Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. 100,000 march across Sydney Harbour Bridge demanding end to Gaza genocide
Sunday witnessed one of the largest protests in Sydney’s history, with a massive crowd marching across the Harbour Bridge in opposition to the imperialist-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza.
The New South Wales Police, who were intensely hostile to the demonstration, begrudgingly acknowledged that 90,000 or more people participated.
Organizers have estimated the rally at 300,000. That is plausible, given that protesters simultaneously stretched across the entire 1.1 kilometer (0.7 mile) bridge, at the same time that more people were massed several city blocks from even setting foot on the structure.
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The rally expressed immense hostility to the genocide, and particularly its latest phase in Israel’s deliberate mass starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.
There was a sense that participants wanted to send a message to the world, including the Palestinians themselves, by taking over one of Australia’s most iconic landmarks for several hours.
The crowd was diverse, including workers, youth and middle-class people from all backgrounds. In an indication that the genocide is politicizing a new generation, there were many teenagers and young adults. Signs and chants denounced the federal Labor government for its ongoing complicity in the mass slaughter.
The march was led by a number of prominent figures, including Julian Assange, who made one of his first public appearances in Australia since being freed last year and defeating US attempts to imprison him for life for exposing war crimes.
Journalists Antoinette Lattouf and Mary Kostakidis, who have both been targeted by the Zionist lobby for their defense of the Palestinians, were also there.
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Sections of the corporate media, which has slandered opponents of the genocide as bigots and faithfully repeated every lie of the criminal Israeli regime, have felt compelled to adapt to the mass sentiment.
A prominent comment in the Sydney Morning Herald, for instance, declared that horror over the catastrophe in Gaza had gone “mainstream,” adding: “No one should suggest that the city had turned its back on our Jewish community.”
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The mass opposition expressed in the Sydney march raises the issue of what action is required to end the genocide in Gaza. The speakers before the march did not have any answers.
Several Palestinian and human rights activists spoke movingly about the unfolding horrors. Palestinian academic Randa Abdel-Fattah, whose research funding has been targeted at the behest of the federal Labor government, gave a defiant speech against Zionist threats and censorship. Jewish-Australian journalist Antony Lowenstein spoke strongly against the relentless conflation of Judaism and the Israeli state.
But the political line was set by federal Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi. She advanced the same perspective of endless protests, aimed at pressuring the powers-that-be, that has manifestly failed over almost two years to stop the Israeli onslaught.
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The claim that Labor is shifting, or can shift, serves to subordinate anti-genocide opposition to the very government that is a party to it. That is the role of calls for Labor to sanction Israel. The fact that a member of the Labor government, Ed Husic, was present at the protest and raising the call for sanctions points to its entirely toothless character.
Its function is to divert attention from the central question, the independent action of the working class.
2. Trump announces US submarine deployments in nuclear war threat against Russia
In an open threat to wage nuclear war against Russia, US President Donald Trump announced on August 1 that he is repositioning US nuclear submarines to strike Russia. The threat came in the run-up to August 8, the day Trump says he will impose crippling tariffs on Russia and all its trading partners if Russia does not stop fighting in Ukraine.
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With this monumentally reckless threat, it is clear that the military and trade conflicts between the major powers are escalating completely out of control. The Kremlin has brushed off Trump’s tariff threats and kept mounting localized offensives all along the front lines in Ukraine. Trump’s pledges to rapidly negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war have failed, and a seemingly unstoppable momentum is building up in ruling circles for a massive military escalation of the NATO conflict with Russia.
During the US election campaign, Trump postured as an opponent of the Ukraine war and even pledged to end the Ukraine war in “24 hours” with a few phone calls. As president, however, after briefly suspending US military aid to Ukraine this winter and opening talks with the Kremlin, Trump rapidly resumed arms shipments worth tens of billions of dollars to Ukraine. This was hailed by Democratic Party officials as well as the European Union (EU), who have made support for war with Russia the center of their opposition to Trump.
Negotiations with Russia have stalled, however, because US and NATO officials are not willing to acquiesce to key Russian demands that drove the Kremlin’s decision to invade Ukraine in 2022—in particular, that NATO not be allowed to post its forces in Ukraine, on Russia’s border.
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Though US Democrats were initially enthusiastic about using sanctions to try to compel a Russian surrender, liberal publications are also taking an increasingly pessimistic tone. On Thursday, the New York Times wrote, “it is hard to imagine that China’s president, Xi Jinping, would abandon Mr. Putin, his most critical partner in challenging American power.”
Trump’s resort to nuclear threats must be taken as a warning: Conflicts between the major world powers in Europe and beyond are so intense that they will not be resolved peacefully, unless the working class intervenes decisively to take power out of the hands of the capitalist governments.
3. Trump targets Social Security for privatization
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent boasted Wednesday that a provision in legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by President Trump last month would provide “a back door for privatizing Social Security,” threatening the monthly benefits on which nearly 70 million Americans, most of them elderly rely on to live.
Bessent was speaking about the giant tax and spending bill Trump signed July 4, making permanent Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy and big business. The bill funnels an estimated $3 trillion to the super-rich, while cutting more than $1 trillion in spending on Medicaid, food stamps and other vital programs on which tens of millions of working people depend.
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One section of the 1,000-page bill establishes what are modestly titled “Trump accounts” of $1,000 each for every baby born in the United States from 2025 through 2028, the entirety of Trump’s second term. (The original title was reportedly “money account for growth and advancement,” or MAGA accounts, but this was replaced by something even more directly flattering to the would-be dictator).
Families could contribute up to $5,000 a year tax-free to these accounts until age 18, or employers could make the contributions as a benefit to favored employees. Given the near-impossible struggle of working people to pay their regular bills—to say nothing of going ever further into debt—the accounts of working-class children would likely remain at $1,000, invested in index-linked funds through brokerages or other private financial institutions.
For the children of affluent families, able to set aside the additional $5,000 a year, the tax-free wealth accumulation could be considerable. According to calculations by the Urban Institute and Washington Monthly, making optimistic assumptions like 8 percent annual return and no financial collapses, the children of the affluent by age 18 would have accounts averaging $191,000, compared to $4,000 for those whose families were unable to make those investments. The disparity at age 65 would be even starker: $6.86 million for one, $93,000 for the other.
These figures, well understood by Bessent, Russell Vought and other Trump administration budget-cutters, actually refute Bessent’s claim that the Trump accounts will out-compete Social Security benefits and thus provide political cover for “back door privatization.”
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The Social Security Administration has itself been downsized, with the elimination of so many jobs that it is virtually impossible for recipients to get through to the agency on the phone. Most recently, the White House proposed to force recipients to travel to an agency office to file papers like changes of address or getting tax forms, only to back off, at least for now, after protests that this would be an undue burden on the elderly and disabled.
The overall intention is clear: to downgrade and denigrate a program which, over the past 90 years, has become an indispensable component of what little remains of a social safety net in America.
This is Gaza is a 50-minute special produced for Britain’s Channel 4 Streaming, directed by Tom Besley. It includes never-before-seen footage from areas of Gaza inaccessible to foreign journalists and also explores the challenges Palestinian journalists face amid murderous violence and censorship.
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To those who are unaffected by his devastating footage, Yousef says: “I don’t want them to see the footage because they’re not human.”
5. The Gaza Riviera–from vision to reality: Israel’s blueprint for ethnic cleansing and annexation
Last week, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, held a conference The Gaza Riviera–from vision to reality. Fascist lawmakers presented plans to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip of Palestinians, annex it to Israel and re-establish Jewish settlements there. This would include building two cities in Gaza, one in the north and south of the Strip, as well as a university campus, an industrial area, a commercial and tech park and a tourist district with beachfront hotels.
6. United Kingdom: Corbyn and Sultana’s new party—In their own words
Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana have given their first interviews on the new party they announced last week. They make clear that the organisation, with the placeholder name “Your Party”, will offer the working class no change from the political spinelessness displayed by Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party.
Sultana’s role is to put on a more militant face than Corbyn can offer. She told Novara Media, “To me, the Labour Party is dead. It’s dead morally, it’s dead politically, and it’s dead electorally as well.”
This is radical-sounding window dressing. She spent much of the rest of the interview stressing her “preferences” and “opinion”—because everything will supposedly be decided democratically by the members at a founding conference in the autumn—that the party follow a “tactical alliance method” to “stop [Reform UK leader Nigel] Farage getting into power, because that has to be the guiding principle.”
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The Socialist Equality Party rejects the idea that the left-wing, anti-war aspirations of millions of workers and young people can be advanced through these forces: the semi-reformist dregs of a prolonged period of political reaction. What is required is a revolutionary party built on the principles of uncompromising class struggle and socialist internationalism.
Injured Stellantis worker "John" testifies at IWA-RFC hearing on the death of Ronald Adams Sr.
8. Germany: Printing press manufacturer Heidelberg joins in war fever
The share price of print equipment manufacturer Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (HDM) surged by 35 percent on July 29, after the company announced it was entering arms production.
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HDM is not alone. The feverish turn by many engineering firms toward the production of military goods aligns with the political goals of the imperialist powers vying for dominance on the world market. Driven by collapsing profits in the civilian sector—thanks in part to the trade war between Europe and the US—many major corporations are joining the business of death:
- ZF Friedrichshafen is actively offering its facilities for arms production and converting capacities, such as for military propulsion systems.
- Trumpf is developing and producing laser weapons for the first time, targeting drone defence—an entry into high-end military technology.
- Continental is partnering with Germany’s largest arms manufacturer Rheinmetall and converting plants formerly used for automotive technology into facilities for weapons components.
- Volkswagen (VW) is considering converting its Osnabrück plant for tank production; its entry into the defence sector has been officially confirmed by the company’s leadership.
- Bosch is losing skilled workers to the arms sector and using facilities for military subcontracting.
Meanwhile, existing arms manufacturers are also expanding their production capabilities:
- Rheinmetall is converting former auto parts production lines (especially in Berlin and Neuss) into weapons and ammunition factories to meet soaring demand.
- KNDS (Krauss-Maffei Wegmann) is repurposing former railway tech factories—such as those acquired from Alstom—for the production of tank components.
- Hensoldt is actively recruiting engineers from the civilian mechanical engineering sector to ramp up production of military electronics and radar systems.
In addition, large German machine tool makers such as Walter Maschinenbau, Vollmer, Heller, and Fein are increasingly acting as suppliers of industrial equipment and components that end up—sometimes indirectly—in international arms manufacturing. The focus here is on CNC machines used for the precision production of weapons, vehicles and ammunition. These are sold not only within Germany but also exported to third countries.
9. Trump fires Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner following negative July jobs report
The unprecedented interference into what has long been considered an independent, data-driven institution central to public trust and economic stability represents another significant step by Trump toward the establishment of a presidential dictatorship.
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Neither Trump nor anyone else from the White House has provided evidence or documentation backing up the claim that the BLS jobs data were rigged. Exposing the blatantly political motivation behind McEntarfer’s firing, Trump’s advisers have pointed to the scale of the data revisions as supposed proof that something was amiss with the data.
However, economic observers pointed to a series of factors contributing to the labor market slowdown. Chief among these were the very policies enacted by the Trump administration, including the tariffs on goods from China, the European Union, Mexico, and other trade partners.
As predicted widely prior to the implementation of the tariffs, Trump’s aggressive America-first trade policies have led to higher input costs for domestic manufacturers, reduced global competitiveness for American exports, and increased uncertainty that depresses business investment.
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The consequences of the firing go far beyond one labor report. US government economic data is the most influential in the world and forms the informational infrastructure for investing, policy-making and trade.
If the US data appears skewed or politically manipulated, credibility and confidence in the American economic system itself will be significantly undermined. The knock-on effects could include increased costs to borrow money, growing skepticism about Federal Reserve moves and declining demand for US Treasury bonds.
10. Thousands of Boeing fighter jet workers strike in St. Louis
More than 3,200 Boeing workers voted on Sunday to reject the second four-year contract proposal brought to them by the International Association of Machinists (IAM) District 837. The workers walked out on strike just after midnight Monday morning.
The strike against the aerospace giant Boeing is at the same time a fight against the Trump administration, which has awarded the company a multibillion-dollar contract to build fighter jets in preparation for war against China.
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Boeing workers are walking out on a hated corporation, behind which stands a deeply hated administration, against which tens of millions of Americans have protested, and its pro-war enablers in the Democratic Party. The strike will inevitably generate huge support among millions across the country and the world opposed to the genocide in Gaza, the war in Ukraine and other criminal ventures sponsored by US imperialism.
From the standpoint of American capitalism, the strike hits at a critical portion of the military-industrial complex. Preparations are being made to prepare for massive new wars against China, Iran and other official enemies of US capitalism on a scale not seen since World War II. This requires all sectors of the economy to be subordinated to war and the suppression of opposition in the “home front.”
But the massive cuts to Medicaid, schools and other social spending, the use of tariffs as a regressive tax on working class consumers and other measures which, in the final analysis, are to free up resources for war are generating tremendous opposition and anger in the working class. The ground is being set for open class conflict not seen in the US in generations.
11. Stater Bros. workers vote overwhelmingly to strike as UFCW moves to sabotage struggle
In an explosive expression of opposition approximately 12,000 Stater Bros. grocery workers across Southern California voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike in a two-day ballot held July 24–25. Represented by several United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) locals, these workers have taken a courageous step forward, expressing the pent-up anger of some of the most exploited sections of the workforce.
The historic vote marks the first strike authorization in the 89-year history of Stater Bros., a multibillion-dollar grocery chain headquartered in San Bernardino. The development is the outcome of immense and growing rank-and-file pressure, five months after their labor agreement expired on March 2. But far from preparing a genuine strike or a serious struggle, the UFCW bureaucracy is doing everything in its power to suppress the movement and deliver another sellout deal.
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Across Southern California, working families face exorbitant rents, skyrocketing food and utility prices and a public health system in crisis. Compounding the situation is the intensifying political climate under Donald Trump’s escalating anti-immigrant campaign.
In Los Angeles County alone, one million residents are undocumented, and an estimated two million more live with an undocumented family member. ICE raids and workplace surveillance are escalating, and yet the UFCW offers no defense. Instead, it appeals to the same Democratic Party officials who slashed aid to undocumented immigrants in the latest state budget.
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At Northern California Safeway and Southern California Ralphs/Albertsons, the UFCW pushed through pro-company contracts by isolating struggles, concealing negotiating details, avoiding strikes and claiming victory after securing paltry wage increases of $1 or less per year for a limited number of workers. This is precisely what is being prepared now.
Stater Bros. workers are demanding:
Substantial wage increases indexed to inflation
Guaranteed healthcare coverage for all classifications
Secure retirement plans, not the gutted pensions of recent sellouts
Safe staffing levels and an end to chronic understaffing
Full-time job opportunities
Basic workplace protections, especially for immigrant workers
Guarantees against technological displacement
12. Thailand’s parliament proposes phoney amnesty bill
The portrayal of a broad amnesty being granted in order to promote “social harmony” is a fraud. The bills approved in the Thai parliament were presented by three right-wing parties: the Bhumjaithai Party (BJT), the United Thai Nation Party (UTN), and the Kla Tham Party (KT). Both UTN and KT are breakaways from the Palang Pracharath Party, founded by the junta that carried out the 2014 coup and the ruling, military-backed party until 2023.
Common to all three bills were exclusions for those charged or convicted under the draconian lèse-majesté law, Section 112 of the criminal code, which illegalises any criticism of the monarchy. The BJT added a specific clause banning support for amnesty for lèse-majesté. Section 112 is often used as a catch-all for the state to violate democratic rights and intimidate protesters with potential jail terms of up to 15 years.
The refusal to provide amnesty in lèse-majesté cases and to even ban support for such a move reflects the fact that the monarchy serves as the linchpin of Thailand’s capitalist establishment at a time when sharp tensions are growing within Thailand and the ruling class.
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Trump’s imposition of a 19 percent tariff on all Thai exports to the US, announced on July 31, will compound the country’s economic and social crisis. Thailand’s economy is expected to grow only 1.8 percent this year and 1.7 percent next year, lower than the 2.5 percent growth in 2024. Thailand faces the slowest growth among ASEAN countries.
Under these conditions, the consolidated amnesty bill is being tailored to enable a rapprochement between rival sections of the ruling class in preparation for suppressing the class struggle that will inevitably emerge. At the same time, it is meant to give the appearance that Thailand’s period of political turmoil and coups is over. This is despite the fact that even as the bill is being drafted, Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has been suspended by the Constitutional Court in a judicial coup over her handling of the border dispute with Cambodia, which erupted into an armed conflict last month.
13. Australian childcare worker explains unsafe conditions
A highly qualified veteran childcare worker, Anne, spoke to the World Socialist Web Site following recent allegations of child sexual abuse by a childcare worker in the Australian state of Victoria. Since news broke of the charges laid against Joshua Dale Brown, the media have reported that thousands of complaints over inadequate conditions have been made in childcare centers across the country.
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Anne highlighted the low pay for childcare workers.
“People are leaving the industry, especially older workers. Because we are more expensive, employers want to get rid of us. I experienced absolute friction when the new pay rates came in during 2022–2023. Basically, experienced staff were being paid close to $35 per hour as a casual and that was unheard of. Employers were saying, ‘oh no, that’s a lot of money, we can’t afford a Certificate 3-trained person being paid $35 per hour, that’s outrageous.’
“$35 per hour for the industry is phenomenal. There would be few workers today getting that pay rate. It’s all about the cost. Unless [childcare centers] get proper oversight by the government, and the government isn’t just throwing money at them with no accountability, the system will remain broken.”
On Friday, officials at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced the organization would begin winding down operations. The majority of the corporation’s approximately 100 staff positions will disappear when financing runs out in September. A small transition team will be maintained through January 2026 to ensure “a responsible and orderly closeout of operations,” the CPB explained in a statement.
The action is the product of the vote by Congress in July to approve a request to rescind already approved spending. In the case of the CPB, the House and Senate, with Donald Trump signing the legislation July 24, took back all of its funding, approximately $1.1 billion (to be spent over two years).
The long-term impact on National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) will be dramatic. The funding for NPR and PBS comes from a number of sources, as they have never been properly funded by the federal government.
NPR only receives a small amount, some 1 percent, of its funding directly from the federal government. PBS receives approximately 15 percent of its money from the government.
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Far-right Republican politicians celebrated the demise of the CPB, using their favorite argument, that it had funded “partisan propaganda” and “left-wing opinion journalism” for decades. Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana gloated, “The Corporation for Public Broadcasting—the scheme bureaucrats used to funnel taxpayer money to NPR and PBS—will soon be no more.”
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For its timidity and pro-establishment programming, NPR deservedly earned the nickname it obtained in certain quarters of “National Patriotic Radio.”
Nonetheless, the extremely sinister intent and thrust of the action by the Trump administration and Congress should be patently clear. The ultimate aim is to silence every voice that doesn’t accord with the ultra-right, chauvinist, anti-immigrant, militaristic filth pouring from the White House, and every source that fails to endorse the latter’s drive to establish a presidential dictatorship. In such circumstances, even ineffectual appeals for “tolerance” and “diversity,” along with the occasional exposé of corporate or governmental malfeasance, for which the public broadcasters are known, become intolerable varieties of “lunatic Marxism.”
This latest attack is part of a generalized political-cultural counter-revolution, a sharp acceleration of a process under way for decades. With the new administration, it has taken a dramatic shift in the direction of a US adaptation of the Hitlerite Gleichschaltung. The term, variously translated as “synchronization,” “coordination” or “integration,” refers to the Nazi regime’s effort to “bring into line” all aspects of political and cultural life and subordinate them to the fascist state’s ideology.
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Gleichschaltung, as historian Thomas Childers explains, is “derived from electrical usage, meaning all switches were put onto the same circuit so that all could be activated by throwing a single master switch.” (The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany) The Holocaust Encyclopedia comments that the term “refers to the Nazi regime’s systematic process of consolidating control over all aspects of German society, politics, and culture following Hitler’s rise to power. This policy aimed to eliminate dissent and ensure that every institution conformed to Nazi ideology.”
15. This week in history: August 4-10
16. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!
Bogdan Syrotiuk
