Tag: World Socialist Web Site

The 1619 Project and the New York Times’ glorification of the UK monarchy

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

In its coverage of the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the coronation of King Charles, the New York Times has published article after article celebrating the pageantry of the British monarchy. In so doing, the newspaper responsible for publishing the 1619 Project has entangled itself in many layers of contradictions.

The 1619 Project and the New York Times’ glorification of the UK monarchy

Forty-year anniversary of Vincent Chin killing marked amid surge of anti-Asian violence

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

June 19 marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Chinese-American draftsman Vincent Chin, who was beaten to death in Detroit by Chrysler plant superintendent Ronald Ebens and his unemployed stepson Michael Nitz. The murder took place amid a wave of anti-Japanese hysteria fanned by the United Auto Workers and Democratic Party politicians.

Forty-year anniversary of Vincent Chin killing marked amid surge of anti-Asian violence

Facebook’s suspension of Donald Trump is not a free speech issue

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Facebook’s suspension of Donald Trump is not a free speech issue

The fact is that social media censorship overwhelmingly targets the left, not the right. Last year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai admitted that the company censors the World Socialist Web Site, and the WSWS remains buried in search results for “socialism,” “socialist,” “Trotskyism,” and “class struggle,” despite being universally recognized as the most comprehensive authority on these issues.

For months, Facebook blocked the sharing of a WSWS article opposing the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was a Chinese-made bioweapon, and anyone who attempted to share the article was either warned or suspended. Leading members of the WorldSocialist Web Site editorial board—including US managing editor Niles Niemuth—have been suspended from Facebook entirely without cause.

Greenwald and his co-thinkers, while condemning Facebook’s supposed violation of Trump’s free speech, have made no mention of the ongoing censorship of the World Socialist Web Site. In fact, in November, Chris Hedges bluntly refused, in response to an appeal by WSWS international editorial board Chairman David North, to make a statement opposing the suspension of the Twitter account of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), claiming he was too busy.

Too busy for a Tweet?! Glenn’s a lost cause, as far as I’m concerned (So is Jimmy).

Why Biden supports the unionization of the Amazon workforce

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Why Biden supports the unionization of the Amazon workforce

First, the ruling class confronts an unprecedented crisis, which has been enormously intensified by the pandemic. As a result of the refusal of the ruling class to take the necessary measures to save lives, nearly 530,000 people have died from COVID-19 over the past year. The impact of mass death, combined with the disastrous social and economic situation, is having a profoundly radicalizing impact on the consciousness of workers and youth.

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Second, the international situation is no less concerning to the ruling class, which is determined to maintain its global hegemonic position through the use of military force. The Biden administration is carrying out an increasingly confrontational policy toward Russia and, in particular, China. The logic of this policy leads to war. In the event of a major “great power conflict,” the pro-capitalist unions will be critical in promoting national chauvinism and suppressing the class struggle. War abroad requires a disciplined “labor movement” at home.

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The strategy Biden is pursuing is known as corporatism—that is, the integration of the government with the corporations and the unions on the basis of a defense of the capitalist system. In 1938, Trotsky drew attention to this tendency when he wrote, in the founding document of the Fourth International, “In periods of acute class struggle, the leading bodies of the trade unions aim to become masters of the mass movement in order to render it harmless… In time of war or revolution, when the bourgeoisie is plunged into exceptional difficulties, trade union leaders usually become bourgeois ministers.”

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At its most fundamental level, the promotion of the unions by the ruling class is aimed at quarantining workers from socialism. The overriding fear of the ruling class is that the objective radicalization of the working class, intensified by the pandemic, will acquire a socialist leadership and political program. It is this fear that is behind Biden’s extraordinary intervention at Amazon.