The U.S. seems to have deeply miscalculated in launching its war on Iran. The war is not going well for the U.S. And it appears to be spelling the end of the post-WWII international order.
Whatever reason the U.S. had for attacking Iran at this precise moment (and no one should think that it’s because of the whims of one man or the direction of a much smaller country, Israel), the U.S. and the world economy are now in a position that they were not in a few months ago. The Strait of Hormuz is now effectively closed, and this closure is controlled by Iran. Before the war, the Strait was open and ships passed freely. Now, even after weeks of bombing that killed much of the Iranian regime’s leadership, Iran still has the capability to attack any ships passing through the Strait, and any other Gulf country, should the U.S. decide to bomb Iran again.
The U.S. seems to be left without any good choice as far as advancing its interests is concerned.
Either it could walk away and declare “victory,” leaving Iran in control of the Strait; or it could resume bombing Iran, risking a retaliation on ships and oil facilities in the Gulf; or it could invade with ground troops—starting a war that could last for years.
Any which way, the damage to the world economy will be, and already is, irrevocable. And U.S. capitalism, while asserting itself, at the same time demonstrates its limits.
Beyond that, the rest of the world is now left to wonder what to expect of the U.S. Since WWII, the U.S. has set itself up as the cop of the world, the force that would police the international imperialist order for all of the smaller imperialist powers. They all got rich, at the expense of the rest of the world, with the U.S. at the helm.
Now, the U.S. government has openly declared that it will no longer play that role for the rest of the great powers. It has openly told them that they are on their own.
This turn has been a long time coming. It started before Trump came into office, and in fact it’s baked into the workings of capitalism itself. The system produces capitalist classes based in different countries, depending on their own nation states to advance their interests, each with their own individual armed forces built to do so. Biden made his own moves in this process with the “Inflation Reduction Act,” which among other things was a protectionist boondoggle for U.S. and other companies to build inside the U.S. and receive lots of government money for doing so. This was a veiled attack against manufacturers based in other countries. Trump just replaced the carrot with the stick when he started implementing tariffs on much of the world, including U.S. allies.
European and Asian countries, supposedly U.S. allies, are left wondering how they will get the oil that they need out of the Persian Gulf—and not just oil, but fertilizer, plastics, minerals, and much else that comes through the Strait of Hormuz.
They seem to have two choices now: They can negotiate with the regime in Iran; or they can build up their own navies and start to challenge that impasse in their own national interests, risking a wider war and eventually even conflicts between each other for control or rights through the Strait and other choke points for supply chains around the world.
This is only one reason why this conflict can be seen as the flashpoint for a wider war and potentially the next world war.
The U.S. (and Israeli) attack on Iran seems to have called the question on the whole international order. If so, there is no going back.
Trump keeps telling us that the war is over … but if Iran doesn’t reopen the Strait, he’ll start again to bomb them back to the Stone Age … or he has a deal with Iran that will reopen the Strait … or none of that matters, and the U.S. can survive on its own oil production. Blah blah blah. A new thing every day.
Trump clearly has no answer to the dilemma confronting the U.S. ruling class, the dilemma now tying up the world economy and pushing it to a massive recession or worse. A dilemma that he and the U.S. state forced upon the world.
And, in the middle of all this, we can see how much Trump seems to care about it—as he headed off to China to be feted by Xi Jinping in a massive state visit, traveling the country and receiving gifts of rose seeds from Xi (to be planted in the now paved-over White House Rose Garden?)
Trump himself may not care. He may just be focused on the next shiny thing that makes him feel important. But the rest of the country, and the rest of the world, will suffer the consequences of this growing conflict between the great imperialist powers.
The Chicago Park District has long offered desirable summer camp programs for kids. These programs have a reputation for being affordable, safe, well-staffed, and educational.
But for years, registration has been crazy. To get their kids signed up, parents lined up early, camped out, or tried to find the fastest internet connection they could, but the programs are unavailable for most working-class parents who can’t take a day off to sign their kids up for camp.
This year, the Park District announced with great fanfare that they had overhauled the registration process. And perhaps the website was easier to navigate. But most programs still filled up the first minute registration was available.
The basic problem isn’t the registration system—it’s that there aren’t enough places for all the kids who need summer camp!
Chicago is a very rich city. Putting kids in camp helps their development, helps their parents, and keeps them out of trouble.
It should be a no-brainer to fund enough places for every kid who needs one. But somehow, the money always seems to go into the pockets of those already rich, instead of for the programs like summer camp that working-class kids need.
Between people being kicked off Medicaid and people no longer able to afford insurance under the Affordable Care Act, a growing number of people in this country no longer have health insurance.
This is the richest country in the world. The money exists for healthcare for everyone!
On April 21, the U.S. Justice Department charged the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) with financial crimes. The crux of the accusation is that the SPLC used donations to pay informants in white supremacist groups, and that some of the money the SPLC gave them went to fund the hate it claimed to be combating.
The SPLC made its name investigating and organizing legal cases against groups like the Ku Klux Klan. The SPLC also publishes information on various hate groups—it lists over 1300 in the United States.
In addition to the KKK and neo-Nazi organizations, the SPLC calls out groups that push the idea of “white genocide” or other ridiculous claims that white people are the “real victims” of racism. It also calls out groups that spread anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, or organize anti-immigrant militia groups, as well as those that spread hate against gay, lesbian, or transgender people.
The government’s prosecution of the SPLC is unprecedented. It gets no funding from the government, and no donors have accused the group of defrauding them. The SPLC did run an operation to cultivate informants in some of the hate groups it studied, and up to 2023, paid some of those informants for the information they provided. The Justice Department makes vague reference to “crimes” that this money was used to fund but lists nothing specific. And paying informants is a standard practice of the Justice Department itself! The SPLC even shared information it got from these informants with the FBI, which then used it to bring a number of prosecutions, including under Trump.
The Justice Department’s claims that “there is nothing political about this indictment” could not be further from the truth. In recent years, Republicans have become increasingly critical of the group for “unfairly” calling Christian and other conservative organizations extremist hate groups. Never mind that these groups increasingly spout the kind of hate that the SPLC calls out!
In reality, the attack on the SPLC is a defense of the far-right groups and ideas that the SPLC targets. The capitalist class has an increasing interest in defending those who promote racism, the targeting of immigrants, the scapegoating of transgender or gay people, and anti-Jewish conspiracy theories. And they have an interest in going after groups like the SPLC that expose those hate groups and their ideas.
A warehouse in Washington County, in western Maryland, was purchased without knowledge of anybody but county commissioners. It is supposed to be used by ICE to house between 500 and 1,500 immigrants in detention. A small number of activists in nearby Hagerstown have been protesting.
The county is majority Republican but the state is majority Democrat. The Democratic attorney general brought suit to stop the detention center on grounds that an environmental analysis was not done. In April, there was a temporary injunction to stop the project.
The warehouse is more than 800,000 square feet, equal to more than ten football fields and right now has four toilets. The activists are trying to argue that both water and sewage will be a challenge if this project goes through. The board of county commissioners made it harder to protest at its meetings after some protesters began to come to speak on the warehouse issues.
Yet if the project goes through, not only will water and sewage and emergency fees go up, the county will not collect taxes on the property. The federal government does not pay property taxes when it has a government usage for a property it buys.
Altogether this warehouse, and others like it being purchased by ICE around the country, will cost money in every state budget and make for worse conditions for immigrant detainees everywhere. Isn’t that the point?
This article is translated from the May 15 issue, #3015 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in France.
While Trump is embroiled in the war he launched against the Iranian regime, he is also targeting the island of Cuba. He suggested that an American aircraft carrier could besiege Cuba “on the way back from Iran” and signed an executive order on May 1 expanding the list of U.S. sanctions against Cuba.
The island has been under embargo since 1962. Cuba has been suffocated since January by the U.S. oil blockade, which deprives it of energy, in addition to all other essential goods such as medicine. Without oil, Cuba can’t generate electricity, which is vital to daily life. Hospitals can’t function. Gas stations don’t even have fumes. Transportation is reduced to barely a crawl. Major international airlines have canceled all their flights. This deprives the island of its main source of income and its only source of dollars: tourism.
The Cuban economy never recovered from the halt in tourism caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Now it has ground to a halt yet again. Tens of thousands of Cubans have lost their jobs. They are unable to support their families. The prices of the few goods still available have skyrocketed. A quart of cooking oil now costs a quarter of the average salary. Poverty and a lack of prospects are accelerating the exodus of the population. Since 2020, two million people have left—a quarter of the population—often clandestinely, to try their luck elsewhere in Latin America.
If Trump is so relentless in his attacks on Cuba, and especially on the poorest segment of its population who bear the greatest brunt of the embargo, it’s not because this small island represents “an extraordinary threat,” as he repeatedly claims. Cuba has lacked ballistic missiles ever since Soviet missiles were installed in 1962 and then quickly removed. Its army carries only outdated equipment.
But what Trump cannot accept—like every American president since John F. Kennedy—is that the people of a country located just 90 miles from Florida were able to overthrow a pro-American dictatorship and replace it with a regime that stood up to imperialism and brought some progress and dignity to its people.
That was over 65 years ago. Since then, Fidel Castro and the generation that seized power and embodied independence from the U.S. in the eyes of the world have departed. Deprived of Soviet support, suffocated by the American embargo, and subjected to an authoritarian regime, the island has steadily sunk deeper into poverty. But for Trump and his administration, that’s not enough. They want to overthrow a regime that is heir to a popular uprising. This would mean Cuba reverting to being the “American brothel” it was before 1959.
ICE detained two high school students from the Republic of Congo outside their school in Mississippi on April 21, accusing them of violating their student visas. But thousands of community members pressured authorities to release them.
For decades, federal law has made it difficult for foreign youth to study at public high schools. They can’t stay longer than a year. They have to pay thousands of dollars as “tuition.” The school must be on a list of federally approved schools.
The Makoka brothers had studied for two years at private, historically black boarding school Piney Woods, which draws at-risk and foreign youth and is on the list. But last summer they asked to transfer to a public school, Hancock High School. It is not on the list. But the private school did not inform anyone that the transfer voided their visas.
ICE agents claim someone “reported that there were two African kids at Hancock.” Ten ICE vehicles swooped in. Agents grabbed the brothers and sent Max, age 15, to a group home in Texas. They sent Israel, age 18, to a detention camp in Louisiana.
As in Minneapolis, the arrests hit a nerve. The area around Hancock is 85% white and is considered conservative. But the outgoing and athletic Makoka brothers are popular. Classmates and teachers immediately wrote letters in protest. Around 3,100 people mostly from the area signed a petition demanding their release. Politicians up for reelection quickly championed the brothers. ICE released them after nine days! They need to find another school, and Israel is forced to wear an ankle monitor, but they are back in their community.
Donald Trump, who regularly charges his opponents with rigging elections, has been frantically doing his own election rigging, including by pressuring states under Republican control to redraw Congressional district maps to boost Republican chances of preserving their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. It started with Republicans in Texas last year. So, the Democrats in California hit back with their own redistricting campaign to try to stay even, or even gain a small advantage.
Of course, redrawing election maps by both parties to gain political advantage has been going on practically forever. As politicians often say, it isn’t the voters who choose the elected officials, it is the political bosses who choose the voters. What else can you expect from a corrupt and avaricious system designed to serve the interests of the capitalists, oligarchs and plutocrats?
In late April, the U.S. Supreme Court, with a 6–3 majority of justices appointed by Republican presidents, put its own thumb on the scales in favor of Trump and the Republicans. It said that courts will no longer rule on whether electoral districts are discriminatory, a longtime Republican goal. This gave the green light to Republican politicians in Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee to rush to redraw their own electoral maps in their bid to pick up a few more seats in the upcoming elections.
But not all Republican politicians have gone along with this political trickery, obviously out of fear that it could backfire against them with voters. Earlier in the year, the state government of Indiana, where the Republicans have a majority, had already refused to follow Trump’s directives and implement any new redistricting. In mid-May, the Republican politicians in South Carolina and Mississippi also resisted Trump’s pressure and threats to redraw the electoral map.
At least some Republican politicians are deciding not to attach themselves too tightly to the fading Donald Trump bandwagon, given that polls show increasing parts of the electorate blame Trump for the worsening economic crisis, the extremely costly war in Iran, and the much-hated ICE witch hunt against immigrants.
Ordinarily, Trump’s fading in the polls would benefit the Democrats in the November midterm elections. But that is not at all sure, since the Democrats themselves have been so discredited by their own policies that benefit the capitalist class, and by their own attacks on the population when they are in office. It got to the point that in the 2024 election there was a big increase in the number of Black and Latino voters who chose Trump and the Republicans, racist demagogy and all.
In fact, increasing numbers of voters, especially younger voters, are fed up with both parties. According to recent Gallup polls, there are more independent voters, who don’t belong to any party, than in the Republicans and Democrats combined!
This shows that there are more openings for revolutionaries, who want to see the working class change the society, to use elections in order to reach out and explain that another road is not only possible, but absolutely necessary.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is giving peach growers in California’s Central Valley 9 million dollars. No, not to grow peach trees, but to destroy them. And no, there is nothing wrong with the trees.
The growers are destroying 420,000 peach trees because the company that has been buying the peaches, Del Monte Foods, closed its two canning facilities in California. Left with more than 50,000 tons of peaches without a buyer, the growers will pull the peach trees to plant another crop.
Growing peaches requires an upfront investment. It takes up to 10 years for planted trees to bear their full load of fruit, which they then provide for another 10 years or so. So, Del Monte had been signing 20-year contracts with growers. But now the company deems canned peaches not profitable enough, which it blames on changing consumer habits and an increase in tin can costs due to Trump’s tariffs.
Del Monte has been a big name in fruit and vegetable distribution for 140 years. But the company and its various divisions have been sold about a dozen times in the last 40 years, including to private equity firms, which saddled Del Monte with a lot of debt in the process.
In July 2025, Del Monte filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, to work out an agreement with the lenders of its over 900-million-dollar debt. But bankruptcy laws allow the owners of the company to just walk away from their obligations to the 70 peach growers Del Monte had made 20-year contracts with. Not to mention all the jobs that have disappeared—the Modesto cannery, for example, one of the two canneries Del Monte shut down, had alone employed about 1,800 people, including seasonal workers.
Thanks to lobbying with Washington politicians, the growers are getting some of their losses back—paid for by taxpayers. By working people, that is, who will also be facing the same high food prices, if not even higher, at the store. And an enormous number of perfectly good peach trees are destroyed in the process—all so that more profit can keep flowing into the bank accounts of big capitalists.
It’s long past time to send this extremely wasteful system to the waste basket.
Remote Area Medical (RAM) is a non-profit organization that provides medical care to anyone who needs it—for free. No insurance needed, not even an ID. No questions asked. RAM sets up about 90 clinics a year, typically for two or three days each, across the U.S.
There is only one problem: so many people come to RAM’s “pop-up” clinics that many can’t get the care they need. A recent segment of the CBS program 60 Minutes shows hundreds of people lining up outside a three-day RAM clinic in Knoxville, Tennessee, days before it opens. The patients have driven hundreds of miles. They sleep in their cars at subfreezing temperatures, for three nights or more, until the clinic opens.
About half of the patients have no insurance. Others have insurance they can’t use because of high co-pays and deductibles. The vast majority are there for eye or dental care—services insurance plans usually don’t even cover.
About 1,200 people are there for dental; and some of their stories are heart-wrenching. There is the construction worker who lost his teeth to a work accident and companies refuse to hire him, saying he must be a meth addict. There is a young man who insists that the dentist pull all of his teeth, even though some can be saved, because he has no access to dental care otherwise. RAM technicians provide dentures to 24 patients just over that one weekend.
The vast majority of RAM staff are volunteers—nearly 900 of them that weekend in Knoxville, coming from all over the U.S. The money needed for the paid staff and supplies comes from donations. The clinics are set up where available—in libraries, warehouses, even animal stalls.
RAM started out 40 years ago, to fly health care workers and supplies to remote, isolated villages in the Amazon rainforest. Soon, it extended its services to that other health care desert called the USA. Today, 90% of RAM’s work is in cities and towns across the U.S.
A recent Gallup poll found that one in every three Americans cuts back on food, gasoline or electricity, or borrows money, to pay health care bills. Some forgo health care altogether. And it’s expected to get worse. Cuts to Medicaid have already caused an estimated three million people to lose health insurance, with millions of others certain to follow in coming years.
And on top of that, the federal government has ended subsidies for individuals buying health insurance, while insurance companies have doubled premiums.
RAM’s mobile clinics show none of that is necessary; that affordable health care is possible for all of us. And RAM volunteers show that the problem is not the people. Health care workers at all levels do their job, and will go above and beyond it, to meet their patients’ needs. The problem is the health care industry’s relentless profit drive.
Once the cost of gasoline and diesel fuel went up at the pump, a place called the Strait of Hormuz made the news. A part of the global maritime highway, it became publicized that 20% of the world’s oil supply passes through this transport chokepoint.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway between Iran, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, is one of seven or eight major maritime chokepoints in the world.
Information about ocean-going container ships and tanker ships may not be trending on social media, but the hidden role played by ocean-going vessels in the global economy is being illuminated by the blockade.
In the interconnected capitalist world, much of what people need, to live a life on this planet, gets transported on the ocean—in or on a ship. It can take a month or more for goods to get from port to port.
At one point or another, 80% of international trade, by volume, is carried by sea.
During the price increases and shortages of the COVID pandemic, global supply chains were revealed. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is revealing that global shipping is the backbone of global trade. And the workers on these ocean-going vessels, the sailors, are the backbone of shipping.
Every time you see a train hauling containers and every time you see a semi-truck hauling a metal shipping box, ocean-going shipping was likely a part of that process.
The world is an interconnected economic whole. The problem remains that the billionaire class controls what the globally connected working class makes possible.
When right-wing commentators in Texas began to attack a real estate development in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, calling it names like “an Islamic stronghold” and “Sharia City,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott jumped on the bandwagon. The development was “structured in a way that requires anybody who bought a lot there to abide by Sharia law,” Abbott said.
It was a lie. The development had no religious requirement whatsoever. It’s just that the developers happen to be Muslim. But the die was cast. State agencies launched investigations against the development. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed two lawsuits, seeking to ban the project. The Department of Justice of Donald Trump, who himself has often attacked Muslims, launched its own investigation—which it quickly closed without finding anything to hold against the development.
Candidates running in Texas primaries have made this anti-Muslim smoke-and-mirror show a central theme of their campaigns. Republican legislators in the state have also stepped up anti-Muslim rhetoric. The state’s two senators, John Cronyn and Ted Cruz, have repeatedly said things like, “Sharia law has no place in American courts.” These demagogues pretend that Muslims are “taking over Texas.” Never mind that Muslims make up less than one percent of the state’s population.
But the attacks haven’t stayed at the level of words. January 6 “insurgent” and right-wing “influencer” Jake Lang went to a mosque in the area with copy of the Koran stuck inside a dead pig’s head.
The threat of racist violence never lurks too far behind the politicians’ words, as the history of the U.S. amply shows.
This article is translated and excerpted from the May 5 issue, #230 of Lutte Ouvrière / Arbeidersstrijd (Workers Struggle), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in Belgium.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) was formed by the union of six emirates (small kingdoms) in the oil-rich Persian Gulf region, with guidance by England. They joined OPEC in 1967.
OPEC was founded in the 1960s by countries which were poor at the time. Oil was one of their main resources. Their aim was to keep a larger share of oil wealth, since big American and European oil companies took most of the profits. OPEC member countries try to coordinate how much oil they produce, in order to keep prices high. [ …]
In the last few years of wars in the Middle East, the UAE adopted a more directly hostile posture toward Iran, including militarily, while other Gulf states sought a middle ground.
By leaving OPEC, the UAE’s main goal is to make more money by making more oil. Its production—a quarter of Saudi Arabia’s—has been held down by OPEC quotas.
But this decision also reflects a distancing from Saudi Arabia and a rapprochement with Israel and the U.S. The UAE continued its partnership with Israel, while Saudi Arabia stepped back after October 7, 2023. This rapprochement allowed the UAE to receive Israeli anti-missile weapons, for example.
More broadly, the UAE aims to pursue a policy independent from other Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia. In the wars in Yemen and Sudan, the two countries have supported opposing sides.
The UAE’s exit from OPEC is motivated by the desire to produce more oil, and to assert its own policy in the region: more independence from Saudi Arabia; closer ties with Israel and the U.S.; and more direct opposition to Iran.
This article is translated from the May 15 issue, #3015 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in France.
Nearly 50,000 people in Tokyo and thousands more in other cities in Japan demonstrated on May 3 against war and the militarization of Japan.
This mobilization follows others since the beginning of the year, such as on March 19 when Donald Trump visited Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
Takaichi represents the most nationalist wing of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, which has governed Japan almost continuously since 1955. On taking office last October, she accelerated the country’s rearming. She has striven not to antagonize Trump since the start of the U.S. war against Iran, even though Japan depends heavily on oil imported from the Middle East. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz caused by the U.S. attack has had serious consequences for Japan’s economy. Trump cited Japan among the countries that he thinks should do more to ensure freedom of passage through the Strait of Hormuz instead of “making the U.S. do it all.” Takaichi cited Japan’s constitution and responded that Japan cannot do everything it wants while still complying with the law.
The May 3 demonstrations commemorated the entry into effect of Japan’s constitution in 1947. It was drafted under American occupation and stipulates that Japan renounces war and will not maintain offensive armed forces. In fact, this piece of paper did not stop the creation of a genuine army, the “Japan Self-Defense Forces,” which has around 250,000 active-duty troops and tens of thousands of reservists, plus submarines, fighter jets, and anti-missile systems.
Japan has an army like any other country does, but it is cloaked in symbolic legal restrictions. In seeking to amend the constitution, Takaichi aims to take a step toward formalizing this national army and facilitating its participation in military alliances and in armed conflicts. This reform policy follows massive rearming and nonstop increases in the military budget, at the expense of social programs.
Protesters chanted slogans like “Hands off the constitution,” “No one should be sent to war,” and “Money for public services, not for weapons,” to express their refusal to be drawn into current and future wars. Japan endured terrible destruction during World War II, including the two U.S. atomic bombs in 1945. A significant portion of the population refuses to let a new generation suffer the atrocities of war.
This article is translated from the May 15 issue, #3015 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in France.
In Brazil, Zé Maria—president of the United Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido Socialista dos Trabalhadores Unificado, a Trotskyist party), labor activist, and organizer of the metalworkers’ strikes in 1978 under the dictatorship—was sentenced on April 28 to two years in prison. He had given a speech denouncing the Israeli government and the military’s crimes in Palestine, and had affirmed his solidarity with the Palestinian people.
His conviction is intended to silence those who denounce the bloody and colonialist policies pursued by Israeli governments for the past 75 years. More broadly, it is also an attempt to intimidate everyone who opposes the crimes of imperialism.
Lutte Ouvrière affirms its support for Zé Maria, and protests against this unjustified conviction.
This article is translated from the May 15 issue, #3015 of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the paper of the Trotskyist group of that name active in France.
Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrated Russia’s 1945 victory over Hitler’s Germany with a small-scale military parade on May 9.
Usually, Russian authorities continue the tradition of the Stalinist regime and make a point of celebrating the victorious outcome of the “Great Patriotic War” with great fanfare, holding the war up as an example to the population. But this year, endlessly parading troops and the latest Russian military technology past the Kremlin was out of the question.
Did the Kremlin fear that Kyiv would demonstrate its drones’ capacities by disrupting the festivities? Even with a “dual air defense system” deployed, Putin preferred not to push his luck. Ukrainian forces had just successfully launched an air attack on one of Russia’s largest oil refineries, more than 500 miles inside the front.
Putin has boasted nonstop about the power of his army, repeating his “victory will be ours” slogan used on recruitment posters for so-called volunteers. But the Russian population knows too well that Ukrainian drones and missiles regularly strike border towns, refineries, ports, and arms depots, sometimes deep inside Russian territory. People see clearly the cost of the war, even in less impoverished regions with fewer “volunteers” to fight and die in Ukraine. They see a steep erosion of their purchasing power due to inflation following the explosion in military spending.
In this climate, Putin preferred to deliver a less warlike and more reassuring speech. He said he is convinced the conflict “is heading toward its end.” To those with doubts—proof that he knows their numbers are growing—he affirmed: “I am firmly convinced that our cause is just.”
This changes nothing on the ground. Even during the “three-day truce” announced for May 8 and 9, with the agreement of Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the fighting did not stop. And it will continue—as will the destruction and deaths on both sides this war has caused for more than four years.
Putin is well aware that he is mired in a seemingly endless war from which he sees no way out where he could still claim victory. At the same time, Zelenskyy is in a similar pickle. He is forced to continue the war just to maintain his grip on power. His only supporters, the European Union powers, condition their “aid” on the war dragging on.
So, the carnage continues. The Russian authorities know this will inevitably fuel discontent. Measures which the Kremlin justifies by claiming they are needed to protect the population from the enemy, like shutting down the internet and blocking access to unregulated social media, are provoking grumbling, even in circles which previously would never challenge the regime.
How long will these poorly disguised police measures, accompanied by increased repression against anything that moves, be enough to keep the lid on the cauldron of discontent?
The U.S. war with Iran has stranded more than 800 ships in the Persian Gulf. These ships are crewed by more than 20,000 sailors, who are now stuck in what amounts to a vast watery prison.
These sailors make global trade function. Under ordinary conditions, they spend months at a time away from their homes and families for on average about $2000 a month. Almost all of them come from countries that are not directly involved in the war: Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indonesia. The money they send home is often vital for their families’ survival, and for the economies of their home countries.
These sailors are now paying the direct price of this war. About 30 ships have been hit by drones or missiles, and so far, at least ten sailors have died.
On top of the risk of violence, after two months, the sailors trapped in the Persian Gulf are running out of food, water, medications, and other basic supplies. “Day by day, our stock of food and water is depleting,” one sailor told the Wall Street Journal. “I worry for my life … the situation is very bad.”
Some shipping companies are not even paying their trapped sailors—the International Transport Workers Federation reports that they have received about 1000 requests for help over missed pay. Some smaller shipping companies are even threatening bankruptcy—which would leave their sailors completely in the lurch.
Working-class people all over the world, like these sailors and their families, are the ones who pay when the rulers of the world start wars for their own ends.
What follows is the editorial that appeared on the front of all SPARK’s workplace newsletters, during the week of May 10, 2026.
In March, 9,000 immigrants “volunteered” to “self deport,” in other words, return to the country from whence they came.
Things haven’t improved in those countries. U.S. capital still dominates their economies. Gangs still roam working class neighborhoods in Haiti, putting everyone’s life at risk. Civil war continues to rage in Sudan, after more than a decade. Ukraine is still beset by war. Countries like Guatemala, where some migrants come from, still have 7-year-old children working in the fields.
Many of the people agreeing to self deport have roots in the U.S., having worked here for years. Some know no other family than the brothers, sisters and children they have here.
Some asking to leave have a claim for humanitarian protection, because they could be killed where they come from, having led strikes, for example, or taking part in demonstrations against a military dictatorship.
Almost all of them were picked up in one of the dragnets carried out by ICE, which grabbed them off the street as they dropped their kids at school, or which raided their workplace. The largest share of them, over 70%, have no criminal record of any kind. They just happened to be in ICE’s crosshairs one day.
Ever since that day, they sit in detention centers, waiting for their cases to be heard.
What does it say about the conditions they are being held under in the U.S.A. that they now volunteer to go back?
Many of the detention centers are housed in old prisons, like Leavenworth in Kansas, or North Lake in Michigan. Some have been set up in mammoth field houses, or tents, some in old warehouses. But regardless of the kind of facility, they are wretched hellholes.
Congress has documented over 1,000 reports about unsafe and dangerous conditions, filthy and unsanitary dining spaces, lack of working toilet facilities, spoiled food, lack of medical care for severely ill or injured people, unfilled prescriptions for vital medicines plus violent abuse of those who complain. A woman breastfeeding at one facility had her infant snatched away from her.
Since Trump took office, 44 people died in one of these detention centers, 31 in 2025, another 13 so far in the first three months of 2026. They did not die of old age, but of severe mistreatment.
Many of those big centers are run by private, for-profit prison companies. Given the logic of capitalism, worse conditions mean better profit.
In July of 2025, Todd Lyons, ICE’s Acting Director, issued a memo declaring that illegal immigrants should no longer be allowed bond, while they are waiting to present their case in an immigration court. With the average wait for a hearing now hitting four years, most people could expect to be locked up indefinitely, under intolerable conditions.
The Migration Policy Institute said: “People are being coerced to volunteer to leave, even when they have potentially a lawful right to stay.”
It’s extortion, pure-and-simple extortion. But it’s also part of a terrorist policy carried out by the U.S. government. It did not start with Trump.
Trump, in fact, has not carried out more expulsions of immigrants than Biden did. Trump uses the same private prison companies that Biden did, just more of them. The long waiting period to even get a hearing goes back to Biden’s administration. What is different with Trump is that everything is done as a violent public spectacle.
The same number of immigrants is expelled, but Trump publicizes the expulsions, aiming it at all the others who remain. Trump might as well come right out and say it: “Work hard and shut up.”
The ICE roundups and the detention centers are threats aimed at the 15 million immigrants without papers and at tens of millions more who are perfectly legal. In reality, they are aimed at everyone who works here: immigrant or native-born, brown, black or white, woman or man.
Guns targeting one part of the working class will turn their fire on the whole working class.
This is the third book in a series about the book women of the Appalachian hills of Kentucky. Starting in the 1930s, the women, on mule-back, delivered books to remote hills and hollows, and fought illiteracy, ignorance and despair.
The main character has blue skin, a rare genetic condition. Laws put her in jail for marrying a white man. In this book, it is now the early 1950s, and you see life in a women’s prison. You see women locked up for defending themselves, for being in bad company, for mental illness, for resisting racism.
In the 1950s they used jail, violence, forced sterilizations, electric shock and lobotomies to try and control defiant women. Eventually she escapes and ends up migrating to Detroit. Along the way, in and out of prison, she never stops fighting ignorance and illiteracy and bringing hope and dreams of a better world to all.
This award-winning film depicts the events of 1946 Italy after the end of WWII, from the viewpoint of a working-class family in Rome. Filmed in black and white, you get a sense of what it was like to be a woman in a country just emerging from economic hardship, war, fascism and male patriarchy. The movie revolves around the mother receiving a mysterious letter which she hides away.
The film shows the family stuck in abusive relationships, living in close proximity to knowing neighbors, trying to maneuver harsh economic times. The daughter thinks nothing will ever change. Can the future be any better? The mother leads the way.
There is a collapse in entertainment industry jobs in California, and nowhere do the workers feel the pain more than in Los Angeles, the historic center of the movie industry. By some estimates, available film production jobs in L.A. have gone down by 60% between 2021 and 2025.
Behind the glitz and glamor of Hollywood, the workers who make the movies have always endured job insecurity and unpredictable work hours. But today’s crisis seems deeper and longer-lasting. Thousands and thousands of workers needed to produce movies—carpenters, cameramen, light and sound technicians, writers, editors, animators and workers in many other classifications—are struggling to pay their bills and keep their homes. Many of them are working other jobs. Some are moving to other parts of the country—IF they can pick up and go, of course.
Commentators point out that the big Hollywood studios have moved production out of L.A., first to other states like New Jersey and Georgia, and then to other countries like Britain, Australia, Croatia and Hungary—because wages and production costs are lower there, and studios also get big handouts from the governments of those states and countries.
But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Film production has declined also because of conscious choices companies made. In the early 2020s, there was a boom in production when streaming services like Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ and HBO Max, in competition with each other, were producing lots of TV series to sign up more and more subscribers. But once the customers and profits flowed in, the boom gave way to bust. The same companies shifted gears and sharply cut down the number of movies and shows they produce.
And sure enough, big studios’ profits are up. In fiscal year 2025, Disney reported a record operating income (profit before taxes) of 17.6 billion dollars. The company’s net profit was even more impressive: 12.4 billion dollars, a 250% increase from 2024! Netflix had a great year too, with an operating income of 13.3 billion dollars, 28% higher than in 2024. Warner Brothers’ 2025 operating income of 1.7 billion dollars may look modest in comparison, but it was still a 220% increase from 2024.
In this capitalist system, all decisions concerning production are made by a handful of big capitalists, just to increase their own profit. Workers will have job security only when capitalism is replaced with a system that puts the needs of the population above the profits of a few.
For years, thousands of children with severe disabilities who live on Maryland’s Eastern Shore have not had their special needs met because there are not enough special needs schools.
One third of Maryland counties are east of the Bay Bridge, but only one of Maryland’s 70 special needs schools. This spring, a three-year campaign by local people finally shook some money from the state legislature. Now three institutions each propose to build a special needs school on the Eastern Shore.
Every day the financial journalists and TV announcers talk of how well the economy is doing, how high the stock market is going, how low unemployment is. Yet in the first few months of 2026, the largest companies in the U.S. have laid off hundreds of thousands of workers. That will mean a million fewer people working if this pace keeps up for all of 2026.
Amazon let 16,000 workers go from corporate headquarters, after laying off 14,000 a few months earlier. Citibank got rid of 20,000 employees. Heineken cut 5,000 people. UPS has said 30,000 jobs will go this year. Even financial firms like Coinbase and Crypto, supposedly bringing in billions of dollars, are laying off more than 10% of their work forces.
This war is not a new one: it is how bosses have always made money, by laying off some workers and having the ones left do two people’s work. The balance between the bosses and the workers only changes when working people fight back.