Millions of US immigrants, their families, co-workers, friends, and supporters had their hopes for relief from their difficult conditions built up by advance hype for President Obama’s November 20 speech on immigration policy reform. All such hopes were cruelly shattered once the outlines of his policy shift became more clear—an outline with an ...

Private ownership of the means of production has hit a dead end on a world scale. The system is dying on its feet, and this inevitably has profound political and social consequences in the country par excellence of capitalism. Francis Fukuyama, who, upon the fall of the USSR, famously declared “the end of history,” now says that America “suffers from the problem of political decay in a more acute form than other democratic political systems.” In plain English: capitalism and its institutions are in big trouble.

More than a month after the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black youth, Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot him multiple times despite Brown having raised his arms in surrender, remains free and safely in hiding. The St. Louis region is tense in anticipation of the grand jury's ruling on whether or not to file charges against Wilson. Brown's shooting has drawn attention to the chilling fact that an average of two black men are killed by police every week in the United States. Michael Brown's killing, however, is not just another repetition of this tragic cycle. In many ways, it was "the straw that broke the camel's back," opening up a new stage in the changing

What if they held an election and nobody came? In some ways, the 2014 midterm election was very much like this. Just 36.6 percent voted, only 13% of them under age 30, and as many as 70 million eligible voters are not even registered. The main capitalist parties—the Democrats and Republicans—do not deal with real issues related to the lives of the overwhelming majority of the population. This is true bourgeois democracy. That is, democracy for the top 1% or 2%, but not for the rest of us!

We republish below the transcript of a speech delivered by​ WIL member Martin Michaels ​on ​November 1 in Minneapolis, MN​,​ at the March Against​ ​Corruption.​ ​

Join members of the International Marxist Tendency and the Marxist Student Association for this year's North East Regional School on 1 November. Speakers from Belgium and Canada will speak on the Arab Revolution and the Student and Youth movements throughout the Americas. More info below.

Many Americans are justifiably horrified by the atrocities being perpetrated by the ISIS gangsters. But imperialist intervention, which led to this wreck in the first place, is no solution. There is no short-term way out. Only a socialist revolution can transform the region and the world.

Today’s youth, the so-called millennials, face a bleak future under capitalism. They carry the highest student debt in history and have entered “adulthood” at a time when housing prices have skyrocketed and the labor market has imploded. More than half of recent graduates are unemployed or underemployed, often in low-wage jobs having nothing to do with their degrees. Nonetheless, they must make monthly payments on an average of $20,000 in student loans.

There is a lot activity and buzz around the struggle to raise the minimum wage in the United States. Here we provide an article by Tom Trottier of the US Socialist Appeal that explains the role of wages under capitalism and what has actually been achieved so far.

The “Ice Bucket Challenge” has gone certifiably viral. Countless videos showing people dousing themselves with buckets of ice water have flooded social media. Everyone from GW Bush to Will Smith to Britney Spears to your next-door neighbor to half your High School classmates are joining in the late-summer antics and nominating someone else to do it. If the challenge is not met within 24 hours, the nominee is supposed to donate to

As the protests in Ferguson, MO, enter their 12th day, following the shooting of Michael Brown by local police, the Workers International League (US section of the IMT) continues to intervene in this spontaneous upsurge, in Ferguson itself, and on the campuses in the area. These events mark a qualitative turning point in the class struggle in the United States. It is already being recognized as an event for which there will be a “before” and an “after,” even by the talking heads in the media and the representatives of the capitalist political establishment.

Leaflet for demonstrations against police repression in Ferguson, MO can be downloaded here.

The shooting of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown, followed by the breaking up of a protest march by police in riot gear and dogs, has let loose the pent-up anger and frustration of ​b​lack youth in the otherwise quiet working class St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, which saw a night of looting and vandalism. These events above all show that huge pressures are building up in US society, just one scratch below the surface.

We are living in an epoch of crisis, war, revolution, and counterrevolution. However, revolutions are nonlinear processes; they do not unfold in a single act. From the perspective of the working class, the objective conditions and class balance of forces have never been as favorable. However, given the confusion and limited options of the bourgeois, the class-collaborationist policies of the labor leaders, and the lack of a mass revolutionary party—the subjective factor—this process will necessarily have a prolonged character. There will be many starts and stops, periods of advance and retreat, inspiring victories and demoralizing defeats. But through it all, the workers will learn, and

100 years ago, US mining magnate John D. Rockefeller, with the help of the Colorado state government, ordered Colorado National Guard and militia forces to machine gun on a mining camp where 1,200 striking coal miners and their families were residing. Up to 60 people were killed and hundreds injured. The strikers were mainly immigrants who were paid slave wages by the company. They were forced to work 10–12 hour days and were not paid for "dead work" such as clearing the mines of rubble. The event marked a key milestone for America’s working class struggle to gain workplace rights, including the 8-hour work day, workplace health and safety measures, better housing, and the right to form