Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
Workers in Portland, Oregon, responded forcefully against the announcement by US President Donald Trump on Saturday that he will deploy troops to the city.
Many were frustrated with the inaction of the Democratic Party and expressed support for mobilizing the working class independently of the Democrats and trade unions.
2. Trump imposes new tariffs as warning lights on US economy flash
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The personalized character of decision-making in the Trump regime was illustrated by the fact that just 12 hours before the latest decision, the US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, was in Malaysia for negotiations with Southeast Asian officials and told reporters there were no plans for new tariffs.
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The so-called “reciprocal tariffs” which cover an entire country, and which range from 10 percent to 50 percent, have been imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA). The International Court of Trade ruled in May that Trump had exceeded his powers in using this legislation in a decision that has since been upheld by a federal appeals court.
The Trump administration has taken its appeal to the Supreme Court claiming there could be a major economic and financial crisis if the tariffs imposed under the IEEPA were revoked.
When the reciprocal tariffs were first announced in April, Trump’s claims they would bring billions of dollars into America were quickly exposed as economic nonsense because the tariffs are not paid by the exporter but by the importing company which would either absorb them or pass them on to final consumer—households or corporations.
But since then, the meaning of Trump’s assertions has become clear. The reciprocal tariffs are the key weapon in what is a massive international shakedown operation, more akin to Mafia measures than anything seen in the history of international trade.
3. Trump administration celebrates the perpetrators of the Wounded Knee Massacre
[United States] War Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced that 20 US soldiers who took part in the 1890 massacre of hundreds of Lakota men, women and children at Wounded Knee will keep the Medals of Honor that were awarded to them.
The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred on the cold winter day of December 29, 1890, when troops of the US 7th Cavalry killed an estimated 250 to 300 Lakota Sioux men, women, and children near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. In the aftermath, 20 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor, the military’s highest recognition.
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The American state has never been wont to apologize for its many war crimes, even one so egregious as Wounded Knee. Though the atrocity has long been recognized for its brutality and meticulously documented horrors, capitalist politicians have never rescinded the Medals of Honor awarded to soldiers for their roles in the massacre.
Legislation introduced several times in Congress has repeatedly failed, most recently through the “Remove the Stain Act,” reintroduced in May 2025 by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Jill Tokuda, which was referred to committee without passage. Hegseth’s pronouncement itself follows an abortive review launched under the Biden administration by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who, in 2021, ordered the department to examine the Medals of Honor awarded for Wounded Knee. That review concluded without recommending their removal, leaving the medals in place.
Hegseth’s declaration is akin to the Trump administration’s rehabilitation of the military “heroes” of the Confederate States of America who waged a bitter counterrevolutionary war to preserve slavery in the 1860s, including General Robert E. Lee. Hegseth wishes to proclaim the most heinous and shameful acts of oppression heroic by administrative fiat.
The Trump administration’s unapologetic glorification of the Wounded Knee perpetrators arrives amid calls from Hegseth for a revival of the American “warrior ethos.” Hegseth’s meeting with the nation’s generals and admirals, charged with imparting the lessons of this “ethos” to the officer corps, is a chilling effort to recast the slaughter of civilians and the trampling of democratic rights as honored military traditions. Today, as the administration deploys federal forces to American cities and authorizes “full force” against protesters, the Army is being explicitly taught to look back upon acts like Wounded Knee not as crimes, but as examples.
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Hegseth’s celebration of the Wounded Knee medals serves as a warning to the working class and oppressed everywhere. The American military leadership is being instructed not to shrink from the “necessity” of mass repression, but to embrace it—at home as well as in distant lands. The lessons of Wounded Knee are not consigned to the past, but must be urgently recalled as a present danger.
4. Partial federal shutdown likely as Trump deploys troops, Democrats seek accommodation
As the Trump administration escalated its conspiracy to establish a presidential-military dictatorship—deploying troops into American cities, branding political opposition as “domestic terrorism,” and summoning the military high command to an extraordinary meeting Tuesday—the Democratic Party met with Trump at the White House Monday for stage-managed “negotiations” over a looming partial shutdown of the federal government.
The Trump administration is seeking to use a government shutdown to carry out a sweeping restructuring of economic and political life in the United States, aimed at destroying social services like public education and federal health care programs. Last week, the Trump administration sent a memo to government agencies to “use this opportunity” to prepare permanent mass layoffs across “all employees in programs, projects, or activities.” Trump told NBC News on Sunday, “We are going to cut a lot of the people that... we’re able to cut on a permanent basis.”
After Monday’s meeting between Trump and the Democrats, both sides reported no progress. Trump and the Republicans refused to budge from their demand that Congress adopt a “continuing resolution,” drafted entirely by Republicans, to extend federal spending at current levels until November 21. Without passage of such a measure, spending authority will expire at the close of the fiscal year on September 30, triggering a partial shutdown.
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The White House meeting reportedly consisted of posturing on both sides, with the Republicans claiming that they were advancing a “clean” continuing resolution, i.e., one without extraneous right-wing provisions on social issues, typically proposed by the Republicans when the Democrats control Congress and the White House.
The Democrats maintained their pretense of “fighting” for health care, demanding that the continuing resolution rescind cuts in Medicaid funding pushed through by the Republicans during the summer, and restore subsidies to purchase private insurance under the Affordable Care Act, which the Republicans would allow to expire at the end of this year.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York, made no political demands on the Trump administration, refusing to raise the issue of Trump’s ordering federal troops into Democratic-controlled cities like Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Portland, Memphis and Chicago.
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Sections of the congressional Democrats are already floating suggestions for a possible “compromise,” i.e., outright capitulation, to the Trump administration demands. The senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, Richard Neal, said he was open to negotiating income limits on the health care subsidies.
Republican leaders in both the White House and Congress flatly refused to consider any policy measures being incorporated into the continuing resolution, denouncing the Democratic demands as “hostage-taking.” They suggested that the healthcare subsidies can be discussed later, after the continuing resolution is passed.
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The entire shutdown “drama” is exactly that: a stage-managed affair, aimed at distracting public attention from the increasingly authoritarian actions taken by the Trump administration, particularly the deployment of heavily armed federal agents and federal troops in many cities, on the pretext either of “fighting crime” or enforcing anti-immigrant laws.
Last Wednesday, Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, one of Trump’s attack dogs in the war against public education, announced he was resigning his post on September 30 to lead an organization called the Teacher Freedom Alliance. The right-wing group is dedicated to converting public schools into centers of political and religious indoctrination.
Announcing his resignation in a brief appearance on Fox News, Walters said his goal is to “destroy the teachers unions.” In an X post he wrote, “Radical leftists with the teachers union dominate classrooms and push woke indoctrination on our kids. We will build an army of teachers to defeat the teachers union once and for all.”
The Teacher Freedom Alliance, founded earlier this year, is bankrolled by a network of wealthy enemies of public education, including billionaire futures trader William Dunn, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Charles Koch Foundation and Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. The organization, which has no more than 2,600 members nationwide, praised Walters for “fearlessly fighting the woke liberal union mob.”
Walters is deeply hated in Oklahoma and nationally for his filthy attacks on the democratic rights of educators and students. He has demanded prayer in schools, the hanging of the Ten Commandments in classrooms, and the inclusion of the Bible in curricula. According to Walters the Constitutional separation of church and state is a “myth,” and he has vowed to “put God back in schools.”
Under Walters’ direction, Oklahoma bought tens of thousands of Trump’s “God Bless the USA” bibles. The bibles contain copies of the US Constitution that conspicuously omit seventeen amendments, including the abolishment of slavery, the granting of voting rights to women and the limiting of a president’s time in office to two terms.
Walters also insisted that families prove US citizenship in order to enroll their children in public schools in a clear violation of the landmark US Supreme Court ruling in 1982 case Plyler v. Doe (1982), which declared that all children, including those without legal immigration status, are entitled to a free public K-12 education under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Walters also said he would roll out an “America First” test for K–12 teachers arriving from California and New York before they can receive an Oklahoma license. The 50-question multiple-choice test, Walters said, was needed to protect against “radical leftist ideology fostered in places like California and New York.”
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The resigning superintendent talks about “destroying the teachers unions” but the real fear of the Walters and his ilk is not the bureaucratized American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association. The leaders of these organizations, key players in the Democratic Party establishment, have done everything to block strikes in Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities that could become the catalyst for a far broader movement against the existential threat to public education and democracy. This has only emboldened the fascist president and his supporters.
The union bureaucracy responded to Walters’ statements with predictable complacency. AFT President Randi Weingarten said, “Today is a good day for Oklahoma’s kids,” and suggested that Walters’ departure would bring a more hopeful climate for teachers and students. The Oklahoma Education Association (OEA) similarly hailed his resignation as “the beginning of a better Oklahoma” and urged state voters to “actively engage in the election process,” i.e., vote for the Democrats.
The right-wing certainly wants to undermine the ability of the unions to finance the Democratic Party. But their calls for the smashing of the supposedly all-powerful “teachers unions” is really aimed at destroying whatever is left of the democratic and egalitarian character of public education, which the oligarchy sees as both dangerous and an unacceptable drain on their wealth.
Among rank-and-file educators there is a deep commitment to the fundamental right to a free, high-quality, and secular public education for all. Teachers have been in the front lines of defending immigrant children against Trump’s ICE gestapo oftentimes hiding innocent children and parents when agents arrive on campus for their kidnapping operations.
Talks restarted under a federal mediator Monday between Boeing management and the International Association of Machinists (IAM) to end a nearly two-month-long strike. Around 3,200 workers at Boeing defense plants in the St. Louis area have been on strike against inadequate pay increases, extended wage progression and other issues.
The involvement of the government to shut down the strike comes as the Trump administration is calling for a doubling or even quadrupling of missile production by defense contractors, in preparation for a war with China, according to a report published Monday in the Wall Street Journal.
The situation is urgent, not only for Boeing strikers but workers across the planet. Unless stopped by the working class, the American oligarchy through Trump is plunging into a conflict which would involve two nuclear powers and be fought in one of the most densely populated regions of the world, leading to millions of deaths, if not worse.
The Pentagon must have its missiles and fighter jets. This is why Boeing has been given a free hand to ruthlessly crush the strike, including through hiring permanent replacements.
The IAM bureaucracy would have workers believe that the mediator is a “neutral” arbitrator who will help them get a “fair” contract. In reality, the mediator is a representative of a government of fascists seeking to end democracy in America and prepare World War III. It is moving actively to crush opposition and enormously ramp up exploitation of the working class.
The other side of this is domestic repression. Trump is utilizing the expiration of the federal budget Wednesday morning to carry out massive federal layoffs and seize even more personal control over the government apparatus.
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Boeing’s financials were severely damaged by the scandal which erupted over management’s cover-up of safety problems in its civilian airliners, which led to two crashes and hundreds of deaths. They are being bailed out by the White House with immense sums of cash. In addition to contracts to develop the F-47, Boeing is also under contract to produce the new Air Force One.
Internationally, Boeing has benefited from Trump’s “America First” trade policies. In the last four days, the White House helped to negotiate deals with South Korea and Turkey involving 328 civilian airliners collectively worth as much as $58 billion. These are on top of other extensive international deals, which led the Canadian Globe & Mail to observe that Trump is “Boeing’s most prolific sales agent.”
The essential issue for Boeing workers is not federal “mediation” but the mobilization of the working class behind the strike. The strikers, whom the IAM has all but abandoned on the picket lines with $200 in poverty weekly strike pay, must become part of a broader movement of the working class against the American corporate oligarchy, dictatorship and fascism.
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The Boeing strike is at a crossroads. The World Socialist Web Site urges workers to take the initiative into their own hands and away from the bureaucrats by establishing a rank-and-file strike committee to prepare the expansion of the struggle. Such a committee should raise as its central demands:
$1,000 a week in strike pay.
Workers’ control over picketing, including the organization of flying pickets to appeal for support across the region.
The shutdown of Boeing’s entire operations, particularly measures to prevent the training of strikebreakers, and an appeal for solidarity strikes by civilian aircraft Boeing workers, who themselves struck last year only to be betrayed and sent back to work under an IAM sellout contract.
Rank-and-file control over bargaining, including the livestreaming of all talks and the publication of all correspondence between the bureaucracy and the government. A rank-and-file bargaining team must ensure the fight is conducted for what workers actually need, not against them behind closed doors.
7. Typhoon Ragasa surges through southeast Asia, killing at least 28
Between September 19 and 25, Super Typhoon Ragasa caused severe damage and loss of life in a number of Asian countries, particularly the Philippines and Taiwan, but also Hong Kong, Macau, southern China and Vietnam.
At least 28 people were killed, over 200 injured and at least 9 are still missing. Tens of thousands of other people were displaced or otherwise affected by the damage.
Typhoon Ragasa, also called Super Typhoon Nando by the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), was the most intense tropical cyclone of 2025 to date. At its peak, Ragasa reached sustained wind speeds of 270 km/h (165 mph), classifying it as a Category 5 tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
Ragasa initially developed in the western Pacific Ocean east of the Philippines on September 18, before rapidly intensifying over the following two days. Much of the devastation occurred between September 21 and 23. Over three days, Ragasa brought massive rain, floods and landslides to eastern Taiwan and the northern Philippine Island of Luzon.
Huge winds and waves also affected Hong Kong, injuring at least 90 people and compelling hundreds more to seek refuge in emergency temporary shelters. As Ragasa tracked toward China on September 24, it also struck the southern coast of China, resulting in evacuations of at least two million people, before making landfall near the city of Yangjiang.
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Beyond the fatalities and injuries, millions of people were impacted by Ragasa. Thousands of people were displaced from their homes, either by direct damage or evacuation orders. Millions of people suffered power outages. Almost 500,000 households in Vietnam experienced power outages, with a similar figure being reported from southern China. In northern Luzon, almost 750,000 households were hit by blackouts.
The disastrous impacts from Ragasa are in line with the predictions made by climate scientists about how these weather systems would behave in a warmer world. As reported in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report from 2022, tropical cyclones and typhoons in the Pacific are expected to become more intense under global warming. Historical data from the past half century have shown that in the southeast Asian region, typhoon rainfall levels have become more extreme, resulting in higher flood risks for urban and rural populations.
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The death toll from Typhoon Ragasa was a product not only of meteorological, but social and political factors. This was most sharply expressed in Taiwan, where 16 people were killed from the bursting and overflow of the Matai’an Creek Barrier Lake. This catastrophe, accounting for over half of Ragasa’s fatalities, was entirely preventable if scientific warnings had been heeded.
8. Bundeswehr manoeuvres in Hamburg as Germany undertakes largest rearmament program since Hitler
[One of the most threatening military manoeuvres of the post-war period took place in Hamburg this past weekend.] Under the title Red Storm Bravo, hundreds of soldiers, police and civil authorities were mobilized to rehearse the transfer of troops and heavy equipment eastward for war against Russia. At the same time, the government is implementing a rearmament offensive of historic proportions, expanding the powers of the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) at home and driving forward the authoritarian restructuring of the state.
The events in Germany are directly linked to the rapid development of dictatorship in the United States. There, President Donald Trump ordered the deployment of the military against demonstrators in Portland at the weekend and explicitly called for the “full” use of force. The same logic, the same methods are now taking hold in Europe. The ruling class is not only arming for a global war but also preparing to crush resistance in the working class with brutal repression.
The bourgeois media largely tried to play down the Red Storm Bravo exercise. News weekly Der Spiegel, however, spoke of a “trial war” and of a “conscious decision by the Bundeswehr … to send a signal to the population.” In reality, the manoeuvres mark a new stage in the build-up of a war machine that is also directed against the domestic population.
Throughout the city of Hamburg, columns of military vehicles were on the move, supported by police and the civil protection authorities. The transfer of tens of thousands of NATO troops across civilian infrastructure was practiced. Even more alarming was an element of the exercise that involved deploying soldiers against anti-war demonstrators. The state is thus openly preparing to use the military to suppress protests and strikes directed against the war.
The manoeuvres are a warning: the more the ruling class in Germany advances its war offensive against Russia, the more it intensifies repression at home.
Just a few days before Red Storm Bravo, the cabinet passed a law massively expanding the Bundeswehr’s powers. As Legal Tribune Online reported, military police can now operate not only within barracks but also in public spaces against civilians. Under the pretext of “counterterrorism,” drones, digital surveillance systems and armed forces are being integrated into everyday urban life.
This paves the way for the deployment of the military at home, something prohibited by the constitution. The ruling class is responding to growing opposition among the population to war, social attacks and authoritarian measures. It is systematically preparing the Bundeswehr to be used domestically against workers, youth and demonstrators.
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All these measures, financed through massive cuts in education, health and social spending, take place against the background of a massive escalation against Russia. Leading German politicians and media openly declare that Germany is already “at war” with Moscow.
As the World Socialist Web Site warned, NATO is using alleged airspace violations by Russian jets and drones to escalate the war further and is preparing for a direct confrontation with the world’s largest nuclear power.
The Hamburg manoeuvres are part of this. They served the logistical preparation of NATO’s eastern flank—the potential theater of war against Russia. The government is placing itself at the head of this offensive and is directly linking up with Germany’s central war aims in both world wars: control over Ukraine, access to Russia’s raw material resources and dominance over the Eurasian continent. Today, Berlin is once again pursuing these megalomaniac strategic ambitions.
9. Spain and Italy dispatch warships to Gaza flotilla as Israel considers violent assault
The Global Sumud Flotilla, a convoy of over 50 civilian boats carrying more than 500 activists, aid workers, and lawmakers from around 45 countries, is sailing through the eastern Mediterranean towards Gaza. According to activists, it is approaching “the high-risk area” where prior flotillas have been intercepted.
Two European imperialist powers, Spain and Italy, have dispatched warships to accompany the flotilla. Their stated mission is not to defend the ships, but to prepare for rescue operations in the event of them being illegally and violently attacked by the Israeli military.
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Turkey announced it would also participate in a rescue operation if necessary and has drones monitoring the flotilla.
The deployment of warships aims to deflect popular anger and provide governments that have facilitated genocide for two years with an alibi while the slaughter continues.
Spain and Italy are responding to a wave of protests against Israel’s genocide and their own complicity. Demonstrations have swept Spanish and Italian cities for nearly two years.
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The flotilla includes Brazilian socio-environmentalist Thiago Ávila, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, Turkish-German activist Yasemin Acar, and Ada Colau, the former mayor of Barcelona. It carries Italian parliamentarians Arturo Scotto of the Partito Democratico (PD) and Marco Croatti of the Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S), as well as European Parliament members such as Annalisa Corrado (PD) and Benedetta Scuderi (Europa Verde/Greens–Left Alliance). From France, Emma Fourreau of La France Insoumise has joined and Mariana Mortágua of Portugal’s Bloco de Esquerda has taken part. Spanish politician Jaume Asens, linked to the Podemos-backed Barcelona en Comú, is on one of the ships.
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Israel has said it will not target the Spanish and Italian naval vessels but that it is undeterred by their presence. Bar-Tal stated: “We have no problem with the fact that there are ships around.”
Two previous attempts to deliver aid by sea this year have been blocked by Israeli armed forces. In June, the Madleen was raided and its crew arrested and deported. In May, the Conscience was hit by drones off the coast of Malta and had to be rescued.
Israeli forces have killed Spanish troops in southern Lebanon, most notoriously Corporal Francisco Javier Soria in 2015. Madrid took no action. Italy, likewise, has suffered repeated incidents of Israeli fire against its United Nations contingents without retaliation.
The US, Israel’s chief backer, long ago demonstrated how little even the lives of its own troops matter when imperialist alliances are at stake. In June 1967, during the Six-Day War, Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty, killing 34 American sailors and wounding over 170. The Johnson administration suppressed the evidence and covered up the crime to protect the alliance with Israel.
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Spain, Italy, and their European counterparts are not breaking with Israel. They remain part of the NATO alliance arming and financing the slaughter in Gaza. Their naval deployments and base restrictions are an alibi, a way to present themselves as defenders of civilians while allowing the genocide to proceed unhindered. The decisive question is the independent mobilization of the working class in every country against war, genocide, and imperialism.
10. “All Eyes On Gaza”: Biggest ever demonstration in Germany against Israeli genocide
Germany’s biggest ever demonstration against the genocide of the Palestinian people took place in Berlin on Saturday. It began in the afternoon in front of the city’s Rotes Rathaus (Red Town Hall) with an initial rally attended by around 20,000 people. It then proceeded along the Strasse des 17. Juni and ended with its main and closing rally at Berlin’s central Grosser Stern in the evening, where the crowd swelled to up to 100,000.
Demonstrators had responded to the call from an alliance of around 50 organizations and individuals under the slogan “All Eyes On Gaza.” The mass mobilisation shows the enormous opposition among the population to Israel’s war crimes and Germany’s participation in them.
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The main organizers and initiators of the demonstration included the Palestinian community in Germany, eye4palestine, Amnesty International Germany and Medico International. The demonstration from the Red Town Hall was organized by the Left Party.
On the podium at the Grosser Stern, speeches by Palestinian victims and activists took center stage, giving voice to the victims of genocide and denouncing the intolerable conditions in Gaza.
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There was, however, no mention of the geopolitical background to the genocide and the reasons for the unconditional government support for Netanyahu, especially from Chancellor Frederick Merz and the Trump administration, which includes the involvement of the Left Party in enforcing the “German raison d’état.” The complicity of the German media was also not addressed from the podium.
At the opening rally in front of the Red Town Hall, Left Party chairwoman Ines Schwerdtner dared to declare that her party stood “side by side with all those people who are suffering,” namely, “in Gaza and Israel.” As if the events of October 7, 2023 could be compared to the two-year-long, state-organised genocide of the Palestinians!
When confronted with boos, Schwerdtner defended herself: “I understand your pain, because what is happening in Palestine is genocide.” In a pose of self-criticism, she went on to say, “I have been silent for too long, it is genocide,” whereupon a demonstrator loudly shouted, “We know all that, tell us why you haven’t said anything for so long!”
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The party leadership is primarily concerned with controlling the growing opposition to the genocide and channelling it into harmless dead ends. It can only play this role because the other organizers of the demonstration, even if driven by genuine outrage, fail to address the central political issues and refuse to discuss the background to the genocide. The call for the demonstration consisted essentially of friendly appeals to the German government, which is a leading force behind the genocide.
Representatives of the Socialist Equality Party attacked this position and distributed en masse the leaflet “A Socialist Perspective in the Struggle Against Genocide and World War.” In it, the SGP declared that, “after two years of ongoing mass protests around the world” against the horrific genocide in Gaza, it was time to “take political stock: What is the political, historical and economic background to the genocide? And what strategy and perspective can stop it?”
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Many demonstrators stopped at the SGP bookstall to discuss the way forward in the struggle against genocide and war. They were drawn by the SGP’s analysis and program and also bought the literature on display. David North’s book The Logic of Zionism was of particular interest. With precision and clarity, and based on historical facts, the book delivers a damning verdict on the perspective of Zionism and the root causes of the genocide in Gaza, and on this basis develops an international socialist perspective for the struggle against it.
11. Mass shootings in America: 5 killed in Michigan Mormon church attack, 3 dead at North Carolina bar
In one of six mass shootings in the United States over the weekend, five people, including the shooter, are dead following a targeted attack on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan. Grand Blanc, home to just under 8,000 people, is located about 50 miles north of Detroit and just south of Flint.
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The second mass shooting over the weekend occurred at a waterfront bar called the American Fish Company in Southport, North Carolina, on September 27. Three people were killed and eight were injured following what Southport Police Chief Todd Coring described as a “highly premeditated” attack carried out by Nigel Max Edge, 40.
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The violence that US imperialism has inflicted in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Gaza and Libya—shattering entire societies in wars for markets and resources—inevitably reverberates back within the United States. The brutalization of populations abroad finds expression in the domestic sphere, above all, in the deadly toll exacted by the militarization of American life and the psychological wreckage among US veterans.
On September 10, fourteen bills were considered by the Republican Party-led House Oversight and Government Committee. Collectively, they sought to advance police state measures in the District of Columbia. The various laws, several of which have already been adopted by the full House, increase punitive measures against convicted and indicted persons, the criminalization of the homeless, the erosion of “home rule” in the District of Columbia, expanded powers for the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and increased funding for D.C.-area private schools.
The laws serve as a test run for wider repression of the American working class as a whole.
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The Democratic Party, far from opposing these measures or alerting the working class to their dangers, has actively helped advance some of the most draconian proposals.
Many familiar faces appear in the roll calls for these four bills. A growing right-wing faction within the Democratic Party—what the World Socialist Web Site has described as the “CIA Democrats”—aligned with the Republicans during these votes, seeking to advance the interests of American imperialism by collaborating with Trump’s assault on the working class.
13. Harvard study exposes deadly toll of private equity hospitals
Research led by Dr. Zirui Song of Harvard Medical School published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, September 2025, has delivered one of the clearest warnings yet about the dangers of private equity in American hospitals. The study demonstrates in no uncertain terms that when hospitals fall under the control of private equity firms, the pursuit of profit takes precedence over patient care, leading to deadly consequences in the most critical areas of medicine—the emergency departments and intensive care units of US hospitals.
Private equity’s incursion into healthcare follows a well-worn, perfidious and predatory playbook employed by financial wizards. Firms will usually opportunistically acquire providers through debt-laden leveraged buyouts promising easy cash flow. But in these schemes, hospitals rather than investors are left with the burden of repayment on massive loans.
Then, within a short investment horizon typically of three to seven years, the owners strip out cash through staffing cuts, sale-leasebacks of hospital real estate, and dividend recapitalizations that funnel borrowed money directly into investor pockets. The result is a healthcare system financially hollowed out and left vulnerable to collapse.
The bankruptcy of Steward Health Care in May 2024, which filed for Chapter 11 with more than $9 billion in liabilities after its private equity sponsor, Cerberus Capital Management, reportedly extracted $800 million in profit, stands as a chilling example of this model in practice. The former CEO of Steward, Ralph de la Torre, received $250 million over four years before the company’s collapse.
Private equity’s move into healthcare is not accidental but is rooted in the sector’s unique financial appeal. Healthcare represents $4.5 to $5 trillion in annual spending in the United States, or nearly 18 percent of GDP, and is characterized by relatively stable demand, since people require care regardless of the economic cycle.
For Wall Street, this stability and sheer size have made healthcare one of the most attractive frontiers for financial extraction. The term financialization describes the transformation of systems built for providing important social services to those driven by financial motives, where markets dominate decision-making. More and more, hospitals are being transformed into vehicles for generating returns rather than serving communities.
The consequences are stark. Studies consistently show that private equity ownership raises costs for patients and payers, undermines quality, and contributes to bankruptcies. In 2023 alone, more than one-fifth of all healthcare bankruptcies were at PE-owned companies, including seven of the eight largest failures. Communities lose hospitals, workers lose jobs, and patients lose access to care while investors emerge enriched.
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The rise of private equity in healthcare is not accidental, but the product of a decades-long political and economic shift that has transformed companies (and health systems) and clinics into targets for financial extraction. Its roots lie in the deregulatory policies enacted in the 1980s, which saw the popularization of borrowing capital to acquire hospitals, with the necessary changes in the tax codes to reward debt-driven takeovers.
This was the birth of the “shareholder value” model, which allowed corporations to prioritize short-term profits over long-term stability. For years, healthcare appeared insulated by its nonprofit character and public mission. But once Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements were opened to for-profit providers and antitrust enforcement was made toothless, the sector became fair game. By the 1990s, for-profit chains had already absorbed parts of the buyout model, paving the way for private equity firms to expand their reach.
The financial crisis of 2007–2008 became the accelerant for such operations. With interest rates slashed and cheap debt flooding the system, private equity firms gained easy access to the lifeblood of their model, leverage. At the same time, investors searching for higher yields turned toward “recession-proof” industries like healthcare, with its steady demand and government-backed revenue streams. Hospitals and nursing homes already reeling from the downturn became easy prey. They were sold off at discount prices and restructured for maximum profitability at the expense of patients and healthcare workers.
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Six years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the US healthcare system is buckling under converging pressures: rising costs, chronic staffing shortages, deep political uncertainty concerning the future of the Affordable Care Act. The spread of private equity ownership has magnified the crisis.
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Ultimately, the rise of private equity in healthcare must be understood as part of a broader assault on social and democratic rights that drives capitalist barbarism. Firms thrive on opacity, exploiting loopholes in antitrust law and bankruptcy rules to extract wealth while insulating themselves from responsibility. Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, PE-backed companies received billions in public aid through the CARES Act, only to continue the very practices that destabilize care.
14. Erdoğan-Trump meeting confirms Turkey’s allegiance to US imperialism
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met with US President Donald Trump last Thursday during his visit to the United States to attend the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly. Amid Israel’s US-backed genocide in Gaza and Trump’s fascist plot to establish a dictatorship, the meeting marked Erdoğan’s first visit to the White House in six years.
The outcome of the meeting was a strong indication of the commitment of the Turkish ruling class and the Erdoğan government to imperialism. Erdoğan is relying on the support of the Trump administration and avoiding any conflict with it while he establishes an authoritarian regime to defend the interests of the Turkish bourgeoisie—particularly in Syria—and to suppresses political and social opposition at home through harsh austerity measures.
Erdoğan, amid increasing competition and tensions with Israel following the regime change in Syria, frequently denounces Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the genocide in Gaza, while never criticizing Trump, the main imperialist leader behind it. This alone reveals the falseness of Erdoğan’s occasional resort to fake “anti-imperialist” rhetoric and claims to be defending the Palestinians.
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The Turkish president has shown that he is prepared to do many things for Trump. Erdoğan did not hesitate to immediately support the “Gaza ceasefire plan” announced by the US President after his meeting with Netanyahu on Monday: “I commend US President Donald Trump’s efforts and leadership aimed at halting the bloodshed in Gaza and achieving a ceasefire. Türkiye will continue to contribute to the process with a view to establishing a just and lasting peace acceptable to all parties.”
While answering reporters’ questions before the meeting, Trump said to Erdoğan, “I’d like to have him stop buying any oil from Russia, while Russia continues this rampage against Ukraine.”
Regarding the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, he said, “Right now, he’s [Erdoğan is] very neutral. He likes being neutral.” Turning to Erdoğan, he added, “The best thing he could do is not buy oil and gas from Russia.” Ankara has not participated in the sanctions imposed on Russia by NATO forces since the beginning of the war.
Although Turkey has diversified its natural gas imports in recent years, Russia remains the country’s largest supplier, accounting for 40 percent of Turkey’s 52 billion cubic meters of gas imports last year. The US ranked as Turkey’s fifth-largest supplier, slightly behind Algeria, providing 10 percent of imports.
Just before the meeting, Turkey signed an agreement to purchase liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US. Ankara also signed a long-term preliminary LNG agreement with Australia’s largest gas producer, Woodside Energy.
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In an interview with Fox News prior to the meeting, Erdoğan said, “If you recall, Mr. Trump made a statement. He said, ‘I will end the Russia-Ukraine war.’ Is it over? It is still ongoing. Similarly, he said, ‘I will end the Gaza war.’ Is it over? No.” This created a minor crisis between the two allies.
The Communications Directorate, which is under Erdoğan’s authority, hastily issued a correction before the meeting. The correction stated that Erdoğan praised Trump’s efforts on these issues and that his words “lost their meaning in translation.” In other words, Ankara fulsomely praised Trump’s policy of deliberately starving Palestinians in Gaza, subjecting them to ethnic cleansing and genocide. The “efforts” that were praised included Trump’s plans to seize Gaza and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
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While Erdoğan strives to develop a policy fully aligned with Trump, Devlet Bahçeli, leader of Erdoğan’s fascist ally the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), recently reiterated his proposal for a “Turkey-Russia-China alliance” against the “US-Israel evil coalition”.
In an interview with the Türkgün newspaper, Bahçeli said, “If Turkey’s NATO membership cannot go beyond protecting Turkey from potential attacks from within NATO, and if some of our NATO allies can ignore our most vital priorities and demands, then it is time for Turkey to look both ways.”
Referring to “efforts to transition to a multipolar world order,” Bahçeli said that the Organization of Turkic States “could become a center of attraction and power in the struggle between the West, Russia, and China,” adding: “For this, it is essential that the three powers of the Eurasian geography come together on an equal footing. These are Turkey, the Russian Federation, and the People’s Republic of China.”
Erdoğan’s previous efforts to maneuver between the US-NATO and Russia and China played a significant role in the failed military coup attempt on July 15, 2016.
The Sosyalist Eşitlik Partisi – Dördüncü Enternasyonal (Socialist Equality Party – Fourth International), unanimously adopted this document at its founding congress on June 13–15, 2025. It traces the central historical experiences of the working class and Marxist movement in the 20th and 21st centuries, and establishes the principled foundations for the building of the Trotskyist movement in Turkey and throughout the region.
New sections of the document will be published in coming days. Here are links to the first two sections of a total of 33 sections:
1. The Principled Foundations of the Sosyalist Eşitlik Partisi – Dördüncü Enternasyonal
For the last two years the Palestine Coalition—led by Stop the War Coalition and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC)—has organized mass demonstrations in London against the genocide in Gaza. The program advocated by this leadership, of pressurizing first the Conservatives, and now the Labour government to stop backing Israel has been a political disaster.
On Saturday, Stop the War and the PSC organized a demonstration in Liverpool, held to coincide with the Labour Party annual conference beginning there the next day. Called under the slogans, “Stop Starving Gaza; Stop Arming Israel”, the organizers urged supporters to “Take the opposition to Labour’s annual conference.”
Almost two years after Israel’s genocide began and with Gaza in ruins as the fascistic Netanyahu regime finalises its ethnic cleansing operation, this latest call attracted only around 1,000 people because no one believes that Keir Starmer’s genocide-backing government will change course.
The only MP who has spoken consistently at the national rallies in London is expelled former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. During the first year of the genocide, there were occasional appearances by others in Labour’s Socialist Campaign Group of MPs, including Corbyn’s former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell. However, since seven of their number had the whip withdrawn and were suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) more than a year ago—for voting against Starmer’s refusal to scrap the punitive two-child welfare benefit cap—their appearance on platforms has been sporadic. They heeded the message from the Starmer leadership that no dissent over Gaza would be tolerated.
Now, with Starmer’s own leadership being questioned, with his popularity plunging to new lows, there is a relaxing of discipline to bring the “lefts” on board and portray a unified party that responds to working class discontent.
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Saturday’s rally was the epitome of Stop the War’s bankrupt politics, with its representatives doing everything to prevent a break with the Labour and trade union bureaucracy. It’s program, as World Socialist Web Site has frequently noted, is not anti-imperialist, but is based on appeals to sections of the British ruling class which believe British imperialism is paying too high a price, for too little gain, for US-led wars.
Uganda will hold presidential elections in January 2026, pitting the four-decade ruler Yoweri Museveni against his main opponent Robert Kyagulanyi, popularly known as Bobi Wine. Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, was formally nominated last week by his National Resistance Movement (NRM) party to seek another five-year term. Days later, electoral officials confirmed Wine’s clearance to contest, setting the stage for a rematch of the disputed 2021 elections.
These elections will resolve nothing for the Ugandan masses. Even if conducted fairly, which is highly doubtful given Museveni’s track record of electoral rigging and violent suppression of opposition, both he and Wine stand as rival representatives of the same capitalist order. Their contest expresses the conflict between Museveni’s established layers of the ruling elite tied to imperialism and Wine’s frustrated aspirants from sections of the urban middle class, whose ambitions for wealth and power have been blocked by the regime’s monopoly.
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...Uganda is one of the most unequal countries in the world. The richest 10 percent monopolize more than a third of the nation’s wealth, while the poorest subsist on scraps. Latest figures by Oxfam show that between 2013 and 2017 the number of Ugandans living in poverty rose from 6.7 million to 10 million. Some 41 percent of the population now lives in poverty, with the figure twice as high in rural areas, where over 80 percent of households are considered vulnerable.
Food insecurity is rife, with 56 percent of Ugandans moderately food insecure and 15 percent severely. Less than half the population can regularly access basic staples such as sugar, cooking oil and rice. Half the population is under the age of 15, one of the youngest populations in the world, condemned to a future of mass poverty.
At the other pole stands a grotesquely wealthy elite. Tycoon Sudhir Ruparelia boasts a $1.6 billion empire in real estate, banking and education. Drake Lubega holds $850 million in property and manufacturing, Matovu Yanga $785 million, John Bosco Muwonge $720 million, and Hamis Kiggundu nearly $602 million. Charles Mbire and Christine Nabukeera each control fortunes of $600 million or more. Parliamentary speaker Anita Among was recently exposed for stealing nearly $900,000 in fictitious travel allowances.
Museveni and his family have amassed billions. He owns one of the country’s largest ranches in Kisozi with over 10,000 cattle, a multistory mansion at Rwakitura that doubles as a diplomatic venue, and extensive land, telecommunications, manufacturing and real estate holdings. Estimates of his personal fortune range up to $4 to $5 billion as of 2025.
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Washington and the European capitals have backed Museve
Washington and the European capitals have backed Museveni’s regime for decades. Over the past twenty years the US has poured more than a billion dollars into military aid, training the units responsible for torture, abductions and disappearances at home and abroad. Under President Donald Trump, Kampala agreed to act as a holding ground for migrants deported from the US.
Uganda ranks first among African states for the scale of military deployments abroad. More than 15,000 troops are stationed in Somalia, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic, serving as a proxy force for imperialism, securing trade routes and shielding the regime’s oil infrastructure. The costs are borne by the Ugandan masses. Over $1 million in this poverty-stricken country is spent every day on troop reimbursements, allowances and hardware, while ordinary soldiers pay with their lives. Since June, Uganda has lost at least 39 soldiers in Somalia, two in Congo and six in South Sudan.
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The principal challenger to Museveni is the 43-year-old Bobi Wine. Wine founded the National Unity Platform (NUP) in 2018 and created illusions among urban youth with his denunciations of corruption and repression. In the 2021 elections he secured 3.5 million votes, 35 percent of the total, the largest vote ever won by an opposition candidate. Museveni officially claimed 58 percent; his worst ever result. Wine denounced the outcome as fraudulent and his supporters faced violent crackdowns, with dozens killed and thousands arrested.
Wine has become the symbol of opposition to Museveni, styling himself the “Ghetto President” and appealing to Uganda’s massive youth population. “We are fighting for a better Uganda, for the farmers, for the graduates with no jobs, for the ghetto youth whose future is being stolen,” he said after he was cleared by the electoral commission. Wine hopes to mobilize young voters and workers in the urban centers of Kampala, Wakiso and beyond.
But he offers no genuine way forward for the working class. He articulates the frustrations of the urban middle class seeking access to the wealth monopolized by Museveni’s clique. As Wine said himself, “Our country is one of the richest countries on the planet in terms of natural resources so... our problem is not lack of wealth. Our problem is lack of leadership, leadership that serves the people instead of terrorizing them and exploiting them.” Wine is worth some $12 million. His program, “A New Uganda,” pledges to stabilize the business climate, empower the private sector and attract foreign investors.
Wine offers no opposition to imperialism. He has repeatedly lobbied Washington and London to impose sanctions on Museveni’s inner circle, appealing to the very powers that have sustained his dictatorship for four decades. He has raised no objections to Uganda’s subordination to the IMF and World Bank, nor to its bloody interventions in neighboring countries on behalf of imperialist interests. He seeks only to replace Museveni as a more acceptable representative of the bourgeoisie in the eyes of the masses and of imperialism.
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Ugandan workers, rural masses and youth must be warned. The 2026 election is a contest between rival wings of the Ugandan ruling elite. Neither Museveni nor Wine will speak about the real source of the country’s crisis: that inequality, poverty and dictatorship are rooted in the global breakdown of capitalism
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Africa is being rapidly drawn into the frontlines of US-led wars, above all the drive to confront China. With its vast mineral wealth, strategic location and overwhelmingly young population, the continent is viewed by imperialism as a critical battleground. To imagine that within this framework Uganda can achieve liberal democracy or capitalist prosperity is a cruel illusion.
The decisive question is the independent mobilization of the working class on a socialist and internationalist program. The central task is the building of sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in Uganda and the region, to unite workers and youth across borders in a common fight for socialism.
18. Workers Struggles: The Americas
Argentina:
Nuclear power plant workers protest privatization
Nuclear power plant workers protest privatization
Canada:
Vancouver Symphony Orchestra musicians on strike for the first time in a century
Vancouver Symphony Orchestra musicians on strike for the first time in a century
Mexico:
Protest held in Mexico City to mark 11 years since the disappearance of Ayotzinapa 43
Protest held in Mexico City to mark 11 years since the disappearance of Ayotzinapa 43
United States:
Massachusetts transit workers slated to strike over low pay
Workers at Chicago Museum of Science & Industry grant strike authorization
Strike continues at Sutphen Corporation in Dublin, Ohio
19.
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.
