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Minneapolis Teachers Strike for Living Wages and Better Support for Students

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MINNEAPOLIS, March 12, 2022—For the first time since 1970, more than 4,500 members of Minneapolis Federation of Teachers and Educational Support Professionals Local 59 walked off the job on Tuesday, March 8. Teachers are demanding from the district to limit class sizes, pay for additional mental health support for students, and increase wages for classroom teachers and the 1,600 education support professionals (ESPs). The strike is getting widespread support from parents, students, and the broader community. 

Chicago March: Defend Women’s Right to Choose Abortion!

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CHICAGO, March 8, 2022—“Now is the time to get back out into the streets and stay in the streets,” said Linda Loew, a leader of Chicago for Abortion Rights, at the kick-off rally on March 5 to honor International Women’s Day and demand that the Supreme Court uphold Roe v. Wade. Chicago for Abortion Rights initiated the march and rally that was co-hosted by thirteen other organizations. What all supporters of the right to choose abortion need to do now is to organize in the coming months to defend Roe and oppose these attacks. We need to mobilize our power in the streets. We are at a critical juncture. The response to this attack on women’s rights has so far been inadequate. Right-wing forces emboldened by the government are moving full steam ahead to roll back the basic right of women to control their own bodies. These moves must be met by action that mobilizes the majority sentiment that continues to support a woman’s right to choose abortion.

Union Steps Up Efforts as Election Is Set for Second NY Amazon Warehouse

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NEW YORK CITY, March 7, 2022—The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has certified that the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) has collected enough signatures to get an election at LDJ5. This is the second fulfillment center of the retail giant in this area where workers have secured the right to a union vote. An upcoming NLRB hearing on March 14 will hash out the logistics of the LDJ5 election, according to ALU president Christian Smalls.

Thank You for Your Contributions to Fall 2021 Fund Appeal

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We are pleased to report that World-Outlook’s fall fund appeal was a success. Readers contributed nearly $1,300, exceeding our expectations and making it possible to continue to cover our expenses. We are grateful to every contributor for helping us expand the site’s reach. You gave invaluable aid to the World-Outlook volunteers working to provide the clarity in political analysis and interpretation of events many young people, working-class fighters, and others around the world are searching for.

Railroad Workers Keep Up Resistance to BNSF ‘Hi-Viz’ Policy

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March 2, 2022—As locomotive engineer Marilee Taylor explained in the February 11 post on World-Outlook “BNSF Railroad Workers Resist Cruel Attendance Policy,” workers at the largest freight railroad (RR) in the U.S. are under fierce attack by the company owned by billionaire Warren Buffett. Workers who move the freight—engineers, conductors, brakemen and switchmen—frequently face work weeks of 60 hours or more, producing enormous profits for Buffett and the other wealthy RR owners. Many are on call to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with little or no predictability about when they will be called to work. Shifts are routinely 12 hours and perhaps longer before workers arrive at a destination where they can obtain some rest, often a hotel far from home. Trains are longer and heavier than ever, often carrying hazardous material, as the RRs seek to squeeze the maximum profit out of every trip. This poses serious safety risks for RR workers and the communities these trains pass through. Now Buffett’s BNSF wants more. It has imposed a new policy, called “Hi-Viz,” that demands employees to work even more hours. This cruel and dangerous policy has been upheld by a federal court judge who has ruled that the unions’ challenge to this policy is a “minor dispute,” and has denied the right to strike to oppose it.

Russian Troops Out Now! For Ukraine’s Independence! U.S./NATO Out of E. Europe!

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Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is an anathema to humanity. Russian troops, tanks, air force, and other military hardware should get out now. The Ukrainian people defending the country’s independence deserve international solidarity—already shown by protests condemning the invasion inside Russia, Georgia, and elsewhere. It is also necessary to clearly see Washington’s hypocritical claims that it tried to avert war through diplomacy. We should demand that U.S. and NATO military forces pull out of Eastern Europe and the broader region. The Pentagon has doubled the number of U.S. warships in the Mediterranean, redeployed an aircraft carrier there from the Pacific, and increased the number of U.S. troops in the region. It is opening up new NATO bases in Eastern Europe. The newest, a “highly sensitive U.S. military installation” according to the New York Times, located near the village of Redzikowo, in Poland, is only about 100 miles from Russian territory. These moves are aimed at expanding U.S. military domination in Europe and countering Russian economic interests. They pose a genuine threat to world peace while offering Putin a pretext for his brutal invasion.

Union Vote Set at NY Amazon Warehouse

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NEW YORK CITY, February 23, 2022 — “This is our moment in history. We will carry this down to our children and our children’s’ children. We have been organizing for two years in the rain, snow, ice storms, and heat. We’re going to beat this trillion-dollar company and we’re broke as hell,” said Chris Smalls, president of the Amazon Labor Union (ALU). “I won’t sleep for the next 35 days. We’ve got to stay together. We’re going to win this!” Smalls was addressing about 70 people at an ALU fundraiser at the People’s Forum in midtown Manhattan on February 18. The event was also a celebration of a step forward by the workers in their union organizing drive. A day earlier, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) set March 25-30 as the dates for a union representation election to take place in person at JFK8. This is Amazon’s main fulfillment center in the New York City area employing about 5,500 workers. The ALU is a grassroots group organized by warehouse workers with no affiliation to any established national trade union. In addition to JFK8, ALU is seeking to organize Amazon’s other three adjacent facilities on Staten Island: LDJ5, DYY6, and DYX2. In fact, on February 2, as the NLRB certified that the ALU had filed enough signatures to secure a union vote at JFK8, organizers filed petitions seeking a union representation election at LDJ5.

Twin Cities Students Walk Out, March for Justice for Amir Locke

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MINNEAPOLIS, February 15, 2022—Thousands of middle school and high school students have walked out of their classes in the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, over the last week. The students have given press conferences, staged marches, and joined other protesters demanding justice for Amir Locke. The 22-year-old Black man was killed by Minneapolis police earlier this month, when cops burst into an apartment just before 7 a.m. to serve a “no-knock” warrant. Locke, who was asleep at the time of the raid, was not listed in the warrant and had a gun with him for which he had a permit.

Cuban Music Duo Buena Fe: ‘We Will Play Only Where Cuban Vaccines Are Recognized’

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February 13, 2022—The Canadian theater The Opera House recently canceled the concerts of the Cuban duo Buena Fe scheduled for the month of May in the cities of Montreal, Toronto, and Edmonton. This is because the Canadian government does not recognize Cuba’s highly effective anti-Covid vaccines. Ottawa has asked the Buena Fe musicians to be inoculated by vaccines it does recognize—such as those made by Big Pharma in the U.S. or Europe: Pfizer, Moderna, or Astra Zeneca—in order to be allowed to enter the country. Buena Fe’s response? As Israel Rojas, one of the two members of the group, can be seen saying in the video posted here, “We will play only where our vaccines are recognized.”

BNSF Railroad Workers Resist Cruel Attendance Policy

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This is a letter to the editor by railroad worker Marilee Taylor, who is a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET). She explains: “I am currently a locomotive engineer, employed at the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF) in Chicago. I have worked for Burlington Northern (BN) and then BNSF for more than 28 years. I’d like to take a minute to introduce the video posted below [produced by More Perfect Union and titled “Railroad Workers Barred from Striking.”] On February 1, 2022, BNSF imposed a draconian attendance policy on those of us who work in the operating crafts, engineers, conductors, switchmen and brakemen. That is, those of us who actually move the freight on trains across the country from Chicago to the West Coast and back. The video helps us to get the truth out about the issues involved and the dangers of the forced BNSF’s attendance policy aimed at denying railroad (RR) operating employees, who already often work 60 hours a week or more, any quality of life at all. Most importantly the video focuses on how this policy will dangerously affect our own safety as workers, and the safety of all our communities. The risk of more rail accidents and potential disasters affects the entire country.”

Defend Roe Panel: Nat’l Demonstration Needed to Defend a Woman’s Right to Choose Abortion

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CHICAGO— “I absolutely think we should not stop defending Roe v. Wade. We need to insure that the right to a safe legal abortion is codified in federal law. We need massive legal demonstrations,” said Barbara Roberts at an online panel discussion held January 24. The event posed the need for a national mobilization to help women’s right to choose.

Critical Race Theory – What Are the Issues? (III)

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This is the third and final part of a three-part series on what are the issues in a public debate in the United States on critical race theory (CRT). The first part explained how the right-wing campaign against CRT is aimed at preventing the teaching of essential facts of US history. The second article outlined why distortions of history by liberal academics, journalists, or others weaken the effort to place facts and evidence at the center of the study of history as well as the fight against racism. This article takes up other notions that present similar obstacles to such an effective fight, including arguments that “embracing white guilt” or “renouncing white privilege” are necessary to combat racism.

Critical Race Theory – What Are the Issues? (II)

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This is the second part of a three-part series on the issues in a public debate in the United States on critical race theory (CRT). The first part focused on the right-wing crusade against CRT aimed at preventing the teaching of essential facts of U.S. history. The second part explains how refuting this right-wing campaign has been weakened by false arguments promoted by a variety of liberals. These academics, journalists, or others make assertions that do not meet the test of evidence. Some go further to offer interpretations of history that do not stand up to careful examination. Other stalwart opponents of racism do not share these views. These arguments include erroneous claims or exaggerations of facts regarding the character of the American Revolution of 1776, and the reasons for the war for independence against the British monarchy, put forward by the New York Times 1619 Project.

Critical Race Theory – What Are the Issues? (I)

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Over the past year a sharp debate has broken out over how to teach U.S. history. At its center are virulent attacks on critical race theory (CRT). Critical race theory, which the New York Times describes as “a graduate-level academic framework that encompasses decades of scholarship,” is primarily a course of study at the university level. Its originators are not demanding it replace the curriculum in elementary schools or high schools. Nor is it the only approach on the subject at the graduate level. These facts do not matter to those who attack it. This first part of a three-part series explains how the right-wing “Stop CRT” campaign is aimed at preventing the teaching of essential facts of U.S. history; particularly those related to chattel slavery, the U.S. Civil War, Radical Reconstruction, Jim Crow segregation, the civil rights movement, and the institutionalized racism prevalent in the U.S. to this day.

Cuba Sets Example in Confronting Climate Change

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Cuba may be responsible for only 0.08 percent of global CO2 emissions, but this Caribbean island is disproportionately hard-hit by the effects of climate change. The frequency and severity of extreme weather events — hurricanes, drought, torrential rain, flooding — is increasing, to the detriment of ecosystems, food production, and public health. Without action to protect the coastline from rising sea levels, up to 10 percent of Cuban territory could be submerged by the end of the century. This risks wiping out coastal towns, polluting water supplies, destroying agricultural lands, ruining tourist beaches, and forcing one million people to relocate — some 9 percent of the population. But unlike many countries, where climate action is always something promised for the future, in Cuba, serious action is being taken now.

CA Striking Bakery Workers Win Community/Labor Support

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SANTA FE SPRINGS, California—Since November 3, nearly 175 workers, primarily Latinas, have been on strike against the Rich Products Corporation, a large transnational frozen foods company. The Jon Donaire Deserts plant here makes ice cream cakes that are widely distributed, including at stores like Baskin Robbins, Cold Stone, Walmart, and Von. In total, the company employs about 11,000 people. The workers are on strike demanding higher wages and improved health care from a company that had $4 billion in revenue in 2021, and whose owner, Bob Rich Jr., is valued at nearly $7.5 billion according to bloomberg.com.

Free Rogel Aguilera! Reverse Gross Class Injustice

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DENVER, CO, January 11, 2022—Working people and all supporters of democratic rights should express solidarity with Rogel Aguilera Mederos and demand he be immediately freed from prison. The truck driver was involved in a tragic 28-vehicle pileup caused by a failure of the brakes in the semi he was driving while descending a mountainous section of the I-70 highway in Lakewood, a suburb of Denver. The April 2019 accident resulted in the death of four people. After a jury found Aguilera guilty last October of four counts of vehicular homicide and 23 other criminal offenses, a judge sentenced him to an incredible 110 years behind bars! The news of such cruel and unusual punishment struck a chord with millions around the world who quickly expressed indignation at the draconian sentence.

Verdict in Daunte Wright Killing: A Rare Glimpse of Justice

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On December 23, a jury in Minneapolis convicted Kimberly Potter, the cop who killed Daunte Wright last spring, on first- and second-degree manslaughter. Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence and other opponents of cop brutality in Minnesota welcomed the verdict—a still too rare glimpse of justice. We join Wright’s family and supporters in celebrating the verdict that delivered some accountability. As Katie Bryant, Daunte’s mother, told supporters outside the courtroom, cops are now more likely to think twice before pulling their gun instead of their taser. “And we made this happen, you made this happen, Daunte Wright made this happen.”

Vigils in Solidarity with Cuba: ‘End U.S. Blockade!’

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Candlelight vigils and other actions in solidarity with Cuba took place in about half a dozen U.S. cities, as well as other countries, on December 23. This compilation includes reports from three of these actions – in Miami, New York City, and Los Angeles – written by participants. Demands included ending the U.S. blockade of Cuba, restoring family remittances, beginning again the family reunification program, opening consular services in Havana, re-starting flights to all of Cuba’s major cities, establishing scientific and medical collaboration with Cuba against Covid-19, and allowing U.S. citizens to travel to the island freely.

Keep Abortion Legal, Say Protesters, As Supreme Court Weighs Overturning Roe

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CHICAGO, December 5, 2021—Hundreds of people protested in Washington, D.C.; Jackson, Mississippi; and here in Chicago on December 1 to defend a woman’s right to choose abortion. The actions, modest in size, took place as the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. This case involves a 2018 Mississippi law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. In addition to upholding the ban, the state of Mississippi has asked the court to use the case to overturn Roe v. Wade, the historic 1973 Supreme Court decision that decriminalized abortion. The content and tenor of the questions and arguments by most of the justices during the December 1 hearing indicated the Supreme Court will likely uphold the Mississippi ban when it announces its decision, which is expected in the first half of next year. As most of the media has reported, the question is how far the court’s conservative majority will go into restricting a woman’s right to choose—up to overturning Roe and allowing states to issue their own restrictions or ban abortion entirely. An earlier indication of what is to come was the court’s September 1 refusal to block an even more draconian law, which bans abortions in Texas at six weeks of pregnancy, while legal challenges against it unfold.

Arbery Murder Verdict: A Measure of Justice

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On November 24, a jury in Brunswick Georgia rendered a degree of justice in the brutal murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man. The three defendants, Gregory McMichael, 65; his son Travis McMichael, 35; and their neighbor William Bryan, 52 were found guilty of murder and other charges. All now face the prospect of life in prison. Future vigilantes may think twice before attempting such a lynching again. The outcome of this case is one more step forward in the long battle for genuine equality for African Americans and for the extension of democratic rights to all.

All Out Dec. 1 For Women’s Right to Choose Abortion!

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Supporters of a woman’s right to choose abortion are mobilizing on December 1, 2021, in Washington, D.C., Jackson, Mississippi, and Chicago. That day the U..S. Supreme Court is scheduled to begin oral arguments on Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case challenging a 2018 Mississippi statute banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Proponents of the law have asked the Supreme Court to use the case not only to uphold the Mississippi ban but to directly overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. This article provides information about the December 1 actions. It also encourages everyone to spread the word and join one of these protests.

Rittenhouse Verdict: A Travesty of Justice

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The November 19, 2021, acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse by a Wisconsin jury on all charges, including first-degree reckless and intentional homicide, is a travesty of justice. It sends a message to other rightists that vigilantism is acceptable so long as it is clothed in claims of “self-defense.” It echoes the verdict in the 2012 trial of George Zimmerman who was exonerated for his murder of Trayvon Martin that same year.

A Change to World-Outlook’s Home Page Banner Graphic

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November 14, 2021—Readers who look at World-Outlook’s Home Page today will notice a change in the banner graphic display. Rather than one featured image there are now four. The original illustration that has appeared since the launching of the website—a Diego Rivera mural titled “Mexico Today and Tomorrow,” featuring Karl Marx, the founder of scientific socialism—is still there. We have added three new images that depict important struggles in the United States today. These are photos from the fight against police brutality and racism, for women’s right to choose abortion, and of striking workers at the Kellogg company.

‘I Embrace You with All My Revolutionary Fervor’: An Insightful New Book

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I embrace you with all my revolutionary fervor: Letters 1947-1967 by Ernesto Che Guevara with a foreword by Aleida Guevara. Published on November 10, 2021, by Seven Stories Press, New York, NY. Che Guevara[1] is one of the most recognized and inspiring revolutionary figures of the 20th century. He is also one of its outstanding Marxists. The publication of this new collection of letters is, therefore, a welcome event. As the introduction explains, “A few of the letters are well known, but most have only now been released from Che Guevara’s personal archive held at the Che Guevara Studies Center in Havana, directed by his widow Aleida March, and are published in English for the first time.”

An Evening at Amazon Labor Union Organizing Center

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This is a Reporter’s Notebook based on a November 3, 2021, visit by World-Outlook editor Argiris Malapanis to the Amazon Labor Union organizing tent in front of the JFK8 Amazon fulfillment center on Staten Island, New York. It is a supplement to the news article “NY Amazon Workers File for Union Recognition,” published on World-Outlook November 4, 2021. It paints a more detailed picture of how rank-and-file workers lead this impressive unionization effort.

NY Amazon Workers File for Union Recognition

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NEW YORK CITY, November 3, 2021—Amazon warehouse workers in New York took a big step toward unionization on October 25, when they filed more than 2,000 signatures with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking a union representation election. World-Outlook visited the union organizing center and spoke with Chris Smalls and other workers.
The Amazon Labor Union (ALU), a grassroots group organized by warehouse workers, is leading the organizing drive. With no affiliation to any of the established national trade unions, the ALU is trying to unionize the approximately 7,000 workers employed in four warehouses—the JFK8 on Staten Island and surrounding facilities dubbed LDJ5, DYY6 and DYX2. Amazon uses these warehouses to fulfill orders in the huge New York market.
If successful, the outcome will reverberate through the working class and labor movement in the United States. These workers know they are challenging a powerful enemy.

Reform or Revolution? A Debate (III)- The Lessons of Chile

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September 11 marked the 48th anniversary of the 1973 bloody military coup, backed by Washington, which overthrew the elected Unidad Popular (Popular Unity) government led by Salvador Allende in Chile. On September 12, Jacobin, a magazine that describes itself as “a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture,” published an interview by Mia Dragnic with Tomás Moulian titled, “Salvador Allende Was Overthrown Because His Government Showed Chile Could Be Transformed.” Eric Blanc’s article, “Socialists Should Take the Right Lessons from the Russian Revolution,” also originally appeared in Jacobin in July.
At first glance, these two articles may seem unrelated. Blanc does not discuss the defeat in Chile and Moulian’s interview does not refer to Blanc’s article. However, both pose the same issues: How can a fight be led to end the evils of capitalism and transform society to open the road to socialism? Is a genuine revolution led by the working class necessary to achieve this?
The last installment of the three-part series, “Reform or Revolution?”, this third part focuses on the lessons of the Chilean experience in the 1970s.

The Muslim Peoples of the East and the Russian Revolution

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The end of the 20-year-long U.S. war in Afghanistan in August, and the takeover of the country by the Taliban, highlighted once again the worldwide political significance of the countries of the Islamic East. Are peoples in these countries condemned to permanent backwardness, as many believe, weighed down by reactionary religious ideology? Or can they be a revolutionary force in the fight to liberate humanity? What will it take to cement an alliance between working people of East and West? An article by John Riddell, with an introductory note by Mike Taber, take up these questions.

Thomas Sankara: ‘Freedom Must Be Conquered’ (II)

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On October 11, 2021, a trial opened in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso, of 14 men accused of plotting the murder of Thomas Sankara 34 years ago. Sankara, 37-years-old at the time, was president of Burkina Faso and leader of its popular revolutionary government from 1983 to 1987. This is the second of two parts of a speech Sankara gave at the UN in 1984. Under Sankara’s leadership, the revolutionary government of Burkina Faso in West Africa mobilized peasants, workers, craftsmen, women and youth to carry out literacy and immunization drives; to sink wells, plant trees, build dams, erect housing; to combat the oppression of women and transform exploitative relations on the land; to free themselves from the imperialist yoke and solidarize with others engaged in that fight internationally.

Thomas Sankara: ‘Freedom Must Be Conquered’ (I)

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On October 11, 2021, a trial opened in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso, of 14 men accused of plotting the murder of Thomas Sankara 34 years ago. Sankara, 37-years-old at the time, was president of Burkina Faso and leader of its popular revolutionary government from 1983 to 1987. This is the first part of a speech Sankara gave at the UN in 1984. Under Sankara’s leadership, the revolutionary government of Burkina Faso in West Africa mobilized peasants, workers, craftsmen, women and youth to carry out literacy and immunization drives; to sink wells, plant trees, build dams, erect housing; to combat the oppression of women and transform exploitative relations on the land; to free themselves from the imperialist yoke and solidarize with others engaged in that fight internationally.

Union Ranks Initiate Strike at John Deere

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United Auto Workers (UAW) members at John Deere, one of the giants of the agricultural machinery industry worldwide, struck the company on Thursday, October 14, for the first time in more than three decades. Over 10,000 workers are on strike at plants in Iowa, Illinois, and Kansas. The Waterloo Courier reported the mood on the picket lines at entrances to the Deere plants there was “downright jovial.”

‘We Won’t Go Back!’: More than 100,000 March to Defend Women’s Right to Choose Abortion

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October 7, 2021—“Bans Off Our Bodies,” and “Our Bodies, Our Lives,” echoed through the streets of the United States on October 2 as thousands upon thousands rallied and marched in defense of a woman’s right to choose abortion and against all restrictions on this right. From large cities to small towns, from east to west, north to south, more than 100,000 demonstrators in 650 different places joined in. This surpasses the number of cities where people marched in August 1970 in the Women’s Strike for Equality. On that day, 50,000 marched in New York City along with 90 other actions. In 1992, more than half a million demonstrated in Washington, D.C., in the March for Women’s Lives, and nearly one million turned out at the nation’s capital for a similar march in 2004. October 2, 2021, was the largest single outpouring nationwide for a woman’s right to choose since 2004.

Welcome Panorama-Mundial! Help World-Outlook expand

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We are pleased to announce that World-Outlook is now bilingual! Thanks to the invaluable assistance of volunteers who have joined our team, Panorama-Mundial now exists as the Spanish-language version of the web site. Since we published our first article in Spanish on July 1—”Cuba sets example in confronting the pandemic” —we have made a concerted effort to translate each new article into Spanish. With the launch of Panorama-Mundial, we will step up these efforts, while also beginning to translate previous articles that have so far appeared only in English. This is the most significant of several steps we have taken in the past few months. Many involve new expenses. Today we are appealing to our readers to help us pay for these improvements to the site.

Tens of Thousands March, Rally for Women’s Right to Choose Abortion – Photo Gallery

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October 3, 2021—Tens of thousands turned out on October 2 in more than 600 cities and towns across the United States to defend a woman’s right to choose abortion. Protesters were in their large majority women. Many students and other youth, as well as people of all generations, participated in the actions. The protests were a good start in what is expected to be a long fight to defend women’s reproductive rights. This is an initial photo gallery of a number of these actions.

Miami Rally: ‘Stop Deportations, Save the Haitians!’

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NORTH MIAMI, Florida, September 29, 2021—About fifty people gathered today outside City Hall here to protest the outrageous mistreatment of Haitians by the U.S. government at the Del Rio International Bridge in Texas near the U.S.-Mexico border. Protesters demanded equal treatment for Haitian asylum seekers, and the immediate disclosure of the whereabouts of the nearly 15,000 refugees who were removed from the border by federal authorities and many of them deported.

Reform or Revolution? A Debate (II)

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What lessons can we draw for today from the Russian Revolution of 1917—the first socialist revolution and one of the most important events in modern human history? The Bolshevik Party, which led that revolution, viewed it as the beginning of the worldwide struggle to overturn capitalism and open the door to the socialist transformation of society by working people. This is the topic of a recent debate between Eric Blanc, a socialist historian and activist, and Mike Taber, editor of a number of books related to the history of revolutionary and working-class movements. This second part of the debate includes the article by Mike Taber.

Reform or Revolution? A Debate (I)

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What lessons can we draw for today from the Russian Revolution of 1917—the first socialist revolution and one of the most important events in modern human history? The Bolshevik Party, which led that revolution, viewed it as the beginning of the worldwide struggle to overturn capitalism and open the door to the socialist transformation of society by working people. This is the topic of a recent debate between Eric Blanc, a socialist historian and activist, and Mike Taber, editor of a number of books related to the history of revolutionary and working-class movements. This first part of the debate includes the article by Eric Blanc.