https://znetwork.org/ Independent Left News, Analysis, Vision and Strategy Sat, 08 Feb 2025 13:07:10 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://znetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/cropped-Z_logo_512-32x32.png https://znetwork.org/ 32 32 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/erasing-history-erasing-democracy-trumps-authoritarian-assault-on-education/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/erasing-history-erasing-democracy-trumps-authoritarian-assault-on-education/#comments Sat, 08 Feb 2025 16:55:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279442 In the initial days of his second term, President Donald Trump issued several executive orders “seeking to control how schools teach about race and gender, direct more tax dollars to private schools, and deport pro-Palestinian protesters.” On January 29, 2025, he signed the “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling” executive order, which mandates the elimination of [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/erasing-history-erasing-democracy-trumps-authoritarian-assault-on-education/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/media-fail-to-inform-about-disastrous-economic-effects-of-mass-deportations/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/media-fail-to-inform-about-disastrous-economic-effects-of-mass-deportations/#respond Sat, 08 Feb 2025 16:55:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279490 “GDP Could Take Massive Hit as a Result of Mass Deportations.” “Mass Deportations Could Leave Many Americans Without Jobs.” “Mass Deportations Could Spur Spike in Inflation.” “Mass Deportations Could Cost Nearly $1 Trillion.” These are hypothetical headlines of the sort you run if you want to drive home the point that mass deportations would not [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/media-fail-to-inform-about-disastrous-economic-effects-of-mass-deportations/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-finlands-left-is-beating-the-far-right/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-finlands-left-is-beating-the-far-right/#respond Sat, 08 Feb 2025 16:55:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279378 Finland’s Left Alliance is countering the far right by rejecting austerity and championing workers’ rights and climate action. Grace Blakeley sits down with its leader, Li Andersson, to discuss the lessons for the European left. I met Andersson at Käänne Festival — a conference she organised to bring the left together in the wake of [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-finlands-left-is-beating-the-far-right/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/in-detroit-a-broad-peoples-assembly-forms-to-guide-the-movement-against-ice/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/in-detroit-a-broad-peoples-assembly-forms-to-guide-the-movement-against-ice/#respond Sat, 08 Feb 2025 16:54:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279487 In Detroit, a “People’s Assembly” of a couple hundred people has formed to debate and act on strategies to counter ICE and the Trump administration. Their example of democratic, independent self-organization is a useful model that can be followed in other cities. As the Trump administration ramps up its assault on the immigrant community, people [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/in-detroit-a-broad-peoples-assembly-forms-to-guide-the-movement-against-ice/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/three-students-sue-columbia-over-suspension-tied-to-pro-palestine-organizing/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/three-students-sue-columbia-over-suspension-tied-to-pro-palestine-organizing/#respond Sat, 08 Feb 2025 16:54:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279479 Three Columbia University graduate students who were suspended last year for attending protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza filed a lawsuit against the university on Feb. 3. The civil suit, filed with the New York State Supreme Court, alleges that the university repeatedly singled out the plaintiffs for unwarranted scrutiny and harassment over their involvement [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/three-students-sue-columbia-over-suspension-tied-to-pro-palestine-organizing/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ice-faking-news-games-search-engines-to-make-mass-deportations-appear-way-more-massive-than-they-are/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ice-faking-news-games-search-engines-to-make-mass-deportations-appear-way-more-massive-than-they-are/#respond Sat, 08 Feb 2025 16:54:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279472 The gleeful thuggery that ICE deploys in its mass deportation efforts is degrading, not just to the evacuees and Americans generally. And as we’ll soon see, ICE has been playing Internet games to make its migrant-rousting seem vastly more pervasive than it is, no doubt to try to scare as many as possible into self-deporting. [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ice-faking-news-games-search-engines-to-make-mass-deportations-appear-way-more-massive-than-they-are/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/zvideo/francesca-albanese-keir-starmer-must-be-investigated-over-gaza-genocide/ https://znetwork.org/zvideo/francesca-albanese-keir-starmer-must-be-investigated-over-gaza-genocide/#respond Sat, 08 Feb 2025 16:54:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=video&p=1279466 How complicit is Britain in the Gaza genocide? Could British ministers and military officials end up at the International Criminal Court? One of the world’s leading human rights lawyers, Francesca Albanese – who is also the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Palestine – spoke to Declassified co-founder Mark Curtis about Britain’s role in the Gaza genocide.]]> https://znetwork.org/zvideo/francesca-albanese-keir-starmer-must-be-investigated-over-gaza-genocide/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/north-korean-soldiers-in-russia-were-they-ever-there/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/north-korean-soldiers-in-russia-were-they-ever-there/#respond Sat, 08 Feb 2025 16:50:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279481 We still don’t know for sure if there are North Korean troops fighting in Russia against Ukrainian forces. Perhaps we never will. But Ukraine’s case for their presence was not made stronger by the sudden announcement on January 30 that they were gone. Reports of North Korean troops joining Russia in the fight to expel Ukrainian forces from the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/north-korean-soldiers-in-russia-were-they-ever-there/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-i-am-organising-an-ai-counter-summit-in-paris/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-i-am-organising-an-ai-counter-summit-in-paris/#respond Sat, 08 Feb 2025 16:46:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279484 Sometimes a title tells you all you need to know. On February 10 and 11, France is hosting an “Artificial Intelligence Action Summit”. You get the idea: action: we need to make the next great leap forward in the ever-growing automation of human affairs. Gathering at the Grand Palais in Paris will be some hundred [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-i-am-organising-an-ai-counter-summit-in-paris/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/zvideo/journalist-richard-medhurst-raided-and-detained/ https://znetwork.org/zvideo/journalist-richard-medhurst-raided-and-detained/#respond Fri, 07 Feb 2025 16:58:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=video&p=1279456 I was detained this week by the Austrian police and intelligence services. They raided my house, office, and took all my devices. They are accusing me of being a member of Hamas and threatened me with 10 years in prison. Journalism is not a crime.]]> https://znetwork.org/zvideo/journalist-richard-medhurst-raided-and-detained/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-gaza-war-was-a-lie-as-is-the-ceasefire-trump-just-told-you/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-gaza-war-was-a-lie-as-is-the-ceasefire-trump-just-told-you/#respond Fri, 07 Feb 2025 16:57:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279449 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House this week tore the mask off 16 months of gaslighting by western leaders and by the entirety of the western establishment media.  United States President Donald Trump finally dropped Washington’s sugar coating of Israel’s genocidal destruction of Gaza.  This was always, he told us, a slaughter made in the US. [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-gaza-war-was-a-lie-as-is-the-ceasefire-trump-just-told-you/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-theater-of-cruelty/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-theater-of-cruelty/#respond Fri, 07 Feb 2025 16:57:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279437 Donald Trump’s re-election marks not just a political turning point but the ascendance of a corpse-like order, a nation stiffening under the weight of its own decay. His second coming is less a victory than a death march, a spectral procession of hollow men in red ties and stiff gaits—zombies with ice in their veins. [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-theater-of-cruelty/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-climate-defiance-is-doubling-down-on-disruption/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-climate-defiance-is-doubling-down-on-disruption/#respond Fri, 07 Feb 2025 16:56:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279448 On a brutally cold morning last December, shortly before I was arrested for the first time, a hundred of us gathered beside the National Mall in Washington, D.C. I came from campus in the dark with a couple of friends. As others congregated on the grass, we made awkward introductions. It was an eclectic bunch: [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-climate-defiance-is-doubling-down-on-disruption/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/zvideo/malfeasance-at-the-icj/ https://znetwork.org/zvideo/malfeasance-at-the-icj/#respond Fri, 07 Feb 2025 16:56:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=video&p=1279393 Malfeasance at the International Court of Justice. Mouin Rabbani Interviews Norman Finkelstein.]]> https://znetwork.org/zvideo/malfeasance-at-the-icj/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-right-to-remain-in-the-face-of-genocide/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-right-to-remain-in-the-face-of-genocide/#respond Fri, 07 Feb 2025 16:52:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279470 Ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House, US President Donald Trump said Palestinians have “no alternative” but to leave Gaza. When the two leaders met in the oval office, Trump declared that after Palestinians from the Gaza Strip are moved elsewhere, the US will “take over”. The US president also expressed his [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-right-to-remain-in-the-face-of-genocide/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/dont-praise-in-advance/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/dont-praise-in-advance/#respond Fri, 07 Feb 2025 16:52:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279462 In his essential On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder warns us not to “obey in advance” if we want to defend ourselves from impending tyranny. To that admonition, I would add “don’t praise in advance” – don’t take at face value the media herd now telling us that Trump and his agenda are more popular than they actually are, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/dont-praise-in-advance/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/beyond-protest-can-serbias-student-movement-spark-a-political-breakthrough/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/beyond-protest-can-serbias-student-movement-spark-a-political-breakthrough/#respond Fri, 07 Feb 2025 16:52:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279430 It is now three months since the November 1 Novi Sad tragedy, when a concrete canopy collapsed on the recently renovated railway station, resulting in the deaths of 15 people. This disaster, perceived as the result of government corruption and negligence, ignited public outrage, particularly among students. Initial protests took place in Novi Sad, where [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/beyond-protest-can-serbias-student-movement-spark-a-political-breakthrough/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-philly-whole-foods-workers-beat-bezos/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-philly-whole-foods-workers-beat-bezos/#respond Fri, 07 Feb 2025 16:51:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279433 Can labor sustain its forward momentum under Trump? The first big test came last Monday, when Whole Foods workers in Philadelphia voted on whether to unionize with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). Many in the labor movement were expecting a loss, since MAGA is now in office and since management — headed by [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-philly-whole-foods-workers-beat-bezos/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-gatekeepers-interview-with-gilbert-achcar/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-gatekeepers-interview-with-gilbert-achcar/#respond Fri, 07 Feb 2025 16:50:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279436 On October 7, 2023, Gaza-based armed group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing approximately 1,200. They demanded that Israel free Palestinian prisoners from its jails and withdraw its settlers from Palestinian land. This flare-up in a chain of decades-long conflict led to another chain of reactions, with Israel’s all-out war on Gaza killing [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-gatekeepers-interview-with-gilbert-achcar/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/united-nations-censures-uk-over-abuse-of-terrorism-act-against-journalists-and-activists/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/united-nations-censures-uk-over-abuse-of-terrorism-act-against-journalists-and-activists/#respond Fri, 07 Feb 2025 16:49:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279412 Four UN Special Rapporteurs have written jointly to the UK government demanding explanation of its inappropriate persecution of journalists and political activists under the Terrorism Act. They state that those persecuted: appear to have no credible connection to “terrorist” or “hostile” activity The cases taken up by the United Nations are those of Johanna Ross [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/united-nations-censures-uk-over-abuse-of-terrorism-act-against-journalists-and-activists/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-it-matter-who-wins-germanys-upcoming-election-or-will-countrys-fate-largely-be-decided-in-washington/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-it-matter-who-wins-germanys-upcoming-election-or-will-countrys-fate-largely-be-decided-in-washington/#respond Fri, 07 Feb 2025 16:48:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279388 Germans will go to the polls in less than a month after the collapse of the hapless government led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The German economy is in an awful state with no reason for hope on the horizon. There are cases to be made for long structural issues and mismanagement, but the answer to the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-it-matter-who-wins-germanys-upcoming-election-or-will-countrys-fate-largely-be-decided-in-washington/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/google-drops-pledge-to-not-use-ai-to-develop-weapons-surveillance-technologies/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/google-drops-pledge-to-not-use-ai-to-develop-weapons-surveillance-technologies/#respond Fri, 07 Feb 2025 16:46:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279444 Weeks into U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, Google on Tuesday removed from its Responsible AI principles a commitment to not use artificial intelligence to develop technologies that could cause “overall harm,” including weapons and surveillance—walking back a pledge that employees pushed for seven years ago as they reminded the company of its motto at [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/google-drops-pledge-to-not-use-ai-to-develop-weapons-surveillance-technologies/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-to-win-together-lessons-from-organizing-in-rural-washington-state/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-to-win-together-lessons-from-organizing-in-rural-washington-state/#respond Thu, 06 Feb 2025 16:57:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279382 During the 2024 election, rural Washington state did something unexpected: People in deep red counties like mine protected funding for our schools, childcare, land, and water, and we did it by taxing the super-rich and fining polluting corporations. This path mirrored other seemingly incongruent election results across the country. In the Bronx, NY, for example, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-to-win-together-lessons-from-organizing-in-rural-washington-state/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/palestinian-march-of-defiance-and-israeli-trashing-of-international-conventions/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/palestinian-march-of-defiance-and-israeli-trashing-of-international-conventions/#respond Thu, 06 Feb 2025 16:56:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279362 Palestinians for decades have stood their ground and against all odds have continued to live where they rightfully belong: their ancestral homeland.   Beginning with the current ceasefire of 19 January, they have begun their march of defiance north to a Gaza which has been leveled by genocidal Israelis.   The inspiration of Palestinian resistance and steadfastness [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/palestinian-march-of-defiance-and-israeli-trashing-of-international-conventions/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/peoples-platform-europe-to-meet-in-vienna/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/peoples-platform-europe-to-meet-in-vienna/#respond Thu, 06 Feb 2025 16:55:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279363 Progressive, left, socialist and ecology activists from across Europe are set to gather in Vienna this February for a major conference aimed at strengthening grassroots organising. The three-day “Peoples’ Platform Europe” event, running 14-16 February, will bring together some 700 delegates representing over 160 organisations, groups, movements, networks and associations from more than 30 European [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/peoples-platform-europe-to-meet-in-vienna/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/moving-from-a-doomsday-clock-to-a-peace-clock/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/moving-from-a-doomsday-clock-to-a-peace-clock/#respond Thu, 06 Feb 2025 16:55:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279400 This year’s Doomsday Clock Statement landed like a damp squib in a Trump-swamped corporate news cycle on January 28th. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists only moved the hands of the Clock forward by one second, from 90 seconds up to 89 seconds to midnight, which must have come as a relief to the few members of [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/moving-from-a-doomsday-clock-to-a-peace-clock/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/zvideo/fdrs-wartime-strategies-can-power-a-just-transition-now/ https://znetwork.org/zvideo/fdrs-wartime-strategies-can-power-a-just-transition-now/#respond Thu, 06 Feb 2025 16:55:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=video&p=1279391 Economist Martin Hart-Landsberg underscores the importance of planning for a just transition and transformation of socio-economic relations. Hart-Landsberg examines FDR’s Defense Production Corporation and War Production Board which were established to coordinate the U.S. economy’s rapid conversion from civilian to military production. The entrepreneurial class largely opposed these changes, fearing cuts to their bottom line. [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/zvideo/fdrs-wartime-strategies-can-power-a-just-transition-now/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/letters-from-an-american-february-5-2025/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/letters-from-an-american-february-5-2025/#respond Thu, 06 Feb 2025 16:52:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279404 Five years ago, on February 5, 2020, Republican senators acquitted then-president Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial. Trump immediately vowed retaliation against those who tried to hold him accountable before the law for his actions. “It’s payback time,” one Republican said. “He has an enemies list that is growing by the day.” Now Trump [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/letters-from-an-american-february-5-2025/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/solidarity-under-siege/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/solidarity-under-siege/#respond Thu, 06 Feb 2025 16:52:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279377 For more than six decades, the USA has subjected Cuba to a blockade designed to destroy its economy — an act of aggression met with a global solidarity movement that has helped keep the country alive. Last year, I had the privilege of joining nearly 40 young trade unionists from the UK in the Cuba [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/solidarity-under-siege/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/who-is-peter-mandelson-starmers-pick-for-u-s-ambassador/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/who-is-peter-mandelson-starmers-pick-for-u-s-ambassador/#respond Thu, 06 Feb 2025 16:48:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1279385 Peter Mandelson, Keir Starmer’s choice for British ambassador to the US, co-owns a business that helps companies “see opportunities in politics, regulation and public policy”. Mandelson, who has a long history of favouring corporations in often scandalous situations, looks set to keep his shares in this company while supposedly representing the UK. He founded his [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/who-is-peter-mandelson-starmers-pick-for-u-s-ambassador/feed/ 0