En Passant

Academics are starting a US conference boycott.

The anger provoked by Freddie Gray’s death has been building for years – the result of entrenched racism and economic inequality, not to mention the long history of police brutality and killings, mainly of African American men.

Eric Ruder in Socialist Worker US untangles the crisscrossing web of antagonisms in the Middle East and argues that ‘the latest military escalations by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia threaten to further destabilize a Middle East in which open hostilities and humanitarian disasters have multiplied, from Libya to Yemen, and Syria to Iraq .’

Danny Katch in Socialist Worker US reports on the Staten Island grand jury decision in the Eric Garner case – and the bitter anger of opponents of police violence as they mobilize yet again. Here is a snippet.

But the video wasn’t the key. As in Ferguson, the real key was the unspoken rule of the criminal injustice system: Killer cops are above the law – and they can get away with murder.

DARREN WILSON has gotten away with murder – and the American injustice system sent the message once again that Black lives don’t matter, write Nicole Colson and Alan Maass in Socialist Worker US.

This is from the editorial in Socialist Worker US on the mid-term elections and the large number of those who are dismayed with establishment politics and who didn’t vote.

SocialistWorker.org writers Eric Ruder, Elizabeth Schulte, Trish Kahle and Donny Schraffenberger traveled to Ferguson to provide this account in Socialist Worker US of a community rising up against police violence, despite a crackdown that turns their city into a war zone each night.

Ashley Smith in Socialist Worker US provides the essential background for understanding Iraq’s crisis. As Iraq’s descent into chaos and conflict proves once again, the U.S. and its imperial rivals are part of the problem, not the solution.

So you haven’t heard about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement? This is not surprising since it is being negotiated in secret. So afraid is the Australian government of its citizens knowing details about what is being negotiated that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade banned journalists from a public briefing on the TPP.

The biggest terrorist sits in Washington and kills women and kids every day. Why isn’t Barack Obama on trial for his terrorism?