Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
From the opening, Waters makes it clear that the show is not a nostalgia act or a trip through the back catalogue of beloved Pink Floyd hits. Instead, it is a warning and appeal for resistance.
Before the band plays a single note, Waters reads a message, and the words appear on the screen instructing those in the audience who only “love Pink Floyd but can’t stand Roger’s politics” to head to the bar. This sets the tone for what follows: two and a half hours of political and social messaging based on and blended with some of the most popular rock music of the past fifty years.
Waters’ primary theme is unambiguous: humanity stands on a precipice, facing the combined threats of genocide, fascist dictatorship, environmental collapse and nuclear annihilation. This existential crisis of mankind is not an abstract question for Waters as images of bombed-out buildings, disasters, police repression, and protests sweep across the giant screen above the stage throughout the show.
2. The Trump-Putin summit in Alaska and the shift in American geostrategy
The heads of all the major European powers are heading to Washington today for emergency meetings with US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, following Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday. That meeting, in which Trump warmly embraced Putin and called for a negotiated peace in Ukraine, has set off a political crisis across Europe.
Attending the talks in Washington are German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. They aim to present a united front as they confront the fallout from Trump’s shift in US support for the Ukraine war, hoping they can prevent Trump from abruptly pulling the plug on their entire operation.
In advance of Monday’s talks, debate within the media and among officials in both the United States and Europe centered on whether any settlement would involve binding “security guarantees” for Ukraine and, at the same time, compel Ukraine to surrender territory to Russia. On Sunday, US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff told CNN that for the first time Russia had agreed to allow the United States and European powers to extend “Article 5-like protection” to Ukraine, a reference to NATO’s mutual defense clause.
Zelensky called it “a historic decision,” writing on X that the guarantees must provide “protection on land, in the air, and at sea” with Europe’s full participation. At the same time, however, Trump has diverged from Ukraine and the major European powers by backing Putin’s demand that Kiev cede territory, including sections of the Donbas region not currently under Russian control.
That such a change was coming had been evident for some time. The Alaska summit made it official, and the reaction in European capitals has bordered on hysteria, augmented by the fact that Ukraine has suffered a series of military defeats. Whatever they declare publicly, the reality is that without US backing the prosecution of the war in Ukraine becomes untenable. The NATO alliance has been held together until now by Washington’s ferocious hostility toward Russia, a policy spearheaded by the Democratic Biden administration.
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Particularly since Trump’s re-election, the US foreign policy establishment has discussed a “reverse Kissinger” strategy. Faced with China’s economic rise, they aim to invert the policy championed in the 1970s by US President Richard Nixon’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger of allying with China against the Soviet Union. In an article titled “A ‘Reverse Kissinger’?,” the American Enterprise Institute think-tank endorsed attempts to ally with Russia against China, but noted that the Ukraine war was an obstacle to winning over Putin. It wrote:
Moscow and Beijing have been forced together by the war in Ukraine. Ending that war, and mending ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, could slow the Sino-Russian convergence—and perhaps even make Moscow a partner in containing Beijing. The aspiration is admirable. … It didn’t work, because Putin was less interested in stability than in swallowing Ukraine.
At the same time, any shift in Washington’s policy toward Russia will provoke bitter conflicts within the American state apparatus. For powerful sections of the ruling class, the defeat of Russia remains non-negotiable—not only to salvage the credibility of American imperialism after pouring vast sums into the Ukraine war, but also because they view concessions to Moscow as weakening the broader confrontation with China.
The heads of European imperialism converging on Washington are not only seeking to pressure Trump directly, hoping to play for time if not shift course, but also to rally allies within the American political establishment to block any retreat from the NATO war drive.
However the situation develops, certain fundamental issues must be stressed. First, Trump’s shift on Ukraine is not a “peace policy.” His support for the genocide in Gaza and the bombing of Iran make this clear. The divisions within the American ruling class center on tactical issues related to a shared project of global domination.
Second, Trump’s maneuver takes place within the framework of an escalating global war and intensifying conflicts between the United States and the European imperialist powers. The costs of this conflict will be imposed through a massive assault on the working class....
Third, Putin’s fawning praise for Trump at the summit on Friday underscores the thoroughly reactionary character of the Russian government. Putin’s ludicrous flattery recalls Stalin’s infamous toast to Hitler in August 1939, as the Stalin-Hitler Non-Aggression Pact was being concluded: “I know how much the German nation loves its Führer. I should therefore like to drink to his health.” Within a week, World War II had erupted; two years later, Hitler launched his invasion of the Soviet Union, at the cost of 27 million Soviet lives.
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The outcome of today’s talks in Washington remains uncertain, but what is beyond doubt is that the fundamental tendencies driving the world toward catastrophe remain. There will be no progressive resolution to this crisis without the independent intervention of the international working class.
The Trotskyist movement completely rejects the opportunist mantra that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Neither the maneuvers of Trump, nor the intrigues of the European powers, nor the reactionary calculations of Putin offer a way forward. The struggle against genocide, austerity, dictatorship and war requires the building of a conscious, international socialist movement of the working class, fighting irreconcilably against all the capitalist governments and their political agents.
3. Air Canada flight attendants defy Liberal government strikebreaking order
Workers across Canada and all North America must come to the defense of the more than 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants, who are courageously defying a federal government strikebreaking order.
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The Air Canada flight attendants walked out on strike shortly after midnight Friday. Less than 12 hours later, Liberal government Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu instructed the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) to order an immediate end to the strike.
This unelected arm of the state—long-promoted by the unions as a “neutral” third-party umpire, currently chaired by former Air Canada lawyer Maryse Tremblay, and staffed with numerous former union functionaries—hastened to do the government’s bidding. By late Saturday evening, the CIRB had issued a legally enforceable antistrike ruling.
Under the government’s diktat, as of 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time Sunday, any and all job actions by the Air Canada flight attendants are illegal. Per its command, their new contract will be determined through binding arbitration, with workers not even having the right to vote on the conditions of their employment. In the interim, the flight attendants are to work under the terms of a concessionary contract signed 10 years ago, under which they perform on average 35 hours of unpaid labor per month.
In defying the Liberal government’s dictatorial antistrike order, the flight attendants are showing the way forward for the entire working class.
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Canada’s capitalist elite, no less than its counterparts in the US and Europe, is determined to wage the fight for markets, profits and resources in a commercial and military-territorial repartition of the world at the expense of working people, and to employ authoritarian means to impose its will.
Spearheaded by the Trudeau-Carney Liberal government, the ruling class is seeking to effectively abolish the right to strike, which is workers’ fundamental right to collectively assert their class interests.
Based on a patently illegal, cooked-up “reinterpretation” of Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, the Liberal government, first under Justin Trudeau and now Prime Minister Mark Carney, has arrogated to itself the power to illegalize any job action by workers in federally-regulated industries and impose binding arbitration.
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The flight attendants, who voted 99.5 percent in favor of strike action in a ballot in which more than 94 percent of the membership participated, are furious that the government intervened to illegalize their struggle just hours after it began. Their readiness to challenge the government and its anti-democratic law speaks to a growth in class consciousness and political radicalization.
The government, used to the support and kowtowing of the labor bureaucracy, has no doubt been taken aback by the flight attendants’ action.
That said, no one should be under the slightest illusion.
Unless the strike is immediately broadened to other workers and is transformed into a political class struggle—that is, an industrial and political working class offensive against the Carney government and the entire ruling class agenda of austerity and war—it will be isolated and smothered through a combination of state repression and sabotage from within by the bureaucratic, pro-capitalist union apparatuses.
4. United States: FEMA staff shifted to immigration hiring duties amid peak hurricane season
On August 5 and 6, FEMA staff received emails from DHS informing them they’d be detailed to ICE immediately. The order landed with all the subtlety of a hurricane warning: report or face termination.
The personnel reassigned are not front‑line disaster responders, but HR specialists, security officers, and administrative personnel, people who, during a hurricane or wildfire, handle background checks, contract vetting, and hiring surges for local recovery workers. Unlike in previous cases where FEMA staff have been reassigned under voluntary inter‑agency details, this time the Department issued a compulsory re‑deployment.
DHS says the unprecedented mid‑hurricane‑season shift will accelerate the hiring of thousands of new ICE agents under the “One Big Beautiful Bill” signed by President Donald Trump on July 4, a budget bill that gutted social spending while showering tax cuts on the wealthiest individuals and corporations.
Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said, “DHS is adopting an all-hands-on-deck strategy to recruit 10,000 new ICE agents. To support this effort, select FEMA employees will temporarily be detailed to ICE for 90 days to assist with hiring and vetting.” McLaughlin claimed the “deployment will NOT disrupt FEMA’s critical operations.”
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Critics note the reassignment comes during the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, when FEMA typically operates at its highest capacity. The two months of August and September are FEMA’s busiest months, with seasonal hurricanes, wildfires and inland flooding across large portions of the US.
The agency is already short roughly 2,000 employees due to attrition and earlier firings this year. In the wake of disasters, the HR and security staff now being redeployed to ICE positions play key roles, including hiring temporary local workers, securing facilities and approving contracts. Their work allows FEMA to onboard local staff in days instead of weeks, secure field facilities, and rapidly approve contracts for debris removal and shelter operations.
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The move is emblematic of a broader shift in federal priorities—away from any vestiges of social programs that have provided relief, albeit limited, uneven and bureaucratic, to the working class, and toward the building of a repressive police and military state, armed to the teeth and ready to crack down on any social opposition that emerges to the policies and interests of the corporate and financial oligarchy.
5. Democrats downplay Republican governors joining Trump’s military occupation of Washington
Only days after President Donald Trump federalized the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and ordered the deployment of the D.C. National Guard to Washington, three Republican governors announced they would be sending their own National Guard contingents in support of Trump’s dictatorial ambitions.
Task & Purpose reported this weekend that more than 1,500 soldiers are set to be deployed in Washington, D.C. as part of Trump’s so-called “Safe and Beautiful Task Force.” On top of the 800 D.C. Guard soldiers activated by Trump, Republican governors Patrick Morrisey of West Virginia, Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Henry McMaster of South Carolina pledged to send additional National Guard units to the capital.
- Morrisey pledged between 300 and 400 troops.
- DeWine pledged 150 troops.
- McMaster approved 200 troops.
Trump declared a state of emergency in the capital city last week, home to around 700,000 people, more than the states of Wyoming and Vermont and roughly as many as Alaska.
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The D.C. police-military occupation follows earlier dictatorial maneuvers this year: the use of National Guard soldiers and Marines in Los Angeles, and the deployment of roughly 10,000 soldiers to the US-Mexico border. In each case fabricated “emergencies” are conjured up to justify a state of exception: a “crime wave” in D.C. or a “migrant invasion” in California and at the border. The supposed threat of “criminal aliens” or “roving bands of youth” is a transparent lie used to justify martial law and the usurpation of local, democratically elected authority.
Using such lies to justify military occupation and federalization of local police is the method of fascist dictators. Trump, who already attempted to overthrow the government once, continues to claim the 2020 election was “stolen” and has openly hinted at running for president again in 2028, despite already winning two terms.
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As a majority of Republicans march in lockstep behind the would-be dictator, the response of the Democratic Party is to downplay the danger, chloroforming the population, and themselves, with complacency. On Meet the Press Sunday, Senator Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) dismissed the federalization of the D.C. police and the massing of troops in the capital as a “stunt”....
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Lending credence to Trump’s bogus claims of crime-infested cities and confirming the Democrats will do nothing to stop Trump’s military occupation of D.C., and other major cities, Murphy concluded, “We will see what happens when Donald Trump treats the issue of crime more as a distraction rather than an issue that legitimately needs to be addressed.”
But what Trump is doing is is not merely a “distraction” or efforts to create a “news cycle.” The scaffolding of dictatorship is being built as workers and residents are increasingly terrorized and harassed by police and federal agents.
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Democracy is incompatible with inequality. The only way the parasitic ruling class can defend its decayed system is through violence and deception. In response to Trump’s drive towards dictatorship and the destruction of democratic rights, the Socialist Equality Party calls for the formation of rank-and-file defense committees in every factory, school, community, and job site, independent of the Democratic Party and their lackeys in the trade union bureaucracies.
6. Philadelphia region transit system begins to enact “doomsday” budget cuts
On August 14, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) began to initiate service cuts associated with its “doomsday budget” previously announced in late June. SEPTA had previously designated August 14 as “the point of no return,” after which the scheduled cuts could not be reversed. The initial cuts will take effect on August 24, with additional phases planned thereafter.
The cuts in Philadelphia are part of a nationwide attack on public services. At the federal level, Trump and the Republicans are destroying entire government agencies and have spearheaded the “Big Beautiful Bill,” which slashes around $1 trillion from Medicaid, foot stamps and other key programs. But the Democrats’ pro-austerity agenda is shown by their role in enforcing massive cuts across almost every major city in America.
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The struggle to defend transit, schools and other basic programs is a political fight against the two corporate parties which requires an independent strategy by the working class. This requires a rebellion against the trade union bureaucracy, which works on behalf of the capitalist parties to rein in the class struggle.
The sabotage last month of the city workers’ strike by the AFSCME union is a stark warning to SEPTA workers and teachers that they must begin establishing their own alternative structures to countermand any sellout, impose democratic control over their own struggle and appeal to workers across the city and the country for a wider movement in defense of key social programs.
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As the Trump administration consolidates a dictatorship at the national level, both Republicans and Democrats at the state and local levels are concerned about fare evaders within a public transportation system where half of its ridership makes $34,000 or less a year and over 20 percent makes $15,000 or less.
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In cities and states throughout the United States, municipal systems and public services face devastating cuts. In Chicago, the city has projected a nearly $1 billion budget deficit, resulting in its own “doomsday budget” for the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). New York City has a precarious fiscal outlook with a large structural deficit and underbudgeting issues threatening services. Throughout California, major cities face major budget shortfalls in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Oakland.
7. United States: DSA’s 2025 convention: Left cover for the Democratic Party
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a faction of the Democratic Party, held its 2025 national convention in person in Chicago, Illinois, from August 8–10. The gathering took place amid the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, the second year of the Gaza genocide, and the fourth year of the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine. At the same time, fascist President Donald Trump presses ahead with mass deportations and the military-police occupations of Washington D.C. and Los Angeles.
None of these burning issues were seriously discussed at the convention, let alone met with any program to oppose them. The political content of the gathering was defined by efforts to shore up support for the Democratic Party and the trade union bureaucracy, with the aim of blocking the development of an independent movement of workers and youth from below.
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The DSA, and before it the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, have operated within the Democratic Party for more than 50 years. At the convention, delegates resolved to continue this tradition even as the entire political establishment confronts a deepening crisis.
One of the convention’s most significant measures was Resolution 07, “Principles for Party-Building.” The resolution declares that while the DSA “commits” to the goal of “becoming an independent mass socialist party,” it will, due to “an undemocratic and uneven electoral system,” adopt a “party surrogate” approach, “acting as a party without a dedicated ballot line.”
And what is the DSA a surrogate or substitute for? The resolution makes clear that it will serve not only as a surrogate for the Democratic Party, but also for other social and class forces hostile to socialism.
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As Trump intensifies his attacks on the democratic, social and economic rights of the working class, DSA delegates advanced several resolutions centered on promoting United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain, an open supporter of Trump’s tariffs, and on the prospect of a strike… in 2028.
The DSA’s “labor” resolutions make clear that the organization’s central task is to prop up the existing trade union apparatus. The National Labor Commission’s “consensus resolution” celebrates the so-called “Stand Up Strike” of 2023 as a model for the future, hailing Fain as a leader of “militant, member-driven campaigns.” In reality, that strike was a betrayal: the UAW kept most autoworkers on the job after the contract expired, dragged out a limited strike for weeks, and then forced through agreements that paved the way for mass layoffs.
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While the ongoing US-NATO war in Ukraine, backed by the Democratic Party, was virtually ignored at the convention, several resolutions were put forward concerning the DSA’s position toward Israel, Zionism, and the genocide in Gaza.
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Michael Harrington, the [DSA]’s founder, was a staunch supporter of Israel, an opponent of the anti-Zionist and anti-imperialist movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and an open defender of US imperialism during the Cold War. The DSA continues this legacy today by seeking to channel outrage over the Gaza genocide back behind the very party that armed and financed it from the beginning.
8. Australia: Unions agree to facilitate sweeping job cuts at Western Sydney University
The two main Australian campus trade unions have reached a deal with Western Sydney University (WSU) vice-chancellor George Williams to help impose widespread job destruction.
The only proviso is that the management abide by the cosmetic “change proposal” clauses in the unions’ enterprise bargaining agreement with the university.
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The job cuts at WSU are part of a wave of retrenchments and associated pro-corporate restructuring being inflicted throughout Australia’s 39 public universities under the federal Labor government. The NTEU admitted last week that by its own limited estimates, 3,578 jobs are being destroyed.
Nevertheless, the union leaders have opposed any unified struggle by staff and students against this assault, which is also depriving students of course choices, especially in arts and humanities, as one means of deadening critical and historically-informed thinking.
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On August 2, the WSU and Macquarie University Rank-and-File Committees convened an online public meeting to fight for a unified campaign against the Albanese government’s job cuts and the underlying pro-corporate, pro-military reshaping of tertiary education.
9. A statement from the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE):
We, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), the youth movement of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) and the Fourth International, call on all young people, school and university students, and workers: oppose the reintroduction of conscription! Discuss this appeal with your classmates, fellow students and colleagues, and join the building of a socialist anti-war movement!
In recent weeks, Germany’s media and political establishment have launched a campaign for the reintroduction of conscription. In the supposed “debate” about its return, the issue was never about whether, but only about when. Even the discussion of it supposedly being “voluntary” is just a farce. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (Social Democrat, SPD) himself has admitted that conscription would only remain “voluntary” as long as enough “volunteers” come forward.
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Eighty years after the end of the Second World War, the German government wants to line up an entire generation again, ready to sacrifice their lives for the economic interests of the ruling class. The return of conscription is part of the militarization of society as a whole. The government of the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and the SPD is aggressively driving forward rearmament.
The Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) is to be expanded into the largest conventional army in Europe. With hundreds of thousands of additional soldiers, the German war machine is to be fed—and our generation is supposed to be the cannon fodder. At schools, universities, on trams, on popcorn packaging or through online propaganda, war is being aggressively promoted. This places the murderous craft of war and the normality of dying directly into everyday life. Even children are not spared. This militarization is not just a relapse into times past, but a deliberate preparation for a new world war, pushed forward with full force.
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The German government is continuing along its historical path from the two world wars. 80 years after the catastrophic defeat of Hitler’s Wehrmacht (Army) in the Second World War, Germany now declares that its aim is to be able to win a war against the nuclear power Russia. For us, that means the same fate as young people back then, or as those in Ukraine and Russia today: forced recruitment, trenches, and death.
The barbarity the ruling class are prepared to unleash, and their indifference to “democracy” and “human rights,” are already demonstrated in Gaza: for almost two years the German government has been complicit in genocide—in the slaughter of tens of thousands of children and young people. A government that supports such crimes is also prepared to sacrifice our generation in a new world war.
Even now, universities and schools are being militarized. Army officers push their way into classrooms to sell killing for the fatherland as “service to democracy.” Universities are being turned into militaristic centers, while protests against war and genocide at universities are brutally suppressed by police violence.
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As long as capitalism exists, there will be war. This means that a “peaceful Bundeswehr” is impossible and a dangerous illusion!
In a statement issued Friday, US Steel is seeking to deflect blame for last Monday’s explosion which killed two workers and seriously injured ten others.
The two workers killed in the blast were 39-year-old Timothy Quinn and 52-year-old Steven Menefee. Ten other workers had to be taken to local hospitals. Three remain hospitalized with severe burns, and one worker has had multiple amputations.
The blast was so powerful that it was heard for miles. It shook the ground, broke windows and sent a cloud of smoke and ash hundreds of feet into the air. Menefee was buried in debris and his body was not found until 7:30 pm that evening.
The blast was completely preventable, had proper upgrades and maintenance been performed in the aging facility. Instead, the company repeatedly put off needed repairs to meet production goals.
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The company says that the investigation will take months if not years. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has not issued a report and says that its initial report can take up to six months.
The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is sending a team to investigate. They say their report will take 18 months to two years to complete.
Even when its report is completed, the CSB has no regulatory authority and cannot issue fines. They are limited to only making recommendations.
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The United Steelworkers, which covers the workers at the Clairton mill have remained almost completely silent.
Since the explosion one week ago, they have only issued one statement posted on their website the day of the explosion, giving a bland statement of sympathy while pledging to work with OSHA in its investigation.
The USW has occupational health and safety experts and other representatives on the ground at the Clairton Works assessing the situation and aiding our members. While we are still determining the scope of the tragedy, we are aware that multiple workers are receiving medical treatment for their injuries. In the coming days, we will work with the appropriate authorities to ensure a thorough investigation and to see that our members get the support they need.
The USW bureaucrats will help the company and the government sweep this incident under the rug, screening their actions with phrases about how ‘brave’ steelworkers are for risking their lives for the ‘good of the country and their families.’ In other words, the bureaucrats accept a state of affairs where workers have to risk their lives every day by going to work.
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For decades, the USW bureaucracy has functioned as a second layer of management, overseeing the destruction of tens of thousands of jobs, forcing through contracts with massive concessions, and working to suppress workers’ struggles even as the company piles up one safety violation after another.
The lives lost and the families shattered must not be swept under the rug through endless investigations and token fines! To uncover the truth and hold those responsible to account, workers themselves must take the initiative.
An independent rank-and-file investigation into the Clairton disaster, led by steelworkers and supported by workers throughout the region, is necessary. Only such a workers’ inquiry can expose the full extent of management’s negligence and the complicity of the union apparatus, and lay the basis for a genuine fight for safe workplaces and the protection of workers’ lives.
11. COVID-19 most likely causing superspreader event at Alligator Alcatraz
More than a thousand people are held in “Alligator Alcatraz,” a South Florida detention center that attorneys and advocates say is “bordering on torture” because of its inhumane conditions. The case of 38-year-old Venezuelan social media influencer Luis Manuel Rivas Velásquez makes the crisis clear. His lawyer, Eric Lee, reports that Velásquez developed severe breathing problems, most consistent with a serious COVID-19 infection, yet was denied medical care for two full days. He eventually collapsed, unresponsive, inside the chain-link cage where he was being held.
Fellow detainees say they had to drag Velásquez out themselves, with one former nurse attempting CPR while guards stood by, apparently unable even to take his pulse. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) downplayed the incident, claiming he had simply “fainted,” and said he was sent to Miami’s Kendall Regional Medical Center only “out of precaution.” Independent accounts, however, make clear his condition was far more serious.
After a brief return to “Alligator Alcatraz,” where he was labeled as having a vague “respiratory infection,” Velásquez was quietly transferred to a facility in El Paso, Texas. There, though his health remained fragile, he was denied access to his own medical records. In a desperate call to his attorney, he pleaded, “I don’t want to die in here,” and even requested deportation back to Venezuela to escape the neglect and abuse.
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The operation of “Alligator Alcatraz” is deeply bound up with Florida politics and a web of private contractors. Officially, it functions as a state-federal partnership with ICE and is overseen by the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) under Governor Ron DeSantis. In practice, much of its daily operation is outsourced. The largest contracts go to Critical Response Strategies LLC, paid $78 million for staffing, training and security, and to CDR Maguire and its affiliates, which manage engineering, emergency response and health care. Other companies, including SLSCO Ltd., IRG Global Emergency Management and Granny’s Alliance Holdings, have also profited through construction and support contracts.
The price tag is a staggering $450 million per year. DHS has claimed that FEMA funds cover much of this cost, but federal lawyers say Florida has received no such funds. Instead, the state appears to be drawing from a massive “emergency management” fund that Governor DeSantis can access without legislative approval, a setup that shields the program from oversight while enriching politically connected contractors.
The looting operations are further illuminated by details on staffing costs. The warden earns $125 an hour, about $260,000 a year before overtime, while the lowest-paid badge administrators still make $38 an hour. These inflated rates are possible because the contractors running the facility were not chosen through normal competitive bidding. Instead, they benefited from emergency powers invoked by Governor DeSantis, allowing politically connected firms to secure lucrative contracts without oversight.
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Beyond the financial mechanisms, the facility’s politics are seen by some as promoting a “fascistic agenda” aimed at deterring immigration through deliberately imposing harsh conditions. Attorney Eric Lee put it bluntly, stating, “I’ve never seen treatment so deliberately cruel and explicit, more or less explicitly aimed at disincentivizing people from immigrating to the United States based on how they’re treated.” In this logic, the virus that causes COVID-19 has become a weapon in the hands of these fascistic grifters, allowing the virus and other diseases to spread unchecked as part of a system that punishes migrants by endangering their health and lives inside what amount to modern-day dungeons.
As Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza enters a new stage, with the deliberate mass starvation of the entire population and plans for the occupation of the Strip, the question of how to end the atrocities is posed more sharply than ever before.
Among masses of people globally there is shock and deep opposition. That was expressed in Australia earlier this month with a march by up to 300,000 people across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in one of the country’s largest demonstrations.
Under these conditions, pseudo-left organizations are intensifying their efforts to divert the popular hostility back behind the political establishment, which is complicit in the genocide, including the Labor government that has supported it politically, diplomatically and materially for close to two years.
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The pseudo-left groups are effectively a faction of the political establishment. Through their use of left-populist and even occasionally socialist rhetoric, they serve to subordinate growing opposition to the very political establishment, that amid a breakdown of capitalism is turning to genocide, authoritarianism, social austerity and ultimately to world war.
13. This week in history: August 18-24
14. Sri Lanka: SEP bids farewell to long-standing Trotskyist Ananda Daulagala
Ananda Daulagala
On August 14, family members, comrades, and friends gathered at the funeral parlor near Mahaiyawa Cemetery in Kandy to pay their final respects to Comrade Ananda Daulagala. He was a long-standing, leading member of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), the Sri Lankan section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI).
Daulagala—affectionately known among party comrades and friends as “Daule”—passed away on August 13 at his home, at the age of 77, following a prolonged illness.
He became a member of the Revolutionary Communist League (RCL), the SEP’s predecessor, during the nationwide public-sector general strike in 1980. He served on the party’s central committee and political committee.
Daulagala led the Kandy branch for an extended period until he was paralyzed a few years ago. He was also a regular translator of World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) articles from English to Sinhala.
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“He fought through whatever difficulties came his way. In 1984, he was detained for 28 days by the then United National Party (UNP) administration during the RCL’s struggle against its White Paper aimed at privatizing free education in Sri Lanka,” he said.
Wijesiriwardena went on to describe a brief conversation he had with Daulagala’s daughter, Vidurangi. She characterized her father as a dedicated party fighter who devoted his life to fighting for the future of children—not just his own, but children across the world.
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“Daulagala always paid close attention to world developments and the necessity of fighting for the program of world socialist revolution. That is why he dedicated his life to building this party.”
Ratnayake concluded his speech by urging those present to reflect on the significance of Daulagala’s life and political struggle.
The World Socialist Web Site will publish a full obituary of Comrade Daulagala later this week.
15. Demand the freedom of Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist Bogdan Syrotiuk!
The International Committee of the Fourth International and the World Socialist Web Site have initiated a global campaign to demand the immediate release of Bogdan Syrotiuk. The fight for Bogdan’s freedom is an essential component of the struggle against imperialist war, genocide, dictatorship and fascism.
