The U.S. economy isn’t booming — it’s levitating. What keeps it up isn’t productivity or innovation, but speculation.

The so-called “AI revolution,” hailed as a new industrial dawn, is in reality a massive bubble — a speculative fever driving stock prices far beyond what the technology can actually deliver.

The anatomy of a bubble

A speculative bubble forms when the price of something — like tech stocks — rises far beyond its real, sustainable value. 

That real value comes not from market hype or quick profits, but from workers’ labor power — their capacity to create more value than they’re paid for.

But in a bubble, prices rise not because real production or value creation is expanding, but because investors are chasing promises — each betting that someone else will pay even more for the same asset.

The pattern isn’t accidental. It’s built into capitalism itself.

Step one: Capital needs to expand

Capitalism runs on an “expand or die” engine. Every firm must grow constantly to survive — outspending, outproducing, and out-innovating its rivals.

When one wave of growth slows, capital hunts for another.

After smartphones and social media stopped generating explosive profits, investors went searching for a new frontier. They found one in artificial intelligence.

The dream of “intelligent machines” became a new gold rush. Investors declared that AI would transform every industry — from health care to law — and didn’t care that most promises were decades from reality. The only thing that mattered was that AI looked big enough to sustain the expansion.

Step two: Credit makes it look real

Once hype takes hold, the credit floodgates open. Trillions pour into data centers, chips, and cloud infrastructure — all on the assumption that future profits will justify today’s staggering costs.

Marx called this stage “fictitious prosperity” — an expansion of paper claims on future profits that have no immediate basis in the value created by labor. It makes the appearance of growth without its substance.

AI now fills that role. Capital is pouring into technologies that do not yet produce surplus value, but inflate the balance sheets of corporations through speculation and state contracts.

Stock markets surge, investment booms, and politicians hail the “AI economy” as proof of recovery for an economy still addicted to cheap credit. Beneath the surface, profits are scarce — it’s all fueled by expectations and debt.

At its peak, Nvidia’s stock traded at roughly 138 times its annual profits — a level of frenzy that made the dot-com era look restrained. Nearly 60% of the 2024 S&P 500 gains came from just seven companies. The AI mania has now surpassed the dot-com madness of 1999.

Step three: When illusion meets limits

Eventually, reality breaks through. Chatbots hallucinate. Image models can’t pay their own server bills. Consumers aren’t buying AI products in meaningful numbers.

Yet stock prices keep climbing because no one wants to be the first to admit that capital’s paper claims have outgrown the value created by labor. That’s when the bubble is complete — when financial values are totally unmoored from production and profit.

The new U.S. mirage

AI is the latest chapter in speculative capitalism. Beneath the rhetoric of innovation lies a simple truth: The U.S. economy is being propped up by fictitious capital, not productive labor.

Manufacturing is shrinking. Service jobs are fading. Household debt is climbing. The glittering tech boom hides stagnation everywhere else.

Even figures within the tech establishment — from Eric Schmidt, Google’s former CEO, to analyst Selina Xu — admit Silicon Valley’s obsession with Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) has bypassed the real opportunities to use the AI that already exists. 

AGI refers to a hypothetical machine intelligence that could learn and reason across any task as flexibly as a human being — a kind of “universal mind.”

Unlike today’s narrow AI systems, which are built for specific functions, AGI would supposedly understand and act in many domains on its own.

In reality, AGI doesn’t exist. Its promise serves capital as a speculative frontier — a projection of limitless productivity used to justify vast investment and state subsidies.

From a Marxist perspective, the AGI hype embodies capitalism’s technology fetish — the belief that machines, not labor, create value.

The pursuit of AGI is a chase for power and profit, not progress.

AI as empire

Behind the bubble lies empire. The Pentagon, CIA, and venture capital share the same fantasy: that AI supremacy will guarantee U.S. global dominance.

Massive government contracts — from surveillance software to autonomous weapons — now serve as subsidies for Silicon Valley. Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and Palantir sit at the crossroads of finance capital and the military-industrial complex.

Even Joe Biden, in his farewell address from the White House in January 2025, spelled it out plainly — a rare moment of honesty.

Biden said that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms.” 

He spoke of “a dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra-wealthy people.” 

He specifically talked about the rise of a “tech-industrial complex,” deliberately echoing Dwight Eisenhower’s 1961 warning about the “military-industrial complex.” Biden said this new power bloc is “infringing on Americans’ rights and the future of democracy.”

The fusion is now complete — a military-tech-industrial complex, edging toward what some have begun calling tech fascism.

Biden compared today’s situation to the Gilded Age of “robber barons” — a time when the U.S. economy was dominated by extreme wealth and imperialist expansion into Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. It was also a time when Mark Twain and organizations such as the American Anti-Imperialist League were fighting the expanding empire.

Biden didn’t name names. But his remarks landed as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos aligned themselves with the incoming Trump administration, planning to attend Trump’s inauguration.

Silicon Valley has metastasized into a merger of big capital, big tech, and big war. The empire’s newest weapon isn’t a missile — it’s the algorithm.

Washington’s chip bans on China, its trade sanctions against Huawei, and its AI-driven military pacts — from AUKUS to its defense-tech alliances with Japan and South Korea — all follow the same imperialist logic. Civilian technology and military infrastructure are being fused into a single system of global dominance.

China’s different path

China, by contrast, is treating AI not as a casino chip but as a tool. Instead of betting on abstract intelligence for future profit, China applies AI to real sectors — manufacturing, logistics, energy, and urban planning.

Chinese government white papers outline over 400 industrial-AI pilot zones focused on logistics, steel, and energy — showing production-first deployment.

The difference is stark. The U.S. is using AI to inflate a bubble. China is using it to build.

Industrial policy or financial subsidy

Washington insists it’s rebuilding industry through the CHIPS and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and new “AI innovation zones.” In reality, these are less industrial policy than corporate welfare — government funds funneled into private monopolies.

Billions more flow to Intel, TSMC, and Nvidia — the same firms driving speculation. The state isn’t reviving manufacturing; it’s financing and guaranteeing corporate profits, socializing risk while privatizing gains. The “AI economy” isn’t rebuilding the U.S. productive base; it’s inflating the next crash.

While the U.S. bankrolls hype, China retools for production. This isn’t just a tech race — it’s a clash between two systems: finance-driven capitalism versus planned development.

Breaking the cycle

Real progress means ending the profit system itself — where production serves private wealth, not human needs. Capitalism turns every advance into a new source of profit, not a means to improve life.

Technology should serve society, not capital. The wealth created by human intelligence — through research, education, and labor — shouldn’t be siphoned off into yet another speculative frenzy.

Until we take tech out of the casino, every so-called “revolution” will end the same way: the bubble bursts, and workers are the ones who pay — with layoffs, wage cuts, and gutted public services.

The rich walk away richer. Everyone else is left to bear the cost of their crash.

The only parts of the U.S. Government that have been shut down are those that are actually trying to help people. Three-quarters of a million workers have been locked out of their jobs by Trump.

Other federal employees have been forced to work without getting paid, including air traffic controllers. That’s the sort of stress that they — as well as passengers and crew members — don’t need.

Inspectors from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have been told to stay home. Meanwhile, 16 workers were killed in an explosion at the Accurate Energetic Systems munitions plant in Tennessee. 

However, the ICE Gestapo agents terrorizing Chicago and the rest of the United States are still getting paid. The U.S. Navy is executing people in the Caribbean while plans for invading the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela are going ahead.

The shutdown didn’t prevent live artillery shells from being fired from the Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton across Interstate Highway 5, stopping traffic between Los Angeles and San Diego. (Amtrak trains were also halted.) One shell exploded prematurely, showering shrapnel over two vehicles.

The Oct. 18 spectacle was presided over by Vice-Führer JD Vance and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. It was a not-too-subtle threat to the millions of people demonstrating the same day across the United States in the “No Kings” rallies against Trump.

That’s more proof that the real capitalist state is the “deep state” of violence, prisons, cutbacks and war.

We need to organize our own resistance

Almost all Democrats in Congress are refusing to vote for a “continuing resolution” that will fund Trump’s regime. It was another story back in March, when Charles Schumer, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate and nine other members of the Democratic caucus voted for a similar measure.

Trump praised Schumer for capitulating. A few days earlier, almost none of the over 200 Democrats attending Trump’s March 4 speech to a joint session of Congress did anything to protect Texas Rep. Al Green. The 77-year-old Black congressperson was dragged off the floor for shouting, “You have no mandate to cut Medicaid.” 

The reason for Schumer’s about-face is that millions of voters are demanding resistance to Trump’s march towards fascism. The Democratic Party establishment wants to keep this struggle within the bounds of capitalist elections.

They don’t want anti-war and pro-Palestinian slogans raised at the No Kings rallies. The wealthy and powerful are fearful of an even larger struggle than the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020. 

The Democratic Party leadership’s opposition to the “continuing resolution” is centered against the so-called Big Beautiful Bill that will force millions of people off Medicaid. It will also remove the subsidies for getting health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, which will make monthly premiums skyrocket. 

The response of Trump and his Fox News cheerleaders is to claim that Democrats want to provide free health care to undocumented immigrants, who these bigots call “illegal aliens.” 

No child is illegitimate, and no human being is illegal. Without the absolutely essential labor of undocumented workers on the farms and in the food processing plants, we would starve.

Instead of denouncing this hate mongering, Democratic Party spokespeople are denying they want to give any aid to human beings without papers. 

Are people born in other lands supposed to be denied medications and drop dead in front of hospitals? Are immigrant children needing treatment to be left to die? 

Health care is a human right!

Refusing poor people health care is old news in the United States. Hundreds of Black men were deliberately denied treatment for syphilis in the notorious Tuskegee Study. These experiments lasted from 1932 to 1972.

T. Harry Moore and Harriette Moore were murdered in their Brevard County, Florida home on Christmas Day, 1951, by Ku Klux Klan members who planted a bomb. The Black couple helped tens of thousands of Black people to register to vote.

Both were driven 30 miles away to a Black hospital because the nearby white hospital would have denied them admission. Hundreds of medical facilities refused treatment to Black, Indigenous or Latine people until well into the 1960s.

It’s political cowardice for Democratic congressional leaders to say they’re against providing health care for the undocumented. It’s capitulating to racist Trump.

People’s movements, especially the labor movement, need to declare that health care is a human right. Our enemies are the billionaires, not our fellow poor and working people. 

On the second full day of the third annual International Meeting of Theoretical Publications of Left-wing Parties and Movements (Encuentro Internacional de Publicaciones Teóricas de Partidos y Movimientos de Izquierda) in Havana, the participants from over 40 countries broke into various political education workshops at the Nico Lopez University of the Communist Party of Cuba. 

This session featured Dr. Rosa Miriam Elizalde facilitating and Miguel Angel Perez Pirela as the featured speaker. Miriam Elizalde is a Cuban journalist and editor with a doctorate in communications who teaches at the University of Havana. Perez Pirela is a Venezuelan philosopher and writer. He is also the coordinator of the Network in Defense of Humanity, an alliance of progressive writers, thinkers, artists, and social movements. 

Perez Pirela opened the discussion with a framing of the current struggle between the Global South and the increasingly aggressive imperialist powers like the United States and Britain. There is no doubt Venezuela and Cuba face difficult times. Venezuela faces potential U.S. military action against its coast under the pretext of “narco-terrorism” and Cuba faces an increasingly tightening economic blockade. 

The leading PSUV philosopher analyzed that literal, political, and economic battlefields are not the only places where this struggle is being fought. Information warfare through social media has become a crucial tool for the imperialist narrative. Algorithms for social media magnates like Meta, Twitter, and TikTok are used to disseminate right wing-propaganda and push false narratives about the enemies of the U.S. 

Perez Pierla analyzed that the key to information warfare isn’t actually a battle of ideas, but a battle to gain attention in the first place. All western social media algorithms are designed so the imperialists can win this battle. According to Perez Pirela, Donald Trump is establishing a dictatorship of attention through social media and news media. All of Trump’s bombast and sound bites transfer well to social media formats that promote short, snappy videos. Further, Trump has used military action against boats off the Venezuelan coast in recent weeks effectively in promoting his information war. 

Drone strikes on innocent fisher people and migrants is not just about the literal military action but about communicating to the world how far the U.S. is willing to go. This is a form of communication meant to sow fear and dissuade resistance. Perez Pirela insists that destruction left in the wake of the U.S. military campaign in the Caribbean is not the end itself but a means to an end. Short social media clips of exploding ships draw tremendous amounts of attention, allowing Trump to shape his false narco-terrorist narrative. 

Military strikes against Venezuela pose severe difficulties for the U.S. both in terms of logistics and public opinion. The U.S. public is exhausted of war and unlikely to support another pretext for invasion similar to the false accusations of “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq. If the imperialists can’t win through outright force, they push lies and sensationalism through social media in the hopes of fostering regime change. 

Due to this mounting aggression, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has had to embrace all forms of resistance. Not only has President Maduro and the PSUV mobilized the people in preparation for imperialist aggression, but the Venezuelan government has also promoted images and videos of this mass mobilization widely on social media. These images have even penetrated some corporate media like the New York Times and BBC. This is also a form of communication, making the imperialists aware that any incursion or bombing campaign will be met with the fiercest resistance of the Venezuelan people. 

Due to Venezuela’s clear message of resistance, Donald Trump and his cohorts were forced to find validity in a formerly irrelevant fascist Venezuelan opposition leader, Marina Machado. In Venezuela itself, Machado is viewed as a joke. She has no basis in the popular masses who openly supports U.S. intervention in Latin America while also being a cheerleader for the genocide in Gaza. 

Machado’s Nobel prize has backfired severely. The people of Venezuela are more resolved than ever that the U.S. does not have their best interests at heart – quite the opposite. If they genuinely cared about the Venezuelan people, the imperialists would not push a figure who would almost certainly open the country to imperialist pillaging and exploitation. 

The PSUV philosopher outlined how the rest of the world has also seen through Machado’s peace prize. Social Media algorithms that constantly push Machado’s former statements and activities were meant to endear Venezuela and people around the world to the opposition. Because of her fascist ideology, the opposite has occurred. The Nobel Peace Prize has lost all validity and to some extent exposed Trump’s pretext for intervention against Venezuela. 

About halfway through the presentation, the facilitator and speaker paused for questions. A Struggle – La Lucha reporter, Lev Koufax, asked Perez Pirela to analyze how the information has evolved since the last serious regime change attempt in Venezuela in 2019. The Venezuelan analyzed the history and current situation in depth. 

In 2019, right-wing Venezuelan opposition, with the backing of the U.S., attempted to supplant Nicholas Maduro and the PSUV with Juan Guaido. There is no doubt that Guaido was a U.S. puppet who would sell out his people for the interests of corporate America. In 2019, the media narrative was pushed to create a parallel government to the legitimate administration of Nicholas Maduro. At that time, social media began circulating content presenting Guaido’s coup plotters as newly appointed government officials. This culminated in a fascist assault on the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, D.C. Ultimately, this attempt failed. 

So, what has changed? Perez Pirela says that now, the U.S. isn’t just trying to create a parallel Venezuelan government, but a parallel Venezuela. Under this narrative, the only “real” Venezuelans are the right wingers and ex-pats who live in the United States. The idea is to erase the genuine culture and people of Venezuela as to dehumanize the country and make easier justification for intervention. If the people who actually live in Venezuela are universally viewed as drones and monsters, the U.S. may have an easier time convincing the world to follow along their path of aggression. 

Rounding into the last part of his lecture, Perez Pirela posed a question: Is all lost? His answer was absolutely not! It’s true that the imperialists have the edge because they created and control the largest social media platforms. Venezuela doesn’t even have control over the satellites that make social media available in their country. The U.S. completely tramples on Venezuela’s digital and information sovereignty. However, Perez Pirela insists the Global South and all the working class can punch through their advantage using the ingenuity of people in countries like Cuba and Venezuela. 

PSUV activists and the government of Venezuela are seriously studying social media algorithms to develop messaging, methods, and aesthetics that punch through slanted algorithms. Breaking through these algorithms allows progressive forces to redirect attention to socialist and anti-imperialist media and away from imperialist propaganda. Silicon Valley, Musk, and Zuckerberg are not going to do the work of the Global South and the broader anti-imperialist movement. Those who would challenge U.S. hegemony must innovate to use Western social media to direct attention to other forms of media. 

Perez Pirela continued that audio visual political content and high quality aesthetics have been very useful in breaking through U.S. propaganda in Venezuela itself. The goal now is to broaden that effort and connect with other progressive forces across the world. Perez Pirela finished his talk with a simple message: While the imperialists have more resources and control much of the digital world, what they don’t have are the people of Venezuela and Cuba. The session ended with thunderous applause. 

Havana, Oct. 19 — Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez addressed the Third International Meeting of Theoretical Publications of Left-wing Parties and Movements (Encuentro Internacional de Publicaciones Teóricas de Partidos y Movimientos de Izquierda) with a call to confront the global resurgence of fascism and imperialism.

His presence at the conference was a testament to the importance of left publications and movements that tell the truth and dismantle imperialist manipulation. He motivated everyone in the room by reminding them that publishing from the left is an act of resistance in these times. 

“To think is to fight, to publish is to resist, and to communicate is to liberate,” he told participants. “We must all be committed to this battle.” 

The gathering brought together writers, scholars, and activists from across the world. 

Speakers discussed urgent global crises — the genocide in Palestine, U.S. aggression against Venezuela, and the ongoing blockade of Cuba. 

Díaz-Canel urged participants to build a coordinated network of socialist and anti-imperialist publications that promote critical thinking and tell the truth about the dangers of imperialism.

Truth-telling and ideological unity will be the left’s tool against the imperialism we face today. The conference gave participants an opportunity to build relationships and create unity in order to go back to our respective corners of the world and continue our fight for liberation. 

Get PDF here

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Millions filled the streets on Oct. 18.

The “No Kings” protests erupted in more than 2,700 locations across all 50 states — the largest coordinated action against Donald Trump since his return to office, and perhaps one of the biggest mass mobilizations in recent U.S. history.

Crowds surged through New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston. But resistance spread far beyond the major cities. Workers marched in Birmingham, Alabama. Demonstrators filled the streets of Billings, Montana.

The protests were against the authoritarian actions of the Trump administration, ICE operations, federal program cuts, and for constitutional rights.

Yet the leadership of the “No Kings” campaign is firmly rooted in the Democratic Party.

Groups like Indivisible and MoveOn — both pillars of the Democratic establishment — were listed as official sponsors. Their involvement shaped the movement’s limits, especially around foreign policy: the U.S.-NATO proxy war in Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza, and Washington’s escalating confrontation with China.

The color of empire

The official No Kings website encouraged participants to wear yellow, referencing the pro-NATO Yellow Ribbon Movement in Ukraine and the anti-China Yellow Umbrella protests in Hong Kong. Whether coincidence or design, the symbolism signals alignment with U.S. imperialist foreign policy.

Since 2016, Democratic opposition to Trump has often focused not on his attacks on workers or the poor but on his supposed “softness” toward Russia and China. His first impeachment, in 2019, wasn’t for caging migrants or gutting health care programs — it was for delaying weapons to Ukraine.

Biden continued that trajectory. From day one, his administration poured billions into NATO and armed Ukraine to the teeth, even as it funded and defended Israel’s campaign of mass genocide in Gaza. At the same time, it intensified the tech and trade war with China, maintaining Trump-era tariffs while launching new measures to block Beijing’s access to advanced semiconductors. Washington also deepened military alliances: forming AUKUS, strengthening the Quad, and integrating Japan and South Korea into its Indo-Pacific war plans. The strategy is clear — to build a NATO-style military bloc aimed at containing China. “Containing China” is what Obama said.

By adopting the color yellow, the “No Kings” organizers effectively tried to merge domestic opposition to Trump with support for U.S. wars abroad. But anti-imperialism is not a distraction from the struggle against authoritarianism — it is central to it. A movement that fails to challenge empire cannot defeat Trumpism, because empire is the source of its power.

The war that never sleeps

From Gaza to Ukraine, from Haiti to Venezuela, from Somalia to Yemen, and across the South China Sea, Washington’s war machine never rests.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has vowed to wage a “war on woke.” Every progressive cause, from Black Lives Matter to reproductive rights, from trans liberation to union power, is recast as a threat to national security. “Making America Great Again” now means silencing dissent at home and expanding war abroad.

Whenever U.S. imperialism goes on the offensive, it demands unity — and obedience. Behind the MAGA slogan lies the same order as always: Shut down the class struggle.

Every bomb dropped on Gaza, every missile launched from a U.S. destroyer, every naval drill off China’s coast is not only an attack on people abroad — it’s an attack on workers here. War budgets drain the public purse; social programs wither. The empire wears different faces, but the engine beneath never changes.

The Biden–Harris years presided over drone wars and unconditional backing for Israel’s genocidal siege of Gaza. Trump’s second term has intensified those same policies with open brutality. On Oct. 15, his administration authorized a new round of covert CIA operations in Venezuela — including lethal “paramilitary action” aimed at regime change.

While claiming to end “endless wars,” Trump surrounds himself with defense contractors and private mercenaries. Pentagon deployments in the Caribbean — including at least eight U.S. warships, a submarine, B-52s, F-35s, and thousands of troops — are an escalation of war, not a withdrawal.

Democrats, for their part, denounce Trump’s rhetoric but fund the same war budgets. They compete over who can arm Israel, Ukraine, or Taiwan faster. Their unity is bipartisan — the unity of capital.

Meanwhile, the war economy expands.

In munitions plants across Tennessee and Texas, production lines run nonstop. Workers die in preventable explosions while inspectors are furloughed under budget freezes. Defense CEOs cash in on record stock options. This is not “national defense.” It is organized theft — the conversion of public wealth into private profit.

Lessons of the past

We’ve seen this pattern before.

A century ago, President Woodrow Wilson — a Democratic demagogue and open white supremacist — promised to keep the U.S. out of war. Many progressives believed him. They abandoned the independent workers’ movement to back the “peace candidate.”

Within three years, Wilson plunged the nation into imperialist slaughter in World War I — and jailed socialists who opposed it. Eugene V. Debs, who urged workers to fight their real enemies at home, was imprisoned for speaking the truth.

The lesson endures: Every promise of “peace with honor,” from Wilson to Biden to Trump, conceals the same reality — a capitalist state beholden to Wall Street and the Pentagon. Both parties serve the same system, even as they trade places in power.

Failure to build unity against racism

The early socialist movement made another tragic error. It fought courageously for labor rights, but too often neglected the central question of racism. Many believed socialism would come first, and liberation later.

But socialism without an active struggle against racism was — and remains — an illusion. That failure fragmented the working class. Employers exploited racist divisions to crush strikes, exclude Black, Mexican, Asian, and Indigenous workers from unions, and sustain the hierarchy that capitalism requires.

Marx and Engels recognized the revolutionary role of the Black freedom struggle during the U.S. Civil War. They saw that slavery was not an aberration but the foundation of U.S. capitalism itself. Yet much of the socialist movement refused to learn that lesson, and it disintegrated under the twin pressures of racism and imperialist war.

The war economy and the working class

Today, the movement resisting Trump’s authoritarian project cannot repeat those mistakes.

A real resistance must be anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-transphobic and anti-imperialist. The fight for liberation is one struggle with many fronts.

Look at the economy.

Manufacturing for civilian needs continues to decline, while militarized production surges — aircraft, missiles, drones, surveillance systems. Every major product from Silicon Valley ends up under a Pentagon contract. AI firms design targeting algorithms. Cloud companies build “battlefield networks.” Energy corporations secure war profits while ordinary households face shutoffs and rent hikes.

This is capitalism in its imperialist stage — a parasite that survives by producing destruction.

Workers feel it directly. Union jobs vanish while defense firms boom. Inflation erodes wages. Public services collapse. But the stock prices of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman soar.

The same machine that bombs Gaza and threatens Beijing is the one that closes hospitals, guts schools, and evicts tenants.

Every bomb dropped on Gaza is an attack on the working class — not only abroad but here at home.

That’s why fighting against war is inseparable from the fight against King Trump.

War dominates all issues. But it also unites our struggles — because every front, from Gaza to health care, from trans rights to housing, leads back to the same system. In that unity lies the power to change it.

New Orleans, Oct. 18 – Thousands came out to the “No Kings” rally,  joining protesters in some 2,700 locations across the country. The crowd filled up a large section of the Lafitte Greenway. And lest anyone say that people only came out to voice opposition to Trump in “liberal” New Orleans, rallies were also held in the northshore, Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Shreveport.

For those of us who really want to take on Trump and the racist, decaying capitalist system he defends, we should be encouraged that so many came out, just as they did in earlier mobilizations this year. To stop Trump, we’re going to need more people in the streets – a lot more. 

It was the huge movement for Black Lives that pushed Trump back during his first term, not the Democratic Party, whose “resistance” centered around Russiagate conspiracy theories. (Really, they were pushing for war with Russia. That became a reality and “Trump the Peacemaker” is continuing it.) 

Here in New Orleans, the No Kings leadership decided not to march. The excuse passed among the crowd is that they were either unable or unwilling to get a permit. But groups march in the city without a permit all the time. Contingents of only 30 to 100 people do it regularly.

The thousands who came out to this rally could have easily taken the streets, permit or not. We could have marched through the French Quarter to gain the support of the hospitality workers, who have the power to bring the tourist economy to a screeching halt. We could have marched on Orleans Parish Prison like we did in the summer of 2020. On that night, people locked up in the jail came to the windows and raised their fists in the air. 

Many things were possible. The organizers squandered an incredible opportunity to show the strength of the masses. How else are we going to give Trump and Landry a run for their money?

But the Democratic Party-aligned organizations that initiate protests like these will never lead a genuine movement against fascism. For that, we need independent organizations of the oppressed and the working class.

Aside from the numbers, there was another bright spot at today’s rally. Local Palestinian organizers were actually able to take the stage. They explained the connections between what the people are facing here in the United States and this government’s imperialist assault on Palestine and others resisting domination. 

The leaders of the Democratic Party are 100% complicit in the U.S.-Israeli genocide. (Remember how they totally shut out Palestinian voices from the 2024 party convention?) But the resistance of the Palestinian people – which is bolstered by a global solidarity movement – has transformed peoples’ consciousness. That’s evident in New Orleans. Throughout the crowd people held Palestinian flags or wore keffiyehs. The rich leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties have not been able to squash this movement.

Today showed that many people already understand that all these struggles are connected. And they’re ready to fight. So, let’s actually hit the streets to bring down wannabe King Trump. There’s no other way.

The United States and Israel don’t want you to know about Nader Sadaqa. He was a commander for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He spent 21 years in apartheid Israel’s prisons. Sadaqa is a Palestinian. He is a Marxist. He is a PFLP leader. He is also a Samaritan.

The Samaritan community is an ethnoreligious group. They descend from the ancient Semitic-speaking Hebrew people. Their homeland is the northern half of the West Bank in occupied Palestine. They are not Jewish. They practice a monotheistic religion similar to Judaism that developed alongside Judaism. 

The core difference is that Samaritans believe that the Temple Mount, a sacred symbol of ancient Abrahamic religions, was located at Mount Gerizim, near modern-day Nablus. 

The Samaritans hold the oldest copy of the Torah in the world, over 3,5000 years old. They follow the teachings of this ancient Torah and consider themselves religious descendants of Moses. They simply believe Moses received the 10 commandments on Mount Gerizim, not Mount Sinai. Samaritans observe their own version of holidays like Passover. Their sacred texts are written in ancient Hebrew and Aramaic, similar to those of Judaism. The Samaritan faith is a valid and parallel tradition to Judaism.

Today, Samaritans identify as Palestinian and speak Arabic colloquially. Israel does not want the world to know of this reality. The Zionist movement and its imperialist backers wish for the world to believe they have a monopoly on Jewish history and religious tradition. They do not. 

Nader Sadaqa was raised in the Samaritan community. He remained a devout follower of its Hebrew-descended religious tradition his entire life. He also fought for Palestinian liberation from Zionist apartheid. His faith fueled his desire to see his community and all Palestinian people liberated from Zionist mythology. He was a commander in the PFLP’s armed wing, the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades. He led operations against the terrorist Israeli Occupation Forces after the Second Intifada.

For this courageous resistance, Zionist Israel imprisoned him for 21 years. He endured physical torture. He suffered psychological torment. He faced starvation. He never broke. After 21 brutal years, he walked free in the recent round of prisoner exchanges.

To be abundantly clear, Israel and the United States fear Nader Sadaqa. They fear people like him. His identity is a potent threat. He is a Samaritan, from a faith parallel to Judaism. He is a Palestinian resistance commander. This combination inspires a dangerous idea. It could mobilize Jews worldwide to reject Zionism. It could rally them to fight for Palestine.

They hid him for two decades. They now ban him from returning to his home in Nablus. They fear his homecoming. They fear he could lead a whole new movement of cultural and literal resistance.

But, enough with the history. The most powerful point to be made about Sadaqa came in his own words after his release. Upon his freedom, reporters asked him one question: “What is your message to the resistance?” He responded: 

“My response is that the resistance is the one who speaks, the one who attacks, and the one who prevails. It is the one who wills, the one who excels, and the one who acts. 

“No voice rises above hers; rather, there is no voice except hers. And no statement except her statement, and no shadow except her shadow, and all that is required of us, the free people of the world, is to listen and obey.”  

Lev Koufax is an anti-Zionist Jewish activist.

Nico Lopez was born on Oct. 2, 1932, in Havana, Cuba. Just over 24 years later, the Batista regime murdered Lopez and four of his comrades after they landed in Cuba along with the rest of the Granma’s crew. Lopez gave his life for Cuban socialism and the liberation of the Cuban people from U.S. proxy rule. 

Thus, it is fitting that the third annual International Meeting of Theoretical Publications of Left-wing Parties and Movements (Encuentro Internacional de Publicaciones Teóricas de Partidos y Movimientos de Izquierda) opened in the theater of the Nico Lopez University of the Communist Party of Cuba. The conference’s goal is to continue building political communication and solidarity among the world’s progressive movements in Cuba, as the country and the world navigate a new era of imperialist aggression. 

Hundreds of progressives and left-wing activists piled into the auditorium. 

A panel on geopolitical relations and international analysis of global tensions and their impact on the left movement opened the conference. The panel consisted of four contributors:

1. Anil Cinar, member of the Communist Party of Turkey and manager of the Party’s magazine, Gelenek;
2. Chen Yiming, the Director General of the Chinese Communist Party’s Bureau of Latin America and the Caribbean publication of the People’s Daily;
3. David Gomez Rodriguez, the Vice President of Formation and Ideology for the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, and
4. Jorge Hernandez, Director of the Center for Hemispheric and U.S. Studies at the University of Havana. 

The discussion was moderated by Elier Ramirez Canedo, a member of the Cuban Communist Party’s central committee. 

All four speakers analyzed the problems facing the global working-class movement in the face of imperialist aggression from their own unique perspectives. 

Anil Cinar opened the panel with a speech about the imperialist strategy to sow lawlessness across the planet. The imperialist United States creates this chaos through sanctions, covert operations, and war. Cinar asserted that this strategy can be seen through not just the horrific genocide in Palestine, but in the continuing campaigns against Venezuela, Cuba, Yemen, and Iran. 

The speaker insisted that all these struggles are not just fights for national independence but also fronts in a growing global class struggle. Cinar concluded his talk by touting Cuba’s insistence on socialism as an example for the world. He asserted that the struggle in Turkey will continue until a new system rises that refuses to play facilitator for Western capital. He called upon the audience to push the socialist struggle around the world in unity to defeat imperialism. 

Director General Chen Yiming spoke next. He said the world is under strain, but the Global South is gaining economic power. China, he affirmed, is part of the Global South and committed to unity among its nations — including Cuba, Russia, Venezuela, and Vietnam. Chen emphasized that Cuba and China have built socialism together through economic, political, and cultural cooperation. He announced plans to expand trade with Cuba and to distribute Cuba’s socialist newspaper, Granma, more widely in China.

Next, Dr. David Gomez Rodriguez took the stage to loud applause. The crowd’s response reflected both the imperialist aggression against Venezuela and the resistance of its people, led by President Nicolás Maduro.

Rodriguez declared that Che and Fidel live on — in Cuba and in the global struggle against imperialism. He hailed the shared achievements of Venezuela and Cuba in eradicating illiteracy and defeating U.S.-backed coups.

But he warned that unity between nations like Venezuela and Cuba is now more vital than ever. A bloody struggle is coming, he said — a fight against the rise of fascism to ensure the working class of the planet not only survives but builds a new socialist world.

Rodriguez cited Russia’s war against NATO-backed Ukraine and the Axis of Resistance’s refusal to bend to U.S. pressure in West Asia as examples of that global resistance. He ended with a call to action: Only the unity of socialist states and anti-imperialist movements can secure the working class’s victory over imperialism.

Professor Jorge Hernandez was the final speaker. His message was direct: Today’s wars do not exist in isolation.

He analyzed the war in Ukraine and the genocide in Palestine as U.S. proxy wars — bent on smashing resistance and increasing profits. He urged every left-wing publication present to keep exposing the truth. Progressive newspapers, websites, books, social media, and magazines all play a role in breaking down the myths of imperialism. Simply put, people’s knowledge is people’s power.

Hernandez closed his talk acknowledging that while the process of fighting the empire is unfinished, it is by no means impossible. Quoting the founder of Bolivarian Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, he ended: “Community or nothing.”

Through these four speakers, the defiance of the Global South against imperialism was unmistakable. The conference closed with a firm anti-imperialist direction that will shape the debates and resolutions ahead. As long as leaders like these continue the struggle, hope for working-class victory over exploitation, racism, and genocide remains alive and strong.

Havana, Oct. 17 — At sunrise, tens of thousands filled Havana’s Avenida de los Presidentes, gathering at the Simón Bolívar Monument in a powerful show of solidarity with Venezuela. The demonstration began at 7:30 a.m. and surged for blocks down the tree-lined boulevard to the Malecón.

The rally came a day after Washington’s war machine struck another small boat in the Caribbean Sea, this one from Trinidad and Tobago. Two people were killed, and two survived.

Representatives of the Communist Party of Cuba, including President Miguel Díaz-Canel, stood alongside delegates from the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Cuba’s Communist Youth Union (UJC), and participants in the International Conference of Theoretical Publications of Left Parties and Movements (Encuentro Internacional de Publicaciones Teóricas de Partidos y Movimientos de Izquierda).

Speakers reaffirmed the unbreakable bonds joining the Cuban and Venezuelan peoples — two nations forged in struggle, facing the same imperialist enemy. 

Over 4.3 million Cubans — nearly half of the population — signed a national declaration backing Bolivarian Venezuela and condemning U.S. war and intervention.

President Nicolás Maduro, in Caracas, Venezuela, on hearing this, responded with gratitude and resolve.

“You cannot imagine how important it is for our people to feel the love and solidarity of the Cuban people,” Maduro said. 

Chants of “¡Cuba y Venezuela, unidas vencerán!” rolled through the crowd.