Up is down. Right is left. International law is whatever empire says it is. Democracy is following our rules.
The audacity, chauvinism and absurdity of the NDP vetting committee is a sight to behold. To justify denying party members the right to choose whether they want me to lead the party, the three-person backroom committee is citing “democracy”.
Multipolarity — the idea that there are more than one decisive economic actors in the global economy — is an important fact. More than anything else, the rise of the People’s Republic of China demonstrates that fact. The size and rate of growth, along with the expansive Belt and Road Initiative, establishes that the PRC functions somewhat independently of the world’s most powerful player in the global market — the US. While the PRC spurns the language of rivalry, characterizing its desired relationship with the US as one of cooperation …
Sanctions and asset seizures are not neutral tools. They are weapons of empire. Venezuela and Russia stand at the center of this economic warfare, but they are not alone. From Iraq to Libya, nations have been stripped of their wealth, their citizens punished, and their sovereignty undermined. What emerges is a global system where confiscation and coercion replace dialogue and democracy.
Venezuela’s Stolen Gold
At the Bank of England, more than 31 tonnes of Venezuelan gold — worth over $1.5–2 billion — remain frozen in a legal battle between President Nicolás Maduro’s government and opposition figure Juan Guaidó. Maduro sought to use …
Oxford University Press’ 2025 Word of the Year is “ragebait.” The term captures a defining feature of today’s information ecosystem: content engineered to provoke anger, boost engagement, and overwhelm our ability to think clearly. Fake news is a potent form of ragebait, and in this week’s Gaslight Gazette, the most troubling examples come not from fringe corners of the internet but from the …
He craves it, and, to some extent, his desire was satisfied. President Donald Trump did get a peace prize. Not the peace prize picked out by self-important Norwegian non-entities, but the inaugural curiosity of FIFA, an organisation famed for opacity, corruption and graft. What the critics missed in all of this was its sheer appositeness.
In a two-hour ceremony held on December 5 at Washington’s Kennedy Center, which included the World Cup draw for participants at next year’s games, Trump was presented with a prize few FIFA officials seem to know existed. Last month, FIFA president Gianni Infantino announced the award, …
In the last decades, Democracy has become “just another word,” a political force that allowed Wall Street financiers, corporate elites, and global speculators to siphon a major portion of the world’s wealth into their bank accounts. Rejecting neo-liberalism and globalism, the radical left and extreme right grow in popularity, each with competing visions of freedom, liberty, social awareness, cultural definition, and economic progress. They defy each other on most issues and bind together on other issues — respect for national sovereignty, distaste for foreign wars, and antipathy to excessive interference in the media, educational, and political …
On December 8, 2025, the Copenhagen Security Summit convenes at Falkoner Centret in Frederiksberg. With 35 speakers and more than 1,200 participants, it is one of Denmark’s largest gatherings on geopolitics and security. Organised by Danish Industry (DI), Ernst and Young, Poul Schmith (The Chamber Attorney), Danske Bank, and Børsen, the summit features high‑profile figures such as Yulia Navalnaya, Mike Pompeo, and Lars Løkke Rasmussen.
The agenda moves through political framing, corporate responsibility, critical infrastructure resilience, and transatlantic dialogue. Its declared purpose is to explore “the role of business in …
In one of his many cutting observations about the fallibility of politicians, H. L. Mencken had this to say about the practical sort: “It is his business to convince the mob (a) that it is confronted by some grave danger, some dreadful menace to its peace and security, and (b) that he can save it.” Regarding Australia’s often provincial politicians, that grave danger remains the Yellow Peril, albeit it one garbed in communist party colours, while the quackery they continue to practise involves the notion the United States will act as shield bearer and saviour in any future conflict.
Trump’s National Security Strategy document was released late on Thursday
by Gary Olson / December 8th, 2025
On Thursday, the White House released the new National Security Strategy for the United States. Others may well give it a different read, but here is my quick take:
The document is ghoulish, abhorrent, repetitious, and sometimes incoherent, but I found its honesty refreshing. The mask is torn off sanctimonious bullshit, tall tales about spreading democracy and caring about human rights. The US is “not grounded in traditional political idealism,” but by “America First.” (P.8) A bit of the usual boilerplate is here, but for the most part, the ideological cover is gone.
Dan Caldwell, onetime advisor to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, …
Prisons in Pakistan are overcrowded and jam-packed with thousands of inmates living under conditions that take away their health, dignity, and hope. Behind the bars lies a human rights crisis that goes well beyond the mandate of official reports or the business of courtroom debate.
Pakistan’s prisons now confine around 102,026 inmates despite being built to hold only about 65,811. This means the system operates at 152 percent of its capacity. Punjab alone houses more than 61,000 prisoners in space designed for just 37,000. Sindh prisons run at 161 percent, while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa …
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / December 8th, 2025
Donald Trump campaigned on ending endless wars and now boasts that he has resolved eight wars. In reality, this claim is delusional, and his foreign policy is a disaster. The United States remains mired in ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, and now Trump is careening blindly into new wars in Latin America.
The dangerous disconnect between Trump’s delusions and the real-world impacts of his policies is on full display in his new National Security Strategy document. But this schism has been exacerbated by putting U.S. …
A peaceful settlement of the Ukraine conflict is not in the cards. It is a logical impossibility given the following truths
1. America’s leaders could not tolerate terms minimally acceptable to Russia. For such terms would represent a) an unmistakable loss of status and self-regard; b) a reversion from the strategic foundations of the country’s foreign policy put firmly in place over the past 35 years; and c) a domestic political embarrassment carrying heavy costs for Trump and his movement. Furthermore, Trump’s narcissistic, warped personality is too vulnerable to endure a rebuke and a failure of that magnitude. He is terrified …
It is time for Canada to display some integrity in upholding international law, particularly when it comes to the most flagrant international scofflaw, Israel.
Up until now, Canada seems to have been supporting Israel’s genocide of Palestinians with supplies of weaponry and Israel’s criminal apartheid of Palestinians, along with its documented torture, rape, and organ theft with political cover and a refusal to condemn the most heinous crimes.
I believe I am speaking for the majority of Canadians who are appalled by Canada’s shameful support of Israeli criminals and, by its refusal to follow its obligations, making international law meaningless. …
While Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza continues, the Israeli government paves the way for a ‘Gazafication’ of the West Bank
by Kathy Kelly / December 6th, 2025
Israel and its partners continue waging genocide against Palestinian people. Those who, so far, have survived the hideous attacks since October 7, 2023, now face ongoing jeopardy. Hemmed in by yet another military border, over two million Palestinians in “East Gaza” live amid rubble, unexploded ordnance, decaying corpses, starvation conditions, and the uncertainties of inhabiting makeshift homes without sewage, sanitation, clean water, or protection against harsh winter weather. A saddening certainty was hammered home on November 17, 2025, when not a single country stood up for them at the United Nations. The Security Council resolved to accept President Trump’…
Kenn Orphan writes: Phil, I see you have been under a deluge of hate and mockery from online Zionists after a few of your pieces on the genocide in Gaza. What do you think is behind such a reaction? I am suspecting that there is a real fear amongst these groups that they are losing control of the narrative and are getting desperate. What are your thoughts?
Phil: My recent Facebook post on the subject did provoke a thousand-plus invasion of highly agitated Zionist trolls. They made the desert bloom with …
L-R: Ryan Lizza, Olivia Nuzzi, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Tasos Katopodis/Stefani Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images/Thomas Machowicz/Reuters
“Can we pause this, I’m sorry,” mumbled a sobbing Olivia Nuzzi during her December 2, 2025 interview with Tim Miller of The Bulwark. The tears came after Miller patiently asked why Nuzzi, as a journalist, withheld information about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s (RFK Jr.) alleged drug use in 2024 during his January 2025 confirmation hearing for Health & Human Services Secretary. Instead of addressing this central ethical question, Nuzzi repeatedly deflected, insisting that …
Imran Khan is being held in a death cell in solitary confinement, his court-imposed rights ignored. He’s been held for years on one bogus charge after another
Back in my Brooklyn NYC of the 50s and 60s we used to call the neighborhood luncheonette ‘The Candy Store’. In my Ave U neighborhood we had at least one such store every few short blocks. The one I will focus on was Moe’s Luncheonette on Ave U between East 24th St and Bedford Ave. It was run by the Miller family: Moe Miller, his wife Mary and his two sons Marty and Michael (who was a few years older than me). Moe ran the place and was always behind the counter from it seems 6AM to midnight.
The finale of Volume 1 in Season 5 of Stranger Things turns on a single charged image: Will, cornered by Vecna, suddenly awakening to powers that had supposedly lived inside him all along. A rush of home-movie memories flows through his mind, scenes of friendship, queer attachment, and family care, and almost instantly this inward turn converts into outward force as he freezes and shatters the Demogorgons. Power arrives through self-recognition. Robin’s earlier insistence that the answers already live inside, once fear loosens its grip, completes the logic that governs the scene. The battle stops being about an encounter with …
Following his earlier threat that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s days are numbered, US President Donald Trump announced on social media he was closing Venezuelan airspace. He then immodestly proclaimed the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, commending his nineteenth century predecessor for presciently envisioning “a superpower unlike anything the world had ever known.”
On December 3, the US State Department followed suit by issuing an updated Venezuela Travel Advisory. The document is a masterpiece of geopolitical creative writing, where the main export of Venezuela is not oil but existential dread. According to Washington:
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.
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 …
