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Category: Opinion

  • Farage kicking off about vegan tampons shows just how much period stigma still exists

    Nigel Farage’s comment about tampons and the reactions to it have shown us how much stigma still exists around periods.

    Farage may be attempting to distract us from that thing he doesn’t want us to know about (ahem, Nige knew about the Russian bribes). Instead, though, he has highlighted two very real problems. One – far too many people in this country cannot afford period products. And two, there is still a massive stigma around menstruation.

    Period poverty: and vegan tampons are the problem?

    According to ActionAid, period poverty has risen dramatically in recent years. Period poverty is when someone is unable to access period products, hygienic facilities, or education due to either the cost associated with doing so or stigma. In 2023 alone, period poverty rose from 12% to 21%. Since then, the cost-of-living crisis has only intensified.

    Access to sanitary products is a fundamental human right. Yet in the UK, 40% of girls have had to use toilet roll in place of period products at some point, because they cannot afford proper sanitary products.

    As if that isn’t bad enough, 14% of girls did not know what was happening when they got their first period. An additional 26% did not know what to do.

    The real issues here are a lack of education and poverty. Not ‘vegan tampons in men’s toilets’.

    So, aside from the fact that the National Trust put tampons in men’s toilets for any trans men who may have their period, anyone using the bathroom who has friends or family who cannot afford period products can take some. And what about the single Dads who can’t afford period products? Or the women experiencing homelessness who have male friends who can grab them a few extra pads? Or the person with endometriosis who is bent over the toilet in agony, who texts her partner to grab her a tampon?

    I think we all know how Farage would react if all these people decided to free bleed. He’d be disgusted – as would the majority of men.

    But once again, we have a rich white man making comments about an issue he has never personally dealt with.

    Gynaecological health conditions add more pressure

    Around 10% of women and girls have endometriosis, and up to 20% have adenomyosis. Both are agonising and debilitating conditions, which cause extremely heavy bleeding – often for far more than the two to seven days of a standard period. Some people bleed for weeks or months at a time.

    This means that the cost of sanitary products can be enormous for people with these conditions. Added to the cost of having to take time off work, medications to control pain, fatigue and all the other symptoms – it’s safe to say that a male friend being able to grab you a few extra tampons or pads would make a massive difference.

    From the end of 2018 until 2020, I was homeless. I relied on free period products, from public toilets, from charities, and from the kindness of strangers and friends – of all genders. And as a woman who had both endometriosis and adenomyosis at the time, I got through them fast.

    I had a hysterectomy at the end of 2023, at the age of 28. Aside from not being in debilitating pain every single day and being able to live a relatively normal life now, I also must have saved thousands of pounds from not having to buy sanitary products.

    Stigma still exists – as Farage just showed

    Half of the population menstruates, yet so many people – yes, mainly men – are disgusted by them.

    Society teaches girls from a young age not to talk about periods. Women walk around terrified of wearing white clothing or leaking during their period because it’s embarrassing or shameful. But why? Do we laugh at toddlers who wet themselves, people who have had surgery, or men who spill a coffee on their crotch during a meeting? No, we don’t.

    Why? Probably because, of course, women are just sexual objects. How dare they bleed from their vaginas?

    And if period blood upsets you – that says a hell of a lot more about how society has taught you to see women’s bodies, than about the blood itself. Oh, and you might want to sit down before I tell you where you came from.

    Not to mention innuendos like ‘that time of the month’, ‘shark week’, or hearing ‘she must be on her period’ because a woman dares to show an ounce of emotion. All these euphemisms do is add stigma – they emphasise that periods are something to hide. They lead to more embarrassment, young girls being afraid to ask for help, and reinforce that periods are disgusting and not to be talked about. Do we have the same euphemisms for digestion? Or breathing? Both, like menstruation, are normal bodily functions. Stop beating around the bush and call it what it is.

    The fact that Farage is married to a woman astounds me – because he has clearly never listened to one.

    This is yet another example of how Farage and Reform’s “protect women and girls” mantra is complete bullshit. If he really cared about women and girls, he’d be supporting access to period products.

    Feature image via Monika Kozub/Unsplash

    By HG

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Will the US Attack Venezuela?

    Spoiler alert – it already has. This is not a glib answer but a comment on the nature of the conflict. The US mission to wrench Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution out from its roots has a quarter-century pedigree. Stick around to the end of the article for an assessment of the likelihood of an overt military attack inside Venezuela. But first a little historical context.

    Regime change has failed…so far

     In 2002, a US-backed military coup temporarily ousted Hugo Chávez. A mere 47 hours later, the people of Venezuela spontaneously arose and returned their rightfully elected president.

     Washington has persistently interfered in the internal affairs of Venezuela, pouring millions of dollars to rig elections. Yet, the perpetually divided and unpopular US-fostered opposition is more isolated and discredited than ever.

    Undeterred by its 2002 failed coup, the US has repeatedly sponsored attempts to achieve by violence what they could not do by interfering in Venezuelan elections. In 2020, the so-called “Operation Gideon” was designed to kidnap President Maduro. Derisively dubbed the “Bay of Piglets,” this coup attempt along with numerous others failed. Local fisher folk apprehended the mercenaries.

    Among the many diplomatic efforts at regime change by Washington, the Lima Group was cobbled together in 2017. The cabal of 11 rightwing Latin American states and Canada aspired to facilitate “a peaceful exit” to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. By 2021, nearly half of the Lima Group countries had elected progressive governments and that diplomatic offensive fizzled.

    Meanwhile in 2019, the US anointed unknown 35-year-old Juan Guaidó as “interim president” of Venezuela. On December 21, 2022, his own opposition found the puppet so toxic and corrupt that they gave him the boot.

    Previously in 2015, Barack Obama certified that Venezuela was an “extraordinary threat” to US national security. He imposed unilateral coercive measures designed to destroy the Venezuelan economy. Euphemistically called “sanctions,” this form of collective punishment is illegal under international law. Regardless, each subsequent US president has continued and to varying degrees augmented the economic warfare.

    Combined with oil commodity prices cratering – the source of almost all of its foreign earnings – Venezuela experienced the largest peacetime economic contraction in recent world history. Inflation reached 2,000,000% and the days of the Bolivian Revolution appeared to be numbered. However by 2023, in a heroic effort under the resolute political leadership of President Maduro, Venezuela reversed the economic freefall and recorded a 5% GDP growth rate, which has continued in a positive direction.

     US trapped in its imperial imperative

    Without further detailing the multitude of illegal US regime-change machinations, it is sufficient to say that the very successes of the Venezuelans have forced Uncle Sam to escalate the conflict. Forced because, as an imperial power, the United States is structurally driven by its inherent pursuit of hegemony – rule over all potential challengers. This compulsion is codified in its official security doctrine of “full-spectrum dominance.”

    Venezuela has indeed been a challenge. Even before Hugo Chávez was elected in 1998, former President Carlos Andrés Pérez nationalized the country’s oil reserves – the largest in the world – in 1976. Chávez increased state control over the oil industry and expropriated international oil company assets.

    Chávez’s precedent of using the country’s natural resources – including Venezuela’s substantial reserves of natural gas, iron ore, bauxite, gold, coal, and diamonds – to fund social programs, rather than handing them over for private profit, is anathema to the US. Not only does the imperium lust over the oil for its own corporations, but control of such strategic resources are geopolitically critical for maintaining global dominance.

    Venezuela has also been a leader in promoting regional unity that is independent of the US, forging alliances such as CELCA and ALBA. It is a close ally with Nicaragua and Cuba, also on the US enemies list. Through OPEC, Friends in Defense of the UN Charter, and other initiatives, Venezuela has encouraged Latin American unity with Africa and Asia. Venezuela has “strategic partnerships” with China and Russia and is close to Iran. A champion of Palestine, it broke relations with Israel in 2009. Venezuela also supports an emerging multilateral international community.

    For all these “offenses,” the Bolivarian Revolution’s existence is insufferable to the Yankee hegemon…to be crushed.

    The guard rails are down

    Trump is operating with virtually zero institutional constraints. A mere five congressional Democrats recently awoke from their slumber to send a letter meekly suggesting that presidential “powers are not limitless.” But the Senate just voted against a war powers resolution to constrain attacks on Venezuela.

    Democrat representatives on the House Foreign Affairs Committee posted on X: “Trump and Rubio are pushing for regime change in Venezuela. The American people don’t want another war.” However, their colleagues in the Senate provided a unanimous mandate to the very same Republicans who ran on a “Maduro must go” platform. They rushed to do so, without debate, in the very first hours of the new administration.

    Within the bipartisan consensus for regime change in Venezuela, the differences are cosmetic. The Democrats would prefer to overthrow the sovereign state “legally.” Truthout reports that some senior Democrats warned “fellow members against opposing Trump’s war, saying that it would be tantamount to throwing their support behind Maduro.” If the Republicans precipitate an attack, the Democrats at best will agree with the ends but not the means.

    The follow-the-flag press prepares public opinion for a strike

    On September 26, NBC News reported “from the White House” that the US is planning strikes inside Venezuela. The one-minute video is actually of a guy standing in the street outside the White House, claiming that he had chatted with four unidentified “sources.” Subsequently, this unsubstantiated scoop went viral, picked up by almost every major corporate press outlet.

    The New York Times editorialized: “Mr. Trump has grown frustrated with Mr. Maduro’s failure to accede to American demands to give up power voluntarily and the continued insistence by Venezuelan officials that they have no part in drug trafficking.” What doesn’t occur to these Pentagon scribes, is that neither has Mr. Trump shown any enthusiasm for giving up power voluntarily or even admitting to the documented conclusion by the US in drug trafficking.

    In one of its typical propaganda pieces trying to pass as a news story, the Times tells us “what we know” about Washington’s offensive against Venezuela: “the endgame remains opaque.” Apparently, they don’t know jack, because the endgame is regime change. In remarks aimed at Venezuela, Mr. Trump threatened: “We will blow you out of existence.”

    All the elements are in place for a strike inside Venezuela

    • Diplomatic relations with Venezuela have been broken since 2019.
    • In 2020, the US indicted President Maduro for narco-terrorism, placing a $15 million bounty on him, subsequently raised to $25m and now $50m.
    • On January 20, Trump took office. Executive Order 14157 declared a “national emergency” and designated international drug-trafficking groups as “foreign terrorist organizations” (FTOs) and “specially designated global terrorists,” citing authority under the Alien Enemies Act.
    • By February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued that FTOs posed an “existential threat” and laid the groundwork for treating cartels allegedly linked to President Maduro as enemy combatants.
    • In May, the administration opened the path to use military force against FTOs.
    • Then in July, a “secret directive” authorized military operations against FTOs at sea and on foreign soil.
    • By August, the US launched a massive naval deployment off the coast of Venezuela. By October, troop deployment reportedly reached 10,000.
    • On September 2, the US blew up the first of four or five alleged drug boats in international waters off of Venezuela, resulting in extrajudicial murders of the crews.
    • By mid-September, the Pentagon notified Congress under the War Powers Resolution that US forces were engaged in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels.
    • This was followed on October 1 by the Defense Department’s “confidential memo” and more congressional briefings that the US was engaged in armed conflict.
    • Trump then terminated the last back-channel diplomatic contacts with Venezuela.

    If the “international community” can’t halt the ongoing US/zionist genocide in Palestine, the Yankee juggernaut faces little effective resistance in the Caribbean. A US attack inside Venezuela is imminent!

    The post Will the US Attack Venezuela? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Genocide two years on: It is the West, not Gaza, that must be deradicalised

    This brutal war on Palestinians has not just unleashed Israel’s demons. It has unmasked our own regimes, as they crack down on humanitarian activism. Jonathan Cook reflects on Israel’s war on Gaza as the fragile ceasefire takes hold.

    ANALYSIS: By Jonathan Cook

    Anniversaries are often a cause for celebration. But who could have imagined back in October 2023 that we would now be marking the two-year anniversary of a genocide, documented in the minutest detail on our phones every day for 24 months? A genocide that could have been stopped at any point, had the US and its allies made the call.

    This is an anniversary so shameful that no one in power wants it remembered. Rather, they are actively encouraging us to forget the genocide is happening, even at its very height.

    Israel’s relentless crimes against the people of Gaza barely register in our news any longer.

    There is a horrifying lesson here, one that applies equally to Israel and its Western patrons. A genocide takes place — and is permitted to take place — only when a profound sickness has entered the collective soul of the perpetrators.

    For the past 80 years, Western societies have grappled with — or, at least, thought they did — the roots of that sickness.

    They wondered how a Holocaust could have taken place in their midst, in a Germany that was central to the modern, supposedly “civilised”, Western world.

    They imagined — or pretended to — that their wickedness had been extirpated, their guilt cleansed, through the sponsorship of a “Jewish state”. That state, violently established in 1948 in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, served as a European protectorate on the ruins of the Palestinian people’s homeland.

    Desperate to control
    The Middle East, let us note, just happened to be a region that the West was desperate to keep controlling, despite growing Arab demands to end more than a century of brutal Western colonialism.

    Why? Because the region had recently emerged as the world’s oil spigot.

    Israel’s very purpose — enshrined in the ideology of Zionism, or Jewish supremacism in the Middle East — was to act as a proxy for Western colonialism. It was a client state planted there to keep order on the West’s behalf, while the West pretended to withdraw from the region.

    This big picture — the one Western politicians and media refuse to acknowledge — has been the context for events there ever since, including Israel’s current, genocidal endgame in Gaza.

    Two years in, what should have been obvious from the start is becoming ever-harder to ignore: the genocide had nothing to do with Hamas’s one-day attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. The genocide was never about “self-defence”. It was preordained by the ideological imperatives of Zionism.

    Hamas’s break-out from Gaza — a prison camp into which Palestinians had been herded decades earlier, after their expulsion from their homeland — provided the pretext. It all too readily unleashed demons long lurking in the soul of the Israeli body politic.

    And more importantly, it released similar demons — though better concealed — in the Western ruling class, as well as parts of their societies heavily conditioned to believe that the interests of the ruling class coincide with their own.

    Bubble of denial
    Two years into the genocide, and in spite of this week’s fragile ceasefire negotiated by US President Donald Trump and the three mediators, Egypt, Qatar and Türkiye, the West is still deep in its self-generated bubble of denial about what has been going on in Gaza – and its role in it.

    “History repeats itself,” as the saying goes, “first as tragedy, then as farce.”

    The same could be said of “peace processes”. Thirty years ago, the West force-fed Palestinians the Oslo Accords with the promise of eventual statehood.

    Oslo was the tragedy. It led to an ideological rupture in the Palestinian national movement; to a deepening geographic split between an imprisoned population in the occupied West Bank and an even more harshly imprisoned population in Gaza; to Israel’s increasing use of new technologies to confine, surveil and oppress both sets of Palestinians; and finally, to Hamas’s brief break-out from the Gaza prison camp, and Israel’s genocidal “response”.

    Now, President Trump’s 20-point “peace plan” offers the farce: unapologetic gangsterism masquerading as a “solution” to the Gaza genocide. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair — a war criminal who, alongside his US counterpart George W Bush, destroyed Iraq more than two decades ago — will issue diktats to the people of Gaza on Israel’s behalf.

    Gaza, not just Hamas, faced an ultimatum: “Take the deal, or we will put you in concrete boots and sink you in the Mediterranean.”

    Surrender document
    Barely veiled by the threat was the likelihood that, even if Hamas felt compelled to sign up to this surrender document, Gaza’s people would end up in concrete boots all the same.

    Gaza’s population has been so desperate for a respite from the slaughter that it would accept almost anything. But it is pure delusion for the rest of us to believe a state that has spent two years carrying out a genocide can be trusted either to respect a ceasefire or to honour the terms of a peace plan, even one so heavily skewed in its favour.

    The farce of Trump’s peace plan — his “deal of the millennium” — was evident from the first of its 20 points: “Gaza will be a deradicalised terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbours.”

    The document’s authors no more wonder what might have “radicalised” Gaza than Western capitals did when Hamas, which is proscribed as a terrorist group in the UK and other countries, broke out of the prison enclave with great violence on 7 October 2023.

    Were the people of Gaza simply born radical, or did events turn them radical? Were they “radicalised” when Israel ethnically cleansed them from their original lands, in what is now the self-declared “Jewish state” of Israel, and dumped them in the tiny holding pen of Gaza?

    Were they “radicalised” by being surveilled and oppressed in a dystopian, open-air prison, decade upon decade? Was it the experience of living for 17 years under an Israeli land, sea and air blockade that denied them the right to travel or trade, and forced their children on to a diet that left them malnourished?

    Or maybe they were radicalised by the silence from Israel’s Western patrons, who supplied the weaponry and lapped up the rewards: the latest confinement technologies, field-tested by Israel on the people of Gaza.

    Gaza most extreme
    The truth ignored in the opening point of Trump’s “peace plan” is that it is entirely normal to be “radicalised” when you live in an extreme situation. And there are no places on the planet more extreme than Gaza.

    It is not Gaza that needs “deradicalising”. It is the West and its Israeli client state.

    The case for deradicalising Israel should hardly need stating. Poll after poll has shown Israelis are not just in favour of the annihilation their state is carrying out in Gaza; they believe their government needs to be even more aggressive, even more genocidal.

    This past May, as Palestinian babies were shrivelling into dry husks from Israel’s blockade on food and aid, 64 percent of Israelis said they believed “there are no innocents” in Gaza, a place where around half of the population of two million people are children.

    The figure would be even higher were it reporting only the views of Israeli Jews. The survey included the fifth of the Israeli population who are Palestinians — survivors of mass expulsions in 1948 during Israel’s Western-sponsored creation. This much-oppressed minority has been utterly ignored throughout these past two years.

    Another survey conducted earlier this year found that 82 percent of Israeli Jews favoured the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza. More than half, 56 percent, also supported the forced expulsion of Palestinian citizens of Israel — even though that minority has kept its head bowed throughout the genocide, for fear of reaping a whirlwind should it speak up.

    In addition, 47 percent of Israeli Jews approved of killing all the inhabitants of Gaza, even its children.

    Netanyahu’s crimes
    The crimes overseen by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is so often held up by outsiders as some kind of aberration, are entirely representative of wider public sentiment in Israel.

    The genocidal fervour in Israeli society is an open secret. Soldiers flood social media platforms with videos celebrating their war crimes. Teenage Israelis make funny videos on TikTok endorsing the starvation of babies in Gaza. Israeli state TV broadcasts a child choir evangelising for Gaza’s annihilation.

    Such views are not simply a response to the horrors that unfolded inside Israel on 7 October 2023. As polls have consistently shown, deep-seated racism towards Palestinians is decades old.

    It is not former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant who started the trend of calling Palestinians “human animals”. Politicians and religious leaders have been depicting them as “cockroaches”, “dogs”, “snakes” and “donkeys” since Israel’s creation. It is this long process of dehumanisation that made the genocide possible.

    In response to the outpouring of support in Israel for the extermination in Gaza, Orly Noy, a veteran Israeli journalist and activist, reached a painful conclusion last month on the +972 website: “What we are witnessing is the final stage in the nazification of Israeli society.”

    And she noted that this problem derives from an ideology with a reach far beyond Israel itself: “The Gaza holocaust was made possible by the embrace of the ethno-supremacist logic inherent to Zionism. Therefore it must be said clearly: Zionism, in all its forms, cannot be cleansed of the stain of this crime. It must be brought to an end.”

    As the genocide has unfolded week after week, month after month — ever-more divorced from any link to 7 October 2023 — and Western leaders have carried on justifying their inaction, a much deeper realisation is dawning.

    Demon in the West
    This is not just about a demon unleashed among Israelis. It is about a demon in the soul of the West. It is us — the power bloc that established Israel, arms Israel, funds Israel, indulges Israel, excuses Israel — that really needs deradicalising.

    Germany underwent a process of “denazification” following the end of the Second World War — a process, it is now clear from the German state’s feverish repression of any public opposition to the genocide in Gaza, that was never completed.

    A far deeper campaign of deradicalisation than the one Nazi Germany was subjected to, is now required in the West — one where normalising the murder of tens of thousands of children, live-streamed to our phones, can never be allowed to happen again.

    A deradicalisation that would make it impossible to conceive of our own citizens travelling to Israel to help take part in the Gaza genocide, and then be welcomed back to their home countries with open arms.

    A deradicalisation that would mean our governments could not contemplate silently abandoning their own citizens — citizens who joined an aid flotilla to try to break Israel’s illegal starvation-siege of Gaza — to the goons of Israel’s fascist police minister.

    A deradicalisation that would make it inconceivable for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, or other Western leaders, to host Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, who at the outset of the slaughter in Gaza offered the central rationale for the genocide, arguing that no one there — not even its one million children — were innocent.

    A deradicalisation that would make it self-evident to Western governments that they must uphold the World Court’s ruling last year, not ignore it: that Israel must be forced to immediately end its decades-long illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories, and that they must carry out the arrest of Netanyahu on suspicion of crimes against humanity, as specified by the International Criminal Court.

    A deradicalisation that would make it preposterous for Shabana Mahmood, Britain’s Home Secretary, to call demonstrations against a two-year genocide “fundamentally un-British” — or to propose ending the long-held right to protest, but only when the injustice is so glaring, the crime so unconscionable, that it leads people to repeatedly protest.

    Eroding right to protest
    Mahmood justifies this near-death-knell erosion of the right to protest on the grounds that regular protests have a “cumulative impact”. She is right. They do: by exposing as a sham our government’s claim to stand for human rights, and to represent anything more than naked, might-is-right politics.

    A deradicalisation is long overdue — and not just to halt the West’s crimes against the people of Gaza and the wider Middle East region.

    Already, as our leaders normalise their crimes abroad, they are normalising related crimes at home. The first signs are in the designation of opposition to genocide as “hate”, and of practical efforts to stop the genocide as “terrorism”.

    The intensifying campaign of demonisation will grow, as will the crackdown on fundamental and long-cherished rights.

    Israel has declared war on the Palestinian people. And our leaders are slowly declaring war on us, whether it be those protesting the Gaza genocide, or those opposed to a consumption-driven West’s genocide of the planet.

    We are being isolated, smeared and threatened. Now is the time to stand together before it is too late. Now is the time to find your voice.

    Jonathan Cook is a writer, journalist and self-appointed media critic and author of many books about Palestine. Winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. Republished from the author’s blog with permission. This article was first published by the Middle East Eye and is republished with the author’s permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Misleading ‘justification’ column on Peters and Palestine panned

    COMMENTARY: By Gerard Otto of G News

    This morning New Zealand Herald columnist and political commentator Matthew Hooton was paid to write an article justifying Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ position on denying Palestinian Statehood on the eve of the first phase of Donald Trump’s 20 point plan while in tandem Peters was interviewed by Ryan Bridge as the justifications continued and propaganda glazed the land.

    Hooton wrongly suggested an out of date way of viewing international law justified Peters as he emphasised the horror endured by Israel and did not recount the genocide with at least 67,000 Palestinians killed, mostly women and children, unfolding as the mind conditioning of New Zealanders continued along the same path we’ve been sleeping under.

    Hooton neglected to mention the failure of NZ First to include official advice in their cabinet paper, the secrecy and delay over the decision, and the words of the Israeli Finance Minister just this morning.

    Bezalel Smotrich said the liberation movement Hamas must be destroyed after the return of Israeli hostages and recently he said this was a real estate bonanza opportunity for Israel.

    He also said in August 2025 that plans to build more than 3000 homes in a controversial settlement project in the occupied West Bank will “bury the idea of a Palestinian state”.

    The so-called E1 project between Jerusalem and the Maale Adumim settlement has been frozen for decades amid fierce opposition internationally. Building there would effectively cut off the West Bank from occupied East Jerusalem, the planned capital for the state of Palestine.

    Smotrich is not welcome in New Zealand — but travel bans is all Christopher Luxon’s coalition government will do as they bow low before the US and Israel — calling that “Sucking up” . . .  “Independence”.

    We suck up independently and clap ourselves – or at least Act do.

    Japan threatens sanctions
    As reported yesterday, Japan has threatened to sanction Israel if they mess with the possibility of Palestinian Statehood, but back in New Zealand we are busy festering over whether it is okay to protest outside a house — be it — an apartment block which houses a political party office and residential apartments in the same building or not.

    Sticking points include a hefty 3 month prison sentence and $2000 fine but some say that this is all a distraction from our obligations to act against an unfolding genocide and from the dire state of the economy for those who are not wealthy and sorted.

    Khalil al-Hayya, the head of Hamas’s negotiating team, has said the group has received guarantees from the US and mediators that an agreement on a first phase of a ceasefire agreement means the war in Gaza “has ended completely”.

    We will see how Israel plays this — but levels of scepticism are sky high and many have no faith in Netanyahu because he had been offered the return of hostages a year ago and chose to ignore it.

    Perhaps Israel will “behave while International Eyes” are on it but time will tell . . . whether spots have changed on the leopard.

    In the meantime vote in your local elections — you only have one day to go — and when it comes to the next General Election – you know what to do.

    This article is extracted from Gerard Otto’s Friday Morning Coffee column with permission. Matthew Hooton visited Israel and Palestine in 2017 as a guest of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. The Australian news site Crikey publishes a list of politicians and journalists who have travelled to Israel on junkets.

    In the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire plan, Israel is required to withdraw to the agreed "yellow line"
    In the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire plan, Israel is required to withdraw to the agreed “yellow line” within 24 hours, after which a 72-hour period will begin for the handover of Israeli 48 captives (20 believed to be still alive) in exchange for 2000 Palestinian prisoners. Image: CC Al Jazeera

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Bari Weiss and the post-liberal media order

    I, in large part, criticize liberal media for a living. Not the “liberal media” of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News paranoid imagination, but liberal with a small “l,” liberal media that largely leans Democratic in its preferences but first and foremost sees its role as policing populist and radical elements. A liberal media that is, in the aggregate, racist and reactionary but still reserves 10% of its resources for the occasional genuine piece of journalism covering workers, or the poor, or the plight of Palestinians, or corporate and government abuses. A media that still feigns interest in liberal credibility, with institutional validation, scientific accuracy, and a baseline––to use a popular buzzword from eight years ago––shared reality. This liberal order is a deeply flawed framework, pernicious precisely because it uses the veneer of objectivity and universalism. As I’ve spent the better part of 10 years documenting, this framework uses selective empathy, excludes dissenting or marginalized voices, and employs loaded rhetorical frameworks like fake concern for “human rights” and a host of other sophisticated modes of propaganda to protect the status quo and promote US imperial and capital dictates. But it did, at least, pretend to care about shared reality and institutional credibility. It at least sought approval from academia, international rights groups, and other liberal validators. It at least pretended to care about universal ideals.

    This pretense, this last 10%, seems to be on its way out. Without commenting on whether shedding this pretense will be good or bad in the long run for the world’s poor and dispossessed, it’s essential to document its demise, and the grim media landscape it portends. The recent installation of third-rate tabloid editor Bari Weiss into the role of editor-in-chief of CBS News is the latest, most brazen example of this post-liberal media trend and, I will argue, marks a meaningful escalation into a post-Shared Reality future. 

    Soon after David Ellison, the son of mega-billionaire and largest private donor to the IDF Larry Ellison, bought CBS’ parent Paramount, he “bought” Bari Weiss’ Free Press and made her the head of CBS News. Unlike traditional arrangements, Weiss will report directly to David Ellison and police the newsroom in an open acknowledgement that CBS News must reflect the ideological preferences of its billionaire owner—namely, his fidelity to zionism and the broader project of US imperialism. 

    Anyone with a passing knowledge of Weiss’ Free Press knows its number one issue is covering the genocide in Gaza in the most dishonest, sloppy, and lurid manner possible. From libeling undergrad protesters as being in league with Hamas to denying mass starvation contra the entire consensus of the human rights world to producing genocide denial schlock that’s gleefully shared by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on social media, the Free Press is a deeply unserious tabloid that cares little for liberal credibility. It is overtly racist, one-sided, aggrieved, and conspiratorial. It is zionist but, unlike corporate media, it is not even liberal zionist. It is hate-filled and solipsistic; it is Likudite and cruel. The founder of Free Press taking over CBS News is an indication this same ethos will––no doubt––slowly take over the once-storied CBS brand. Within the next year we will likely see investigations about Hamas influence on US campuses, interviews with Palestinians who desperately want to be bombed by Israel and other cartoonish zionist propaganda, all with the 60 Minutes brand. Which, for only 2% of his family’s approximately $400 billion fortune, Ellison bought on the cheap. 

    Ellison the younger isn’t bothering with the normal pretense of liberal credibility because he is wagering, probably correctly, it simply doesn’t matter anymore. As his father Larry takes control of the TikTok algorithm, and the Ellison family also seeks to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, which controls CNN and HBO, the need for firewalls and high-minded journalistic pretense seems less and less necessary, replaced with overwhelming media control, scalable AI slop, and spectacle––all layered atop the the normal steady state of NCIS spin offs, NFL, March Madness, and laugh-track sitcoms. In this business model, the line between more sophisticated liberal propaganda and overt right-wing propaganda seems less important than it did just a few years ago. A similar dynamic, as I’ve laid out in these pages before, is playing out in the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post. Once a pillar of Liberal Seriousness and institutional buy-in, the paper is now openly embracing right-wing ideology and Silicon Valley triumphalism in hopes doing so won’t matter. And thus far, it hasn’t. Like with Trump’s attacks on universities, the courts, law firms, media outlets,and other pillars of liberalism, what’s most remarkable about the past nine months is how little these attacks on the liberal order have garnered pushback. A fact Trump himself has taken to mocking: 

    Liberalism, at its core, is a reformist ethos, a release valve that takes populist forces and channels them into contained outlets to maintain the status quo. When it works well, it can operate in concert with the Left and more radical elements to usher in reform that genuinely ameliorates the conditions of the underclasses. When it works poorly, which it does most of the time, especially of late, it offers cosmetic or trivial changes. It operates not in the realm of policy and bureaucracy but of PR and counterinsurgency. The primary vehicles for this liberalism over the past few decades have been the (1) nonprofit world and our (2) media, both of which take bottom-up anger––over inequality, racism, imperialism, climate change, pick your injustice––and channel it into reformist nonprofits, endless academic studies, Soros or Ford Foundation-funded activism and journalism, or a scattering of progressive electeds. This isn’t meant to be a pejorative analysis, some of these efforts can do actual good, but it is important to understand that is the basic arrangement. A handful of liberal––which is to say savvier––billionaires throw scraps to the agitated classes and give them a sense of progress, of changing this from the inside. Corporate media sets aside its 10% to indulge these same forces with the occasional good report on police violence, the once-every-six months deep dive into Palestinian child amputees in the New York Times––just enough crumbs to give those upset with the status quo a feeling they have buy-in, that things can change without labor agitation, taking to the streets or, god forbid, seeking violent means. The parallel effort to this basic arrangement is the carceral state, which operates as a stick to the carrot of nonprofitism. Mass surveillance, the longest prison sentences in the developed world, militarized borders, and the world’s largest caged population loom large, employing more brutal methods to keep populist forces at bay while preemptively locking up the poor, black, and other populations more likely to agitate in unsanctioned ways.  

    There’s good reason to believe that liberalism’s carrot is increasingly being replaced with only the stick.

    This is, of course, a bit of an oversimplification, but it’s the basic outlines of liberalism as it existed post-Vietnam. But, of late, with the rise of Trump’s more cartoonishly autocratic second term and the total withdrawal of liberal institutions from this arrangement, there’s good reason to believe that liberalism’s carrot is increasingly being replaced with only the stick. Liberal billionaires are pulling back on funding the nonprofit world just as the Trump regime is openly laying out its plans on gutting it, inch by inch, by lumping it in with an entirely fictional rise in “left-wing terrorism.” Stephen Miller is on cable news seemingly every hour railing against the Tides foundation and other liberal billionaire organs, rhetoric being matched with White House lawfare and Congressional Republican efforts to shut down these groups and those like it. It’s a parallel universe but it doesn’t matter. If it wasn’t so genuinely dangerous, Miller talking about the Tides Foundation and Color of Change like they’re the Baader Meinhof Complex would be funny. 

    Bari Weiss taking over CBS News is simply another symptom of this broader shift in elite tactics and ideological production.

    But it’s all too real. These dynamics have been accelerated by the genocide in Gaza which––either due to necessity or hubris––has stripped the so-called liberal rules-based order of any of its remaining credibility, emboldened the forces of reaction and demoralized the remaining True Believers of liberalism. The ADL defending Elon Musk’s clear-as-day nazi salute because Musk promotes pro-Israel propaganda while the ADL poses as a civil rights organization was the nail in the coffin. What’s the point of pretending anymore? This dynamic has given added incentive to wealthy liberal donors to sit back and watch as Trump attacks their mutual enemies, namely “woke” types and pro-Palestine protestors whom they correctly view as more of a threat to their status than the tax-cutting, Epstein-defending Trump. 

    Bari Weiss taking over CBS News is simply another symptom of this broader shift in elite tactics and ideological production. The pretense of liberal credibility still exists, but it is fast losing purchase. Liberal credentialism is annoying and often wielded cynically but, as the Trump era has shown, it was in fact holding back something dark, something with limitless capacity to inflict suffering. Many in the ruling class, emboldened by Trump’s brazen—and thus far successful—attacks on liberal institutions, correctly smell blood. But Trump’s radical fence-testing is not sufficient enough explanation. They likely see the rise of AI-assisted Palantir-like surveillance systems, in concert with big bets on AI-slop content as meaningfully reducing the need for the more sophisticated and softer version of liberalism via media and nonprofits. If the underclasses can be sufficiently neutralized with slop and mass surveillance, with incarceration and National Guard occupations, and we have a Democratic Party primarily paid to punch left and promote genocide while offering little in the way of real political oppostion, then what’s the point of all the high-minded nonprofits, fact checkers, and academics? What’s the point of shared reality? There isn’t one. Reality can be invented, increasingly with Sora-level verisimilitude, by virtue of simply owning the means––whether CBS or CNN or TikTok––in which reality is constructed. 

    This post was originally published on The Real News Network.

  • The Pukpuk Treaty and the future of Papua New Guinea-Australia relations

    ANALYSIS: By Scott Waide, RNZ Pacific PNG correspondent

    The signing of the Papua New Guinea-Australia Mutual Defence Treaty — officially known as the Pukpuk Treaty — marks a defining moment in the modern Pacific order.

    Framed as a “historic milestone”, the pact re-casts security cooperation between Port Moresby and Canberra while stirring deeper debates about sovereignty, dependency, and the shifting balance of power in the region.

    At a joint press conference in Canberra, PNG Prime Minister James Marape called the treaty “a product of geography, not geopolitics”, emphasising the shared neighbourhood and history binding both nations.

    “This Treaty was not conceived out of geopolitics or any other reason, but out of geography, history, and the enduring reality of our shared neighbourhood,” Marape said.

    Described as “two houses with one fence,” the Pukpuk Treaty cements Australia as PNG’s “security partner of choice.” It encompasses training, intelligence, disaster relief, and maritime cooperation while pledging full respect for sovereignty.

    “Papua New Guinea made a strategic and conscious choice – Australia is our security partner of choice. This choice was made not out of pressure or convenience, but from the heart and soul of our coexistence as neighbours,” Marape said.

    For Canberra, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese cast the accord as an extension of “family ties” – a reaffirmation that Australia “will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with PNG to ensure a peaceful and secure Pacific family.”

    Intensifying competition
    It comes amid intensifying competition for influence across the Pacific, where security and sport now intersect in Canberra’s broader regional strategy.

    The Treaty promises to bolster the Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) through joint training, infrastructure upgrades, and enhanced maritime surveillance. Marape conceded that the country’s forces have long struggled with under-resourcing.

    “The reality is that our Defence Force needs enhanced capacity to defend our sovereign territorial integrity. This Treaty will help us build that capacity – through shared resources, intelligence, technology, and training,” he said.

    Yet, retired Major-General Jerry Singirok, former PNGDF commander, has urged caution.

    “Signing a Defence Pact with Australia for the purposes of strengthening our military capacity and capabilities is most welcomed, but an Act of Parliament must give legal effect to whatever military activities a foreign country intends,” Singirok said in a statement.

    He warned that Sections 202 and 206 of PNG’s Constitution already define the Defence Force’s role and foreign cooperation limits, stressing that any new arrangement must pass parliamentary scrutiny to avoid infringing sovereignty.

    The sovereignty debate
    Singirok’s warning reflects a broader unease in Port Moresby — that the Pukpuk Treaty could re-entrench post-colonial dependency. He described the PNGDF as “retarded and stagnated”, spending just 0.38 percent of GDP on defence, with limited capacity to patrol its vast land and maritime borders.

    “In essence, PNG is in the process of offloading its sovereign responsibilities to protect its national interest and sovereign protection to Australia to fill the gaps and carry,” he wrote.

    “This move, while from face value appeals, has serious consequences from dependency to strategic synergy and blatant disregard to sovereignty at the expense of Australia.”

    Former leaders, including Sir Warren Dutton, have been even more blunt: “If our Defence Force is trained, funded, and deployed under Australian priorities, then whose sovereignty are we defending? Ours — or theirs?”

    Cooperation between the two forces have increased dramatically over the last few years.

    Canberra’s broader strategy: Defence to rugby league
    The Pukpuk Treaty coincides with Australia’s “Pacific Step-up,” a network of economic, security, and cultural initiatives aimed at deepening ties with its neighbours. Central to this is sport diplomacy — most notably the proposed NRL Pacific team, which Albanese and Marape both support.

    Canberra views the NRL deal not simply as a sporting venture but as “soft power in action” — embedding Australian culture and visibility across the Pacific through a sport already seen as a regional passion.

    Marape called it “another platform of shared identity” between PNG and Australia, aligning with the spirit of the Pukpuk Treaty: partnership through shared interests.

    However, critics argue the twin announcements — a defence pact and an NRL team — reveal a coordinated Australian effort to strengthen influence at multiple levels: security, economy, and society.

    The US factor and overall strategy
    The Pukpuk Treaty follows last year’s Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) signed between Papua New Guinea and the United States, which grants US forces access to key PNG military facilities, including Lombrum Naval Base on Manus Island.

    That deal drew domestic protests over transparency and the perception of external control.

    The Marape government insisted the arrangement respected PNG’s sovereignty, but combined with the new Australian treaty, it positions the country at the centre of a US-led security network stretching from Hawai’i to Canberra.

    Analysts say the two pacts complement each other — with the US providing strategic hardware and global deterrence, and Australia delivering regional training and operational partnership.

    Together, they represent a deepening of what one defence analyst called “the Pacific’s most consequential alignment since independence”.

    PNG’s deepening security ties with the United States also appear to have shaped its diplomatic posture in the Middle East.

    As part of its broader alignment with Washington, PNG in September 2023 opened an embassy in Jerusalem — becoming one of only a handful of states to do so, and signalling strong support for Israel.

    In recent UN votes on Gaza, PNG has repeatedly voted against ceasefire resolutions, siding with Israel and the US. Some analysts link this to evangelical Christian influence in PNG’s politics and to the strategic expectation of favour with major powers.

    China’s measured response
    Beijing has responded cautiously. China’s Embassy in Port Moresby reiterated that it “respects the independent choices of Pacific nations” but warned that “regional security frameworks should not become exclusive blocs.”

    China has been one of PNG’s longest and most consistent diplomatic partners since formal relations began in 1976.

    China’s role in Papua New Guinea is not limited to diplomatic signalling — it remains a major provider of loans, grants and infrastructure projects across the country, even as the strategic winds shift. Chinese state-owned enterprises and development funds have backed highways, power plants, courts, telecoms and port facilities in PNG.

    In recent years, PNG has signed onto China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and observers count at least 40 Chinese SOEs currently operating in Papua New Guinea, many tied to mining, construction, and trade projects.

    While Marape has repeatedly said PNG “welcomes all partners,” the growing web of Western defence agreements has clearly shifted regional dynamics. China views the Pukpuk Treaty as another signal of Canberra and Washington’s determination to counter its influence in the Pacific — even as Port Moresby maintains that its foreign policy is one of “friends to all, enemies to none”.

    A balancing act
    For Marape, the Treaty is not about choosing sides but strengthening capacity through trust.

    “Our cooperation is built on mutual respect, not dominance; on trust, not imposition. Australia never imposed this on us – this was our proposal, and we thank them for walking with us as equal partners,” he said.

    He stressed that parliamentary ratification under Section 117 of the Constitution will ensure accountability.

    “This is a fireplace conversation between neighbours – Papua New Guinea and Australia. We share this part of the earth forever, and together we will safeguard it for the generations to come,” he added.

    The road ahead
    Named after the Tok Pisin word for crocodile — pukpuk, a symbol of endurance and guardianship — the Treaty embodies both trust and caution. Its success will depend on transparency, parliamentary oversight, and a shared understanding of what “mutual defence” means in practice.

    As PNG moves to ratify the agreement, it stands at a delicate crossroads — between empowerment and dependency, regional cooperation and strategic competition.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The Boomerang: post-9/11 strategies are still informing UK and US policies

    Say one thing about US-UK relations. Say the tail doesn’t wag the dog.

    The UK is a political vassal and military colony of the United States. If you don’t accept this, grow up. If you do, you already understand that a lot of what happens in the US washes up here before long. Case in point, the weird US-style homophobic Christian sportswear evangelism in evidence on our streets lately.

    Fascist leisurewear aside, what else is happening right now in the US?

    Well, a rapidly developing internal (dare we say, civil?) war by the Trump government on a nebulously defined ‘left’.

    This war being prosecuted using the military and other repressive security agencies might seem novel, sure. But, it runs along tracks established after 9/11, using the frameworks, fantasies, laws, and sensibilities of the War on Terror.

    The current inciting ‘9/11 event’ being used to power this war forward was the September killing of far-right influencer Charlie Kirk.

    Trump’s new war

    An excellent report on the aftermath of that killing published in Rolling Stone Magazine this week said as much:

    The memos and legal justifications leaned heavily on the infrastructure and the statutes left behind from George W. Bush’s Global War on Terror.

    Trump administration aides and attorneys talked among themselves about how the Kirk slaying made it clear they needed a new “war on terror,” in their words, but one launched and branded by Donald J. Trump, and aimed straight at the homegrown domestic enemies of MAGA world.

    Rolling Stone aren’t the first to make this connection between war overseas and war at home. Spencer Ackerman, a specialist on the forever wars and their domestic mutations, said on 15 September:

    Speaking of horror and miscalculation, it’s been hard to avoid the War on Terror templates on display in the aftermath of the Kirk assassination.

    More details of Trump’s rationale for sending the military after his internal foes have been reported by US security reporter Ken Klippenstein here and here. You should probably read them.

    Portland and Chicago

    Yesterday, 6 October, we published an excellent overview of Trump’s invasion plans for Portland and Chicago. We said:

    Both cities are Democrat-led, marking the latest in a string of similar actions against the cities of the Republicans’ political opponents, including Los Angeles and Washington.

    For its part, however, Portland has temporarily blocked the president’s orders twice in court – first, when he tried to deploy Oregon’s own troops, and later when he ordered the relocation of Californian personnel to Portland.

    Trump and his staff have spent recent days repeating the word “insurrection” on camera a lot. It seems clear that this is a way of manufacturing consent to unleash the Insurrection Act.

    In fact, it is so clear that even the famously useless-in-the-face-of-fascism US Democrats seem to get it.

    Here:

    And here:

    Insurrection act

    There is a good breakdown of what exactly the Insurrection Act is here. This CNN analysis also quotes Trump aide Stephen Miller telling reporters Monday that a judge’s ruling against military deployments was a form of “legal insurrection” against the government:

    There is an effort to delegitimize the core function of the federal government of enforcing our immigration laws and our sovereignty.

    Obviously, the counter-argument to Miller’s claim would be that legal checks and balances are an essential and normal part of any functioning democracy. Checks and balances which Trump wants to get round by using the Insurrection Act. That’s also why Trump and his cohort have been claiming (entirely falsely) that the target cities are basically in a state of social collapse.

    As CNN point out the legislation Trump is trying to invoke is, at least in US terms, ancient:

    The law allows the deployment of troops in the US in certain limited situations. First passed in 1792, it was last tweaked in 1871.

    Probably should have updated that, lads.

    Can it happen here?

    The UK and US contexts are not the same. For example, there are major constitutional differences. And we don’t have a national guard-type militia. It’s also true that the Trumpian far-right aren’t in power – yet.

    But as we know, authoritarian danger Keir Starmer seems to be trying his level best to midwife Nigel Farage’s Reform UK into government.

    And Starmer is doing that while adding all sorts of new repressive measures. Repressive measures, we note, which will be wielded with enormous energy by whatever far-right government or coalition takes power at the next election.

    What we do have – and have had for over two decades – is a steady expansion of easily abusable laws, created at least partly under the rubric of the War on Terror. For example Blair’s controversial counter terror legislation;  The Snooper’s Charter; The Policing Bill; the obviously very controversial decision to proscribe activist groups like Palestine Action, and the current attempt to expand that.

    Spy Cops Bill

    We also have a dilapidated and desperate Tory party pushing further right, even offering a UK version of Trump’s private militia ICE. While is it funny that they can’t even spell Britain right on their conference chocolate bars, the Tories 100+ MP’s could still end up in coalition with Reform – or even fully absorbed by it.

    If we delve back into the Canary archives, we’ll also find that the Spy Cops Bill allows state security agencies, and even elite undercover military units, to break the law. You can thank us on Twitter when the SAS are kicking your door in.

    As we wrote at the time:

    It seems likely that special forces units on domestic counter-terrorism duties could use the new legislation. Although it’s hard to fully understand the implications without disclosure on the matter which is unlikely given covert military units and activity are exempt from freedom of information requests under national security rules.

    The long and short of it is we don’t know what the country will look like by the 2029 elections. If the US experience offers an insight, it is that the legacies of the global War on Terror will shape our politics profoundly in the coming years.

    Featured image via YouTube screenshot/CBS Morningsc

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • John Hobbs: Why New Zealand’s repugnant stance over Palestine damages our global standing

    New Zealanders deserve to know how the country’s foreign policy is made, writes John Hobbs.

    ANALYSIS: By John Hobbs

    The New Zealand government remains unwilling to support Palestinian statehood recognition at the United Nations General Assembly.

    This is a disgraceful position which gives support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and seriously undermines our standing. Of the 193 states of the UN, 157 have now provided statehood recognition. New Zealand is not one of them.

    The purpose of this opinion piece is to highlight the troubling lack of transparency in how the government deliberates on its foreign policy choices.

    Government decisions and calculations on foreign policy are being made behind closed doors with limited public scrutiny, unlike other areas of policy, where at least a modicum of transparency occurs.

    The government has, over the past two years, exceeded itself in obscuring the process it goes through, without explaining its approach to the question of Palestine.

    New Zealand still inconceivably lauds the impossible goal of a two-state solution, the hallmark of successive governments’ foreign policy positions on the question of Palestine, but does everything to not bring about its realisation.

    To try to understand the basis for New Zealand’s approach to Gaza and the risks generated by the government’s lack of direct action against Israel, I placed an Official Information Request (OIA) with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Winston Peters. I requested copies of advice that had been received on New Zealand’s obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948.

    Plausible case against Israel
    My initial OIA request was placed in January 2024, after the International Court of Justice had determined there was a plausible case that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. At that point, about 27,000 people in Gaza had been killed, mainly women and children. My request was denied.

    I put the same OIA request to the minister in June 2025. By this time, nearly 63,000 people had been killed by Israel. At the time of my second request there was abundant evidence reported by UN agencies of Israel’s tactics. Again, my request for information was denied.

    I appealed the refusal by the minister of foreign affairs to the Office of the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman reviewed the case and accepted that the minister of foreign affairs was within his right to refuse to provide the material.

    The basis for the decision was that the advice given to the minister was subject to legal professional privilege, and that the right to protect legally privileged advice was not outweighed by the public interest in gaining access to that advice.

    The refusal by the minister and the Ombudsman to make the advice available is deeply worrying. Although I am not questioning the importance of protecting legal professional privilege, I cannot imagine an example that could be more pressing in terms of “public interest” than the complicity of nation states in genocide.

    Indeed, the threshold of legal professional privilege was never meant to be absolute. Parliament, in designing the OIA regime, had this in mind when it deemed that legal professional privilege could, under exceptional circumstances, be outweighed by the public interest.

    The Office of the Ombudsman has ruled in the past that legal professional privilege is not an absolute; it accepted that legal advice received by the Ministry of Health on embryo research had to be released, for example, as it was in the public interest to do so, even though it was legally privileged.

    Puzzling statement
    The Ombudsman concludes his response to my request with the puzzling statement that the “general public interest in accountability and transparency in government decision-making on this issue is best reflected in the decisions made after considering the legal advice, rather than what is contained in the legal advice.”

    The point I was trying to clarify is whether the government is acting in a manner that reflects the advice it has received. If it has received advice that New Zealand must take particular steps to fulfil its obligations under the Genocide Convention, and the government has chosen to ignore that advice, then surely New Zealanders have a right to know.

    The content of the advice is extremely relevant: it would identify any contradictions between the advice the government received and its actions. Through public access to such information, governments can be held to account for the decisions they make.

    The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, concluded on September 16 that Israeli authorities and security forces committed four out of the five underlying acts of genocide. Illegal settlers have been let loose in the West Bank under the protection of the Israeli army to harass and kill local Palestinians and occupy further areas of Palestinian land.

    At the UN General Assembly, the New Zealand government took a stance that is squarely in support of the Israeli genocide, also supported by the United States. International law clearly forbids the act of genocide, in Gaza as much as anywhere else, including the attacks on Palestinian civilians living under occupation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

    In 2015-16, New Zealand co-sponsored a UN Security Council resolution that condemned the illegality of Israel’s actions in the Occupied West Bank, with the intention of supporting a Palestinian state. New Zealand’s recent posture at the General Assembly undermines this principled precedent.

    That New Zealand could not bring itself to offer the olive branch of statehood recognition is morally repugnant and severely damages our standing in the international community. The New Zealand public has the right to demand transparency in its government’s decision-making.

    The advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to the minister cannot be hidden behind the veil of legal professional privilege.

    John Hobbs is a doctoral student at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago. This article was first published by the Otago Daily Times and is republished with the author’s permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Australia’s National Press Club blocks Hedges’ Gaza media talk, lines up former Israeli officer

    One Path Network

    The National Press Club of Australia has abruptly cancelled a scheduled address by renowned journalist and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Chris Hedges, who was set to deliver a talk titled “The Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists”.

    The event, planned for October 20, was to expose how Western media amplify Israeli propaganda while silencing voices documenting Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.

    Instead, the Press Club is reportedly considering Israel’s ambassador, retired IDF lieutenant-colonel Amir Maimon, as a replacement speaker, a move critics say perfectly illustrates the very censorship and bias Hedges intended to discuss.

    Amid an ongoing genocide in Gaza, where more than 278 Palestinian journalists have been killed, many deliberately targeted, the Press Club’s decision to silence a veteran war correspondent while platforming a representative of the Israeli occupation underscores a disturbing alignment with state propaganda.

    It signals a betrayal of journalistic ethics and Australia’s public right to hear unfiltered truths about Israel’s war crimes.

    Rather than promoting balance, the National Press Club has chosen complicity, showing that press freedom ends where Israeli interests begin.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Going ‘behind enemy lines’ at a far-right demo I saw how fascism hides behind a veneer of normality

    I feel like it’s important, you know? I work in radio and it’s shit like this that we don’t cover. We’re not allowed to. Did you know there’s 80 sharia law courts in the UK and we can’t do fuck all about them? I’d risking my job just being here.

    Smiling at the group of women in pink surrounding us, the self-confessed manager of Smooth Radio confidently spoke to us all, bolstered by the murmurs of approval from the sea of around two hundred people around her. This was at a far-right protest in Newcastle recently.

    She didn’t look like a typical fascist. Neat hair, expensive clothes, an air of confidence a lot of them lacked, but the smirk of confidence as she spewed her hatred was so familiar. It will never fail to shock me how people who seem so normal, can hide their twisted views so well behind a veneer of normality.

    Standing behind enemy lines: infiltrating a far-right protest

    “‘It’s not just the Muslims, it’s the Jews as well”.

    “It’s a fucking invasion!”

    “They’re waging a war on our kids!”

    It has been ten years since I’d found myself on this side of a protest, ten years since I’d last ‘stood behind enemy lines’ and walked amongst the other side. And I am not going to lie, I hadn’t fucking missed it. At 12.30pm, the fascist crowd in Newcastle was still meagre, barely two hundred bodies milling around the law courts, a sea of flags and shit Knights Templar outfits somewhat hilariously outnumbered by the public just over the road, watching the boat race:

    Somewhere in the crowd, an older guy lit a joint, loudly bragging about how he hadn’t slept since the fash rally the weekend before in London. Going off of his red-rimmed eyes, I didn’t doubt it, as I listened to him confessing to anyone who would listen that he was out to “catch a leftie”, and make them pay for the kids they were “selling to the nonces”. The dozen police or so who milled around didn’t seem to care, watching him smoke as the speakers took their place around the stairs which stood to be the ‘stage’ for the pre-march warmup.

    The infamous Nick Tenconi was en route, the UKIP leader was still one of the big crowd-clinchers, and one of his Christian acolytes took to the steps. I knew him, his name was Thomas, as he is a well known far-right agitator in Newcastle, a hate-preacher who hides his hatred behind a bible. With his tatty St George’s flag tied around his shoulders, he was greeted by screams of “whose streets?”

    Police stand idly by as fascists incite violence in Newcastle

    His speech almost made my jaw hit the floor. Whipping the Newcastle crowd into a frenzy, he openly declared war on Muslims, the same old tired trope of young men coming covertly to our shores and fighting a silent war against Christianity. That in itself wasn’t a shock, but his tirade against Israel being in the same vein came out of left field and bowled me over, especially knowing Yaxley-Lennon’s affinity and funding past. But this was visceral. An actual call to violence, that day, against pretty much any denomination that wasn’t Christian. Surely the police were going to do something?

    How wrong I was. It was as if the words coming out of his mouth didn’t register, as if the police didn’t care as he called for the crowd to “cleanse the streets of the Muslim filth”. In hindsight, I don’t know why I was so surprised, if one thing hadn’t changed in my ten year hiatus, it was the police’s utter contempt for the left as it became very clear.

    I found out later, in a few moments in which I spoke to him, that this particular speaker had been stung by counter terrorism for the hatred he refused to stop spewing at demos.

    Crackpot conspiracies and disinformation in abundance

    Several more speakers passed, a manic woman decked out in a hilarious Temu-sourced Union Jack ensemble, screaming about protecting our kids, a younger man who fake cried halfway through his hate-speech, and a man with about six teeth dressed as some kind of knight. I nearly lost my shit laughing at every single one, not just at the ridiculous outfits, but at the sheer level of disinformation these individuals peddled to the crowd. Free benefits and mobile phones, wildly inaccurate statistics on crime rates, accusations of secretive organisations who controlled the government and child-services from the office of Keir Starmer. I mean, the man is a colossal dickhead, but even I struggled to see how people could believe this horseshit. Yet the crowd ate it up, hook, line and sinker.

    Luckily, just when I thought I was going to have to walk away, the sea of shit flags parted and we were off. Following close to the back of the crowd, I had one last look over them all. The spectrum of people in the sea of shit flags and knock-off fag smoke was huge, ranging from a large group of older women, all sporting pink t-shirts emblazoned with “save our kids”, all the way down to young teens who were way too young to be at the event, let alone to understand the complexities of the messages being conveyed. And at the head of the march was the typical gang of burly, dentally-challenged men.

    Fascists march led by small men: a total failure

    Hilariously, the Newcastle march was an absolute failure. At every single turn, at the end of every single street, we were met with the police running ahead in a desperate attempt to get between the antifascist side and the pathetic crowd I found myself in. I cannot begin to explain how proud I was as we turned that first corner and came face to face with thousands of people, dozens of placards, and the racist chants around me were drowned out by the cries of the left. I was less proud, however, as the tracksuit-clad knuckle-dragger next to me threw up a Nazi salute.

    It was stunning. No matter where they turned, they were cut off as the police scrambled to hold the lines, instantly surrounding the tiny crowd from all sides. All around me they closed ranks, and the smell of stale fags, shit weed, and Lynx Africa nearly suffocated me as I pulled my mask closer to my face.

    Far-right hopelessly outnumbered in Newcastle

    “I thought they were at the monument, the dirty pedo bastards!”

    “I’ll kick their fucking heads in”.

    “Where is Tommy?”

    That last one was hilarious, it seemed to ripple through the Newcastle crowd as it became more and more apparent that the right weren’t going to be able to finish their march. After being absolutely stationary for about twenty minutes, not moving an inch whatsoever, the first few people began to disappear as it dawned on them that not only were they hopelessly outnumbered, their precious Yaxley-Lennon was evidently a no-show.

    As if realising this, it was at this point that the sea of cheap flags parted, and I caught my first glimpse of Tenconi, heralded by a bunch of large, bald men carrying crucifixes. I couldn’t help but laugh at the size of him… he was so small. And watching all of these fanatical far-right guys, just moments ago screaming about killing trans people, suddenly begin to fawn like school children, nearly did me in. They swamped him, desperate to shake the hand that a few weeks ago I had seen throw up such a casual Nazi salute at a rally.

    Repressive policing of antifascists as the fash throw Nazi salutes

    I have to admit, Tenconi spoke to the Newcastle crowd like a pro. He knew exactly which fears to play on, which shady facts to whip up hatred, and where the education of the people around him had failed them, never once missing a step as he was led towards where I stood. I couldn’t help myself, I took a selfie with the moron, who had the cheek to ask me if I wanted one as he got close, and decided that was my time to leave. One disgusting trophy to mark my return after a long hiatus.

    And I was becoming increasingly more aware of cameras around me.

    Slipping out was easy, the police evidently didn’t give a shit about the pathetic crowd I left behind, although I wish I could say the same for the winning side. Within ten minutes of rejoining the antifascists, not only had I been shoved by an over-zealous male copper for no reason, they also let several fash get themselves into dangerous situations.

    Newcastle

    Far-right bigots not welcome on our streets – not least in Newcastle

    I left that day smiling. The North East – particularly Newcastle – is a cold, impoverished place, and for years we have seen the far-right go from strength to strength, not least with the riots last year. Every lamp post near me is adorned with a flag, we have racist graffiti on every bus stop and transphobic stickers on every traffic light.

    But for today, at least, Newcastle had spoken, the far-right’s march was a laughable testimony to the fact that the Toon stood firmly against their hatred, and were willing to turn out in their thousands to show they’re not welcome on our streets.

    By Antifabot

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Adrian Poulton starved to death in an NHS hospital – because he lived with Down’s syndrome

    This morning I read about Adrian Poulton‘s death. He lived with Down’s syndrome and died at the age of 56 from malnutrition. Adrian was a patient in Poole Hospital, being treated for a broken hip and had not been fed for nine days. My heart broke for him, his family, and for all other people living with Down’s syndrome or learning disabled. Being unable to advocate for yourself, to communicate you are starving to death to explain that you haven’t had anything to eat is, devastatingly, a dangerous situation without an advocate.

    Adrian Poulton: disgraceful death of man living with Down’s syndrome

    I am the mother of a little girl living with Down’s syndrome. We have spent a huge amount of time in hospitals over the past eight years, during which I’ve observed some good practice and, sadly, some bad practice. My daughter has always had a parent there with her to advocate and help bridge the gap between learning disability and medical staff.

    There is a gap. Whilst some staff have an in depth knowledge of Down’s syndrome and its associated conditions, and provide excellent medical care, there is often a lack of understanding around learning disability, how to communicate, alongside a lack of funding and infrastructure that should be in place to ensure the safety of learning disabled people. The loss of one life due to these shortfalls is a catastrophic failing. Yet this is a recurrent issue. Adrian Poulton is one example of many vulnerable people that have been failed by our NHS.

    NHS catastrophically failing learning disabled people

    Learning disability nurses are few and far between. If our government truly believed in health equality for all citizens, learning disabled, or not. Then there should be massive investment in having highly trained staff in place who are qualified in caring for learning disabled people. There should be mandatory and frequent training on conditions like Down’s syndrome. This is not about putting more pressure on an already stretched workforce, but investing in more specialist staff, alongside more compulsory training.

    The key is investment. And attitude. I am by no means accusing all medical professionals of bias because we have some some absolutely outstanding medical professionals working with my daughter. But I would but lying if I said I had never encountered discriminatory attitudes. To be blunt, and I apologise if this is a trigger to anyone, medical professionals wrongly assumed when I was pregnant with my beautiful daughter that I would immediately terminate the pregnancy after receiving her diagnosis of Down’s syndrome. I had to basically argue why I wanted my baby girl to be born. I am one of many mothers who have experienced this bias.

    Advocating for healthcare for my daughter, since before she was even born, has been a given. The physiotherapist, who refused to refer my daughter for an orthotics assessment, is a clear example of diagnostic overshadowing. The physiotherapist stated that:

    children with Down’s syndrome often have ankles that bend in.

    Had that been a child without a condition, whose ankles bent in, they would have immediately been referred for an orthotics assessment to be provided with corrective insoles or supportive footwear. It is not unreasonable to say that there can be bias against treating people with Down’s syndrome within our NHS. In this case, I was able to advocate for my daughter, raise a complaint, and she was granted an assessment and further support.

    Adrian Poulton’s death – and other’s – should make us ashamed

    Knowing that without me there, my daughter would be unable to advocate for herself, is terrifying. I read that ‘nil by mouth’ had been mistakenly added to Adrian Poulton’s notes. A learning disabled person is not necessarily able to question that. To ask why they are not being fed. A lack of communication between medical professionals and Adrian’s parents was also a factor in this tragic death. My heart goes out to his family.

    The statistics are shocking. Learning disabled people are dying 20 years early, often from entirely preventable causes. These figures should make us ashamed.

    Something as simple as a communication book or chart could have saved this man’s life. My daughter’s school write down important information in a communication book, such as what she has eaten and how much she has drank. This takes minimal amount of time, but is vital information that informs the care my daughter is given at home. I think we’re all aware that the NHS is drastically underfunded, with doctors and nurses run off their feet. But let’s compare. If a non-disabled person said “I haven’t been fed or had a drink today”, why would that type of communication be more important to engage with than a learning disabled person showing they were becoming malnourished through colour loss or fatigue?

    Medical staff aren’t immune from the media’s ableist narratives

    Being a disabled person in the current climate in the UK is hard. I am a disabled parent of a disabled daughter so believe me when I say it is. With the constant hate spewing from our government creating a narrative that a person is worthless if they can’t work, it is clear to see how biased views can spread through the population. Medical staff are no different. They can be influenced just as much by our media who trot out hateful articles on a daily basis. Our government is responsible for creating the disgust directed towards disabled people like me and my daughter. They should be held accountable.

    When it comes to healthcare, which is a vital part of having a good quality of life, learning disabled people should be properly cared for and supported. I, like many other parents and carers, am terrified that something should happen to me. Without me, my daughter would not be able to access healthcare. We need medical staff to see the human being first, not the condition. Don’t assume anything. Check in, check up. By doing so they can save lives.

    Feature image via UHD NHS/Youtube.

    By Rachel Curtis

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The three most dangerous men in the West don’t have any answers anymore

    After fifty-odd minutes of painfully listening to Keir Starmer this past week, I suddenly remembered why I cannot stand these leaders’ keynote speeches and I will intentionally avoid the rest of them for whatever remains of this party conference season.

    But seeing as we are already here…

    I think we know what to expect from most Starmer speeches these days.

    Starmer: droning on as always

    A monotonous drone is an absolute certainty. You can bet your life savings his lowly commoner dad with a thing for making tools will get a mention. And if you could bottle up his rhetorical flair you could pitch it to the big pharmaceutical companies as a rival to Valium.

    Keir Starmer has a remarkable habit of giving me the impression that he is desperately searching for a personality update that never actually downloads, if you know what I mean?

    Starmer has always had the delivery of a particularly damp spreadsheet. He could make the most riveting and radical policy point sound like he is reading out the fine print from the terms and conditions of a two-year toaster warranty.

    But that’s enough of his good points.

    What about the speech that had the client journalists swooning and the rest of us grimacing?

    Starmer’s lengthy address was heavy on meaningless rhetoric about “national renewal”, but where on earth were the concrete policies to deliver on that?

    Where was the wealth tax on the super-rich to fund the eradication of child poverty? What about real public ownership of energy and water utilities? Perhaps scrapping the two-child benefit cap was worth a moment of the prime minister’s time?

    Instead, the speech recycled uncomfortably familiar Blair-era vibes and we were left in absolutely no doubt that Keir Starmer’s Labour government has capitulated to the status quo.

    Mimicking Reform is not going to work

    The main attack line from the speech was aimed at Nigel Farage and Reform UK, much to the delight of the liberal media, and the publicity glutton, Farage himself.

    But not one of the fuckers is in possession of the balls to admit that Keir Starmer is the very reason the flat-cap-fash Farage and his band of hard-right wasters are riding high in the polls.

    I knew it was going to be a Starmer stinker the moment the ‘lucky’ delegates got to wave their little flags. This performative patriotism is a betrayal of Labour’s internationalist values, and let’s be honest, utterly cringeworthy.

    Starmer’s people need to realise that aping Reform UK’s cultural nationalism isn’t the vote winner that they think it is.

    Look at the polls, real PM McSweeney.

    You’re utterly fucked.

    Mimicry isn’t going to defeat Farage, and chasing Reform votes is a futile exercise.

    The votes are already out there to be won. The apathetic can sway the result of a general election.

    Engage with them. Offer hope, social justice, and a better kind of politics that serves the 95% of us that aren’t foreign lobbyists or capitalist cronies looking to cash in on our very existence.

    The dithering, contemptible hangdog of a prime minister lurches from one disaster to the next with an alarming ease. I wonder who told Keir Starmer that he would make a great Prime Minister, and what was in it for them?

    Starmer may well have rallied the hall with talk of taking the fight to Reform — the centrists are very easily pleased — but for the rest of us outside of the conference gathering, it was a funeral oration for what Labour once promised to be.

    Starmer’s idea of “renewal” is little more than managed decline dressed as progress, prioritising fiscal restraint and neoliberal tweaks over genuinely transformative and desperately needed investment.

    Blair is back

    Unless I dozed off, mid-speech, I don’t actually remember Gaza getting a single mention. But then why would he? Why would he mention Britain’s horrifying complicity in the Gaza genocide?

    He doesn’t need to now. It doesn’t take much to turn a certain section of the public’s attention away from the gravest and most deadly assault on humanity that we have witnessed this century.

    Many of us have been genuinely traumatised by the horrific spectacle of a live-streamed genocide. The haunting image of a devastated parent holding up the remains of their headless infant child doesn’t just go away.

    To forget that child, to do and say nothing, it just isn’t an option for the real patriots of this hateful and divided little island.

    The Middle East’s favourite war criminal-turned-life-coach, Tony Blair, is back with a plan so absurd we may as well just get Mandelson in on the gig to add some credibility.

    Blair, the man who turned “New Labour” into a synonym for “new imperialism” is yet another Western saviour that has been parachuted in to “fix” what they’ve helped break.

    The architect of the Iraq catastrophe that unleashed hell on the Middle East is now the chief overseer of Palestinian reconstruction?

    Jeffrey Dahmer running a vegan supermarket springs to mind.

    The slithering, wretched shape-shifter cosied up to Bush for oil. Now it’s Trump’s turn, with Gaza as the prize.

    Starmer et al – catastrophic

    According to THEIR surveys, the people of Gaza are crying out for international oversight.

    Do you think these surveys were carried out mid-airstrike? “On a scale of one to house flattened, how much do you fancy a British overlord?”…

    Give me fucking strength.

    Jeremy Corbyn, bless his jam-making heart, nailed it last week:

    Tony Blair’s catastrophic decision to invade Iraq cost thousands upon thousands of lives. He shouldn’t be anywhere near the Middle East, let alone Gaza. It is not up to Blair, Trump or Netanyahu to decide the future of Gaza. That is up to the people of Palestine.

    The road to peace runs through justice, not through the man who bombed it away. Free Palestine from this imperialist pantomime – and keep Blair in history’s darkest dustbin where he belongs.

    Featured image via Rachael Swindon

    By Rachael Swindon

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • For competent leaders with integrity, it’s no use looking at the major political parties in the UK

    What is the government’s job? To fight for the soul of the nation? Usher in an era of ‘patriotic renewal’? Or scapegoat minorities? You’d think so, given the noises of Westminster party HQs.

    I’d prefer them to run the country well. That begs the question, run the country in whose interests?

    The major political parties have no interest in fixing the UK’s real problems

    Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are quite clearly running the UK in the interests of Blackrock, Palantir, and the Tony Blair Institute (TBI). They also gave a £21.7bn subsidy to three oil giants, BP, Eni, and Equinor to extract more fossil fuels. Then greenwashed it as ‘carbon capture and storage’.

    What about Kemi Badenoch? I’ve no idea. No one pays her any attention. Not even her own party.

    Nigel Farage has no interest in fixing Britain, or even talking about it. The last thing he wants is Reform’s competence under the microscope. Its plan to slash public spending by an extra £50bn will destroy local government. Reform MPs voted against workers’ rights. Its manifesto proposed reducing job security.

    But before you dismiss Reform voters as gullible, please admit that Labour voters were conned too. So were Tory voters who backed Boris’s “oven-ready Brexit” and plan to “level up the North”.

    Yes, it was obvious to anyone who looked that £350m a week for the NHS was a jar of magic beans. But anyone shocked at the winter fuel allowance removal should have seen the warning signs when Keir Starmer abandoned his ten pledges.

    No plan, other than to scapegoat marginalised communities

    I keep hearing that hard times push people to vote for the far-right. What I don’t hear is an explanation of that mechanism. Austerity has been around since 2010. Millions of people have struggled since the financial crash in 2008. Foodbank Britain has been around for years. Why the 16-year delay?

    Rational concerns about falling living standards are being turned into irrational fears about foreigners. Framing it as an issue of control is an incoherent position. But who’s out there being coherent? If your choice is Labour or Reform, who looks the most consistent? Frankly, neither of them makes much sense.

    People feel insecure. They are worried about the future. ‘Growth, growth, growth’ is meaningless to parents unable to get their child a SEND appointment. Disabled people worry about having their support payments being cut. We currently live in a country where newly qualified GPs can’t get a job while people are screaming out for GP appointments.

    We need honest, brave, and *actually* competent leaders

    Patriotism is about pride. It’s about feeling your group is strong. In control of its destiny. And Starmer looks weak. Weak for accepting £2,000+ glasses and £15,000 suits. He looks weak for answering every question with word salad platitudes. He certainly looks weak for letting water companies walk all over us. And, weak for selling Britain to US tech-bros.

    It is deep in human psychology to choose leaders who will fight to defend us. I’m not advocating international affairs be settled by single combat. Although as a 3rd dan blackbelt in jiu jitsu, I’d represent us well.

    But given the choice between one with a backbone and one without, people will choose the leader who comes out swinging. Even if they know he’s a fraud, a la Farage.

    British people want leaders they can be proud of. We’re not after perfection. Just honest, brave and competent. Is that too much to ask? In Majority, we’re building a progressive alliance to bring forward exactly those people for next year’s council elections. You’ll get training and support. Message us via the Majority website if you want to take a stand.

    If the government want to show some patriotism, take water back into public ownership. It would cost nothing. Simply enforce the fines. Jail directors according to the law – two years for serious pollution. Share prices would drop to zero. And for once, the government would look like it has a backbone.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Jamie Driscoll

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • “Hidden culture” of misogyny and racism in the Met? The BBC hasn’t had its fucking eyes open

    On 1 October, BBC Panorama released undercover reporting detailing racist and misogynistic attitudes within the Met Police.

    Rory Bibb, the Panorama reporter, spent seven months in the custody suite of Charing Cross police station as a designated detention officer. In that time, Bibb recorded a vast array of truly heinous and discriminatory remarks and actions from the officers around him. His sterling work resulted in the suspensions of eight bigot cops and one other staff member.

    ‘Hidden culture in the Met’, BBC?

    This article isn’t about that. ‘Met police are institutionally racist’ is painfully true, but it’s not news. This article is about the BBC’s framing of its Met Police investigation. It’s about how it chooses to pretend that bigotry isn’t woven into every aspect of the Met – and the police force at large, for that matter.

    It ran with the headline:

    Unmasked: Secret BBC filming exposes hidden culture of misogyny and racism inside Met Police

    First and foremost, you’d have to have been living under a rock to believe that the Met’s discrimination was ever “hidden”. That rock would probably be located in Henley-on-Thames, have six-to-eight bedrooms, and be accompanied by a nice summer rock at the end of the garden.

    What could hide this?

    As a quick recap:

    • In 1970, a group of Black activists – the “Mangrove nine” – were tried for inciting a riot. They were protesting against repeated police raids of the Mangrove, a popular Caribbean restaurant in Notting Hill. The judge acquitted them of most of the charges; the case marked the first judicial acknowledgement of racism in the Met.
    • In 1993, Black teenager Stephen Lawrence was murdered in cold blood. Six years later, the Macpherson Inquiry deemed the Met institutionally racist for its failures in handling Stephen’s case. His mother is still looking for justice to this day.
    • In 2005, Met police shot dead a Brazilian man named Jean Charles de Menezes. They claimed to have mistaken him for a terrorist. No officers were prosecuted for his murder.
    • During the 2020 Coronavirus lockdowns, Met police were more than twice as likely to fine Black people compared to white people.
    • In 2021, a police officer kidnapped, raped and murdered Sarah Everard. The subsequent Casey Review deemed the Met institutionally racist, homophobic and misogynistic.
    • In 2022, the police inspectorate placed the Met into special measures, which ended at the beginning of this year. Commissioner Mark Rowley stated that the force was making “massive progress”.

    So, there’s your “hidden culture”, as detailed in two full-scale official reviews.

    ‘Driven underground’

    The BBC article on the Met Police went on to state:

    The evidence of misogyny and racism challenges the Met’s promise to have tackled what it calls “toxic behaviours” after the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer.

    Panorama’s secret filming shows officers making sexualised comments to colleagues and sharing racist views about immigrants and Muslims.

    This evidence reveals that, far from being driven out of the Met, racist and misogynistic attitudes have been driven underground.

    OK, so the BBC isn’t actually saying that we’re exposing something new. Rather, the new evidence contradicts the Met’s claims to have reformed. Ok, carry on. Except, that phrasing – “driven underground”. That’s not actually true, is it?

    The Met’s bigotry has only been driven underground if you have the luxury of never having to deal with an officer whilst you yourself are marginalised in any way. Its discrimination can only be considered hidden if we automatically discount the Met’s victims as credible witnesses.

    The fact that there’s nothing “underground” about Met discrimination is borne out by Bibb’s own evidence. The article states:

    When a female DDO questioned a decision to release on bail a man alleged to have raped his girlfriend, she pointed out he had also been accused of kicking the pregnant woman in the stomach.

    […]

    In January this year, while the BBC’s undercover reporter was working in the station, Sgt McIlvenny was told he was being investigated for inappropriate comments he had allegedly made to a woman in custody.

    The girlfriend whose rapist the cops allowed out on bail knows that police misogyny hasn’t been driven underground. The woman who received sexualised comments from an office knows that women aren’t safe in police custody.

    Commonplace brutality in the Met – but shock to the BBC

    The article detailed multiple instances of officers boasting about brutalising suspects. To give two examples:

    PC Martin Borg, who enthusiastically described how he saw another officer, Sgt Steve Stamp, stomp on a suspect’s leg. PC Borg laughed when he described how he had offered to make a statement saying the suspect had tried to kick the sergeant first. […]

    One officer described how, if suspects refuse to have their fingerprints taken, he could pull two of their fingers hard to snap the tendons.

    Anyone on the receiving end of police violence knows that the Met will happily violate any rule it can get away with.

    The racist bile spewed by the officers frankly doesn’t bear repeating here. However, anyone sat in the pub whilst the cops were chatting about how they’re treat brown people in their custody knows that the only thing “underground” about the Met’s racism is the depths they’ll happily sink to.

    The BBC chose to end its article with a quote (shown here with the article’s framing):

    The former chief constable, Ms Fish, said: “I’ve seen enough to say there is a highly toxic culture there of hyper-sexualised male behaviour, misogyny, racism, and gratuitous, unlawful violence.”

    She said the Met leadership had never grasped “the significance, the scale and impact” of this culture. “It’s always been a rotten apple, not a rotten barrel,” she said.

    How many times do we have to write this same fucking article? It’s not one bad apple. It’s not one bad barrel. Its root and branch, tree and orchard. The Met is bigoted because that is there core of its mission.

    If the BBC can’t see that by now, it has closed its eyes and blocked its ears on purpose.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Alex/Rose Cocker

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • 300+ Million Angry Americans

    This is from Wikipedia:

    12 Angry Men is a 1957 American legal drama film directed by Sidney Lumet in his feature directorial debut, adapted by Reginald Rose from his 1954 teleplay.[6][7] A critique of the American jury system during the McCarthy era,[8][9] the film tells the story of a jury of twelve men as they deliberate the conviction or acquittal of a teenager charged with murder on the basis of reasonable doubt; disagreement and conflict among the jurors forces them to question their morals and values. It stars an ensemble cast, featuring Henry Fonda (who also produced the film with Rose), Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley, E. G. Marshall, and Jack Warden.

    This writer played the Ed Begley part in the play for an Off Broadway Production in 1993. I loved the character I portrayed, the bigoted owner of a filling station. Throughout the story this man, gruff and impatient and inconsiderate, finally got to the eleven other jurors, most of them who had originally agreed with his opinion of guilt for the defendant. Finally, his terrible, nasty and discriminating feelings toward the young defendant and the class he came from caused the others to stand up and turn their backs on him during his diatribe. He then had what psychologists today would label as a mental breakdown, as he sat for the remainder of the play with head down, trembling.

    When will the majority of Trump’s party and his MAGA followers finally have enough of this man and his craziness? Factor in the high tariffs that us working stiffs are paying at the checkout counter, and the tremendous cuts in our safety net, including Medicaid for millions of his own MAGA crowd, and the tax cuts for basically his super rich donors and corporations. Now we have a new one: Going against a law that has been on the books since 1878, the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the military from being used for domestic law enforcement, unless directed through the Constitution via the Congress. He calls anyone who protests his directives a terrorist, and then he highlights them as left-wing. The sad irony is that Trump pardoned the terrorists from Jan 6, 2021. You remember that crowd? The fools who listened to him, Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, Mel Brooks and others to go and break into a Capitol building filled with legislators in session. Imagine if a crowd of Black Lives Matter demonstrators took to that building, attempting to break in and disrupt the Congress. How many dead black bodies would be left on those grounds after being machine-gunned?

    One hopes that reason will finally hit those who have spent these 10 years supporting this guy. He should have been indicted after the January 6th Commission gave its report. At worst, he would now be in exile in his Mar-a-Lago estate, looking at videos of himself with Jeffrey and Ghislaine and who knows how many other super rich patrons of the three of them.

    The post 300+ Million Angry Americans first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Geordies weren’t letting far-right fascists spout hate in their city this weekend

    A far-right rogues gallery came to Newcastle on Saturday 27 September. A pitiful band of racists congregated behind police lines. And yes, racists is the correct term. Or fascists.

    Nick Tenconi led the UKIP march calling for mass deportations and spreading conspiracy theories. They teamed up with Advance UK, which sounds like an enterprise zone, but is a proto-fascist party. This was, in their own words, a “national mobilisation”. They’d been promoting it for three months.

    But the Geordies weren’t having it. A coalition of anti-racists groups, community and religious organisations, trade unions, and political organisations like Majority and the Green Party mobilised. Northern Stage Theatre and the Magic Hat Café posted that they would be safe havens for the day for any anti-racist protesters who felt unsafe.

    Far-right racists in Newcastle: Geordies come out against fascism

    Just 150 fascists met on Newcastle’s Quayside. Less than a mile away a rally of 2,500 anti-racists occupied the Monument, the symbolic centre of Newcastle. We sang. We chanted. Some of us were even invited to make speeches. A firefighter spoke of last year’s riots in Middlesbrough, where a car was driven into an migrant family’s front window and set on fire. He had to make a judgement call on whether to endanger his crew as racists threw missiles. He’s glad he did.

    The home-made signs and flags waved. The crowd was diverse. Given my history in Newcastle politics, it’s not surprising I knew hundreds in the crowd. The comperes, both Geordies with strong Geordie accents, of Bangladeshi descent. Czech, Croatian, Italian, Spanish and Scandinavian migrants. Jewish friends, one wearing a watermelon Kippah as a sign of Palestinian solidarity. Vicars and Imams. Even Sunderland supporters.

    Half a mile away, between the two assemblies, stood another 400 anti-racists, on ‘The Side’, the road between the Monument and the Quayside. They were preventing the fascists from marching through our city, blocking the route from the fascist assembly point to the Newbridge hotel, which houses asylum seekers.

    Cops kettling anti-fascist protesters while escorting fascist hate marchers

    Police were stopping anyone who looked “left wing” – one officer’s words – from crossing the city. One lad, sporting a pride flag as a cape, was blocked. His Mam was with him, and said to the officer, “I’ll look after him, it’ll be okay. And I think you’re doing a great job keeping us safe”. The officer smiled let them through – as they should, to protest peacefully against hate marches. It would have been funnier if he’d said, “Are you stopping me because of my sexuality?”

    By the time I got there, the police had kettled these protesters, with riot vans blocking the road. It was peaceful, but tense. I spoke to a police officer who was in good humour, just as three more riot vans came tearing down the hill with blues and twos flashing. Police jumped out and marched swiftly to the crowd.

    Word came that the police were escorting the fascists by a back route – easily enough, given their tiny numbers. I know these roads inside out. This is the ward I was councillor for, and will be again come May. Anti-racists marched back up the hill to intercept.

    By the time I reached the square outside the hotel the police had set up two lines, twenty metres apart. The 150 racists were kettled. Around 1000 anti-racists were between them and the hotel.

    Hotel is a misnomer. Hate-mongers weaponise the word ‘hotel’ to conjure images of luxury. But these are hostels, multiple occupants per room. This one is literally scheduled for demolition.

    Campaign forces hotel to call off hosting Advance UK conference

    The mood was buoyant. Chants rang out. “There are many, many more of us than you!” The photos don’t lie.

    After an hour or so, the police marched them away, back down the hill to their conference, to chants of “Bye bye, bye bye!”

    We heard months ago that Advance planned a conference in Newcastle, but not where. Good work by anti-racists, including Majority members, deduced the location as the Crowne Plaza Hotel. One of our members feigning to be an attendee bluffed the staff asking for details. With that confirmation, I knew the council owned the shares in the holding company. We launched an email campaign to get the council leader to block public property being used to promote racial hatred, copying in local journalists. The hotel management pulled the event, on health and safety grounds. The fascists were beaten by good intelligence.

    Sadly, every Newcastle Labour MP, Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), and mayor ignored all requests for help. They were all silent when Sir Keir fuelled this fire, calling immigration a “squalid chapter” in Britain’s politics, in his Enoch Powell styled “island of strangers” speech. One staged a photo-op, though.

    The fascists switched venues. To a Japanese restaurant. Seriously. A party campaigning for mass deportations and the restoration of white British culture had its inaugural conference in a Japanese restaurant. There’s more. The owners, Gainford Group, also own the Newbridge Hotel where the asylum seekers are housed.

    No patriots, just vile racist conspiracy theorists and violent misogynists

    They claim to be inspired by Christianity. They carried wooden crosses. Perhaps they should read the parable of the Good Samaritan. A sign amongst the anti-racists at The Side, held by a priest in a dog collar, summed it up, “Jesus was a refugee”.

    More of our members, student journalists, spoke to them after they left their conference. They called for “extermination of all the savages in Gaza”. In a dizzying twist they also claimed that “Jewish financiers control the British government”, echoing Nazi propaganda, and the ‘great replacement theory‘. One older woman claimed the United Nations (UN) was secretly preparing to deploy peacekeepers to “wipe out the white race”.

    Let’s have no more talk of “legitimate” concerns or “defending women and children.” These people are not patriots. Patriot comes from the word compatriot – fellow countryman. Patriotism is about love and devotion. Citizens who organised to keep ticket offices open are patriots. Campaigners who defended disabled people’s rights to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) are patriots. Where were the hotel-shouters then?

    41% of last year’s rioters were already known to the police as wife beaters and child abusers. In fact, there’s a long list of convicted paedophiles associated with Yaxley-Lennon’s EDL and other far-right organisations.

    Patriotism is about pride. Fascists have been marching through Britain, emboldened. But when the far right came to Newcastle, we stopped them. I’ve never been prouder of my city. In the words of local poet Harry Gallagher:

    Ye can keep yer racist hate, well away from Gallowgate.
    Ye were outnumbered and outsung, by a full ten to one.
    Fer despite all yer desperate invitations to a brawl,
    This toon is made of love, son, and that stuff conquers all.

    Feature image via the Canary.

    By Jamie Driscoll

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The need for control and ownership: two things the left can’t afford

    Over the weekend, we had a timely reminder for why we need to break the top-down model long held in our democracy, pushing instead for bottom-up politics where our leaders are informed by and responsible to the members of the grassroots organising groups popping up across the country. We also saw a clear, real-time example of the power that ordinary people can have in holding leadership to account, seen in the statement put together through Transform’s network of allied community groups, resulting in a change of rhetoric from Your Party co-leader, Zarah Sultana.

    It is clear that leadership have been at odds with each other, seemingly due to a lack of collaboration, communication and transparency, instead busy playing tug of war politics. In contrast, groups across the country shared their concerns together, often with differing views as to who was ultimately responsible, but all united in their call for the leadership to be grown-ups, sit around the table and talk to each other, with respect and integrity.

    Your Party: a microcosm of top-down versus bottom-up politics

    This breakdown in relations at leadership and executive level, responded to by a show of local and collective leadership, reaffirms why such a mass movement is so crucial for safeguarding our democracy. Decentralising power, instead spreading it across the mass membership of this movement, is the only way that top-down corruption or abuse of power can be prevented.

    The Sortition Foundation, which champions citizen assemblies, says:

    Citizens’ assemblies are an innovative and powerful way to make political decisions. They break the hold of career politicians on decisions, and bypass the powerful vested interests that often exert undue influence on policy outcomes.

    Most groups on the ground are engaging in this process in the spirit of inclusion, diversity, respect and understanding. There is no gatekeeper mechanism deciding who is allowed to get involved, speak or organise in the movement, but instead determined by respectful, collaborative working to focus attention on local issues and actions, discuss national issues, and setting expectations as a collective. This is fostered through an ethos of listening to understand, rather than to respond, ensuring all topics can be discussed and all voices can be heard.

    However, the same tired battle seen at leadership level is also one we can see at grassroots; one of ownership and control.

    Gatekeeping stifles local organising

    For example, one northern red-wall town has shown that these age-old instincts to dominate and control the political discussion will stifle local organising. One member’s personal views of who should be allowed in and which perspectives, largely influenced by destructive identity and personality politics of the right, has led to a gatekeeper effect. This has left many feeling excluded and unable to engage with this person, as when there is disagreement, instead of working to understand others’ differences, it has led to repeated messages making others feel harassed and intimidated.

    This has resulted in two separate pages for Your Party organising, and one member arranging a public meeting without collaboration from other local socialist activists, resulting in currently only one person confirmed to attend the first public meeting for their town. When this issue was confronted, requesting a more collaborative and inclusive approach to organising, the response received was that politics was ‘nasty’ and if they don’t like it, they shouldn’t be in politics.

    This clearly is not sustainable for a mass-membership party of the working class, and will only provide further ammunition for the far-right to diminish the effectiveness of socialism. This movement cannot be about dominating the conversation, but about facilitating discussion and debate, to understand issues from a variety of perspectives.

    Couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery

    At a time when every member is deeply concerned about the threat of Reform and the far-right, this lack of cohesion at a local level must be prevented, particularly in areas of high deprivation and inequality where ordinary people are left feeling forgotten, disenfranchised and demoralised.

    These voters are prime for Reform’s deliberate incitement of that anger, despite there being no real solutions offered by Reform to tackle these systemic issues in our society. Your Party has an opportunity to engage with these voters on a personal level, in their communities, alongside their neighbours and fellow citizens, to offer the very real solutions that only socialism can provide.

    On the ground, parish councils are facing a potentially huge increase in Reform councillors, due to the policy of hiding their party allegiance, instead standing as Independents ‘concerned about their community’.

    In Culcheth, a parish council in Warrington North, Independent borough councillor Neil Johnson has chosen to personally attack other elected representatives on other parish councils, causing considerable anxiety and fear for other candidates. This has led to a local parish election with no left-wing candidate on the ballot, with even right-wing Labour deciding not to stand a candidate due to the fear of harassment.

    So how do we fix it?

    Ultimately, it is important to remember that the true leaders of this movement are the communities that empower the party, itself. Until communities elect local leaders, if they choose to do so, there should be no single person or entity gatekeeping or dictating what must be believed in order to come to a public meeting. Instead, it should be centred on the values and principles inherent to a socialist movement; compassion, understanding, equality and respect.

    If we can’t respect others by hearing their perspective, we cannot expect others to hear our own with that same respect. We must learn from what has come before us, and what we are witnessing now in our divisive, polarised politics; hate breeds hate, distrust breeds distrust. Whereas, if Your Party leads with respect and compassion, we are more likely to foster that in communities up and down the country, taking oxygen away from the fire that Reform are working hard at setting alight.

    It is exactly this broken, abusive and aggressive style of politics that needs to be consigned to the past. Playground antics and bullying have become normalised, notably since David Cameron’s debate with Ed Miliband in 2015, growing increasingly more abusive every year since.

    It could be argued that this rhetoric has opened the door to the far-right and the assumed mentality that ‘might is right’, further mirrored by Trump, Musk, Netanyahu and other far-right actors. In order to close that door, Your Party groups, and its leadership, must provide the antidote through collective, democratic ownership of this new socialist party, strengthening respect and compassion in our communities through active listening to understand people’s anger; not shut them out.

    Feature image via Official Jeremy Corbyn Channel/Youtube.

    By Maddison Wheeldon

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Even with Farage’s ‘fishsh*t’ conspiracy theory, Starmer STILL manages to be on the ropes

    How wonderful to hear of flat cap fash Farage’s newly discovered concern for our great British wildlife.

    British-born Foxes up and down the land will breathe a huge sigh of relief, safe in the knowledge they can enjoy Boxing Day without a large group of horse-riding, bloodthirsty, upper crust delinquents chasing them around the countryside in the name of tradition and Britishness.

    Of course, there is no substantiated evidence of widespread or ongoing swan consumption by Eastern Europeans in the UK, and Farage has absolutely no issue with the dangerous, perverse, minority that think it’s okay to rip a fox cub to shreds.

    But why would any sort of fact matter to a hateful hanging polyp on the anus of humanity such as Farage? His history of incitement and division is second to none in recent times.

    Farage: chatting fishshit

    I did manage to catch a bit of Farage’s bewildering interview with fellow toad doppelgänger, Nick Ferrari, which is never easy because the Reform führer is known to be ever so shy when a camera is pointing in his direction, and it must be said, the British media’s blanket censoring of the great Brexit believer is nothing short of utterly scandalous.

    Apply a huge dose of sarcasm to the last paragraph if you think the men in white coats are coming for me.

    Farage’s irresponsible scaremongering didn’t end with visions of swan fillet on the outdoor wood pellet Ninja barbecue, with carp also said to be a favoured delicacy of anyone Nigel doesn’t like the look of.

    When I was a youngster, back in Dickensian times, carp theft was a common offence because of their high resale value. Unless Farage has actual evidence of a person of Eastern European origin, gleefully munching on a fucking great big pond fish, I’m calling bullshit.

    Well, fishshit in this case.

    The outlandish, wild paracetamol conspiracy theory claims made by Home Alone 2 extra Donald Trump are exactly what we can expect from Farage between now and the next general election.

    In fact, someone a whole lot more creative than me might be able to create a Farage scaremongering bingo card, because I definitely don’t have air fried carp and a pack of Boots finest paracetamol on the one I made earlier today.

    How on earth did we get here, you may wonder?

    Thanks, BBC

    May I be so bold as to suggest having your own prime time radio show and a stint munching on marsupial testicles in the celebrity jungle, cheered on by the talentless Geordie duo of Ant and Dec, might actually play a part in the normalisation of the hatred that is pedalled by epic oxygen thieves such as Farage?

    Perhaps the mind boggling THIRTY EIGHT appearances as a panellist on BBC Question Time might also contribute to the poisoning of our political discourse, as well as lead to accusations of the BBC behaving as a mouthpiece for Reform UK?

    But then who am to argue that the BBC routinely over-platforms Farage, giving undue airtime to his views on Brexit, immigration, and nationalistic populism?

    Farage’s frequent media appearances should raise some serious and entirely legitimate concerns about how media outlets balance representation with responsibility.

    The blatant over-platforming of a shithouse, hate-preacher like Farage will only serve to disproportionately shape public perception in favour of the party formerly known as UKIP.

    Funnily enough, I seem to remember the ‘Kippers’ used to be rather fond of pedalling a conspiracy theory or two, such as the UKIP councillor, David Silvester who explicitly blamed severe winter floods across England on the UK government’s legalisation of same-sex marriage.

    Starmer: digital ID

    Despite the complete failure the first time around, digital identification cards are back in the news this week, further underlining Labour’s commitment to ensuring Britain becomes a database state that knows more about you than your nearest and dearest.

    I’m not sure what Starmer has been smoking, but nobody in their right mind thinks a digital identification card is going to stop the perilous small boat crossings from France, it’s not going to smash trafficking gangs, and it will not fix the government’s failure to address the real need for safe and legal routes.

    Labour’s blind obsession with digital identification cards dates back to the Blair administration. The only thing that has changed in that time is the shift from carrying a physical ID card to a digital concept.

    Tony Blair still has huge vested interests in the introduction of digital identification cards. Oracle, the operator of the One Login system that powers the database state, is one of the biggest donors to Tony Blair’s Institute for Global Change.

    The public purse has already been rinsed for billions of pounds, just for Blair and Gordon Brown to abandon the disastrous attempt to put an end to anything that resembles a free society. And now they want you to carry the security of a nation on a fucking smartphone?

    In the era of potentially limitless cyber attacks from rogue foreign states, what could possibly go wrong?

    The “nothing to hide” crowd seriously needs to put a sock in it. If they’ve got nothing to hide, perhaps they can put themselves forward as ‘DIC’ guinea pigs.

    Me? No chance. I’ve got something to hide. It’s called my right to move freely from one place to the next without the government breathing down my neck.

    Be in no doubt

    Be in absolutely no doubt whatsoever, Starmer’s identity card scheme will entrench state surveillance, deepen inequality — with particular harm to vulnerable communities — and put a rather sudden end to our few remaining democratic freedoms.

    Digital identification cards are not a matter for left and right wings to squabble over. This is a case of right and wrong, and we must come together to demand an outright rejection of this brazen assault on our democratic values by the Starmer administration.

    Could this be Starmer’s poll tax moment? I wouldn’t bet against it.

    Featured image via Rachael Swindon

    By Rachael Swindon

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Healthcare is the hill Democrats should die on

    The meager collection of congressional Democrats standing outside the Capitol last Thursday belied the gravity of the policy on the agenda: the pending elimination of Obamacare tax credits.  

    The credits, enacted during the pandemic, raised the income ceiling to qualify for subsidies for anyone purchasing ACA insurance. The extra help from the government led to record enrollment, since 2020, the year before the enhanced subsidies went into effect, the number of people with ACA Marketplace coverage has grown by 88% from 11.4 million to the current 21.4 million

    But the credits are set to expire in 2026. Republicans refused to renew the program as part of the Big Beautiful Bill. And now Democrats are pushing them to reconsider amid a looming deadline to fund the government. 

    The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan agency, estimates 2.2 million people will no longer be able to afford insurance when the credits expire in 2026.  

    “This isn’t a small thing, this isn’t something that is only going to impact the people who claim those credits,”  Nevada Congresswoman Kristen McDonald Rivett argued.

    “What we are going to see is that this is going to affect the cost of insurance of every single American.”  

    This has all the makings of a crisis. Which is why McDonald – Rivett and two other members of Congress stood in a hot September sun pleading with Republicans to renew them as part of a deal to fund the government. 

    “When Republicans repealed the tax credits for the Affordable Care Act, Republicans basically said we don’t care about Americans losing their health insurance,” Nevada Representative Susie Lee said. 

    But there’s a big difference between this policy dispute and conflicts in the past. This time,  Republicans need Democratic votes to pass a looming spending resolution. Democrats have leverage.

    The question is, will they use it?

    The biggest obstacle is in the Senate. Republicans hold just 53 seats, seven short of the number need to bypass the filibuster and pass legislation. 

    But the Republican House margins are slim, too, after a special election in Arizona to fill a vacant seat was won by a Democrat. The Republicans now hold 219 House seats, and it takes 218 votes for legislation to pass.

    House Republicans did approve a bill that would fund the government through November, but it failed in the Senate. Congress has until the end of the month to pass legislation to keep the government open. 

    Still, when we asked if they were willing to support a shutdown to force Republicans to restore the credits, the elected officials on hand were circumspect, if not muted.

    “That’s the Republicans’ choice,” explained Rep. Steven Horsford (D-7),  another Nevada Democrat house member who attended the press conference. “They have the power.”

    And therein lies the rub. Because truthfully, in this case, Democrats are not without power. They just seem reluctant to wield it. 

    Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was just as cagey. Appearing on CNN Sunday, he also declined to threaten a shutdown.

    “Look, it’s the Republicans shutting down the government,” Schumer told CNN anchor Dana Bash. “What we are asking very simply is bipartisan negotiation.”

    It’s a cautious approach that has proven ineffective for Democrats in the past. While Trump has indiscriminately issued dozens of executive orders, wielding power like a king, the Democrats have done little to counter him. 

    As we have noted in our coverage of Capitol Hill, part of the problem is that Democrats are essentially risk-averse. Even though Trump’s most high-profile moves are often poorly executed or simply theatrical, the Democrats seem woefully ill-equipped to counter them. 

    To be fair, Democrats might be playing their cards close to the vest. Openly threatening a shutdown now could be premature, and allow Republicans to portray them as obstructionists. 

    But Democrats have substance on their side, and the power to do something about it. The loss of ACA subsidies has real implications for real people. Forcing a shutdown would provide a stage to make this clear to the public. At the very least, people would know who to blame for the increase in health premiums if Republicans refuse to budge. 

    That’s what’s at stake for the Democrats. Trump and his Republican cohorts have grown accustomed to winning. He’s so confident he’s willing to fight on any political stage to prove it.

    To beat him, the Democrats have to be willing to do something he does all the time: take risks and be bold. The shutdown is a good place to start. The Democrats need to figure that out before it’s too late. 

    This post was originally published on The Real News Network.

  • Peace Demo and Overton Window on the Elephant in the Room

    Draw the Line drew the lines

    So many red lines. Putin, Macron, Hamas, Israel. Our Palestine-Environment demo Saturday September 20 drew humanity and Nature’s red lines, drenched as they are in the blood of martyrs and poisons sucked out of Earth – inflicted on us all.

    I’m worn down by a half-century of calling for things that no one should deny. But joining the thousands (not nearly enough), walking among mostly teens and twenty-somethings was a shot in the arm. I can die happy. There will always be beautiful new humans to carry on the struggle. I can still see the lovely girl in striped tank-top, modest, full of health, relaxed as she chants along with us: From the River to the Sea Palestine will be free!

    We moved like a stream, meandering currents. I pointed out a nerdy placard with tiny writing.

    E: Who can read that? P’s eyesight was up to it: ‘killing babies’ genocide. ‘ethnic cleansing’ genocide… ‘Liberal Party’ NOT genocide.

    Then a pause and we funneled down the narrow St Patrick’s ‘canyon’, streetcar track ‘rapids’ to stumble in, our detour to keep us off University Avenue. I suspect Premier Doug Ford took the liberty of making his own detour around City Council to tell the Toronto police to keep his businessmen from losing precious time and keep the deplorables on side streets.

    Sunny and good spirits. A survey found only 20% of travellers on TTC enjoy their trip vs cyclists 70%. I would say 100% of our marchers had more enjoyment than from even a Blue Jays game. When I eyed a huge rock at the beautiful little crescent park by the Medical Sciences complex, with a photographer draped in a huge Palestinian flag, I knew I had found my promised land.

    I convinced my friend P to take a rest and chat. The tragedy of Palestine makes such demos and exchanges with friends vital to my well-being. Feeling the angst makes you want to explode or end it all. The shift in the Overton Window on things Jewish is happening for very good reasons and I wanted to share with P my frustrations with the elephant in the room.

    E: No one talks about the fact that it’s Jews enacting genocide, rape and torture, taking delight in their orgy of Nazi-like crimes. The Germans were the culprits in WWII and paid the price. It’s the Jews this time turning the sacred lands into a … sorry, no words express my disgust, horror. Evil! And they get away with it!! No once can stop them. They plan to flag the ‘blue and white’ over the ruins of Yemen.

    Sure a few token dissenters but no loud outcries by the Jewish masses, Jewish organizations. Quite the opposite — THEY are the problem. AIPAC encouraging us to love Israel – or else. It’s only goys finally risking their jobs, their lives.

    Well, the holocaust narrative has lost its power. The scales are falling from people’s eyes. The lies that Netanyahu et al. are spouting, contradicting the reality that people are watching on TV (recall Vietnam) and can read in blogs and hear in podcasts, make people suspect the whole zionist narrative, from the 6m to 10/7 as a terrorist act and the genocide in Gaza as legitimate. As Charlie Kirk found out the hard way.

    That woman with the black t-shirt ‘I’m JEWISH and support Palestine’, it’s like saying ‘My opinion is more important than yours because I’m JEWISH’. Supremacist thinking. Easily still Zionist.

    At least my Jewish friend Syd is alienated from his father and not caving in. How sad. The supremacist thinking of his father leads him to reject his moral son. The definition of evil.

    I remember my dad telling me ‘I see why you’re a communist. It’s really just like Jesus.’ He was probably chuckling inside for my naivete, but he loved me more than capitalism. Meanwhile, I was thinking ‘He would be an excellent chemist and manager in the Soviet Union.’

    So supremacist thinking is not engrained in us goys. And it’s hard to unlearn that, even if you mean well. Jews are 2% of the population but control all sectors – business, politics, media, culture. They are THE censor to whom we unquestionably bow down.

    We live not in a ‘Judeo-Christian’ society, but in a Judeo society. It’s like the emperor’s new clothes. We are sheeple, willing servants.

    Liberating Palestine means liberating ourselves from the chokehold of Jewish hegemony. I used to think communism was the answer. For all their fanatical utopianism, Marx and Lenin had it partly right: no to racism, no to usury. Jews were key to 1917 and prospered in the Soviet Union but there was no Jewish hegemony like under capitalism.

    In theory, ‘real existing communism’ meant the Soviet Union. So I went to live there – just as it was collapsing.

    Hmm. So I decided to put dad’s Jesus back into the picture, which in today’s world meant Islam. I grew up in a Judeo society and have a lot of unlearning, reprogramming to do.

    The nice thing about being human is we have really plastic brains (in the good meaning of the term plastic). You can do it if you really want to. That’s Islam: it’s all about your intent, your built-in program to keep to the straight path. Communism didn’t do the trick. I recommend Islam, especially to intelligent Jews. My spiritual guide is Muhammad Assad ne Leopold Weiss.

    Muslims are the underdog, which usually means the good guys. Palestine is proving that in spades.

    They are 4% of the population in Canada and are persecuted, barely holding on to life. A real struggle. Hijab and praying in public (i.e., practicing your religion) increasingly banned, violence, mosque burnings… They are nice. Not pushy. Humble as most are real believers. They take religion seriously. Strong families. Model citizens. Shariah law would be an improvement for America, as a young American convert ‘proves’ in a minute on Youtube.

    We joined the remnants of the demo. Two friendly women from FoodNotBombs.ca were serving up tasty walnut raisin muffins and water or ‘brew’ (iced coffee with cream and sugar) for free! Canada spent $30b on war in 2024 while 1 in 10 Canadians live in poverty.

    P: And Carney wants to double this waste. And all to buy US planes and bombs. His talk about being ‘Canadian’ was a joke. He’s a globalist banker. Take back the power to create money and give us a basic income. Wipe out poverty and take back some real sovereignty in a stroke.

    A nice little old lady handed me a faithandclimate.ca flier on ‘free nonviolent action training!’ Greenpeace going strong with their smart stickers.

    The post Peace Demo and Overton Window on the Elephant in the Room first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Zarah Sultana receives rapturous response from Sheffield crowd

    Zarah Sultana delivered a fiery speech to a rapturous response from hundreds of people at a Sheffield Trades Union Council meeting. Sultana received several standing ovations from the crowd, and appeared overcome at the support from Sheffield. Given the tumult from Your Party over the past week or so, it’s hardly a surprise that the first thing Sultana told an expectant crowd was:

    I have to address what has happened over the past few days. And I know that a lot of people are feeling demoralised, but the fact that you showed up today tells me that we can still do this. I also share that feeling, feeling demoralised, feeling upset, feeling quite angry, and I want to be absolutely clear, my motivation, as always and will always, be to put the grassroots of our communities, our trade unions and our social movements first before anyone else

    She also apologised for her role in the chaos:

    Democracy is not something we can compromise on. It’s not something that you can redo once the train has left the station. I think it’s something that we have to fight hard for, and this is to build the Socialist Party that we all desperately need. And so the past few days have been truly regrettable, and I do want to say sorry for the part that I have played in that.

    Zarah Sultana speaks out

    Zarah Sultana evidently understands the urgency of the current moment:

    I am under no illusions about the threats we will face. Fascism is growling at the door. The stakes are simply too high for us to fail, and so me and Jeremy are both fully committed to making this political party, this left-wing socialist party, succeed, and of course, the conference will go ahead in November, as agreed.

    Much of the frustration and confusion around Your Party membership has understandably coalesced around the rising fascism, racism, and transphobia which requires immediate resistance. This was not lost on Sultana as she told the crowd:

    As everyone in this room knows far too well, we live in very difficult times, the challenges we face are vast climate breakdown, falling living standards, a housing crisis, collapsing public services, the rise of the far right, and a Labour government that’s not only complicit, but a Labour government that is actively participating in the genocide of the Palestinian people.

    And, she made it clear that the establishment – both mainstream media and career politicians – are frightened by the influence Jeremy Corbyn has been able to have:

    The establishment notice and that’s why they came for Jeremy as hard as they did in 2015. His election terrified them because it showed that millions of us who were inspired, who went to rallies, who organised and door knocked, that we were going to reject austerity and we were going to fight for real alternatives.

    That was what scared the living shit out of them, and those are the lessons that we need to learn…people have said this to me, and I’m sure you’ve heard it as well, ‘you’re splitting the left.’ It’s the Labor Party that have split the left!

    Normalisation of the far right

    The crowd led several chants of “free Palestine” throughout the evening. Zarah Sultana captured the mood when she said:

    We’ve been told there is no money for housing, for healthcare, for universal free school meals, but there’s always money for war. There’s always money for bailing out the banks and there’s always money for tax giveaways for the rich. Why is there always money for war, but never for the poor? And that’s what we’re fighting for. We see increases in military budgets, and we’re saying, fuck that.

    Redirect that to making sure that no one goes hungry, no one is homeless, and that we had an NHS that is able to serve the needs of the people, that’s where funding should be going, not towards endless war.

    She said:

    Your Party recognises that power is in our communities, in our trade unions, in our social movements, in our private movement, and in the fight for Palestinian Liberation. And let me say proudly that Your Party will be an anti-Zionist party.

    Moreover, Sultana was frank about the racism rampaging through the country:

    We see the consequences of the normalisation of far right politics. We see an emboldened fascism in our country, fascist marches in London, the largest fascist demonstration we have seen in decades. We’ve seen racist attacks in our towns and cities. We’ve seen children and women attacked because of the colour of their skin. And you can’t just say this is because of reform the mainstream media in this country a lot of it is actually client journalism and this Labour government are wholly complicit.

    And, she also cemented Your Party as one that must resist transphobia:

    Trans right are human rights, and we will always centre the most marginalised in the heart of what we do. That is uncompromisingly going to be the case. No ifs, no buts. This isn’t a project for the elite. It’s not a project for the privileged in our society, but it is a project for the grassroots, because the grassroots are what are going to make this party democratic, and MPs must be accountable to them, not the other way around.

    Responsibility to organise

    Zarah Sultana also made the point that Your Party doesn’t have to win hearts and minds:

    Over 800,000 people initially expressed an interest in your party, and public opinion is also with us when it comes to genocide, when it comes to re-nationalisation, when it comes to workers rights, and properly funding our services. We don’t have to win the arguments on these issues. People are already with us, but we need to get them involved.

    She was careful to emphasise that division would only end in failure:

    What we need is a united movement. We are strong, united. We will win…It will be built. It will take patience. It will take courage. It will take vision. It will take the understanding to believe and recognise that ordinary people can run society better than millionaires, better than profiteers, better than most of our politicians and the war criminals who are ruling our country today.

    The ruling class want us divided, but history shows that when we come together, we can win. And now the responsibility is on our support…That is a responsibility I take very seriously.

    At this point of the formation of Your Party, and certainly before the conference, there is little would-be supporters can do in terms of ensuring that the stewards of the party imbue its tender formation with the socialist politics many long for. However, it is undoubtable that Sultana has the vision, politics, and insight that we so desperately need to combat complicity in genocide and a rise in the far right.

    She is just as impressive and warm in public, whether speaking to a crowd of 500, or to a group of three. And, her steadfast support of Corbyn leaves her well-placed to learn the lessons of an establishment committed to dismantling socialism in any guise. Whatever the future of Your Party, Sultana is undeniably a galvanising force whose integrity shines through.

    And, she managed several times throughout the evening to insert robust messages of hope when many are, rightly, despairing. She said:

    I would like to end with a quote from Arundhati Roy, who says, “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Maryam Jameela

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Opinion: Why Functional Mushrooms Are Ready For Prime Time

    functional mushroom market
    4 Mins Read

    Gali Artzi, partner and CTO at VC firm PeakBridge, suggests that science is finally catching up to ancient tradition with functional mushrooms – and investors are watching.

    While consumers wade through wellness trends and superfood hype, one category stands apart for a compelling combination of ancient credibility and evolving modern scientific validation.

    With centuries of traditional use backing species like reishi, lion’s mane, and cordyceps and over 150 identified bioactive compounds, functional mushrooms aren’t headed for the typical ’15 minutes of superfood fame’. Alongside continued rigorous study, they’re positioned to become a credible, scalable wellness category with genuine staying power.

    In the US alone, the market for mushroom supplements and enhanced functional foods reached $1.1 billion in 2023, displaying consistent double-digit growth at 11-13% CAGR. Mushroom supplement sales in particular saw a 75.8% increase in the US in 2023, the biggest gain of any top 40 ingredient in mainstream retail channels. 

    Why? The sector sits at an intersection of several powerful trends. First, there’s the science, a non-negotiable in any health-related category. Clinical research is starting to catch up to centuries of traditional use, creating a rare East-meets-West credibility.

    Many species also boast overlapping effects. Take lion’s mane, with a trifecta of support as a mood stabiliser, gut health enhancer and nootropic. That notion of a one-stop-shop wellness solution is something few other natural ingredients can claim.

    Balancing health benefits with supply chain challenges

    functional mushrooms
    Courtesy: Neil Langan/Adobe Stock

    Those health benefits line up with consumers’ modern wellness priorities, from immunity and stress management to gut health and metabolic support. Add to that the mainstreaming of biohacker culture and optimisation-focused wellness, plus a growing consumer focus on clinical effectiveness. 

    On that note, a peek at some of the clinical results: One randomised controlled trial found that lion’s mane improved cognitive scores in older adults, with benefits receding after a four-week pause.

    Another study of the same species showed improved sleep and reduced anxiety in menopausal women. Reishi demonstrated an 11% reduction in fasting glucose levels in type 2 diabetes patients, alongside an 8% reduction in LDL cholesterol. In short, measurable outcomes that give both consumers and investors concrete data to reference.

    Now, the reality check: the sector does face meaningful structural challenges that present both risks and opportunities for innovators (and investors). Among them is extreme supply chain concentration: China produces some 94% of the world’s edible mushrooms.

    That dependency creates vulnerabilities around pricing volatility, quality consistency, and geopolitical risks that recent trade tensions have only amplified. Other challenges include problems in standardisation, gaps in clinical validation, and, as in many food tech sectors, divergent regulation across geographies.  

    For companies poised to navigate these challenges, the opportunity is substantial. Winners will need to master several key differentiators: among them are clinical validation to build consumer trust; measurable bioactive compounds for a competitive edge; established IP to create barriers to entry; and regulatory compliance for market access across multiple jurisdictions. 

    The big question for investors

    functional mushroom chocolate
    Courtesy: Alice Mushrooms

    Smart money is getting involved, but in relatively early stages. Venture capital (particularly specialised investors), private equity, and strategic investors have all given growing attention to the sector, driven by the rising consumer demand for natural health.

    Investment activity is now concentrated in early-stage companies with strong technical capabilities, wellness positioning, and defensible IP. Hybrid funding models are emerging that combine investment with operational support – a model that provides both capital and market access.

    For those looking for the exit, the most likely endgame involves large CPGs and ingredient B2B players: large corporates with traditionally low R&D spend, low risk tolerance, and high interest in strong partnerships or acquisitions. 

    Bigger picture, the functional mushroom sector represents something increasingly rare in the wellness space: a category with genuine scientific potential, authentic consumer demand, and meaningful barriers to entry that protect serious innovators.

    As consumers become more discerning about efficacy and quality, and as clinical evidence continues to build, functional mushrooms are well-positioned to transition from niche wellness trend to mainstream nutritional staple.

    For investors and industry players, the key question isn’t simply whether functional mushrooms will succeed, but how far and how fast they can scale, and which companies will prove capable of overcoming the scientific, regulatory, and supply challenges to capture substantial returns.

    Read Gali Artzi’s complete deep-dive analysis for comprehensive market analysis, competitive assessment frameworks, and investment considerations here.

    The post Opinion: Why Functional Mushrooms Are Ready For Prime Time appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Wes Streeting unleashes transphobic diatribe on cesspool Mumsnet

    Health secretary and, as the late Dawn Foster referred to him, “right wing lickspittle cunt” Wes Streeting has launched a transphobic diatribe. His comments confirm, were it ever in doubt, that Labour are committed to eliminating trans people from public life.

    Streeting spoke to Mumsnet founder, Justine Roberts, for an interview featuring questions from Mumsnet users. The site is renowned as a radicalised hotbed of vicious transphobia. As far back as 2018, the moderators of the site were forced to put tougher rules into place. At the time, Roberts said:

    Mumsnet will always stand in solidarity with vulnerable or oppressed minorities. Mumsnet is also committed to freedom of speech. Sometimes these two issues come into conflict, rarely more so than in the recent debate about what is acceptable to say, or not to say, about trans people.

    Roberts’ remarks show a fundamental misunderstanding of free speech. Transphobes and racists often clamour to claim that they’re being silenced – chance would be a fine thing. However, free speech doesn’t protect from discrimination against other people. And, seven years later, Mumsnet has remained steadfastly committed to being a place for transphobes to gather and spew their vitriol.

    Doesn’t sound like much of a conflict.

    Streeting lays out transphobic vision

    Given the above, we won’t be linking to Mumsnet. Streeting spoke to Roberts to answer questions from users of the site. One question read:

    It’s been five months since the Supreme Court ruled that sex in the Equality Act means biological sex. Why does the NHS still operate policies that state that male adults and children will be admitted to female wards, changing areas and toilets if those male people identify as trans, and she [the user] works in an NHS Trust where that’s still happening.

    As of April 2024, changes to the NHS Constitution for England guidelines propose that:

    • transgender people, whose gender identity differs from their biological sex, may be provided single rooms, where appropriate

    • patients will have the right to request a person of the same biological sex delivers any intimate care

    The caveats for this guidance are as they have always been for the NHS: single-sex spaces can be breached when “there is a clinically urgent need to admit and treat a patient.” The NHS is on its knees – already ravaged by privatisation, facing a hostile environment that puts passports before patients, rocketing waiting lists, and severely insufficient funding.

    But trans people are the problem? Trans people, who make up 0.5% of the population in England and Wales?

    Safe for who?

    Undeterred by the fact that trans people are continually being scapegoated, and instead of refuting the question, Streeting replied:

    So I don’t think it should be happening, and we’re still waiting for the EHRC guidance, but on single sex spaces, before we get to the gender identity issues, on single sex spaces, more generally, are seeing far too many breaches. I mean, Karin Smyth, the Minister for Secondary Care, is all over this, because even if put to one side the gender identity issues, there are far too many cases of men and women being on the same ward, and it’s not appropriate, dignified or safe. So we’ve got to deal with that.

    That would be the same Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) guidance that is facing a legal challenge from the Good Law Project. Civil rights group Liberty have also launched a legal challenge against the guidance as they believe it does not “comply with the law.”

    Streeting continued:

    That is often about capacity constraints, resources. So I’ve got to be honest with people watching, it’s going to take time to eliminate that, but the objective is to eliminate it.

    And there it is, confirmation that Streeting wishes to direct whatever little funding remains for the NHS towards demonising trans people and removing them from public life.

    Outrageous remarks

    Unfortunately, Streeting continued:

    Then we get onto the gender identity issues. Now I think this is primarily an issue about women’s rights, voices and spaces, that’s where the real tension and conflict has arisen, and so we’ve got to make sure that the guidance has real world application. I don’t think anyone, for example, would think it desirable for a trans man, so someone who’s born female, but to all intents and purposes, you know, hairy arms, beard, voice, identity, then wanders into women’s toilets or goes to a women’s ward or another women’s space.

    I think that would be undignified and unpleasant for everyone concerned, this is really about women’s rights, voices and spaces. That’s where I think we’ve got to try and find a way to make sure that trans women are a space that is dignified and safe and inclusive for them, that doesn’t impact on women’s sex based rights and spaces…

    Where to begin? Perhaps with Streeting’s description of a trans man as “hairy arms, beard, voice, identity” who then enters women’s spaces. This is precisely why Liberty call the guidance “wholly insufficient” in its failure sufficiently account for differences across the gender spectrum.

    The Mumsnet interviewer then intervenes to say:

    That sounds like third spaces?

    Streeting responds:

    I think for trans women, yes, I think that is where we’re looking. And I know there will be lots of people, probably some Mumsnet users, and there’ll be lots of people in the LGBT community and allies who would say that that’s outrageous, I can’t believe you’re even saying that, and you’re a gay health secretary, how could you countenance this?

    Well, yes. According to Streeting, trans women should be segregated into third spaces. The implications for this are cataclysmic: segregation is never something that can be countenanced. And, putting aside the legality of such a move, it’s a practical nightmare for existing businesses. How will Streeting magic into existence the physical space and the practical necessities for such a system to work? Perhaps his next venture will be to privatise coffee shops with shady American funders who can sell modified paracetamol in individual bathroom spaces.

    But, honestly, fuck the practicalities. A Labour MP, the health secretary for the nation, has just proposed shoving trans people into “third spaces” in an attempt to cosy up to the users of a site known for venomous transphobia.

    Allyship is not a given with transphobic Streeting

    Streeting then makes it clear that despite being a gay man, that’s no reason to consider him someone who would respect trans people:

    And I think the, you know, I understand obviously, you know, being a gay man the context of LGBT equality and the struggles that our community has been through. But I don’t think there’s been nearly enough dialogue, empathy and understanding for different perspectives. I think we’re getting to a better place as a country now, and if we can do that in a way that’s level headed, rational and considerate and compassionate, I think we’ll be in a better place and will arrive at common sense.

    There’s certainly been more than enough dialogue which sets out how gender non-conforming people are increasingly second class citizens. And, there has been far too much empathy and understanding for transphobes who use women’s safety as an excuse to vilify trans people. Just as freedom of speech must have limits when it comes to discrimination, so must empathy and understanding come to a halt when we’re asked to deploy it in service of people who would much rather stamp trans people out of existence.

    TransActual have already demonstrated through their comprehensive report that trans people are already being stigmatised, othered, and harassed when they move around public spaces. For Streeting to agree that a ‘third space’ is somehow a solution to the unholy mess unleashed by the EHRC is a disgrace. It’s wildly misguided, misinformed, and outright sickeningly dangerous for gender non-conforming people.

    Featured image via YouTube screenshot/ITV News

    By Maryam Jameela

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Catalonia’s independence movement continues to grow as the next generation step up

    As it does every 11 September, Catalonia’s independence movement commemorates the date in 1714 when Catalonia heroically lost the war against Castile and was subjugated against its will.

    Its institutions, which were more democratic than those of Castile, were abolished. Its respectful confederalism between Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, the Valencian Country and Aragon became a simple and impoverishing dependency on Madrid. Its Catalan language, with its rich literature and lively popular use, was banned and persecuted. Trade with the Mediterranean gave way to the conquest of America; thousands of Catalans were humiliated by being forced to destroy their own homes and thousands more were mercilessly murdered.

    Catalonia has never accepted this situation and has always wanted to regain its full sovereignty, but it has suffered constant imposition and repression. Now Spain is part of the EU and claims to be a democracy, so it would not be appropriate for it to bomb and subjugate Barcelona as it has done in the past. For this reason, since 2010, a powerful independence movement has emerged which, every 11 September, has organised the largest mass demonstrations in Europe. This 11 September, three large demonstrations were held across the territory: Barcelona, Girona, and Tortosa.

    Catalonia’s independence: young people are rising up

    These demonstrations, despite being massive and unthinkable in other parts of the world, had two notable features. On the negative side, there was slightly less turnout than before the 2017 referendum (this can be considered normal given that there have been 15 consecutive years of mass demonstrations). And on the very positive side, more and more young people are demonstrating:

    A line of young people carrying a flag above their heads calling for Catalonia's independence.

    These are young people who were unable to vote in the 2017 referendum, but who are deeply convinced that Catalonia needs to break free from Spain if it is to survive and have a better future. They clearly perceive that the Spanish state considers us its property and treats us like a colony.

    The independence movement must find a way to overcome Spain’s refusal to allow a democratic solution (because they know that Catalonia would vote to leave). Spain wants to force us to remain part of its state, something that is unjustifiable in a democracy.

    Enormous crowd waving Catalonia's flags, and placards, on La Diada.

    At the same time, we are also disappointed with the EU, which has allowed Spain’s abuse. Spain is trying to marginalise the Catalan language so that Spanish ends up being the language spoken in Catalonia. It is also strangling the Catalan economy, reducing funding for Catalan infrastructure and social services, coercing Catalan politics, prosecuting pro-independence activists, organising clandestine operations to defeat Catalan independence, illegally spying, infiltrating police into social movements.

    Enormous crowd waving flags and banners on La Diada.

    All this makes a political solution seem more complicated, but at the same time, it makes Spanish imposition unbearable, especially for young people. And many people already live mentally outside Spain, oblivious to the unifying elements of banal Spanish nationalism.

    Spain cannot hold Catalans captive

    The fact is that Spain does not want to resolve the conflict, but rather wants us to accept the status quo as inevitable. However, we Catalans are the descendants of one of the greatest medieval nations that ruled the Mediterranean, and our desire for freedom is unshakeable. That is why, despite the continuous waves of migration that have arrived in our country, recently at some of the highest rates in the world, this immigration has been successfully integrated into Catalan society rather than diluting it and causing the Catalan language to disappear.

    Young people waving Catalonia's flag and taking selfies on a monument on La Diada.

    Sooner or later, Spain will have to accept that it cannot keep Catalonia captive against its will. The desire for freedom of Catalan nationalism, which is resistant, would be reason enough to justify the need for freedom, but in addition, Catalan society has ways of being and doing things that are too different from those of Madrid, where, around the monarchy and an aggressive and domineering Spanish nationalism, an extractive economic class is articulated that vampirises the entire state for its own benefit.

    That is why it is important to know that Catalonia will not stop fighting until it achieves freedom.

    Featured image and additional images supplied

    By Jordi Oriola Folch

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Constance Marten’s sentence is a miscarriage of justice

    The following is guest article from campaign group Support Not Separation.

    On 15 September, Constance Marten was sentenced to 14 years in prison by judge Lucraft at the Old Bailey. Her husband Mark Gordon was sentenced to 18 years (14+4 because of his previous record). Both were convicted of gross negligence manslaughter after their baby daughter died when they went on the run to try to stop her being taken by the state.

    Previously, their four older children had been taken by the family court and later adopted. They had to go through two lengthy trials as the jury in the first trial could not agree on the most serious charge.

    Constance Marten: vindictive sentences

    We are outraged by the harsh vindictive sentences the judge chose and by how much he based his sentencing on what had happened in family court which he repeatedly prevented Constance Marten from speaking about.

    Yet the family court decisions were central to Marten’s decision to go on the run to protect her baby from being taken from her parents at birth. Our experience, backed by research, shows that once social services have removed one child, they expect to remove every subsequent child. Predictably, after her first two children were taken, Marten’s third and fourth children were taken at birth. None of the children had been harmed before they were taken. In this context, who wouldn’t go on the run to protect their baby with whom they have already bonded after nine months in the womb?

    Neither the jury nor the judge recognised the enormous trauma Constance Marten has been through. The judge ignored evidence in mitigation from a distinguished consultant psychiatrist that Marten is suffering from complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

    His report to the court explained that it was very likely triggered by the death of her baby, but that the grief was complicated by her trauma. He explained that the family proceedings and removal of her four children had been highly traumatic, and that it is increasingly recognised that child removal is a highly traumatic experience, and distressing psycho-social event. As a grieving and already traumatised mother, Marten needed support NOT prosecution. She should not have been sentenced to so many years in prison when she is already suffering a life sentence of grief and loss of her five children.

    Mainstream media: demonising a mother subjected to traumatic state-sanctioned separation

    We have supported Constance Marten since her first trial, once we found out that she, like many thousands of mothers, had her children unjustly removed. We had a presence outside court as well as attending some of the trial. She and the public had to know that she is not alone and that many mothers support her. People who read our press release had a less biased and more compassionate view and were inclined to agree with us that she should not be in prison. See some previous releases here and here.

    Predictably, most of the media coverage has demonised and sensationalised Constance Marten and Mark Gordon, showing no insight into the trauma that mothers and birth families are subjected to by family courts. For more background about both trials see The Price of Safety: Constance Marten’s Defiance by Clair Wills, first published in the London Review of Books. It is the most considered and thoughtful account of the trials and what led up to them that we have seen in the media.

    The trials of Constance Marten have highlighted the desperation she and many mothers feel and our determination to protect our children. Separating children from loving mothers is child abuse. As mothers, our hearts go out to her.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Sad Tory MP smashes the ‘racism’ button in cry for attention

    There are very few people who’d say the Tories did a good job managing the NHS between 2010 and 2014. In fact, there are very few people who wouldn’t say that period was an absolute catastrophe. Given that, you’d think the Tories would steer clear of what is or isn’t good for the NHS. Katie Lam MP is clearly not someone who thinks:

    Her tweet highlights a doctor who avoided being fired despite having sex with a nurse during an operation. Lam's tweet reads: 'A doctor comes here from Pakistan. He has sex with a nurse during an operation. He promises it won’t happen again, so a tribunal says he can return to practicing in the UK. This is insane. Migration cannot fix the NHS, and unless we raise our standards, actually damages it.'

    There’s a lot to cover here, but we’re going to start with this:

    If Katie Lam thinks an entire group of people should be damned because one of them gets caught in a sex scandal, THEN I HAVE VERY BAD NEWS FOR HER ABOUT THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY.

    Katie Lam MP on NHS scandal: racism on clear display

    Before we dig into her tweet, let’s address the story she’s talking about. This is how the BBC covered it:

    A doctor who left a patient midway through an operation to have sex with a nurse is at “very low risk” of repeating his serious misconduct, a medical tribunal has ruled.

    Married father-of-three Dr Suhail Anjum and the unnamed nurse were caught in a “compromising position” by a shocked colleague who walked in on the pair at Tameside Hospital, Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester.

    The consultant anaesthetist, 44, had asked a colleague to monitor the male patient, who was under general anaesthetic, so he could go to the bathroom.

    Instead Dr Anjum, who was gone for eight minutes, went to another operating theatre where sexual activity took place with the nurse on 16 September 2023.

    I have a very simple way of judging scandals, which I call the ‘Tesco Test’. This method revolves around one simple question: “Would I get fired for this if I were caught doing it at Tesco?”

    With the case of Dr Anjum, it’s a very clear ‘yes’ – perhaps one of the clearest yeses I’ve ever had.

    In that sense, I agree with Lam – this guy should have been fired.

    In every other sense, I disagree with her entirely.

    Tarring all Pakistanis with the same brush

    Some say the term ‘racism’ gets thrown around too liberally these days, and yet some things are just unmistakably racist. This is how the Oxford Languages dictionary defines ‘racism’:

    prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.

    What Lam has done is the precise inverse of this, which is to suggest all Pakistani people pose a danger to the NHS because one doctor couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. The place she gets to is exactly the same, though, which is discriminating against an entire ethnic group based on their membership of said group.

    Which leads me to my next point.

    A Tory MP calling out sexual misconduct? Really?

    Did Lam really forget about her party’s long and grubby history of sexual impropriety?

    Let’s look back, shall we:

    The year is 1993, and PM John Major’s ‘Back to Basics’ morality crusade is torpedoed by “an unending sequence of sex scandals among Tory MPs”.

    The year is 2002, and Edwina Currie reveals she had an affair with the supposedly moral crusader John Major.

    The year is 2015, and certain pig-related accusations are made against then-prime minister David Cameron.

    The year is 2022, and eight Tory MPs have had sexual misconduct allegations against them since 2019, including two convictions.

    Now, let’s rewrite Lam’s tweet from a different viewpoint:

    A Tory MP comes here from the Cotswolds.

    He has sex with a teenager and/or severed pigs head during a parliamentary debate on the NHS.

    He promises it won’t happen again, so a tribunal says he can return to politicking in the UK.

    This is insane. The Tories cannot fix the NHS, and unless we raise our standards, actually damage it.

    In this situation, I’d agree the Tory MP shouldn’t have been allowed to return, but I’d disagree that all Tories should be banned from managing the NHS.

    Not because of the sex scandal, anyway.

    Hands up, I don’t think the Tories should be anywhere near the NHS; not because some of them are sex perverts, but because all of them are health-hating privatisers who would sell their own grandmothers if they could get away with it. They weren’t born like that, though, and being right-wing isn’t a protected characteristic.

    These people were born, they grew up, and they dedicated themselves to a party which has always hated the NHS.

    Is Lam on the way out?

    I’ve described Lam’s actions as a ‘sad attempt for attention’, because that’s what it looks like. No one takes the Tories seriously anymore, so increasingly they have to copy Reform to get attention. The problem is the Tories spent 14 years stoking up racial antagonism while maintaining high levels of migration, and now Reform has taken the baton by shifting even further right.

    The problem Reform will have is that nothing will satisfy these people besides the forced re-migration of the non-white population (which is what they called for at Tommy Robinson’s ‘Unite the Kingdom‘ rally in early September). It’s a grim and dangerous game our politicians are playing, and it’s in play to draw attention away from their billionaire mates rinsing this country for everything it’s got.

    Given how blatantly racist Lam’s tweet is, there’s a good chance she’s about to defect to Reform, and this is her going out in a blaze of slurry. With the Tory Party as desperate as it is, though, there’s every chance they won’t give her the bollocking she’s hoping for. Even worse, we may see some of them copy her.

    Given that, thank god we have some politicians who are making the arguments that Keir Starmer doesn’t dare to:


    For more about how politicians are using issues like migration and the climate to distract from their mates ripping us off, read this.

    Featured image via the Canary.

     

    By Willem Moore

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Savings be damned, now Reform councillors want more money

    Despite running on a platform of hardcore cuts to government spending, newly-elected Reform politicians are… asking for increased government spending.

    It’s not like you think, though – they’re not asking for more money to be spent on services or initiatives; they’re asking for it to be spent on them specifically:

    On 19 September, we covered the Reform mayor who wanted an ‘eye-watering’ budget bump to tackle ‘non-mayoral concerns’. The latest instance of reverse-cuts is the leader of Durham County Council arguing that councillors should be paid more.

    Here’s the thing, though, we’re not saying that’s wrong, but we are asking how Reform can maintain its position on cuts when the first thing its politicians ask for in office is more money?

    Money, please

    The Local Government Chronicle (LGC) quoted council leader Andrew Husband, who said:

    It feels like good councillors are being suppressed because of the opportunity to bring in the caliber of people you need.

    How would you entice people to come from the private sector, to take a chance in politics? If you’ve got a house with a mortgage and a family to feed and financial responsibilities, it’s really set up to make it difficult for the grassroots to get involved in council politics.

    If you know nothing about how we pay councillors in this country, you might be thinking ‘typical greedy politicians‘. As LGC notes, though, the basic allowance in Durham is just £13,300 per annum.

    Did you think being a councillor was a job? Nope!

    In the UK, we’ve decided the role of councillor is more of a part-time hobby for the independently wealthy. Husband noted this himself, saying:

    You don’t want people coming into the career with one foot in the grave, already semi-retired doing it as a bit of a hobby, it can’t be done as a hobby it’s got to be your heart and soul and it’s got to be full time and a commitment.

    We agree completely, comrade.

    We agree less with this next point:

    However if you achieved something and if the multi-million pounds of savings are coming through and you can see a benefit of trying to keep a strong cabinet together and entice more talent into politics, it’s something that hopefully will be looked at at some point.

    Husband thinks that poorly-paid part-time Reform MPs are going to deliver millions upon millions in savings. Umm, I’m sorry, but if these savings can be delivered on the cheap, then why should we pay you more to make them?

    I don’t see Reform arguing that other workers should receive more pay based on how well they do. Will every branch of the council get a pay rise for making cuts, or just the councillors?

    Clearly, they haven’t thought this through.

    Proper pay for proper work

    Writing on the case for paying councillors, Adam Cantwell-Corn wrote the following for The Bristol Cable in 2022:

    Through to the 20th century: While the UK trumpeted itself as the birthplace of modern democracy, the House of Commons was anything but that. MPs were not paid and were expected to sustain themselves through private means. Inevitably, the only class able to do that were landowning and wealthy men, who overwhelmingly conducted politics in their own interests and world views. The majority suffered as a result.

    Imagine if parliament were completely filled with wealthy landlords instead of just largely filled with them.

    It doesn’t bear thinking about.

    Cantwell-Corn also said:

    The Chartists, one of the most important radical working class movements in British history, agitated for change. Payment for MPs – so that parliamentarians could be drawn from across society – was one of six demands in the 1838 People’s Charter. It was furiously opposed by the establishment who feared that the election of ‘the lesser classes’ would disrupt their grip on wealth and power. It took until 1911, and the 11-year-old Labour party to get it over the line, helping to open the door to a generation of MPs that transformed Britain.

    Cantwell-Corn notes that modern councillors are only expected to work 25 hours a week, and that they’re expected to work another job alongside this. The problem is that council work comes with odd hours, and most struggle to fit this around secondary employment.

    This all means councillors are made up of bored rich people and ridiculously dedicated poor people. While it’s no bad thing to attract the latter, it really doesn’t matter how determined a person is; they’re not going to perform optimally if they’re working two jobs and dealing with all the stresses that entails.

    Reform the councils

    The Bristol Cable is an independent left-wing outlet, so it’s very interesting that Reform politicians are coming to the same radical conclusions as them.

    In part, this may be because people signed up to Reform believing the magic thinking on austerity – i.e. that you can improve anything by spending less and less money on it – thinking which doesn’t hold up when you’re actually expected to deliver results. On the other hand, maybe they are all just greedy, and this is the first sign of them raiding the piggy bank.

    Only time will tell, but we’re guessing we’ll see examples of both to one extent or another.

    Looking at a list of Reform councillors who’ve jumped ship or got pushed since the May elections, there’s a real mix of people being sacked, people going independent, and people going further right. This suggests Reform isn’t vetting would-be councillors, and also that it’s doing a poor job explaining what it expects councillors to achieve in office.

    On a final note, we’ll end this by saying good luck to our comrades in the Reform Party in their fight to secure fair pay for the local worker, and viva le revolution!

    Featured image via Gage Skidmore (Flickr)

    By Willem Moore

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Flags and a crisis in British identity: a tale of two visions for our future

    The following is an opinion piece from Kate Hobbs, co-founder of campaign group Thank EU for the Music.

    For more than three weeks, the press has reported on Union Jacks strung from lampposts across the country. On Saturday 13 September, over 100,000 people gathered in London to back Tommy Robinson’s nationalist agenda. On the very same day, for the ninth year running, the Royal Albert Hall was a sea of blue and gold as thousands of EU flags were waved during the Last Night of the Proms.

    Two visions of what it means to be British – both with flags

    The juxtaposition is striking. Two events, two messages, two visions of what it means to be British. One is rooted in extreme nationalism, with speakers like Elon Musk telling the crowd that Britain must stand alone, a sovereign “empire” reborn, unshackled from the world. The other celebrates Britain as a soft power, an outward-looking, globally engaged country, capable of serious conversations about climate change, conflict, dwindling resources, and the role of AI in humanity’s future.

    For nationalists, Brexit was supposed to be the fix. Nigel Farage and others sold it as the day of independence that would restore greatness. Nine years on, many of those same voters now see the promise for what it was: a mirage.

    The demonstrations on Saturday captured this tension perfectly. Robinson’s supporters railed against “boat people”, convinced that stopping a few thousand asylum seekers each year would somehow cure the nation’s ills.

    Across town, inside the Royal Albert Hall, another truth was on display: Brexit has choked off opportunity. Touring musicians (once free to cross Europe with ease) are now shackled by red tape, visas, and costs that have eroded their income, weakened the creative industries, and diminished Britain’s cultural influence.

    The unresolved question of British identity

    For nine years, campaigners from Thank EU for the Music have quietly handed out EU flags at the Proms to remind the world that the plight of musicians has gone largely unheard. Yet their protest points to something much deeper: the unresolved question of British identity.

    Nationalists cling to a monoculture. They believe greatness comes from one flag, one identity, one story. But pro-European voices are comfortable with multiplicity. You can be from a city, support a football team, belong to a nation, a union, a commonwealth, and still see yourself as part of Europe and the wider free world. They understand that sovereignty in the 21st century is collective, that real strength comes from pooling ideas and working together to solve problems that no country can solve alone.

    The optics of Saturday laid this bare. On one side: angry faces and hostile placards demanding others “go home”. On the other side, a hall full of joy, music, colour, and diversity, an audience campaigning not for isolation, but for freedom, culture, tolerance, and yes, love.

    Britain stands at a crossroads. These two competing identities cannot be wished away. The time has come for a serious, grown-up national conversation about what kind of country we want to be.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • We’re in the middle of a genocide, and Your Party is engaged in a battle of whataboutery?

    The word “genocide” is often deemed to be provocative and misleading by its perpetrators and enablers.

    Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish lawyer who coined the term “genocide” in 1944, tirelessly advocated for the recognition of genocide as an international crime, influencing the drafting of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

    This was created under the auspices of the United Nations General Assembly by a committee of experts, with hugely significant contributions from Mr Lemkin and other legal scholars.

    But it goes without saying, the intolerable parasite Starmer knows better.

    Why the mini history lesson?

    Why not?

    When we wilfully fail to learn from the horrors of historical genocides, we doom ourselves to repeat the tragedies of the past, turning a blind eye to the desperate cries of humanity.

    Israel is committing a genocide – yet where is Starmer (again)?

    Just this past week, a United Nations commission of inquiry has claimed that Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

    The commission’s report concludes that the war criminal, President Isaac Herzog of Israel — welcomed into Downing Street by the unashamedly complicit Keir Starmer — “incited the commission of genocide” in his speeches and statements.

    Once again, Keir Starmer’s appalling lack of judgement has proven to be fatally flawed and blinded by the blood-soaked flag of the state of Israel.

    Cast your minds back over the last fourteen months. How many hugely critical decisions has Keir Starmer managed to get right?

    Winter fuel allowance?

    Disability benefits?

    Ukraine?

    Freebies?

    Peter fucking Mandelson?

    Now you can add Gaza genocide denial to list of eternal shame.

    Trump, meanwhile…

    Much of the news coverage over the last few days has been taken up by the arrival of the tangerine tantrum and his meeting with Keir Starmer.

    If you were expecting to read about a capitulation to right-wing authoritarianism and neoliberal imperialism, reinforcing the serpent Starmer’s drift away from Labour’s socialist roots toward a centre-right establishment-friendly agenda, I’m afraid that ship set sail some time ago.

    Starmer’s willingness to court a hateful piece of shit like Trump is hardly a shock, but the lavish hosting of the detestable President — complete with some stomach-churning butt kissing for the hope of economic ties — exposes the utter hollowness of his “change” mantra, once and for all.

    Starmer and Trump aren’t really all that different. Neither of them serve any purpose to poor and working-class people.

    Trump fronts an administration that thrives on xenophobia, climate denial, and corporate greed, all while the UK grapples with austerity’s lingering scars and rising inequality under Labour’s own appalling reforms.

    It’s hardly the time to roll out the red carpet for a bankrupt neofascist, is it?

    Britain needs a leader that will challenge Trump’s dangerous reactionary policies, not align with him on key issues.

    Trump told Starmer to halt the “migrant invasion” by any means, including deploying the military, echoing the far-right rhetoric that demonises refugees and asylum seekers as threats to national security.

    The borders that have been fortified by the failures of capitalism — displacement driven by wars, climate change and human exploitation — need breaking down, not reinforcing.

    We want Keir Starmer, a Labour prime minister, to advocate humane immigration policies and international solidarity.

    Weak and isolated Starmer’s failure to publicly push back risks normalising such draconian approaches in the UK, where anti-refugee sentiment has already fueled riots, division and painted fucking roundabouts.

    Pick a side, you say

    It wasn’t that long ago that Labour’s historical commitment to anti-racism and workers unity across borders actually meant something.

    It also wasn’t that long ago that the British left thought they finally had something to be optimistic about with the creation of Your Party.

    I must admit, I kept my optimism firmly on the back burner and I didn’t promote the fledgling party beyond a few paragraphs in my weekly Canary slot.

    Why?

    To be brutally honest, there are only so many egos you can put in one room before everything spills over into a big public mess.

    I have been asked several times whose “side” I am on. Why would anyone care

    Am I diehard Corbynite that thinks St Jezza can do no wrong? Or am I jumping on the Sultana bandwagon in the hope of rejuvenating my online activism?

    Based on what I have seen and heard over the last few days, I will remain on the side of children from Gaza to Gateshead and beyond, and if that means putting my support behind Polanski’s Greens, however insignificant it may be, so be it.

    A battle of whataboutery is an unbelievably selfish thing to do, and there are very few people that can walk away from the Your Party debacle with an ounce of credit and dignity.

    Watching bloody good people chip away at one another doesn’t make me want to pick a side.

    A genocide needs stopping – yet Your Party are navel gazing?

    Maybe it can be saved? Sometimes it seems like a few people need to sit down, put self-ambition to one side, and thrash out a way forward that brings people together and puts the future of the party firmly in the hands of its members, but a decade of online activism tells me this may just be wishful thinking.

    Remember folks. Divided we fall, and if we allow ourselves to tumble to the ground, there might not be a chance to pick ourselves up for at least a generation.

    We have — or at least had — an historic opportunity to create a left alliance to challenge the far-right, Reform UK, and Keir Starmer’s Labour.

    Today’s Labour government is polling lower than any Labour Party that was ever led by Jeremy Corbyn over those five tumultuous years. In fact, it is the lowest ever polling for the Labour Party in eighty years of polls existing.

    Now isn’t the time for anyone with an agenda to engage in navel-gazing.

    DIVIDED. WE. FALL.

    That’s not for me. I want change. We need change. We need a serious opposition to the numerous crises that we are facing today, not an internal power struggle that has only served to embolden the enemies of change.

    Am I asking too much?

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Rachael Swindon

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The real reason Donald Trump can’t escape the Epstein scandal

    Last week on Capitol Hill, a press conference unfolded unlike any other. Victims of sexual abuse by the wealthy and powerful stepped forward to share their stories—some for the first time. Their voices cut through the usual political noise, revealing decades of manipulation and violation by Jeffrey Epstein.

    The event drew a crowd of chanting protesters and reporters, but amid the chaos, one fact stood out: the Epstein scandal continues to grow, and Donald Trump’s attempts to silence it are failing.

    That became clear when Marjorie Taylor Greene, a staunch Trump loyalist, unexpectedly appeared to support a discharge petition that seeks to force the House to subpoena the Justice Department for all files related to Epstein’s crimes. Greene’s attendance wasn’t announced beforehand, but her presence signals to Trump’s detractors that there are limits to his control over his MAGA supporters.

    Trump has tried to suppress the scandal. The Justice Department re-released already public documents to conservative influencers, drawing ridicule. The administration sought access to grand jury transcripts from Epstein’s 2019 indictment—a request a judge denied, as expected. And Trump dismissed the entire controversy as “a Democratic hoax.”

    Unlike many elites who have bowed to Trump’s authoritarianism, these survivors are holding him accountable.

    But victims disagree. “This is not a hoax, and it’s not going away,” said Epstein survivor Marina Lacerda.

    Trump’s struggles reveal the limits of his usual tactics. His strategy—harnessing the anger caused by inequality to deflect blame—has faltered here. To understand why, we must look beyond Epstein as a predator to examine the system that protected him.

    Documents recently released from Epstein’s estate expose the extent of his aristocratic immunity. In a 2008 plea deal, prosecutors agreed not to charge his alleged co-conspirators and gave Epstein a list of victims who had come forward—a list that victims describe as a “hit list,” provided by law enforcement.

    Compare this leniency to Jean Roussel Eloi, a man convicted of internet solicitation of a minor in the same jurisdiction received 30 years in federal prison. Epstein, after pleading to state charges of procuring a person under 18 for prostitution and solicitation of prostitution, served just 13 months in a private wing of a minimum-security jail, working in his upscale office during the day—and allegedly receiving female visitors.

    This deference to wealth echoes the broader inequalities that helped propel Trump’s rise. For nearly a decade, Trump has exploited economic anxiety by casting opponents and institutions as characters in his own reality show. Like on The Apprentice, he “fires” his targets, blaming them for a rigged economy.

    This inequality theater taps into real grievances: medical debt drives 60% of personal bankruptcies; middle-class wages have stagnated; and since 1975, $89 trillion has shifted from lower earners to the top 1%.

    Ironically, Trump has wielded the very inequalities he helped deepen. America’s failures in healthcare, housing, and justice have created a frustrated electorate eager to blame someone. Trump has redirected that anger away from himself—until now.

    The Epstein scandal has flipped the script. Salacious photos, videos, and even a birthday card allegedly sent by Trump to Epstein have placed Trump on the wrong side of the story. The victims are now directing the narrative.

    That’s why their stories matter. Their painful testimonies expose the consequences of inequality upheld by Trump, Epstein, and other billionaires. Unlike many elites who have bowed to Trump’s authoritarianism, these survivors are holding him accountable.

    The question remains: who will speak out next?

    This post was originally published on The Real News Network.