I. Fear as a Tool of Power
Throughout history, fear has been one of the most effective instruments of control. Empires, governments, and institutions have long understood that a frightened population is easier to manage, easier to divide, and easier to manipulate. Fear narrows perception. It reduces moral imagination. It conditions people to accept policies and practices they would otherwise reject.
In the modern era, fear is no longer an accidental byproduct of crisis; it is a manufactured resource. It is produced, circulated, and weaponized. It is embedded in political rhetoric, amplified through media, and reinforced by systems that benefit from public …
A new study from Nafeez Ahmed and the Age of Transformation looking at over 100 years of historical patterns finds that Trump’s brand of fascism is highly likely to flame out within the next few years. Yes, that’s really exciting to hear. But no, it doesn’t mean we’re home free.
First — a definition of fascism. Seems like everybody has a different one, but I’ll go with Encyclopedia Britannica’s definition of neo-fascists:
“The neofascists advocate militant nationalism and authoritarian values, oppose the liberal …
In the context of the First Conference Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels
by Black Alliance for Peace / May 1st, 2026
At the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, we – Global Afro-Descendants (GAD) – are confronting interconnected systems of oppression and fighting for REAL solutions to the climate and ecological crises
SANTA MARTA, COLOMBIA — For the first time in history, Afro-descendant peoples have been formally recognized and included as an official delegation within a global climate process.
Participating alongside other sectors of civil society as an invited constituency group by the host governments, the GAD engaged in a series of collaborative dialogues to identify key barriers, articulate solutions, and advance pathways toward a just transition away from fossil fuels. …
Louts pressing false claims, faux principled types seeking to score successes against clearly useless targets. Jules Hurst, in trying to discharge the duties of the comptroller, had some news for members of the House Armed Services Committee: the Iran War had drawn $25 billion from the coffers of Freedom Land which, for the budget wags, amount to the entire budget of NASA for a year. It was further explained that most of that coin went on munitions. The top Democrat on the Committee, Rep. Adam Smith, exuded …
A few days ago, I received an email ‘staff message’ from the Pro Vice Chancellor of Research at UNSW entitled, ‘Restrictions on research collaboration with Iran, Russia, Belarus and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’.
It was a little unnerving as – coincidentally (?) – a week or so before, unaware of the prohibition, I had posted online in this journal my first and only piece co-authored with a respected and widely published Iranian analyst living in Tehran. (For fear of breaching some subclause of the relevant legislation, I do not …
In the run-up to the 2024 election, Donald Trump promised “We will close the border. We will stop the invasion of illegals into our country.” A year later, it was a promise he claimed to have kept. But exactly who are the “illegals”? Loose definitions and manipulated statistics tell a very misleading story about migrants from Latin America.
Earlier this year, a chart appeared on socialmedia sites like X claiming that during President Biden’s four years in office, 8% of Nicaragua’s population entered the US illegally. The chart displayed comparable percentages for five …
Los Angeles vs Tehran: When a US blockade made Karachi a traffic snarl and Iran looked to Pakistan's land routes
by Syed Salman Mehdi / April 30th, 2026
Pakistan’s largest port, Karachi, might as well be a warehouse as a place of action, with some 3,000 containers waiting. They await someone to go pick them up. They were meant for Iran. The vessels that should have arrived to take them across the Arabian Sea were halted when, in late February 2026, the Strait of Hormuz — one of the world’s most important shipping lanes — was turned into a war zone.
But after two months of ship strangling, Iran is for once having to plead with its neighbour Pakistan to …
Although progressives are rightly concerned about US-coerced compromises and concessions, it is equally important to understand the resilience and continuing successes of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution. Focusing only on the half-empty aspect of the proverbial glass obscures the strength of the resistance and conceals the vulnerabilities of the imperial juggernaut.
On a delegation to Venezuela, the constant refrain from both high-ranking government officials and grassroots Chavistas – supporters of the movement led by former President Hugo Chávez – was that they were urgently “buying time.”
[Source: hippostcard.com]
The late Mario Savio was a leading light of the Free Speech Movement (FSM) at the University of California, Berkeley. His 1964 speech is now legend:
There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part! You can’t …
A recently leaked "ecumenical framework concept" shows that even Germany's churches are getting ready for war.
by Pascal Lottaz / April 30th, 2026
In the following I’m linking to the so called “ecumenical framework concept” that Dr. Ulrike Guérot shared with me in a recent talk (German version here, English version coming soon). It’s a scary read, because it shows how far the war-psychosis has already gone in Germany. Summary by AI, full paper (in German) here.
Summary
Dated September 2025, the “ecumenical framework concept” is considerably more than a document of pastoral planning. It …
by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead / April 30th, 2026
Everything this nation once stood for is being turned on its head.
We are being asked—no, told—to believe that the greatest threat to America today is not government overreach, endless war, corruption, surveillance, or the steady erosion of constitutional rights.
No, the real threat, it seems, is speech.
Dangerous speech. Hateful speech. Critical speech. Speech that dares to challenge power.
In the wake of the reported assassination attempt on President Trump, the Trump administration has wasted no time advancing a dangerous narrative: that criticism of the president—especially criticism labeling him authoritarian or fascist—is not just …
Back in 2010, author and Guardian columnist Sir Simon Jenkins wrote an article arguing for the defence budget to be completely scrapped: “I don’t mean nibble at it or slice it” he wrote, “I mean cut it, all £45bn of it.”
It was in response to the then Chancellor, …
Ben-Gvir agitating for ethnic cleansing in the West Bank
In my youth, I was induced, and there was not a countervailing assertion proffered, that Zionism was both a citadel of mind and of landscape, that as a Jew Israel was my true place of sanctuary in a world that might tolerate me on sight one moment and shove me into a deathcamp-bound cattle …
Above photo: Activists tell Congress to stop applying unilateral coercive measures and lift the blockade on Cuba
Washington, DC — This spring constituents and grassroots organizations have been raising awareness in Congress and in public forums of the harms caused by Unilateral Coercive Measures (UCMs or “sanctions”). Sanctions have become the “go-to” foreign policy tool of the United States government, now impacting a quarter of the global economy and one-third of the world’s population. These measures cause an average of 564,000 deaths around the world annually—comparable to the toll from …
He can hardly be blamed for being given the brief by his Prime Minister. King Charles III is in the United States on a repair job, playing diplomatic handyman and mender for Sir Keir Starmer and the US-UK alliance so long regarded as special. On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of American independence, it was easy to forget that the British, despite losing its American colonies, gained some vengeance through the exploits of Major General Robert Ross, who, on August 14, 1814, burned down the White House, the …
In the last few days, I’ve seen three separate instances of generative AI being used to promote propaganda for US-Israeli war agendas, which are worth paying attention to.
Firstly, an Israel-based company called Generative AI for Good has been creating deepfakes of supposedly real women who say they were sexually assaulted by government forces in Iran.
“An Israel-based AI firm, Generative AI for Good, claims to be using deepfake technologies for positive ends. ‘Positive’ appears to mean creating deepfake videos to help the illegal US-Israel war on Iran.
…
“Generative AI for Good claims that it uses AI to ‘help survivors testify safely — in their …
Intellectual giants are in painfully short supply in the Trump administration, but if there was anyone who might lay claim to cerebral weight of any sort, Elbridge Colby might be one of them. Self-styled as a China hawk, the US Under Secretary of War for Policy must privately be bemused by the changeling that has become US foreign policy, one now latched onto, yet again, the issues of the Middle East and the shaking tail that is Israel. President Donald Trump, the man who promised to end wars and terminate the state of permanent conflict the US has found itself in for …
We worked with animator Amjad Jarrar and audio artist Iyas Horani to animate “Colonial Violence and Reproductive Injustice in the West Bank.” This visual, which we launched with our partner MIFTAH (the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy) in January 2025, examines the colonial roots of reproductive injustice in the West Bank. It complements MIFTAH’s Women of Palestine series, which highlights multiple gender-specific impacts of Israeli settler colonialism on Palestinian women….
As World Press Freedom Day (May 3) nears, it’s a good time to step back and assess how journalists and news outlets are faring in our current media climate.
President Donald Trump came back to the White House and picked up right where he left off, insulting and attacking the press on an almost daily basis, suing media outlets, and taking a number of concrete actions to restrict press freedom. Against this backdrop, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) will release its 2026 World Press Freedom Index on April 30.
Every year, RSF scores and ranks 180 countries and territories based on their level of …
World-renowned neurosurgeon Professor Charlie Teo is facing the prospect of a permanent ban from practising medicine in Australia — a move that could have major consequences for patients and the country’s healthcare system. In this exclusive report, Charlie Teo reveals how ongoing investigations and audits by the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission could end his career on home soil, despite his continued performance of complex brain surgeries overseas. The controversial surgeon has been under strict conditions since 2023 following findings of “unsatisfactory professional conduct” linked to two high-risk tumour operations. Teo claims the latest scrutiny …
It would be strategically wise for Iran not to wait longer to retaliate against Israel’s continuing gross violations of the truce on the Lebanese and Palestinian fronts of the war that was initiated by Israel and the US in Southwest Asia, AKA the Middle East. Iran warned the US on April 8th that the truce – agreed the day before – applied equally to all fronts or none, not just Iran, and that they and their allies in the Axis of Resistance (Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, and Yemen) would respond collectively, immediately, and in force along all fronts. Israel’s current massive …
The first charter school law in the U.S. was passed in Minnesota in 1991. The first charter school in the country, City Academy High School, opened in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1992. Since then charter school laws have been passed in 47 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
Over the past 34 years many charter schools have failed and closed in Minnesota. According to a 2025 article titled “More Minnesota charter schools are facing possible termination,” “In 2024 [alone], nine charter schools closed, the most ever. But records show another …
Not much good comes from war. Qualifying exceptions, however, can be found. The United Nations, tarnished, libelled and mocked for being simultaneously ineffectual and intrusive, was the mediating entity for international relations that grew from the calamities of the Second World War. Without that somewhat frail body, it is hard to imagine how the patchwork of human rights, however uneven, could have been stitched. The Iran War, and the consequential choking of the Strait of Hormuz by Tehran and Washington respectively have also had an unintended, meliorating effect. If the pressing …
I. The First Law of Human Existence
Long before nations rose or religions shaped doctrine, humanity lived by a simple truth: life carries inherent worth. Every people, every lineage, every ancestral memory held some version of this understanding. It was not carved into stone or written in books; it was woven into existence itself.
The commandment not to kill predates scripture. It predates the moral systems we later built. It is a boundary embedded in the structure of life — a limit that protects the fragile order of creation. To cross it is not merely to break a rule; it is to …
The tyranny of the Ayatollahs, subjugation of women, and the lack of political freedom in Iran disturb and engage the world. These serious problems deserve attention, but they are neither the only issues that define the Islamic Republic nor unique in a world of numerous oppressive governments. Focusing on Iran’s domestic policies, much of which a hostile press distorts, and ignoring a brave Iran, a nation that has placed itself in difficulties to help the oppressed Palestinians in their struggle with the “democratic” and genocidal Israel, sidetracks a key component of the mechanism that liberates the world from those who …
For many socialists and revolutionaries for a long time, the “working class” has been seen as THE revolutionary group. Karl Marx in the 1840s was among the first to identify the working class as a key sector, particularly the industrial working class which was growing in numbers in the mid-1800s as the industrial revolution advanced in Europe and elsewhere. Marx saw this sector of the population as the key revolutionary sector for several reasons.
First, industry was concentrating large numbers of people, by the hundreds and thousands, into factories where the workers …
0:00 Where Does the Iran War Go From Here? 10:13 Iran’s Growing Power Since the War Began 14:37 Where Does the Hatred Towards Iran Come From? 24:37 The Nuclear Weapon Lie Surrounding Iran 32:51 The Greater Israel Project …
More than fifty years ago, after reports of government abuse that the CIA was illegally collecting information about political activities of American citizens, the Senate created a Select Senate Commission in1975 which became known as the Church Committee named after its Chair, Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho).
An earlier 1972 Supreme Court Decision that warrantless electronic surveillance constituted a Fourth Amendment violation contributed to a decade of questioning whether the country’s intelligence activities were Constitutional – those concerns may still be relevant.
The Church committee investigated intelligence abuses and covert action of the CIA, …
Orientation Who’s in and who’s out? One of the major controversies within the Neopagan movement is whether a tradition should draw from the country of its birth or whether Neopagans should be eclectic, drawing from many traditions throughout the pagan world. Those who are purists attempt to practice the ancient traditions of for example, the Egyptians, the Greeks or the Italians. However, in what is called the “Northern tradition” organizations like Folkish Heathens and Asatru Folk Assembly draw from Viking, Nordic and German traditions. Some of these organizations insist that only white people …
