Category: Analysis and Opinion / News Items

 

  • REFUSE ILLEGAL ORDERS, by Susu Jeffrey

    REFUSE ILLEGAL ORDERS, by Susu Jeffrey

    It’s the law, it’s your oath, it’s your duty. You can, you must refuse illegal orders.

    They say empires last about 250 years so it’s time for the United States of America to retire from assumed global democratic leadership, or re-up.

    It is difficult to believe that out of more than 150 U.S. “manned” aircraft not one reported crew member failed to refuse to fly the illegal mission to bomb Venezuela and kidnap its president in January 2026. An unlawful order is one that violates human rights including harming civilians (not to mention the land). The Geneva Convention is a part of every service member’s education. One hundred civilian and military deaths have so far been reported since the U.S. military invasion of Venezuela.

    In addition to violating international human rights President Trump’s ordered incursion into Venezuela violates the Constitution because only Congress can declare war. The president failed to inform Congress before sending-in American troops — an impeachable offense. Furthermore he never requested an AUMF, authorization to use military force against a nation not attacking the U.S. The president claimed fentanyl is killing Americans however fentanyl is imported from Mexico in Central America, not from Venezuela in South America.

    Perhaps former geography instructor and former vice-presidential candidate, Tim Walz, Governor of Minnesota could have clarified the China-Mexico-fentanyl (not cocoaine) drug connection for Mr. Trump. The president just sent 2,100 federal ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents into Minneapolis on “Operation Metro Surge” where one Latin American man was arrested on January  6 and one white neighborhood woman was shot dead on January 7.

    Confusion about the legality of war, what drug is what and where and how a drug kills Americans who actually buy, use and are victims of drugs, adds to the muddy responsibility and consequences of officials being ordered to do something illegal, or simply acting illegally because they are poorly trained and pissed off.

    It’s the law, it’s your oath, it’s your duty. You can, you must refuse illegal orders.

    Six Democratic congressmen and women, all U.S. veterans, released a video in November 2025 to educate military and intelligence officers about illegal airstrike orders on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific seas.

    Sen. Mark Kelly, 61, of Arizona, former Navy pilot and U.S. astronaut, married to former congresswoman Gabby Giffords who was shot in the head in an assassination attempt in 2011, is the most well-known of the six.

    Sen. Elissa Slotkin, 50, of Michigan, former CIA analyst and Department of Defense international security expert was inspired to run for a House seat in 2019 when she saw her opponent smiling at a White House celebration over the repeal of the Obama Affordable Care Act. After two terms as a Representative Slotkin won her Senate seat in 2025. She is remembered for her response to Trump’s State of the Union address when she said Ronald Reagan would be “rolling in his grave” over the American president’s cozying up to Putin. Slotkin assesses America’s greatest security threat as the decline of the middle class.

    Two Pennsylvania House members and military veterans spoke on the Refuse Illegal Orders video. President Trump  called all six speakers traitors who should be charged with sedition, punishable by death and hanged.

    Chrissy Houlahan, 59, represents part of the Philadelphia area. She is an engineer and former Air Force officer who grew up as a Navy brat and was first elected to Congress in 2019. Houlahan, on the Armed Services and Defense Intelligence committees, lobbies for better military technology, trans military rights and same sex marriage in addition to single payer healthcare and negotiated drug prices. She opposed President Biden’s troop withdrawal in Syria, is concerned about Netanyahu’s war in Palestine and wanted to give fighter jets to Ukraine.

    Chris Deluzio, 42, from Pittsburgh, went to the U.S. Naval Academy and Georgetown Law. He served in the Iraq War and is in his second House term. Deluzio is a member of the Labor and Progressive caucuses, focusing on suppression of voters’ rights, labor union rights and veterans affairs.

    Maggie Goodlander, 40, of New Hampshire, is a first term congresswoman serving on the Armed Services Committee. With a law degree from Yale she worked in Naval intelligence on terrorism for over a decade and advised the House Judiciary Committee during the first Trump impeachment. She leads the No Unauthorized War with Venezuela move to prohibit any federal funds for military force unless Congress passes an AUMF.  In addition to working on congressional war powers she is active in abortion rights since experiencing  a horrible natural stillbirth in a hotel bathtub while awaiting a medical procedure. Goodlander, from a prominent political family, is married to Jake Sulllivan who was President Biden’s National Security Advisor.

    Jason Crow, 46, is in his third term representing the eastern Denver, Colorado area. He was an Army ranger working in counter insurgency with three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan earning a bronze star. After military service he went into law and politics. Crow is on the House Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees. He has been criticized for accepting campaign donations from a company that does business with Israeli Defense Forces but lately called for pressure on Netanyahu over humanitarian violations in Gaza. Crow urged President Biden to send fighter jets to Ukraine noting that  “Russia is not our friend” and we have 60,000 American troops in harm’s way in Europe. He sees Ukraine as an American security issue rather than a political issue.

    So it’s a birthday year in the U.S. with affordability the top domestic concern but Venezuela and whether to buy or conquer Greenland on the president’s menu. Sounds like the two parties are not listening to each other.

    Susu Jeffrey is a poet and political activist living in Minneapolis. Her father, Harry Jeffrey (R-Ohio), was co-author of the “G.I. Bill of Rights” in the House of Representatives in 1944.



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  • Chris Hedges, Bankrupting You With War: The Trillion Dollar War Machine,  with William D. Hartung

    Chris Hedges, Bankrupting You With War: The Trillion Dollar War Machine, with William D. Hartung

    The military-industrial-complex has grown into a monster so influential and powerful that even its earliest critics likely never foresaw its evolution.

    Where will it go from here, and can anything stop it? Bill Hartung tackles this question.

    Chris Hedges: The historian Arnold Toynbee cites an unchecked rampant militarism as the key factor in the collapse of a civilization. This militarism disembowels a society. It fosters social breakdown, the rise of authoritarian governments and demagogues. It deforms a society until it is unable to respond to existential crises, in our case the climate crisis and a growing social inequality. The ruling elites, Toynbee warns, abandon the common good and become sycophantic appendages of oligarchs and a military machine that functions as a state within a state. The United States now spends nearly a trillion dollars a year on its military.

    William Hartung and Ben Freeman in their new book, The Trillion Dollar War Machine, examine the role of Pentagon contractors, who receive more than half of the Pentagon’s budget, to the high tech fantasies of Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs such as Peter Teal, who pedal unproven and often unworkable technologies to foster, in their eyes, new forms of warfare, including the mass colonization and militarization of space.

    The authors have unmasked the bought and paid for enablers of the war machine, including politicians, lobbyists, the media, Hollywood, and think tanks. They explain how this unchecked militarism not only enriches a tiny wealthy elite at our expense, but perpetuates costly and self-defeating military fiascos around the globe, making us less safe and diminishing global power.

    This war machine, the authors write, is different from the military-industrial complex President Eisenhower warned us about in his parting speech in 1961. The Pentagon budget is now twice what it was, adjusted for inflation, when Eisenhower gave this nationwide address.

    Corporations such as Lockheed Martin, which has 40 to50 billion dollars in annual Pentagon contracts, is able to buy up politicians and provide sinecures for former military and defense officials that ensure loyalty and huge contracts, even for redundant and flawed weapons systems. Those running our war industry know little to nothing about the countries they seek to dominate, leading to debacle after debacle, including two decades of military disasters in the Middle East.

    Yet they have a vice grip not only on the media but Hollywood, the gaming industry, professional sports and academia. These institutions in lockstep with the war industry pedal the myths of American exceptionalism, America’s supposed superior virtues and civilization and the mantra of endless war.

    Dissident voices especially in Congress such as Senators William Proxmire, Frank Church, James Aberesque, and George McGovern willing to question the folly of this outofcontrol militarism, one that is accelerating our decline, have been largely purged from public office and public debate.



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  • DN! Special Report on Venezuela: U.S. Abducts Maduro, Trump Says “We Are Going to Run” Oil-Rich Nation

    DN! Special Report on Venezuela: U.S. Abducts Maduro, Trump Says “We Are Going to Run” Oil-Rich Nation

    Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez host breaking news coverage on U.S. forces attacking Venezuela and seizing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

    We speak to Venezuelan reporter Andreína Chávez in Caracas as well as professors Miguel Tinker Salas and Alejandro Velasco.

    RELATED

    Glenn Greenwald: Trump Bombs Venezuela, Removes Maduro

    “The Money They Stole” –Troops are banging at the door –Will they dare to start a war? –Venezuela faces its gravest hour –Since Bolivar fought the Spanish power –Fishermen have been burned and drowned –By orders of a man donning a crown –Peddling sinister fentanyl lies –Posting snuff films of the people who die –And if you wonder what’s the empire’s goal –Just follow the money they stole . . .



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  • Donald Trump talks peace but he is a man of war, by Simon Tisdall

    Donald Trump talks peace but he is a man of war, by Simon Tisdall

    Today an illegal coup in Venezuela, but where next? Donald Trump talks peace but he is a man of war.

    / The Guardian / January 3, 2026

    ‘This is the world we now live in – the world according to Donald Trump.’  Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

    The world will be anxious, and rightly so. For a man so bent on a peace prize, Trump appears to revel in conflict.

    The overthrow and reported capture by invading US forces of Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s hardline socialist president, will send a shiver of fear and consternation around the world. The coup is illegal, unprovoked and regionally and globally destabilising. It upends international norms, ignores sovereign territorial rights, and potentially creates an anarchic situation inside Venezuela itself.

    It is chaos made policy. But this is the world we now live in – the world according to Donald Trump.

    The direct attack on Venezuela marks an extraordinary, dangerous assertion of unfettered US power and comes in the same week that Trump threatened military strikes against another unpopular anti-western regime: that of Iran. It follows months of escalating US military, economic and political pressure on Maduro, including lethal maritime attacks on the boats of alleged drug traffickers.

    Trump claims to be acting to prevent illegal narcotics flowing into the US via Venezuela and to halt an alleged influx of “criminal” migrants. In an echo of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, he is also accused of coveting Venezuela’s huge oil and gas resources – suspicions reinforced by repeated, illegal US seizures of Venezuelan oil tankers.

    But Trump’s primary motives appear to be personal animosity directed at Maduro, and a desire to revive the 19th-century Monroe doctrine by creating a US sphere of influence and dominance throughout the west.

    Regional leaders, including Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, who has clashed with Trump in recent months, greeted the coup with outrage and alarm; not least, perhaps, because they fear they too could become victims of Washington’s aggressive new hegemony. Cuba’s leftwing government has particular cause for concern. It relies heavily on Venezuela’s regime for cheap energy and political and economic support.

    Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, has made no secret of his wish to see regime change in Havana. In Panama, too, anxiety levels will be running high. Trump has previously threatened military action there, over control of the Panama canal. Indeed, the reported capture of Maduro recalls the 1989 US invasion of Panama and the toppling and arrest of its then dictator, Manuel Noriega.

    Authoritarian, anti-democratic regimes around the world will be carefully watching Trump’s next steps, as will Washington’s democratic allies. Iran condemned the coup. It has good reason to be fearful. But Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, may not be totally displeased by the defenestration of his Venezuelan ally.

    Trump’s unprovoked resort to violence is not so very different from Putin’s actions in invading Ukraine. Both have illegally attacked a neighbouring country and sought to remove its leadership. For China’s Xi Jinping, whose forces were last week practising military action against the “separatists” of Taiwan, Trump has just set a precedent he may one day gladly follow.

    Trump’s coup is of great concern to Britain, the EU and western democracies. They should, and must, unequivocally condemn it. It directly challenges the rules and principles of the international order they hold dear. The US has once again ignored the UN and traditional methods of addressing inter-state grievances. And it is acting with apparently scant regard or thought for what happens next in Venezuela.

    The Caracas government has been decapitated, but other senior members of the regime appear still to be in place. They are urging resistance and, potentially, retaliation against the US. There are unconfirmed reports of civilian casualties. If a power vacuum develops, public order could collapse, sparking civil war or a possible military coup. And it is unclear whether the latest US military action has ended, or may escalate further.

    The idea that exiled opposition leaders, such as the 2025 Nobel peace prizewinner María Corina Machado, will swiftly return and that full democracy will now be restored is naive. The coming days will be critical. And it’s all down to Trump.

    Trump’s reckless action should finally lay to rest his always misleading characterisation of himself as a “global peacemaker”. It’s high time Keir Starmer and other European leaders publicly recognise him for what he is – a global warmaker, a universal menace.

    Each time he blunders noisily into conflict zones, such as Russia-Ukraine or Israel-Palestine, setting deadlines, issuing ultimatums, picking favourites and monetising misery, the quest for just and lasting peace is set back.

    Little wonder peace is elusive. And bizarrely, even while posing as a disinterested peacemaker and non-interventionist, Trump simultaneously wages war on the world. The US conducted record numbers of air strikes in the Middle East and Africa last year, surveys show.

    Since returning to office a year ago, peace-loving Trump has bombed Yemen, carelessly killing numerous civilians after loosening rules of engagement; bombed Nigeria, to counter-productive effect; bombed Somalia, Iraq and Syria; and bombed Iran, where he mendaciously exaggerated the success of US strikes on nuclear facilities. He even refuses to rule out bombing Greenland, a sovereign territory of Nato ally Denmark.

    What’s going on inside Trump’s head? A benign interpretation is that in matters of war and peace, he has no idea what he is doing – no strategy, no clue – and makes up policy as he goes, depending on how he feels.

    The sinister interpretation says he knows exactly what he’s at, that more and worse is to come. Like previous second-term presidents who ran out of road domestically, Trump finds the world stage offers greater possibilities for the exercise of power and ego. He is building a legacy in blood.

    Trump’s irresponsible, dangerously erratic behaviour is getting measurably worse. His Venezuela “success” may encourage him to attempt more and bigger, unhinged outrages. Like Mark Antony minus the toga and brains, he struts and preens, cries havoc! and lets slip the dogs of war.

    Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator.



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  • Snippets: “The E’s have it” . . . and more

    Snippets: “The E’s have it” . . . and more

    The E’s have it:

    Epstein (transparency)

    Enbridge/oil pipeline builder (Line 5/also Line 3)

    Elbit Systems/Israeli defense firm (Thunberg London arrest)

    Ethnic Cleansing/Humanitarian Disaster (Sudan/Gaza)

    E-ICE (ICE crimes are documented everywhere; their purpose and violence are inexcusable)

    Senator Wyden on the new trillion dollar defense bill

    Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who voted no on the defense spending bill, said, “I cannot support a bill that increases military spending by tens of billions of dollars and fails to include guardrails against Donald Trump and Hegseth’s authoritarian abuses.”

    From Hannah Arendt

    “The ‘apocalyptic’ chess game between the superpowers that is, between those that move on the highest plane of our civilization, is being played according to the rule ‘if either “wins” it is the end of both’; it is a game that bears no resemblance to whatever war games preceded it. Its ‘rational’ goal is deterrence, not victory, and the arms race, no longer a preparation for war, can now be justified only on the grounds that more and more deterrence is the best guarantee of peace. To the question how shall we ever be able to extricate ourselves from the obvious insanity of this position, there is no answer.”
    Hannah Arendt, On Violence

    There are now organizations like ICAN that before Trump and his cartel took over have taken huge steps internationally to ban nuclear weapons. But the Trumpites see only the military as a solution, when in reality it is the greatest threat to world peace. ICAN built the following UN treaty:

    The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)

    The TPNW was adopted at the United Nations by a majority of nations in July 2017 and entered into force on January 22, 2021. It is the first globally applicable treaty to categorically prohibit nuclear weapons and provides a framework for their verifiable and irreversible elimination. 

    Trump has removed the US from many international arms treaties just as he has removed US participation in prevention of climate change at the recent COP international UN conference about climate change and continued to promote the greatest polluter in the world, CO2, caused by fossil fuel that also drives the military with over 1000 military bases worldwide.


    • What new authoriarian or fascist tripe will be thrown at us by Trump and his administration? As the poet William Blake once said: “Enough! Or too much.” My AI interprets that as: “the power of imagination and challenging conventional morality.” Robert Reich in his most recent Coffee Klatch on Saturday, 12/27/2025 explores the idea that Trump’s excesses and authoritarian dictates have exposed the conventional morality we have been living under, accepting the status quo around racism, women’s oppression and rights, healthcare, housing, and other oppressive systems for so many Americans.

    • As the population if the United States has become more diverse and has many more shades of color, the white supremacists have lost their hold while at the same time they are losing their unilateral hemogeny in the world (collapse of empire) and are trying desperately to hold on.

    • Trump and his cartel think the solution is a superior military that has put us on the edge of more war, especially in Latin America and particularly Venezuela which has two strikes against it. One, it is a socialist country and therefore the opposite of capitalism’s greed in its idiology. Second, and not without significance even though the Trump administration denies it, Venezuela has the greatest reserve of oil in the world. Much of that oil is offshore, but still belongs to Venezuela. 

    • Why is the oil so important? It sustains the military industrial complex and is essential for that hyper-military system that has those 1000 or so military bases worldwide. Those jets and other oil uses from US military bases alone are the greatest CO2 (fossil fuel) sources in the world. You say so what? But if you understand the climate crisis you know that they are destroying the planet with their use of fossil fuel. Yet Trump encourages fracking and major use of fossil fuels and supports the corporations that use them. That, of course, is in direct conflict with those of us who want to save the planet. 

    • The gas and oil companies who economically control our government along with domination from other corporations, most especially including the weapons’ industry, which again is tied into the hyper-military. 

    • So how are all those corporations, internationally those multinational corporations and the financial groups that support them going to make money? They desperately cling to their old and destructive ways. But that creates jobs, they say. But statistics have proved that turning to a green basis for the economy can create just as many if not more jobs. That scares them. Instead of changing their ways because they might lose their power and their money, they continue on the road to destruction instead if using their time and money for new innovations that could help save the planet.

    • US industry has lost its innovative edge. Daily I see that this or that country worldwide has created a new tool to deal with the climate crisis, and China is ahead of the US in the war against climate change. Instead the US is stagnated, caught in a MEGA web that serves no one except the rich while convincing too many Americans who are Trump supporters that there is no genocide in Palestine. Recent examples I have seen online include the Netherlands inventing a tubing they put in the ocean that collects plastic that they then process the plastic to prevent pollution. Other nations have built large areas of solar panels on flat land dedicated to solar power. In Morocco they have developed an inexpensive small solar panel that can be placed on their balconies. There are many more examples but you will not find them described in the mainstream corporate media. 

     “In the end there is no democracy without informed citizens, no justice without a language critical of injustice, and no change without a broad-based movement of collective resistance.”

    —Henry Giroux



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  • The Money They Stole (from Venezuela): a song about US economic warfare, by Ben Grosscup

    The Money They Stole (from Venezuela): a song about US economic warfare, by Ben Grosscup

    This song confronts the economic warfare, stolen resources, and military threats facing Venezuela from US imperialism. It traces a line from historic extraction to today’s financial blockade—and affirms the right of a sovereign people to resist.

    📌 WHY THIS SONG NOW? As military threats against Venezuela escalate, this song focuses on the less visible front: the economic war. For years, Venezuelan assets—from CITGO to gold reserves—have been frozen or seized by U.S. and European banks under the banner of “sanctions.” This is a song about that theft.
    📢 USE THIS SONG This track is free to use at rallies, webinars, teach-ins, or on social media to raise awareness about US sanctions. Credit the artists and link back to this video. #TheMoneyTheyStole #Venezuela #EconomicWarfare #SanctionsKill #NoWarOnVenezuela #ProtestMusic #Solidarity #FinancialBlockade #CITGO #DavidRovics #BenGrosscup #ChetGardiner 🎶
    MORE FROM BEN GROSSCUP Follow & explore more music: https://linktr.ee/BenGrosscup

    CREDITS • Music & Lyrics: Ben Grosscup • Bass, Banjo & Studio Production: Chet Gardiner (http://chetgardiner.com/) • Video Production: Ben Grosscup, with support from Chet Gardiner • Lyrical inspiration: Based on the chorus and structure of David Rovics’ “Terrorizing Venezuela.” Read the original here: https://davidrovics.substack.com/p/te… 🔗


    RELATED

    Democracy Now!  U.S. Strikes Against Venezuela: Trump “Wants the Oil” as Grassroots Resist “Economic Asphyxiation”  December 31, 2025

    As the Trump administration escalates its military campaign against Venezuela, [DN!] speaks to Venezuelan journalist Andreína Chávez about the latest developments.

    Amy Goodman:

    Andreína Chávez, speaking to us from Caracas. We want to thank you for being with us, and encourage people to read your article at Drop Site News.  The article, “’War of the entire people’: Venezuela’s Grassroots Rise to Resist Trump’s Naval Blockade.”



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  • Sue Ann Martinson, New Year Musings: “Enough! or Too Much”

    Sue Ann Martinson, New Year Musings: “Enough! or Too Much”

    Sometimes when I am writing a phrase from my literary background pops into my mind; I am not always sure why. This time it was William Blake’s “Enough! or Too much” from his “Proverbs of Hell” in his book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

    New Year Musings: “Enough! or Too Much”
    By Sue Ann Martinson

    I had been listening to comments from Robert Reich on the Coffee Klatch program on Saturdays that he does with cohost Heather Lofthouse. Reich is talking about the excesses in Trump’s authoritarian edicts and his behavior, the hate rants and racism, his narcissistic behavior as he wants his name on everything from the Kennedy Center to peace plans that never seem to work out, to his condemnation of anyone who disagrees with him or challenges him and what he says. He has, in effect, lost touch with reality and has taken Congress and the Supreme Court with him. Reich’s point is exactly what this proverb, the last of the Proverbs of Hell, represents: You Never Know What is Enough Unless You Know What is More than Enough.” Trump’s rantings and ravings are certainly more than Enough (or Too much), as are his inhumane and cruel actions.

    Reich sees this beginning of a sea change as positive, a move toward sanity by the American people as they recognize Trump’s excesses in word and deed.

    Tony Trigilio, a professor at Columbia College Chicago, in an article entitled ”Poetic Influence: William Blake: You Never Know What is Enough Unless You Know What is More than Enough,” explains what this final proverb means for writers.***

    But like all Blake’s proverbs the application can be broader than the literary sphere: It applies also to Trump’s excesses revealed in their naked truth, which is what Reich understands and sees as a catalyst as cracks begin to show between the GOP Congress and Trump. More and more people also are signing on to oppose him, as reflected in the polls that rate him and his presidency at very low levels as increasing millions also join in the No King demonstrations.

    In Minnesota, especially Minneapolis, Trump’s slurs about the Somali people and attacks on Representative Ilhan Omar have activated an already Woke community to take continued action — in what Roger Waters calls “steadfast perseverance” — by many activists, including religious groups as well as those who take to the streets to confront ICE regularly. Governor Walz has spoken out, as has the mayor of Minneapols Jacob Frye. Attorney General Keith Ellison has joined with Attorney Generals from other states as well in lawsuits. The Minneapolis City Council has declared Minneapolis a Sanctuary City.

    Nor have we forgotten the genocide Gaza/Palestine as those actions and protests and educational programs continue as well.

    Last, but certainly not least, 15,000 people marched down Lake Street in the center of the city on the cold and windy day of December 20, 2025 in protest of ICE.

    ADDENDUM

    Other Work by William Blake

    Wm. Blake is known for his satirical poetry and the art he created that often accompanied it. An “activist,” he was once tried for sedition for an “anti-monarchy” statement but was acquitted. His activism is really through his writings. Blake’s most accessible and popular work is Songs of Innocence and Experience. Simply written, and illustrated by Blake, the poems reflect the warts on the face of English society and culture.


    ***Writers will want to read the following analysis by Tony Trigilio of the proverb under discussion, “Enough! or Too much,” for its insight into the writing process.

    Like most writers, my creative process is rarely linear. It requires recursive movement between free-form generative writing and disciplined self-editing. This dance between drafting and revision can be a delicate one. If I linger too long in the generative stage of the process, I can find myself tangled in a free-associative clump of language with no shape or coherence. At the same time, if I linger too long in revision, I can easily get stuck, Prufrock-like, in a self-critical loop of “decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”

    This movement back and forth between drafting and revision would be far more difficult if not for one of William Blake’s “Proverbs of Hell,” from his book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:

    “You never know what is enough,” Blake writes, “unless you know what is more than enough.”



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  • Roger Waters, A Song, SUMUD, Palestine Will Be Free

    Roger Waters, A Song, SUMUD, Palestine Will Be Free

    A new song by Roger Waters: SUMUD means “steadfast perseverence, particularly in resistance to the occupation of your homeland.”

    Editor’s Note:

    Here in Minnesota (a homeland within the homeland of America) we are also practicing a form of steadfast perseverence. It is characterized by continued protest around the genocide in Palestine, calling for the state to divest its holdings in Israeli companies to regular street protests and marches and bannerings, at minimum once a week but often more.  

    Although there has been intense resistance around Palestine regularly since October 7, 2023, another form of steadfast perseverence is taking place in protests against ICE: Now since Trump’s targeting of the large Minneapolis  population of Somali people, a support movement that is characterized by steadfast resistance by all organizations that work for peace and justice, including religious groups as well as street protests and other nonprofits. The Twin Cities, and to some extent all of Minnesota, is home to a large Hispanic population as well. Weekly protests against ICE and immigration policies and other creative protests occur regularly.

    On Saturday, December 20, 2025 15,000 people marched on Lake Street in the center of Minneapolis on a cold and windy day to protest ICE and in support of Minnesota’s Somali community as well as other targeted peoples. 

    Every day resistance continues and will continue in one form or another of creative and steadfast perseverence.

    Thank you Roger for your steadfast defiance and for giving us this phrase in your wonderful song about what is necessary and about what we need to continue to do in practicing steadfast perseverence.


    Roger Waters is the cofounder of Pink Floyd. He is known worldwide for not only his music, but his work for justice and peace. He won the Artistic War Abolisher of 2025 Award from World Beyond War for his “incredibly powerful combination of songwriting, singing, speaking and performing against the horrors of war,” in the words of David Swanson, World Beyond War executive director.

    Because of his activism he has had many of his live concerts cancelled in Europe and elsewhere and attacks on his work, but he wonderfully and steadfastly perseveres.



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  • DN! “Destroying Knowledge”: Trump Dismantles Vital Climate Research Center, by Michael Mann

    DN! “Destroying Knowledge”: Trump Dismantles Vital Climate Research Center, by Michael Mann

    Trump Dismantles Vital Climate Research Center

    Climate scientists and meteorologists are sounding the alarm after White House budget director Russell Vought announced the Trump administration will break up the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, known as NCAR.

    “He is executing the playbook of Project 2025,” says Michael Mann, scientist and co-author of Science Under Siege. Without NCAR, “we will not have the sorts of observational data and climate models that we need to inform climate policy.”

    Transcript
    This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

    AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

    In Colorado, hundreds of protesters gathered in Boulder Saturday to condemn the Trump administration’s plan to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research – NCAR, a federally funded climate and weather research institute based in Boulder. Last week, White House budget director Russell Vought called NCAR “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country,” unquote.

    Democratic lawmakers have suggested Trump targeted the climate facility in retaliation for Colorado’s refusal to release Tina Peters, a former county clerk convicted of tampering with voting machines during the 2020 presidential election. She was sentenced to nine years. Trump recently pardoned her, but he doesn’t have the legal authority to overturn a state court conviction.

    We’re joined now by climate scientist Michael Mann, professor at the University of Pennsylvania. His new book with Dr. Peter Hotez is titled Science Under Siege. He has a new piece out today in The Guardian on Trump’s shuttering of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

    Can you talk about the significance, Michael, Professor Mann, of the closing? Are they closing this facility? What it means, I mean, even right now, as Colorado is under a wildfire alert because there has been so little rain and the winds are so intense?

    MICHAEL MANN: Yeah. It’s good to be with you, Amy.

    Unfortunately, this does sort of underscore just how absurd this latest action by the Trump administration is. We’re literally seeing the devastating consequences of climate change play out in this state. You’re not supposed to get wildfires in the middle of the winter in Colorado, but that’s the world we live in now because of the warming of the planet and the more extreme weather that we’re seeing as a result.

    And, you know, I think there are a lot of things that Donald Trump could have tried to do to hurt the state of Colorado. I think the reason that he chose NCAR is that it is the crown jewel of climate science. For more than a half-century, it has been a leader when it comes to American advancement in the science of climate modeling. And he is executing the playbook of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, of course, playing a major part in this dismantling of climate infrastructure, the infrastructure for doing climate science, the infrastructure for doing something about the climate crisis. So, it isn’t a coincidence that he’s going after this, you know, iconic climate institution.

    AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about, overall, the Trump administration now when it comes to climate change. And what does it mean to take NCAR basically offline? And what happens to this facility in Boulder right now?

    MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, it’s unclear at this point. And this will play out in the courts, almost certainly, so we don’t know the full consequences of this yet. But the models that NCAR creates are used around the world. They’re among the leading models of Earth’s climate system. I have benefited tremendously in my own research from the work that NCAR does when it comes to climate modeling, when it comes to observational climate data sets that allow us to document the changes that are taking place. So this will hurt climate science, certainly, writ large.

    But it will also ensure that the United States fall to the back of the line, essentially. We used to lead in all areas of science, and certainly in climate science. And now what we’re — you know, these sorts of actions are going to mean that the rest of the world moves ahead of us. Scientists are going to leave the United States for opportunities in other countries. And we are going to, essentially, fall behind in terms of our scientific leadership and our scientific stature in the world.

    But the actual practical consequences are that we will not have the sorts of observational data and climate models that we need to inform climate policy, to, you know, help us understand what sorts of adaptive measures will need to be changed to protect people from the devastating consequences of climate change as it continues on.

    AMY GOODMAN: The Trump administration recently denied Colorado Governor Jared Polis’s disaster declaration request for major wildfires and flooding across Colorado. The Boulder area experienced hurricane-force winds of nearly 100 miles per hour over the weekend and increased fire danger, prompting NCAR to close for safety reasons. The significance of this?

    MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, I mean, it’s ironic, isn’t it? Not only are they trying, is Trump and, you know, the Koch brothers and the other sort of plutocrats behind these actions — not only are they trying to dismantle climate science, they’re trying to dismantle our ability to protect people from the devastating consequences of climate change. So, it’s cruel. It is — you know, it’s going to cost lives. I mean, these actions are — you know, it may be a little bit more subtle than the lives cost because of their anti-science actions when it comes to vaccines and COVID-19 and protecting — you know, protecting public health in that arena, but millions of people ultimately will die from the consequences of extreme weather events, coastal inundation, all of these impacts that are made worse by the, you know, warming of the planet, that’s due to the burning of fossil fuels, the burning of fossil fuels by the very companies and plutocrats and petrostates that are behind the policies of this administration.

    AMY GOODMAN: [You] said, “Not since the ransacking of the Library of Alexandria have we witnessed such a wanton, intentional assault on scientific knowledge.” We have 30 seconds, Professor Mann.

    MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, it’s a line from my commentary. And, you know, there’s some question as to the veracity of that story, but I think it captures sort of the insanity of what we’re doing. We’re literally destroying knowledge. And we have to look back to ancient times to see eras similar, you know, when barbarians tried to destroy knowledge. That’s what this administration is doing. They’re trying to destroy knowledge.

    AMY GOODMAN: Michael Mann, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, co-author of the book Science Under Siege with Dr. Peter Hotez. We will link to your new piece, out today in The Guardian.

    The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.


    Just Transition”: Polluting Countries Must Take Responsibility for Extreme Climate Change


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  • Chris Hedges: Taking Power Amidst the Turbulence, with  Dylan Saba

    Chris Hedges: Taking Power Amidst the Turbulence, with Dylan Saba

    Opportunity in Chaos?

    As American hegemony transforms into something that will be determined by “the forces of historical contingency,” how can regular people fight back against the increasingly violent Empire?

    Taking Power Amidst the Turbulence, with Dylan Saba

    Chris Hedges:

    While Palestine has always represented a contradiction in the Western-established world order, the genocide in Gaza has brought the issue to the forefront of the world’s conscience — and moreover, may signal the end of an era marked by U.S. hegemony. As today’s guest Dylan Saba, host of the Turbulence podcast, puts it, the genocide is

    “the capstone of the War on Terror, [with] Israel as the greatest representation of U.S. overextension…What’s happened is all of those forces, all of those colonial forces that had been amassing over over generations really exploded on October 7th, and catalyzed the most dramatic imperial overreaction that we’ve seen to date.”

    Amidst the chaotic collapse of American hegemony — where do normal people, those who are ruled by the elite, fit in? And must they fall victim to the violence and psychological warfare that characterizes the policy doctrine of Western democracies, or can they seize the moment and build parallel systems of oppositional power?

    “The cause of Palestine can be this tip of the spear, both in terms of repression but also potentially in terms of catalyzing a political response that’s adequate for the moment,” Saba tells host Chris Hedges.

    In a post-October 7th world, one where the need to cloak brutal warfare in humanitarian rhetoric is disintegrating, what pressure points can the working class exploit? Though the masses are outgunned and militaristically vulnerable in the face of the American empire and its allies, “there are ways to think strategically about how to leverage a marginal position to have an outsized impact.”

    The Houthis in Yemen, Saba suggests, have demonstrated this reality. With targeted, strategic planning that can kneecap critical parts of the machinery of state, we may stand a chance against the oligarchy dominating the globe.




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    In this critical time hearing the voices of truth is all the more important although censorship and attacks on truth-tellers are common. Support WingsofChange.me as we bring you important articles and journalism beyond the mainstream corporate media on the Wings of Change website and Rise Up Times on social media  Access is alway free, but if you would like to help:
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