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Trump’s corollary to the Monroe Doctrine – “speak loudly AND carry a big stick” – has not been applied full force on Venezuela… as of yet. Instead, the new administration appears to be testing a more nuanced approach. In his first administration, he succeeded in crashing the Venezuelan economy and creating misery among the populace but not in the goal of changing the “regime.”

Back in 2019, the Bolivarian Revolution, initiated by Hugo Chávez and carried forward by his successor, current Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, was teetering on collapse under Trump’s “maximum pressure” offensive. The economy had tanked, inflation was out …

The supporters of the Ukraine Solidarity Network (USN) inhabit the same contradictory moral and political space as the European leaders who met with Volodymyr Zelensky, their frontman from Ukraine, to reaffirm their collective commitment to the proxy war in Ukraine. The language of self-determination and rights easily flowed from their lips but not one of them had a word to say about the self-determination of Palestinians who are now facing another illegal siege by Israel in occupied Gaza.

This is the terrain of white privilege that must be confronted. The power to define who is human and who has …

There is something deeply moving about the ignorance and scatty nature of politicians.  At points, it can even be endearing.  In the apparently wide wake left by the mauling of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in front of the press at the Oval Office on February 28, backers of Kyiv’s war effort were wondering: What next?  How do we prevent Ukrainian defeat at the hands of Russia?  Having irresponsibly cuddled, coddled and insisted that Ukraine was in with more than a sporting chance to bloody and beat the clumsy Russian Bear that shows no signs of stepping down and hibernating, …

Are you looking to downsize your organization in the sloppiest possible way? Dismiss staff without severance pay? Devalue them and their work on their way out the door, making them feel miserable?

If so, Dejected Associates is ready to work with you. Our team of employees were emotionally abused by their fathers, bullied in childhood, and ready to take their anger out on your employees. We’ll use a chainsaw, not a scalpel, feeding their hopes for the future into our wood chipper. Best of all, we’ll do it en masse so they’ll all be competing for new jobs elsewhere at the …

There was a revolting tabloid quality to the Oval Office reception given to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on February 28, but then again, President Donald Trump is a tabloid brute, a man incarnated from the nastiest, shallowest precepts of yellow press clippings and, ultimately, the reality television empire that gave him a crown and forever enshrined him in the culture of brash Americana.  From the foamy cable television rot of the republic, Trump’s progress was inexorable.

With such ingredients, the White House has become a studio, with the statesmanship of the bullying show paramount.  The electors are to be entertained …

Not only do we have to do the right thing, in little and big ways, regardless of the consequences, visibly and invisibly, but we all have to do it at the same time, alone, yet together in solidarity with people we do not know.

In order for it to be safe for me to stand up, you have to stand up, and in order for you to stand up, I have to stand up, and both of us want to stand up, but we fear retaliation, and neither of us knows if we will be standing alone or not until we …

The conduct of live-fire exercises by the People’s Liberation Army Navy Surface Force (the Chinese “communists”, as they are called by the analytically strained) has recently caused much murmur and consternation in Australia. It’s the season for federal elections, and the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, thinks he’s in with more than a fighting chance. Whether that chance is deserved or not is another matter.

The exercise, conducted in international waters by a cruiser, frigate and replenishment ship, involved what is said to have been poor notice given to Australian authorities on February 21. But the matter has rapidly burgeoned …

Eighty-nine years ago this month, the film Modern Times, starring Charlie Chaplin, was released. Considered one of the greatest movies ever, it was a comedic but savage critique of industrial capitalism and a prescient indictment of the alienated modern life to come, as Chaplin’s character, the Little Tramp, worked on an assembly line where he suffered a nervous breakdown from the stress and repetitive nature of the work.

But the film ends on a hopeful note, as the Little Tramp and his beloved Ellen hit the road and walk away from the mechanized life. It is a poetic call to replace …

“The Geopolitics of Peace” is a brilliant – and I’m tempted to say encyclopedic – written version, by Jeffrey Sachs, of his speech to the European parliament. Everyone should read it. His prescription for world peace, the human race and sanity with professionalism in government and diplomacy cannot be improved. His analysis and advice are impeccable, and he proves it with his documentation and his history of personal experience in most of the events about which he writes.

With one exception: the two-state solution to the problem of Israel, Zionism and the rights of Palestinians and …

Walter Salles’ new film on the disappearances of regime critics in 1970s Brazil is a powerful reminder that the ghouls who defend the slaughter in Gaza are biding their time.

Walter Salles’ new film I’m Still Here, is a moving, true-story, Oscar-nominated portrait of a middle-class, leftwing family in Rio de Janeiro in the early 1970s struggling to come to terms with the father’s disappearance – 25 years later confirmed as murder – by the Brazilian military dictatorship.

The mother and a teenage daughter spend time inside a regime torture camp too, before …

Guantánamo Bay has been a fiendish experiment in US law for decades. The fiendishness lies in the subversion. Operating as a naval base in Cuba, this contentious facility has been the site and location for the cruelties of paranoia and empire, a place where such laws as due process are subverted, and the presumption to innocence soiled. In this contorted way, the civilian and military branches have mingled and corrupted, the result proving a nightmare for legal authorities keen to ensure that such a facility does, at the very least, observe that sad, dusty relic known as the rule of …

President Trump has just closed down USAID after Elon Musk branded it “a criminal organization,” adding “it’s time for it to die.” Is there any truth at all in Musk’s allegation?

One “beneficiary” of USAID is Nicaragua, a country with one of the lowest incomes per head in Latin America. Between 2014 and 2021, USAID spent US$315,009,297 on projects there. Uninformed observers might suppose that this money helped poor communities, but they would be wrong. Most of it was spent trying to undermine Nicaragua’s government, and in the process gave lucrative contracts to US consultancies and to some of Nicaragua’s richest …

How effective are petitions at influencing governments?

An article in EPJ Data Science concludes “that the vast majority of petitions do not achieve any measure of success; over 99 percent fail to get the 10,000 signatures required for an official response and only 0.1 percent attain the 100,000 required for a parliamentary debate (0.7 percent in the US).”

“Rapid rise and decay in petition signing.”

Before I begin on the Democrats, allow me to make this assertion: The Republican Party, for as long as this baby boomer can remember, are but a pack of wolves. They devour anything that is for working stiffs and the poor. Recently, the Republicans are pushing this lie that their reinstatement of Trump’s tax cuts will “Help small business and working people.” Meanwhile, the overwhelming benefit will be for the Super Rich and Corporate America, and not Mom and Pop.

Onto the Democrats. Factor out but a minor percentage of both their legislators and supporters and you have a party of …

‘Francisco Goya, ‘Disasters of War’ ‘What good is a cup?’

Naivety can be rectified by experience. Yet stupid, and its attendant willful and belligerent ignorance, is a hazard to all near it. Trump careens down his death-besotted path as the Democrats simply step out of his way.

Democrats, smugly muttering, “I told you so,” will not suffice. Antiduopolists could retort, we warned you against rigging the apparatus of the Democratic Party in an attempt to enthrone Hillary, then, because stupid tends to double down on fuckwit, rigging the process for Biden.

The arming of genocidal Zionists …