The financial crisis that has been heating up since early 2007 reached the boiling point in late September. Credit markets virtually stopped functioning. A full-blown panic swept stock markets worldwide. The U.S. economy is in the throes of a recession that could turn into a Depression lasting for years. In these dire straits, the Wall Street speculators who set off this crisis are demanding that the government rescue them with a bailout priced at $700 billion. The actual costs will be far higher, a trillion dollars or more. Meanwhile, the Democrats are pushing hardest for the Bush bailout of the banks. Presidential candidate Barack Obama blames "greed" for the crisis on Wall Street (capitalism without greed?) and says there must be no "blank check to Washington" -- meaning he's for putting in a few conditions as window dressing. Following in the Democrats' footsteps, the AFL-CIO labor bureaucrats called a demo for "No Blank Check for Wall Street." Yet no amount of regulation will stop the boom-bust cycle of capitalism. Meanwhile unemployment lines are growing and a million families were thrown out of their homes by bank foreclosures in the last year. While the fat cats, Democrats and bureaucrats are all going for the Bush bailout to prop up U.S. capitalism, revolutionary Marxists oppose this trillion-dollar giveaway to the Wall Street speculators, calling instead for a program of transitional demands leading to the expropriation of the banks and the entire bourgeoisie through workers revolution. read full story / add a comment

The new Paulsen-Bernanke package to “rescue� Wall Street will only puff the speculative bubble and trap the working people’s money in it. It hopes to keep the addiction, greed and gluttony for speculative profits going. It’s time to beat down Wall Street capitalism! Time to put working people’s welfare first! Time for real, socialist change. read full story / add a comment

I have to admit that I have never actually seen a pig putting on lipstick. I guess it was because pigs had a hard time holding lipstick in their hooves, and the fact that their species never adapted to the manufacture and sale of mirrors for self-conscious assessment? But a pit bull with lipstick? What are we to think of such a shocking metaphor—that is of a hockey mom equating to a pit bull? Or why do moms continue to where lipstick after getting married anyway? read full story / add a comment

Union leaders: We’ll picket until contractor meets demands for increased safety
Eleven construction workers have died in the last 18 months
at Strip construction sites including Six at the City Center
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The United Auto Workers gathered near the new MGM Grand at Foxwoods in Ledyard on Saturday to kick off the first of two days of protests against what the union calls an unfair tipping policy and the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe's refusal to bargain. read full story / add a comment

On May 1, every port on the West Coast of the United States was shut down to demand an end to the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The historic May Day walkout by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is the first time ever that an American union has struck against a U.S. war. The union ranks defied the rulings of an arbitrator, who twice ordered them to go to work. They overcame the capitulations of the ILWU leadership, which didn't want the work stoppage in the first place, tried to water it down and cowered before the threats of legal action while waving the flag. The employers' Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) declared the May 1 port shutdown an "illegal strike." But after all the huffing and puffing from the bosses' mouthpieces, the dock workers pointed the way to defeating the imperialist war by mobilizing working-class power. In the end, it was more than a work stoppage. The dock workers' May Day strike against the war was a first step, a show of what it will take to bring down the warmongers in Washington. Their "symbolic" action was felt all the way to Iraq, where dock workers in two ports stopped work in solidarity with the ILWU. But it was only a beginning. What is needed is not only industrial action but a political offensive against the Democrats and Republicans, the partner parties of American imperialism, to build a class-struggle workers party. read full story / add a comment

MGM MIRAGE NAMED AS LAS VEGAS UNION-BUSTER OF THE YEAR read full story / add a comment

At Luxor, targeted first, owner MGM Mirage fights back with carrots and sticks read full story / add a comment

Over 2600 workers at the New River Valley plant in Virginia began strike action on Friday. read full story / add a comment

NEW YORK, 12 January -- The attack by over 800 state and federal police and Mexican army soldiers, aimed at dislodging striking miners from Cananea (Sonora state), was answered with a protest picket in New York. In front of the Mexican consulate, some 20 demonstrators proclaimed their solidarity with the mineworkers, who have been on strike since July 30 against terrible safety conditions at the Cananea complex and against government attacks on the workers. read full story / add a comment

Obama didn't show up for Peru trade agreement vote amid debate over NAFT in campaign. Chicago activists hold action at his Chicago HQ. Video stream info read full story / add a comment

My name is Suncere Ali Shakur I am a 36 old African American I live here in the Mountain of Asheville N.C.I have been a grassroots activist for peace and justice for over 15yrs. I just recently moved back to Asheville after going to New Orleans 3 days after Katrina as a first responder

.I spent almost two years there as a volunteer and what I saw while there tested me in ways I never imagine, there in New Orleans I learned that I was still a subjugated person but not only in New Orleans but as I reflected back on my whole life as a black male I had never been free no matter were I lived. read full story / add a comment

Opportunity Lost - Union leader says Blue Ridge workers could have gotten a better deal in buyout. read full story / add a comment