Are you troubled or insane, broken down and filled with pain? Don’t be a jerk; get to work! Can you no longer walk? Cannot see? Can’t hear or talk? Don’t be a jerk; get to work! You all must work, you see, For work will make you free; you’ve got to bust a gut to […]
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As polls remain alarmingly deadlocked, Kamala Harris’ campaign is doubling down on its commitment to good vibes. In the recent vice-presidential debate, Tim Walz declared that Harris has unified a coalition consisting of Bernie Sanders, Dick Cheney, and “a whole bunch of folks in between,” saying, “They don’t all agree on everything, but they are truly optimistic people. They believe in a positive future for this country, and one where our politics can be better than it is.” After this startling characterization of the glowering, undeniably malevolent architect of Bush fils’ rampages in Iraq and Afghanistan as a “truly optimistic” visionary, Walz went on to assert that “Franklin Roosevelt was right. All we have to fear is fear itself. Kamala Harris is bringing us a new way forward. She’s bringing us a politics of joy.”
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More than 100,000 dead Palestinians later, Israel finally killed Yahya Sinwar. He wasn’t wearing a dress. He wasn’t hiding in a tunnel with Israeli hostages. He wasn’t shielded behind women and children. Bodyguards didn’t surround him. AI didn’t track him down. Another Palestinian didn’t rat him out. He hadn’t strapped explosives to his body.
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We belong to nature, we are one flesh and one blood with nature, we are one brain with nature. – Friedrich Engels, Dialectics of Nature, 1883. A year ago, the Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant probably said more than he meant to: “We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly … We are imposing […]
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It’s the final countdown for America’s Presidential race. Trump’s failed summer debate debacle is a dimmed memory, as is the sugar high of Harris’ Age of Aquarius “joy” convention. Post Chicago (and also Milwaukee where she announced her Presidency), Harris’ campaign settled into the worst parts of Obama and Clinton’s campaigns (of course the facsimile […]
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This was the week that Israel, with the backing of the Biden administration, went to war against…the United Nations by attacking UN peacekeepers (UNIFIL) in Lebanon and seizing the UN HQ in East Jerusalem. This brazen assault comes after a year of attacks on UN aid workers in Gaza, killing more than 300. After it has bombed UN food and supply convoys, UN health clinics, UN schools and refugee camps. After it has banned UN investigators from entering Gaza and threatened UN courts and prosecutors. All with the shameful acquiescence of Biden, Blinken and Harris.
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With the world at war, the feeling that the international system has failed humanity is increasing. The challenges posed to international law and the United Nations are structural—a minority of violent, militarized governments dictate the terms and play by their own rules. But can the will of the majority result in real change? Every year, […]
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Congrats to renowned author and novelist Pankaj Mishra, who recently won Canada’s prestigious Weston International Award! As winner of this impressive honor, Pankaj was asked to deliver a lecture at the Royal Ontario Museum, excerpts of which were to be published in Canada’s paper of record, the Globe and Mail. For his lecture, Pankaj chose […]
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+ This week, Israel bombed Beirut and southern Lebanon. Iran bombed Israeli military bases and intelligence sites. The US and Israel launched interceptor missiles at Iranian rockets. Israel invaded Lebonan with ground troops. The Houthis launched drone attacks on Israel. Israel bombed Yemen. The US bombed Syria. Israel bombed Gaza and the West Bank. The […]
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Flag of the Jewish National Fund.
In 1967, in the course of the Israeli invasion of the West Bank, the Israeli military razed three Palestinian villages which stood along a corridor connecting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. In keeping with longstanding practice, the Israeli government turned the land over to the Jewish National Fund, which sought to permanently displace the Palestinian villagers through “afforestation,” or redevelopment of the area as a public park, where the former residents would be considered squatters if they tried to return to their homes. To fund the displacement-as-conservation, JNF solicited the Jewish community in Canada, whose contributions also lent the park its name: Canada Park.
Now, more than half a century later, as the Israeli occupation of the West Bank persists amid its ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, JNF’s activities have come under new scrutiny. Most significantly, the Jewish National Fund of Canada has lost its charitable status due to even more outright support for Israeli violence: financing projects for the Israeli military in violation of regulations prohibiting charities from supporting foreign armed forces and activities contrary to public policy, such as illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
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Image by Allison Saeng.
America and its origin story are full of unexamined assumptions, one of the biggest being that voters actually cast their ballots for presidential candidates. Is democracy – which comes from the Greek words for people (demos) and rule (kratos) – the USA’s foundational “Big Lie”? Consider that, according to Ari Berman’s new book Minority Rule, only 1.8% of the population of the 13 original states voted in George Washington’s 1789 presidential election. In One Person, One Vote? director Maximina Juson goes behind the closed doors of 1787’s Constitutional Convention, when America’s anti-democratic original sin was enshrined in the new nation’s framed rules, and – like Howard Zinn’s People’s History and Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States – reveals hidden truths about “the land of the free.”
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+ Recall that this week of ferocious Israeli airstrikes inflicting mass civilian casualties across Lebanon began with Emanuel Macron and Joe Biden introducing a plan for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon that they said had the support of Netanyahu… + Shortly after Netanyahu delivered his lunatic rant at the UN, where he gave Israel the […]
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Facebook data center Los Lunas, New Mexico. Image courtesy of Facebook.
In David Pogue’s book, How to Prepare for Climate Change, he suggests readers consider relocating to what he deems “climate safe-havens,” or fifteen cities that offer protection from the worst of climate disaster. These so-called safe havens spread across the northeastern part of the United States, from Minnesota to New York, and as far south as Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the Virginias. Like the “rust belt,” “bible belt,” or “cornbelt,” these post-industrial cities are being redefined by their legacy infrastructure access to freshwater and moderate weather.
The designation of climate safe havens offers a little bit of hope alongside the litany of dire studies highlighting the irreversible effects of climate change. Studies like this one from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)tell us that this past May was the hottest May recorded on Earth, marking it the 12th consecutive month of record-breaking heat. The National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) reports that last year brought 28 weather and climate disaster that cost over a billion dollars in damages—yet another record broken.
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Around 3:30 local time on Tuesday, thousands of rigged pagers exploded across Lebanon and in some parts of Syria, including Damascus. Most of the explosions seemed to be targeted in Beirut’s Dahiya district and the southern Lebanon cities of West Beqaa, Sidon, Tyre, Nabatieh and Marjaayoun. The explosions, which happened simultaneously, killed at least nine […]
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Image by Andrej Lišakov.
Under threat from Israeli tanks, the parents and siblings of Ms. Kamla (a pseudonym) were forced to evacuate al-Bureij camp and relocate to her central Gaza home in al-Maghazi on December 25, 2023. Three days later an Israeli tank fired a shell into her home, though thankfully their family was gathered in a different room of the house so there were no injuries. Since December 28, Kamla and her family have been displaced 7 or 8 times.
When the Israeli tanks finished their operation, Kamla left the tent she had evacuated to in Dier al-Balah. She went to see if her house was still standing. She found it partially destroyed, yet still she tried to clear the rubble to live in it once more. That was not the end however, as Israel returned with more tanks and bombs.
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+ Here’s a snapshot of Israel’s escalating war on the West Bank… + Since January 2023, 772 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli armed forces (747) or settlers (18), including 181 children. + In the same time period, 14,632 Palestinians have been injured by Israelis, including 2,167 children. + Since January 2023, 6,202 Palestinians, including […]
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Image by Planet Volumes.
Although any country that challenges domination by United States corporate or military power will inevitably be the target of a sustained demonization campaign, the lies consistently issued in a torrent against Venezuela are beyond the usual level of invective. Venezuela is the most lied-about country in the corporate press of the Global North, especially in U.S. corporate media outlets.
That Venezuela has sought to align its economy to benefit its own people, instituting an impressive array of social services, health programs and political structures to facilitate grassroots participation, has drawn the consistent ire of U.S. authorities. An unrelenting cascade of lies is necessary to generate public support for the unrelenting campaign targeting the Bolivarian Revolution.
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Social justice activist Mizue Aizeki worked for years at the Immigrant Defense Project in New York City. There, she challenged the criminalization of city residents in what came to be known as the “police-to-deportation pipeline.” After the 9/11 attacks, these New Yorkers were increasingly targeted by the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Agents […]
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Image by Alex Shuper.
This quotation usually attributed to Thomas Jefferson, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” is a watchword that investigative reporter Greg Palast lives by. Since the contested 2000 presidential election, Palast’s voting vigil has probed America’s electoral system and abuses of it. The journalistic detective chronicled purported purging of mostly Black citizens from Florida’s voter rolls in his landmark 2002 book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and a 2016 documentary version updated for the Trump era with the same title. Now this steadfast watchdog of voters’ rights is back with a new nonfiction cinematic inquiry wherein the reportorial gumshoe is vigilant about Vigilantes Inc.: America’s New Vote Suppression Hitmen, and Georgia is on Palast’s mind.
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+ On Friday, Aysenur Eygi, a 26-year-old American peace activist, was shot in the head and killed by an Israeli sniper during a demonstration against illegal settlements and land seizures in the West Bank village of Beita, near the city of Nablus. Eygi was taken to Rafida Hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival. […]
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As students worldwide head back to school this fall, in Gaza, there are no schools left. The U.N. considers the systemic obliteration of the education system by the Israeli military to be a “scholasticide” — all universities, over 80% of schools, the Central Archives of Gaza, and at least 13 libraries have been destroyed, as of April 2024, in Israel’s relentless bombing campaign. Almost 10,000 students are dead and 16,000 wounded, many killed in attacks on schools being used as sites of refuge.
Academics and university administrators in Gaza released an open letter asking for solidarity and resistance from the rest of the world: “We call upon our colleagues in the homeland and internationally to support our steadfast attempts to defend and preserve our universities for the sake of the future of our people, and our ability to remain on our Palestinian land in Gaza. We built these universities from tents. And from tents, with the support of our friends, we will rebuild them once again.”
As a graduate student, an aspiring professor, and the child of a Jewish academic, I take this call for solidarity seriously. Where and how do we learn ideologies of resistance, radicalism, and revolution? Once we have inherited a radical idea, what do we do with it? And how do we choose what ideas not to inherit?
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Image by Pau Casals.
These days, I find myself in a strange place. Despite the Democrats’ miraculous replacement of Biden, Trump’s reelection remains distinctly possible. I studied authoritarianism for my master’s degree, and I strongly believe that a second Trump presidency would represent the end of American democracy. Yet even so, I find myself frequently tempted to dismiss commentators’ pleas as hyperbolic handwringing. I think I’m probably not alone in this confusing toggling between panic and blaséness. After some soul-searching, I think one of the reasons for the ever-present allure of complacency, other than the natural human tendency towards denial, is Trump’s humor.
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“It’s hard not to feel invisible as a Palestinian-American. Our trauma and pain feel unseen and ignored by both parties. One party uses our identity as a slur, and the other refuses to hear from us.” – Rep. Rashida Tlaib Israel drew all sorts of US military forces and intelligence assets into the Middle East […]
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As the United States’ position of dominance in the world has been challenged in recent decades, economic sanctions have taken a more central position in its strategy for maintaining global power and influence. As Stuart Davis and Immanuel Ness noted in a 2022 article arguing that sanctions are a form of war, “the US has […]
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In 2007, the writer Tal Nitsán isolated instances where Israeli male combatants systematically used sexual violence against Palestinian women to the war of 1948. In essentially marking off such conduct from more contemporary practices, she relied on media accounts, archival sources, the reports of human rights organizations and the testimony of 25 Israeli reserve male […]
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Whatever frail hope people had for Kamala Harris making a clean break from Biden’s unrelenting and unapologetic support for Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians living in Gaza was repeatedly and irrevocably shattered this week in Chicago. And not just Harris. The entire leadership of the party, from AOC to the Obamas joined in. Even Bernie […]
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But for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, appearance to essence, … truth is considered profane, and only illusion is sacred. Sacredness is in fact held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree […]
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+ Here’s a brief recap of the last week in US/Israeli relations. The IDF shot an American citizen, Amado Sison, in the West Bank. The US announced it would continue funding the notorious IDF unit that shot the American citizen. The IDF bombed a school being used as a shelter for Palestinians who’d been bombed […]
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Image by Evgeniy Smersh.
Any rock music fan worthy of being considered as such knows that the Pacific Northwest was a major focal point of the music in the late 1980s and the 1990s. Indeed, a sound the industry called grunge began there. Essentially, grunge is punk rock with a lot more fuzz and a few more hooks in the melody lines. In its artistic heyday, so-called punk bands like Nirvana, Mudhoney, the Melvins and TAD played clubs, dorm rooms, basements, bars and art galleries in their quest for the fulfillment playing music brings. Somewhere along the line, the media and industry recognized the phenomenon and labeled it grunge. Some of the bands were able to make a living at it and some became incredibly wealthy—something which wasn’t necessarily the best (or the intended) outcome. Other bands brought in other sounds and styles to the music and the scene it created. Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell brought in his version of a soaring and melodic metal guitar; Bikini Kill and Mecca Normal brought in a feminist anger and a legion of female fans. The Gits did a bit of everything and, in doing so, stood alone in the scene; they weren’t grunge, metal, or riot grrl. Their singer Mia Zapata had a voice that sometimes sounded a little like Pat Benatar, sometimes a little like Patti Smith, and sometimes like that folksinger you heard one afternoon in the park. Comparisons barely help describe her singing because it remained distinctly her own. The guitar of Joe Spleen, the bass of Matt Dresdner, and the percussion section that included Bob Lee, Bruce Docheneaux and Steven Moriarty completed the sound.
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From 1933 to 1939, Hitler provided the future government of Israel with the assets of German Jews in exchange for aid undermining an international anti-Nazi boycott. On March 19, 1933 — less than three months after Adolph Hitler had been elected chancellor of Germany — flags of the reigning National Socialist German Workers’ Party bearing […]
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