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Together, We Must Resist the Warmongers!
Despite the dizzying flip-flopping by the Trump-led U.S. government, their war in the Middle East continues and threatens everyone in the world. Negotiations and ceasefires seem to be on again/off again every few days. Israel announced a ceasefire with Lebanon, but continues to drop bombs on Lebanese civilians on the bad faith excuse that they are attacking Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed political party. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, sometimes by Iran, sometimes by the U.S., has thrown global oil trade and therefore the world economy into turmoil. The risk of expanding the war is terrifying. We face runaway inflation, economic instability, and cuts to social services and all funding that isn’t directly funding the war efforts, while military spending balloons.
All the while, bombs fall on civilians in Iran, Lebanon, Israel, and other countries in the region. This bloody chaos was set off by Trump and Netanyahu’s “Bomb First” idea of diplomacy. U.S. negotiations with the Iranian government were underway when the deadly attacks on Iran and Lebanon started. This is a strategy of negotiating through fear and showing willingness to “bomb them back to the stone age,” as U.S. leadership said during the Vietnam war and now again in the Iran war. Such atrocities are nothing new for imperialism, whether German imperialism’s genocide in Europe in World War II, the U.S.’s use of nuclear bombs against civilian populations in Japan, or the U.S.-supported Zionist genocide against Palestine, to mention just a few examples.
There are thousands of dead and wounded because the U.S. and Israeli governments wanted to bomb first and negotiate from a stronger position. The result is not just the dead and wounded so far; it will be the longer-term results of bombing healthcare facilities, schools, apartment buildings, oil reserves, and other essential ecosystems and infrastructure for life that will take years to rebuild.
One outcome is not in doubt. The global oil barons are making a killing. The 100 leading petro-companies in the world collectively made extra profits of $30 million per hour during the first month of the war. In March alone, they made $23 billion in “extra” profits. These companies, led by the likes of ExxonMobil and Saudi Aramco, are using the war to steal billions from the pockets of working people around the world. These same companies insist that global heating is not real or at least that we will survive it well. But the science and our lived experience clearly show that this is a lie. We face climate catastrophe around the world—increasingly violent storms, rising sea levels, heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, species extinctions, and more—certainly ending life as we know it, and probably worse, if we do nothing to counter it.
April 22 is Earth Day, an annual global event started in 1970 calling attention to pollution of the environment and more recently the deepening climate catastrophe. On this year’s Earth Day, we must address, among other atrocities, the war that is pushing oil profits sky-high, while further destroying our suffering planet.
In the face of the current war and the growing global climate devastation, it’s not unusual for people to feel that the situation is hopeless. But, there is good reason to be hopeful. Many people in the U.S. and around the world know that imperialist wars and the dominance of fossil fuel billionaires are not in the interest of the vast majority. Together, we can fight this feeling of hopelessness and set a new course for ourselves and for the planet.
We need to talk to each other at work, at school, at the supermarket, while riding on mass transit, and at community events. We can talk about how so many communities in the U.S. have organized successfully against ICE and the thousands of high school students who walked out of classes to protest ICE. We can talk about the millions of people who have participated in No Kings demonstrations. We can talk about the thousands of meatpacking workers in Colorado who went on strike in March against JBS, the biggest meatpacking company in the world, to fight for better pay, working conditions, and health care—and extended their strike (against the desires of union officials) to force the company back into negotiations. And we can talk about what we need to do next to fight the billionaire class and their politicians.
Indeed, there is something happening here. And that is reason for hope. In the short term, Earth Day and May Day can be rallying points for action. We can—and have to—get rid of the billionaire class that is killing us. But to get to where we can do that, we must organize now.
Reports From Speak Out Members Around the U.S.
The Triangle, North Carolina: Schools Told to Do More with Less
On April 2, the North Carolina Supreme Court voted to overturn a case which had previously provided more funding to poorer school districts, often in rural areas. With this decision, there is no more pretense of equitable funding across the state. North Carolina is already dead last in the U.S. for per-pupil spending. Even in Chapel Hill, a relatively wealthy town, schools are being shut down and staff are being laid off. In other words, not only do NC students get the smallest pie in the country, but the slices will now be divided up much more unequally. To make matters worse, teachers and staff haven’t got raises in over two years because the state can’t pass a budget, contributing to demoralization and turnover.
There are calls for sickouts on May 1st—this can be a first step. Teachers, staff and students must look to ourselves, not the politicians or the courts, to fight for the quality education that we deserve!
Bay Area, California: Need a Ride on Transit? Better Pay Up!
Signatures are being collected in five Bay Area counties to get a public transit funding measure on the November ballot. If passed, it would increase sales taxes to fund public transit such as BART, AC Transit, Muni, and Caltrain. If it’s not passed, many of these agencies will face an inability to keep services running, especially BART, the high-speed trains that connect the East Bay and the SF Peninsula. That may mean we lose stations, whole lines, and only see trains once an hour, along with ripple effects across other agencies.
The real question here is why are these our only two options? Either raise our own taxes or condemn the public transit systems we rely on daily? Why not a third option: draw funds from the billionaires that benefit from their workers using these services!
Newark, New Jersey: Community Fridges: Only Needed in a Sick Society
A local non-profit recently opened its seventh community fridge in Newark’s downtown. The organization puts significant resources into keeping the fridges well-maintained and stocked. They serve a real need, providing free food to Newark’s poorest. The organization also runs a food pantry and may open a free supermarket in the future.
This group and its members do good work that really helps people. But this project raises larger questions about our society. Why is it that in cities like Newark, more than 20% of the population can barely afford food? Why is it that the U.S. has hundreds of billionaires, yet we have to donate to non-profits to feed people? And why is it that the U.S. can fund the largest military in human history but not basic human needs? This isn’t the way the world should be.
Baltimore, Maryland: Apple Closes First Union Store
Last week, Apple announced the closure of its store in Towson, MD, the closest location to Baltimore and the only location in the region accessible by public transit. Back in 2022, workers at this store became the first Apple employees to form a union. Soon after, Apple unfairly denied the Towson workers new benefits that were offered to non-union workers, an act the government declared illegal. Now, the company has closed the store and refused to offer the workers a transfer to another location. The laid-off workers are enraged at this additional act of retaliation.
Obviously, when workers get organized, the bosses and big corporations see it as a threat to their profits. Towson Apple workers were right to collectively demand better treatment. We should all learn from them—and get ready to stand up together to the next round of retaliatory attacks.
