It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
CRT
Oregon Black Pioneers: Exclusion Laws, Sundown Provisos, Racism in the Oregon Trail State
Our Own "Indian" Killing Settler-Colonialists
by Paul Haeder / August 18th, 2025
I had Zachary Stocks on my radio show, which will air Sept. 17. He’s a busy man, working as ED of this non-profit, covering the state of Oregon discussing Oregon Black Pioneers’ history outreach. Listen HERE.
Oregon Black Pioneers is Oregon’s only historical society dedicated to preserving and presenting the experiences of African Americans statewide. For more than 30 years, we’ve illuminated the seldom-told stories of people of African descent in Oregon through our engaging exhibits, public programs, publications, and historical research. Additionally, we partner with local organizations to identify, interpret, and preserve sites with African American historical significance.
Our Mission is to research, recognize, and commemorate the history and heritage of African Americans in Oregon.
Below is a piece in Dissident Voice covering some of Stocks’ work here in Waldport, Oregon, population 2,300 of all places where a Black slave came after spending a thousand dollars to pay for his freedom.
I’m going to go off a bit (not really) with inserting Gerald Horne, who does see the settlers in Jewish Israel now calling for the IDF to push the natives off the land as akin to the settlers in the Oregon and Washington Territories demanding the army to kill the Indians. And, so they, the government, didn’t come through so these pioneers and settlers went after the native tribes.
On December 7, 1855, a four-day battle begins between Oregon volunteers and the Walla Wallas and other tribes. Tensions have been growing that year between many of the Native American tribes of the interior Pacific Northwest and the increasing numbers of newly arriving settlers. Some tribes have been coerced into signing treaties that grant most of their ancestral lands to the United States, whose citizens are beginning to crowd into the area. The Yakamas, under the leadership of Kamiakin (ca. 1800-1877) and others of his family, were in open defiance of encroaching non-Native settlers and battled with volunteer territorial militias. With their resistance reduced, the territorial volunteers turn to other tribes that have been asserting themselves, including the Walla Wallas under their chief, Peo-Peo-Mox-Mox. Marching into their stronghold in the Walla Walla River valley, the First Oregon Mounted Volunteers defeat the Walla Wallas and their allies in a four-day running battle. Before the fight, chief Peo-Peo-Mox-Mox had been taken hostage and, during the first day of the battle, he and other hostages are killed. The Walla Wallas will never fully recover from the campaign. The next year, federal troops will take over the fighting and, following a series of battles during 1858, most Indian military resistance in the interior Pacific Northwest will be defeated.
My old stomping grounds, Spokane, the Spokane Falls Community College, where I taught, on Fort George Wright Boulevard, near Hang Man or Latah Ccreek. I lobbied to have that fucking road name changed, but to no avail.
Upon his arrest, Qualchan noticed his imprisoned father and wept. As soldiers attempted to hang Qualchan it was said by his companion Seven Mountains that “Qualchan twice summoned the power of the mist and twice the rope broke”. Qualchan’s executioners bound his arms and legs and he was slowly strangled to death. With his words almost as cold as his actions, Wright’s only mention of the event in his journal read: “Qualchan came to see me at 9 o’clock, at 9:15 he was hanged.” One day after helplessly witnessing his son’s murder, Chief Owhi was shot dead as he attempted an escape. Over three days another dozen or so Indians were hanged as well, all without a trial.
Qualchan’s death was only the beginning of what could be considered a hanging spree by Wright. Only one day after the killings, Wright had six members of the Palus tribe hanged, including a chief. Similar to Qualchan, they were hanged after approaching Wright’s camp with a white flag attempting to negotiate peace. Wright was a busy man for the month of September as he had almost 1,000 horses and at least seven men murdered for the cause of westward expansion.
September 24, 1858:
“There was no timber close to where they camped, but they planted a large stick in the ground and nailed a cross stick on it; tied my husband’s legs together, his hands behind his back, put a rope around his neck and strangled him to death…they must have seen from the expression of my face that I anguished, but they heeded not”. These are the words of Whist-alks, wife of Yakama leader Qualchan who witnessed her husband’s death under orders of Col. George Wright.
As Qualchan’s wife Whist-alks rode into Col. Wright’s encampment, she plunged a spear into the ground near Wright’s tent. The spear was an entrance for Qualchan and a symbol of his intent to negotiate peace with Wright. The “lance” was covered with “solid beadwork”, noted one soldier in the camp.
Western history is rife with epic clashes between well-armed Indian tribes and masses of United States soldiers: the Plains Indian Wars including Red Cloud’s War and the Great Sioux Wars, and the subjugation of the Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, and Apache in the Southwest. But for all their open confrontations, federal commanders backed by military force also engaged in campaign after campaign of fear and terror—usually sparked by greed for Indian lands. Frequently, they were carried out with a blend of self-righteousness, prevarication, and unwarranted and unjust brutality. Col. George Wright’s foray against the tribes of the Upper Columbia Plateau in Washington in the summer and fall of 1858 was just such an ignominious campaign. Sparked by a need to show force and strengthen or create treaties, Wright’s advance devolved into a bloody and vindictive march featuring hangings, burned villages, lies and coercion, and the slaughter of nearly 700 Indian horses.
The two-month-long sortie did permanently suppress the region’s native people, and settlers appreciated his effectiveness. Some 44 years later, the New York Times referred to it as “one of the most brilliant campaigns in the history of Indian warfare.” But Colonel Wright’s own words at the time were more to the point:
“For the last eighty miles our route has been marked by slaughter and devastation.”
This disgusting “religion,” that Mitt Romney vulture religion:
York’s parents, known as Old York and Rose were enslaved by John Clark. York, who was about the same age as John Clark’s son William, became a body servant to young William.
“York was connected to Clark from very early on in his life,” says Hasan Davis, who has been researching and portraying York for more than two decades. “York was going to be William’s first slave, his gift as a young man, his companion.”
York and Clark grew up together, the enslaved and the enslaver, and formed a close and complicated bond.
“What that looks like—from accounts of enslaved hand servants, personal valet slaves at that time—was that York would have been acculturated with Clark, so much so that York would be able to be in alignment with Clark as far as how they feel and how they experience the world,” says Davis.
Growing up enslaved by the Clarks, York accompanied William Clark nearly everywhere and gained skills on the frontier at his side. York would eventually use these skills when he went West with the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
“When Lewis and Clark had their list of the qualities they needed, York would have nearly checked all of those off,” says Davis. “He was a trained frontiersman because he grew up with a family that was on the frontier. He understood how to navigate the rivers because that was a thing that they did. Clark talks about York in his letters, saying he was setting the boat up the river and doing his work. So York was important to Clark because he was the holder of Clark’s memory and work on a daily basis. I think as they grew up, that would have been a very powerful part of what made York useful to Clark.”
When Clark was called by Meriwether Lewis to co-lead the Corps of Discovery west to the Pacific Ocean, Clark was in his early thirties. Davis imagines the decision to bring York was an easy one. Not only did York possess useful skills, a large build, and strength, he was also a constant in Clark’s life that he could bring with him on the journey into the unfamiliar.
Quote by Hasan Davis.
“On the expedition into the unknown, there are a lot of things that you can’t account for, and if something went wrong and there was a mutiny, Clark wanted to have the biggest, strongest guy behind him, without any question that he would be there to back him up,” Davis says. “Clark knew that he always had someone with him who was always going to be his protector, his provider, his support system. If all things in the world failed Clark, I believe, could believe and imagine that York was going to be the most constant thing in his life.”
The celebration was lively: in the small town of Waldport, Oregon, a few hundred finally gathered to see the statue’s unveiling. We heard a Gulf Coast guy, Truman Price, a violinist, play music on his fiddle reminiscent of the tunes of 1880s which would have been played by the historical person cast in bronze. A sculptor showed up, Peter Helzer, and his daughter, too, who was on the banjo with Truman and another fellow playing guitar. The story is of a slave, brought to Oregon by his “owner,” James Southworth. Oh, those Oregon Black Exclusion laws initiated in 1844, stating that any Black individuals or families attempting to settle here would be whipped 39 times, and repeated until they left. The Oregon Constitution in 1859 made it illegal for African Americans to live in Oregon. That law was repeated in 1926.
The state of Oregon, man, whew. When I was working in downtown Portland, two of my social services colleagues, both Black, said they had not seen the amount of racism in Portland compared to Texas and Georgia where they had came from. “It’s not overt, more like sort of hidden, but these white colleagues, liberals, they say some pretty racist stuff to say, profess. They might think it’s passive bigotry, but the state’s history, the sundown laws, and the racist cops and sheriff departments all speak to me as a black man who is definitely feeling the racism.”
So, Louis Southworth was sent to the Nevada and California gold fields in the 1870s by his enslaver, and he came back with money he saved from work, but mostly from entertaining camps with his fiddle. He bought his freedom at age 28, lived in Buena Vista, did blacksmith work while learning how to read and write.
He came out to this area, Oregon, on the Pacific, Alsea, homesteading with his wife; about five miles up the river from Waldport.
He ran a ferry, moving people, hay and other cargo. He ended up chair of the school board, and donated land for the schoolhouse and still played his fiddle.
So, 2022, November 19, the fun was had by all, and there is land dedicated to a Southworth Park, and the statue will be placed there, and there will be more ceremonies. The donated land Southworth gave for the first schoolhouse is now a field where the park will be built, named after him, with the statue.
I have the text of the dedicatory remarks made by an African American, Zachary Stocks, who is executive director of Oregon Black Pioneers. He set the record straight on the life and times of not only Southworth, but how his story is that of all Blacks, then, and now. It is an odd thing that this town, which is partially built on burial grounds of the first people, Alsi (Salish folk), is putting up a statue of a Black American, who bought his freedom using the fiddle as his conduit to freedom.
There are no dedicatory memorials to the Siletz and Alsi. I’ve written about that before, and down at Devil’s Churn, there is a cemented-and-walled-in cave with a really hard-to-read sign telling the odd visitor who might stray off the path and go over rocks to see the sign mostly covered by bushes. Traditional clamming grounds of tribes. I’ve talked to people who have lived here 50 years and they never ventured off the paved path at Devil’s Churn and seen the sign. Here’s my poem about Amanda, an Indigenous Woman forcefully marched to Yachats, barefoot and blind. “Not Just One of those Tales of Another Dead Indian“
Again, these stories, these events, since I’ve been around the world, embroiled in social justice movements, anti-racism movements, and, well, I have my take on the history of the USA and the world. Here, Peter and Zach, taking off the cover to give the crowd the Louis statue of him fiddling.
Here, Carol Van Strum, next to Louis. She’s been featured in several stories I’ve written, and her fiction novel, The Oreo File, has a mixed race protagonist and lots about Louis Southworth. Read my piece on Carol and her fight against the forest service and state with their sprays (pesticides) that have caused genetic damage and other chronic illnesses: “A real-life Toxic Avenger“.
She also has her own story of a Black son, Jordan, who was put in jail for a murder he did not commit: Read my piece on his story, and Carol’s here: “A letter a day for 15 years and 9 months.” She came down from her Five Rivers house, 30 minutes away, to meet the artist and to give him a copy of her book, signed. I was there taking 100 photos, talking to various people I knew and those I just met.
Here, Peter is messing with a 110 year old violin an elderly lady from Waldport (she actually is from all over, and said this violin was made in Iowa, and she was a concert violinist until she broke her neck and could no longer play).
Here’s Zach’s organization website, Oregon Black Pioneers. Here’s just some of what he said at the ceremony:
Just before his death in 1917, it was reported that Louis Southworth was denied a military pension because his name wasn’t recorded in the volunteer lists. And this, despite a testimonial written on his behalf by his former commanding officer. In response, 218 Oregonians sent in donations totaling $243 to help cover Louis’ living expenses in his final days. Some of those people might be relatives of folks in this room. But it saddens me, that someone who had achieved so much would be forced to live on the charity of others.
All of this demonstrates how Louis Southworth seemed to live multiple lives. Slave and freeman; laborer and entrepreneur; squatter and homesteader; soldier and pauper; excluded and included. Louis was not just a jolly old man living quietly in the background. He actively participated in some of the most significant events in the history of Oregon.
And more than perhaps any other person, Louis’s time in Oregon spans the most transformational moments for Black Americans in the state. Consider this– around the year Louis Southworth was born, York, the first Black person to reach Oregon by land, died, likely less than 200 miles away. The year Louis Southworth died, Mercedes Diez, who would go on to become Oregon’s first Black judge in the 1970s, was born. Louis is a link in the chain of historic Black individuals that stretches from 1770 to 2005!
That is how close we are to the past. A great colleague of mine named Richard Josey once posed an amazing question at a museum conference. He asked, “What kind of ancestor will you be?”. Let’s look to the example of Louis Southworth, whose story and accomplishments have inspired people, then and now. And whose resiliency was matched only by his generosity. A truly historic person.
I did learn from several farmers, including Tom Bailey, that when the facility was being built, many African Americans were brought into this dryland of Washington on the Columbia River. The Tri-Cities of Richland-Kennewick-Pasco. There was a part of town where the blacks lived, there were a few black establishments including bars and stores, and black churches. The justice for these workers was harsh, or should I say, the injustice. That facility was being built in the 1940s. I was shown some of the places, both still standing and others decrepit and falling apart.
Then, in Portland, Vanport, I got my education on that racist history. Here, a website, Hidden History:
Race is not a topic we often discuss in public settings, at least not explicitly. We are told we are in a “postracial” landscape, yet race is the number one determinant of access to health care, home ownership, graduation rates, and income, as the data from the Urban League of Portland below show.
We can’t understand these disparities without understanding history. I didn’t grow up in Oregon; I moved here to attend high school. It wasn’t until I had the privilege of attending a presentation by Darrell Millner, founder of Portland State University’s Black Studies Department, that I learned Oregon was created as a white utopian homeland. That Oregon was the only state that entered the Union with a clause in its constitution forbidding Black people to live here. That the punishment originally meted out for violating this exclusionary law was the “Lash Law”: public whipping every six months until the Black person left the state. That this ideology shaped Oregon’s entire history and was reflected in the larger history of this nation. — Walidah Imarisha
Again, laborers, workers, coming to Portland in the 1940s to help sustain the construction of homes, warehouses, other buildings for its rapid growth. Vanport was built as a temporary housing solution to Portland’s rapidly growing population. At its peak it housed nearly 40,000 residents, close to 40 percent were African-American. But an unusually wet spring in 1948 created a hole in the railroad dike blocking the Columbia River, and it erupted into massive flooding. City officials didn’t warn residents of the dangerously high water levels and opted not to evacuate. The town was wiped out within a day and 18,500 families were displaced, more than a third African-American.
So, the Albina section of Portland was the only place for Blacks, but with these displaced folk, some of which were taken in by other families, black and white, they had not other place in Portland to live. Many left the area. Now? Gentrification, racist policing, and, yep, with my Masters in Urban Planning, lots of redlining and zoning issues tied to making African Americans personas non grata. It’s disgusting.
The great Southern Migration, years after Southworth passed on in 1919. Many now living in Stumptown know nothing about that migration of Black men and women arriving to Portland by the many thousands, increasing Portland’s black population tenfold in a few years. Between 1940 and 1950, the city’s black population increased more than any West Coast city other than Oakland and San Francisco.
It was part of a demographic change seen in cities across America, as blacks left the South for the North and West in what became known as the Great Migration, or what Isabel Wilkerson, in her acclaimed history of the period, The Warmth of Other Suns, calls “the biggest underreported story of the 20th century.” From 1915 to 1960, nearly six million blacks left their Southern homes, seeking work and better opportunities in Northern cities, with nearly 1.5 million leaving in the 1940s, seduced by the call of WWII industries and jobs. Many seeking employment headed West, lured by the massive shipyards of the Pacific coast. (Source)
Here we are in this complicated story, 2022, where Native Americans have been pushed out by the Old World coming into this continent for making money, exploiting land, moving immigrants to lay claim on land for farming and settlements with no regard to the hundreds of American Indian tribes. The Indian war lasted over three hundred years, from 1602 to 1926. Almost every buffalo in the 60 million population was exterminated, as a way to kill American Indian culture.
I’ve got some time at Fort Huachuca, the home of the Buffalo Soldier, the African American union soldiers who also did their duty to help pacify and exterminate the Indians. The First African American troops to arrive in Arizona at Fort Huachuca were the Buffalo Soldiers in the 1890s — the 9th and 10th Cavalries. The Fort Huachuca Buffalo Soldiers distinguished themselves in the Spanish American War and the charge up San Juan Hill.
The African American Soldier At Fort Huachuca, Arizona, 1892-1946 American Plains Indians who fought against these soldiers referred to the black cavalry troops as “buffalo soldiers” because of their dark, curly hair, which resembled a buffalo’s coat and because of their fierce nature of fighting. The nickname soon became synonymous with all African-American regiments formed in 1866.
You can read my piece coming out November 23 here at Dissident Voice, you know, for National Day of Mourning. The so-called Thanksgiving (for whom?). Again, the Southworth story is amazing, but it conjures up many issues tied to the Indian Removal actions of the many who came into their lands and stole. Sure, the series, The English, is just one aspect of those dirty Anglo Saxons coming out here to kill Indians: Yeah, it is a six part romance thing:
Or Terrance Malick’s, The New World:
Or the Redford produced, The American West.
Complicated feelings for me living on burial ground, by the Alsea River, in the old part of Waldport, and I can almost see that field, that soon-to-be Southworth Park. So many homeless, so many domestic violence cases, so many Native youth in schools here doing not so well. So many backward thinkers, and then all the transplants, who, well, they go to the Southworth show, but would they come to a lecture and viewing on Black Panthers’s struggles, or for on “In Prison My Whole Life – Mumia Abu-Jamal (Documentary)”
I am Not your Negro and Exterminate all the beasts:
Here, I’ll let Zach have the last word:
All of the images feature a seated Louis Southworth wearing a shabby coat and holding his fiddle. In one, he is facing away from the camera in his living room, and in the other where he is looking directly into the camera with a smile. The former was used on the cover of Elizabeth McLagan’s landmark 1980 book, A Peculiar Paradise: A History of Blacks in Oregon, 1788-1940; the latter is featured on Louis’ headstone in Crystal Lake Cemetery in Corvallis. The epitaph reads “A bit of heaven’s music here below”.
Louis’ smile is infectious, and when you look at him, it almost feels as if you know him personally. No doubt, these photos continue to inspire appreciation for Louis. But unfortunately, we should question why these photos were made, and what they were meant to represent to viewers in 1915.
John Horner was not a journalist, but an anthropologist at Oregon State University, and the founder of the city’s first museum. He was a proponent of phrenology, and in his lab, he studied human skulls which he had stolen from Native graves to try and find proof of racial hierarchies. In 1931, he was hired to investigate a grave site at Three Rocks –not far from here—and determined that one of these skulls had [quote] “an extremely thick skull, indicative of negroid characteristics”. This skull too, was taken back to Horner’s lab for study.
Why would this anthropologist take photos and write an article about Louis Southworth? I can’t help but think of the staged images of Indigenous peoples that anthropologists and photographers used to document the tragedy of the supposedly-“vanishing” Indians. Edward Curtis’ “The North American Indian” had been first exhibited only eight years earlier. It seems to me that Horner was making a similar documentation of Louis. No one was suggesting that Black Americans were disappearing from Oregon in the 1910s –in fact, Oregon’s Black population was the highest it had ever been—but Louis represented something different. He too, was the last of his kind. The last of the enslaved Oregonians; the last trace of the “Old South” which had emigrated west during the pioneer days.
White Oregonians could be pleased by the “Uncle Lou” they saw in the newspaper, while at the same time, be virulently opposed to the growing Black progressive class in Portland. The same year this article was printed, Oregon voters rejected a ballot measure to repeal the state’s ban on interracial marriage, and rejected a measure to remove the Black exclusion language from the Oregon Constitution, even though it was no longer legally enforceable.
It still was a moving day for me, for sure, in its own way. I also told Zach and a few others I’d be writing something about the event, but to not expect some inverted Triangle News Piece. I can never take away the genuine feelings people yesterday expressed for this history, this man, and the park.
Paul Haeder's been a teacher, social worker, newspaperman, environmental activist, and marginalized muckraker, union organizer. Paul's book, Reimagining Sanity: Voices Beyond the Echo Chamber (2016), looks at 10 years (now going on 17 years) of his writing at Dissident Voice. Read his musings at LA Progressive. Read (purchase) his short story collection, Wide Open Eyes: Surfacing from Vietnam now out, published by Cirque Journal. Here's his Amazon page with more published work Amazon. Read other articles by Paul, or visit Paul's website.
US Human Rights Report on Venezuela Doesn’t Pass the Mirror Test
by Roger D. Harris / August 19th, 2025
The US State Department’s latest Human Rights Report condemns Venezuela for serious abuses. Weaponizing human rights, accusations are selectively applied to serve a destabilization campaign. In this article, a mirror is held up to Uncle Sam to see how well “America the beautiful” holds up to the same charges, while also exposing the role of sanctions, compliant NGOs, and military threats in Washington’s hybrid war on Venezuela.
The carceral state
The US report indicts Venezuela for “arbitrary or unlawful killings.” Meanwhile, in the land of the free, police killings hit a record high in 2024. Impunity is high with charges brought against offending officers in fewer than 3% of cases. The FBI itself admits that transparency is hampered.
Prolonged solitary confinement, recognized as torturous, is widespread in US prisons and ICE detention centers, affecting over 122,000 people daily. A US Senate report on torture documented CIA abuses, yet meaningful accountability has failed. Hundreds of political prisoners languish in penitentiaries in the US and in Guantánamo, the majority of whom are people of color. Roughly 70% of local jail inmates are held in pretrial detention, often pressured with coercive plea deals, undermining equality before the law.
The US has the largest prison population in the world (about 1.8 to 2 million) and an incarceration rate over 2.5 times greater than Venezuela’s. Even after release, about four million citizens remain disenfranchised due to felony convictions, disproportionately affecting Black communities.
Freedom to protest
Washington faults Venezuela for limiting freedom of expression. Yet, numerous US states have passed or considered anti-protest laws (e.g., “critical infrastructure” bills) that civil-liberties groups warn chill peaceful assembly.
Reporters without Borders (RSF) observes, “the country is experiencing its first significant and prolonged decline in press freedom in modern history.” This accusation is particularly notable because RSF is stronglybiased in support of the US and receives funding from the State Department and the National Endowment for Democracy. Arrests and detentions of journalists surged in 2024; schoolbook bans spiked across 29 states. In April 2024, Congress reauthorized and expanded FISA §702, enabling warrantless surveillance according to legal scholars.
As the US-based Black Alliance for Peace observes, “domestic repression in the US colonial/capitalist core is imperative to support the aggressive militarism abroad.”
This coupling of domestic subjugation with the international is painfully evident with the US imperialist/Israeli zionist aggression abroad in Gaza, while pro-Palestine advocates are suppressed at home. Zionist curricula are being imposed at all levels of education; at least half of the US states now require so-called “Holocaust education.” Pro-Palestine faculty, students, and staff are being purged.
Washington’s accusation of Venezuelan antisemitism cites President Nicolás Maduro calling Israel’s assault on Gaza “the most brutal genocide” since Hitler. Its charge of antisemitism conflates Venezuela’s political criticism of the zionist state with hatred of the Jewish religion. If “antisemitism” includes Muslim Arabs, US culpability is so blatant that it requires no additional documentation.
Meanwhile, the US accuses Venezuela of failing to protect refugees and asylum seekers. This projection does not deserve any rebuttal other than to mention that the US has a documented history of family separation of migrants and deaths in custody.
Likewise, the world’s rogue nation does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and similar institutions, while reproaching Caracas for attempting to “misuse international law.” If anything, the Maduro government has gone out of its way to defend international law with initiatives upholding the UN Charter.
Social welfare
The US report scolds Venezuela for a minimum wage “under the poverty line.” Yet, its own federal minimum wage has been $7.25/hour since 2009; insufficient to lift a full-time worker out of poverty.
A UN special rapporteur for human rights estimated that sanctions – more properly “unilateral coercive measures” – by the US and allies have caused over 100,000 excess deaths in Venezuela. Yet purported human rights NGOs Amnesty International (AI), Human Rights Watch (HRC), and the Washington Office on Latin American (WOLA) omit this glaring human toll in their reports on human rights in Venezuela.
Predictably, they make nearly identical evaluations of the Venezuelan human rights situation as does the US-dominated Organization of American States (OAS) and the US State Department itself. Their reports (AI, HRW, WOLA, US, OAS) either ignore or, at best, make passing references to the sanctions. No mention is made of the illegality of sanctions under international law – they are a form of collective punishment.
In other contexts, the NGOs have acknowledged the horrific human impact of sanctions. Regardless, they were in a panic that the Trump administration might ease sanctions over the Chevron license, thus rewarding bad behavior. For these soft power apparatchiks of the US imperial project, the pain endured by the Venezuelans is worth it. WOLA has been particularly vocal about counseling against direct US military intervention, when sanctions afford an equally lethal but less obvious form of coercion.
Hybrid war on Venezuela
In his first term, Donald Trump levied a $15m bounty on Maduro, framing the Venezuela government as a transnational criminal enterprise tied to terrorism. This lowered the potential threshold for extraordinary US measures. Joe Biden seamlessly upped the bounty to $25m, which Trump then doubled on August 7.
Evidence-free allegations linking the Venezuelan president to the dismantled Tren de Aragua drug cartel, the fictitious Cartel of the Suns criminal organization, and the actual Sinaloa Cartel (which is in Mexico) were conveniently used to justify invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which is supposed to be a wartime measure. This is coupled with the designation of drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) and periodic threats of US military intervention.
This is from the country that is the world’s biggest launderer of illicit drug money and the largest consumer of illicit drugs. Even US agencies recognize that very few of these US-bound drugs move through Venezuela.
Most recently, the US deployed an additional 4,000 troops and warships to the Caribbean and around Latin America. Venezuela responded by mobilizing its navy in its territorial waters.
Leading Venezuelan opposition politician MarÃa Corina Machado expressed her “immense gratitude” for the imperialist measures against her country. In contrast, thousands of her compatriots took the opposite stance and marched in protest. Venezuela-American Michelle Ellner calls the US policy “a green light for open-ended US military action abroad, bypassing congressional approval, sidestepping international law.”
Weaponizing human rights for regime change
Venezuela is caught in a hybrid war that is as deadly as if it were being bombed. Washington’s strangling of its economy, making wild accusations against its leaders, sponsoring opponents, and threatening armed interventions are all designed to provoke and destabilize. Venezuela’s response is best seen as self-defense against an immensely powerful foreign bully that exploits any weakness, imperfection, or lapse in vigilance.
The US weaponizes human rights to overthrow Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution. Its exaggerated or outright fabricated allegations are echoed by the “human rights industry.” Where problems exist, they must be viewed in the context of US economic warfare, which has strained Venezuelan institutions. North Americans genuinely concerned about Venezuelan human rights should be highly skeptical of corporate media reports and recognize the need to end US interference. Escalating provocations will only necessitate Venezuela’s greater defensiveness.
Cancelling the Ethnic Cleansers: Australia Revokes Simcha Rothman’s Visa
by Binoy Kampmark / August 19th, 2025
It is a curious feeling to see a government, let alone any politician, suddenly find their banished backbones and retired principles. The spine, on being discovered, adds a certain structural integrity to arguments otherwise lacking force and credibility. The recent spat between Israel and Australia suggests that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s often insecure and often overly cautious administration is starting to show some muscle and certitude.
The cancellation of Simcha Rothman’s visa by the Albanese government was something of a minor revelation. Rothman is a member of Mafdal-Religious Zionism, a party led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich that has made its position on Palestinians unmistakably clear. (Smotrich became the subject of sanctions by Australia along with Canada, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom in June for “inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.”) As a certain garden variety shrub of hate, he decries countries for not taking in Palestinians as part of an approved ethnic cleansing program, accusing them of “aiding and abetting a terrorist organisation using them as human shields”. In an interview with Australia’s national broadcaster, Rothman made his primary colour position clear: “I think the government of Australia needs to decide, do they want to be on the side of Hamas, or do they want to be on the side of Israel?”
The letter of revocation stated that he would be engaged in events that would “promote his controversial views and ideologies, which may lead to fostering division in the community”. Being in Australia “would or might be a risk to the good order of the Australian community or a segment of the Australian community, namely, the Islamic population”.
Adduced examples of demerit included arguments that Palestinian children were not perishing from hunger in the Gaza Strip, that those children, in any case, were enemies of the Israeli state, along with the notion that the two-state solution had “poisoned the minds of the entire world”. The nature of such “inflammatory statements” might, were Rothman to enter Australia licensed by the government, “encourage others to feel emboldened to voice any anti-Islamic sentiments, if not to take action to give effect to that prejudice”.
Far from engaging these reasons, Rothman’s enchantingly shrunken worldview was clear in its chiselled simplicity: Australia was behaving undemocratically, its government falsely claiming to argue against “hate and division” despite permitting protestors “to shout on the streets calls for genocide of the Jewish people.”
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar was quick in response, revoking the residency visas of Australia’s diplomatic representatives responsible for affairs concerning the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. “I also instructed the Israeli Embassy in Canberra to carefully examine any official Australian visa application for entry to Israel,” Sa’ar fumed on X.
In this apoplectic reaction, no one seemed to recall that Australia had already revoked the visa of a former Israeli justice minister, Ayelet Shaked, at the end of October last year over what Australia’s Home Minister Tony Burke described as “concerns she would threaten social cohesion”. Shaked had been slated to attend events organised by the Australia Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC). Admittedly, she was a former politician rather than a sitting member of the Israeli parliament.
In an interview with the Erin Molan Show, an otherwise underwhelming program, Sa’ar recapitulated his cranky position. “This is the opposite of what should be done,” he objected. “Instead of battling antisemitism in Australia, the Australian government is doing the opposite – they are fuelling it.”
The Palestinian Authority surprised nobody in calling the measure to cancel visas “illegal and in violation of the Geneva Conventions, international law, the United Nations resolutions, which do not grant the occupying power such authority.” The statement went on to stress “that such actions reflect Israeli arrogance and a state of political imbalance, and will only strengthen Australia’s and other countries’ determination to uphold international law, the two-state solution, and recognition of the State of Palestine as the path to peace.”
Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, also thought this all a bit much. Calling the decision to cancel the visas of Australia’s diplomats in the West Bank an “unjustified reaction” to Canberra’s decision to recognise Palestine, Wong felt confident enough to retort that the Israeli decision had been foolish. “At a time when dialogue and diplomacy are needed more than ever, the Netanyahu Government is isolating Israel and undermining international efforts towards peace and a two-state solution.”
This messiness was appropriately crowned by that grand figure of demagoguery himself, the Israeli Prime Minister. “History will remember Albanese for what he is: A weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews,” came the scornful blast from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli PM is certainly not wrong about Albanese being weak, but mistaken about what he has been weak about. Most intriguingly, Albanese has found some courage on this front, albeit the sort of courage fortified by allies. But that’s something.
Gen. David Allvin, chief of staff for the U.S. Air Force, was appointed to a four-year term under former President Joe Biden and ex-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. But now, according to reporting in the Washington Post and the Daily Beast, he is being forced out only two years into that term — a development that, Dan Lamothe and Tara Copp report in the Post, is "sending shockwaves through the Pentagon."
Allvin's resignation, according to Lamothe and Copp, was confirmed by Pentagon officials on Monday, August 19. And his departure is consistent with a pattern that is occurring under President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Lamothe and Copp report, "Allvin's impending departure follows the firings of several other senior military officers since Trump's return to the White House this year, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the chief of naval operations, the commandant of the Coast Guard, and the vice chief of staff of the Air Force. Generals and admirals serving in less prominent roles also have been purged, sending shockwaves through the Pentagon and much of the U.S. military, where stability typically is seen as an asset."
A Pentagon source, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told the Post that Allvin had a choice of either announcing his resignation or getting fired. And he agreed to step down if he could make the announcement himself.
According to the Pentagon source, "It was certainly not his choice."
Lamothe and Copp report, "Allvin was informed last week that he would be asked to retire and that the Pentagon, under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, wanted to go in another direction, said a person familiar with the matter, who, like some others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue."
Although Allvin didn't give a specific reason for his departure in his resignation announcement, a Post source, according to Lamothe and Copp, "said he was surprised it took as long as it did for the Trump Administration to remove Allvin" because "administration officials have been frustrated for some time with his oversight of preparations for a potential security crisis involving China."
The Daily Beast's Ewan Palmer notes, "The retirement is expected to be on or about November 1. Allvin said he was 'grateful for the opportunity' to serve as the 23rd Air Force chief of staff. 'More than anything, I'm proud to have been part of the team of airmen who live out our core values of integrity, service, and excellence every day as we prepare to defend this great nation,' he added. Allvin will remain in his role until a successor is confirmed."
Palmer adds, "Gen. Thomas Bussiere, Trump's pick for Air Force vice chief of staff who played a key role in Operation Midnight Hammer — the U.S. military strikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities in June — is believed to be the frontrunner."
Read the Washington Post's full article at this link (subscription required) and the Daily Beast's reporting here (subscription required).
Trump blames Ukraine: 'You don’t take on a nation that’s 10 times your size'
U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Vice President JD Vance with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House Oval Office on February 28, 2025 (The White House/YouTube/Wikimedia Commons) David Badash
August 19, 2025
ALTERNET
President Donald Trump is blaming Ukraine for being attacked by Russia in President Vladimir Putin’s illegal war against the sovereign nation.
In a rambling and wide-ranging “Fox & Friends” interview on Tuesday, the President covered a lot of ground, including declaring that it would be unfair to Russia to allow Ukraine to become a part of NATO.
“It can’t be NATO because that’s just not something that would ever ever happen. He couldn’t. They couldn’t do that. If you were Russia, who would want to have your enemy, your opponent, sitting on your line? You don’t do that,” Trump said.
Trump then falsely claimed, “It was always thought that Ukraine was a, sort of a buffer between Russia and the rest of Europe — and it was, it was a big, wide buffer — everything worked out well until Biden got involved.”
Ukraine was promised future entry into NATO at an undetermined date, back in 2008. Finland borders Russia and is a member of NATO. Trump also did not say why there needed to be a “buffer” between Russia and Europe.
Trump also expressed that, he believes, Ukraine will have to give up land to Russia.
Asked what the European leaders thought about “land swaps,” which may or may not include Russia giving back land it took illegally, but no actual Russian land, Trump replied: “While they understand — look, everybody can play cute and this and that, but, you know, Ukraine’s gonna get their life back.”
“They’re gonna stop having people killed all over the place, and they’re gonna get a lot of land,” he claimed, not mentioning that that land belongs to Ukraine.
Then he accused Ukraine of attacking Russia, and suggested they were the provocateur.
“But this was a war, and Russia is a powerful military nation, you know, whether people like it or not, it’s a powerful nation,” Trump said. “It’s a much bigger nation.”
“It’s not a war that should have been started. You don’t do that. You don’t take on a nation that’s ten times your size and you know, military experts — look, look, here, if it wasn’t for the greatest military equipment. We make the greatest military equipment in the world, and we gave them— So, you know, whatever they took — probably a lot of money, too — but they had tremendous, you know, they had the Patriot missile, which is the best in the world.”
“All the equipment, we make the best equipment in the world by far. Everyone else is like, nothing. So we gave them a lot of equipment. Now, with that said, the Ukrainian soldiers were brave as hell. Cause’s fighting a force that’s much, much bigger. Superior, much more powerful.”
Critics denounced Trump’s claims.
“For the umpteenth time, Trump blames Ukraine for starting the war. Trump can never be trusted. He works for Putin,” wrote podcaster and former GOP congressman Joe Walsh.
“Really crystallizesTrump’s world view that bigger nations can bully smaller ones just because they can,” wrote communications expert Eric Koch.
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has rejected US President Donald Trump’s call for a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev, reiterating that a truce has to be implemented before discussing details of a possible settlement.
Zelensky made the statement on Sunday during a joint press-conference with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who will accompany him to Washington for talks with Trump on Monday.
The Ukrainian leader claimed that Moscow had made “many demands” on the settlement of the conflict and that Kiev needs to be made aware of them.
“If there are really as many as we have heard, then it will take time to go through them all,” he said.
According to Zelensky, it is “impossible” for Ukraine to negotiate “under pressure of weapons.”
“It is necessary to ceasefire and work quickly on a final deal,” he insisted.
Russia has repeatedly turned down Ukraine’s demands for a ceasefire, saying that a pause in the fighting would be exploited by Kiev to rearm and regroup its forces.
The Ukrainian leader also ruled out the possibility of making territorial concessions to Russia as part of a peace deal, saying that trading land is forbidden by the country’s constitution.
Earlier this month, Trump expressed frustration over Zelensky’s attempts to use the Ukrainian constitution as an excuse to avoid making compromises. The US president said that he was “a little bothered by the fact that Zelensky was saying, well, I have to get constitutional approval… I mean, he has got approval to go into war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap.”
During the press-conference with Zelensky, Von der Leyen insisted that “Ukraine must become a steel porcupine, indigestible to potential invaders,” repeating a metaphor that she has used before. She promised that the EU would keep working to strengthen the Ukrainian defense industry, especially when it comes to drone production.
The European Commission head claimed that decisions regarding territory “belong only to Ukraine, and cannot be taken without Ukraine at the table.” The EU will continue trying to apply diplomatic and economic pressure on Russia, with its 19th sanctions package against Moscow currently in preparation, Von der Leyen said.Facebook
Two big assumptions underlie President Donald Trump’s attack on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. The first is that discrimination against people of color is a thing of the past. The second is that DEI policies and practices discriminate against white people – especially white men – in what’s sometimes called “reverse discrimination.”
I’m a sociologist who’s spent decades studying race and inequality, and when I read the documents and statements coming out of the Trump White House, these assumptions jump out at me again and again – usually implicitly, but always there.
The problem is that the evidence doesn’t back these assumptions up.
For one thing, if discrimination against white Americans were widespread, you might expect large numbers to report being treated unfairly. But polling data shows otherwise. A 2025 Pew survey found that 70% of white Americans think Black people face “some” or “a lot” of discrimination in general, and roughly two-thirds say the same of Asian and Hispanic people. Meanwhile, only 45% of white Americans believe that white people in general experience that degree of discrimination.
In a second national study, using data collected in 2023, Americans were asked if they had personally experienced discrimination within the past year. Thirty-eight percent of white people said they had, compared to 54% of Black Americans, 50% of Latinos and 42% of Asian Americans. In other words, white Americans are much less likely to say that they’ve been discriminated against than people of color. The ‘hard’ numbers show persistent privilege
These statistics are sometimes called “soft” data because they reflect people’s perceptions rather than verified incidents. To broaden the picture, it’s worth looking at “hard” data on measures like income, education and employment outcomes. These indicators also suggest that white Americans as a group are advantaged relative to people of color.
For example, federal agencies have documented racial disparities in income for decades, with white Americans, as a group, generally outearning Black and Latino Americans. This is true even when you control for education. When the Census Bureau looked at median annual earnings for Americans between 25 and 64 with at least a bachelor’s degree, it found that Black Americans received only 81% of what comparably educated white Americans earned, while Latinos earned only 80%. Asian Americans, on the other hand, earned 119% of what white people earned.
These gaps persist even when you hold college major constant. In the highest-paying major, electrical engineering, Black Americans earned only 71% of what white people did, while Latinos earned just 73%. Asian Americans, in contrast, earned 104% of what white people earned. In the lowest-paid major, family and consumer sciences, African Americans earned 97% of what white people did, and Latinos earned 94%. Asian Americans earned 117% of what white people earned. The same general pattern of white income advantage existed in all majors with two exceptions: Black people earned more in elementary education and nursing.
Remember, this is comparing individuals with a bachelor’s degree or higher to people with the same college major. Again, white Americans are still advantaged in most career paths over Black Americans and Latinos. Disparities persist in the job market
Unemployment data show similar patterns. The July 2025 figures for workers at all education levels show that Black people were 1.9 times more likely to be unemployed than white Americans. Latinos were 1.4 times more likely to be unemployed, and Asian Americans, 1.1 times.
This same white advantage still occurs when looking only at workers who have earned a bachelor’s degree or more. Black Americans who have earned bachelor’s degrees or higher were 1.3 times more likely to be unemployed than similarly educated white Americans as of 2021, the last year for which data is available. Latinos with college degrees were 1.4 times more likely to be unemployed than similar white Americans. The white advantage was even higher for those with only a high school degree or less. Unfortunately, data for Asian Americans weren’t available.
In another study, researchers sent 80,000 fake resumes in response to 10,000 job listings posted by 97 of the largest employers in the country. The credentials on the resumes were essentially the same, but the names signaled race: Some had Black-sounding names, like Lakisha or Leroy, while others had more “white-sounding” names like Todd or Allison. This method is known as an “audit study.”
This research, which was conducted between 2019 and 2021, found that employers were 9.5% more likely to contact the Todds and Allisons than the Lakishas and Leroys within 30 days of receiving a resume. Of the 28 audit studies that have been conducted since 1989, each one showed that applicants with Black- or Latino-sounding names were less likely to be contacted that those with white-sounding or racially neutral names.
Finally, a 2025 study analyzed 600,000 letters of recommendation for college-bound students who used the Common App form during the 2018-19 and 2019-20 academic years. Only students who applied to at least one selective college were included. The study found that letters for Black and Latino students were shorter and said less about their intellectual promise.
Similarly, letters in support of first-generation students – that is, whose parents hadn’t graduated from a four-year college, and who are disproportionately likely to be Black and Latino – had fewer sentences dedicated to their scientific, athletic and artistic abilities, or their overall academic potential.
These and other studies don’t provide evidence of massive anti-white discrimination. Although scattered cases of white people being discriminated against undoubtedly exist, the data suggest that white people are still advantaged relative to non-Asian people of color. White Americans may be less advantaged than they were, but they’re still advantaged.
While it’s true that many working-class white Americans are having a tough time in the current economy, it’s not because of their race. It’s because of their class. It’s because of automation and overseas outsourcing taking away good jobs. It’s because of high health care costs and cuts in the safety nets.
In other words, while many working-class white people are struggling now, there’s little evidence race is the problem.
As Trump Wages War on the Homeless, His Budget Will Kill a Policy That Helped Them Find Housing
The National Alliance to End Homelessness estimates that the proposal could increase the number of homeless people in the US by 36%.
A homeless individual sits on a fence outside of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library on August 14, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
As US President Donald Trump moves forward with a nationwide purge of homeless people from America's streets, his administration is moving to kill a program that has helped many of those in need find permanent housing.
The White House's fiscal year 2026 budget proposes ending a program under the Department of Housing and Urban Development known as Continuum of Care, which has helped cities across the country address or, in some cases, nearly eliminate their homelessness problem.
To receive federal funds, cities are required to adopt community-wide plans to end homelessness with the goal of moving people from the streets into shelters and then into stable housing.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness describes Continuum of Care as "the federal government's key vehicle for distributing homelessness funds."
As the Washington Post reports, Dallas has become a model for the program's effectiveness: Instead of shuffling people to other neighborhoods, [the city] offered wraparound social services—and a permanent place to live.
The approach worked. Even as homelessness nationwide has surged to record levels, Dallas has emerged as a national model. The city declared an end to downtown homelessness in May after more than 270 people moved off the streets.
Other places, it says, have used Continuum of Care to substantially reduce homelessness, including San Bernardino, California, and Montgomery County, Maryland.
But the White House budget, unveiled in May, would eliminate Continuum of Care, instead shifting its resources to the Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) program, which prioritizes shelters and transitional housing, as well as mental health and substance abuse counselling, rather than "Housing First" solutions.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness says the administration's plan to consolidate the program "would place thousands of projects and the hundreds of thousands of people they serve at risk."
The Alliance estimated that the proposal would effectively end funding of permanent supportive housing for 170,000 residents and potentially increase the number of homeless people in the US by 36%.
In addition to eliminating Continuum of Care, the White House budget cuts $532 million in funding to the federal government's Homeless Assistance Grants account. That money, the Alliance says, could fund over 60,000 Rapid Re-Housing Units—enough to serve 8% of the US homeless population.
"Between 2023 and 2024, homelessness increased by 18%, yet this proposal would strip funding for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)'s homelessness programs by 12%," said Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. "That is a recipe for disaster. We know that these programs have been chronically underfunded for decades."
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has declared an all-out war on the nation's homeless population. In July, he signed an executive order requiring states and cities to remove homeless people from public places, expanding cases where they must be involuntarily committed to psychiatric hospitals, and requiring sobriety preconditions for them to receive housing assistance.
During his federal takeover of Washington, DC, Trump ordered homeless people in encampments to move "FAR from the Capital." Press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said those who refuse to accept services at a shelter will face jail time.
The advocacy group Housing Not Handcuffs reported Friday that "police evicted and destroyed the property of homeless people throughout DC, throwing away people's personal belongings, including tents and other property."
"Homelessness is a market failure, a housing problem," said Rob Robinson, a formerly homeless community organizer in New York City, in USA Today. "Rent prices have exceeded income gains by 325% nationally since 1985. Rates of homelessness are tied to rental affordability."
"The White House's recent moves toward the criminalization of homelessness and forced institutionalization," he said, "ignore decades of research and real-world outcomes."
"If Donald Trump really wanted to help people and solve homelessness, he would use his power to lower rents and help people make ends meet," said Jesse Rabinowitz from the National Homelessness Law Center. "Estimates show that taxpayers are spending over $400,000 a day for Trump to use the DC National Guard for photo ops. Why can they find money for that but not for housing and help?"
