Pete Hegseth, the soap opera styled US Secretary of Defense, sports a questionable sanity. His behaviour before generals is the stuff of low comedy. His mania about sending narco-traffickers making passage on the sea from Venezuela to a watery grave has a millenarian zeal. But psychological coarseness and imperfection have not prevented questions being asked about why he, allegedly, ordered to strike a vessel twice in order to ensure the death of all aboard it.
Some 21 known deadly strikes on such vessels, resulting in the deaths of 83 people, have been orchestrated since September 2, when President …
For reasons set out briefly below, let’s suppose that Australia is a US vassal state and that the Pacific — what Australia likes to call its ‘backyard’ — is a peripheral sphere of US influence.
Under these circumstances, this essay considers what for Australia should be some of the more worrisome implications for its security of the ruling paradigm (Kuhn, 1970) of international relations, John Mearsheimer’s (2001) doctrine of Offensive Realism (OR).
Australia’s Vassal State Credentials
Just a few of Australia’s unimpeachable credentials as a pliant US vassal state are sufficient to make the case.
The New US National Security Strategy (NSS) has been released. This is a critically important document prepared by every administration that sets out the United States’ national security priorities, along with a formulation of the strategy & policies it proposes to address these concerns.
As would be expected with such a high stakes document, there are already many interpretations of it.
Here are some suggestions on how to read it.
1. First of all, read it. Avoid simplistic, partial, and hot take interpretations on the web–and read it–the whole thing for yourself. It’s a relatively short read: 33 pages.
Europe, mid-1800s: Two men stood at the center of a storm that would shape socialism’s future.
Karl Marx, a German-born philosopher, believed in seizing the state (central government) and wielding its machinery to crush the ruling class. To him, power was a tool, not a curse.
Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian anarchist strategist, saw it differently. According to him, every possible state was a prison. Even one run by the workers’ representatives would quickly become a cage. Bakunin dreamed of freedom built from the ground up: local councils, voluntary federations, no hierarchy.
“The most violent, mean, and malignant passions of the human breast…” are the emotions that protectors and defenders of capitalism focus on those who seek to end the profit system and replace it with a more egalitarian system. This is what Karl Marx wrote in his introduction to the first edition of Capital in 1867.
Most of written history is the history of the few dominating and exploiting the many. Marx, while searching for a more just society, clearly pointed out that humans are emotional animals, some of whom will do anything to maintain their power, wealth, and dominance. Unfortunately, he …
The Doomsday Clock advances 10 seconds closer to midnight. Global temperatures rise beyond 1.5°C. Forests burn. Hurricanes intensify. Meanwhile, countries produce bombs and bullets, the New Cold War inches us closer to nuclear annihilation, and US President Donald Trump extorts the world.
The response of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is to draw from the same tired capitalist playbook that created today’s polycrisis. Thus, APEC perpetuates a global order that makes democracy a farce and concentrates production in the hands of corporations. For most of us, to live our lives, we become insensate to these realities. The …
This book tells the story of why and how US labor became one of Israel’s most stalwart defenders and generous benefactors through the Zionist State’s tumultuous and controversial history. Importantly, this is also the story of Palestinian trade unionists and various rank-and-file union members – including Arab-Americans, anti-Zionist Jews, Black radicals, and anti-imperialists who, despite the odds, courageously organized in support of Palestinian freedom and dignity over the years and to whom today’s pro-Palestine labor activists can look for inspiration.1No Neutrals There p 11.
The UN is being systematically starved of funds while the money goes to the insatiable military. If this is not short-sighted, irresponsible and shameful, what is?
by Jan Oberg / December 3rd, 2025
The United Nations is facing one of the gravest financial crises in its history. According to the UN Secretariat, by late 2025, only 145 of its 193 member states had paid their assessed contributions in full. That leaves 48 countries behind on their obligations, with total arrears amounting to $1.87 billion. The consequences are severe: the UN has announced that its 2026 budget will be cut by $577 million, a reduction of 15 per cent, and nearly 19 per cent of staff positions will be eliminated. …
‘One day a beggar knocked on the doors of a great king. By chance, the king himself opened the door. He saw the beggar: the beggar was not an ordinary beggar, he was almost luminous. He had such grace, such beauty, such a mysterious aura, that even the king felt jealous. He asked, “What do you want?” still pretending – “I have not taken any note of you” – “What do you want?”
‘The beggar showed the king his begging bowl and he said, “I would like it to be …
It’s been over ten long months that the forces of democracy have been on the defensive, doing our best to withstand the many and various assaults on us on issue after issue, but the tide is turning:
-Trump’s polling numbers keep going down, at 36% positive and 60% negative in the latest Gallup Poll;
-Four weeks after Democratic Party electoral victories all over the country on November 4, it’s possible as I write that, today, a Democrat running for Congress in a special election in Tennessee could win despite, in the 2024 election, the Republican candidate winning by a 22% margin of …
Remember the famous line by Claude Rains as Captain Renault in Casablanca? After being told by his Nazi handlers to close Rick’s Cafe he relayed the ultimatum to Rick (played by Humphrey Bogart). Rick questioned why his cafe was being shutting? Renault simply answered, “I’m shocked to find that there’s gambling going on in here!” — this as he then took his chips from the croupier.
The actions by my government since September of blowing up a score of speedboats from the sky is more than a war crime. You see, we are NOT at war with Venezuela, and this …
The messiness of Australia’s social media ban for those under 16 as part of the Online Safety Act 2021 is becoming more apparent by the day. From December 10 this year, as announced by the commissar-minded eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, “age-restricted social media platforms will have to take reasonable steps to prevent Australians under the age of 16 from creating or keeping an account.” This, she declares, is “not a ban” but “a delay to having accounts.” Last month, the office formed the opinion “that Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X, YouTube, …
“Even an empire cannot control the long-term effects of its policies. That is the essence of blowback.”
by Paul Haeder / December 2nd, 2025
Hmm, genocide and boat captains and mates murdered by accused sexual predator and alcohol abusing Cap’n Crunch Pete, a-okay, but cock fights in how many states, a federal crime?
This is yet more breaking news (sic) I have to contend with as I get ready to give a crowd a short-short master class on why media and the press are …
Although President Donald Trump has claimed that “every policy” of his administration was “designed to lift up the American worker,” he has acted consistently, since returning to office in January 2025, to undermine workers’ chosen representatives, America’s labor unions.
The most flagrant Trump action along these lines occurred in March 2025, when he issued an executive order that terminated collective bargaining rights for more than 1 million federal government employees. This measure, the largest single union-busting action in American history, ended union representation and protections for 1 out of 14 unionized workers in the United States.
BAP’s U.S. Out of African Network & Africa Team co-sign the positions of our comrade, member organizations A-APRP & PAIGC
It is important that African (Black) people around the world not fall for the latest amateurish attempt by the neo-colonialist puppet government in Guinea-Bissau, led by President Umaro Sissoco Embaló, to subvert the democratic will of the Bissau-Guinean people. Before completing the country’s November 23rd election process, military leaders loyal to Embaló suspended it and seized “total control” of the country, claiming to have done so to prevent election manipulation.
The Black Alliance for Peace’s (BAP) Africa Team and U.S. …
A ceasefire can be a strange thing. The assumption, generally speaking, is that the parties to it restrain themselves for a period of time, ordering their forces and disciplining their charges from straying. But straying happens, transgressions inevitable. Some are genuine enough: silly misunderstandings, hot headed confusion, a fear that the other side has broken it. Room for error, and a degree of death and injury, is crudely permitted.
In the case of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, transgressions have become the lingua franca of the parties, though Israel remains, by far, the perpetrator par excellence. The latter’s departures from the agreement have …
Chinese chairman Xi Jinping met with Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi, at her request in Gyeongju, on 31 October, in the Republic of Korea.
The recently ensconced Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi began her early leadership with a major diplomatic gaffe when she said a Chinese attack on Taiwan could constitute “a survival-threatening situation” for Japan requiring the use of force.
Beijing is apoplectic. Fu Cong, Beijing’s ambassador to the UN, accused Takaichi of committing “a grave violation of international law.”
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, “It is shocking that Japan’s current leaders …
US President Trump ordered the airspace above and surrounding Venezuela “closed in its entirety” on November 29.
Yet the US has as much legal and moral authority to shutter the skies over Venezuela as the Venezuelans have to close the putting greens at Mar-a-Lago. Yes, that’s ridiculous – but not any more so than Washington’s phony pretext of drug interdiction for their deadly regime-change offensive against Venezuela.
To date, the Yankee military has murdered over 80 people in alleged “drug boats” in the southern Caribbean and eastern Pacific but has yet to confiscate a single milligram …
As the Trump administration enters its eleventh month pushing aggressive immigration crackdowns, public sentiment appears to be shifting. A new YouGov survey finds growing discomfort with the broad and aggressive methods being employed by the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). According to the poll, a majority (53%) of Americans somewhat or strongly disapprove of how ICE …
Our soldiers did not go to Africa to conquer, but to liberate.” — Fidel Castro1Fidel Castro. “Speech in Havana on Angola.” December 1975. Transcript in Granma archives; reprinted in Pathfinder Press collections.
In late 1975, as Angola prepared to cast off Portuguese rule, its fragile independence was threatened by apartheid South Africa’s armies and CIA‑backed mercenaries. Into this storm stepped Cuba. Within weeks, Havana launched Operación Carlota, named after an enslaved woman who led a …
“Basically, financial reporting is this sinking hole at the centre of journalism. You start by swimming around it until finally, reluctantly, you can’t fight the pull anymore and you get sucked down the drain into the biz pages.”
It is an amazing g-force terminal velocity, neck whipping mad mad mad mad world of cardboard characters, infotainment, dead-end commercialized propaganda that makes a grown dude cry….
On June 20, members of Palestine Action broke into a Royal Air Force base at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, going on to spray paint two military aircraft activists claimed were being used in “direct participation in the commission of genocide and war crimes across the Middle East.” This was deemed so horrible as to draw the ire of then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who went on to invoke section 3 of the Terrorism Act to proscribe the organisation.
At the time, it seemed impulsive, rash, and most likely intended to placate Israeli voices that something was being done about these …
The Nobel Peace Prize was established in 1901. In the decades that followed, Mahatma Gandhi emerged as the international symbol of world peace for resistance to the dominant imperialism of his time – the British Empire. He was never recognized by the Nobel Committee.
The Nobel Committee has honored figures ranging from the admirable Martin Luther King Jr. to the war criminal Henry Kissinger. Barack Obama received the prize after less than nine months in office, a “premature canonization” for not being George W. Bush. He then used his acceptance speech to justify US military intervention. Obama …
Ximdo is a people’s peace movement that has been growing in the war and famine-plagued Horn of Africa for several months now. The word is from the Tigrinya language, used by Eritreans and Tigrayans in Ethiopia. It has a number of meanings, but the best is “coexistence and cooperation” between people, peacefully. Like when two cows are harnessed side by side to plow a field?
Its first manifestation was the work of Eritrean activist/entertainer Awel Seid, and it took place exactly where the Eritrean and Tigrayan border met, with Awel sitting on the Eritrean side and Bro. Berhane, a prominent Tigrayan …
In conversation with Faramarz Farbod, Dr. Amr Gharib, a US physician with dual specialties in Emergency & Family Medicine, reflects on witnessing suffering, resilience, and humanity inside Gaza’s overwhelmed Nasser Hospital.
If the camel is a committee’s version of a horse, then the concluding notes of the 30th United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP30) at Belém, Brazil, were bound to be ungainly, weak, and messy. That is what you get from an emitting gathering of over 56,000 mostly subsidised attendees keen to etch their way into posterity. Leave aside the fact that some of the conference mongers might have been well-meaning, the final agreement was always going to be significant for what it omitted. It was also notable for lacking any official role from the United States, a country where …
Super-hawk Elliot Abrams is back in the news again, worrying that Donald Trump lacks “clarity” about what he intends to do in Venezuela. Abrams recommends that the president eliminate all doubts and ambiguities in his mind and directly attack Venezuelan territory in order to bring down the “dictator” Nicolas Maduro.
Abrams, U.S. special envoy to Venezuela during Trump’s first term, said in a recent Foreign Affairs article that the president’s advisors should promptly persuade him that the point of no return has already been passed in Venezuela, and that the only possible outcomes are that either Trump or Maduro will win the …
Next year will mark 250 years since the “official” date assigned to the rebellion against British sovereignty in its North American colony, popularly known as the “American Revolution.” In early July of 1776, a number of prominent figures and leaders of colonial resistance to the authority of the English Crown met in the port city of one of the English colonies and signed a resolution and an audacious document declaring independence. The impressively crafted and innovative document drew an administrative and military response from English authorities in both London and the colonies and forced the colonies to plan their next …
"San Francisco Peace Treaty" Illegal, Invalid: Chinese FM
by Global Times / November 27th, 2025
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun
Responding to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s claims that under the “San Francisco Peace Treaty,” Japan “is not in a position to determine or recognize the legal status of Taiwan,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said on Thursday that Takaichi’s remarks deliberately ignore internationally binding documents while relying solely on the illegal and invalid “San Francisco Peace Treaty,” once again showing she remains unrepentant and disregards UN authority. Guo warned that the international community should also remain …
National Day of Mourning and that Strange Stink of Pearl Harbor: Emancipate yourselves from fake news!
by Paul Haeder / November 27th, 2025
Note: In the Local Newspaper, Newport News Times, now called, The Leader.
These are unprecedented times for human intelligence and collective memory. We are seeing turbo charged the scarfing up of the American and Western collective consciousness through the illicit actions of billionaires and their hoarding henchmen millionaires.
So much common sense and clear thinking have been virtually memory holed by the advancing armies of information and data controllers. Larry Ellison isn’t just hoarding all the data of the world through his many operations tied to Oracle. He’s Big Brother of another Mother.
