Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. The political lessons of Netanyahu’s fascistic tirades against Australian Prime Minister Albanese
Over recent days, Israeli Prime Minister and arch-war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu has intensified his attacks on the Australian Labor government and its Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, accusing them of having “betrayed Israel” and “abandoned” Jewish people.
The conflict has emerged as Israel’s genocide enters a new and horrific stage. At least 260 people have died of starvation, and one in every three children in Gaza City are malnourished. Figures released by Israel of the Palestinian death toll up to May reveal that 83 percent of the dead are civilians.
Israel’s deliberate starvation is one element of an operation to complete the ethnic cleansing plan outlined in May by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who declared, “Within a year, ... Gaza will be entirely destroyed, civilians will be sent to ... the south to a humanitarian zone ... and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries.” Netanyahu is preparing a massive invasion of Gaza City to make that a reality.
A number of the European imperialist powers, together with Australia and Canada, are seeking to cover over their central role in this modern-day Holocaust. Albanese, for instance, has declared that Netanyahu is “in denial” about starvation, and has said there have been “too many innocent lives lost.”
Albanese has repeatedly hastened to assure Israel of his ongoing support for the Gaza offensive, however, declaring that Palestine must be “demilitarized” in order to create a “secure Israel.” He has primarily presented the situation in Gaza as a “humanitarian catastrophe,” as though the mass killing of more than 60,000 people was an unfortunate mistake.
Netanyahu’s frothing response to even these highly limited criticisms exposes the fraud being peddled not only by the Australian government and the European powers, that occasional finger wagging and polite appeals to the Israeli government will halt the mass slaughter of Palestinians.
2. Sharp tensions lodged with Jackson Hole central bankers’ conclave
The official theme of the discussion at the annual conclave of central bankers, academics and financial officials at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which kicks off with a keynote address by Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell today, is “Markets in Transition, Productivity and Macroeconomic Policy.”
But the central issue will be the interest policy of the Fed, if and when it will start to cut rates. And the related question will be the drive by US President Trump to bring the Fed under his direct control, part of his broader push to establish a personalized dictatorial regime.
On the eve of the meeting the Trump administration exploded a bomb under the Fed with the demand that one of its board of seven governors, Lisa Cook, resign over alleged false information she gave in applying for a housing mortgage prior to her appointment by President Biden in 2022.
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Cook has said she has no intention of being bullied to step down from her position. Trump has declared on social media that “Cook must resign, now!!!” and is reported to be considering action to have her fired “for cause” if she refuses to step down.
The move against Cook, whatever the truth or otherwise of the allegations. is intimately bound up with the political war against Powell. Trump has targeted the Fed chair over his refusal to accede to demands for interest rate cuts, by as much as three percentage points. Trump’s offensive is also part of his longer-term objective to do away with the so-called independence of the Fed and make it a compliant instrument of his economic agenda.
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The moves against Cook come in the wake of Trump’s sacking of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEnterfar, at the beginning of the month after a downbeat jobs report, and her replacement by Trump acolyte E.J. Antoni, who has no experience in the field of statistics and whose only qualification was his ardent support of the MAGA agenda.
If Cook is removed, either because she steps down or is sacked, it will provide another opening for Trump to try to take control of the Fed.
The interest rate setting body of the Fed is the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). It is made up of seven governors, appointed by the president and approved by the Senate, with fixed terms and five regional Fed presidents. Because there are 12 Fed presidents, the five who get to vote at any meeting is determined on a rotational basis.
With the sudden and, as yet unexplained, resignation of Fed governor Adriana Kugler earlier this month, Trump appointed the chair of his Council of Economic Advisors Stephen Miran to fill the position on a temporary basis.
If his appointment is confirmed by the Senate in time for the September 16-17 meeting of the Fed, this would mean Powell would face at least three dissenters out of the seven governors if he decided to maintain interest rates on hold in light of data which show that tariffs are putting upward pressure on inflation.
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In the Trumpian world view, a decision by any authority with which he disagrees is the result of a partisan agenda because the president, having been elected, has the sole right to determine policy.
On this basis, judges in the courts, many of them of a conservative legal background, who have handed down decisions which contravene Trump’s objectives are branded as “radical leftists,” even “Marxists,” while the Fed has been denounced for pursuing policies to aid the Democrats.
Consequently, according to Miran, members of the Fed’s governing board “and Reserve Bank leaders should be subject to at-will removal by the president to ensure their accountability to the democratic process.” That is, constitutional processes must be overturned on the basis that sole authority is in the hands of the president.
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Trump’s call for lower rates is no doubt motivated by his drive to juice the stock market, but he has also said that lowering the Fed rate would slash the interest costs of government borrowing by hundreds of billions of dollars.
For a decade and more following the global financial crisis of 2008 when interest rates were kept at historic lows, the interest bill was not a problem.
But with the rise in rates after 2022 it has become an issue of ever-greater concern, above all in the US. The interest bill on the $36 trillion government debt, growing every day as a result of the budget policies of the Trump administration, is running at around $1 trillion a year and is becoming the largest expenditure item. A situation is fast developing where more money is needed to be borrowed just to pay the interest bill on past debts.
The US situation is being replicated to one degree or another in major countries around the world where government debt levels have reached record highs—with an increase of $17 trillion in borrowings for this year, according to the OECD.
3. Israel as a matter of German state policy: The Myth of Reparations
Nearly two years of carpet bombing, mass murder and a starvation blockade of the Gaza Strip have turned Israel into a pariah state, despised and hated throughout the world. Nevertheless, the German government stands steadfastly behind the Israeli government, surpassed in this only by the Trump administration.
In the face of growing outrage, Berlin’s official position has shifted slightly. In mid-June, Chancellor Friedrich Merz had attested that the Zionist state was “doing the dirty work for all of us;” now he urges greater humanitarian consideration and will no longer approve weapons for use in Gaza. Yet, in practical terms, nothing has changed. Germany continues to support Israel politically and militarily, opposes all sanctions, and prosecutes opponents of the genocide as alleged “antisemites.”
This is supposedly justified by Germany’s special responsibility for the Holocaust. In 2008, Chancellor Angela Merkel declared Israel’s security to be a German “Staatsräson” (matter of state policy), the same formulation found in the current government’s coalition agreement. Three months ago, in a speech marking the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier celebrated the “miracle of reconciliation after the civilizational rupture of the Shoah.” At that time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had long been sought on an international arrest warrant for crimes against humanity.
To justify the Israeli army’s war crimes by citing reparations for the Shoah is disgusting and repulsive. Responsibility for the genocide of the Jews does not obligate Germany to support another genocide. Historically, this justification is based on a myth devoid of any factual basis.
The close collaboration between Germany and Israel never had anything to do with “reparations,” atonement for the Shoah, or anything comparable. It was a reciprocal deal: Germany supplied the beleaguered Zionist state with weapons, economic aid and financial assistance; in return, the Israeli government turned a blind eye to the continued presence of Nazi elites in the state and economy of the Federal Republic of Germany and helped it gain international standing.
This connection is vividly documented in the book “Absolution?: Israel und die deutsche Staatsräson” (“Absolution? Israel and German State Policy”) by Daniel Marwecki. The political scientist, born in Bremen in 1987, evaluated files from the archives of the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin—some of which were accessible for the first time—as well as from Israeli archives and numerous other sources.
Published in 2024, the book was written before the most recent war in Gaza. It is based on the doctoral thesis Marwecki submitted in 2018 at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, which was published in English under the title “Germany and Israel: Whitewashing and Statebuilding.” For the German edition, the text was revised and supplemented with an updated afterword.
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Perhaps the most important—and most secret—area of military cooperation concerns the Israeli atomic bomb. It is considered certain that Israel possesses at least 90 nuclear warheads, although it has never officially admitted this, making it the only nuclear power in the Middle East. There are numerous indications that Germany—a non-nuclear state—was involved in the development or at least the financing of the Israeli atomic bomb.
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Marwecki traces German-Israeli relations up to the present day. They have been subject to political fluctuations but have always remained close.
In 1967, the US replaced Germany as Israel’s most important supporter. There were various reasons for this. The US had initially held back—at least publicly—from supporting the Zionist state. After its founding, Israel still worked closely with the traditional colonial powers, Britain and France, in the fight against the growing Arab national movement.
When Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956, the Israeli army supported the British-French attack on Egypt. But the US forced an end to the war within a few days, demonstrating who the new dominant great power in the Middle East was. Since then, Israel has relied on close ties with American imperialism, which became the Zionist state’s main protecting power after the Israeli victory in the 1967 Six-Day War.
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Marwecki’s book is an important contribution to demystifying the German “Staatsräson” and is therefore worth reading. However, one will not find therein an understanding of the Middle East conflict or a way out of it, as the author himself admits. The final chapter ends with the sentence: “The result is a situation untenable for all sides, from which there is currently no escape.”
The reason for this pessimistic stance lies in the postmodernist concepts on which Marwecki relies.
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The Zionist state has proven to be a tragic dead end. The crimes it is committing before the eyes of the world in Gaza and the West Bank have made it a pariah, despised by the majority of humanity.
A two-state solution would change nothing. It would leave the Zionist state as an imperialist bastion, perpetuate the conflict with the Palestinians, and fob them off with a mini-state that is neither economically nor politically viable.
The only way out of this dead end is a secular, democratic Palestine in which Jews, Palestinians, and people of other origins and religions can live together as equals. Such a Palestine can only be established on a socialist basis.
4. Germany’s Left Party fuels the NATO war on Russia
Following the recent Ukraine summits in Alaska and Washington, Germany’s Left Party is increasingly openly supporting the right-wing Zelensky regime and advocating aggressive imperialist war against Russia. Its co-leader, Jan van Aken, has used interviews with public broadcasters ARD and ZDF in recent days to attack the federal government from the right and demand that Germany assert its interests even more decisively against Russia—and also against the US.
Anyone who still harbors illusions about the Left Party’s supposed “peace policy” should study van Aken’s recent appearances closely. They reveal the party for what it is: a central component of the war front, using pseudo-left rhetoric to rally the population behind militarism, sanctions, and continued confrontation with Russia.
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As the World Socialist Web Site pointed out in a recent statement, Trump’s change of direction in US geostrategy toward Russia has nothing to do with a policy of peace. He is pursuing two goals: first, to gain access to Russia’s vast raw material reserves and markets over the heads of the Europeans; second, to create space for the real main front from the standpoint of US imperialism—the escalation of the war against China.
The alternative proposed by van Aken and the Left Party, in line with influential figures in politics and the media—a tougher, more independent line for Germany and Europe—means nothing less than drumming up support for an independent militaristic strategy for German imperialism. While Washington is trying to draw Russia into an anti-China alliance, Berlin is determined to assert its position in Eastern Europe and secure its own spheres of influence.
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It is necessary to speak openly about what this means. Eighty years after the downfall of the Nazis, German imperialism—supported by the Left Party—is once again pursuing a policy of world power and continued confrontation with Russia. The constant propaganda in the political establishment and the media about an impending Russian invasion of the whole of Europe corresponds to the lies of German imperialism on the eve of the First and Second World Wars.
The same applies to the interests involved. Already in World War I, control of Ukraine, rich in raw materials and geostrategically important, was one of the central war aims of the German Empire, alongside the pursuit of German hegemony in “Central Europe.” In World War II, Hitler continued to pursue these goals. Ukraine played a key role in the war of extermination against the Soviet Union, which culminated in the Holocaust and cost the lives of at least 27 million Soviet citizens.
Even today, German imperialism is not concerned with “security” or “peace.” Rather, it is once again pursuing the goal of removing Ukraine and other states that formerly belonged to the Soviet Union or the Tsarist Empire from Russia’s sphere of influence and bringing them under the control of the German-dominated EU. In addition, it is about enforcing historical attacks on the working class, establishing a police state at home in order to finance rearmament and push it through against enormous opposition among the population.
Following the July 27 rank-and-file hearing into the death of Ronald Adams, a 63 year-old tradesman at the Stellantis Dundee Engine Complex, the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter spoke to autoworkers in Dearborn, Michigan, and Toledo, Ohio.
Adams was crushed to death by an overhead gantry at the Dundee Engine Complex in Michigan on April 7 under circumstances which have still not been explained by either the company, the United Auto Workers or the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MIOSHA).
The hearing, held at Marygrove Campus in Detroit, was attended by 100 workers, youth and community members. Among those who spoke were Shamenia Stewart-Adams, Ronald Adams’ widow, safety experts and rank-and-file autoworkers. Reports were given by Mack Trucks worker and IWA-RFC member Will Lehman, World Socialist Web Site labor reporter Jerry White and others.
The three weeks since the hearing has seen a spate of industrial disasters across the country. On August 11, two workers died and another 10 were seriously injured in an explosion at the U.S. Steel coking mill in Clairton, Pennsylvania. The United Steelworkers and management are seeking to downplay the unsafe conditions that led to the tragedy, calling the deadly event “unforeseeable.”
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A worker at the Ford Truck plant in Dearborn, Michigan:
“The UAW behind Shawn Fain has come out in support of Trump’s tariff war. They want us to blame foreign workers for the problems here in the factories. But these are our brothers and sisters. We are all in this together, and we have to stand together as one united world working class. That is the policy of the IWA-RFC (International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees). We are independent of the union apparatus, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party and the institutions of the capitalist state such as OSHA."
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The World Socialist Web Site and the IWA-RFC pledge to continue the fight to uncover the truth about the death of Ronald Adams Sr. as part of a fight to mobilize the working class to uphold the right to safe and healthy working conditions. The continuing toll of needless workplace deaths can only be halted through the independent organization and initiative of rank-and-file workers.
6. US deploys Marines, landing craft in escalating threat to Venezuela
Washington is sending three amphibious assault vessels carrying a 2,200-strong Marine expeditionary force to Venezuela, anonymous US officials told the Miami Herald yesterday. They are to join a group of three US guided missile destroyers that reportedly arrived off the Venezuelan coast yesterday.
This shatters the flimsy pretext the Trump administration had earlier advanced to justify sending the three destroyers—namely, the claim that they would prevent ships in the area from trafficking drugs from Venezuela to the United States. The US Marine Corps is not an anti-narcotics police unit. The US government is clearly threatening to invade Venezuela as part of a decades-long regime change operation targeting that oil-rich country.
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Asked about the naval deployments on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Trump administration is ready to take any and all military measures against Venezuela. She repeated provocative and totally unsubstantiated US assertions, made with evident contempt for the Venezuelan people, that Venezuela’s government is nothing more than a front organization for a drug cartel.
“President Trump has been very clear and consistent. He is prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding our country and to bring those responsible to justice,” Leavitt said. “The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela; it is a narco terror cartel. Maduro, in the view of this administration, is not a legitimate president.”
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Maduro responded to the deployment of US destroyers off Venezuela’s coast by calling to arms popular militias friendly to his government. He said, “This week, I will activate a special plan with more than 4.5 million militiamen to ensure coverage of the entire national territory—militias that are prepared, activated and armed.”
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Washington’s operations in Mexico are indissolubly bound up with its global war plans. Some of these calculations were aired in remarks last year by US Northern Command leader General Gregory Guillot in remarks to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Identifying China and Russia as “competitors” whose influence in Latin America Washington should crush, Guillot said that the US Northern Command was seeking to work closely to integrate its operations with those of the Mexican military to block them:
The bonds between USNORTHCOM and our Mexican military partners are broad, resilient, and focused on expanding our combined capability to defend and secure North America from myriad state and non-state threats. Countering competitor influence in the region remains a key priority for NORTHCOM and our Mexican military partners, and as a direct result, the U.S. and Mexican militaries are more operationally compatible than at any point in our shared history.
Such operations face explosive opposition by the working class in Latin America, United States and internationally. Preventing US military escalation across Latin America requires building an international, socialist anti-war movement uniting across the Americas and beyond in a struggle against imperialism.
7. Japan to sell advanced naval frigates to Australia
Japan and Australia recently announced that Canberra would purchase 11 new advanced naval frigates from Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), in what is a sign of growing military cooperation between two of the Washington’s primary allies in accelerating war preparations against China.
Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles announced the $US6.5 billion deal on August 5. MHI will produce three upgraded Mogami-class frigates in Japan while the remaining eight will be built in Australia in conjunction with shipbuilder and military contractor Austal. The initial price tag only includes the first three ships and parts for other vessels.
The upgraded Mogami frigate requires only a 90-member crew, fewer than a vessel proposed by Germany’s Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems, and carries long-range missiles as well as having stealth, anti-submarine, and mine warfare capabilities. The deal is expected to be completed early next year, with the first vessel to be delivered by 2029. Marles described the purchase as “a very significant moment in the bilateral relationship between Australia and Japan.”
For Japan, the deal represents an expanding aspect of its remilitarization drive, through which Tokyo is rapidly preparing for war. Japan’s efforts to become a significant arms exporter further demonstrates that Article 9, the so-called “pacifist clause” in its constitution, has become a dead letter.
8. Australia: NSW Labor government slashes art gallery jobs and programs
The New South Wales (NSW) Labor government of Premier Chris Minns stepped up its assault on gallery employees and creative workers last week. It released a Change Management Plan, which will destroy an estimated 51 jobs at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) or 10 percent of the 154-year-old institution’s total workforce.
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The job cuts are being blamed on the new facility’s failure to meet projected revenue targets. However, overall visitation to AGNSW has surpassed two million since 2023, even as total NSW state government funding dropped from $72.4 million in 2024–25 to $66.6 million for this financial year.
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Tuesday’s announcement, which has shocked artists and public gallery workers across the state, follows the Minns government’s decision in June to slash 91 jobs—or 25 percent of the workforce—at Create NSW, the state’s main arts funding agency.
Announced by Arts Minister John Graham, the Create NSW job cuts were accompanied by the termination of four-year funding for numerous smaller public galleries and state-funded arts organisations, particularly in regional areas already struggling to remain operational.
Of the 158 eligible applications for the four-year funding program, only 82 were successful. Those rejected included 18 regional public art galleries—among them Wagga Wagga, Orange, Bathurst, Goulburn, Armidale, Broken Hill, Maitland, Tamworth and Tweed.
Regional galleries rely heavily on government funding to deliver artistic and community-based programs. They often serve as vital cultural hubs, providing social connection, education and even health-related initiatives.
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The Minns government’s attacks on AGNSW and Create NSW are part of a broader pattern of funding cuts to the arts by both state and federal governments—Labor and Liberal-National alike—over the past two decades. Government claims that they cannot afford to sustain proper arts funding are patently false. Billions remain readily available for militarism and war, as well as for tax concessions to big business and the wealthy.
(A statement of the Philadelphia Workers Rank-and-File Strike Committee, founded by city workers last month to oppose the sabotage of their strike by union bureaucrats.)
Philadelphia Teachers:
Across the United States and internationally, workers face attacks amid massive budget deficits, threats of layoffs and austerity policies forcing cuts to education, transit, health care and social programs. Cities are being bled dry to pay for tax cuts, corporate profits and endless wars, while millions are left without access to essential services.
This crisis is mirrored across all major urban centers. Chicago Public Schools are confronting budget shortfalls exceeding $400 million, while New York City faces deficits in the hundreds of millions. Austerity backed by state and federal policies drives these shortfalls. The “Big Beautiful Bill” promoted by Trump exemplifies this attack on municipalities, mandating harsh fiscal controls and advancing a dictatorship that threatens troop deployment to crush working class opposition.
Philadelphia’s public schools are a center of this crisis. The School District faces a looming $306 million budget deficit for the 2026 fiscal year, forcing officials to tap 40 percent of their “rainy day” fund just to cover immediate expenses. But this is only a short-term measure—deficits are projected to rise to $466 million in 2027, $774 million in 2030, and cumulative debt could reach $2 billion within five years.
Losses of $125 million in federal COVID-19 relief funding, soaring charter school payments and inflation compound the problem. Philadelphia is unique in Pennsylvania because its school district cannot raise its own taxes and depends entirely on city and state budgets for 99 percent of its operating revenue.
Philadelphia’s transit system, SEPTA, also faces a “doomsday” budget, with layoffs and service reductions planned to start next week. These cuts will hit tens of thousands of workers and daily riders especially hard, home values will plummet as whole communities will be deprived of transport.
But these assaults are meeting with a response in the working class nationally and internationally.
The 9,000-strong municipal worker strike in our city last month was just the tip of the iceberg. Thousands of Boeing workers in Missouri launched a sustained strike, and Canadian Air Canada flight attendants boldly defied federal back-to-work orders.
These struggles represent the emergence of a mass movement rising against untenable social conditions, growing political instability and fierce opposition to war and dictatorship. Philadelphia’s teachers must grasp that their fight belongs to this larger battle. We must develop a strategy based on mobilizing the working class as a whole to impose a durable, workers’ solution to the crisis.
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The union leaders’ number one priority is protecting their relationships with Democrats and proving their reliability to management, not securing real gains for workers. This explains AFSCME’s betrayal: cutting the strike short and imposing a contract raising wages just one percent beyond the city’s initial offer—an insult to the workers’ struggle.
Similarly, the [Philadelphia Federation of Teachers]’s record includes ratifying school closures, unsafe reopenings during COVID-19, and selling out rank-and-file actions. Their “strike ready” campaign, originating in the 2023 Teamsters UPS contract sellout, was never meant to prepare workers for a real strike. It’s a smokescreen meant to push a sellout as a “historic” victory.
The cycle of union sellouts must end. Waiting to vote out corrupt leadership only leads to a rotation of more and more betrayals. Philadelphia teachers must organize independently now.
Our fight is part of a growing national and international conflict. California’s school districts also face contract expirations and austerity attacks. A far stronger, more militant movement is possible—but only if we reject bureaucratic control and build this rank-and-file committee that prioritizes worker solidarity and real struggle over sellouts.
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It is a proven, iron law that as long as a struggle remains in the hands of the bureaucracy, the only possible outcome is a betrayal. The only path to victory is building independent rank-and-file strength and solidarity.
10. As Boeing strike enters third week, rank-and-file opposition to IAM bureaucracy grows
As the strike by 2,500 Boeing defense workers in St. Louis, Missouri enters its third week, opposition is growing among the rank and file, not only to the corporate giant but also to the isolating and defeatist strategy of the International Association of Machinists (IAM).Workers, who began receiving their first meager strike paychecks of $200 per week only this week, are increasingly concluding that the IAM bureaucracy is not fighting to win their demands but is instead working to wear them down and force through another pro-company contract.
The experience of the strike is making it clear to a growing number of workers that the IAM bureaucracy has no intention of waging a real fight. The only way forward is for workers to take the conduct of the strike into their own hands. This means forming a rank-and-file strike committee to formulate a list of non-negotiable demands based on what workers actually need, not what the company claims is acceptable. Lines of communication must be extended to their rank-and-file brothers and sisters in Seattle and across the country. Such a committee can fight to seize control of the struggle from the pro-company IAM apparatus and lead a genuine counter-offensive against Boeing.
11. Trump administration to begin continuous police-state surveillance of 55 million US visa holders
On Thursday, the State Department confirmed that it will subject all 55 million US visa holders to what it calls “continuous immigration vetting.” Behind this bureaucratic phrase lies the creation of permanent police-state surveillance.
The Associated Press reported that the government reviews will include social media accounts, law enforcement and immigration records in visa holders’ home countries, and any “actionable” violations of US law committed while in the United States. The new guidelines also make it mandatory that privacy switches on phones and apps be turned off during visa interviews, stripping immigrants and applicants of even the nominal protections of the Fourth Amendment, which bans government searches without a judicial warrant. Vast quantities of personal data will now be continuously stored and monitored, with the aim of purging from the United States anyone whose views conflict with the demands of US imperialism.
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No human team could oversee 55 million social media profiles in real time. The State Department’s new vetting regime almost certainly relies on AI-driven platforms to evaluate alleged “anti-American” and “terrorist” behavior. ICE has already agreed to a $30 million contract with Palantir to develop ImmigrationOS, to facilitate the mass deportation operation.
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The Associated Press (AP) reported that the Trump administration claimed earlier this week it has already revoked more than 6,000 student visas, including approximately 200 to 300 visas for alleged “terrorism-related issues.”
While there is no question visa holders who evince support for Palestine or opposition to Zionism will be targeted and denied visas under the fraudulent banner of combating “antisemitism,” this digital dragnet is aimed at all those who espouse anti-capitalist ideologies.
Earlier this week, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) updated its guidelines to ban entry to those allegedly holding “anti-American ideologies,” which include advocating for the “economic, international, and governmental doctrines of world communism.”
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The same week these policies were being unveiled, the government officially opened the largest immigrant concentration camp in US history at the Fort Bliss military base in Texas. Built at a cost of over $1.2 billion, the facility is designed to hold 5,000 detainees.
Fort Bliss was used during the Second World War to imprison Japanese Americans as well as German and Italian immigrants under Democratic president Franklin Roosevelt. In a statement to the Huffington Post, Ann Burroughs, president of the Japanese American National Museum, warned: “It is inconceivable that the United States is once again building concentration camps, denying the lessons learned 80 years ago.”
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The continuous surveillance dragnet and the concentration camp system are two sides of the same coin. The government is preparing a framework for mass repression, targeting immigrants first but aimed at the working class as a whole. By branding opposition to war, genocide and inequality as “terrorism” or “anti-American ideology,” the Trump administration is criminalizing dissent internationally while laying the foundations for enforced disappearances and mass arrests inside the United States.
The lab-leak narrative, the concocted right-wing theory that China deliberately created the virus that causes COVID-19, has now been elevated to the level of conventional wisdom in many political and media circles, despite being scientifically untenable. This shift reflects a broader effort to weaponize the COVID-19 pandemic for geopolitical purposes—namely, to redirect public anger toward China and prepare the political climate for imperialist war. In doing so, it has deflected attention from the real drivers of zoonotic spillover and pandemic vulnerability, while placing principled scientists and researchers in the crosshairs of politically motivated attacks. What began as a scientific question has been transformed into a battleground of disinformation, nationalism, and conspiratorial thinking.
Benjamin Mateus of the World Socialist Web Site interviews scientist and science writer Philipp Markolin "who has stood out as an articulate and reasoned voice."
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Philipp Markolin:
"...the spirit of the Enlightenment—is worth defending. Democracies thrive only when there is a shared set of facts we can agree on. If we allow scientists to be vilified, silenced, or marginalized, we undermine that foundation.
So, my warning is this: once we lose a culture of truth, it is not clear how we ever recover it. My hope is that we remember scientists are not enemies, but fellow human beings working for the common good. That recognition is essential—not just for science, but for society itself."
Trump’s bill will cut approximately 15 percent of total federal Medicaid spending over the next decade nationwide. The CBO estimates that the bill’s cuts to Medicaid, including the discontinuation of enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, will lead to an estimated 16-17 million people losing their health insurance nationwide.
Medicaid is a joint federal and state government program that provides health insurance coverage to low-income individuals and families and people with disabilities.
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According to a new analysis by Oxford Economics, millions of Americans, regardless of where they live, will lose access to health insurance because of tighter eligibility rules and new work requirements. Those states like California and New York, largely controlled by the Democrats, which expanded Medicaid by raising the income eligibility criteria to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, and which have large immigrant populations, will be hit hardest. Massachusetts, which expanded Medicaid and whose population is 11 percent immigrant, will be one of the most affected. Other particularly vulnerable states include New Jersey, Florida, Nevada and Texas.
The Kaiser Family Foundation recently reported California has paused enrolling new immigrants in its health coverage program while Illinois has stopped state-funded health benefits for all immigrant adults between 42 to 64. Idaho and Tennessee have also enacted legislation limiting immigrant access to state health care benefits.
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When hundreds of thousands of people currently insured through MassHealth and the Health Connector become uninsured, they will still need to receive medical care. However, obtaining the most basic care will follow a more precarious and problematic route. Uninsured patients will delay care for chronic illnesses or forgo screenings, ultimately requiring more expensive care when their health deteriorates and reaches a critical stage, ultimately increasing health costs for all workers.
Another factor is cost shifting by healthcare providers. Because hospitals are legally required by federal law to provide emergency treatment to patients in need, treatment of an uninsured person becomes “uncompensated care.” This becomes a hidden tax on everyone with health insurance, as hospitals and healthcare providers will refuse to simply absorb these losses. To remain profitable, they will negotiate higher reimbursement rates from private insurance companies to make up for any shortfall. This leads directly to higher premiums for everyone with private insurance, both for individuals and for employers who offer insurance to their workers.
Massachusetts has had near-universal coverage for many years, in large part owing to MassHealth, with the highest percent of its population insured of any state in the US. However, because MassHealth—which served as a model for the ACA (Obamacare)—is not universal healthcare for the poor and disabled, but rather is tied to private insurance companies through the “marketplace,” and to the for-profit hospital chains that provide care—the changes from Trump’s bill will be devastating.
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The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by both houses of Congress and signed by Trump, is a class-warfare measure that entails the transfer of trillions of dollars from the working class to the ultra-wealthy. $4.5 trillion in tax cuts will overwhelmingly benefit the top 20 percent of the richest Americans. To counterbalance the budgetary gap made by filling the pockets of the wealthy, the bill strips over a trillion dollars in funding from Medicaid, food stamps (SNAP) and programs such as student loan debt relief.
14. Kenya’s National People’s Council: A petty-bourgeois nationalist trap for the Gen Z revolt
On the first anniversary of the Gen Z protests last June, hundreds of thousands again marched nationwide. Just weeks later, on 7 July 2025, the Saba Saba rallies, commemorating the pro-democracy struggles of the 1990s, drew similarly massive turnouts, underscoring that the confrontation between the masses and the Kenyan political establishment is ongoing.
The state has answered with escalating violence. Over just 14 months, at least 160 demonstrators have been gunned down by police and military units, hundreds permanently injured, thousands arrested, and more than 300 charged under draconian anti-terrorism laws, while dozens have been abducted and “disappeared.”
It is under these conditions that, in early August, the Mathare Social Justice Centre (MSJC) announced the formation of the National People’s Council (NPC). The initiative was launched together with the Communist Youth League, the youth wing of the Stalinist Communist Party Marxist–Kenya (CPM-K); the Revolutionary Socialist League, affiliated to the Morenoite International Socialist League; and the Pan-Africanist Stalinist Kongomano La Mapinduzi (Congress of the Revolution).
The NPC does not represent a revolutionary alternative. It has been designed to channel the insurgent movement of workers and youth into parliamentary politics, whether as a new independent electoral slate for 2027 elections or as a temporary vehicle for discredited bourgeois politicians looking for a new home. The warm welcome given by the corporate media on its launch, from the Kenya Television Network to The Standard and the Daily Nation, demonstrates the function the ruling class expects the NPC to serve: to capture the energy of the masses and redirect it safely back into the Kenyan political establishment.
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The NPC’s founding document, the “Road Map to People’s Revolution in Kenya,” makes clear its pro-capitalist orientation. Cloaked in militant rhetoric against Ruto and his policies, it defends a “mixed economy where the government plays a central role in safeguarding and enhancing public assets,” a formulation designed to preserve capitalist property relations and the domination of Kenya’s economy by big business and international finance capital. Land reform is reduced to denunciations of Ruto’s policies for favoring multinationals, framed in the language of economic nationalism about “food sovereignty” and “self-sufficiency.” There is no call for expropriating agribusiness or large estates, nor for placing land under the democratic control of workers and peasants.
On taxation, NPC appeals for a “fair distribution” in which “the wealthy contribute their fair share to national development.” This leaves untouched the ill-gotten fortunes of the Kenyan elite amassed through land grabs, corruption and exploitation. Calls for debt repudiation are detached of any connection to the working class, the only social force capable of taking political power and breaking with capitalism.
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The petty-bourgeois outlook of the NPC is summed up in the Road Map’s conclusion:
“The people’s revolution in Kenya is a fight for independence, sovereignty, and a pro-people government. The National People’s Council is committed to intensifying the struggle, expanding the movement, and institutionalizing central coordination to achieve these goals. The unifying minimum program provides a clear roadmap for the people’s revolution to address the root causes of the national crisis and build a just and equitable society.”
This is the vocabulary of Kenyan Stalinism: “independence,” “sovereignty,” and an undefined “pro-people” government, bound together by a minimum program that explicitly excludes socialist revolution. Behind the radical phraseology lies the same two-stage theory that has always subordinated workers to alliances with “progressive” faction of the bourgeoisie. This language flows directly from the political traditions of the forces that make up the NPC. At its core stand Stalinist and Pan-Africanist organizations.
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Externally, the CPM-K orientation is toward China, portraying Beijing as a model for national development against Western domination. It reflects the interests of the affluent middle-class strata who have benefited from Chinese-funded highways, railways, and infrastructure contracts. This orientation will not liberate Kenya from imperialist domination but entangle workers and youth in the sharpening preparations for war by the US against China—to which the Chinese ruling class has no progressive answer.
The US State Department has already opened investigations into Ruto’s human-rights abuses, a signal of Washington’s hostility to his Beijing visits and Chinese loans, with voices in the American establishment now calling for a review of Kenya’s status as a non-NATO ally.
15. Workers Struggles: Africa, Europe, Middle East
Africa
Kenya:
Nurses’ stoppage in Migori county to demand implementation of 2017 collective bargaining agreement
Nurses’ stoppage in Migori county to demand implementation of 2017 collective bargaining agreement
Uganda:
Police arrest traders in Kampala, Uganda for protesting high taxes and uncollected refuse
Police arrest traders in Kampala, Uganda for protesting high taxes and uncollected refuse
Europe
Belgium:
Prison guards stop work over chronic staff shortages and dangerous overcrowding
Portugal:
Health professionals in the Algarve strike over staff shortages and health funding
Airport workers continue strikes over pay and conditions
Spain:
Hundreds of airport workers strike for improved pay, working conditions and job security
Turkey:
Public sector workers at university in Ankara walk out to demand better pay and conditions
United Kingdom:
Bus workers at North East Stagecoach, England walk out over pay
Bus workers at North East Stagecoach, England walk out over pay
Refuse workers in Sheffield mark one-year anniversary of strike for union recognition
Refuse workers in Sheffield mark one-year anniversary of strike for union recognition
Ambulance emergency call staff trainers in north-west England strike over cuts to pay
Ambulance emergency call staff trainers in north-west England strike over cuts to pay
Housing staff at a London borough council walk out over redundancies
Workers at Northern Ireland agri-business company walk out over pay
Canteen staff at UK refinery in Fawley strike over pay
Middle East
Iran:
Continuing protests across Iran in response to deteriorating economic conditions
Continuing protests across Iran in response to deteriorating economic conditions
16. Demand the freedom of Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist Bogdan Syrotiuk!
