United States

Two weeks after being slammed by Hurricane Helene—the strongest storm to make landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region in 150 years—the Southeast is now bracing for a potentially worse “monster storm,” Hurricane Milton. It’s the latest in a series of humanitarian disasters across the region, which have wrought destruction far beyond anything seen in living memory.

Two weeks ago, the US Department of Commerce put forward a bill proposing to ban car parts and software linked to China or Russia. The White House held a press briefing and published a fact sheet justifying this, with implications that this was a measure to prevent terrorist attacks. The irony of such measures coming so soon after the US-sanctioned Israeli terror attack that was carried out using technological sabotage appears to have been lost on them.

For the first time since 1977, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) has gone on strike. At midnight on October 1, 47,000 dockworkers walked off the job at 36 ports from Maine to Texas, including important logistical centers like Baltimore; Boston; Charleston, South Carolina; Houston; Jacksonville; Miami; Mobile, Alabama; New Orleans; New York/New Jersey; Norfolk, Virginia; Philadelphia; Savannah, Georgia; Tampa, Florida; and Wilmington, Delaware.

One minute after midnight on September 13, thirty-three thousand members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) Districts 751 and W24 walked off the job and set up picket lines. It’s the first strike since 2008 at Boeing, the aerospace behemoth employing 66,000 workers throughout Washington state and over 171,000 nationwide.

Once again, Donald Trump appears to have been the target of an assassination attempt. More than four decades elapsed between the shootings of Ronald Reagan in 1981 and Donald Trump in July of this year. Now, in the span of just two months, there have been two attempts on a presidential life. Such is the political polarization and social decline in the United States—a country that could once boast being the most stable haven of world capitalism.

Since Kamala Harris entered the 2024 presidential race, the media has highlighted the alleged differences between her and Joe Biden’s rhetoric around Gaza, speculating about how she might differ from her current boss when it comes to the war on Gaza. They have noted a more “empathetic” tone toward Palestinians and a more “forceful” tone toward Israel.

In yet another dramatic twist in the tragicomic soap opera of American politics, Joe Biden has ended his reelection campaign. Coming just 108 days before the election, this is the latest a one-term president has ever made such a decision. The closest historical analogy was in 1968 when Lyndon Johnson declined to seek a second term under pressure from anti-Vietnam War protests. Genocide Joe’s stay at the White House has been marked by inflation and war, and he will end his tenure with an unfavorability rating of around 56%.

The attempted assassination of Donald Trump has accelerated the polarisation of American society, as the Republican presidential candidate dodged death by the narrowest of margins. But it wasn’t just Trump who dodged a bullet. The entire country went right up to the edge of a precipice, before taking half a step back. As the title of a Financial Times article put it: “America is staring into the abyss”.

“Can a man take fire to his bosom, And his clothes not be burned? Can one walk on hot coals, And his feet not be seared?”(Proverbs 6:27-29)

Following the first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, one question is on the minds of millions of ordinary Americans and the US ruling class: “How the hell are these our only options?”

In the early hours of this morning, it was announced that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will finally become a free man. This news will of course be celebrated by all those who campaigned for his release. Yet in a final injustice, Assange is currently on a plane bound for Saipan, in the American-controlled Mariana Islands, to plead guilty to an espionage charge. Thus US imperialism, which has never forgiven Assange for exposing its crimes, exacts a final measure of vengeance.