Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. California gubernatorial debate exposes right-wing character of both capitalist parties
Six candidates for California governor met Wednesday night in San Francisco in the first major televised debate since former Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell, previously considered a leading contender, dropped out of the race following a #MeToo-style campaign and accusations of sexual misconduct. No charges have been filed against Swalwell, though an investigation has reportedly begun in New York City.
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The debate featured four Democrats, billionaire former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer, former Biden Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, former Congresswoman Katie Porter and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, along with two Republicans, former Fox News host Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco.
Green Party candidate Butch Ware was not included. Ware’s campaign has denounced his exclusion from candidate forums and has claimed that, when included in polling, he receives between 2 and 4.66 percent. His campaign is also fighting a ballot access dispute after a judge rejected his bid to appear on the June ballot, a ruling Ware has said he would appeal.
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Hilton has increased his support since receiving Donald Trump’s endorsement earlier this month. Trump’s intervention was aimed at consolidating the Republican vote behind Hilton and preventing a split that could leave the Republicans off the ballot.
Steyer and Becerra have gained the most ground since Swalwell’s exit. State Controller Betty Yee dropped out Monday and endorsed Steyer, who has also won the backing of several unions and “Our Revolution,” the organization founded during Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign.
The endorsement of Steyer by “Our Revolution” is especially revealing. Founded during Sanders’ 2016 campaign to channel leftward-moving voters behind the Democratic Party, the organization now sells stickers declaring “Billionaires are policy failures” while endorsing a billionaire for governor.
Steyer amassed his fortune through Farallon Capital Management, the San Francisco hedge fund he co-founded and managed for 26 years. During the debate, Mahan, repeatedly attacked Steyer over Farallon’s investments, including in Corrections Corporation of America, now CoreCivic, the largest private prison operator in the United States. Mahan’s attacks were aimed at deflecting from the support he is receiving from tech millionaires. KRON 4 reported that Mahan has raised more than $12.7 million in donations from tech executives, with large donations from Dropbox CEO Andrew Houston, Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel and Twitch co-founder Kyle Vogt.
The major issues facing workers and youth—war, inequality and the danger of fascism—were not dealt with in any serious manner. Every candidate had their pre-packaged 30-second clips and quips, each as phony as the next. Topics included California’s gas tax, a possible electric vehicle tax, how to attract private insurance companies to the state, a social media ban for youth 16 and under and proposals to lower housing costs, all within the framework of capitalism.
The central issue in the debate was not what was said but what was excluded. There was no discussion of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, US backing for Israel’s annexationist war aims in Lebanon, or the escalating US murder spree in the Pacific and Caribbean. The criminal war against Iran, the opening stages of World War III alongside the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, was mentioned only in relation to rising gas prices, not as an illegal and aggressive war. Steyer described the war against Iran as “insane,” while Becerra called it “reckless,” but neither challenged American imperialism’s right to wage an aggressive, illegal war.
One of the most revealing exchanges came on homelessness. In what is no doubt an underestimate, it was reported that some 187,000 people in California are homeless. Asked to grade the current governor’s performance, every Democrat on stage gave Newsom a passing grade for his handling of the crisis. Becerra said Newsom had made efforts to “actually go out and clean some of the streets,” adding that he would give him an “A.” Porter and Mahan gave Newsom a “B,” while Steyer gave him a “B-minus.”
One of the most revealing exchanges came on homelessness. In what is no doubt an underestimate, it was reported that some 187,000 people in California are homeless. Asked to grade the current governor’s performance, every Democrat on stage gave Newsom a passing grade for his handling of the crisis. Becerra said Newsom had made efforts to “actually go out and clean some of the streets,” adding that he would give him an “A.” Porter and Mahan gave Newsom a “B,” while Steyer gave him a “B-minus.”
This praise comes less than two years after Newsom signed a 2024 executive order directing state agencies to remove homeless encampments from state property following the Supreme Court’s Grants Pass ruling, upholding a municipal ban on sleeping in public. The order marked a sharp escalation in the criminalization of homelessness, empowering the state to sweep encampments instead of addressing the social catastrophe that has left hundreds of thousands without secure housing.
At the time, the WSWS wrote: “The message is clear: The state has no intention to resolve a serious social problem like homelessness because money must be directed to the defense of the interests of the ruling class and, importantly, the preservation of the profit system that has created the most severe levels of social inequality since the 1930s, despite unprecedented wealth produced by workers.”
That every Democrat on stage praised Newsom’s handling of homelessness underscores the reactionary character of the entire party. The Democrats’ supposed “solutions” consist of repackaged police measures, austerity and funneling money to connected non-profits, all while defending the wealth and property of the financial oligarchy.
The Republicans, for their part, blamed every social crisis in California, from wildfires to homelessness and inflation, on Democratic rule and supposedly excessive “regulation” of business operations. Both Bianco and Hilton called for slashing environmental and business regulations, expanding oil production and eliminating alleged “waste, fraud and abuse” in government programs, a formula for gutting social spending and handing still greater power to corporations. Hilton attacked Becerra for briefly supporting masking during the pandemic, while he was Biden’s health and human services secretary.
Bianco’s role in the debate was especially significant. The Riverside County sheriff recently seized more than 650,000 ballots from the 2025 referendum on redistricting, as part of a bogus “voter fraud” investigation. State officials and voting rights groups have challenged the seizure, and the California Supreme Court temporarily halted the investigation while it considers the dispute.
This week CalMatters reported that internal emails showed Bianco’s investigation was driven by thin evidence and claims from fringe election-denial groups. Newly unsealed warrants did not show direct evidence of vote fraud.
Asked during the debate whether he would launch a similar investigation if he did not trust the results of the upcoming primary, Bianco refused to give a clear answer. He declared that Californians are “never going to know if our elections are secure” because “legitimate investigations” by law enforcement are being stopped by “Democrat one-party rule in California.”
The statement amounted to an open threat. Trump and the Republican Party are preparing to challenge any election result they do not like and send immigration Gestapo to the polls. Bianco, a supporter of the fascistic Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, is presenting himself as willing agent for dictatorship.
The debate revealed the dead end confronting workers and youth within the framework of the capitalist electoral politics. The Democrats offer only token reforms, empty phrases and adaptation to Republican policies. The Republicans openly agitate for police repression, deregulation and the destruction of democratic rights.
The alternative is not to be found in any section of the capitalist political establishment. The working class must intervene independently, through the building of rank-and-file committees in workplaces, schools and neighborhoods, and prepare a political and industrial counteroffensive against austerity, war and dictatorship. The fight against Trump and the fascists in Washington must be connected to the struggle against the capitalist system that has produced both parties and the social catastrophe they defend.
On Thursday morning, Trump posted on Truth Social an order for the US Navy to take lethal action against Iranian boats that he claimed are laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz. In his 8:45 a.m. post, Trump wrote, “I have ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be (Their naval ships are ALL, 159 of them, at the bottom of the sea!), that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz.”
He went on, “There is to be no hesitation. Additionally, our mine ‘sweepers’ are clearing the Strait right now. I am hereby ordering that activity to continue, but at a tripled up level!”
Trump’s threat directive and authorization for immediate lethal force against Iranian boats is a war crime. There are no independently confirmed reports that Iran is currently and actively mining the Strait of Hormuz.
In any case, despite the US and its imperialist and regional supporters assertion that Iran has no right to mine the waterway, doing so is a justified defensive act following weeks of an air war by the US and Israel that has been followed by repeated threats of an imminent amphibious invasion of the country from the strait.
Meanwhile, Trump’s naval order followed the US seizure of a second oil tanker in the Indian Ocean on Thursday. The vessel was linked to Iranian oil transport and was seized as part of the administration’s broader effort to shut down Tehran’s export routes and use force to blockade the country beyond the Persian Gulf.
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The vessel was reported to be Botswana-flagged, but treated by the Pentagon as “stateless” in the sense used in the interdiction notice. The military said it would decide within days whether to tow it away or transfer it to another country. The US justification was also that the action was part of a global enforcement campaign against ships tied to Tehran, with the Pentagon warning that it would pursue all such vessels internationally.
This latest operation is also significant because it shows the war continues to expand beyond the immediate waters around Iran. As with the sinking of an unarmed Iranian naval ship on March 4 off Sri Lanka, in which at least 87 sailors were killed, the US is reaching into the Indian Ocean to intercept vessels it claims are connected to Iran.
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The presence of a third aircraft carrier strike group in or near the theater shows that Trump is now preparing for sustained war operations in the region. Carrier strike groups are among the most powerful tools of US military power, bringing fighter aircraft, surveillance, missile systems, destroyers and logistics support. Their deployment signals readiness for prolonged strikes, control of the seas and escalation across multiple domains.
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The resignation of Navy Secretary John Phelan late Wednesday, announced by the Pentagon, is one of the clearest signs that the war against Iran is resulting in sharp conflicts at the top of the US defense establishment. While no official reason was given for Phelan’s departure, reports have pointed to differences inside the administration, and the timing strongly suggests that the conflict over the conduct of the war is intensifying.
A senior civilian naval official leaving in the middle of a major military escalation is not routine. It indicates a level of crisis within the Trump regime that is severe enough to rupture the normal chain of military command.
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The human toll of the war against Iran is immense. Iranian authorities have reported that the death toll has reached 3,468. Thousands of deaths in such a short period of time means widespread destruction of infrastructure, civilian suffering and social dislocation. The impact of the killing and destruction of communities, the destabilization of the country on a massive scale will have a lasting impact.
On Thursday, Lebanese and Israeli representatives met at the White House as part of ongoing talks about the Israeli invasion and annexation of southern Lebanon. The talks reportedly extended the ceasefire in Lebanon by three weeks. However, Israel has repeatedly stated that it will not withdraw from southern Lebanon during the talks, proving that this ceasefire, like the Iran ceasefire, only applies to one side in the conflict.
3. El Gamal family released from ICE detention
A federal judge ordered the release of Hayam El Gamal and her five children Thursday, ending nearly 10 months of imprisonment at the Dilley family detention center in South Texas.
The family’s attorney Christopher Godshall-Bennett announced the ruling on X within minutes of leaving the courtroom. “Just finished arguing the El Gamal family’s habeas petition in San Antonio. The Court has ordered their IMMEDIATE RELEASE,” Godshall-Bennett wrote. “I left the courtroom in tears, thrilled that this family can return to their home.”
Co-counsel Eric Lee posted: “The El Gamals are finally, finally being released.” Less than two hours later, Lee reported that ICE was stonewalling the court. “The court order has been published demanding ICE release the El Gamal family immediately and ICE has still not yet even agreed to speak to us,” he wrote from Dilley. “We have been at Dilley for an hour.” By Thursday evening Lee posted simply: “The El Gamal family is free.”
A third attorney for the family, Niels Frenzen of the USC Gould School of Law Immigration Clinic, said in a statement: “A federal judge has ordered the Government to release a family who have been unlawfully targeted and punished because of the alleged actions of their husband and father. This release order is long overdue. But the Administration’s efforts to deport the family continue, so their ordeal is not over yet.”
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The family—Hayam El Gamal, her 18-year-old daughter Habiba, a 16 year old, a nine year old and two five-year-old twins—had been held at the Dilley Family Residential Center since June 2025. ICE seized them two days after the June 1, 2025 Boulder, Colorado firebombing attack for which Hayam El Gamal’s husband Mohamed Sabry Soliman was arrested.
The family had no advance knowledge of the attack. An FBI agent testified to this in court. El Gamal filed for divorce from Soliman after his arrest. None of this prevented the Department of Homeland Security from shipping the family from Colorado Springs to a detention camp nearly a thousand miles away. An immigration judge set a $15,000 bond for the family on September 19, 2025. The Trump administration used legal maneuvers to block the release. They remained imprisoned for another seven months.
The Trump administration attacked the ruling within hours. Department of Homeland Security Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis denounced Biery, who was appointed to the federal bench by former US President Bill Clinton, as an “activist judge.” “Despite receiving full due process and a final order of removal, this activist judge appointed by Bill Clinton is releasing this terrorist’s family onto American streets,” Bis said. She added that the administration would “continue to fight for the removal of those who have no right to be in our country, especially national security threats.”
The statement branded an 18-year-old student, a nine year old, a 16 year old and two five year olds as terrorists. None of them has been charged with any crime.
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Dilley, opened as a “temporary” detention center in 2014 under the Obama administration, has been expanded and refilled under the second Trump administration with families seized in the nationwide ICE raids that began in 2025.
Biery’s ruling also halted the administration’s removal proceedings against the family so the asylum case can proceed.
4. Trump Justice Department intervenes to defend fascists and neo-Nazis
In another step towards the establishment of police-state rule under President Donald Trump, the Department of Justice and the FBI announced Tuesday they had obtained a grand jury indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center on 11 counts of financial fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy.
The charges are entirely bogus and brought in bad faith, with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel knowing that there is no case to answer, and that any court not run by Trump stooges would dismiss it as preposterous.
The organization is charged with deceiving its donors by using contributions to pay informants who were members of neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. The SPLC is alleged to have committed “fraud” by setting up dummy accounts in financial institutions to make the payments, since a Ku Klux Klan member could hardly cash a check from a well-known civil rights organization.
The amount spent on this program was relatively small, about $3 million over a 10-year period (2014–2023) for an organization with an annual budget regularly topping $100 million. Eight paid informants are named in the indictment, exposing them all to retaliation by the violent fascists with whom they rubbed shoulders.
Contrary to the claim that these payments benefited the fascist groups—made by Blanche and Patel at their press conference—the United Klans, the Aryan Nations and several other groups in which the SPLC had informants are now largely moribund. In other words, the information gathered contributed to the demise of the organizations, rather than promoting them.
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The SPLC was founded in 1971 as a legal resource for victims of KKK violence, and won several notable legal victories, including a judgment in 1989 that bankrupted the United Klans of America and forced the group to turn over its headquarters building to the mother of a young black man murdered by its members.
The group has become a target of the Trump administration because it has maintained a focus on exposing far-right hate groups, even as the Republican Party has been transformed into a fascist operation under the Make America Great Again label. In particular, the SPLC identified Turning Point USA as “a case study of the hard right” because of its promotion of bigotry against the LGBTQ population. It applied similar labels to the Family Research Council and Moms for Liberty, also for anti-gay bias, and the Center for Immigration Studies, identified as a hate group for citing white supremacist and antisemitic arguments against immigrants, derived from the neo-Nazi “Great Replacement Theory.”
After the assassination of Turning Point leader Charlie Kirk last September, FBI Director Patel cut all ties to the SPLC, which had regularly supplied information on white supremacist groups to the federal government. Centi-billionaire Elon Musk tweeted that the group was “guilty of incitement to murder Charlie Kirk,” backing a smear campaign against the group. Now Patel has taken a further step, obtaining an indictment, not just of the individuals who set up the dummy accounts, but of the SPLC as a whole, subjecting all its assets to potential confiscation as the proceeds of crime.
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There has been relatively little response from the Democratic Party to this flagrant attack on democratic and civil rights. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer raised the issue in passing during a floor speech Wednesday, then posted a one-paragraph social media post that did not actually identify the SPLC as the target of “a vindictive campaign against the organizations that safeguard our democracy.”
Congressional Republicans, by contrast, have raised hosannas, with Texas Republican Representative Chip Roy telling the ultra-right Daily Signal that the indictments “are an enormously important step forward,” which would lead to further prosecutions “beyond SPLC.”
Roy declared, “We know that there are significant efforts underway across agencies to continue to root out not just SPLC but the vast array of Marxists and leftists that are actively engaging in this activity to undermine our society. I think it’s important that the indictments are indicative of what we know of the SPLC, but we also know that it’s a much bigger network and the administration does, too.”
Acting Attorney General Blanche is spearheading the campaign against all potential opposition to the Trump administration for his own benefit—he wants Trump to name him to the top job permanently—by catering to the political requirements of the would-be dictator and former client. As one commentator pointed out, Blanche has not been able to find evidence to bring charges against a single person in the mushrooming scandal over the multi-millionaire sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Instead, he brings charges against a civil rights group for fighting white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
Another commentator pointed out that President Ulysses S. Grant founded the Department of Justice in 1870 “to help suppress the Ku Klux Klan in the Southern states and enforce federal civil-rights protections for formerly enslaved Americans. On Tuesday, Justice Department officials announced what may be the first Klan-friendly prosecution in the department’s history.”
That historical reference underscores the colossal dangers now facing the working class, as the Trump administration seeks to turn back the clock, not only on the gains won by working people through bitter struggle in the 20th century, but even further back.
The Democratic Party is not a force for opposing the promotion of fascism from the highest levels of the state. The Democrats refused to mobilize any serious opposition to the January 6 coup at the time, and will not mobilize one now against the authoritarian movement consolidating state power—because doing so would require an appeal to the only social force capable of defeating fascism: the working class.
The working class must build a mass independent political movement to defend democratic rights, oppose imperialist war, and fight for the socialist transformation of society.
5. Artists group launches boycott of New York cultural center 92NY over support for war, genocide
On Tuesday, daily literary website Literary Hub announced the formation of an artists’ group 92NO that calls for artists and the public to boycott events at the 92NY cultural center, formerly known as the “92nd Street Y,” because the latter has censored artists who opposed the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza and promoted speakers who support war and genocide.
92NO’s statement argues:
This stage and venue are tainted by 92NY’s actions throughout the genocide–like canceling its entire literary season over a single writer’s opposition to the genocide in Gaza, firing employees for wearing and displaying symbols with support for Palestine, or hosting events with Israeli politicians and military officials and other public figures who justify the genocide, dehumanize Palestinians, and call for war on Iran and Lebanon.
92NY is–or was–a significant cultural institution. Its speakers have included novelists James Baldwin, Nadine Gordimer and Toni Morrison—Truman Capote debuted his landmark work In Cold Blood there in 1966—and poets such as T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Robert Frost and Langston Hughes. Musicians Andres Segovia, Stephen Sondheim and Yo-Yo Ma have performed or spoken there. Alvin Ailey premiered important dance works at the venue and legendary dancer-choreographer Martha Graham taught at the Y. Meryl Streep and Daniel Radcliffe, among others, have spoken there about acting.
The Y has also featured its share of bourgeois politicians, including war criminals (Donald Rumsfeld and Ari Fleischer, for example) and founders of the Zionist state (David Ben Gurion and Golda Meir). An increasing orientation to criminal types became apparent when 92NY hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2022.
The “Y” began institutional life as the Young Men’s Hebrew Association (YMHA) in 1872 to serve the social needs of younger Jews in New York City. Following the establishment of the Israeli state, at the expense of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, the 92nd Street Y’s officialdom became absorbed into the general stream of American liberalism, which supported the Zionist project.
After the Israeli military launched its genocidal campaign in Gaza in October 2023, the Y made a pronounced and public right-wing turn that had been prepared by the commitment of most of the institution’s leadership to the Israeli state. On October 20, 2023, it abruptly canceled, or “postponed” as it claimed, an appearance by Vietnamese-American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Viet Thanh Nguyen because he had signed an open letter published in the London Review of Books that called for a ceasefire in Gaza and was critical of Israel’s actions.
Other writers canceled their appearances at the Y in protest of this act of censorship in the days that followed, including Christina Sharpe and Saidiya Hartman, scholars and authors of creative non-fiction, and poet and novelist Dionne Brand. Poet Paisley Rekdal also decided against appearing at the venue because of 92NY’s censorship of Nguyen.
Within 48 hours, key leadership at 92NY’s Poetry Center resigned in protest at the censorship, including director Sarah Chihaya and senior program coordinator Sophie Herron. They cited a breach of the center’s mission to be a space for open literary dialogue.
92NY reacted by changing its policies about political expression among its front-facing staff, prohibiting them from “expressing any personal views about politics or social issues.” Some staff were fired.
Shortly after this, 92NY was forced to cancel its entire 2023 Fall program. Since then, the institution has sought to “recoup” by inviting some of the most deplorable figures in public and corporate life. As 92NO notes:
92NY’s Center for Culture and Arts calendar has featured an extraordinary number of war criminals, genocide apologists, corrupt billionaires, police commissioners, and right-wing pundits promoting US aggression abroad. Recent speakers include Palantir CEO Alex Karp, columnists Bret Stephens and Thomas Friedman, and CBS News chief Bari Weiss, all of whom consistently and unashamedly express anti-Palestinian racism.
The group’s statement adds:
92NY’s longstanding policy of vetting speakers with an ideological litmus test is now enshrined in their bylaws, which assert that they will block speakers who “question the legitimacy” of the State of Israel. We refuse to give our labor to an institution that explicitly silences Palestinian voices and those who support Palestinian self-determination and an end to genocide and apartheid.
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The boycott of 92NY reflects the understanding by many artists and writers that things cannot go on as they have since the start of the Gaza genocide and the installation of Trump, that cultural institutions that side with the policies of war and genocide must be confronted and exposed.
6. A message from Nexteer workers: It is time for the rank and file to take matters into our own hands!
“Fifteen years ago we were told by management and the union that this was just a ‘bump in the road.’ It’s time to pay the hard-working floor workers what is owed after 15 years of concessions.” Those were the comments of a brother at our factory to the Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee.
On April 2, we voted down the rotten tentative agreement pushed by the UAW International and UAW Local 699 officials by 96.2 percent. On that very same day, UAW leaders extended the 2021 contract behind our backs and then told us it would be illegal to strike!
Since then, Local 699 officials have posted three items on the union’s Facebook page: the cancellation of a fishing tournament, an announcement of a casino bus trip, and a “sip and paint” karaoke event.
What an insult to our intelligence!
UAW President Shawn Fain and his toadies in the local union have no right to ignore our vote and overwhelming support for strike action. No contract means no work. We should be on strike right now. By defying the will of the membership, these union aparatchiks have forfeited any claims to “represent” us.
The Nexteer Rank-and-File Committee has been formed to enforce the will of Nexteer workers. We cannot wait for permission from Fain, UAW Region 1D Director Steven Dawes or Local 699 officials Jason Jimenez and Carl McKee to take action. By extending the contract, the UAW officials have only given Nexteer time to prepare for a strike and undermine its effectiveness.
We have the power—if we use it now.
The Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee has drafted a list of strike demands for discussion and approval. These include:
- Abolish all tiers—Equal pay and benefits for equal work by raising everyone’s income.
- Major wage increases for all and COLA to keep up with inflation—No more stagnation while executives enrich themselves.
- A real living starting wage and a sharply reduced progression to top pay.
- Affordable healthcare for every worker and family—No premium hikes, no doubled weekly contributions.
- Enforceable limits on overtime and scheduling abuse, including binding notice requirements (ending contract violations like the “ninth hour” manipulation).
- Job security and anti-outsourcing protections—Full transparency and the right to oppose shifting work to lower-wage operations.
- Real grievance rights with enforcement, not a toothless process where the company faces no consequences.
- Workers’ control over safety and staffing, with elected rank-and-file safety reps empowered to halt unsafe work.
At the same time, we cannot win this struggle without financial resources. Workers should demand strike pay of at least $1,000 a week. The UAW’s nearly $1 billion strike fund is not a slush fund for the bureaucrats; it belongs to the rank and file. It must be used to sustain our fight against this multinational corporation and the Big Three automakers who want to squeeze auto parts workers for ever more profits.
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The Nexteer Rank-and-File Committee endorses the campaign by Pennsylvania Mack Trucks worker Will Lehman, who is running for president against Fain and the rest of the UAW apparatus. Lehman is calling for the abolition of the UAW bureaucracy and the transfer of power to workers on the shop floor.
At the same time, Lehman has said these are not “normal times.” The illegal war against Iran is driving up the cost of gas, groceries, utilities and housing. Every trip to the gas pump and grocery store is taking a bigger bite out of our paychecks while Big Oil is making massive profits.
Now, we hear that GM and Ford executives have been in discussions with the Trump administration about converting auto plants into weapons factories. Soon we will be told that strikes are illegal, we must accept massive cuts in wages, Social Security, Medicare and other programs to pay for the war. They also want to restore the draft and send our sons and daughters to fight their wars. In reality, the only ones who benefit are the same billionaires who are robbing us at home.
It is time to take a stand! If we do, we can win the support of American Axle, Bridgewater Interiors, Dana and tens of thousands of other auto parts workers whose contracts are expiring in the coming weeks. We can also win the support of UAW members from the Big Three auto plants in Flint, Detroit and other cities, striking Harvard University academic workers and other workers.
It is time we take this struggle into our own hands. Join the Nexteer Workers Rank-and-File Committee to take up this fight.
7. German defense minister presents new military strategy: Berlin prepares for major war against Russia
On Wednesday, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and the Inspector General of the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces), Carsten Breuer, presented a comprehensive military strategy for the first time in the history of the Bundeswehr. Even though key parts of the document remain classified, the excerpts that have been released leave no doubt as to its nature: Germany is systematically preparing for a major war—particularly against Russia.
The secrecy itself is politically revealing. It shows that the measures, capabilities and specific war plans actually being devised go far beyond what is communicated publicly. Yet even the official summaries make clear that the German government is taking a qualitative leap forward in military rearmament and preparations for war.
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The military strategy follows “the idea that Germany, as the largest economy in Europe, must and will take on a leading role in NATO in a complex and increasingly acute threat situation—also militarily. It is a sign of a paradigm shift and underpins our claim to shape things,” Breuer said.
The “Overall Concept of Military Defense” consists of two parts: a military strategy and a capability profile. Until now, according to Breuer, the Bundeswehr had struggled to clearly define security policy goals and then explain how it wanted to achieve them. “The answer to this is given by the military strategy—and the answer to the means for it is given by the capability profile.”
In other words: German imperialism is once again clearly defining its predatory goals and at the same time creating the military prerequisites to enforce them. At the center is the war offensive against Russia, which was further escalated in recent days with the signing of a new “strategic partnership“ between Germany and Ukraine, and the summoning of the Russian ambassador.
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The new strategy openly defines Russia as a central threat and orientates all military planning towards a comprehensive war against the nuclear power. The hitherto known contents of the military strategy and the associated rearmament plans include, among others:
- Massive personnel growth: The Bundeswehr is to be significantly enlarged. A troop strength of at least 260,000 active soldiers and a considerable expansion of the reserve are being discussed. In total, the force is to grow to at least 460,000. To achieve this growth, which is only the beginning, the reintroduction of conscription is being prepared.
- Building up fully equipped large formations: Germany is committing itself to providing several fully operational divisions for NATO, including heavy mechanized forces for the war in Eastern Europe.
- Permanent stationing and frontline presence: The deployment of a German combat brigade in Lithuania is part of long-term forward stationing on the Russian border.
- Accelerated rearmament and modernization: Massive investments in heavy weapons, air defense systems, drones, cyber and space capabilities. Projects such as the serial production of modern weapon systems are being expanded.
- Logistics and mobilization: The building up of a comprehensive military logistics structure for rapid troop deployments through Europe (“military mobility”) as well as ensuring supplies in the event of war.
- Integration into NATO and EU structures: Germany is taking on a central leadership role in multinational command structures and operational planning. Germany will “increase cohesion between Eastern, Central and Western Europe from the center of Europe and maintain the connection to North America,” the published part of the strategy states. Thus, Germany will become “even more of a military anchor partner for its European allies” in order to “improve European ability to act.”
- National command and control capability: “The capability for national planning and command of operations is to be ensured at the operational level,” the document demands. This also includes “the command of multi-domain operations as well as the task contained therein for the cross-dimensional command of deep precision strikes.”
- “Total defense”: The military strategy is explicitly interlinked with civilian structures. State, economy and society are to be orientated towards the event of war.
Even the title of the strategy “Overall Concept for Military Defense” makes clear that its implementation is not limited to the military, but encompasses the whole of society.
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This prepares the transition to a war economy. In an emergency, industry, infrastructure and workers are to be placed directly in the service of military operations. In its logic, this is reminiscent of earlier phases of German war preparation on the eve of the First and Second World Wars—with the difference that today it takes place under conditions of a highly developed globalized economy.
The necessary financial means for this have already been created. The “special fund” and war credits amounting to hundreds of billions of euros, supported by all the establishment parties, including the Left Party and the Greens, are financing the largest rearmament program since the end of the Second World War.
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The new military strategy makes clear that German imperialism has drawn the conclusion from its historical crimes and catastrophic defeats in the two world wars of the 20th century to assert its interests once again with military force. Under conditions of growing geopolitical conflicts—between the imperialist powers themselves, above all between Europe and the US and economic crises— the ruling class is driving forward a policy that inevitably leads to catastrophe.
For workers and youth, this means they are confronted with a reality that is being systematically downplayed by official circles: The preparation for a major war is not an abstract possibility, but concrete government policy. It has nothing to do with the defense of “democracy” and “freedom” against a Russian, Iranian or any other aggressor, but, as in the past, is aimed at enforcing imperialist interests by means of destructive violence.
8. SEP holds meeting in Adelaide, South Australia on the Iran war and the fight for socialism
The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) held an important public meeting last Sunday in the South Australian city of Adelaide to discuss the illegal US war against Iran and the need for a socialist perspective. The meeting advanced the fight to build an Adelaide branch of the SEP as a component of the broader struggle to build a global movement of the working class against the threat of world war.
The meeting was held in the aftermath of the March 21 state election, which marked a deepening crisis of the two-party system in Australia and a further shift to the right by all the major parties. While the pro-business Labor government of Peter Malinauskas was returned to office, there were sharp swings against Labor in key working-class areas. The Liberals, the traditional conservative party, were reduced to a rump, as part of the party’s collapse nationally. Meanwhile, the far-right One Nation received the second-highest vote, exploiting the growing discontent with the major capitalist parties and the mounting social crisis.
Before Sunday’s meeting, the SEP campaigned in the working-class suburbs of Adelaide, including going to polling booths on election day at Salisbury and Elizabeth in the city’s north. This area, the former center of auto production, has been decimated by the closure of the car industry and resulting job losses and impoverished conditions, enforced by Labor and the corporatized trade unions.
In speaking with workers and young people, the SEP revealed widespread hostility to the war on Iran, the Australian government’s involvement in it, and the broader militarization of the country in preparation for a US-led war with China. Workers were concerned about the cost-of-living crisis, growing inequality, the deterioration of social services, and were interested in a socialist alternative to the main parties.
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The reports prompted a wide-ranging discussion by participants, most of whom had never attended an SEP meeting. Questions that were raised included the history of the Iran war and how it was connected to the decades of US aggression in the Middle East under the banner of a “war on terror.” Another question was how a workers’ revolution could develop. One attendee asked how people who are drawn to left-wing politics can be won to the SEP and a genuine socialist perspective.
Most of those attending stayed behind to have further discussion with the SEP, browse the literature table, and find out how they could become more involved.
9. Workers and youth in Adelaide speak out on Iran war and support a socialist perspective
“I was drawn to the SEP’s internationalist perspective to unite the working class. Capitalism is breaking down, that’s why the working class needs to go on strike and organize workers at workplaces and industries independently.”*****
The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) held a public meeting in Adelaide, the state capital of South Australia, on Sunday to discuss the US war on Iran and the outcome of the South Australian state election. It drew a number of workers and youth, both in person and online, and outlined to them a socialist perspective to stop the war and build an international movement against the outmoded capitalist system.
SEP members spoke afterwards to those attending the meeting.
10. Hunger strike at Michigan immigrant detention center
Detainees at ICE’s massive North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan, staged a hunger strike beginning April 20, 2026. In a press release shared by No Detention Centers in Michigan (NDCM), the hunger strike was held by male detainees who cited “dangerous conditions, a lack of adequate food and medical care, and cruel legal obstacles that have kept many in captivity with no end in sight.” Detainees are also reportedly striking from their jobs within the detention center itself, including laundry, cleaning and kitchen duties. The 1,800-bed facility is the largest ICE detention center in the Midwest and currently holds approximately 1,400 detainees.
The WSWS reached out to NDCM, which maintains communication with the North Lake detainees, for a comment on the strike, which a spokesperson described as “a collective response both to the appalling conditions that people have faced at North Lake now and in the past—inadequate food, medical neglect, denial of basic resources—and to the cruel policies from ICE and immigration judges that have kept many behind bars for far too long. Some people detained at North Lake have won their habeas corpus suits, only to be denied bond. Some have asked to be deported, only to be stuck in limbo in this rural Michigan prison for months.”
NDCM reported to the WSWS that, as of April 21, a majority of men in multiple units were participating in the strike, meaning hundreds of detainees. As of April 22, one unit called off the strike after North Lake personnel told them they had no other options but to request voluntary departure or deportation, and otherwise attempted to identify the strike leaders. Detainees in other units are reportedly continuing the hunger strike. NDCM has stated that GEO Group, which operates North Lake, has punitively cancelled recreation time in response to the strike, an unsurprising move given the history of abuse and neglect at the facility.
NDCM also informed WSWS of the demands of the strikers which were communicated through an attorney and are re-published here verbatim:
1. ICE officials come and talk to them to explain why they are being unjustly held.
2. ICE review each detainee’s circumstances and liberate people. ICE can grant parole as they did in the past. The detainees should not have to rely on immigration judges who are not neutral.
3. ICE should make decisions more quickly. Waiting 120 days for ICE to decide what to do is too long and inhumane.
4. Food. There are people who are hungry and GEO employees throw food away. The food is not enough to sustain them. They are only given protein once a week. There are people having allergic reactions.
5. Laundry. They are receiving clothes that make them itchy and having allergic reactions. They don’t know what chemicals they are using to clean the inmates clothes.
6. Arbitrary rules must stop. They recently implemented a new 6 a.m. headcount without any notice. They make rules arbitrarily.
7. Regular sleep. They are kept awake all night. The guards keep their radios loud, and there is noise all night that does not allow them to sleep.
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The strikers’ demands and grievances are fully consistent with ICE and GEO Group’s documented record of abuses, including a network of secret detention centers. In particular, North Lake has gained notoriety for its record of illegal detentions and medical neglect since it was reopened in mid-2025. ICE reports that the average stay at North Lake is 49 days. However, many detainees have been incarcerated there for over six months.
This hunger strike does not occur in isolation. Similar protests have been reported at ICE facilities at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana; Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, California; and the South Florida Detention Facility, so-called “Alligator Alcatraz,” in Ochopee, Florida. In 2019, hunger-striking detainees at an ICE facility in Texas were subjected to force-feeding through nasal tubes, a form of torture used at Guantanamo Bay and other CIA-run black sites.
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Michigan Advance requested a comment from a GEO Group spokesperson, but the hunger strike was not addressed. Instead, the spokesperson offered only a bland recitation of an obvious company line: that detainees are supposedly provided “around-the-clock access to medical care, in-person and virtual legal and family visitation, general and legal library access, translation services, dietician-approved meals, religious and specialty diets, recreational amenities, and opportunities to practice their religious beliefs… [a]dditionally, all of GEO’s ICE Processing Centers are independently accredited by the American Correctional Association and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care.” To date, ICE itself has not issued a public comment on the strike.
On April 21, several dozen protesters gathered outside North Lake to support the detainees on hunger strike. Several of these protesters attempted to block vehicles from exiting the facility.
In the face of this hunger strike, the only morally and politically consistent response is mass working class solidarity. The struggle to end ICE’s grotesque abuses of immigrants cannot be trusted to either capitalist party, both of which are complicit in these abuses. Nor can GEO Group, which profits from this system, be expected to reform its own practices.
This strike must be supported by coordinated action by the working class with the formation of rank-and-file committees and workplace stoppages that disrupt logistics and supply chains which sustain these detention centers.
11. Two killed, dozens injured in West Virginia chemical plant explosion
A deadly incident at a chemical facility in Institute, West Virginia left two workers dead and dozens of others injured on Wednesday, according to official reports. Several of those hurt required hospitalization, including emergency responders who were exposed while assisting at the scene.
Located less than 20 miles from Charleston, WV, the explosion occurred at a facility operated by Catalyst Refiners, located along the Kanawha River in an area long known for its concentration of chemical manufacturing.
Local authorities said the incident occurred while crews were carrying out shutdown and cleanup work at the plant. During that process, chemicals interacted in a way that generated a hazardous gas, believed to include hydrogen sulfide. First responders were dispatched to the site, and nearby residents were advised to remain indoors for a period while crews worked to stabilize conditions. Roads surrounding the facility were temporarily shut down as specialized teams secured the area.
Emergency crews responded quickly, and a temporary shelter-in-place order was issued for nearby communities as a precaution. Several roads were closed while hazardous materials teams worked to contain the scene.
At least 20 to 30 people, including plant workers and first responders, were evaluated or treated for symptoms such as difficulty breathing, coughing and eye irritation. Some victims were transported to nearby hospitals in Charleston, West Virginia, and officials said at least one person remained in critical condition as of late Wednesday.
As of late Wednesday, authorities have not released the identities of those killed.
State and federal agencies, including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, have launched an investigation into the cause of the incident. The Kanawha Valley—sometimes referred to as “Chemical Valley”—has a long history of industrial accidents, including the 2014 Elk River chemical spill that disrupted water service for hundreds of thousands of residents.
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The explosion and deaths at Catalyst Refiners is part of a growing toll of workers deaths involving industrial accidents, as companies ignore safety as they push for greater profits.
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The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) has opened an investigation into the explosion at Catalyst Refiners. The CSB is an independent agency charged with determining the root causes of chemical incidents and issuing safety recommendations. Investigators typically deploy to the scene to collect physical evidence, review plant procedures and maintenance records, and interview workers, managers and emergency responders. However, the agency’s findings often take months to complete and they have no authority to enforce their finding.
Furthermore, the CSB has faced years of underfunding tied to budget cuts and political pressure, particularly under the Trump administration, which has sought to close the agency down entirely. Safety advocates say those constraints have weakened the agency’s ability to respond quickly and thoroughly to major incidents. Although the CSB continues to operate and investigate serious accidents, lack of sufficient staffing and funding undermines its ability keep pace with the volume and complexity of industrial hazards nationwide.
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While large explosions draw the most attention, a quieter and more persistent concern is long-term exposure to low levels of industrial pollution among people living near chemical facilities. Research in environmental health has found that communities located close to refineries, petrochemical plants and waste-processing sites can face elevated exposure to substances such as benzene, formaldehyde and other known or suspected carcinogens.
Epidemiological studies have linked long-term exposure in these areas to higher rates of certain cancers, as well as respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular disease and adverse birth outcomes. In places like the heavily industrialized corridor along the Mississippi River known as Cancer Alley, residents and researchers have reported elevated rates of rare cancers and chronic health conditions. Similar concerns have been raised in parts of Houston, Texas and other industrial regions, where residential communities bordering industrial sites—often lower-income—experience disproportionately high exposure to airborne toxins over long periods.
Behind the growing number of industrial explosions and fatalities as well as the continuous poisoning of millions of people is the shortcutting of safety by corporations under relentless pressure by Wall Street to maximize profits.
12. Harvard Corporation demands graduate workers pay the price for Trump’s assault on academic freedom
The strike by 4,000 graduate student workers at Harvard University that began April 21 takes place under conditions of an ongoing assault on academic freedom and other democratic rights. As the Trump administration launches a scorched-earth campaign to bring higher education under the direct ideological control of the far right, Harvard’s leadership has responded not by forcefully defending democratic principles but by offloading the costs of its political conflict with Trump onto academic workers, including striking members of the Harvard Graduate Student Union-United Auto Workers (HGSU-UAW).
Harvard Corporation is seeking to restructure the university into a more efficient arm of the imperialist state and finance capital, using the threat of state-driven financial strangulation as a pretext to crush labor militancy and campus dissent.
The Trump administration has deployed its cabinet of reactionaries to execute a multi-pronged assault. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has terminated all professional military education and fellowships at Harvard, labeling the school a “red-hot center of Hate America activism.” Simultaneously, Education Secretary Linda McMahon has placed Harvard under “heightened cash monitoring” and is threatening its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. The administration has frozen $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in multi-year contract value, while Trump himself has threatened to pursue $1 billion in “damages” over the university’s failure to suppress campus protests against the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Utilizing the Department of Education, the state is demanding an audit of “viewpoint diversity” and the total liquidation of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs. These “civil rights” pretexts are a transparent cover to force the university to align its research and hiring with the administration’s ultra-right ideology, effectively ending academic freedom.
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The Harvard administration has weaponized the narrative of “financial distress” to justify wage suppression and austerity. Citing a projected $365 million deficit in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), the university pleads poverty while sitting on a mountain of gold, including a $53.2 billion endowment. This “deficit” is a political fiction, a strategic accounting maneuver designed to facilitate a class-driven transfer of wealth from the workers who perform the essential labor of instruction to the endowment fund managed by the oligarchy.
Graduate student workers are fighting for raises that keep up with inflation in one of the most expensive US cities. As of 2026 estimates, the median monthly rent of a one-bedroom home in Cambridge is around $3,500. Teaching Fellows at Harvard earn between $18 and $21 per hour, and many qualify for state food assistance. Harvard has countered with an insulting 2.5 percent annual raise.
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The Harvard Corporation is a superstructural institution, where the interests of the corporate-financial oligarchy and the imperialist state are fused. Its members do not manage a “community of scholars.” Rather, they manage an ideological production facility as an extension of their corporate portfolios.
The Democratic Party offers no alternative to Trump’s assault. President Alan Garber and the Harvard administration represent the same layer of the ruling class that, under the Biden administration, initiated the work of criminalizing student dissent by slandering anti-genocide protesters as “antisemites.”
An analysis by the World Socialist Web Site of the members of the Harvard Corporation, the governing body of the Ivy League school, revealed a veritable Who’s Who of America’s corporate-financial oligarchy and military-intelligence establishment. This includes Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar, who served in three Democratic administrations at the White House and federal agencies, including as senior director of the National Security Council under President Obama. During this time, Obama directed “Terror Tuesday” drone assassinations, including of US citizens, the bloody regime change operations in Libya and Syria and the 2014 coup in Ukraine that paved the way for the US-NATO proxy war against Russia.
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When Columbia University made a deal with the Trump administration, the Democrats were largely silent. Columbia’s capitulation stood in stark contrast to the views of the vast majority of students and faculty, many of whom had taken courageous action against dictatorship and war, risking their academic careers and personal safety.
The UAW bureaucracy is in a de facto alliance with Trump based on economic nationalism. Despite periodic rhetoric about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other federal funding, voiced by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) members in his PR department, UAW President Shawn Fain has simultaneously collaborated with the Biden and Trump administrations. He has promoted the UAW as a partner in “rebuilding American industry,” including advocating tariff and trade policies that subordinate international worker solidarity to national capitalist interests.
Fain publicly backed Trump’s tariffs and framed the union as a force to defend “American” jobs, going so far as to embrace the idea of the UAW serving wartime production needs. This amounts to endorsing the subordination of labor to state military aims and to corporate profit-making during a crisis, rather than organizing independent worker resistance to war.
The international union has done nothing to defend students. UAW Region 9A, led by Shawn Fain crony and DSA member Brandon Mancilla, ordered the local at Columbia to water down its political demands. When workers refused, the apparatus threatened to place the local under trusteeship. Despite two overwhelming votes to authorize strike action, the UAW has refused to sanction a walkout.
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Will LehmanWill Lehman, a Mack Trucks worker and socialist and anti-war candidate for UAW president, recently called on all UAW members to back the Harvard strikers, saying, “Your walkout is part of a growing movement of workers and young people in the United States and internationally who are entering into struggle against exploitation, repression and war.”
Harvard graduate students can only take their struggle forward in a rebellion against the UAW apparatus, which functions as the “labor lieutenant” of Harvard Corporation and the corporate and political establishment.
This is underscored by the sabotage by the UAW-aligned Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW) leadership, which has already pushed through a sellout one-year contract featuring a flat $2,300 raise. In one of the world’s most expensive places to live, this amounts to a real-wage cut. The WSWS has called on rank-and-file workers to reject the one-year deal in the vote scheduled for May 12–13 and unite in a common fight with striking graduate students.
The success of the Harvard strike depends on breaking the grip of the UAW bureaucracy and the two capitalist political parties. Graduate workers must seize control of their own struggle through the formation of a rank-and-file committee.
13. US-Israel war on Iran is accelerating climate change
A new analysis published March 21 by the Climate and Community Institute (CCI) has quantified the greenhouse gas emissions produced in the first 14 days of the US-Israel war on Iran, finding that the conflict released more carbon pollution in two weeks than many smaller nations, such as Iceland, emit in an entire year. The findings begin to expose the full environmental cost of the war, a cost whose largest portion has yet to be emitted and will be borne by the international working class.
The analysis covers the period from February 28 to March 14, 2026, and estimates total emissions of approximately 5.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) across five categories: the destruction of homes and civilian buildings, the burning of oil stored in bombed refineries and tankers, fuel consumed in combat and support operations, the embodied carbon of destroyed military equipment, and the embodied carbon in missiles and drones used by all parties.
The largest source was not the weapons or the fighter jets and bombers flying from as far as western England, but the destruction of civilian infrastructure. Based on Red Crescent Society of Iran reports that approximately 20,000 civilian units were damaged or destroyed, including 16,191 residential buildings, 3,384 commercial units, 77 medical centers and 69 schools, the researchers estimated 2.4 million tCO2e in embodied emissions that will be released when rubble is cleared and infrastructure rebuilt.
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The second-largest source of emissions was the destruction of oil infrastructure. The US and Israel struck storage facilities in Tehran, Shahran and Aghdasieh, while Iranian drone strikes set fires at facilities in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait. Iran also struck at least five oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. The researchers estimated between 2.5 and 5.9 million barrels of oil were destroyed in these strikes, producing approximately 1.9 million tCO2e. Fuel consumed in combat and support operations added another 529,000 tCO2e.
Fuel used during combat was the third largest source of tCO2e, producing 529,000 metric tons. This is followed by war materiel that was destroyed and will be replaced, which will produce another 172,000 tCO2e. And the missiles and drones used across the first two weeks of the conflict used produced another 55,000 tCO2e.
Taken together, the first fourteen days produced emissions equivalent to those of the 84 lowest-emitting countries on Earth combined. At the same rate sustained over a year, the total would approach those of a medium-size fossil-fuel economy such as Kuwait.
The war’s most significant long-term consequence for climate change, however, will be the restructuring of global fossil fuel production that the conflict has already set in motion.
The researchers write that, historically, every major US-driven energy shock has been followed by a surge in new drilling, new LNG terminal construction and new fossil fuel infrastructure, all of which lock in decades of additional emissions. The war on Iran threatens to replicate and accelerate that pattern on a scale not seen since the Gulf War of 1991.
The opinion piece accompanying the analysis also notes how the Trump administration’s doctrine of “energy dominance” is the political framework within which this war was launched. The researchers write that, “no matter which of the many reasons Trump has since provided for attacking Iran, the US intervention in Iran is now clearly about oil.”
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Trump has declared that the financial costs of the war, already estimated at $16.5 billion in its first two weeks, will be borne by the working class through cuts to numerous social programs, including the bedrocks of what remains of America’s social safety net, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
No doubt any remaining investment in climate change will be slashed as well. And even more long-term costs of the fossil fuel infrastructure are being locked in under the banner of “energy security.”
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The war in Iran, like the wars in Ukraine and Gaza before it, makes clear that the climate crisis cannot be separated from capitalism and imperialist militarism. Every global climate summit has floundered on the inability of the capitalist states to subordinate profit to the survival of the Earth’s environment. The US military, one of the largest institutional emitters of greenhouse gases on Earth, and never required to report its emissions to any international body, is now fighting a war that will produce decades of additional fossil fuel dependence.
Effectively addressing the climate crisis is bound up with the broader mobilization of the international working class against the capitalist system and war. Part of this involves the expropriation of the fossil fuel industry, which has masterminded wars and conflicts in the Middle East for more than a century, and the transformation of energy production into a publicly owned and democratically controlled utility as part of the socialist transformation of society.
The federal Labor government has unveiled a savage assault on disabled people as the centerpiece of an austerity budget next month that will slash essential social spending, while increasing funding to the military and boosting corporate profits.
Speaking at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Health Minister Mark Butler outlined a plan to force at least 160,000 people off the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) over the next four years. Adding to the projected number of people blocked from entering the scheme over that period, the actual figure is over 300,000.
That is the spearhead of a broader gutting of the NDIS, which Butler said will “save” the federal budget $35 billion over the four-year forward estimates. That is the largest single cut to an Australian government program this century, and likely the largest ever.
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This is a program of social misery for some of the most vulnerable members of the population. The 760,000 people on the NDIS depend on it to meet their daily necessities, from personal care and in-home assistance to therapy, mobility aids and support workers that make basic participation in society possible.
The reality, of which the government is fully aware, is that its cuts will claim lives, both directly through the withdrawal of essential supports and indirectly by driving disabled people and their families into impossible situations.
The claims of the Labor government that those kicked off the scheme will be provided with other supports are a lie. There simply are no such supports. When the NDIS was established in 2012, state-based disability programs were largely wound down, and there are no plans for their revival.
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As part of its earlier cuts to the NDIS, the government has already introduced a system of “independent assessors,” effectively tasked with removing people from the scheme or reducing the assistance they receive. Initially targeting those with developmental delays and autism, this framework of the disabled being scrutinized by hostile government bureaucrats will be made universal.
The abolition of a diagnostically based criteria for the scheme is an attack on medicine and science. So too is Labor’s line that they are seeking to remove those with “mild” and “moderate” disabilities.
Those are not medical categories but government spin, aimed at demonizing those with disabilities and inciting popular opinion against them. As many parents of autistic children have noted, a condition that might be waved away by the government as “mild” can require vast amounts of care and assistance.
The brutality of the cuts is indicated by the fact that one of the first programs on the chopping block, for those who are not kicked off all together, is social and community participation. This broad category includes a raft of activities, whereby support workers assist people to leave their homes, attend appointments, take part in work, education, social and cultural life.
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The assault Labor has unveiled is not only a declaration of war on people with disabilities, but on the working class. It proves again that this government is the ruthless instrument of the banks and the corporations, hostile to all of the fundamental interests of working people.
A political struggle must be developed, against the assault on the rights of the disabled and on all social rights. The attack on such a vulnerable cohort underscores the fundamental reality of capitalism, the subordination of all social needs to the profits of the ruling elite, enforced by governments that represent it.
15. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!
The fight for the Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist's freedom is an essential component of the struggle against imperialist war, genocide, dictatorship and fascism.
