Headlines are flooded with images of property destruction and chaotic crowds, and the moral of most news stories on the topic is “we need more police” and “parents should be held accountable.” We know from experience that these are not real solutions, and when we treat Black teens like people and speak to them about their needs and wants, they can offer solutions to problems the racist ruling class wants us to think are insurmountable.

Black people have faced relentless attacks from white supremacy during our entire history in the U.S. The youth are reacting to generations of exploitation and repression, which is today seen in decades of defunding housing, education, healthcare and other public services while funding for racist policing and mass incarceration always increases.

Alderpersons like Brian Hopkins have used the “takeovers” as an excuse to push legislation effectively denying Black youth the right to gather in public. Calls for “accountability” suggest punishments from fines to jail time for parents of the teens. Some are kind enough to say parents need mentorship in how to raise their kids. Very few talk about the material difficulties of supporting a family while under constant attack by the white supremacist ruling class.

175,000 families in Illinois had their SNAP benefits taken by the Trump administration in May. My school saw a dramatic downward turn in student behavior the following week. One morning, a sixth grader told me he had been outside partying at 2a.m. because his mother works night shifts and, like many children, he will choose the more fun and risky option if adults aren't present to make him choose the safe, boring one.

Long work hours are only one reason parents struggle to spend quality time with their children. Many are incarcerated by the racist legal system. Some are afflicted by unemployment, addiction, mental illness, or other problems made inevitable by capitalism.

So, if it's clear that the “teen takeovers” are rooted in the same systemic cause as poverty and violence in Black communities, why are we talking about parenting?

In the 1960s, the Johnson administration was giving concessions to the Black liberation movement in the form of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. They were also planning ways to keep Black people ignorant of the imperialist system which oppresses them as a nation and exploits the vast majority of them as members of the multinational working class.

In 1965, Lyndon B Johnson's Secretary of Labor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, published a report claiming that the main cause of problems in the Black community was not centuries of brutal exploitation and oppression, but a dysfunctional family structure. The report blamed Black women in particular as the heads of single parent households.

People who ignore the economic and political roots of discontent in Black communities and blame children or their parents are playing into the strategy of the ruling class. Instead, we should use the strategy outlined in the words and work of leaders like Martin Luther King Jr, Fred Hampton and Malcolm X who fought for working and oppressed people.

These strategists condemned the system, not the people struggling to survive within it. If we are concerned about violence at “teen takeovers” or any other time and place in Black communities, we need to support the movements fighting to improve conditions for Black people.

We should join the movement for community control of the police and an end to mass incarceration. We should fight for quality, fully funded public goods like housing, healthcare and education. We should fight for worker’s rights and empowerment in unions. We should resist the imperialist wars and interventions of the U.S. government, so tax dollars are used to help children here instead of murdering families overseas. We should defend the historical gains of the Black liberation movement such as voting and civil rights.

Black people did not choose to be exploited and oppressed for 400 years on this land, but we have advanced historically when we chose to fight back. The choice today is to dwell on the individual decisions of children and parents impacted by the racist and greedy ruling class, or to join the movements uniting with families to oppose the ruling class.

#Opinion #Commentary #AfricanAmerican #OppressedNationalities #Youth

If asked what I consider to be a defining moment of the 20th century, I would have to say that it was the moment on the Edmund Pettus bridge in 1965 that led to the historic passing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Let me talk about the things that I most distinctly remember. Jimmie Lee Jackson, a young Black man, was 26 years old when he was shot by the police while trying to protect his mother from being brutalized in Marion, Alabama. This was a peaceful demonstration for voting rights. Jackson was a Black worker who made $6 a day as a woodcutter before he was murdered on that fateful night. And here we are, over 60 years later, still following up on what Dr. King told us when he said, “now we must see that Jimmie Jackson didn't die in vain.”

We must see even now that all those who were murdered in Alabama, Mississippi and throughout the disenfranchised Black Belt South didn’t die in vain.

I was 21, turning 22 years old in the summer of 1964 and I had lived through four young Black girls being killed by a bombing in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963 and three young men, two white and one Black, being murdered in Mississippi in the same period. Then I saw Bloody Sunday on TV, where hundreds of people, protesters, were teargassed and beaten for peacefully demanding the right to vote.

And as I was saying earlier, here we are 60 years later, where Black legislators in the deep South and in Tennessee are sitting down in the state legislatures in protest demanding that the right to vote not be taken away from them, demanding that all majority-Black political districts not be disenfranchised based on the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court to totally gut the Voting Rights Act. That's what they did, they just struck down the Voting Rights Act, which took us over 100 years to enact. They struck it down in a day.

And now there's a wave of protests throughout the South, mainly Black people, but not just Black people, saying to this Supreme Court, to the Congress, and particularly to the Republican-dominated Congress, and to the world, that we’re not going back. And the world will see that through our united actions, that we’re not going back. The world will see once again the ironclad determination of Black people and their allies, refusing to go back, protesting and demanding that we go forward.

Protesting and demanding that not only will we not be pushed back to Jim Crow, but that we’re going to put an end to those who are trying to take us back there: Donald Trump and his minions, Donald Trump and his Supreme Court, Donald Trump and his corrupt Congress, Donald Trump and his corrupt White House. You’re not going to take us back. We refuse to go back. We’re fighting to go forward. And in going forward, we will put an end to all of these travesties of justice. We will put an end to the so-called white backlash, which thinks it has a political destiny to make America worse again, not great again, to take the American dream and turn it into the American nightmare.

We will not go back, and we can’t say this strong enough, that what we need to do in the days ahead is protest what the Supreme Court has done, to confront and challenge what's going on in the state houses in the Deep South, and what the governors and congresspeople in the Deep South are trying to do to bring back Jim Crow, to bring back that period when Black people were terrorized, brutalized and murdered for trying to exercise their constitutional right to vote, which was earned through a revolution that took place in the 1860s.

There are three amendments that came out of that revolution. These were the 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment, and the 15th Amendment. The 13th, abolishing the buying and selling of Black people. The 14th Amendment, giving equal protection of law, and making it a law that if you are born in America, you are automatically an American citizen. And the 15th Amendment, extending the franchise, the right to vote, to those who had been in bondage during slavery.

Since the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the political history of the Deep South has been about state governments in the Black belt states’ resistance to the voting rights of Black citizens.

Since 1877, the year when the North and the South agreed that the South was uniquely suited to be the guardians of the “Negro Problem,” they agreed on keeping Black folks out of politics and redeeming the South from biracial coalitions that protected and enforced the voting rights of Black folks and the masses of propertyless people who were denied the franchise.

1877, the year of the great betrayal, with the election of Rutherford B. Hayes for president, marked the beginning of the reign of white supremacist terrorists initiating campaigns of racist violence and political repression. Mississippi, a state whose population was 70% Black, led the South to hold state conventions to establish a movement of disfranchisement creating a system of obstacles between the voter and the ballot box, ushering in an era of disenfranchisement that lasted for over 75 years.

Electoral structures designed to keep Black folks from voting were not only profoundly undemocratic but helped to maintain a status quo that keeps the South the most economically, socially and culturally most backward quadrant of the nation.

Those amendments to the Constitution were revolutionary then, but apparently not enough to settle this question once and for all. So, that’s our task. Our task is to finish this revolutionary process that was started back in 1861, to finish this revolutionary process in the 21st century.

We will not go back, and if we’re not going back then we have got to go forward, and going forward means putting an end not for once but once and for all to these racist policies and the racist regime that sits in Washington instituting these policies.

All Power to the People!

#Commentary #VotingRightsAct #OppressedNationalities #FrankChapman #PeoplesStruggles #Featured

The measure comes in the wake of comments from Postmaster General David Steiner in March suggesting that the USPS could “run out of cash” by October of this year in the worst case scenario or by February 2027 if certain payments are deferred. He further threatened that if something wasn't done, USPS may need to cut delivery days or close whole stations, painting a picture of desperation for the oldest continuous federal service in the United States.

This is just the most recent example in a long list of government officials and politicians sounding the alarm on the perpetually dying USPS, an entity that has posted billion-dollar “losses” since 2007. Of course, postal delivery is a service provided at an expense, not a business which earns a profit, but that's never included in these forecasts. What isn't mentioned in any of the reports on the move to suspend USPS contributions to the FERS, and the others covering Steiner's comments about the impending demise of the Postal Service, is that Steiner is an acting board member with private sector competitor FedEx, a role he has held since 2009. Steiner was hand-selected by President Donald Trump in May 2025 to take on the role of Postmaster General.

To compound the issue, at least for letter carriers at USPS, Brian Renfroe – the current national president of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), the union which represents city carriers – released a statement the same day, aligning himself and the union he leads with management's perspective that this decision is a necessary cost-saving effort, calling on Congress to take action. While there is certainly a kernel of truth to the idea of congressional action, what is even more true is that USPS hemorrhages money in other ways that are easily identifiable – and correctable – that weren't so much as hinted at in Renfroe's statement but which rank-and-file members of NALC across the country are keenly aware of themselves.

For starters, USPS currently maintains a management-to-carrier ratio of around 1:7, meaning for every seven carriers in a station, there is a supervisor or manager in that office. In the 1990s, by comparison, that ratio was 1:20 or greater. To further put this into perspective, the starting annual salary for a supervisory role with the Post Office is north of $70,000, compared to the average starting pay of a regular city carrier, which clocks in at around $33,000. To take this a step further, in 2025 alone, those same over-paid supervisors and managers so thoroughly violated the contract between USPS and the NALC that it resulted in billions of dollars in grievance settlement payouts (to say nothing about the costs of arbitration and other things associated with following grievance procedure). There are other management-related cost issues, to be sure, but these are just two of the most obvious examples.

For Postmaster General David Steiner, sitting board member of FedEx, to not mention these things in his comments makes perfect sense, given his position. However, for NALC President Brian Renfroe to essentially be in line with the management perspective on the suspension of USPS contributions to the FERS is shameful. Unfortunately, this most recent example of failing to support his members and instead represent the interests of management is par for the course for his tenure as president.

Just two weeks before, on March 27, Renfroe was a gleeful participant on a podcast episode for the National Association of Postal Supervisors, a “union” for supervisors who work at USPS, where he commented in so many words that unity between carriers and management was essential at this time. This on its own is enough of a slap in the face to letter carriers who deal with the daily abuse of these supervisors and their bosses, but Renfroe's list of betrayals and failures is much longer and includes many more severe examples.

The most glaring demonstration of Renfroe's total failure as a leader may be the handling of the most recent national negotiations and the contract, which was eventually forced through, a process which extended far beyond an acceptable period, finally wrapping up in April 2025 when the contract had expired in mid-2022. The primary issue is not with the length of the negotiations – which was partially a result of President Renfroe effectively being AWOL for large periods of negotiations, for which he faced charges from the membership at the NALC National Convention in 2024 that he narrowly escaped through bureaucratic manipulation – but instead with the agreement itself and the manner in which it was passed.

In an historic vote, more than 70% of the voting membership said “No!” to Renfroe's sellout deal, which offered a tiny wage increase with no changes to the three-tier workforce, the steps it takes to get to top pay, or anything else that members cared about. At the same time, the contract members were presented with contained numerous concessions.

Reminiscent of the decision by ex-Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. in 2018 with the national UPS contract, Renfroe essentially folded during the arbitration process and the contract was forced on the NALC rank and file. One silver lining resulting from Renfroe's dereliction of duty during negotiations is that negotiations for the next contract have already begun, so the opportunity to rectify the mistakes in relatively short order exists. However, Renfroe is already biting hard on the bait that USPS upper management is putting out and trying to line carriers up with the management position, indicating the potential for an expedited negotiation with more sell-out concessions.

Also looming on the horizon is the 2026 NALC National Convention this summer, which will then shortly be followed by elections for national leadership in the fall. Inexplicably, Renfroe is running again on a platform of maintaining the status quo, though it should be noted here that Renfroe hasn't officially declared his candidacy while he travels across the country attempting to whip up the vote. This matters because once he announces his candidacy, all that travel now must come out of his pocket rather than the union coffers. Membership across the country, again mirroring what occurred with the UPS Teamsters following the implementation of the last horrible contract under Hoffa, Jr., is resoundingly opposed to another Renfroe term.

The primary opposition slate, called the Concerned Letter Carriers (CLC), has a groundswell of support on the basis of their progressive platform, which aims to address rank-and-file concerns about union democracy and transparency, an all-career workforce, and the return of a general fighting spirit to the union. Members across the country are linking up and discussing strategies to ensure victory for CLC leaders James Henry and Corey Walton.

With some hard work and good organizing, the rank-and-file can take back control of the NALC from the Renfroe regime, who can then share the fate of Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. as he is swept out of office after betraying the members he had sworn to serve.

#MilwaukeeWI #WI #Commentary #Labor #NALC

Soccer is a reflection of greater contradictions of the world playing out on a football pitch. Most importantly, the primary contradiction that has grasped the world tightly; the contradiction between the countries that dominate by imperialism and those that are subjected to this domination. Yet fans, being fans, have historically risked it all for a brief moment of exuberance. In 2014, Brazilian fans bicycled through the Amazon region to watch the games in the Manaus. In 2022, Argentinian fans sold their houses to go watch Messi play his last tournament in Qatar.

A perfect example is the 1986 quarterfinal match between Argentina and England. Diego Maradona, arguably the greatest player to have ever played the game, scored one goal with his hand, which was later dubbed the “Hand of God,” and then scored a second goal, splitting apart the entire England team; this goal was dubbed the “The Goal of the Century.” The quarterfinal was held four years after the English war on Argentina over the Malvinas, an Island territory of Argentina. The Argentine team leading up to the quarterfinal faced racist attacks from the English, and after their humiliating defeat, Maradona said, “Although we had said before the game that football had nothing to do with the Malvinas war, we knew they had killed a lot of Argentine boys there, killed them like little birds. And this was revenge.”

“The history of football is a sad voyage from beauty to duty. When the sport became an industry, the beauty that blossoms from the joy of play got torn out by its very roots. In this ‘fin-de-siècle’ world, professional football condemns all that is useless and useless means non-profitable,” said Eduardo Galeano, author of Soccer in Sun and Shadow.

Soccer in the developing world

Growing up in India, football (or soccer, as dubbed by the Americans) was essential. Children piled up on the streets in narrow alleyways with torn flip flops with no goal posts and played soccer for hours and hours, with scraped knees and bloodied elbows from falling on concrete. Local club rivalry between the East Bengal and Mohun Bagan was the dominant topic of conversation amongst the people.

In the early 2000s, the English Premier League was broadcast on Indian television, bringing the English game to an Indian audience and resulting in the broadening of the interest in international league soccer. But no other form of sport commanded as much devotion as the FIFA World Cup.

At the time of the World Cup, flags of Brazil, Argentina and several other countries could be seen everywhere. Latin American, European and African soccer idols found themselves on murals across the streets of Kolkata. Despite India never qualifying for the World Cup, soccer fans have for generations lived vicariously by supporting international teams in the World Cup.

Diego Maradona was banned from participating in the tournament in 1994 for taking stimulants and protests erupted across the world. Galeano notes this and says, “In places far away as Bangladesh, where a sizable demonstration repudiating FIFA and demanding Maradona’s return shook the streets.”

Soccer in the current political climate

In December of 2025, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, was awarded a “peace prize” by the governing body of the soccer World Cup, FIFA, to appease him after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the right-wing U.S.-backed candidate Maria Corina Machado. He was awarded the “peace prize” while threatening a war against Venezuela. Then in January, the U.S. attacked Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, and kidnapped Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores i.e. the president and first lady of Venezuela.

Also in January and late December, ICE murdered Alex Pretti, Renee Good and Keith Porter. In March, ICE agents were deployed at several major airports to cover the work of TSA agents who were unpaid and couldn’t afford to come to work. The partial government shutdown and the increased border militarization pose additional challenges for World Cup games being scheduled later on in the summer.

In the summer of 2026, the Soccer World Cup is scheduled to happen in the United States, Mexico and Canada. 11 major cities in the United States are scheduled to have games.

Among several countries who participated in the qualification stage, Israel, the Zionist entity, was allowed to participate despite a global call to ban the country from entering the tournament due to the entity’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians. FIFA and UEFA (the governing body of European league football) in 2022 unilaterally banned Russia from participating in the World Cup due to the intervention in Ukraine. Israel has not been barred from participating, nor has the United States been barred from hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

The Department of Homeland Security, via FEMA, has been granted $625 million to deploy ICE agents across the 11 major venues in the US.

According to the U.S. government, “The FIFA World Cup Grant Program (FWCGP), administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Grant Programs Directorate (GPD), provides $625 million in federal funding to enhance security and preparedness for the 2026 FIFA World Cup events in the United States.”

The United States alongside Israel is currently waging a war against Iran. The U.S. have murdered at least 160 young girls by bombing a high school and have destroyed civilian infrastructure, killing thousands of innocents.

Donald Trump proudly claimed that a “whole civilization would die” indicating a significant attack against Iran, but Tuesday rolled around and he chickened out and agreed to a ten point deal that uplifted sanctions on Iran.

Israel continues to perpetuate a genocide against the Palestinians, while simultaneously bombing Southern Lebanon killing hundreds and displacing hundreds of thousands of people. Israel however did not qualify for the World Cup. They faced humiliating losses against every country they played. Israel is also facing humiliating losses by the axis of resistance across West Asia.

The U.S.-Israel war against Iran has sparked an energy crisis across the world, and working people are suffering. In the U.S., cost of living was already on the rise, but with the addition of increasing gas prices, the $625 million allotment to ICE at various World Cup stadiums seems even more ridiculous. Price gouging has also been a major complaint from U.S. soccer fans; Kansas City residents apparently saw a 87% increase in prices for the Algeria v Argentina game ($765 at minimum).

The sport has become a playground for rich investors from the U.S., Europe and the Gulf monarchies to snatch a pretty dime from the hands of working people. The same investors who are invested in wars and keeping people poor. The sport of soccer is ever increasingly being robbed out of the hands of working people.

Average ticket prices for the World Cup range upwards of multiple thousand dollars. The U.S. is set to make upwards of $13 billion in revenue from the World Cup. How much of this will benefit working people or bring the game closer to fans is gravely in doubt.

A World Cup year with such tremendous global upheaval, i.e. genocide in Gaza conducted by Israel, the energy blockade on Cuba, the kidnapping of the Venezuelan president and first lady, and the war on Iran perpetuated by the United States, has sidelined any joy for the game of soccer.

Galeano writes about the 2010 World Cup and reflects on the political climate in Soccer in Sun and Shadow, “Iran was fast becoming the gravest threat to humankind, thanks to an international campaign declaring it might have or maybe even does have nuclear weapons, as if it had been the Iranians who dropped the bomb on civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Ships in international waters carrying food, medicine, and toys to Palestine were being machine-gunned in one of the habitual criminal acts by which Israel punishes the Palestinians, as if they, who are Semites, were to blame for anti-Semitism and its horrors”

Much of the climate 16 years ago is reflected in the conditions in Palestine and Iran today.

The joy of sport is diminished by the decline of empire.

Localities unsuitable for games

The immense infrastructural pressure a tournament of the size of the World Cup puts on cities with limited public transportation is another big concern for working people. One example is the city of Arlington, Texas, which houses the AT&T Stadium (home of the Dallas Cowboys). The stadium is reportedly going to see upwards of $300 million in refurbishments to accommodate soccer-style seating for nine of the games it is scheduled to host.

The stadium is ill-equipped to handle tens of thousands of people flooding the streets. Local Arlingtonians have no ability to access the stadium without having to drive there. There is no public bus in the city. Arlington is in fact the largest city in the United States without public transportation. It is a city in the Dallas-Fort Worth area without a rail connection. The decision to host the cup in Arlington seems to have been pushed by the mayor and city council members, local bureaucrats of the Dallas sports commission, local team owners (Jerry Jones owner of Dallas Cowboys and Dan Hunt owner of FC Dallas). Arlington itself is set to spend upwards of $400 million to accommodate the games. The ones pushing the expenses expect a high return ($2 billion). It's pretty obvious that these expenses would have been better spent in uplifting the local community (for example, by building local transportation, healthcare, and promoting community programs and local sports).

From personal observations and conversations with coworkers there still seems to be a fair interest in the games, less so about physically attending but more so of watching the games online. Many were surprised that Arlington was even a choice to host the Cup.

Working people's joys are marred by the crushing blow of economic hardship. Gas prices and cost of living expenses are on the rise. In mid-April North Texans in Arlington paid between $3.55 and $3.80 a gallon for unleaded gasoline, and the median rent is $2519 (per December 2025 reporting). People are seriously stretched and are struggling to put food on their table. It's easy to see that those who enjoy the sport are being speedwalked away from consuming it. FIFA, however, are licking their lips at the prospect of making billions of dollars from the sport being held in the U.S.

Galeano said, “Football is a pleasure that hurts,” and in today's age, football is hurting the pockets of millions of fans locally and internationally who are willing to risk it all to enjoy the sport.

#Culture #Sports #Opinion #Commentary #Soccer #Football

The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has confused people across the political spectrum. The Trump administration’s apparent unpreparedness for the war, the severe (and predictable) economic consequences of Iran closing off the Strait of Hormuz, and the total lack of any attempt to build support for the war among the U.S. population have made the war appear irrational to many people. So irrational, in fact, that some feel there must be another explanation — that Israel has somehow tricked, persuaded, or forced the U.S. into launching a war on Iran on Israel’s behalf. But this gets things backwards. When you look at Israel’s role in the Middle East, it becomes clear that the U.S. calls the shots.

Iran has been in the U.S. gunsights for a very long time, for a few reasons. Iran has a tremendous amount of oil. Iran’s geographic location gives it the ability to impact world oil trade, as people in the U.S. are quickly learning as they watch gas prices climb. And Iran has also stood up for Palestinian liberation in a major way, launching attacks on Israel in response to Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people and supporting pro-Palestinian military organizations in Lebanon and Yemen. For all these reasons, the U.S. not only wants to overthrow Iran’s government, it wants to control it.

Since October 7, 2023, millions of people in the U.S. have rallied to the Palestinian cause for national liberation. They’ve seen Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Many people are still stunned by the U.S.’s unyielding support for Israel, from both Biden and Trump, as the Palestinian death toll continues to rise. People have also seen the arrogance of Israeli officials as they’ve dictated how U.S. students protesting the war should be punished. It makes sense that many people see this latest war and think it must be at the behest of Israel, because most people in the U.S. aren’t taught the truth about U.S. imperialism in the Middle East.

But the U.S. doesn’t send Israel billions of dollars a year in financial and military support out of the kindness of its heart. Israel’s non-stop attempts at expansion, and its attacks on Palestine, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq over the decades have had a continual destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East. Israel’s endless wars create constant refugee crises, destroy infrastructure, weaken or collapse governments, and create opportunities for the U.S. to pit countries in the Middle East against each other. This is all very good news for big U.S. businesses who want to control Middle Eastern oil, natural resources and labor.

Israel simply would not be able to carry out its crimes without U.S. funding. The U.S could stop Israel any time it wants to by just cutting the financial support. And the U.S. doesn’t stop Israel because it supports Israel’s actions — they’re a good thing for the capitalist rulers of the U.S.

Controlling Iran has been a stated goal of U.S. foreign policy since Iran’s parliament and Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh nationalized Iran’s oil in 1951, just three years after the Nakba — the forced expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians from their homeland — and the birth of the state of Israel. British intelligence and the CIA launched a coup, taking Mosaddegh out of power and turning power back over to the notorious monarch Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The shah had no qualms about U.S. companies taking 40% of Iran’s oil shares — shares that belonged to the Iranian people. The shah ruled with U.S. support despite mounting unpopularity among Iranians.

In 1978 Iranians led a revolution that got rid of the shah and established the Islamic Republic of Iran. This meant no more oil profits for U.S. companies and a new, major force resisting U.S. imperialism in the Middle East. Iran’s support for anti-imperialist movements, opposition to Israel, and steadfast support for Palestinian liberation in particular, have cemented Iran as a target of U.S. aggression. To whatever extent the war on Iran is about protecting Israel, it’s about protecting it as a tool of U.S. aggression in the Middle East.

When right-winger Joe Kent resigned as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center last month, he said in a resignation letter that Israel and the U.S. media “deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined [Trump’s] America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran.” Kent also criticized U.S. involvement in the Syrian Civil War, claiming it was fought for Israel too. Make no mistake, Kent is not anti-war — he served 11 combat tours himself. People have made a lot of hay out of Kent’s remarks, perhaps out of the hope that if even a far-right figure like Kent could see that the war on Iran is a bad thing, other politicians would too, and would intervene to stop the war.

But Kent is missing the big picture. Joe Biden put it pretty well all the way back in 1986 when he was on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, when he said, “Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.” But there’s a difference between the interests of Biden or Trump or all the other politicians who have supported endless violence against Iran, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Palestine, and the interests of the vast majority of the people of the U.S. It’s ordinary working people that will have to deal with the economic consequences of war on Iran. Meanwhile, the big capitalists hope to make billions. And they’re using Israel as a tool to do it.

#Commentary #Opinion #Iran #Israel #AntiWarMovement

Chicago, IL – The No Kings protests and demonstrations are both an organized response and a clear manifestation of a spontaneous uprising in resistance to Donald Trump’s agenda. Given the commentary and calls of the leaders and organizers of the demonstration, it’s clearly entrenched within the limited oppositional politics of the Democratic and Republican parties.

The Republican Party has gone so far to the right that it has actually deprived the Democrats of a lot of oxygen for carrying out their neoliberal programs. The Democratic Party’s neoliberal budget cuts leave us lean, but the Republican cuts are to the bone. This makes for an interesting kind of politics. You might say that the Democrats are for restoring the leadership of the Democratic Party to its neoliberal mission. It’s more about restoring the status quo of neoliberalism, and this shows up in how they are presently negotiating with the Republicans about ICE, government layoffs, the “Big Beautiful Bill,” and so on. 

So where do we find the bottom line? If we look for the bottom line that the Democrats are drawing saying “Here’s where we stand. Here’s where we will fight, and we shall not be moved,” it’s hard to find that line. Just look at the fights around the budget. First they said ICE should be abolished. Then they said they had to be restricted. They had to show their badges, their warrants, and not wear masks. They went back and forth on that so much that we couldn’t keep track of what they are demanding, what’s the bottom line. Now that we’re in a period of trying to stop a government shutdown, they agreed to the Republican bottom line in the Senate. Now they’re being critical of the Democrats in the House for not going along with the Democrats in the Senate. 

And what’s wrong with this? They have been negotiated backwards to just the limited demand of giving ICE no more money, when ICE already has gotten hundreds of billions of dollars to function, and they don’t really need more money. So, it’s almost a meaningless demand. 

Both the liberal and the conservative parts of the Democratic Party unite and agree that the problem that people have with Trump is the price of eggs and the price of gasoline, and that he broke his promise to take prices down and instead prices have gone up. They have moved the economy to the front burner. This becomes their principal demand. 

But what about the Medicaid cuts? What about housing? What about the near-elimination of the National Labor Relations Board, where no government official is bound to respect trade union rights? What about the massive layoffs of all of the government workers, including air traffic controllers? And last but certainly not least, what about the white supremacy? What about the unchecked, blatant, gross racism that currently resides in the White House?

It becomes like a meteorite issue that flashes through the political firmament and then is no longer seen and no longer mentioned by the Democratic Party, even when their own leadership, like the Obamas, have been characterized as apes by the President. 

As harsh and mean-spirited as Trump’s racism is, it is not exceptional or unprecedented in the annals of American history. 

The masses of the people are way out ahead of the Democrats when it comes to opposing Trump’s agenda. We think this was demonstrated in Minneapolis, and we think it’s also been demonstrated at numerous Congressional hearings, but mainly in Minneapolis, where we heard an undisputable, unmistakeable protest against the ICE occupation and the police state tactics of Trump, coming from the masses of people. 

I’m not talking about the governor of Minnesota. He opposed it, yes. Nor am I talking about the mayor of Minneapolis. He opposed it, too. But they also did not draw the line when it came to aggressive, brutal and murderous actions of ICE on the ground. They let one face of ICE be replaced by another, switching out Bovino for Homan. 

So, the challenge to us is that in these momentous times, when you have political leaders clearly standing in contradiction and opposition to the popular demands and impulses of the masses, that we consciously intervene and make it clear that defeating Trumpism, or defeating the Trump agenda and all the social savagery that it unleashes on the people, means we must address the racism, xenophobia and gender-based oppression as vigorously and uncompromisingly while we also address the social misery caused by the rise in the cost of living. 

Our response to the neoliberal war cry coined by Bill Clinton decades ago, “It’s the economy, stupid,” is “It’s the politics, stupid.” 

Because of the extremism characteristic of this administration, we must not draw the conclusion that our demands are unreachable. We must take the fighting attitude that to get out of the situation that we’re in, our demands must be met. Our immediate demands to stop the Trump agenda must not be seen as a transitionary demand to tolerate the present moment until we get a better moment.

Trumpism is totally unacceptable now, and we must fight it to the finish.

#Opinion #Commentary #FrankChapman #Trump #PeoplesStruggles #ImmigrantRights

Chicago, IL – Now more than ever it’s important for our movement to talk about what the Trump administration is doing and what we need to do to stop it. Right now, he doesn’t have the entire ruling class behind him, but right now he has the MAGA people of the Republican Party, which operates like a racist cult. The difference being that they have state power, and this is the difference that makes a difference.

What we should be looking at is what they’re actually doing with that state power vis a vis Kristi Noem with the Department of Homeland Security and Pam Bondi with the Justice Department, and how both these agencies of government have gone rogue and show no intention, much less a desire, to abide by the Constitution, or to respect the balance of powers.

So, all we’ve had since the election is one act of defiance after another, and the most blatant one before engaging us in the war against Iran and the peoples of the Middle East, was clearly the refusal to obey the mandate from Congress to release the Epstein files.

Although it’s been a back and forth with the federal courts because the Supreme Court has time and time again taken the side of Donald Trump, there’s a trend that can’t be ignored where Trump has also been in defiance of federal district courts with regard to ICE and lately the Supreme Court itself on the question of the tariffs. The thing to be noted here is that the basic trend has been to vilify the courts and refuse to obey their rulings if they are against Trump’s policies.

What Trump has done through all these measures is to turn the federal government into the enemy of the people and actively engage in setting up a regime of racist and political repression.

This administration has been actively engaged in weakening the federal government in areas that have to do with workers’ rights. It’s active in weakening if not abolishing the Voting Rights Act with new ID requirements which have become a new poll tax. This regime has told people that the gains made by the LGBTQ community do not have to be respected. They’ve done several broadsides against women and the women’s movement, and one of the headline things is what they did in the Winter Olympics, so much so that the athletes who participated in those games, both men and women, have come out and denounced the administration, and refused to go along with it.

There are so many instances of blatant, open, racist expressions on the part of Trump and his administration. We can take what happened with Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl, or the instance where Trump portrayed the Obamas as apes. All of these incidents spell one thing: that already this administration is in open defiance of Congress, the Constitution, and the people of the United States who have been demonstrating en masse against them, manifested by what happened in Minneapolis.

As of this moment, they are illegally holding people, despite court orders, in detention centers. They are illegally going about the business of trying to set up concentration camps throughout the United States. What has put a hold on it is that these jurisdictions where they’re trying to set these up are saying “no, we don’t want that here.” Why would people be saying no? Because people know what it is. They know that these detention camps are really the prelude to concentration camps, a place where they can send those of us who are engaged in resistance as well as immigrants. If they get these detention camps set up all over the country, they’re not going to make a distinction.

Also, they have entered into hidden and open agreements with other countries. We know about the agreement they’ve entered into with El Salvador, but they’re not just talking about sending immigrants to El Salvador. They’re talking about sending American citizens to El Salvador, including people who are in prison on felony charges having absolutely nothing to do with immigration. Again, it is obvious that in fact, we have a regime of repression that is openly and flagrantly carrying out its illegal actions with the power of the state. They have taken over the government to make the government an instrument of their illegal actions.

All the major news networks talk about what they’re doing. The reporting on Fox News now and the reporting on MSNBC and CNN are not fundamentally different. What’s different is Fox News is openly supporting Trump and the other ones are being critical of him and taking advantage of the mass protests and whatnot to express that criticism. But also making him popular at the same time, giving him a lot of airtime.

Right now, he’s using his authority as president to make wars, and to do all of these things that he’s not supposed to be able to do, except through Congress, he is in fact doing them.

What the war on Iran and the peoples of the Middle East has revealed is more than the prerogatives of an imperial presidency. It has revealed that defending and perpetrating the crimes of U.S. imperialism remains a significant point of unity for the U.S. ruling class. Is there any doubt that the war that is presently being waged against Iran has the support of the U.S. ruling class, even though some of them raise issues of legality? At the same time, they praise Trump for having murdered the leaders of the Iranian people and ruthlessly prosecuting a war for regime change.

This brings us down to this here. There are no big differences in the understanding of what’s going on between the different networks, between the masses of the people and the politicians. Millions of people see where this is going.

A word about the Texas elections. The Texas elections are again a clear demonstration of the willingness of the Democratic Party to still pursue the bankrupt policy of reaching across the aisles in search of mythical unity with the Republican Party that will stop the movement that they’re engaged in to destroy every semblance of democracy in the United States.

So where is the real opposition? It’s the spontaneous uprising of the people in the streets and the growing organized engagement of the people on the part of Freedom Road and our allies.

We have to make up our minds going forward to really give a program to our slogan “make the country ungovernable.” Now is the time to do that because in these momentous times, our movement and our people are engaged in an existential struggle to bring about an end of the Trump administration, which is using every enforcement mechanism the government has to protect the rights of the people to destroy the rights of the people. And finally, choosing world war over peace.

This is not so much an analysis as a factual depiction. These are the facts. This is the reality created by the Trump administration that we must change.

#ChicagoIL #Opinion #Commentary #Trump #PeoplesStruggles #ImmigrantRights #Elections #DemocraticRights #AntiWarMovement

But AI is not on the verge of being introduced, it has been introduced into every sector of the economy possible, and the balance sheets are coming up wanting. Last year MIT conducted a study of over 300 firms and found that 95% of them saw no return whatsoever on their investment in AI. British firm PricewaterhouseCoopers reported in its 29th annual CEO survey that over half of respondents had seen no benefit from AI whatsoever, either in the form of reduced costs or higher revenue.

Despite these gloomy reports and increasing fears that the dramatic overvaluation of the tech companies tied into the AI boom is a financial bubble waiting to pop, the tech moguls are still demanding more investment. For the most part, they are getting that investment, whether into sprawling new data centers or the power stations to keep them online. While cultural backlash to AI “slop” is becoming more and more widespread, it is clear that the capitalist class still sees AI as the future.

In trying to understand why, it is important to disaggregate the hype of AI’s most shameless salesmen, like Sam Altman or Elon Musk, from the actual capabilities of the technology. Essentially at its core all of what we see called “AI” is just a series of mathematical equations whose parameters are set by a combination of pre-existing data and manual rules set by its designers. The process of “training” AI can be likened to feeding paper into a shredder that can then recombine the letters and words to form new sentences. The AI is “incentivized” to make “good” sentences, which tends to mean ones that look like a human could have written them. The same goes for photos, videos, or music: all the AI is doing is regurgitating something it was already fed.

Throughout the entirety of the process, then, human labor still plays the essential role. Humans need to make the works to be fed to the AI in the first place, because if AI is trained on AI generated data it begins to “rot” and produce increasingly poor results. Then humans need to design the mathematical procedures for the AI to be “trained,” and humans often have to intervene forcefully to prevent the AI from breaking the law (by relaying legally sensitive information like how to make explosives or creating images of illegal activity like CSAM). Then, to create the final generated product, the AI needs to be prompted to do so by a human, who needs to write the prompt in such a way that the machine gives them the output they want. The value that AI possesses is the value of embodied human labor within it.

This is plainly not what capitalists believe. They think that AI carries in it the same unique capacity that only human labor power possesses: the ability to create new value beyond that which it cost to produce it. Capitalists do not understand that, out of the portion of capital they advance for means of production, and out of the portion of capital they advance for labor power, it is only the latter that creates new value in excess of that initial advance. To them, it simply appears as a profit in excess of the total cost they paid. While AI’s mystification is particularly intense, the capitalist class has never understood this fact about any machine, or indeed about their entire mode of production: the origin of profit is in the unpaid labor time of workers.

It is no coincidence that AI investment and speculation took off in the last five years, in the wake of COVID’s disruptions and the growing power and militancy of the labor movement that emerged out of them. Capitalists are desperate for the next big technological innovation to save them from the contradictions of capitalism, as Mr. Andreessen himself admitted last month. “If we didn't have AI, we'd be in a panic right now about what's going to happen to the economy,” he said on a podcast, claiming that “declining population” (a racist dog whistle he uses alongside Elon Musk) and “slow productivity growth” would be the “real crisis” that AI is thankfully solving.

What he is facing up to is the idea that without populations of “surplus” human beings to form the reserve army of the unemployed, and with the rate of profit falling continuously as more and more capital becomes advanced and embodied in machines that merely transfer value and do not create it, that capitalists are dinosaurs living on borrowed time. As they look up at the meteor of class struggle and socialism plummeting towards them, they are conjuring phantasms and trying to breathe life into them with dollars and electricity. AI can be a useful tool, a means of production like any other, but it will not save capitalism from itself.

#WestLafayetteIN #IN #Commentary #Opinion #CapitalismAndEconomy #AI

The bill, authored by State Senator Liz Brown of Fort Wayne, revives core portions of an immigration bill she previously refused to hear last year as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. This led to an open spat between Brown and Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, during which Rokita claimed Brown had held up the bill because she had an “illegal alien” in her family. Brown said these comments were false and filed an attorney misconduct grievance over Rokita’s comments, which ended up dismissed. Then, after the Indiana Senate voted to reject Trump’s gerrymandering scheme in December, Brown was replaced as chair of the committee by State Senator Cyndi Carrasco of Indianapolis.

The fractious Indiana Republicans are now fumbling for unity through this “improved” version of the bill, which is drawing praise from Rokita as properly forceful. Under the law, local governments at all levels would be legally required to comply with federal detainer requests, holding arrested immigrants for 48 hours past their usual release so they can be disappeared by the DHS. Local governments, public schools and universities as well, would be liable for civil penalties of $10,000 per violation of immigration enforcement.

Additionally, the Family and Social Services Administration and hospitals would be required to turn over reams of data about non-citizens who receive benefits from Medicaid, expanding the massive DHS surveillance dragnet. And even the private sector does not escape the crackdown. Employers face threats of temporary or even permanent suspension of their right to operate if found to be employing people deemed “illegal.”

Indiana has had a law on the books outlawing sanctuary cities since 2011, Senate Enrolled Act 590, but the attorney general has had considerable trouble enforcing this ban and is using this law to seek firmer enforcement mechanisms to ensure a clear path for DHS boots to march.

Senate Bill 76 stands to expedite the terror waged against immigrant communities across the U.S. to Indiana’s front door. With the terror comes repression, a futile attempt of Trump’s running dogs to silence any institution willing to fight back. While tightknit communities’ decades long established may lean on each other for support, recent immigrants and rural communities strewn across Indiana face a greater threat of serious harm if targeted.

However, it is doubtful that Rokita and Trump’s other henchmen in Indianapolis will have their way. Resistance to the immigration crackdown is growing across the state. Hundreds of people from all walks of life have hit the streets week after week all across the state since Renee Good was murdered in Minneapolis during “Operation Metro Surge.” Their message has been clear: ICE is not welcome in their streets.

In contrast to the bickering Republicans seething at one another over personal insults and failed legislation, the people of Indiana are finding unity in their common opposition to the murder and kidnapping of their neighbors and do not believe in any special “immunity” for federal immigration jackboots. Even in what some would write off as “Trump Country,” people are standing up to fight back because they know they can win.

If you want to get organized and join that fight in Indiana, you can reach out to FRSO Indiana at frsoindiana@gmail.com, on Instagram at @frso_indiana.

#IndianapolisIN #IN #ImmigrantRights #Opinion #Commentary #ICE #FRSO

This past year, horrifying accidents and the government shutdown have put many of us on alert about travel risks. It’s made more people reflect on how important flight attendants are. Their primary job, after all, is keeping passengers safe. As the year comes to an end, let’s put a spotlight on some working conditions that affect their own safety.

Physical injuries

Despite gendered stereotypes about being a flight attendant, the job causes serious physical strain. Strain manifests in several parts of the body, most consistently in the shoulders and back. The job requires lifting your own luggage, working aircraft doors (many of which are old and have levers that require lots of muscle to push and pull), and maneuvering beverage carts that can weigh up to 300 pounds. Even stepping out of tall crew vans in heels can be a fall or concussion risk.

Injuries caused by turbulence are also prevalent. Almost every flight experiences some turbulence. Unexpected turbulence occurs frequently, leaving flight attendants no time to safely secure themselves. The National Transportation Safety Board found in 2021 that flight attendants account for 79% of those seriously injured by turbulence (nearly all of the remaining are passengers who were unbelted at the time of injury).

Additionally, a majority of turbulence-related injuries occur below 20,000 feet. The seatbelt light is illuminated at this altitude. But flight attendants have to be up, due to the high demand of service that airlines push for. Despite the Commercial Aviation Safety Team recommending a policy (over 20 years ago) that would have flight attendants seated from takeoff to cruise and from 20,000 feet until landing, no major airline has changed its safety guidelines to fit this.

Sickness and hygiene

One of the most obvious workplace hazards is the fact that the workplace is 30,000 feet in the air, in a pressurized cabin. Flight attendants go through extreme altitude changes every day, sometimes working up to four flights a day. The pressure changes cause pain and long term issues in the sinuses and ears, a problem that every flight attendant must learn to combat. Furthermore, flying with blocked sinuses, which can result from a common cold or just regular congestion, can cause extreme pain, ruptures, bleeding and in the worst cases: hearing loss. In addition to the pressure changes, working around loud planes and engines every day can also cause ear problems and hearing loss. In a 2007 study conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health, it was found that nearly 52% of flight attendants exhibit some sort of hearing loss.

Flight attendants are routinely exposed to hundreds of people in tight, unsanitary conditions. Especially during the wintertime and holiday seasons, flight attendants are prone to catching many different sicknesses just from being around so many people. Cabin dryness can also harm crewmembers’ immunities, since it’s harder to stay hydrated.

Despite this, calling in sick is a challenge. Especially during the six to twelve month probationary period, calling in sick just twice can be a reason for termination. For example, at United Airlines, flight attendants are not able to call in sick without receiving some sort of discipline “points”. Even when accompanied by a doctor's note, a flight attendant will always be disciplined for calling in sick. This unjust system forces flight attendants to work while sick, which causes further damage. Flight attendants have been fighting for better systems for calling out.

Toxic fumes

In September, the Wall Street Journal published an extensive article about toxic fumes that have harmed hundreds of crew members and passengers over 20 years. Fumes are a mix of toxic chemicals that are used in routine airplane procedures (i.e. oil, hydraulic fluid) that occasionally leak into the cabin and flight deck. They can cause illness, and have been an ongoing complaint in many airlines. The Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) offers education to members on how to recognize fumes and respond, but little has been done by airlines to rectify the problem.

An AFA statement on fumes reads: “The first step in change is defining the problem. The industry sought to make victims feel crazy and define unions as hysterical and hyperbolic, but we haven’t backed down.”

Fatigue

According to a report from the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), only 1 in 5 union representatives believe their airline treats fatigue seriously. With inconsistent work schedules and frequent time zone changes, flight attendants commonly experience fatigue. In 2022, the FAA upped the required minimum rest from eight hours to ten hours after flight attendants fought for this. These ten hours are not solely for sleeping, but include passengers deplaning, customs on international flights, and transportation between the airport and the hotel. By the time many flight attendants make it to their overnight hotel, unpack their bags, shower and get ready for bed, it’s almost time for them to wake up for their next duty day. This amount of rest often remains the same even after working 14 or 16 hours, which the FAA allows during maintenance issues or weather.

Another contributing factor to fatigue is the inability to eat proper meals during duty. Flight attendants do not have mandated meal breaks between flights and are expected to find time while flying. The same ITF report shows that three quarters of cabin crew on low-cost carriers do not receive adequate rest breaks. In 2022, after California flight attendants successfully sued Virgin America over this issue, the AFA argued that flight attendants should receive crew rest on long haul flights and be provided meals or compensation for meals. Not getting proper sleep or nutrition can impair cognitive performance and cause flight attendants to make mistakes on the job, sometimes at the risk of their own safety.

Harassment and violence

Flight attendants face routine harassment. Most have stories about uncalled-for behavior: ass grabbing, catcalling, pictures being taken, etc. Some have reported stalking during layovers – think someone showing up to your hotel room.

Almost every flight attendant had seen some kind of unruly behavior. In a 2021 member survey, the AFA found that 17% of respondents reported having had a physical incident with passengers. Their survey cited slurs “too offensive to repeat.” Most receive little to no follow-up on reports to management.

It’s not just passengers. In November, Delta settled a lawsuit with former flight attendant Aryasp Nejat. As reported in the Guardian, the suit accused a uniform inspector of “non-consensual, sexually assaultive touching.” When Nejat posted on social media that this was why his airline needed a union, Delta fired him. Now, they’re paying for him to go to law school.

“One of the reasons that flight attendant unions were originally formed were to root out sexual harassment, assault or sexual exploitation in order to try to get workers to do what you want them to do, to keep them quiet,” said Sara Nelson, president of the AFA.

Mental health

Through all this, flight attendants need to stay prim and proper. That takes it out of you. The National Institute of Health found that the number of flight attendants experiencing depression tripled in 2020. The CDC found that flight attendants have a 50% higher suicide rate than the national average. They go through this while away from friends, family and loved ones.

Unions keep you safe

Some of these workplace hazards may be unavoidable, but company policies can and should be better. Service demands, no-break scheduling, punitive sick policies, handsy managers… the list of preventable issues goes on. The common thread: flight attendants fighting together in a union is the surest cure.

Crew members can plug into AFA campaigns to protect safety on board. These include downloading the 2Hot2Cold app to report extreme cabin temperatures. for identifying and responding to fume events they can access this resource kit.

Various flight attendants contributed to this article.

#Opinion #Commentary #Labor #FightAttendants #