On New Year’s Day, a US military veteran who identified as a member of the Islamic State rammed and killed 14 late-night revelers with a truck in New Orleans. A Firebrand member and New Orleans resident offers a political perspective on the attack, placing it in context of the US’s bloody wars in the Middle East.

Recently deceased US president Jimmy Carter has predictably been eulogized across the political spectrum as a statesman and a progressive saint. However, socialists should never mourn presidents, the servants of capital and our class enemies. Instead we should remember Carter for what he was: a Cold Warrior, a war criminal, and one of the key architects of neoliberalism.

Last week’s killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has unexpectedly made the suspect a folk hero and triggered a tsunami of class rage over the US’s barbaric healthcare system. This sudden surge in class consciousness is a hopeful sign for revolutionaries, but it also shows that it will take more than lone avengers to combat the capitalist class.