America's Hijacked Peace Dividend: Long Overdue and Immediately Payable John Rachel
What I Saw in Ukraine: 2015-2022: Diary of an International Observer Benoit Paré
Killing Democracy: Western Imperialism's Legacy of Regime Change and Media Manipulation Finian Cunningham, Daniel Kovalik, Jeremy Kuzmarov, KJ Noh, & Ron Ridenour
Mind Abuse: Media Violence and Its Threat to Democracy Rose Dyson
Anthropause: The Beauty of Degrowth Stan Cox
Broken Stars: Gaza Poems Buff Whitman-Bradley
Surviving the 21st Century Noam Chomsky and José Mujica
Martyrs to the Unspeakable: The Assassinations of JFK, Malcolm, Martin, and RFK James W. Douglass
At the Lost and Found: Personal & Political Dispatches of Resistance and Hope Edward Curtin
Class War, Then and Now: Essays toward a New Left Chris Wright
Artificial Intelligence (AI) promises all sorts of wonderous things. We are told that it will add trillions to GDP; diagnosis, prescribe treatment and register cures for all manner of illnesses; relieve us of mind-numbing tasks at work and at home; and ensure that every one of us is better than average. Doubtless, AI does carry the potential to improve some aspects of our lives. To gain perspective on the impacts that it will and will not make, though, prudence tells us to ponder how exactly AI will resolve the following matters that are bedeviling us.
* Americans’ selection as their President a …
Note: Again, smalltown news, a newspaper that is now as thin as a tissue, once a week, and here we are — a 900 to 1000 word piece by yours truly once a month. This November, some catching up with October’s Banner Books week, and other funky things.
Next month I do a bit of jujitsu, and I was begged to speak, and I both look forward to it and dread it:
I am …
Yes, Mr. Thiel, we are all Antichrist now
A missing story thread of the Epstein scandal involves his connection to and service in behalf of Israel. Yes, we know the marketing platitude: “sex sells.” It goes without saying, genocide doesn’t. But there is a connection: The confederacy of pervs of the economic elite’s sense of entitlement includes possessing a proprietary attitude towards all they survey — whether it involves exploitation of the bodies of women and teenage girls or parceling off for profit the real estate of Gaza by means of ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Ecocide, perpetual war, for profit …
A New Front in the Culture Wars
I’ve never played Dungeons & Dragons, but plenty of my family members do, and they consider it to be one of the world’s most engaging table top games; a game that also promotes community. And, like any game that has been around for more than fifty years, there’s bound to be changes. And, with changes, comes angry voices in opposition. One of the angriest right now is Elon Musk.
Writing for The Atlantic, Adam Serwer recently detailed Musk’s fury over changes to the game and the way Wizards of …
Two of the most significant dates in my life as a progressive activist and organizer are April 4, 1968 and August of 2003. The 1968 date is the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed. His killing pushed me to finally do something about racial injustice and the Vietnam War rather than just reading and thinking about them.
August of 2023 was when there was a brutal heat wave in western Europe which led to 70,000 deaths, primarily of elders. This was my wakeup call as far as the climate crisis, leading to several months of book-reading to understand how …
Read Part I.
Truth today is not measured by justice but by geopolitical convenience. Nations are told who to admire and who to despise, and the contradictions are suffocating.
Castro vs. Mandela: Contradictory Legacies
Fidel Castro: After the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the U.S. imposed an embargo in 1960, later tightened in 1962. Its original intent, according to declassified CIA documents, was to “bring about hunger, desperation, and the overthrow of the Castro government.”1Peter Kornbluh and William M. LeoGrande, eds. Cuba Embargoed: U.S. Trade Sanctions Turn Sixty. Washington, D.C.: National …
“A straightforward case,” says the public defender assigned to me. “We’ll settle this easy. Don’t you lose a wink of sleep over it.”
“That’s good to hear,” I say, “but it’s unsettling that the law I supposedly broke is identified only by symbols and numbers, not words.”
He smiles. “No sweat, young fella. Welcome to the 21st century; everything’s computerized now.”
“Yes, I know about computers. But when a SWAT team wrestles you to the ground, the least you expect is an explanation. All they did was shout a string of numbers and symbols at me.”
“I get it. That must have been frightening,” …
“Trump’s tariff formula explained: How rates were determined for each country” IMAGE/USA Today/Duck Duck Go
Tariffs
Tariffs are a tax imposed on imported goods to protect local industries in order to be self-sufficient and thus avoid being taken advantage of. For a very long time, Britain charged tariffs on many items, only in 1860 were they totally removed. But were reintroduced in late 1920s during the depression years.
Likewise, the US did the same. In 1789, just 13 years after …
Keeping it Dull
There has been an insufferable degree of smugness of late in the chatting classes about Australia’s electoral system. A special for Australian Broadcasting Corporation produced by veteran journalist Annabel Crabb has done much to swell the heads of officials, politicians and pundits. But the production called Civic Duty has to be seen alongside a general sense of puffed-up worth on Australia’s singular compulsory voting system. From the outset, the nature of the relationship between citizens (we might say subjects, given that Australia retains as its head of state the British monarch) and polity is made clear: you do …
The authorities in Türkiye have hit their stride regarding international humanitarian law, a subject they are not always consistent about. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the defence minister Israel Katz, and others are facing arrest warrants for genocide from the Istanbul Criminal Court of Peace. This is plucky, assertive, and undoubtedly, from the perspective of the Erdoğan government, stealing publicity. It also brings up that hoary old chestnut of parochial interest and the merits of the accuser.
A November 7 statement from the Istanbul chief public prosecutor’s office said that as many as 37 suspects were on the list, …
If you think Trump’s threat to invade Venezuela is about stopping the influx of drugs into the United States, you need to take a closer look at Project 2025. That document advocates American hegemony over the Western Hemisphere. But Trump does not read documents or strategy papers. He wants to bully the hemisphere and control its vast natural resources. His “Gulf of America” apparently includes the vast oil reserves of Venezuela. The socialist nation has the world’s largest proven reserves. Still, with its politics chaotic and its military weak, and its close relationships with China, Russia, and Iran, it is …
Canadian forces are learning from the génocidaires, directly assisting the US/Israeli occupation of Gaza, and will likely help build a colonial Palestinian force. Canadian troops have been taking tips from the Israeli occupation forces. According to a series of reports, Canadian troops participated in IOF seminars this week to learn about its war crimes in Gaza. They reportedly even conducted tours of the Gaza Envelope. The Israeli military said the gathering was to “strengthen cooperation, enhance familiarity with diverse operational approaches, exchange professional knowledge and experience between the participating militaries.” Part of the aim of the training from the Israeli perspective …
Why did the United Nations Security Council vote to give authority over Gaza to a genocidal demolition squad called the Board of Peace, headed by Donald Trump?
This question has several dimensions. The resolution itself was drafted by the US, and more specifically the Trump administration, in close consultation with the Netanyahu government in Israel. This explains why it is perfectly consistent with a continuing genocide and progressive elimination of the existing population of Gaza, totally Palestinian, but now estimated to be considerably less than two million, compared to 2.2-2.3 million two years ago. Up to half a million, almost entirely …
Washington is targeting the Venezuelan people in an escalating regime-change offensive, combining open military violence with an economic siege that has quietly claimed far more lives
Most of the world looks on in disbelief at the now-routine murders on the high seas off Venezuela’s coast – serial killings that the newly minted War Department calls Operation Southern Spear.
On October 31, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk condemned the attacks, saying that the “mounting human costs are unacceptable.” The People’s Social Summit in Colombia (November 8-9) excoriated Washington. Four days later in Caracas, a meeting of jurists from 35 countries denounced the “homicidal rampage.” The Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild charged “egregious war crimes and violations …
On November 17th, 2025, the UN Security Council passed a resolution to endorse President Trump’s plan for Gaza, including a transitional government headed by Trump himself and an International Stabilization Force (ISF) that is expected, among other tasks, to disarm Hamas, a task that Israel has failed to do through two years of genocide and mass destruction.
The ISF will be tasked with securing the borders in a way that confines Palestinians, stabilizing Gaza’s security environment by suppressing resistance, demilitarizing Gaza while leaving the Israeli regime untouched, and training the Palestinian police to …
And then came the universities.
After waging war on public broadcasting and the arts, the Trump administration threatened last month to cut federal funding to nine prominent colleges unless they restricted campus speech that opposed conservatives.
“Academic freedom is not absolute,” read part of a Compact for Excellence in Higher Education that offered the schools preferential research funding if they obliged with a laundry list of demands that would restrict expression. If any school refused the demands, it “elects to forego federal benefits,” the compact read.
While the corporate media chose to gloss over the full extent to which the proposal …
A U.S. federal judge ruled Thursday that members of the so-called National Guard occupying Washington, D.C., do so only by obeying illegal orders. At Nuremberg, the U.S. and its allies tried and convicted Nazis despite their defense that they had been obeying orders, and despite some of the crimes having been invented after the fact for the prosecution.
On Tuesday, a group of Congress Members who had all “served” in the war machine published a video urging U.S. troops to disobey illegal orders. You’d think that was no more objectionable than telling someone to obey the law. You’d think the tradition for generations …
AI isn’t going to save us. Tech innovation isn’t going to save us. Your favorite politician isn’t going to save us. …
The Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is at it again. Gulling, wooing, and grinning his way into the establishment of another country, he is greasing palms and making deals. Effusive and flattering of his host, this time US President Donald Trump, he received a state welcome on November 18 rarely afforded visiting dignitaries: a red carpet viewing of fighter jets, a horse-mounted guard of honour, and a feast in the East Room. He was also promised the much-sought-after F-35 fighter jets as part of a defence arrangement, elevating Saudi Arabia to …
Interview with Craig Mokhiber
The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 2803 this week, after permanent members Russia and China chose to abstain instead of using their veto power. In addition to giving a framework for Gaza that would put Israel and the U.S. in control, the language of the motion is extremely vague, and it gives no guarantee that there will be an end to the genocide.
Craig Mokhiber, an international human rights lawyer and former senior United Nations human rights official, noted that: “the ceasefire is a lie. The idea that there is a peace process is a lie. What we have here …
Why the Palestinians will never be defeated
There is a reason that the Palestinians will never be defeated; they grow more beautiful every day — in our hearts and minds. At the November 14, 2025 Palestine Center conference, Palestinian-American Sereen Haddad displayed the magnificent radiance and steadfastness that has characterized the Palestinians. Ms. Haddad, recently graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University, where my son also graduated, but not before she showed the completeness of the Palestinians and the emptiness of those who attempt to subdue their aspirations.
Her voice is eloquently available at the conference. Click arrow twice to start. Then move little circle at bottom left of screen …
Palestine, the Motherland, and the Legacy of Colonial Cartography
“Zionism as a reactionary ideology fitted exactly the ambitions of the British colonialism at that period and later on the American imperialism plans to the areas.”
“The Palestinian resistance movement is not a movement to liberate a geographical 26,000 square km; it is a historical movement which aims to liberate the Jews from zionism and the Arabs from reactionaries, and to establish the Socialist Democratic Palestine. The question of Palestine is the question of a clashing contradiction between the National Liberation movement of the Arabs, …
Nearly three years ago Dissident Voice published an article titled “Low Enrollment Plagues Many Charter Schools.” Since then countless news articles have documented low enrollment at many charter schools across the country, raising doubts about, among other things, so-called “long waiting lists” at many charter schools.
Low enrollment has always been one of the four main reasons charter schools close regularly, leaving many families and educators shocked and abandoned. The other three reasons include financial malfeasance, mismanagement, and poor academic performance. Such interrelated problems are intrinsic to school privatization schemes at home and abroad. Privatization typically increases corruption and inefficiency, …
Vicente Fernandes Vilhalva, a spokesman for the Guarani Kaiowá people was shot in the forehead by gunmen who attacked his community. © Aty Guasu/Survival International
While Indigenous land rights are under scrutiny at the COP 30 in Brazil, in the Sunday morning darkness on November 16, attackers descended on an Indigenous community far to the south of the country, opening fire — killing a Guarani Kaiowá leader and injuring four others.
Guns blazing, 20 attackers descended on Pyelito Kue, a community of Guarani Kaiowá people …
Although the world is experiencing severe global crises, there are new efforts underway to create a more effective means of coping with them.
The crises are clear enough. They include vast slaughter in horrific wars, worldwide climate catastrophe, massive population displacement, and deepening poverty.
Moreover, these disastrous situations are likely to worsen in coming years. Modern wars are fought with increasingly devastating weapons, and preparations for nuclear war have escalated to the level of global annihilation. Similarly, time is running out for saving the planet from an environmental cataclysm, which will surely lead to heightened displacement and poverty.
There is, of course, …
The fact that the outlandish and quackish Trump “peace” plan for the genocided Gaza was passed by the UN Security Council defines the end of every understanding of true peace.
“The Throne of Peace is Now Empty and the UN Cancelled” • AI-generated image by Jan Oberg
The UN Security Council adopted a U.S.-drafted resolution on November 17, 2025, endorsing Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan. It authorised an International Stabilisation Force (ISF), backed a transitional governing body called the “Board of Peace”, and declared that conditions may now exist for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and eventual statehood. The vote passed 13–0, with Russia and China abstaining. This is UN SC Resolution 2803.
This goes against everything the UN stands …
Ah, those were the days. The UN had been blocked by a worldwide popular movement from approving of a war on Iraq. British Prime Minister Tony Blair had dragged the UK along after secretly demanding that George W. Bush first attack Afghanistan, because Blair believed he would be better able to sell a war on Iraq once there was a war on Afghanistan. And once the destruction of Iraq was well underway, the UN crept out of some New York sewer pipe to support the occupation, er, excuse …
No Truth in the World
African blood flows freely through our veins. We shall defend Angola and Africa!
— Fidel Castro1Fidel Castro, speech at mass rally in Havana, December 1975, reprinted in Cuba and Angola: Fighting for Africa’s Freedom and Our Own (Pathfinder Press, 2013).
History remembers wars and generals, but too often forgets healers. Cuba’s internationalist mission in Africa began not with weapons, but with medicine. In the 1960s and 70s, as newly independent nations struggled to build health systems, Cuba sent doctors, nurses, and medical brigades across the continent. Their work was not charity—it was solidarity.
Healing as Resistance
In 1963, Cuba dispatched its first medical team …
We will build a city-owned bank — not to serve shareholders, but to serve you. A bank that invests in housing, in transit, in climate resilience. A bank that puts our money to work for our people.
— Zohran Mamdani, Victory Speech, Nov. 4, 2025
New York City has elected a mayor who dares to challenge the status quo. Zohran Mamdani swept into office on a platform of affordability, municipal ownership and economic justice. But Mamdani’s plan to fund his reforms through $9 billion in new taxes on corporations and high earners is already bumping up against political and fiscal …
Powerful 'Third States' have helped US-Israel destroy the Palestinians and their homeland
A new report, ‘Situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967’ by Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese and her team in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 5/1, concludes that “the ongoing genocide in Gaza is a collective crime, sustained by the complicity of influential Third States” and is “facilitated through Third States’ direct support, material aid, diplomatic protection and, in some cases, active participation”.
It is not an opinion piece but a carefully researched, factual work. And it paints a sad picture of the depth of depravity to which ‘civilisation’ has sunk. The UN should have presented this …
