Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. This week in history: October 6-12
- 25 years ago:
Union bureaucrats sabotage public transit strike in Los Angeles
50 years ago:
John Lennon wins deportation battle to remain in US
75 years ago:
Police massacre of civilians begins in South Korea
100 years ago:
American troops sent to Panama City to suppress strike
2. Trump prepares martial law, orders invasion of Portland and Chicago
There is a staggering disconnect between the scale of the assault and what is being proposed by the Democratic Party in response. Newsom speaks of imminent martial law, while Pritzker gave a speech on Friday in which he accused Trump of “treasonous words” that are leading to “treasonous actions.” But the Democrats propose no action.
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The central issue posed by these events is the removal of this criminal administration. But not a single prominent Democrat has even called for the impeachment of Trump and Vice President JD Vance for their assault on the Constitution and democratic rights.
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There is enormous and growing opposition to the moves to establish a fascistic dictatorship in the United States. Demonstrations under the banner of “No Kings” are planned for October 18, with more than 2,100 separate actions scheduled in cities and towns across the country. The previous “No Kings” protests on June 14 involved between 5 to 11 million people—by some measures, the largest political demonstrations in American history.
These protests express the deep hostility of the working class and youth to dictatorship and oligarchic rule. But what is lacking, and what is most critical, is a conscious political perspective.
It is first of all necessary, as the Socialist Equality Party wrote in its statement of September 19, “to put aside all self-deluding hopes that what is unfolding is anything less than a drive to establish a presidential dictatorship, based on the military, police, paramilitary forces and fascist gangs.”
The Trump administration is seeking a provocation and a pretext for a vast escalation. The operations in Portland and Chicago are part of the Trump administration’s declared “war on the enemy within.” They come after Trump’s September 30 assembly of generals at Quantico, where he told the officer corps that America’s cities must serve as “training grounds” for domestic warfare.
Trump speaks for and represents the American capitalist oligarchy. The American ruling class has handed power to a political mafia that sees dictatorship as the only means of preserving its wealth and its system.
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The Socialist Equality Party calls for the development of rank-and-file committees in every workplace, school and neighborhood as the foundation for coordinated, mass opposition. These committees must unite every section of the working class—industrial, service, public sector, healthcare, logistics, education and technology workers, together with students and youth—into a single movement against Trump’s dictatorship, the complicity of the Democrats and trade union apparatus, and the capitalist oligarchy as a whole.
These committees must link the fight against repression and dictatorship to the defense of jobs, wages and social rights, opposing layoffs, budget cuts, and every attack on living standards. In this struggle, the working class in the United States must turn to its most powerful weapon: its international unity.
3. Zionist Bari Weiss tapped to head CBS News following merger
Multiple reports indicate that, after months of closed-door negotiations and Wall Street maneuvering, the newly merged Paramount Skydance, will install Bari Weiss, 41, as its editor-in-chief of CBS News. Weiss is the founder of the right-wing outlet The Free Press.
The August 2025 merger of Paramount Global and Skydance Media was engineered by Larry Ellison, the second-wealthiest person in the world and founder of Oracle, along with his son David Ellison and former Paramount chair Shari Redstone. The merger unites broadcast, film, television and digital platforms under one of the most politically right-wing conglomerates in the world. The Ellisons and Redstone are both major contributors to the Republican Party and pro-Israel organizations.
Following the roughly $8 billion deal in August, David Ellison became the new chairman and CEO of Paramount Skydance. The new monopoly controls not only CBS News, but also Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon, MTV, Showtime/Paramount+ and the book publisher Simon & Schuster. The merger comes alongside Oracle’s central role in acquiring TikTok’s US data operations and the long campaign by Redstone, an ardent supporter of Israel and its ongoing genocide, to bring CBS and its subsidiaries into ideological conformity with the pro-Israel line of American imperialism.
In a comment to the Hollywood Reporter, the billionaire Redstone said she thought Weiss would be a “good voice” that would “bring a different perspective.”
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The installation of Weiss comes as millions of people around the world continue to demonstrate against the genocide in Gaza. In the United States, recent polls show Palestine now enjoys greater sympathy than Israel, particularly among youth and working class Americans. This terrifies the ruling class, which sees the crumbling of its narrative monopoly.
That is the political meaning of the Paramount–Skydance merger, the TikTok takeover and now Weiss’s ascension: the billionaires intend to reestablish ideological control by flooding television and the internet with pro-Israel, pro-imperialist content while silencing anti-genocide and anti-Zionist voices. The American ruling class, confronted by economic crisis, world war and mass opposition to genocide, is moving to regiment information as ruthlessly as it does labor.
4. What "freedom"? On the short film Whispers of Freedom
It is no coincidence that this film is being shown so prominently on the eve of the 35th anniversary of the end of the GDR and German reunification. Whispers of Freedom is based on conversations with Gueffroy’s mother and was made in collaboration with historian Katja Hoyer, born in the GDR and author of the book Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949–1990. Regardless of the director’s efforts to ensure authenticity and avoid the usual clichés—with the film even mentioning positive aspects of life in former East Germany—Ashplant’s work ultimately falls into the trap of repeating timeworn lies about socialism.
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Whispers of Freedom’s story and dialogue are both realistic and appealing, thanks in part to the convincing performances. This, however, is precisely what makes it suitable for propaganda by the German government and media, which, in the face of a growing radicalisation among young people against war and the threat of fascism, are intent on discrediting the concept of socialism.
The film is not openly anti-communist, but subliminally conveys a familiar message: freedom is incompatible with socialism! Or, in other words: if you take to the streets today to protest against war and dictatorship, best not concern yourself with socialist ideas.
In fact the equation of socialism with Stalinism was the great lie of the 20th century. The GDR was guided by Stalin’s reactionary, nationalist policy of “socialism in one country,” which expressed the interests of a privileged bureaucracy, blocking the progress of the 1917 Revolution and its expansion into other countries and eventually leading to the Terror conducted against the Bolshevik old guard in the 1930s.
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The claim that the SED dictatorship was “actually existing socialism” served to fuel anti-communist prejudices among the working class in the West during the Cold War. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, politicians and the media declared in triumph that socialism was finally dead.
Today, however, the question of an alternative to capitalism is coming back with a vengeance, and with it the prospect of socialism.
The film must be seen in the context of recent discussions and publications about the GDR, and in particular the attempt to use the deaths at the Berlin Wall for propaganda purposes.
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Young people should see the film with a critical eye and ask themselves the following question: what freedom does capitalism offer?
5. Alabama teacher: “We need rank-and-file committees to bring us together in a collective to fight”
Longtime educator and founding member of the Alabama Rank-and-File Educators Committee
Clare sat down with the World Socialist Web Site to discuss the Trump administration’s
brutal assault on workers, immigrants, and democratic and social rights.
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Clare:
I’m a veteran, and it is completely against the UCMJ [Uniform Code of Military Justice ] for you to obey the orders of the commander who is going against the Constitution! Our oath is not to the president.
What Hegseth and Trump are doing is 100 percent against the Constitution. The military is not ever supposed to be used against American citizens. Trump is trying to establish control and turn this into a dictatorship, run by the oligarchy.
The Democrats haven’t done anything this whole time. When this happens, the people need to say no.
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Like Trump named it the “Department of War,” they could call this a state of emergency, and then we can’t have an election. That way, Trump stays in control. People are already losing their jobs because they said something against Charlie Kirk. There was a mass shooting the same day of children, but they don’t lower flags to half-mast for them, nor did the Minnesota state representative and her husband, who were assassinated—nothing was done.
We are facing a military dictatorship. They are deploying military into major American cities, which is against the law. And he’s doing it anyway. And nobody’s saying, ‘We won’t do this, because it’s against the law.’
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Look at Chicago. The Liar-in-Chief said he was going to get out the illegal criminals. But he’s only gone after hardworking immigrants who contribute to society with taxes (and NO, they don’t get Medicare, so JD Vance is a liar-in-training). And now they are going after citizens in Chicago. This is a deliberate and planned attack to turn the country into a war zone and just like in war...WE HAVE TO FIGHT BACK!
Second, we need a new party. The founding fathers didn’t even believe in a two-party system. Why are we doing it now?
Third, we must teach everyone that capitalism is the enemy. Why is our government rewarding CEOs who don’t contribute to society and vilifying people in need?
Fourth, we must get out of the nationalist mindset because we are a global community.
Fifth, we can only do this together. History has proven that together we can fight AND win! So it is past time to RESIST!!
6. Japanese ruling party chooses likely new right-wing prime minister
On Saturday, Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) elected Sanae Takaichi as its new president to replace outgoing leader and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who resigned last month. Parliament will be convened on October 15 for an extraordinary session during which Takaichi is set to be installed as Japan’s next prime minister.
The capitalist media has focused on the fact that Takaichi’s likely ascension to the premiership would make her Japan’s first female prime minister. This serves to distract from the fact that she represents the far-right of what is already a nationalistic and pro-war party.
Takaichi is a militarist and anti-China hawk. She was close to former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated in July 2022. Abe played a leading role in Japan’s remilitarization while in office between 2012 and 2020, effectively tearing up constitutional constraints on the military, attacking democratic rights and preparing to wage war overseas.
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Serious tensions have developed between Tokyo and Washington. Sections of the Japanese ruling class have reacted with hostility to Trump’s tariff demands, which include Japanese investment in the US of $550 billion, to be dispersed as Trump sees fit. Washington will also receive 90 percent of the profits. In exchange, Trump merely agreed to reduce tariffs on Japanese goods to 15 percent.
Takaichi has hinted at trying to reopen negotiations over this trade deal. Trump’s gangster-like approach to nominal allies has exposed the differences that exist as Washington and other imperialist countries attempt to redivide the world for the exploitation of resources and cheap labor.
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As tensions between “allies” grow, it is not out of the question that factions of the Japanese ruling class may decide that conflict and even war with the US is necessary to protect their own imperialist interests, just as they concluded in the 1930s.
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Paying for Tokyo’s war preparations and fiscal restructuring means a full-scale attack on the conditions of the working class, including increased taxes, cuts to social programs, reduced wages and job-slashing.
To deflect from this agenda, Takaichi has taken pages from the playbooks of Sanseito and the far-right in the US and Europe. During the leadership race, she denounced foreigners and suggested limiting the number of people entering Japan, declaring: “We need to rethink the policy of receiving large numbers of people every year whose culture and everything else are so different from ours.”
This racist agenda is meant to divide workers who face similar declining conditions both domestically and internationally, while creating a more nationalist and militarist atmosphere.
7. Trump plans to deny Social Security disability payments to hundreds of thousands of workers
The Trump administration is using the government shutdown not only to fire hundreds of thousands of federal workers and shut down entire departments but also to accelerate its plans to gut longstanding entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicare.
According to an article published by the Washington Post on Sunday, the Trump administration is planning to make it more difficult for older workers to qualify for Social Security disability payments, which currently provide monthly subsistence checks to 15 million Americans. The Post reports that this “is part of an overhaul of the federal safety net for poor, older and disabled people that could result in hundreds of thousands of people losing benefits, according to people familiar with the plans.”
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The $11 billion disability program is separate from Social Security’s retirement system. But tightening restrictions is part of a long-term drive to lower Social Security payments overall and eventually privatize what was once considered the untouchable “third rail of American politics.” Earlier this year, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described the creation of individual investment accounts—so-called “Trump Accounts”—as a “back door for privatizing Social Security.”
Monthly disability checks barely keep recipients out of abject poverty. According to state SSA data, denials have risen 3 percent in the current fiscal year. The two programs at issue are Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), which pays an average of $1,538 per month to workers injured or disabled before retirement age, and Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which provides about $800 per month to poor elderly and disabled people with little or no work history.
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At the same time, the Post reports, “Social Security is working on plans to rescind a Biden-era rule that expanded SSI eligibility for recipients who live with relatives or roommates receiving help from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or other public assistance.” Restoring stricter standards could roll back payments for about 400,000 Americans, cutting some benefits by a third or more.
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The Social Security Act of 1935, which established the first-ever federal system of old-age benefits, was a central reform of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. It was enacted amid semi-insurrectional upheavals of the working class—general strikes in San Francisco, Toledo and Minneapolis, and the sit-down strikes that soon erupted in Flint and other industrial centers. Confronted with a potentially revolutionary movement, Roosevelt pushed through reforms to preserve capitalist rule, later remarking to aides that he had “saved capitalism from the capitalists.”
Both disability programs were later extensions of that act, established under Republican administrations, under conditions of rising struggles by what was once the labor and civil rights movements. Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) was created in 1956 under Dwight Eisenhower, initially for workers aged 50–64 who were permanently disabled and had earned sufficient work credits. Supplemental Security Income (SSI) was established in 1972, as part of the Social Security Amendments under the Nixon administration, to provide a minimum guaranteed income for low-income individuals who were aged, blind or disabled, regardless of work history. Over the decades, periodic “reforms” by both parties—medical reviews, “trial work” rules and benefit freezes—have steadily eroded these protections.
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The first prerequisite for defending these rights is a complete break with the Democratic Party and the trade union bureaucracy, which serve the same financial oligarchy as Trump. The Democrats, terrified of an independent movement from below, are seeking a compromise to reopen the government and restore “stability” for Wall Street, while the unions police the workforce and block any strike action.
What is required is the formation of new democratic organizations of struggle—rank-and-file committees of workers in every factory, office and federal workplace—to coordinate opposition across industries and mobilize the immense social power of the working class. Through these committees, workers can fight to defend jobs, pensions and social programs and prepare a political general strike to drive Trump and his fascist cabal from office.
8. Global protests continue over Israel’s seizure of Sumud flotilla
The Israeli regime’s criminal interception of the Sumud flotilla seeking to deliver aid to Gaza provoked protests around the world over the weekend. Millions of people, including one million in Rome, took to the streets in opposition to the genocide against the Palestinians and Israel’s deportation of over 400 flotilla activists after their ships and cargoes were violently seized.
The protest in Rome took place the day after a one-day national strike involving 2 million workers was organised across Italy by the General Confederation of Labour (CGIL) and other trade unions.
Italy’s fascistic government under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni declared the strike “illegal” and threatened participants with fines. However, the mass support for the Palestinians, which has included the repeated blocking of ports by dockworkers to prevent ships destined for Israel from loading cargo and departing, has given vent to widespread hatred of US President Donald Trump’s closest European ally.
Another 250,000 marched through Amsterdam Sunday to denounce the seizure of the flotilla’s ships and the Dutch government’s complicity in arms shipments to Israel.
In Spain, major protests were held Saturday in Barcelona and Madrid, fueled by Israel’s detention of over 40 Spanish activists in the flotilla. Demonstrators in Barcelona, where police underestimated a total of 70,000 participants, carried signs including “Stop the genocide” and “hands off the flotilla.”
One protestor said, “How is it possible that we are witnessing a genocide happening live after what we [as Europe] experienced in the 1940s? Now nobody can say they didn’t know what was happening.”
Over 3,000 people joined a demonstration in Lisbon, Portugal, three of whose citizens were detained by Israel. Organisers had expected only 500 to participate.
Major protests denouncing the interception of the flotilla were also reported from Kolkata, India, and Lahore, Pakistan. In Dublin, Ireland, the 17th national march for Palestine since October 2023—when Israel’s imperialist-backed genocide in Gaza began—drew some 25,000 people to the streets. Among those detained by Israel, 16 came from Ireland.
In Sofia, Bulgaria, protesters carried placards declaring, “Gaza: starvation is a weapon of war” and “Gaza is the biggest graveyard of children.” Thousands of people also took part in marches in Turkey, Morocco, and Tunisia.
Thousands protested on Sunday in Athens, Greece, following a 24-hour strike on Friday in solidarity with the Gaza flotilla at the port of Piraeus.
In London, police arrested close to 500 people because they declared their support for the proscribed group Palestine Action. Defend Our Juries, which organized the protest, said that over 1,000 participated in the demonstration, the latest in a series of protests since Keir Starmer’s Labour government used anti-terror legislation to criminalize the activist group and make even a declaration of support for it a criminal offense.
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Prominent climate and anti-genocide activist Greta Thunberg told Swedish authorities that she was dehydrated and left with inadequate food. She had developed rashes, which she suspects were caused by bedbugs.
Turkish activist Ersin Çelik said that at the detention center “They dragged little Greta by her hair before our eyes, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag. They did everything imaginable to her, as a warning to others.” She was “paraded like a trophy”, wrapped in the Israeli flag, said journalist Lorenzo D’Agostino.
The radicalization of millions of workers and young people throughout the world produced by two years of genocide has sharply exposed the gulf separating the sentiments of the vast majority of the population from all major governments.
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Israel has only been able to act so aggressively because it enjoys the unrestrained support of the American and European imperialists, who have sent the Zionist regime unlimited supplies of weaponry and defended its war crimes. Now, Trump has proposed a “peace plan” that robs the Palestinians of their democratic rights and proposes setting up a colonial regime in Gaza that will facilitate the ethnic cleansing or extermination of those Palestinians who remain.
As the World Socialist Web Site emphasized in a recent perspective, everything depends on the independent political intervention of the working class to stop the genocide.
What workers need are new organizations under their control—rank-and-file committees—so they can plan and direct a mass movement capable of stopping the machinery of imperialist war and genocide in its tracks. Workers in logistics, transportation, and manufacturing, as well as others throughout all economic sectors, should take up this fight with the following demands:
• An immediate halt to shipment of all weapons to Israel.
• The boycott of all trade and other economic activity with Israel.
• US, European and other corporations assisting Israel in carrying out the genocide must be indicted and prosecuted.
• The arrest of Israeli officials for war crimes.
• The end of repression of the opposition to the Gaza genocide.
• The immediate and unhindered access to Gaza for the supply of aid via all available land crossings and the ending of the 18-year-old naval blockade.
These demands must be linked with the broader movement already developing in the working class internationally against austerity, war, and the destruction of jobs. The same criminal governments that funnel weapons of death to the Zionist regime are erecting dictatorial forms of rule at home to suppress popular opposition to oligarchic rule, military rearmament, and world war.
The fight to stop the genocide necessarily requires a movement committed to ousting the financial oligarchy from power and the overturn of capitalism, the root cause of imperialist barbarism that finds its most appalling expression in Gaza. This means setting out to establish workers’ power to carry through the socialist transformation of society.
9. Italy: Mass protests and general strike over Gaza signal mounting working-class opposition to war and authoritarian rule
One of the centers the global protests over Israel’s seizure of the Sumud flotilla is Italy. On Saturday, October 4, Rome witnessed a one million strong pro-Palestinian demonstration following Friday’s nationwide general strike that had already paralyzed much of the country. The back-to-back eruptions mark the most significant wave of working-class and popular opposition in Italy in decades—an unmistakable signal of growing resistance to imperialist war, the genocide in Gaza, and the fascistic policies of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government.
The immediate trigger for the strike wave was the Israeli navy’s violent interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla, a convoy carrying humanitarian aid and international activists seeking to break the blockade of Gaza. Among those seized were four Italian opposition politicians—from the Greens and Left Alliance (AVS) and the Five Star Movement—whose continued detention has provoked outrage across the country.
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir boasted that flotilla members would be “treated like terrorists,” a statement that epitomizes the barbarism of the Netanyahu regime and its imperialist backers.
In response, dockworkers in Genoa, Livorno, Ancona, and other ports took direct action, refusing to load or unload ships carrying weapons bound for Israel. Their courageous stand ignited an outpouring of solidarity and forced Italy’s largest union federations, CGIL and USB, to call the October 3 general strike despite their own efforts to avoid confrontation. It was compelled from below by rank-and-file pressure, revealing a powerful upsurge of anti-war sentiment in the working class.
Friday’s strike halted large sections of economic and social life. According to union figures, more than two million workers and youth participated in over 100 cities. Public transport in Milan, Rome, and Naples stopped almost entirely. Flights were grounded in Bari, schools and universities closed nationwide, and hospitals ran with minimal staffing.
In Rome, 300,000 people marched from Piazza Vittorio to Porta Maggiore, their banners demanding “Freedom for Gaza” and “Stop Italy’s complicity in genocide.” In Bologna, 100,000 blocked both the A14 motorway and the city’s ring road before police attacked with tear gas, arresting two. Genoa saw 40,000 join demonstrations recalling the militant port strikes of the 1960s and 1970s. Turin, Palermo, and cities across Calabria witnessed tens of thousands more.
Even prisoners in Bologna’s Dozza prison symbolically joined the strike by refusing wages and privileges for the day, a striking expression of the movement’s reach across all layers of society.
Saturday’s massive protest in Rome – over one million converging again on the capital’s historic center – confirmed that the movement is spreading and deepening.*****
Meloni’s so-called “Gandhi law”, passed earlier this year under the guise of “non-violence,” drastically curtails the right to protest by criminalizing spontaneous demonstrations and granting police wide powers to disperse gatherings. Coupled with the Commission on the Right to Strike, which arbitrarily declares industrial actions “illegitimate,” these measures have stripped workers of basic democratic rights.
While the general strike expressed the fighting spirit of workers, its organization and outcome were deliberately restricted by the union bureaucracy and its Stalinist and pseudo-left supporters. While the government prepares for war, declaring strikes and protests illegal, the unions are not mobilizing the working class to bring down Meloni, but instead pleading for the “right” to stage a mere protest. CGIL leader Maurizio Landini invoked Italy’s 1990 Law 146, claiming the action was justified as an “exceptional measure to protect public health and safety.”
Pseudo-left parties and opposition figures—Elly Schlein of the Democratic Party (PD), Nicola Fratoianni of the Green and Left Alliance (AVS), and Giuseppe Conte of the Five Star Movement (M5S)—sought to posture as defenders of democracy and peace. Yet these same forces share political responsibility for Italy’s participation in NATO wars and for the erosion of social and democratic rights. The PD’s Jobs Act gutted labor protections, while M5S endorsed anti-immigrant decrees and austerity budgets when in power.
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The strikes and protests of October 3–4 demonstrate that the working class is emerging as the decisive social force against war and reaction. Whatever the unions’ maneuvers, a general strike involving millions over the Gaza genocide represents a historic turning point. It confirms the analysis advanced by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI): that the fight against imperialist war must be waged through the independent mobilization of the working class on a socialist program.
10. Austin, Texas to close 13 schools, sell corporate sponsorships to close funding gap
Austin Independent School District (AISD) released a proposal Friday to close 13 schools, causing panic and anger among parents and school teachers. The plan includes 11 elementary schools and two middle schools. The final vote on the school closure plan is set to take place on November 20.
The announcement is part of a wave of school closures across both Texas and the United States. Virtually every major school district in America is operating with significant deficits, with a major factor being the ending of federal funding both under Trump and under Biden, who ended supplemental COVID funding for schools.
In Texas itself, closures are either being planned or are already underway in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and a number of smaller districts in addition to Austin. On a national level, recent school closures have taken place in both large and small districts, including Philadelphia and Chicago. New closures are also being planned in the latter city, with similar closures under discussion in St. Louis, Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Norfolk, Virginia and numerous smaller districts throughout the country.
The same week that the Austin closure was announced, the school district in nearby Leander made national and international headlines for its cancellation of 40 books used in high school English classes. The list includes classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Les Miserables, and The Devil’s Arithmetic, a 1988 novel about the Holocaust. The district used AI software to ban so-called DEI-related school materials in compliance with Texas Senate Bill 12, passed in September.
The Austin closures are expected to save a mere $20 million a year for the district, which will be almost entirely comprised of teacher layoffs. Thus, the closures not only have the effect of slashing expenditures, but serve to intimidate remaining teachers to toe the line and keep silent about low salaries and benefits, or ongoing attacks on civil rights by the Trump administration, supported by Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
The district is also seeking to increase revenues through a new name-sponsoring program in which private enterprises may purchase naming rights for district facilities.
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In response to the closure announcement, Education Austin, the district’s teachers union, released a statement which stated, “We are sad that many communities will be impacted,” and urged “the district to work with us, and with employees and families to make a plan that works for everyone in Austin.”
The union has made no efforts to mobilize teachers to stop the closures or the Abbott administration’s plans to eviscerate public education more generally. Education Austin president Ken Zarifis shrugged off the ongoing coup by the Trump administration when he declared, “It’s all about local. That’s all that matters to me. I can’t do a damn thing about national stuff.”
This sums up the trade union bureaucracy’s refusal to do anything to mobilize their members against Trump.
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) together have more than 4.8 million members. But the union heads fear that a mass movement of workers, which could break free of the Democratic Party, would put at risk their comfortable upper-middle-class lifestyles gained from decades of suppressing workers’ struggles.
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The situation urgently requires that teachers organize to defend public education from being starved of funding and converted to centers of propaganda. This is a critical element in a broader movement of the working class against Trump and the corporate oligarchs he serves.
Teachers, parents and workers must form their own rank-and-file committees to organize such a struggle outside of the trade union bureaucracy. These committees will link up struggles against school closures in Austin with those in Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, Boston and around the rest of the country and the rest of the world.
11. Protests denounce New Zealand government’s whitewashing of Israel’s genocide
Thousands of people joined protests in New Zealand last week against the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the right-wing coalition government’s whitewashing of the Netanyahu regime.
Demonstrations were held in Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin, as the two-year anniversary of Israel’s criminal onslaught against the Gaza Strip approaches.
Protesters expressed outrage over Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ speech to the United Nations General Assembly, in which he refused to recognize Palestine and did not condemn Israel’s mass slaughter and starvation of hundreds of thousands of people.
The “recognition” announcements by countries such as the UK and Australia were a cynical fraud, made by governments seeking to cover up their ongoing material and political support for the genocide.
Peters’ rejection of even this phony step was intended to signal his government's lockstep alignment with US imperialism, which is responding to its historic economic crisis by violently carving up the Middle East, intensifying the NATO war against Russia over Ukraine, and accelerating preparations for war against China.
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The NZ rallies last week also voiced solidarity with members of the Global Sumud Flotilla, who were kidnapped by Israel and prevented from delivering aid to Gaza. Among the 500 people detained by Israeli forces are three New Zealand activists, Rana Hamida, Youssef Sammour and 18-year-old Samuel Leason.
In Dunedin on October 3, around 200 people protested at Port Otago where Minister Peters was attending the opening of an infrastructure project. In response, Peters defended Israel’s criminal interception of the flotilla, telling the New Zealand Herald: “We told them not to go. They’re not being abducted, they’ve not been kidnapped, they’ll be put on a plane and sent home.”
The next day, hundreds gathered at Aotea Square in Auckland, while in Wellington more than 3,000 people marched, despite torrential rain, from the Pukeahu National War Memorial Park to the waterfront.
The World Socialist Web Site spoke with some of those attending the Wellington march.
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The popular anger over the Gaza genocide has not abated over the past two years. Yet the mass, worldwide protests have been unable to stop the Zionist regime in Israel and its imperialist backers from carrying out the worst atrocity of the 21st century.
The only way to stop the US-Israeli war machine is through the mobilization of the international working class, including a campaign of strikes and other actions to shut down weapons production and shipments. This movement must be guided by a socialist program, linking the fight against the genocide and the developing world war with the struggle to end capitalism, which is the root cause of war and colonial oppression.
12. Striking Canada Post workers speak out from picket lines in Ontario and Quebec
More than 55,000 Canada Post workers are continuing their nationwide strike, which erupted with rank-and-file walkouts September 25. The urban and rural letter carriers, sorting plant workers, mail delivery truck drivers and post office clerks are challenging the drive of Canada Post, the federal Liberal government and corporate Canada to dismantle postal delivery as a public service and slash tens of thousands of full-time jobs.
Canada Post management claims its “transformation” plan is necessary to return the Crown Corporation to “profitability.” Prime Minister and former central banker Mark Carney agrees, having declared the postal service to be “unviable” in its current form. The government’s support for vicious attacks on postal workers goes hand in hand with austerity across the board, increased military spending, and corporate subsidies.
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Postal workers were on the picket line for a month last November and December. Then, the government ordered them back to work, under a newly “reinterpreted” clause in Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code, unilaterally banning the strike without even the democratic fig-leaf of a parliamentary vote. Support to defy the government was widespread, but the CUPW overrode this sentiment and connived with the government to enforce the back-to-work order.
13. United States: El Segundo refinery fire the product of bipartisan dismantling of safety regulations
On the night of October 2–3, 2025, the Chevron refinery in El Segundo exploded in flames that lit up the sky across the South Bay. Residents described the blast as a “mini-quake”; a vivid red glow bathed the horizon; and the smoke plume could be seen for miles.
Although Chevron claims there were no fatalities, at least one worker was injured. The blaze is now under regulatory and internal scrutiny, with Chevron promising to submit a full failure analysis within 30 days.
Yet this is far from an isolated accident. The fire is the culmination of years of negligence, marked by inadequate oversight and a festering pattern of violations that Chevron has long been allowed to build.
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Beyond internal violations, the broader environmental footprint of the facility looms large. A 2023 environmental analysis ranked Chevron El Segundo as the worst among some 80 US refineries for its discharges of nitrogen and selenium into surrounding waters (notably Santa Monica Bay). These pollutants pose chronic hazards: endocrine disruption, carcinogenic risk, damage to marine ecosystems, and cumulative exposure burdens on adjacent communities.
Locally, residents have long complained of sulfurous odors, nausea, headaches, eye and throat irritation—symptoms common near refineries and chemical plants. The City of El Segundo maintains an “Odor / Environmental Concerns” portal, regularly fielding calls from neighbors who contend that monitoring systems underreport real exposures.
Los Angeles County Department of Public Health concedes that while measured hydrogen sulfide levels at present do not appear to be high enough for long-term harm, they acknowledge that these episodic odors can cause short‐term symptoms.
This convergence of environmental and safety failings demonstrates that the October fire was the manifestation of a system that allows the oil and gas industry to defy accountability.
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California has long been held up as a model of progressive regulation, but this is a mirage. Under successive Democratic administrations, the state has professed climate ambitions and pollution controls while simultaneously starving regulatory agencies of the resources necessary to enforce them.
Cal/OSHA, the state’s workplace safety body, is chronically underfunded, understaffed, and incapable of fulfilling even its most basic mandate: to inspect worksites, enforce rules, and protect vulnerable workers. This was exposed by a recent state audit that spelled out the agency’s state of profound decay and dysfunction.
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The Democratic Party’s performative “green” agenda, featuring cap-and-trade markets, subsidies for corn ethanol, or electric vehicle mandates, masks the fact that in reality regulation to rein in fossil capital has been hollowed out from within.
Governor Gavin Newsom has signed SB 237, granting Kern County authority to rubber-stamp up to 2,000 new oil wells every year until 2036. Cloaked in the language of “fuel stability” and “consumer protection,” the legislation is designed to appease corporate energy interests under the guise of environmental pragmatism.
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The conditions in El Segundo are replicated in countless industrial corridors nationwide:
along Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley,” with some of the highest cancer rates in the United States due to the dense concentration of petrochemical plants;
in Houston’s Ship Channel, where refineries and chemical complexes emit benzene, formaldehyde, and other carcinogens into surrounding working class neighborhoods;
in East Chicago, Indiana, where residents still live amid lead and arsenic contamination from decades of industrial dumping;
in Richmond, California, where Chevron’s other massive refinery has repeatedly released toxic smoke and flaring gases over densely populated communities.
Epidemiological studies across the US have shown higher rates of lung, bladder, breast, colon, and lymphatic cancers among residents living within 5–10 miles of refineries (versus those farther away). Such patterns point to the plausibility that decades of low-level emissions, episodic flares, VOC releases, and odor events contribute to cumulative health burdens.
Now, with this fire, the danger is acute. Toxic plumes, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs), sulfur compounds, particulate matter, spread across neighborhoods. But because monitoring is partial and reporting delayed, the precise exposure pathways will remain murky. Chevron reapplies PR assurances; regulators issue perfunctory statements; and the community is left to bear the risk.
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The time is more than ripe to build a movement that demands social ownership of energy, environmental protection, and unfettered power for workers and communities to govern the industries that threaten their lives.
14. Almost 500 anti-genocide activists arrested as Starmer government moves to ban protests outright
London’s Metropolitan Police arrested another 492 people over the weekend after a protest Saturday in Trafalgar Square, as the Starmer government accelerated its crackdown on opposition to the Gaza genocide.
The entirely peaceful protest was held to oppose the proscription of Palestine Action. It was organized by Defend Our Juries and attended by over 1,000 people. Of the arrests, 488 were for holding up signs declaring, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”.
Police also arrested five members of a group who displayed a massive banner off Westminster Bridge in front of the Houses of Parliament, carrying the same statement.
The youngest arrested was 18 years old, and the eldest 89. The Met have said 297 people remain in custody and the rest have been bailed.
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Following mass arrests at previous DOJ-organized “Lift The Ban” protests in July, August and September, including 857 on September 6, the total arrested for challenging the Palestine Action proscription now stands at almost 2,200.
This Saturday’s protests took place after the killing of two Jewish worshippers and injuries suffered by three others as the result of a terrorist attack on a synagogue in Manchester on Thursday. The attacker stabbed one of the congregation to death and police killed another by gun shot as they attempted to stop the assailant.
The government is seeking to use the tragedy to intensify its law-and-order agenda, with ministers—including Prime Minister Keir Starmer—and the police calling on protesters not to demonstrate over Gaza out of respect for the dead. This included demands not only that DOJ call of their scheduled Saturday protest, but that the Palestine Coalition call off a national demonstration on October 11 expected to be attended by hundreds of thousands to mark the second anniversary of the genocide and the destruction of Gaza.
Two people lost their lives and three others were seriously injured in the terrible events in Manchester. But no respect or dignity was to be afforded to the 53 people known to have been killed in Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on the same day. They were among a total of 480 deaths listed by the Gaza Health Ministry and compiled by the United Nations just for the week to October 2.
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Moreover, in the 48 hours from the evening of October 1, Israel carried out an act of piracy, illegally boarding more than 40 vessels and detaining around 500 humanitarian activists in the Global Sumud Flotilla. Numerous reports attested to the brutal treatment they suffered at the hands of the IDF, including being forced to drink from toilets. Renowned anti-genocide activist Greta Thunberg was forced to kiss the Israeli flag.
Starmer’s Labour government refused to condemn Israel’s latest act of banditry, despite there being several social democratic and “center-left” politicians on board with the flotilla.
Moves to force organizers to cancel protests against the genocide are the opening salvo in a broader assault on democratic rights. On Sunday, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced that police will be given new powers to impose conditions on protests and, in an unprecedented attack on the freedom of assembly, to ban them outright.
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Standing behind the Starmer government and the Labour Party in seeking to criminalize all opposition to the genocide in Gaza are far-right Zionists and their co-thinkers, such as the fascist Tommy Robinson. On Saturday, Robinson announced that he will travel to Israel later this month at the invite of its Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli—in what amounts to a state visit—where he will be fêted by the Netanyahu government.
The offensive against protesters in Britain by a government up to its neck in Israel’s genocide and myriad war crimes is part of a global turn to police state measures. In the United States, the Trump administration has weaponised the killing of the fascist operative Charlie Kirk to ramp up its plans to impose a presidential dictatorship, claiming he was the victim of left-wing violence.
Starmer, the former human rights lawyer turned right-wing law and order zealot, is mounting his own offensive against anti-genocide protests and the left.
Writing an opinion piece published in the Jewish Chronicle and Jewish News, he pontificates that whereas “Peaceful protest is a cornerstone of our democracy—and there is justified concern about the suffering in Gaza, an unspecified “minority have used these protests as a pretext for stoking antisemitic tropes” and they should be called off so as not “to stoke tension and cause further pain” for Britain’s Jews.
15. Spiralling Gen Z protests in Morocco and Madagascar fuelled by social inequality
Protests have been ongoing since September 27 in Morocco, as young people have taken to the streets all over the country accusing the government of neglecting health care and education while prioritizing funding for the 2030 FIFA World Cup, which it is to host.
Demonstrators chanted “Stadiums are here, but where are the hospitals?” They called for education and health reforms and an end to corruption.
The protests were reportedly sparked by the deaths of eight pregnant women in 10 days following C-section operations at a public hospital in the southwestern city of Agadir. They reflect the widespread anger over worsening social conditions that have prompted tens of thousands to take hazardous migration routes to Europe. A recent survey found that one third would like to emigrate, with or without the necessary visas.
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Violence broke out in several cities, especially in areas of high unemployment and poor public and social services. In Sale, the capital’s impoverished twin city, a bank was set on fire. Local media outlets and videos on social media showed protesters hurling rocks and setting vehicles ablaze.
On Wednesday, the police stepped up repression, killing three people and injuring hundreds more. In eastern Morocco’s largest city, Oujda, one person was injured when a police vehicle rammed into demonstrators. The Interior Ministry claimed that 263 police officers and 23 civilians had been injured. The police arrested a further 400 people, with more than 130 due to stand trial.
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The protest movement is Morocco’s most significant since the mass demonstrations during the Arab Spring in 2011 calling for a boycott of the constitutional referendum to be held in July that year—which included many Islamist activists and sympathisers close to the Justice and Development Party—and the months-long protest movement in the Rif region in the north of the country in 2016-2017.
None of the political parties have much popular support. They are unable to address the social and economic issues confronting the mass of the population. A 2025 World Economic Forum report highlighted Morocco’s economic problems, citing severe water shortages, exacerbated by climate change, as one of the most significant threats.
Also of concern was inflation, leading to widespread poverty and income inequality, made worse by huge disparities in wealth distribution. More than one third of Morocco’s young people are without work. Some 40 percent of Moroccans labour with primitive tools and animal-drawn ploughs—many in full view of the new Casablanca-Tangier bullet trains—on farms that account for only 15-17 percent of GDP, barely scratching a living.
While the government has focused on mega infrastructure projects, including the bullet train, tourist resorts and mining projects that consume vast quantities of water, linked to the country’s ruling elite and royal family, it has spent little on basic infrastructure for workers, peasants and their families.
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Similar Gen Z protests have broken out in Madagascar. Public anger over chronic power and water supply shortages that have led to hours-long daily outages by the state-owned utility company exploded following the arrest on 25 September of two leading city politicians, who had planned a demonstration in the capital, Antananarivo. Their call to take to the streets was taken up by civil society groups and the Gen Z Mada formation, a youth-led online movement.
The demonstrations spread to other towns and cities across the island, with activists forming a committee to organise further demonstrations following a meeting between Gen Z Mada, civil society groups and local politicians. Protesters denounced the blackouts, blaming rampant corruption in the power company, and accused the government of failing to guarantee basic rights.
President Andry Rajoelina responded by deploying the security forces across Antananarivo and other major cities, with police using tear gas and water cannon to disperse protesters. According to the UN, at least 22 people have been killed in violent clashes. The capital has been subject to a dusk-to-dawn curfew after reports of violence and looting, including the torching of the finance ministry’s offices. Schools were closed last week.
As the protest movement gained momentum, some of the trade unions, including the largest, the Malagasy Trade Union Solidarity, have formally backed the youth-led movement. Some civil society organisations have called for the Church to lead talks to “prevent Madagascar from sinking into chaos or civil war”.
Last Monday, Rajoelina sacked his government, accusing some of his ministers of failing to do their job properly, and invited dialogue. At the end of the week, he posted on his X account calling for calm, promised that the World Bank would fund the investment needed to expand the electricity supply and pledged to support businesses affected by looting.
None of this has assuaged public anger. Some organisers said they were disappointed by Rajoelina’s speech and demanded an apology from him and the former prime minister, and the dismissal of Antananarivo’s mayor.
Others waved placards with messages such as “We need water, we need electricity, Rajoelina out”. They said they would continue their fight for Rajoelina’s resignation and radical reforms. These include the dissolution of parliament, the replacement of constitutional court judges and electoral commission members and the rooting out of corruption surrounding the president and his circle of businessmen.
These protests are the largest the Indian Ocean island has seen since the 2009 demonstrations against the elected president, Marc Ravalomanana, that led indirectly to the military coup that ultimately brought Rajoelina to power for the first time.
Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world. A massive 80 percent of its 32 million population live below the poverty line. Only about one-third of its people have access to electricity.
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These terrible conditions fuelling mass anger and discontent are found internationally. They are not simply the product of corruption, but of capitalism: the production of goods for private profit and their distribution by the market.
Resolving these problems means the international working class undertaking a conscious political struggle to expropriate the capitalist class, take state power, and run economic life based on social need not private profit and under the democratic control of workers. Workers and young people should contact the World Socialist Web Site and the International Committee of the Fourth International, which is the only organization that fights for this perspective.
16. Renewed general strike in Greece against the 13-hour day
Last Wednesday, October 1, another general strike brought the whole of Greece to a standstill. Protests took place in 73 cities. With the 24-hour walkout, workers and employees were protesting against the new labour law introduced by the right-wing government under Nea Dimokratia (ND, New Democracy), which provides for longer working hours of up to 13 hours a day and further attacks on working conditions.
Doctors and hospital staff, teachers, taxi drivers, urban transit and rail workers, as well as seafarers and dockworkers took part in the strike. Not only trains but also ferries came to a halt, temporarily cutting the islands off from the mainland.
Demonstrators also expressed solidarity with Panos Routsis, who has been on hunger strike since September 15. His son died in the Tempi rail disaster in early 2023, the exact circumstances of which have been covered up by the state to this day. He is now demanding the exhumation of his son’s remains and a forensic examination to determine the actual cause of death. The Tempi catastrophe, with 57 victims, triggered the largest mass protests in Greece since the financial crisis beginning in 2009.
*****
In Greece, this is already the fourth general strike this year. In February, mass protests broke out on the second anniversary of the Tempi train disaster; in April there followed a general strike for higher wages; and at the end of August public-sector workers struck against a tightening of disciplinary law and the new labor act.
Only ADEDY, the umbrella federation of public-sector unions, had called the last strike. On Wednesday, the private-sector General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE) also joined in, calling for a reduction of the workweek to 37.5 hours.
The new labour law is designed to intensify capitalist exploitation and cement it legally. As the World Socialist Web Site has shown, most Greeks already have to hold down two jobs or more to make ends meet. The official abolition of the eight-hour day legalizes the catastrophic working conditions that already exist and lead to chronic overwork and a lack of workplace safety.
The 13-hour day in Greece could open the floodgates for similar labor laws across Europe. In Germany, Chancellor Friedrich Merz is already calling for longer working hours and is taking an axe to the welfare state. Greece, where the European Union has wrought social devastation in recent years, is to serve as a testing ground for other countries.
But as resistance in the working class to these social attacks grows, the unions are trying to contain, control and restrict it.
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At the head of the union confederations stand long-time functionaries of the establishment parties, who for years have enforced austerity measures: Apostolos Mousios, head of ADEDY in the public sector, belongs to the ND-aligned union faction DAKE; Giannis Panagopoulos, the chair of GSEE, is a member of the social-democratic faction PASKE.
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Not a word from these politicians should be taken at face value. Both parties—Pasok as well as Syriza—implemented the EU and International Monetary Fund austerity diktats during their time in previous governments, and thus prepared the ground for the right-wing ND to come to power. Today, they pose as critics and opposition; tomorrow, they would carry out exactly the same social attacks as ND Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis because they serve the same interests of Greek and international capital.
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As in the August strike, this time a Greek court also banned the strike by air-traffic controllers and other aviation employees in order to protect the airlines’ profits. The ban affected the unions of air-traffic controllers (EEEKE), the civil aviation service (OSYPA) and aviation meteorologists (ENIMAEK).
In previous years, too, the government repeatedly prevented air-traffic controllers’ strikes by court order. Yet the extension of working hours is especially disastrous for airport personnel, who already work under enormous time pressure and heavy strain. Air-traffic controllers, who coordinate and monitor air traffic at airports and in national airspace, play a central role in flight safety. If they make mistakes because of work overload, dangerous air accidents are bound to happen. The tightening of the law immediately puts human lives at risk in this area.
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Air-traffic controllers—like other workers in Greece—must build new fighting bodies: rank-and-file action committees independent of the pro-capitalist parties and unions, linked up with workers across Europe and worldwide through the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC).
17. How the GPU Murdered Leon Trotsky
This lecture, latest in a special series, by Andrea Peters examines Stalin’s campaign to murder Leon Trotsky—tracing the GPU’s infiltration, the failed Siqueiros raid, and Ramon Mercader’s successful 1940 assassination—while situating Trotsky’s final theoretical battles and enduring revolutionary legacy amid the approach of world war.
18. Turkey: The Historical and International Foundations of the Sosyalist Eşitlik Partisi – Dördüncü Enternasyonal (Socialist Equality Party – Fourth International)
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 the latest published sections of a total of 33:
13. Stalinism’s Betrayal of the Postwar Revolutionary Upsurge
14. The 1949 Chinese Revolution
15. The Establishment of Israel
19. Demand the freedom of Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist Bogdan Syrotiuk!
The International Committee of the Fourth International and the World Socialist Web Site have initiated a global campaign to demand the immediate release of Bogdan Syrotiuk. The fight for Bogdan’s freedom is an essential component of the struggle against imperialist war, genocide, dictatorship and fascism.
