Iraq protests shake up moves to form new gov’t

Rulers in US, Moscow, Tehran vie to protect interests
Vol. 82/No. 36 - October 1, 2018
Demonstrators Sept. 12 in Basra hold Iraqi flags and images of protesters killed at previous actions demanding water, electricity, jobs and an end to Iranian interference in the country.

Following widespread protests by working people and others against the Iraqi government’s failure to supply basic necessities and the impact of the Iranian rulers’ military intervention and assaults on Iraqi sovereignty, talks to establish a coalition government between U.S.-backed Prime…


Social catastrophe from storms are a product of capitalist rule

Vol. 82/No. 36 - October 1, 2018
Cajun Navy volunteer helps evacuate trailer park in Lumberton, North Carolina, Sept. 15.

According to the liberal news media, nature’s inevitable storms and floods, exacerbated by rampant global warming, are the reason for the unfolding social disasters in North Carolina, the Philippines and Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Florence, Typhoon Mangkhut…


SF hotel workers rally, say ‘One job should be enough’

Vol. 82/No. 36 - October 1, 2018

SAN FRANCISCO — Chanting “One job should be enough!” some 1,000 hotel workers, members of UNITE HERE Local 2, and their supporters marched here on Labor Day Sept. 3. Actions took place that day at Marriott-owned hotels in seven other…


Striking hotel workers in Chicago rally for yearlong health care

Vol. 82/No. 36 - October 1, 2018
Thousands of hotel workers on strike in Chicago march through city demanding new contract. “Hotel owners say we don’t work enough hours to get health insurance,” said housekeeper Laura McKinney at the demonstration. “That’s the main reason we’re on strike.”

CHICAGO — “Every winter when the hotel business slows down, the lower seniority workers get laid off or our hours get cut. Then the hotel owners say we don’t work enough hours to get health insurance, and we’re without until…


Industrial glass strikers in Montreal win solidarity

Vol. 82/No. 36 - October 1, 2018

MONTREAL — “They want us to do overtime without overtime pay,” Oldcastle Building Envelope striker Bruno Zaviolette told the Militant on the Unifor Local 6000 picket line here Sept. 12. “All we want is a wage increase to cover the…


‘Militant’ wins a round, fight against prison censors goes on

Vol. 82/No. 36 - October 1, 2018

The Florida Department of Corrections overturned the impoundment of issue no. 29 of the Militant Sept. 12. The department’s Literature Review Committee also recently overturned the ban on five other issues of the paper. These are victories for all those…


Great Russian artists of 19th century and 1917 Bolshevik Revolution

Vol. 82/No. 36 - October 1, 2018
Ilya Repin’s painting “Barge Haulers on the Volga” (1870-73), discussed in article by Morson. Inset, Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), who wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

On July 29 the Weekly Standard ran an article entitled “Pig and People,” by Gary Saul Morson, a professor of Russian art and literature at Northwestern University. The article is available online. Morson develops his view that “Russia’s greatest writers,…


‘We need to get a union into the place where I work’

Vol. 82/No. 36 - October 1, 2018

“We need a union where I work,” Stephanie Revill, 42, who has worked at National Beef for 11 years, told Rachele Fruit, Socialist Workers Party candidate for Georgia governor. “We work in the cold and never know when we’ll get…


Protests in Dallas demand cop who killed Botham Jean be fired

Vol. 82/No. 36 - October 1, 2018
Protesters attend Dallas City Council hearing Sept. 12, demanding Dallas cop Amber Guyger be fired, jailed for shooting and killing of Botham Jean, 26, in his own apartment.

RICHARDSON, Texas — “The sound of the gunshots did not have the resonance to be heard on our small island, but its impact was of nuclear proportions,” Ignatius Jean told the more than 1,500 people who filled the Greenville Church…


Are frenzied liberals afflicted with ‘Trump derangement syndrome’?

Vol. 82/No. 36 - October 1, 2018

As the November midterm elections loom, liberals in the Democratic Party and media, and the middle-class left, are grabbing anything to try and advance their frenetic “resistance” against the Donald Trump presidency. They are driven by fear of the workers…