Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
Statements about “America’s fallen heroes” from big business politicians are drenched in hypocrisy. The political representatives of American imperialism have not the slightest concern for the young people they send to occupy foreign lands and seize resources—many of whom return with PTSD, traumatic brain injuries and other lasting physical and mental scars. The Trump administration is cutting funding to the Veterans Administration even as veterans make up 20 percent of the male homeless population, and an average of 17.6 veterans die by suicide every day.
2. Five years since the police murder of George Floyd
Floyd’s murder at the hands and knees of the Minneapolis Police Department sparked mass sustained protests in the United States and internationally. But five years later the cops, supported by all capitalist parties, continue to kill record numbers of people.
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“Black Lives Matter” was embraced by the Democratic Party, corporate America and the media and flooded with hundreds of millions of dollars.
The campaign was aimed at covering up the fact that the majority of those killed by police in every country are working class, poor, or suffering from a mental health crisis. While racist and fascist attitudes are cultivated and promoted within police departments— and by the US ruling class— the police function as an instrument of class rule. They are granted extraordinary powers by the capitalist state to kill with impunity in defense of private property and the rule of the financial oligarchy.
3. Donald Trump puts US presidency up for sale at cryptocurrency dinner
In a historically unprecedented display of political corruption, Donald Trump hosted a dinner at his national golf course in Virginia on Thursday at which he openly sold access to the US presidency in exchange for investments in his $Trump cryptocurrency.
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It is noteworthy that the Democratic Party has done nothing to mobilize the public against the blatantly illegal attack on a fundamental principle that distinguishes democratic government from authoritarianism. All the Democrats could muster was a news conference on Thursday led by Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Chris Murphy of Connecticut where they called for the passage of legislation that would ban such activities.
4. Trump’s Gulf visit sends message to China: “Back off. The
Middle East is ours”
Trump’s aim is to stoke fear into potential allies and opponents of US imperialism alike and demonstrate that they too will face a similar war of obliteration as Gaza if they stand in the way of Washington’s bid to control the world’s markets and essential resources.
5. Photo London 2025: The enduring significance of Lee Miller’s war photography
There were thousands of photographs on display from over 130 exhibitors and 400 artists. Many of the predominantly landscape, portrait and abstract images were beautifully presented and technically inventive, but one would hardly guess the world was in political and economic turmoil. The eruption of fascism, genocide and war and the massive opposition to these developments were barely mentioned.
Duisburg Regional Court [in Germany] has acquitted one of the co-founders of the now banned “Palestine Solidarity Duisburg,” Leon Wystrychowski, of the charge of “condoning criminal offenses” by Hamas.
One year of the PSDU ban: For the unity of the Arab and Jewish working class!
On May 16, 2024, North Rhine-Westphalia's Interior Minister Herbert Reul banned the group "Palestine Solidarity Duisburg". The ban criminalized any criticism of the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the government's war policy.The more obvious the genocide in Palestine becomes and the more blatantly the German government supports the Israeli government politically, financially, and with weapons, the more vehemently it cracks down on opposition.This has nothing to do with protecting Jewish life or making reparations for the Holocaust. Germany, like the United States and other European states, uses Israel as a bridgehead for its imperialist interests in the Middle East, threatening and intimidating the entire region.
By claiming imperialist governments can be pressured into halting genocide, the CRT works to tie the working class to the imperialist state and block a movement that can stop the genocide.
8. New Zealand’s budget for austerity and war
The budget’s austerity and warmongering will accelerate the movement to the left by workers and young people, who will come into conflict not only with the government, but with the opposition parties and the pro-capitalist union apparatus.
The purging of Bailey’s book [Philip Roth: The Biography] in 2021, as we explained at the time, in “Book-burning comes to America,” set
a sinister example, intended to intimidate artists, biographers and scholars alike. The message being sent is clear: any influential figure who rubs establishment public opinion the wrong way can be denounced and dispatched in like manner.
10. Germany: Three construction workers fall to their death
The latest spate of horrific industrial accidents can only be fought independently of politicians, corporations and trade union bureaucrats. The aim must be to reveal the causes of accidents in detail and take joint action to remedy abuses!
Rather than uniting with other defense workers and workers in other industries, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) is shutting down the strike because it threatens the war policies of both parties in Washington, who are openly discussing launching new wars in the Middle East and against China. While workers in the defense plants work for low pay, the new spending bill in Congress contains the largest military budget in US history, to be paid for by massive cuts in social programs and ramping up the exploitation of defense and other workers.
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Strikers at Pratt & Whitney in Connecticut must vote “No” on the tentative agreement being put forward at Tuesday’s membership meeting. They should kick out the bargaining committee which is attempting to violate their will by forcing the contract past them sight unseen, and replace them with a new one elected solely from the rank and file, not union officials.
12. Israeli military unveils plan to internally displace entire
remaining population of Gaza
The total occupation of Gaza, the transfer of the population to concentration camps and the monopolization of food distribution by the US and Israeli militaries is the essential prelude to their plan for the forcible displacement of the remaining Palestinian population.
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To date, 53,900 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli attacks since October 7, 2023, with hundreds of thousands wounded.
In a statement Sunday, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said that 950 children have been killed by Israeli attacks over the past two months. “Children in Gaza are enduring unimaginable suffering,” UNRWA said in a post on X. “They are starving, displaced, and exposed to indiscriminate attacks.”
13. Australia: Victorian state Labor government budget sees record debt, massive cuts
Since its election in 2014, the state Labor government in Victoria has functioned as a ruthless instrument of big business and finance capital. Its latest budget involves a series of anti-working-class measures.
Thousands of public sector workers will be targeted for sacking in the next months. The government has sought to cover up its agenda for as long as possible, insisting that the total number of cuts will only be revealed after an internal “review” to be finalized in June. The budget, however, tallied $3.3 billion in cuts over the forward estimates via “stripping back inefficiency” in the public sector. Treasurer Jaclyn Symes admitted the government has “flagged up to around 3,000 [jobs]” for destruction, while leaving open the possibility of even more sackings after receiving the commissioned review.
14. UK agrees handover of Chagos Islands to Mauritius to protect key US Diego Garcia base
The UK will pay Mauritius £101 million a year, with the rent set to rise with inflation, for 99 years, at which point the lease can be renewed for up to 40 years if both sides agree. [Prime Minister] Starmer sought to justify the cost as “value for money”, even as his government plans £5 billion in welfare cuts, because it is “slightly less than the running cost of an aircraft carrier minus the aircraft”.
15. High Court case reveals damning evidence of UK Labour
government complicity in Gaza genocide
While the case centers on the issues of ... F35s, this is just one component of British imperialism’s involvement in backing Israel’s slaughter of Gaza. The Royal Air Force continues reconnaissance flights over Gaza to help plan mass murder. In March, Declassified UK published findings of an investigation they commissioned by Action on Armed Violence showing that the RAF “has conducted at least 518 surveillance flights around Gaza since December 2023.”
25 years ago:
Space Shuttle Atlantis successfully repairs the International Space Station
50 years ago:
Boston longshoremen strike to defend Guaranteed Income
75 years ago:
Israeli army expels 120 Palestinians, sentencing many to death in Wadi Araba desert
100 years ago:
Home Secretary bans foreign Communists from entry to the United Kingdom
17. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!
Bogdan Syrotiuk
Internationally, major artistic figures such as Roger Waters and Ai Wei Wei as well as historians such as Mario Kessler and Christian Gerlach have supported the campaign to free Bogdan Syrotiuk. Many political tendencies have also condemned his imprisonment and called for his release, despite their political differences with the Trotskyist movement. These include Jill Stein from the Greens in the United States, and several groups and websites in Russia and Turkey. Most recently, the website of the Socialist Laborer Party in Turkey, and that of the Partisan Defense Committee, which is affiliated with the Spartacist tendency, have issued statements in support of Bogdan.
