US rulers step up threats, sanctions against Iran – US hands off!

Vol. 83/ No. 28 - August 5, 2019

Washington continues to increase its substantial military forces in the Middle East, amid deepening tensions with the bourgeois clerical rulers in Tehran, as Iranian Revolutionary Guards provocatively seized a British-flagged oil tanker and its crew of 23, July 19. The…


‘I’d like to see the miners fighting back everywhere’

Vol. 83/ No. 28 - August 5, 2019
Alyson Kennedy, SWP 2016 candidate for president, center, and Malcolm Jarrett, SWP candidate for Pittsburgh City Council, talk with Christy Cozby, a health care worker in Pittsburgh.

NEW HILL, W.Va. — Alyson Kennedy, Socialist Workers Party candidate for president in 2016 and a former coal miner, and other SWP campaigners joined Judy Gillespie on her porch here July 20, discussing the SWP’s program. Gillespie got into the…


Fight to keep family planning clinics open that offer abortion

Vol. 83/ No. 28 - August 5, 2019
Crowd greets May 31 restraining order against closing of Missouri’s only family planning clinic providing abortion. In foreground, Missouri Planned Parenthood officer M’Evie Mead.

In St. Louis, abortion rights supporters are fighting to keep open Missouri’s one remaining Planned Parenthood clinic, which provides family planning help, including abortion. Across the Mississippi River, Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Illinois, reports that 50% of…


Six years after Lac-Megantic, how to fight for rail safety?

Vol. 83/ No. 28 - August 5, 2019
Bosses drive to boost profits led to train derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, in July 2013, killing 47 people. Rail coalition there sent solidarity message to people of East Palestine, Ohio.

It has been six years since a driverless 72-car oil train rolled into downtown Lac-Megantic in Quebec at 65 mph, derailed and exploded, killing 47 people and leveling the city’s downtown on July 6, 2013. But the conditions facing rail…


Baltimore Symphony musicians protest lockout, moves to cut pay

Vol. 83/ No. 28 - August 5, 2019

BALTIMORE — Chanting “Step up, step down, Baltimore’s a union town,” and “If we can’t make the music, we can make some noise,” Baltimore Symphony Orchestra musicians, members of Local 40-543 of the American Federation of Musicians, and their supporters…


Quebec workers strike senior residences for $15 minimum pay

Vol. 83/ No. 28 - August 5, 2019

MONTREAL — Some 950 workers in 10 private senior residences went on strike here, in Quebec City and six other towns in Quebec. The walkout, a weeklong in most places, continued through July 20. “Our main demand is for a…


Indiana Machinists strike for health care, higher pay

Vol. 83/ No. 28 - August 5, 2019

VALPARAISO, Ind. — Some 80 striking members of International Association of Machinists Local 2018 rallied here July 15 ahead of afternoon negotiations with Regal Beloit bosses. They were joined by family members and other area unionists in a lively protest…


Moonwalk 50 years on – what it shows about life on earth

Vol. 83/ No. 28 - August 5, 2019
“Why can’t similar organization and scientific knowledge be applied to make our everyday lives more secure and livable?” Socialist Workers Party leader Joe Hansen asked after 1969 moon landing. Historic scientific advance “should greatly increase sentiment for socialism.”

All the daily big-business press — and discussions by workers in bodegas, ball games and barbecues — this week have touched on the 50th anniversary of the U.S. 1969 moon launch and Buzz Aldrin’s and Neil Armstrong’s walks there. Of…


Huge Puerto Rico marches demand governor resign

Support the fight to end US colonial rule!
Vol. 83/ No. 28 - August 5, 2019
July 17 protest demanding resignation of Gov. Ricardo Rosselló in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Hundreds of thousands have marched. Question posed is what should working people do next.

The July 23 march of some half a million people in San Juan, Puerto Rico, made it clear that the daily actions there since July 13 won’t stop until Ricardo Rosselló resigns as governor. And that his resignation won’t put…


‘Toilers of the East awakening is part of world revolution’

Vol. 83/ No. 28 - August 5, 2019

The selection below is from The First Five Years of the Communist International, vol. 1 by Leon Trotsky. It is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for July. The Communist International was founded in 1919 by new parties seeking…