USA

Workers must take control of the lockdown

Coronavirus is demonstrating the essential basis upon which our society exists: the working class and the necessity of labour. Workers and their unions must take the lead and control this lockdown.

Bernie McAdam  ·  31 March 2020

How Black Lives Matter shattered illusions in Obama’s ‘post-racial’ presidency

Jeremy Dewar reviews From BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

Jeremy Dewar  ·  19 November 2019

Democratic contest heats up

Millions of Americans hoping to evict Donald Trump from the White House have turned to the Democratic Party’s contest to determine their next presidential candidate for the 2020 election. While Trump has been blocked from enacting many of his pledges, he has done tremendous damage from the Oval Office: detention prisons locking up immigrant children […]

Workers Power  ·  23 October 2019

US imperialism abandons Kurdish allies to Turkish invasion

Donald Trump has just signaled a dramatic shift in US policy in northern Syria, betraying his erstwhile allies the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in which the Kurdish YPG militia are the dominant force. The 60,000 SDF fighters had provided him – and Obama before him – with the boots on the ground that defeated the […]

Workers Power  ·  09 October 2019

GM strike: permanent contracts for all!

Car workers in the US are entering their fourth week of all-out strike action as we go to press. The largest auto strike since 2007 is solid so far. In fact the strikers have elicited solidarity action from Mexican GM workers, and have now been joined by others in South Korea. On 16 September, 48,000 […]

Jeremy Dewar  ·  07 October 2019

Global capitalism at a turning point

Our perspectives on the current global situation, League for the Fifth International Congress in Berlin, June 2019

Workers Power  ·  10 August 2019

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: a socialist in Congress?

Cohabiting in the Democrats will inevitably lead socialists to compromising with the representatives of capital who lead it

Workers Power  ·  22 March 2019

Bread and Roses: The 1912 Lawrence Textile strike

The 10-week textile strike in 1912 is one of the greatest strikes in US labour history and unlike many others it was a victory.

Workers Power  ·  06 March 2019

The Central American Migrant Caravan: Let Them In!

By Tobi Hansen They have been on the road since October 12, a “caravan” of more than 7,000 refugees from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, heading for Tijuana on the US-Mexican border. Now they have reached southern Mexico. They have chosen this course of action because they no longer see any hope of a minimally […]

Workers Power  ·  05 November 2018

Brett Kavanaugh and the United States of Gilead

Image Credit: C. Suthorn SATURDAY 6 October 2018, United States Senate Chamber. Vice President Mike Pence, a man who has stated that it is his express goal to make abortion illegal in the US “in our time”, presides over the final vote to confirm alleged sexual predator Brett Kavanaugh as the next Justice of the […]

Rob Schofield  ·  08 October 2018

USA: No to prison slavery

By Marcus Otono NASHVILLE, TN – In April of this year, inmates at the Lee Correctional Center in South Carolina took strike action in protest at the brutal conditions in the prison. As if to prove their point, seven men died as a result of the authorities’ actions to break the strike. In response, prisoners […]

Workers Power  ·  21 August 2018

Labor Notes 2018: successes pose new challenges for union activists

By Jeremy Dewar, Lambeth Unison delegate (pc) and Marcus Otono, Workers Power USA. THREE THOUSAND trade unionists assembled in Chicago for Labor Notes’ biennial conference on 8-11 April. Many there claimed it was the biggest Labor Notes conference ever. But numbers alone cannot convey the energy, the diversity, the militancy on display. Workers’ struggles At […]

Workers Power  ·  05 May 2018

The danger of a global trade war

By Markus Lehner “Trade wars are good” – Donald Trump Though Donald Trump’s tweets often seem mere clowning, the decrees he signed imposing import duties on steel and aluminium, and subsequent threats of further punitive duties on Chinese imports, do have to be taken seriously. The US president has used a loophole that allows him […]

Workers Power  ·  24 April 2018

USA: Our bodies – our choice

By Mekdela Ejigu THE limited legal abortion and women’s reproductive rights available in the United States exist in a permanent state of siege enforced by the Republican party and religious conservatives across the country. During President Obama’s terms, Republican House and Senate members repeatedly attempted to block abortion clinics from operating in their districts with […]

Workers Power  ·  08 March 2018

Obituary: Erica Garner 1990-2017

ERICA GARNER, the Black Lives Matter activist and Bernie Sanders campaigner, has died after a heart attack, aged just 27. Erica was thrust into political activism when white New York police officer Daniel Pantaleo killed her father Eric Garner in an asphyxiating chokehold in 2014, months after the murder of Michael Brown provoked US-wide protests. […]

Workers Power  ·  01 February 2018

USA: Hundreds of thousands march against sexism

HUNDREDS OF thousands took to the streets in cities across the US on January 20 and 21 to mark the anniversary of the huge protests against the inauguration of Donald Trump and the threat he poses to women’s rights. This year authorities estimated that well over 100,000 people attended the New York rally and that […]

Workers Power  ·  01 February 2018

The rebirth of the Democratic Socialists of America

THE DEMOCRATIC socialists of America (DSA) grouping has witnessed astonishing growth over the past year, going from around 5,500 members to 26,000. It now claims 2,000 members in New York City alone. The DSA’s growth began with the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2015, thanks in part to Sanders’ self-designation as a “democratic socialist” and his […]

Workers Power  ·  05 September 2017

The threat of a new Korean War

By Dave Stockton NORTH KOREA’S Hydrogen bomb test has underlined once again not only the capacity of Kim Jong-un’s regime to achieve its nuclear ambitions, but also the failure of all attempts to stop that with threats. As futile as US President Donald Trump’s bluster has been, however, it ramps up the danger that either […]

Workers Power  ·  05 September 2017

Migrants’ ‘American dreams’ turns into a nightmare

FOR 800,000 DREAMERS the morning of 5 September saw their American Dream turn into a nightmare. Donald Trump’s Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, announced the end of Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme. Introduced in 2012, this allowed undocumented migrants under the age of 16 to obtain residence and work permits lasting two […]

Workers Power  ·  01 September 2017

Donald Trump’s first 100 days

IN THE US, a president’s first 100 days in office is always a test of the change in direction, if any, from one administration to the next. That’s especially true this year, with the Republican sweep of both houses of the US Congress as well as the Presidency, plus holding on to most of the […]

Workers Power  ·  01 June 2017

The resistance to Trump can create a new leadership

Donald Trump’s presidency has galvanised opposition. But turning resistance into victories will not be easy. Republicans control both houses of Congress, the Presidency and hardline conservatives will undoubtedly soon control the Supreme Court. At a state level they hold power in 32 state legislatures plus 33 governorships, covering 61 per cent of the U.S. population. […]

Marcus Otono  ·  01 March 2017

America First signals an intensification of US unilateralism

ANYONE WHO doubted that Donald Trump’s arrival as 45th president of the United States heralded a major change in both the country’s internal and external relationships must surely have been forced to think again by his inaugural address and the barrage of executive orders issued in his first week. Many political commentators and leader writers who put their […]

Dave Stockton  ·  27 January 2017

Climate scepticism captures the White House

WHEN PRESIDENT-ELECT Donald Trump selects one of the most notorious climate sceptics, Scott Pruit, to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) you know the planet is in trouble. Pruitt, is part of the team waging a legal action by 28 states against the EPA to halt Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, an attempt to […]

Chris Clough  ·  12 December 2016

Trump’s victory and how he can be stopped

ON 8 NOVEMBER Donald Trump rode a wave of anti-establishment anger to become the 45th president of the United States in the bitterest campaign of modern times. Trump used blatant distortions and outright lies to convince voters that only he was telling things as they are, only he recognised the sufferings of ordinary Americans, only […]

Andy Yorke  ·  12 December 2016

Election 2016: The Reality Show of Politics in the USA

By Marcus Otono Karl Marx once said, when discussing the realities of politics and elections in the bourgeois state, that: “The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and oppress them”. Although this has always been true, it seems that it’s never been […]

Workers Power  ·  01 September 2016

Cop killings and killing cops in the USA

By Marcus Otono We have compared the police and vigilante terror against black people in the United States to a horror version of the film “Groundhog Day” before. The overt murder of unarmed, black citizens killed by police is a recurring theme in the news and on social media. And it’s on social media that […]

Workers Power  ·  26 July 2016

US elections: cracks widening in the two party system

By Andy Yorke In this year’s US presidential race, a month is a long time. March saw the tensions in American politics stretched close to breaking point. The billionaire demagogue Donald Trump widened his lead, forced out the Republican establishment’s favourite, Marco Rubio, whipped up support with his racist, jingoistic campaign to “Make America Great […]

Workers Power  ·  17 April 2016

Sanders pledges to fight after Super Tuesday

Can Bernie Sanders do more than pave the way for Clinton? By Andy Yorke THE 2016 US Presidential election was expected to be boring, from predictable start to status quo finish. It was supposed to be Jeb Bush against Hillary Clinton: both insiders from Republican and Democrat political dynasties, both with strong ties to big […]

Workers Power  ·  06 March 2016

Review of “Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution”

The images of the Black Panthers – black berets and leather jackets, afros, guns, the pouncing panther – and their enduring inspiration are so great that it’s hard to believe that this is only the second full length film documenting their rise and fall. However, it is well worth the wait. The footage and interviews […]

Jeremy Dewar  ·  08 November 2015

Do Black lives matter in the USA?

By Marcus Otono 6 August 2015 The slaughter of six Black women and three men by 21 year-old Dylann Roof at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on 17 June was an act of terrorism motivated by race hate. The reluctance of media and politicians to use the T word, that otherwise they use so […]

Workers Power  ·  06 August 2015

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