David Walsh

Poet Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893) “is hostile to hypocrisy, the exploitation of man by man; his sympathies entirely on the side of the proletariat.” He accepted the Revolution more naturally than any other poet, “because it was in accordance with his entire development” (Trotsky).

Edgar Degas (1834) – Impressionist painter, sculptor. He preferred to be called a “realist,” emphasized “his passion for concrete, direct observation and notation of ordinary, everyday experience.” An anti-Dreyfusard, “ferocious anti-Semite.” Shunned Pissarro, a Jewish anarchist.

Gottfried Keller (1819) – Swiss writer. Important democratic, realistic narrative writer of the post-1848 period. Author of autobiographical novel, Green Henry, highlighting “broken dreams and economic vulnerabilities of young artists within a rapidly changing capitalist society”

Martha Reeves (1941), born in Alabama, one of 11 children, moved with her parents to Detroit. She performed as a soprano soloist in Handel’s Messiah with her school choir before 4,000 at the Ford Auditorium. “Heat Wave,” “Dancing in the Streets,” “Nowhere to Run,” “Quicksand.”

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811) – Vanity Fair, Pendennis, Henry Esmond. His return to the style, structure of 18th century novels sterns “from a deep and bitter disillusionment with the nature of politics, with the relations between social and political life in his own time.”

Nowhere does the PEN document point the finger at the root cause of the difficulties: the Zionist regime and its determination to exterminate hundreds of thousands of Palestinians - PEN America president resigns over organization’s pro-Zionist statement wsws.org/en/articles/20…

This crisis is a landmark in the decomposition of the post-Cold War order and the descent of the capitalist powers into conflict over the re-division of the world - The Panama Canal crisis and US imperialism’s neocolonial drive against Latin America wsws.org/en/articles/20…

July 17 marked the 90th anniversary of the outbreak of Spain's civil war. The army led by Gen. Francisco Franco launched a fascist coup aimed at toppling the elected government of Spain’s Second Republic - 90 years since the start of the Spanish Civil War wsws.org/en/articles/20…

Iceberg lettuce that Taylor Farms sold to Taco Bell has infected 1,644. Neither corporation faces any penalty from a government gutting public health programs - Trump administration shields corporations, as thousands are poisoned in cyclosporiasis outbreak wsws.org/en/articles/20…

Hazardous wildfire smoke blanketed large swaths of the US and Canada this week. "Workers' health issues are being ignored for the sake of production” - As wildfire smoke engulfs factories and workplaces, workers demand lives before profit wsws.org/en/articles/20…

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines “intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives” as a war crime - US broadens bombardment of Iran to civilian infrastructure wsws.org/en/articles/20…

There is no serious response to Trump's madness and lies within the establishment. The constitutional forms upheld for centuries as guarantees against dictatorship have been hollowed out - Trump’s speech: Ruling class in crisis lurches toward dictatorship wsws.org/en/articles/20…

Film actor James Cagney (1899) – “One of the axioms of the talking pictures … A principal justification of the early sound films in terms of kinesis and realism … A man in motion in a medium of movement, and he made dialogue seem as dynamic a component of film art as montage.”

Lyonel Feininger (1871) – Born in New York to German-American parents, moved to Europe at 16. Cartoonist, caricaturist for 20 years. A fine artist at 36. Leading Expressionist groups, including Novembergruppe after 1918 Revolution. Fled Nazis, who named him a “degenerate” artist.

The death and destruction are the product of decades of capitalist development that have left Bangladesh’s workers and rural poor completely vulnerable and unprepared - Catastrophic Bangladesh floods kill over 50 people wsws.org/en/articles/20…

Blanche has targeted Trump’s political opponents while the Justice Department shields federal agents responsible for killing workers and parents - Senate Democrats cover for Trump’s violent assault on immigrants, democratic rights at Blanche hearing wsws.org/en/articles/20…

Jacobin cites the DSA election victories to argue, in the form of friendly advice, that the right-wing establishment should not be distracted by the DSA's supposed “socialism” - Jacobin offers services of DSA to Democratic establishment, union bureaucracy wsws.org/en/articles/20…

Florida has executed two 74-year-old men and is preparing to kill an 80-year-old at the end of the month, each in turn becoming the oldest person put to death - Killing the aged and infirm: Executive power and the machinery of state vengeance wsws.org/en/articles/20…

Stephen Miller characterized left-wing opposition to capitalism as a biological deformation that had to be rooted out, a formulation that is a hallmark of fascism - Rubio, Miller host fascist conference at State Department wsws.org/en/articles/20…

Iranian officials said a US strike Wednesday night hit near Shahid Baqaei Hospital, a children’s cancer center in Ahvaz - White House actively discussing sending ground troops to Iran wsws.org/en/articles/20…