Author: nick

Photograph Source: Travel 2 Palestine – CC BY 2.0 For decades, the political landscape of the Middle East has been shaped by a momentous ideological collision.  On one side stands Zionism; and on the other, Islamic political activism, Islamism. Zionism, an ethno-nationalist project that materialized through the establishment of Israel in 1948, has continued to expand its physical footprint through militarism, territorial expansion, forced displacement and Western backing. Islamism, a 20th century political/religious phenomenon, emerged as secular Arab governments, Gulf monarchs and international organizations failed to secure justice for the indigenous populations of the Middle East, particularly the Palestinians. By…

Image by Mohammed Ibrahim. Colombia’s decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights marks a dangerous turning point. By becoming only the second country in the world – after the United States – to endorse Israel’s illegal annexation of Syrian territory, Bogotá has signaled a complete reversal of Gustavo Petro’s foreign policy under new far-right President Abelardo de la Espriella. However, Colombia is not an isolated case. It reflects a broader, highly aggressive campaign by Israel to systematically dismantle and reverse hard-won pro-Palestine and pro-Arab positions worldwide. In fact, the shift in Bogotá comes alongside dramatic changes…

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair Moral witnessing has largely retreated into billboards, podcasts, a commodified and hate-filled media ecosystem, and relentless gestures of liberal empathy emptied of consequence. Too few artists, intellectuals, and cultural workers are willing to risk their careers by confronting the genocidal wars of our time and the governments and institutions that sustain them with weapons, money, and silence. Where are the voices for the children being slaughtered in Gaza and for those subjected to the horrors of war, displacement, and hunger in Iran, Lebanon, Sudan, and elsewhere? Where is the outrage against the masked thugs patrolling…

Image by Chris LeBoutillier. It’s almost a foregone conclusion that UK billionaire Chris Hohn has not fallen for one of Donald Trump’s cons, like investing in a stupid coin that says, ‘fight, fight, fight’. OMG, what’s with these billionaire suck-ups that fall for Trump’s juvenile gold bricks, only fitting for The Gong Show (1976-80). A recent interview of billionaire Chris Hohn in The Times d/d August 8, 2026, Chris Hohn, Britain’s Greenest Billionaire: “It’s Decarbonize or Die” explains his understanding of the climate crisis. And he puts his money where his mouth is by topping “The Times’ Giving List” with…

Photograph Source: Velvet – CC BY-SA 4.0 (I.) SDS  According to a familiar narrative, protest is a kind of parlor game of privileged students. When it occurs on Ivy League campuses, it gets its fair share of attention, creating an impression that social/political movements based on long tradition have their point of origin there. (The 170 students arrested at the City College of New York’s Gaza encampment on April 30, 2024, largely people of color, had a median family income less than a quarter of that of the students arrested at Columbia. The news coverage—of their pepper spraying—and reported tasering—and…

One of the more striking developments in American politics over the past three decades has been the transformation of the Democratic Party from a big-tent movement built around working-class Americans into an elite-driven institution obsessed with diversity, equity, and inclusion. In Nothing Left: Confessions of a Democratic Operative, Evan Barker, a former fundraiser for the party, offers readers a behind-the-scenes look at that evolution.   Barker has always been someone at home on the left side of the political spectrum. She suffers from primary ciliary dyskinesia, a rare and life-threatening genetic disorder that made healthcare an issue of paramount personal…

Washakie Wilderness, Shoshone National Forest, Wyoming. Photo: Howie Wolke. The U.S. Forest Service has approved a tree-cutting project in the Washakie Wilderness in Wyoming behind closed doors. Does it promote a wilderness ethic? Certainly not. Will it violate the Wilderness Act? Most likely. Will the public know the full details about this project before it is complete? Unlikely. Should the Forest Service still hear from you on this? YES, ABSOLUTELY. There are two parts to this story. The first is the utter absurdity of the project itself. The second is how the Forest Service cut the public out of any…

Massachusetts’s Gov. Maura Healey on August 10 signed a new law giving doctors the prerogative to perform late-term abortions based on their own medical judgment in the Bay State, where previously abortion had been limited to the 24th week of pregnancy barring medical exceptions explicit in the statute. The usual suspects (shirts) hailed this measure as a blow for freedom, health, human empowerment, The Cause of Women, and all that jazz. The usual suspects (skins) denounced it as an assault on the dignity of the person, an attack on society’s most vulnerable, and so on. It’s a little difficult to…

Photograph Source: Southdevonian – Public Domain The outlines of the career and tragic suicide of Jason Arday, a distinguished professor at the University of Cambridge, have been much publicized. These headline-grabbing accounts are not, of course, intended to delve into the deeper and more complex considerations underlying this tragedy. Such considerations may become apparent with the passage of time, awaiting the day when the current media hysteria surrounding Arday has dissipated, as it inevitably will. This media torrent converges on a simple theme. Arday, it is said, took alleged advantage of the “woke” provisions afforded by DEI (diversity, equity, and…

Allard Lowenstein at congressional race fundraiser, August 29, 1976 – Public Domain Few people would associate Allard Lowenstein with Roy Cohn. Lowenstein tried to influence politics while avoiding the problems of dirty hands. Cohn was the ultimate insider, one who gloried in all the underhanded tricks that soil politics, “the master of situational immorality,” and the man who taught Donald Trump how braggadocio and underhandedness were the secrets to success. And yet they both had something in common: they both attended the Horace Mann School in New York City, my alma mater. I have often thought of them as two…