United States

Workers in the United States know they are losing ground in the current Depression, as they are watching the rich going in the opposite direction. A decline in real wages comes on top of stagnation of wages in the three previous decades. A new report issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says: “The recent recovery in the United States appears unusual from a historical perspective … with a much stronger rebound in profits relative to labor income.

The protesters in Chicago on May 20, marching against NATO, remind us that the US government is not representative of the US people. It's encouraging to see so many willing to take action and stand up against this unjust, disastrous war. Recently, US President Barack Obama travelled to Kabul to meet Afghanistan's so-called president, Hamid Karzai. Both leaders used this meeting to pretend that they are ending this war when they are really trying to prolong it.

US President Barack Obama announced on May 21 after the Chicago NATO leaders’ summit that the US, NATO and their allies had agreed to end their war of occupation in Afghanistan by the end of 2014. However, the announced “withdrawal” will leave US military bases in the country and some soldiers, including special forces, from the US and its allies to train, advise and assist the armies and militias of the occupiers’ Afghan puppets and warlords and carry out “targeted operations” against al-Qaeda.

Greece's Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) sent a message of solidarity to the thousands of people who protested against the NATO summit in Chicago on May 20.

Anti-war soldiers headed a protest against the NATO summit in Chicago on May 20. Thousands poured through the streets in the largest anti-war demonstration seen in the United States for some time.

The announcement by giant US bank JPMorgan Chase that it had lost US$2 billion in a shady deal shows the kinds of financial speculation that led to the 2007-2009 financial collapse continue to steam ahead. It also underscores that both Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Democrat president Barack Obama are in Wall Street’s pocket. As the financial system was collapsing in the waning months of the George W Bush administration, it responded with huge bailouts of banks and other financial institutions.

To many who were paying attention, the US Socialist Workers Party (SWP) of the 1960s and 1970s seemed an incredibly vibrant organization: between 1000 and 2000 activists animated by high ideals and dynamic Marxism, with a conception of socialism both democratic and revolutionary, and a proven capacity to organize – in impressive united front efforts – effective social movements and struggles capable of bringing about positive change.

The Party, The Socialist Workers Party 1960-1988, Volume II: Interregnum, Decline and Collapse, 1973-1988, A Political Memoir By Barry Sheppard Resistance Books (London), 2011 345 pages. In the 1960s and 1970s, the United States Socialist Workers Party (SWP) was one of the most promising socialist organisations in any imperialist country. Formed in the 1930s, it survived the isolating conservatism of the '50s to play a key role in building many progressive movements, particularly the fight against the Vietnam War.

Say no to the system that produces record profits for the 1% by impoverishing the 99% of us; say yes to a fair city and a better world.

On more than one occasion, I have referred to the infamous agreement which the United States imposed on Latin American and Caribbean countries when the Organisation of American States was founded in Bogota on April 30, 1948. Just by sheer coincidence I happened to be there on that date, helping to organise a Latin American students’ congress with the objective of struggling against European colonialism and the bloody tyranny imposed by the United States in this hemisphere.

The Occupy movement in the United States relaunched itself on May 1 when thousands of people rallied in more than 130 cities across the country to mark May Day — the international day to mark working people's struggles.

In a recent interview with Hip-Hop DX, a hoodie-clad Nas exhibited an understandable amount of despair at the case of African American youth Trayvon Martin, the shot dead by George Zimmerman while walking home from the shops in Florida in February. The US hip hop artist said: “You never want to hear that kind of news. When it happens, you remember how many Trayvon incidents happen everyday all over the world... “It doesn’t seem like the race problem will ever get solved. I like to be optimistic, but it doesn’t seem like it’ll ever get solved.”