Higher Ed Can’t Be Neutral in an Age of Brutality. It Must Choose Democracy.

Across the United States, and increasingly in other democracies under siege, higher education faces a coordinated assault unlike anything witnessed in generations. State governments are prohibiting the teaching of histories that confront slavery, colonialism, Indigenous dispossession, structural racism, and widening inequality. Books are disappearing from classrooms and libraries. Diversity…
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The Fight Against Surveillance Cameras Is a Struggle for Democracy

When residents of Madison County, North Carolina, sought to speak about the county’s AI surveillance cameras at a recent Madison County Commissioners meeting, commissioner Michael Garrison’s response was simple: “You will not speak on Flock tonight.” A clip capturing Garrison’s move to prevent public comment soon went viral, resonating with others waging similar battles in their communities.
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Trump Describes Executions to Kids, While MAGA Bans Lessons Causing “Discomfort” 

Seated behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office in early May, Donald Trump delivered a disturbing lecture to a group of children huddled around him — most of them not yet even teenagers. They had been brought to the White House for what was supposed to be a celebratory event marking the reinstatement of the Presidential Fitness Test, dressed in brightly colored T-shirts bearing the government…
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Hope Is Not Naive: Rebecca Solnit on Backlash, Power, and Political Memory

“One of the greatest cures for despair and depression is to do something, and to do something with the people who care,” says Rebecca Solnit. In this episode of Movement Memos, host Kelly Hayes talks with Solnit about hope, backlash, political memory, and why history can help us understand our own power. Their conversation explores feminism, climate grief, authoritarianism, misogyny…
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What Do Authoritarians Fear Most? People Who Stick Up for Each Other.

Even before Donald Trump launched a war on Iran, his presidency had heightened the strain on millions of people in the United States struggling with high prices and precarious work. Now, as the U.S. and Israel escalate their violence in the Middle East, pressures at home are intensifying. Higher prices at the gas pump make the war-related surge in energy costs visible to all.
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US-Israeli War on Iran Is Intensifying All of Global Capitalism’s Problems

On February 28, the U.S. and Israel expanded their joint genocidal war on Gaza onto Iran as well as Lebanon. After weeks of assassinations and bombing, President Donald Trump agreed to a ceasefire on April 7. This war of aggression by the U.S. and Israel is part of a continued attempt to wipe out any and all opposition to their dominance over the Middle East and its strategic energy reserves.
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