Why do I read the World Socialist Web Site? To answer that question I must first ask another: What is the first thing that all socialists must do and do without hesitation? Socialists must tell the truth. I read the WSWS because it is the only news source that tells the truth and tells it consistently.

When the ISO defends the CIA-backed, Islamic-militant Syrian rebels, the WSWS tells the truth about their nature, their roots, their backings and their actions. When so-called leftists like Michael Moore defend blatantly pro-torture films like Zero Dark Thirty the WSWS provides accurate appraisals. While the intellectuals, academia and the pseudo-lefts invent and focus on non-issues, redirecting genuine opposition to war and austerity into dead channels, the WSWS stands like an unrelenting cliff against the waves of lies constantly threatening to drown the working class.

I read the WSWS because the WSWS tells, without qualifications, the truth. It is only in seeking the truth that genuine progress can be made. Galileo spoke the truth when he stated that the Earth traveled around the Sun—paving the way for huge advancements in astronomy and our understanding of the universe. Locke spoke the truth when he proposed that human beings were born tabula rasa (“a blank slate”) and paved the way for a material understanding of the human psyche. Darwin spoke the truth when he rejected the notion that life was unchanging, and stated instead that species had evolved over a long and gradual process—providing us, for the first time, with a true understanding of where we came from. And above all else, Marx spoke the truth when he stated that all of the inequality, in all of the civilizations of mankind, was the result of class distinctions in society and that no society could ever eliminate the problems of poverty and war without eliminating these class distinctions. In doing so he paved the way for a mass, revolutionary socialist movement of the people.

The WSWS carries on this tradition. And that is why I read the World Socialist Web Site.