On February 28, the U.S. superpower, along with its sidekick, the Israeli military, unleashed a massive air assault against Iran. They bombed hundreds of targets around the country and killed important leaders of the Iranian regime, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s longtime supreme leader. These attacks weren’t just against supposedly “high value” military targets and the ruling elite. In the southern coastal city of Minab, an all-girls elementary school was bombed, killing at least 108 students, many of them between seven and twelve years old.
Trump has now vowed to use this war to devastate the country’s military, eliminate its nuclear program and bring about regime change. From the comfort and safety of Mar-a-Lago, Trump urged Iranians to brave U.S. and Israeli bombs and missiles in order to rise up and overthrow the Iranian government.
Following the announcement of Ayatollah Khamenei’s death, there were reports of people going into the streets of Tehran and other cities to celebrate the end of a ruler, whose vicious, repressive regime had only recently murdered thousands of people protesting against its policies. Apparently, others took to the streets to mourn Khamenei’s death.
Whatever is happening in Iran, no one in this country should be fooled. This war is about one thing and one thing only: the further domination of the Middle East by U.S. imperialism, with the help of its closest ally, Israel. That means domination by the U.S. oil companies, military contractors, banks and big engineering companies—to make them ever richer and more powerful, stealing the resources and enslaving the working population and the poor in the entire region.
Trump is not doing the Iranian people any favors today. The U.S. superpower never opposed the Iranian regime because it is a dictatorship. The U.S. arms and supports dictatorships all throughout the Middle East, many of which are just as brutal and bloody as the rule of the Ayatollahs. No, the U.S. has opposed the Iranian regime because it had come to power in 1979 by overthrowing one of the main pillars of U.S. domination in the Middle East, the Shah, a vicious dictator. The Ayatollahs had hijacked the Iranian Revolution. Thus, in order to keep their independent base of support, they did not always do U.S. bidding.
Ever since, the U.S. superpower had sought to either get rid of the Iranian regime, or at least to contain its influence. But that didn’t stop the U.S. from partnering with the Ayatollahs, when it served U.S. purposes.
The U.S. rules over the Middle East by playing one regime against the other. Thus, the U.S. got really friendly with Iran, when U.S. troops got bogged down in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Iran provided vital military and political support. The U.S. government even signed a treaty with Iran which was supposed to begin some kind of normalization. But at the point that the U.S. had withdrawn most of its forces from those wars and no longer needed Iran’s support, the U.S. broke the treaty with Iran and resumed hostilities.
The U.S. and Israeli covert war against Iran and its allies became an overt war during the murderous, barbaric Israeli war against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Last June, Israel bombed Iran for 12 days, killing several important Iranian leaders, with the U.S. joining in on the last day. The U.S. then began assembling the largest military armada in the Middle East since 2003, the year the U.S. launched its disastrous war against Iraq.
Trump has been careful so far not to send in U.S. troops. But these wars are already being paid for by the working class in the U.S. Now, under Trump, allied with Netanyahu, the U.S. is embarking on another war with the possibility of it spreading over the entire region.
This war is not just about Trump, or Netanyahu, or the Ayatollahs. War is how U.S. imperialism has defended its interests and domination over the Middle East for close to a century, and in so doing, it has turned the entire region into a powder keg that could be in the process of exploding.
None of this is inevitable. This war is only further proof of the true catastrophe that the capitalist ruling class is leading the entire world into. Until the working class in this country and other countries confront their own capitalist ruling class in a revolutionary movement, we will be drawn ever further into this impending catastrophe.
After the U.S. Men’s and Women’s Hockey teams brought in the Gold at the Winter Olympics, President Trump called the men’s team and invited them to the White House. On that call he quipped that he might also have to invite the women’s team, “… or else, I do believe I probably would be impeached.”
If he thought this was funny, it backfired. For the women’s team captain, Hilary Knight, known as the heartbeat of their team, stood strong at press conferences afterward. When asked about what Trump said, she said the joke was distasteful and unfortunate. But she had no intention of participating in shifting the narrative away from the extraordinary efforts and collective work of her team. “These women are amazing.” “We are strong women who can do anything together.” And that she and her team choose to celebrate—in other words, not give Trump’s misogynistic mouthings any time of day.
She and her team deserve ANOTHER medal!
The 13-billion-dollar, nuclear-powered warship, the USS Gerald Ford, has been at sea since June 2025, making this one of the longest continuous deployments for a U.S. aircraft carrier. The USS Ford was used in the Caribbean for the operations against Venezuela and has now been deployed to the Middle East for the strikes against Iran.
Most sailors onboard are in their early 20s. The prolonged deployment has meant missing major life events, including birthdays, weddings, funerals, and even the birth of children. Communication restrictions during sensitive operations limit regular contact with families.
There are more than 4,500 sailors using 650 toilets. 205 toilets broke down in a four-day period. Apparently, mopheads and t-shirts are mysteriously turning up in the pipes.
Maybe some of the sailors are fed up with this too long deployment.
Being a nurse or a nurse aide has always been a hard job, and for years it’s been getting worse as hospitals cut staff and pay to the bone.
Now the bosses have found a new hell: apps that use AI to pay nurses and aides as little as possible.
Apps like ShiftKey, ShiftMed, or CareRev use what are called “algorithmic pricing models” driven by AI. That is a fancy way of saying they are designed to pay each worker as little as possible for each shift.
The app calculates how much money to offer each specific worker for a particular shift based on all kinds of private information, including credit score and debt load. The more desperate the app thinks you are, the less it will offer.
These apps also give workers a rating. Call off, or piss off a supervisor, and you get a bad rating. The worse your rating, the lower your pay and the fewer shifts you are offered.
Sometimes, the app lets a nurse or aide bid for a shift, setting the lowest wage they will accept. No shifts available? Better lower how much you’ll take. This pits workers directly against each other to compete for shifts.
The pay on these apps is not necessarily lower than what a full time or travel nurse with the same level of training might make. But you have to pay a fee to the app for each shift you work. Plus, most of these apps classify workers as “contractors,” meaning they can’t get overtime pay, health insurance, unemployment insurance, workers comp, paid sick leave, or retirement. They offer no guaranteed shifts, and nurses report that shifts are often canceled by the employer at the last minute.
Of course, these apps make their owners money. They’re also useful for hospitals and nursing homes because they can pay as little as possible and only hire for exactly the legal minimum number of shifts they need. Plus, they are a way to block nurses from unionizing—a big concern for hospital bosses, given the recent nurses’ strikes in many cities across the country.
These kinds of apps have already replaced taxis, which used to be a relatively well-paying job, with the poverty wages of Uber and Lyft. Then they replaced delivery drivers with apps like DoorDash. Now they are coming for nurses. No worker is safe from this race to the bottom—and we all have the same interest in stopping it!
On February 26, Netflix bowed out of the bidding war, setting up Paramount Skydance to purchase Warner Bros. If approved, this will give the right-wing billionaire Ellison family control over even more of the U.S. media landscape.
The merger of Paramount Skydance with Warner Bros is bad news for the movie industry and its workers. While David Ellison claims there will be “synergies” between the two, the new company will carry 90 billion dollars in debt. Making the payments on that debt means cuts—at least 6 billion dollars worth according to Ellison, after he already imposed big cuts on Paramount Skydance just a few months ago. This means layoffs, and less money to make quality movies or shows.
As one producer commented: “It’s like a shotgun wedding with your dumb cousin: I fear for the health of the kids.”
This merger is also a step toward even fewer people controlling more of the information we get. David Ellison already pushed CBS News, owned by Paramount, to put a more conservative spin on the news. He appointed “anti-woke” activist Bari Weiss as head of the show, and she promptly canceled a segment on the brutal prison in El Salvador where the Trump administration sent people they deported. Now Ellison will also control CNN, which is part of Warner Bros. Ellison’s father also just purchased a big share of TikTok.
Trump is certainly involved in all this. David Ellison is his close political ally and was even his guest at the State of the Union. Trump has made his hatred of CNN known for years—those hosts he named personally must now fear for their jobs.
Just the weekend before all this went down, Trump called on Netflix to fire one of its directors who had worked in the Obama administration. And the same day that Netflix dropped its bid, its CEO just happened to have met with officials at the White House. We can surely expect even more Trump-friendly coverage in the news.
Beyond Trump, this is one more step toward a small handful of billionaires owning almost every source of information people rely on. Sergey Brin and Larry Page, founders of Google, are two of the world’s richest billionaires. In the last few years, Elon Musk bought Twitter—now X. Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta bought Instagram. Add in the Ellisons’ portfolio of TikTok, Paramount Skydance, and Warner Bros. According to Forbes, these are the six richest people in the world, who now control a huge share of all the sources of information available.
Of course, these billionaires hope to profit from the media companies they own. But on top of that, they have every interest in controlling what the rest of us see.
Trump has told us repeatedly that tariffs are good for the economy. According to Trump, imposing tariffs balances trade deficits by making foreign companies pay. He also claims tariffs will bring back manufacturing jobs.
So, who really benefits from tariffs, and who really pays for tariffs?
U.S. consumers are sucking up 43% of the tariff burden, according to Harvard economists. U.S. companies absorb most of the rest. Meaning that foreign companies are basically not paying for the tariffs, because they pass on the full cost of the tariffs to their U.S. consumers, or they ship smaller quantities of goods.
It is also important to understand that while tariffs do raise prices on goods, they don’t raise the prices of all goods. There are products that have been exempted from tariffs, like coffee, bananas, and Apple’s iPhones.
As for manufacturing jobs, over 70,000 jobs were lost in 2025. And this loss of manufacturing jobs is happening while production is increasing. For example, Trump pointed to the U.S. producing more steel than Japan. But employment in steel has not increased. Fewer workers are producing more. Speed-up is stealing jobs.
On February 20, the Supreme Court ruled that most of the tariffs Trump imposed since February 2025 were unconstitutional. Which opens the door to refunds. Already many companies such as FedEx have sued for refunds. As for workers, we will not see any refunds. The corporations pass on the tariffs to us. But they will not pass on to us any refunds they manage to get. Their greed knows no bounds.
At the age of 11, Jo Ann Bland was at a protest march in 1965 from Selma, Alabama to the Montgomery state capitol. The march came to be known as “Bloody Sunday.” Alabama State Police viciously beat hundreds of demonstrators. Film footage was shown on the national news, and it shocked viewers. Jo Ann dedicated her life to teaching the youth this history. She died on February 19 at her home in Selma.
Jo Ann lost her mother at birth from the lack of a blood transfusion. Deadly segregation laws of that era forbid hospitals from transfusing “white” blood to a dying black mother!
In 1965, on Bloody Sunday, Jo Ann saw that when children ran from the protest to gather at a nearby church, state police followed, into the church. Jo Ann saw law enforcement hoist a child above their heads and throw him into the Baptismal Font. Jo Ann said, “What happened at that bridge didn’t stop at that bridge. It happened out here all night long.” Referring to her work with youth, Jo Ann said, “I kick it plain.… I don’t use language like, ‘They gave their lives’—they didn’t give anything, they were murdered.”
Online and social media scams have become a big business—scams operating out of Southeast Asia are thought to bring in around 65 billion dollars a year. U.S. residents are documented to have lost 16 billion dollars to online scams last year; Chinese victims lost even more. Tens of thousands work to carry out these scams, and criminal businessmen organize the work on an industrial scale.
Scammers often pose as young women who cultivate relationships with isolated, lonely older men over weeks or months. They eventually offer their targets opportunities to “invest” in a financial scheme, before taking the money and cutting off contact.
A large portion of the workers who carry out these scams are slaves. Many are young, educated people from countries like China, Ethiopia, Uganda, or Pakistan, where they find limited job prospects at home. The scam centers entice them with an offer of a high paying office job to Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, or Thailand. When they arrive, they are then bundled into a van, driven to the compound in a remote area, and their passport is taken. A quarter of a million scammers work out of isolated office parks in the borderlands of these countries.
These trafficked people are forced to work long shifts, scamming people thousands of miles away, according to set scripts. Workers who don’t meet their quotas are beaten, starved, subjected to solitary confinement or other tortures. The compounds are guarded and walled off with barbed wire, though some have escaped or been rescued by rebel groups.
Young people scammed into slavery, in order to scam money out of others—all for the profit of a few corrupt businesspeople. It’s a perfect reflection of the rot of this capitalist society.
The following is taken from a presentation at a public meeting in Detroit on February 22.
Can what happened in Minneapolis spread?
The answer doesn’t just come from Minneapolis. It can come from looking back at history. Because what we do know is that in the past, in this country, the possibility of social revolution was raised two times in the last 100 years, when ordinary people began to move.
In both cases, the conditions the working population faced, including economic hardship and racial oppression, impelled social movements that rocked this society. In both cases, ordinary people raised the question of power.
The first time was in the 1930s, with the massive strike wave movement, that included sit-down strikes, when workers took over and occupied factories.
The next time was in the 1960s, with the movement of the black population, which took over large parts of cities in the streets.
Let’s first talk about the upsurge of the working class in the 1930s—a decade of deep economic crisis called The Great Depression—but also a decade in which the working class tested different ways to fight back. It included organizing a defense for the unemployed, known as Unemployed Leagues; the 1932 Ford Hunger March of workers to the Rouge plant; and the general strikes of 1934 in Toledo, San Francisco, and Minneapolis.
By 1936, there were over 2,200 strikes.
The whole time, the corporations and their politicians tried to subvert these strikes and the workers’ movement, using newspapers, churches, politicians, goon squads, labor spies, and organizations like the KKK. They resorted to organized violence from every level of the state apparatus to make sure that workers could not organize.
And while often workers were thrown back, they continued to fight. And in that process, they learned to turn their backs on many rules of the capitalists’ order. Workers began to forge a consciousness of themselves as a class. In the words of one of the verses in the song Solidarity Forever, workers, by their actions, were coming to understand that, “Without our brain and muscle, not a single wheel would turn.”
At the end of 1936, the dam broke with sit-down strikes that swept the industrial heartland of the U.S. They were the mark that workers were no longer respecting capitalists’ rights to determine what happened to their property. If that sit-down strike wave was embodied in the Flint-sit down strike, it’s because Flint was the center of GM’s power and it effectively engaged workers throughout GM’s empire, and strikes broke out all over the country.
While we could do a whole meeting on bringing to life what the Flint Sit-down strike entailed—I’ll just try to give a sense of what workers were able to do during their 44 days of occupying the plants. Everything required to make that occupation possible depended on the workers’ own organization. The necessities of daily life were organized; meals were prepared both inside and outside the plants; factories were cleaned up and living areas were constructed; safety was monitored; striking workers organized a social life inside the plants, with lively discussions, debates and plays; everyone was responsible for work carried out collectively.Decisions about organizing the strike were taken on the spot, by workers in daily meetings, both inside the plants and in the union headquarters. And workers used their control of the plants, as well as their supporters outside, to defend their positions—from barricades, to patrols, to decoy maneuvers, that showed Flint workers’ willingness to confront the police and national guard. They chose their own means of fighting, rather than the legally acceptable ones, which always render workers powerless, and stepped outside the framework of bourgeois legality.
Faced with this massive and militant upsurge of the working class, from 1932 up until 1941, the capitalist class moved to legalize the organization of millions of unskilled industrial workers into industrial unions—in order to then control them. In this same time period, the working class found in its own ranks militant people determined to fight for the working class to organize itself, militants in communist and socialist leadership. They were driven out, or bitterly silenced, replaced by leaders who collaborated with their bosses. This massive working-class movement that shook the very foundations of this class society did not overturn it and replace it.
This massive working class movement fell short of actually calling the question of power—even though the workers’ power was there.
The next time the possibility for revolution was raised was in the 1960s, with the black mobilization. That struggle dominated a part of American political life for the better part of thirty years, 1943 to 1971, engaging several generations of black people.
The earlier movement, the civil rights movement, revolved around the overturning of Jim Crow laws. The leadership of that movement rested on “non-violent resistance,” never saying that the government would be forced into action only if it felt the pressure of the determination and massive mobilization of black people. However, the Civil Rights movement did include massive mobilizations of the black community. The Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott of 1955 spread to over 150 cities. The sit-ins at lunch counters that started in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960 spread to at least 70 other cities. There were Freedom Rides in 1961 and fights for voting rights. The movement showed the courage and determination of hundreds of thousands of people.
But by 1963, changes showed in the consciousness of the black population, starting in Birmingham, Alabama, when people, especially young people, poured into the streets and challenged business as usual, interfering with businesses, that practically came to a halt as a result.
Within 10 weeks of Birmingham, similar demonstrations and civil disruption campaigns were underway in over 150 cities.
Birmingham is 1963. The Civil Rights Act is passed in 1964, a legal change, on paper. But by that time, already sizeable layers of the black population had already turned their backs on the hope that a bill passed in Washington could change their situation. And that reality was made more clear when the urban rebellions began to spread to the North.
Almost as soon as the Civil Rights act passed, people took to the streets in Harlem. And the next years were dominated by the rebellions in the streets—from Harlem, to Paterson, N.J, to Philadelphia, to Watts in L.A. to Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati, Tampa, Atlanta, Buffalo, to Detroit. And then everywhere else in 1968. There were major and smaller rebellions that spread across the whole country, including in the prisons.
What started as a struggle of black people against the racists—who would openly, systematically and legally deny the whole black population—became transformed into a movement wherein the black masses found themselves opposing their forces to that of the whole American state apparatus—and pulling after them white workers in the plants.
The black movement of the 1960s too, like the workers’ movement of the 1930s, shook the very foundations of this racist, class society.
But there was no one who prepared the black population, who were in motion, for the necessity of bringing bourgeois society to a halt and using their numbers and their determination to do so. The opportunity was lost because there was no organization, neither civil rights nor black nationalist, which acted on the view that a working-class revolution could be, at the same time, the solution to the problems facing the black population, who in their vast majority, were workers, with power, in the very heart of the economies of cities, like Birmingham and Detroit.
And so, while the black movement raised the question of power, the bourgeoisie, itself, understanding that power, did everything to subvert, derail, and divert that movement—from destroying the most militant organizations, by killing off, or imprisoning, or isolating its leaders, to extending privileges to what became the Black Democratic Party political apparatus and a certain black bourgeoisie.
.…
There will be another movement sometime, somewhere, another movement that does begin to spread. And when that happens, there could be another mass movement like in the 1930s or the 1960s.
What happens then? A movement against something like ICE can spread and then begin to raise all kind of issues, issues about people’s worsening standard of living, issues about the lack of good health care, issues about our children’s future. A movement can happen against the devastation of a war.
It can start anywhere. In 1917 in Russia, a protest march by women workers demanding bread started an uprising that led to a revolution.
A movement that spreads and becomes a mass movement will begin to raise the question of who runs the society.
Whenever the next big movement starts, a movement like the 1930s or the 1960s, whenever it starts, the most important thing for the working class is not to be fooled again into accepting a partial victory. The working class can’t stop short this time and let the same capitalist ruling class continue to run the society. Workers can’t let some politicians or union leaders lay out a few crumbs that were won, tell us that’s enough, and then continue on in the same society that caused all the problems in the first place.
The movement in Minneapolis today is a moral protest by people from across many parts of the population, people who didn’t like what was going on and wanted to do something about it. What this movement did not have was an understanding that to go further they have to see where the problems are really coming from; they have to see that the problems come from the functioning of the whole capitalist system. And that system can’t be taken on unless the working class does it.
The working class is not moving today. But the working class sits in the middle of the whole productive economy. The working class makes everything run. The working class can make everything stop. The working class is the only force that has the power to bring down this whole capitalist system and can make everything run in a new society. A revolution led by the working class is the only way for all of us, the only way for humanity to have a better future.
So, it is important for all of us who understand this, it is important for us to talk this and say this all the time, to everyone we know. We have to prepare for when the next movement starts. We need more people who agree that the working class can’t stop short next time. We need more people who agree that next time we can’t stop until we get rid of this system and build a new one.
In order for that to happen, we need a revolutionary party in the working class. That’s what we in Spark are aiming to build.
On February 22, Mexican security forces killed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho.” He was the leader of Jalisco New Generation, one of the largest and most brutal cartels in Mexico.
The cartel responded by launching a wave of violence. They set up roadblocks, burned cars and trucks, and set some businesses on fire. More than 50 people were killed, including at least 25 National Guard troops.
A lot of workers were scared by all this. But at the same time, many workers are tired of the cartels and the problems they create every day.
Cartels like Jalisco New Generation control whole regions of Mexico. They extort money from businesses large and small, and kidnap people for ransom. In some places they even tax the peasants, forcing them to pay for each kilo of corn, each cow or pig they sell. They also employ many workers themselves, paying very low wages to people growing drugs or other crops like limes and avocados. Of course, they also sell drugs to the population in Mexico, move them to the United States and other countries, and smuggle people across borders for a high price.
The cartels use extreme violence to enforce their rule—the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations estimated they have murdered between 350,000 and 400,000 people in the last 20 years.
Despite all these deaths, the cartels continue to find plenty of new recruits among the millions of young Mexicans who can’t find a steady job. For a young person from a working-class or poor family in Mexico, there are only three options—join the army, try to get to the U.S., or join a cartel. The cartels even put out job ads like any other business, offering high wages, no skills required, training done by the boss—though once you join, it’s almost impossible to quit.
People are afraid to denounce the cartels to the police because the cops are often working for them. Arrested cartel bosses are released the next day or sent to luxury prisons with emergency exits where they can simply walk out when they choose. Just a few months ago, when a mayor in Michoacan tried to arrest some corrupt politicians linked to the cartels, he was murdered in broad daylight.
The Mexican state apparatus is integrated with the cartels—and behind it is the U.S. state apparatus. When it can use them, the U.S. has directly helped the Mexican cartels grow, such as during its dirty wars in Central America in the 1980s. At other times, the U.S. and Mexican states have moved against one or another cartel. But neither the Mexican nor the U.S. state has ever systematically attempted to root the cartels out.
Neither the U.S. nor the Mexican capitalist class has a real interest in taking out the cartels—after all, they are linked with “legitimate” businesses, including U.S. businesses. The fruit they grow is sold by U.S. supermarkets. The money they make is laundered through U.S. banks or cryptocurrency schemes. The weapons they use come almost exclusively from U.S. manufacturers. And the violence they inflict helps keep under control the entire Mexican working class, to the benefit of the Mexican and U.S. corporations that employ Mexican workers for low wages.
Under pressure to show they are doing something, the Mexican government killed one cartel boss. But no one can believe that this will put any kind of dent in these massive criminal organizations.
In the end, the cartels are a product of the domination of Mexico by U.S. companies that suck out so much of the wealth created by the Mexican working class. The desperation this has created for so many young people in Mexico feeds the cartels, which are businesses like the rest, organized to make profit however they can.
To really take them on, it will be necessary to take on this capitalist system that has produced them.
This article is translated from the February 27 issue, #3004 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in France.
The past year has been the deadliest in Ukraine since February 24, 2022, when Putin launched the Russian army into the country. The butchery dragged on while the U.S., Russia, Ukraine, and the European Union launched numerous initiatives said to pave the road for a ceasefire.
For a year now, summits between Trump and Putin have taken place one after another. Their emissaries have become inseparable, sometimes accompanied by European and Ukrainian counterparts. But what does the word “peace” really mean to soldiers on the front lines, or to civilian populations, deprived again this winter of heating and electricity, and living in constant fear of ever more sophisticated and lethal missiles and drones?
France boasts that the Kremlin’s “special military operation” has not achieved its goal. Yes, Putin did not succeed in conquering Kyiv within three days, nor in sweeping away Zelenskyy’s government, as his generals had promised. The Russian regime appears bogged down in this war, whose economic, demographic, and social consequences weigh increasingly heavily on Russian society—as Western media and leaders repeatedly emphasize. But this portrayal of the situation masks one major fact. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union 35 years ago, the imperialist powers, led by the U.S., have relentlessly sought to detach Ukraine from Russia. By dangling the prospect of its integration into NATO and the European Union, they use it as a pawn to counter Russia in its own backyard.
Indeed, war did not erupt in 2022 out of nowhere. It was the extension to all of Ukraine of the conflict that began in 2014 in Donbas in the industrial east. That in turn was part of a decades-long imperialist policy aimed at weakening Russia. All this has been achieved without the West taking any risks, since Ukraine and its people were on the front line.
Ignoring this context means condemning oneself to misunderstanding the drama unfolding in Eastern Europe. Total war is a scenario that most Russians and Ukrainians considered impossible until the very last moment. How can two peoples fight each other who were intertwined for centuries and share the same culture, the same history, even the same language—with many families having members on both sides of a border that never really existed? And for what?
Kremlin negotiators are portrayed as unwilling to compromise. But some media outlets have pointed out that massive bilateral economic agreements are being negotiated between Russia and Washington, on the sidelines of peace talks in Geneva, Florida, and Doha. Last summer, no sooner had Trump extended his hand for Ukraine’s “rare earths” than Putin informed him that Russia possessed far more and was ready to sign joint exploitation contracts with American firms. Behind the scenes at the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, oil giant Exxon resumed talks with its Russian partner to exploit giant gas fields on Sakhalin Island. These were merely preliminary steps. Since then, negotiations have revolved around Russia’s invitation to American companies to jointly exploit the Arctic’s wealth of gas, oil, copper, titanium, nickel, lithium, and other resources, and to launch joint projects in aviation and nuclear energy. According to the economic agency Bloomberg, this “package” is worth 12 trillion dollars.
These are projects that remain contingent on the lifting of economic sanctions against Russia. But their scale no doubt largely explains why Trump is putting so much pressure on his “ally” Zelenskyy to comply with Moscow’s demands. And Trump has other priorities. American satellites continue to provide essential intelligence to the Ukrainian army—Trump doesn’t want to abandon the field of telecommunications to the U.S.’s European allies-slash-competitors.
On this fourth anniversary of the war, Ukraine’s European allies reassured it of their support against Moscow. But this did not lead to anything other than the usual status quo regarding a possible peace agreement.
Europeans took over from the U.S. in supplying arms to Ukraine. But they are struggling to guarantee its security against Russia, despite their loud pronouncements. First, they reportedly lack sufficient troops to deploy. Moreover, Germany and Poland refuse to even consider it. Furthermore, the current status quo suits France, the United Kingdom, and Germany, which have become Kyiv’s primary arms suppliers. Their general staffs and arms manufacturers have an enormous testing ground for developing their weapons of death and perfecting new technologies such as drones in Ukraine as it currently exists. Ukraine is also a giant showcase for exporting their military expertise. So why would they push for peace when war demands ever more cannon fodder made in France and Germany—that is, more guns, drones, and so on?
Certainly, Kyiv cannot afford to continue this war. But its “allies” are only too happy to extend Ukraine a permanent line of credit, via the IMF or European financial institutions. Everyone knows Kyiv will never be able to repay these enormous sums, whether the war ends or not. But, besides the fact that war is already a boon for Western banks—with their governments to guarantee their loans—it puts these same states in a better position for the “aftermath,” when it comes to rebuilding this devastated country. The latest estimate puts this market at 400 billion dollars!
Business circles make no secret of eyeing this windfall. On January 30, an international memo from the Crédit Agricole Group, the world’s ninth-largest bank in terms of assets, had the blunt title, “Strengthening Ukraine’s contribution to the Group’s growth in Europe.” No need, as on the evening news, to talk about democracy, the courage of an entire nation, and European values! The memo gets straight to the point: “Our objective is to increase our market share in agriculture, auto loans, and information technology. And of course, we want to play our full role in Ukraine’s reconstruction process.” Getting a slice of a 400 billion dollar pie is sure motivation. “Of course.”
What follows is the editorial that appeared on the front of all SPARK’s workplace newsletters, during the week of February 22, 2026.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, a former prince of England and the brother of the current King of England, has been arrested.
No one should believe, however, that thousands of women were about to get justice—the ones who had been traumatized by Jeffrey Epstein and his network of wealthy men like Mountbatten.
No, Mountbatten was not charged with rape, nor charged with sexual abuse of minors—both of which he could have been. The evidence of his viciousness lies in the Epstein files.
After he was brought in, he was charged only with handing a United Kingdom trade document over to Epstein 16 years ago. By nightfall, he was back home again.
In other words, it was just “more of the same.” The wealthy elite in this capitalist world continue to be protected from consequences for their monstrous behavior.
The only reason there has even been something called the Epstein files is that an investigative journalist for the Miami Herald made it her mission to dig out how Epstein got off almost without any criminal charges—despite the well documented fact that he and six associates had organized and benefitted from a network which trafficked young girls. Even pre-teen girls were offered as sex toys to the wealthy men who ran in Jeffrey Epstein’s orbit.
Epstein’s orbit included bankers, businessmen, CEOs of major corporations. It included politicians with their hands out for graft. It included churchmen and well-known professors, doctors and lawyers. It would have included beggarmen and thieves—if there had been any wealthy enough. Some of them came for kinky sex. Many came to be included in a far-flung financial network linking them to other wealthy people.
Wall Street, Hollywood, Washington, D.C., Silicon Valley, NASA, Fashion, Real Estate, Harvard and MIT—they were all represented.
In this capitalist society, where money is the measure of everything, Epstein was a broker who greased capital’s wheels.
Jeffrey Epstein was a deal-maker, someone who provided what other people wanted, someone who introduced people to other people, someone who found sources of money to be invested in a company that needed a quick investment, no questions asked. He kept secrets and held them to use as leverage against those who used his “services.”
Julie K. Brown is the Miami Herald reporter who blew fresh air through Epstein’s putrid closet. Other reporters had focused on Epstein. Instead, Brown sought out the women who once had been Epstein’s victims.
It took her several years to locate just 60 of them. There were many more she couldn’t find, women who had disappeared into drug abuse, prison, the streets or an unmarked grave.
But these 60 could reveal who came to Epstein’s island. Many had heard about the deals, all the crooked machinations of a capitalist society based on the theft of labor’s product. Did the men who abused them think they had no ears?
Before his suicide in prison—his supposed suicide—Epstein let it be known that he had information on Trump’s financial crimes. “I’m the one who can bring Trump down,” he wrote. Then he was found dead in an unguarded cell, for which the cameras had been shut off.
On hearing about the arrest of Mountbatten-Windsor, Donald Trump had this to say: “I have been totally exonerated.”
Exonerated? The Department of Justice may have scrubbed the Epstein files before releasing them, but there has been no exoneration. Not for Trump, not for Clinton, not for anyone.
The Epstein case lives on because of the bravery of these 60 women. Their stories describe the reality of a rotting capitalist society wherein even the bodies of young girls can serve as currency.
ICE is about to open an office in Southfield, Michigan, and a detention center (prison) in Romulus, not too far from the airport.
As soon as word got out, protests were organized. The aim was to draw attention to what ICE is preparing to do to our friends, family, and neighbors in metro Detroit.
About 500 people showed up in bitter cold on February 23 to protest ICE and support the Romulus City Council as they voted NO! on the new ICE prison in Romulus.
The award-winning director and writer has penned a sprawling historical novel of Detroit in the tumultuous years spanning the 1920s to the 1940s. Many historical figures appear: Henry and Edsel Ford, Harry Bennett, Diego Rivera, workers of varying cultural backgrounds who toiled away in the foundry, the assembly plants and even the rubber plantations in Brazil. We see life close up in Detroit, Dearborn and Inkster, Michigan. We see the gangs that ruthlessly ran the cities, and workers organizing to change and push back that control. Life and death fights were necessary to win some semblance of a better life. And today, here we are again, facing ruthless gangs who want to win back that total control.
This British, award-winning, four-episode miniseries fictionalizes an actual knife murder of a young girl by her 13-year-old male classmate. The series shows young men with fear, hate and loathing of the female sex, and questions the influence of society, parents and the internet on forming this hate.
The young man believes the incel, misogynist theories he finds on the internet. He sees no one in his family or school countering the hateful divisions fermented online.
Today in the U.K. they are showing the series in schools and trying to get people to talk about this and other divisions. However, this capitalist system we live in cannot exist without these hateful divisions. It is the whole system that needs to be changed.
The Trump administration said it will ease up somewhat on its blockade to Cuba, letting some oil in. The U.S. government also said it will send a small amount of money to Cuba because of the humanitarian crisis there.
There certainly is a humanitarian and economic crisis in Cuba! A crisis caused by actions of the Trump administration! Immediately after its attack on Venezuela, the U.S. government enforced a blockade of all oil going to Cuba. Cuba uses oil to produce much of its energy and electricity, and so Trump’s blockade has led to long power blackouts and food shortages. Hospitals have had to reduce their medical care.
It is not clear if the latest moves by the U.S. government will ease any of this crisis, or if it is even meant to do that. But it is clear that the U.S. government plans to continue to intervene in Cuba and will try to dictate to Cuba. When Trump said that some oil will be allowed back into Cuba, Trump also said that the U.S. government might do a “friendly takeover” of the country.
With Trump, who knows what he will actually do, or what he means by a “friendly takeover.” But one thing is clear. For the last 67 years, the U.S. government has never been “friendly” to Cuba. Since 1959, the U.S. government has tried to strangle the Cuban economy and impoverish its people.
In 1959, a small band of revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro overthrew Batista, a dictator backed by the U.S. government. After the revolution, Castro approached the U.S. government and said he wanted a friendly relationship. But the leaders of U.S. imperialism could not abide anyone defying their rule over the Western Hemisphere. They were afraid that the Cuban revolution might encourage revolutions in other Latin American countries, revolutions which would endanger the profits of U.S. corporations who dominated the economy of Latin America.
Ever since the Cuban revolution, the U.S. government, under both Republicans and Democrats, has imposed economic sanctions and embargoes on Cuba, trying to bring down the Cuban regime, while also punishing the people of Cuba.
The Cuban revolution had its limits as far as what it meant for the Cuban working class. But the fact that the regime that came out of the revolution continued to exist, 90 miles away from U.S. shores, has always been an issue for the U.S. capitalist class. Whatever Trump plans to do in Cuba, it will not be in the interest of the working people of Cuba. Nor will it be in the interests of workers of this country.
For the millions of people who chose not to watch Trump’s State of the Union speech, they missed a spectacle that was worthy of an Academy Award. The category being: “The Best Fantasy That Nobody Could Believe.”
Trump’s speech was the longest State of the Union ever, which meant that Trump probably set a record for the most lies ever told by a politician in one speech.
Trump said that the economy was “roaring like never before.” The economy certainly is “roaring” for Wall Street and corporate profits. But for all the young people who can’t find a decent job or have to work two or three jobs just to trying to survive, “roaring” is probably not the word they would use.
Trump said that inflation is down and prices are “plummeting” on things like food, rent, health care and automobiles. Food prices are down? Billionaire Trump, who was born with a golden spoon in his lying mouth, has probably never shopped in a grocery store in his entire life; his private chefs do that. But for all the rest of us, when we go to the grocery store these days, we have to make hard choices about what we can afford and can’t afford. Rent and automobile prices are down? On what planet? Not this one! Trump said that gas is selling for $1.99 a gallon. Maybe Trump should tell us all where that gas station is!
The old expression was “Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.” In Trump’s State of the Union speech, when he talked about prices going down, he certainly was pissing on ordinary working people who had the misfortune to watch his speech.
The seven largest for-profit health insurance conglomerates took nearly $1.7 trillion from their customers in 2025, and they booked more than $54 billion in profits, as Wendell Porter, an ex-Cigna vice president, reported. So, these companies, UnitedHealth, CVS/Aetna, Cigna, Elevance, Humana, Centene, and Molina, are ripping us off big time.
These companies took record amounts of money from the state and federal governments. For example, UnitedHealthcare now receives more than 77% of its revenue from government programs, even though it covers almost twice as many people in its commercial plans. That is, extracting our tax money through government entities is much more profitable for them. Our health and sickness are a guaranteed source of money-making.
And these companies covered 10 million fewer people than in 2024. These companies kick more people out of their coverage every day because their health care is no longer profitable.
On top of these schemes, these companies used our payments to them, e.g., the $12 billion of our premiums and other health care spending, to buy back their own shares of stock to boost their earnings per share, which only benefits their shareholders and top executives.
These CEOs received compensation ranging from 15 to 27 million dollars in 2024. They enriched themselves very luxuriously at our expense.