Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. Trump administration releases thousands of files on the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
The release of the King files, which originally had been sealed until 2027, follows those of documents and files related to two other prominent US assassinations of the 1960s, those of President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert F. Kennedy. All these files were made available pursuant to an executive order issued by Trump soon after beginning his second term last January.
The Kennedy and King files contained very little new information. Noted King biographer David Garrow said, after looking at the King files, “There is nothing new or notable in what was released yesterday,” and that much of the material had been in the public domain for decades. This is precisely why Trump was willing to release the files, enabling him to pose as an advocate of “transparency” and pretending some sympathy with those who believe that all the assassinations of that decade, including that of Malcolm X, were the result of conspiracies at the highest levels.
*****
Trump’s executive order was entirely consistent with the trademark cynicism and demagogy of the would-be Führer in the White House, for whom the “Big Lie” is standard operating procedure. Attorney General Pam Bondi declared with a straight face that, “The American people deserve answers decades after the horrific assassination of one of our nation’s great leaders.” But it is her boss who recently welcomed Afrikaner “refugees” from South Africa, who has ordered that the names of Confederate “heroes” be restored to various military bases, and who is attempting to roll back voting rights and other gains of the mass civil rights movement.
Moreover, the political views of King, the man Bondi now calls a “great leader,” were substantially to the left of the current Democratic mayoral candidate in New York, Zohran Mamdani, the same man whom Trump has been calling a “Communist lunatic” almost every day for the last month. It is not very difficult to deduce Trump’s real estimation of Martin Luther King.
*****
Regardless of Trump’s cynical calculations, however, the renewed attention to the assassination of Martin Luther King and to the legacy of the slain civil rights leader raises important historical issues.
James Earl Ray was arrested in London after a long manhunt. He at first pleaded guilty, and was tried, convicted and sentenced to a 99-year prison term. Ray later attempted to recant his plea, saying he had been set up to take the blame for killing King. The King family, including Coretta Scott King before her death, believed him. The family pointed to the fact that the investigation of King’s assassination had been carried out by the very same FBI, under Hoover, that had targeted him in a years-long campaign of defamation and spying. They insisted on further investigation, and filed a wrongful death lawsuit that led to a 1999 verdict that found that King had been the victim of a huge conspiracy, and not of a lone racist gunman.
Fifty-seven years after the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., it is necessary not only to expose the obscene attempt of the fascist Trump to make political capital of his death, but also to restate King’s legacy, and that of the movement he led.
In the three years between the legislative victories of the mass civil rights movement and King’s death, amidst the growing escalation of the Vietnam War as well as the rebellions in urban ghettos throughout the US, King became increasingly critical in his estimation of what had been achieved and what remained to be done. In 1967 he denounced the Vietnam War, an action that angered Lyndon Johnson and other erstwhile “allies” in the Democratic Party. King was denounced by the editorial board of the New York Times and elsewhere. In his speeches on Vietnam, King emphasized the connection between war abroad and attacks on democratic rights and living conditions at home. He soon spelled this out further, with the launching of the Poor People’s Campaign.
King’s fateful trip to Memphis in late March 1968 was part of his struggle to build the Poor People’s Campaign, which had begun in Washington, with the aim of calling attention to the issues of poverty through civil disobedience actions. King’s political outlook remained one of reforming capitalism, but his actions also raised the possibility of a growing mass movement in the working class, one that could be a far greater threat to the capitalist status quo.
*****
The issues of war, steadily widening inequality and the growing danger of fascism around the world make it all the more vital that the lessons of Martin Luther King’s struggle be learned and applied today. Within a few years of his death, his insistence on linking the struggles for full democratic rights to those against war and poverty had been pushed aside. What remained of the official civil rights movement, presided over by such figures as Jesse Jackson and Andrew Young—people who had opposed or been lukewarm toward the Poor People’s Campaign and King’s break with the establishment on the issue of Vietnam—embraced the policy of affirmative action, which soon became part of the entire edifice of identity politics with which the ruling class, and the Democratic Party above all, has worked, through racial, ethnic and gender politics, to divide the working class and make it pay for the deepening crisis of American capitalism.
2. Trump outlines agenda of war and economic nationalism at Carnegie Mellon University
For the second time since taking office, President Donald Trump traveled to Pittsburgh earlier this month to shore up an alliance of politicians and corporate and union leaders, as well as educational institutions, to support his agenda of “America First” economic nationalism and war.
*****
In an almost incoherent speech that has become his style, moving from one topic to another without any connection, Trump repeatedly returned to the point that America had to beat China in the AI race, and that this required a vast increase in energy production and data centers. In line with this war drive, he touted his tariffs, which have been levied on both friend and foe.
3. Zionist regime slaughters over 1,000 Palestinians seeking aid in less than two months
Israel’s systematic killing of Palestinians goes hand-in-hand with its deliberate denial of the aid necessary to meet even the basic necessities of Gaza’s population. Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA), stated this week that some 6,000 trucks are waiting in Egypt and Jordan to gain access to Gaza, which Israel is denying. The agency estimates that one in five children in Gaza City are malnourished, while the Doctors Without Borders charity recorded one-quarter of all children and breast-feeding women screened at its clinics last week as malnourished. Gaza’s Government Media Office reported the death toll caused by starvation since the onset of the genocide at 122, with 83 of the victims being children.
*****
Amid the intolerable human misery in Gaza, some of the European imperialist powers have felt compelled to acknowledge at least in words the terrible conditions prevailing in Gaza. But the statement signed earlier this week by Britain, France, Canada, Australia, and others, as well as French President Emmanuel Macron’s declaration Thursday that Paris will recognise a Palestinian state in September, will do nothing to stop the genocide and safeguard the lives of Gaza’s long-suffering inhabitants.
The reality is that Israel can only carry out the Gaza genocide with the brutality that can only be compared to the Nazis’ annihilation of European Jewry because the Zionist regime enjoys the full backing of imperialism.
*****
The perpetrators of the genocide against the Palestinians and all of the horrific conditions of life associated with it must be held to account. This includes the accomplices of the Zionist regime in the imperialist powers of Europe and North America. As the World Socialist Web Site explained earlier this week in the statement entitled Mobilize the working class to stop the Gaza genocide!:
Mass and growing opposition to Israel’s crimes exists throughout the world. What is lacking is a clear program and perspective. The International Committee of the Fourth International and its affiliated Socialist Equality Parties insist that the genocide will not be stopped through appeals to the very capitalist governments carrying out and enabling the genocide. What is urgently required, and what has not yet occurred, is the independent eruption of the working class onto the political stage.
On July 16, German theater and artistic director Claus Peymann died at the age of 88. Rarely has the death of a theatre figure received so much attention in national politics, the cultural world and the media. Claus Peymann was unique, and not only because he was an important artist who shaped major German-speaking theaters for many decades. At the beginning, he was a rebel; in the end, he was considered the last king of the theater, while retaining the role of rebel.
His importance lay in the fact that he understood and defended the theater as a politically and socially significant and indispensable institution, without making any artistic concessions. He defended just as vehemently the standpoint that theater should also be a place for laughter. Fools and clowns were just as much a part of his life as tragic heroes and strong women.
*****
Some critics have seen it as a sign of resignation that, toward the end of his career, Peymann turned to the previously ignored pieces of absurdist theatre. In Sibiu, Romania, where his production of Rhinoceros was shown as part of the 2022 theater festival, he explained in an interview with Deutsche Welle: “I saw [in Stuttgart and Vienna] that theater can have an impact. Regardless of whether it was Kleist, Büchner, Brecht, [Austrian playwright] Peter Turrini, or [Austrian playwright Elfriede] Jelinek, I was always convinced by political theater.”
Now, at the age of 85, he saw things differently. Under the impact of the war in Ukraine, he began to doubt whether theater could truly change the world. “Sometimes I think, and here I follow Eugene Ionesco, that what's happening is so absurd and unimaginable—I experienced Hitler's war as a young boy—that it's happening again now, in the middle of Europe, that we're arming ourselves to the teeth.”
But his rebellious spirit shines through again in the very next sentence: “We don't have money for the emigrants, and we're not helping the refugees from Africa who are fleeing hunger. But suddenly we have billions to finance this war. Suddenly the money is there.” As he ages, his view of reality changes, appearing increasingly absurd. Nevertheless, “I don't want to become a cynic like Heiner Müller [noted East German playwright], with whom I was very friendly,” he states unequivocally.
5. Teamsters headquarters reportedly hired neo-Nazi Peter Cytanovic earlier this year
The leadership of the Teamsters union recently hired Peter Cytanovic, a known neo-Nazi who participated prominently in the fascist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, for an administrative position at its headquarters in Washington D.C. Cytanovic was reportedly terminated after his background became known to co-workers.
*****
It is almost impossible that no one involved in the hiring of Cytanovic was aware of his political connections to neo-Nazi groups. Cytanovic, 20 years old at the time of the Charlottesville rally, became internationally famous as the “face of the far-right” when a picture of him angrily chanting, his face lit by the distinctive tiki-torches of his fellow fascists, went viral.
Chants at the rally included anti-semitic slogans such as “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil,” a phrase used by the Nazis.
*****
Any suggestion that Cytanovic has undergone a meaningful break with the far right is unfounded. While he has described his participation in the Charlottesville rally as a “mistake” and distanced himself from the label “white nationalist,” his public statements suggest he is more concerned with the personal consequences of his involvement than with any genuine repudiation of fascist politics.
*****
The political trajectory of the union bureaucracy increasingly mirrors that of the Italian syndicalists of the early 20th century. Figures like Edmondo Rossoni and Agostino Lanzillo transitioned from union leaders into key officials in Mussolini’s fascist regime. In the United States today, O’Brien and others are charting a similar course, aligning the unions with Trump’s anti-immigrant demagogy, trade war nationalism, and preparations for authoritarian rule.
Cytanovic’s presence at Teamsters headquarters must be taken as a warning sign of a broader political shift within the bureaucracy toward open collaboration with the forces of fascism. The union leadership is signaling that it is prepared to ally with Trump and the far right to suppress opposition from below and defend its own power and privileges against the interests of the rank and file.
6. European Union-China summit: sharp tensions between Beijing and Brussels
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who constantly accuses the US of harming all sides with its tariffs, threatened China with Trump-style trade sanctions. She warned that relations between China and the EU were at a “turning point.” The trade relationship was “highly unbalanced,” she said, adding that a rebalancing of bilateral relations was “essential.” If China continues to push into world markets with state-subsidized overcapacity, it would be “very difficult for the EU to maintain its current level of openness.”
Von der Leyen’s threat of trade war measures against China shows that imposing tariffs is not a personal quirk of US President Trump, but a reaction to the global crisis of the capitalist system. As on the eve of the First and Second World Wars, the struggle for raw materials, markets, and profits is no longer being waged through peaceful competition, but through coercion, blackmail, and military force.
*****
For its part, the Chinese leadership has emphasized its interest in further economic cooperation, but it is not prepared to give in to European blackmail. During a meeting with EU leaders, President Xi Jinping stated that there were no fundamental conflicts of interest or geopolitical contradictions between China and the EU. It is hoped that the EU market will remain open and that the European side will “refrain from using restrictive economic and trade instruments,” he said.
Beijing also fears that the EU could purchase an agreement in the tariff conflict with the US by taking a tougher stance against China. The EU is already putting increasing political and military pressure on China.
The accusation that China is supporting Russia in its war with Ukraine by purchasing its oil and circumventing Western sanctions by supplying dual-use components, i.e., components that can also be used for arms production, was a recurring theme throughout the summit. The EU urged China not to provide material support to Russia’s military-industrial base and to use its influence to end the war.
*****
Trade wars and wars are waged on the back of the working class, which has to bear the costs in the form of unemployment, social spending cuts, and being used as cannon fodder. It must not allow itself to be divided and harnessed to the service of nationalist agitation. It must unite internationally and fight for the overthrow of capitalism. Only in this way can the enormous technological developments be put at the service of social progress instead of being turned into a means of destruction.
7. Trump issues executive order expanding bipartisan war on people without homes
Many states, including those run by Democrats, have already embraced Trump’s crackdown against the unhoused. In July 2024, California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order targeting homeless encampments, ordering state agencies to remove them from public areas. Newsom followed that up with an even more draconian order this past May directing cities to adopt anti-camping ordinances that mandate unhoused individuals to relocate every 72 hours.
The bipartisan efforts to criminalize homelessness are aimed at masking the fact that more than enough money exists to provide homes, mental health and drug addiction treatment for everyone in the US and internationally. Under capitalism, the wealth created by the working class, the vast majority of society, is stolen and hoarded by a tiny parasitic few.
"This package has been secretly crafted over months by Communication Workers Union (CWU) General Secretary Dave Ward, Deputy General Secretary Martin Walsh with Royal Mail’s new billionaire boss Daniel Kretinsky, whose EP Group took control in May following a £3.6 billion takeover. The CWU postal executive rubber stamped this without our vote and are telling workers to vote Yes. But we will not accept the dismantling of the Universal Service Obligation (USO) and our remaining hard-won rights."
*****
9. Thai-Cambodian military clashes threaten to escalateThe PWRFC proposes the following demands:
- An inflation-busting, no-strings pay rise
Enough of below-inflation settlements and productivity. We demand a real pay increase that restores what has been stolen through years of wage suppression- Abolish the two-tier workforce—equal pay and conditions for all
No more divide and rule. New entrants must not be condemned to poverty pay, unpaid breaks, and sweatshop conditions.- Defend the Universal Service Obligation
Reject alternate-day delivery, degraded First Class service, and the destruction of the mail service. The USO must be protected as a vital public good—not dismantled for private profit.- Workers’ control of technology to shorten hours and improve safety
Automation and digital tools must serve workers, not billionaire shareholders. Use technology to reduce workloads, improve health and safety, not to destroy jobs.
Military clashes between Thailand and Cambodia have taken place over the past two days in 12 locations along their disputed border. Thai authorities have reported that 14 civilians and a soldier have been killed, while Cambodia has acknowledged one death and provided no further casualty figures.
Mass evacuations have occurred from the border areas in both countries as clashes continued. Thai officials announced yesterday that 138,000 people had been evacuated from four border provinces. About 20,000 people have evacuated from Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province, according to the Khmer Times.
*****
The clashes reflect heightened political and social tensions in both countries, fueled by slowing economies that will be further hit by the Trump administration’s tariffs. Cambodia, which sent 40 percent of its total exports to the US in 2022, faces a huge across-the-board Trump tariff of 36 percent from August 1.
While not as dependent on exports to the US, Thailand is being hit by the same figure amid a sharp economic slowdown. The so-called Tiger economy had gross domestic product (GDP) growth of just 2.5 percent last year and the estimates for this year are less than 2 percent.
The longstanding border dispute, which derives from the region’s colonial past, is an inflammatory issue that has been exploited by nationalist demagogues in both countries. An earlier clash in late May that resulted in the death of a Cambodian soldier became the pretext for the suspension of Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra from office on July 1.
*****
The present military clashes are the worst in more than a decade. In 2011, Thai and Cambodian troops clashed in an area surrounding the Preah Vihear temple, a central focus of the border disputes. Thousands of people on both sides were forced to flee and at least 20 people were killed.
The disputes have their origins in a 1907 map drawn by French officials in Indochina to demarcate France’s colonial possessions from the Kingdom of Siam (now Thailand), which was nominally independent, sandwiched between French Indochina and British colonial Burma. The map was the basis for Cambodia’s claims to the areas around the Preah Vihear temple. Thailand has not accepted an International Court of Justice ruling in Cambodia’s favor in 1962.
The Trump administration and the entire political system have been thrown into crisis by the return of the Epstein affair after Trump and his allies promised the MAGA base for years that they would release the FBI files on Epstein. Then, earlier this month, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that there was no client list, that Epstein’s death was, in fact, a suicide and the files would not be released.
11. Ronald Adams Sr. and Brayan Neftali Otoniel Canu Joj: Workers' lives sacrificed for profit
This week, the autopsy report was finally released to the family of Ronald Adams Sr., an autoworker who died on the job in April at Stellantis’ Dundee Engine Plant. Adams, a machine repairman, was servicing a parts washer when a gantry that moves engine heads came crashing down on him, pinning him to the conveyor belt.
*****
“The manner of death is classified as an accident,” the report concludes. The word “accident” denotes an uncontrollable event. But the basic reality is that had existing workplace safety laws and regulations been followed, Adams’ horrifying death would not have been possible.
*****
Adams’ case was only brought forward through the efforts of his family and rank-and-file workers. The International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) has organized an investigation, taking testimony from coworkers, safety experts and others to meticulously document every aspect of this preventable death. Its purpose is to arm workers all over the world with information that they need to defend themselves against similar conditions.
*****
The ruling class considers all measures to protect workers’ health and welfare to be an intolerable drain on surplus value, which they consider put to better use shoring up the stock market and funding criminal wars in defense of profits. The most horrendous example of this was the refusal to take basic measures to stop viral transmission during the coronavirus pandemic, which killed 1 million people in the US and is still ongoing in spite of lying claims by the government and media.
*****
While extreme levels of social inequality make working conditions in the United States particularly barbaric, workers everywhere confront different forms of the same underlying reality: the dictatorship of the capitalist class over the means of production, enforced by corrupt union bureaucracies that serve the corporations and the state. The union apparatus supports nationalism to split the working class and is offering its services to prepare the country for world war.
These killings must end! The critical task facing workers is to take power into their own hands. The IWA-RFC calls for the building rank-and-file committees independent of and in opposition to the pro-corporate union apparatus. Safety committees must be formed in every plant to fight for the principle that no job should be carried out unless and until it is made safe. Workers, in consultation with trusted safety experts of their own choosing, must have full authority to set safety standards and to shut down unsafe operations through collective action.
12. Australian public housing residents speak out against Labor demolition plan
The Socialist Equality Party is holding a public meeting, in Melbourne and online, to discuss how to take forward the struggle against the Victorian Labor government’s plan to demolish 44 public housing towers. It is titled: “Ban Labor’s demolition of Melbourne’s public housing towers! Fight for a socialist housing program!”
WHEN: 3:00 p.m., Sunday 27 July
WHERE: Supper Room, Kensington Town Hall, 30-34 Bellair Street, Kensington VIC 3031
13. United States: Concessions workers in 3-day strike at Boston’s Fenway Park
Fenway Park and MGM Music Hall concessions workers walked off the job Friday, July 25, when negotiations between the Aramark company and UNITE HERE Local 26 stalled. This is the first-ever strike at the ballpark of the Boston Red Sox baseball team since it opened 113 years ago.
The strike has been launched during a high-profile Major League Baseball (MLB) weekend series between the Red Sox and the World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers, as well as a concert by country artist Riley Green at MGM Music Hall at Fenway on Friday night.
The workers have been on the job without a contract since it expired on December 31, 2024, but the union has limited the strike to only three days, Friday through Sunday. After almost seven months of negotiations, the union finally organized a strike authorization vote on June 15. More than 95 percent of Fenway and MGM Music Hall workers voted in favor of a strike. Workers are demanding better wages and conditions, as well as a fight against automation being used to eliminate jobs and slash workers’ income.
*****
Beyond the issue of poverty pay, workers are battling against the relentless march of AI-driven automation being used by the company to boost profits by eliminating jobs and slashing worker income. The union is demanding non-specific “guardrails on automation” to protect jobs.
The consequences of self-checkout alcohol kiosks and other automated systems are stark. CBS News spoke to Charbel Salameh, a beer seller for 28 years, who described how a concessions stand that once employed four sellers now has only one person overseeing four machines, eliminating three jobs and those workers’ gratuities. Amanda Savage said her tips are being cut in half due to automation. “At least a dozen jobs have been replaced by self-checkout alcohol kiosks” alone, she said.
*****
There has been no call by the union to shut down the capitalist spectacle that exploits the workers they purport to represent. Rather, it is a polite request to marginally inconvenience ballpark operations, while allowing the core business—the game itself—to proceed unhindered. A genuine strike would seek to paralyze the employer’s operations, forcing them to the bargaining table out of economic necessity. By allowing the games to continue, the union leadership is actively undermining the strike’s potential power.
14. Australian Labor government to expand police-state ASIO interrogation powers
This week, on the first business day of parliament after the May 3 election, the Albanese Labor government introduced legislation to make permanent and significantly expand the compulsory questioning powers of the domestic political spy agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).
This was done without any prior public notice. It was never mentioned throughout the election campaign. Moreover, with rare exceptions, the media has not even reported on the two bills tabled by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke on Wednesday. The population is being kept in the dark as much as possible about this chilling development.
*****
The ASIO Act permits the agency to readily obtain warrants, even orally, from the attorney-general, to question a person to obtain “information” that would “substantially assist the collection of intelligence.” No charge or even allegation of a criminal offense is required.
*****
The World Socialist Web Site warned from the outset in 2003 that the interrogation powers would be broadened far beyond the extensive and vague range of criminal offenses introduced under the banner of “counter-terrorism.” A broader assault on dissent is underway, and accelerating.
15. Workers Struggles: Asia and Australia
India:
Maharashtra government hospital nurses strike over staffing crisis and job security
Uttar Pradesh power utility workers strike against privatization
Pensioners and government employees in Punjab protest removal of old pension scheme
Heavy Engineering Corporation workers in Ranchi demand entitlements
Tamil Nadu mosquito prevention workers protest for permanent jobs
Karnataka public transport workers issue strike notice
South Korea:
Hyundai shipbuilding workers reject union-management pay deal
Australia:
Glencore coal miners in New South Wales strike again for pay increase
Komatsu mining equipment manufacturing workers in New South Wales strike
Wingham Beef Exports workers in New South Wales strike for improved pay offer
TK Elevators workers in Queensland strike for pay increase
Urban Utilities workers in Queensland strike for improved pay offer
Moffat equipment maintenance workers in New South Wales strike for pay increase
Towong Shire Council workers begin industrial action for a better pay offer
KONE Elevators workers in Victoria strike for pay rise
16. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!
Bogdan Syrotiuk
Bogdan, who is 26 years old and in poor health, is being held in a prison in Nikolaev under atrocious conditions on fraudulent charges of serving the interests of Russia. In fact, Bogdan is an intransigent opponent of the capitalist Putin regime and its invasion of Ukraine. He fights for the unity of the working class in Ukraine, Russia and throughout the former Soviet Union.
