The Wild Reed: July 2025

Thursday, July 31, 2025

July Vignettes

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• “A Mysteriously Charged and Magnificently Alive Archetypal Presence”
• Family Time in Guruk
• An Australian Spirituality: “A Festival of Light and Rock”
• Morning Shadows
• In His Efforts to “Build a City That Works for All,” Omar Fateh Secures a Key Endorsement
• Israel’s Actions in Gaza: “A Clear and Present Moral Collapse”
• Protesting Israel’s “Starvation Campaign” in Gaza

Images: Michael J. Bayly.

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 Authoritarianism – Democracy 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 Israel – Pod Save America (July 30, 2025).
Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism – The 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 Progressives – Rob 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.

_________________

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

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

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.

Friday, July 25, 2025

Something to Think About . . .

Related Off-site Links:
Minnesota Democrats Endorse Socialist Omar Fateh for Mayor Over Incumbent Democrat Jacob Frey – AllSides (July 21, 2025).
Who Is Omar Fateh? Mamdani of Minneapolis Faces MAGA Abuse – Kate Plummer (Newsweek, July 15, 2025).
CAIR-Minnesota Condemns Anti-Muslim, Racist Hate Targeting Sen. Omar Fateh Amid Rising Political Violence – CAIR-Minnesota (July 15, 2025).
Minneapolis Gets Its Own Mamdani – Kayla Bartsch (National Review, July 15, 2025).
Minneapolis Mayoral Candidate Omar Fateh Faces Racist Trolling: “Go to Mogadishu” – Times of India (July 14, 2025).
Omar Fateh Will Work Across the Aisle If Elected Mayor – Melody Hoffmann (Southwest Voices, April 2, 2025).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• In His Efforts to “Build a City That Works for All,” Omar Fateh Secures a Key Endorsement
• A “Racist and Factless Meltdown” Over Omar Fateh
• Omar | Jazz | DeWayne
• What It Means to Be a Leftist in 2025

Thursday, July 24, 2025

U.S. Labor Leader Chris Smalls Joins the Crew of the Handala

I’ve long considered Chris Smalls an American hero, and the journey he’s recently embark upons reaffirms this for me. The following from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition explains why.

Amazon Labor Union leader Chris Smalls is on the Handala, the 37th ship to challenge Israel’s illegal siege on Gaza. Amazon has invested billions in intelligence like the Nimbus project, used for the surveillance and targeting of Palestinians.

Chris shares that “an injury to one is injury to all,” calling on labor unions worldwide to fulfill their responsibility: to be the shield for the working class, which includes protecting Palestinian people, and urges unions to stop their shipments of arms to Israel, fuelling their genocide in Gaza.

“We come with baby food, toys, medicine, and hope – not just for Gaza, but for the future of our children in America back at home. The world is watching.”

Related Off-site Links:
Despite Two Sabotage Attempts, the Gaza Flotilla Ship Handala Sails Onward – Ann Wright (Common Dreams, July 21, 2025).
Freedom Flotilla Sails to Gaza to Break Israel’s “Engineered Famine”: An Interview with Activist Huwaida Arraf – Democracy Now! (July 25, 2025).

UPDATES: Where’s the Outrage Over Labor Leader Chris Smalls’ Violent Arrest by the IDF? – Mike Elk (Common Dreams, July 29, 2025).
U.S. Gaza Freedom Flotilla Members Say No Consular Support Given After Abduction by Israeli Forces – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, July 30, 2025).
Detainment of Chris Smalls: White Supremacy at the Core of Zionism – The Black Alliance for Peace (Popular Resistance, July 31, 2025).
Chris Smalls Is Coming Home; Will This Shake the U.S. Labor Movement Into Action on Gaza? – Mike Elk (Common Dreams, July 31, 2025).
Labor Leader Chris Smalls Describes Israeli Arrest and Assault After Military Raids Gaza Flotilla – Democracy Now! (August 5, 2025).
“I Rubbed Them the Wrong Way”: An Interview with Chris Smalls – Sabrina Salvati (Sabby Sabs, August 8, 2025).

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Quote of the Day

Israel apologists who say everything Israel is doing in Gaza can be explained by October 7 have got it exactly backwards: everything we’re seeing in Gaza explains why October 7 happened in the first place.

The sadism and psychopathy we're witnessing in Gaza didn’t just magically appear 22 months ago; everyone in Gaza has been experiencing Israel’s abusiveness in various manifestations throughout their entire lives. Israel has always been this way. October 7 just gave it the excuse to completely unleash its genocidal impulses.

– Caitlin Johnstone
via social media
July 23, 2025

The Wild Reed

Thursday, July 31, 2025

July Vignettes

Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Brent Molnar on the MAGA Cult and Its Intentions

Tuesday, July 29, 2025

How Democrats Can Start Winning Again

Monday, July 28, 2025

Protesting Israel’s “Starvation Campaign” in Gaza

Sunday, July 27, 2025

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

Saturday, July 26, 2025

Quote of the Day

Friday, July 25, 2025

Something to Think About . . .

Thursday, July 24, 2025

U.S. Labor Leader Chris Smalls Joins the Crew of the Handala

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Quote of the Day

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