Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. The Gen Z protests and the struggle for the United Socialist States of Africa
"Y'en a marre" *
One hundred and fifty years after the imperialist partition of Africa, and six decades after the flags of formal independence were first raised, the continent is a social powder keg.
Mass protests in Tanzania have shattered the myth of a peaceful land of safaris, idyllic beaches, and capitalist stability. Over the past week, hundreds of thousands of youth have poured into the streets to denounce the fraudulent election organized by President Samia Suluhu Hassan and her ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (Party of the Revolution, CCM). Defying curfews, internet shutdowns, live ammunition, tear gas and the deployment of the army, they have turned what the regime hoped would be an easy stage-managed contest into a mass rebellion. Reports indicate that hundreds of protestors have been killed.
This social explosion is part of a broader wave of radicalization sweeping the former colonial countries. Over the past year and a half, tens of millions have taken to the streets: in Kenya, Angola and Nigeria against tax hikes and International Monetary Fund (IMF)-imposed austerity, in Cameroon, Mozambique and Tanzania against rigged elections and police repression, in Morocco against the neglect of health care and education while the state pours resources into football stadiums; and in Madagascar and South Africa against corruption and chronic shortages of power and water. Similar protests against grinding poverty and inequality have erupted in Bangladesh, Nepal and Peru.
Mass protests have also erupted within the imperialist centers, objectively refuting the claims of Third Worldist and Pan-Africanist tendencies that no revolutionary struggle could emerge there. In the US, seven million people demonstrated against the Trump regime and its attempt to establish a fascist dictatorship. Across Europe, millions have joined strikes and mass demonstrations against the Western-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Significantly, the new wave of protests across Africa is beginning to extend beyond the borders drawn up by European imperialism in the 1884-1885 Berlin Conference. On Tanzania’s borders, demonstrators from neighboring Malawi and Kenya attacked border posts, clashed with police and broke through to support protestors. Last year, during mass protests in Mozambique, South Africa closed its main border with Mozambique and ordered police to fire rubber bullets at demonstrators attempting to enter. Across the continent, a growing consciousness is emerging that these are not separate national crises but expressions of a common struggle.
At the forefront of these struggles stands a new generation. Born between the late 1990s and early 2010s, Gen-Z has been radicalized by unbearable social inequality. They were born into a world shaped by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and grew up amid NATO’s destruction of Libya and endless regional conflicts like the Congo Wars that left millions of dead. Their formative years have been marked by the financial crash of 2008, the pandemic of 2020, and accelerating climate change disasters. They come of age in a world haunted by the genocide in Gaza, preparations for war against Russia and China, and the normalization of fascist politics across the globe, personified by US President Trump.
Africa’s Generation Z, with a median age of just nineteen, has grown up in the poorest continent in the world, with about one third of its population, some 400 million people, living below the international poverty line of US$2.15 per day. Despite its vast mineral wealth, Africa accounts for two thirds of the world’s people in extreme poverty. More than one in fifteen children die before their fifth birthday, and one in 36 women dies from childbirth-related causes. Only two thirds of adults are literate, and barely six percent of young people obtain a tertiary education. Every year, more than ten million enter labor markets with no jobs, forcing many into informal employment, precarious hustling and despair. The myth of “Africa rising” has become a sick joke.
*****
The radicalization now unfolding among youth and workers will remain politically unarmed if it does not recognize itself as part of a historical class struggle. The essential question is not one of generational revolt but of class and state power. The issue posed by these movements is the same that confronted every previous revolution: which class will rule society.
*****
The realization of socialism must be based on the same objective reality of a global economy and of the international character of the working class. African workers must strive to seize power and form their own state, offering leadership to the rural masses. But the success of a socialist revolution, even if begun in a single country, demands that it is spread to neighboring countries, and it can only be completed on the world arena.
In Africa, this truth has been vindicated in the negative, through immense bloodshed. Nothing exposes this more than the former national liberation movements like the ANC, FRELIMO, MPLA, ZANU-PF, CCM, SWAPO, and others that have been transformed into instruments of class oppression. They preserved the same colonial state machinery and class structure they claimed to have overthrown. Their economies remained chained to the demands of foreign capital through debt, trade and the plunder of raw materials. Out of this emerged the new African bourgeoisie that became the naked political agent of the imperialist governments, transnational corporations and banks.
Without consciously drawing from these experiences, today’s Gen-Z struggles will be condemned to cycles of protest without direction: prey to new demagogues peddling promises of democratic reform, and to the political co-option of a few. Recent experiences across the continent stand as a warning.
*****
The experiences unfolding across Africa brings to the fore the central problem of every revolutionary movement: leadership. The courage of the youth must find conscious political direction in the building of a revolutionary Trotskyist movement.
*****
Africa’s governments are trapped in a catastrophic debt spiral. Encouraged by the IMF, the World Bank and Western investors to issue Eurobonds during the period of cheap credit, they face rising global interest rates and the shocks of the Covid-19 pandemic and the NATO war against Russia, compounded by Trump’s tariffs. Over twenty African countries are already in or near default. Debt servicing consumes more than half of many national budgets, forcing savage cuts to education, health care and wages in order to guarantee payments to foreign banks and bondholders.
At the same time, the African continent is rapidly being transformed into another front of the developing Third World War. The struggle between the US and the European imperialist powers, and capitalist powers like China and Russia, is driving an intensifying scramble for control over Africa’s resources, markets and strategic locations. Africa’s enormous reserves of oil, gas, cobalt, copper and lithium make it indispensable to military and industrial needs.
The task before the new generation is to build a new leadership, grounded in the historical lessons of the twentieth century and guided by Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution, to carry forward the struggle for socialism and the liberation of humanity. This means building sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International, the world Trotskyist movement, across the African continent.
*****
The alternative is clear: either the continued descent into war, dictatorship, and social collapse under capitalism, or the socialist unification of the African working class and youth in the struggle for the United Socialist States of Africa as part of the world socialist revolution. A federation of African workers’ states would abolish the artificial borders drawn by colonialism, expropriate the banks, mines, plantations, and multinational corporations, and direct the continent’s vast resources toward meeting human needs. It would end imperialist domination and create the conditions to eradicate poverty, ignorance, and disease.
The African revolution must be conceived as an inseparable part of the world socialist revolution. Only in this way can the immense energy of Africa’s youth and working class find its conscious political expression and open a new chapter in the liberation of humanity. This is the historical task confronting Generation Z.
2. In rebuke to Trump’s fascism, Mamdani elected mayor of New York City, Democrats sweep governor races
In the financial center of the American capitalism, Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral victory marks a development of immense political significance. Until recently a virtually unknown assemblyman and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, Mamdani defeated Andrew Cuomo, the son of former Governor Mario Cuomo and a longtime representative of the New York political establishment, and Republican Curtis Sliwa.
Mamdani’s margin of victory was significant, achieving over 50 percent of the vote compared to Cuomo’s 41 percent and Sliwas’ 7 percent. Over 2 million votes were cast, the most since 1969, and 17 percent of those that voted were first-time voters.
According to the New York Times, more than 735,000 New Yorkers cast early ballots ahead of Tuesday’s in-person vote, the highest ever for a non-presidential election in New York City. Of those early votes, 42 percent were cast by people between the ages of 18-44, 2 percent higher than in the 2024 presidential election early vote. The last New York Times/Siena poll conducted in September found younger voters preferred Mamdani over Cuomo by 73 to 10 percent.
While Mamdani has gained the support of large sections of the Democratic Party establishment, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, an ardent Zionist and one of the most vocal supporters of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, refused to endorse Mamdani—the winner of his own party’s primary. Asked about the race Tuesday, Schumer remarked: “I voted and I look forward to working with the next mayor to help New York City.”
Mamdani’s victory is not merely a rebuke to the Trump administration but to the Democratic Party establishment itself. The large vote for Mamdani is a distorted reflection of the growing support for socialism and the radicalization of the working class and youth.
However, the Mamdani campaign does not represent a frontal assault on the wealth of the oligarchy but an attempt to rescue the Democratic Party. Since winning the primary earlier this year, Mamdani has done all he can to reassure the ruling class that his campaign represents no threat to their wealth or class interests.
*****
On election morning, Trump issued an antisemitic threat to New York’s Jewish population, the largest in the country, writing on his social media platform: “Any Jewish person that votes for Zohran Mamdani, a proven and self-professed JEW HATER, is a stupid person!!!”
Trump’s fascistic rants strengthened support for Mamdani, the current beneficiary of mass anger at Trump and the financial oligarchy he represents. Large numbers of Jewish voters backed Mamdani precisely because of his opposition to the genocide in Gaza and his refusal to equate Jewish identity with the Zionist state.
Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent with the backing of Trump’s far-right network after losing the Democratic primary, voiced the fears of the entire ruling class before voting Tuesday:
You’re seeing a civil war in the Democratic Party … You have an extreme, radical left that is run by the socialists … This country is not a socialist country. The city is not a socialist city … Socialism has never worked anywhere on the globe.
Elon Musk, who also endorsed Cuomo, joined the now routine right-wing campaign to discredit the election results, posting on X that the New York City ballot was “a scam,” as part of the broader Republican strategy to delegitimize any election they do not win, recycling the same falsehoods used to justify Trump’s coup attempt in 2021 and preparing the ground to overturn future results in 2026 or 2028—if those elections even occur.
*****
The Democratic Party swept the gubernatorial and legislative elections in Virginia, with former CIA officer and Congressperson Abigail Spanberger winning the governor’s race and the party securing control of both chambers of the state legislature. Spanberger bested Republican Winsome Earle-Sears by a wide margin of 56 to 44 percent, while Democrats have won a majority in the House of Delegates. Party leaders are calling the outcome their biggest victory in the state since 1989.
Spanberger’s campaign benefited from the collapse of Republican support in suburban counties, such as Loudoun and Manassas, where she outperformed Kamala Harris’s 2024 showing. The Times reported that even traditionally conservative counties, like Surry and Waynesboro—both of which voted for Trump in 2024—flipped to the Democrats, reflecting widespread outrage at Trump’s government.
emocratic State Senator Ghazala Hashmi defeated Republican John Reid and will serve as Spanberger’s lieutenant governor, presiding over a narrowly divided State Senate, where Democrats hold a 21–19 edge.
The Democrats’ sweep represents not a turn to the left by the party but the consolidation of a section of the national security and intelligence apparatus within the political establishment. Spanberger is one of the original “CIA Democrats,” part of the 2018 wave of candidates with backgrounds in the military and intelligence agencies that the World Socialist Web Site described as “the political instrument of the Pentagon and the CIA within the Democratic Party.”
*****
Spanberger’s victory underscores how the Democratic Party functions as the second political instrument of American imperialism. While Trump and the Republicans openly cultivate fascism, the Democrats work through the institutions of the military, intelligence and corporate bureaucracy to suppress social opposition from below and channel it back into the dead-end of electoral politics. The result is a division of labor between two wings of the same capitalist ruling class.
*****
In New Jersey, Democrat Mikie Sherrill has been declared the winner of the gubernatorial election, defeating Republican Jack Ciattarelli by a commanding margin of roughly 57 to 42 percent, according to The Hill and NBC News. With over half the vote counted, Sherrill’s lead is well beyond expectations, as late polling from Emerson College and The Hill had suggested a race within a single percentage point—or even a potential Ciattarelli upset.
Sherrill’s victory reflects both Trump’s deep unpopularity in the state—his disapproval rating stands at 51 percent—and the Democrats’ success in consolidating sections of affluent suburban voters alienated by Trump’s fascistic appeals. Like Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, Sherrill is one of the original “CIA Democrats” identified by the World Socialist Web Site in 2018: a former Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor whose career and politics are inseparable from the military-intelligence establishment.
*****
Sherrill’s decisive win, like Spanberger’s in Virginia, represents not a rejection of militarism or capitalism but its reinforcement through the Democratic Party’s cultivated alliance with the intelligence apparatus and upper middle class suburban voters.
The Trump administration has indicated that it intends to defy court orders issued last week directing it to release emergency funding for food stamps. More than 42 million people who depend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) already missed their payments due November 1, because the White House is using mass hunger as a political weapon in the government shutdown and the erection of a dictatorship.
Earlier, the administration had said that it would pay out food stamps at only 50 percent of their normal rate and on a delayed timetable, which itself would have thrown tens of millions of people into food insecurity.
On Tuesday morning, Trump posted a rant on his Truth Social account:
SNAP BENEFITS, which increased by Billions and Billions of Dollars (MANY FOLD!) during Crooked Joe Biden’s disastrous term in office (Due to the fact that they were haphazardly “handed” to anyone for the asking, as opposed to just those in need, which is the purpose of SNAP!), will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!
Later in the day, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt denied that the White House was refusing to distribute food stamps, claiming instead that its plan was to pay out 50 percent of normal benefits. But this statement was only meant to give its flagrantly illegal actions a veneer of plausible deniability. Even while issuing this denial, Leavitt admitted that “it’s going to take some time” for recipients to receive the payments.
*****
The administration’s strategy is to stall long enough to render the court ruling meaningless. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins posted on X/Twitter: “This will be a cumbersome process, including revised eligibility systems, State notification procedures, and ultimately, delayed benefits for weeks [emphasis added].” While finding complicated methods of dividing by two to delay payments, she blamed the crisis on “challenges caused by Senate Democrats’ refusal to reopen the government,” and ended with the blackmail statement: “If the government opens, families get their FULL benefit much more quickly.”
*****
There are also renewed signs that the administration intends to refuse back pay to hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal employees. Government Executive reported last Friday that the latest round of furlough notices omitted “language assuring employees that back pay was guaranteed when the shutdown concluded.”
All of this forms part of a broader “hunger plan” by Trump, aimed at using the shutdown to carry out massive attacks on the working class. His policy amounts to a vast redistribution of wealth to the rich, offloading the cost of the capitalist crisis onto the backs of workers and the poor.
*****
There are growing signs that the Democrats are preparing to cave in to Trump. Some Republicans are predicting that the government could reopen as soon as this week. According to press reports, a deal is being worked out in which, in exchange for enough Democrats joining with Republicans to secure the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster, the Democrats would receive a meaningless promise for a vote in the future over whether to restore tax credits for Obamacare healthcare plans. Such a measure would have little to no chance of passing.
No doubt a major factor in these calculations is the New York City election, which resulted in the victory of Democratic Socialists of America member Zohran Mamdani. Although Mamdani has spent months seeking to reassure Wall Street that he poses no threat to its interests, the vote itself is a sign of growing opposition to capitalism among broad layers of the population—an opposition that terrifies the Democratic Party far more than the danger of fascism.
4. Dick Cheney dead at 84: A war criminal who paved the way for Trump
Dick Cheney is dead. The American people will now be subjected to the predictable deluge of tributes for the former vice president from the political establishment and the corporate media. Every effort will be made to sanitize the record of a war criminal and enemy of democratic rights who helped paved the way for the dictatorial actions of Donald Trump.
No one should be taken in by the official whitewashing of the blood on Cheney’s hands. He was a man who personified the greed and ruthlessness of the American capitalist elite, serving as White House chief of staff, secretary of defense, CEO of the giant oilfield services company Halliburton and then vice president for George W. Bush where he acted as the power behind the throne. Cheney played leading roles in three major imperialist wars, against Iraq in 1990-91, Afghanistan from 2001 on and Iraq again from 2003 on. The death toll in these wars alone comes to several million, to say nothing of “lesser” conflicts, such as the 1989 US invasion of Panama and the 1992 intervention in Somalia.
*****
After the stolen election of 2000, when the Supreme Court intervened to halt vote-counting in Florida and install Bush and Cheney in power, the vice president wasted little time in rewarding his corporate cronies. He immediately set up an “energy task force” whose proceedings and even membership were kept secret. There, oil company executives and military-intelligence operatives prepared a set of targets for US military aggression—a series of “wars for oil” which required only the necessary pretext to initiate.
The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks—which were carried out with high-level foreknowledge within the US state apparatus—supplied that pretext, not only for imperialist wars abroad but also for an onslaught against the democratic rights of the American people at home. In both of these criminal activities, Cheney played a leading role. In response to the terrorist attacks—by suicide attackers mainly from Saudi Arabia—the Bush administration immediately targeted Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was based. With bipartisan support, Congress passed a war resolution authorizing the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, as well as a “war on terror,” which continues in force to this day. Similarly, Democrats and Republicans approved, almost unanimously, the Patriot Act, which gave the US president wide powers to order surveillance and detention of supposed “terrorists” within the United States, with little judicial oversight.
Afghanistan was only a stepping stone, however, to a much larger and bloodier conflict: the US invasion, conquest and occupation of Iraq. While Afghanistan had vast mineral wealth that remained largely undeveloped, Iraq was one of the largest and most profitable of oil-producing countries, a rich prize for imperialist plunder. Cheney played the principal role in spreading the lies about “weapons of mass destruction” and supposed connections between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. (The two were actually bitter enemies.) These lies were taken up by the corporate media, with the New York Times playing the leading role, and embraced by Congress, which gave authorization for war with Iraq by a bipartisan vote in October 2002. Less than five months later, US forces invaded Iraq, in complete violation of international law, and in defiance of mass protests, both in the United States and around the world, which mobilized millions.
Cheney was the principal architect and apologist for the legal and administrative framework that made these crimes possible. He built and defended the architecture of lawlessness: the doctrine of preemptive war, the legal rationales for “enhanced interrogation,” extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention and the surveillance state. Cheney was the intellectual and political supervisor of systems of torture. That regime of abuse reached its grotesque apogee in Abu Ghraib, and its methods were institutionalized across secret prisons and CIA “black sites.” The state’s brutality was his policy.
*****
Cheney only faced rebuke when he came into conflict with the military-intelligence apparatus itself, as revealed in the affair of Joe Wilson, a former US diplomat who had visited Niger for the Bush administration, seeking evidence of Iraqi purchases of uranium, only to find nothing. After Wilson publicly broke with the administration and criticized the war, Cheney counterattacked. The identity of Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, a covert CIA agent, was leaked to the press, along with a smear campaign suggesting that she had engineered the trip to Niger as a perk for her husband. Congressional Democrats and the intelligence agencies rallied to support the “outed” agent, the Bush administration was forced to investigate the leak and Cheney’s Chief of Staff Lewis Libby was eventually convicted of lying to a grand jury.
While this affair affected Cheney’s personal standing, the measures to promote war and domestic repression which he had promoted remained in place. The Obama-Biden administration continued the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and added new wars, against oil-rich Libya and, by proxy, against Syria, the lone client state of Russia in the Middle East. The authorizations for the use of military force, passed in 2001 and 2002, remain on the statute books.
The entire domestic apparatus of surveillance and repression has swelled to an unheard-of size. Obama began his term by ending any possibility of prosecution for the CIA torturers and those, like Cheney, who gave them their orders. He authorized drone-missile assassinations, including of American citizens, with kill lists drawn up and approved on “terror Tuesdays” at the White House. As revealed by courageous whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, the covert operations of the American government against the entire population of the world, including the American people, expanded exponentially.
The development of an American police state, given impetus under Bush and Cheney and continued under Obama, Trump and Biden, has now reached its culmination in the second Trump term. This fact by itself demonstrates that Cheney was not some rogue official but a representative of the ruling social layer, the financial aristocracy which controls both capitalist parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, and which is turning to dictatorship to defend its wealth and power from the working class.
When Cheney left office in January 2009, he was among the most hated figures in America and worldwide. His name was indelibly connected in popular consciousness with monstrous crimes against defenseless people, both at home and abroad. This was not a misunderstanding. Based on the principles established at the Nuremberg tribunal after World War II, the same punishments handed down to the Nazi war criminals should be applied to the leaders of any country that commits similar crimes: the launching of aggressive wars and the deliberate perpetration of mass death and genocide. If the Nuremberg precedent of 1946 had been applied consistently, Cheney’s career would have ended in a prison cell or at the end of a rope.
In the final years of his life, Cheney and his daughter Liz moved closer to the Democratic Party. In 2024, the elder Cheney announced that he would vote for Kamala Harris. This was not, as the media portrays it, an act of principle and a defense of “democracy” against Trump’s coup. In reality, Cheney’s real motivation was his alignment with the Democrats’ principal concern—the US-NATO war against Russia.
The reaction of the Democratic Party to Cheney’s death exposes its own thoroughly reactionary and pro-imperialist character. Former Vice President Harris issued a statement declaring, “Cheney was a devoted public servant, from the halls of Congress to many positions of leadership in multiple presidential administrations. His passing marks the loss of a figure who, with a strong sense of dedication, gave so much of his life to the country he loved.”
Every word of this nauseating tribute underscores the identity of interests between the Democrats and Republicans as parties of Wall Street and war. For Harris and her party, Cheney’s life of criminality—of invasion, torture and lies—is celebrated because it embodied the ruthless pursuit of American imperial dominance.
Whatever tactical disputes may have emerged between Cheney and Trump, the two are bound together by deeper social and political processes: the descent of American capitalism and imperialism into barbarism and criminality. The entire political establishment lives in the shadow of the crimes that Cheney helped unleash.
5. ICE shooting of TikToker Richard LA exposes the fraud of California’s “sanctuary” policy
On the morning of Tuesday, October 21, members of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested TikToker Carlitos Ricardo Parias, better known online as Richard LA, in an attempt to silence his social media coverage exposing ICE raids throughout Los Angeles. In the course of the arrest, ICE agents unleashed a barrage of gunfire, wounding Parias and one of their own.
Rather than detain Parias as he left his home at 8:45 a.m., agents allowed him to enter his car and drive off, before attempting to box him in on a crowded street adjacent to a public high school. In the ensuing chaos, they opened fire, later claiming they “felt threatened.” One bullet struck Parias in the elbow; another ricocheted and hit an ICE agent. The recklessness of the operation, conducted during morning traffic, beside a school, demonstrates the murderous character of ICE and the fascistic methods of the Trump administration.
After being arrested and treated for his wound, Parias was denied access to his attorney for more than 24 hours, and only then allowed to speak by phone under federal supervision. Although released from federal custody, he remains in Los Angeles County Jail.
*****
What occurred at Santee Education Complex exposes the fraud of the “sanctuary state” and “sanctuary city” campaign promoted for years by the Democrats in California and Los Angeles. In practice, these policies have done nothing to defend immigrant rights or oppose federal persecution. Los Angeles, ruled entirely by the Democratic Party from City Hall to the school board, remains one of the most heavily policed metropolitan areas in the country. Local agencies collaborate routinely with federal immigration authorities, whether directly or through the sharing of data, coordination of raids, or logistical support from the LAPD.
There is no constituency within the ruling class for the defense of immigrant rights, democratic rights or free speech. Parias was targeted for two reasons: first, because his TikTok videos exposed the criminality of the US government, documenting ICE’s terrorizing of entire working class communities; and second, because he is undocumented and therefore an easy target, a warning to all workers who dare to speak out against the government’s authoritarian measures.
6. Supreme Court begins deliberations on Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs”
The US Supreme Court will today hear arguments in the appeal by the Trump administration against the decision of two lower courts striking down his use of “reciprocal tariffs” by invoking powers given to the president after the declaration of a national emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977.
These powers have been invoked by previous presidents since the law was passed during the Carter administration. But they have never been invoked as the basis for the imposition of tariffs, which supposedly is ultimately in the hands of Congress unless it has given the executive the power to do so.
In May the Court of International Trade found that Trump had exceeded his authority under the IEEPA as the legislation did not specify a tariff power. This decision was subsequently upheld in a seven to four decision by a US appeals court, whereupon the administration took it to the Supreme Court.
Despite these rulings, the tariffs continued and revenues were collected because both courts ruled they could remain until a final decision was made.
No decision will be made today, and the Supreme Court is expected to take many weeks, possibly months, before rendering its judgement.
The decision has major implications. If the appeal is upheld the Trump regime will have been granted virtually unlimited authority to impose tariffs against any country for virtually any reason it chooses to cite, simply by claiming its actions are in response to a national emergency.
If the court turns down the appeal, the question immediately arises as to whether the administration will abide by the decision. Its legal submissions, echoing claims made by Trump in various social media posts, have asserted that if the tariff revenues must be paid back because they have been ruled illegal this could set off a crisis in the US akin to that of the 1930s.
*****
The use of reciprocal tariffs, first unveiled in his announcements of April 2 which effectively overturned the foundations of the post-war international trading order, have been central to the US global tariff war which has developed since then. They are very much Trump’s weapon of choice.
*****
Tariffs can be imposed and are being imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 and Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. These provisions contain no legal problems because Congress has delegated the tariff power to the executive and it has been argued that they could be used if the Supreme Court rules against the administration.
But they are cumbersome in comparison to the reciprocal tariffs because they apply not to countries but to particularly commodities, such as aluminum, steel, auto and auto parts and so on, which have already had tariffs imposed. Moreover, unlike the reciprocal tariffs which can be imposed through a declaration by Trump on his social media, they are often subject to an investigation by the commerce department.
Given the right-wing and outright reactionary composition of Supreme Court and its decision of July 2024 that the president is not acting illegally when carrying out an action as part of his official duties, it is very possible the court will rule in Trump’s favor. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent is of this view, insisting that “we feel very confident that the president’s trade policy … will win at the court.”
*****
Opponents of the reciprocal tariffs point out there is no mention of tariffs or its synonyms such as taxes in the IEEPA legislation.
The “major questions” doctrine is clearly an obstacle. But if the Supreme Court starts with a fixed decision, as it has often in the past and then finds the arguments to justify it, a way will be found to get around it.
7. At Sydney weapons expo, Labor outlines military build-up for war against China
Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles declared that the weapons of war on display spanned “the breadth of the beautiful, the menacing and the extremely cool” and represented the highpoint of “human ingenuity.”
8. Interview with Prof. Tom Alter, fired by Texas State for political speech
The World Socialist Web Site recently engaged in a broad conversation with historian Tom Alter about his firing from Texas State University and about Texas labor and working class history.
Over 600 physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners will stage a one-day strike against Allina Health in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area on Wednesday, November 5th. The Doctors Council SEIU Local 10MD announced the strike earlier this week after contract talks ended with no deal.
The healthcare providers formed the union in October 2023, with a vote of 325 for and 200 against. The union, which covers Allina Health clinics in Minnesota and Wisconsin, has been without a contract ever since. Union members voted in June of this year to authorize a strike, with 90 percent in favor.
The workers are fighting proposed cuts to pay and benefits, and chronic understaffing that threaten patient care and clinician safety. Allina’s management is also closing four Twin Cities metro clinics—moves that will further restrict community access to care and place additional strain on remaining staff and facilities.
The announcement comes on the heels of the Minneapolis Federation of Educators (MFE) Local 59 filing an intent to strike, giving Minneapolis Public Schools the required 10-day notice per state law; meaning teachers could go on strike as early as November 11. The notice followed a strike authorization vote of 92 percent in favor.
*****
Concrete demands workers should rally around include: No concessions on wages or benefits; immediate hiring to meet safe staffing ratios enforceable by worker oversight; preservation of current health coverage and pensions; and the defense of public health science against political attack. Ultimately, these struggles point to a larger objective: Transforming healthcare into a public utility run for public need, not private profit.
10. At least 7 dead, 11 injured after UPS cargo plane crashes in Louisville
At least seven people are dead and 11 injured, including two in critical condition, after a UPS cargo jet crashed and exploded into flames Tuesday evening shortly after takeoff from Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport (SDF). The fiery crash leveled two industrial businesses and sent a towering black plume over the city, forcing a shelter-in-place order, closure of all Louisville schools and the grounding of all flights in and out of the airport.
According to the online flight tracker Flightradar24, the McDonnell Douglas MD-11, operating as UPS Flight 2976 from Louisville, Kentucky, to Honolulu, lifted off at 5:14 p.m. ET, climbing only 175 feet before sharply descending. Seconds later, it burst into flames as more than 200,000 pounds of jet fuel, or about 29,000 gallons, ignited into an enormous explosion.
Footage broadcast by local media showed one of the jet’s engines on fire as it moved down the runway, then erupted into a fireball moments after leaving the ground. Debris and secondary fires stretched nearly a mile through nearby warehouses and storage lots.
*****
UPS confirmed extensive damage to its IT building and parts of the Worldport complex, a 5.2-million-square-foot facility, the size of 90 football fields, that processes more than 300 flights a day and 2 million packages daily under normal conditions.
As horrific as the disaster is, it could easily have been much worse, since thousands of people work at Worldport and other nearby facilities. Ford’s Louisville Assembly Plant is located only a few hundred yards from the crash; autoworkers reported to the World Socialist Web Site that power went out at the facility. CSX also maintains a large railyard adjacent to the runway.
*****
The downed MD-11 was 34 years old and was brought into service by UPS in 2006. UPS has pledged to retire the model over the next decade, yet dozens remain in nightly service. The MD-11 type has been involved in several fatal cargo accidents, including the 2013 UPS crash in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed two pilots.
*****
In its official statement Tuesday night, UPS released the customary statement of sympathy, declaring it was “committed to the safety of our employees, our customers and the communities we serve.” These are empty sentiments. Only weeks ago, Shelma Reyna Guerrero, a 23-year-old worker, was killed while loading packages at a UPS facility in Richmond, California, a tragedy that exposed the deadly consequences of overwork and speed-up.
At the same time, the company has eliminated tens of thousands of jobs this year as part of cost-cutting demanded by Wall Street, intensifying workloads and undermining safety across its global network.
The Teamsters bureaucracy responded on X (formerly Twitter):
“Prayers on behalf of our entire International Union are with those killed, injured, and affected…”
But the Teamsters have helped UPS to destroy tens of thousands of jobs by forcing through a new contract in 2023. Mass layoffs under the company’s “Network of the Future” automation program began soon after, with the Teamsters maintaining a guilty silence. Meanwhile, General President Sean O’Brien has emerged as a top union ally of the Trump administration.
More information will emerge in the coming days about what led to the crash. But what can be said with certainty is that the Louisville crash emerges in the context of decaying infrastructure, relentless cost-cutting and government deregulation across the transportation and logistics industries.
*****
The fight for safe working conditions cannot be left to corporations, regulators, or the pro-company union bureaucrats. UPS workers, pilots and logistics employees must organize independent rank-and-file committees—linked with those in manufacturing, rail, and the chemical industries—to demand full transparency about maintenance and safety, the immediate shutdown of unsafe equipment, and the democratic control of workplace conditions by workers themselves.
Suspended Time begins ominously enough. At first, it seems to suggest that, after all, the pandemic has a “silver lining,” at least for Paul. “Here time had stopped.” He has the opportunity to confront “too many memories,” a house “too loaded, too dense” with emotional baggage and work through his feelings about his father and grandfather, in particular. “Time stood still,” we are told again, as the camera examines the volumes, bound in different colors according to subject matter, in the father’s library. Paul enjoys the hours spent in isolation and in nature.
According to one admiring critic, “It’s a film about a ‘miraculous time-out’ that coincided with COVID, which, despite some people’s unraveling from the experience, allowed others to take stock of their lives.”
France experienced one of the highest total number of COVID cases in the world, more than 40 million (third after the US and India) and some 168,000 deaths (tenth-highest globally). Behind these statistics lies immense suffering, first of all, physical but also psychological and economic. If Suspended Time did nothing other than suggest that the pandemic was useful as a “time-out” and the opportunity “to take stock” for the complacent upper middle class, one could only regard it with disdain.
Indeed, early on, one wonders to oneself in the face of the idyllic images of a well-appointed house and lush grounds during a horrifying pandemic: truly, is there a social layer anywhere more conservative, national-parochial than this self-satisfied, superficially and eclectically cultured French petty bourgeoisie, which must have the right colored book covers, the proper wine for the region, season and time of day, the most fashionable clothing, etc., but has important thoughts and feelings about almost nothing?
12. Logistics giant DPD uses mass sackings against UK delivery workers standing up against pay cuts
One worker said, “We believe it is important that our voices are heard and that the public is made aware of the pressures and treatment faced by drivers under what many feel is a form of corporate dictatorship.”
13. Unite union calls off UK strike action at global arms corporation Leonardo
14. 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.
15. * Lyrics of Y'en a marre in French and translated into English:
{Refrain} :
On en a marre
L'Afrique en a marre marre marre
On en a marre
Le peuple en a marre marre marre
Des journalistes assassinés
Parce que des présidents assassins
Des généraux aux commandes
Des populations opprimées
Des aides aux pays détournées
Des populations affamées
Les fonds du pays dilapidées
Les droits de l'homme ignorés
{Refrain} :
On en a marre
L'Afrique en a marre marre marre
On en a marre
Le peuple en a marre marre marre
Après l'abolition de l'esclavage
Ils ont crée la colonisation
Lorsque l'on a trouvé la solution
Ils ont crée la coopération
Comme on dénonce cette situation
Ils ont crée la mondialisation
Et sans expliquer la mondialisation
C'est Babylone qui nous exploite
{Refrain} :
On en a marre
L'Afrique en a marre marre marre
On en a marre
Le peuple en a marre marre marre
Yaniss Odua :
Faut qu'on arrete de cautionner
Ca, la vie de nos frères ne compte pas pour cette bande de vanpayas
Stoppons les guerres gardons la foi
Faya sur tous les chefs d'Etat qui nous envoient tuer nos brothers
Ils ne nous respectent pas c'est la même chose pour leurs lois
Ils ne regardent même pas quand le peuple réclame ses droits
Ils ne partagent surtout pas l'argent c'est pas qu' y en a pas
Ils ne font rien pour nos sisters qui se vendent pour vivre dans ce monde-là
{Refrain} :
On en a marre
L'Afrique en a marre marre marre
On en a marre
Le peuple en a marre marre marre
Des présidents assassins
On veut plus
Des généraux aux commandes
On en veut plus
Des enfants militaires
On veut plus
Des orphelins de guerre
On n'en veut plus
{Refrain} :
On en a marre
L'Afrique en a marre marre marre
On en a marre
Le peuple en a marre marre marre
L'Afrique en a marre
De toutes ces machinations
Mon peuple en a marre
De toutes ces manipulations
L'Afrique en a marre
De toutes ces exploitations
Mon peuple en a marre
De toute cette oppression
L'Afrique en a marre
*****
{Chorus}: We're fed up
Africa is fed up, fed up, fed up
We're fed up
The people are fed up, fed up, fed up
Journalists murdered
Because of murderous presidents
Generals in charge
Oppressed populations
Aid to countries diverted
Starving populations
The country's funds squandered
Human rights ignored
{Chorus}: We're fed up
Africa is fed up, fed up, fed up
We're fed up
The people are fed up, fed up, fed up
After the abolition of slavery
They created colonization
When we found the solution
They created cooperation
As we denounce this situation
They created globalization
And without explaining globalization
It's Babylon that exploits us
{Chorus}: We're fed up
Africa We're fed up, fed up, fed up
We're fed up
The people are fed up, fed up, fed up
Yaniss Odua:
We have to stop condoning this.
The lives of our brothers don't matter to this bunch of vampires.
Let's stop the wars, let's keep the faith.
Fire on all the heads of state who send us to kill our brothers
They don't respect us, and it's the same with their laws.
They don't even look when the people demand their rights.
They certainly don't share the money, it's not like there isn't any.
They do nothing for our sisters who sell themselves to live in this world.
{Chorus}:
We're fed up
Africa is fed up, fed up, fed up
We're fed up
The people are fed up, fed up, fed up
Murderous presidents
We don't want any more
Generals in charge
We don't want any more
Child soldiers
We don't want any more
Orphans of War
We don't want anymore
{Chorus}:
We're fed up
Africa is fed up, fed up, fed up
We're fed up
The people are fed up, fed up, fed up
Africa is fed up
With all these schemes
My people are fed up
With all these manipulations
Africa is fed up
With all this exploitation
My people are fed up
With all this oppression
Africa is fed up
