“I stand by my assertion that the Soviet Union’s demise cast a long pall over the word ‘socialism’” — at least for those who had not already recoiled from the purges, famines and censorship. I grew up on the Upper West Side, one of the remaining redoubts of socialism in the Reagan era, and watched as the toppling of the Berlin Wall crushed the last hopes that central planning could work. Encountering a socialist holdout in the 1990s was as quaint as finding someone who still believed in alchemy. This makes the current renaissance all the more remarkable. Yet what’s also striking is how little the movement resembles the socialists I remember from my youth.” (07/12/26)
“Pro-Israel foundations fund Think Tanks and media organizations that set the parameters of acceptable debate before a single word is written. Social media algorithms suppress Palestinian postings while amplifying Israeli military statements as authoritative fact. TikTok became a ‘Chinese security risk’ the moment it fell outside their algorithmic control. American Zionists pressured Congress to force its sale, ensuring the last major social media platform joined every other American social media outlet under the thumb of Israel-first ownership. Zionist influence over social media is not a conspiracy theory; it is an openly declared strategy. … Israel’s bullying of American activists critical of Israel and media outlets is not about defamation or even prevailing in court. It is a deterrence strategy by making the financial cost of covering Israeli war crimes high enough that editors think twice before approving the next investigation.” (07/10/26)
“An appeals court ruled this week that the First Amendment’s freedom of speech principle protects the right of academics in Florida to discuss topics in class that some might view as discriminatory or even offensive. The 2-1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit struck down Florida’s 2022 W.O.K.E. Act, which sought to define how professors at higher education institutions could teach or present what it called ‘divisive concepts’ of race and gender. Supporters of the law said it helped prevent teaching theories that could promote discrimination against students for actions ‘committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin or sex’. Critics viewed it as an attempt to quash candid inquiry into historical and current debates around race and rights.” (07/10/26)
“They were lucky in 1914: They only had the Guns of August to worry about. Here in 2026, we are facing thermonuclear weapons. However, now Prince Prospero himself – in the guise of US President Donald Trump – has just presided over the latest NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey. Far more than the ghastly, doomed revelry in Roger Corman’s classic 1964 schlock horror movie starring Vincent Price and Hazel Court, it has been the last and greatest ‘Masque of the Red Death.'” (07/11/26)
“Last month, the Supreme Court held in Monsanto v. Durnell that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, in tandem with the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, bars a state jury from punishing the maker of Roundup for omitting a cancer warning the EPA has repeatedly refused to require. The decision was right on the law. The reason has less to do with weedkiller than with who, in a country of 50 states and one federal regulator, gets to write the label.” (07/10/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“John F Kennedy was correct when he said ‘Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable’. That’s why police robots are being aggressively normalized today. The empire managers want to make sure violent revolution is impossible, too. The New York Times’[s] sports department The Athletic has a creepy new article out titled ‘The ‘Robodogs’ on World Cup patrol in Mexico’ about how wonderful and awesome it is that the international soccer tournament is being patrolled by surveillance robots. The article is functionally a PR piece for police robots, gushing about how ‘cute’ and ‘cool’ onlookers find the dystopian technology.” (07/11/26)
“Every political tradition faces the question of what constitutes a good life. But only liberalism struggles so visibly to offer a straightforward answer. Authoritarians promise order and national greatness. Socialists promise equality. Post-liberal writers promise meaning and belonging through restored religious and civilizational authority—a life ordered to faith, family, and place. Liberalism alone points nowhere in particular. Its answer—freedom—tells you what to protect, not what to do with it. Yet that silence is not emptiness. It reflects a wise limit: no one can know in advance the forms a flourishing life will take.” (07/10/26)
“Many moons ago, while serving in Congress, I heard a senior member of the GOP House leadership offer this assessment of the Democrats’ strategy on a particular issue: ‘The Democrats always overplay their hand’. Heading into the 2026 midterm elections, however, it seems less a case of the Democrat minority overplaying its hand than of revealing it. Everyone is well-versed in the historical fact that a president’s party usually loses seats in a midterm election. As this is President Trump’s second midterm election, early projections suggest it will prove as disastrous for the GOP as the first one was in 2018.” (07/11/26)
“Private fortunes outlive their owners. The gardens, architecture, ideas, and institutions they finance often become part of the public inheritance.” (07/10/26)
“Iran, Iraq, Irate. What a world! It couldn’t be much stranger, could it? And by the way, what is it about the Middle East? Since the Gulf War of 1990-1991, it’s just never really ended, has it? Who cares that the region is halfway around the world from Washington, DC? Yes, the US fought Iraq there from 2003 to 2008. And recently, of course, President Donald Trump has gone after Iran. If you want to spread out just a bit more, you could toss in this country’s relatively brief war in Libya and its almost endless one this century in Afghanistan. And don’t blame me if I left something out. After all, I’m almost 82 years old and starting to forget a few things. I mean, Iran makes particular sense, right? After all, it’s a mere 6,000-odd miles from this country.” (07/11/26)
