Veterans Oppose Mass Deportation and Domestic Military Deployments
by Veterans for Peace / February 7th, 2025
Veterans For Peace strongly objects to the Trump Administration’s racist campaign of mass deportation of undocumented workers, who are our friends, neighbors and even our fellow veterans. We condemn the violent raids that are sowing fear and terror in communities across the United States. As veterans, we are particularly opposed to the misuse and abuse of U.S. military personnel, including their illegal deployment to the U.S. border with Mexico.
Since Donald Trump’s inauguration, about 1,000 U.S. Army personnel and 500 Marines have been sent to the border, in addition to 2,500 National Guard members already there. Helicopter units are being sent along …
Since his second inauguration, the billionaire, known for his highly discriminatory anti-immigrant mentality and behavior, has taken the toughest measures in favor of a “cleansing” that will have terrible consequences, even for unborn children.
And here we go with a continual slide into fascism, and, yes, a fascist nation turns on its own people. Fascism can also come into the light of the 21st century as techno-feudalism, another form of elite billionaires and their ground troops strangling the working class, even professional managerial …
The degree of restraint and investigative rigor employed by Washington, NATO, and their media allies when ascribing guilt to Russia for any indiscretion bears little relation to how NATO’s actions are assessed. This has long been standard operating procedure, but the events in the Baltic Sea over the past two years take this pattern further.
Acts of aggression where the US or its allies motives are clearest must be most obfuscated, with logical conclusions displaced in headlines by nefarious sounding, circumstantial evidence that points elsewhere. The framing for the public of any reporting regarding Russia’s war with Ukraine must always note …
One of the most stunning events of the past few months has been the fall of Damascus. This fall had initially been expected over a decade ago, when rebel armies funded by Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the United States crowded around the edges of Syria and threatened then President Bashar al-Assad’s government. These armies, backed by rich and powerful countries, were comprised of a range of actors, including:
swaths of people who were angered by the economic distress caused by the opening up of …
What if the citizens of Germany during the 1930s somehow could have known in advance how World War II was going to end? Would they have bought into the lies of Hitler and the Third Reich? Would they have gone along with the wanton aggression knowing it was a suicide mission and would turn their beloved homeland into a pile of rubble and put nearly 9,000,000 of them in early graves?
What about Japan? Before World War II, Japan was securely locked down. No dissent from the …
The passing of Jimmy Carter has been duly noted in ubiquitous remembrances and commentaries on his four-year presidency, 1977-1981. Carter is lauded more for his post-presidential humanitarian projects, while his presidency is deemed a mixed bag by left and right alike. For many Vietnam War resisters – myself included, it is more personal. Jimmy Carter’s first act as president was to pardon draft resisters. He then established a program for military deserters like me, who were able to return from exile or up from “underground” without going to prison.
President Carter’s pardon took a certain amount of courage and compassion, and …
The ghosts of thousands of Palestinian children crushed by Israeli bombs loomed over this year’s Auschwitz commemorations
An entirely mendacious message lay at the heart of this week’s coverage by the BBC of the 80th Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorations.
The British state broadcaster asserted throughout the day that the voices of the few remaining survivors of the Nazi extermination programme were still being heard “loud and clear” in western capitals. Those survivors – now in their 80s and 90s – warned that the …
Amid its beautiful and quite vales of Parachinar lying between the two neighbouring countries, Pakistan, the echoing of muffled screams can be heard far too often as families lose their dear ones to sectarian terrorism. Once surrounded by the natural beauty and orderly with friendly neighbours and kin folk, this town can now boast about appearing to be hell on earth—the manifestation of an entrenched conflict that has taken so many lives. It is not a story of just a small town named Parachinar but also a testimony of hatred between …
At the risk of writing a numbed monotone in response to fifteen months of reported Israeli war crimes in Gaza l note here some of the lesser known efforts to resist the genocide in Gaza. No legal system has countered the atrocities against civilians, civilian infra-structure, humanitarian support, medical and health care, Palestine’s culture, Gaza’s habitat. Governments which have signed the Convention on Genocide have not intervened. And the U.S. has vetoed U.N. and Security Council resolutions toward peace and impeded application of international laws which might prevent the genocide.
The International Criminal Court and the Court of International Justice at …
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / February 6th, 2025
This year’s Doomsday Clock Statement landed like a damp squib in a Trump-swamped corporate news cycle on January 28th. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists only moved the hands of the Clock forward by one second, from 90 seconds up to 89 seconds to midnight, which must have come as a relief to the few members of the public who heard about it.
But this minimal advance in the hands of the Clock was a strange and misleading top-line for the Bulletin’s actual Doomsday Clock Statement, which was brimming with …
by Joseph Essertier and Zobidah Yousif Elamin / February 6th, 2025
Even those who pay attention to Africa-related news may not know how terrible the situation is in Africa, for example, that there are more conflicts on that continent now than at any point since at least 1946. Sudan is no exception. In mid-April of 2023, fighting broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan, and the fighting then spread throughout the country.
In 1945 civilians from the German village of Hurlach were marched into the midst of the horrors of newly liberated Kaufering 6, a sub-camp of Dachau. As they moved from the crisp spring air into the zone of stench and death and disease they protested that they did not know that this horror existed. Could it be true that people living in the midst of 11 such subcamps, 11 such sites of oppression and misery, did not understand what was happening to their fellow humans on their very doorstep? Could it be true of other Germans? The answer is that …
The nation’s first charter school law was passed in Minnesota in 1991. Today there are roughly 3.8 million students enrolled in about 8,000 charter schools across the country. Charter schools are legal in 46 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
Over the past 30+ years, thousands of charter schools have failed, closed, and abandoned millions of students, parents, teachers, education support staff, principals, and others—all in the name of “choice,” “competition,” “innovation,” “accountability,” “results,” “empowering parents,” and “busting teacher unions” (see here, here, and here). In Michigan alone, 36% of charter schools fail in the first …
No, this is not about the ocean or surfboards. It’s about the current economic and cultural climate we are living in. While the Democratic Party turned a mostly deaf ear to the ills of our working stiffs… for decades, their adversaries, the Republican Wolves, have always tried to ratchet the pump. Trump 2 wants, as the Brits say, to go the ‘ Full Monty’ and make America a totally feudal state. When we have less than 10% of private sector workers in unions ( actually at around 6%) the **** is about to hit the fan! Legislating anti terrorism laws …
Victoria, Poldark, and Brexit cultural nationalism
by Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin / February 6th, 2025
The recent drama, Victoria (2016-2019) on Netflix based on the life of Queen Victoria is an elaborate, well-made and well-acted series, all the better to convince one of the authenticity of its content.
Victoria was presented as a young queen who was always concerned with the interests of not only her adoring public but with the staff who worked in her palace.
However, this all starts to break down in an episode that dealt with the horrors of the Great Hunger raging in Ireland in 1847.
by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / February 5th, 2025
This is what militaries do during coups: you capture the major targets, with government buildings high on the list, and you take over communications and other systems.
— Ruth Ben-Ghiat, historian on fascism and authoritarian leaders
How something is done is just as important as why something is done.
To suggest that the ends justify the means is to launch oneself down a moral, ethical and legal rabbit hole that leaves us in a totalitarian bind.
We are already halfway down that road.
Whatever the justifications for discarding, even temporarily, the constitutional framework and protocols that have long served as the foundations for our …
Will the world ever be free of the menace of nuclear annihilation?
There was a promising start along these lines during the late twentieth century, when―pressed by a popular upsurge against nuclear weapons―the nations of the world adopted a succession of nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements. Starting with the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963, these agreements helped curb the nuclear arms race and prevent nuclear war.
But the tide gradually turned during the final years of the twentieth century and the first decades of the twenty-first. As international conflict heightened and the nuclear disarmament movement waned, additional nations …
by Michelle Ellner and Melissa Garriga / February 5th, 2025
Trump’s executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” isn’t just another absurd stunt or another example of his outlandish behavior. It signals a much deeper, more troubling agenda that seeks to erase historical identity and assert imperial domination over a region already suffering under a long history of interventionist policies. At its core, this is a move to expand the U.S. empire by erasing Mexico’s presence from a geographical feature recognized for centuries.
The name “Gulf of Mexico” has existed since the 16th century. Its recognition is supported by international organizations such as the …
It has had a rebarbative, blighting effect across the entire aviation industry. The Ryanair model, for want of a better term, prides itself on minimal, no-frills service for eye popping prices. The Irish-based low-cost carrier was intended to revolutionise European air travel by offering a budget option for the eager and easy holiday maker. In time, this seemingly attractive option has become a handy model to emulate by more traditional airlines, who have become mere shadows of themselves. National carriers, in other words, are now shameful replicas of budget airlines, with one exception: prices have been kept high and, post …
Recently, a man had the audacity to tell me that “not everyone is an archetype.” By saying this, he earned himself a place as The Bastard. You read that right, one of the eight characters of comedy, as detailed in the brilliant book by Scott Sedita. And guess what? Everyone fits somewhere, because everyone is mentally challenged to some extent.
For instance, my current screenwriting tutor, a man who told me I couldn’t write a story about a doctor being a villain because doctors are bound by the Hippocratic Oath, falls neatly into The Dumb One category. My previous screenwriting tutor, …
After decades of a prostate cancer epidemic and a refusal to screen Black men, who suffer a 60% higher incidence than White men, the highest in the industrialized world, physicians are now advocating refusal to screen ALL men.
The American Cancer Society writes, “Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the US. It’s also the second leading cause of cancer death. About 1 in 8 men will get prostate cancer in their lifetime.” Knowing these facts about the cancer epidemic, The American Family Physician (AFP) has just published an editorial that calls on physicians to STOP …
Roger D. Harris views wanted poster for González at the Caracas airport. Photo: Roger Harris.
The first thing greeting me as I disembarked from my flight in Caracas was a wanted poster for one Edmundo González Urrutia. The reward was $100,000. Not to be outdone, the US had slapped a $25 million bounty on the head of President Maduro and lesser amounts on other Venezuelan leaders.
Throughout the election campaign US President Donald Trump often claimed that Biden’s administration made a lot of mistakes while in power. Many of them, according to Trump, just fueled the flame of the protracted war between Russia and Ukraine. The US President and his supporters fiercely condemned the Democrats for numerous aid packages, that, from their point of view, not only pulled the opposing sides away from negotiations but also damaged the American economy. In his speeches Trump systematically stressed his intention to bring an end to the conflict in a very short time by halting military aid to Ukraine …
Waking up, day after day, and seeing continuous disasters visited upon the Palestinian people forecasts a day of facing the light at an increasingly dark level. It is impossible to be unaware of the genocide; yet an entire nation reinforces it. The American people are disposed to the sufferings its government inflicts upon others.
Election of an authoritarian to the highest office, who appoints cabinet positions with qualifications that require little experience in government affairs and extensive experience in extramarital affairs, completes the mystification. Elise Stefanik, selected as America’s representative to the United Nations, agrees to the proposition that …
The Black Alliance for Peace Africa Team (BAP) and U.S. Out of Africa Network (USOAN) stands in unwavering solidarity with the Congolese People as they endure yet another chapter of violence, exploitation, and masked imperialist aggression in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The ongoing conflict, fueled by Rwanda’s role as an imperialist foot soldier, is not merely a regional dispute but a manifestation of global capitalism’s insatiable desire for Africa’s resources. As the transnational capitalist class fight for dominance in the global clean energy, artificial intelligence, and technology markets, the Congo has been and stands to remain the …
Rotem and Osama with rosesAs Rotem Levin tossed a grenade into the middle of a Palestinian village in the West Bank, he didn’t realize his life would change forever.
“I thought I was fulfilling my duty to my country,” he told me over video chat. “I had never questioned what I had been raised to believe.”
Rotem wore a pink and gray vertically striped linen shirt and his hair was short enough to make it look like his head had been recently shaved. He looked like the Jews in the …
