Los Angeles – May 30 marked the two-year angelversary for Hugo Cachua, an Amazon driver who was shot six times and murdered on May 30, 2024, in Ontario, California, after a fender-bender with off-duty LAPD officer Victor Corral.

Two years have passed and no criminal charges have been filed against Corral for the killing of Cachua, despite the California Department of Justice opening a case regarding the shooting, as required under AB 1056 for all officer-involved shootings of unarmed civilians. The case remains “under investigation” and Corral was allowed to return to active duty.

The angelversary was organized by United Families for Justice and held at LAPD headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. The angelversary started with a picket where impacted family members and allies held up signs and banners demanding justice for Hugo Cachua and for charges to be brought against Corral.

Afterwards, members from the Cachua family and other impacted families gave speeches in solidarity. Melissa Miramontes, sister of Hugo Cachua said, “Two years is too long. 24 months and this year on Hugo's angelversary our family, impacted families, Centro CSO and other advocates took our fight for justice to LAPD HQ. We chose to uplift Hugo's name where the heartless LAPD commissioners and Chief of Police McDonald have considered Hugo Cachua's murder justified and in policy.”

Miramontes asked, “How, when Victor Corral was off duty and an inactive police officer for over 1.5 years, what policy did he really fall under? He broke policy engaging in mutual combat and the truth is his discriminating action will be exposed. No matter the rulings, even after the courts, we will still fight for what's right, demanding accountability and justice for Hugo Cachua and all impacted loved ones whose lives were ripped away at the hands of law enforcement. The LAPD is one of the dirtiest and heartless departments in America and needs to be exposed.”

Other speakers included Patricia de Arman, sister of Chris de Arman, who was killed by San Diego PD in 2023; Diana Sullivan and Sam Sulllivan, mother and sister of David Sullivan, who was killed by Buena Park PD in 2019; and Sharon Watkins, mother of Philip Watkins, who was killed in 2015 by San Jose PD pigs. The family of Fransico Nunez who was killed by LASD were there in solidarity.

Members of Centro CSO, an organization in Boyle Heights that fights against the crimes of LAPD and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department also showed up in support. The protest included chants of “Victor Corral, lock him up!” Dozens of drivers honked in support as they passed by including city bus drivers.

Luis Cachua, Hugo’s younger brother, spoke of the need for accountability, saying, “We need to hold the people accountable for this.” He promised to keep fighting until justice is served, stating, “This day will never stop until we find justice.”

#LosAngelesCA #CA #InJusticeSystem #KillerCops #CentroCSO

Anaheim, CA – On Saturday, June 6, Community Service Organization, Orange County (CSO OC) along with friends and family of Albert Arzola, held a protest and vigil on the six-month anniversary of his killing by Anaheim PD Officer Nathan Garcia.

The energy was high as the protest began in front of the Anaheim City Hall with chants of “Justice for Albert Arzola!” Attendees' voices echoed far and wide as spectators from the streets stopped to watch. As the march began with chants of “Nathan Garcia, lock him up!” Anaheim residents driving by honked their horns in support. The match went from Anaheim City Hall to the front of the Anaheim Police Department.

There, CSO OC police accountability committee member Matthew Compton opened with, “We are here today to demand Anaheim Police Chief Manuel Cid fire killer cop Nathan Garcia!”

Compton described Arzola’s murder: “Officer Garcia leapt out of an unmarked police car, drew his gun, and chased Albert towards his home. He then dragged Albert backwards by his hoodie and shot him in the back.” As Compton continued with his speech, the crowd of over 50 people yelled “Shame!” making sure the police drone that was flying around could hear them.

The next speaker came up and stated: “My name is Rosie Camacho, the mother of Albert Arzola. I’m here seeking justice, and accountability from the killer cop who murdered my son. He’s still here in the police department, harassing kids, harassing my son, and coming to my house. He tried to get me arrested.”

Camacho continued, “I want him arrested. I want transparency, we need a change. They killed my son, they murdered him in front of me. We don’t want killer cops, we need accountability.” Rosie’s emotions ran high, and that influenced the crowd for the rest of the evening.

Other family members of Arzola spoke as well.

“My name is Leslie Lopez, I’m the older cousin of Albert. The moment we received the news all I can think is, there is no way they killed my baby cousin. In those moments every memory rushes through your mind. The summers we spent together, the family quinceaneras, river trips, and all the laughter we shared. In an instant, Nathan Garcia took all those future memories away from me and my family.”

Compton wrapped up with, “That is why CSO fights for community control of the police. We all know the police can’t police themselves. They are spineless little cowards who would rather shoot first then be held accountable for their actions. They are so fucking scared of being thrown into a prison cell that they have to constantly demonize their victims in order for their murder to be seen as justified.” The protesters followed with chants of “Justice for Albert Arzola!”

As the protest neared its end, the energy was at its peak. Loud and angry chants of “Fuck Anaheim PD!” and “Fuck Nathan Garcia!” closed out the protest.

After the protest, family, friends and members of CSO OC gathered in front of the house where Albert Arzola was killed. There, memories were shared as people honored his life.

Grace Arzola, Albert’s aunt said, “He would be down for any trip, even if it meant going from here to Lake Tahoe, down to San Francisco, back to here. All in all it took us three days.” Grace then said a prayer. “Lord, we thank you for the life of Albert, we thank you for the good memories, we thank you for bringing him into our lives.”

To finish out the vigil, a moment of silence was held which was led by Arzola’s mother, Rosie. They held a balloon release while Albert’s favorite song played in the background. Overall, the vigil was somber, but with family and friends sharing laughs and funny stories as they reminisced on the life of Albert.

#AnaheimCA #CA #InJusticeSystem #KillerCops #CSOOC #Featured

Jacksonville, FL – Friends, family, and concerned community members gathered at Riverview Park on Saturday, June 6, to honor the life of Rashaud Martin.

The vigil was planned by A Mother’s Cry, a Jacksonville Community Action Committee coalition of family members who have lost their loved ones to police violence.

The afternoon was filled with music, poetry and reflection. Loved ones spoke on their fond memories and held balloons in Rashaud’s favorite colors. They also lamented that they are still looking for answers and justice.

On October 24, 2025 his family called for help during a mental health crisis. Rashaud was diagnosed with schizophrenia eight years before. Rashaud was Baker Acted (involuntary mental health examination and detention) by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. Despite his mother receiving a call that he had arrived for care, Rashaud died in JSO custody in transport to the hospital. He was never admitted. Rashaud was 32 years old.

Despite eight months of the family’s demands, JSO has still refused to release body-worn camera footage of the incident.

“Raushaud Martin was someone’s child. And to deny anyone the closure of knowing why someone so important was taken from them– is a purposeful tactic to delay the inevitable fist of justice. But that is exactly what it is– inevitable,” said Moriyana Nieves, a speaker for the Jacksonville Community Action Committee.

For these grieving family members, Rashaud’s story is all too familiar. As a result, the Jacksonville Community Action Committee has taken up their fight for an emergency mental health response team in Jacksonville, Florida.

#JacksonvilleFL #FL #RashaudMartin #InjusticeSystem #OppressedNationalities #PoliceAccountability

On the evening of January 31, 1938, hundreds of workers crowded into a San Antonio, Texas factory meeting room. Management had just announced a wage cut of up to 30%, a devastating blow to workers who were already among the lowest-paid in the United States. The atmosphere was tense and uncertain. Then a young Chicana organizer, Manuela Solis Sagar, climbed onto a table and cut through the hesitation: “Well, what are we going to do? Are you going to sit there, or are we going to strike?”

The answer came back in a roar, “Vamos a la huelga!” Within hours the decision was made. By the next morning, thousands of pecan shellers across San Antonio had walked off the job. The barrios of the city's West Side erupted into mass demonstrations as workers took to the streets in a militant display of workers’ power. What followed was nearly two months of struggle against the bosses, against the police, and against the city's corrupt political machine that would shake San Antonio to its foundations.

A city built on exploitation

To understand the eruption of 1938, it is necessary to understand what life was like on San Antonio's West Side. Between 1910 and 1930, the Mexican population in Texas more than tripled, driven north by the upheavals of the Mexican Revolution and the displacement of peasants and small landholders by large-scale commercial agriculture on both sides of the border. These workers arrived in San Antonio systematically excluded from most trades and industries, funneled into the most grueling and lowest-paid work available, including pecan shelling.

By the late 1930s, the West Side resembled one of the most impoverished urban districts in the country. Families of eight or ten were crowded into two-room shacks without running water or electricity, renting for as little as one dollar a week. The pecan shelling plants themselves were overcrowded and unventilated; state health inspectors described filthy floors, broken containers, and no soap or towels. Workers were paid by the pound, just five or six cents per pound shelled, with a WPA survey finding average weekly wages of $2.73.

Julius Seligsman, the “Pecan King” whose operations supplied half the country's pecans and who reportedly paid himself a salary of $1000 a week, testified before a federal hearing that “The Mexican pecan shellers eat a good many pecans, and five cents a day is enough to support them in addition to what they eat while they work.” Respiratory illnesses, particularly tuberculosis spread by the ever-present pecan dust was rampant. Many workers brought shelling home with them in the evenings, enlisting their children to try to earn a few extra cents.

La Pasionaria: Emma Tenayuca and the Workers Alliance

“I was arrested a number of times; I never thought in terms of fear, I thought in terms of justice.” – Emma Tenayuca

The 1938 strike was the culmination of years of labor struggle and militant organizing amongst San Antonio's working class. At the center of that organizing was a young Chicana communist organizer named Emma Tenayuca.

Tenayuca had first emerged as an organizer in 1934, while still in high school, participating in strike support activities at the Fink Cigar Company, one of the low-wage, labor-intensive industries that relied heavily on young Chicana women. She was arrested at 16, the first of many times. She soon became an organizer with the Communist Party-led Unemployed Council, and helped to lead a series of struggles, supporting striking garment workers, demanding public relief for unemployed families, and defending immigrant workers threatened with deportation and repatriation. She built a reputation as an uncompromising advocate for the West Side's working class, earning her the moniker of “La Pasionaria.”

The organizational vehicle for this work was the Workers Alliance. The Workers Alliance was a national mass organization of the Communist Party. In San Antonio, the CPUSA and the Workers Alliance organized for WPA jobs and federal relief, and crucially, fought the systemic discrimination that locked Mexican Americans out of national relief programs.

As early as 1930, the local Communist Party and the Unemployed Council had organized a march of the unemployed drawing over 1000 participants, the majority of whom were of Mexican origin. Under Tenayuca's leadership, the San Antonio chapter became one of the most active in the country, staging sit-ins at City Hall, organizing mass demonstrations, confronting immigration repression, and building a network of chapters rooted in the barrios of the West Side. Through this work, the Workers Alliance elevated Tenayuca to its national executive committee, placing the young Chicana communist in the leadership of a national mass organization

In addition to her labor work, Tenayuca also made significant theoretical contributions in applying the National Question to Chicanos in the Southwest. In her 1939 article titled “The Mexican Question in the Southwest” she advanced the idea that Mexicans in the United States represented an oppressed nationality, stating that “the status of the Mexican people as an oppressed national group may be compared in a number of respects with that of the Negro today.” While she stopped short of calling for self-determination of the Chicano Nation, her analysis of Chicanos as an oppressed nationality earned her a place as one of the earliest revolutionary theoreticians of the Chicano National question.

The strike: Class war in the open

The walkout on January 31 was spontaneous. The local union leadership vacillated and opposed launching such a large-scale strike. But the workers moved anyway, and they moved toward their most trusted militant leaders. Tenayuca, alongside fellow communist organizers like Manuela Solis Sagar, helped transform the spontaneous walkout into coordinated action. Over 10,000 workers ultimately joined the strike, affiliated with Pecan Workers Local 172 of the CIO affiliated UCAPAWA (United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America). What had begun as a response to a wage cut became a social rebellion of the Chicano working class.

The city’s ruling class responded with force. Within a day of the walkout, police arrested several strike leaders, including Tenayuca and her husband Homer Brooks, both known Communist Party members. San Antonio Police Chief Owen Kilday openly justified the crackdown, declaring to the press that he “would not permit the reds to take part in the strike.” San Antonio elites maintained that the strike was an attempt to place the entire west side of San Antonio “under the red banner.”

The workers' response was equally forceful. Hundreds marched on the police station demanding Tenayuca's release. When she emerged from jail the next day, the workers elected San Antonio's most prominent communist organizer honorary strike captain by acclamation.

What followed was weeks of intensifying repression. Chief Kilday deployed over 250 police officers and firemen into the West Side, using tear gas, beatings, and mass arrest against picketers. Workers were charged with blocking sidewalks, loitering and disturbing the peace. The city jail, which critics took to calling the “black hole” of Texas, held over 1000 strikers over the course of the strike, some as young as 14. Inside the cells, workers were hosed down with cold water to break their spirits.

Organizers adapted. When picket lines were broken up for loitering, they devised rolling pickets, coordinated groups moving from plant to plant. When police targeted public property, they picketed from private lots adjacent to the factories, with the permission of homeowners.

All the forces of reaction in San Antonio united in an effort to crush the threat of the strike. The city's corrupt health department shut down CIO soup kitchens on spurious sanitary grounds. The archdiocese issued a statement defending the police beatings and condemning the strike leadership as communist. The Mexican Chamber of Commerce and the local LULAC chapter—representatives of the Mexican American aspiring petty bourgeoisie also joined in the smear campaign against the workers' movement.

Under pressure from the national CIO leadership, Tenayuca stepped back from the public face of the strike; the constant red-baiting had become a strategic liability. But in reality, she continued to run the operation: writing circulars and coordinating picket lines.

Victory, reversal, and legacy

Hearings sought by UCAPAWA president Donald Henderson before the Texas Industrial Commission gave workers a platform to testify publicly to the abuse they had endured. 14-year-old Dora Enriquez testified that she had been arrested and threatened if she returned to the picket line. 45-year-old Refugia Garcia testified that Chief Kilday had personally threatened to “split my head wide open.” The commission ultimately found that the civil rights of the striking workers had been fundamentally violated, though with no enforcement mechanism, Kilday and the bosses continued their campaign of terror.

Texas Governor James Allred eventually pushed both sides toward arbitration. On March 8, after nearly six weeks on strike, the pecan shellers returned to work pending a formal settlement. The arbitration board awarded formal union recognition and a wage increase to five-and-a-half cents per pound for pieces and six cents for halves. It was a real, if partial, victory: workers had forced the state and the bosses to respond to their demands and won.

The victory would be short-lived. The pecan operators mechanized their operations. Julius Seligsman shuttered his plants and reopened with a fraction of the workforce. Many of the workers who had fought so hard found themselves unemployed once more.

But the strike still left an enduring legacy in San Antonio and beyond. For nearly two months, over 10,000 of the most exploited workers in the country, overwhelmingly Chicana women, earning less than three dollars a week, had organized, resisted and fought back. They demonstrated that even under conditions of national oppression, violent repression and economic exploitation, the working class could fight their employers and win. That capacity had not developed spontaneously, but had been carefully built, year by year, through the patient organizing of the Workers Alliance and the militant minority of communists and labor leaders like Emma Tenayuca who led the workers in the struggle.

Today, the San Antonio pecan shellers’ strike remains a powerful reminder that the working class has never won anything without militant struggle. Faced with starvation wages, racist repression, police violence, and red-baiting, thousands of Chicano workers still organized and fought back. Their struggle shows us that militant organization, class solidarity, and communist leadership can transform workers economic grievances into collective power. At a time when workers across the country continue to face exploitation, union busting, and attacks on immigrants, the legacy of Emma Tenayuca and the pecan shellers remains not just a piece of history, but an example to follow.

#EmmaTenayuca #Labor #LaborHistory #SanAntonioTX #TX #N

Seattle, WA – Activists from Seattle’s Hands Off Iran Coalition held an emergency rally in downtown Seattle at Westlake Park on June 8 to oppose Israel’s latest attacks on Lebanon and Iran. The rally was organized after Israel violated the ceasefire that has been in effect since April, by bombing Dahiya, a southern suburb of Lebanon’s capital Beirut. The rally began at three light rail stations across the city, before all groups converged in Westlake at 6 p.m.

Despite heavy rain, the coalition, consisting of seven grassroots anti-imperialist organizations based in Seattle, had a significant turnout of at least 40 protesters, who carried flags, set up tables, and delivered speeches and chants using amplified speakers.

The organizations in attendance as part of the Coalition included Seattle Against War, Nidal Seattle, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Super UW, Seattle University Students for Justice in Palestine, Seattle Revolutionary Youth, and the Seattle Democratic Socialists of America.

A number of passersby joined the protest to announce their support, take photos, and learn more about the organizations involved in the coalition. An even greater number of cars honked their horns in support as they were stopped at red lights right next to the park. With lots of public support, the energy remained high for the duration of the event. Speakers not only condemned the imperialist aggression against west Asia, but also celebrated the resistance, who they declared shared the same common enemy with the people of the United States: the monopoly capitalist class.

FRSO’s speaker Izzy McCabe stated, “When the resistance fights, they do not just fight for Iran, they fight for you. Every military base Iran flattens hurts the boss that yells at you. Every tank the Lebanese resistance destroys hurts the landlord that refuses to repair your apartment. Every inch of land that the Palestinian resistance defends strikes a blow against the politicians that steal from you.”

The other speakers from the Hands Off Iran Coalition stressed that now is the time to organize within your community. “The time to strike is when your enemy is weakest,” said Nolan Good of Seattle Against War. “Now is the time to fight back. And the only way that we can fight back is to get organized. Our enemies fear us because history shows that when we fight, we win!”

#SeattleWA #WA #AntiWarMovement #Iran #SHOIC #SAW

Chicago, IL – Around 150 people gathered outside of the Hyatt Regency hotel on Saturday, June 6 to demand that the American Medical Association (AMA) advocate for the immediate release of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a Palestinian pediatrician who was abducted by the Israeli military in late 2024 due to his refusal to abandon his young patients.

The campaign to demand his freedom was formed in August 2025 by US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) and Healthcare Workers for Palestine and was later joined by Code Pink. The organizations called Saturday’s action to target AMA’s House of Delegates and Board of Trustees, who were gathered inside the Hyatt Regency for the organization’s annual conference.

“The inaction and silence of the AMA and its leadership in regard to a medical colleague who survived a genocide and horrific imprisonment in Israeli prisons is a betrayal to its oath. It is directly violating AMA’s own civil and human rights policy and only exposes the organization’s anti-Palestinian bias, hypocrisy and selective advocacy,” said Rania Salem of USPCN.

“We've tried a lot of different things,” stated Erin of Healthcare Workers for Palestine, “We tried to go and talk to them, we tried to get them to meet with us. We've had call campaigns, we've had email campaigns. 
We've had press conferences outside of their central office, which is here in Chicago. We've gone to their House of Delegates meetings where we were outside because they wouldn't let us inside.”

One campaign tactic that proved successful happened a few months ago when organizers cornered the president of the AMA, Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, and set up a meeting with him. In this meeting, Mukkamala stated that the AMA prioritized remaining “neutral” to not alienate either side. Yet on Saturday, the campaign learned from a medical student attending the conference that on the opening night, the AMA gave a special acknowledgement to the members of the Israeli Medical Association that were invited and present in the room with the entire organization.

The call for Dr. Abu Safiya’s release became even more urgent when on Thursday, June 4, he was placed in solitary confinement. When April Ward of Mothers Activating Movements for Abolition and Solidarity (MAMAS) heard the story of Dr. Abu Safiya, she thought of her son, Mickiael Ward, who was tortured into a false confession by Chicago police and held in solitary confinement. She described it as “mental torture.”

“We hear, watch, and talk about the cruelty and inhumanity in Palestine and Gaza, specifically, and we want the mothers, the sisters, the aunties, and the caregivers in Palestine to know that we are in unconditional solidarity with you,” Ward stated.

Many of the methods of torture that the Israeli military uses against Palestinian prisoners are also used by the Chicago police. “There are hundreds of people who are locked up here with credible, verified accounts of torture by the police, who still, and were forced into signing false confessions, who were still locked up in prisons today,” said Merawi Gerima on behalf of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR), “and so we know that Black people, brown people, working and poor people here in the United States, have every interest to stand in solidarity with Dr. Safiya and all Palestinian prisoners.”

Despite its location on a small side street, the rally drew lots of attention as it unfolded. Many medical professionals attending the conference watched the speakers from the building’s glass skywalk, and several passersby stopped to listen and join the chanting.

“Dr. Husam represents a value that is often forgotten among doctors today. He represents the value of the medical fight against imperialism. That's why it's crucial we organize globally like how we are today to demand the release of Dr. Husam,” said Alfonso Castillo of Anti-War Committee – Chicago (AWC).

The rally ended with a reading of testimonies of Palestinian medical workers and naming the 83 medical workers who are in Israeli detention today.

Individuals can send a letter to the AMA delegates demanding they immediately advocate for the release of Dr. Abu Safiya and follow @uspcn and @hcw4palichi and @codepinkalert on Instagram for updates on the campaign.

#ChicagoIL #IL #AntiWarMovement #Palestine #InJusticeSystem #PoliticalRepression #USPCN

Average prices for the working class have risen even faster, up 4.4% from a year earlier. This means that real wages, or the purchasing power of wages for U.S. workers, have fallen for the second month in a row, and are now 0.8% less than a year ago. This was enough to bring the average worker back to their purchasing power in January 2025, right before Trump took office for his second term.

Trump keeps repeating how great the economy is, which is true for him and his billionaire buddies, who own most of U.S. stocks, with the S&P 500, a broad measure of the stock market, up 22% since Trump took office.

Unfortunately for working people, more price increases are on the horizon. Prices of key commodities used in production, such as diesel fuel, fertilizer and helium, have also spiked, as much of their production was shipped through the strait of Hormuz. This will lead to higher prices for goods that are moved, food, and semiconductors. A measure of these so-called “intermediate goods,” goods that are manufactured but used to make other goods, or not sold to consumers, was up 6% year over year in April, again foretelling higher inflation to come.

In another sign of economic distress, America’s Car-Mart, Inc., a seller of used cars and lender to car buyers with limited incomes and/or poorer credit, said that it was looking for an emergency loan. The company is also preparing for a bankruptcy filing. This is just another sign that workers have been forced to buy used cars as new car prices march ever higher.

Stocks fell across the board, with the broad S&P 500 falling more than 1.5%, while the technology-heavy NASDAQ sank almost 2%. The drop in stock prices was also fed by news of renewed military clashes in the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which boosted oil prices.

#SanJoseCA #CA #CapitalismAndEconomy #Inflation

Des Moines, IA – On the morning of June 8, about 100 nurses, members of the Teamsters union, and community supporters gathered at the Iowa State Capitol in downtown Des Moines to rally and march to UnityPoint Health Iowa Methodist Medical Center, a large hospital in the area. At the rally and march, the crowd chanted “Hey, hey, ho ho, union-busting has got to go!” and “Nurses, nurses won’t back down, patient safety all around!” along with other lively chants.

United Nurses of Iowa organized the rally and march to protest union-busting tactics being used by Unity Point Health management to avoid recognizing their union. It has been 180 days since nurses at UnityPoint Health voted to join Teamsters Local 90. In that time, the company has refused to recognize the union and has instead filed objections with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) challenging the outcome of the election. The NLRB has seen underfunding and a large backlog of cases under Donald Trump. In many cases, this means that wait times for cases to be heard or ruled on can take months or even years to see rulings.

Along with members of United Nurses of Iowa in the crowd were Teamsters members from Locals 90, 120, 135, 238, 320, 554 and 705. Additionally, the event drew Democratic Party politicians Josh Turek and Nate Boulton, as well as community organizations such as Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and the League of United Latin American Citizens.

At the hospital, large inflatable figures of Scabby the Rat and Corporate Fat Cat were set up. Near these inflatables, the marchers gathered to hear speeches from some of the nurses who organized the union drive.

Teamsters Local 90 Secretary-Treasurer Alano de la Rosa opened the rally with brief remarks, saying, “We’re here because healthcare workers deserve respect. We’re here because patients deserve safe staffing and good care,” before turning the microphone over to Sammi Ladd and Belinda Huerta, two of the nurses who organized to form their union. Both nurses spoke about why they are fighting for a union and reiterated the demand for UnityPoint to recognize the results of the election.

Huerta said, “Our employer launched the most expensive union-busting campaign orchestrated by a hospital system. They spent millions on ‘consultants.’ Yet we’re told there’s no budget for staffing.” She concluded her remarks by saying, “To UnityPoint, we say this: if nurses truly matter, prove it. Work with us.”

#DesMoinesIA #IA #Labor #Nurses #UnitedNursesOfIowa #Featured

Jacksonville, FL – El 29 de mayo, Miembros de la comunidad protestaron la sentencia grave de Conor Cauley y Leah Grady, dedicándose a seguir la lucha contra sus cargos y exigiendo la liberación de Conor Cauley, que actualmente se mantiene como prisionero político en la Cárcel del Condado Duval.

A pesar de las fuertes lluvias, más de 60 miembros de la comunidad protestaron delante del juzgado y, luego, detrás de la cárcel del condado bajo carpas que se combaban y rompían con el peso del agua de la lluvia. Esto no desanimó a los asistentes, que continuaban a gritar y concentrarse contra el tratamiento injusto a los organizadores contra la guerra.

Estas manifestaciones fueron dirigidas por la Red de Solidaridad con Palestina de Jacksonville junto con organizaciones comunitarias incluyendo la Comité de Acción Comunitaria de Jacksonville, la Alianza de Derechos de Inmigrantes de Jacksonville, los Brentwood 300, los Socialistas Democráticos de América, y la Organización Camino de la Libertad.

Cauley fue sentenciado a 60 días encarcelado y tres años de aprobación. Ya está siendo ordenado a quedarse más de 1000 pies del Policia Maykel Aliaga-Ruiz, el oficial que instigó el arresto inicial el año pasado por agarrarlo por el cuello a Cauley y tirarlo por una línea de sillas. La condición tendrá el efecto, como lo ha notado el abogado de Cauley en el juzgado, de efectivamente prohibirlo de asistir a las reuniones del consejo municipal en donde Aliaga-Ruiz trabaja, atacando directamente su derecho de hablar al aire libre con sus propios políticos elegidos y de ser organizador en la ciudad.

Grady fue sentenciada con seis meses de aprobación, 50 horas de servicios comunitario, y una orden de la corte de escribirle una “carta de disculpa” a la Presidenta Republicana del Consejo Randy White.

Ambas sentencias fueron más graves aún de lo que habían recomendado los prosecutores. La prosecución recomendaron tres meses de aprobación y 25 horas de servicio comunitario para Leah Grady y recomendaron 30 días de encarcelación y un año de aprobación para Conor Cauley. En los dos casos, los jueces o doblaron o triplicaron el castigo. Esto sale tras llamadas por el Sheriff de Jacksonville T.K. Waters que los jueces hagan un ejemplo de los organizadores de RSPJ así para intimidarlos políticamente.

Todo esto ocurrió a pesar de un despliegue enorme de apoyo comunitario en apoyo a los dos organizadores. Más de 40 cartas de carácter fueron entregadas a la corte por Conor Cauley, y testigos de gran nota hablaron a favor de Cauley, incluyendo la directora ejecutiva del local 1408 de la Asociación de Estibadores Internacional (AEI), Courtnee Staples.

“¿Quién salió hoy para acá para defender a Conor?” hizo la pregunta un miembro de la Organización Camino de la Libertad durante la concentración frente al juzgado. “Los profesores, vecinos, obreros de sindicato, estudiantes y gente de todas partes de Jacksonville – para resumir, un microcosmo de la comunidad entera. La ciudad no podía hacer más que rodear unos pocos para hablar contra Conor, y a quienes escogieron? La directora del consejo y el jefe de la policía.”

La Red de Solidaridad con Palestina de Jacksonville está comprometida a luchar contra los veredictos de los dos Conor Cauley y Leah Grady, habiéndo ya desarrollado un plan para oponer sus condenas de apelar contra ellas y pedir nuevo juicio. Harán más manifestaciones para exigir la liberación de Cauley hasta que esté fuera de la cárcel.

“Es por esta cárcel que, durante los próximos 60 días, Conor no verá justicia,” dijo Ryan Delaney de la Red de Acción Contra la Guerra. “Pues eso significa que nosotros seremos la razón por la cual, durante estos próximos 60 días, esta cárcel no sabrá ninguna paz!”

#JacksonvilleFL #FL #MoviemientoContraLaGuerra #SistemaInjusticia #RepresiónPolítica #JPSN #AWAN #Palestina #ConorCauley #Destacado

St. Paul, MN – On June 6, a beautiful Saturday morning, over 100 people gathered in Langford Park in Saint Paul’s Saint Anthony Park neighborhood for Women Against Military Madness’s (WAMM) 19th annual Walk Against Weapons.

This year WAMM marched on Lockheed Martin subsidiary ForwardEdge ASIC, which makes application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) for F-35 jets which have been used in the U.S.-funded Israeli genocide of Palestinians and now in the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

WAMM’s new director and emcee for the event, Meredith Aby, said, “Today we are marching to Forward Edge to highlight the role of Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest manufacturer of weaponry. Lockheed Martin is a primary weapons supplier to the Israeli military, providing F-16 and F-35 fighter jets, Hellfire missiles, and tactical transport aircraft that have been used extensively against Palestinians.”

Aby continued, “The U.S. outspends the next several highest-spending nations combined, historically accounting for roughly 33% of all global military expenditures and U.S. military spending is approximately 13% of total U.S. federal spending.”

Before leaving the park to march to Lockheed Martin, No Weapons No War Collective performed a short song and dance piece to explain how ForwardEdge ASIC was brought to Saint Paul by Governor Tim Walz, a member of the State Board of Investments, which has the power to divest Minnesota from apartheid Israel. Additionally, WAMM and Veterans for Peace members displayed a life-size battle tank replica that shoots flowers as a send-off for the participants marching.

Cassidy Aickin, a member of the MN Anti-War Committee, spoke about the experience of learning about genocide and the “brutality of war” from her teachers who have their pensions funded in genocide.

“The State Board of Investment, which manages the pensions of thousands of public employees in Minnesota, chooses to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into weapons manufacturers and surveillance technology companies like Palantir, which makes the software for the child-killing bombs used in Iran, and the ICE-funded surveillance technology used domestically. My teachers, who have to buy classroom supplies out of pocket, are indirectly paying for the abduction of their students and the slaughter of Palestinians,” Aickin said.

Christina Neighbors, a Navy veteran and member of About Face Veterans Against the War stated, “The products manufactured by ForwardEdge conveniently enable such events [genocide of Palestinians] to be far enough away that no one who profits ever has to see the reality of what their greed births and leaves behind.” The crowd erupted in “Shame!”

Neighbors continued, “ForwardEdge builds the silicon mind inside the weapons circuits made for one specific application; that application is death. And the giant it answers to, Lockheed Martin, pulled $75 billion last year out of a country that is told, time over time, that there is no money – none for the clinic, none for the classroom, none for the people sleeping in the cold outside in the very city that is helping slaughter innocent men, and women, and children around the world.” The crowd once again erupted in “Shame!”

WAMM’s next actions are on June 10 with a protest at the Saint Paul City Council meeting to pressure the city to divest from Israeli cyber security company Waterfall and, later that day, another protest at the Minneapolis Federal Building to demand the Trump administration stop its war threats against Cuba.

#StPaulMN #MN #AntiWarMovemen #LockheedMartin #Iran #Palestine #Cuba #WAMM

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following greetings from communist and workers parties to the 10th Congress of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

Workers Party of Belgium (PTB)

Your Congress convenes at a critical juncture in the development of the people’s struggle and the accelerating decline of U.S. Imperialism. The U.S. war machine has become ever more aggressive under the second Trump administration, yet this aggression signals not strength, but desperation as it faces rising competition and intensifying resistance at home and abroad.

Notably, the U.S.-Israeli genocide on Palestine failed to exterminate the Palestinian people, and their military forces did not succeed in defeating Iran.

Meanwhile, the American people have demonstrated the power of organized struggle against monopoly capitalism. From the resistance against mass deportations and ICE violence to demonstrations in solidarity with Palestine and opposition to the war on Iran, the movement is growing. The mobilization of a record eight million people in the streets during the recent “No King’s Day” protest illustrates how these protests are expanding among the broad public, proving that the system is losing its grip.

We recognize the role FRSO has played in these battles. Your leadership in the fight against mass deportations, your solidarity with Palestine, and your active participation in the trade union, African American, and Chicano liberation movements represent vital organizing work within the broader coalition of the oppressed.

As you gather during a period of significant organizational growth—attested by the recent purchase of a national office to house your operations—we wish your delegates productive deliberations. May your congress strengthen the united forces necessary to take on monopoly capitalism and advance on the road to socialism.

Solidarity,

Bert De Belder

Department of International Relations

PVDA-PTB

Mouvement National Congolais – Lumumba (MNC/L)

Dear Comrades Delegates to the 10th Congress of the FRSO,

On behalf of the C.P.C. of the MNC/Lumumba and on behalf of all the Lumumbist sympathizers of our country, allow us to present to you our warm greetings and our best wishes of solidarity on the occasion of the Tenth Congress of your organization.

Through your socialist organization, we cordially greet all the workers of the United States of America. We salute the American people and express support and solidarity to them as they confront the crisis of a panicked imperialist system in their struggle against the austerity measures of the American administration.

We also take the opportunity of the FRSO’s 10th Congress to present the situation of our country, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), as well as that of our organization, the MNC/Lumumba.

This Congress is being held at a very important moment in the international situation and our struggle. Yes (!) at a very important time.

The unipolar world, dominated by the United States of America and its NATO allies, is giving way to the multipolar world, which we all support around the world. Despite this, US imperialism, the Zionists, and their European vassals refuse this change. They are stoking wars in the Caribbean, Africa, Ukraine, and the Middle East in the hope of delaying this shift in the balance of power. Our country, the D.R.C., is facing a vast conspiracy by imperialism and the Zionists.

Since the coup d’état that interrupted the national liberation process on September 14, 1960, and throughout the various regimes that took power, nothing has led to any change of quality in favor of the Congolese people. The so-called “free” elections and the alternating multiparty system have not brought peace to the Democratic Republic of Congo, nor to the rest of Africa. All those who speak of peace, life and freedom cannot, of course, remain indifferent to the negative process that is taking place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including in the African Great Lakes region, the AES area, the Caribbean, Ukraine and the Middle East.

Against the fundamental interests of the African peoples, our continent is being transformed before our eyes into a battlefield between the Western imperial powers and the forces of national liberation.

The ruling circles of the Western imperialist powers, especially the United States of America and the European Union, are stirring up distrust and animosity among the African populations, using: ethnic and religious divisions; inequality of social, economic and cultural development; and national peculiarities, among others.

The African continent, which experienced the slave trade and colonization, still lives today under a neo-colonial system of imperialism, and remains an arena of fratricidal conflicts that take hundreds of thousands of human lives and cause immense material damage.

Dear Comrade Delegates,

Any oppressive power, wherever it comes from, from outside or within, cannot reign without a powerful network of collaborators among the population. Similarly, the demise of a tyrannical regime can only be ensured by the political death of all its leaders and key collaborators.

In Congo, our country, from the overthrow of Lumumba’s Congolese Central Government to the present day, the general tendency in the democratic movement has been and is towards conciliation with the leaders and enforcers of the neo-colonialist regimes. If this tendency is not overthrown, the Congo will never experience a radical change in quality, because it will be the collaborators of the prior oppressive regimes who will be at the head of the Congo.

The attitude to be taken towards the Congolese oligarchs by the MNC/Lumumba is very clear. We have always spoken since October 1958 on behalf of the majority of Congolese. It is our principled position that distinguishes us from those who fish in troubled waters [opportunists]. It’s clear that the fifth column is not disarming. It becoming active and intensifying the confusion. Their objective is to maintain themselves by trying to be seen as saviors. The dispersion of the Congolese oligarchs between the sacred union of the presidential majority, the legal opposition, and the AFC/M23 “rebellion” does not affect the system in any way.

The Congolese National Movement/Lumumba is reorganizing itself on a new basis with a very clear political program on the political, ideological, economic, social, cultural and military levels to mobilize and organize the Congolese popular masses in the struggle against the Congolese imperialists and oligarchs. Infact, the CPC of the MNC/Lumumba takes this opportunity to launch an appeal for the solidarity of Friendly organizations in order to support us morally, materially and diplomatically in the accomplishment of our weighty mission.

Long live the FRSO!

Long live the 10th Congress!

Oppressed people of the world, unite!

The MNC/Lumumba: UNITY – STRUGGLE – INDEPENDENCE!

Homeland or Death!

Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD)

Dear Comrades of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, USA!

The Central Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD) extends warm and revolutionary greetings to your 10th Congress, and wishes the Congress great success.

Your Congress is taking place at a time when organized, active mass resistance against the fascist course of the Trump administration is growing steadily. This is becoming a serious obstacle to Trump’s plans for a fascist restructuring of the U.S. state. The development of resistance in the USA, especially the connection between the working class in the factories and the active mass resistance in residential areas, is a great source of encouragement for people worldwide who are confronted with a growing fascist trend. Imperialism is incapable of solving even a single one of humanity’s problems. It can only bring fascism, war and environmental destruction. Revolutionaries have a great responsibility to utilize the potential of this development to strengthen the anti-fascist united front, to propagate the necessity of revolutionary change and a socialist future, and to build revolutionary parties with strong roots in the working class. As a member of the International Coordination of Revolutionary Parties and Organizations (ICOR) and the International Anti-Imperialist United Front against Fascism, War and Environmental Destruction, we are committed to worldwide unification in this spirit. We can learn a great deal from one another among the revolutionary and anti-imperialist forces around the world.

We know that you play a very active role in the struggles in the USA, and we have often reported on this in our media. Your struggle requires determination and courage. We are very happy to hear that you are strengthening your ranks in this process. The establishment of a house for your national office will certainly enrich your work. The MLPD assesses that we are experiencing a worldwide pre-revolutionary ferment, which does not yet constitute a revolutionary situation, but the development is clearly moving in that direction. This also requires a higher quality of international cooperation and proletarian internationalism.

In the past, our organizations have often conducted mutual visits and discussions in friendship and solidarity, which we gladly remember. We look forward to closer practical cooperation in the future in the struggle against fascism and war, and to further discussion of the ideological and political questions that arise today, such as the role—according to our analysis—of neo-imperialist countries like Iran.

Please keep us informed about the results of your important Congress and further developments in the USA.

In this spirit, we wish your Congress great success!

Long live socialism!

Gabi Fechtner

Chairwoman of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany

Communist Construction (Kommunistischer Aufbau)

Dear Comrades,

We send our warmest greetings to your 10th Congress and all its delegates.

From our own history, we know the special significance a congress holds for a Marxist-Leninist organization. Especially in these dynamic times of class struggle and as our organization continues to grow, the congress serves as a vital means of strengthening and unifying the organization.

As a relatively new organization, we are eagerly following your development and look forward to learning more about you—about your role in the protest movements against U.S. imperialism, its wars, and its reactionary policies both abroad and at home.

In the coming period, as Marxist-Leninists, we want and must urgently increase and expand contact and exchange between revolutionary and communist organizations. Let us learn from one another and wage a common struggle, across all national borders, together against imperialism, its wars, and the exploitation and oppression of the working class worldwide.

Once again, we wish your organization and all delegates a successful convention, productive discussions, and groundbreaking resolutions to address the challenges ahead.

Revolutionary and red greetings

Kommunistischer Aufbau / Communist Construction

CARC Party

Greeting to the FRSO 10th Congress

When the workers of the capitalist countries have gained confidence in their own strength and the awareness that they are capable of getting along without the bourgeoisie—and not only of demolishing the old, but also of building the new (socialism)—this will mark the beginning of the end of capitalism and the surest sign of the victory of the proletarian revolution (I. Stalin, Political Report of the Central Committee – December 18, 1925)

Dear comrades,

the CARC Party wishes your 10th Congress every success; we are following it with the utmost attention.

The imperialists of your country are the first, along with the Zionists, to drag the world into world war. It is not only and not so much your task to oppose the imperialist bourgeoisie of your country and prevent it from devastating the world with its infamous attacks, but above all, you are offered the opportunity to overthrow it. On the eve of World War I, Lenin predicted that either the socialist revolution would prevent the war or the communists would turn the war into a revolution. This is what happened in the countries where the working class, led by its Communist Party, succeeded in winning, building the first socialist countries, foremost among them the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. But it has not yet succeeded in doing so in any imperialist country; that is why we are once again embroiled in a world war. Today, for communists, the situation is such that either we bring about a decisive leap forward in the socialist revolution in the imperialist countries—the conflagration that will liberate the world from the imperialist system and thereby halt the spread of World War III—or the destructive spiral into which the rule of the imperialist bourgeoisie is dragging the masses of most of the world will continue to worsen.

You confirm to us that times are changing. Your Secretary writes in the preface to the book on The Revolutionary Science of Marxism-Leninism by J. Sykes that we are at a turning point, that a new communist movement is rising in the U.S. and a mobilization of the masses is taking place the likes of which have not been seen since the 1960s and 1970s. We have seen, after those years, the communist movement retreat, up to the fall of the Soviet Union, and the beginning of the period of dark reaction that that fall would generate, as Stalin foresaw. Now that period is coming to an end and the resurgence is beginning—a leap into the new wave of the proletarian revolution.

The qualitative leap of the new wave of the proletarian revolution and the rebirth of the communist movement is the conquest of power in one or more imperialist countries, foremost among them the U.S., which acts as the world’s policeman, and Italy, where the Vatican is headquartered. It is up to the communist movement in the U.S. to eliminate imperialism in their country, just as it is up to the communist movement in Italy to eliminate the Vatican, but the elimination of both concerns the entire world communist movement.

Our main commitment lies in advancing the socialist revolution in Italy, but at the same time we are paying increasing attention to the communist movement in the U.S., of which you are a part. The commitment, in this case, is to forge ties in three areas.

One area is the development of mutual understanding and joint action. The retreat of the communist movement has led to a weakening of relations among the various organizations that compose it at the international level, to the extent that communists in one country know very little about the conscious and organized communist movement in other parts of the world, and joint action remains at an embryonic stage or is confined to one or another of the international coordinating bodies that do not communicate with one another. Overcoming this limitation is an aspect of the ongoing rebirth of the communist movement.

A second area is mutual solidarity against repression. The imperialist bourgeoisie, in this terminal phase of the economic, political, social, and cultural crisis, is displaying all its ferocity, and repression is a weapon it resorts to with increasing frequency and intensity. The CARC Party is a component of the Caravan of the (New) Italian Communist Party, the collective of organizations and individuals following the (New) Italian Communist Party toward the goal of making Italy a new socialist country, and this Caravan has always faced repression, since its founding more than forty years ago—the same period when the FRSO was founded. It faces it today as well, with the repressive action against the CARC Party on April 21, searches, seizures of materials based on a charge that is the same one with which the fascist regime imprisoned Antonio Gramsci and led him to his death, and with fines of thousands of euros for demonstrations against fascists and Zionists. We would like to thank FRSO here, which was among the first communist organizations—among many—to express their solidarity with us at the international and national levels. Mutual cooperation in confronting repression is open.

A third arena is frank and open debate. The course of the revolutionary process in the U.S. differs from that in Italy in many specific ways, but the two processes also share universal, common aspects regarding which debate is essential. Above all, we share the fact that FRSO and P.CARC operate in imperialist countries—countries where the socialist revolution has not yet triumphed, where the ground is therefore new and unexplored. For this reason, exchange is essential—sharing what we discover, discussing the assessment of the communist movement, the analysis of the ongoing crisis, the regimes the bourgeoisie adopts in imperialist countries, and the strategy for seizing power. Therefore, we have begun studying your theoretical works, and we will present you with a summary of ours.

Among the various themes, the first is that of party building. In Italy, we have succeeded in this endeavor with the founding of the (new) Italian Communist Party—a party established clandestinely, just as Lenin and Stalin’s Bolshevik Party taught a communist party must be in order to operate continuously toward the conquest of power and carry out its activities of recruitment, planning, training, guidance, organization, propaganda, mobilization, and leadership despite all the efforts the bourgeoisie makes to obstruct it, isolate it from the masses, and destroy it. The best wish we can offer your Congress is that it be a decisive step in the establishment of a new communist party in the U.S. The time is ripe for this to happen, and when it does, it will be an indelible sign of the rebirth of the communist movement worldwide.

Long live the rebirth of the international communist movement!

Long live the mobilization of the masses in the United States of America!

Long live the Freedom Road Socialist Organization!

CARC Party

International Working Group

Revolusi Indonesia

Statement of Solidarity

At the 10th Congress

Freedom Road Socialist Organization

The power of the 1% of the big American international monopoly bourgeoisie is not only responsible for the crisis and suffering of the working class in the United States. Since replacing Britain as the world’s largest imperialist state and power, the most powerful reactionary class in the United States has been responsible for the crisis and suffering of billions of oppressed and exploited people in various countries maintained as its colonies and semi-colonies.

The people of the United States face one of the most difficult periods in the history of their class struggle. The drastic decline of U.S. dominance in industry, agriculture, and foreign trade has given rise to various forms of oppression against the working class within the United States as well as against the peoples of colonies and semi-colonies, and even weaker capitalist nations. Competition among financial oligarchies has become far more intense and fierce. The move by many nations to restrict the use of the Dollar to avoid the burden of the crisis has accelerated this decline. The struggle for energy and natural resources is becoming increasingly difficult for the United States to win through conventional politics.

The economic decline has had a significant impact on the decline of the liberal democratic system that has long been revered and promoted throughout the country. Currently, in the eyes of people from various nations, the United States is nearly on par with non-industrialized nations in terms of protecting the basic rights of its people. President Donald J. Trump’s use of police actions backed by the military to enforce federal government policies and programs—including immigration policies and anti-LGBT policies—has drawn opposition not only from the oppressed and exploited people of America but from the entire world. Although fascism is recognized as the most reactionary offspring of the capitalist system, people in many countries are still shocked to witness the blatant suppression of freedom of speech on college campuses during the campaign against Israeli Zionist aggression against Gaza-Palestine. Also, whether they believe it or not, they witness the brutality of the Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in every operation.

Alongside the intensive anti-war campaign by the FRSO and other revolutionary movements, it is clear that the war of aggression against Venezuela, the war of aggression against Iran, the unlimited support for Zionist Israel in the war of aggression in Gaza-Palestine, the interventionist war in Nigeria and several African nations, and the U.S.-NATO proxy war through Ukraine against Russia are merely a reflection of America’s frustration in maintaining its dominance. Even the re-election of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States is proof in itself that the crisis is extremely acute and requires a war-mongering president to resolve it!

The 10th FRSO Congress holds special subjective significance amidst highly favorable objective national and international conditions for the growth and development of the revolutionary movement in both imperialist and semi-colonial countries. The subjective state of the FRSO is shaped by the objective reality of oppression and exploitation by the 1% reactionary class in the United States, in Latin America, and throughout the world. In addition to its intense class struggle in the United States, the FRSO has demonstrated proletarian international solidarity with national and class struggles in various semi-colonial and weaker capitalist countries, grounded in the powerful teachings of Marxism-Leninism. The FRSO takes Karl Marx’s thesis as its guiding principle: that “a country cannot be free while simultaneously oppressing another country,” and that “Labor in white skin cannot emancipate itself where the black skin is branded.”

The American people, just like the people in other countries, have long demanded the birth of a Proletarian Party that is truly conscious of its historical role in leading the class struggle through violence. Especially in a crisis situation like the present. The resolutions of the 10th FRSO Congress, therefore, are eagerly awaited not only by the working class and the oppressed and exploited people of the United States—who need a proletarian socialist revolution—but also by national and class struggles in semi-colonial and semi-feudal countries like Indonesia.

Victory to the American Proletarian Socialist Revolution!

Long live the FRSO!

Oppressed and Exploited People of the World, Unite!

Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)

Revolutionary greetings, comrades!

The Communist Party of the Philippines extends a militant salute to our comrades in the Freedom Road Socialist Organization on the occasion of your 10th Congress. Your gathering represents a significant victory for the working class and all other exploited and oppressed peoples here within the belly of the imperialist beast. It comes at no better a critical time, as contradictions within the United States and around the world are intensifying at an unprecedented rate.

Everywhere around us, the assault of imperialist US continues to squeeze people dry and exploit people to death. In the United States, imperialism’s assault on the working class has deepened hunger, poverty, and misery among the masses. Capitalists have increasingly made contractual work the norm, stripping workers of regular jobs and benefits, and making conditions harder for collective organizing and action. Trump has continued cracking down on trade unions on the one hand, while on the other co-opting union leadership into a labor aristocracy subservient to the bourgeoisie interests, especially through the illusion of his “America First” policy that promises to bring back industry and jobs to the country. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has slashed budgets for basic social services, especially healthcare, while providing no relief for people beset with the high inflation crisis spurred by his own tariff policies and the imperialist war on Iran.

Under particular threat is the huge reserve army of migrant labor that U.S. imperialism has consciously amassed. ICE, corporate-run detention centers, big tech companies, and others agents have formed an unholy partnership that simultaneously tears families apart, scapegoats migrants for the problems created by the capitalist class, and extracts super profits from their suffering. Meanwhile, violent state repression toward African Americans, Chicanos, and other oppressed nationalities continues unabated, as does the state’s desperate attempt to dampen the flames of the pro-Palestine solidarity movement. This domestic turmoil is unfolding in the context of heightened U.S. military aggression and intensifying increasingly aggressive U.S. imperialist intervention abroad, including in Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Palestine, and the Philippines.

But rather than signaling that the U.S. imperialists may appear to be strong and powerful, in fact, these are all signs of its desperate attempt to maintain power and global hegemony amid strategic decline. The military aggression against Venezuela and Iran and threats against other sovereign nations, show signs of the imperialist beast backed into a corner, clawing and claiming larger territories lashing out in order to survive. The work FRSO has done to unmask and fight back against this beast—especially in the midst of extreme economic and political crisis—serves as an inspiration to us all.

We have witnessed your determination in building a militant labor movement driven by mass struggles on the shop floor. We have learned from how you stand up to political repression—whether from the police, FBI, or ICE—and inspire the masses to stand with you and organize for their collective rights. We have stood alongside each other in re-enlivening an anti-war movement with a clear position on opposing imperialist wars while supporting people’s wars for national liberation in their own countries.

Your bravery in the face of the capitalists — whether in the workplace, in the halls of government, or in the dens of the war hawks — has won you concrete gains and victories for working and oppressed people around the country. We are overjoyed to hear that FRSO has experienced extraordinary growth in the course of these struggles, recognizing the crucial task you are carrying out in equipping these broad movements with the weapon of Marxism-Leninism to strike at the heart of the enemy.

At the same time, we are humbled and deeply appreciative of your dedication to proletarian internationalism, as demonstrated by your unrelenting solidarity with national liberation movements, including the People’s Democratic Revolution being waged in the Philippines under the leadership of the CPP. Your support is needed more now than ever. As a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country dominated by the joint class dictatorship of the big comprador bourgeoisie, and big landlord class and bureaucrat capitalists—all under the direction of U.S. imperialism—the Filipino people feel acutely the worsening contradictions of the current order. The deadly hunger already experienced by the toiling masses has been exacerbated by the sharp economic crash deterioration following the U.S.’ war on Iran, coupled with the refusal of the reactionary Philippine state to heed the people’s demands to repeal burdensome taxes and other anti-people and anti-poor policies and measures, that would mean lowering their profit margin or angering their U.S. corporate patrons. The self-serving nature of those in power was thoroughly unmasked in massive corruption scandals made public last year, as well as in the current political circus between the Marcos and Duterte dynasties playing out ahead of the 2028 Philippine presidential elections.

Beyond acting in their own interests, however, the reactionary classes of Philippine society are wholly subservient to their imperialist masters. With dizzying speed, the entire country is being made into the U.S.’ forward base in its campaign to encircle and contain China and assert dominance in the Asia-Pacific region. More de facto and secret U.S. military bases are being built across the country, which house both U.S. weapons and troops under the guise of “rotational” presence. Just this month, the U.S. military “assisted” by Philippine militaries — the Armed Forces of the Philippines — fired a Tomahawk missile from a civilian airport into a civilian community more than 600 kilometers away, endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos who were in the path of the low-flying missile, in a clear act of war provocation against China. The firing was part of the Balikatan war games—just one of over 500 joint military exercises set to happen this year that all aim to project power and heighten tensions with China. Even the Philippine economy is being transformed to serve the U.S.’ war economy, with the push to establish a US-controlled “economic security zone,” along with plans of building an ammunition factory, refueling hub for warships, and other infrastructure already under way.

The biggest obstacle to the complete transformation of the Philippines into a launching pad for U.S. imperialist war is the Filipino people’s democratic revolution being waged through protracted people’s war. For 57 years, the Communist Party of the Philippines has led this struggle for national and social liberation, and has spread the fire of revolution across the archipelago. It has thwarted every attempt of every reactionary U.S.-backed regime to destroy it, making a fool of presidents and generals who promise every year to end it by some arbitrary deadline.

Still, the state’s fascist terror unleashed against revolutionary forces and the broad masses of people struggling for change is very much a reality, especially in the Philippine countryside. Last month, the Filipino people suffered a loss that continues to weigh heavily on us all. On April 19, the butchers of the Philippine military committed a massacre—a war crime—by indiscriminately firing upon communities in Toboso, Negros Occidental. Nineteen people were martyred that day: ten Red fighters of the New People’s Army and nine civilians, including people local to the area as well as a student leader, journalists, peasant organizers, and community researchers who went to Negros to learn from among the peasant masses. Among them were Lyle Prijoles and Kai Sorem, two Filipino-American activists who were leaders in the Filipino community in the US, leaders who chose to sacrifice their comforts living in the U.S. to serve the toiling masses back home.

The enemy would like to portray this massacre as a strategic victory against communism. It is the opposite. In a statement following the Toboso massacre, the New People’s Army-Northern Negros under the Roselyn Jean Pelle Command reminds us that the very reason the U.S.-Marcos regime targeted and continues to target Negros is because of the strength of the revolution there. They state that in 2025 alone, “Party membership grew 30 percent” and “new branches were formed in broad areas.” Further, “membership in secret mass organizations grew nearly 50 percent, while the number of individuals reached by the revolution tripled. The NPA in Northern Negros also doubled the range of its area of operations and launched at least 19 guerrilla offensive and counter-offensive actions. It conducted these operations up to towns near the provincial capital and populated areas.”

What is happening in Negros shows us that the U.S.-Marcos regime is fighting a losing battle, because, as our founding chairperson Jose Maria Sison declared in his last statement before passing, “the Filipino people’s democratic revolution is invincible.” As long as the toiling masses’ aspirations for land, for sovereignty, and for a future crafted by our own hands continue to exist, so will the people’s revolution. The martyrdom of the Negros 19 has only fueled and fanned the flames of struggle across the country, and among the Filipino diaspora and our allies overseas. In their wake, thousands more will raise high the red flag of people’s war.

Comrades, the enemy is frightened because of the success of our people’s movements the world over, from the U.S., to Palestine, to Iran, to the Philippines. Each victory in one of our countries represents a victory for all. And with our weapon of proletarian internationalism wielded by the broad anti-imperialist united front, we know that no tactical setback can prevent the inevitability of peoples’ victories against the yoke of imperialism, fascism, and all reaction.

On the occasion of your 10th Congress and beyond, we look forward to continuing to learn and struggle alongside each other, to fight for more victories for the people, and to march side- by- side with one another in the pursuit for freedom, justice, a bright socialist tomorrow, and even brighter communist future.

Mabuhay ang Freedom Road Socialist Organization! Long live Freedom Road Socialist Organization!

Long live proletarian internationalism!

Long live the toiling masses struggling for liberation!

Communist Party, Sweden

To the upcoming congress of Freedom Road Socialist Organisation

We from Communist Party, Sweden, wish you all success with your political and organisational work regarding your congress. We are well aware of your enormous tasks you have working in the belly of the of the most aggressive and reactionary state we have seen since nazism. Sweden today is both an imperialist country as well as a tool under European Union as well under American Imperialism. Some days ago our party organised thousands of demostraters against Nato-summit in Helsingborg. At May Day we had meetings and rallies at 27 places in Sweden and we raised 20 thousand dollars to solarpanels at a hospital in western Cuba. All in collaboration with Cuba Embassy in Sweden.

Down with US imperialism! Down with Nato! Long live proletarian internationalism!

Povel Johansson Partychairman

Erik Anderson Internationally Secretary

United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)

Estimada compañera:

I write to you to extend a fraternal and revolutionary greeting on behalf of the workers of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela — men and women alike — the land of Simón Bolívar and Hugo Chávez, where the working class continues to resist and produce despite the criminal blockade.

I take this opportunity to warmly congratulate you on the celebration of your 10th National Congress, an event that, without a doubt, reaffirms the vitality of Marxism-Leninism at the heart of the empire.

On behalf of our working class and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), I recognize the consistent leadership that the FRSO has exercised over the years. We know that you maintain a real and combative presence in the U.S. labor movement, in the liberation struggle of African American communities, and in internationalist solidarity beyond the borders of the United States.

We want to express our most sincere gratitude for the constant support you have always given to the Venezuelan people and to the Bolivarian revolution. And very especially, we thank you for your militant solidarity with our brother Nicolás Maduro Moros, Constitutional President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and working-class leader who guides the emancipatory process of our people.

Comrade Nicolás Maduro Moros today remains a prisoner of war in a federal jail in New York City, since he was vilely kidnapped on January 3, 2026, in Venezuelan territory. That the FRSO has raised its voice for him fills us with pride and hope.

Finally, I emphasize a deep conviction of the Venezuelan working class: the people of Venezuela recognize themselves as friends of the U.S. people, whose gallantry has inspired us ever since May 1, 1886. We do not confuse the working people with the rapacious governments, from which you also suffer as victims. Our hand is extended to the workers, to the dispossessed, to African Americans, to Indigenous peoples, and to all those who, like the FRSO, fight for a world without exploiters.

Confident that your 10th National Congress will be a victorious trench, we reiterate our proletarian embrace and our willingness to continue building internationalist solidarity.

¡Venceremos!

Sincerely,

Francisco A. Torrealba Vice President of the Working Class United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV)

Workers World Party

Workers World Party sends our warmest greetings and our deep solidarity to the Freedom Road Socialist Organization’s 10th Congress, which is taking place in the developing stage of a severe crisis in the class struggle.

This crisis manifests in the decline in U.S. imperialism’s ability to dominate the world through the dollar and the Pentagon. It is exacerbated by the racist, misogynist, anti-foreign and utterly corrupt MAGA administration’s attempts to reverse the decline by undisguised military aggression abroad and increased exploitation at home.

Those of us who agree that a Marxist-Leninist party that organizes of and for the working class and all oppressed peoples is necessary, wish the 10th Congress of FRSO success in building an organization that can be much stronger than the sum of its individuals in order to obstruct the war plans of the imperialist ruling class, as well as their designs to squeeze more profits out of working people in the U.S. and worldwide.

We salute the steady working class organizing that Freedom Road Socialist Organization has continued during this tumultuous period, while maintaining a firm anti imperialist and internationalist view.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization has distinguished itself in the past year, especially regarding two important areas of struggle in which Workers World Party has also participated.

One is the fight to stop ICE thugs from persecuting the large migrant working-class community. Your work all over the country and especially in Los Angeles, Chicago, in Florida and in Minneapolis (the epicenter of the struggle in January) has been vitally important.

Another has been the ongoing struggle against imperialist war. Our organizations have often been together at rallies and marches in an attempt to create a revolutionary pole for the millions of people who oppose U.S. wars. Whether against Palestine, Lebanon, or Iran in West Asia, against Venezuela or now Cuba in Latin America, whether against NATO in Europe, it has been important that organizations who agree that “the enemy of humanity is at home” should work together to succeed.

Unless anger and frustration in today’s worsening conditions is consciously focused on U.S. imperialism’s crimes, it always goes toward attacking the shortcomings of our own movements. That only leads to demoralization, infighting, and empty polemical debates.

Our joint collaboration on many issues can hopefully create a new approach to the struggle in the U.S. Rather than competing, contending political formations, far more can be gained by learning from each other and building a unity of action with other emerging forces.

US imperialism, in this stage of decay, is highly unstable, racked by unwinnable wars and prone to reckless and unpredictable repression. We know that having each other’s back is the best insurance. An injury to one is an injury to all is the oldest lesson in the class struggle.

Long live the solidarity of FRSO and WWP!

Down with U.S. imperialism!

Struggle for Socialism Party / Struggle – La Lucha

Dear Comrade Mick Kelly and Delegates of the 10th Congress,

On behalf of the Struggle for Socialism Party and our publication Struggle-La Lucha, we extend our warmest and fraternal greetings to each delegate, member, and leader of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization as you convene your 10th Congress.

We have followed with admiration and solidarity your organization’s principled and militant work in the recent period. Your role in the struggle against mass deportations stands as a vital defense of immigrant and working-class communities under attack. Likewise, your consistent and courageous mobilization for Palestine and against the U.S. war drive on Iran reflects the highest internationalist traditions of our movement, challenging imperialism at its core. Your active engagement in the trade union, African American liberation, and Chicano liberation movements further demonstrates your commitment to building a united, multinational, anti-capitalist front capable of winning real power for the oppressed.

That your 10th Congress arrives at a moment of extraordinary growth — which includes securing a national office — is a testament to your perseverance and rootedness in struggle. This material and organizational progress strengthens the foundation for advancing revolutionary work.

We send these greetings in the spirit of working class internationalism and genuine revolutionary solidarity. May your Congress strengthen your unity, and prepare your membership for the intensified class battles ahead.

With respect and revolutionary fervor,

Fraternally,

Sharon Black and John Parker,

Coordinators, Struggle for Socialism Party and Struggle-La Lucha

#RevolutionaryTheory #FRSO #International #10thCongress #Congress

Job growth was concentrated in the hotel and restaurant industry, which added 70,000 net new jobs in May, making up 40% of the total job growth. Next came local government (excluding school jobs), with 55,000 more jobs, as healthcare added 35,000 new jobs. Together these three industries added almost 90% of net new jobs.

One problem is that this trend is not expected to last. Traveling and going out to eat are not necessities, and with more and more households being caught in a vise as prices rise faster than wages, spending, and thus jobs, are likely to slow. Local governments are facing budget pressures as cuts in federal spending trickle down to state and local governments. Finally, the Medicaid cuts in the Republican “Big Beautiful Bill” of tax cuts for the rich and service cuts for the poor will speed up after the November elections, limiting the scope of future gains in healthcare jobs.

While the job numbers were strong, the number of long-term unemployed, who have been out of work for more than six months, rose by more than a third from a year ago. These workers now make up 27.5% of all the unemployed, as compared to only 20.4% a year ago.

Wage growth also slowed. In April, the year-over-year increase in wages was 3.6%, but in May, wages only increased by 3.4% over the previous year. The inflation rate measured by the Consumer Price Index is expected to rise to a 4.2% annual rate when the newest inflation numbers come out on Wednesday. This will widen the gap between prices rising faster, while wage growth is slowing down.

The strong job creation number combined with rising inflation caused bond prices to fall and their interest rates to rise on Friday. Since bonds pay a fixed interest payment, their price and the interest rate change in opposite directions. Bond interest rates have been rising since the being of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which in turn drives up other interest rates, including mortgages to buy homes.

The drop in bond prices and higher interest rates also spooked the stock market, with the technology-heavy NASDAQ 100 index down 5% on Friday, led by chipmaker stocks, which fell 10%. The broader S&P fell half as much, or 2.5%.

#SanJoseCA #CA #CapitalismAndEconomy #Jobs

Fort Worth, TX – In response to the murder of Emmit Elijah Mayo by the Fort Worth Police on May 16, National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, NAARPR-Dallas, organized a protest June 7 at the Fort Worth Police Department to demand justice for Mayo, accountability from the officers involved, and the immediate release of the unedited body cam footage.

Mayo, a musician, performed under the stage name 88Dub.

This demonstration followed a funeral service for Emmit Mayo that police had threatened to disrupt by arresting members of Mayo’s family during the procession, prompting the family to request NAARPR-Dallas’ presence as a deterrent. No arrests were made at the funeral.

Over 50 people crowded around the police station, making their demands as police within the station made mocking faces and gestures towards the crowd. While police watched from the station’s balcony, organizers led the protesters in chants shouting, “Jail all killer cops!” “Community control now!” and “Justice for 88Dub!”

Members of Emmit Mayo’s family took the opportunity to speak to the crowd and to the police onlookers about the truth of the situation. One family member stated, “It’s funny the kind of quality we can get from videos taken by drones off in faraway places, but when it comes to people being murdered in our community all we get is blurry and edited videos.”

A few hours into the action, several FWPD vehicles left the station’s parking lot in quick succession, prompting the crowd to gather around the exit and make their demands heard up close to the officers who had refused to acknowledge the protest.

After the action, FWPD officers followed three members of Emmit Mayo’s family to their homes and arrested them.

#FortWorthTX #TX #InJusticeSystem #KillerCops #NAARPRDFW

The following is a keynote speech delivered by the Freedom Road Socialist Organization Political Secretary Mick Kelly, May 31, at the International League of Peoples Struggle/U.S. Political Conference.

Comrades and friends

Let me start by thanking and congratulating the organizers of this genuinely important event, the Third National Assembly of the International League of Peoples Struggle/U.S. What a powerful gathering! This is truly a room full of militants. Many of us have worked together for years and all of us are consistent anti-imperialists.

In the words of the outstanding revolutionary Jose Maria Sison, the late chairman of the ILPS, “imperialism is the last way out for the monopoly capitalists to postpone their revolutionary overthrow. It means the extension of the class oppression and exploitation within the United States into the oppression and exploitation of other nations and people abroad through the export of surplus products and surplus capital.”

The implications of this are clear enough. Working and oppressed people in the U.S. and abroad have a common interest in ending imperialism. We want this to happen as soon as possible. The decline of U.S. monopoly capitalism, or imperialism, the two terms can be used interchangeably, is accelerating. The decline is picking up speed and we welcome its demise. And we intend to throw gasoline on the fire.

I will be talking today about strengthening and broadening the people’s movement, especially the workers movement in the United States, as well as the key role of workers in the fight for democracy and the struggle to achieve socialism.

Also to be addressed is the state of the labor movement and what we need to do to move the level of struggle of the working class to a higher level. Finally, I will be looking at the issue of international solidarity.

Need for a mass line approach

To be successful as anti-imperialists, as revolutionaries, as people who want to and will change the world, we need to apply the mass line. While there is a lot that could be said about that, at the heart of it is “from the masses, to the masses.”

Or to quote the great Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong, “In all the practical work of our Party, all correct leadership is necessarily ‘from the masses, to the masses.’ This means: take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test the correctness of these ideas in action.”

To put this another way, we sum up where people are at. Basing ourselves on what people are concerned about, on what folks want, we develop slogans, policies, plans, that people will take up as their own. It is in this way that revolutionary theory becomes a material force.

All of us who do organizing can appreciate the point that Mao was making. The starting point of our organizing needs to be where people are at – what their actual level of political development is. We are not organizing people in books or people who are the way we imagine they should be – we need to connect with people where they are at and systematically lead them forward.

One thing about capitalism is that it is an excellent teacher. For anyone who thinks that this system is fair, reasonable, or just, the capitalists, really the system itself, is always ready to teach you otherwise. It’s an endless disappointment, a Christmas that never comes. Capitalism is a failed system, but to help people gain that understanding – and understand who is the enemy and what is to be done – we have to be standing right next to them summing things up.

The accelerating decline of U.S. imperialism

The decline of U.S. imperialism is picking up speed. The U.S. share of world trade in goods has declined about 40% since 1970. The U.S. share of world GDP is about half of what in the aftermath of World War II. The U.S. has retreated from the economic architecture that underpinned the so called, “American Century.”

In recent years, management of the declining U.S. empire has been bipartisan. Both Trump and Biden disengaged from the WTO and adopted measures to “delink” the economy from China. While there are significant differences between the industrial policies of Trump and Biden, neither embraced a “let the market decide”, laissez-faire approach that’s touted by neoliberals

The decline of U.S. imperialism is sharpening all of the basic contradictions present in society: the contradiction between the monopoly capitalists and the multinational working class; between the ruling class and oppressed nationalities; and between the monopoly capitalism and women and LGBTQ people. This provides the material basis for the intensification of polarization, and the phenomenon of different states or even cities having different legal systems which accord people varying democratic rights.

The sharpening of the contradictions is in sharp relief in the fight for immigrant rights. Our organization views the attacks on immigrants as a function of national oppression, which means that the U.S. is a jailhouse of oppressed peoples, of oppressed nationalities.

Militarized ice raids and troop deployments to major cities is serving to pull U.S. society apart, and this can be seen in mass protests and rebellions (LA and Minneapolis), divergent court rulings, a degree of non-compliance by some state and local authorities (Chicago).

One aside here. After the murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis, I arrived on the scene about 15 minutes after the killing took place. The car she was killed in was still there. And sure, there was sadness. But there was also anger. Repression gives rise to more resistance – so there were many clashes with the ICE agents.

But back to the decline of U.S imperialism and sharpening contradictions.

On a different level, and more reflective of contradictions in the enemy camp, are the government shutdowns that are becoming more frequent and larger with the passage of time. Then there are the impeachment attempts. And then there are the things that are not normal in modern U.S. politics, such as the “weaponization” of the Department of Justice and the prosecution of Trump’s bourgeois political opponents. One feature of the Trump administration is a willingness to push up to – and beyond – the limits of bourgeoisie legality.

Any major economic downturn or crisis will sharpen the aforementioned contradictions. The capitalists will act the way they always do – try to shift the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the working class. Most state governments (and many local ones) will experience budget crises, resulting in attempts to push austerity measures.

A scientific analysis of changes in society grasps the fact that changes in the economic base (productive forces and relations of production) will result in the superstructure (politics, government, religion, etc.) changing. And that the superstructure will alter the economic base, meaning that there is a dialectical relationship between the two. This is not a one-way thing either; certain changes in the superstructures can play a crucial role in the economic base.

Lenin made the point that monopoly capitalism was moribund – capitalism in the period of terminal decline and decay. As such, monopoly capitalism has challenges utilizing advances in science and deploying more advanced productive forces in general.

Taken as a whole, these objective conditions provide extremely favorable conditions for revolutionaries, progressives, and anti- imperialists to greatly expand our mass base and organizational capacity.

Building the workers and other popular movements

The working class is a class in itself; its existence is objective, and developing class consciousness means the working class becomes a class that is for itself. While it is true that the task of developing the workers movement in the U.S. is not identical with revitalizing the trade union movement, organized labor has a critical role.

The fact of the matter is that many of our trade unions, most really, are not only bureaucratic, they’re conservative and they often have a “go along to get along” approach when it comes to dealing with employers. This needs to change. So work needs to be done to put trade unions on a class-struggle basis. Practically, this means building up militant minorities in the form of caucuses or reform slates and contending for leadership.

We need more serious confrontations with the employers, such as the strike by 1,500 Teamsters last year at the University of Minnesota or the strike of packinghouse workers in Greely, Colorado.

The center of gravity for work in the labor needs to be wages and working conditions. Given that the working class is multinational and has more than one gender – there is also the fight against discrimination and inequity in our workplaces. To strengthen and broaden the working class movement. The starting point needs to be the “felt” needs of workers.

If we fail to do that, our efforts to raise the level of class struggle with fail. But starting points are not ending points and we cannot say that we must confine ourselves to immediate needs – our class is multifaceted and we need to address political issues as well.

A stellar example of this was the labor-initiated anti-ICE protest in Minneapolis, where nearly 100,000 people took to the streets on January 23. Some people say it was a general strike – it was not – but it is a wonderful example of what is possible when labor movement chooses to act. Actions such as this, in a very nascent or beginning form, give life to the concept of “Workers unite to lead the fight against all oppression.”

Strengthening and broadening the people’s movements

Mao Zedong once remarked there is “Great disorder under heaven – the situation is excellent,” That is a spot-on description of how revolutionaries should view the situation in our country today. It in no way implies indifference to real suffering that is the day-to-day experience of our class, of working and oppressed people at home and abroad. Instead, Mao’s statement gives correct stress to favorable conditions we find ourselves in to build large mass struggles.

It’s been said before and it can be said again – the U.S. is a prison house of oppressed nations, and the oppression visited upon African Americans, Chicanos and others is in fact national oppression.

The struggle against national oppression is a struggle against imperialism, against monopoly capitalism… so let me give a shout out to the members of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression who present here today. Your efforts to stop police terror, for community control of the police and in defense of voting rights are inspiring. Same goes for those of you in Centro CSO Chapters who are resisting ICE and have faced real repression. And an additional point on that – there is a grand jury meeting in Santa Ana, California – we reason to believe that it may well be targeting immigrant rights activists. If that proves to be the case, we will be certainly calling on all of you for support and solidarity.

Here we are, five years after the George Floyd Rebellion, the greatest wave of urban upbringings since the 1960s and early 70s. In those weeks in late May and early June 2020, nearly 25 million people took to the streets.

That powerful mass motion against police crimes and systematic inequality – national oppression – gave lie to the idea that conditions in the U.S. were immutable, that nothing changes. Anyone present at the burning of the Third Precinct building in Minneapolis can tell you this. Late in the evening of May 28, 2020, the last police, who had been firing rubber bullets and tear gas rounds, disappeared. There were thousands of people in the streets. Then the building went up in flames, Things do not have to stay the way they are. And they will not.

United front against imperialism

The U.S. working class is multinational; it is like a mosaic. There are also the movements of the oppressed nationalities. Real change in the U.S. requires a united front against imperialism, against monopoly capitalism. At the core of this united front needs to be a strategic alliance of the multinational working class and of the oppressed nationalities. Around this will be an alignment of other classes in conflict with capitalism, other sectors with particular importance, like women and LGBTQ folk, and social movements such as those who resist U.S. wars.

Together we will be unstoppable!

Democracy and democratic rights

Democracy does not exist in the abstract, its mode of existence, and how it is practiced in the real world is always in the context of the existing class relations.

Every discussion of the topic should start with the recognition that a capitalist democracy is a cash register democracy where the amount of rights one has and the amount of power one has is directly linked to one’s class position. And that Lenin was entirely correct to say that a capitalist democracy is a democracy for slaveholders at the expense of the enslaved.

That truth no way negates the fact the struggle for consistent democracy and democratic rights is extremely important in the U.S. today. For purposes of exposition, I am going to treat these topics as two categories, but they are two aspects of the same thing.

The absence or limitations on consistent democracy is an important feature of racist national oppression, and it needs to be combated with all energy we can muster. For example, the attacks on voting rights are disenfranchising millions of African Americans. Consistent democracy is the equal treatment of languages, especially on matters of government. On the national level the U.S. is adopting a chauvinist “English only” model. These are examples and further examples could fill volumes, everyone here knows that. But here is another point: by being frontline fighters in the fight for democracy we can rally millions to the fight for revolutionary change.

Travel around this country and you can see that the legal superstructure is moving in different directions. You have different democratic rights (say, reproductive rights and the rights of LBGTQ people) in different places. As political polarization sharpens, this country is fracturing. And that is not a bad things from the standpoint of revolutionaries – because we intend to take it apart and put an end to U.S. monopoly capitalism once and for all.

There is also the aspect of defending democratic rights and civil liberties. We all get that the U.S. is a repressive place. Arguably it always has been – lynch terror in the Black Belt South to buttress semi feudal property relations (sharecropping), the concentration camps for Japanese Americans during World War II, and communists jailed or deported in the 1950s. This is, and always has been, a repressive place.

That said, it is clear that a major assault our rights to organize, associate and demonstrate is underway. It is a danger that needs to be confronted. The state of Florida is criminalizing Palestine protests. Conor Cauley, an organizer for Palestine and member of the International Longshoremen’s Association, is sitting in jail today – serving a 60-day sentence for a felony that did not happen. Over the past year, hundreds have been charged with felonies in the anti-ICE protests around the country. And all sorts of reactionary and repressive legislation is moving forward in Congress, states, and cities.

In all cases we need to push back against the assault on democratic rights, but there is one attack on those rights which dates from the Clinton era – the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. This bill borrowed a page from apartheid South Africa and put the tag of “terrorist” on those fighting for national liberation. These “material support for terrorism” laws are reactionary, should be abolished and should be opposed by every person who stands for progress.

Working class internationalism

All of us, every, single one of us here, believe that working class internationalism and international solidarity are important. Every blow against U.S. imperialism ,be it in Palestine, the Philippines, or for that matter, Philadelphia ,weakens our common enemy benefiting the people at home and abroad.

We are all in this together and none of us can be free, while oppressing others.

We always must make sure that international solidarity is not just things we say, but it is alive in the things that we do. Right now, the U.S. empire is waging a war on Iran. Paper tiger that it is, the U.S. Trump administration is being defeated, humiliated in fact. Our task here is to unite all who can be united to oppose the war, and in cities around the country many of you have been doing exactly that.

There are other forms of international solidarity. Many have traveled on exposure trips to occupied Palestine and have been about to report back on the efforts of the national democratic force. We can work to promote solidarity between labor unions in this country and those under the boot of U.S. imperialism. Same goes for solidarity organized by sectors. All these methods can be employed and others too.

“Workers and oppressed people of the world unite,” is something all of us take seriously.

Socialist future

Mao once said that only socialism can save China. You know what? Only socialism can save the U.S. Monopoly capitalism is a failed, sick system that evokes alienation and anger.

The multinational working class has a material interest in bringing this system to an end, but hard work is needed to develop the understanding, political clarity, and capacity to do this.

In my view we will need to establish a new communist party that is capable of contending for power. I understand fully that this is a gathering of mass organizations, but I also know that questions of “How do we end imperialism?” or “How do we abolish the existing order of things?” are on the minds of many of you here.

So, in closing, I have been active in people’s struggle for more than 50 years. Never have I been as hopeful as I am now. Capitalism is a vicious blood-sucking system that drains the life blood out of the working class. Marx compared the big capitalists to vampires. He was right about that. And what do we do when we encounter a vampire? We drive a stake through its heart.

And on that note, comrades, thank you. Our future is bright and we have a world to win.

Long live international solidarity!

#ILPS #FRSO #Speech #PeoplesStruggles

Brooklyn, NY – On Saturday, June 6, community members and activists with Brooklyn Against War [BAW] gathered at the Bedford Library for a panel and discussion regarding their ongoing campaign to free Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores. Titled “What is Happening in Venezuela?”, the panel featured guest speaker Steve Ellner, an author, historian and political scientist who taught at the Universidad de Oriente for 26 years. 

Ellner stated, “The Chavista movement is solidly behind Delcy Rodríguez. Washington, and Trump in particular, has made no secret of what could happen to the Rodríguez government if [she] were to put up major resistance to the demands that the Trump administration is making.”

These comments from Ellner were made in response to criticisms of the acting president from members of the international left, who incorrectly condemn Rodriguez, rather than the imperialist aggression of the United States.

A member of BAW stated, “President Maduro is right now being held in our backyard at MDC. We are paying taxes, high taxes, and we don’t see them returning to our communities. There have been billions of dollars in war, and they are still using our tax dollars to bomb the country and try to control the oil.”

The Metropolitan Detention Center sits in the heart of Sunset Park, where it holds not only political prisoners President Maduro and Cilia Flores, but also nearly 200 ICE detainees.

BAW members also shared a petition to drop the charges, and spoke about their plans to mobilize to the federal courthouse on June 30, the next hearing date for Maduro and Flores. 

Ellner’s portion of the panel is available on YouTube at BrooklynAgainstWar.

#BrooklynNY #NY #AntiWarMovement #Venezuela #International #BAW

The successful conclusion of the 10th Congress of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) marked a genuine advance in our efforts to build a serious revolutionary communist organization in the United States. The Congress took place in the context of extraordinary growth, we have far more members in far more cities and towns. Over the past several years we have helped lead protests involving hundreds of thousands and have become a real force in the people’s movements. We are advancing towards the goal of building a new communist party that can contend for power.

As the call to the 10th Congress stated, “We have done great things. We have developed our work in the labor movement. We played a significant role in the George Floyd rebellion and are actively building the national movements. We have done much to push back against Trump’s reactionary attacks. We are proletarian internationalists, who stand with the oppressed from Palestine to the Philippines.”

Beneath a large banner reading, “Freedom Road Socialist Organization 10th Congress: We have nothing to lose but our chains!” a packed hall of 185 delegates and 101 alternate delegates came together to set goals and make plans for strengthening organization, and to elect leadership. This was our first congress where all in attendance were elected by their districts.

Delegates hailed from all regions of the country. Reflecting the rapid growth of FRSO over the last four years, this was the first congress for most attendees. While some of the participants were veterans of the communist movement with many decades of experience, the overwhelming majority were under 35 years old. Many attending were leaders and activists in the labor movement. Over 40 percent of those present were oppressed nationalities. About half of those present were women and LGBTQ people.

The 10th Congress of FRSO came at a critical juncture in the development of the people’s struggle and the accelerating decline of monopoly capitalism in the U.S.

The congress adopted political resolutions on the economy, the political situation, and the international situation that provide materialist analyses of the conditions we are facing, and that help us understand the terrain of struggle ahead. Participants both new and old navigated the democratic process to reach unity on our line.

The congress elected a new central committee to lead our organization. The central committee elected longtime communist Mick Kelly to serve as the organization’s political secretary.

Messages of greetings from communist and workers’ parties, national liberation movements, and anti-imperialist organizations were read to the delegates, including messages from the Workers Party of Belgium, Mouvement National Congolais – Lumumba (MNC/L), Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD), Communist Construction (Germany), CARC Party (Italy), Communist League of Indonesia, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), Communist Party, Sweden, and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

Messages from revolutionary organizations in the U.S., including the Workers World Party and the Struggle for Socialism Party / Struggle – La Lucha, were read to the delegates.

A message greeting the congress from the Communist Party of the Philippines states, “The Communist Party of the Philippines extends a militant salute to our comrades in the Freedom Road Socialist Organization on the occasion of your 10th Congress. Your gathering represents a significant victory for the working class and all other exploited and oppressed peoples here within the belly of the imperialist beast. It comes at no better a critical time, as contradictions within the United States and around the world are intensifying at an unprecedented rate.”

See all FRSO 10th Congress documents

See all Greetings from Communist and Workers Parties to the 10th Congress of the FRSO

#RevolutionaryTheory #FRSO #Congress #Featured

Portland, OR – On Friday, June 5, the Portland Hearings Office was to decide whether to uphold the land use violation for the Macadam Avenue ICE facility, but instead, a Multnomah County Circuit Court judge approved a stay order, delaying the ruling further. The violation decision was made May 22 and comes after the process has already been continually stalled, as the city has allowed landowner Stuart Lindquist multiple appeals and extensions. Activists demand an end to these undemocratic bureaucracies that give leniency to ICE and the landowners who lease to them.

Since the land use violation was originally issued in September 2025, both an administrative review and this delayed appeals hearing have taken place, with lengthy back and forth communication between Lindquist’s attorneys and the city. Lindquist and his legal team claim the city is biased against their client, when in fact, city officials have refused to enforce the fines for the land use violation or begin the revocation process for the land use permit.

Mayor Keith Wilson routinely calls Portland Police Bureau to attack and arrest anti-ICE protesters outside the ICE facility and at city hall, while allowing right-wing agitators to assault protesters without repercussions. It is clear where the city’s bias truly lies.

City Councilor Angelita Morillo, who has taken a strong stance against the revocation of the land use permit, posted on social media about the increased demand to shut down the Delaney Hall detention center in New Jersey. The re-post read, “The closure of Delaney Hall without the release of detainees is not a win. The closure of Delaney Hall but not getting ICE out of New Jersey is not a win. If detainees are transferred out of Jersey that’s not a win. Family separation and violence against detainees would continue.” Morillo also has a page on her website dedicated to why the city cannot and will not revoke the permit. “Progressive” councilors in Portland attempt to position themselves as committed to immigrant rights but fight the people’s movement and advocate against the closing of inhumane detention centers.

Portland Contra las Deportaciones, a grassroots immigrant rights organization, sent over a thousand emails to the mayor and city councilors asking to meet with them to discuss their plan to enforce the land use violation.

Activist Blaire Glennon said, “This decision to stay the hearing represents a delay of a democratically agreed on process, which further demonstrates that those with wealth like Stuart Lindquist can avoid accountability, while Trump and ICE are free to do as they please. It’s been nearly nine months since the land use violation was issued, and we are still fighting to see the city take action!”

DHS claims over 1200 people were detained out of Portland in the months of October to December alone. While the city was catering to ICE, Portlanders were suffering the real consequences of ICE’s home base in the SW Waterfront residential neighborhood. Immigrants have been targeted and terrorized, and residents near the ICE facility have endured countless nights of the release of chemical weapons, sometimes spanning multiple blocks.

The Multnomah County Circuit Court has set a hearing date of June 12.

#PortlandOR #OR #ImmigrantRights #

NYC, NY – On the steps of Tweed Courthouse in Lower Manhattan, at least 200 unionized teachers and community members gathered June 4 to demand the New York City Department of Education provide more protections from ICE for immigrant students.

June 4 was “Chancellor’s Day” and DoE officials, like Chancellor Kamar Samuels, gathered at Tweed Courthouse for meetings and for professional development. The activists chose this day and location to pressure them while they were inside the building.

The plans for the rally began with a small grassroots group of educators in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where ICE attacks on immigrant students and their families have been extremely prevalent. The organizers then brought the idea to the NYC Immigration Coalition, a group of local progressive non-profits, which includes Hands Off NYC, which then took up the call and helped organize the event.

They also brought the call to the Movement of Rank and File Educators, MORE, the reform caucus within the teachers union, the UFT. Members of MORE brought numbers and militancy to the event, providing signs with slogans like “DOE: We demand support for immigrants” and “DOE must act now to support immigrant families.”

MORE activist and Sunset Park teacher Caitlin Cahill, one of the original organizers of the event, said, “Schools are such natural places for organizing to happen, and in this case, teachers came together organically because we could see the need. We saw what was happening to our students and parents in our communities. The UFT helped to get the ball rolling with training on creating a School-based Plan to Support Immigrant Students and Families. This gave us an initial framework to work from. Then, I looked to MORE for guidance on rally support and amplification of our message because MORE knows what grassroots organizing looks like and shows up.”

The leadership of the UFT also officially endorsed the rally, which helped build up the numbers of union members in the crowd. Katie Kurjakovich, the UFT’s English language learners specialist, gave a speech on what the UFT is doing to protect immigrant students and teachers, including the Know Your Rights trainings that they have been providing.

The organizers delivered a petition demanding more centralized guidance, funding, and training to protect immigrant students, signed by more than 2000 people, to the DoE officials exiting the building.

nJess Mary, another MORE organizer and teacher, said, “Myself and fellow teachers attended the rally to make demands of the mayor's office and the DOE to protect our immigrant communities. Our union has the power to put pressure on educational leadership to protect us and our students. The protections for our immigrant students, coworkers, families and communities cannot wait.”

#NewYorkNY #NY #Teachers #Education #ImmigrantRights

New York, NY – On June 4, New Yorkers protested outside of the annual New York City Police Foundation Gala at the Intrepid Museum in Manhattan, where billionaires representing some of the top financial, tech and political dynasties in New York City gathered to donate millions of dollars to the New York Police Department.

The crowd of 75 protesters, led by the New York Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NYAARPR), shamed each gala attendee as they arrived, chanting “Blood on your hands!”

The New York City Police Foundation is a 501©(3) non-profit which funnels millions of dollars each year into the already bloated NYPD budget. The money goes to programs which surveil communities, pilot new technologies, and extend the reach of the NYPD.

For example, one of the foundation’s principal programs is the International Liaison program, which establishes NYPD offices in cities across the world, including in Tel Aviv. Additionally, donors who attend the gala tend to get massive contracts with the NYPD These include companies like surveillance giant Palantir, and Motorola, the company supplying cops with their radios. Both have made huge contributions at the gala which have turned into major contracts with the NYPD.

The protesters assembled outside of the gala to demand a public police force that does not function like a private piggy bank for billionaires, but that is accountable to the people of New York City. At the protest, NYAARPR demanded: No funding for killer cops; community control, not billionaire control; and justice for Eudes Pierre and all victims of police violence.

Speakers at the rally included representatives of NYU Students for a Democratic Society, Brooklyn Against War, Adolfina, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and the Coalition for Justice for Eudes Pierre.

Sheina Banatte, cousin of Eudes Pierre, who was killed by the NYPD in December 2021, said, “The money being wasted to fund racism and corruption here at this gala can best be spent in the community places and spaces that can truly benefit people, families, community and quality of life.” She continued, “We will keep fighting for community control of the police, justice for Eudes Pierre, and justice for all stolen lives.”

After the program concluded, protesters tore open several pig head effigies, scattering red paint splattered money in the street to symbolize the blood money raised at the gala. The protest then marched through the streets of Manhattan chanting, “NYPD kills on patrol! How do we stop them? Community control!”

#NewYorkNY #NY #NYC #InjusticeSystem #NYPD #PeoplesStruggles

This action was in response to the National Network on Cuba (NNOC) calling for a national day of action after a U.S. indictment of Raúl Castro on May 20. June 3 marks the 95th birthday of the revolutionary leader.

The group was small but mighty, and chants like “No boots on the ground, no bombs in the air, U.S. out of everywhere!” and “Yankee, go home!” rang up and down the street. Many passersby were supportive and took flyers explaining the effects of the increased sanctions on Cuba, including an increased infant mortality rate of 148%.

“We are gathered here today to demand an end to these pointless sanctions, these pointless bombs, and these pointless wars that don’t benefit anyone except for Donald Trump and his racist, reactionary agenda,” began Katie Sayour of the Anti-War Committee DMV, “We say shame on Donald Trump as he drags us into yet another war.”

“Let us make no mistake,” said Ermiya Fanaeian, a member of the Action for Cuba Committees, “Cuba is a peaceful nation. Cuba is not responsible for bombing countries around the world. Cuba is not responsible for taking away our rights as queer people, as Black people, as immigrants, as women, as workers.”

At some point, as the protesters were chanting “Yankee, go home,” they were confronted by a counter-protester carrying signs in support of a U.S. invasion of Cuba, at which point calls to “go home” were directed toward the counter-protester until they were removed from the area. Another individual drove by and shouted in opposition to the demonstration, while many other drivers honked in support of the anti-war message as well as pro-immigrant signs held by those in attendance.

Sayour also connected the demonstration for speaking out against US aggression on Cuba to the ICE crackdown on immigrants who speak out against U.S. aggression overseas, namely the case of Yousof Azizi, an Iranian immigrant detained by ICE in Maryland after his public opposition to the war in Iran.

“Yousof Azizi was kidnapped by ICE for speaking out against the war, kidnapped for using his First Amendment rights, just as we are using right now,” Sayour continues. “We see materially how it can happen to any of us, and so it is our duty to stand with people like Yousof Azizi, with people like Salah Sarsour. It is our duty to stand with Cuba, it is our duty to stand with Venezuela, to stand with China, to stand with all oppressed people of the world.”

National Network on Cuba: @nationalnetworkoncuba

Ant-War Committee DMV: @antiwar.dmv

Yousof Azizi: https://yousofazizi.com/

#WashingtonDC #International #AntiWarMovement #Cuba