about as radical one can go in the smalltown newspaper which is down by the count — once-a-fucking-week
Dang, I hate to tell so many friends, colleagues, volunteers, students and neighbors “I told you so,” but here we are: the sadly bumbling Biden and Jill getting fancy duds ready for the Jan. 20th inauguration of, well, another sadly bumbling but now dangerous twice-risen POTUS. You know, that fascist and that neo-Nazi, Trump; even called those aspersions by Marco Rubio and RFK, Jr., two more bumblers in his cabinet.
And here we are, out with the old and in with the really old, as December is a month packed full of awareness dates.
Before heading on with those interestingly parallel and synchronous days, I have to make it clear that for more than 55 years of my life I have always made it a point that if we can’t talk about the issues, the impending negatives heaped upon us, the 80 Percenters by what I have called (Republicans and Democrats) the Uni-Party, then we shall continue to receive what we failed to sow
And sowing is really the point of Bill of Rights Day (Dec. 15) — the right to question all government agencies, which includes questioning those controlling the government. While the constitution supposedly outlines the basic framework of a representative government, a bill of rights deals with individual liberties and freedoms. Without it, the federal government would have vastly more power than it already does, and the rights of the individual would be in constant jeopardy.
So read up on what Trump and Company envisage for me the teacher, the writer, the activist, the volunteer and, me, the radical dissenter. His goal is dictatorial power in the executive branch, the opposite of a revolutionary new American government.
Here, then, as a follow up, we have plethora of International Days — for Migrants, Human Rights, Human Solidarity, Trans Youth, Animal Rights, Persons with Disabilities, Volunteer, and Ending Violence Against Sex Workers.
Freedoms and democracies are tied to how informed and robustly communicative and fully critically thinking a society is. Yep, those that failed to vote for either Harris or Trump outnumber the votes cast for either of the presidential candidates. Drum roll … close to 90 million Americans who were eligible to vote did not.
I doubt that the monikers Genocide Joe and Holocaust Harris gave Trump that many additional votes, since Trump is full-bore Zionist and backer of scorched earth and human splaying seen through Israeli policy, which his friend Bibi Netanyahu carries out hourly. Did those 90 million just see the futility voting for either one in this Uni-Party system?
The irony and sadness aren’t lost on December being International Genocide Prevention Day, certainly a failed day on many levels with this ethnic cleansing, removal and bombardment of Palestinians now going on over a year.
“Never again” has turned into a statement of, “Well, if Israel says it’s time to call people human cockroaches/animals/rats, and decides to murder them with U.S. weapons, then again is acceptable.” “Never again” was a slogan associated with the lessons of the Holocaust. The slogan was used by liberated prisoners at Buchenwald concentration camp to denounce fascism/genocide. Ironically, if you look at Never Again Action’s work, we see another verboten under a Trump LLC regime: It’s a Jewish-led mobilization against the persecution, detention, and deportation of immigrants in the United States.
Forget about discussing these facts in the new Handmaid’s Tale K12 school system coming to a town near you: conflict, insecurity, and the effects of climate change have heavily contributed to the forced movement of people — both within their home countries or across borders. Over 59 million were internally displaced by the end of 2021.
That’s the diametrically opposed belief of Trump LLC and Company, which wants to engage in mass deportations on Jan. 20. Screw the reality that because of lack of safe and regular migration pathways, tens of millions continue to take dangerous journeys each year, and in 10 years, those that we can count, more than 50,000 migrants have lost their lives on migratory routes across the world.
Forget about discussing this in a high school class once the Draconian measures of dumb downing and brainwashing start taking effect.
Now, we have the Nobel Prize Day, which over the years has become a sham. That sham has precipitated the “alternative Nobel Prize” — The Right Livelihood awards are given out in December.
An international jury, invited by the five regular Right Livelihood Award board members, decides the awards in such fields as environmental protection, human rights, sustainable development, health, education, and peace. It was started in 1980 by German-Swedish philanthropist Jakob von Uexküll.
Oh, the ironies, the duplicities and the devolution of the American mind, culture, society, economy.
Do we even have the head space to discuss animal rights or trans youth rights? Alas, even those sex workers, do they have a right to rights?
Finally, the International Day of Persons with Disabilities is a huge coverall for all sorts of disabilities — physical, developmental, intellectual, psychological and neurological. I’ve written before how those living with DD/ID have to watch how much money they save, and they will lose Medicaid if two marry. Forget about the SNAP benefits and subsidized housing. All of this now is on the cutting board.
With that, your holiday season is best spent with family and friends talking, not just eating. That’s the greatest gift you can give — truth.
Paul Haeder is a novelist, journalist, educator and author of “Wide Open Eyes: Surfacing from Vietnam,” Cirque Press.
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The stuff the Trumpers and Joy Club never ever listen to:
Then, those fucking Jewish Traits, those Jewish Values: “They Identified Themselves!” Israeli Forces Proudly Exhibit Their War Crimes
What can’t be taught or published in mainstream-main scum media
A groundbreaking new Al Jazeera documentary exposes the horrific war crimes and sadistic activities carried out by Israeli soldiers during its ongoing genocide in Gaza over the last year and reveals the identities of the perpetrators. But director Richard Sanders says finding information about the soldiers was not difficult because “they identified themselves” – many of the soldiers had actually uploaded the footage to their personal social media pages and sometimes even to their online dating profiles. Richard Sanders is a British journalist and award-winning filmmaker who also directed Al Jazeera’s The Labour Files and October 7 documentaries. Ahmed Alnaouq is a Palestinian journalist from Gaza.
Jews: Now, calling them Israeli soldiers is a farce!
The falacy is there are going to be some arbiter of war crimes? Look at this piece of trash:
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said there were signs of hope in Syria following the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad by rebel forces over the weekend.
“As we speak, we are witnessing the reshaping of the Middle East. … We also see some signs of hope, and signs of hope namely coming from the end of the Syrian dictatorship,” Guterres said during a visit to South Africa on Wednesday.
The stuff these fucking AMeriKKKan pigs never live with cuz they don’t listen, hear, speak, mouth, see, vision EVIL.
Freedom is a cornerstone of any nation’s identity and the foundation of its sovereignty. Human liberty is not just an ideal—it is a fundamental aspect of our existence. But true freedom for a nation requires more than rhetoric; it demands a robust national framework rooted in self-reliance and independence.
To build a free and sovereign Syria, we must establish a national economy grounded in industry, agriculture, energy, and technology. These sectors are the pillars of independence, allowing a country to thrive and grow for the benefit of its people. Yet economic independence cannot exist without the protection of a strong national army. History and political reality teach us that sovereignty is impossible without the capability to deter foreign interference.
The current state of Syria underscores this point. Without a functional national army, expecting Syria to achieve independence is not just unrealistic—it defies basic political logic. The path to a new Syria begins with reclaiming control over its natural resources, rebuilding a capable military, and focusing on economic growth. This vision, however, is obstructed by the blatant interventions of imperial powers and their persuasion of actors like HTS (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham).
Consider this: HTS has been propped up by millions of dollars in foreign funding. Without this financial lifeline, the group would collapse, exposing the true source of its power—foreign agendas. This is not about Syria’s freedom; it is about control.
To forge a free Syria, we must focus on exposing and resisting these foreign influences. Sovereignty is won when a nation takes back its resources, secures its borders, and invests in its people—not when it bows to external powers. Follow the money, and you will see who truly pulls the strings. Only then can Syria reclaim its rightful freedom and future.
If only TRUTH would be served up for fucking holiday season:
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The aim of public education is not] to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. . . . Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim . . . is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States. . . . “ – Henry Mencken, The American Mercury, April 1924.
“If the right-wing billionaires and apostles of corporate power have their way, public schools will become ‘dead zones of the imagination,’ reduced to anti-public spaces that wage an assault on critical thinking, civic literacy and historical memory.” – Henry Giroux, 2013.
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Nutshells: According to the U.S. Department of Defense and the Chicago Police Department, U.S. war-time deaths from 2001 to 2020 in Afghanistan and Iraq were estimated at over 7,000. The documentary reveals the comparable Chicago figure as 10,000 deaths.
“When you have more people who are dying in Chicago than have died in Afghanistan, then you have a war on your hands,” says Pastor Corey Brooks, a key figure of the film.
Nicknamed the “Gangbanger Pastor” for his eight years preaching on the street, Brooks knows firsthand the chaos demolishing the community. Between 2010 and 2014, gang violence killed 114 school children. Moreover, while mid-filming, the city endured one of its bloodiest weekends yet, with 72 individuals shot and 13 fatalities. Over the past decade, communities have had to count more than the incalculable human cost. The University of Chicago’s Crime Lab, dating back to 2009, highlights the social costs of violence to the city. Earlier estimates place the price tag to the city at roughly $2.5 billion per year and growing.
However, what’s even more frightening is the data underscoring the real war on the streets.
The CPS closures of 2013 shut down 50 schools and slashed 850 jobs. These cuts forced children to attend schools across neighboring gang territory, resulting in an increase of homicides, though the projected outcome promised higher grade-point averages.
From David Vine’s The United States at War:
A list of wars (italic) and of military combat that for some reason isn’t called a war (non-italic) that does not attempt to include every war and combat against Native Americans:
1774-1883 Shawnee, Delaware
1776 Cherokee
1777-1781 Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee)
1780-1794 Chickamauga
1790-1795 Miami Confederacy
1792-1793 Muskogee (Creek)
1798-1801 France
1801-1805 Tripoli
1806 Mexico
1806-1810 Spanish, French privateers
1810 Spanish West Florida
1810-1813 Shawnee Confederacy
1812 Spanish Florida
1812-1815 Canada (Great Britain)
1812-1815 Dakota Sioux
1812-1815 Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee)
1813 Spanish West Florida
1813-1814 Marquesas Islands
1813-1814 Muskogee (Creek) Confederacy
1814 Spanish Florida
1814-1825 Pirates
1815 Algiers
1815 Tripoli
1816 Spanish Florida
1817 Spanish Florida
1817-1819 Seminole
1818 Oregon (Russia, Spain)
1820-1861 African Slave Trade Patrol
1822-1825 Cuba (Spain
1824 Puerto Rico (Spain)
1827 Greece
1831-1832 Falkland Islands
1832 Sauk
1832 Sumatra
1833 Argentina
1835-1836 Peru
1835-1842 Seminole
1836 Mexico
1836-1837 Muskogee (Creek)
1838-1839 Sumatra
1840 Fiji Islands
1841 Samoa
1841 Tabiteuea
1842 Mexico
1843 China
1844 Mexico
1846-1848 Mexico
1847-1850 Cayuse
1849 Turkey
1850-1886 Apache
1851 Johanna Island
1851 Turkey
1852-1853 Argentina
1853-1854 Japan
1853-1854 Nicaragua
1853-1854 Ryukyu, Ogasawara islands
1854-1856 China
1855 Fiji Islands
1855 Uruguay
1855-1856 Rogue River Indigenous Peoples
1855-1856 Yakima, Walla Walla, Cayuse
1855-1858 Seminole
1856 Panama (Colombia)
1856-1857 Cheyenne
1857 Nicaragua
1858 Coeur d’Alene Alliance
1858 Fiji Islands
1858 Uruguay
1858-1859 Turkey
1859 China
1859 Mexico
1859 Paraguay
1860 Angola
1860 Colombia
1862 Sioux
1863-1864 Japan
1864 Cheyenne
1865 Panama (Colombia)
1866 China
1866 Mexico
1866-1868 Lakota Siouw, Northern Cheyenne, Northern Arapaho
1867 Formosa (Taiwan)
1867 Nicaragua
1867-1875 Comanche
1868 Colombia
1868 Japan
1868 Uruguay
1870 Hawaii
1871 Korea
1872-1873 Modoc
1873 Colombia (Panama)
1873-1896 Mexico
1874 Hawaii
1874-1875 Comanche, Apache, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Kiowa
1876-1877 Sioux
1877 Nez Perce
1878 Bannock (Banna’kwut)
1878-1879 Cheyenne
1879-1880 Utes
1882 Egypt
1885 Panama (Colombia)
1888 Haiti
1888 Korea
1888-1889 Samoa
1889 Hawaii
1890 Argentina
1890 Lakota Sioux
1891 Bering Straight
1891 Chile
1891 Haiti
1893 Hawaii
1894 Brazil
1894 Nicaragua
1894-1895 China
1894-1896 Korea
1895 Panama (Colombia)
1896 Nicaragua
1898 Cuba (Spain)
1898 Nicaragua
1898 Philippines (Spain)
1898 Puerto Rico (Spain)
1898-1899 China
1899 Nicaragua
1899 Samoa
1899-1913 Philippines
1900 China
1901-1902 Colombia
1903 Dominican Republic
1903 Honduras
1903 Syria
1903-1904 Abyssinia (Ethiopia)
1903-1914 Panama
1904 Dominican Republic
1904 Tangier
1904-1905 Korea
1906-1909 Cuba
1907 Honduras
1909-1910 Nicaragua
1911-1912 Honduras
1911-1914 China
1912 Cuba
1912 Turkey
1912-1933 Nicaragua
1914 Dominican Republic
1914 Haiti
1914-1919 Mexico
1915-1934 Haiti
1916-1924 Dominican Republic
1917-1918 World War I (Europe)
1917-1922 Cuba
1918-1920 Russia
1918-1921 Panama
1919 Dalmatia
1919 Turkey
1919-1920 Honduras
1925 Panama
1932 El Salvador
1941-1945 World War II (Europe, North Africa, Asia/Pacific)
1946 Trieste
1947-1949 Greece
1948-1949 Berlin, Germany
1950 Formosa (Taiwan)
1950-1953 Korea
1953-1954 Formosa (Taiwan)
1955-1975 Vietnam
1956 Egypt
1958 Lebanon
1962 Cuba
1962 Thailand
1962-1975 Laos
1964 Congo (Zaire)
1965 Dominican Republic
1965-1973 Cambodia
1967 Congo (Zaire)
1976 Korea
1978 Congo (Zaire)
1980 Iran
1981 El Salvador
1981 Libya
1981-1989 Nicaragua
1982-1983 Egypt
1982-1983 Lebanon
1983 Chad
1983 Grenada
1986 Bolivia
1986 Libya
1987-1988 Iran
1988 Panama
1989 Bolivia
1989 Colombia
1989 Libya
1989 Peru
1989 Philippines
1989-1990 Panama
1990 Saudi Arabia
1991 Congo (Zaire)
1991-1992 Kuwait
1991-1993 Iraq
1992-1994 Somalia
1993-1994 Macedonia
1993-1996 Haiti
1993-2005 Bosnia
1995 Serbia
1996 Liberia
1996 Rwanda
1997-2003 Iraq
1998 Afghanistan
1998 Sudan
1999-2000 Kosovo
1999-2000 Montenegro
1999-2000 Serbia
2000 Yemen
2000-2002 East Timor
2000-2016 Colombia
2001 – Afghanistan
2001- Pakistan
2001- Somalia
2002-2015 Philippines
2002- Yemen
2003-2011 Iraq
2004 Haiti
c2004- Kenya
2011 Democratic Republic of the Congo
2011-2017 Uganda
2011- Libya
c2012- Central African Republic
c2012- Mali
c2013-2016 South Sudan
c2013- Burkina Faso
c2013- Chad
c2013- Mauritania
c2013- Niger
c2013- Nigeria
2014 Democratic Republic of the Congo
2014- Iraq
2014- Syria
2015 Democratic Republic of the Congo
c2015- Cameroon
2016 Democratic Republic of the Congo
2017- Saudi Arabia
c2017 Tunisia
2019- Philippines
The supreme international crime according to 2017 U.S. media reporting is interferring nonviolently in a democratic election — at least if Russia does it. William Blum, in his book Rogue State, lists over 30 times that the United States has done that. Another study, however, says 81 elections in 47 countries. France 2017 makes that total at least 82. Honduras 2017 makes it 83. Russia 2018 makes it 84. The 2020-revealed 1964 coup in British Guiana makes it 85. Somalia 2022 would be 86. There are clearly dozens more.
In a reality-based assessment of U.S. crimes, the serious offenses begin beyond that threshold. Here’s Blum’s list of over 50 foreign leaders whom the United States has attempted to assassinate:
- 1949 – Kim Koo, Korean opposition leader
- 1950s – CIA/Neo-Nazi hit list of more than 200 political figures in West Germany to be “put out of the way” in the event of a Soviet invasion
- 1950s – Chou En-lai, Prime minister of China, several attempts on his life
- 1950s, 1962 – Sukarno, President of Indonesia
- 1951 – Kim Il Sung, Premier of North Korea
- 1953 – Mohammed Mossadegh, Prime Minister of Iran
- 1950s (mid) – Claro M. Recto, Philippines opposition leader
- 1955 – Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India
- 1957 – Gamal Abdul Nasser, President of Egypt
- 1959, 1963, 1969 – Norodom Sihanouk, leader of Cambodia
- 1960 – Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Kassem, leader of Iraq
- 1950s-70s – José Figueres, President of Costa Rica, two attempts on his life
- 1961 – Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, leader of Haiti
- 1961 – Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Congo (Zaire)
- 1961 – Gen. Rafael Trujillo, leader of Dominican Republic
- 1963 – Ngo Dinh Diem, President of South Vietnam
- 1960s-70s – Fidel Castro, President of Cuba, many attempts on his life
- 1960s – Raúl Castro, high official in government of Cuba
- 1965 – Francisco Caamaño, Dominican Republic opposition leader
- 1965-6 – Charles de Gaulle, President of France
- 1967 – Che Guevara, Cuban leader
- 1970 – Salvador Allende, President of Chile
- 1970 – Gen. Rene Schneider, Commander-in-Chief of Army, Chile
- 1970s, 1981 – General Omar Torrijos, leader of Panama
- 1972 – General Manuel Noriega, Chief of Panama Intelligence
- 1975 – Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire
- 1976 – Michael Manley, Prime Minister of Jamaica
- 1980-1986 – Muammar Qaddafi, leader of Libya, several plots and attempts upon his life
- 1982 – Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of Iran
- 1983 – Gen. Ahmed Dlimi, Moroccan Army commander
- 1983 – Miguel d’Escoto, Foreign Minister of Nicaragua
- 1984 – The nine comandantes of the Sandinista National Directorate
- 1985 – Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanese Shiite leader (80 people killed in the attempt)
- 1991 – Saddam Hussein, leader of Iraq
- 1993 – Mohamed Farah Aideed, prominent clan leader of Somalia
- 1998, 2001-2 – Osama bin Laden, leading Islamic militant
- 1999 – Slobodan Milosevic, President of Yugoslavia
- 2002 – Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Afghan Islamic leader and warlord
- 2003 – Saddam Hussein and his two sons
- 2011 – Muammar Qaddafi, leader of Libya
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Paul Haeder, Author 