Latest articles


Memorial Day: It’s Not About the Dead Soldiers but About Glorifying War

Although Memorial Day in the United Sates is ostensibly a day for honoring soldiers killed in wars, it is, rather, a day for promoting war. If it were to honor the dead, all its pageantry would be in opposition to war. Rather than being haunted by the ghosts of war, many Americans are very proud of all its soldiers killed while killing foreigners for the military industrial complex and the super-rich who own the country.

For the U.S.A. is a warfare state; it has been waging imperialistic overseas wars for a long, long time, and using its soldiers as cannon fodder. …

The Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza Must End Now

The horrific images of children starving in Gaza, due to Israel’s cruel, inhumane blockade of all humanitarian aid since early March, shocks the world’s conscience. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recently announced plan to distribute aid, while forcing Gazans to move yet again, is a spurious cover for his and Trump’s ethnic cleansing scheme.

Yet concrete action to end this calamity is hard to organize. How does a genocide end? And specifically, how do people of conscience, acting with majority support of the US public, organize to end it?

The lack of true democracy in the United States, so evident in domestic …

An “In” on Getting in Small Town Newspapers

Start with the national/international celebratory stuff, then go for the anti-Capitalist jugular

Thousand-word Opinion Editorials are a fine thing to pen, and you can cover a lot of ground in this amount of verbiage. Normally, local rags limit letters to the editor to 300 words, and alas, in this sound bite sort of scrolling-on-the-screen culture, going over a 500-words limit is the kiss of death — you lose your reader.

But there is a method and mad dash of hope in this formula of once-a-month tributes to hard work, that is, highlighting the hard work of “heroes” in this hard land of penury and disaster and predatory (retaliatory) capitalism.

Today’s piece in my local …

Obscene Wealth

Gabriel Zucman is a French-born economist who teaches at California, Berkeley and the Paris School of Economics. Zucman’s academic specialization is in wealth inequality, using tax data to track the stratification in wealth in the US and the rest of the world. A student of famed inequality expert, Thomas Piketty, he is an important figure in the World Inequality Database.
His most recent findings expose a gross obscenity, a level of wealth inequality in the US that should shame every politician, every mainstream-media commentator, and every cultural influencer who fails to make recognition of this travesty central to his or …

Mapping Militarism 2025

World BEYOND War has just released its 2025 edition of Mapping Militarism, which uses 24 interactive maps to highlight the state of war and peace on our planet. Each map allows the viewer to spin the globe, zoom in and out, scroll the timeline back through the years, or switch from map view to list view. Try it.

Masterpieces of Contemporary American Cinema, Part Two

Beyond The Crucible

In part one of this series, we discussed a number of films which encapsulate the depravity of an America enslaved to unbridled corporate power, and how many of our countrymen dispense with all semblance of morality in order to earn a living. In part two we will revisit this theme, while delving into “the war on terror” and the grave dangers of biofascism.

Up in the Air, directed by Jason Reitman; starring George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, and Anna Kendrick (2009)

Up in the Air unveils the macabre rotting heart of an America in the throes of late-stage …

Super Rich Oligarchs

What do they dream of and why?

Justice Demands Action against Zionism, not Hypocritical Rhetoric from the States of the “West”

Just as Nazi Germany sought the total elimination of Jewish life, the state of Israel, with full U.S. support, is now openly pursuing the systematic annihilation of the people of Gaza, the acceleration of mass displacement in the West Bank, and the denial of Palestinian nationhood itself. Those who dare to speak out are vilified, censored, or stripped of their livelihoods, ensuring complicity through coercion. The Black Alliance for Peace rejects this moral and political blackmail. True solidarity demands courage—refusing to be silenced or pacified as we witness, document, and resist this ongoing genocide. History will judge not only the …

Making Sense of Schrodinger’s Cat

Review of "The Midnight Library"

How can a cat be alive and dead at the same time?

I love how science has rediscovered religion. Leaving aside the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe, the universe itself is conscious. In the beginning was consciousness — inner light. Then there was outer light, etc. Mind you it took billions of years, but what’s that in divine reckoning? Religion was the first ‘science’, followed by astrology. Now both despised. How times have changed.
The scientific method, induction, deduction, math/physics, Darwin are all latecomers, though Darwin marks the beginning of the return to metaphysics. His theory was …

Gaza: “Holocaust” Is the Necessary Word in the Fight for Historical Memory

No other word than Holocaust suits what is occurring now in Gaza. Perhaps the future will provide a unique term to suit the unique horror, but for now we we need to know this as a Holocaust with a capital H.

The world has never witnessed atrocities in the way that they have witnessed this the excruciation of the people of Gaza. The Gaza Holocaust stands out as defining historical event of our time.

We have seen bags filled with pieces of children. We have witnessed people burned alive. We have seen massacres with the eagle’s perspective and deaths with wrenching intimacy. …

Disgraced Televangelist Jim Bakker Warns of End Times and Pleads for $1 Million to Survive

One of the 20th Century’s most popular – and disgraced — televangelists is …

Possible Consequences of Overcoming an Addiction

What might one lose when one losses an addiction?

Veterans Reflect on Meaning of Memorial Day

This Memorial Day weekend, Veterans For Peace is calling on its members and friends to reflect on the gravity of the day, whose official purpose is to “honor all those who died in service to the U.S. during peacetime and war.” Veterans For Peace chooses to honor ALL who have died in wars, both combatants and civilians. Our hope is that a sober accounting of the casualties of war will mitigate against the tendency to turn Memorial Day – like Veterans Day – into a patriotic celebration of U.S. militarism.

We remember the words of President Eisenhower, who during World War …

Ignore Starmer’s Theatrics. Gaza’s Trail of Blood Leads Straight to His Door

Western capitals are still coordinating with Israel and the US on their ‘criticisms’ of the genocide – just as they earlier coordinated on their support for the slaughter

After 19 months of being presented with dissembling accounts of Gaza from their governments, western publics are now being served up a different – but equally deceitful – narrative.

With the finishing line in sight for Israel’s programme of genocidal ethnic cleansing, the West’s Gaza script is being hastily rewritten. But make no …

Starmer & Lammy’s Empty Words

Lammy called Israel’s escalation of the genocide “morally unjustifiable.” But what is beyond unjustifiable is for Lammy to say this while directly arming and providing surveillance information for the genocide.
Yesterday, after releasing a joint statement with France and Canada threatening “concrete actions” if Israel did not allow aid into Gaza, the UK government suspended talks on its upgraded free trade deal, summoned the Israeli ambassador, and imposed new sanctions on settlers in the occupied West Bank. While this might appear substantial for the goal of isolating the zionist state, it amounts to little more …

Getting Bogged Down: The State and the Natural Environment in Art

We have no prairies
To slice a big sun at evening–
Everywhere the eye concedes to
Encrouching horizon,

Is wooed into the cyclops’ eye
Of a tarn. Our unfenced country
Is bog that keeps crusting
Between the sights of the sun

“Bogland” by Seamus Heaney

A fascinating exhibition called BogSkin has just finished in the RHA (Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts) in Dublin celebrating the long relationship between the Irish people and their changing perceptions of the many bogs in Ireland.

The exhibition looked at our changing perceptions of the bogs:  as a source of fuel, as Romantic and mysterious, as a damaged and unique form of our environment, as …

Palestine and the Conscience of China

Illustration by Fourate Chahal El Rekaby, tni

[A] lot of people across the global majority are asking the extremely serious question: why the BRICS, and especially why Russia and China, are not doing more than what they’re doing on behalf of Palestine and to defend Palestine. This is an extremely serious question and it’s not being addressed by Russia and China. We have to be straightforward about that, right? The only ones who are actually doing something, once again, are the Houthis in Yemen. Heroes of the …

Pushing Back on Tyranny

What does one push back against tyranny with?

“Childish” Adolescence

Not one to enter discussion on the cultural relevance of television shows often, it is hard to miss the fervour surrounding Netflix’s Adolescence, which recounts the dramatized events surrounding the investigation of a brutal teenage murder of a young female by the protagonist Jamie, a 13-year-old boy. Not wishing to belabour the extent analysis on this drama, it is striking the level of psychological analysis – levied by both psychologists and non-psychologist alike — which permeates the broad discourse and stark warnings for the future of teens worldwide. The show …

Putin-Trump Phone Call on Ukraine

On Monday President Donald Trump telephoned President Vladimir Putin and they talked for two hours before Trump put lunch in his mouth and Putin his dinner.

On the White House schedule, there was no advance notice of the call and no record afterwards. The White House log is blank for Trump’s entire morning while the press were told he was at lunch between 11:30 and 12:30.

Putin went public first, making a statement to the press which the Kremlin posted at 19:55 Moscow time; it was …

Genocide in Gaza: The BBC’s Self-Inflicted “Trust Crisis”

BBC News regularly proclaims its supposed editorial principles of fearless, independent, impartial, fair and accurate journalism. In a January 2023 speech to the Whitehall & Industry Group in London, then BBC Chairman Richard Sharp boasted that BBC journalism is the ‘global gold standard’ of credible news reporting.

Two years previously, in 2021, the public broadcaster had proudly published a focused, 10-point plan to ensure the protection of the …

Ambulance Guessing Game

The most recent ambulance guessing game? Could it still be continuing?

Israel’s Operation Gideon’s Chariots

The Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza

The latest phase of slaughter and seizure on the part of Israeli forces in Gaza has commenced.  Following relentless airstrikes that have left hundreds of Palestinians dead, Operation Gideon’s Chariots is now in full swing, begun even as Israel and Hamas concluded a second day of ceasefire talks in Doha.  The intention, according to the Israeli Defense Forces, is to expand “operational control” in the Strip while seeking to free the remaining Israeli hostages.  In the process, it hopes to achieve what has, to date, been much pie in the sky: defeating Hamas and seizing control of the enclave.

The mendacious …

They’re Coming for Your Birthright: Citizenship as Spectacle, Transaction, or Privilege

A $5 million gold card. A reality show for migrants. A birthright under assault.

Let us be very clear: the Trump Administration does not want citizenship to be a right. They want it to be a reward for the loyal, the rich, or the compliant.

To this end, President Trump’s bid to unilaterally end birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants is a modern-day Trojan horse masquerading as a concern for national security.

This is not about protecting America, but redefining America from the top down.

That redefinition is already underway.

The Trump Administration’s plans to sell $5 million “gold cards” to …

Stockholm Syndrome

What is a sign of Stockholm syndrome?

Trump’s First Four Months

Today marks four months since would-be dictator Trump took office. How is the progressive resistance doing in its urgent battle to prevent what Trump and the MAGA want to impose?

In early February, a few weeks into this time of testing, I identified our objectives over the next two years as “making as many advances as we can on local and state levels while preventing as much damage as possible to the primary MAGA targets: US democracy, human and civil rights, including internationally, organized labor and programs that benefit low- and moderate-income working people, and the natural environment on which all …

Dispatch from Texas: The Billion-Dollar Heist of Public Education

The 89th Texas Legislative Session will be remembered for many things—but if you’re a student, teacher, or parent trying to make public education work in this state, it’s going down as the year lawmakers finally dropped their mask. With the official end of the legislative session (called adjournment sine die, which is looming on June 2), the Texas House made history by passing a private school voucher bill, Senate Bill 2, for the first time since 1957. It’s not just a symbolic win for GOP Governor Greg Abbott and his billionaire backers. It’s a real, measurable, billion-dollar transfer …

The Quiet Revolution: Women, Power, and the Transformation of Our Time

NYC Women’s March Jan 21, 2017 (Image by David Andersson)

The mainstream media seems to be waiting for a clash between Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and U.S. President Donald Trump. Both figures embody starkly different visions of the present moment. Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first woman president and a self-described humanist, enjoys an approval rating around 70% and stands in constant tension with her northern neighbor. Trump, by contrast, has taken a right-wing, macho, discriminatory posture—an attempt to impose dominance on the world through fear and bullying.

Sheinbaum’s election marks a significant step forward for …

Immigrants and Reality Television

Celluloid Exploitation

Shocking it might be, yet still part of an old pattern. The US Department of Homeland Security is floating the idea of using a reality television program to select immigrants vying for US citizenship. Whether this involves gladiatorial combat or inane pillow battles remains to be seen, though it is bound to involve airhead celebrity hosts and a set of fabricated challenges. What matters is the premise: the reduction of a government agency’s functions to a debauched spectacle of deceit, desperation and televisual pornography. Much, in some ways, like the Trump administration itself.

US Reinstates Funding to Propaganda Outlet

NED Weaponizes "Democracy" in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba

The brief freeze and rapid partial reinstatement of National Endowment for Democracy (NED) funding in early 2025 helped expose it as a US regime-change tool. Created to rebrand CIA covert operations as “democracy promotion,” the NED channels government funds to opposition groups in Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba, meddling in their internal affairs.

Regime change on the US agenda

 In 2018, Kenneth Wollack bragged to the US Congress that the NED had given political training to 8,000 young Nicaraguans, many of whom were engaged in a failed attempt to overthrow Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. Wollack was praising the “democracy-promotion” work …