Nobel-winner Krugman warns this Trump move will do 'even more economic harm' than tariffs

Robert Davis
August 20, 2025 

RAW STORY

A Nobel Prize-winning economist warned on Wednesday that one of President Donald Trump's economic policies could do even more harm than his tariffs.

Paul Krugman, who
won the Nobel Prize in 2008 for his contributions to trade theory and economic geography, wrote on Substack that Trump's immigration policies are pushing the U.S. economy to the brink. He added that arresting and deporting workers will be even worse for the economy than what has been portrayed in the media.

"In fact, my guess is that arrests and deportations will eventually do even more economic harm than tariffs," Krugman wrote.

Trump has made immigration enforcement a central part of his second administration. He has promised to deport as many as 11 million undocumented immigrants, although media reports suggest some American citizens have been swept up in these efforts.

To Krugman, the policy could have significant impacts on the economy.

"Losing large numbers of workers sounds as if it will be bad for the U.S. economy," Krugman's essay continued. "In fact, it will be worse than you may think."

"The reason is that immigrant workers aren’t spread evenly across the economy," he added. "They’re strongly concentrated in certain industries and occupations, where they constitute a large share, sometimes a majority, of the workforce. As a result, the Trump administration’s latter-day Edict of Expulsion will be far more disruptive to the economy than the aggregate number of workers deported might suggest."

Read the entire essay by clicking here.

New US Senate report exposes force 'squeezing the life' out of hospitals and doctors' offices

Brad Reed,

 Common Dreams
August 20, 2025 

A hospital bed is pushed down a corridor. (Shutterstock)

A US senator on Wednesday released a report that detailed how private equity firms have ruined hospitals in his home state and across the country.

The report from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) documented what happened when three Connecticut hospitals—Waterbury Hospital, Rockville General, and Manchester Memorial—were bought by Prospect Medical Holdings, a private equity-backed healthcare firm.

Interviews conducted with staff members of these hospitals told a consistent story about how Prospect cut corners in nearly every conceivable aspect and worsened the care patients received at the hospitals.

Ramona, an operating room assistant at Waterbury Hospital, cited in the report, explained how Prospect went to extreme lengths to avoid spending money. She explained to Murphy that Prospect at one point stopped paying vendors, which resulted in supplies eventually growing "so scarce patients were sometimes left on the operating table while staff scrambled" to find the necessary equipment.

Staff members eventually started buying supplies themselves, with some even going so far as to buy food for their patients to ensure that they did not go hungry.

A nurse named Anne-Marie, who has worked at Manchester Memorial for over three decades, told Murphy's staff that it was only through the dedication of staff members that her hospital was able to continue functioning at all.

"You know, I'm very fortunate where I work that we still care and patients can't believe what a good job we do despite all of the obstacles and hurdles we've been given," she said. "We still show up every day and we're committed to our communities, thankfully."

Prospect didn't just skimp on buying supplies for the hospitals but also on maintaining the buildings themselves. A unit secretary at Waterbury Hospital named Carmen told Murphy's staff of two instances where the ceiling at the building fell due to years of neglect.

"We were lucky enough that the patient had already been discharged and where it fell, it would have missed the stretcher and the patient," she said of the first instance. "The other time it fell in the trauma room, it was only on top of the computers... so we called maintenance, and they came and fixed it, [which means] putting a little hose where the water is and putting buckets to catch the water…it's happened a lot."

The deterioration of patient care at Waterbury became obvious by 2019, when the report noted that it "recorded the highest rates of patient readmission in the state."

Things got even worse for the hospitals when Leonard Green & Partners, the private equity firm that at the time owned Prospect, decided to sell the land where the hospitals reside to a real estate investment firm that then leased the land back at high rates. The final blow came when Leonard Green sold off its stake in Prospect, which the report says left "nothing but debt and destruction" in its wake.

"After Leonard Green's exit, Rockville Hospital was losing so much money, they cut all but emergency and outpatient mental health services without the required state authorization, leaving many patients with no full-service hospital nearby," the report stated.

Prospect itself filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, and the fate of all three hospitals is now "in the hands of a bankruptcy judge in Texas," the report added.

Murphy's report also emphasized that the story of private equity stripping hospitals for parts is not unique to his state.

"The story of these three Connecticut hospitals is playing out in healthcare systems all over the country," it said. "Private equity comes in, squeezes the life out of hospitals and doctor's offices, and then leaves patients and communities in the lurch."

We're watching the largest and most dangerous 'cult' in American history

Seth D. Norrholm
August 20, 2025 

RAW STORY



I was dying…It was just a matter of time. Lying behind the wheel of the airplane, bleeding out of the right side of my devastated body, I waited for the rapid shooting to stop.

—Former Representative Jackie Speier in her memoir "Undaunted: Surviving Jonestown, Summoning Courage, and Fighting Back" recounting her experience after being shot five times during an ambush during her fact-finding visit to Jonestown, Guyana, where Jim Jones and his cult, Peoples Temple, had built a compound.

It, combined with everything else that was going on, made it difficult to breathe…Being crushed by the shield and the people behind it … leaving me defenseless, injured.

—Metropolitan police officer, Daniel Hodges, describing being crushed in a doorway during the January 6, 2021, attack by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol

In both of the examples above, the individual speaking was the victim of extreme violence perpetrated by followers of a single person whose influence had spread to hundreds of people (in the January 6th case, thousands of people). In fact, Speier’s experience with the Jim Jones followers was part of the single greatest loss of American life (918 people) prior to 9/11/2001. These followings have been given an umbrella name — cult — and have involved what has been traditionally called “brainwashing.” The cult leader receives seemingly undying support as the Dear Leader or Savior. However, the term brainwashing suggests that indoctrinated members are robots without free will – behavioral scientists argue that this is not the case. It’s an oversimplification.


Rather than being seen as passive victims to an irresistible force, psychiatrist Robert Lifton argues that there is “voluntary self-surrender” in one’s entrance into a cult. Further, the decision to give up control as part of the cult process may actually be part of the reason why people join. Research and experience tell us that those who are “cult vulnerable” may have a sense of confusion or separation from society or seek the same sort of highly controlled environment that was part of their childhood. It has also been suggested that those who are at risk for cult membership feel an enormous lack of control in the face of uncertainty (i.e., economic, occupational, academic, social, familial) and will gravitate more towards a cult as their distress increases. I would argue that many of these factors are at play when we see the ongoing support of Trumpism and MAGA “theology.”


Psychologist Leon Festinger described the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance in which there is a disconnect between one’s feelings, beliefs, and convictions and their observable actions. This dissonance is distressing and, in order to relieve the anxiety, people may become more invested in the cult or belief system that goes against who they are individually. As such, cult members become more “dug-in” and will cling to thoughts and beliefs that contradict available evidence. In other words, they are no longer able to find a middle ground or compromise.

How does this apply to today’s politics?

There was a time when the two major political parties in America could exhibit bipartisanship by moving across the aisle to compromise on the issues on which they were legislating. Tried and true Republicans who favored small government, lower taxes, and national security could find a middle ground with Democrats who pushed for things like universal healthcare, higher minimum wages, and progressive tax reform. The abortion issue in America has been an area of debate between the parties as they debated elements like when life begins, is a heartbeat a heartbeat, and what to do about post-birth abortions (which is murder and not actually a thing). There were largely two sides of the issue and some areas for compromise.


This is no longer possible in today’s sociopolitical climate. Although members of the GOP still refer to themselves as a political party with principled stances, the reality is they have now morphed into a domestic terror organization and, to use the umbrella term, a cult – the largest and most dangerous cult in American history.

Cult thinking includes ardent adherence to group thinking such as – clinically speaking, in the face of distorted thinking we ask about one’s strength of conviction by querying, ”Can you think of other ways of seeing this?” Sadly, what we are seeing publicly is ‘No’ from those who still subscribe to Trumpism/MAGA.

Here are a few examples in today’s sociopolitical environment in which cultism has contributed to a lack of middle ground.


There is no middle ground on treasonous, conspiratorial, fraudulent behavior – these are crimes and, arguably, the worst crimes one could commit against their own country.

There is no middle ground on slavery.

There is no middle ground on allowing Americans to die through inaction in response to natural disasters and global health crises.


There is no middle ground on gunning down school children or wearing an AR-15 rifle pin and throwing away a pin to remember a Uvalde victim.

There is no middle ground on jeopardizing national security and retaining and sharing classified documents.

There is no middle ground on breaking campaign finance (i.e., hush money schemes) laws.


There should be no middle ground on tolerance of crime, period.

And so many know this. Tim Scott, Jim Jordan, and Marco Rubio (the last two having gone to law school), all know this and are smarter than they are acting – which takes us back to cult dynamics – if you are a dyed-in-the-wool cultist or pretending to be a cultist – but the outcome is the same – harm to the Country and its people – there is no difference. Whether you actually have a personality disorder or are pretending to be a sociopathically or psychopathically disordered person – if the result is the same – harm to your constituents and your country – what’s the difference? As noted in the opening paragraphs, there is a voluntary submission to cultism – Rubio, for example, identified all of the reasons why the 45th President was not qualified when he himself was running for President in 2016. However, perhaps due to his own intolerance of uncertainties in his life, volunteered for Trumpism.

What can be done?


There are exit strategies for people ensnared in a cult. One factor is accountability or repeatedly seeing the adverse consequences of the group’s behavior (e.g., indictment, incarceration, job loss) which we started to see even more of this week.

But until one party and its ardent followers can admit they are in a domestic terrorist cult and as Rep. Eric Swalwell said are “unserious” people, there is no hope of unification on the horizon. The first step is getting through to people who can’t or won’t see the truth.

About the Author:

Seth D. Norrholm, PhD (Threads: neuropsychophd; X, artist formerly known as Twitter: @SethN12) is a neuropsychologist and independent socio political columnist. Dr. Norrholm has spent 20 years studying trauma-, stressor-, anxiety-, depressive-, and substance use-related disorders and has published over 135 peer-reviewed research articles and book chapters. The primary objective of his work is to develop “bench-to-bedside” clinical research methods to inform therapeutic interventions for fear and anxiety-related disorders and how they relate to human factors such as personality, genetics, and environmental influences. Dr. Norrholm has been featured on NBC, ABC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC’s Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, Politico.com, The New York Times, The New York Daily News, USA Today, WebMD, The Atlantic, The History Channel, Scientific American, Salon.com, The Huffington Post, and Yahoo.com.

'Incomprehensible': Ex-officials blast Gabbard over plans to drastically shrink a top agency

Matthew Chapman
August 20, 2025 
RAW STORY


President-elect Donald Trump said he would nominate former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (R-HI) to serve as the Director of National Intelligence, but critics and analysts aren't certain that will actually happen. (Photo credit: lev radin)

President Donald Trump's director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has a plan to cut the staff at the nation's top intelligence aggregating agency by 50 percent — and it's causing bitter divides, reported Politico on Wednesday.

"The move, dubbed ODNI 2.0, is the latest effort by the Trump administration to slim down the federal government, and comes after a wave of top-level departures at the ODNI’s Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center earlier this year," reported Maggie Miller and Dana Nickel.

As part of the broader effort by the Trump administration to lay off huge sections of the civil service, Gabbard "has already eliminated 500 staff and reduced the office’s size by 30 percent since she was sworn in to the role in February. The new plan would boost that number to over 40 percent and save more than $700 million annually."


Gabbard's main target is the Foreign Malign Influence Center, which monitors attempts by hostile foreign powers to sway public opinion in the U.S., as well as the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center.

According to her DNI, these agencies' work is already handled effectively by other divisions, and Gabbard particularly slamed FMIC as being “used by the previous administration to justify the suppression of free speech and to censor political opposition” — likely a reference to its involvement in investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, which Trump maintains to this day was a hoax despite an extensive investigation detailing the whole operation.

While Trump-aligned members of Congress, like Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), praised this proposal, it was promptly criticized by Democrats — as well as former members of the intelligence community.

“The ODNI was created to address obvious failures in coordination between intelligence agencies," one former NSA analyst told Politico. "It’s incomprehensible to think they can continue that work with half the staff.”

“There doesn’t seem to be a strategy,” a former senior CIA intelligence executive told the outlet. “To me, this seems to be just more of a constant reaction. Which is ironic, since that’s not intelligence analysis.”

 

South Africa: Can the SACP help rebuild a democratic, militant left?

By Brian Ashley

Published 20 August, 2025

First published at Zabalaza for Socialism.

The South African Communist Party’s (SACP) decision to stand independently of the African National Congress (ANC) in the coming local government elections deserves to be welcomed. For decades, independent socialists and other militants have argued that the Party’s subordination within the Tripartite Alliance weakened the political independence of the working class and tied the fate of socialist politics to the fortunes of the ANC. The fact that the SACP has now resolved to stand on its own — even if belatedly — represents a potential step forward in re-conquering the independence of the working class and advancing class politics based on socialist renewal.

The ANC’s political hegemony is broken, its moral authority shredded, its electoral base fractured. Yet the political space that has opened has been filled largely by right-wing forces such as the Democratic Alliance, the Patriotic Alliance and other populist outfits. The left, meanwhile, has become weaker and more fragmented, precisely when the deepening social, economic and political crisis cries out for a clear, class-based alternative.

The question all strands of the left must ask is obvious: why is the left so weak today, given the scale of the crisis facing working-class and poor people? And what can be done to reverse the situation? If the SACP’s electoral turn is to be more than another false start — like NUMSA’s 2013 break from the Alliance that never resulted in a viable workers’ party and was collapsed — then it must be accompanied by deep soul-searching, rigorous debate, and a willingness to rethink political theory and strategy.

Lessons from the Alliance

Any renewal of socialist politics must begin with an honest reckoning of the past. Why did the SACP remain in the Alliance and in government even as the ANC became a vehicle for a predatory elite? Why did it remain loyal when the ANC imposed GEAR, entrenching neoliberalism? Why did it champion Jacob Zuma as a “left alternative” to Mbeki, only to find itself shackled to another corrupt, authoritarian project? Why did it defend the state in the aftermath of the Marikana massacre rather than standing unequivocally with the striking mineworkers?

The answers lie not just in tactical missteps but in the political framework that has guided the SACP for decades — shaped above all by Stalinism, and only partially challenged by renewalists like Joe Slovo, Ruth First and Chris Hani.

Stalinism and vanguardism

One root problem is the continued hold of Stalinist ideas. After the fall of the USSR, Slovo warned against bureaucratism and affirmed democracy as central to socialism in his paper Has Socialism Failed? Yet there was never a thorough reckoning with the Party’s core strategy.

The SACP retained a dogmatic conception of itself as the “vanguard of the working class.” This bureaucratic model substitutes an enlightened elite for the conscious self-activity of the masses, blurring the distinction between the role of the party and the role of the class.

This runs against Marx’s insistence that “the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself.” By confusing its own institutional survival with the interests of the working class, the SACP weakened resistance to neoliberal restructuring and undermined the principle that socialism means freedom — the democratic transformation of all aspects of society.

Stageism and the national democratic revolution

A second weakness lies in the Party’s conception of the “national democratic revolution” (NDR). Developed in the Stalinist era of the Comintern, it entrenched a rigid two-stage theory of revolution: first, a “national democratic” stage; later, a “socialist” stage. In South Africa, this was tied to the idea that apartheid was a “colony of a special type.”

While this framework acknowledged the importance of national and democratic struggles, it obscured the extent to which racial oppression was integral to capitalist accumulation. Thinkers like Harold Wolpe, Martin Legassick and Neville Alexander showed that racial capitalism cannot be reduced to “two economies” but must be understood through combined and uneven development — where the wealth of the “first world” enclaves depended on the underdevelopment of the townships and rural peripheries.

This stageist conception led the SACP to see deracialised capitalism as a stepping-stone to socialism, rather than a barrier to transformation. The failure of the transition since 1994 confirms the flaw: taking over the apartheid state and attempting to deracialise capitalism did not open the road to socialism — it blocked it.

Bureaucracy and the petty bourgeoisie

The SACP also underestimated the corrosive role of the post-apartheid petty bourgeoisie. Frantz Fanon’s critique of the “national bourgeoisie” proved prescient. Party leaders in parliament, government and the trade unions were incorporated into the new elite through salaries, perks and patronage. This created conflicts of interest that disposed them to defend the status quo rather than lead struggles against neoliberal globalisation.

Internationalism and campism

Another weakness has been the SACP’s distorted internationalism. Shaped by “campist” politics, it often subordinated solidarity to the defence of authoritarian regimes opposed to the US. This meant ignoring or even opposing genuine struggles from below — from workers’ revolts in Eastern Europe to uprisings in Syria and Iran. Even today, the Party struggles to critique Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, equating opposition to Putin with support for NATO.

True internationalism requires rejecting both imperialist camps and standing with workers and oppressed peoples everywhere.

Towards socialist renewal

The SACP’s electoral turn could be the spark for a new chapter, but only if it is part of a broader renewal of socialist politics, rooted in democracy, mass self-organisation and unity in struggle. This means:

1. Reaffirming democracy as the essence of socialism.
2. Recognising the plurality of the left and building united fronts.
3. Rebuilding mass organisations and grassroots mobilisation.
4. Uniting struggles around immediate class demands — jobs, basic income, land reform, housing, services — while fighting sexism, racism, xenophobia and ecological destruction.
5. Reclaiming internationalism as solidarity from below, not alignment with authoritarian states.

A moment of possibility

The SACP’s decision to contest elections independently is long overdue. But if it becomes another vehicle for elite careers, it will sink into irrelevance. If, however, it sparks a deep reckoning with the Party’s legacy and bureaucratic habits, it could open the way for genuine renewal.

South Africa faces profound crisis — mass unemployment, collapsing services, inequality, gender violence, xenophobia, and ecological breakdown. The ANC has no answers. Right-wing populists offer only scapegoating.

The working class remains the only force capable of leading society out of this dead end. The choice before the SACP is clear: cling to old dogmas and repeat past errors, or embrace socialist renewal and help forge a democratic, militant left for the twenty-first century.

 

Mozambique on a knife’s edge

By Rehad Desai

Published 20 August, 2025

First published at Zabalaza for Socialism.

The armed conflict in Cabo Delgado between Islamic State–aligned fighters and mercenary forces led by the Rwandan military has escalated sharply in recent weeks. This surge in violence coincides with efforts to reopen the region’s lucrative gas facilities. At the same time, the Frelimo-controlled state is moving to prosecute popular opposition leader Venâncio Mondlane on trumped-up terrorism charges. Mondlane has been a key figure in mobilising mass protests since October last year — protests that have, according to credible sources, already claimed some 600 lives.

From liberation to neoliberal capture

Mozambique won its independence 50 years ago through the determined struggle of the people, led by Frelimo. Liberation was not just a change of flags — it brought real, tangible gains. In the first decade after 1975, the new state launched a mass literacy campaign that reduced illiteracy from over 90% to under 50% in a few short years. A national health service was established, with rural clinics and hospitals built in areas the colonial regime had abandoned. Vaccination programmes sharply reduced infant mortality. Land reform ended the settler plantation system, redistributing land to peasant communities and boosting food production in the countryside. For the first time, millions had access to education, healthcare, and land — the basic means to live with dignity.

But liberation was quickly sabotaged. A breakaway faction—armed and backed by apartheid South Africa, white-minority Rhodesia, and Western powers — plunged the country into a devastating 15-year war. The human toll was immense: a million dead, millions more displaced. The dream of breaking the extractive colonial model was strangled in its infancy.

By the late 1980s, the war-weary state was kept afloat by Western aid — aid tied to International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank conditions. These institutions dictated a neoliberal restructuring programme: mass privatisation, cuts to social spending, and an open invitation for the political elite to enrich themselves. From the late 1990s to 2016, foreign capital flooded in, driving high GDP growth, but the benefits were monopolised by politically connected elites. The IMF and World Bank froze public sector wages at poverty levels, entrenching inequality. Corruption became endemic — glaring at the top, corrosive at the base.

Resistance and repression

The trade union movement, shackled to the state, offered little resistance. But ordinary Mozambicans took to the streets — spontaneously — over rising food and transport costs. In 2013, tens of thousands marched in Maputo against the resumption of armed conflict between Frelimo and Renamo. The roots of that conflict lay in electoral fraud, corruption, and the plunder of natural resources.

Renamo’s demand to “depoliticise the state” was vindicated when the 2016 “hidden loans” scandal broke — $2 billion in secret, illegal loans from Credit Suisse, enriching scores of Frelimo officials while bankrupting the country. The state could no longer pay public sector wages. Millions were driven deeper into poverty. The crisis remains unresolved.

Cabo Delgado: Imperial plunder in the 21st century

In Cabo Delgado, local communities’ resistance to resource grabs by Frelimo politicians and multinational corporations has been met with ruthless violence. The region is rich in gas, rubies, graphite, and other resources, but the people see none of the wealth. Instead, they face displacement, militarisation, and deepening poverty. In this vacuum, armed groups have taken root, feeding off legitimate grievances.

South Africa plays its part in this plunder. Sasol has exploited Mozambican gas for two decades, leaving the country with a pittance of the revenues, while displaced communities and fisherfolk have received little or no compensation. The same scenario looms in Cabo Delgado.

Now, Total demands $4.5 billion be deducted from its taxes to pay for security, insisting on a fully militarised zone around its operations. Portuguese oil giant Galp refuses to pay taxes on the sale of its stake in a gas consortium to a UAE buyer. This is neo-colonialism laid bare — imperialist capital dictating terms to a captured state.

A country on the boil

Across Mozambique, the naked extraction of wealth — from coal to forests to fisheries — without benefit to the people is fuelling nationwide anger. Environmental destruction undermines food sovereignty. Climate disasters, especially cyclones battering the coastal provinces, deepen rural misery.

In the cities, “jobless growth” has given way to outright recession since 2016. Youth unemployment is exploding. The 2023 murder of Azagaia, a prominent political rapper, brought thousands onto the streets. The blatant electoral theft against Mondlane in the presidential and national elections became the spark for the largest protest movement since independence.

The struggle ahead

This movement is not only about stolen elections — it is rooted in an economic crisis that has crushed livelihoods and futures. The revolt has spread from the cities to the extractive zones, uniting urban youth with rural communities in defiance of the neoliberal order.

Frelimo is rattled. It is moving to crush dissent through arrests, militarisation, and intimidation. But its ability to do so will depend on whether the opposition — rallying around Mondlane — can link the fight against electoral fraud to the broader struggle against the plunder of Mozambique’s wealth, the domination of foreign capital, and the capture of the state by a corrupt elite.

The stakes are clear: either the people take control of their resources and their democracy, or imperialism and its local agents will continue to drain the lifeblood of the nation. The people have awoken. The question is whether this awakening will grow into an organised, revolutionary movement capable of breaking the chains that still bind Mozambique 50 years after independence.

With this Putin-inspired attack, Trump crossed a line no president ever dared touch

Thom Hartmann
August 20, 2025 
COMMON DREAMS

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin hold a press conference in Anchorage, Alaska. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon

On Monday, Donald Trump crossed another line that no president in our history has ever dared to touch. With the echo of Vladimir Putin’s whisper in his ear, in front of President Volodymyr Zelensky and seven other European leaders, Trump announced he’s preparing an executive order to ban mail-in ballots and even outlaw voting machines across America ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Sitting in front of the Chancellor of Germany and the Prime Minister of Great Britain — both nations that allow and even encourage mail-in voting — Trump said:
“Mail-in ballots are corrupt mail-in ballots. You can never have a real democracy with mail-in ballots, and we as a Republican Party are gonna do everything possible that we get rid of mail-in ballots. We're gonna start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they’re corrupt. And, you know that we’re the only country in the world, I believe, I may be wrong, but just about the only country in the world that uses it because of what’s happened.”


This is not just a partisan maneuver. It’s an open assault on the Constitution, a grotesque power grab, and a direct threat to the foundation of democracy itself. And it’s happening in real time, in broad daylight, with a criminally compliant Republican Party cheering him on.


Republicans hate mail-in voting for multiple reasons.First, for people who’re paid by the hour, mail-in voting increases participation because they can fill out their ballots at the kitchen table after work. Republicans don’t want people to vote, and have introduced more than 400 pieces of legislation in the past three years nationwide to make voting more difficult.
Second, mail-in voting makes voters better informed and less vulnerable to sound-byte TV ads because, while perusing that ballot at the kitchen table, they can look up candidates on their laptops and get more detail and information. Republicans hate informed voters and rely heavily on often-dishonest advertisements to swing voters.
Third, mail-in ballots — because they arrive in the mail weeks before the election — give voters an early chance to discover if they’ve been the victim of Republican voter-roll purges, one of their favorite tactics to pre-rig elections.
Fourth, mail-in ballots end the GOP trick of understaffing and under-resourcing polling places in minority neighborhoods, leading to hours-long lines. Hispanic voters generally wait 150 percent longer than white voters, and Black voters must endure a 200 percent longer wait; mail-in ballots put an end to this favorite of the GOP’s voter suppression efforts.


Trump, knowing all this, couldn’t help himself yesterday, finally blurting out his real reason for wanting to end mail-in voting in America:

“We got to stop mail-in voting, and the Republicans have to lead the charge. The Democrats want it because they have horrible policy. If you [don’t] have mail-in voting, you’re not gonna have many Democrats get elected. That’s bigger than anything having to do with redistricting, believe me.”


Once again, Trump is ignoring the law and the Constitution, which explicitly delegates the administration of elections to the states and Congress, not presidential executive orders.

That’s not some vague norm or debatable tradition: it’s written into the very DNA of our system of government. States set the rules, unless Congress — not the president — overrides them. States decide how their citizens vote, as the Constitution’s Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 dictates:
“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”


Yet here we have a president declaring that he alone will dictate the terms of elections nationwide, in direct violation of two centuries of law and precedent. This is not only unconstitutional, it’s tyrannical.


When a president asserts powers he does not have, with the full knowledge that they aren’t his to wield, he’s announcing to the country that the rule of law no longer constrains him. That’s the definition of dictatorship.

And what makes this even more obscene is the source of Trump’s inspiration. According to multiple reports, Trump’s sudden rant on mail-in ballots followed a private conversation with Putin, who reportedly told Trump that mail-in voting was the reason he lost in 2020.

The man occupying the Oval Office is now taking advice about how to rig American elections from the very dictator who has spent his career poisoning journalists, jailing opponents, and staging sham referendums to annex entire countries.


It’s bad enough that Trump has always been Putin’s toady, but now we see the Kremlin effectively writing U.S. election law. If Jefferson, Madison, or Lincoln were alive to hear this, they would spit.

Mail-in voting is not a scam. It’s not a trick. It’s how tens of millions of Americans — Republicans, Democrats, independents — exercise their right to vote.

Seniors rely on it. People with disabilities rely on it. Military service members overseas rely on it. Hourly workers who can’t take a day off rely on it. Parents with young children rely on it. Rural voters, who often live miles from polling places, rely on it.


And every study, every audit, every bipartisan commission has found mail-in voting to be secure, safe, and reliable. Five states do it exclusively; we’ve had it more than two decades here in Oregon with nary a single scandal or problem. To call it fraudulent is a lie. To ban it is voter suppression on a scale this country has never seen.

And voting machines? Trump is openly declaring that he’ll return us to mind-numbingly slow hand-counting of ballots, a tactic straight from the authoritarian playbook designed to create chaos, delays, and endless opportunities to dispute the results in 2026 and 2028.

I’ve had concerns about voting machines and Windows-based tabulators for decades, but my solution isn’t to end them. Instead, we should use machines owned by the government itself, generating paper ballots and operating transparently on open-source software with every election subject to sample audits.


Instead of trying to make elections more secure, Trump’s laying the groundwork for election theft in plain sight. This isn’t subtle: it’s the loud declaration of a man preparing to overturn the will of the voters, with the blessing of a foreign adversary, and with a Republican Party too craven to object.

If Trump succeeds in outlawing mail-in ballots and voting machines, millions of Americans will simply not be able to vote. Seniors in nursing homes, service members abroad, people with disabilities, single parents, rural citizens: they will all be disenfranchised overnight. And make no mistake: that’s the point.

This is not about integrity. This is not about security. This is about shrinking the electorate to a size that Republicans believe will guarantee them victory forever.


Republicans know they can’t win free and fair elections in much of America. They know their policies are unpopular. They know their agenda is toxic.

So they cheat. They gerrymander districts into grotesque shapes that make a mockery of representative government. They purge voters from the rolls. They criminalize voter registration drives. They intimidate voters at the polls.

And now, at Trump’s command and Putin’s urging, they want to ban the very methods by which millions of Americans vote. This is not politics as usual. This is the slow-motion strangulation of democracy.

Every American who believes in self-government must rise up against this. Governors must prepare to defy such an executive order in court and in practice. State legislatures must assert their constitutional authority.


Attorneys general must be ready to sue. And ordinary citizens must take to the streets, the phones, the ballot box, and every civic space available to declare that this will not stand. Because if it does, we’ll have surrendered the very essence of the American experiment.

We’ve been here before in spirit if not in form.

Ronald Reagan’s campaign cut a deal with the Iranian Ayatollahs to hang onto the hostages until after the election. Richard Nixon tried to sabotage our democracy by killing Lyndon Johnson's peace negotiations with Vietnam and followed-up with burglaries and cover-ups when he thought Democrats were onto him. He was forced to resign. George W. Bush and the GOP stopped the counting of votes in Florida and handed the presidency to themselves. That assault has scarred our politics for decades.


But never — not once in 250 years — has a president openly declared that he will strip states of their constitutional right to run elections, end mail-in voting, and ban voting machines altogether. This is unprecedented, authoritarian, and it must be stopped.

It’s also just one in a broad spectrum of attacks Republicans have launched against your right to vote, with the SAVE Act — which will prevent women from voting if their birth certificate and drivers’ license have different names on them and they’ve never had an official change-of-name in the courts — teed up in the US Senate. All while millions are being purged from the voting rolls as you read these words.

This is the moment when the American people must decide whether they still believe in democracy. If we shrug, if we accept this as just more noise from a corrupt and broken con man, we will lose it. If we wait for someone else to act, we will lose it. If we tell ourselves the courts will save us, we may be bitterly disappointed.

The survival of democracy has never been guaranteed. It has always required vigilance, courage, and action. Now it requires all three from each of us.

Trump’s promised executive order is not just a legal maneuver. It’s a declaration of war against the American people. It’s the dream of every tyrant: to control who votes and who does not, to dictate the rules of elections so that the outcome is predetermined.

What Putin and Trump are proposing is not democracy. It’s not freedom. It’s not America.

And the Republicans who are enabling this treachery are as guilty as Trump himself. They’re betraying their oaths, their constituents, and our country. History will remember them not as conservatives or patriots, but as the gravediggers of our Republic.

This is the line. This is the moment. We cannot let Trump and his cronies bulldoze democracy into the ground at Putin’s command. Every patriot, every progressive, every independent, every honest conservative who still believes in the Constitution must join together and say no.

No to dictatorship. No to disenfranchisement. No to treason.

If we fail now, there may not be another chance.

Bloody Amputation: Trump’s “Peace” for Ukraine

Wednesday 20 August 2025, by David Finkel



THE TRAJECTORY WAS always clear to anyone who was paying attention, and knew how to filter out the noise of Donald Trump’s empty threats of “severe sanctions to destroy Russia’s economy,” let alone 500% tariffs on Russia’s oil customers, if there weren’t an “immediate cease-fire” in the Ukraine war.


When Trump met Vladimir Putin at the Munich-in-Anchorage summit, the agenda was the betrayal of Ukraine. This was ordained from the moment of the Trump-Vance ambush of president Zelensky in their infamous February White House encounter, if not even earlier.

A nation targeted for carveup. (Source: Institute for the Study of War)

It was always Trump’s view, along with the Christian-nationalist far-right sector of the MAGA cult, that the war was Ukraine’s fault from the beginning and that its only option is to surrender on whatever terms Russia’s superior power imposes.

So Trump flew to Alaska blathering cease-fire, while Putin arrived with the proposition for working out a “permanent solution addressing the root causes of the conflict.” That sounds statesmanlike, except for the detail that for Putin’s Russia, the basic “root cause” is Ukraine’s existence as an independent country with the capacity to set its own course and defend itself.

That independent Ukraine is what needs to be eliminated, beginning with the amputation of a fifth of its territory and continuing on to impose a vassal regime. That’s Moscow’s “comprehensive peace” — and Trump of course folded like the cheap empty suit he really is when facing a situation he can’t dominate.

As a bonus, according to Trump, Putin advised him that getting rid of mail-in voting is necessary to guarantee “free elections,” an area in which the Russian president-for-life is a leading expert.

Meanwhile, every day in Gaza dozens of people die of starvation — soon to be hundreds at least — as unrestricted U.S. weapons, not available to Ukraine, flow to Israel’s genocidal slaughter.
European Rescue?

Following the Alaska debacle, European leaders scrambled to Washington to protect the Ukrainian president from a repeat of the February catastrophe. They came deploying the mixture of flattery that Trump requires, with proclamations of solidarity with president Zelensky and phrases of “security guarantees” for Ukraine.

It’s entirely unclear what these hypothetical commitments might mean. Putin immediately responded with 270 drones and missiles hitting Ukrainian civilian and energy infrastructure targets. As The Economist online (August 18) explains:


What Russia cannot get by fighting it is demanding to be given on a plate through the pressure that Donald Trump can put on Ukraine and on America’s European allies. At the top of Vladimir Putin’s shopping-list is the western part of Donetsk province, which is still firmly in Ukrainian hands. But it is not just the symbolism that is important to him. The real prize is to force Ukraine to abandon its strategically critical “fortress belt,” a 30-mile (50km) line that comprises four cities and several towns, which stands in the way not only of Russia’s goal of gaining the whole of Donbas, but also of its ability to threaten other regions.

Not a problem for Trump, evidently. But how then can he get away with perpetrating this treachery?

Truthfully, in the final analysis the fate of Ukraine — like that of Palestine —is not of first-rate importance for the strategic interests of U.S. imperialism. Trump’s buffoonery in the face of a sharp operator like Putin is an American embarrassment, but nothing fatal.

What about the Russian threat? Three years of war have actually demonstrated its relative weakness. If it could not overrun Ukraine, much less could it challenge a middle-rank military state like Poland. What happens to Donetsk, Luhansk and the rest of eastern Ukraine is hugely important for that country and the region, but not for Washington so long as there is no threat of a Europe-wide war.

Since Russia’s all-out invasion in 2022 the United States, first under Biden and now Trump, gave Ukraine’s heroic resistance the weapons and crucial intelligence to prevent Ukraine’s defeat but not to win the war (which would also have been a terminal crisis for the Putin regime).

Today, the greatest dangers for Ukraine and its people appear to be exhaustion and demographic crisis, as the current population of 39 million is sharply down from 52 million at the point of independence in 1991.

For Trump’s family and cronies, Putin’s Russia now appears to present opportunities for business deals and enrichment — on far grander scales than his previous absurdist Mar-a-Gaza resort fantasy.

Meanwhile the genocider Netanyahu has given Trump the gift of a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. Little chance of that (unless the peace prize committee can be bought), but perhaps a special “Neville Chamberlain Peace in Our Time” medal could be struck in the president’s honor.

The small consolation in this episode is that Donald Trump, with all his bullying of people without the power to fight back, is exposed as a blustering fool on the world stage when there’s even a second-tier adversary. To some limited extent, U.S. “world leadership” is also weakened. These are good things, but not worth the sacrifice of Ukraine on the altar of cynicism and expediency.

[The Ukraine Solidarity Network (U.S.) is raising funds for urgently needed medical diagnostic equipment needed by front-line nurses.]

19 August 2025

Source Against the Current.


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David Finkel is an editor of Against the Current, published by the US socialist organization Solidarity (www.solidarity-us.org)

Trump-Putin

No Deals with War Criminals on Alaska Soil

Tuesday 19 August 2025, by Alaska Native Movement



““Alaska’s history teaches us the devastating cost of imperialism and fascism. From the Russian occupation of our lands to Putin’s war in Ukraine and the ongoing oppression in Palestine, we see the same pattern of violence and erasure. We stand with all who resist, because true freedom is collective—none of us are free until all of us are free.” – Enei Begaye, Executive Director Native Movement ”


Anchorage, Alaska – As President Donald Trump prepares to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15 to discuss the Ukrainian crisis, Native Movement stands with Alaskans and those across the country who condemn any attempt to legitimize Russia’s war crimes on Alaskan lands.

Alaska knows the cost of Russian imperialism. For over a century, Russian colonizers stole and exploited land, decimated Alaska Native populations through violence, disease, and enslavement, and erased cultures with religious supremacy. Today, we see the same imperial playbook in Ukraine: annexation of territory, targeting of civilians, and the forcible deportation of over 20,000 Ukrainian children—a war crime under international law.

Alaska’s history with Russian rule doesn’t make us neutral — it makes us witnesses.

The decision to host Putin, a war criminal, on Alaskan soil is a betrayal of our history and the moral clarity demanded by the suffering of Ukraine and other occupied peoples.

Native Movement voices opposition to any deals that force Ukraine to cede territory, reward aggression, or silence the voices of those whose lives are at stake. We stand against the rise of fascism and violent occupation everywhere—whether in Ukraine, Palestine, or here in Alaska. None of us are free until all of us are free.

Alaska’s own experience with resource-driven governance shows how oil wealth erodes democracy and empowers authoritarianism, just as we see in Russia’s war on Ukraine. Hosting war criminals in Alaska is a betrayal of our communities and our future.

Petro-states like Russia and the U.S. have built empires on extractive violence. Oil wealth correlates with increased crime and political corruption. Alaska’s large military presence is tied not to community safety but to protecting oil and gas infrastructure, resource extraction, and broader U.S. economic and military interests.

Meanwhile, Russia floods global markets with hatchery-raised salmon, undercutting Alaska fisheries, destabilizing prices, and threatening wild stocks. These hatcheries, concentrated in Sakhalin and Kamchatka, release hundreds of millions of juvenile salmon annually. Indigenous communities, who have long relied on salmon for food, culture, and spiritual practice, are disproportionately affected. Bycatch isn’t just waste, it’s a symptom of broken systems. Current regulations in the U.S. and Russia ignore the compounding ecological harm and force Indigenous communities to bear the full burden on conservation while outside investors reap the profits.

Therefore, we reject deals that reward extractive violence, whether through war, occupation, or climate destruction. Resource-driven regimes not only silence dissent; they deepen gender inequality and erode community well-being. Petro-states often build national pride around oil wealth, masking inequality and environmental harm. In contrast, Indigenous cultures emphasize stewardship, reciprocity, and sustainability.

We reject any deals that:

Reward extractive violence, whether through war, occupation, or climate destruction

Reward territorial conquest through violence

Legitimize ANY war criminal’s crimes

Ignore the voices of those whose land and lives are at stake

We demand:

No legitimization of war criminals on our soil

Justice for every child stolen from their families

Recognition that territorial sovereignty cannot be negotiated away by outside powers

Accountability for war crimes, not rewards for aggression

Alaska was never Russia’s to sell

The 1867 Treaty of Cession between Russia and the United States is often depicted as a sale of Alaska for $7.2 million. But this narrative erases the sovereignty of Alaska’s Indigenous nations and misrepresents the nature of Russian presence in the region.

Russia’s colonial footprint in Alaska was limited, they never controlled or occupied the whole of Alaska. Defeated in battles with the Tlingit and Ahtna nations, Russian settlers were confined to a few trading posts and some parcels of land. They never fully colonized or controlled the vast territory they claimed.

The Treaty of Cession did not transfer ownership of Alaska; it transferred Russia’s claim to the land, not legal title. Indigenous nations have long-standing governance systems and did not recognize Russian sovereignty. Captain Charles Bryant of the U.S. Treasury Department reported in 1870, the Tlingit "never recognized the Russians as owning their land" and believed Russia had no right to sell it.

Many Alaska Native leaders protested the sale, asserting that they were rightful stewards of the land. The treaty classified Native peoples as "uncivilized tribes," denying us citizenship and legal recognition unless we abandoned our cultures and assimilated to "white man ways." When it should have been settler colonialists assimilating to our way of life, as we thrived and cared for these lands for millennia. This racist framework laid the foundation for genocide, land theft, and cultural erasure.

The sale of Alaska was not a legal transfer of land, but a colonial transaction that ignored Indigenous sovereignty. The U.S. government assumed control without consultation, and Alaska Native peoples were left in legal limbo, denied rights to our own traditional lands and territories, resources, and self-determination.

Today, we reject the legacy of this illegal and unethical sale. We honor the original nations of Alaska, whose stewardship predates colonization and whose rights remain unceded.

Alaska’s Indigenous communities, survivors of Russian colonialism, speak from hard-earned moral authority. We know the pain of land treated as a commodity, people as expendable, and children as property to be seized. Our history makes us witnesses to the struggles of Ukraine, Palestine, and all peoples fighting for their sovereignty and justice for their future generations.

We call on Alaskans and the global community to join us in saying: Not again. Not in Ukraine. Not in Palestine. Not anywhere. Alaskans stands with Ukraine and all oppressed peoples because we know the true cost of imperialism and fascism. No deals with war criminals.

14 August 2025

Source: Native Movement.


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Alaska Native Movement is dedicated to Movement building for social justice and healing. https://www.nativemovement.org/


International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.

Self-Determination for Eastern Ukraine?

by Ted Glick / August 20th, 2025

Completely absent in any of the governmental efforts for the last three and a half years to end the war in Ukraine is the issue of self-determination as it relates concretely to where the on-the-ground war and the huge percentage of casualties are primarily happening.

The principle of nations having the right to make decisions about the form and nature of their governments goes back over 100 years and has long been upheld by the United Nations and most of the world’s governments.

When it comes to the Russia/Ukraine war, this principle clearly applies to Ukraine’s efforts to defend its territory, economy, and form of government from Russia’s 2022 military invasion, intended to extinguish Ukraine as a self-determining country.

But so far, neither the United Nations nor any other country has applied the concept of self-determination to the reality that it is in eastern Ukraine, the four provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, where the path to a just and peaceful end to this terrible war lies. Following a ceasefire and other necessary steps to prepare for them, there should be binding referendums under United Nations supervision so that each of these four provinces can decide whether they want to be part of Russia or part of Ukraine.

It would be essential that these referendums be under the auspices of a neutral entity, which is why the United Nations is the logical choice.

Is this point of view pro-Ukrainian or pro-Russian? It seems to me it is neither. Neither side wants to risk losing territory it considers to be its own via a popular vote, which would put the stamp of political legitimacy on the results. Of course, the alternative seems to be a continuation for years, if not decades, of destructive and dangerous military conflict, tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars wasted, and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of additional deaths.

Would the implementation of such a deal set a precedent for situations elsewhere in the world where there is conflict over territory between more-or-less distinct peoples? It probably would, but is such a precedent a bad thing? In a world where democracy is under threat by fascists and authoritarians, a successful application of the democratic principle of self-determination would be a ray of light, a hopeful development.

Is there an alternative that is more just, more likely to succeed, more likely to end this brutal, destructive, and dangerous war and allow for positive economic and social rebuilding? That must be the objective.

Ted Glick works with Beyond Extreme Energy and is president of 350NJ-Rockland. Past writings and other information, including about Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution, two books published by him in 2020 and 2021, can be found at https://tedglick.com. He can be followed on Twitter at twitter.com/jtglick. Read other articles by Ted.

 

The Sinking Ship of Liberal Zionist Ideology

by Kieran Kelly / August 20th, 2025

For nearly two years now, we have been waiting for that moment when the dam bursts and the true horrific reality of the Gaza Holocaust comes crashing through into the mainstream. Yet every time an atrocity occurs that should fully open everyone’s eyes to the unfolding Holocaust, it becomes obfuscated. Our news media can be relied on to provide cover for Israel because they are deeply compromised at the highest levels. However, there are signs that the system of Israel apologetics is fragile. Zionist ideology has become rigid, and cracks are showing.

Until now, reality has been fighting an uphill battle against a very expensive campaign of propaganda using all of the sophistication and complexity of modern communications. Much of this seems to have been aimed at blunting and confusing opposition rather than winning converts to the cause of genocide and the hatred of Palestinians. By nature, this creates a building tension, a collective cognitive dissonance between the horrors we see and the bland mumbling concerns expressed by our politicians and pundits. The more expert they are in muting the natural alarm and outrage, the more pressure mounts.

I do not want to understate the capacity in the current media ecology for creating complacency and confusion. Still, the great weakness of pro-genocide voices is that they cannot take any criticism whatsoever. When UEFA put out a banner reading “Stop Killing Children – Stop Killing Civilians,” they were accused of “blood libel” by a wide range of Zionists. The highly respected journalist Stephen Pollard posted the sign “They might as well have gone the whole way and written ‘Fuck you, Jews’”. This sort of response may consolidate the siege mentality of their base, but it is not going to reflect well on them around the water cooler or in the pub. Most people tend to lack the nuanced understanding of antisemitic tropes that this hasbara effort relies on. In their vulgar ignorance, they are liable to think that if someone feels personally attacked by a sign saying “stop killing children”, they might have something to hide.

This is coming at a time when liberal Zionists are under pressure to be more critical of what is happening. Simply saying that you don’t like “Netanyahu and the current right-wing government of Israel” à la Bernie Sanders is not going to cut much ice. This situation creates the potential for an explosive end to pro-genocide apologism. For example, the amoeboid creature that, for some inexplicable reason, is currently the Prime Minister of Aotearoa, said that things were bad and that Netanyahu has “lost the plot”. This caused considerable brouhaha, yet in reality, he was adhering strictly to the liberal Zionist party line that this is all a Netanyahu problem of allowing Israel’s perfectly reasonable need to massacre at least some Palestinians after October 7 to go too far.

The amoeba in question was guilty only of using undiplomatic language to say exactly the thing that the US wants its pets to say, yet Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister responded angrily by suggesting that the greatest threat faced by Aotearoa is a possum. In contrast, Israel has to deal with a “jihadi death cult”. I personally would like for her to come to Christchurch and tell that to the survivors of the massacre committed by a fanatical, murderous, racist, Islamophobe just like her. I would like her to explain how she justifies labelling her enemies a “death cult” when the government she is part of has killed at least 500 Palestinian children for every Israeli child killed on October 7.

Racist double-standards aside, the reaction to the Prime Minister’s comment shows that some anti-Palestinian pro-genocide people cannot tolerate any deviation from a very narrow script. They are genuinely angry at the controlled opposition of Western leaders whose job is to gaslight people with their wildly understated reactions and tepid criticisms. This has been a great strength in the past, with liberal Zionists able to burnish their credibility with the condemnations from zealots, but reality is starting to intrude.

The current fashionable liberal Zionist exit strategy from their past embrace of genocide is to become suddenly concerned over starving children and to reiterate that they have always been for a two-state solution, but is that a defensible position?

The best way I can illustrate the problem facing Zionists is with a hypothetical example featuring a true liberal’s liberal. Pete Buttigieg (a man, incidentally, who once took great personal umbrage at a random sign saying “don’t be a shitlib”) was interviewed on Pod Save America. Matt Lieb of the Bad Hasbara podcast summarised his inauthentic rodent vibes on this occasion by dubbing him “Rat-GPT”, which seems reasonable.

On Pod Save America, Buttigieg, the former Mayor of South Bend (and first openly gay rodent to be US Transport Secretary) said that the US shouldn’t support things that are “unconscionable” and that “…[We are] Israel’s strongest ally and friend. You put your arm around your friend when there’s something like this going on and talk about what we’re prepared to do together.” The host’s reaction to this was not the nausea and rage that it should have provoked. He was as calm as if they were talking about a neighbour who was over-watering the houseplants but prickly about accepting advice. I do not know this Pod Save America guy from any other context. Still, I don’t need to because on the screen I can see two disgusting racists who would never use these words or maintain this casual chatting demeanour if the same atrocities were happening to a less demonised group.

Imagine, though, if Buttigieg had been pressed on the details of what is “unconscionable”.

We don’t live in a world where anyone that Buttigieg would agree to talk to would question why the starving of children is somehow worse than shooting them, burning them, and burying them alive. Nor would we expect any interviewer to contextualise the current starving children (that so troubles the liberal conscience) with the mountains and mountains of evidence that Israelis have targeted and killed children in systematic ways for many years. We might, however, see someone asking for specifics about what is “unconscionable”, and for the liberal Zionist, there is no right answer for that.

Clearly, if you say that Israel is deliberately starving children, you will be attacked violently for “blood libel”. In fact, if you don’t endorse the claim that starvation is all the fault of the Khamas jihadi death cult, you are clearly a self-hating Zionist, a Zionist-in-name-only, and an as-a-Zionist. A single sound-bite to the effect that Israel means to do all the terrible things it does is sufficient to send the Israel lobby money stampeding away from you and into the arms of the ratfuckers (which admittedly would be a fitting and amusing end for Buttigieg’s political career).

Liberal Zionists are trying to walk an impossible line. They want to condemn Israel in the abstract only, while avoiding any mention of what they are condemning so as not to bring down the wrath of AIPAC-on-high that will smite them with ineluctable finality and having smit move on. Whether it is from a media interrogation or from public pressure, some of them will be forced into breaking with the genocidal project. They will be rejected from the Israel supporters club because if you can’t handle the Jewish state at their mass-slaughtering holocaust worst, you don’t deserve them at their Western liberal yoga-loving gay-person-accepting settler-colonial apartheid slow-genocide creeping annexation best.

Wembley Stadium is booked in September for Brian Eno’s “Together for Palestine” one night and a Kneecap gig the next night. This is a sure sign that opposing genocide is becoming pretty mainstream all of a sudden. In these circumstances, we can truly hope that people like Rat-GPT will be forced to flee the sinking ship of the Jewish-supremacist state.

In the meantime, there is a lesson for humble believers in the Palestinian cause, even those not able to get Pete Buttigieg to agree to come on their podcast, because there are implications for the liberal Zionists, the philo-semitic apologists, the Israel exceptionalists, the casual racists, and the Islamophobes in our day-to-day lives. If you find someone wavering in their commitment to “Israel’s right to defend itself from Khamas,” encourage them to express what it is that they are concerned about in Israel’s behaviour. They have lived in an environment where, despite the real-world asymmetry, it is the crimes of Palestinians that have been emphasised and given the weight of emotion and essential meaning. Israel, for them, is only reacting. Once they start to see Israel go beyond any justification, even in the fantasy they have been immersed in, then they may start to think of Palestinian resistance as the justified response. The more they start to think about these things, the sooner they will realise that this is not an occasion for mild or partial criticisms. Some might even admit that they were wrong and it wasn’t all legitimate self-defence until some arbitrary time when they personally deigned to stop making excuses for the death and suffering in Gaza. Stranger things have happened.

Remember that things that can’t go on forever don’t. Palestine will be free.

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Kieran Kelly can be found at ongenocide.com; Bluesky @krkelly.bsky.social; Youtube @smashingpolitics; UpScrolled @ongenocide. Read other articles by Kieran.