Saturday, August 02, 2025

James Greenberg: “The Choices We Make Matter”

James B. Greenberg is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Arizona, the Founding Editor of the Journal of Political Ecology, and the past president of the Political Ecology Society.

Last week Greenberg published the following commentary on his substack. It’s a timely and insightful piece, and one that I find in many ways hopeful. Perhaps you will too.

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We are living through a moment in which authoritarianism is no longer merely a threat. It is an organizing principle, a mode of governance that normalizes cruelty, criminalizes dissent, and hollows out the very institutions built to protect the public. The executive orders and legislative measures being pushed today are not bureaucratic accidents. They are acts of political redesign.

What replaces democratic law doesn’t need new institutions. It rewires the ones we already have to serve a different purpose. Law is not discarded; it is weaponized – not to defend the public, but to protect power.

To resist this is not only a political act. It is a historical one. We are shaping the memory of what was accepted, what was contested, and what was possible. Each refusal to comply, each protest, legal challenge, policy safeguard, or act of moral courage becomes part of the long record that future generations will study when they ask what we did in the face of creeping tyranny.

Authoritarianism doesn’t only rely on repression. It thrives on resignation. It tells us nothing can be done, that resistance is futile, that hope is naïve. But history does not support this. The fall of every repressive system – from the plantation economy to apartheid to the Berlin Wall – was not the result of inevitability but of struggle. Accumulated over time. Advanced at great cost. But sustained.

Standing up now may not mean defeating a regime in a single act. It may mean refusing collaboration, protecting a threatened colleague, exposing corruption, or showing up for a neighbor. These acts may seem small. They are not. They are part of the infrastructure of resistance: the human infrastructure on which every democratic revival has depended.

The same perspective holds when we confront climate collapse. The atmosphere, like history, records everything. Carbon released in 1850 is still warming the Earth. The emissions we generate today will linger for centuries. And the ecological systems we’ve disrupted – ice sheets, ocean currents, forests – are shifting in response on timescales far longer than those of our institutions.

We are told it’s too late. That the damage is done. That nothing we do matters. But that defeatism only makes collapse more likely. The truth is: every tenth of a degree we prevent, every ecosystem we protect, every just policy we implement shapes the conditions of life for generations. These are not gestures. They are boundaries: of habitability, of hope, of survival.

This isn’t just an environmental issue. It’s a civilizational one. Climate change magnifies inequality, accelerates displacement, and exposes every crack in the systems meant to mediate power. Its effects fall heaviest on those least responsible. It is not a problem of carbon alone, but of political economy – of systems that reward extraction, commodify nature, and externalize harm.

But not all futures are lost. The choices we make now matter, not only for their immediate effects but for the pathways they open or foreclose. Resistance and renewal are not separate acts. They are part of the same long arc of care. That arc is held up by relationships: between people and place, between generations, between those who came before and those who are not yet born.

We are the inheritors of choices others made. And we are now the ones who must choose what to defend, what to dismantle, what to remember, and what to become.

This all matters because the dominant systems we live under are designed to make us forget. Authoritarianism relies not only on force but on erasure: of memory, of alternative ways of being, of solidarity, of history itself. Political repression and climate denial function in similar ways. Both depend on distraction and disconnection. They thrive on making the unacceptable seem inevitable.

But memory is a form of resistance. And attention is a form of care. Choosing what to remember, what to notice, teach, preserve, and defend is one way we stay human under systems that seek to render us fungible.

None of this guarantees an outcome. But it guarantees that nothing we do is meaningless. Every action, every refusal, every effort to repair is a form of presence that extends beyond the self. We are not spectators. We are participants in a long and tangled chain of causality. That brings with it responsibility, but also the extraordinary potential for transformation.

With what’s going on, we often feel powerless, as if history is something done to us rather than something we participate in. But that sense of smallness obscures a deeper truth: each of us shapes history, not only in our own time but for generations to come. Every action has consequences. Some are immediate, visible, and measurable. Most ripple outward in ways we rarely see, accumulating like sediment in a riverbed, altering the course of things long after we’re gone.

Our very existence is the product of such accumulations. The atoms in our bodies were forged in stars that exploded billions of years ago. We are composed of particles born in the Big Bang, shaped by cosmic events we’ll never witness. Our biological inheritance stretches back through eons, through the first self-replicating molecules in a primeval sea, through ancestors who endured, adapted, resisted.

What we call the present is only a cross-section of that deeper continuity: of energy, matter, and meaning moving forward. And we too are part of that movement. Our choices today, even the smallest ones, carry forward into futures we cannot predict. The same is true for information and practice. Knowledge accumulates, adapts, and corrects itself – but it doesn’t vanish. What we record, teach, preserve, or refuse becomes part of an ongoing inheritance. It enters the world as something real, with the potential to grow, resist, or transform.

A deep time ethic demands more than imagination. It requires commitment – to act not only for today’s outcomes, but for consequences that unfold over decades, centuries, or longer. Most of our systems, political, economic, even academic, are built around short-term returns. But the crises we face now – ecological collapse, democratic erosion, systemic dispossession – unfold on long and uneven timelines. Meeting them requires a horizon of responsibility that stretches far beyond our own comfort or lifespan.

From an anthropological view, agency is not only personal; it is always social. It emerges through relationship, memory, and the accumulation of shared action. Movements arise not from singular events but from networks of care, refusal, and solidarity. They rarely move in straight lines. They advance by persistence, retreat, reconfiguration. And over time, they reshape what is possible.

No authoritarian regime, no extractive order, no imperial system has lasted forever. All have eventually been undone by the patient force of collective will. But that will must be cultivated and remembered.

Indigenous traditions remind us of this differently. In many of these worldviews, we do not stand apart from time – we are woven into it. We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our grandchildren. Responsibility is not heroic. It is relational. It lives in ritual, stewardship, kinship, and story. Time is not a line but a cycle. Consequence is not isolated to individuals; it moves through communities, watersheds, ecosystems, and generations. These are not abstractions. They are living systems of accountability that challenge the extractive worldview and offer an alternative rooted in endurance rather than domination.

Remember this: we are all powerful, not in theory but in action. Our voices and relationships matter. When we remember this, we reclaim the future from the logic of inevitability and become ancestors worth remembering.

– James Greenberg
Why Connection – Not Control –
Is Our Greatest Source of Power

James’s Substack
July 30, 2025


See also the following chronologically-ordered Wild Reed posts:
Marisa Kabas: “We’re Witnessing a Coup By an Unelected Billionaire Propped Up By a Felonious President”
Timothy Snyder on Resisting the Oligarchs’ “Logic of Destruction”
“This Is Essentially Viktor Orbán’s Playbook”
“An Extremely Clever Ruse” by and for the Rich: Owen Jones on Elon Musk’s Coup
“To Be a Rib in This Body of Our Country”
Quote of the Day – February 21, 2025
Ralph Nader: “We’re Heading Into the Most Serious Crisis in American History. There’s No Comparison”
Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism
“This Is How Democracy Unravels”
Jason Stanley on How Fascism Works
James Greenberg on Trumpism: “The Tactics Are Unmistakable”
Tony Pentimalli on Trump’s “Death Warrant for Democracy”
“This Is What Fascism Looks Like”
Peter Bloom: Quote of the Day – June 10, 2025
“Protesting Is What Patriotism Looks Like in Public”: The “No Kings” Protests of June 14, 2025
“No Kings”? Absolutely. But Also “No Oligarchy”
Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 20, 2025
Rep. Ro Khanna: Quote of the Day – June 24, 2025
“This Is Fascism”
The Declaration of Resistance
The Choice Before Us
Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2025
How Democrats Can Start Winning Again
Brent Molnar on the MAGA Cult and Its Intentions


Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Brent Molnar on the MAGA Cult and Its Intentions

The modern Republican Party – now fully metastasized into the MAGA cult – has made its intentions known. They aren’t here to share power. They aren’t here to govern. They’re here to burn the system down, salt the earth, and erase anyone who stands in the way. And if you think that sounds extreme, remember: they are the ones saying it out loud. Every day. On stages. In Congress. From the Oval Office.

They talk about “getting rid of Democrats” like it’s a casual policy shift. They celebrate when protestors and congress people are shot. They cheer when schools ban books and punish teachers. They strip voters from rolls and brag about suppressing the youth vote. This isn’t politics. This is exterminationism wrapped in a flag. They’re not looking to win debates – they’re looking to erase opposition entirely.

Well, we’re not going anywhere. We’re the ones who built the safety nets. Who expanded the vote. Who fought for labor rights, civil rights, and bodily autonomy. They want to take credit for the country’s greatness while cutting out the very people who made that greatness possible. But this democracy isn’t theirs to monopolize – and we sure as hell won’t surrender it to a mob of fascist cosplay artists in red hats.

So if they want to make it a fight, let’s stop pretending we’re still playing the same game. They’ve spent years stacking the courts, rigging the maps, and poisoning the discourse. And every time we try to meet them with compromise, they meet us with contempt. Every olive branch is met with a torch. Every handshake with a sucker punch.

They say we’re the enemy. Fine. Then let’s act like it. Let’s treat them not as colleagues across the aisle, but as the greatest internal threat to democracy in modern American history. Because that’s what they are. This is not a difference of opinion – it’s a difference of intent. We want a future. They want control. We want liberty and justice. They want theocracy and rule by billionaires.

Our system has never been perfect. But it’s survived 250 years because people fought to improve it, not destroy it. And now, in the face of a party that openly calls for its opponents to be jailed, silenced, or exiled, we have to stop asking how to coexist – and start asking how to win. Decisively. Permanently.

Because when one side is screaming “get rid of them,” and the other side is still asking, “how do we reach across the aisle?” – you already know who’s losing.

– Brent Molnar
via Brent Molnar: Voice of Reason
July 30, 2025


Related Off-site Links:
What Won't Democrats Fight? – Jonathan V. Last (The Bulwark, July 30, 2025).
American Politics Are in Trouble – James Zogby (Common Dreams, July 28, 2025).
Trump’s Supreme Court Enablers Will Face History’s Verdict – Philip Allen Lacovara (The Bulwark, July 28, 2025).
“The Orban Playbook”: Trump Assault on Media Matters Seen as Dire Warning to Other Critics – Brad Reed (Common Dreams, July 25, 2025).
Trump’s Gravestones, Carved by Reality Denial – Steven Day (Common Dreams, July 24, 2025).
Democrats Are Preparing a Deliberately Incomplete 2024 Election Autopsy – Naomi LaChance (Rolling Stone, July 19, 2025).
“We Are in the Midst of the Creation of a Police State”: Rep. Ilhan Omar on Trump’s AuthoritarianismDemocracy Now! (June 13, 2025).


See also the following chronologically-ordered Wild Reed posts:
Marisa Kabas: “We’re Witnessing a Coup By an Unelected Billionaire Propped Up By a Felonious President”
Timothy Snyder on Resisting the Oligarchs’ “Logic of Destruction”
“This Is Essentially Viktor Orbán’s Playbook”
“An Extremely Clever Ruse” by and for the Rich: Owen Jones on Elon Musk’s Coup
“To Be a Rib in This Body of Our Country”
Quote of the Day – February 21, 2025
Ralph Nader: “We’re Heading Into the Most Serious Crisis in American History. There’s No Comparison”
Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism
“This Is How Democracy Unravels”
Jason Stanley on How Fascism Works
James Greenberg on Trumpism: “The Tactics Are Unmistakable”
Tony Pentimalli on Trump’s “Death Warrant for Democracy”
“This Is What Fascism Looks Like”
Peter Bloom: Quote of the Day – June 10, 2025
“Protesting Is What Patriotism Looks Like in Public”: The “No Kings” Protests of June 14, 2025
“No Kings”? Absolutely. But Also “No Oligarchy”
Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 20, 2025
Rep. Ro Khanna: Quote of the Day – June 24, 2025
“This Is Fascism”
The Declaration of Resistance
The Choice Before Us
Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2025
How Democrats Can Start Winning Again

Image: Workers from Service Employees International Union protest the proposed Republican Medicaid cuts near the U.S. Capitol building on June 23, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)


Tuesday, July 29, 2025

How Democrats Can Start Winning Again

The Humanist Report is a podcast created and hosted by Mike Figueredo. It’s dedicated to “disseminating socio-political and religious news stories,” a sharing supplemented with progressive commentary.

Recently, Figueredo shared his thoughts on a number of interelated stories and developments within the Democratic Party, a political entity that continues to tank whenever voters are polled about its effectiveness and relevance. Figueredo begins his 22-minute video commentary by examining how Zohran Mamdani’s unwavering support for Palestinian human rights “supercharged” his campaign, even as the Democratic establishment continues to insist that support of Israel is what wins elections. Yet as Figueredo points out, new data shows that support for Israel is now a liability for Democrats.

Next, Figueredo analyzes recent comments by “centrist” Democrats Pete Buttigieg, Hakeem Jeffries, and Elissa Slotkin. Not surprisingly, he finds these comments lacking in substance and inspiration – and thus part of the reason why the Democratic Party is failing. Throughout his commentary, Figueredo balances his critiques by offering proactive ways the Democratic Party can start winning again.





Related Off-site Links:
A Progressive and a Democrat Debate on Gaza and IsraelPod Save America (July 30, 2025).
Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From FascismThe Humanist Report (March 6, 2025).
Trump Is Unpopular – and So Are the Do-Nothing Democrats – Jeet Heer (The Nation, February 18, 2025).
If You’re a Democrat Annoyed by Outraged Voters, You Are Doing It Wrong – Norman Solomon (Common Dreams, February 24, 2025).
Dems Reportedly Angry That Progressives Are Pushing Them to Act Like an Opposition Party – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, February 12, 2025).
Ted Rall on the Many Ways the DNC and Democratic Party Leaders Piss On and Disrespect ProgressivesRob Kall Bottom-Up Show (July 23, 2020).
Ted Rall: Hillary Clinton Is a “Disaster for the Democratic Party”Newsmax (March 18, 2015).


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
What It Means to Be a Leftist in 2025
Ted Rall: Democrats Are Not “the Left”
My Summer of Supporting Progressive Down-Ballot Candidates
“No Kings”? Absolutely. But Also “No Oligarchy”
Norman Solomon: Quote of the Day – June 16, 2025
Peter Bloom: Quote of the Day – June 10, 2025
Eric Fernández: Quote of the Day – May 14, 2025
Progressive Perspectives on Bernie Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy” Tour
Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism
Democrat Talk on the Eve of Trump’s Return
A Timely Conversation
Breaking the Mold: Why Progressives Should Push for Marianne Williamson to Lead the DNC
Inauguration Day Thoughts
Progressive Perspectives on Where Democrats Went Wrong in the 2024 Election
“A New Chapter of the Democratic Party Needs to Begin”
The Lamentable Legacy of the Biden Administration
Peter Bloom on the Unmasking of the “Democratic Charade”
When Democrats Undermine Democracy
Marianne Williamson on What Democrats Need to Do to Inspire Voters and Counter the “Hotbed of Grievances That Donald Trump is Offering”
Progressive Perspectives on the Crisis in U.S. Electoral Politics (2024)
Marianne Williamson: “‘Vote Blue No Matter Who’ Is Not Enough to Win in November”
Centrist/Corporatist Democrats Have Just Launched “Left Punching” Season
AOC Falls in Line
The Cassandra of U.S. Politics on the “True State of the Union”
“Let the People Decide”: Marianne Williamson on the DNC’s Efforts to Deny and Suppress the Democratic Process
Marianne Williamson’s “Radical Idea” of Putting People First
Marianne Williamson: “We Need to Disrupt the Corrupt”
Mark Harris: Quote of the Day – August 10, 2023
Ben Burgis: Quote of the Day – March 10, 2023
Progressive Perspectives on Marianne Williamson’s Presidential Run
More Progressive Perspectives on Marianne Williamson’s Presidential Run
Will Democrats Never Learn?
David Sirota: Quote of the Day – January 28, 2021
“As Much the Sounding of An Alarm As a Time for Self-Congratulations”
Progressive Perspectives on the Biden-Harris Ticket (2020)
Luke Savage: Quote of the Day – February 9, 2020
David A. Love: Quote of the Day – November 27, 2019
Marianne Williamson: “Anything That Will Help People Thrive, I’m Interested In”
Sarah Jones: Quote of the Day – October 29, 2019
Bernie Sanders: Quote of the Day – June 12, 2019
Beto, Biden and Buttigieg: “Empty Suits and Poll-Tested Brands”
Progressive Perspectives on Joe Biden's Presidential Run (2019)
Jeff Cohen on How Obama’s “Corporate Liberalism” Led to the Rise of Trump
Progressives and Obama
Hope, History, and Bernie Sanders


Monday, July 28, 2025

Protesting Israel’s “Starvation Campaign” in Gaza


Last Wednesday I attended the weekly vigil in St. Paul that’s held in solidarity with the Palestinian people of Gaza and the West Bank.

Recent vigils have focused on the Israeli government’s starvation of the Palestinian population in Gaza. And, of course, we are always there in protest of the U.S. government using our tax dollars to fund Israel’s wider genocide in Gaza.

You might recall that last October then-Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein attended our vigil when in the Twin Cities for a series of campaign events (left).

Dr. Stein was prominently featured in a Newsweek article published earlier today on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, one that now sees Israel “conducting the fastest starvation campaign in modern history.”

Following are excerpts.


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The U.S. must immediately follow French President Emmanuel Macron’s lead and recognize a Palestinian state as a “famine-made-in-Israel” sweeps Gaza, Jill Stein has said.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza has deteriorated in recent months, with mounting international pressure on Israel and warnings of mass starvation. Images released last week of emaciated children have shocked the world.

“Of course Palestine deserves statehood, as long declared by the United Nations,” Stein told Newsweek. “But this is not the first order of business as famine-made-in-Israel sweeps the Gaza Strip. Israel is conducting the fastest starvation campaign in modern history, according to the U.N. Rapporteur on Food. Over 2 million lives are in immediate peril, over half of them children.”

The Green Party 2024 presidential candidate said the crisis “is the intended consequence of Israel’s genocidal ban blocking food, water, electricity and fuel from reaching the 'human animals’ of Gaza, as announced by then Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in October 2023 and ramped up 80 days ago.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has denied what it called “the false claim of deliberate starvation” in Gaza. On Sunday, the Israeli military began a limited pause in fighting in three parts of Gaza for 10 hours a day as part of a series of measures announced to address the humanitarian crisis. Israel said the military carried out several aid airdrops into Gaza over the weekend and would establish humanitarian corridors.

. . . Israel has restricted aid into Gaza, stating, without evidence, that Hamas was using shipments to bolster its position. It has also accused the U.N. of failing to cooperate on the distribution of aid.

The World Food Program warned in a statement that a third of Gaza’s population of around 2 million were not eating for days. It said that nearly half a million people were enduring famine-like conditions.

Macron announced Thursday that France will recognize Palestine as a state, expressing outrage at the Palestinian death toll and starvation in Gaza. It was a bold, but largely symbolic, diplomatic move. Once formalized at the U.N. General Assembly in September, France will become the biggest Western power to call for a Palestinian state. More than 140 countries recognize Palestine as a state.

Stein, who placed the war in Gaza at the forefront of her 2024 presidential election campaign, said the U.S. must immediately follow suit.

“Having provided 80% of weapons, funding and diplomatic cover for this genocidal assault, the US fully shares responsibility with Israel,” she said. “We must stop blocking Palestinian statehood, which is supported by at least 75% of U.N. members. But for Palestinians to survive to populate this state, we must first adopt an immediate ban on military and economic aid to Israel until it complies with international law, ends its siege, allows aid to flow, and agrees to a cease fire and an end to genocide and occupation.”

“In short, the world is recoiling in horror as we witness the utter dismantling of international law, human rights and basic decency,” Stein told Newsweek. “This is a threat not just to Palestine, but also to the people of Israel, whose future in a full-blown apartheid authoritarian state is bleak, as noted by Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov. It is also a threat to people of the world including Americans, whose position as top dog in the global order is shakier by the day. We too will be vulnerable in a world ruled by the law of the jungle, rather than the law of nations currently under attack.”

Barney Henderson
Excerpted from “U.S. Must Recognize Palestine Amid
Gaza Starvation Horror, Says Jill Stein

Newsweek
July 28, 2025




Related Off-site Links:
From the Warsaw Ghetto to Gaza, Starvation as a Weapon of WarDemocracy Now!, July 24, 2025).
Two Israeli Rights Groups Say Their Country Is Committing Genocide in Gaza – Sam Mednick (AP News, July 28, 2025).
“Our Flour Is Soaked in Blood”: Sheren Falah Saab on Gaza, Fear and DehumanizationHaaretz (July 30, 2025).
No Proof Hamas Routinely Stole U.N. Aid, Israeli Military Officials Say – Natan Odenheimer (The New York Times, July 26, 2025).
The New Superman Movie Is Very Clearly About Israel and Palestine, Multi Billion Dollar Weapons Deals, and Ethnic Cleansing – Shaun King (The North Star, July 13, 2025).
Francesca Albanese’s Bombshell: The Corporate Giants Fueling Israel’s War Machine in Palestine – Ramzy Baroud (The Palestine Chronicle, July 10, 2025).


UPDATES: Facing Gaza as a Christian: “I’m Afraid I’ve Been Silent For Too Long” – Pat Kahnke (Culture, Faith, and Politics, August 1, 2025).
“Indefensible”: Human Rights Watch Condemns U.S. Complicity in Israeli Massacres of Starving Gazans – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, August 1, 2025).
Sanctions Against Israel Are Long Overdue – C.J. Polychroniou (Common Dreams, August 2, 2025).
“It Is Our War”: Palestinian American Scholar Rashid Khalidi on U.S. Complicity in Gaza GenocideDemocracy Now!, August 4, 2025).
Why Is Gaza Still Starving? Israeli Lies and the Tail That Wags the Dogs – Jamal Kanj (Middle East Monitor, August 5, 2025).
A Wasteland of Rubble, Dust and Graves: How Gaza Looks from the Sky – Lorenzo Tondo and Alessio Mamo (The Guardian, August 5, 2025).
Israel Is Losing the War of Algorithms Over Gaza – Osama Al-Sharif (Arab News, August 5, 2025).
Doctors and Aid Workers Can Save Gaza’s Starving Children – If Israel and the U.S. Let Us – Dr. John Kahler (Common Dreams, August 5, 2025).
U.N. Experts Demand “Immediate Dismantling” of U.S.-Backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, August 6, 2025).
The Week the World Woke Up to the Genocide in Gaza – Jonah Valdez (The Intercept, August 6, 2025).
“Horrifying Escalation”: Global Outcry as Israeli Cabinet Approves Military Takeover of Gaza City – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, August 8, 2025).
Israel’s Delusional, Inhuman Gaza Takeover Plan Could Be Recipe for Perpetual War – Peter Beaumont (The Guardian, August 8, 2025).
How the “Blood Libel” Paradox Keeps the West Silent on Israel’s Genocide – Jonathan Cook (JonathanCook.Substack.com, August 8, 2025).
Why We’re Not Allowed to See Gaza – George Cassidy Payne (Common Dreams, August 9, 2025).
To Future Generations: They Knew. They All Knew What Was Happening in Gaza – Caitlin Johnstone (Caitlin’s Newsletter, August 9, 2025).


See also the following chronologically-ordered Wild Reed posts:
October 7, 2023: “Nothing About Today Is ‘Unprovoked’”
Phyllis Bennis: “If We Are Serious About Ending This Spiraling Violence, We Need to Look at Root Causes”
In the Midst of the “Great Unraveling,” a Visit to the Prayer Tree
Eric Levitz: Quote of the Day – October 11, 2023
Something to Think About – October 12, 2023
Prayer of the Week – October 16, 2023
Voices of Reason and Compassion on the Crisis in Israel and Gaza
More Voices of Reason and Compassion on the Crisis in Israel and Gaza
Ta-Nehisi Coates: Quote of the Day – November 2, 2023
Jehad Abusalim: Quote of the Day – December 8, 2023
Christmas 2023 – Reflections, Activism, Art, and Celebrations
Sabrina Salvati: Quote of the Day – January 2, 2024
Michael Fakhri: Quote of the Day – February 27, 2024
Phyllis Bennis: Quote of the Day – March 28, 2024
Josh Paul: Quote of the Day – March 28, 2024
“A Genocide Has Been Normalized”
“This Is a Genocidal Project”
Outrage and Despair
Naomi Klein’s Powerful Words on Israel’s and the West’s Ongoing Gaza Genocide
Judith Butler on the Ongoing Student Protests Against the Gaza Genocide
Kyle Kulinski: Quote of the Day – May 23, 2024
Something to Think About – June 28, 2024
Nina Turner: Quote of the Day – July 24, 2024
Phyllis Bennis: “We Can Never Give Up Hope”
John Cusack: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2024
Progressive Perspectives on the Presidential Nomination of Kamala Harris
Breaking Down Kamala Harris’s DNC Speech on Gaza
Yousef Munayyer: Quote of the Day – August 30, 2024
“It’s a Systematic Slaughter That We’re Funding”
Protesting Weapons Manufacturer and Genocide Enabler General Dynamics
Something to Think About – September 26, 2024
“A Year of War Against Children”
Anti-Genocide Presidential Candidate Jill Stein Reflects on the First Anniversary of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza
Liam Cosgrove Confronts U.S. State Department Spin Doctor Matthew Miller: “People Are Sick of the Bullshit”
“This Is a Tragic, Heartbreaking Moment in the History of Humanity”
Progressive Perspectives on Kamala Harris’ Faltering Presidential Campaign
Progressive Perspectives on Where Democrats Went Wrong in the 2024 Presidential Election
Hope and Courage – Christmas 2024
Chris Hedges: “Israel Has No Intention of Halting Its Merry-Go-Round of Death”
The Lamentable Legacy of the Biden Administration
Caitlin Johnstone: Quote of the Day – January 22, 2025
Butch Ware: Quote of the Day – January 30, 2025
The Only Difference
Progressive Perspectives on Cory Booker’s Marathon Speech
Silence on Gaza Genocide Is “More Than a Mere Moral Abdication; It Is Lethal”
The Theft of One’s Soul: Omar El Akkad on the “Lesser of Two Evils” Argument
How Genocide Becomes Ordinary
Thomas Friedman: Quote of the Day – May 27, 2025
“A Holocaust, Live-streamed”
“Life Comes First”: An Interview with Thiago Ávila
Truth-telling in the Face of Systemic Power That Is Silent on Genocide
Caitlin Johnstone: Quote of the Day – July 23, 2025
U.S. Labor Leader Chris Smalls Joins the Crew of the Handala
Israel’s Actions in Gaza: “A Clear and Present Moral Collapse”


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
“The Mistreatment and Discrimination Against Palestinians Is Not Unprecedented. It’s Baked Into the Foundation of the Political System in Israel”
Progressive Perspectives on the Ongoing Israeli-Palestinian “Nightmare” (2021)
Something to Think About – July 29, 2018
Noura Erakat: Quote of the Day – May 15, 2018
For Some Jews, Israel’s Treatment of Palestinians is Yet Another Jewish Tragedy
Remembering the Six-Day War and Its Ongoing Aftermath
David Norris: Quote of the Day – August 12, 2014

Images: Michael J. Bayly


Sunday, July 27, 2025

Israel’s Actions in Gaza: “A Clear and Present Moral Collapse”

Above: The body of a young Palestian man randomly shot and killed by Israeli soldiers at a food distribution site operated by the U.S. and Israel in Gaza. (Photographer unknown)


I’ve watched the 1993 film Schindler’s List only once. Because once was enoungh.

Along from the sheer enormity of the horrors the film depicts, what haunts me to this day is it’s depiction of the sickening randomness of much of the violence meted out to Jewish people by those embodying the vision and goals of Nazi Germany.

No one needs to watch Schindler’s List today to be informed about such random and ideologically-inspired violence. We can readily see it live-streamed every day on social media in images and video footage coming out of Gaza. These images and this video footage is not depicting but showing both the enormity of mass starvation of a civilian population and the sickening randonmness of the violence being meted out to Palestinian people by those embodying the vision and goals of Zionist Israel.

I know, without a shred of doubt, that one day there will be movies and documentaries that highlight the horrors of the holocaust in Gaza in the 2020s in the same way that Schindler’s List highlights the horrors of the holocaust in Europe in the 1940s.

I was reminded of this conviction of mine when I read the following commentary by political analyst and social commentator Tony Pentimalli, a commentary that Pentimalli shared last Friday (7/25/25) on Facebook and BlueSky (@tonywriteshere.bsky.social).

I consider it an an essential read for all who are concerned and yearn to speak out about what’s ongoing on in Gaza – and those who need to awaken to their need to be concerned and speak out.

______________________


This Isn’t a Debate. It’s a Crime
By Tony Pentimalli
July 25, 2025

There are moments in history when the very act of framing atrocity as a “debate” becomes an atrocity in itself.

What’s happening in Gaza is not a conflict of opinions. It is the systematic denial of food, water, and medical aid to a trapped civilian population, followed by live gunfire as they attempt to survive. These are not tragic accidents or “unfortunate collateral damage.” They are acts of intentional violence, occurring in full view of the world.

As of mid-July 2025, more than 875 people have been killed at or near humanitarian aid distribution sites in Gaza. That number includes at least 674 civilians gunned down while attempting to receive food or water. On June 1, 32 people were killed and over 250 wounded in Rafah while standing in line for flour. The wounds were concentrated in the head, neck, and chest, indicating deliberate targeting rather than crowd control gone wrong. Médecins Sans Frontières confirmed many of the injuries were “designed to kill.”

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, created to facilitate aid under extreme blockade conditions, has now become a death trap. Armed contractors, drones, and military personnel operate near the sites, sometimes firing into the crowds and sometimes dropping leaflets warning civilians not to approach at all. Survivors have described these locations as “killing fields.”

One Israeli soldier, speaking anonymously to Haaretz, put it bluntly: “It’s a killing field. Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day. . . . No crowd-control measures, no tear gas—just live fire with everything imaginable. Our form of communication is gunfire.”

Another described the operation’s nickname as “Salted Fish,” a grotesque play on the phrase “Red Light, Green Light,” where civilians are signaled through bursts of lethal force. These are not isolated incidents. They are systemic patterns.

This isn’t chaos. It is policy. The consistent use of live fire, the obstruction of aid convoys, and the militarization of distribution centers all point to a grim and intentional design. Under international law, such design is not ambiguous. The Genocide Convention defines genocide not by death toll alone, but by intent to destroy a group in whole or in part through “conditions of life calculated to bring about its destruction.”

That intent does not require a signed order. It can be inferred from conduct.

What clearer signal is there than starving children being shot at while reaching for food?

In early July, Layan Harb, a five-year-old Palestinian girl, died of starvation in Gaza. Her name briefly made international headlines when her uncle revealed that she had collapsed in a UN shelter, clutching a can of powdered milk she was too weak to open. She was buried in a shallow grave near a destroyed school, next to dozens of other children whose names never made the news.

She is one of at least 112 children confirmed to have died from starvation since March, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and corroborated by reporting from Time Magazine and the Washington Post. The true number may be far higher. Aid convoys are regularly blocked, delayed, or bombed. Civilians are funneled into dangerous, overcrowded zones where Israeli forces have been documented firing on crowds.

According to the Financial Times, 28 nations including Ireland, Norway, and South Africa have condemned Israel’s restrictions on humanitarian access as violations of international law. UN human rights investigators have repeatedly sounded the alarm.

“When aid is deliberately obstructed and civilians are killed trying to access food, this is not collateral damage – it may constitute a method of extermination,” said Balakrishnan Rajagopal, a U.N. human rights reporter on housing and humanitarian conditions.

This is not merely a war crime. It may be genocide in motion.

Yet despite the overwhelming documentation, much of the Western media continues to host panel discussions, “balancing” this nightmare with euphemism and deflection. This genocide is not being denied. It is being televised, pixelated, and algorithmically buried. Between influencer content and campaign coverage, starving children are flattened into “community guidelines violations.” The violence persists not in the shadows, but in plain sight, packaged, edited, and forgotten between ads.

And here is the question that haunts all of it: If this were happening in Kyiv, would we still be debating it?

If the children starving were blond-haired and English-speaking, would we still be searching for the right terminology?

When the same governments that cried “Never Again” after Rwanda now fund, arm, and diplomatically shield these atrocities, their hypocrisy becomes another weapon. It isn’t just what’s happening. It’s who’s enabling it, laundering it, and normalizing it.

This is not a complex moral dilemma. This is a clear and present moral collapse.

We don’t need more conversations about whether this is genocide.

We need to admit that it looks exactly like one.

This is not a debate.

It’s a crime.

And history is watching.

Tony Pentimalli
“This Isn’t a Debate. It’s a Crime”
via social media
July 25, 2025


Related Off-site Links:
From the Warsaw Ghetto to Gaza, Starvation as a Weapon of WarDemocracy Now!, July 24, 2025).
No Proof Hamas Routinely Stole U.N. Aid, Israeli Military Officials Say – Natan Odenheimer (The New York Times, July 26, 2025).
The New Superman Movie Is Very Clearly About Israel and Palestine, Multi Billion Dollar Weapons Deals, and Ethnic Cleansing – Shaun King (The North Star, July 13, 2025).
Francesca Albanese’s Bombshell: The Corporate Giants Fueling Israel’s War Machine in Palestine – Ramzy Baroud (The Palestine Chronicle, July 10, 2025).


UPDATES: A Betrayal of the Victims of the Holocaust – Robert Reich (via Substack, July 29, 2025).
Israel Lackeys Hillary Clinton and Hakeem Jeffries Shamelessly Whitewash Their Positions Amid Gaza FamineDue Dissidence (July 29, 2025).
Two Israeli Rights Groups Say Their Country Is Committing Genocide in Gaza – Sam Mednick (AP News, July 28, 2025).
“Indefensible”: Human Rights Watch Condemns U.S. Complicity in Israeli Massacres of Starving Gazans – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, August 1, 2025).
Facing Gaza as a Christian: “I’m Afraid I’ve Been Silent For Too Long” – Pat Kahnke (Culture, Faith, and Politics, August 1, 2025).
“Let Gaza Live”: 50 Jewish Peace Activists Arrested Protesting Sens. Schumer and Gillibrand for Vote to Keep Arming IsraelDemocracy Now!, August 1, 2025).
Sanctions Against Israel Are Long Overdue – C.J. Polychroniou (Common Dreams, August 2, 2025).
“It Is Our War”: Palestinian American Scholar Rashid Khalidi on U.S. Complicity in Gaza GenocideDemocracy Now!, August 4, 2025).
A Wasteland of Rubble, Dust and Graves: How Gaza Looks from the Sky – Lorenzo Tondo and Alessio Mamo (The Guardian, August 5, 2025).
“We’re Going for the Full Conquest”: Netanyahu War Cabinet Confirms Full Takeover of Gaza – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, August 5, 2025).
600+ Journalists Renew Call to Let Foreign Press Enter Gaza as Israel Begins “Full Conquest” – Stephen Prager (Common Dreams, August 5, 2025).
U.N. Experts Demand “Immediate Dismantling” of U.S.-Backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, August 6, 2025).
The Week the World Woke Up to the Genocide in Gaza – Jonah Valdez (The Intercept, August 6, 2025).
“Horrifying Escalation”: Global Outcry as Israeli Cabinet Approves Military Takeover of Gaza City – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, August 8, 2025).
Gaza Takeover: Mouin Rabbani on Israel’s “Indefinite, Genocidal Military Campaign”Democracy Now! (August 8, 2025).
Israel’s Delusional, Inhuman Gaza Takeover Plan Could Be Recipe for Perpetual War – Peter Beaumont (The Guardian, August 8, 2025).
To Future Generations: They Knew. They All Knew What Was Happening in Gaza – Caitlin Johnstone (Caitlin’s Newsletter, August 9, 2025).


See also the following chronologically-ordered Wild Reed posts:
October 7, 2023: “Nothing About Today Is ‘Unprovoked’”
Phyllis Bennis: “If We Are Serious About Ending This Spiraling Violence, We Need to Look at Root Causes”
In the Midst of the “Great Unraveling,” a Visit to the Prayer Tree
Eric Levitz: Quote of the Day – October 11, 2023
Something to Think About – October 12, 2023
Prayer of the Week – October 16, 2023
Voices of Reason and Compassion on the Crisis in Israel and Gaza
More Voices of Reason and Compassion on the Crisis in Israel and Gaza
Ta-Nehisi Coates: Quote of the Day – November 2, 2023
Jehad Abusalim: Quote of the Day – December 8, 2023
Christmas 2023 – Reflections, Activism, Art, and Celebrations
Sabrina Salvati: Quote of the Day – January 2, 2024
Michael Fakhri: Quote of the Day – February 27, 2024
Phyllis Bennis: Quote of the Day – March 28, 2024
Josh Paul: Quote of the Day – March 28, 2024
“A Genocide Has Been Normalized”
“This Is a Genocidal Project”
Outrage and Despair
Naomi Klein’s Powerful Words on Israel’s and the West’s Ongoing Gaza Genocide
Judith Butler on the Ongoing Student Protests Against the Gaza Genocide
Kyle Kulinski: Quote of the Day – May 23, 2024
Something to Think About – June 28, 2024
Nina Turner: Quote of the Day – July 24, 2024
Phyllis Bennis: “We Can Never Give Up Hope”
John Cusack: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2024
Progressive Perspectives on the Presidential Nomination of Kamala Harris
Breaking Down Kamala Harris’s DNC Speech on Gaza
Yousef Munayyer: Quote of the Day – August 30, 2024
“It’s a Systematic Slaughter That We’re Funding”
Protesting Weapons Manufacturer and Genocide Enabler General Dynamics
Something to Think About – September 26, 2024
“A Year of War Against Children”
Anti-Genocide Presidential Candidate Jill Stein Reflects on the First Anniversary of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza
Liam Cosgrove Confronts U.S. State Department Spin Doctor Matthew Miller: “People Are Sick of the Bullshit”
“This Is a Tragic, Heartbreaking Moment in the History of Humanity”
Progressive Perspectives on Kamala Harris’ Faltering Presidential Campaign
Progressive Perspectives on Where Democrats Went Wrong in the 2024 Presidential Election
Hope and Courage – Christmas 2024
Chris Hedges: “Israel Has No Intention of Halting Its Merry-Go-Round of Death”
The Lamentable Legacy of the Biden Administration
Caitlin Johnstone: Quote of the Day – January 22, 2025
Butch Ware: Quote of the Day – January 30, 2025
The Only Difference
Progressive Perspectives on Cory Booker’s Marathon Speech
Silence on Gaza Genocide Is “More Than a Mere Moral Abdication; It Is Lethal”
The Theft of One’s Soul: Omar El Akkad on the “Lesser of Two Evils” Argument
How Genocide Becomes Ordinary
Thomas Friedman: Quote of the Day – May 27, 2025
“A Holocaust, Live-streamed”
“Life Comes First”: An Interview with Thiago Ávila
Truth-telling in the Face of Systemic Power That Is Silent on Genocide
Caitlin Johnstone: Quote of the Day – July 23, 2025
U.S. Labor Leader Chris Smalls Joins the Crew of the Handala


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
“The Mistreatment and Discrimination Against Palestinians Is Not Unprecedented. It’s Baked Into the Foundation of the Political System in Israel”
Progressive Perspectives on the Ongoing Israeli-Palestinian “Nightmare” (2021)
Something to Think About – July 29, 2018
Noura Erakat: Quote of the Day – May 15, 2018
For Some Jews, Israel’s Treatment of Palestinians is Yet Another Jewish Tragedy
Remembering the Six-Day War and Its Ongoing Aftermath
David Norris: Quote of the Day – August 12, 2014


Saturday, July 26, 2025

Quote of the Day

The Trump phenomenon was preceded by a great betrayal of the American people by those who should have known better.

It was not just the big things, such as NAFTA or the repeal of Glass-Steagall or the Citizens United decision. It was also a pattern of small things; compromises with ethics and justice in public policy that didn’t each amount to much, yet cumulatively formed the threat to our democracy of death by a thousand cuts. Destroying economic guardrails plus repealing safety and environmental regulations in favor of vast accumulation of wealth by a relative few. The withhold of resources required for a life of health, happiness and dignity for the average American. The cancerous tumor of wealth, power and influence held tightly in the grip of a political, media and economic elite. All of this has been going on for decades. A Republican President started it, and no Democrat ever stopped it.

. . . [W]e are where we are. For now we must endure this moment. In time we will transform it.

Resist what’s happening? Yes, of course. And we must also think deeply about what we will do on the other side of what’s going on now. Coming to power at the height of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt famously said, “It is time for the country to become fairly radical for a generation.” So much had gone wrong, and nothing short of fundamental correction could fix things and get the country back on track. With the New Deal, Roosevelt succeeded at that. And we will, too. We’ll face the difficult task of creating anew from that which Trump and his administration have destroyed and are destroying.

It will take more than “expertise” to do that. We will need humility. We will need understanding. And we will need grace. We will be different people from having gone through all this. We are becoming different people even now. In the words of Existentialist philosopher Albert Camus, "In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer." Millions of us, in the midst of this winter, are finding that summer. And we will bring it forth into the world.

Marianne Williamson
Excerpted from “In the Midst of Political Winter
Transform
July 26, 2025


Related Off-site Links:
We Need Human Connection to Heal Democracy and Build Shared Prosperity – Alvaro S. Sanchez (Common Dreams, July 20, 2025).
Trump Brings the Authoritarianism We Propped up in the Middle East Back Home – Juan Cole (Common Dreams, July 24, 2025).
It’s Up to We the People to Save a Flailing America From Spiritual Death – William Astore (Common Dreams, August 5, 2025).
25 FDR Quotes We Need to Recall – Now More Than Ever – Harvey J. Kaye (Common Dreams, August 6, 2025).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
An Invincible Summer
The Choice Before Us
A Deeper Perspective on What’s Really Attacking American Democracy
Progressive Perspectives on Corruption in U.S. Politics
Cornel West on Responding to the “Spiritual Decay That Cuts Across the Board”
Active Hope
Cultivating Stillness
Venice Williams on How We Get Through the Next Four Years
Why “Revolutionary Love” Gives Michelle Alexander Hope
Hope in the Midst of Collapse
Balancing the Fire

Image: Artist unknown.