialist Revolutionary Workers’ Party launched in South Africa
By STAN OREGANO For the past three years, the center of Democratic Party opposition to the Trump presidency has been on the basis of loud and repeated claims that Trump is a bought-and-paid-for agent of the Kremlin. Dreams of recouping the party’s fortunes by explaining away the debacle of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 defeat stirred … Continue reading Failure of Mueller probe exposes Democrats
By CHRISTINE MARIE “We are the feminist, trans feminist, anti-racist, antifascist tide that will take over Verona, opening up liberating spaces which were born from the global power of the International Women Strike!” So concludes the call for action that put 30,000 feminists and their allies on the streets on March 31 to protest a … Continue reading Feminists lead in the global class struggle
By BRUCE LESNICK When you corner a rat, it lashes out. The rats in charge of the U.S. empire are cornered by the contradictions built into their own system: increasing economic inequality, regular depressions and recessions, declining profit rates, perpetual austerity, and endless wars promoted to stave off increasing global competition. The current vicious U.S. … Continue reading U.S. hands off Venezuela!
By GRAHAM ROGERS The political theater of the U.S. Congress lurched through yet another performance on March 26, as the Senate decisively rejected a bill put forth by Republican Senator Mitch McConnell that copied Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s and Senator Ed Markey’s February non-binding resolution calling for a Green New Deal. Forty-three Democrats, including all Democratic … Continue reading Democrats fail symbolic vote on Green New Deal
By JEFF MACKLER and BRUCE LESNICK In a new campaign reminiscent of the McCarthy era witch-hunt, politicians and media pundits have taken to smearing pro-Palestinian, pro-BDS activists as anti-Semitic. Singled out for special attention are those, like Somali-born Muslim Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who happen to be people of color. A … Continue reading Ilhan Omar: Anti-Zionist comments smeared as anti-Semitic
STATEMENT OF FOURTH INTERNATIONAL BUREAU Algeria is experiencing a popular uprising that is unprecedented since the proclamation of national independence. Since 22 February 2019, following calls launched on the Internet, large rallies, with a massive presence of women, have been organized in all cities, followed by workers and young students. The trigger for this powerful … Continue reading Solidarity with the Algerian people in their struggle for popular sovereignty!
By A WORKING CARPENTER I’ve been a carpenter my whole adult life. I worked nonunion before I joined the Carpenters’ Union—easily the smartest thing I’ve ever done. For a working-class person, a union is still the best anti-poverty program. Recently, the heads of the Building Trades unions, alongside the leaders of the United Steelworkers and … Continue reading Brothers & sisters in the building trades: Time is running out for the planet
