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Oregon Black Pioneers: Exclusion Laws, Sundown Provisos, Racism in the Oregon Trail State

Our Own "Indian" Killing Settler-Colonialists

I had Zachary Stocks on my radio show, which will air Sept. 17. He’s a busy man, working as ED of this non-profit, covering the state of Oregon discussing Oregon Black Pioneers’ history outreach. Listen HERE.

Oregon Black Pioneers is Oregon’s only historical society dedicated to preserving and presenting the experiences of African Americans statewide. For more than 30 years, we’ve illuminated …

A Cancer Spreading in Africa

United Arab Emirates

The UAE, the United Arab Emirates, is a cancer spreading in Africa. This cancer has infected much of east Africa and is spreading into northern, central, and western parts of the continent.

The worst outbreak of this disease, the UAE disease, has been in Sudan where the ruling Emirates family instigated an attempted coup d’etat 3 years ago, backing a warlord and his army, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo and the Rapid Support Forces, also known as the Janjaweed since the war in Dafur/west Sudan from 2003-2005.

When he launched the attempted coup, Hemeti’s fighters quickly scored major victories against …

MSM Lies

America Meets Its Hidden Destiny

Healthy societies revel in who they are. Unhealthy societies view themselves in terms of either an ignominious past, current enemies who endanger them, or internal elements degrading the true, virtuous nature of the commune and sapping its strength. The United States through most of its history was in the first category. Today, it is clearly in the second. Therein lies our national tragedy – and our precipitous slide into Fascism American style.

This historic shift – with profound implications – has not been driven by tangible factors, originating within itself or externally, but strikingly by intangibles. The country has not experienced any …

Zelensky Rejects Trump’s Push for Peace Deal

The Ukrainian leader has again claimed that a ceasefire is needed to negotiate an end to the conflict with Russia

A Coinkydink?

Has there been an increase in hearing ambulance sirens?

US-Russia Talks: the Choice Between Peace and Escalation

Photo: AFP via Getty Images

Donald Trump came into office promising to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Now, six months later, his high stakes meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska may have put the United States and Russia on a new path toward peace, or, if this initiative fails, could trigger an even more dangerous escalation, with warhawks in Congress already pushing for another $54.6 billion in weapons for Ukraine.

After emerging from the meeting, Putin correctly framed the historical moment: “This was a very hard time for bilateral relations and, let’s …

Rise Up for Our Planet: September 18-21

It is crystal clear that millions of US Americans are prepared to organize and take action to fight the efforts of the Trump regime to impose a form of 21st Century fascism on the USA. From the first youth-led, #50501 actions in all 50 states on February 5 to the more than five million people who came out in over 2,200 localities on June 14, No Kings Day, and everything in between and since, it is unquestionable that there is a mass resistance movement that is not giving up.

History is calling upon us to step up, and we are doing so.

This …

Concise

At the end of the semester, the instructor challenged us to write an essay with body paragraph shorter than the title—at least one word shorter, preferably by two or more. “The prize is high, guys,” he added, “much higher than just getting a good grade. The winner and the runner-up will receive a one-year fellowship in the field of creative essays. In addition to free faculty housing and $80,000 stipend, a generous travel allowance to writers’ conferences will also be provided.”

We looked at each other; talk about early Christmas!

The instructor …

Antisemitism, Codes of Conduct, and the Bendigo Writers Festival

Lethal Nonsense

Write, but do not offend. Speak and comment, but do not divide. Observe cruelties, barbarities and murder, yet refrain from having an opinion. This is the constipating, stifling regime being put in place via suggested codes of conduct for organisers of writer events in Australia. The object of this intellectual veiling: discussing the exterminating war in Gaza. Across the country, the straitjacket of forced social harmony is being applied.

The Bendigo Writers Festival, being held in Victoria, Australia, is the latest case point, joining the Sydney Writers Festival, Melbourne Writers Festival, the Perth Writers’ Weekend, the Sydney Opera House’s All …

Smoldering Syria: Ongoing Security Crisis Undermines the Country’s Future

The fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria last December was so swift and surreal that the initial euphoria lingered both inside and outside the country despite public unrest turning to brutal arrests turning to executions turning to mass murder. These actions of the new Syrian authorities have been described either as efforts to “restore order” or “purges” involving war crimes, depending on the observer. The situation in Syria continues to develop rapidly and remains a subject of international interest.
The new Syrian government, led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, is acutely aware of the crucial nature of the current juncture and …

How the Toxic Manosphere is Grooming Adolescent Boys

The Creation of a Teenosphere

What Lies Behind Trump’s Attacks Against Venezuela?

As if President Trump intended to meet professional US mercenary Erik Prince halfway, US Attorney General Pam Bondi increased the existing US bounty on President Maduro—originally set at $15 million—from $25 million to $50 million for anyone providing “information leading to his arrest or conviction.”

In late 2024, Prince, a professional mercenary, alongside Venezuela’s far right, promoted a plan to deploy a private army to Venezuela. He suggested that if the US raised the bounty on Maduro’s head to …

Global Warming en Vogue, Deal With It!

Global Warming (“GW”) is winning, and it is gaining. Obstacles to hotter temperatures are falling to the wayside, allowing GW to go for more intense heatwaves along with much, much higher sea levels. Alas, the greenest of green countries are turning tail and de-emphasizing commitments to fight climate change. Several of the 196 countries subject to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) at the Paris Agreement (2015) are behaving like they’re “okay with global warming”. Trump’s smiling.

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO): “Extreme Heat is Breaking Records Worldwide.” (UN News August 7, 2025). But this current trend of killer heatwaves …

A Cry from the Ashes: Who Still Has a Conscience?

The world—eight billion strong—stands at a precipice. In Gaza, a people are being systematically pulverized, displaced, and erased. And the architects of this devastation—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the governments that arm him—continue their campaign with brazen impunity.

This is not merely a geopolitical crisis. It is a moral apocalypse.

Where are the men and women of conscience? Where are the statesmen of principle, the diplomats of dignity, the theologians of truth? Where are the poets who once sang of justice, the journalists who once exposed tyranny, the clergy who once wept for the oppressed?

Haba! Shall we stand idly by while the …

Eugenics and the Discriminatory Misuse of Gene Science Explored

A beautiful, troubling reminder… A must-watch.

— Erik Peterson, Assoc. Prof. of the History of Science, University of Alabama, Author, The Shortest History of Eugenics


In The Name of the Gene
Directed by Stephanie Welch
Produced by Stephanie Welch, Andrew Kimbrell, Jed Riffe
The concept of a “gene” — which came about during the Gilded Age — conveniently supported the notion that biology was destiny and that creating policies to directly address social ills like poverty and alcoholism was a waste of time. Those problems were said to be inherent in individuals of …

Trump Said It: “There’s No Better Word Than Stupid.”

For anyone who still thinks Donald Trump does not represent the interests of what is called “the deep state” but is actually the shallow or official U.S. state, it is time to think again. If he is not a figurehead for those alleged hidden forces, then he will agree to a Russia-Ukraine settlement on Russia’s fundamental terms – that is, a mutual security agreement that stipulates the pulling back of U.S./NATO forces encircling Russia, etc. – when he meets with Putin in Alaska this Friday. There will be no further delay.

This, however, is extremely unlikely. Trump knows little but bullying …

Race, Segregation, and Sectarianism in American Cinema

Due to the capitalistically orchestrated scourge of illiteratization and the machinations of the mass media, only a small percentage of Americans understand Washington’s penchant for launching illegal wars of aggression, and with the exception of the Gaza genocide and the Vietnam War the overwhelming majority of the population seldom has any understanding of what their army and intelligence services do abroad.
Even less understood – and this is a global phenomenon – is that while Washington delights …

Condemn all UN Member States: They Spend 100 times More on Militarism than on the Entire UN System

Is this discussed now when the UN turn 80 in October? No, politicians, media and scholars generally focus on war and ignore humanity's most important peace-maker.

The United Nations, facing a liquidity crisis, has been threatening to lay-off about 20 percent of its estimated 37,000 employees world-wide: a proposed move that has triggered widespread protests from staff unions both in New York and Geneva.

Thus starts Thalif Dean’s analysis in a recent IPS article.

The UN is in a liquidity crisis!!??

This is an issue the whole world should talk about NOW.

This is a situation that every thinking person should condemn in the strongest possible terms: The UN must cut down, while the rest of the world, the West in particular with its 5% of …

Partigiani

Paranoid, probably clinically paranoid, the old captain saw partisans everywhere. He called them “partigiani,” the only Italian word he could pronounce properly.

As we entered Bolzano the captain spotted a mansion, badly damaged by our artillery during the early morning shelling. He believed it was a potential partigiani hiding place and sent a dozen of us to search the building.

I kicked down the door and found an entirely family, man and wife and four children, in the room. They all raised their arms, even the two youngest, barely toddlers. The man’s face showed defiance mixed with worry, probably more for his …

Summer Days and Dark Nights

One never knows where fascism “lite” might appear. We have one bumper sticker for our state which has confounded the foreign tourists along our coast:

Qu’est-ce que ça veut dire . . . Qué significa . . . was bedeutet es?

These French, Mexican and German tourists asked me last week, What does it mean when they pointed to a big jacked up dual-rear tire pick-up truck with this huge sticker in the rear window: Oregunian-Oregun-zed with six AR-15 rifles on the image.

Well well, …

The West is in Panic as Israel’s Plan for “Full Control” of Gaza Heralds a New Nakba

[First published by Middle East Eye]

If you thought Western capitals were finally losing patience with Israel’s engineering of a famine in Gaza nearly two years into the genocide, you may be disappointed.

As ever, events have moved on – even if the extreme hunger and malnourishment of the two million people of Gaza have not abated.

Western leaders are now expressing “outrage”, as the media call it, at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to “take full control” …

Our Corporatized Milieu: From Chronic Stress to Depression

In the United States today, everyday life has become for many an anxiety-driven race to nowhere, a stress-filled sprint on the work-and-spend treadmill. Under such dehumanizing conditions, people try to cope with such chronic stress through compulsive access to mood-altering drugs, food, alcohol, TV, the Internet, shopping, pornography and sex.

Several decades ago, responding to the growing market for improved anti-depressant drugs, several companies developed “selective-serotonin (re)uptake inhibitors” (SSRIs). Prozac and Zoloft, no longer under the 20-year patent and therefore cheap, have quickly been superseded by new, expensive SSRIs which, despite claims to the contrary, may not be any more effective …

A Shield of Lies: Netanyahu’s Battle Against the World

It was a sign of someone desperate that his message has failed to take wing and make its way to better lands. With the strategy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Gaza Strip sundered and falling over, leaving only a thick butcher’s bill (over 60,000 deaths for starters), extraordinary suffering and humanitarian catastrophe, he thought it wise to confront foreign press outlets on a late Sunday in the hope that the tide might turn away from his exemplary viciousness. There had been, he moaned like a wounded starlet, a “global campaign of lies” about Israel’s war in …

Ukraine: We Told You So

I hate to say I told you so. It’s obnoxious, really. But sometimes it is an important point. In this case, the point is this: the people who are always right about wars were right about the war in Ukraine, whereas the “experts” who are always on television and in government were, as usual, wrong.

Which of the following statements about the war with Russia comes closest to your personal views?

Ukraine should continue fighting until it wins the war
Ukraine should seek to negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible

*****
Gallup asked that …

Stop the Violence

It is paradoxical that many advocate for ending wars without acknowledging the root issue of violence. If now is not the time to finally address violence, when will it be? We must name and challenge all its forms—physical, religious, economic, political, psychological, cultural, sexual, and others—because violence in any form is the primary barrier to peace.
 
Asking for peace without addressing violence is like a homeless person asking for money on the street; it doesn’t get very far. Peace cannot be achieved by ignoring the systemic and pervasive forces that sustain violence. Without addressing the …

No Excuse for Refusing Palestinians their State a Moment Longer

When it comes to recognising Palestinian statehood, the UK and US seem unable to grasp what their solemn obligations are. Fortunately, UN Resolution 37/43 of December 1982 is there to help.

It comprehensively reaffirms previous resolutions and treaties on the universal right to self-determination and the speedy granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples to provide an effective guarantee that human rights may be observed. And note the words “speedy granting”. Palestinians have been kept waiting for over 100 years for an effective guarantee of their human rights.

37/43 considers that denying the Palestinian people their inalienable rights to self-determination, sovereignty, …

The Hidden Costs of the Big Data Surveillance Complex

Unbeknownst to much of the public, Big Tech exacts heavy tolls on public health, the environment, and democracy. The detrimental combination of an unregulated tech sector, pronounced rise in cyberattacks and data theft, and widespread digital and media illiteracy—as noted in my previous Dispatch on Big Data’s surveillance complex—is exacerbated by legacy media’s failure to inform the public of these risks. While establishment news outlets cover major security breaches in Big Tech’s troves of personal identifiable information (PII) and their costs to individuals, businesses, and national security, this coverage fails to address the negative impacts of Big Tech on the full …

Slaying and Censoring the Journalists: The Murder of Anas al-Sharif

“Assassination,” wrote George Bernard Shaw in The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet, “is the extreme form of censorship”. Such extremism visited Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif and his colleagues in Gaza City late on August 10. Resting in a tent located outside the main gate of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, he was killed alongside Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa, and freelance reporter Mohammed al-Khaldi.

Palestinian journalist Wadi Abu al-Saud recalls the drone attack taking place at 11.22 pm. Having entered the tent opposite, he had raised his phone to make a call …

Shanti Maheshwari: Brutally Silenced Forever

Caution: Extreme violence described

Shanti Maheshwari in a bridal dress; her husband Ashok Kumar is behind the bars IMAGE/voicepk.net VIDEO/voicepk.net/Youtube
From beautiful bride, to victim of marital rape, this is the story of Shanti, a 19-year-old whose husband has been charged under the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act of 2013. IMAGE/Inter Press Service (IPS)

Shanti Maheshwari was a 19-year-old woman living in Karachi’s working class neighborhood of Lyari who got married to Ashok Kumar Mohan …