Recently, there has been a growing sense of déjà vu when it comes to international sports and, in particular, the Olympic Committee. This brings to mind a quote from Ximénès Doudan: “You may not care about politics, but politics still cares about you.” Only in the case of the IOC, it needs to be rephrased: if you say you don’t engage in politics, you’re lying… because the facts say otherwise.
While the sheer pomposity, Trumpian megalomania, and painfully paradoxical context surrounding the so-called “Board of Peace” (BoP) might tempt some to dismiss it as mere spectacle or farce, its criminal, inhumane, and hegemonic nature makes it far too dangerous to ignore.
Last week, Trump and his new, thuggish boys’ club of heads of state publicly celebrated the launch of the Board at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Its hypocrisy was inadvertently underscored by Elon Musk—Trump’s on-again, off-again ally—when he quipped onstage that one might call it the Board of “p-i-e-c-e,” a venture devoted to claiming “a …
Sadly, the tragic journey of Buffalo’s first charter school, the King Center Charter School (KCCS), is not an isolated one. Nationwide, far too many charter schools—old and new—experience death by a thousand cuts, usually at the hands of their private operators, charter school authorizers, and the institutions that are supposed to protect them.
Buffalo’s King Center Charter School first opened in 2000, but like many deregulated charter schools it has been plagued by numerous problems which have steadily worsened over time.
While corruption is endemic to the decades-old charter school sector, it is extra rampant in Florida’s charter schools. To add insult to injury, Florida also has the nation’s second highest charter school failure and closure rate. No amount of “school choice” rhetoric in Florida has improved this record. School privatization is notorious for lowering the level of education.
According to Florida Politics (Jan. 14, 2026), “Florida [high school] graduation rates are rising, but district [public] schools are driving gains far more than charters.”
When I first came to Japan in 1989, a few Japanese actually told me that there was no child abuse in Japan. That shows that there was little consciousness of this social problem in those days. But I would guess that most people in the U.S. and Japan, of my generation at least, have been abused by a man or an older boy at some time in their life, either as children or as adults. That might sound like an unsupportable claim, but consider the wide range of types of abuse, what is considered abuse today, including violence, sexual abuse, …
Redactions, Revelations, and the Unfinished Dossier
by Nolan Higdon / February 4th, 2026
This essay reviews the documents released over the past month. All previous reporting on this topic can be found in my Decoding Epstein.
“I didn’t see it myself, but I was told by some very important people that not only does it absolve me, it’s the opposite of what people were hoping, you know, the radical left,” claimed President Donald Trump on January 31, 2026.
He was responding to the release of the latest batch of “Epstein Files” from the Department of Justice (DOJ). A day earlier, the DOJ released over 3 million documents as …
The International Monetary Fund’s new assessment of Nicaragua’s economy labels it as “strong” no fewer than 56 times. But it also shows how key factors in the country’s growing prosperity – export earnings, trade relations and remittances (money sent by Nicaraguans living abroad) are vulnerable to US attacks. The IMF points out that US sanctions – more appropriately known as unilateral coercive measures – have severely restricted the help the country gets from multilateral bodies like the World Bank.
Nicaragua’s relationship with the IMF is an odd one. On the one hand, the institution’s annual “Article IV” reports are …
Things are getting rather ropey on the invitation of Israeli President Isaac Herzog to visit Australia on February 8. It came amidst the anguish following the Bondi Beach attacks of December 14, 2025 on attendees of a Hanukkah event by two gunmen, leaving 15 dead. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese obviously thought it a sensible measure at the time. For months, his government has been snarled at by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for providing succour to antisemitism. The wretched thesis: that Australia’s recognition of a Palestinian State at September’s UN General Assembly meeting somehow stirred it.
Author’s note: This piece is dedicated to the memory of Angie Tibbs, who was a dear friend and also my editor at DV for many years. Her light still shines in the souls of the justice seekers and the peace makers to light our way through these dark times.
<p style=”text-align: left;”><i>It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. – Matthew 19:24</i></p>
I recently had the misfortune of seeing a video clip of Stephen Miller, one of the chief architects operating within the lawless Trump …
From an early age, most boys absorb the message—whether stated directly or modeled by the men and women in their lives—that to be a man is to be tough.
I learned that early. In my household, crying got me grounded or spanked, or both. And, of course, I was expected not to cry about the punishment. The older I got, the less that punishment mattered. I became numb to the pain, cut off from the hurt and sadness I felt. Eventually, I learned to express myself through anger.
In the community I grew up in, showing weakness in any form was frowned …
Black History Month: “The Dirty Business of Slavery.”
by Paul Haeder / February 3rd, 2026
“The Dirty Business of MAGA”
“The Dirty Business of Tech Fascism”
The Dirty Business of Billionaires”
“The Dirty Business of Axis of Evil: Israel/USA”
“The Dirty Business of ICE’s Slave Patrol Roots”
“The Dirty Business of Israelization of the World”
The phrase “our American Israel” comes from a Puritan expression of colonial American exceptionalism. In 1799, Abiel Abbot, a Massachusetts minister, preached a Thanksgiving sermon titled “Traits of Resemblance …
Imagine a train hurtling out of control, its passengers’ lives in peril. One traveler reaches for the emergency brake, only for others to disable it, dooming the locomotive to crash into a crowded town and claim hundreds of lives. What charges would follow? Under European criminal law, culpability hinges on intent, context, and motive—ranging from terrorism (requiring a deliberate aim to disrupt society, sow fear, or coerce authorities) to intentional homicide or gross negligence. Absent a political agenda, it might qualify as sabotage or murder. Yet, consider a parallel: what accountability befits a judge who disables the rule of law’s …
“Anthropause” is an amazing word and the latest book about it is an eye-opener. Stan Cox’s Anthropause: The Beauty of Degrowth (2026, Seven Stories Press), does what far too few degrowth books do – it first focuses readers’ attention to the positive experiences we could enjoy in a society less dedicated to producing unnecessary stuff. It then details the destructiveness of overproduction.
As the inside jacket describes,
In the spring of 2020, people worldwide found themselves confined to their homes due to pandemic lockdown orders. Global carbon emissions suddenly plunged 8.8%, bodies …
Here is just a very short guide for the concerned:
While you find little, or nothing, comprehensive, well-researched and meaningful in Western mainstream media, there are lots to be gained from every day visiting the online homes of, say, Al Jazeera, Al Mayadeen, the Middle East Eye — and others too, of course.
Visit also their social media outlets and video channels, mostly however on Google-censored YouTube, but still. And subscribe to their newsletters and updates.
Part I: The Schizophrenia between Representation and Mobs
by Bruce Lerro / February 2nd, 2026
You’ve always looked for leaders, strong men with no faults. There aren’t any. There are only men like yourselves. Speaking of leaders, they change, they desert, die. There are no leaders but yourselves. A united people is the only lasting strength.
— Emiliano Zapata, 1952, to his followers
In Yankeedom, the terms “liberal”, “democracy” and “capitalism” are all mushed together for political propaganda purposes. My article challenges this propaganda by pointing out that for most of its history liberals were cynical about democracy. Second, many capitalist societies are authoritarian not liberal. Third, there …
After ten years running a digital alt-news site in Western Massachusetts, I came to a hard truth: we’re not reaching the working class through podcasts, Substacks, or social media. This essay blends personal narrative with political strategy to argue that the American left needs to resurrect a forgotten tool of organizing and solidarity—the local print weekly. Drawing from my own experience building The Greylock Glass and now launching The Greylock Guardian, I explore how alt-weeklies once served as physical infrastructure for class consciousness, cultural resistance, and grassroots action. In the face of a collapsing digital landscape and rising fascism, it’s time to stop …
The UN is already on the verge of financial collapse. And we've just been watching its easy capitulation to lawlessness.
by Stuart Littlewood / February 2nd, 2026
On Thursday UK MPs will debate the motion “That this House has considered the obligation to assess the risk of genocide under international law in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territories”. This follows an application from SNP MP Brendan O’Hara way back in June last year. As O’Hara said in his request, “it is to allow Members to have a better understanding of the Government’s reasoning and to examine how the Government’s policy impacts the United Kingdom’s legal obligation to continually assess the risk of genocide”.
He claimed there hadn’t been a proper debate on Palestine in the main Chamber since February …
Because 40% of Big Oil’s American sales are to the Big 3 auto companies, its beleaguered executives won’t go down to defeat by EVs without a last-ditch stand, even as carmakers like Ford desert and other factors.
by Barbara G. Ellis / February 2nd, 2026
Just as American consumers closed out the horse-and-buggy era at the start of the 1900s with the arrival of gas-run vehicles, carriage makers saw the handwriting on the wall and gradually moved capital, labor, and creative efforts elsewhere. Big Oil’s executives today certainly recognize that the gas-run vehicle era is fast ending once EV prices drop below $30,000 for working-class consumers.
A sign of these possibilities is that China’s BeteTek company is producing a BD-DB small $860 run-about model, for example, with a 53-mile range. The only EV that comes close …
The charter school industry has been operating in overdrive for several decades, trying desperately to convince everyone that charter schools are amazing, unassailable, and always in high demand.
But if charter schools are marvelous and popular why have charter school promoters spent years using top-down heavy-handed entities comprised of unelected pro-privatization individuals to impose charter schools on communities across the country?
Many, if not most, charter school laws state that the residents of a community must be consulted and their input must be considered in a meaningful way when unelected private citizens or …
How did he generate so much paperwork, traffic and comment? New York financier, mountebank, all purposes conman and dedicated rake that he was, Jeffrey Epstein continues to nag living figures from beyond the grave and place them in a tight spot of bother. His correspondence with these individuals runs into the millions, a figure suggesting his only work in life was being a pimp for pleasure and valet to the rotten.
The press vultures have been feeding most excitedly on the latest carrion released by the US Department of Justice on January …
A Jan. 17 article on Quartz Markets by Catherine Baab reports that JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Bank of America returned nearly all of their 2025 profits to shareholders. Goldman Sachs returned $16.78 billion on $17.18 billion in earnings, meaning 97.7% of its earnings went to shareholders. Wells Fargo, Citigroup, JPMorgan, and Bank of America collectively returned tens of billions more. Across the six largest banks, roughly $100 billion flowed to shareholders in a single year.
"Revolution is born as a social entity within the oppressor society." —Pedagogy of the Oppressed
by Paul Haeder / February 1st, 2026
The dichotomy between the social worker as a nine-to-five state agent and five-nine activist is a crucial one. The question can be summarised as: is there space, willingness and scope within social work to engage with broader structural issues that affect the lives of the people we work with?
I spent an hour with the Revolutionary Social Worker, who has a couple of Podcasts. Listen HERE NOW.
The radio broadcast comes to Lincoln County and Internet listeners on March 4, 6 PM, Pacific, over at KYAQ.org, 91.7 FM, my …
When remote islands start to interest chatterboxes in think tanks and bureaucrats in foreign ministries, we can only assume that some matters will be exaggerated over others. With the Chagos Islands, there is one matter that is hard to exaggerate. The plight of its indigenous population has been horrendous, treated with brutish contempt by the British and the United States, banished from their homelands in the name of strategic interests. As Britain and its strategic footprint passed into the shade of US power, it became vital that Britannia perform the vital role of servitor, always assured that it would be a …
Photo: Nuestra America gathering in Bogotá, Colombia. Credit: Progressive International
When Senator Tim Kaine told Secretary of State Marco Rubio at a recent Senate hearing on Venezuela that the administration’s announcement of a new Monroe Doctrine “does not land well in the Americas,” he was putting it mildly.
I just returned from an emergency gathering in Bogotá on January 24-25 with about 90 delegates from 20 countries, where speaker after speaker denounced the open revival of this doctrine — and its companion, the so-called Trump Corollary or “Donroe Doctrine” based …
Privately-operated charter schools fail and close every week. The top four reasons include declining enrollment, mismanagement, financial malfeasance, and poor academic performance. Such closures are usually sudden, abrupt, and take place mid-year, leaving many parents, students, teachers, and principals stunned and stressed about what to do next.
Currently, 69 students are enrolled in the K-12 Agnes J. Johnson Charter School (AJJCS) located in rural Weott in Humboldt County, California. The deregulated charter school was authorized by the Humboldt County Board of Education in 2019.
It’s just incredible how quickly and aggressively the US is advancing longstanding agendas of global conquest under the Trump administration. Now they’re racing to take out Cuba.
The US president has signed an executive order to impose new tariffs on countries that supply oil to Cuba, even indirectly, which is expected to dramatically increase the pressure on the already struggling island nation. This comes as the Financial Times reports that “Cuba only has enough oil to last 15 to 20 days at current levels of demand and domestic production” after the US cut off the supply from Venezuela, and …
Fighting against the current is always preferable to being swept away by it.
— Michael Parenti, The Terrorism Trap - September 11 and Beyond
by Michael K. Smith / January 30th, 2026
With the death of Michael Parenti, we have lost one of the greatest dissident voices in American history.
Parenti earned a Ph.D. in political science from Yale University in 1962, and taught at a number of colleges and universities, never attaining a tenured position because he was “red-baited out of my college-teaching profession and left to survive on my writing and public speaking,” as he put it in his wonderful book Contrary Notions – The Michael Parenti Reader.[1]Unfortunately, this is rather common establishment treatment for those who not only write about politics and injustice, but stand up for the victims, …
An experiment in western China over the past four decades shows that it is possible to tame the expansion of desert lands with greenery, and, in the process, pull excess carbon dioxide out of the sky.
The sprawling greening project along the edges of China’s Taklamakan Desert is creating a visible and measurable carbon sink, even in one of the driest places on Earth, according to a study led by scientists at the University of California, Riverside. …
Another 1,000 word piece in the local weekly newspaper is yet another dust-up of the fascist policies of Trump, but also his deep bigotry, racism, misogyny
by Paul Haeder / January 29th, 2026
Forget about why I was at Samaritan-Corvallis’s ICU. The day before New Year’s, I had to undergo surgery THEN because of our failed health insurance mafia system. Samaritan Health Plan ended Dec. 31 at midnight.
While there, I gobbled up narratives of the people there: those doing the minute-to-minute care, and those doing the surgery.
Was I amazed at how professional the CNAs and custodial staff were? Was I impressed with the neurodiverse nursing staff and the compassion and the hard work and extended hours put in as healers?
… for nearly two decades, every evening in the week, the dean of American newscasters, Walter Cronkite, would end his CBS television news show with the statement: “And that’s the way it is.” On the eve of his retirement in 1980, Cronkite admitted that isn’t the way it is: “My lips have been kind of buttoned up for almost twenty years…. CBS doesn’t really believe in commentary,” he charged.
— Quoted in Inventing Reality, Michael Parenti, p. 7.
Michael Parenti joins a pitifully small number of US intellectuals who, when facing …
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