International Politics and Economy

“These first few months [have resulted] in the Trump administration’s cuts to scientific and medical research, clampdown on any efforts promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), newly aggressive policies for students with loan debt, revoking of visas for international students and more”…. In recent months… [elimination of] programs meant to train scholars and diversify the sciences as part of an effort to […]

Corporate Surveillance

How will Your Data be Used in an Age of Dark Enlightenment?

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Sometime in the late 1980s, I was talking with a friend on my landline (the only kind of telephone we had then). We were discussing logistics for an upcoming demonstration against the Reagan administration’s support for the Contras fighting the elected government of Nicaragua. We agreed that, when our call was […]

Bill of Rights

Protesting to San Jose State U. for Firing Tenured Professor Sang Hea Kil for Palestine Protest

Committee on Academic Freedom

Committee on Academic Freedom | Middle East Studies Association | – Cynthia Teniente-Matson President San José State University sjsupres@sjsu.edu . . . Dear President Teniente-Matson and colleagues: We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our grave concern at the […]

Bill of Rights

Mahmoud Khalil, Released on Bail from ICE Detention, says “Justice will Prevail”

Common Dreams

The student organizer condemned the Trump administration’s treatment of “hundreds of men” he met while imprisoned in Louisiana for more than three months. By Julia Conley | – ( Commondreams.org ) – Leaving an immigration detention center in Jena, Louisiana after being imprisoned for 104 days for protesting Israel’s U.S.-backed bombardment of Gaza, former Columbia […]

Colonialism

Resistance Works: How Small Groups Took on Great Powers and Won a Victory for Decolonization, Africa, Indigenous Peoples, and More

David Vine

David Vine ( Tomdispatch.com ) – At a time when many may feel that good news has gone the way of the dodo, look no further than the homeland of that long-extinct bird — Mauritius — for a dose of encouragement. There, among the islands of the Indian Ocean, news can be found about the […]

Authoritarianism

American Spring? How nonviolent Protest in the US is Accelerating

Waging Nonviolence

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the size and scale of anti-Trump protests this year have dwarfed those in 2017, and they have been extraordinarily peaceful. Erica Chenoweth, Soha Hammam, Jeremy Pressman, and Christopher Wiley Shay June 12, 2025 ( Waging Nonviolence ) – On streets and highway passes, at intersections and in parks, millions of Americans […]

Donald Trump

Approaching the End of Liberal Internationalism: Will America Ever Rejoin the International Community?

John Feffer

( Tomdispatch.com ) – “We’re back,” I tell the room. It’s January 21, 2029, and I can barely contain my excitement. “America is back!” I expect applause, but there is none. I try again, louder this time. “After four long years, America is finally back! We’re ready to resume our international obligations!” The members of […]

Archaeology

Genetic Study shows “Phoenicians,” like all “Nations” were a Multi-Ethnic Franchise

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Harald Ringbauer et al. writing in Nature report on a genetic study of the ancient Phoenicians that is really going to anger Lebanese Christian nationalists. In fact, it contains a profound lesson for nationalists and nationalism in general, which is that the whole thing is a scam thought up in […]

Immigration

Pope Leo XIV’s Link to Haiti is Part of a broader American Story of Race, Citizenship and Migration

The Conversation

By Chelsea Stieber, Tulane University (The Conversation) – Early coverage of Pope Leo XIV has explored the first American pontiff’s Chicago upbringing, as well as the many years he spent in Peru, first as a missionary and then as a bishop. Genealogist Jari Honora broke the story of the pope’s ancestors’ connection to the Creole […]