Workers World Party

06/01/2026

workers.org/?p=24250/
Helen Keller: Socialist, anti-racist, disability rights activist �June 27, 1880 - June 1, 1968.��Helen Keller is perhaps remembered by most people in the U.S. for one moment in her life, dramatized in the play and movie “The Miracle Worker.” Seven-year-old Helen, without sight or hearing because of an illness at 19 months, stands with arms outstretched as her teacher, Annie Sullivan, pours water over her hands and finger-spells W-A-T-E-R over and over into her palms. As consciousness of the connection between word and substance comes to her, Helen is transformed.��

That dramatic moment is typical of how Helen Keller’s complex radical life has been reduced to a stereotypical symbol of “heroic disability” and also distorted by the sexist and ableist notion that she was only a blank slate for others to write their ideas upon.

��Keller was decidedly a person who thought for herself. She was born in 1880 near Tuscumbia, Ala., to a Confederate veteran — a plantation owner who had previously enslaved people of African descent. Keller was raised on the farm during the violently racist post-Reconstruction era when Southern plantation owners and Northern capitalists were striking deals for de facto re-enslavement of recently freed Black people.��

Yet Keller as an adult became a staunch anti-racist, an outspoken supporter of the recently founded NAACP and writer for its magazine, “The Crisis.” She demonstrated through the 1950s, into her elder years, in anti-segregation protests and rallies. (“Helen Keller: Selected Writings,” 2005)��

Her growth as a thinker and activist was no miracle. It was rooted in her access to the extensive political library of Annie Sullivan’s socialist spouse, John Macy. By 1908, after her graduation from college, Keller was reading Marx, Engels, socialist publications and Marxist economics, often in German Braille...

06/01/2026

It's PRIDE month! Find an activity in your area (or start one). Educate others why PRIDE. Oppose corporate takeover of PRIDE.

And solidarity with all those working for liberation in West Asia.

05/31/2026

https://www.workers.org/2026/05/92884/..
We defend Cuba by combatting the intentionally negative stereotyping of a failed state. The problems Cuba faces under blockade conditions should not be portrayed in such alarmist ways that it reinforces Washington’s propaganda. We need to combat this defeatist approach.

Cuba is being sanctioned for the crime of being a good example

That Washington continues to intensify its six-decade campaign against the Cuban Revolution testifies to the island’s resilience and strength.

Washington’s regime-change campaign has taken a heavy toll. Responsible Statecraft describes U.S. policy as “bent on breaking the island.” (May 11, 2026) The Guardian reports “an epidemic of flies, rats, waste and foul odors.” (May 7, 2026)..

This statement was initiated by the SanctionsKill Campaign. At this critical junction in world history when the Cuban Revolution is being threatened by U.S. hegemony, it is essential to come to its defense. Cuba is the hope of humanity. We defend Cuba by combatting the intentionally negat

05/31/2026

https://www.workers.org/2026/05/92932/..
Kyle Ferrana addressed some of the myths about China propagated in the Western press, particularly regarding the use of coal-fired power plants. Chinese coal plants now set the world record for efficiency, and the newer, cleaner state-owned coal capacity is being built to replace older, less efficient plants. State-of-the-art Chinese coal technology burns hotter and produces more power with less pollution than Western coal plants. Ferrana recently visited China and testified that the skies over the largest Chinese cities are quite clear.

Ferrana spoke about China’s efforts in reforestation and aquaculture: “China has doubled the amount of forest cover since 1980. . . . More trees are planted [in China] each year than in the rest of the world combined.” He said that Chinese wild ocean fishing peaked in 2015 and is now in decline. In the last few decades, aquaculture production has doubled and now dominates over 50% of the entire global market...

Portland, Oregon Seven authors of the book “China Changes Everything” spoke at the Portland-based webinar event “China’s Global Green Revolution” on May 16. Each contributor discussed their chapter of the book in light of this year’s rapid global changes and China’s development as a gl...

05/30/2026

https://www.workers.org/2008/world/france_1968_0327/
"The French railroad worker who declared, 'The students were the fuse; we (the workers) were the powder keg,' said a revolutionary mouthful last week..." Vince Copeland goes on to give a summary of events leading up to the revolutionary situation in France in 1968.

Sam Marcy then discusses the road forward - from the view of a current struggle still going on then. "The alternative that is needed is a national organization of Workers’ Councils, Peasant Councils, Poor Peoples’ Councils and Student Councils. That is the real alternative to the discredited National Assembly..."

�These articles offer so many lessons for revolutionaries today, including those in the current struggles in France. (The banner reads: "Workers Students United We Will Win")�

05/30/2026

https://www.workers.org/2026/05/92887/
In international politics, wars rarely begin with a single shot. They start with carefully measured leaks, alarmist headlines, intelligence reports, court documents and narrative operations designed to transform a political adversary into an existential threat.

For weeks, outlets like Axios and Politico have been gradually shifting the narrative framing of Cuba based on direct leaks from the State Department. The island no longer appears solely as a country battered by economic crisis, the blockade or energy shortages. It is now presented as a strategic threat, with alleged hostile intelligence capabilities, military cooperation, drones and offensive potential against the United States.

Between an outburst by [President] Donald Trump May 20 and another later by Secretary of State Marco Rubio a day later, a particularly sensitive new element has emerged: the opening of a legal case against Raúl Castro, the guerrilla symbol of the Cuban Revolution, who is now accused of shooting down, in 1996, two Cessna 337 light aircraft owned by Brothers to the Rescue. The Department of Justice, which included the names of five other Cubans alongside Raúl’s, is repeating the pattern already used against Nicolás Maduro.

The case of the light aircraft fits perfectly into a logic of gradual escalation of the conflict. The reactivation of legal charges against Raúl Castro is part of a political and media operation aimed at portraying Cuba as a threat and legitimizing new measures of pressure and exceptionalism.

Cuba denounced 1996 incursions to U.S. officials..
January 1998: New Yorker debunked anti-Cuba lies

The New Yorker, in January 1998, debunked much of the subsequent narrative, which portrayed Cuba as the culprit. The article revealed that high-ranking U.S. officials were fully aware of the risk of a confrontation, that explicit warnings had come from Havana and that U.S. officials had even sent mixed signals regarding a possible halt to Brothers to the Rescue flights. They even went so far as to wonder what the Bill Clinton administration would have done if planes coming from Cuba had engaged, not once but many times, in violating Washington’s airspace.

Within the U.S. establishment itself, there was an awareness that Basulto — a Bay of Pigs mercenary and a longtime participant in paramilitary operations against Cuba — was acting in an increasingly provocative and uncontrolled manner. Officials, diplomats and former military personnel warned that a serious incident was practically inevitable if the flights continued. Anyone, with the click of a mouse, can find the evidence.

However, following the downing of the light aircraft, the episode was quickly turned into a tool of domestic politics. Bill Clinton ended up signing the [1996] Helms-Burton Act [which tightened the U.S. blockade of Cuba], froze any attempt at détente with Cuba and codified the blockade into U.S. law to prevent future presidents from dismantling or easing it through executive decisions.

This article by Rosa Miriam Elizalde was published May 21, 2026, in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada and translated by Resumen English with the headline, “The shadow of the small planes.” The original Spanish is here: jornada.com/. In international politics, wars rarely begin with a single s

05/29/2026

https://www.workers.org/2026/05/92935/
..
While Ebola is nowhere near as contagious as COVID-19 — Ebola is spread by direct contact with an infected person or their bodily fluids and is not airborne like COVID-19 — it is still dangerous and just a plane trip away from becoming a major problem in an urban center. Although the eastern area of the DRC is an area with few airports or roads, the virus is able to spread rapidly.

The U.S. has made a $23 million pledge for support for DRC and Ugandan government emergency health initiatives. The “restructuring” of USAID severed deep, multi-decade, institutional relationships with local health ministries. The current minimal pledge represents only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to control Ebola, aid that reached $361 million to control the outbreak in 2018-2020. (kff.org/global-health-policy/is-the-u-s-stepping-up-in-the-fight-against-ebola/)

The African CDC no longer has a relationship with the U.S. CDC, because the U.S. has decided that it wants bilateral relationships, not multilateral ones. Like any business relationship, a bilateral health relationship would let the U.S. “extort” favorable treatment in minerals or other lucrative sectors.

An example of this is Zambia, where the U.S. is considering withdrawing funding for life-saving malaria, tuberculosis and HIV programs to pressure the Zambian government to sign the Zambia–U.S. Health Deal, which would give the U.S. preferential access to Zambia’s mineral resources.

Imperialism has exploited the people and resources of Africa for centuries. Africa is owed reparations. The U.S. and other wealthy imperialist countries should fund Ebola care, prevention and research with no strings attached.

Caption: Members of the Congo Scouts movement carry an Ebola awareness banner along a street during a public sensitization campaign amid the Ebola outbreak in Bunia, Congo, May 23, 2026. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has an estimated $24 trillion of untapped mineral wealth, perhaps t

05/29/2026

https://www.workers.org/2026/05/92899/
Onyesonwu Chatoyer was the featured speaker at a forum sponsored by Portland State University’s Cuba Solidarity Club on May 21. Chatoyer is the co-chair of the National Network on Cuba, editor of Hood Communist and an organizer with the Venceremos Brigade.

In a fiery talk, Chatoyer described the long history of U.S. terrorist attacks on Cuba and explained reasons why the Cuban people have not abandoned their revolution: “The U.S. blockade of Cuba, over six decades old, is intended to cut Cuba off from the global community. They are not just targeting communists; they have been intentionally targeting civilians from the beginning. But the Cuban people will never willingly go back to colonization.”

The U.S., aligned with right-wing Cubans, has backed and funded terrorist attacks on Cuba, “hired mercenaries to set bombs off in Cuba and assassinated Cuban political leaders inside the U.S.” Chatoyer referred to the Belly of the Beast documentary “Hardliner on the Hudson” to describe former Senator Robert Menendez’s association with the Cuban-American terrorist groups Omega 7 and Alpha 66 during the 1970s and 1980s.

These groups waged war against Fidel Castro from their base in New Jersey, attacking embassies in New York City. They blew up businesses and gunned down Cuban Americans believed to be doing business with the Cuban government. Many of them had been trained by the CIA to use explosives for the (failed) Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. ..

Portland, Oregon — Onyesonwu Chatoyer was the featured speaker at a forum sponsored by Portland State University’s Cuba Solidarity Club on May 21. Chatoyer is the co-chair of the National Network on Cuba, editor of Hood Communist and an organizer with the Venceremos Brigade. In a fiery talk, Cha

05/28/2026

https://www.workers.org/2026/05/92909/
The U.S. military launched attacks on Iran over Memorial Day weekend that once again can turn West Asia into a massive battlefield that disrupts the world’s economy and threatens world war. The Pentagon already lost the initial round of the aggression the U.S. and Israel started on Feb. 28.

That first round exposed the viciousness of the imperialist ruling class and its pit bull cronies in Tel Aviv and revealed the weaknesses of the U.S. Armed Forces in West Asia. Yet they’re doing it again. And the war has already cost the U.S. at least $50 billion, according to CBS News on April 30.

Iranian negotiators were traveling to Doha, Qatar, to take part in talks to turn the April 8 ceasefire into a more permanent agreement. According to Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, speaking for the U.S. Central Command, the U.S. military hit what he called missile sites in southern Iran. He claimed the object of the strikes was to protect U.S. troops.

Workers World has two quick reactions to this military aggression that we would like to share with all people who want to end the war: One, the U.S. and Israel are the aggressors and, two, the Islamic Republic of Iran has the right to take whatever steps it considers necessary to protect its government and its people.

The Pentagon spokespeople, the MAGA regime in Washington and the media that always defend imperialist interests can’t be trusted to say one word of truth.

If the U.S. Central Command really wanted to protect U.S. troops from harm, it would remove them from West Asia, along with the warships, planes, drones and missiles that have murdered so many people in the region.

The U.S. military launched attacks on Iran over Memorial Day weekend that once again can turn West Asia into a massive battlefield that disrupts the world’s economy and threatens world war. The Pentagon already lost the initial round of the aggression the U.S. and Israel started on Feb. 28. That

05/28/2026

https://www.workers.org/2026/05/92905/
There are no limits to the violence Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will use against migrants and their supporters. This is clear from crimes including the January murders of activists Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, the December murder of Keith Porter Jr. in Los Angeles and the deaths of over 50 migrants held in “detention centers” across the U.S. — really concentration camps — since President Donald Trump took office.

This brutality is on display again in Newark, New Jersey, outside the recently reopened Delaney Hall center, currently privately run by the notorious GEO Group. About 300 migrants began a hunger strike on May 22 to protest deplorable conditions, including rotten food and lack of access to medical care.

“People just sleep on the floor — overcrowded rooms, cold showers, no food, extremely cold in the cells with no blankets. Not sound conditions to live in,” said Selenia Destefani, an attorney for the detainees. (CNN, May 26)

Immigrant rights activists began demonstrating in solidarity outside the facility on May 25 after reports surfaced that leaders of the hunger strike, including Martin Soto, would be transferred to a different facility farther from their loved ones. Soto’s spouse, Gabriela Soto, who is pregnant with the couple’s third child, organized the protest. Hunger strikers’ demands include: no retaliation against them and for the release of elders, children and those with a health condition.

ICE cops outside the center reacted with violence, arresting at least one protester and teargassing and pepper spraying others. U.S. Senator Andy Kim of New Jersey was among those sprayed, and the state’s governor, Mikie Sherrill, who sought to investigate the conditions that sparked the hunger strike, was denied entry to Delaney Hall. Some protesters complained that the politicians weren’t doing enough about the situation, asking Sherrill why she waited four days after the hunger strike began to show up.

There are no limits to the violence Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will use against migrants and their supporters. This is clear from crimes including the January murders of activists Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, the December murder of Keith Porter Jr. in Los Angeles