Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. Graham Platner: A bogus “pro-worker” face for the Democratic Party in Maine
Platner
is being promoted as an outsider, but his campaign was recruited,
packaged and launched through the AFL-CIO, Bernie Sanders and the
Democratic Party apparatus.
*****
The AFL-CIO did not search for a socialist, an antiwar candidate or a
representative of rank-and-file workers to run in Maine. It searched for
a marketable “working class” face: a Sanders donor with a military
background, which turned out to include a Totenkopf (death’s head)
tattoo and a kill count.
The AFL-CIO’s role in recruiting Platner exposes the class character of
his campaign. The AFL-CIO is not a fighting organization of the working
class but a corporatist apparatus tied by a thousand threads to the
Democratic Party, US imperialism and the capitalist state.
The federation was formed in 1955 through the merger of the American
Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
As the World Socialist Web Site has explained,
this merger took place “on the explicit basis of anti-communist
red-baiting and support for American imperialism’s Cold War agenda.”
AFL-CIO President George Meany combined class collaboration at home with
support for US imperialism abroad, including the Vietnam War, while the
federation’s foreign affairs department worked with the CIA and the
State Department to establish pro-US unions and prop up right-wing
dictatorships internationally.
Nor was the earlier CIO the pristine model of rank-and-file
democracy later mythologized by the pseudo-left. The CIO emerged out of
the mass industrial upsurge of the 1930s, but its leadership, working
with the Roosevelt administration and the Stalinist Communist Party,
blocked the development of a political movement of the working class.
Instead, it channeled this explosive movement into a trade union form
loyal to the profit system and politically subordinated to the
Democratic Party. This was bound up with the preparations of American
imperialism for World War II, with the unions accepting no-strike
pledges and enforcing labor discipline on the home front.
*****
After the world war, both the AFL and the CIO conducted
anti-communist purges, driving out socialist-minded workers linked to
the Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party, then the Trotskyist
movement. The merger in 1955 was the final stage, not in uniting the
working class but cementing the split in the bureaucracy on the basis of
a common commitment to American imperialism.
In the decades after
the postwar boom, the AFL-CIO’s reactionary role became still more
explicit. In the 1980s, it isolated the PATCO air traffic controllers
after Reagan fired and blacklisted 11,300 striking workers, opening the
door to decades of union busting, concessions, wage cuts and plant
closures. The character of the trade unions underwent a fundamental
change, as they became nothing more than instruments of the corporations
and the capitalist state, a labor police force entirely hostile to the
interests of the working class.
The same role continues today. At
the May Day Strong events in Chicago, the AFL-CIO bureaucracy and the
Democrats sought to smother growing opposition to Trump, war and
dictatorship, while figures such as UAW President Shawn Fain promoted
economic nationalism and remained silent on US imperialism’s war drive.
Platner’s recruitment by AFL-CIO-connected operatives must be understood
in this context. His campaign is an expression of the bureaucracy’s
function: to package economic nationalism and pro-union rhetoric as a
substitute for class struggle, while channeling opposition back into the
Democratic Party.
*****
Should Platner be elected, he would not enter the Senate as a tribune of
the working class. He would join the roster of former military and
intelligence figures promoted by the Democratic Party in recent years,
including Elissa Slotkin, Abigail Spanberger, Mark Kelly, Jared Golden,
Jason Crow, Mikie Sherrill and Andy Kim.
2. Further light shed on criminal US torpedoing of Iranian ship
A Tehran Times article entitled “IRIS Dena sinking:
Survivors testimony, diplomatic delays, and US-India-Sri Lanka role”
published on May 2 is based on their interviews. It not only makes clear
that the US Navy deliberately sunk the vessel after first disabling it,
but also points to the complicity of India and Sri Lanka in the
criminal attack.
The IRIS Dena, the Iranian frigate, was returning
from multinational naval exercises—MILAN 2026—hosted by India when a US
submarine attacked. Of the Dena’s 180 naval personnel crew, only 32
were rescued alive by the Sri Lankan coast guard and 84 bodies were
recovered from the water.
As the World Socialist Web Site wrote at the time,
the attack amounted to mass murder carried out thousands of kilometres
from the Middle East as part of Washington’s escalating war against
Iran. “It sent an unmistakable message: the conflict will be prosecuted
wherever the US chooses, unconstrained by international law or
convention.”
Underscoring this assessment, US War Secretary Pete
Hegseth acknowledged the US Navy’s involvement, reportedly describing
the operation as a “quiet death.”
On the same day, a second
Iranian naval vessel, IRIS Bushehr, carrying 208 crew members, sought
permission to enter Colombo Port. After initially refusing entry, the
Sri Lankan government allowed the ship to dock on March 5 but only after
intense behind-the-scenes diplomatic exchanges.
While Colombo
claimed it acted on “humanitarian” grounds as a “neutral” country, it
detained 32 survivors from IRIS Dena along with the crew of IRIS
Bushehr, according to a Reuters report published on March 7.
Reuters cited an internal US State Department cable dated March 6 in
which Chargé d’Affaires Jayne Howell urged that the crew not be
repatriated, adding, “Sri Lankan authorities should minimize Iranian
attempts to use the detainees for propaganda.”
The Sri Lankan
government complied, delaying the return of 84 recovered bodies for over
a week and holding the detained the 240 crew members for nearly five
weeks, despite repeated requests from Tehran for their repatriation.
During their detention, the crew were barred from speaking to the media.
Only after April 14, following a US-declared ceasefire with Iran, were
the Iranian naval personnel allowed to leave Sri Lanka and return home.
Speaking after his return, IRIS Dena captain Zarri rejected claims by
the US Indo-Pacific Command that the vessel was armed. “One of the
exercise’s conditions was that missiles and torpedoes should not be
carried by participating vessels,” Zarri said. He confirmed that the
frigate carried neither anti-submarine torpedoes nor strategic missiles,
leaving it unable to defend itself against an underwater attack.
*****
All the evidence—from the technical record of the attack to the
harrowing account given by Commander Zarri and his first
officer—confirms that the US Navy carried out a deliberate war-crime in
torpedoing of an unarmed, immobilized Iranian ship whose crew was in the
process of evacuating.
Whether or not they were directly informed
of the impending US attack, the Indian and Sri Lankan governments were
well aware of the dangers to the Iranian vessels faced. There is no
innocent explanation for the delays in allowing them to dock.
The
evasions and hypocritical declarations of “neutrality” by Colombo and
New Delhi, along with the silence of the imperialist-aligned media,
cannot cover-up the fact that these governments were complicit in this
US war crime.
3. Trump’s deployment of warships to Strait of Hormuz escalates Iran war
The
increasingly desperate actions of American imperialism express the
strategic debacle it confronts after 35 years of uninterrupted wars of
aggression.
4. “All this money for bombs but no money for education”: May Day protesters in US denounce war and dictatorship
Although
officially dominated by Democrats and the labor bureaucracy, hundreds
of thousands in the US marched on May Day to oppose war and defend
immigrants and democratic rights.
5. Trump withdraws 5,000 US troops from Germany as Berlin steps up rearmament
The
announcement by President Donald Trump to withdraw 5,000 US troops from
Germany and halt the planned deployment of US intermediate-range
weapons in Germany marks a further escalation of the crisis in
transatlantic relations.
6. Islamist offensive tacitly backed by Paris shakes Mali
On April 25, an alliance of Tuareg nationalist militias and Islamists
launched a coordinated offensive across Mali. This offensive shook the
ruling military junta, which responded in 2013 to mass demonstrations
against the French-led war in Mali by imposing the withdrawal of French
troops and allying itself with the Kremlin.
While the junta retained power and control of the country’s more
populous southern cities, the Tuareg-Islamist offensive shook it badly.
Mopti in the north fell under control of Islamist and Tuareg forces,
backed by the Algerian military regime and above all by Paris. In the
global context of the imperialist war against Iran and Russia, the
conflict between the anti-imperialist aspirations of the Malian working
masses and the bourgeois politics of the junta is emerging ever more
clearly.
The offensive began with surprise attacks across the
country, targeting Kidal and Gao in the north, Sévaré and Mopti in the
center, and Kati and the capital, Bamako, in the south. According to the
X account of the Russian Africa Corps stationed in Mali, the offensive
mobilized between 10,000 and 12,000 fighters. In Kati, it assassinated
the junta’s second-in-command, Defense Minister Sadio Camara, a key
architect of the alliance with Moscow, with a car bomb.
The day of the initial assault “was truly terrifying, we were afraid,” a Bamako resident told Radio France Internationale (RFI).
“We were woken up by heavy weapons fire and then, after an hour of
exchanges, we realized it was a terrorist attack. It all started around 6
in the morning and went on until the afternoon.”
RFI also quoted a
resident of Mopti, who said: “The population is panicked, there was no
market, almost all families are sheltering at home and houses are shut…
The gendarmerie and the police station were stormed by the attackers,
who now control practically everything.”
The Africa Corps was forced to suddenly abandon Mopti, negotiating the
departure of its troops but leaving hundreds of Malian soldiers behind
as prisoners of the Islamists. Islamist and Tuareg militias are now
trying to blockade energy supplies to Malian cities.
It is difficult to provide casualty figures for the losses in the
initial assault. According to the Africa Corps, the government and
Russian counter-offensive killed 1,000 fighters and destroyed more than
100 vehicles. On the evening of the 25th, the junta issued a communiqué
reporting 16 civilian casualties. The true death toll on both sides
likely runs into the thousands.
*****
Numerous reports, notably concerning the use by Islamist militias of
fiber-optic guided drones deployed on the Russo-Ukrainian front, point
to the role of the pro-NATO Ukrainian regime. Since 2024, Kiev has
repeatedly pledged to assist forces in Africa fighting the Russian
Africa Corps. On March 26, 2026, less than a month before the offensive
in Mali, it convened a governmental meeting on its African policy.
Afterwards,
Kyrylo Budanov, the former head of Ukrainian military intelligence who
was then serving as head of the Ukrainian presidential office,
announced: “For the first time, Ukraine has set itself the objective of
comprehensively influencing the situation on the African continent.”
In
reality, the Ukrainian regime cannot intervene in the Sahel
independently of French imperialism. It is entirely funded by the
European Union, whose member states transfer tens of billions of euros
to it annually. It acts on behalf of NATO, waging war against Russia but
also in the Sahel, where Paris seeks to topple the juntas that demanded
the withdrawal of its troops.
Through a series of proxies, Paris
is attempting to reinstall a neocolonial regime that would better
protect French imperialism’s economic and strategic interests in Mali.
Its strategy remains essentially that of its 2011 war in Libya, which
paved the way for its war in Mali.
In 2011, Paris, Washington and London responded to the workers’
uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia by arming Islamist and tribal militias to
overthrow the Libyan regime. After the fall of the Libyan regime, the
flood of arms and fighters leaving Libya destabilized the region. Paris
then intervened in Mali, ostensibly to fight the Islamists and protect
Bamako. But Paris subsequently negotiated with the National Movement for
the Liberation of Azawad—the FLA’s precursor—to carve out a neocolonial
base in northern Mali.
The demonstrations in Mali in 2021–2022
brought to power, within the Malian regime, officers hostile to the
French military presence. To shield themselves from Paris’s anger, they
built a pragmatic alliance with the Russian capitalist regime. They
naturally did not pursue a revolutionary policy, refusing to appeal to
working class opposition in France to the widely hated Macron regime, or
to mobilize workers and oppressed masses across Africa against
imperialism.
The current offensive reveals the limits of such
bourgeois politics which, precisely because it rejects a socialist
struggle against capitalism, cannot fight imperialism. Rejecting a more
egalitarian policy toward rural farmers and herders, which would cut
the ground from under the Islamists and Tuareg nationalists, the junta
allowed Paris to maneuver with Kyiv, Algiers, the Tuareg nationalists
and JNIM. It even negotiated in March with a “Sahel envoy” sent by the
Trump administration, Nick Checker, while Trump was bombing Iran.
The Malian army served for decades as a neocolonial instrument of
France. Paris is now mobilizing its closest supporters among the Tuareg
nationalists and accommodating the role of elements linked to Al-Qaeda,
in order to carry out a regime change—but its principal target is not
the army. It is the anti-imperialist aspirations of workers and
oppressed masses across the Sahel and the whole of Africa.
*****
The current crisis in Mali points to the urgent necessity of overcoming
the obstacle the junta poses to a revolutionary struggle against
imperialism. The decisive question is the unification of workers in Mali
and across the Sahel with workers in France and all NATO countries, in a
socialist movement to halt the ongoing imperialist wars, break the
power of the imperialist governments and transfer power to workers and
the oppressed masses.
7. Spirit workers lose paychecks and benefits as executives seek $10.7 million in “retention” bonuses
Workers were deliberately kept in the dark up until the last minute.
WARN Act notices—legally required advance warning of mass layoffs—were
issued only after the shutdown. Spirit’s explanation in its court filing
was that publicizing the layoffs earlier “would have hindered its
efforts to secure additional funding.”
Spirit has told the court
that it does not even have enough cash on hand to organize a structured
auction of its remaining assets, including 131 aircraft. Instead, the
company is requesting permission to allow it to abandon this equipment
or let creditors repossess them. Most of Spirit’s fleet was not actually
owned by the airline but leased to it by major banks such as Wells
Fargo.
Bankruptcy law prioritizes the company’s secured creditors—the Wall
Street banks and aircraft lessors like Wells Fargo—over workers. Pilots,
flight attendants and ground staff will get whatever is left after Wall
Street has picked the bones clean.
*****
Spirit is the opening act of a broader industry crisis. Jet fuel was
roughly $80 per barrel in March. By the week ending April 24, the
International Air Transport Association recorded an average of $179 per
barrel. The Middle East previously accounted for 75 percent of Europe’s
net jet fuel imports, according to the International Energy Agency,
whose executive director warned in mid-April that European supplies
could be exhausted within weeks.
*****
More bankruptcies in the United States are likely. Industry blog View
From the Wing reports one analyst now estimates low-cast carrier
JetBlue’s probability of bankruptcy by next year at greater than 75
percent. JetBlue founder Dave Neeleman warned publicly this year that
the airline could file this year; it has not turned a profit in six
years, carries $9 billion in debt, and faces a potential pre-tax loss
exceeding $1 billion in 2026. Frontier Airlines, a direct competitor to
Spirit, is already returning aircraft and deferring deliveries.
Spirit’s
17,000 workers must be made whole. They must not be forced to drain
their retirement savings while bankruptcy court allocates what remains
after the secured creditors are paid.
The tens of billions in
windfall war profits of the oil industry and the major banks must be
expropriated to fund full compensation for every worker dislocated by
the economic consequences of the Iran war.
More broadly, both
airline jobs and affordable travel can only be guaranteed by removing
the industry from the profit motive. The airlines must be be taken out
of private hands and operated democratically as a public utility under
workers’ control. The US-Israeli war on Iran must be ended, with full
compensation for the Iranian people and the trial of those war criminals
responsible for it.
Fighting for this requires new forms of organization for industrial and
political struggle. Workers need to build independent rank-and-file
committees, connected through the International Workers Alliance of
Rank-and-File Committees, to organize across carriers, across borders,
and in opposition to the union bureaucracies that seek to manage their
defeat.
8. New sanctions, threats and military exercises set stage for US assault on Cuba
In what appeared as an offhand remark, Donald Trump openly declared
his administration’s intentions toward Cuba with chilling clarity last
Friday.
Speaking before a wealthy audience at the Forum Club of
the Palm Beaches, Trump referred to “Cuba, which we will be taking over
almost immediately.” The comment drew laughter from the crowd, prompting
him to elaborate: “Cuba’s got problems. We’ll finish one first. I like
to finish the job. On the way back from Iran, we’ll have maybe the USS
Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier come in, stop about 100 yards offshore,
and they’ll say, ‘Thank you very much. We give up!’”
Far from a joke, the remarks encapsulate the real trajectory
of US policy. On the same day, Trump signed an executive order
designating Cuba an “unusual and extraordinary threat,” vastly expanding
sanctions against the island. The order targets not only the Cuban
state but also foreign companies engaged in security, energy, finance,
mining “or any other sector … as may be determined by the Secretary of
the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State.”
*****
The unraveling US debacle in Iran heightens the danger of what Trump
believes will be a rapid surrender by Havana and a political victory he
can score ahead of the November mid-term elections.
These
political and economic measures are unfolding in tandem with a further
militarization of the region. One day prior to Trump’s remarks, the US
Navy announced that its “hybrid fleet is ready” following the completion
of the Flex 2026 exercises in Key West, Florida—just 90 miles from
Cuba’s northern coast.
The exercises emphasized “greater reach,
faster decisions and decisive action” across the Caribbean and Central
America. While officially framed as anti-drug operations, the drills
incorporated advanced artificial intelligence systems, unmanned
platforms and rapid-response integration capabilities.
The
scale, location and technological sophistication of these maneuvers
belie their stated purpose. Flex 2026 took place directly opposite Cuba,
coinciding with intensified intelligence-gathering missions mapping the
island’s defenses, including flights by MQ-4C Triton drones and RC-135
Rivet Joint reconnaissance aircraft, widely used for preparing precision
strikes.
Flex 2026 also tested a “kill chain” scenario against alleged “drug
boats” as the Pentagon escalates its extrajudicial killing spree that
has murdered at least 186 fishermen in the Caribbean and Pacific falsely
accused of drug trafficking, underscoring the lawless character of US
military activity in the region.
The “hybrid warfare” doctrine
being tested—refined through conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East—is
now being directed toward Cuba. This strategy integrates cyber
operations, intelligence warfare, economic pressure and conventional
military force into a unified campaign aimed at regime change.
*****
Faced with mounting pressure, Havana has responded with a
contradictory policy combining concessions and nationalist rhetoric. On
one hand, Cuban officials have opened the door to “unrestricted” foreign
investment and provided guarantees to US corporations during backroom
talks involving sections of the Cuban government.
On the other
hand, the government has issued warnings of imminent military danger. On
May Day, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and his predecessor Raúl
Castro led a march of hundreds of thousands to the US embassy,
denouncing threats of military intervention and calling on the
population to prepare to defend the country.
At the same time,
Havana continues to appeal to rival powers for support. In late April,
during a gathering in Moscow involving Stalinist and bourgeois
nationalist organizations forming a so-called “International Socialist
Network,” Fidel Castro Smirnov, the grandson of Fidel Castro, denounced
the US embargo, stating it has cost Cuba more than $144 billion and is
now “asphyxiating” the island. His remarks—“Fidel is here with us.
Dreaming, riding on,”—were met with a standing ovation.
This participation underscores efforts by the Cuban leadership,
alongside figures such as Nicaragua’s Sandinistas and Bolivia’s Evo
Morales, to maintain ties with Moscow while navigating escalating US
aggression.
Yet these maneuvers reveal the fundamental bankruptcy
of the Cuban ruling elite and all bourgeois nationalist leaderships.
While one wing appeals to Russia and China, another reportedly engages
in discussions with Washington aimed at overseeing a transition toward a
pro-US regime, similar to developments in Venezuela, where sections of
the Chavista leadership have overseen the transformation of the country
into a US semi-colony following the kidnapping of President Nicolas
Maduro.
9. Brazil’s unions isolate São Paulo education strikes
The
struggles of teachers and students in São Paulo are part of a growing
movement of the international working class against the austerity
policies driven by the capitalist crisis and the effects of the war
against Iran.
10. Australian Labor government axing public sector jobs to deepen budget cuts
The Albanese government is slashing thousands of public service positions—a warning of what is to come in next week’s budget.
11. Union presents pay-cutting offer to New Zealand nurses
Nurses
and healthcare workers should reject the offer presented by the NZNO,
which would slash wages and do nothing to address the staffing crisis in
hospitals.
12. The new code of silence: Texas Tech University bans gender and sexuality teaching and research
In a sweeping attack on freedom of speech and thought and science,
Texas Tech University (TTU) in Lubbock, Texas, a public institution that
serves 42,000 students, has issued a near total ban on the teaching,
research and discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity
(SOGI). This is in line with other attacks in Texas university systems.
The
draconian directive, announced in an April 9 memo from University
Chancellor Brandon Creighton, is an obvious appeal to social and
intellectual backwardness and an attempt to shove ultra-right Christian
ideology down the throats of faculty, students and staff. This is only
the thin end of the wedge, laying the groundwork for a far broader
assault on critical investigations of modern society and, ultimately, of
capitalism and the oppression and violence that flow from it. The
“illegalization” of entire fields of study in this authoritarian manner
has only sinister, Nazi-like implications.
*****
According to the university’s new policy, courses cannot include any
materials that “center on” the topics of sexual orientation or gender
identity. The issues cannot be raised in any university setting, no
student can engage in research or write on the subjects, undergraduate
and graduate courses, certificates, and programs that address sexual
orientation and gender identity are now banned, and all future faculty
hires must take into account the university’s new code of silence.
Even
“incidental references”—defined as a single sentence—must be avoided
and “alternate materials” swapped in. If this is impossible, the
incidental references cannot be discussed. “There are no exceptions to
the Alternate Materials Rule for core, undergraduate courses,” states
the memo.
AI will be used to search out sexual orientation and gender identity themes.
Allegedly, students currently conducting research on or enrolled in
programs that relate to SOGI can finish their studies, SOGI-related work
by faculty already employed at TTU can continue, and references can be
made to SOGI legal and political policies and demographic data where
necessary. In addition, if the study of the subjects is required to
attain professional certifications and credentials, students are
permitted to do so.
However, the limits placed on these
circumstances are so extreme as to make it impossible to actually
investigate or discuss sexual orientation or gender identity.
Thus,
if a textbook addresses the question, professors are instructed to skip
over it. If the issue comes up in relation to another subject—for
instance, the fact that James Baldwin, the major 20th century African
American author, was gay—it can be noted in passing, but not taken into
consideration in discussions of Baldwin’s life story, much less his art.
Even in instances in which sexual orientation and gender identity are
topics that must be learned or a person will be disqualified from his
or her profession—such as counseling and the health sciences—TTU
bureaucrats first must be notified of the fact and second, reserve the
right to determine that the curriculum actually is not necessary.
The
ACS Committee may require changes if, upon further review and
consultation with the respective Provost, the committee determines the
material is not strictly required by the relevant licensing or
credentialing body, or if the content disclosed under patient and
clinical care is determined not to be strictly required for such care.
In
short, far-right ignoramuses who know nothing about science or society
will be telling future doctors or therapists, for example, what they can
and cannot know.
*****
The TTU Board of Regents’ absolute equating of sex and gender is one
of the most degraded aspects of the policy. Under its “Two Human Sexes
Requirement and Biological Science” section of the memo, the university
declares, “State and federal law and TTU System guidance dictate that
only two human sexes, male and female, are recognized.” It adds, as part
of its “Prohibition on Endorsement of a Gender Spectrum,” “Instructors
may not teach that gender identity is a fluid spectrum, endorse the
existence of more than two genders, or decouple gender from biological
sex as a factual or scientific baseline.”
There is neither a
federal nor state law that states that there are only “two human sexes,
male and female.” And while it is an aim of the extreme right, the First
Amendment has not yet been overturned. People are free to say whatever
they want about sex and gender.
Beyond that, historical and
contemporary evidence demonstrate that gender norms shift over time and
vary across cultures. Homosexual sex was not uncommon among Roman men,
and it was not regarded as a violation of male social norms. In
Afghanistan today, some segments of society raise daughters as Bacha
Pash—that is, female children are treated as boys until the age of
puberty. In South Asia, Hijra are formally recognized as a third gender.
Even in societies that have traditionally had more rigid categories,
what has been expected of men and women has constantly changed, as
cultures evolve and people push against, reject, and transform what is
considered socially “acceptable” behavior.
*****
Both gender and human sexuality are fascinating and very complex realms
of social reality, bringing together questions of biology, psychology
and culture. They are universal, inescapable, and impact everyone. They
are deserving of scientific inquiry, social reflection and artistic
exploration. When society finally began to throw off the yoke of
religious obscurantism, social humiliation and prudishness that for
centuries surrounded these realms of the human experience and to
understand these subjects as worthy of serious investigation, it took an
important step forward.
*****
The Christian right-wingers who penned TTU’s policy wish to, as Trump
revealed in his promise to return Iran to the “stone age,” bring the
world back in time. They fantasize about some sort of mythical-biblical
age in which, in their mind’s eye, to be a woman means to pop out
infants and a man to run around clubbing animals for dinner. The
consideration of anything otherwise is blasphemy to be denounced by the
priests of the high order.
An aspect of the memo that is less
well-developed but equally, if not more, dangerous, is the attack on
those who are not heterosexual. While much of the TTU board’s order
focuses on assaulting the idea of gender fluidity, the study, discussion
and research of sexual orientation is also banned. The very words
“gay,” “lesbian,” “bisexual,” “queer,” can no longer exist at TTU, much
less be the subject of investigation and discussion.
Homosexuality
is commonplace in society and widely accepted by the majority of the US
population, which generally also believes that LGBTQ+ communities
should have special anti-discrimination protections. The ultra-right,
however, has always viewed romantic and physical relationships that defy
social boundaries with terror, because they bear within them the
prospect that people will unite across divides and challenge those in
power. At TTU, these layers, knowing that support for the Trump
administration’s policies is faltering and they are isolated and
increasingly hated, hope they can stoke ignorance and use fear as some
sort of bulwark.
In an effort to win support for its policy, the Board of Regents
includes prohibitions that tap into frustrations over the
identity-politics approach that has come to dominate academia over the
course of the last several decades.
They write,
To
ensure academic objectivity, faculty are prohibited from teaching as
absolute truth that: ● One race or sex is inherently superior to
another; ● An individual, by virtue of race or sex, is inherently
racist, sexist, or oppressive, consciously or unconsciously; ● Any
person should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment
because of race or sex; ● Moral character or worth is determined by race
or sex; ● Individuals bear responsibility or guilt for actions of
others of the same race or sex; or ● Meritocracy or a strong work ethic
are inherently racist, sexist, or constructs of oppression.
The
standards outlined here are directed at the reactionary notions,
preached widely in the social sciences and humanities, that all whites
are racists, all men are oppressors, all heterosexual individuals are
privileged and that these hierarchies constitute the social structure,
are systemic and institutional, inescapable tools of domination that
benefit all within the majority group. The New York Times has
been a leading proponent of this view, with its 1619 Project rewriting
American history in order to fit this narrative. Concepts like
“color-blind racism,” propagated by sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva,
apply these notions to contemporary reality. For years, DEI [Diversity,
Equity, and Inclusion] efforts have become the mainstay of the
Democratic Party and what passes for American liberalism or radicalism.
When
applied to the classroom, these racial, gender, and sexuality-based
approaches, with zero progressive content, have been enormously
damaging, serving as grist for the mill for the far right. For years,
sociology courses have, to varying degrees, subjected students to the
gospel of “white privilege,” terrorizing those who question the validity
of the concept, which is rooted in a rejection of economic class as the
basis of oppression, bulldozes over all social and historical
complexities to arrive at a pre-determined idea that the root of
society’s problems has and always will be “whites,” full stop.
13. Workers Struggles: The Americas
Bolivia:
Workers rally in support of peasants battling far right Paz regime
Chile:
Protesting high school students assaulted by police
Mexico:
Parents of Ayotzinapa student massacre victims hold Mexico City protest
Puerto Rico:
Workers demand expulsion of Financial Control Board
University of Puerto Rico students declare strike over cuts, tuition hikes
Canada:
Long-term care and nursing home workers in Ontario seek new contracts
United States:
Washington state concrete ready-mix drivers enter second month on strike
California Marathon Renewables workers strike after company rejects national pattern agreement
Minneapolis baseball concession workers begin voting to authorize strike
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.
