John Harris

Writer/Reporter for the World Socialist Web Site. Candidate in Australian Federal Elections 2022 for Socialist Equality Party in QLD.

[David Walsh @DavidWSWSarts]

"Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. This idea cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity."
Lenin, 1902

[Mehring Books @Mehring_Books]

“The Wobblies also had an impact on American literature, an interesting thread of White’s narrative. The IWW was much inspired by the author Jack London, and London was, in turn, supportive of the IWW up until his death in 1916.

“Indeed, London probably exercised more influence on the IWW than did French anarcho-syndicalism, as is often supposed (the word sabotage comes from French syndicalism, its origin evidently the kicking of wooden sabot shoes into factory machinery).

“The Wobblies were all well-read in London’s work, especially his The Iron Heel (1908), from which White takes his title, and which foretold of a ruthless dictatorship of capitalism, a dystopia predictive of fascism 15 years prior to its actual birth in Italy. The novel was cited again and again by the IWW as its cadre were smashed up by the American state. White notes that the IWW also influenced Oil! by Upton Sinclair (1926), 1919 by John Dos Passos (1932), and From Here to Eternity (1951) by James Jones.”

[Will Lehman | WillforUAWpresident.org @WillforUAWpres]

On August 4, the court-appointed Monitor sanctioned Raymond Jensen Jr., the $202,000-a-year UAW International official who posted a death threat against me on my campaign’s Facebook page: an AI-generated image of me bound and gagged, bleeding, with a masked gunman aiming a rifle at my back.
Jensen was suspended from UAW membership for two years, permanently barred from holding elected union office and prohibited from campaigning for anyone in this election. He was not, however, fired. Last week, my legal team finally received an answer on whether Jensen had been removed from his position. The Monitor’s lawyer would say only that “the Union is presently considering next steps with respect to Mr. Jensen’s employment.”
In other words, the question of whether Jensen keeps his salary has been handed to the apparatus at Solidarity House, headed by Shawn Fain—the man whose re-election Jensen was promoting when he posted the image. The Monitor is allowing Fain to decide the fate of his own henchman.
Jensen’s stipulation also required him to apologize to me. I have refused to take part in a staged meeting where he would deliver that apology, and I want members to understand why. Six weeks after the threat, Jensen remains a UAW employee. He has been “suspended from membership,” which means only that he no longer pays dues. His salary, drawn from the dues of workers earning a fifth of what he makes, continues uninterrupted. A closed-door apology under these conditions is not accountability. It is theater, staged so that the Monitor and the apparatus can declare the matter closed while nothing has been done.
This threat was never aimed at me alone. It was posted publicly, to intimidate every worker who has voted down a contract or challenged the apparatus in a local meeting. A private apology to one worker cannot answer a public threat against an entire membership.
Let no one claim the Monitor’s hands are tied. Under the consent decree, it has the authority to fine an official, strip his benefits or refer the matter to the Department of Justice. When Fain’s own chief of staff was found to have lied to the Monitor’s investigators last December, he was out within two weeks. Lying to the Monitor ends a career at Solidarity House; threatening a candidate’s life triggers “consideration.”
I renew my demand: Jensen must be removed from his position and taken off the payroll, and there must be a full public accounting of who in the leadership knew of, encouraged or tolerated this threat. If the apparatus is allowed to quietly retain him, every functionary in the union will draw the obvious lesson: threats against the rank and file carry no cost.
But workers cannot rely on the Monitor, the courts or the Labor Department to defend our rights. Everything won in this case—the exposure of the threat, the sanctions, the refusal to let it be buried—was won because workers acted collectively and refused to be intimidated. That strength must now be organized. Build rank-and-file committees in every plant. Vote in this election, but do more than vote. The answer to an apparatus that rules by intimidation is a membership organized to rule itself.

[Will Lehman | WillforUAWpresident.org @WillforUAWpres]

A worker at Toledo Jeep, where Antonio Gaston was crushed to death on the assembly line in 2024, explained that "the union is in bed with management." Another said, "We all should band together and take a stand because there's a lot of things going on that we don't agree with."

[David Walsh @DavidWSWSarts]

Marxism has always insisted that the struggle for socialism begins not by repudiating the democratic conquests of the past, but by assimilating, defending, transcending them - Once again in defense of the American Revolution: A reply to Brazilian historian
https://t.co/tDEDxe1jL7

[Marta Havryshko @HavryshkoMarta]

Political repressions in Ukraine under Zelensky
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Bogdan has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for six articles.

What was the subversive content? According to the court, the articles contained “non-recognition of Ukraine’s legitimately elected political leadership and democratic processes,” “comparisons with fascists and Nazis,” “negative assessments of Ukraine’s Armed Forces” and “reinterpretation of national heroes and historical figures.”

As for the “national heroes” whom Bogdan is accused of “reinterpreting,” they are Stepan Bandera and the leaders of the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) and the Waffen-SS Galicia Division—Nazi collaborators who supported Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 and were implicated in the mass murder of Jews and Poles. The court’s complaint about “comparisons with fascists and Nazis” refers to Bogdan’s exposure of the official rehabilitation and celebration of these forces.

[Will Lehman | WillforUAWpresident.org @WillforUAWpres]

Listen to my opening statement from the UAW presidential candidates debate held on Thursday. I outlined my program for putting workers ourselves in control of our union by abolishing the bureaucracy and building a network of rank-and-file committees on every shop floor.

[Eric Lee @EricLeeAtty]

Democratic Party prosecuting a handful of non-citizens for voting while not kicking out a single one of their congressional "colleagues" who participated in an unconstitutional insurrection on Jan 6 2021 & are ineligible to hold office under 14th Am.

[David Walsh @DavidWSWSarts]

Bogdan Syrotiuk sentence: "It bears comparison to the imprisonment of Rosa Luxemburg by the German authorities during the First World War" - Worldwide opposition mounts against fascistic 15-year sentence for Ukrainian socialist Bogdan Syrotiuk
https://t.co/LjCjbq3oHo

[Will Lehman | WillforUAWpresident.org @WillforUAWpres]

Workers can't negotiate with capitalist politicians, whether its Trump or the Democrats. Workers need an independent political movement to fight for what we need.

[Oscar Grenfell @Oscar_Grenfell]

Many students had created their own placards, with some reading “blame billionaires not immigrants,” “not another Trump,” “power of the people is greater than the people in power” and “keep fascists out, not immigrants.”

https://t.co/D4wkFisyN5

[David North @DavidNorthWSWS]

https://t.co/RbPCZINUjA

[David North @DavidNorthWSWS]

Ukrainian socialist Bogdan Syrotiuk is being framed on treason charges by the Zelensky dictatorship for opposing the US-NATO proxy war that has killed hundreds of thousands and threatens to escalate into a nuclear catastrophe. Demand Bogdan's freedom!
https://t.co/UXnho7t9oa

[IYSSE (Australia) @IysseA]

The fight to free Bogdan Syrotiuk is a fight against imperialist war, dictatorship and fascism. His fate cannot be left to the courts of a state that has just demonstrated its fascist contempt for democratic rights.
#FreeBogdan #antiwar
https://t.co/d5umPUDFLD

[Nick Beams @BeamsNick]

An Assessment of the Decade of Socialist Revolution and the tasks of the Socialist Equality Party https://t.co/fzbvdOgDcl

[Jacob Crosse | @crossebarx.bsky.social @CrosseBarx]

Jacobin advises union bureaucracy on how to respond to wave of contract rejection

The bureaucracy’s fear of an expanding rebellion by rank-and-file workers is encapsulated in the article by Jacobin, “What to Do When Your Union Contract Is Voted Down.”
https://t.co/oAXXmglXEP

[IYSSE (Australia) @IysseA]

Students are participating in a day of action today against One Nation, with protests in capital cities. Among youth, there is widespread and legitimate hostility to the far-right party, which trades in the frothing demonisation of immigrants and refugees
https://t.co/gai99lhQLE

[SEP London @Sep_london]

Your Party’s collapse—Time to build the Socialist Equality Party

The following report was delivered at Socialist Equality Party (UK) public meetings in July and August in London, Sheffield, Manchester and Glasgow https://t.co/Hxt2dluiU7

[IYSSE (Australia) @IysseA]

Sienna, a Year 11 high school student, attended Thursday's strike rally by Victorian educators to show support for teachers
#Teachersof𝕏 #auspol

[IYSSE (Australia) @IysseA]

Danny, a year 11 high school student, explains why he joined Thurday's strike by Victorian educators to show his support for teachers and education staff
#Teachersof𝕏 #auspol