• What the Russian Revolution meant for modern art and culture - World Socialist Web Site

    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/02/28/talk-f28.html

    Arts editor David Walsh speaks on the centenary of the October Revolution
    What the Russian Revolution meant for modern art and culture
    By David Walsh
    28 February 2018

    We post here a talk given by WSWS arts editor David Walsh to several college audiences in December and January, to mark the centenary of the October Revolution.

    “But the new art, which will lay out new landmarks, and which will expand the channel of creative art, can be created only by those who are at one with their epoch… ”
    —Trotsky, Literature and Revolution

    #art #révolution_russe #urss #union_soviétique #culture #soviétisme

    • There is a remarkable photograph from the late 1920s of composer Dmitri Shostakovich, theater director Vsevolod Meyerhold, poet Vladimir Mayakovsky and artist-designer-photographer Alexander Rodchenko. Shostakovich, because of his international fame, survived, but the fates of the others illustrate Trotsky’s point: Mayakovsky committed suicide, Meyerhold died in the purges, Rodchenko “became silent.”
      Four artistic geniuses. There is a deeply tragic element to the fate of the Russian Revolution and its participants and supporters, almost unimaginably so.

      pour légender la photo

      #Chostakovitch #Meyerhold #Maïakovski #Rodtchenko

  • Danger of mass deportations grows as US Senate refuses to protect immigrant youth - World Socialist Web Site

    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/02/16/immi-f16.html

    #états-unis #migrations #déportations #asile

    Danger of mass deportations grows as US Senate refuses to protect immigrant youth
    By Eric London
    16 February 2018

    Hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the US as children face an increased threat of deportation after the Senate rejected a series of proposals to couple legal status for those covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program with stepped-up repressive measures against immigrants, including Trump’s wall along the US-Mexico border.

    Four votes were taken, each to close debate on a specific immigration measure, and all four fell short of the 60 votes required to end debate and force a vote on final passage. Three of the measures dealt directly with those covered by the DACA program, which Trump cancelled last September, setting a deadline of March 5 for expiration—at which point nearly 800,000 young people brought here as children could face deportation.

  • The Parkland massacre and the dysfunction of American society - World Socialist Web Site

    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/02/16/pers-f16.html

    The Parkland massacre and the dysfunction of American society
    16 February 2018

    Wednesday’s school massacre in Parkland, Florida took the lives of 17 people. Fourteen were students, ranging in age from 14 to 18 years old: Alyssa Alhadeff, Martin Duque, Nicholas Dworet, Jaime Guttenberg, Luke Hoyer, Cara Loughran, Gina Montalto, Joaquin Oliver, Alaina Petty, Meadow Pollack, Helena Ramsay, Alex Schachter, Carmen Schentrup, and Peter Wang. Three were coaches: Chris Hixon, Aaron Feis, and Scott Beigel, who was also a biology teacher.

    #états-unis #massacre #meurtres_de_masse #armes #armement

  • Sleeping rough in the UK: “I never expected to be on the streets” - World Socialist Web Site
    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/02/10/manc-f10.html

    Sleeping rough in the UK: “I never expected to be on the streets”
    By Margot Miller and Dennis Moore
    10 February 2018

    For the seventh consecutive year, rough sleeping in the UK is on the rise, according to recently published government figures. An estimated 4,751 people were sleeping out on the streets of England for the year 2017. This represents an increase of 15 percent on the previous year and 169 percent since 2010.

    #royaume_uni #pauvreté #disrimination

  • Russian teacher fired after criticizing low salaries - World Socialist Web Site
    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/02/10/russ-f10.html

    Russian teacher fired after criticizing low salaries
    By Clara Weiss
    10 February 2018

    On January 31, Viktor Makarenko, a teacher, was fired from the Taganrogskii metallurgical technical school in Taganrog, a city in the Rostovskaia oblast in southern Russia. Along with several other teachers at this institution, he previously signed a letter protesting against the low salaries teachers receive in the region. The letter was sent by the teachers to regional and federal agencies, and eventually to Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev.

    In the letter, which was signed by a total of 10 people, the teachers asked Medvedev to investigate why the Labor Code of the Russian Federation was, as they put it, “systematically” being violated in the region.

    #russie

  • Falling US life expectancy : The product of a deliberate ruling class policy - World Socialist Web Site

    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/02/09/pers-f09.html

    J’ai vu passer plusieurs analyses sur cette question préoccupante. Cette tendance a l’air de se confirmer et il est intéressant d’en rechercher les causes

    Falling US life expectancy: The product of a deliberate ruling class policy

    9 February 2018

    An editorial in a British medical journal has focused renewed attention on the shocking reality that life expectancy in the United States is declining. “Failing health of the United States: The role of challenging life conditions and the policies behind them,” published Wednesday in BMJ, formerly the British Medical Journal, builds on reports in December by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that revealed US life expectancy declined in 2016 for the second year in a row.

    #états-unis #démographie #Population #espérance_de_vie #santé #dégradation_sociale #décadence

    • Failing health of the United States | The BMJ
      http://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k496

      Causes potentielles ou probables...

      Why white Americans are dying at higher rates from drugs, alcohol, and suicides is unclear, complex, and not explained by opioids alone. The answer—likely some combination of factors in American life—must explain why the rise in mortality is greatest in white, middle aged adults and certain rural communities. Possibilities include the collapse of industries and the local economies they supported, the erosion of social cohesion and greater social isolation, economic hardship, and distress among white workers over losing the security their parents once enjoyed.910 By contrast, greater resilience might explain why black Americans—who have contended with longstanding structural disadvantages, discrimination, and higher all cause mortality—have not experienced a surge in drug deaths or suicides.

      Other data are also enlightening. Over the three decades in which survival advances slowed in the US, educational performance weakened, social divides (including income inequality) widened, middle class incomes stagnated, and poverty rates exceeded those of most rich countries.3 The US is rich, but its wealth is not inclusive.11 Its social contract is weaker than in other countries—those in need have less access to social services, healthcare, or the prevention and treatment of mental illness and addiction. The “American dream” is increasingly out of reach, as social mobility declines and fewer children face a better future than their parents.12

      Et le refus pur et simple d’y remédier

      In theory, policy makers jolted by the shortening lifespan of Americans would hasten to correct these conditions. They would promote education, boost support for children and families, increase wages and economic opportunity for the working class, invest in distressed communities, and strengthen healthcare and behavioral health systems. But the pro-business policy agenda favored by elected officials rarely prioritizes these needs. On the contrary, recent legislation and regulations may prolong or intensify the economic burden on the middle class and weaken access to healthcare and safety net programs.

      Ironically, leaders are outspoken about ending the opioid epidemic and bemoan spiraling and unsustainable healthcare costs. Solutions to both problems—which involve investment to support struggling families and communities and thereby improve public health—are often rejected, usually by leaders with competing self interests or ideological objections. The consequences of these choices are dire: not only more deaths and illness but also escalating healthcare costs, a sicker workforce, and a less competitive economy. Future generations may pay the greatest price.

  • Trump’s parade and the threat of military dictatorship - World Socialist Web Site
    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/02/08/pers-f08.html

    Trump’s parade and the threat of military dictatorship
    8 February 2018

    The order given by President Donald Trump to the Pentagon’s top brass to draw up plans for a military parade down Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue later this year is a political development that should be approached with deadly seriousness.

    The Washington Post reported that the demand for the parade was delivered by Trump to senior military officials, including his defense secretary, the recently retired Marine Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis, and Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a January 18 meeting in the “the tank,” the Joint Chiefs’ secret meeting room at the Pentagon.

    #états-unis #trump #parade_militaire

  • ICE agents arrest Kansas chemistry professor while taking his daughter to school - World Socialist Web Site

    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/02/07/icep-f07.html

    On January 24, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Syed Ahmed Jamal at his home in Lawrence, Kansas as he was preparing to take his daughter to school. Jamal, a 54-year old adjunct professor of chemistry at Park University in Parkville, Kansas, has been charged with being in the United States illegally.

    The manner in which the arrest was carried out as well as the details of the case have drawn the attention of local, national and international media. Jamal was arrested in his own front-yard in the presence of his young daughter, handcuffed and taken to the car before his family could reach him. As his wife rushed out along with their teenage son and tried to hug Jamal, she was warned by an ICE agent that she could be charged with interfering with an arrest. For two weeks Jamal has been held in a Missouri jail, 160 miles away from his wife and three children.

    #états-unis #migrations #immigrations #discrimination #injustice #Police #violence

  • Les marchés financiers au bord de la panique
    https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/economie/050218/les-marches-financiers-au-bord-de-la-panique

    Trader à #Wall_Street, le 5 février 2018. © Reuters Après un début d’année euphorique, la baisse brutale entamée vendredi à Wall Street s’est propagée sur les marchés, tous passés en mode vendeur. Les tensions se concentrent sur les #marchés_obligataires. Les investisseurs redoutent de voir la fin des politiques monétaires ultra-accommodantes menées par les banques centrales depuis dix ans.

    #Economie #banque_centrale #dettes #Fed #inflation #politique_monétaire

    • Global markets plunge as Dow records biggest ever one-day point fall - World Socialist Web Site
      https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/02/06/stoc-f06.html

      Global markets plunge as Dow records biggest ever one-day point fall
      By Nick Beams
      6 February 2018

      Wall Street stocks plunged yesterday amid a global market sell-off. At the end of the day, the Dow was down by 1,175 points, its biggest one-day point fall in history, after a day of violent moves.

      Including the fall last Friday, the Dow has dropped by more than 1,800 points in two days, erasing all the gains it had made this year.

      One of the most significant features of yesterday’s decline was its speed. In the space of about 11 minutes just after 3 pm, the Dow went from minus 700 points to 1,600 points down, in what was described as an “avalanche” of selling, before recovering somewhat. However, selling resumed and the index finished 4.6 percent lower for the day.

    • Vive les krachs boursiers !

      Dans le jargon, on parle de correction du marché. Et pour le coup, il s’agit d’une bonne correction. Le marché efface en deux séances les gains euphoriques de ce début d’année, encaissant son plus gros recul depuis plus de six ans.

      Et de bonne « correction », il n’y a pas que le marché qui en avait besoin. Le 31 janvier, Donald Trump s’appuyait sur le niveau du Dow Jones pour vanter le résultat de son action dans un discours extrêmement inquiétant. Signe du discernement du milliardaire, il liait sa présidence aux fluctuations de la bourse. De ce point de vue, on ne peut qu’espérer que la « correction » se prolonge, et que le marché cède entre 10 et 20% de sa valeur comme le prédise certains analystes.

      Chez nous, le jeune banquier d’affaires devenu président a également lié le sort de son mandat à celui du marché, plus subtilement. En instaurant des baisses d’impôts massives sur les plus riches, en sortant les fameux capitaux financiers du calcul de l’ISF pour inciter à l’investissement, en jouant des pieds et des mains pour récupérer les miettes de la City Londonienne post-brexit, en enterrant la taxe européenne sur les transactions financières, en organisant le #oneplanetsummit, en recevant les 140 PDG à Versailles... vous voyez le tableau ?

      Alors forcément, une correction du marché, si elle se poursuit, pourrait avoir des propriétés politiques intéressantes. Que le candidat de la modernité et du « nouveau monde » préside une crise financière qu’il aurait été le seul à ne pas voir venir, et on regarderait d’un autre œil son « génie » et son « talent ».

      Summum de l’ironie, la correction attendue depuis longtemps par les milieux financiers aurait été déclenchée par le renvoi de la directrice de la FED par Donald Trump et l’annonce de la hausse des salaires aux USA. En clair, les marchés redoutent la fin du crédit facile et le retour d’un rapport de force moins préjudiciable au salariat. Puisque les USA sont en plein emploi, d’où va venir la croissance si la FED n’arrose plus les banques d’argent gratuit ?

      On en est loin, mais rien n’interdit d’espérer que la « correction » se transforme en véritable crise. Et que cette fois, ce soit tout le système à bout de souffle qui s’effondre avec la prochaine Lehman Brother. Il serait alors temps d’inventer autre chose, pour résoudre les problèmes du chômage et du réchauffement climatique.

      Comme dirait Frédéric Lordon, une occasion qu’il s’agira de ne pas manquer.

      https://blogs.mediapart.fr/lonesome-cowboy/blog/060218/vive-les-krachs-boursiers
      #krach_boursier

  • The working class and the capitalist economy - World Socialist Web Site
    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/02/05/pers-f05.html

    The working class and the capitalist economy
    5 February 2018

    Ever since the publication by Karl Marx of his masterwork Das Kapital 150 years ago, bourgeois economists have sought to refute his labour theory of value, which disclosed the inner workings of the capitalist economy.

    This theory demonstrated that the wealth accruing to the capitalist class, in its various forms as industrial profit, rent and gains from operations in a range of financial markets, was ultimately derived from the surplus value extracted from the working class through the wages system, the foundational social relation of capitalism.

    #capitalisme #classe #race #nation #balibar

  • India strengthens ties with ASEAN countries - World Socialist Web Site
    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/02/05/asea-f05.html

    Late last month Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted leaders from all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in a clear move to strengthen Delhi’s geo-strategic and economic ties and counter China’s growing influence in the region.

    ASEAN leaders were the chief guests at the Indian Republican Day celebrations on January 26, having attended an India-ASEAN Commemorative Summit a day earlier. Modi also held bilateral talks in New Delhi with each ASEAN country leader—from Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, Brunei, Laos and Cambodia.

    #inde #anase #asean #Integration_économique