Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
Voices Without Faces is a new series of articles on the World Socialist Web Site. [Its] purpose is to focus on and give a voice to immigrant workers who are isolated from and out of the view of other workers, and the capitalist press, by raising real life conditions as well as, importantly, political issues. Readers and workers are encouraged to participate. [Their] anonymity will be guaranteed.
2. Trump orders police-military takeover of Washington D.C.
In his most brazen action yet to create a fascistic dictatorship in America, President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency in the District of Columbia (D.C.), putting the Metropolitan Police Department under federal control, and mobilized nearly a thousand soldiers in the D.C. National Guard to patrol the city. On the pretext of a “crime wave” in the city, Trump’s latest “big lie,” he is putting the US capital under military rule.
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For an initial 30 days and likely far longer, the capital city of a supposed democracy, with a huge working class population, will be under the equivalent of martial law. Instead of a constitutional separation of powers, with “checks and balances,” the Congress, the Supreme Court and every other government institution will become part of the personal fiefdom of Trump, a political gangster who openly seeks the violent suppression of all opposition to his rule.
This action sends a political signal not only to the entire United States, but to the world. The country which long boasted of its role as the first democratic republic is now ruled by a would-be dictator, who is seeking a violent confrontation with his political opponents and, above all, with the working class. Trump’s fascist allies on every continent will be emboldened. The workers of the world must be forewarned and prepare politically in accordance with the dimensions of the threat.
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Trump wants an America that will be comfortable for the super-rich and the most affluent sections of the middle class, made possible through brutal class oppression carried out against the working class, while society is “cleaned” of the most visible victims of that class war.
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What is most remarkable about the present situation is that Trump is carrying out the step-by-step erection of a fascist dictatorship in plain view, in real time, without any resistance from the institutions and organizations that supposedly uphold the principles of constitutional democracy.
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The Socialist Equality Party warns that the working class cannot rely on any of the worm-eaten institutions of American capitalism. Workers must take industrial action to oppose Trump’s dictatorial measures. This means strike action in industry, transport and by government workers themselves—one-third of whom are “organized”—that is, forced to pay dues to organizations that do nothing to defend them. The first step in such a campaign is to establish rank-and-file committees in factories, warehouses, offices and other workplaces, independent of the existing unions and the Democratic Party.
The defense of democratic rights requires the creation of a new political power. It is bound up with the establishment of independent organizations of working class struggle and the building of a mass independent political movement of the working class.
3. Washington and Brazilian fascists escalate attacks after Bolsonaro’s arrest
Last Monday, Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro was placed under house arrest by the Supreme Court (STF) after repeatedly violating precautionary measures prohibiting him from using social media.
The restrictions against the former president were imposed two weeks ago amid tensions caused by US President Donald Trump’s announcement of drastic tariffs against Brazil, justified as an intervention by Washington against what he called a “witch hunt” against Bolsonaro and his supporters.
On July 18, STF judge Alexandre de Moraes decreed several measures against Bolsonaro—including the use of an electronic ankle bracelet, a ban on social media and communication with foreign authorities—on the grounds that he was acting alongside his son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, to instigate US sanctions against Brazil and obstruct the investigation and trial of those responsible for the fascist coup attempt of January 8, 2023.
Bolsonaro provocatively defied the court’s decision. After appearing in Congress on July 21, where he spoke in front of cameras to his allies denouncing the Supreme Court’s measures as a “humiliation” and calling for “confrontation with everything and everyone,” he was warned with a threat of arrest.
In defiance of the STF, Bolsonaro participated via video call broadcast to fascistic demonstrations held last Sunday in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The protests demanded “amnesty now” for all those involved in the January 8 fascist insurrection, as well as the impeachment of Moraes and the overthrow of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers Party – PT). Protesters held signs reading, in English, “THANK YOU TRUMP” and “HELP TRUMP.”
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The recent events expose not only the development of the fascist conspiracy in Brazil and its deep ties to the US imperialist escalation. They also lay bare the complete bankruptcy of the perspectives nurtured by the PT and its pseudo-left supporters, who work systematically to disarm the Brazilian working class in the face of this deadly threat.
The PT and the pseudo-left promoted the farce that fascism could be contained by a “broad front” with the bankrupt bourgeois establishment, while they systematically promoted the military. Now they are committed to imprisoning workers and youth under a bourgeois nationalist trap in response to Trump’s attacks.
4. Renowned Palestinian footballer Suleiman al-Obeid murdered by Israel at aid distribution site
On August 6, the celebrated retired footballer Suleiman al-Obeid, known affectionately as the “Palestinian Pel” in reference to the great Brazilian player, was killed by Israeli gunfire while waiting for humanitarian aid in southern Gaza. He is survived by his wife and five children.
Al-Obeid represented Palestine—including as captain—in 24 international matches and played for the Gaza City club Khadamat Al-Shatea. A forward and winger, he scored more than 100 goals in his professional career, with one of his finest a scissor-kick in a game against Yemen during the 2010 West Asian Football Federation championship.
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Despite the terrible conditions in Gaza since Israel’s invasion in October 2023, Suleiman continued to play the sport he loved. His widow Doaa told Reuters, “He used to go training every day and never stopped, not a single day. Even during the crisis of war, in the midst of rockets, shelling and mass killing, he would go play. He used to gather his friends and loved ones and go play with them.”
Israel’s genocide laid waste to the previous life the family had, with Reuters noting that their “home was destroyed in a bombardment earlier this year. They now live in a tent among the ruins of a neighborhood of Gaza City.”
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As to how he met his death, Middle East Eye reported, “According to Doaa, Israeli quadcopters deliberately fired on crowds waiting for food on the day Suleiman was killed."
5. No contract offer in sight as Philadelphia public school teachers press for August 31 strike
Philadelphia teachers prepare to return on August 18, with a strike authorized if no deal is reached by August 31, amid a severe school funding crisis worsened by a state budget impasse.
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It is essential for educators to link up their struggles in a common offensive against the working and living conditions which have been imposed on them in city after city. This requires that educators form independent rank-and-file organizations which are capable of taking their struggle out of the hands of the well-paid trade union bureaucrats who aid the city administration by isolating and betraying the working population.
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The [Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT)] union is making a bogus show of faux-militancy, holding nightly “strike ready” events in which members are being asked to come up with “clever slogans” and “picket chants” ahead of the contract deadline.
As with similar spectacles, such as the phony “strike ready” campaign organized by the Teamsters during the UPS workers’ contract battle in 2023, such posturing will be used as a way to blow off steam while ensuring that the eventual [temporary contract agreement] that is forced on the educators will be accepted.
6. Germany temporarily halts arms deliveries to Israel: Chancellor Merz gives himself an alibi
Merz himself never tires of emphasizing that nothing will change in Germany’s relationship with Israel. “The principles of German Israel policy are unchanged,” he said on Sunday in an interview with broadcaster ARD. “We will continue to help this country to defend itself.” Germany and Israel were agreed on who the aggressor is in the Gaza war: “The cause is called Hamas. It is the terrorism of Hamas.”
The official statement from the Chancellery on the approval stop begins with the words: “Israel has the right to defend itself against the terror of Hamas. … The disarmament of Hamas is essential. Hamas must play no role in the future of Gaza.”
Now, Merz raises his finger admonishingly towards Jerusalem because the genocidal character of Israel’s actions can simply no longer be denied. For almost two years, the German government categorically rejected all alarm calls from aid organizations, UN institutions and other bodies. Anyone who protested against or even dared to criticize Israeli war crimes was—and still is—persecuted. Merz himself had declared during the election campaign that he would welcome Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to Germany despite an existing international arrest warrant.
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Germany’s support for Israel has nothing to do with its responsibility for the murder of 6 million Jews, with which this support is repeatedly justified. Claiming the justification of the murderous campaign of the Israeli army as recompense for the Shoah is repulsive. Responsibility for the Shoah does not oblige Germany to support another genocide.
Like the United States, Germany uses Israel as an armed bridgehead for its geopolitical and economic interests in the Middle East. In order to become a “war-capable” world power again, the government is prepared to commit any crime.
7. Homeless population in Canada’s largest city doubles in less than four years
The findings should come as no surprise to anyone with even the slightest familiarity with the increasingly dire affordability crisis in Canada’s largest city—a city, moreover, that includes an estimated 108,000 millionaires and 20 billionaires.
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The 2024 Toronto Street Needs Assessment states, “A coordinated multi-sectoral and intergovernmental approach across different service systems continues to be needed to address homelessness.”
Under capitalism, this pious wish will remain a pipe-dream. The only “multi-sectoral intergovernmental” approaches that the ruling class is capable of organizing are those to rearm Canada’s military to wage war around the world and transfer society’s wealth to the pockets of the financial oligarchy.
The resolution of the homelessness crisis—like all social ills rooted in capitalism—can be accomplished only through the independent political mobilization of the working class in struggle for the socialist transformation of social life. By placing society’s vast resources under democratic control, the working class will set the stage for making human need, not private profit, the animating principle of all social policy.
8. Pentagon again demands higher Australian military spending
The Trump administration and the Pentagon are intensifying their insistence that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor government must urgently increase its military spending in preparation for war against China.
“Donald Trump’s Pentagon warns Anthony Albanese that he is not spending enough on defense and AUKUS,” was the front-page headline on Saturday’s Australian newspaper, the Murdoch media’s national flagship.
In an “exclusive” briefing last Thursday, an unnamed Pentagon official reportedly warned that Australia would be unable to adequately defend itself and deliver on its commitment to the AUKUS military pact unless it massively lifted its military budget to 3.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
The newspaper described this as the “Trump administration’s strongest warning yet to Anthony Albanese.” It declared: “The warning sets up a collision with the Labor government, which has repeatedly rebuffed calls from Washington to lift its defense spending.”
9. Australian government to “recognize” Palestine, as it continues to support Gaza genocide
At a press conference yesterday, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared that his Labor government would vote to “recognize” Palestinian statehood at a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly next month.
The announcement followed similar pledges by a number of countries, including France, the UK and Canada. Albanese stated that the decision on recognition followed discussions with the leaders of those nations.
The pledge is a cynical attempt to deflect mass opposition to the genocide, under conditions where Labor remains committed to supporting Israel politically, diplomatically and materially.
That aim is even more transparent in the case of Australia than the other countries that have made similar announcements. In line with Australia’s lockstep alliance with the US, which has opposed the moves to recognition, Albanese had declared less than a fortnight ago that his government would not recognize Palestine any time soon.
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Workers and young people horrified by the genocide and seeking to end it should reject the “recognition” pledges with the contempt they deserve. A two-state solution was never viable. Discussion of it served to deflect the struggle against a Zionist regime, which, based on its ethno-nationalism and its character as an outpost of imperialism in the Middle East, is inherently expansionist.
As the Trotskyist movement, the Fourth International has always insisted, the only way forward is through the development of a socialist movement, uniting the working class throughout the region, Palestinian, Arab and Jewish, in opposition to the state structures imposed by colonialism. The aim must be the establishment of a united socialist federation of the Middle East, which alone can end imperialist domination and secure the social and democratic rights of the masses.
The genocide will not be halted by “pressuring” or appealing to the imperialist governments that are overseeing it, as part of a broader program of militarism that threatens world war. Instead, what is required is the independent mobilization of the working class internationally against the Israeli genocide, including through strikes and industrial action to halt supplies to the Israeli state and cripple the Zionist war machine.
10. EU denounces Trump-Putin talks in Alaska over Ukraine
Since Trump suddenly announced Friday that he would meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska for peace talks on the NATO-Russia war in Ukraine, European media have denounced the talks as European officials called for a continuing hard line against Russia.
European media are unrelentingly hostile to any talk of peace in Ukraine. This has “set off alarm bells in Ukraine and across Europe,” the Financial Times of London wrote, while Le Monde in Paris denounced it as “a trap.” Germany’s Der Spiegel raised the decisive question, writing, “In European capitals, people are now asking themselves: Can the impatient Trump still be persuaded not to neglect European interests?”
For now, however, the European governments are debating how to pursue their interests in Ukraine in response to Trump’s latest policy shift. Last year, French President Emmanuel Macron called to escalate social cuts to finance the deployment of French ground troops to Ukraine. This year, after Britain and France formed a “coalition of the willing” of European states ready supposedly to fight Russia in Ukraine without US help, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called to send his Taurus missiles to Ukraine for long-range bombings across Russia.
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The EU powers’ walking back of their promises to reconquer all Ukrainian territory held by the Kremlin exposes the lies they told to justify the war. They demanded European workers sacrifice hundreds of billions of euros for rearmament and risk total war with Russia, in the name of an uncompromising moral struggle for Ukrainian freedom.
In reality, they set out to plunder Ukraine. Unable to wage great-power wars independently of Washington until their rearmament has progressed further, they intervened in Ukraine via the problematic NATO “alliance” with Washington, which at each step threatens to collapse. They backed the corrupt, far-right regime of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who canceled elections and has ruled as a dictator based on repression by far-right intelligence and police services.
This has produced a disaster. Mass opposition to the war is growing in Ukraine, as casualties there continue to mount by the hundreds of thousands. Today, polls show over 65 percent of Ukrainians support a rapid peace with Russia to end the bloodshed, and mass protests have broken out across Ukraine against Zelensky’s cancellation of corruption investigations targeting his own officials.
Moreover, even after the EU poured hundreds of billions of dollars into arming the Zelensky regime, it has failed to secure the critical economic and strategic interests driving NATO’s intervention in Ukraine. Unfortunately for EU imperialist interests, these targets lay primarily in Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine that were taken by the Kremlin. Today, the naval base at Sevastopol in the Crimea and the main reserves of rare earth elements and other mining resources in the Donbas remain in Russian hands.
11. Trump extends China tariff war truce
The truce, which was set up by a meeting between US treasury secretary Scott Bessent with top Chinese officials in Stockholm last month, was subject to Trump’s approval. That came with an executive order signed yesterday hours before the previous deal was due to expire.
Had the truce not been extended, there were fears that the financial market turmoil, which accompanied the major escalation of tariffs against China on April 2 and in subsequent days, would have returned.
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The Trump decision, part of the extension of the truce, has revealed the deep divisions within the US ruling class over what all sections regard as the existential threat to US global dominance—the economic and technological rise of China.
Some of the differences have been articulated by the Wall Street Journal, which has denounced Trump’s tariff war against the world as cutting across the formation of a bloc of US allies to deal with Beijing.
The Trump administration for its part has made it clear it regards China as main threat. Last week in a comment in the New York Times outlining the Trump agenda for a new global order, the US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer claimed that the “biggest winner” of the post-war system had been China.
12. At least 1 worker dead, 10 injured in massive explosion at US Steel plant in Pennsylvania
The Clairton Coke Works, owned by US Steel, now a subsidiary of Nippon Steel, employs nearly 1,400 workers. It produces coke, a high-carbon form of coal used in steelmaking. Located 15 miles southeast of Pittsburgh on the Monongahela River, the 392-acre facility is the largest coke producer in North America.
The explosion struck the facility just before 11:00 a.m. Monday, with video showing a blast inside the plant followed by a towering plume of thick black smoke.
A steelworker described the blast to local reporters as so loud he first thought two trains had hit each other head-on. Workers at a nearby deli said the explosion was so powerful it blew the shop’s doors open.
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The Clairton Coke Works has a long record of deadly accidents. On September 3, 2009, an explosion killed 32-year-old Nicholas Revetta and injured a nearby contractor. Less than a year later, on July 14, 2010, another blast injured 20 workers, four critically. In both cases, the cause was traced to gas leaks from lines running through the coke batteries.
Pennsylvania, historically the center of the US steel industry, leads the nation in steel plant injuries, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Since 2015, there have been 266 severe injuries, with 98 resulting in amputations. On average, one steelworker receives serious injuries every two weeks in the state.
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The Clairton Coke Works has been central to the US steel industry and working class struggles for over a century. Built by US Steel in 1916 as what was then the nation’s largest and most advanced by-product coke plant, it transformed steelmaking by centralizing coke production, a vital component in the process.
The Great Depression formed the backdrop to major class battles at Clairton in the 1930s. Despite efforts by the Roosevelt administration to contain the eruption of class conflict through reforms, a movement of unorganized workers in the industrial centers of the Midwest broke out as part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) movement.
The Clairton Coke Works became a flashpoint in these struggles. On September 26, 1933, roughly half of the steelworkers at the plant joined striking coal miners to shut down production.
More than 3,000 steelworkers joined 4,000 miners to demand union representation, better wages and safer working conditions. The work stoppage was denounced by the pro-capitalist national union officials, who feared the political implications of the strike. Nevertheless, the workers in Clairton held firm, even as they clashed with company guards and state police.
Later, in the 1960s, workers and residents in Clairton began demanding protection from the cocktail of toxic gases—benzene, arsenic, lead, mercury, sulfur dioxide and more—emitted by the plant. Moreover, by mid-century, the facility’s sprawling batteries and outdated equipment had created an environment where accidents, fires and leaks were constant threats.
An epidemiological study by the University of Pittsburgh funded by the National Cancer Institute found that coke oven workers in Allegheny County had lung cancer rates roughly 2.5 times higher than other steelworkers.
The increased risk was even more dramatic for workers operating atop the ovens, where exposure to raw coking fumes was greatest. For those with 15 years or more in this role, nearly one in three died of lung cancer. Other outcomes included severe eczema and respiratory disease.
Such efforts helped force the US government to establish the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 1970, which implemented strict coke oven emission standards and other regulations.
Beginning in the 1970s, all these gains—and many more won through decades of class struggle—were systematically betrayed by the United Steelworkers (USW), as the union bureaucracy was transformed into an instrument of the corporations, working against the lives and living standards of workers.
The Trump administration is currently engaged in a massive assault on whatever remains of corporate regulations. The federal government has also taken a direct role in the management of US Steel, after it was sold to Nippon Steel earlier this year.
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The explosion at Clairton Coke Works is part of an unending string of workplace fatalities and injuries across the country.
This includes the death of Ronald Adams, Sr., a 63-year old Stellantis autoworker in Southeastern Michigan who was crushed to death by a gantry crane on April 7.
In June, 39-year-old steelworker Michael Dewaine Townsend was killed at his plant in Fairfield, Alabama, after a railcar he was riding struck another railcar. Townsend’s wife passed away last year due to an illness, and his death leaves his four children without parents.
In mid-July, 19-year-old Guatemalan immigrant Brayan Neftali Otoniel Canu Joj was killed at Tina’s Burritos plant in Vernon, California, after being sucked into a meat grinder while cleaning.
On July 28, a 30-year-old worker in Willoughby, Ohio was killed when a truck crashed into the machinery on which he was working. The day prior, Kim Jung Won, a 34-year-old South Korean contractor, was killed at the LG Energy Solutions lithium battery plant in Holland, Michigan. After being caught between the frame and lifting mechanism of a machine he was working on he was crushed to death. At the time Won was working on the machine, it was supposed to have been disabled so he could work on it safely.
On July 30, Dylan D. Danielson and his two children were killed after a massive explosion occurred at a Horizon Biofuels plant in Fremont, Nebraska, due to dust accumulation and on-site storage of wood waste and alcohol-based materials.
All these deaths were entirely preventable had basic safety measures been followed for machinery and worksite management.
An investigation into the death of Ronald Adams, Sr. has been launched by the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC) which has revealed that management bypassed lockout/tagout safety procedures, something which directly led to Adams’ death.
On July 27, approximately 100 workers and youth attended a public hearing into Adams’ death by the IWA-RFC in Detroit.
At the meeting, a resolution was passed unanimously calling for an “end to the cover-up of the ongoing industrial slaughter.” The resolution declared that “Ronald Adams’ death was not an isolated incident but part of a broader pattern of systemic corporate negligence and cover-up that is claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers each year in the United States and around the world.”
The resolution also called for expanding the Adams investigation to include the deaths of Antonio Gaston at the Toledo Jeep complex, Casen Garcia at Tyson Foods and Brayan Joj at Tina’s Burritos, along with a demand to end the industrial slaughter of workers and the bipartisan attacks on workplace safety and social programs, and a call to build rank-and-file committees.
13. 75 years since Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard: The cruelty of the motion picture business
Seventy-five years ago, on August 10, 1950, Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard was released by Paramount Pictures.
14. Sri Lanka’s Dissanayake government announces market-driven education reforms
The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) are calling on workers, teachers, and students to oppose the government’s market-driven education reforms. These privatization and cost-cutting policies will deal a serious blow to Sri Lanka’s already crisis-ridden free public education system.
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Under the reform package presented by the education ministry, the number of subjects in grades 10 and 11 will be reduced from 10 to 7, with 5 compulsory subjects and 2 optional ones. The compulsory subjects include the mother language, English, mathematics, science, and religion. Optional subjects include second language, IT, history, civics, health, technology, geography, aesthetics, and entrepreneurship and finance.
Various academics have raised concerns that students will be forced to select subjects oriented towards labor market requirements, rather than subjects essential for a comprehensive education, such as aesthetics and history. Rather than cultivating future generations to be thoughtful, independent critical thinkers, the ruling elite aims to prepare youth for low-wage exploitation by local and global investors.
15. Blackwater founder Erik Prince pitches deployment of US mercenaries to South America
The recent visit to Ecuador and Peru by former US Navy SEAL and mercenary contractor Erik Prince is cause for alarm throughout the region.
The billionaire Prince is the founder of Blackwater, an infamous mercenary army with a bloody record of assassinations and human rights violations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Haiti and other countries. His purpose in visiting Ecuador and Peru is to train the police and the military in combating the growing upsurge of the masses, as well as providing mercenary soldiers with a license to kill if the situation so requires.
Both countries’ governments face the growth of extortionate mafias that control the streets of working-class districts in the cities and mining regions in the Andes. In Peru, it includes cities like Trujillo, El Callao, and Lima. Similarly, in Ecuador, drug trafficking gangs are prevalent in the port city of Guayaquil. These issues, however, have their source in rising social inequality, widespread poverty, and the marginalization of broad layers of workers and youth by the capitalist ruling elite.
It is against this backdrop that Prince, a longtime supporter of Washington’s fascist President Trump, traveled to the region in July.
16. New Zealand government snubs Cook Islands’ 60th anniversary celebration
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New Zealand maintains neo-colonial domination over the Cook Islands as one of its so-called “Realm” countries, along with Niue and Tokelau. While the Cooks, with a population of just 15,000, has limited self-government, Wellington provides oversight in foreign affairs and defense. Like all the impoverished countries of the region, it depends on international aid and loans, of which New Zealand is the principal contributor.
In February, New Zealand’s political and media establishment erupted in outrage over a decision by the Cook Islands government to sign a wide-ranging strategic partnership agreement with China without consulting Wellington.
17. Workers Struggles: The Americas
Argentina:
Science workers protest wage cuts and layoffs in Buenos Aires
Thousands protest the Gaza Genocide in Argentina
Bolivia:
Sanitation workers in Bolivia fight layoffs and privatization
Canada:
Air Canada cabin crews set to strike
Ecuador:
Workers mobilize against Noboa regime in Ecuador
United States:
New York City legal aid workers striking for contract increases
Illinois canning workers strike isolated since June 1 by labor bureaucracy
18. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!
Bogdan Syrotiuk and Leon Trotsky
