Alex Findijs

Writer for the World Socialist Web Site. Member of the Socialist Equality Party and IYSSE

[World Socialist Web Site @WSWS_Updates]

What's the significance of the Declaration of Independence today? Watch "The American Revolution and Its Place in History", a discussion with historians hosted by the World Socialist Web Site.

[Will Lehman | WillforUAWpresident.org @WillforUAWpres]

This morning, I was confronted by my union rep and was told that campaigning at the UAW constitutional convention could cause my company to fire me. I reported this to the federal monitor in this letter below.

If I am being threatened with termination for fighting for the rank and file at a union convention, I can't imagine what other workers are facing in terms of intimidation. I have watched the UAW bureaucracy treat multiple delegates here in an anti-democratic manner, and I was told by multiple long-time UAW members that this is the least democratic convention they have ever seen. Workers must take action against these betrayals.

***

Dear Monitor:

At around 9 AM this morning, in the hallway outside the floor of the convention, Mr. Lehman was threatened with being terminated from his job for campaigning for delegates to nominate him. Local 677 President Mike Shupp approached Mr. Lehman and told him that UAW International Representative for Heavy Trucks Doug Irvine communicated to Mr. Shupp that Mr. Lehman could be fired from his position at Mack Trucks. Mr. Shupp communicated this threat to Mr. Lehman by saying that if Holly Georgell, Director of Employee and Labor Relations at Mack Trucks, found out Mr. Lehman is campaigning for his nomination at the convention, he could be fired.

Election Rule 4-4's "Freedom to Advocate" provision states, "Any threats, intimidation, retaliation, penalty, discipline, or improper interference of any kind, or any similar conduct is strictly prohibited, and reports of such violations shall be investigated by the monitor." Election Rule 4-5,'s "Retaliation and Discrimination" provision states that the proscription of "threat of retaliation" against a Union member "specifically includes each member's freedom...to run for or seek to run for International office as a Candidate."

As a result of these threats, Mr. Lehman has temporarily stopped campaigning outside the convention hall out of fear of losing his job. Mr. Lehman has lost several hours of campaigning time as a result of the intimidation. The harm is irreparable if not remedied immediately--today.

We demand that the Monitor initiate its obligation under the rules to conduct an investigation into the intimidation of Mr. Lehman, including by investigating whether other delegates are being threatened if they nominate Mr. Lehman. The proper remedy for the ongoing violation is for Mr. Lehman to be given 5 minutes to address the full convention before the nomination of candidates.

[Al Jazeera English @AJEnglish]

A video of a Dutch policeman throwing a heavily pregnant woman to the ground has caused outrage. The woman says police attacked her at a migration centre where authorities had detained her Palestinian husband.

[World Socialist Web Site @WSWS_Updates]

3,800 meatpacking workers are on strike against JBS in Greeley, Colorado. It's the largest meatpacking strike since the 1950s. 80-90 percent of the workers at JBS in Greeley are immigrants, and over 50 languages are spoken there.

[David North @DavidNorthWSWS]

On Sunday, the World Socialist Web Site is sponsoring an international webinar to outline a strategy and program to stop the brutal imperialist onslaught against Iran. The aim of this discussion is to place this event in its appropriate historical, political and social context.

[Alex Findijs @findijsSEP]

@AOC Hey so sending weapons to Israel so they can commit genocide makes you guilty of genocide.

Pretty basic!

[World Socialist Web Site @WSWS_Updates]

Protester in Austin, Texas denounces attack on immigrants: "As soon as we allow ourselves to be divided along racial and ethnic lines... we are doing the work for the people on the top who want to smash and grab and steal."

[Alex Findijs @findijsSEP]

The terrorism charges against Briana Boston for using the phrase "delay, deny, depose" is a chilling assault on the working class. While corporate executives can commit mass murder for profit, opposition to capitalist exploitation is considered terrorism

https://t.co/0foQQCyjMe

[Alex Findijs @findijsSEP]

@jkishore The best analysis of the election data I have seen so far. The Democrats abandoned any pretension of representing the interests of the working class and they paid at the polls

[Alex Findijs @findijsSEP]

This will be an incredibly important event. Through its own policies of war and austerity, the Democratic party Has invited a fascist into power for a second term. The working class must mobilize and build a revolutionary leadership to fight against fascism and for socialism

[David North @DavidNorthWSWS]

Trump's election sets the stage for repression & social counter-revolution. The Democrats, despite their warnings of his “existential threat” to democracy, are in full retreat. Attend Sunday's urgent online event to discuss a strategy for the working class to stop fascism.

[David North @DavidNorthWSWS]

I have sent this letter to an outstanding historian of the Civil War era

Trump’s victory may be shocking, but it is hardly surprising. His election is the disastrous outcome of the long-term and very deliberate repudiation by the Democratic Party of any programmatic orientation to the working class, which Hillary Clinton infamously dismissed as “a basket of deplorables” and Biden recently referred to as “garbage.”

Focused on the flim-flam of identity politics — i.e., the politics of more or less affluent sections of the middle class seeking a more favorable distribution of the wealth among the top 10 percent — the Democratic Party convinced itself that it had found an alternative to the politics that prioritized class. This intellectual regression was promoted and justified in the academy by the various forms of anti- and pseudo-Marxist philosophies (Frankfurt School and Post-Modernism) that were embraced by a generation of ex-radical students in the aftermath of 1968.

In the United States, the new anti-Marxism blended with the longstanding tradition of anti-communism. Leftwing politics, of the sort connected to working class militancy, disappeared. The grievances related to identity displaced any serious concern with the massive concentration of wealth in a small segment of society at the expense of the working class.

The pseudo-left replaced calls for equality with demands for equity. This was closely connected to the relentless harping on racial and ethnic differences, and, with it, a contempt for the genuinely democratic traditions of the United States. This found noxious expression in the 1619 Project. All this has been accompanied by a general cultural degradation, the promotion of every form of backwardness.

To the extent that the Biden administration had an agenda, its number one item was the escalation of military conflict with Russia and China. Its endorsement of the Gaza genocide — among the greatest crimes in the history of the new century — has been entirely bound up with its militaristic global strategy.

The disastrous consequences of Trump’s victory can be averted only by “a new birth” of genuinely socialist politics, based on the working class and animated by an international strategy that unites global humanity.

[Andre Damon (WSWS) @Andre__Damon]

Live: The class struggle, capitalist crisis, and the US elections https://t.co/Zb1OJt7RL6

[Joseph Kishore @jkishore]

1/ Here's why you should attend this critical meeting today: The Socialist Perspective in the 2024 Elections. 🧵

[World Socialist Web Site @WSWS_Updates]

186,000 people.

That is the estimated death toll of the genocide in Gaza according to the medical journal Lancet.

It's time to take a stand! Join the July 24 rally in DC!

Watch this powerful video by Lawrence Porter (@porter25900) and sign up now! 👇https://t.co/XURixfiqBd

[David North @DavidNorthWSWS]

Trump’s deranged monologue recalls Trotsky’s description of Hitler’s demagogy: “Sentimental formlessness, absence of disciplined thought, ignorance…They supplied him with the possibility of uniting all types of dissatisfaction in the beggar’s bowl of National Socialism.”

[David North @DavidNorthWSWS]

Oppose genocide and war! Demonstrate in Washington on July 24! On the same day that Netanyahu is addressing Congress, thousands of opponents of the genocidal war will be demonstrating in Washington to express their outrage at Netanyahu’s presence at the Capitol.

[David North @DavidNorthWSWS]

The Biden administration, having decided to authorize direct attacks on Russia, is all but daring and double daring Putin to strike back against NATO. It is likely that he will, and then it is only a matter of time before the conflict escalates to the use of nuclear weapons. 1/

[Will Lehman | WillforUAWpresident.org @WillforUAWpres]

An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. UAW members and autoworkers internationally must defend the right to protest and we cannot fight in isolation. We require an all out strike to defend our rights!

https://t.co/ZUyxvbo9ap

[David North @DavidNorthWSWS]

The on-line May Day rally sponsored by the International Committee of the Fourth International begins today at 3 pm Eastern Daylight Time. Make sure to sign on and join the rally.

https://t.co/ej2Po42fqL

[Angelo Perera @AngeloPerera20]

UPS workers say: The working class must oppose the attack on students’ right to protest! https://t.co/hdoarjK1y5