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It began with the colourful confessions of former Australian Army rifleman Oisin Donohoe. In a report published in The Age on November 8, Donohoe made salty allegations that the private security intended for overseeing “unlawful noncitizens” transferred from Australia to Nauru would be staffed by members of the Finks outlaw motorcycle gang. “It was pretty confronting to know that an outlaw motorcycle group was running a company that had got a government contract,” he stated with consternation. It was “mind-boggling” that such figures could participate in a “contract to oversee quite a significant national security item on the …

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 …

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 …

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 …

“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,” …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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, …

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, …

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 …