Split Supreme Court Ruling on Catholic Charter School Still a Big Win for School Privatizers

No Public Funds for any Kind of Charter School

by Shawgi Tell / May 27th, 2025

On April 30, 2025, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) heard the much-awaited and much-discussed case of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School v. Drummond, which originated in Oklahoma.¹

On May 22, 2025, less than a month later, and without issuing an actual opinion, the SCOTUS delivered a 4-4 split ruling on the landmark case, which effectively leaves intact the lower court’s decision (in Oklahoma) that blocked the establishment of the online K-12 religious charter school. While it is not known how the eight Justices voted, it is likely that three “liberal” Justices and one “conservative” Justice (Chief Justice John Roberts?) joined forces and voted against the religious virtual charter school.

“Conservative” Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from this pivotal case months ago because of a conflict of interest. She is connected to a Notre Dame Law School clinic that backs the Catholic virtual charter school. Her presence may well have produced a different ruling. Barret is seen as playing a key role in future education cases that further erode the public-private divide.

The Oklahoma State Supreme Court ruled 6-2 on June 25, 2024, that St. Isidore of Seville Catholic K-12 Virtual Charter School is unconstitutional and cannot open and enroll students. Writing for the majority at the time, Justice James Winchester said that, “the contract between the state board and St. Isidore violates the Oklahoma Constitution, the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act and the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.” Reflecting decades of widespread confusion about the “publicness”/”privateness” of charter schools, the Oklahoma State Supreme Court correctly identified the Catholic cyber charter school as sectarian but erroneously claimed that charter schools are public schools. To be clear, there is no such thing as a “public” charter school or “hybrid” public/private charter school in the United States. Not a single charter school in America is operated by publicly elected officials. There are dozens of other big differences between charter schools, which are contract schools, and public schools.

It is also worth noting here that virtual charter schools across the country have a notoriously abysmal academic record and a long history of fraud and corruption. Further, both brick-and-mortar charter schools and virtual charter schools often operate with little accountability and offer fewer services and programs than traditional public schools. They also tend to have fewer nurses and more inexperienced teachers than traditional public schools.

The main takeaway from the 4-4 split decision from the SCOTUS is that thousands of deregulated charter schools across the country, all operated by unelected private persons, will continue to siphon hundreds of millions of public dollars a year from methodically under-funded and demonized public schools. The May 22, 2025, U.S. Supreme Court decision in no way stops or restricts school privatization and the assault on traditional public schools by so-called “public” charter schools that fail and close every week. Indeed, no matter how the court vote worked out, privately-operated charter schools of all kinds would still continue to bleed public schools of money and property in the name of “choice” and “freedom.”

Another takeaway is that cases like this one are likely to come before the SCOTUS again. This is not the first and last such case to come before the Supreme Court. Neoliberals and others are determined to blur the critical distinction between public and private so as to maximize profits in a failing economy that has left owners of capital with no choice but to raid the public sector for their self-serving interests. This financial parasitism is always undertaken under the veneer of high ideals. In other words, charter schools have long been a political-economic project, not an educational one. Endless disinformation about “empowering parents” and “expanding choices” cannot hide this.

While opinions and views issued by the SCOTUS are often interesting and revealing, there is practically no chance that any court ruling anywhere will change the fundamentally privatized character of non-profit and for-profit charter schools. Neoliberal ideology permeates all spheres and sectors in society, generating anticonsciousness everywhere. Privatization and deregulation, hallmarks of the charter school sector, are key aspects of the neoliberal agenda launched 50 years ago at home and abroad. This is why all charter schools, unlike traditional public schools, operate largely independently of the government.

Charter schools are private by design, not by accident. They have been about privatization, not “innovation” or “choice,” from the very start. The oft-repeated assertion that charter schools did not start out as privatization schemes 30+ years ago but were hijacked along the way by privatizers and set on a terrible path is incorrect and inconsistent with the historical record.

Not only are charter schools created and started by unelected private citizens, they also cannot levy taxes, avoid many laws and regulations, treat teachers as “at-will” employees, are mostly deunionized, routinely cherry-pick students, have high teacher turnover rates, siphon tons of money from public schools, increase segregation, and more. What would be the point of making them “public” or “more public” if the 34-year-old raison d’etre for their existence and operation is to be set up independent of and different from traditional public schools (see here, here, here, and here)? It is wishful thinking to believe that 8,000+ autonomous, rules-free, “innovative” charter schools will stop being privatized arrangements and suddenly become state actors after existing and operating as private actors for more than three decades.

In the final analysis the fundamental principle at stake is that the public sphere and the private sphere are distinct spheres with different structures and purposes, and that no public funds or public property should ever be handed over to the private sector. Public money and public property belong only to the public and must be used for purely public purposes, free of the narrow aim of maximizing profit for a handful of individuals. Public funds and public property must not flow to any private entities, religious or secular.

Retrogressive trends and forces can only be reversed by an empowered polity that opens the path of progress to society. Such a historic responsibility is not possible without organizing spaces for serious discussion and analysis of what is going on. Neoliberal views and ideas serve only to block the path of progress on all fronts.

ENDNOTE:

1 Some have stated that Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond is an Islamophobe. Drummond has long stated that religious charter schools would open the door to the promotion of “radical Islam.” Justice Samuel Alito even said, “We have statement after statement by the attorney general that reeks of hostility toward Islam.”

RELIGION IIN THE CLASSROOM

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Shawgi Tell (PhD) is author of the book Charter School Report Card. He can be reached at stell5@naz.edu. Read other articles by Shawgi.

 

Fighting for the Planet means Sovereignty for the Sahel

by Aaron Kirshenbaum and Jasmine Butler / May 27th, 2025

At the core of most demands for the US empire, we’re asking for kindergarten ethics– is that a stretch? It’s what the climate movement teaches about our relationship with the Earth: not to take and take and extract and extract because we have a reciprocal relationship. For most of its history, the US has largely ignored this, and that remains the case when it comes to the string of accusations leveled against the current president of Burkina Faso, Ibrahim Traoré. And if all of us– the climate movement, peace lovers, people with basic compassion–want to save the planet, we need to stand against the attempts of the US and NATO/Western powers in trying to intervene in the Sahel’s process of sovereignty.

Several weeks ago, Michael Langley, the head of US Africa Command (or AFRICOM), testified in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee and stated that Ibrahim Traoré, the current president of Burkina Faso, “is using the country’s gold reserves for personal protection rather than for the benefit of its people,” an absurd claim, considering that the US Department of Defense, which Langley works for, has stolen $1 trillion from US taxpayers in this year’s budget alone. What’s more, AFRICOM itself has a deadly, well-documented history of plundering the African continent, often in coordination with NATO.

Take a guess why Langley might want to delegitimize Traoré’s governance and the larger project of the Alliance of Sahel States/AES (made up of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, all of which have recently allied under a confederation after recent seizures of power). Any takers? Hint: the answer is natural resources and military presence. Traoré has nationalized Burkina Faso’s foreign-owned gold mines in an attempt to actually use the land’s resources to benefit its people. Similarly, upon taking power in Niger, the current president, Abdourahamane Tchiani, nationalized uranium and banned foreign exports. Notably, a quarter of Europe’s uranium, crucial for energy usage, comes from Niger. Considering Traoré’s crucial role in developing the identity of the AES as one of the more vocal and charismatic leaders, targeting Traoré is part of a larger project by the US/EU/NATO axis targeting the AES project at large. Recently, this new AES leadership has launched new green energy and educational initiatives. Meanwhile, the US has pulled out of the Sahel states as the AES asserts its sovereignty in defiance of decades of Western-backed instability.

Traore’s Burkina Faso is not the first Pan-African project to come under attack by the US/EU/NATO axis of power. Just as the vague claims from Langley serve to cast doubt on Traore’s ability to lead a nation, past Pan-African leaders who have dared to challenge imperialism and prioritize their citizens have also come under fire. For instance, former president of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara, was assassinated in 1987 after putting the Burkinabè people’s needs first by rejecting IMF loans and demands, implementing nationwide literacy and vaccine campaigns, and spearheading housing and agrarian reform. Time and again, France and the US have taken decisive action against leaders who have promoted Pan-Africanism and environmental stability over the interests of Western powers. We’re watching it happen live now, and have a responsibility to stand up for Traorè and the AES before it’s too late.

When a country doesn’t bend its knees to Washington, the standard US playbook is one of environmental death, either via hybrid or classic warfare. Venezuela has refused to grant US corporations unfettered access to its oil reserves – the world’s largest –  and thus has been forced to use them as a lifeline. The US has punished Venezuela by imposing unilateral sanctions that have prevented the proper maintenance of the country’s oil pipelines, resulting in harmful leaks. In the Congo–one of the lungs of the Earth–the West’s decades-long quest for uranium and other rare minerals has led to mass deforestation, destroyed water quality, and unleashed military forces that have killed millions. And of course, the US is backing the ecocide/genocide in Palestine in order to maintain the existence of a proxy-state in an oil-rich region.

When the US military – the #1 institutional polluter in the world – “intervenes”, the only environmental outcome is climate collapse. And even when countries play by Washington’s rules, the US will still militarize, build more toxic bases, seek continued extraction, and create mass poverty. For the survival of the people and planet, we must resist this imperial expansion.

Any movement concerned with transitioning from an extractive to a regenerative economy must stand against US and Western intervention in the Sahel and advocate for Pan-African projects and a multilateral world. The emergence of a multipolar world means that projects like the AES have partners beyond the region: during Traoré’s most recent visit to Moscow, he met with the heads of state of Russia, China, and Venezuela. The US, of course, threatened by the loss of its dominion, insists on pursuing a dangerous cold war against China, to contain China’s influence, refuses to cooperate on green technology, and plows through any region that it views as a battleground, be it the Asia-Pacific or the Sahel. And always at the expense of life in all forms.

So if we are in a project for life, why, then, are we often met with hesitation in climate spaces to stand against this imperialist extraction? We need to reflect on a few questions. Whose lives do we sacrifice for “strategy”? Which environmental sacrifice zones are we silent about because of the “bigger picture?” What extraction and militaristic build-up do we let happen to theoretically prevent planetary death that is already happening via our own government down the road? Are we avoiding building connections with popular movements because of donors who only fund dead ends? We have a choice to make: allow the doomsday clock threatening climate death and total catastrophe to keep ticking or reverse course and breathe life into something new.

Traorè’s historic meeting with China, Russia, and Venezuela is a glimpse of what’s on the horizon. As people of the world rise against imperialism and neocolonialism, it is up to us in the US climate movement to stand unequivocally in support of projects of self-determination.

Although our lifestyles will certainly look different once we no longer have uninhibited access to the gold, cobalt, uranium, and other resources that are routinely extracted from the African continent and its people, we must prioritize building a more just and healthy relationship with the planet and all its people. If leaders such as Traore succeed in revolutionizing agriculture and resource extraction at a sustainable pace that benefits workers, what might that signal for a new world order in which exploited Africans and their lands do not form the cheap material base for the world? What might we build in place of extractive economies to usher in a green future for all?

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Aaron is CODEPINK's War is Not Green Campaigner and East Coast Regional Organizer. Aaron (they or he) is based in and originally from Brooklyn, NY, and holds an M.A. in Community Development and Planning from Clark University. They also have a B.A. in Human-Environmental and Urban-Economic Geography from Clark. During their time in school, Aaron worked on internationalist climate justice organizing, educational program development, and Palestine, tenant, and abolitionist organizing. Jasmine Butler is CODEPINK's Member & Youth Coordinator. Jasmine (they/them) was born and raised in Memphis by way of deep Mississippi roots. They’re a Black queer writer, cultural worker, and afrofuturist-abolitionist deeply committed to collective liberation through mutual care and education. They are growing as a deeply principled and experienced network weaver, educator, historian, and archivist. Jasmine received a B.A. in Geography from Dartmouth College in 2021. Read other articles by .

Follow the Money? The Algorithm Follows Us to Make the Money

...Those who control the narrative, control the (fill in the blank, but hint hint, ‘world’)

by Paul Haeder / May 28th, 2025

…Those who control the food, control the (fill in the blank, but hint hint, ‘world’)

…Those who control the water, control the (fill in the blank, but hint hint, ‘world’)

…Those who control the money, control the (fill in the blank, but hint hint, ‘world’)

…Those who control the media, control the (fill in the blank, but hint hint, ‘world’)

…Those who control outer space, control the (fill in the blank, but hint hint, ‘world’)

…Those who control the data, control the (fill in the blank, but hint hint, ‘world’)

Throwing in that “Big data” fishnet just a decade ago was the big new addition to the scientific method: Try to find even the most vague or minimally-recognized studies, and then let the computer develop the patterns.

Ahh, was it David Quammen or some of the other thousands of sources I have utilized over a 45 year period that exposed me to that rare but highly interesting factoid that a woman’s daily diary entrees while living in Costa Rica allowed science to research why the birthrate had fallen and the survival rate had plummented for the golden toad.

She catalogued the changing cloud and mist and fog cover in her homeland, and over a thirty year period, she meticulously recorded all number of tidbits of observation, including that reduction in the clouds hitting the treeline.

Do the Google AI search, and nothing pops up.

It’s pure lies, these AI generated responses: Quoting below.

While the story of a woman’s diary specifically detailing the golden toad’s decline and its link to reduced mist in Costa Rica might be fictional or anecdotal, the core issue of the golden toad’s extinction and its relation to changing cloud forest conditions is well-documented.

Here’s a breakdown of how changes in mist and fog likely contributed to the golden toad’s disappearance:

1. Golden Toads and Their Cloud Forest Habitat:

• The golden toad was endemic to a small, high-altitude region within the Monteverde Cloud Forest in Costa Rica, an environment known for its constant mist, high humidity, and a rainy season.
• These specific conditions were crucial for the golden toad’s breeding cycle and survival.

2. Climate Change and Reduced Mist:

• Climate change has altered weather patterns globally, and the Monteverde Cloud Forest was not spared.
• Researchers have observed a decrease in mist and moisture levels in the cloud forest, potentially due to rising temperatures and shifting cloud patterns.
• This reduction in mist could have made the environment drier, impacting the golden toad’s delicate skin and potentially leading to dehydration.

3. Impact on Breeding:

• Golden toads relied on rainwater pools for breeding.
• Reduced mist and rainfall likely led to the drying up of these crucial breeding pools, hindering the toad’s ability to reproduce successfully.

4. The Chytrid Fungus:

• Changes in climate, including drier conditions, could have created a more favorable environment for the chytrid fungus, a deadly pathogen that affects amphibians.
• This fungus attacks the skin of frogs and toads, disrupting their ability to absorb water and electrolytes, ultimately leading to death.

In Summary:

While a diary account remains unsubstantiated, the scientific consensus points towards climate change, leading to a reduction in mist and rainfall, as a significant factor in the golden toad’s extinction. These altered environmental conditions likely impacted the toad’s ability to breed and may have increased its vulnerability to the deadly chytrid fungus.

*****

So, my own Substacks (I have three under pseudonyms) have varying levels of so-called rant and railing and deep deep disregard for most authorities. A few hundred subscribers, and very few are paid ones.

Because I do these “news” headline “essays,” my own news feeds have been corrupted with many times the opposite sort of sources I would go to for reliable information — Israeli rags, USA mainstream, European mainstream, defense/offensive professional journals, Bloomberg and Fortune, et al.

What happens, though, is a reverse osmosis sort of play on the hourly news that gets fed to me via Bing, Yahoo, AP, UPI, CNN, and the list goes on.

It’s not exactly a deep and sophisticated exercise that might end up on Dissident Voice, but I’ll attempt one now:

1. Forgone conclusions, and this is the techno-fascist world controlling the narrative and that narrative is controlled by the oligarchs and the virus of a shifting baseline disorder and rampant disregard for a precautionary principle and the value of looking at intended and unintended (rare) negative effects of these titans of capital and their Brave Banal Evil Doers, the scientists, engineers, fabricators, technologists, et al.

Exhibit A (infinity is really that number):

Looks and sounds like a geek, such a nice sweet looking banal sort of fellow?

• Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis says in the next 5-10 years, AI will disturb more jobs
• He urged teens to become code ninjas to deal with the AI-driven world
• He also said that the youngest generation, Gen Alpha, must start experimenting with AI as soon as possible

As the world dashes into an AI-driven future, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis has a clear message for teens: learn now or be left behind. Hassabis leads Google DeepMind, the advanced research lab behind the company’s most high-end AI developments, including the Gemini chatbot. The lab is also spearheading Google’s efforts toward achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI) — a yet-unrealised form of AI capable of human-level reasoning. At the recent Google I/O developer conference, Hassabis said DeepMind is likely less than a decade away from building AGI. As he works in such an environment, he certainly knows what form AI will take in the near future. (India Today, of all rags I get in my feeds)

There are many many paywalls now, so anything from the NYT, well, I have to do end-arounds sometimes to read the entire pieces, but headlines and sub-headlines do the trick:

At Amazon, Some Coders Say Their Jobs Have Begun to Resemble Warehouse Work

Pushed to use artificial intelligence, software developers at the e-commerce giant say they must work faster and have less time to think. Others welcome the shift.

Go to Reddit on this one headline and you get all sorts of opinions and personal experiences with codes.

I’ve written much about Amazon, and I even organized with SEIU against Amazon’s warehouse unsafe warehouse conditions and their anti-union stance.

But the geeks and all those soccer moms and geek dads want their children not to marry cowboys but to marry coders and software engineers, or drone impresarios: A “17-year-old designed a cheaper, more efficient drone. The Department of Defense just awarded him $23,000 for it.”

Dual Use, man, dual use which is always Capitalist Abuse and Military Murder Hardware: Cooper Taylor, 17, aims to revolutionize the drone industry with a new design.

Taylor designed a motor-tilting mechanism to lower manufacturing cost and increase efficiency.

Taylor has spent the last year optimizing a type of drone that’s being used more and more in agriculture, disaster relief, wildlife conservation, search-and-rescue efforts, and medical deliveries.

All drone technology is for murdering, in the end.

And what fuels these death machines, these genocide facilitators? Geeks in high school robotics Olympics.

A breathtaking flyover of nearly every United States Air Force fighter and bomber jet soared during a Florida air show Saturday, stunning footage of the historic aerial display showed.

Seven of the top military aircraft, called the “Freedom Flyover,” united as “one unstoppable force” for thousands of people to take in over Memorial Day weekend at the Hyundai Air and Sea Show in Miami Beach.

*****

Somehow it ALWAYS comes down for me from these feeds back to the Jewish State of Murdering Raping Starving Polluting Poisoning Occupied Palestine:

As thousands of Israeli nationalists and religious Jews on Monday marked Jerusalem Day, which celebrates Israel’s 1967 capture of east Jerusalem, some chanted “Death to Arabs” while marching through Muslim neighborhoods. Protesters, including an Israeli member of parliament, also reportedly stormed a compound belonging to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

[Oh, you can call these Jews in Israel Right-wing Nationalists, or pro-settler extermists, but they are in the Jewish State of Israel, and they are Jewish. Calling them Jewish is not anti-semitic, and leaving out the term “zionist” is not an error of omission.]

Last year’s procession, which came during the first year of the war in Gaza, saw ultranationalist Israelis attack a Palestinian journalist in the Old City and call for violence against Palestinians. Four years ago, the march helped set off an 11-day war in Gaza.

Tour buses carrying young ultranationalist Jews lined up near entrances to the Old City, bringing hundreds from outside Jerusalem, including settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Police said they had detained a number of individuals, without specifying, and “acted swiftly to prevent violence, confrontations, and provocations.”

*****

And, the IOF, Israeli Occupation Forces, well, they do teach many US police departments on “crowd suppression,” pressure point holds, subbing peaceful protestors, and strong-arming old ladies and teens.

And, as always, NBC, or whichever mainstream and corporate media outfit, will always suppress the reality — Some fear excessive use of force will rise as the DOJ drops oversight of police departments.

George Floyd, Michael Brown?

“It is important to not overstate what consent decrees do,” said Jin Hee Lee with the Legal Defense Fund, referring to the power of federal courts to enforce orders. “They are very important and oftentimes necessary to force police departments to change their policies, to change their practices,” she added. “But consent decrees were never the end all, be all.”

*****

Then you get this Jewish Fervor, and who the hell wants to defend the Poison Ivy School, but you have to under the Rapist in Chief Trump and his henchman, Stephen Miller:

At the Harvard Kennedy School, the Trump administration’s attempt to revoke Harvard’s eligibility to enroll international students — temporarily blocked in court — could eliminate nearly 60 percent of the student body.

*****

Until the last half-decade, the majestic lesser flamingo had four African breeding sites: two salt pans in Botswana and Namibia, a soda lake in Tanzania, and an artificial dam outside South Africa’s historic diamond-mining town of Kimberley.

Now it only has three.

And then, I get tons of wildlife and climate news: “Lesser flamingos lose one of their only four African breeding sites to sewage.” Emblematic at how messed up the polluting Homo consumopethicus is. Sewage. Shit.

This sort of stuff, all these headlines, all these stories, seemingly disconnected, unrelated in theme, well, the common theme is clear — Capitalism is a Cancer Supported by Economic Wars and Genocide and a Mafia that is Global in Its Reach. Is that a good enough connecting headline?

*****

Thank goodness that I have writers for Substack who put it all into perspective, how this world is up shit creek illustrated by the War on People in Palestine.

The Poem “Nine,” from Palestine Will Be Free Substack:

I tended my garden with great care —
Olives, thyme, dates, sage, and rosemary there.
Well before fajr and long after isha’s call,
No effort was spared in looking after them all.

From tiny seeds to flowers in full bloom,
I watched them glow in sun’s majestic light.
And as the first buds of the olives came to life,
Every glance, every day was an endless delight.

Wearied days would vanish at their sight
Each bloom I touched made my mornings bright
I would count my blessings: one, two, three, four…
Up to ten — then countless more.

Then came the fire that scorched it all —
Thyme, dates, sage, and rosemary gone.
One gnarly olive barely hangs by a thread;
My waking moments are soaked in tears, eyes red.

Now with every breath, a prayer escapes:
Protect my olive — please keep it safe.
It’s the last remnant of a heart so full, a life well lived,
In service of my garden, my people, and God the Esteemed.

You blessed Yaqub with a garden vast,
Only to separate him from Yusuf, the rose of his heart.
Yaqub complained, yearned, and wept till blindness veiled his eyes
You, the Merciful, answered his prayers and restored old ties.

So bless me, as You did Yaqub in the end —
Restore the coolness of my eyes, O Ibrahim’s Friend.
“For I too have the gift of song which gives me courage to complain,
But ah! ‘tis none but God Himself whom I, in sorrow, must arraign!”

Your infinite wisdom is beyond my grasp,
So, to Your rope of hope I must clasp.
“The lessons of patience I teach my heart,
As though to night’s separation I show a false part.”

*****

Thank goodness for International 360, with a whole lot of stories aggregated-curated: Only Total Collapse Will Rouse Humanity from Its Suicidal Sleepwalk

From BettMedia:

Only Total Collapse Will Rouse Humanity from Its Suicidal Sleepwalk

Editorial Comment:

I have been issuing warnings since the genocide began and every nation and institution failed to stop it. Not one invoked the appropriate legal mechanisms designed for such a crisis that would have ended abuse of veto, ousted Israel from the United Nations and imposed sanctions on the genocidal entity. I am pleased to see more activists understanding the extent of manipulation and deception we have all been subjected to.

Previously I said,

• There is no hope for the world to be found in any government, institution or movement that can normalize ties with or fail to stop a genocidal oppressor.
• There can be no faith in leaders that place interests above moral principles.
• There is no salvation to be found standing with those too cowardly to act in the face of murderous criminality.
• The hope of humanity rests solely on the shoulders of each awakening individual and on movements in the grassroots bases who have never lost touch with reality and are willing to defend life at all costs.

Karim has brilliantly and succinctly presented the many facets of our present dilemma in the article below.

Once we abandon fantasy and begin with these truths, realistic solutions and avenues of dissent, resistance and revolution can constellate and finally manifest.

A.V.

---

BettBeat Media

As Gaza’s children burn while the world watches, it becomes clear: only climate catastrophe, nuclear armageddon, or World War III may force humanity to abandon Western capitalism’s suicidal path.

The brutal death march of global capitalism does not pause for our lamentations. It grinds forward with mechanistic certainty, reducing human bodies to raw material and human aspirations to market commodities. We stand now at the precipice of a darkness so profound that our collective imagination fails to grasp its dimensions.

Gaza Exposed the Multipolar Fantasy

Let us dispense with comforting illusions. The mythologies we have constructed about saviors – whether BRICS nations, ‘multipolar world orders’, institutions of international law, or benevolent statesmen – have disintegrated before our eyes.

As Gaza burns and its children scream under collapsing concrete, we witness Russia making backroom deals with the architects of genocide. As Palestinian bodies pile in makeshift morgues, China issues empty declarations at the United Nations while its trade with the genocidal regime continues uninterrupted.

These are not the actions of counterweights to empire. They are the maneuvers of players within the same global system, differing perhaps in position but not in fundamental nature. They have shown themselves to be integral components of the very machinery we hoped they would dismantle.

We have watched, with desperate hope, the Palestinians stand against overwhelming military force, the Lebanese resisting occupation, Ibrahim Traore challenging neocolonial structures, Syrians and Yemenis enduring apocalyptic bombardment.

We projected onto them our desperate yearning for liberation from the imperialist hellscape spreading like wildfire across our planet. But they cannot do it alone, and our delegation of hope to others is itself a form of moral abdication.

The Frightening Truth is: It Really Comes Down to Us

The terrible truth we must confront is this: the responsibility is ours. The revolution required is not national but global, because the capitalist system has metastasized globally.

It has burrowed deep into the institutional structures of every society, captured the regulatory mechanisms that might constrain it, corrupted the informational systems that might expose it, and weaponized the technological systems that might liberate us.

Consider the grotesque spectacle of our current moment: we watch genocide in real-time on social media platforms owned by billionaires who fund that same genocide, we march in permitted protests that change nothing, we sign petitions that disappear into administrative voids. Meanwhile, the machinery of death continues unabated, and the architects of suffering retire to coastal mansions and mountain retreats after receiving fifty standing ovations for speeches that are nothing more than celebrations of mass murder.

The ruling classes have constructed a system of control so comprehensive, so technologically sophisticated, and so psychologically insidious that most cannot even perceive the depth of their enslavement. The surveillance apparatus tracks our movements and predicts our thoughts. The military-industrial complex develops weapons of terrifying precision to eliminate those who resist too effectively. The propaganda system manufactures consent with algorithmic efficiency.

All Wish to Sit at the Blood-Soaked Table of Imperialism

As vanessa beeley and Fiorella Isabel so meticulously lay out for us, Putin, for all his anti-Western rhetoric, demonstrates through his actions that he seeks merely better terms within the imperial arrangement, not its dissolution. His government works in tacit coordination with Israel while claiming to stand against Western hegemony. This is not resistance; it is negotiation for a better position at the blood-soaked table of imperialism.

And what of China? Does it dream of global equality? Let’s rephrase, do ruling elites anywhere envision a future where they stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the peasants in the villages they dominate? History speaks to us with terrible clarity. The powerful do not relinquish power voluntarily. Systems of exploitation do not reform themselves out of existence. The capitalist machine — whether neoliberal or state capitalism — will not decommission itself out of ethical awakening.

We have already weathered global catastrophes that should have taught us these lessons. World War I reduced a generation of young men to shredded flesh in muddy trenches, yet we learned nothing. World War II revealed the industrial-scale horror humans could inflict upon one another, yet we learned nothing. The grinding machinery reassembled itself, adapted, and continued its relentless accumulation.

“Humanity appears incapable of changing direction without first experiencing the catastrophic consequences of its current trajectory. We seem determined to learn only through suffering, to change only when continuation becomes impossible”

World War III

The terrifying conclusion becomes unavoidable: only the total breakdown of global society will create the conditions for fundamental transformation. This is not a wish but a recognition of historical pattern. The entrenchment is too deep, the control too complete, the psychological captivity too thorough for anything less than systemic collapse to break the spell.

What form will this breakdown take? Perhaps nuclear winter that eliminates most of humanity. Perhaps the collapse of ecological systems that sustain human life. Perhaps the return of fascistic brutality in World War III as soldiers march through our streets, rounding up our women and children to violate their dignity and take away their innocence while the men disappear into torture camps. The specific manifestation matters less than the certainty of its arrival if our course remains unchanged.

This is the darkness we must stare into without flinching. Humanity appears incapable of changing direction without first experiencing the catastrophic consequences of its current trajectory. Even high-definition genocide—burning children and prisoner rapes streamed directly to our iPhones—fails to move us to effective action. We seem determined to learn only through even more extreme suffering, to change only when our current path becomes literally impossible to continue.

Resistance

Yet within this terrible recognition lies a seed of possibility. If we understand the machinery of our destruction with unflinching clarity, if we abandon the comfortable myths that absolve us of responsibility, if we recognize that no external force will save us from ourselves – perhaps then we might begin the work of genuine resistance.

Not the performative — flag-waving, song-singing, tweet-sharing — resistance that leaves power structures intact, but the fundamental reimagining of human society. Not the delegation of hope to distant leaders, but the reclamation of our collective agency. Not the comfortable protest that returns home for dinner, but the sustained commitment to dismantling systems of death.

The machinery of global capitalism does not pause for our lamentations, but neither is it invulnerable to our determined opposition. The question remains whether we will summon the courage to oppose it before the breakdown comes, or whether we will continue sleepwalking until we awaken amid the ruins.

– Karim

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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.