USA/Canada

On 7 January, 29 year old Tyre Nichols was driving home when he was stopped by five Memphis Police Department cops, by their account for “reckless driving”. Nichols was dragged out of his car, pinned to the floor, and after attempting to flee, assaulted by armed officers. Over half an hour later, Nichols was transported to a nearby hospital. Three days later, he died from the injuries he sustained. Nichols was 80 yards from his mum’s home and in the now-released police footage of the event can be heard calling out to her. He was unarmed. He had been out photographing the sunset. Family...

Thousands turned out for protests across the United States on 22 January, the 50th anniversary of the Roe v Wade supreme court decision that made abortion a constitutional right in 1973, but which was struck down last year. There were more than two hundred Women’s March events in 46 states. This is an issue that affects many women. Approximately one in four American women will have an abortion at some point in the course of their reproductive lives. Since the Supreme Court ruling on 24 June 2022, abortion has been banned or severely restricted in 14 states. This poses a serious health risk to...

Twas down in Mississippi not so long ago When a young boy from Chicago stepped through a southern door This boy’s dreadful tragedy I can still remember well The colour of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till - Death of Emmett Till , by Bob Dylan Till , a film now showing at local cinemas, tells the story of a lynching in the Southern USA which did not go almost unnoticed outside its area as many other such lynchings did. Instead it became a cause célèbre and gave a major impetus to the Civil Rights Movement. The USA presents itself as a great “melting pot” — a country where diverse...

Ahmed Shawki, formerly the most prominent leader of the International Socialist Organization in the USA, died on 22 January at the age of 62 after some years of ill-health. With maybe 900 members, and over 1,000 at some high points, the ISO was in the early 2000s the most active revolutionary socialist group in the USA. Its political history could be traced back to the Workers' Party of Max Shachtman (from 1940) - with twists and shifts along the way, and as it turned out enough of those to destroy the legacy. The Workers' Party's continuation, the Independent Socialist League (ISL), stopped...

According to the New York Times of 13 January, many Republicans had long been suspicious of the stories George Santos told about himself before he was elected to the US House of Representatives on 8 November 2022. They let it go. Now Santos, a pro-Trump Republican, opposed to abortion access and mask mandates and considering police brutality a “made-up concept”, has been found out. He insists he will serve his term in Congress. Kevin McCarthy, whipped by his difficulty in winning the far-right Republican votes he needed to become Speaker of the House of Representatives, backs Santos. Santos...

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has gone on record saying the 6 January 2021 attack on Congress would have succeeded with her in charge, because she’d have made sure the pro-Trump crowd all had guns. For an elected politician in any other purportedly democratic country to come out with such remarks would be career suicide. However, Greene now exercises considerable influence in the House of Representatives as part of the far-right faction wringing concessions from Speaker Kevin McCarthy. (She did it while voting McCarthy from the start, while others refused him a majority until he...

After over a month on strike, graduate student workers across the campuses of the University California (UC) will vote on a new contract this week (18-23 December). Their bargaining team came to a tentative agreement with management last week, after making a series of concessions on the strike’s demands, and voted by a narrow majority to recommend what they are calling a “historic” contract. Some on the bargaining team, and many workplace activists, are campaigning for a “no” vote, arguing against making concessions when the strike is still strong. A struggle in the union is taking place...

Congresswoman Gabbard meets Narendra Modi, 2019 Imagine if a Labour MP championed Corbyn in 2016, stood to be leader in 2020 – then left the party and become active on the far right. You are getting something of the flavour of US Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (in office 2013-21). Discussing Gabbard, the cases of George Galloway and Barry Gardiner spring to my mind, for different reasons. Gabbard’s case, stranger and more disturbing than either, surely has lessons beyond the US. Gabbard made great play of being the first Hindu member of the US Congress. But the Hindu tradition in which she was...

Dorothy Pitman Hughes, a pioneering black feminist, child welfare advocate, and community activist has died at 84. She will be remembered for her tour with Gloria Steinem in the 1970s which gave us one of the most iconic photos of the second-wave feminist movement. The photo, now in the National Portrait Gallery of the US, shows the the two raising their fists in the Black Power salute. Where Steinem came to feminism from journalism, Hughes came from grassroots activism, and pushed liberal feminism to look at the experience of working class black women. She was brought up in Lumpkin, Georgia...

Ohio Teamsters celebrate the re-election of Republican Governor Mike DeWine. The Teamsters claimed a major victory in the Ohio Governor’s race with the reelection of Governor Mike DeWine, a conservative Republican, during the recent midterm elections. Its celebration on the union’s social media channels should raise concerns among labor reformers and socialists, who’ve been looking for a new direction from the Teamsters after the disastrous Hoffa years. DeWine had wide support from the Republican establishment, and was also endorsed by former President Donald Trump, despite their past...