Emerging evidence strongly indicates that the murder of ICU nurse
Alex Pretti by federal agents on January 24 in Minneapolis was a
targeted assassination carried out by the Trump administration’s
paramilitary forces in order to terrorize Minneapolis citizens opposing
and recording its criminal activities.
According to a CNN report
published Tuesday, Pretti was involved in a confrontation with federal
agents about a week before his murder. “The earlier incident started,”
CNN reported, “when he stopped his car after observing ICE agents
chasing what he described as a family on foot, and began shouting and
blowing his whistle, according to a source who asked not to be named out
of fear of retribution.”
CNN added that Pretti told the source
“that five agents tackled him and one leaned on his back—an encounter
that left him with a broken rib. The agents quickly released him at the
scene. ‘That day, he thought he was going to die,’ said the source.” The
source added that Pretti was “known to federal agents,” according to
CNN.
This revelation that ICE and CBP agents identified Pretti as
an opponent sheds new light on what actually happened on January 24.
The video shows Pretti intervening to protect a woman who had been
shoved to the ground. He is then tackled and beaten, face down on the
ground. One agent removes a legally carried gun Pretti had in his
possession but was not holding. Another agent, who was not involved in
the initial assault on Pretti, then pushed this agent away and fired
four shots in Pretti’s back, as Pretti’s arms were pinned to the ground.
That agent and a second agent then fired six additional shots into
Pretti’s motionless body.
The murder of Pretti came just over two
weeks after the killing of 37-year-old Renée Nicole Good. It is evident
from the video of that murder that the shooter, Jonathan Ross, was
acting like someone who was carrying out a job, deliberately placing
himself in a position to fire on Good through her car window at
point-blank range.
One revealing moment in the video of Renée
Good’s murder comes just before the shooting, when her wife says, “we
don’t change our plates every morning … it will be the same plate when
you come talk to us later.” This shows both women knew they were being
tracked. ICE and CBP agents, working with firms like Palantir, have been
compiling lists of protesters and those filming their operations. A DHS
memo obtained by CNN orders agents to collect license plates, IDs and
photos of “agitators” for a centralized surveillance database.
Both
Pretti and Good were acting as legal observers when they were killed,
filming and documenting the actions of ICE and CBP. Their killings serve
the specific function of intimidating those exposing the criminal
actions of ICE and CBP agents. In this sense, the “weapon” that the
agents who shot Pretti were concerned about was not a gun but a cell
phone.
The response of the Trump administration to the murders, first of Good
and then of Pretti, was not only the immediate declaration that those
killed were “terrorists” but the elaboration of a fascistic theory that
asserts the absolute right of the state to murder citizens.
Vice President JD Vance stated this openly after the murder of Good,
declaring that the killer was “protected by absolute immunity … he was
doing his job.” This is a chilling and entirely false statement. There
is nothing in American law that grants government agents “absolute
immunity” from prosecution for killing someone.
*****
The principles proclaimed by Vance are not those of American law but
Nazi jurisprudence. In justifying Hitler’s dictatorship, the fascist
theoretician Carl Schmitt developed the concept of the “state of
exception.” According to Schmitt, “Sovereign is he who decides on the
exception.” In the name of preserving order, the “sovereign” can suspend
the law itself and replace it with the arbitrary rule of executive
power. Legal norms are abrogated, rights are stripped and individuals
are placed outside the protection of the law—what Schmitt called
“unmediated justice,” in which the leader alone determines guilt and
punishment.
According to this framework, those targeted by the state are treated not as citizens but as enemies, as “homo sacer,”
(a Roman law term meaning literally “sacred man” but signifying the
opposite, “cursed man”). They are individuals who are without legal
protection and can be killed. The ICE operations, according to the Trump
regime, take place on this basis. They operate, for all intents and
purposes, as a death squad.
In these events, the real criminality of the Trump regime is revealed.
Such a regime has historical precedent—in the juntas of Videla’s
Argentina and Pinochet’s Chile and, above all, in Hitler’s Germany and
Mussolini’s Italy. In each case, the transition to dictatorship was
marked not only by escalating violence but by a transformation of the
legal order itself.
Under these conditions, those now hailing the tactical maneuvering of
the Trump administration over the past two days as a major shift are
peddling complacency and lies. Nothing fundamental has been resolved.
The Trump administration is not backing down, it is buying time,
regrouping and recalibrating.
n reality, the so-called “agreement” between Trump and local Democrats
in Minnesota amounts to nothing more than public relations cosmetics.
Trump has made no commitment to withdraw federal agents. A leaked
internal memo from Customs and Border Protection, posted by journalist
Ken Klippenstein, makes the real situation clear: “The deployment to
Minneapolis is steady state and expected to continue as planned.”
*****
The “peace” proclaimed by the Democrats with Trump is directed not at
constraining the fascist threat but at suppressing popular opposition.
Former President Barack Obama summed it up when he urged the
administration to “work constructively” with Walz and Frey to “avert
more chaos.” What does Obama mean by “chaos”? Not the murders of Alex
Pretti or Renée Nicole Good. Not mass roundups, indefinite detention or
the suspension of constitutional rights. “Chaos” is the eruption of
resistance from below. The Democratic Party’s overriding concern is to
stabilize the state and preserve the illusion of a functioning two-party
system.
*****
Trump’s conspiracy for dictatorship—of which the events in
Minneapolis are only one component—is continuing. The former president
speaks and acts as the representative of the capitalist oligarchy,
which, confronted with an escalating series of economic, political and
social crises, is breaking with all democratic and legal norms. The
Democrats’ role is to conceal this fact, to chloroform the population
and to block the emergence of any independent movement from below.
Any
celebrations of a “victory” in Minneapolis are naive, premature and
unwarranted. The so-called “tactical retreat” is a maneuver. The danger
of dictatorship has not receded, it is intensifying. The federal
occupation of Minneapolis continues, and there will be new attacks—not
just in Minnesota but throughout the country.
The developments of the past month have shown that no opposition to
Trump’s dictatorship can be waged through maneuvers within the state
apparatus. It can be stopped only through the development of a
conscious, organized movement of the working class, armed with a
socialist program, fighting not just against Trump but against the
capitalist system that has produced him. The work of building this
movement—through the formation of rank-and-file committees, the
mobilization of workers across industries and the development of a
general strike—must go forward.
An American “armada” in the shape of the USS Abraham Lincoln
aircraft carrier and several guided-missile destroyers is now deployed
in the Arabian Sea, placing it in position to launch a devastating
aerial bombardment of Iran with the aim of bringing about regime change.
The Pentagon’s Central Command announced Tuesday a multi-day air
“exercise” in what could well be cover for the second direct attack on
Iran by American imperialism in little more than six months.
The
exercise will “demonstrate the ability to deploy, disperse, and sustain
combat airpower,” according to the Pentagon. Britain has also dispatched
fighter jets to Qatar, and two European airlines have cancelled
commercial flights to the region.
As he left the World Economic
Forum in Davos last week, US President Donald Trump threatened Iran.
After he drew attention to the ships heading for the Persian Gulf
region, he warned any attack would make last year’s US strike on Iranian
uranium enrichment sites “look like peanuts.” This was a reference to
the unprovoked and illegal 12-day war waged by the US and Israel against
Iran last June, during which the country’s nuclear facilities were
repeatedly struck and more than a thousand people were killed.
On
Wednesday morning, Trump underscored the imminence of a possible
military strike on Iran, saying the fleet headed by the USS Abraham
Lincoln is larger than that Washington deployed off Venezuela before
kidnapping its president, Nicolás Maduro, and stands “prepared to
rapidly fulfill its missions with speed and violence if necessary.”
“As
I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL!” Trump declared on his Truth
social media account. “They didn’t, and there was ‘Operation Midnight
Hammer,’ a major destruction of Iran. The next attack will be far worse!
Don’t make that happen again.”
Washington’s threats against Iran are part of a long-running drive to
topple the bourgeois-clerical regime and bring to power a pro-Western
puppet government to facilitate US imperialist dominance over the
energy-rich Middle East. Successive US governments have used brutal
economic sanctions to devastate Iran’s economy and plunge the vast
majority of its population into miserable poverty, making a mockery of
the claims of the Trump administration, his ostensible Democratic Party
opponents, and the European imperialist powers, to be interested in the
“liberation” or “human rights” of the Iranian people.
Following
the same playbook used in the lead-up to last June’s strikes, Trump
continues to claim that “diplomacy” is still an option. “They want to
make a deal,” said America’s would-be dictator last week of the Iranian
regime, which has repeatedly sought to arrive at an accommodation with
the imperialist powers to secure sanctions relief. “I know so. They
called on numerous occasions. They want to talk.”
Trump was so
successful last year in convincing senior layers of the Iranian regime
that Washington was intent on a negotiated settlement that many
top-ranking generals were still residing in their private homes when the
air strikes began, making them easy pickings for the targeted strikes
carried out by the Zionist regime on behalf of American imperialism.
This time around, there are reports suggesting that Washington may be
plotting an even more ambitious decapitation exercise, including the
assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, a war crime that
would likely provoke a region-wide conflagration. According to
anti-regime media, Khamenei has moved into an underground shelter in
Tehran Province, while his third son, Masoud, has assumed day-to-day
oversight of his office and is now the key figure coordinating with the
government.
*****
Not only has Tehran’s regional position been weakened, but it has
also been shaken by the mass protests that erupted on December 28. They
were initiated by bazaar merchants, traditionally a pillar of support
for the regime. Unrest rapidly spread due to plummeting living standards
that are largely the product of decades of US-imposed sanctions and,
more recently, the European powers’ use of the “snapback” mechanism to
re-impose UN sanctions last October.
Politically, the protests
came to be dominated by right-wing, pro-imperialist forces, including
privileged elements calling for the restoration of the monarchy and
Kurdish and Baluchi separatists. After initially offering talks, the
government abruptly changed course, and at the express orders of
Khamenei, ruthlessly suppressed the protests, resulting in the deaths of
at least several thousand people and possibly many more. The US-based
son of Reza Pahlavi, whose brutal monarchical dictatorship was toppled
by the 1979 Iranian Revolution, has called on the US to carry out
“surgical strikes” against the regime, after previously encouraging his
supporters to “seize” the centres of Iran’s major cities.
*****
The condemnations of the Islamic Republic’s brutality emanating from
the imperialist capitals and their media mouthpieces are entirely
hypocritical and self-serving. These same forces have carried out or
supported and justified the horrific violence that American imperialism
has employed to consolidate its grip over the Middle East and Central
Asia. Just since the beginning of this century, Washington’s
neo-colonial wars have resulted in the deaths of millions and the
displacement of many millions more from their homes in Iraq, Syria,
Libya, Afghanistan, Somalia, and other countries. Trump and other
representatives of American imperialism are cynically exploiting the
plight of the Iranian population to justify a still further aggression
to establish a “new Middle East,” where Washington can plunder its
resources, secure strategic transportation routes, and deny China and
other rivals access to energy supplies and trade routes.
The
arrival of the USS Abraham Lincoln off Iran’s shores comes just days
after Trump’s attack on Venezuela and pronouncement that the US is
seizing control of the country’s vast oil resources. Washington is now
menacing another of Beijing’s key oil suppliers—continuing its economic
warfare and preparations for military conflict against China. Caracas
functioned as a hub for sanctioned Iranian oil exports and a base for
the commercial dealings of the Iranian-allied Hezbollah.
*****
Several of Washington’s Gulf allies have publicly refused—since April
2025—to let Washington use their bases, where around 40,000 US troops
are already stationed, for any strike on Iran, for fear both of the
popular reaction and Iranian retaliatory strikes. The United Arab
Emirates (UAE), a close ally of Israel and home to the US military’s
Al-Dhafra Air Base, said on Monday that it would not allow its airspace,
territory or territorial waters to be used for any hostile military
actions against Iran, although Jordan has apparently agreed.
The Trump administration is closely coordinating its efforts with Israel, its regional attack dog. The Times of Israel
reported that Commander of the United States Central Command, Admiral
Brad Cooper, was in Israel last weekend for meetings with top military
and intelligence officials.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has
been on high alert, carrying out preparations following Trump’s threats
of military action against Iran. Israeli army Northern Command chief Rafi
Milo told TV Channel 12, “We see the force buildup the US is carrying
out, both in the Persian Gulf and throughout the region. We are very
alert, very prepared, and ready both in strong defence and in preparing
offensive responses.”
Iran has warned that its response to any
attack would be far greater than its reaction to the US and Israel’s
12-day war last June. After the US directly entered the war, the Iranian
regime responded with an attack on the US military base in Qatar that
was effectively communicated in advance to Washington and caused no
casualties.
*****
Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, a member of the faction of the
Iranian political establishment that has repeatedly pressed for an
agreement with the US... wrote in an op-ed
published in the Wall Street Journal last week that Tehran
would be “firing back with everything we have” if attacked. He said, “An
all-out confrontation will certainly be ferocious and drag on far, far
longer than the fantasy timelines that Israel and its proxies are trying
to peddle to the White House. It will certainly engulf the wider region
and have an impact on ordinary people around the globe.”
The Trump administration launched a massive immigration enforcement
surge in Maine on January 20, 2026, unleashing a campaign of terror
designed to intimidate immigrant and working class communities across
the state. Cynically dubbed “Operation Catch of the Day” in a state
well-known for its fishing industry, this offensive is part of a
nationwide crackdown on immigrants, escalating in the context of
mounting federal violence seen in Minneapolis following the murders of
Renée Good and Alex Pretti.
To justify its campaign of state terror, the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) has constructed a fraudulent narrative, claiming its
operation targets “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens who
have terrorized communities.” Those caught up in the dragnet include:
Yanick
Joao Carneiro: An asylum seeker from Angola who was detained without a
warrant during a routine immigration check-in at the Scarborough ICE
office.
Jean-Pierre Obiang: An 18-year-old student at the
University of Southern Maine and an asylum seeker from Gabon, detained
after a minor traffic accident.
Micheline Ntumba: A mother and
asylum seeker from the Congo, living in the US for nearly a decade, who
was arrested after dropping her child off at Portland High School.
Sarah
Mehta of the American Civil Liberties Union correctly identified the
operation as being “100% a dragnet approach.” Data from the Deportation
Data Project confirms this assessment; of the nearly 100 people arrested
in the initial days of the operation, the government’s own incomplete
list showed only 13 with criminal records.
*****
Across the state, agents have engaged in a campaign of terror
designed to disrupt daily life and create a pervasive atmosphere of
fear. Tactics used by federal agents include:
Masked
agents operating in high-traffic public areas, including a high-profile
arrest in the parking lot of the Maine Mall in South Portland near the
Hannaford and TJMaxx stores.
The use of unmarked minivans with out-of-state license plates to abduct people from the streets.
Forcibly entering homes without judicial warrants, a reversal of longstanding policy revealed in an internal ICE memo.
Smashing car windows to extract detainees, as occurred in the arrest of civil engineer Juan Sebastian Carvajal-Munoz.
Leaving
detainees’ cars running on the street, which Cumberland County Sheriff
Kevin Joyce accurately described as “bush league policing.”
On January 22, Associated Press published a video of
an ICE agent seen on camera outside the front door of a resident of
Biddeford, Maine. Cristian Vaca was warned, “We’re gonna come back for
your whole family.” Vaca, a native of Ecuador who says he has a work
permit and an upcoming immigration hearing, told AP that he was
“terrified” during the encounter and it made him concerned about his
son.
*****
The brutality of the federal operation has provoked widespread
opposition from workers and community advocates. Grassroots resistance
has emerged as workers and residents refuse to be intimidated. Anti-ICE
flyers have appeared in shop windows across Portland, and protesters
have gathered outside the ICE field office in Scarborough to demand an
end to the raids. The Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition and other
community organizers have worked tirelessly to create support networks,
connecting families with legal counsel. Residents have formed support
networks to deliver food and supplies to immigrant families too afraid
to leave their homes.
The blatant illegality and violence of the
federal operation have also drawn criticism from Democratic state and
local officials, who fear the social explosion it is creating. The
response from Maine’s Democratic officials is not a genuine defense of
immigrants and democratic rights, but a calculated political
performance. Their actions follow a well-worn national playbook: issue
outraged press releases, hold press conferences to express concern, and
demand information from the very agencies carrying out the terror. These
are tactics designed to give the appearance of opposition, channeling
popular anger into safe, institutional dead ends without obstructing the
functioning of the federal state apparatus in any meaningful way.
Governor
Janet Mills, the state’s leading Democrat, at a press conference
January 22, adopted a posture of defiance, declaring, “If they have
warrants, show the warrants. In America, we don’t believe in secret
arrests or secret police.” While making such declarations, her
administration took no concrete action to use the powers of the state
government to halt the raids.
The centerpiece of state Democrats’ supposed legislative defense,
bill LD 1971, limiting state and local police cooperation with federal
immigration enforcement, was exposed as an equally empty gesture. Mills’
own role was telling. She initially called the bill “overly broad and
confusing” and only allowed it to become law without her signature in
January 2026, after witnessing what she called “ICE’s
unacceptable actions.” She did not campaign for the law but was
reluctantly pushed into accepting it by the very crisis she refused to
confront. More fundamentally, the law is designed to be ineffective
against federal power.
As the ACLU of Maine itself noted, “As a
state law, LD 1971 will not impact federal laws allowing federal
officials to operate in Maine.” It prohibits Maine police from assisting ICE,
but it does absolutely nothing to prevent federal agents from
conducting their own operations, abducting residents and terrorizing
communities.
*****
The working class, whether immigrant or native-born, can place no
faith in any section of the capitalist political establishment. The
experience in Maine proves that the Democratic Party is not a shield
against the far right, but a key enabler of its agenda.
“Operation
Catch of the Day” is not an isolated event confined to a rural state.
It is an integral part of a nationwide assault by the Trump
administration on the democratic and social rights of the entire working
class, directly connected to the federal escalation of state violence
in Minneapolis and other cities.
Los Angeles County officials announced last week that they have
effectively dismantled the joint city-county Los Angeles Homeless
Services Authority (LAHSA) and transferred much of its authority and
funding to a new Department of Homeless Services and Housing under
direct county control.
The new department, officially launched January 1, 2026, consolidates
homelessness-related programs that were previously spread across
multiple county departments and LAHSA. County leaders claim the
restructuring will “increase accountability and transparency,” improve
coordination with cities and deliver better outcomes for people
experiencing homelessness.
Supervisor Kathryn Barger summed up the
official justification bluntly. Under the old arrangement, she said,
“LAHSA blames the county, the county blames the city, the city blames
LAHSA.” Now, accountability will “end with the Board of Supervisors.”
Director Sarah Mahin, appointed to lead the new department, has pledged
to focus resources on “the most vulnerable people” and on programs that
“we know work.”
This language is familiar. For years, Democratic
officials have responded to the explosion of homelessness with promises
of reform, oversight and efficiency. Audits of LAHSA documented weak
financial controls, fragmented oversight and poor data quality. These
findings are now being used to justify a sweeping bureaucratic overhaul.
But
the creation of a new department does nothing to address the social
causes of homelessness. It does not create affordable housing, raise
wages, expand social programs or reverse decades of austerity. It
reshuffles administrative authority while leaving intact the capitalist
system that produces homelessness.
*****
The hollowness of the county’s claims is underscored by the new
department’s draft budget. Even as officials promise improved care and
coordination, the budget includes cuts of more than 25 percent to
existing homeless services. These reductions are justified by expiring
state and federal funding, rising costs and lower-than-expected sales
tax revenue from Measure A, even as overall county revenues have grown.
In other words, the county is centralizing control while cutting services.
The
restructuring comes amid growing public anger over homelessness that
Democratic officials are seeking to deflect away from the capitalist
system they defend. By framing the crisis as one of mismanagement rather
than social crisis, they prescribe technocratic fixes while presiding
over the dismantling of affordable housing, the erosion of rent
protections and the treatment of housing as a profit-making commodity
rather than a social right.
Central to this strategy is
privatization. In 2025, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously,
including the four members of the Democratic Socialists of America, to
begin dismantling LAHSA and diverting funds into new agencies and
private contractors.
*****
Under outsourcing, social services for the poor are funneled through a
maze of nonprofit intermediaries and corporate contractors. Public
money flows freely, but democratic control and transparency disappear,
producing corruption rather than efficiency.
*****
... Billions have flowed through nonprofit and private contractors with
little serious monitoring. State audits have repeatedly shown that
California spent vast sums on homelessness programs without tracking
outcomes or properly accounting for the money.
More broadly, a
bipartisan consensus prevails that there is always limitless funding for
war, repression and policing, but none for social programs. This was
underscored by the recent congressional minibus bill, passed with
Democratic and Republican support, which allocates hundreds of billions
for military expansion and the further militarization of immigration
enforcement, while social spending is slashed or left to wither.
The
state is increasingly relying on repression to manage the social
consequences of inequality. The killing of nurse Alex Pretti in
Minneapolis stands as a stark warning. It demonstrates how the state
responds to social dissent and opposition not by addressing legitimate
grievances, but by deploying violence and repression.
The real scandal is not simply the existence of individual fraudsters,
but the political order that subordinates human need to profit. While
unhoused people sleep on sidewalks, taxpayer dollars are siphoned into
luxury consumption. Officials respond with ritual expressions of concern
and promises of oversight, while leaving the underlying system
untouched.
California Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration has taken this
logic further with a new framework for homelessness funding. To access
billions in state dollars, cities and counties must now meet a series of
bureaucratic requirements: updated housing plans, “pro-housing”
designations, encampment policies aligned with state guidance, local
matching funds and evidence of “progress.”
Presented as
accountability, these requirements function as gatekeeping mechanisms.
They delay urgently needed housing and services while homelessness
continues to grow. Responsibility is shifted onto local compliance,
while the structural drivers of the crisis are ignored.
*****
Homelessness exposes the complete bankruptcy of capitalist politics.
Without massive public investment in social housing, strong tenant
protections and the mobilization of the working class to assert housing
as a social right, the crisis will continue to deepen. The Democrats’
“accountability” framework is a political ploy to allow homelessness to
spread while protecting property and profit. Only a socialist program
offers a way forward from the social regression capitalism is producing.
The Canada-China trade agreement that Prime Minister Mark Carney
reached with President Xi Jinping during his visit to Beijing earlier
this month has been angrily denounced by the Quebec separatist
establishment. The Parti Québécois (PQ) and its federal sister party,
the Bloc Québécois (BQ), have seized upon the modest trade agreement as a
further argument for Quebec independence, and above all to signal their
allegiance to American imperialism, now led by the would-be dictator
Donald Trump.
The Trump administration’s trade war and its threats
to use “economic force” to transform Canada into America’s 51st state
have caused the virtual collapse of Canada-US relations. Ottawa’s deal
with Beijing to scale back their own tariff war represents a tactical
maneuver by Canadian imperialism. It is aimed at diversifying Canada’s
economic ties, so as to gain greater leverage in pushing back against an
increasingly belligerent Washington that is seeking to use Canada’s
dependence on the US market to extract economic and geopolitical
concessions.
Ottawa’s limited rapprochement with China
is taking place amid a concerted drive on the part of the Carney
Liberal government to expand economic and military-strategic ties with
the European imperialist powers, as well as Japan, South Korea and
India.
The China trade deal in no way suggests a departure from
Canada’s previous imperialist alignments and alliances. With its
insistence that any improved relations with Beijing must be within
strict “national-security guardrails,” the Carney government has made
clear that it remains committed to the US-led military-strategic
offensive against China, including denying Beijing access to “dual-use”
technologies. Just before embarking on his visit to China, the first by a
Canadian prime minister since 2017, Carney participated in a “coalition
of the willing” meeting in Paris to underline Canada’s support for the
continued prosecution of the NATO-instigated war against Russia in
Ukraine.
Despite all this, the PQ leadership has denounced
Carney’s China trip and the trade deal in the most virulent terms. The
PQ has accused Ottawa of imperiling Canadian “national security” and
threatening Canada and Quebec’s relations with Washington.
*****
Even before Carney had set foot in Beijing, the PQ broadcast its
opposition to any rapprochement with China and eagerness to work with
Trump. It reprized the strident anticommunist rhetoric in which the
fascist president and the US political and military establishments couch
their predatory geopolitical agenda.
*****
Under St-Pierre Plamondon, the PQ has spelled out a far-right agenda
for independence based on an explicitly chauvinist, pro-big business
agenda. In in a Quebec version of the fascistic “great replacement”
conspiracy theory, the PQ claims that if Quebec does not vote to secede
from Canada by 2030 it will be submerged in a sea of English-speaking
immigrants.
St-Pierre Plamondon has made common cause with the
far-right, pro-Trump Alberta separatist movement, and like them is
planning to visit Washington in the coming weeks to solicit support.
*****
The PQ sees Trump’s openly imperialist and territorial expansionist
agenda as an opportunity to secure American backing for Quebec
independence. It is effectively offering Quebec’s services as a willing
junior partner in a “Fortress North America.” This includes assisting
Washington in its efforts to redefine its relations with the Canadian
federal state, so as to reshape Canada’s economy and its borders to the
advantage of Washington and Wall Street.
St-Pierre Plamondon’s
declaration at his January 16 press conference that an independent
Quebec would take “a completely different approach,” than Carney and the
most powerful sections of Canadian capital, “much more aligned with the
prevention of foreign interference and the preservation of security in
our region,” represents nothing less than an offer to serve as
Washington’s loyal sentinel on the north-east flank of North America as
Washington prepares for world war with its principal rivals, China and
Russia.
*****
The PQ’s support for Trump’s criminal foreign policy represents a
continuation of decades of Quebec separatist backing for American and
Canadian imperialism’s wars and regime-change operations—from Yugoslavia
and Haiti to Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. Previously, this was wrapped
in the language of “humanitarian intervention” and “democratic values.”
Today, the PQ is supporting American imperialism under conditions in
which it is led by a fascistic administration that models its foreign
policy strategy on Hitler’s Third Reich, openly proclaiming its “right”
to seize territories and plunder resources at will.
*****
War and escalating attacks on the working class are incompatible with
democratic rights. As Trump declared at last week’s Davos summit:
“Sometimes you need a dictator.” The Trump administration’s drive to
violently assert US global hegemony is taking place as Gestapo-type
federal agents are occupying American cities, conducting illegal raids
against immigrants and citizens alike, and even executing anti-ICE
protesters. In Minneapolis, ICE agents summarily executed the poet and
mother Renee Good on January 7, and Alex Pretti, a nurse, last Saturday.
The
Quebec separatists’ efforts to court American imperialism under these
circumstances carry a stark warning for the working class: the drive to
war abroad is inseparable from war on workers at home. As the rapid turn
of Canadian and Quebec establishment politics to the right since
Trump’s return to the White House has underscored, the development of
the class struggle in Canada and Quebec is inevitably shaped by American
developments.
On Friday, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi officially dissolved
parliament to call a snap general election for February 8. Campaigning
began yesterday, making it the shortest such period in Japan’s post-war
history. Takaichi and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) hope to
secure a so-called “mandate” for the government’s far-right policies,
which include deepening Japan’s remilitarization in preparation for war
with China.
The main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP) is
also using the election to shift further to the right. The CDP has
merged with Komeito, the LDP’s former coalition partner of 26 years, to
form a new “centrist” party, dubbed the Centrist Reform Alliance (CRA),
or Chudo Kaikaku Rengo.
The new party holds 172 seats in the lower
house of parliament where all 465 seats are now up for election. The
CRA is jointly led by Yoshihiko Noda of the CDP and Komeito’s leader
Testuo Saito. For the time being, their respective members in the upper
house, where seats are not up for election, will abstain from entering
the new party.
In comparison, the LDP holds 199 seats and is in
coalition with the far-right Nippon Ishin no Kai, which holds 34 seats,
providing a slim majority in the lower house. The coalition only
achieved this majority in November when three so-called “independents”
joined the bloc but still does not hold a majority in the upper house.
The
election takes place under significant upheavals internationally and at
home. The Trump regime’s attack on Venezuela and kidnapping of its
president Nicolás Maduro has exposed Washington and Tokyo’s claims to
stand for the “rule of law.” Economic turmoil brought on by Trump’s
trade war against allies including Japan has also exacerbated declining
conditions.
*****
There is no guarantee the LDP’s ruling coalition will secure a parliamentary majority. A Yomiuri Shimbun poll last month found public support for the LDP at just 30 percent.
Social
distress is rising. Real wages have fallen each year on an annual basis
since 2021. The Labour Ministry reported this month that real wages
fell 2.8 percent in November due to inflation, the 11th straight month
of decline. Rising inflation has had a particularly sharp impact on food
like rice, the price of which reached a record-high this month of 4,416
yen ($US28.67) per five kilograms.
All parties are offering
promises of tax and inflation relief, particularly regarding the highly
unpopular consumption tax. Takaichi’s cabinet approved a 21.3
trillion-yen ($US135 billion) stimulus package in November and now has
pledged additional tax cuts. But with no clear indication of how this
would be achieved Japan’s bond market went into turmoil.
By
contrast, the opposition CRA insists on debt restraint, catering to the
sections of the bourgeoisie that are concerned that Japan’s growing
debt-to-GDP ratio is becoming untenable. While claiming his party would
reduce the consumption tax on food to zero, Noda stated on Monday, “We
will not issue deficit-covering government bonds. We want to work hard
to achieve this by autumn by clearly indicating the source of funds.”
The International Monetary Fund estimates Japan’s debt-to-GDP ratio at
237 percent.
When it comes to remilitarization and war, the CRA
tacitly supports the measures taken by the LDP in recent years as well
as Takaichi’s proposed agenda, which includes constitutional revisions
that would allow Japan’s full rearming while imposing attacks on
democratic rights. Takaichi also plans to revise Japan’s National
Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy, and the Defense
Buildup Program by the end of this year.
In an act of political censorship, a collections committee at the Art
Gallery of Ontario (AGO) rejected buying a work by photographer-artist
Nan Goldin last year because several committee members found her
denunciation of the Gaza genocide “offensive” and “antisemitic.”
The Globe and Mail carried the story January 21, and other
media outlets have followed up with further information. The action
against the Jewish-American Goldin led to the resignation of senior
curator John Zeppetelli and two collections committee volunteers.
The
AGO is one of the largest and most prestigious art museums in North
America, with a collection of over 120,000 works. It already has three
other Goldin works.
Nan Goldin is a prominent figure in the global
art community. In 2023, she was described as the most influential
person in the art world in ArtReview’s “Power 100” list of such individuals.
In
her most widely publicized statement on Gaza, Goldin took the
opportunity in November 2024 of the opening of an exhibition, “This Will
Not End Well,” at the Neue Nationalgalerie [New National Gallery] in
Berlin to condemn both Israel and Germany for their roles in the
genocide in Gaza and its extension into Lebanon.
At the start of her 14-minute speech
to a packed audience … Goldin called for four minutes of silence in
remembrance of the victims of the conflict in the Palestinian
territories and Lebanon, as well as civilians killed in Israel. …
Referring
to her own Jewish background, Goldin explained that “My grandparents
escaped pogroms in Russia. I was brought up knowing about the Nazi
Holocaust. What I see in Gaza reminds me of the pogroms that my
grandparents escaped.”
Later in her remarks,
“Anti-Zionism
has nothing to do with antisemitism” she said to cheers, noting that
the campaign to conflate the terms increasingly endangered Jews who had
previously regarded Germany as a refuge from antisemitism.
*****
Goldin has continued denouncing the crimes taking place in Gaza and
the region. At the Rencontres d’Arles international photography festival
in southern France on July 8, 2025, she described the slaughter in Gaza as “the first live-streamed genocide.”
The artist told Artnet that
“I’m Jewish. I’ve always been Jewish. I’m still Jewish, and it’s part
of my Jewish learning to show compassion.” She added, “The idea that not
supporting the policies of a nation can be called anti-Semitic is
ridiculous. … Zionism isn’t even a religious construct. It’s a political
one.”
After the AGO capitulated to the pro-Zionist watchdogs, the
Walker and the Vancouver Art Gallery went ahead with their part of the
acquisition, and Stendhal Syndrome opened in November in Vancouver.
As gold was powering through the $5000 mark to a new record high,
another indication of growing global financial instability was the crash
last week of the Japanese government market (JGB). The sell-off saw the
yield (interest rate) on a 40-year bond rise by 0.25 percentage points
in a single session. Under “normal” conditions, movements are usually a
tiny fraction of that amount. There was also significant movement in
shorter-dated bonds.
The gold price rise was accompanied by a 13.6 percent increase in the price of silver to $117 per ounce—a new record.
Gold
has risen by more than 20 percent so far this year and all forecasts
are that it has still further to go as investors shift out of the dollar
and US assets. Much of the shift is by traders and financial
speculators seeking a hedge against inflation, further falls in the
value of the dollar and the rise of geopolitical risks resulting from
the aggression of the Trump regime against allies and foes alike.
But
central banks have also been major purchasers of gold in the recent
period helping to send its price from $2,063 at the end of 2023 to above
$5,000 today.
Last week the Polish central bank announced it was purchasing another
150 tons of gold—more than the entire holdings of Mexico and Brazil.
*****
The immediate cause of the Japanese bond market selloff—trading
conditions were described as “chaotic”—is concern that the program of
the Sanae Takaichi government to implement tax cuts and increased
spending, for which it is seeking a mandate at the February 8 election,
will be financed by increased debt.
Fears have been voiced this
could lead to a mini version of the UK “Liz Truss moment” of
September-October 2022. The Tory government she led sparked a bond
market crisis when it sought to cut taxes for corporations and the
wealthy by increasing debt. It was only resolved when the Bank of
England intervened and Truss was forced to quit.
*****
The turmoil in the Japanese market has major implications for the US
Treasury market and its capacity to keep funding ever-expanding US debt.
It is now at $38 trillion and set to rise even further with the
announcement by Trump that he is seeking a military budget of $1.5
trillion.
Japanese investors hold 13 percent of the US Treasury
market debt. The fear is that at least some of this money will be
returned home if Japanese interest rates rise sharply.
World
markets and the US market in particular have been able to finance
growing government debt at lower interest rates than would be justified
by their deficits because of the availability of cheaper money from
Japan.
One of the effects of the bond turmoil has been the
lowering of the value of the yen which has sparked concern in US
financial circles. Amid speculation that the government would intervene
in the market to stabilize the yen, it emerged the New York Federal
Reserve had contacted Japanese financial institutions about the yen’s
exchange rate—regraded as a sign that a joint intervention might take
place.
*****
In remarks reported on Bloomberg, Anthony Doyle, chief investment
strategist at the global financial firm Pinnacle Investment Management,
explained why a falling yen posed a problem for the US.
“If the yen slides hard, Japan has to defend it, and the fastest
lever is selling reserves, including Treasuries. That’s how a Japan
problem turns into higher US yield at exactly the wrong moment,” he
said.
The Japanese government and the central bank are compelled
to try to maintain the yen’s value because a major fall increases costs
for industry which relies heavily on imports for oil and many other raw
materials as well as industrial components. It also increases the rate
of inflation for consumers which has already started to rise.
As
governments and financial authorities move this way to try to contain
the immediate effects of mounting financial turbulence, the underlying
problems which give rise to it remain.
They center on the growing
lack of confidence in the US dollar as the global fiat currency,
reflected most sharply in the skyrocketing price of gold, and the growth
of government debt in the US and around the world.
*****
The “solution” to this developing crisis from the standpoint of the
ruling classes is a massive intensification of the onslaught against the
working class, already well underway. There is no kind of “reformist”
solution for the working class within the framework of capitalism. The
only way forward is the development of a conscious political struggle
for the abolition of the crisis-ridden capitalist system and the
establishment of socialism.
We have endured a particularly brutal Christmas, dominated by the
ongoing collapse of the letters service—the result of thousands of job
losses and chronic understaffing—while punishing workloads have been
pushed to extremes amid a holiday surge in parcels.
Royal Mail
acknowledged delays in mail delivery to 142 postcodes across the UK in
the week before Christmas. This does not tell the full story. The New
Year opened with delays of two weeks were rife across the country, and
in Wolverhampton in the West Midlands, up to six weeks—“postal deserts”
where vital mail - medical appointments, legal documents, and bills—go
missing.
The official response has been the expected whitewash. Royal Mail
blamed staff sickness, resourcing and “other local factors”, while
repeating the discredited claim that more profitable parcels were not
being prioritized over letters.
*****
[T]his chaos is not accidental. It is the direct outcome of billionaire Daniel Kretinsky’s EP Group takeover completed last May.
The
£3.6 billion acquisition sailed through with the Starmer government’s
rubber stamp via its Deed of Undertaking in December 2024, tied to the
Framework Agreement signed by Communication Workers Union (CWU) leaders
Dave Ward and Martin Walsh with EP Group: agreed in private and followed
by the fanfare of “a fresh start”.
A PR exercise was crafted welcoming EP Group as a long-time investor
committed to the six-day Universal Service Obligation (USO) and
First-Class letters. This was to deflect our objections that the
takeover was an asset-stripping operation designed to intensify the
managed decline of the mail service and convert Royal Mail into a
low-wage parcel courier network.
*****
Workers can put a stop to this by asserting what is right and
necessary against the profit interest of the private-equity billionaires
at EP Group, represented jointly by the union apparatus and the
government. We appeal to you to help expand the Postal Workers
Rank-and-File Committee (PWRFC) to make this possible.
Organizing from the shop floor—establishing independent committees in delivery
offices and mail centres, and throughout distribution and Parcelforce—is
essential. These committees must advance clear demands: no executive
impositions, no USO “reform”, an end to two-tier pay and conditions, defense of a fully funded daily universal mail service, and opposition
to all job cuts and workload intensification.
Postal workers are
far from powerless. Our power lies not in partnership with EP Group or
appeals to the Starmer government, but in the conscious, organized mobilization of more than 100,000 postal workers. Above all, the
struggle must be politically oriented, linking postal workers in the UK
with postal and logistics workers internationally facing the same
attacks and privatization drives.
This is the fight the PWRFC is taking up as part of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees.
On the morning of April 22, 2024, the United States Postal Service
(USPS) distribution center in Forest Park, Illinois, was the site of a
devastating workplace tragedy.
Keywan Glenn, a dedicated
44-year-old postal clerk who had previously worked at the Chicago
Transit Authority, suffered a fatal cardiac arrest while on the job. His
death, and the circumstances leading up to it, expose conditions of
extreme workplace stress and—along with many other tragic deaths—the
systemic failure of emergency response within USPS facilities.
Keywan
Glenn was the father of four girls and one boy: Kayla, Savannah,
Kailani, Amara, and Keywan Lontee Glenn Jr., who was born after Keywan
Sr. died. His fiancée, Princess Shaw, spoke with the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) this month about his death.
*****
Keywan was well loved in his community and was a leader in his local motorcycle club. “He loved riding his Harley,” she said.
Princess explained that she contacted the World Socialist Web Site
to expose the conditions that led to Keywan’s untimely death and to
encourage postal workers to fight for improved working conditions.
She told WSWS reporters that Keywan was under immense and sustained
workplace stress in the period leading up to his death. He was often
anxious about his employment at USPS, which was vital for supporting his
family. His supervisor was a particular source of stress.
At the
same time, she explained that he was generally very happy to be working
at USPS. “When he started working there, he was all-in, full of energy.
When he was going from seasonal to full-time, and then got the shift he
wanted—he was so grateful. He cared about his job, and he sacrificed.”
On
the morning of his death, Keywan said he was not feeling well and was
experiencing nausea and weakness. He lay down for a while and later
decided to go to work against the wishes of both his mother and
Princess.
When he arrived at work, he still did not feel any
better, but his supervisor brushed off his complaints. Nevertheless,
Keywan decided to clock out and go home. He lost consciousness as he
approached the time clock, where, Princess said, a supervisor instructed
other workers not to help him until emergency medical assistance
arrived. Princess said she does not believe that anyone present was CPR
trained and that no AED device was available.
It took 15–20 minutes for an ambulance to arrive at the Forest Park facility, and by then Keywan could not be saved.
The circumstances of Keywan’s death are strikingly similar to those
of Russell Scruggs Jr. and Chris Montano, also a Chicago-area postal
worker. Both men were USPS workers in their 40s who died of cardiac
arrest while at work. These tragedies underscore the systemic failure of
emergency preparedness and response at the agency.
Describing the
pressure Keywan faced to work as much as possible and avoid any
absenteeism, Princess said, “These people think they are God with the
way they think they can treat people. One supervisor in particular would
call him, and I would hear him ask her, ‘Why are you messing with me?
Why are you picking on me?’ It was constant stress.”
She explained
that she contacted OSHA. “I contacted them because I heard from another
worker that there had been an investigation. They gave me the
runaround. I couldn’t get any information. Then I was advised to drop
it.”
When asked whether the union or USPS had offered any support, she said,
“None. All they have done is send his last check, which I still haven’t
cashed.”
Addressing coworkers and families of other postal workers who have lost
their lives on the job, she said, “I am so sorry there’s not anything
better in place. I am taking a stand here not just for my loved ones,
but for yours too, to make sure the changes come that need to come.”
Members of the National Education Union (NEU) have extended their
nine days of strike action which began on January 14 by a further nine
days, extending into February.
The strike across 20 schools around
the Midlands is against threats of compulsory redundancies by The
Arthur Terry Learning Partnership, a multi-academy trust (MAT) which
controls 24 schools across Birmingham, Coventry and Staffordshire. Four
of the remaining schools are being re-balloted following requests from
staff.
Striking
workers have shut down several schools, some operating with limited
access to vulnerable pupils and those in Years 11 and 13. The pickets
have been well attended and a rally held in Birmingham on January 22 was
attended by hundreds. Teachers voted 86 percent in favor of strike
action on a 99 percent turnout.
The Trust is in financial deficit
and plans to implement deep cuts; according to the union, some 100
teaching and support staff could lose their jobs. Staff are also
concerned about increased workloads and stress. Redundancies would
undoubtedly worsen staff exhaustion and the quality of education and
support they are able to provide their pupils.
Thousands of
schools nationally have a financial deficit after education funding was
slashed by the Conservatives, to levels now largely maintained by
Labour. The action in the Midlands is significant for revealing the well
of opposition to this state of affairs among educators, and their
determination to fight. By rights, it should be expanded across the
country in a fightback against austerity, privatization and the
decimation of education.
*****
Almost half of schools are now run by academies, including 80 percent
of secondary schools and 46 percent of primary schools—a process begun
under Tony Blair.
Supposedly aimed at fixing “poor achievement”
in primarily working-class schools, the process has removed schools from
the control of local education authorities while maintain public
funding. Trusts hold the school assets, set budget and staffing
policies, and determine aspects of the curriculum and admissions.
*****
The NEU has abandoned any pretense of fighting academization and has
allowed the relentless privatization and profiteering out of what ought
to be the essential right of every child: a state-funded education
system.
*****
The state sector fairs little better, with government funding cut to the
bone. The NEU reported that in the last year school cuts have deepened
by an additional £1 billion. Three-quarters of schools in England have
less funding in real terms than in 2010.
What does the NEU propose to end downward spiral of austerity?
President Daniel Kebede declares, “It’s easy to get pessimistic about
these figures, but as we enter a new year there are more chances than
ever for us to persuade politicians to arrest the crisis in our schools.
We will continue to call for every politician of any party to commit
the money needed to properly fund every school in England.”
Appealing to the very forces imposing austerity, as well as militarism and attacks on democratic rights, is beyond pessimistic!
*****
A new path must be taken which can unify staff throughout the sector.
The isolation of struggles must be ended. Many academies have taken
action in the past two years against similar practices.
*****
Not only would such a struggle win mass support among educators, it
would chime with the sentiment of broader sections of the working class
who also confront relentless attacks on their wages and conditions. Bin
men in Birmingham, just around the corner from the teachers’ rally, have
been on strike for over a year against efforts to slash their wages and
overturn safe working practices. They too have been kept isolated.
Taking
up a common struggle means establishing rank-and-file committees of
teachers and all school staff, independent of the unions, which can form
links between schools, and with other sections of workers in struggle,
in preparation for coordinated action.
Five workers were killed in a massive explosion and fire in the early
hours of Monday morning at the Violanta biscuit factory near the town
of Trikala in Thessaly, central Greece. Eight workers managed to escape
with their lives, with six hospitalized with minor injuries. A
firefighter was also taken to hospital.
The shockwaves from the
explosion were so powerful that part of the building and its roof
collapsed. The blast was heard up to 8 kilometres away in Trikala itself
and in nearby villages. The ensuing blaze burned for hours as
firefighters battled to control it, while relatives of the trapped
workers gathered outside.
*****
Violanta operates two production structures at the site. The
explosion originated in the central section of an older factory
building, located next to a newer and larger modern production unit that
was not affected. Although the destroyed structure was a single
building, the force of the blast effectively tore it in two, collapsing a
wall and bringing down the roof.
The explosion occurred just
before 4 a.m., during the night shift when 13 workers were on site. That
there were not more fatalities was purely a matter of chance: normally
around 30 workers are present during the night shift. Eighteen workers
had been given the morning off to attend a company event—an annual New
Year’s cake celebration—that had continued late into Sunday night.
The
blast occurred on the production line where industrial ovens are
located, with preliminary indications that a gas leak may have triggered
it. To Vima (The Tribune) reported: “While there were
no liquefied gas storage tanks in the destroyed building, officials
have not ruled out a leak of propane, ammonia, or another flammable
gas.”
*****
Workplace accidents occur with increasing frequency in Greece. According
to figures compiled by the Federation of Technical Company Trade Unions
(OSETEE), 630 workers lost their lives at work between 2022 and 2025.
Of these, 201 deaths occurred in the previous year alone, up from 150 in
2024.
*****
The surge in workplace deaths and injuries is the consequence of
brutal austerity and the systematic assault on working conditions
imposed for well over a decade by successive governments on the Greek
working class, at the behest of the EU and International Monetary Fund
(IMF) following the 2008 financial crisis.
Last year, a new labor law made Greece the first country in the EU to legalize a 13-hour working day, formalizing the reality faced by many workers holding two or more jobs
simply to make ends meet. With fatigue a major cause of workplace
accidents, this legislation will only increase their frequency.
Long,
hard hours are not unique to Greece but part of a global pattern in
which profit-driven speedups, understaffing and the rollback of safety
regulations transform workplaces into death traps—as seen in recent
industrial disasters worldwide, from postal facilities in the United States to plantations and factories in Sri Lanka.
Demonstrating
how little workers’ lives are valued by the Greek ruling class, many
reports in the corporate media have framed the explosion as a tragedy
for Greek “entrepreneurship.” The dominant narrative is that the
disaster has damaged Violanta’s “success story” image of an emerging
biscuit manufacturer pioneering the adoption of green technologies at
one of its factories in Larissa.
*****
The dire state of workplace safety today is inseparable from the betrayal of Tsipras and his rotten party.
Syriza was swept into power with a landslide in January 2015 on an
anti-austerity platform, only to junk it within weeks. Following the
July 2015 referendum—in which workers overwhelmingly rejected a third
austerity package—Syriza swiftly agreed to a new austerity program with the EU and IMF.
Three months have passed since the explosion at Polymetals Resources’
Endeavor mine near Cobar, New South Wales (NSW), that killed workers
Patrick “Ambrose” McMullen, 59, and Holly Clarke, 24, and left
24-year-old Mackenzie Stirling with serious injuries.
At approximately 3:30 a.m. on October 28, McMullen, Clarke, and
Stirling were preparing a ballistic disc explosive device to clear a
blockage of rocks when the device detonated prematurely. The explosion
killed shift supervisor McMullen instantly. Clarke and Stirling were
brought to the surface, but Clarke succumbed to her injuries. Stirling
was airlifted to hospital in Orange, more than 350 kilometres away.
The
incident rocked Cobar, where a significant proportion of the town’s
3,500 residents are employed in the mining industry. McMullen, who left
behind a wife and four children, and Clarke, killed at such a tragically
young age, were well-loved in the community, a fact testified to by the
combined attendance at their memorial services of well over 1,000.
Despite
the passage of time, there is still no official explanation for the
tragedy. The NSW Resources Regulator has released only a perfunctory
interim report, raising more questions than it answers, and is not
required—or likely—to provide any further updates until the
investigation is complete. Nor does the report make any recommendations
to prevent a repeat tragedy at Endeavor or anywhere else.
Based on
countless previous investigations by the so-called safety regulators,
it could be years before any official findings are released. The final
report will almost certainly be a whitewash, covering over the company’s
responsibility for the explosion and calling for nothing more than a
token fine and a slap on the wrist.
*****
While the regulator’s own investigation is ongoing and ostensibly
inconclusive, it allowed Polymetals to resume blasting operations on the
basis of an internal review. Officially, this review also failed to
determine the cause of the explosion, but was still used as a pretext
for a full reopening.
However, in a December Quarter report
published earlier this month, Polymetals noted of the review: “While no
critical deficiencies were identified, the Company elected to implement a
site-wide transition from standard electric to electronic detonators as
an additional precautionary measure.”
While far from a definitive
statement about the cause of the fatal explosion, this comment, along
with the regulator’s interest in the electric detonators, does indicate
the possibility that the investigations may not have been as
“inconclusive” as is officially claimed.
*****
Clearly, intensive discussions have taken place behind the scenes about
what took place on October 28, not from the standpoint of preventing
future deaths or informing workers of potential risks to their safety,
but to minimise any interruption to profits for Polymetals and the
broader mining industry.
*****
The corporate media, after a flurry of activity in the hours and days
following the explosion, had abandoned any serious coverage of the story
by the end of the week. No major news outlet has reported the reopening
of Endeavor, the company’s resumption of blasting, or the regulator’s
November 25 release.
*****
The Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) and Mining and Energy Union
(MEU), whose officials issued empty vows on the day of the blast to
“find out what happened and make sure that it never happens again,” have
not uttered a word since. Their silence demonstrates their agreement
with the mine being reopened with the explosion’s cause unexplained and
workers, at Endeavor and throughout the mining industry, therefore at
risk of a repeat event.
The unions’ response to the Cobar tragedy
is no aberration. These organizations have presided for decades over
countless worker deaths and serious injuries in the mining industry.
Together with the so-called safety regulators, the unions work to cover
up the responsibility of corporations for industrial accidents as well
as their real underlying cause—the capitalist system and the
subordination of workers’ health and lives to profit.
*****
Underscoring the phony character of the unions and regulators’
claims to be protecting workers, in the three months since the Cobar
tragedy, at least three more mining workers have been killed across
Australia, including Jeff Palmer, at Mammoth coal mine in Queensland.
This
poses the urgent need for mining workers and their families to take
matters into their own hands. The truth about what happened on October
28 will only be uncovered through an investigation led by workers
themselves. A rank-and-file committee of Endeavor workers should be
established to oversee this. As a matter of urgency, such a committee
should fight to reverse the reopening and insist that workers are paid
in full for the duration of the investigation.
Such an
investigation would have a significance that extends far beyond the
Endeavor mine or the town of Cobar. Until the real cause of the
explosion is conclusively identified and rectified, countless mining
workers around the world could be at risk of a similar incident.
*****
The World Socialist Web Site and Socialist Equality Party
pledge to provide every political assistance in this fight. This will
depend on workers coming forward, breaking the gag order imposed by
Polymetals. We urge workers at Endeavor and others in Cobar and
throughout the mining industry to contact us with
whatever information you have about the October 28 incident and safety
in the mines. We will protect your anonymity from the companies, unions
and government authorities.
The Trump administration’s invasion of Venezuela and his threats to
bomb Iran, and the strike movement in Minneapolis against its
extrajudicial murders of US citizens in occupied cities, is relentlessly
unmasking political tendencies. The outbreak of imperialist wars and
class struggle is exposing the bankruptcy of the organizations that have
predominated in what capitalist media promoted as the “left” for
decades.
France Unbowed (LFI), the populist party of Jean-Luc
Mélenchon that formed the New Popular Front (NFP) with the bourgeois
Socialist Party (PS), the Stalinist French Communist Party (PCF), the
Greens and the Pabloite New Anticapitalist Party (NPA), does not offer a
revolutionary perspective for a struggle against imperialism. Ignoring
the mobilization of US workers in Minneapolis, LFI is aligning itself
with French imperialism. It is backing attempts by Paris to find a new
understanding with Washington, despite the explosive crisis in
US-European relations provoked by Trump’s designs on Greenland.
Last
week, when Macron refused to give the $1 billion Trump was demanding to
participate in his peace council, which is supposed to administer the
genocide in Gaza, Trump published WhatsApp messages that Macron had sent
him. The Elysée presidential palace then confirmed that the texts from
Macron were indeed authentic. In them, Macron applauded Trump’s foreign
policy and begged to organize a meeting with Trump in Paris. Macron
wrote:
“My friend, we are totally aligned in Syria. We can
accomplish great things in Iran. I don’t understand what you’re doing in
Greenland. Let’s try to build great things: (1) I can organize a G7
meeting after Davos in Paris on Thursday afternoon. I can invite the
Ukrainians, the Danes, the Syrians, and the Russians to the margins. (2)
Let’s have dinner together in Paris on Thursday before you return to
the USA. Emmanuel.”
By publishing Macron’s sycophantic text,
America’s fascist president demolished Paris’ pretensions to a foreign
policy fundamentally different from his own. Ignoring the plundering of
Venezuela, Macron endorsed Trump’s threats to bomb Iran and applauded
his policy in Syria, a country whose president Trump had received in
Washington before he launched a bloody offensive against the Kurds. And
Macron, who has praised Israeli leaders and cracked down on pro-Gaza
protests in France, is no opponent of genocide in Gaza.
*****
World imperialist war, fascism and genocide are not minor blemishes in
an otherwise healthy capitalist system that needs to be refounded
through trade union struggles in unity with bourgeois organizations like
the French PS. They are the signs of a mortal crisis of capitalism,
like the crimes of the Hitler regime at the founding of the Fourth
International in 1938, the year before the outbreak of World War II.
They call for a revolutionary strategy. Democracy and social rights can
only be defended through an international struggle for workers’ power
and socialist revolution.
At
the Bosch plant in Schwäbisch Gmünd, IG Metall is attempting to exclude
an opposition list from the upcoming works council elections. This
attack on democratic rights must be answered by building independent
rank-and-file committees to unite workers against job cuts and the union
bureaucracy.
*****
It is completely unacceptable that IG Metall, of all organizations,
should determine who may stand for election and who may not. It wants to
silence everyone who does not prostitute themselves to the corporate
leadership as it does. This must not be allowed.
We call on all
workers at Bosch—and beyond—to vehemently oppose this attack. Defend the
right of the “Free Metalworkers” list to participate in the works
council election and thus the right of all employees to decide for
themselves who should represent them on the works council!
This
requires workers’ self-organization against the IG Metall apparatus.
They should register now using the form below to participate in the
building of an independent rank-and-file Action Committee at Bosch. Such
an Action Committee must withdraw the mandate from the works council
and its election committee. It must forbid them from speaking for the
workforce or conducting elections in their name, which they manipulate
and falsify in order to enforce their sole rule against the workforce.
Now in its third week, the New York nurses’ strike has entered a
critical phase. The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) is moving
to prepare a sellout deal, with concessions on wages and healthcare
being made in talks over the past several days with management.
Reports
indicate that NYSNA has reduced its wage demands at Mount Sinai,
retreating from an initial demand of 30 percent wage increases over
three years. According to press reports, the union is now proposing
increases of 7 percent in the first year, 6 percent in the second and 5
percent in the third, for a total of only 18 percent.
The
climbdown, coming as negotiations resume, would represent a major
concession to hospital management, under conditions where nurses are
already struggling with the impossible cost of living in New York City.
Over
the weekend, NYSNA announced agreements with some hospital networks
that they claimed would “maintain” nurses’ current healthcare plan.”
NYSNA hailed the announcement as clearing “a major hurdle,” describing
the preservation of existing benefits as a victory. Previously,
management had threatened to eliminate the plans altogether; nurses’
health insurance ended at the start of the year, even before the strike.
In
reality, the agreement paves the way for significant cuts to healthcare
spending. NewYork-Presbyterian says that trustees of the nurses’ health
plan would form a committee to examine “potential savings and
programs.”
This method essentially conceals future cuts until
nurses will have already voted to approve the contract under false
pretenses, leaving them without even a semblance of democratic control.
*****
According to the latest federal filings, NYSNA has over $101 million
in net assets; National Nurses United, to which NYSNA is affiliated, has
over $56 million. These resources, which come from nurses’ dues money,
must be taken over by nurses and used to adequately provision their
fight!
The strike should also be expanded, including to the 11
other facilities in New York City, and joint actions organized from
below with other key sections of the city’s working class. Nurses should
establish lines of contact with the striking Kaiser nurses over social
media to prepare national actions and to build a nationwide movement in
defense of public health against Wall Street.
This movement must
be independent of the entire political establishment. Governor Kathy
Hochul intervened by authorizing hospitals to bring in out-of-state
nurses to replace strikers, directly strengthening management’s
position. At the city level, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has claimed support
for the strike, but has publicly called for a swift settlement, aligning
himself with Hochul.
*****
Preventing a sellout and sustaining the struggle now requires a break
from the existing framework. The formation of independent rank-and-file
organizations and the unification of healthcare workers
nationally—including with the expanding strike at Kaiser Permanente—are
essential to advancing a broader working-class struggle against the
financial oligarchy.
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.
