She has become a notorious figure of international interest, shamelessly exploited for news cycles, commercial worth, and career advancement. After a trial lasting nine weeks, conducted at the Latrobe Valley Law Courts in Morwell, Victoria, Erin Patterson, a stocky, thick-set mother of two, was found guilty of three murders and an attempted murder. Date: July 29, 2023, in the town of Leongatha. Her weapon in executing her plot of Sophoclean extravagance: death cap mushrooms (Amanita phalloides) served in a beef Wellington. Her targets: in-laws Don and Gail Patterson, Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson, and Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson. Of the four, …
“There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, they will live at odds with the world. Given a story to enact in which they are the lords of the world, they will ACT like lords of the world. And, given a story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, …
It’s made to order. First, eliminate the aid system after creating circumstances of enormous suffering. Then, kill, starve, vanquish, and displace those in need of that aid. Finally, give the pretence of humanity by ensuring some aid to those whose suffering you created in the first place.
As things stand, the system of aid distribution in the Gaza Strip is intended to cause suffering and destruction to recipients. Since May 26, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an opaque entity with Israeli and US backing, has run the distribution of parcels from a mere four points, a grim joke given the four hundred …
I’m running to lead the New Democratic Party. Canada needs a mainstream voice willing to challenge capitalism and imperialism while promoting decolonization, degrowth, and economic democracy.
Initially, my reaction to the NDP Socialist Caucus’ request to run was to reject it. But there are two crucial issues before us that I am particularly well placed to challenge: Canadian complicity in Israel’s holocaust in Gaza and the unprecedented growth in military spending.
Hundreds of thousands of Canadians are revolted by this country enabling Israel’s mass slaughter in Gaza. They can trust that I’ll stand up to the genocide lobby. As student union vice-president, I …
“He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand? 20 He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?” Isaiah 44:20”
My maternal family, being Jews in 1930s Germany, were forced to affix yellow stars upon their clothing and were subject to daily public harassment. Finally, my mother and her sister, a few small family valuables sown …
by Dissident Voice Communications / July 7th, 2025
It is often stated that China engages in win-win relationships with its partners. In Africa, in exchange for the commodities that China receives, the African country will have Chinese-built ports, airports, highways, railways. In addition, China will train local people in the construction and maintenance of the economy-supporting infrastructure. It is the old story of teaching a people how to fish rather than just giving them fish.
China’s partners have the infrastructure and the knowledge to continue to develop and innovate. The settlement of a disputed land/border issue between China and Tajikistan has been cited as an example of a non-violent …
“Before I give you the grand tour,” says Gus, “put down those silly suitcases. Right over there, okay? This’s gonna be your bedroom for the next couple of weeks. Or longer, if you want to stay longer.”
We look inside. On a king size bed there’s an old Nautilus strength machine. We step closer and see a treadmill too, also standing on the bed, behind the Nautilus.
Gus waves. “Not to worry, we’re gonna move the exercise equipment to somewhere before you go to bed this evening. I just haven’t yet figured out where to. Plenty of time left of the day, …
I do not write from comfort. I write from the salt of grief. From the agony of watching the world orchestrate its distractions while an entire people are burned, buried, and erased.
The world has failed the Palestinian people. Utterly and entirely.
This is not a political crisis—it is a moral apocalypse.
Since October 2023, more than 64,000 Palestinians—the vast majority women and children—have been killed in Gaza. That figure, cited by the Watson Institute, only scratches the surface. A 2024 Lancet study estimated that up to 186,000 deaths may be attributable to the ongoing conflict—caused not only by direct violence but by …
I’ve noticed over the last couple of years younger progressive/revolutionary organizers using the word, “comrade,” to refer to other organizers. Is this a good idea?
During the days of McCarthyism in the 1950s, and probably before then, self-righteous conservatives used this word as a smear against people on the political Left. “Comrade” was a word used before and after the Russian Revolution in 1917 by members of the Bolshevik Party which led that revolution and dominated the USSR government for decades afterwards. I suspect, without knowing for sure, that members of the Communist Party in the USA from the 1920s …
He has made it his bread and butter for years: finding society’s kooky representatives, the marginal, the crazed and the touched. But what makes Louis Theroux’s The Settlers troubling is its examination of a seemingly inexorable process in the West Bank, one that has, at its core, a religious, nationalist goal of cleansing and violent purification. The documentary captures Israel’s modern colonial project in real time, and it is one most ugly.
The target of the cleansing and eradication – the Palestinians in the West Bank – is awesomely horrific, …
Congressional passage of Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” provides the latest evidence that human greed, despite its primitive nature, remains alive and well.
Perhaps most noticeably, the legislation provides for over $3 trillion in tax cuts that disproportionately help the wealthy and their corporations. This largesse is facilitated by slashing over $1.4 trillion in healthcare and food assistance for low-income Americans and increasing the national debt by $3.3 trillion. Estimates …
A damning report has now confirmed what many of us already knew: that the BBC’s reporting of Israel’s war on Gaza is far from impartial.
The Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) analysed the BBC’s coverage of the 12 months following Hamas’ one-day attack on 7 October 2023. Their huge report reveals a clear dynamic: “the marginalisation of Palestinian suffering and the amplification of Israeli narratives.”
The report showed that, despite the killing of 34 times more Palestinians, the BBC gave Israeli deaths 33 times more coverage, interviewed more than twice as many Israelis as Palestinians (1,085 v 2,350), and shared the Israeli …
The world of literature has turned purple, not knowing which color, blue or red, fits the current dilemma that’s causing serious students of the art to tear their hair out. The age of social media has opened the door to a cascade of new challenges to literary freedom that stifles creativity.
Answers for what ails literature in today’s complicated world can be found in an upcoming new book: That Book is Dangerous (MIT Press, 2025) by Adam Szetela, …
Fame is fleeting. We may be a Facebook celebrity today with ‘likes’ in the six digits, only to find as time goes by that the balance is shifting daily as we fade into the oblivion from which we emerged. Pretty much the same phenomenon is discernible in regard to the attention paid historical events. Images blur, and then most slip out of consciousness. It seems especially pronounced these days. Forgetfulness, whether due to a studied attempt to suppress the past or the kicking-in of self-defense instincts on a mass scale, reminds us of George Orwell’s “memory hole’ in 1984. …
If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has …
It would be over now. This Holocaust would be over now if all of you who privately claim to care publicly chose to do something – anything. If you could bring yourself to march and chant. If you could fly a flag. If you could wear a badge. If you could post a poster or stick a sticker. If you could just turn up.
The polls say that most of you are on our side. Why do you leave us feeling alone? Why do you let the people who hate and murder feel so normal and accepted?
US Senator Tom Cotton recently published a book titled Seven Things You Can’t Say About China. I decided to put myself through the aggravated torture of reading it, just to see what he had to say, and now mourn hours of life that I’ll never get back.
Simply put, the book’s existence is a crime against quality academic literature.
I had no expectations of strong, intellectual debate, because Cotton isn’t known for backing any of his claims with evidence (it only took me one page in to find that admittance: “I used simple common sense, not scientific knowledge or …
In this miserable country love stories end too soon and families fall apart in the blink of an eye.
This is how Marah Kamal begins her life story and if you know anyone from Gaza, you know how much they love the land they live on. They literally ‘worship the ground they walk upon.’ Only God is loved more than the land. So, for Marah to call her country miserable, is to admit that after a year and a half of war, there is nothing left. Even pregnancy is a curse.
President Donald Trump has just released fragrances for God-fearing, America-loving patriots. While proudly wearing Trump’s trademark red MAGA caps, they can now make an olfactory declaration of their love of the U S of A!
The fragrances named “Trump Victory 45-47” — referring to his capturing the 45th and 47th presidencies — are available as cologne for men and perfume for women, and are bargain priced at only $249 for the limited edition 3.3 fl oz numbered collectors version. You can get them at the dedicated website. Hurry! …
It makes for stark and dark reading. The report for the UN Human Rights Council titled From economy of occupation to economy of genocide makes mention of “corporate entities” who have been enriched by “the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and now genocide.” Authored by the relentless Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, it is unflinching in its assessments and warnings to companies doing business with Israel.
What makes the investigative undertaking by Albanese useful is its examination of the corporate world and its links to …
Dear Anita Anand, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada:
Prime Minister Carney’s statement that the solution to Mideast peace was a “Zionist Gaza” made me ill. It demonstrated his support for Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and showed total contempt for international law.
Canada’s official foreign policy supports international law and Canada
is a signatory to the Fourth Geneva Convention. The ICJ has repeatedly called Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and the UN GA even demanded last year that Israel vacate the Palestinian territories by this year. A Zionist Gaza means either the outright Israeli theft of the Palestinian territory or continued illegal …
As a result of recent conversations, my life-long closest friend Diego wrote the following. If you’re lucky as we are, you have such a friend whose interests and thoughts match yours so closely that it seems that you were separated at birth in a dream. We both felt from the days of our youth when chance brought us together that, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, it was not he, she, them, or it that we belonged to, or that we would ever gargle in the rat race choir for those who make the rules to terrorize humanity.
I wish U.S. academics would spend less time fantasizing choices between various murders with trollies, or playing games with theories about how greedy robots might do diplomacy, and more time on the impeachment problem.
The United States has an impeachment problem. Impeachment was put into a Constitution that made no mention of, allowance for, or plans to survive the existence of political parties. Presidents are now generally not impeached for any abuse or outrage unless there is one party that doesn’t itself engage in that same abuse or outrage and that party is in the majority in the House. The use …
A familiar violence is brewing in the heart of Europe. The numbers reveal only what has surfaced so far. A quarter of the voting population now openly support the AfD, a party classified by the security services as ‘right-wing extremist’ due to their Islamophobic rhetoric and white-supremacist affiliations. Boosted by the mainstream press and the endorsement from the Nazi-saluting billionaire, the xenophobic message is broadcast across Germany once more.
Traditional conservative parties, the CDU and CSU, while reluctantly distancing themselves from the AfD, have adopted the same Islamophobic stance …
It should not surprise that many US leftists are excited by the victory of Zohran Mamdani in last Wednesday’s New York City primary election. They should be buoyed by a rare victory in a bleak political landscape.
Mamdani defeated an establishment candidate showered with money and endorsed by Democratic Party royalty. His chief opponent, Andrew Cuomo, enjoyed the support and the forecasts of all the major media, locally and nationally. Cuomo fell back on every cheap, spineless trick: redbaiting (Mamdani is a member of Democratic Socialist of America), ethnic and religious baiting (Mamdani is a foreign-born Muslim), and “unfriendliness” to …
Faramarz Farbod speaks with Yves Engler, a Canadian activist and author of 13 books, including most recently Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy and Stand on Guard for Whom? (A People’s History of Canadian Military). The conversation explores Canada’s role in the world, its relationship with US capitalism and imperialism, Canada’s policies toward Iran and Cuba, misperceptions of Canada in the US, and the concept of Canadianism.
Concrete Expressionism Makes Its Mark at the US mission to the UN Amid the Gaza Genocide. Mass action at Israeli mission — 28 reportedly arrested.
by Sam Husseini / July 2nd, 2025
Through the looking glass.
Mike Ferner, of Veterans For Peace, threw blood at the US mission to the UN today: “Here, United States, have some blood! You like shedding it all over the world so much? There you go! How about some blood? A small amount of the blood — the blood money — that corporations make taking us to war all the time. No. More. Killing. Please. Stop it.”
He and 28 others were reportedly arrested today. He had been participated in …
This Earth Day reflection urges us to confront two intertwined truths we too often ignore: our relationship to the environment and our treatment of the elderly.
Growing up in Ghana, I was taught by my history professor that true life stems from connection—that severance invites death. This idea mirrors ancient Egyptian cosmology, where a vast community of affection included the living, the dead, and the unborn. It was the sacred task of the living to remember those who came before and prepare the way for those yet to come. These connections weren’t limited to human beings—they extended to landscapes, waterways, trees, and the entire natural …
