As
2017 comes to a close, the political crisis within the United States
and internationally is entering a new stage: Ferocious conflicts within
the ruling class, talk of nuclear war against North Korea, unprecedented
levels of social inequality, moves to pass a tax plan that will hand
out billions to the corporate and financial elite.
Under
these conditions, the ruling classes around the world are seeking to
block workers from accessing a socialist perspective. Google, working
closely with the intelligence agencies and the Democratic Party, has led
the way through its campaign of internet censorship, which has
particularly targeted the WSWS. This is only the beginning.
Donating
to the WSWS has never been more important. We need your help to fight
back. There is a great deal that we must do. The fight against Internet
censorship requires resources. We must have more meetings. We must send
reporters to more areas. We must invest in new technologies.
Support for socialism is growing all over the world. We see it every
day. But the WSWS needs your aid to carry forward the fight.
This week, the WSWS launched its New Year Fund Appeal. Please read the appeal and make a large donation to the WSWS today.
Fraternally,
Joseph Kishore
SEP National Secretary |
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 Support the World Socialist Web Site New Year Fund!
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By Andre Damon
The US Federal Communication Commission (FCC) voted Thursday to overturn
rules, known as net neutrality, that required internet service
providers (ISPs) to treat all data on the internet the same and
prohibited them from limiting or blocking users’ access to web sites and
services.
The ruling heralds a new age in internet communications, where giant
internet and technology monopolies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast
regulate what information people have access to.
It is difficult to overstate the momentous implications of the ruling.
It allows a small cabal of home internet service providers and mobile
data carriers to operate a blacklist of oppositional web sites and
services, effectively blocking access to them for nearly all Americans. Read more » |
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 World’s richest one percent capture twice as much income growth as the bottom half
By Niles Niemuth
The inaugural World Inequality Report published on Thursday by
economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, Gabriel Zucman, Facundo
Alvaredo and Lucas Chancel documents the rise in global income and
wealth inequality since 1980.
The report covers up to 2016, leaving out the last year, in which the
stock market has soared on the expectation that the US will enact
massive tax cuts, providing yet another windfall for the rich.
The report found that between 1980 and 2016 the world’s richest one
percent captured twice the income growth as the bottom half of the
world’s population, contributing to a significant rise in global
inequality. Read more » |
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 Lessons of the Alabama election
By Patrick Martin
Media pundits and Democratic Party leaders are hailing the outcome of
the special election in Alabama to fill a seat in the US Senate—with
Democrat Doug Jones narrowly defeating the ultra-right Republican Roy
Moore—as a political “miracle.”
The spreading of editorial rose petals over the Alabama result should
fool no one. A right-wing Democrat, operating with a nearly 10-1
financial advantage, has eked out a victory over a fascistic candidate,
not by confronting and opposing Moore’s ultra-right pronouncements, let
alone offering an alternative to defend working people. Instead, Jones
owes his razor-thin margin to the unleashing over the past month of a
barrage of allegations of sexual misconduct by Moore.
Following the defeat of Moore, the Democrats are doubling down on their
strategy of opposing Trump based on anti-Russia hysteria and allegations
of sexual misconduct, aimed primarily at mobilizing sections of the
upper middle class. They are seeking to divert and suppress working
class opposition to the Trump administration behind a politics that is
compatible with the aims of the financial aristocracy and the
military-intelligence apparatus. Read more » |
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Over a million in Puerto Rico living without the necessities of modern life
By Genevieve Leigh and Zac Corrigan
Nearly three months since Hurricane Maria made landfall on the island of
Puerto Rico as a Category 5 storm, hundreds of thousands of workers and
youth continue to live without the basic neccessities of modern life.
Over a million of the island’s estimated 3.4 million residents are still
without electricity and running water. At least 700 schools remain
closed with thousands of students either redirected to other schools or
forced to stay home. Many of the rural areas in the center of the island
have yet to be reached and many roads still lay in disrepair.
The storm has laid bare the horrific conditions under which the working
class in Puerto Rico has been living for decades. Like working people on
the mainland of the United States, the island’s residents are subjected
to dangerously poor infrastructure, lack of healthcare, unemployment,
poverty, cuts to education and social services while the wealth of a
handful of billionaires grows at a staggering rate. The situation for
the working class in Puerto Rico is magnified by the island’s
“commonwealth” status and the legacy of colonial oppression by the US.
A reporting team from the World Socialist Web Site is
currently traveling throughout the island to document the ongoing
crisis, the lack of aid from the Trump administration and local
authorities, and the corporate and government efforts to exploit the
desperate situation to accelerate the looting of public assets.
Read more » |
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 Washington’s secret wars
By Bill Van Auken
The Trump White House Monday issued a so-called “War Powers” letter
addressed to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and the president pro
tempore of the Senate, Orin Hatch, to “keep the Congress informed about
deployments of United States Armed Forces equipped for combat.”
In 1973, against the backdrop of the debacle of the Vietnam War, the US
Congress, overriding the veto of then-President Richard Nixon, passed
the War Powers Act. The aim of the legislation was to prevent future
presidents from waging undeclared and open-ended wars with little or no
accountability to Congress, which under the US Constitution has the
exclusive power to declare war.
It gave the president the right to use military force at his discretion
for up to 60 days—itself a huge concession of power to the executive
branch—but required withdrawal after a total of 90 days if Congress
failed to vote its approval of military action.
While still on the books, the War Powers Act has long ago been turned
into a dead letter by the quarter century of US wars of aggression that
have followed the Stalinist bureaucracy’s dissolution of the Soviet
Union, all waged without a declaration of war by Congress. Read more » |
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 Ron Chernow’s Grant: An able and compelling new biography
By Andre Damon
Ron Chernow’s new biography of Ulysses S. Grant is an account and
analysis of the life of the Civil War general, two-time US president and
memoirist.
Chernow’s task in writing Grant’s biography was complicated. Not only
did his life span hairpin turns in American social and political
history, but Grant was, and continues to be, one of the most unfairly
calumniated individuals in American politics.
To make things more difficult, Grant was a unique personality: A general
who hated the sight of blood, an abstemious alcoholic, an eloquent
writer famous for his silence, a morally upright man who spent his last
decades surrounded by corruption.
It is a testament to the success of Chernow’s book that out of this mass
of political, historical and personal complexities an integral picture
of Grant and his age emerges. Chernow’s biography serves as a complement
to Grant’s memoirs, helping to provide political and personal context
to Grant’s firsthand account of the Civil War. Read more » |
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