On July 4, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” into law, implementing his reactionary policy agenda. This megabill is the most sweeping legislation in modern U.S. history and elevates neoliberalism to a new stage with huge tax cuts for the rich and equally huge cuts to the social safety net, including food programs and Medicaid coverage. Indeed…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
From the streets to town halls and the courts, it’s a race now. The Trump administration is fighting to remain a step ahead of the growing popular backlash to its draconian cuts to social programs that millions of Americans depend on — at least until the administration operationalizes enough of the police state it’s practicing on immigrants to put down any such objection.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
During President Donald Trump’s second term, education has remained a central battleground in American politics. Republicans claim that classrooms have become hotbeds of “woke” indoctrination, accusing educators of promoting progressive agendas and tolerating antisemitism. In contrast, Democrats argue that conservatives are systematically defunding and dismantling public and higher education precisely because it teaches values like diversity, equity, and inclusion. While these partisan skirmishes dominate headlines, they obscure a much deeper and more enduring issue that encompasses all of these issues and more: the influence of corporate and military power on public education.
For decades, scholars have warned that corporations have steadily infiltrated the classroom—not to promote critical thinking or democratic values, but to cultivate ideologies that reinforce capitalism, nationalism, and militarism. Critical media literacy educators, in particular, have drawn attention to the convergence of tech firms and military entities in education, offering so-called “free” digital tools that often serve as Trojan horses for data collection and ideological control.
One striking example is the rise of programs like NewsGuard, which uses public fears over fake news to justify increased surveillance of students’ online activity. Relatedly, in 2018, the Atlantic Council partnered with Meta to perform “fact-checking” on platforms such as Facebook. In 2022, the US Marine Corps discussed developing media literacy training. It remains to be seen what training, if any, they will develop. However, what is known is that a large global player has entered the media literacy arena: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). While NATO presents its initiatives as supportive of media literacy and democratic education, these efforts appear to be oriented more toward reinforcing alignment with its strategic and political priorities than to fostering critical civic engagement.
NATO was created in 1949, during the Cold War, as a military alliance to contain communism. Although the war officially ended in 1991, NATO has expanded both its mission and membership. Today, it encompasses more than thirty member nations and continues to frame itself as a global force for peace, democracy, and security. But this self-image masks real conflicts of interest.
NATO is deeply intertwined with powerful nation-states and corporate actors. It routinely partners with defense contractors, tech firms, think tanks, and Western governments—all of which have a vested interest in maintaining specific political and economic systems. These relationships raise concerns when NATO extends its reach into education. Can a military alliance—closely linked to the defense industry and state propaganda—credibly serve as a neutral force in media education?
In 2022, NATO associates collaborated with the US-based Center for Media Literacy (CML) to launch a media literacy initiative framed as a strategic defense against misinformation. The initiative included a report titled Building Resiliency: Media Literacy as a Strategic Defense Strategy for the Transatlantic, authored by CML’s Tessa Jolls. It was accompanied by a series of webinars featuring military personnel, policy experts, and academics.
On the surface, the initiative appeared to promote digital literacy and civic engagement. But a closer look reveals a clear ideological agenda. Funded and organized by NATO, the initiative positioned media literacy not as a means of empowering students to think critically about how power shapes media, but as a defense strategy to protect NATO member states from so-called “hostile actors.” The curriculum emphasized surveillance, resilience, and behavior modification over reflection, analysis, and democratic dialogue.
Throughout their webinars, NATO representatives described the media environment as a battlefield, frequently using other war metaphors such as “hostile information activities” and “cognitive warfare.” Panelists argued that citizens in NATO countries were targets of foreign disinformation campaigns—and that media literacy could serve as a tool to inoculate them against ideological threats.
A critical review of NATO’s media literacy initiative reveals several troubling themes. First, it frames media literacy as a protectionist project rather than an educational one. Students are portrayed less as thinkers to be empowered and more as civilians to be monitored, molded, and managed. In this model, education becomes a form of top-down, preemptive defense, relying on expert guidance and military oversight rather than democratic participation.
Second, the initiative advances a distinctly neoliberal worldview. It emphasizes individual responsibility over structural analysis. In other words, misinformation is treated as a user error, rather than the result of flawed systems, corporate algorithms, or media consolidation. This framing conveniently absolves powerful actors, including NATO and Big Tech, of their role in producing or amplifying disinformation.
Third, the initiative promotes a contradictory definition of empowerment. While the report and webinars often use the language of “citizen empowerment,” they ultimately advocate for surveillance, censorship, and ideological conformity. Panelists call for NATO to “dominate” the information space, and some even propose systems to monitor students’ attitudes and online behaviors. Rather than encouraging students to question power—including NATO itself—this approach rewards obedience and penalizes dissent.
Finally, the initiative erases the influence of corporate power. Although it criticizes authoritarian regimes and “hostile actors,” it fails to examine the role that Western corporations, particularly tech companies, play in shaping media environments. This oversight is especially problematic given that many of these corporations are NATO’s partners. By ignoring the political economy of media, the initiative offers an incomplete and ideologically skewed version of media literacy.
NATO’s foray into media literacy education represents a new frontier in militarized pedagogy. While claiming to promote democracy and resilience, its initiative advances a narrow, protectionist, and neoliberal approach that prioritizes NATO’s geopolitical goals over student empowerment.
This should raise red flags for educators, policymakers, and advocates. Media literacy is not a neutral practice. The organizations that design and fund media literacy programs inevitably shape the goals and methods of those programs. When a military alliance like NATO promotes media education, it brings with it a strategic interest in ideological control.
Educators must ask: What kind of media literacy are we teaching—and whose interests does it serve? If the goal is to produce informed, critically thinking citizens capable of questioning power in all its forms, then NATO’s approach falls short. Instead of inviting students to explore complex media systems, it simplifies them into a binary struggle between “us” and “them,” encouraging loyalty over literacy.
True media literacy must begin with transparency about who and what is behind the curriculum. It must empower students to question all forms of influence—governmental, corporate, and military alike. And it must resist the creeping presence of militarism in our classrooms. As educators, we must defend the right to question, not just the messages we see, but the institutions that shape them.
This essay was originally published here:
The post The Militarization and Weaponization of Media Literacy: NATO Invades the Classroom first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
This week on the New Politics podcast, we expose the real cost of privatising essential public services in Australia – particularly in early childhood education, health, aged care, and universities.
After revelations of child sexual abuse in Melbourne early learning centres, we examine how decades of outsourcing, deregulation, and profit-driven policies have undermined safety, care, and public accountability. With rising fees, unqualified staff, and chronic underfunding, we ask: has privatisation failed? (short answer: yes). And how can we reclaim these services for the public good?
We trace privatisation’s roots to the Reagan–Thatcher era and its expansion under John Howard, including in early learning and tertiary education. We revisit the ABC Learning collapse and Goodstart’s not-for-profit model, asking whether public money should fund private profit or support accessible, high-quality services.
We also examine higher education controversies, such as ANU Chancellor Julie Bishop’s lavish spending amid staff cuts, questioning why universities now prioritise corporate behaviour over educational values.
We explore the anti-Semitic incidents which always seem following criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza, looking at the Melbourne synagogue fire (of a door), the Dural hoax, and the media’s role in inflaming tensions. Selective outrage, rushed laws, and increased police powers are stifling legitimate protest and marginalising Muslim communities.
We also analyse the Melbourne protest outside Miznon restaurant, misrepresented as anti-Semitic despite legal rulings to the contrary. With the government’s sweeping anti-Semitism plan, we ask: where is the equal protection for all vulnerable communities?
Also this week, Prime Minister Albanese’s John Curtin Lecture invoked Australian independence, but we question this against the backdrop of AUKUS and Trump’s trade threats. Is Australia truly independent within its US alliance?
And finally, we look at the RBA’s decision to hold the cash rate at 3.85%, defying expectations. What does this mean for inflation, housing, and everyday Australians – and is the RBA losing touch with public needs?
#auspol
@ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/newpolitics
@ Substack: https://newpolitics.substack.com
We don’t plead, beseech, beg, guilt-trip, or gaslight you and claim the end of the world of journalism is coming soon. We keep it simple: If you like our work and would like to support it, send a donation, from as little as $5. Or purchase one of our books! It helps to keep our commitment to independent journalism ticking over! Go to our supporter page to see the many ways you can support New Politics.
The post Criminalising Dissent and the True Public Cost of Privatisation appeared first on New Politics.
This post was originally published on New Politics.
Donald Trump’s so-called “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which was signed into law last week, has been described as a monstrous piece of legislation. In this exclusive interview for Truthout, world-renowned progressive economist Robert Pollin provides an overview of this “disgraceful” federal budget bill. Pollin is distinguished professor of economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
More than 1 million people in the European Union died from avoidable causes in 2022, according to new data from a Eurostats report. Of these, over 386,000 deaths were attributed to diseases treatable with quality healthcare, while at least 725,000 could have been prevented through effective public health interventions.
The conditions cited include heart disease, COVID-19, and several cancers – such as colon, breast, and lung cancer – that experts have long said could be more effectively addressed with proper investment in screening and treatment. Despite these warnings, European authorities continue to slash funding for health and care services while committing record sums to military spending.
The post Austerity Linked To Over One Million Preventable Deaths In Eu appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
More than 1 million people in the European Union died from avoidable causes in 2022, according to new data from a Eurostats report. Of these, over 386,000 deaths were attributed to diseases treatable with quality healthcare, while at least 725,000 could have been prevented through effective public health interventions.
The conditions cited include heart disease, COVID-19, and several cancers – such as colon, breast, and lung cancer – that experts have long said could be more effectively addressed with proper investment in screening and treatment. Despite these warnings, European authorities continue to slash funding for health and care services while committing record sums to military spending.
The post Austerity Linked To Over One Million Preventable Deaths In Eu appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
The total liberation and unification of Africa under an All-African Socialist Government must be the primary objective of all Black revolutionaries throughout the world. It is an objective which, when achieved, will bring about the fulfillment of the aspirations of Africans and people of African descent everywhere. It will at the same time advance the triumph of the international socialist revolution, and the onward progress towards world communism, under which, every society is ordered on the principle of –from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
— Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah
Jeremy Kuzmarov was kind to spend an hour with me, since I am much more polemical and hyperbolic than his measured writing belies. I’ve written numerous times why it is I am now switched to write THAT way, and there is no need for me to defend my rhetoric and utilizing some of the 11 forms of propaganda Edward Bernays and Goebbels and Madison Avenue and Hasbara Industry deploy.
We talked about his new book, Warmonger: How Clinton’s Malign Foreign Policy Launched the US Trajectory from Bush II to Biden, Clarity Press, Inc., 2023.
Here, this book is divided into thirteen chapters and provides a comprehensive overview of Clinton’s foreign policy across the globe. Utilizing archival research from the Clinton Presidential Library, oral history interviews, alongside a plethora of newspapers and scholarship focusing on the 1990s, Kuzmarov provides succinct overviews of high-profile and well-known events, such as genocide in the Balkans and in Rwanda, and lesser-known case studies such as the administration’s disastrous reworking of the Russian economy or Clinton’s support for dictators in Africa. Kuzmarov makes the salient point that despite rhetoric to the contrary, Clinton was never interested in human rights or humanitarianism when it came to intervention. Rather, the administration was quick to set aside human rights when it served its interests.
With those Clinton years, we have had the perfect caldron of the witch’s and devil’s brew of a slim-ball, a Cecil Rhodes and Chatam House rodent, and not America’s first Black or Republican president, Clinton working his dark arts with the neo-cons and neoliberals and the imperialists.
Here’s the book’s blurb:
During the 2016 presidential election, many younger voters repudiated Hillary Clinton because of her husband’s support for mass incarceration, banking deregulation and free-trade agreements that led many U.S. jobs to be shipped overseas. Warmonger: How Clinton’s Malign Foreign Policy Launched the Trajectory from Bush II to Biden, shows that Clinton’s foreign policy was just as bad as his domestic policy. Cultivating an image as a former anti-Vietnam War activist to win over the aging hippie set in his early years, as president, Clinton bombed six countries and, by the end of his first term, had committed U.S. troops to 25 separate military operations, compared to 17 in Ronald Reagan’s two terms. Clinton further expanded America’s covert empire of overseas surveillance outposts and spying and increased the budget for intelligence spending and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a CIA offshoot which promoted regime change in foreign nations.
The latter was not surprising because, according to CIA operative Cord Meyer Jr., Clinton had been recruited into the CIA while a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and as Governor of Arkansas in the 1980s he had allowed clandestine arms and drug flights to Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries (Contras) backed by the CIA to be taken from Mena Airport in the western part of the state. Rather than being a time of tranquility when the U.S. failed to pay attention to the gathering storm of terrorism, as New York Times columnist David Brooks frames it, the Clinton presidency saw rising tensions among the U.S., China and Russia because of Clinton’s malign foreign policies, and U.S. complicity in terrorist acts.
In so many ways, Clinton’s presidency set the groundwork for the disasters that were to follow under Bush II, Obama, Trump, and Biden. It was Clinton―building off of Reagan―who first waged a War on Terror ridden with double standards, one that adopted terror tactics, including extraordinary rendition, bombing and the use of drones. It was Clinton who cried wolf about human rights abuses and the need to protect beleaguered peoples from genocide to justify military intervention in a post-Cold War age. And it was Clinton’s administration that pressed for regime change in Iraq and raised public alarm about the mythic WMDs―all while relying on fancy new military technologies and private military contractors to distance US shady military interventions from the public to limit dissent.
We spent a lot of time looking at the history of Covert Action Bulletin. We talked about language, the so-called alternative press, what real liberalism was and how liberalism now is an evil spin factory of the neoliberal variety.
The list goes on and on and on. Phoenix Program? We know Covert Programs need Covert Action.
LANGUAGE. That whole concept of people berating me for reading CAM articles, for citing guys like William Blum or Douglas Valentine or Jeremy, it’s all based on the language of the oppressed, the amnesiac, colonized, lobotomized, brainwashed, miseducated, anesthetized.
The idea of the CIA being the premier agency of no good, murder incorporated, full of machinations on economic hits and country destabilization.
Yes, the Mossad has taken CIA and British intelligence agencies up a few notches, but we both agree that this was planned, or part of the plan.
You can go to Covert Action Magazine and hit any number of topic arenas you might fancy as your primary interest: social justice issues including intervention, war, covert action, intelligence, political economy, imperialism, labor, repression, surveillance, media, racial justice, sexism, environmentalism, and immigration
By Chris Agee
CovertAction Magazine began publishing in 1978 as a newsletter called Covert Action Information Bulletin (CAIB) and later as CovertAction Quarterly (CAQ). The magazine developed a following not as a conspiracy-theory-related publication, but as a source for reliable, consistent, and accurate investigative reporting.
Originally, CAIB was a watchdog journal that focused on the abuses and activities of the CIA, yet it has gradually evolved into a more general, progressive investigative magazine.
CAIB was cofounded and copublished by Ellen Ray, William Schaap, and Louis Wolf, along with former CIA agents such as James and Elsie Wilcott, and Philip Agee, author of Inside the Company: CIA Diary and On The Run.
Following in the tradition of CounterSpy Magazine (1973-1984)—with whom the founders of CAIB had originally worked—highlights of CAIB included the notorious “Naming Names” column, which printed the names of CIA officers under diplomatic cover. These were tracked through exhaustive research in the State Department Biographic Register and various domestic and international diplomatic lists.
This column, and others like it, came to an end in 1982 when the Intelligence Identities Protection Act was signed into law by Ronald Reagan. CAIB had to end the “Naming Names” column, but more significantly, the act required that magazines such as CAIB be more wary about the names they published within the articles of their contributors. This was particularly significant after December 1975 when Richard S. Welch, a CIA station chief, was assassinated in Athens, Greece. CounterSpy was criticized by both the CIA and the press for its exposure of the agent’s name.
While almost every issue focused on the CIA and its activities in regions like Central America and Southeast Asia, CAIB also covered the CIA interference in the domestic media and on university campuses, as well as a wider range of domestic and international political issues. Occasionally, CAIB dedicated entire issues to surveillance technologies, the U.S. prison system, the environment, Mad Cow disease, AIDS, ECHELON, media cover-ups, Iraqi sanctions, and the so-called “war against drugs.”
Contributing authors have included intellectuals, writers, and activists such as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Sara Flounders, Philip Agee, John Pilger, Ramsey Clark, Leonard Peltier, Allen Ginsberg, Diana Johnstone, Laura Flanders, Edward S. Herman, and Ward Churchill.
In 1992, with Issue 43, CAIB changed its name to CovertAction Quarterly (CAQ). As a 64 to 78-page magazine published four times a year, the publication became fondly known as the magazine “recommended by Noam Chomsky; targeted by the CIA.” CAQ had a reputation for beating to the punch more mainstream standard-bearers, such as the New York Times.
In 1995, it covered the genocide in Rwanda and U.S. complicity in those events, years before any other publication cared to notice; it ran in-depth investigative articles on the rise of homegrown militias before the Oklahoma bombing; and it was the first U.S. publication to reveal the existence of ECHELON (the security agencies’ surveillance software).
CAQ was the regular recipient of the annual Project Censored awards for the Top 25 Censored Stories.
Twenty-eighteen was the 40th anniversary of the founding of CovertAction and its publisher Covert Action Publications, Inc. Former writers and publishers of CAIB and CAQ relaunched as CovertAction Magazine (CAM).
The relaunch team also intends to publish several books including an annual compilation of the best of CAM, an encyclopedia of espionage and a republication of CIA Diary: Inside the Company and On The Run by Philip Agee, volumes which will include Philip Agee’s iconic articles and papers.
The relaunch team is headed up by the co-founder, publisher and writer, Louis Wolf, as well as our tried and true investigative journalists, professors, organizers, funders, proofreaders and legal representation. The expanded team includes Chris Agee, William Blum, Jack Colhoun, Michel Chossudovsky, Mark Cook, Jennifer Harbury, Bill Montross, Immanuel Ness, James Petras, Karen Ranucci, Stephanie Reich, Hobart Spalding, Victor Wallis and Melvin L. Wulf, all of whom worked with, and/or wrote for, the magazine in the past.
New talent that has come on board for the relaunch include Sam Alcoff, Steve Brown, Tom Burgess, Hester Eisenstein, Victoria Gamez, David Giglio, Josh Klein, Maureen LaMar, Michael Locker, and Chuck Mohan, to name a few.
All together, the expanded team specializes in a variety of social justice issues including intervention, war, covert action, intelligence, political economy, imperialism, labor, repression, surveillance, media, racial justice, sexism, environmentalism, and immigration. See our masthead for more details.
The archives will illustrate the beginnings of the hard copy newsletter/magazine — Archives /CovertAction Magazine.
Interestingly enough, Jeremy has had his hit entry into the propaganda machine, Canary Mission, updated after his article appeared both on his Substack and in CAM: On the One-Year Anniversary of October 7, It is Clear We Were Not Told The Truth
Imagine that title’s subordinate first clause being replaced by any number of topics
Pearl Harbor?
Sinking of the Lusitania?
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Here’s Jeremy’s ending to that article:
In that case, a British commission uncovered that the Lusitania—carrying more than 100 American passengers from the U.S. to Europe (over 1,000 died overall)—was rigged with explosives, though the destruction of the ship was blamed on Germany.
Winston Churchill, then the First Lord of the Admiralty, withheld rescue boats to maximize the number of deaths. The aim was to generate enough outrage for the U.S. public to want to go to war against Germany.[5]
Evidence indicates that Benjamin Netanyahu has adopted the same strategy of Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt in sacrificing the lives of his own people in order to arouse enough anger to generate support for war.
Roosevelt and Churchill are today regarded as national heroes in their respective countries, though Netanyahu is likely to go down in history as a villain, along with his American sponsors. This is because the Israelis have failed to earn a heroic victory against Gaza and have horrified much of the world with the atrocities that they have committed.
Overview
Jeremy Kuzmarov spread anti-Israel conspiracy theories during Israel’s war against Hamas. He has also expressed hatred of Israel and is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
These Mitzvah Elves, man, this fucking Canary Mission putting thousands of good honest thinkers onto their web site to incite hatred and deplatforming and doxing and you name it:
Continuing with the hateful Canary Mission:
Hatred of Israel
On June 8, 2017, Kuzmarov published an article titled: “Six-Day War A Turning Point In Passionate Attachment To Israel.”
In the article, Kusmarov wrote how the Six-Day War transformed “Israel into an occupier” of “historic Palestine (West Bank and Gaza).”
Kuzmarov further stated in his article:
“The myth of Israel as a humane and embattled David fighting the Arab Goliath has been debunked in recent years, with world opinion expressing growing sympathy for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.”
Read: Who is behind Canary Mission’s anonymous anti-Palestinian blacklisting website? by Hamzah Raza and Max Blumenthal·August 22, 2018
We talked about education, the movement within higher education to suppress and single out and even fire peace activists fighting to expose the lies of Israel, AIPAC, Jewish ties to genocide, both within Israel and outside it.
He’s an adjunct professor at Tulsa Community College, and he says his students in his history courses are for the most part open to learning and getting deep into the reveal, that is, to look at the real history of America, to get to the underbelly and to question their own blinded brainwashing and the grand and meta-hyper narratives of this land tis of thee.
My show, Finding Fringe, airs Wednesdays, 6 pm PST, this one with Jeremy is all the way to Sept. 3. Above is a great line-up via Zoom Doom, with amazing people I have followed over the past few years.
Topics of Discussion:
Featured Speakers:
Tickets: Just $25! All proceeds support CAM’s independent investigative journalism and fundraising initiatives.
*****
Support CAM and send an email to KYAQ and thank them for running my hour-long weekly shows:
6 pm to 7 Wednesdays
July 2 will be Freedom Farms. Working the soil when leaving incarceration — https://freedom-farms.org/
July 9, reintroducing Sea Otters to Oregon with Chanel Hason, Elakha Alliance — https://www.elakhaalliance.org/
July 16, Nigeria, Madu Smart Ajaja, from Houston, talking about his country Nigeria.
Will Potter, Green is the New Red and his newest book, Little Red Barns, July 23: Animal rights and gag laws and designating farm animal rights folk as terrorists. == https://www.willpotter.com/
July 30 local woman, from Waldport, fighting the City Manager and road crew, Teresa Carter.
August 6 Wisconsin’s Draconian probation provisos on steroids, and other issues around the prison industrial complex with Kelly Kloss.
Max Wilbert, Bright Green Lies, and with CELDF, and an environmental sanity warrior. 13 August. — https://celdf.org/
Taylor Yount, with her new book, My Sutured Mind: Poems of Healing Beyond Trauma, with local Ukrainian artist, Veta Bakhtina, artwork. August 27.
September 3, Jeremy Kuzmarov, author of five books, his latest being, Warmonger: How Clinton’s Malign Foreign Policy Launched the US Trajectory from Bush II to Biden and managing editor of Covert Action Magazine — https://covertactionmagazine.com/
Zachary Stocks, Executive Director, Oregon Black Pioneers September 10 == https://oregonblackpioneers.org/
My interview June 27 with Jeremy Kuzmarov.
*****
I’m not sure if CAM has had Amaju Baraka on as a guest or writer, but I highly recommend his most recent interview here:
Black Alliance for Peace Condemns the U.S. and Israeli Final Solution for Gaza and the West Bank
Justice Demands Action against Zionism, not Hypocritical Rhetoric from the States of the “West”
Just as Nazi Germany sought the total elimination of Jewish life, the state of Israel, with full U.S. support, is now openly pursuing the systematic annihilation of the people of Gaza, the acceleration of mass displacement in the West Bank, and the denial of Palestinian nationhood itself. Those who dare to speak out are vilified, censored, or stripped of their livelihoods, ensuring complicity through coercion. The Black Alliance for Peace rejects this moral and political blackmail. True solidarity demands courage—refusing to be silenced or pacified as we witness, document, and resist this ongoing genocide. History will judge not only the perpetrators but also those who stood by in cowardly silence…
Those with the power to do so can either take such measures or abdicate their humanity. Palestine will not be free until Zionism, along with all white supremacist ideologies, is defeated. BAP will continue to do everything in its power to ensure the final defeat of global white supremacy that is materially grounded in imperialism.
We Stand With Iran 19 June 2025 By A-APRP
The illegal zionist state of Israel started bombing Iran on Friday, June 13th, 2025. The aerial bombing coincided with the assassination of a number of scientists, generals and civilians. This unprovoked, criminal assault was accompanied by sabotage of government facilities, drone attacks on civilian infrastructure and the unleashing of internal cells loyal to the west, determined to dismantle the Iranian state. Taken as a whole the military assault is eerily reminiscent of the 2011 attack on Libya that killed Muammar Gaddafi and devastated Africa’s most progressive nation state.
This is all done to ensure US dominance in the region under the pretext of stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The capitalist mainstream media, the US Government, and Israel are claiming Israel is protecting itself from a powerful nuclear neighbor. But a careful analysis reveals a quite different reality. Firstly, Israel is the state that possesses nuclear weapons. They are aggressors claiming to be victims. Secondly Israel is nothing more than a proxy of US led imperialism, which wants to economically and militarily dominate the region. This is part of the imperialist plan to dominate the world.
The zionist state of Israel was created to serve the interests of imperialism by establishing an imperialist fortress in Western Asia.
Last Gasp Of A Dying Monster (The Imperialist Military Assault)
Imperialism (through the zionist entity in Israel) instituted regime change in Syria, and executed genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. Iran supports the Palestinians with arms, money, training and material. Iran is now being targeted for regime change.
We must also take note that these Imperialist/zionist forces are not confining their military activity to one country or region. While a new war rages in Iran, imperialism creates ongoing conflicts of various types in the Western Sahara, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, DRC, Sudan, Guinea Bissau, the Alliance For Sahelian States (which includes Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso), Venezuela, Nicaraqua, Cuba, North Korea, Haiti, Russia, China and other places throughout the world. This is in fact an imperialist policy of Full Spectrum Domination.
The U.S. has at least 45 military bases surrounding Iran and the US has already threatened Iran declaring,“If Iran attacks any U.S. military bases we will bomb Iran with the likes they have never seen”. After lying about their involvement in the attacks on Iran by Israelis the US president went on to say, “We gave them a chance to negotiate a peace agreement and they wouldn’t agree to our terms.” So, now they will have to come to the negotiation table and agree to our terms.”
This is how the dying capitalists/imperialists act in their last stage of existence. They engage in multiple wars, terrorism and genocide as they are declining. They try to kill, terrorize as many people and nations as possible. But, they have been losing militarily, economically and politically everywhere. Including losing the propaganda war around the world.
…
The Significance of Pan-Africanism
A new wave of anti-neo colonial resistance that is sweeping Africa is reshaping oil and gas politics, challenging imperialist dominance, and aligning with the BRICS led push to “de-dollarize” the world’s economy. This movement is driven by youth uprisings, military coups, formation of alliances, and rising ideological awareness that imperialism is the enemy of humanity.
*****
Dan’s a regular CAM columnist: The War on Iran Has Been Long in the Making, and the U.S. Is Already a Party to It
This is one measure of the talent and deep thinkers over at CAM: Daniel Kovalik graduated from Columbia University School of Law in 1993. He then served as in-house counsel for the United Steelworkers, AFL-CIO (USW) until 2019.
While with the USW, he worked on Alien Tort Claims Act cases against The Coca-Cola Company, Drummond and Occidental Petroleum—cases arising out of egregious human rights abuses in Colombia.
The Christian Science Monitor, referring to his work defending Colombian unionists under threat of assassination, described Mr. Kovalik as “one of the most prominent defenders of Colombian workers in the United States.”
Mr. Kovalik received the David W. Mills Mentoring Fellowship from Stanford University School of Law and was the recipient of the Project Censored Award for his article exposing the unprecedented killing of trade unionists in Colombia.
He has written extensively on the issue of international human rights and U.S. foreign policy for the Huffington Post and Counterpunch and has lectured throughout the world on these subjects. He is the author of several books including The Plot To Overthrow Venezuela, How The US Is Orchestrating a Coup for Oil, which includes a Foreword by Oliver Stone; The Plot to Attack Iran: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Iran; and with Jeremy Kuzmarov, Syria: Anatomy of a Regime Change.
Michael Parenti:
Total number of registered lobbyists in the United States from 2000 to 2024
Yeah, so billions a year spent by lobbies — just call them protection rackets or overt and covert organizations/cartels representing not just special interest a or b, but collectively, representing the entire fucking corporations and groups just in one arena:
Nah, not undue influence? In 2024, the groups that spent the most on lobbying were the National Association of Realtors, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Hospital Association, and the Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America.
1,517 (55.04%)
The number of pharmaceutical/health product lobbyists in the United States and the percentage who are former government employees, as of June 1, 2025.
You thought it was offensive weapons companies? Why, when the Military Mercenaries have their own taxpayer paid for mafia —
Military Departments:
Responsible for organizing, training, and equipping land forces.
Department of the Navy: Includes the Navy and Marine Corps, responsible for sea-based and amphibious operations.
Department of the Air Force: Responsible for air and space operations.
Other Key Components:
Joint Chiefs of Staff:
A group of high-ranking military officers who advise the President, Secretary of Defense, and National Security Council on military matters.
Unified Combatant Commands:
Eleven regional or functional commands responsible for military operations in specific areas or for specific functions. Examples include U.S. Central Command, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, and U.S. Cyber Command.
Defense Agencies:
Various agencies that provide specialized support to the military departments and combatant commands, such as the Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Do these agencies below need lobbies? They are already built into the system:
Department of Justice:
Department of Homeland Security:
Other Federal Agencies:
Some conspiracy, uh?
Organizations within the Department of Defense:
Other key agencies:
War is a Very Expensive and Devil’s Bargain — The BIG LIE.
Now now, I really did not go off topic. CAM, Covert Action Magazine. Open it up, man. Just put in the Google “Ukraine and Covert Action Magazine.” Do that for any topic. “Covert Action Magazine and Gaza.” Etc.
Jeremy is a simple guy who believes in truth, and he questions the narratives and the agencies that are the mafias and cartels protecting the agencies, who are just economic hitmen, in that Racket, sir, Gen. Butler.
“Every government is run by liars. Nothing they say should be believed.”
― I.F. Stone
It would have been a hell of a conversation with Jeremy and Stone (R.I.P.):
To write the truth as I see it; to defend the weak against the strong; to fight for justice; and to seek, as best I can to bring healing perspectives to bear on their terrible hates and fears of mankind, in the hope of someday bringing about one world, in which men[and women] will enjoy the differences of the human garden instead of killing each other over them.
― Isidor Feinstein Stone
Listen to my interview with Jeremy of CAM here, KYAQ.
The enduring quality of the myth of the addicted army in many respects demonstrates America’s long-standing inability to come to terms with the moral consequences of the Vietnam War. By reimagining their soldiers as victims and the U.S. military defeat as a “tragedy,” Americans were able to deflect responsibility for the massive destruction and loss of life inflicted on the people of Southeast Asia and thus to avoid serious reconsideration of the ideological principles that rationalized the American intervention. The silencing and demonizing of dissenting voices, including antiwar GIs typecast as psychopathic junkies, aided in this process.”
— Jeremy Kuzmarov in “The Myth of the Addicted Army”
The post A Battle for Humane Consciousness in a War Against Truth: Exposing the Dark Arts of War first appeared on Dissident Voice.With remarkable continuity, police aid was used not just to target criminals but to develop elaborate intelligence networks oriented towards internal defense, which allowed the suppression of dissident groups to take place on a wider scope and in a more surgical and often brutal way. In effect, the U.S. helped to modernize intelligence gathering and political policing operations, thus magnifying their impact. They further helped to militarize the police and provided them with a newfound perception of power, while schooling them in a hard-line anticommunism that fostered the dehumanization of political adversaries and bred suspicion about grass-roots mobilization…… Although the U.S. was not always in control of the forces that it empowered and did not always condone their acts, human rights violations were not by accident or the product of rogue forces betraying American principles, as some have previously argued. They were rather institutionalized within the fabric of American policy and its coercive underpinnings.
— Jeremy Kuzmarov in “Modernizing Repression: Police Training, Nation-Building and the Spread of Political Violence in the American Century,” Diplomatic History, April 2009
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
The Caribbean region is an important geostrategic location for the United States, not only due to regional proximity, but also due to the continued importance of securing sea routes for trade and military purposes. It is the geostrategic location of the Caribbean that has historically made the region a target for domineering empires and states. As both geopolitical site and geostrategic location, U.S. foreign policy articulations of Caribbean people and the region have been effectively contradictory, but the contradiction has allowed the U.S. to maintain its hegemonic position: Caribbean peoples in U.S. foreign policy are rendered backwards, unstable, and dangerous or targets of xenophobic harassment; while the physical region is rendered as a place where U.S. foreign policy must maintain one-sided power relations, lest these sites come under the influence of other states that the U.S. views as impinging upon its sphere of influence.
The post US Hegemony, China’s Rise, And The Geopolitical Stakes In The Caribbean appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
Dr Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He writes extensively for various publications, including CounterPunch, Dissident Voice, and Eureka Street. He is currently lecturing at the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University.
I just interviewed Binoy two hours ago, USA time, 3 PM PST, Sunday, 8 am Australia time.
It’s extraordinary. The reasoning that led up to the attack on Iran was remarkable because the language and the terminology used is very creepily reminiscent, in fact,of the kind of language that was used in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq by the US-led so-called Coalition of the Willing. And it featured for example uh the reasoning that supposedly a country has a certain capacity — either has the capacity or has the inventory — of weapons of mass destruction um is an imminent threat let’s not forget the sexed up dossier as it was called then uh supposedly showing that Saddam Hussein’s army have the capacity to, building up this case, padding it up, and making the case that a preemptive attack was necessary, which, of course, is totally ludicrous. Article 2, paragraph 4, makes it very clear in the UN Charter that the use of force is really strictly rationed.
You know, you cannot violate the sovereignty of states willy-nilly. There is, of course, that self-defense proviso in Article 51 and so on. But to preempt this in this way is remarkable because you have to demonstrate sovereignty. .. that there is this imminent sense of destruction, irreparable damage and so on, and Israel in no way managed in any of its assessments to demonstrate that to be the case.
We talked about the growing Jewish Semitism, this attack on all humanity, and the disgusting lack of values Western Media have displayed, and Binoy attributes much of that lack of concern for Gazan Humanity, or Iranian Humanity, or Lebanese Humanity, to the GUILT of that so-called Holocaust.
Using words like Israel + Rogue Nation; Israel + Genocide; Jewish State of Israel + Mass Murder; Judaism a la Israel + White Supremacy; Jews in Israel + Psychopaths; Judaism Now + DIseased — all those combinations and MORE will get your ass in jail or worse.
But he and I talked for an hour, and that was before I scoured the mainstream news and Telegram channels to see the latest in the President of the USA’s declarations of murdering Iranians, in a much more overtly direct way, though everything about West Asia, the wars, the Jewish Supremacist State, all of the trillions given to Jews in Israel and all the other trillions extracted by Jews in and out of Israel from the global economies, it’s still directed by the Jewish State of Our White Man’s House.
Here’s our Interview on a Podcast-Substack — Paulo’s.
So Adolph Bibi and Himmler Trump, working on the Greater Israel.
Patrick Henningsen sums up the Trump regime,
His entire cabinet has been bought by a foreign lobby. This is a low point in American history, and this is probably the weakest president politically […] The irony of this is it’s a billionaire Donald Trump, supposedly a genius of business. He doesn’t need the money […] He just doesn’t have the courage to basically be America first. He’s stuck being Israel first.
Fun stuff over at Postcards from the End:
Jews funding Trump are Americans, though, so it’s misleading to call them a “foreign lobby.” Like everybody else, Henningsen can’t say “his entire cabinet has been bought by Jews.” Trump is not getting billions from Israel. Bought and blackmailed by domestic Jews, he’s sending tons of American taxpayers’ money to foreign Jews. These righteous genociders are getting a fantastic return, plus countless laughs, on their investment.
Trump’s enabling of Albert Bourla’s Jewjabs was cheered by all prominent Jews, plus gadfly Ron Unz.
Binoy and I didn’t get deep into the dementia of the West, of Australia, NZ, the other QueenDumb colonies, and especially the lobotomized AmeriKKKa, but in Australia, it’s the same playbook of PR spin, a la Hasbara, a la Edward Bernays on Growth Hormones and Steroids.
Binoy is articulate and was willing to go into my house to discuss things, with my bombast and all: We attempted to humanize the suffering, the mass murdering, the maiming, but alas, historians and journalists and political scientists have to keep on keeping on.
Unlike the New York Times:
The criminality is advanced in its cancerous stage:
Donald Trump has carried out direct US air strikes on Iran, bombing what he said were three major nuclear sites.
“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan”, Trump boasted, in a post on his website Truth Social on 21 June.
“A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow”, he wrote.
I am sure the Aussies like the Brits like the EuroTrashLandians are all celebrating:
We are all stuck with this VP Vance and the Jews Running the Minyan in Trump’s Cabal:
An hour after announcing that he had directly bombed Iran, Trump posted a jpeg of a US flag.
So, Binoy and I talked about Iran and the Illegal invasion of Iran by the Dirty Demented Sicarios of Isra-Hell, but this was barely on our tongue tips before the 60 minute interview stopped:
Greater Psychopathic Israel, and so, this sort of Substack will soon get me disappeared or violently handcuffed into the night:
Facts:
This strategy was itself based on Israel’s 1996 policy document A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm. In this document Israel’s strategy for regional security included destabilizing and weakening key nations seen as threats. The document explicitly called for efforts to undermine and topple the regimes in Iraq and Syria. It proposed supporting internal opposition within Iraq to weaken Saddam Hussein’s regime, particularly due to concerns over Iraq’s military capabilities and potential weapons of mass destruction, while Syria was viewed as a major regional threat because of its alliance with Iran and its support for Hezbollah. Although not directly calling for military action, the strategy also outlined efforts to counter Iran’s growing regional influence, especially its nuclear ambitions. The overarching aim was to reshape the Middle East by destabilizing these nations to reduce the perceived threats to Israel’s security.
Jews: [Former United States Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle was the “Study Group Leader,” but the final report included ideas from Douglas Feith, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks Jr., Jonathan Torop, David Wurmser, Meyrav Wurmser, and IASPS president Robert Loewenberg.]
*****
I’ll let the interview stand here, and I’ll be interviewing Binoy with a more traditional Q & A format.
Cheers, to Binoy, in his land’s dead of Winter.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
If you live in the United States and feel like everything is caving in around you, like you are being attacked and fleeced from every angle, like you can’t breathe, like you can’t ever seem to catch a break despite doing everything seemingly right, like you are on the verge of a mental-health crisis and/or homelessness, your feelings are justified.
We are living in the middle of widespread societal breakdown. We are witnessing the erosion of an empire. We are experiencing the effects of a rotten system (capitalism) coming to its inevitable conclusion. Simply put, the capitalist class and their two political parties have run out of ways to steal from us. Because we have nothing left for them to take. So, the system is responding like a vampire who is unable to find the blood it needs to survive… erratic, rabid, frenzied, and increasingly desperate and violent, while frantically searching for new avenues of exploitation to keep it churning.
The post Systemic Decay And The Economic Foundation Of American Fascism appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
Tens of thousands of Argentines took to the streets of the country’s capital, Buenos Aires, June 4 to demand an immediate change in the ultra-neoliberal policies of President Javier Milei. The mobilization took place outside the National Congress, which was discussing a potential increase in pensions for retirees. Last year, Milei vetoed a pension increase that was approved by the Congress.
This time, the legislature approved an increase of nearly 7% in pensions, which now must be approved by the Senate.
However, Milei has already warned that the “demagogic and populist” decision, will be vetoed once again because it threatens the government’s much-touted goal of “fiscal balance”, pursued even at the cost of rising poverty, denying people with disabilities access to medicines, and defunding pediatric hospitals.
The post Milei’s Chainsaw Economics Met With Working Class Unity appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
A shining light within the U.S. labor movement over the past several years has been the rising wave of unionization and militancy among graduate workers, whose labor helps prop up the entire system of U.S. higher education. Tens of thousands of graduate workers have unionized over the past half-decade at institutions like Stanford, UChicago, MIT, Duke, Minnesota, and many more.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The Anti-Fascist Women’s Front (AFŽ) as an organisation formed in the Second World War enabled women at that time to have their say in an organised way and for that voice to be heard. They needed women so badly that they could promise them everything they needed. That organisation is the foundation of everything that emerged in socialism. But it wasn’t so simple or quick. The AFŽ was disbanded in 1954 mainly because Vida Tomšič, who was leading the organisation at the time, judged that women had become too closed off in their organisation and therefore could not achieve anything that was really important, while at the same time high politics was doing its own thing and there were no women there.
The post A Dangerous Feminist Path Against The Grain Of Capital appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
There was some extremely troubling news out of Argentina last week. On March 28th, the Melei administration Presidential Spokesman Manuel Adorni announced that the government would be suspending all worker co-ops created between 2020 and 2022 and auditing all those formed last year. While this official statement was quickly gainsayed by other government agencies, what had happened was just as bad: the National Institute of Associativism and Social Economy (INAES) – the agency responsible for registering co-ops – had voted to suspend 11,000 co-ops for lack of documentation and other alleged non-compliance.
The post Argentina’s Worker Co-ops Under Attack appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
In a mass demonstration of solidarity, trade union activists from across Britain blocked the entrance of a Birmingham waste depot as part of an ongoing dispute between the city’s refuse collectors and the Labour-led council. Birmingham’s bin workers, many of whom are members of the trade union Unite, have been taking intermittent action against planned pay cuts since the beginning of this year – and have spent the past two months on strike.
As part of an extreme austerity agenda, the city council is planning to downgrade at least one section of the workforce. This proposal has raised concerns not only about workers’ income but also about health and safety conditions.
The post Mass Solidarity Picket Backs Striking Bin Workers In Birmingham appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
Despite endless insistence by privatizers that charter schools are public schools, many people spontaneously think that charter schools are not public schools.
Much of the public does not automatically see charter schools as public schools proper. They are viewed as being different from public schools and put in a separate category than public schools.
When asked what they think a charter school is, the average person often says something like: “I’m not really sure, aren’t they some sort of private school, I really don’t know, but I have heard of them, they seem like private schools to me.”
In this vein, people often share different things they have heard about charter schools. For example, they have heard that charter schools are deregulated schools, take money from public schools, have high teacher turnover rates, cherry-pick students, offer no teacher retirement plan, have no teachers union, pay teachers less than public school teachers, etc. Such facts naturally infiltrate the public sphere and produce a certain social consciousness about charter schools, which have been around for 33 years.
Although the mass media works overtime to promote disinformation about the “publicness”/”privateness” of charter schools, it is significant that people generally see charter schools as being private in some way. There is a pervasive sense that charter schools and public schools are dissimilar entities with different structures, functions, aims, and results.[1] A main problem here though is that while people are aware of certain facts about charter schools they rarely have an integrated, cogent, well-worked-out analysis of what charter schools represent as an education arrangement in the U.S. A detailed big-picture view connecting many important dots is often missing, leaving many vulnerable to disinformation about charter schools.
A main reason for the widespread public perception of charter schools as private education arrangements is that charter schools do in fact differ from public schools in many ways, despite neoliberal efforts to mix up the “publicness” and “privateness” of these two different organizations.
But to add even more confusion to the mix, even some prominent “critics” of charter schools claim that charter schools are neither completely public nor completely private in character. They are supposedly “a little bit of both;” they are “a mix” of public and private.
According to this view, charter schools, all of which are owned-operated by unelected private persons, organizations, or companies, are supposedly “hybrid schools”—they are semi-private and semi-public, so to speak.
In other words, charter schools ride the public/private fence without being fully one or the other. This implies that one aspect (public or private) does not eclipse the other, which suggests that it is erroneous to see charter schools as the essentially privatized arrangements that they really are.
Keeping in mind that the U.S. constitution does not recognize education as a basic human right, it is important to discuss whether charter schools really operate as public schools or privatized education arrangements. This is not a trivial issue. Moreover, can charter schools be considered “hybrid” schools with both private and public features in the proper sense of both words, as some claim?
For starters, public and private mean the opposite of each other; they are antonyms. Importantly, public law deals with relations between the state and individuals, while private law deals with relations between private citizens. Contract law, for example, is part of private law. Charter schools are contract schools. Charter means contract. Thus, the laws that apply to charter schools differ from the laws that apply traditional public schools. This is why, for example, teachers’ rights in charter schools are not the same as teachers’ rights in public schools.
Public refers to everyone, the common good, all people, transparency, affordability, accessibility, universality, non-rivalry, non-discrimination, and inclusiveness. Examples of public goods include public parks, public libraries, public roads, public schools, public colleges and universities, public hospitals, public restrooms, public housing, public banks, public events, forests, street lighting, and more. These goods are available to everyone, not just a few people. They are integral to a civil society that recognizes the role and significance of a public sphere in modern times. Such public provisions can be optimized only in the context of arrangements that are genuinely and thoroughly democratic.
Private, on the other hand, means exclusive, not for everyone, not for the common good, not for all people, not collective, not governmental, not free, not broadly obtainable, only available to or accessible by a few. Something is private when it is “designed or intended for one’s exclusive use.” Examples include private property, private facilities, private schools, private clubs, designer shoes, Ferraris, first class plane tickets, mansions, and more. Such phenomena usually cost money, they are based on ability to pay.
To further elaborate, private also means:
-Secluded from the sight, presence, or intrusion of others.
-Of or confined to the individual; personal.
-Undertaken on an individual basis.
-Not available for public use, control, or participation.
-Belonging to a particular person or persons, as opposed to the public or the government.
-Of, relating to, or derived from nongovernment sources.
-Conducted and supported primarily by individuals or groups not affiliated with governmental agencies or corporations.
-Not holding an official or public position.
-Not for public knowledge or disclosure; secret; confidential.
In its essence, private property is the right to exclude others from use of said property; it is the power of exclusion;[2] it is not concerned with transparency, inclusion, the common good, collective well-being, or benefitting everyone. This is why when something is privatized, e.g., a public enterprise or social program, it is no longer available to everyone; it becomes something possessed and controlled by the few, for the few. This then ends up harming the public interest and social progress. Privatization typically increases corruption, reduces efficiency, lowers quality, raises costs, and restricts democracy. This applies to so-called “public-private partnerships” as well.
It is also worth noting that something does not become “public” just because it is called “public” many times a day. Simply repeating over and over again that something is public does not magically make it public. Nor does an entity spontaneously become “public” just because it receives public funds. This is not the definition of “publicness.” Thus, for example, as contract schools, charter schools do not automatically become state actors (i.e., public entities) just because they receive public funds. “Publicness” requires something more under State Action Doctrine.[3]
It is not surprising that there has always been a big chasm between charter school rhetoric and reality. Over-promising and under-delivering has been a stubborn but down-played feature of this deregulated private sector for 34 years. This can be seen in the large number of charter schools that have failed and closed in three decades, leaving millions out in the cold (see here and here).
Charter schools may look, sound, and feel public on paper, but they work differently in practice and under the law. Most charter schools operate in a manner that is the opposite of their description on paper. They do not live up to their description on paper.
Unfortunately, many do not question the description of charter schools on paper. They impulsively assume that if something is written on paper and declared “legal,” then it is automatically valid, unassailable, and true in reality. They embrace “paperism.” Critical thinking disappears in this scenario and anti-consciousness takes over. Dogmatic repetition of legal text takes hold and all thinking freezes.
The reason this obstinate large gap between rhetoric and reality remains under-appreciated by many to this day is because neoliberal discourse on charter schools keeps everything at the superficial level, regularly eschewing deep analysis, especially analysis that exposes the private character of charter schools and rampant corruption in the charter school sector. And combined with confounding what is on paper with what exists in reality, many are prevented from discerning the inherently privatized character of charter schools and the significance of this conclusion for education, society, the economy, and the national interest.
To be clear, charter schools are not hybrid public-private schools, nor are they public schools, properly speaking. They are private entities. And in the final analysis, the fundamental principle at stake is that public funds must not flow to private entities or so-called “semi-private” entities because public funds belong only to the public. The private sector has no legitimate claim to public funds that belong solely to the public. Only the public sector can control and use public funds for public goals.
Non-profit and for-profit charter schools are private businesses, regardless of their size, name, education philosophy, type, authorizer, general makeup, or location. Charter schools have always been owned-operated by private organizations. They are not state actors. They are not political subdivisions of the state or government agencies. They are not organic or natural components of state public education systems. They are not set up like that under state laws. Charter schools are not created by the State even though they may be delegated certain functions by the State. Creation and delegation are not synonymous. Furthermore, delegating a function (a way of doing something) is not the same as delegating authority (enforcing obedience). Charter schools are started/created by unelected private persons.
Charter schools have always been a different type of entity altogether: contract schools owned-operated by unelected private persons or organizations. They are performance-based contracts entered into by two distinct parties: a private organization and the government (or government-sanctioned entity). Naturally, partnering with the government is not the same as being part of the government. This is an important distinction in State Action Doctrine. Charter schools are not an arm of the government like traditional public schools are. They are not acting on behalf of a governmental body. Nor do they act with the same authority as the government. Interestingly, the appearance of the word “charter” before “school” is actually one of the many ways charter schools are distinguished from traditional public schools. It is also significant that the unelected private persons or corporations that own-operate charters, typically business people, derive more than an incidental benefit from owning-operating a charter school. Charter school administrators and trustees, for example, often derive a large amount of wealth and privilege from owning-operating a charter school.
For these and other reasons charter schools are intentionally called “independent,” “autonomous,” and “innovative” schools that do not follow most of the laws, rules, and regulations followed by public schools. These descriptors are key to the non-public character of charter schools. Consistent with “free market” ideology, charter schools are deregulated “schools of choice”—something “consumers” seek, even though most of the time it is the charter school that “chooses” the “shopper.”
Another major feature of the private character of charter schools is that, unlike public schools, they cannot levy taxes either. This is a particularly revealing difference between charter schools and public schools. Only the State and specific political subdivisions of the State (e.g., traditional public schools, cities, counties) can levy taxes. Charter schools are not part of this sovereign power. Also unlike public schools, charter schools are generally not zoned schools and their teachers are treated as “at will” employees, just like in a corporation. Many states even legally permit teachers to work in charter schools without any certification. Numerous other differences can be found here.
Public schools, on the other hand, are state agencies, actual government entities (1) created, (2) authorized, and (3) overseen by the State. They are therefore engaged in state action, while charter schools are not. Put differently, “Action taken by private entities with the mere approval or acquiescence of the State is not state action.”
As “autonomous,” “independent,” “innovative, “rules-free” schools, charter schools are not entangled with the state in the same way that traditional public schools are. The state’s mere labeling of an institution as public or private does not determine whether it is a state actor in State Action Doctrine. Under the law and in practice, the state exercises far more control over traditional public schools than it does over charter schools, which are “schools of choice,” at least on paper. Enrollment in a charter school is voluntary. In this sense, charter schools are more like private schools that have dotted the American landscape for generations. The main point is that the State does not coerce or compel charter schools to act in the same way as public schools proper. The degree of “entanglement” between the State and the entity in question is a very important consideration in State Action Doctrine. Artificial indicators, superficial signs, or various labels are not sufficient forms of “deep entwinement” with the State. The State must be “significantly involved” in a private entity’s actions in order to conclude that State action (and therefore the 14th Amendment) is at play. For decades, the actions of deregulated charter schools have not been attributable to the government, certainly not in the same way as the actions of traditional public schools have.
This is precisely why various provisions of the U.S. Constitution do not apply to privately-operated charter schools. Many private actions are not subject to constitutional scrutiny under State Action Doctrine. Certain constitutional standards generally do not apply to acts of private persons or entities. Constitutional standards apply mainly to the States and their subdivisions (like cities, counties, and school districts). Thus, as deregulated private actors, charter schools are generally not subject to liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983,[4] while traditional public schools are. Never mind the fact that government has long been dominated by narrow private interests anyway. All levels of government today privilege private interests over the public interest. Americans exercise no control over what takes place in society.
The main reason neoliberals tirelessly repeat the disinformation that charter schools are public schools, or that charter schools have enough meaningful public features about them to render them “public” schools, is in order to justify siphoning billions of dollars a year from traditional public schools that have educated about ninety percent of America’s youth for generations. Charter schools could not seize these public funds if they were not called “public.” If they were openly recognized as the privatized entities that they are, what valid claim would they have to public funds? Public funds belong to the public. Why should public funds be handed over to private interests?
To go further, charter schools are privately-operated schools that increase segregation, intensify corruption, spend millions on advertising, have high teacher turnover rates, and constantly seek ways to maximize profits regardless of whether they are designated as non-profit or for-profit entities. They are fundamentally pay-the-rich schemes that are proliferating in the context of a continually failing economy dominated by major owners of capital. For these and other reasons, the intrinsic character of charter schools cannot be changed easily or quickly, especially given how long they have been around and how charter school laws have been written for 34 years. Can a charter school not be a charter school? Charter school owners-operators are big supporters of no governmental control and have long-referred to charter schools as “free market” schools.
For more than three decades this neoliberal financial parasitism has been cynically carried out in the name of “serving the kids,” “empowering parents,” “promoting innovation,” “getting results,” “providing choices,” “busting teacher unions,” and “increasing competition.”
Individualism, self-interest, consumerism, competition, and a dog-eat-dog ethos—the so-called “free market”—frame and drive this assault on public education and the public interest. Charter school advocates have long promoted a survival-of-the-fittest view of human relations. They believe parents are consumers who should fend-for-themselves in their quest to secure a “good education.” They think it is normal if a charter school fails, closes, and abandons everyone. This is how “businesses operate,” neoliberals casually declare.
Charter school promoters do not view parents and students as humans with an inalienable right to education that must be guaranteed in practice. You are basically on your own as you spend an extensive amount of time “shopping” for a “good” school. Fingers crossed. There are no guarantees of stability, quality, or security. Such an arrangement is claimed to be “the best of all worlds” in which the “fittest” survive while the “weak” fail. There is supposedly no conceivable alternative to this Social Darwinist ethos and the discredited racist doctrine of DNA that underlies such an obsolete ideology.
The private character of these outsourced contract schools also comes out in the fact that all charter schools in the U.S. are not only governed by unelected private persons, but many, if not most, are routinely supported, operated, or owned directly by wealthy individuals and organizations that are wreaking havoc in other spheres of society in the name of progress. In fact, many charter schools are openly operated as for-profit schools, which means cashing in on kids is their “education model.” Students are seen as a source of profit for these privately-owned-and-operated contract “schools of choice.”
Widespread patronage and nepotism in the charter school sector only add to the problems plaguing this deregulated sector, and a persistently low level of transparency and accountability in this deregulated sector does not help either. Charter authorizing bodies, the entities that supposedly oversee charter schools for a fee, have had little impact in ensuring high standards and quality in this nonpublic sector. In practice, “free market” accountability has actually lowered quality and standards.
Philosophically, legally, academically, organizationally, programmatically, and socially charter schools have little in common with public schools. They have more in common with private organizations and corporations than with public entities.
It is no accident that in recent years, neoliberal disinformation about the “publicness” and “privateness” of charter schools has become more debased in a desperate attempt to justify the expansion of charter schools across the country. Deliberate mystification about the “publicness” and “privateness” of charter schools has been at the forefront of neoliberal ideology and school privatization, disorienting even some critics of charter schools. But such “justifications” do not work because they lack legitimacy and authority; they are belied by reality.
A main thrust of the decades-long neoliberal antisocial offensive of neoliberals is to blur the distinction between public and private so as to promote narrow private interests in the name of serving the public interest. Such a top-down agenda carried out under the veneer of high ideals is self-serving because it damages education, society, the nation, and the economy. It undermines a modern nation-building project that empowers people and rejects monopolization of the economy by major owners of capital.
Charter schools prove that not every “innovation” that comes into being in the name of “education reform” benefits education, society, the economy, and the national interest.
The oral arguments presented on April 30, 2025 in the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) on the public funding of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic K-12 Virtual School in Oklahoma show that there is a strong push to treat charter schools as the private entities they are, and that the long-standing critical distinction between public and private is marred by more confusion and disinformation than ever. Keeping in mind that charter schools are “public” only on paper, if SCOTUS deems charter schools to be state actors (i.e., public schools), then the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause applies, which means that charter school cannot be religious. However, early news reports suggest that, for the first time in history, SCOTUS may well approve the funneling of public funds to private religious actors like St. Isidore. While no court decision will change the long-standing private character of charter schools for the last 34 years, a final decision on this divisive landmark case by the SCOTUS is expected in June 2025. More on this in a future article.
The first charter school law in the U.S. was established in Minnesota in 1991. Today, about 3.8 million students attend roughly 8,000 charter schools across the country. Charter schools are legal in 47 states, Washington DC, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
ENDNOTES:
[1] The vast majority of teacher education students in the United States pursue teaching credentials in order to teach in a traditional public school. Very few, if any, are striving to become charter school teachers.
[2] The right to exclude is “one of the most treasured” rights of property ownership.
[3] It should always be borne in mind that the State today is a State of the rich and not a State that serves the public interest.
[4] The 14th Amendment is central to State Action Doctrine.
The post Can a Charter School Not Be a Private Entity? first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
From 2020 to 2022, Americans saw the state mobilize immense resources to boost their standard of living—and then witnessed the hard political constraints hemming in this capacity.
This post was originally published on Dissent Magazine.
We have witnessed the destructive effects of financialization. Can the millions held in bank deposits, corporate equities, and bonds be used instead to provide for society’s most pressing needs?
This post was originally published on Dissent Magazine.
Two days after the Ecuadorian presidential election, leftist economist and politician Diego Borja traveled by car to the Colombian border with his wife. They hoped to vacation in the neighboring country for the Catholic holy week of Semana Santa. But there, Ecuadorian border agents confiscated his ID cards and detained him. They said Borja, whose party lost the country’s election on April 13…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
An interview with Quinn Slobodian, the author of Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right.
This post was originally published on Dissent Magazine.
On April 13, a runoff presidential election between the incumbent Daniel Noboa and the progressive candidate Luisa Gonzalez was held in Ecuador. Leading up to the election, a very tight race was expected and conditions pointed to a likely victory by Gonzalez. However, on election day, Noboa was declared the winner with a lead of more than 11%. Clearing the FOG speaks with Pedro Labayen Herrera, who is a researcher at the Center for Economic and Policy Research where he focuses on Ecuador. Labayen was present for the elections. He reports on the scandals just before the election, violations of the Constitution by Noboa and what happened on election day. He also describes the deterioration of conditions within Ecuador and the challenges ahead.
The post Following Unfair Presidential Election, Ecuador Faces A Grim Future appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
On April 24, thousands of Panamanians took to the streets to protest the recent approval of the pension reform in Panama promoted by the neoliberal government of José Raúl Mulino. Law 462 has been the source of a lot of controversy in the Central American country because, according to several unions, it will reduce retirement pensions compared to the previous system. The mobilization was called by the Association of Professors of Panama (ASOPROF) and the Single National Union of Industry and Construction and Similar Workers (SUNTRACS), who have announced that they will embark on an indefinite national strike on April 28.
The post Panamanians Gear Up For Indefinite Strike On April 28 appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
Why has US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on countries all around the world? And in particular, why is Trump waging a trade war on China? What are his real goals?
Well, to try to answer these questions, I spoke with the economist Michael Hudson, who is the author of many books, and who just published the new report “Return of the robber barons: Trump’s distorted view of US tariff history“.
Michael Hudson outlined the history of the use of tariffs in the United States and in other countries, and he explained how Trump is using tariffs as a weapon of class war, to benefit the rich at the expense of the vast majority of the population, and also how Trump is trying to reshape the global financial system, in order to benefit the United States at the expense of everyone else.
The post Trump’s Tariffs Hurt The US Much More Than China appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
Donald Trump’s tariff policy has thrown markets into turmoil among his allies and enemies alike. This anarchy reflects the fact that his major aim was not really tariff policy, but simply to cut income taxes on the wealthy, by replacing them with tariffs as the main source of government revenue. Extracting economic concessions from other countries is part of his justification for this tax shift as offering a nationalistic benefit for the United States.
His cover story, and perhaps even his belief, is that tariffs by themselves can revive American industry. But he has no plans to deal with the problems that caused America’s deindustrialization in the first place.
The post Return Of The Robber Barons: Trump’s Distorted View Of US Tariff History appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
So wrote the epochal scholar and thinker W.E.B DuBois as part of his elegant polemic of the father of Black accommodationism and an ancestor of the Black Misleadership Class, Booker T. Washington. Whereas Dr. DuBois was diplomatic with his opprobrium of Mr. Wasington, I cannot offer the same semblance of benevolence when it comes to Senator Cory Booker, who represents a pernicious manifestation of bootlicking and an exemplar of the fact that white “supremacy” ideology can be upheld and exercised by anyone regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, or other identity.
The post From Uncle Tom To Cousin Cory appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.