Drought crisis is result of profit system

Vol. 87/No. 5 - February 6, 2023

Statement issued Jan. 25 by Ellie García, Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. Senate from California in 2022. Working farmers are victims of conditions over which they have no control. But these are not primarily natural disasters such as the…


25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

Vol. 87/No. 5 - February 6, 2023

February 9, 1998 The conduct of Cuban president Fidel Castro and of hundreds of thousands of Cuban people during the Pope’s visit provided a joyous glimpse of what it means for the proletariat to be in power with a firm,…


Iran protests, strikes demand better life, end to repression

Protests strongest among oppressed nationalities
Vol. 87/No. 5 - February 6, 2023
Jubilados de Haft Tappeh y Pars Paper en Shus, Juzestán, Irán, protestan el 22 de enero, para exigir protección contra inflación, fin a la discriminación. Cartel dice: “¡No a la humillación!”

Retirees and other workers protested outside at least a dozen government offices across Iran Jan. 22 demanding a substantial increase in the minimum wage and pensions. Called by the Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Workers Union, the Coordinating Committee to Help Build…


Support Ukraine independence, fight to defeat Putin’s invasion

Vol. 87/No. 5 - February 6, 2023

Russian President Vladimir Putin is now preparing to turn his nearly yearlong invasion of Ukraine into a drawn-out and grinding war, with systematic air and artillery attacks on civilian targets. He’s building up troop levels and weaponry for a new…


Calif. farmers face ongoing drought amid record rain

Vol. 87/No. 5 - February 6, 2023
Frank Ferreira, who grows wheat and corn on his 30-acre farm in San Joaquin Valley, California, talks to Militant Jan. 7. He said capitalist farmers, the “big guys,” who can pay for deeper wells, take out 90% of the water for irrigation. This literally leaves working farmers high and dry.

VISALIA, Calif. — Three years of drought and now floods from heavy rains have had a severe impact on the conditions and livelihoods of farmers and workers in the San Joaquin Valley, one of the most productive agricultural areas in…



Mood of gloom and doom pervades the ‘globalists’ at the Davos summit

Vol. 87/No. 5 - February 6, 2023

A mood of doom and gloom hovered over the gathering of some 2,700 bosses, bankers, speculators, government officials and meritocratic hangers-on at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 16-20. Underlying their despondency is the sharpening political and social…


103 years since ‘Palmer Raids’ unleashed FBI against workers

Vol. 87/No. 5 - February 6, 2023
Mass arrests of union, communist militants during 1920 “Palmer Raids” under Democratic President Woodrow Wilson led to arrests of up to 10,000, politically motivated deportations.

“This Day in History” on Fox News retold the story about the Jan. 2, 1920, “Palmer Raids,” carried out by Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and his right-hand man, J. Edgar Hoover. They “unleashed a shocking…


Road to women’s emancipation debated at US women’s marches

Vol. 87/No. 5 - February 6, 2023
From left, nursing students Jessica Forsgren, Ashley Morgan discuss way forward with SWP Chicago mayor candidate Ilona Gersh and member Naomi Craine at Jan. 22 women’s rights rally in Madison, Wisconsin. SWP explains there is no “road to Black liberation or women’s emancipation separate and apart from working-class struggle to confront capitalism’s social crises.”

MADISON, Wisc. — Some 2,000 people took part in a women’s march and rally here Jan. 22 calling for the overturn of an 1849 state law banning nearly all abortions, and for the reopening of clinics that provide the procedure.…


Manchester rail workers join nurses pickets, bring support

Vol. 87/No. 5 - February 6, 2023
Maggie Heaton, left, Royal College of Nurses union representative for North West England, discusses strike for pay raise and improved working conditions Jan. 18 with rail workers Ólof Andra Proppé and Gary Boyle, who brought solidarity from Manchester Piccadilly Station.

MANCHESTER, England — “Representatives from the RMT and ASLEF rail worker unions came and showed their solidarity with the nurses. They handed around a sheet with 130 messages of support from workers from Piccadilly Station,” reported the Manchester Evening News…