Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov arrested in protest at Gaza border
Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov was one of four activists arrested at the Gaza border last Friday, just one week after his powerful statement at the BBC Proms opposing the Gaza genocide. He was filmed being taken away by police, saying “We need to stop the genocide now. It’s ruining everyone’s lives. Stop it.”
Volkov and the others were released around an hour later. They returned to the protest, which was able to reach the border and stage a demonstration. The action was called in solidarity with the global Sumud aid flotilla, which aims to break the blockade and siege of Gaza.
Military forces prevented the protesters from crossing into Gaza, but they were able to reach the fence. They demonstrated for about half an hour, defying military intimidation that saw soldiers ripping up their placards.
Estimates vary of the numbers involved, but between 100 and 200 protesters marched towards the Gaza border fence. They carried placards in English and Hebrew, with slogans such as “Stop Zionist Terrorism” and “Stop the Ongoing Nakba.” Demonstrators chanted, “Stop the destruction, stop the starvation, there’s a holocaust in Gaza.”
Britain, Canada, Australia and Portugal formally announced their recognition of a Palestinian state Sunday, with other European countries expected to follow later today ahead of Tuesday’s opening of the UN General Assembly.
Recognition, couched as a defense of a decades-long pursuit of a “two-state solution” to the Israel/Palestine conflict, are a despicable fraud. Under conditions in which the Zionist regime, backed to the hilt by imperialism, is in the final stages of its genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza, imperialist powers are attempting to wash themselves of the Palestinians’ blood in which they are drenched.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese issued their statements as the official death toll in Gaza climbed over 65,000.
Everyone knows that this is a gross underestimation of the true number of Palestinians slaughtered by the Israel Defense Force since October 2023, with the true death toll running into the hundreds of thousands. Israel continues its policy of systematic starvation of the enclave, producing a famine, and is forcibly expelling a million people from Gaza City in the north, with no intention of them ever returning.
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Blotting out this reality from their statements, the various heads of government touted their announcement as an “historic” step to the establishment of peace in the Middle East. They all avoided the term genocide like the plague.
French President Emmanuel Macron will follow suit later today at a conference co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia at the United Nations in New York.
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Israel could well seize on Britain, Canada, and France’s posturing to justify annexing the entire West Bank. Netanyahu responded to the announcements Monday by insisting, “There will be no Palestinian state west of the Jordan River.” Fascist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for annexation of the West Bank as a necessary response.
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As for the Arab regimes, led by the despotic Saudi monarchy which drew up the New York Declaration together with France, they have done nothing to stop the slaughter of an entire people by Israel. They are seeking a political cover while they reach an accommodation with the Zionist regime and serve as partners of imperialism in a drive to restructure the entire region by sidelining Iran and strengthening Washington’s hegemony.
The Declaration calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, the deployment of a UN-backed mission to enforce it, an end to illegal settlements on occupied territory and the seizure of land, and a halt to “violence” and “terrorism.” It urges Israel to explicitly recognise its commitment to a two-state solution and proposes that the Palestinian Authority ultimately gain sovereignty over Gaza.
Such proposals, which have been wheeled out now and again by the imperialist powers since the conclusion of the Oslo Accords in the early 1990s, offer nothing to the Palestinian masses confronting extermination at the hands of the IDF with weapons supplied from the US, Germany, and other imperialists. As Britain’s Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer put it Monday, discussing Starmer’s recognition of Palestine, “Recognition will not... mean that humanitarian aid comes in tomorrow.”
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Among the European imperialist powers, Germany and Italy have rejected the recognition of a Palestinian state. German imperialism, which is rearming at breakneck speed to militarily dominate Europe and seize its share of the spoils in a global military redivision of the world, is deeply complicit in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians.
Berlin has cynically exploited the Holocaust, in which Hitler’s Nazi regime organized the annihilation of 6 million European Jews during World War II, to back another genocide through the supplying of weaponry to Israel and banning of all criticism as “antisemitism.” Speaking early Monday, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul cynically asserted, “For Germany, recognition of a Palestinian state comes more at the end of the process.”
No amount of diplomatic maneuvering on the part of the imperialists can bring an end to the Gaza genocide and preserve the rights and very existence of the Palestinian people. What is urgently necessary is the industrial and political mobilization of the international working class to halt the imperialists’ military and economic support to Israel, secure the uninterrupted supply of aid and medical care to the Palestinians, and put an end to the system of imperialist barbarism that is the root cause of the genocide and war.
3. Australian Labor government “recognizes” a Palestine it is helping to ethnically cleanse
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese joined the leaders of the UK, Canada, France and several other European states in formally “recognizing” a Palestinian state at a summit of the UN General Assembly today.
As with those countries, Albanese is seeking to cover up his government’s ongoing complicity in the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza with a pledge that is the height of imperialist hypocrisy. He is “recognizing” a state that does not and will not exist, as his Labor government aids an Israeli regime that is explicitly committed to the ethnic-cleansing of Gaza and ultimately of all of historic Palestine.
Like his counterparts, Albanese is desperately seeking to hose down and divert mass opposition to the genocide domestically.
As around the world, the genocide has been a central issue in Australia, which has a large Middle Eastern and Islamic population, and where significant layers of youth have been politicized by the horrors of the past two years.
Labor’s attempts to deny its involvement, moreover, have suffered a series of blows, including with revelations of ongoing military exports to the Zionist regime.
Albanese’s remarks at the UN were notable, not only for demonstrating the complete fraud of “recognition,” but also for legitimizing the various imperialist and Israeli talking points used to justify the genocide that is underway.
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In a speech already being depicted by Labor-aligned sections of the Australian press as courageous and bold, Albanese’s criticism of the Zionist regime began and ended with the phrase: “And the Israeli government must accept its share of responsibility.” The events in Gaza, he warned, as well as the expansion of Israeli settlements, “risks putting a two-state solution beyond reach.”
All of this is dripping with cynicism. Albanese knows full well what Israel is carrying out, because its leaders are explicit on their aims. They have openly declared that the current offensive against Gaza City is the prelude to the ethnic-cleansing of the entire Strip, in keeping with Trump’s plan to transform it into US-controlled “real estate.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly declared that “recognition” will change nothing and has said those world leaders proposing it are simply seeking to assuage domestic public opinion.
The only concrete measures Albanese proposed were directed against the Palestinians. Hamas would have to “surrender its weapons and end its rule in Gaza.” That is, the only entity fighting the Israeli invasion, under conditions of an open-declared plan for the annexation of the strip, would have to lay down its arms and face being imprisoned or murdered en masse.
The Palestinian Authority, a corrupt and pliant instrument of the US and Israel, would have to be made more so, Albanese declared. It would have to completely “demilitarize” and conduct “wholesale reforms” to all areas of governance.
The two-state solution is clearly dead, but even Albanese’s fantastic telling of it was a mockery of the principles of self-determination and sovereignty.
4. Trump turns Kirk memorial into campaign for theocratic-fascist dictatorship
The day after the funeral, Trump signed an official order declaring “Antifa” a “domestic terrorist” organization. Given that “Antifa” is not in fact an actual organization, the order creates the basis for left-wing opponents of fascism to be persecuted using the methods of the “war on terror.”
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Open calls for Christian theocracy came from fascist podcaster Benny Johnson, who pointed to Trump officials in attendance and declared: “God has instituted them. God has given them power over our nation and our land.”
This was combined with calls for vengeance. Perhaps the most strident declaration came from Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and principal figure behind the construction of a presidential dictatorship. Trump’s version of Josef Goebbels howled at the administration’s opponents, “What do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness, you are jealousy, you are hatred. You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing. We are the ones who build. We are the ones who create. We are the ones who lift up humanity.”
Miller paraphrased a tribute given by Goebbels in 1932 to the Nazi stormtrooper Horst Wessel, titled, “The Storm is Coming.” Miller declared, “We are the storm. And our enemies cannot comprehend our strength.”
Here, Miller is giving voice to the self-delusion of the capitalist financial oligarchy, the billionaires who imagine that they, and not the working class, are the driving force of human progress. But it is human labor, armed with science and technology, that creates the possibility of a new world of freedom and prosperity for all. The profit-gouging capitalist class offers humanity only deepening mass misery, dictatorship and world war.
The statement that fascism will come to America “wrapped in the American flag and carrying a cross” has frequently been attributed to Sinclair Lewis, although he did not use those exact words in his great dystopian novel, It Can’t Happen Here. The Kirk funeral rally showed the prescience of Lewis’s depiction of the rise of an American fascist strongman who combines religious invocations and promises of centuries of American domination of the world. What Trump, Vance, Miller & Co. offer is Hitler’s “thousand-year Reich,” done up in red, white and blue.
As extraordinary as the rally itself was, perhaps even more significant is the response, or non-response, of the media and the Democratic Party. The American press has treated Sunday’s spectacle as if it were a routine political event. In their coverage, words like fascist, racist or antisemite are carefully avoided, not only in describing Charlie Kirk but also the lineup of fascists, racists and antisemites who spoke in his honor. More than 24 hours later, neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post had published editorials on the rally.
In the face of four hours of Nazi-inspired diatribes, no leading Democrats, including Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, could muster even a perfunctory criticism. “Democrats silent as Republicans galvanised after Charlie Kirk memorial,” the Guardian headlined an article published yesterday.
Explaining this silence, the Guardian commented, “Democrats trod carefully in responding to the memorial service, aware that any hint of criticism might be misconstrued and exploited.” The newspaper cited comments by historian Jon Meacham that the Democrats risked being accused of being “out of touch with America’s Christian heartland,” as the newspaper put it.
That is, the Democrats rationalize their silence by hiding behind the fiction that exposing the attempt to erect a theocratic-fascist dictatorship would be unpopular. In reality, the agenda laid out in Arizona is opposed by the vast majority of the population.
There is a significant element of cowardice in the non-response to the Arizona rally, along with the previous decision by the Democrats to back the resolution honoring the fascist Kirk. But the more fundamental issue is that the Democrats are terrified of a movement from below, because any such movement would inevitably raise the question of who should rule society: the capitalist oligarchy or the broad mass of working people?
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The only serious question in American politics today is how this movement toward dictatorship can be stopped. It will not come about through the Democratic Party, Congress or the courts—all institutions which have already demonstrated their impotence or complicity. The necessary response is the emergence of a mass movement of the working class, mobilized independently, conscious of the scale of the threat, and prepared to fight not only against Trump but against the capitalist system that has produced him.
5. Fascist Steve Bannon denounces teachers as “terrorists” in tribute to Charlie Kirk
At Charlie Kirk’s public funeral in Glendale, Arizona, this past Sunday, longtime Trump advisor Steve Bannon launched into a furious condemnation of America’s educators. He denounced them as “terrorists” and signaled a new phase in the war against teachers and freedom of speech in the United States.
Bannon—a raving fascist who gave a Nazi salute at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)— declared Sunday that “a third of teachers are terrorists,” casting educators as enemies of the family and the nation for encouraging independent thinking among youth.
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Workers across the country, especially educators, are facing firing, suspensions and “investigations” over their comments, primarily on private posts in social media, following the state-orchestrated deification of the late fascist Charlie Kirk.
School districts have imposed disciplinary actions against school workers in at least 28 states and the District of Columbia. That includes: Texas (over 280 complaints being investigated in K-12 schools, with the state demanding the suspension of teaching licenses of those disciplined), Georgia (in Cobb County alone two educators were terminated, with as many as 15 placed on leave), Florida, South Carolina (multiple educators fired), Iowa, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Maryland, Michigan, Oregon, Wisconsin, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, California and Pennsylvania.
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On September 17, the “America 250 Civics Education Coalition” was launched by the Department of Education, in partnership with 40 right-wing organizations, to implement a new “patriotic” civics curriculum for K-12 schools. The coalition, stocked with Republicans and Trump loyalists, was handed $160 million by the Trump administration, which abruptly issued “non-continuation” notices for dozens of existing programs centered around American history and the arts, services to children with disabilities, and projects preparing students for college.
“America 250 Civics Education” will write curricula, tour nationally, sponsor competitions, and provide speakers, all curated by extreme right-wing and overtly fascist groups, Christian nationalist zealots and opponents of public education. Among them are: Kirk’s Turning Point USA, Hillsdale College (a long-time mouthpiece for intellectual fascism), Pat Robertson’s American Center for Law & Justice, the 1776 Project Foundation, Priests for Life, Catholic Vote, the Claremont Institute, the Heritage Foundation and Moms for Liberty.
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The following day, September 18, 2025, the Trump Department of Education announced that grant money would follow the new federal guidelines prioritizing “patriotic education.” In other words, the DOE will fund only grants that are based on this Christian nationalist and pro-capitalist propaganda.
The rule issued by the Education Secretary, wrestling billionaire Linda McMahon, states, “Citizens must understand why our free-market economy is a highly evolved system of cooperation fostered by our constitutional republic, and how it functions to secure the blessings of liberty for all Americans … This priority focuses grant funds on programs that promote a patriotic education that cultivates citizen competency and informed patriotism among and communicates the American political tradition to students at all levels, including activities and programs accessible to students with special needs.”
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History, however, has not been lived in vain, and teachers have a long history of fighting for their rights and historical truth. But there is nothing to be complacent about. The march to a police state dictatorship can only be halted through the mass, organized resistance of educators, students and the working class, independent of pro-capitalist unions, the Democrats and Republicans.
This fight requires the formation of rank-and-file committees to break the stranglehold of the trade union bureaucracies and create new centers of coordinated social power upon which the defense of democracy throughout the country can be based. They must draw on the lessons of history and the principles of genuine socialist internationalism to unify all sections of the working class. This is the work of the Educators Rank-and-File Committee in alliance with the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees.
Fascist supporters of former dictator Augusto Pinochet are forecast to win a second-round vote in Chile’s elections scheduled for November and December. Jeannette Jara, the candidate of the incumbent fake left Socialist/Communist/Broad Front coalition is polling at just 30 percent. While Chilean pollsters are invariably unreliable due to their bias towards the right, the results are nonetheless an indictment of President Gabriel Boric, whose “progressivism” has only served to entrench Chile’s long-standing extreme social inequality and strengthen authoritarian tendencies.
Global finance capital has made abundantly clear that the victory of political reaction is its preferred result. Chile’s IPSA stock market index has rallied all this year in response to the forecast victory of the right-wing opposition, reaching 9,000 points for the first time ever in September.
This month JP Morgan reported that the likely opposition victory “seems to have been one of the drivers of the market’s good performance in recent weeks and could continue to generate optimism in Chile.” It added “optimism” would grow if the right won control of Congress: “This is because, in such a scenario, the orthodox macroeconomic policies presented by the two main right-wing candidates would likely have lower risks of execution and implementation.”
By orthodox macroeconomic policies the finance giant is referring to sweeping cuts to public spending, a massive cull of public sector jobs and the imposition of a wage freeze, tax cuts for the rich, removing environmental protections to fast track mining and other projects and rule by emergency decree with the military on the streets, a la Donald J. Trump, and Argentina’s Javier Milei. This is exactly what the three extreme right candidates; Evelyn Matthei of Chile Vamos, Republican Party candidate José Antonio Kast, and the National Libertarian Party’s Johannes Kaiser, are promising.
The right wing has received wind in its sails from the election of Trump, who, from the moment he entered the White House earlier this year launched a violent counterrevolution against the working class and a declaration of war on the world. The US president’s evisceration of fundamental constitutional and democratic principles as the whole oligarchy turns towards dictatorship has emboldened the most authoritarian political forces produced by the venal and reactionary Chilean ruling class.
Human rubbish in the service of capitalism and imperialism, from Opus Deist and evangelical obscurantists, to putschists, libertarians, fascists and neo-Nazis, these forces have coalesced to bring forward the offspring of mass murderers and war criminals as their candidates in the 2025 presidential elections.
The Trump administration has raised to a fever pitch war tensions with Venezuela following the latest strike on a small vessel in the Caribbean on Friday that allegedly killed three passengers. A US fleet has assembled in the southern Caribbean, including assault ships and nuclear submarines, accompanied by F-35 fighter jets and killer drones.
In an alarming escalation, on Sunday evening the Caribbean Astronomy Society reported the sighting of a nuclear-capable, Trident missile test fired from a submarine off Florida. Without an official acknowledgement of the ballistic missile launch, the White House is threatening in its usual mafioso manner the use of nuclear weapons against Venezuela, recalling Trump’s threat in 2017 to rain “fire and fury” on North Korea.
The sinking of the vessel Friday—the third one in two weeks— was yet another extrajudicial massacre on the threadbare pretext of fighting “narco-terrorism” and interdicting drugs. As agreed by most experts, only a tiny portion of drug smuggling takes place in the southern Caribbean.
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The missile tests and military build-up, moreover, mark a dangerous turning point with deep political ramifications, signaling the Trump administration’s resort to unrestrained violence to overturn the Venezuelan government and assert US dominance in the hemisphere.
In his response, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has combined subservient appeals with militarist posturing. During the weekend, Caracas deployed 2,500 troops and Russian-made fighter jets armed with anti-ship missiles to Venezuela’s Caribbean island of La Orchila. There, military exercises dubbed “Sovereign Caribbean 200” involved 12 ships, 22 aircraft, and 20 vessels in a show of force against the US naval presence nearby. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino cast the drills as a direct response to Washington’s “threatening and vulgar” deployment of warships.
Despite this militarist bluster, Reuters revealed that on September 6, four days after the first US strike on a Venezuelan vessel, Maduro sent a personal letter to President Trump requesting further talks. In the letter, Maduro absurdly argues to Trump that he is being misled by “Fake News” about Caracas.
This overture came even after the White House placed a $50 million bounty on Maduro’s head. This appeal for negotiations—akin to appealing to Hitler before the invasion of Poland—was met only with hellfire missiles from Trump. On Saturday, Trump dehumanized Venezuelan migrants in social media posts calling them “Monsters” and issuing a chilling ultimatum to Caracas to receive them back: “GET THEM THE HELL OUT OF OUR COUNTRY, RIGHT NOW, OR THE PRICE YOU PAY WILL BE INCALCULABLE.”
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The Pentagon is not yet positioned for a large-scale invasion comparable to Iraq. This reality has been shown by some fissures in the White House’s approach, with Trump’s envoy to Venezuela Richard Grenell indicating openness to negotiating Maduro’s removal.
The US government, however, has shown itself determined to reassert its hemispheric hegemony, particularly to counter China’s growing influence in Latin America, at any cost. Beijing remains one of Maduro’s closest allies and a key trading partner.
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Domestically, Trump has sought to combine his push for foreign military aggression with the establishment of a police-state dictatorship. His administration’s threats to deploy troops to American cities like Chicago, Memphis, St. Louis, and New Orleans were framed as part of a “war” against an urban working class conflated with “killers, murderers, drug dealers.” Likewise, its fascistic executive orders to dismantle basic constitutional rights have targeted immigrants and political opponents alike as “terrorists.” This fusion of a foreign and domestic total war establishes a precedent for extrajudicial killings anywhere.
The Trump administration’s military and political maneuvers against Venezuela represent a dual crisis: the looming danger of war in Latin America and a wholesale assault upon democratic and social rights within the United States. The international working class must recognize the inseparability of these struggles and unite across borders in a movement to stop US imperialism’s march toward yet another catastrophic front in an emerging third world war.
8. Workers and youth speak out against French government and budget crisis
Around 1 million people marched on September 18 in a nationwide protest strike against the budget crisis and the incoming minority government of French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu. Over 260 marches took place in cities across France, as workers in mass transit, public schools and energy facilities struck, alongside university students. Estimates gave 55,000 people marching in Paris; several tens of thousands marched in Toulouse, Marseille, Bordeaux, Lyon and Lille.
Opposition is continuing to mount at President Emmanuel Macron’s funding war and military spending increases via social cuts. At the same time, left-wing dissatisfaction is also building with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s New Popular Front (NFP), which together with the union bureaucracies sold out and shut down mass strikes in 2023 against pension cuts opposed by a vast majority of the French people. Broader layers of workers are pointing to the role these forces have played in enabling Macron to rule against the people.
World Socialist Web Site reporters intervened at the main protest march in Paris, interviewing workers and youth and distributing a Parti de l’égalité socialiste (PES) statement, “Build rank-and-file committees to wage the struggle against Macron and war!”
Educators in Oakland and Sacramento in California have already been forced into tentative agreements paving the way for deep cuts, while teachers in San Francisco and Contra Costa are being made to wait weeks until potential strikes next month.
For months, the California Teachers Association’s (CTA) has claimed to be organizing a statewide struggle by the more than 80,000 teachers in most of the state’s largest cities who are currently on expired contracts. But more than a month since the semester has started, this “We Can’t Wait” campaign has not led to a single strike and no district has even held a strike authorization vote.
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San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) educators remain without a contract after more than three months. Facing a $192 million shortfall, the district has announced sweeping “budget balancing” measures, including tripping professional development funds, cutting internships, and eliminating critical non-classroom staff.
Teachers in the United Educators of San Francisco (UESF) union are preparing for a potential strike in mid-October. However, no strike authorization vote has yet been scheduled by union officials. Instead, they are promoting signature drives, symbolic pickets and unofficial “strike readiness” petitions.
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The real “united front” teachers need is not with corporate Democrats, but the working class of California, the US and the world. It is high time that workers break out of the dead end of appeals to the corporate parties, and build an independent movement mobilizing their immense power to impose a working class solution on the crisis gripping the country.
10. Tens of thousands of Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers vote overwhelmingly in favor of strike
Tens of thousands of healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente (KP) in California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington state voted overwhelmingly in favor of authorizing a strike last week. The workers’ current four-year contract, which is scheduled to expire on September 30, covers about 62,000 workers in the Alliance of Health Care Unions (AHCU).
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The fight at Kaiser Permanente must become the beginning of a broad movement fighting against the Trump dictatorship and for a vast redistribution of wealth from the oligarchy which Trump defends to fund healthcare, schools and other social needs.
But for years, both the AHCU and the CKOU have blocked strike action or limited them to toothless one- or two-day actions. This included strikes in 2021, 2023 (the largest healthcare strike in US history) and by NUHW workers in 2024-2025 (the longest mental healthcare strike in US history).
At online town hall meetings held by the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals last week, bureaucrats emphasized that there would not be any strike pay. Workers were admonished that taking sick leave during the strike would “cast doubt on our solidarity and willingness to sacrifice for each other.”
Meanwhile, 57 UNAC/UHCP officials received over $200,000 each in 2024, with one official receiving over $300,000. The union paid out to rank-and-file members $0 as strike pay in the same year.
11. Trump and Kennedy launch unhinged anti-science tirade in autism press conference
President Donald Trump conducted a White House press conference on Monday that stands as the most sweeping assault on science and public health by any sitting president, perhaps only matched by Trump’s infamous April 2020 coronavirus briefing, when he encouraged Americans to inject disinfectant and use ultraviolet light inside their bodies. This latest spectacle represents a dangerous escalation in the Trump administration’s broader war against science, medicine and healthcare policy.
The parallels to Trump’s 2020 disinfectant debacle are unmistakable. As the World Socialist Web Site observed in an April 2020 perspective, “Rasputin in the White House,” that press conference revealed “the elevation of an especially despicable and even depraved personality to a high position in the state,” a characteristic of “doomed political systems” throughout history. Just as Trump’s bleach recommendations exposed the oligarchy’s complete indifference to human life in service of reopening the economy at the height of the pandemic, Monday’s autism announcement reveals the administration’s willingness to terrorize pregnant women and families with autistic children to advance their broader anti-science agenda.
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In one of his most bizarre moments, Trump claimed “We’ve learned some pretty good things about certain elements of genius that can be given to a baby, and the baby can get better, and in some cases, maybe substantially better.”
Under the guise of a medical breakthrough, the White House rolled out this “genius” cure for autism, leucovorin, with the trappings of a patent-medicine show, flanked by some of the most notorious hucksters and snake-oil salesmen in American public life. Dr. Mehmet Oz, whose television empire and supplement ventures made millions by pitching unproven remedies and gimmick diagnostics, embodied the crass commercialism underlying the event.
It is entirely plausible, indeed likely, that officials sharing that podium could directly profit from the hype and regulatory maneuvers surrounding this product line, given their histories of monetizing “wellness” claims, book and media brands, and litigation profiteering.
In reality, leucovorin is a decades-old cancer drug, typically used to protect patients from methotrexate toxicity during chemotherapy, that has now been cynically repackaged as an autism cure with virtually no supporting evidence.
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Monday’s press conference represents not merely a return to Trump’s prior medical quackery, but a deepening of what can only be characterized as a policy of deliberate social murder that has developed throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The working class must understand that the most basic defense of science and public health requires nothing less than the overthrow of the capitalist system that has elevated such figures to power. Only through the independent mobilization of the working class on a socialist program can humanity defend itself against the barbarism that Trump and his oligarchic backers represent.
12. Tens of thousands march across Italy against genocide in Gaza
On Monday, September 22, tens of thousands of Italian workers and young people staged one of the largest demonstrations in Europe against Israel’s US-backed war in Gaza. Protests and strike actions, coordinated under the slogan “Blocchiamo tutto” (“Let’s Block Everything”), erupted across more than 75 Italian cities, closing schools, halting transport networks and blocking strategic ports.
The demonstrations, among the most powerful in Italy in decades, expressed the deep and growing anger of workers and youth against both the genocide in Gaza and the open complicity of the Italian state, the European Union, and the United States. They also revealed the immense potential for a movement that could develop into an international counter-offensive by the working class against war, fascism and the capitalist system that breeds them.
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The scale of the demonstrations was unprecedented. In Genoa and Livorno, dockworkers blocked major ports, denouncing Italy’s role in facilitating weapons transfers to Israel. In Ravenna, only days before, port workers had forced Mayor Alessandro Barattoni to block the transit of two containers of explosives bound for Haifa after exposing their contents. These actions show the growing centrality of the ports—arteries of global trade—in a developing confrontation with imperialist war.
Students and youth played a decisive role. In Rome, high schoolers blocked streets near the Colosseum and gathered at Largo Preneste and Piazza Annibaliano before joining the main march. At Aldo Fabrizi elementary school, children displayed peace flags and paper boats for Gaza’s children. At La Sapienza University, activists occupied entrances, chanting “Let’s block the university,” while professors demanded severing ties with Israeli institutions and the arms industry.
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The actions of dockworkers in Genoa once again placed the working class at the heart of opposition to war. In recent weeks, they prevented the Saudi ship Bahri Yanbu from loading military matériel. At a rally of thousands in Genoa last month, the Autonomous Collective of Dockworkers (CALP) declared solidarity with the Global Sumud Flotilla, which has set sail with humanitarian aid for Gaza.
One of their speakers warned: “If we lose contact with our boats even for just 20 minutes, we will block all of Europe. From the Port of Genoa nothing will leave anymore.” This statement points to the potential of a worker-controlled international network capable of paralyzing imperialism’s war machine.
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The September 22 protests showed that opposition to genocide runs deep within the working class in Europe and internationally. The far right, whether in Italy or the US, has risen not from its own strength but due to the cowardice and collusion of the bourgeois “opposition.” By suppressing the resistance of the working class, the social-democrats, the unions, and the pseudo-left have created the danger of a fascist takeover.
A breakthrough is possible but only if workers organize their struggles independently of all the institutions that defend the capitalist system and imperialist war, by building rank-and-file committees, democratically controlled by workers themselves in every factory, port and workplace. These committees must discuss and prepare common action to defend the working class from exploitation and austerity, and unite with workers internationally against imperialist war and fascism.
Last Friday, the Estonian Defense Ministry reported that three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets had entered Estonian airspace for several minutes. While the government in Tallinn and NATO allies immediately branded the incident a “provocation” by Moscow, the Kremlin firmly rejected this account. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, there had been no border violation. The aircraft were on a transfer flight from a base in northwestern Russia to the Kaliningrad exclave and had been flying “in strict conformity with international rules governing airspace with no violation of the borders of other states as is confirmed by independent checks.”
In fact, even the map published by the Estonian military indicates that the jets flew parallel to the border and were on a transit route. Nevertheless, the incident is being exaggerated by European governments and the mainstream media to further escalate the confrontation with Russia.
Today, Tuesday, the NATO Council is meeting at Estonia’s request under Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty. These consultations are convened when a member state feels its security is threatened. In the 76-year history of the alliance, this mechanism has only rarely been invoked—most recently just a few days ago by Poland after more than 20 Russian drones crossed its airspace.
That there are now two such meetings within one week is a clear expression of the acute situation. Article 4 is regarded as the precursor to Article 5, which provides for the alliance case and thus the entry into war of all NATO states.
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In Germany and other NATO states, politicians are outbidding each other with aggressive demands. CDU foreign policy spokesman Jürgen Hardt demanded a “clear stop sign” for Moscow: Every military border violation must be “answered with military means—even up to the shooting down of Russian fighter jets over NATO territory.” Similar tones came from Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė and Czech President Petr Pavel.
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With such war propaganda and anti-Russian agitation, the population is to be gradually accustomed to the idea that the shooting down of Russian aircraft in European airspace—and thus a direct entry into the war—is an “option.”
NATO has already taken concrete measures. With Operation Eastern Sentry, the alliance is strengthening its presence in the air, at sea and on land along the eastern flank. Italian F-35 jets carried out the interception of the Russian MiG-31s on Friday. Germany has stationed a second quick reaction alert unit in Rostock-Laage; France has deployed Rafale fighters to Poland; and Denmark has sent a frigate.
Since the Baltic states have no air forces of their own, so-called NATO air policing has been carried out for years by rotating members. It is now to be transformed into a “comprehensive integrated defense system.” NATO Supreme Commander Alexus Grynkewich stated that the goal was to “close gaps in our defense against a concrete threat.”
Germany is playing a key role in the escalation. Inspector General Carsten Breuer announced that the Bundeswehr would make so-called loitering munitions—kamikaze drones—operational by the end of this year. “In the end, it will have to come down to drones being used against drones,” he declared. He is vigorously pushing the rearmament for a future drone war.
At the same time, the Bundeswehr is preparing for a scenario that would massively increase mass casualties at the front in Ukraine and recall the bloody battles of the world wars. Surgeon General Ralf Hoffmann told Reuters that in the event of a war with Russia, Germany would have to expect up to 1,000 wounded soldiers per day. The medical service is being massively expanded, hospital trains and buses are being prepared, and German hospitals are to keep 15,000 beds available for soldiers.
These statements alone make clear how concrete the war preparations already are.
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While the ruling class seeks to enforce its imperialist interests through fascism and war, resistance is growing in the working class. In France, hundreds of thousands demonstrated and went on strike against Macron’s war and austerity budget last week. In Italy on Monday, also hundreds of thousands took to the streets against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Workers sense that war policy is inseparably linked to social cuts, dictatorship and fascism. The enormous armaments expenditures are being paid for directly through cuts in healthcare, education, pensions and wages.
The latest incidents—alleged airspace violations by drones or fighter jets—are being deliberately instrumentalized by NATO to drive escalation forward. With the second Article 4 consultation within just a few days and the debate about shooting down Russian jets, Europe stands on the brink of a direct military confrontation between NATO and Russia—a scenario that could inevitably lead to a nuclear world war.
14. Fiji’s PM inaugurates new embassy in Jerusalem
Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka last week formally opened the country’s new embassy in Jerusalem, fresh from gaining endorsement for his so-called “Ocean of Peace” proposal at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) summit in the Solomon Islands.
According to Rabuka, the Ocean of Peace “is not the absence of conflict, [but] the peace of mind that we in the Pacific feel, we would like to spread it to the rest of the world.” In fact, the declaration is intended to cover up the militarization of the Pacific region and the alignment of Fiji and other countries with US imperialism, as it prepares for war against China.
Rabuka’s embrace and legitimization of the Zionist regime in Israel, which is carrying out a genocide in Gaza, further exposes the fraud that Fiji’s government is somehow promoting an “independent” and “peaceful” Pacific.
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With its Jerusalem embassy, the Fiji government will further strengthen political and diplomatic relations with the murderous Israeli regime. In a meeting with the speaker of the Knesset (Parliament), Amir Ohana, Rabuka proposed reciprocal visits between members of the Knesset and the Fijian Parliament, purportedly to exchange “knowledge and democratic practices” by working closely together “strengthening peace and security, democracy, and development”—a totally absurd proposition.
Next month, Israel’s deputy minister of foreign affairs Sharren Haskel will lead a “goodwill visit” to the Southwest Pacific, to shore up support in the face of escalating international popular opposition to the Gaza genocide. Haskel said the trip will focus on Israel’s “great friends,” PNG and Fiji, and possibly include New Zealand in recognition of the NZ government’s “support” for Israel over the last two years.
The pro-Israeli stance of the Pacific grouping led by PNG and Fiji is likely to be boosted by the recent change in government in Samoa. Samoa’s incoming prime minister, Laaulialemalietoa Leuatea Polataivao Fosi Schmidt has already declared fulsome support for Israel, saying that in the country’s constitution, Samoa is founded on the “God of Israel.” Leuatea was responding to a media question about his flaunting of Jewish emblems at the swearing in ceremony, including the shofar, flag and scarfs.
15. Australian Labor government issues sham 2035 climate target
Last Thursday, the Australian Labor government released its 2035 target of a 62-70 percent reduction in domestic greenhouse gas emissions relative to 2005 levels. The new target forms Australia’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) that the government is required to submit every five years under the Paris Agreement signed in 2015.
A joint media statement by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Climate Minister Chris Bowen referred to the target as “ambitious but achievable” and “the right target to protect our environment and secure our prosperity.”
In reality, the new target does not even come close to what would be required to keep global warming levels “well under 2℃” in line with the aims of the very limited Paris Agreement itself. A 2023 independent expert report commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund Australia found that a 1.5℃ consistent pathway for Australia’s domestic emissions required a reduction of 90 percent by 2035 (relative to 2005 levels) and net zero emissions by 2038.
Labor’s target, supposedly based on advice from its own appointed Climate Change Authority, falls short even of what was scientifically recommended years ago as a 2030 target.
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More and more scientific evidence demonstrates the catastrophic impact of climate change. A government-issued climate change risk assessment published only days before the 2035 target was released, estimated that, for example, 1.5 million people in Australia are at risk of sea levels rising by 2050 and that heatwave deaths would occur 2-4 times more frequently. That was based on the current projection that the world is on track for almost 3℃ of warming this century.
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The scientific and technological means do exist to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels. What stands in the way is the domination of the world economy by the capitalist profit system, which the Labor government defends.
The Monash University-based Climateworks Centre in 2023 modeled, using a tool developed in collaboration with the official Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), a possible emissions reduction pathway of 85 percent by 2035 and net zero by 2039.
That pathway would be compatible with keeping global warming levels below 1.5℃, based on the possibility of rapidly replacing fossil fuel-generated electricity with renewable sources.”
But Labor remains committed to the profit interests of fossil fuel corporations, and is based on the defense of capitalism, which is driving the world into an ecological breakdown. Its target is directly in line with that proposed by the Business Council of Australia (BCA), which represents the largest corporations operating in the country. The BCA expressed beforehand its opposition to any target above a 70 percent emissions reduction.
No capitalist party or government can be entrusted with the defense of science, the environment, or the lives and health of the population. The climate crisis arises out of the capitalist system and cannot be resolved within it. Only the working class, mobilized on a socialist basis internationally, can prevent the worsening disaster.
16. Irish rap group Kneecap banned from entering Canada for speaking out against genocide
The three-man Irish hip hop band Kneecap has been banned from entering Canada ahead of their sold-out concert dates in Toronto and Vancouver planned for October. Liberal MP Vince Gasparro, the parliamentary secretary for combating crime, announced the measure in a video statement filled with lies and doublespeak on the platform X (owned by jet-setting Hitler-saluting neo-Nazi, mega billionaire Elon Musk).
*****
After their performance at the Coachella music festival in April, where they projected statements condemning the Israeli government, their weekly US streams nearly doubled. Their set in June in Glastonbury “was so popular that organizers had to shut access to the arena to stop overcrowding,” according to a New York Times article. For this reason, Kneecap has become a target for persecution by Zionist organizations, right-wing media outlets and now governments.
Canada is second on the list of countries to deny them entry after Hungary did so on July 24. The Hungarian government, whose far-right President Tamás Sulyok falsified his father’s Nazi past, has accused Kneecap of engaging in “antisemitic hate speech.”
In his extraordinary announcement, Gasparro builds his entire case against Kneecap on the Terrorism Act charge the UK government has levelled against Kneecap member Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh, which he is scheduled to fight in court in London on September 26. Equating an investigation with guilt, Gasparro accused the band of “advocating for political violence, glorifying terrorist organizations and displaying hate symbols that directly target the Jewish community.” The words “violence,” “hate” and “terrorist/terrorism” are repeated four times in the 1 minute and 40-second-long video.
Meanwhile, this is how Gasparro refers to the slaughter of well over 65,000 Palestinians and the mass starvation of hundreds of thousands:
“Let me be clear, Canada is never to be used as a platform for extremism or political violence and we will not tolerate international conflicts being used as an excuse to intimidate and harass Canadians here at home.”
*****
Since October 2023, there have been hundreds of protests across Canada in support of the Palestinians national rights and against the Israeli genocide with hundreds of thousands participating. Multiple pro-Palestine protests took place throughout this summer including in cities like Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. They are being met with police repression. On July 11th, eleven people were arrested and charged during a pro-Palestinian protest with over a thousand participants. On Saturday, two protesters were arrested in Ottawa during the anti-war, anti-austerity and environmental protest “Draw the Line,” where participants waved Palestinian flags and wore keffiyehs.
Democratic rights are being dismantled across all areas of Canadian society. This includes the cultural sphere, where numerous artists have faced bans, intimidation, and even the loss of their job for speaking out against the genocide.
17. Australia: Labor’s housing measures will not end affordability crisis
Several policy announcements by the Australian federal Labor government in recent weeks claim to address the deepening shortage of affordable housing nationwide. In fact, these measures are a gift to the property developers and banks, while workers and their families will be locked into even greater mortgage debt.
With median house prices around the country now over $1 million, Australian capital cities are among the least affordable in the world. Over the past 27 years, average housing costs have increased by 483 percent, while average wages have risen by just 127.5 percent.
The new measures—“pausing” changes to the National Construction Code (NCC) and acting as a partial guarantor for first homebuyer loans—will make house-building more profitable for construction companies at the expense of quality and safety, and cause tens of thousands of people to enter crippling mortgages for over-priced houses.
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Also announced was the loosening of environmental protections under the already inadequate Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) in order to “fast-track” building approvals. Environmental groups have warned this will mean increased threats to biodiversity and threatened species due to rapid habitat loss through unregulated land clearing.
In reality, both regulation-slashing moves are the fulfillment of longstanding demands from major developers. Master Builders Australia chief executive Denita Wawn said they were “big wins for the industry,” because “simplifying regulatory requirements can improvement productivity,” by which she means increase profits.
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The Labor government’s latest claims to be resolving the housing crisis carry the hallmarks of its previously announced “affordable housing” scheme. The $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF), a central pillar of Labor’s 2022 federal election campaign, has completed only around 5,000 “social and affordable homes,” a fraction of its target of 30,000. Moreover, it is not clear how many of these dwellings are newly built and how many have been purchased and given minor renovations.
At the same time, state Labor governments are in the process of destroying large swathes of existing public housing in NSW and Victoria. In Victoria, 44 public housing towers are slated for demolition, which will displace some 10,000 residents. At Sydney’s Waterloo South, 3,000 public housing residents are set to be turfed out.
In both cases, the transparent motive is to drive working-class and poor residents out of the inner city to free up valuable real estate for lucrative private development. While privately owned and operated “social housing” will be included in the new construction, it will be more expensive and offer less security of tenure than the public housing it replaces.
Housing is a basic social right, but under capitalism it is increasingly becoming a privilege. What is needed is the socialist reorganization of society so every worker has a safe and decent place to live without the threat of eviction or bankruptcy hanging over their heads.
Saturday’s Unite the union national demonstration in support of 400 Birmingham bin workers was another hollow display of “solidarity” designed to maintain the isolation of the six-month all-out strike.
A single section of workers has confronted the Starmer government and its flagship Labour authority, which is imposing mass job losses and pay cuts of up to £8,000 as part of £300 million cuts city-wide.
Saturday’s protest in Birmingham underlined how, despite the defiance of bin loaders and drivers across the three depots against a massive strikebreaking operation and now fire-and-rehire, the Starmer government and John Cotton leader of the Labour authority, have acted with impunity.
A World Socialist Web Site reporting team distributed the article “Birmingham bin workers fight demands a mobilisation of the working class to defeat Starmer government”, which stated:
“The reality must be faced. The mobilization against this attack on tens of thousands of other council workers and workers more generally has been prevented by Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham, who presides over a union with a million members. And this has been reinforced by the collusion of the entire trade union bureaucracy.”
This was underscored by a turnout only in the hundreds, including strikers and their families. It featured around half a dozen branch or regional union banners from Unite, a few trades councils, and Unison, mostly held by members pseudo-left groups who assembled with their placards. The cosplay of solidarity took a literal form with some participants dressed up as miners from the 1984–85 strike in donkey jackets and hard hats.
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The World Socialist Web Site spoke to Birmingham bin workers about the need to take control of their struggle, break the isolation and unify with other workers being drawn into struggle against the Starmer government.
A bin lorry driver with more than 30 years in council refuse explained, “They said they weren’t coming for the drivers, which they did in the end. They dropped the Grade 3’s to a Grade 2 for loaders, and the Grade 4’s who are the drivers to a Grade 3.
“So now there is no safety on the back of the lorry. They have employed people to go into an office and watch a camera, which is on the back of the wagon and they have said that this is now going to be the principal safety monitor. If there is an accident on the back, there is no one to deal with it on the ground.
“Our safety critical officers have been on several courses including first aid, that has been taken away. Someone could be 15 miles away looking at a camera and if something happens on the back, there is no first-hand support. It’s a dark situation.
19. Workers Struggles: The Americas
Brazil:
One-day strike by 6,000 Embraer workers
One-day strike by 6,000 Embraer workers
Canada:
Provincewide strike by Alberta teachers looms
Provincewide strike by Alberta teachers looms
Unlimited strike by workers at Port of Montreal underway
Peru:
Thousands in Peru protest attacks on pensions
Thousands in Peru protest attacks on pensions
United States:
Nurses in contract struggles at hospitals in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
Long Island physician assistants rally for higher pay, protest foot-dragging by management in negotiations
Fast food workers victimized after protesting working conditions
Uruguay:
University workers, educators and students protest budget cuts
20. 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.
