news – For the Planet and Humanity

What Lies Behind Trump Threats to Venezuela and Overall Foreign Policy?

Some Thoughts and a Letter

I’ve been thinking about and trying to figure out what explains the Trump regime’s attacks on boats in the Caribbean which have now killed 87 people in 22 strikes. And further, its larger threats of war on Venezuela and its foreign policy in general. Below are some thoughts and questions and a letter a friend wrote to me when I posed the questions below.

Some in Congress, even some in the GOP, have raised questions after a report came out that Pete Hegseth ordered a second strike on an alleged “drug boat” in the Caribbean to “kill everyone” on board. The strike blew apart two sailors in the water clinging to the boat which had already been destroyed, 9 occupants killed, in the first strike.

The regime and the direct commander of the operation Admiral Bradley denied a direct order by Hegseth, but have absurdly tried to justify the second strike by claiming the survivors were trying to contact a “mother ship” to continue their effort to smuggle drugs, threatening American lives. . Head of the Senate Intelligence committee Tom Cotton took the murderous absurdity to another level, claiming video of the strike shown to select Congresspeople showed the two survivors “trying to flip a boat” (which was destroyed and on fire), and “load it with drugs” before they were killed.

The strike is clearly illegal, even by military law and code. Any neutral observer would see it as clear and unjustified murder.

Beyond this, the entire operation is either a war crime or simply just mass murder. Not a single shred of evidence has been produced by the regime that any of the boats destroyed or people killed were actually narco-traffickers, or even if so, that they were headed for the U.S. Or, for that matter, that anything links them somehow to causing the eventual deaths of people anywhere.

Blowing up of boats in international waters that pose no risk to the U.S. would be a war crime under circumstances of actual war, but is just plain murder when done not in context of a war. No matter the claims of war by the regime, a war is only a war if both sides are fighting one, and no stretch of the imagination would lead to a conclusion that Venezuela is waging war on the U.S.

I’ve been reading different views on what is the U.S. current imperial policy related to Venezuela and beyond. One sees the threats of U.S. war on Venezuela as attempts to destabilize or remove Maduro in order to shore up the U.S. position in South America, back other fascist governments there, and threaten social democratic governments and the people of the region.

Another piece I read from I think Foreign Relations said there is an imperial agenda related to destabilizing and getting rid of Maduro and seizing Venezuelan oil perhaps as a goal, which Trump has mentioned.

A Truthout piece by Jonathan Ng on NATO and Trump analyzes that the U.S. has reasserted it’s control and leadership within NATO-demanding they pay more for arms and more or less brought them in line with U.S. hegemony. This seems at odds with a view I was tending to- that Trump has only succeeded in destroying U.S. alliances. Instead, this view is that under him the regime is somewhat succeeding in bullying alliances under terms more favorable to itself.

The above on imperial concerns seems in contradiction to what I’d come to think that the U.S. is less concerned with global empire at least as a strategy and more concerned with yes, an extension of fascist power, but more as a way to demonstrate power and strength as well as personal aggrandizement and corrupt profiteering by interests aligned with the regime. Obviously, there is a backing of fascist ‘birds of a feather” in Argentina, Russia, Hungary and elsewhere, an ideological unity and approach to rule held in common. But is this deriving from a thought-out position of U.S. global hegemony and a plan to achieve it similar to previous thought in U.S. ruling circles?

Heather Cox Richardson has a Facebook post on many of the problems the regime is having both internationally and domestically in relation to cracks in their base, the Epstein case, defection among some GOP Congresspeople, declining support in population. She also analyzes some international moves re. Ukraine, and what Trump is out to do. Selected snippets below.

“On Friday evening, the Wall Street Journal published an article about the Trump administration’s negotiations with Russia over Ukraine that illuminated the administration’s approach to the world at home, as well as overseas. Authors Drew Hinshaw, Benoit Faucon, Rebecca Ballhaus, Thomas Grove, and Joe Parkinson explained that the administration’s plan for peace was a Russian-led blueprint for joint U.S.-Russia economic cooperation that would funnel contracts for rebuilding Ukraine, extracting the valuable minerals in the Arctic, and even space exploration to a few favored U.S. and Russian businessmen.

Many of those business leaders have close ties to the White House.

The Trump administration is replacing American democracy with a kleptocracy, a system of corruption in which a network of ruling elites use the institutions of government to steal public assets for their own private gain. It permits virtually unlimited theft while the head of state provides cover for his cronies through pardons and the uneven application of the law.

It is the system Russia’s president Vladimir Putin exploits in Russia, and President Donald J. Trump is working to establish it in the United States of America.

Unlike the robber barons of the late nineteenth century, today’s power elite is, as Anand Giridharadas of The Ink wrote on November 23 in the New York Times, ‘a borderless network of people connected not to nations or their fellow citizens but to each other. They exchange nonpublic information and capital to enable the members of that group to control events, disregarding the effects of their decisions on those outside their network’.”

So what is guiding Trumpian foreign policy, how is it best understood? How is it an extension of former U.S. imperialist policy and how a change of emphasis, or divergence or break with it?

I posed some of the above to a friend and received this letter in response which I found insightful and helpful.

“Yes, I think it’s a pretty complicated situation. There seems to be much perplexed speculation about US goals around the confrontation with Venezuela. Some say it’s the oil, noting that Venezuela has the largest know oil reserves in the world (news to me!). Others that it’s not the oil because the oil is “dirty oil”, requires large investment for refining, there’s an oil glut now (although that could change if Russian and Iranian oil suddenly isn’t available) and at this time Venezuela’s oil production represents only 1% of the world’s production and it would take much time and money to expand it’s decrepit oil drilling capacity.

Another motivation fits in well with a long-term strategic hostility, across all political parties, presidencies and media towards the Chavez/Maduro defiance of US hegemony. A particular aspect of that is that “taking down” Venezuela will weaken Cuba and fulfill another long-held goal of bringing down that regime. It’s said that Cuba, already economically stressed, will implode because it’s extremely dependent on Venezuela’s oil. Other widely held reasons for “regime change” in Venezuela is that it will weaken Columbia, which along with Brazil and Chile has some level of resistance to US hegemony.

And in the background, there’s always and everywhere the specter of China’s ever-increasing economic power, influence, and rivalry with US. So overall, there’s a pretty broad consensus that regime change in Venezuela is the final goal here.

On the other hand, there’s much dismay and worry among politicians and foreign policy pundits over the Trumpers’ strategy and tactics: concerns about “overreach”, heavy-handedness, more “forever wars”, driving Latin American countries into China’s arms, etc. Where does the hysteria and aggressiveness of the Trumpers come from? Blowing up the “drug boats” of course fits well with the macho, “warrior ethos”, i.e. with the fascist chest thumping that’s intended to impress the public. But more than that, the hysteria over “terrorist attacks by drug cartels” fits in well with frightening the public and then saving them, “saving American lives” which would otherwise be lost to drug overdose.

So there are two different approaches but one shared goal: preservation of US political and economic hegemony. Neither approach is driven primarily by immediate US economic or financial needs.

It’s true that Trump’s greed and megalomania are on full display here and at times motivate particular actions and policies which can undermine US strategy, but I think there’s a much more fundamental motivation. The Trumpers gain their strength directly from the crisis of neoliberalism, particularly the 2008 financial meltdown, the consequent recession, the relative impoverishment of many and the rise of the tea party movement. On the other hand, the Obama presidency responded to the crisis with business-as-usual policies: bail out the banks and corporations, allow homeowners to lose their homes, respond slowly, if at all, to increased unemployment and stagnation of real wage incomes. In short, stay the course of neoliberalism. For their part, the tea-partiers and want-to-be fascists responded with acknowledgement of the crisis but misrepresented it as a crisis of “western civilization”, “you’re losing your country”, pushing paranoid conspiracy theories, demonization of “other” races and cultures, etc. – the whole nine yards.

To many people, the fascist reaction seems irrational, illogical, without foundation in reality. But if one looks at the severity of the crisis of neo-liberalism then continuing with that neo-liberal strategy seems equally irrational. In the short term, another strategy that might seem viable is that of progressivism and social-democracy but these will clearly exacerbate the political crisis; their redistributionist goals are unacceptable to capital as are its democratizing political tendencies. So fascism for all its craziness is at some point the last best hope for US hegemony. Its level of desperation is matched only by the level of risk to which the entire world is exposed.

What are the moneyed interests to do in such a situation? Primarily, ally with one strategy or the other, preserve their political options, engage politically when advantageous, and continue to make money.”

Food for thought.

Trump and Hegseth Unleash Military to War on “the Enemy Within”

I’m reposting here this summation by Glee Violette of Trump and Hegseth’s meeting with top military leaders. It is beyond concerning. It’s a call and plan for full-scale use of the military to suppress any protest, opposition or voices of those the regime finds a threat. And a threat to them is anyone who opposes them in any fashion. It’s a call to use the military against “the enemy within”, which means anyone in the U.S. who doesn’t submit to fascism. It’s a move to fully line up military leaders with this mission or to force them out.

This is a huge step in the consolidation of fascism which would mean a different, violent form of rule. A dictatorship where the rule of law is destroyed and there are no rights of assembly, due process or freedom of speech. A dictatorship where science, truth and logic are corrupted, turned inside out, and completely suppressed. A dictatorship where non-white peoples are subject to vicious and open racist assault and suppression and imprisonment, beyond even the worst of what has taken place previously. A dictatorship where transgender and LGBTQ folks are surrounded, suppressed and assaulted. And where humanity in the world as a whole are subject to ridicule and murder at the whim of Trump.

This is not just spectacle or “a distraction”. It’s the imposition of a new, vicious form of rule, dictatorship. This imposition has been in process since Trump 2.0 took office, but this is a huge leap to finalizing it and consolidating it as the established form of rule. And no, the 2026 elections will not save us. There will be no free and fair elections. Not even as “free” as previous ones even with their suppression of millions of voters and gerry mandering.

Our only hope is to gather in millions in the towns and public squares throughout the country, non-violently and not leave. Oct. 19 No Kings Day and Nov 5th Refuse Fascism Call for Washington D.C. are key nodal points but the response has to happen now.

-CJ

Glee Violette

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BREAKING: Before leaving the White House for his speech at the Quantico base on Tuesday, Trump told reporters, “I’m going to be meeting with generals and with admirals and with leaders, and if I don’t like somebody, I’m going to fire ‘em right on the spot.”

His message AT the assembly? That the US is fighting an “invasion from the enemy within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control.”

Trump made VERY clear who he was referring to. He went on to single out large, Democratic-run cities as targets for a federal crackdown, naming Washington, San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles as examples of places he deemed “very unsafe.” “We’re gonna straighten them out one by one. And this is gonna be a major part for some of the people in this room. That’s a war too. It’s a war from within,” said Trump.

“I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military. National Guard, but our military. Because we’re going into Chicago very soon. That’s a big city with an incompetent governor. Stupid governor.”

No, a Democratic Governor.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

And how do Trump and Hegseth plan to deal with “The Enemy” in this war going forward?

Hegseth made his NEW rules clear. “We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country,” he declared. “No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement.”

And, again, WHO is “The Enemy”?

“It’s a war from within,” said Trump.

Neither Trump nor Hegseth referenced a war against any other people or nation. Only our own people, and our own nation.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hegseth started his address by making it clear only white males have a place in HIS military. He said that everyone, regardless of gender, will have to pass the SAME physical requirements.

DEI and “woke” regulations are banned.

He defended his firings of flag officers, which included the top U.S. general, who is Black, and the Navy’s top admiral, who is a woman. He said the officers he relieved were part of a “broken culture”.

“Foolish and reckless political leaders set the wrong compass heading and we lost our way. We became the ‘Woke Department,'” Hegseth said. “But not anymore,”

“If the words I’m speaking today are making your heart sink, you should do the honorable thing and resign,” he said.

“HONORABLE?” If something is making your “heart sink” it most definitely is NOT “honorable”.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

But the MOST important thing, as far as Hegseth himself was concerned, was the policy change he is making for his OWN benefit.

He wants to “encourage risk-takers” by not making them accountable for their “mistakes”.

He said that by ending “equal opportunity programs” and overhauling the Inspector General’s office, he would end discrimination complaints and other “frivolous complaints.”

“No more anonymous complaints, no more repeat complaints, no more smearing reputations,” he said. Personnel records will “allow leaders with forgivable, earnest, or minor infractions to not be encumbered by those infractions in perpetuity.”

Bloomberg News notes that, “Hegseth himself is the subject of a current investigation by the Pentagon’s Inspector General for leaking classified information in a Signal messaging chat that inadvertently included a journalist.”

Hegseth is now about to direct a war on our own soil against our own people. He is not planning to be accountable to ANYONE.

AND, he wants to make sure that the officers who obey his potentially illegal commands do not have to worry about being accountable, either.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Trump followed Hegseth by opening with, “If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future.”

He made some short comments echoing his “War Secretary”, and said he “had their backs. 100%”. Even though he got a deferment when he was called to serve with them in Vietnam. But that’s OK. Now that he does not have to serve at all, he is committed to making the military stronger, faster and fiercer “than ever before.”

And then, of course, he launched into his usual rally-style rambling rant about himself.

Making the same false claims about ending more world conflicts than any other president, claiming personal credit for a rise in enlistments, claiming ALL the credit for “his” creation of the U.S. military’s Space Force and blaming Biden for the bad deal Trump himself made with Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders.

In fact, he made sure the military leaders knew that their allegiance should be ALL about politics. “The past administration — they did not treat you with respect. They’re Democrats. They never do,” said Trump.

“We won every swing state, we won the popular vote. We won everything. You have to take a look at the map. It’s almost entirely red except there’s a little blue line on each coast. And I think that’s gonna disappear, too,” said the Commander in Chief, the President of the United States of America.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It was a different message than the one Trump told Reuters he was going to give: “I want to tell the generals that we love them, they’re cherished leaders, to be strong, be tough and be smart and be compassionate,” Trump said in the Reuters interview on Sunday.

Compassionate??? While carrying weapons to confront our own citizens in our own cities, under Trump’s new authorization to use “FULL FORCE”.

Right.

In his first term, Trump wanted the military to shoot BLM protesters. General Milley refused.

Now Navy commanders are obeying his orders to blow up small boats and kill unknown people in international waters.

Will National Guard and Marine commanders obey his orders to shoot the same “Venezuelan Drug Runners” in our own cities?

Will they obey his orders to shoot ANY “illegal aliens” or “gang members” or “criminals”?

Will they obey his orders to shoot US?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Trump said today that “we are under an invasion from the enemy within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control.”

Hegseth said, “We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement.”

This was a bald-faced open statement of not only supremacist rhetoric, but a statement of the intention to use violence to achieve their agenda.

Trump named Washington, San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles as examples of places he deemed “very unsafe.” “We’re gonna straighten them out one by one. And this is gonna be a major part for some of the people in this room. That’s a war too. It’s a war from within,” he said.

Oh. And Trump just ordered the National Guard into Chicago.

I’m reposting this piece by Henry Giroux from Truthout due to the danger of the moment. We must stand together against the fascist Trump regime’s attempts to outlaw opposition politics and the left in the wake of the Kirk Murder-CJ

Charlie Kirk’s Death Is a Symptom of a National Political Culture in Crisis

https://truthout.org/articles/charlie-kirks-death-is-a-symptom-of-a-national-political-culture-in-crisi

What we are witnessing is not an isolated act but the manifestation of a wider rot.

By Henry A. Giroux , Truthout

PublishedSeptember 12, 2025

Right-wing activist Charlie Kirk speaks on stage with Donald Trump at America Fest 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona, on December 22, 2024.

The cruel and horrendous killing of Charlie Kirk was both reprehensible and indefensible. Political assassinations, regardless of the source, are an act of violence against all Americans. Such violence is on the rise, and it is not limited to one ideology: In recent months we have seen attacks against both Republicans and Democrats coming from people with a range of political identities.

A suspect in Kirk’s killing is now in custody in Utah. In a press conference, law enforcement announced that a rifle and bullets found near the scene of the killing were inscribed — some with anti-fascist slogans, and others with what seem to be references to internet memes. While we are still learning about the motivations of the suspect, we do know that the claims made by Trump and his supporters — that political violence is primarily the work of the left, are pure fabrications.

Blaming the left for all political violence is a smear that reproduces a rhetoric of desperation. It functions less as a serious argument than as a pretext for legitimizing state repression. This is quite evident in the fact that Trump and many in the MAGA movement are weaponizing the act of this isolated individual in order to openly call for violence against the left as a whole, seizing on Kirk’s death to peddle accusations that his killing was the work of progressives, as TIME reports. This kind of scapegoating reveals the larger strategy: any event, no matter how tenuous, will be weaponized to justify crackdowns on dissent. What this exposes is not concern for truth or justice but the naked readiness of the Trump regime to unleash violence against critics. This is fascism stripped of disguise, fascism on steroids.

In his address on Kirk’s death on September 10, Trump claimed that the “radical left” was to blame, insisting that rhetoric comparing “wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals” was “directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today.” The same narrative quickly spread across right-wing media and social platforms. Influential MAGA voices echoed Trump’s framing, stoking resentment toward the left and portraying Kirk’s killing as a call to arms. Far right activist and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer declared, “The Left are terrorists,” warning that Kirk’s death was only the beginning of “more targeted assassination.” “You could be next,” she wrote, before demanding that “these lunatic leftists” be shut down “once and for all.”

Such rhetoric is part of a broader strategy: to weaponize Kirk’s death as proof that dissent from the left is itself a form of violence that justifies repression.

At this current moment in history, the greatest threat of violence and its normalization comes not only from far right extremists, but also from a government that uses the threat of violence as a tool of political power.

Mainstream media outlets are mostly focusing on Kirk’s death and in doing so rightly condemn his killing as a horrific act of violence. But at the same time, they are ignoring a deeper truth: violence is not an aberration in the United States; rather, it has become central to the politics of Donald Trump and his regime. Moreover, much of the coverage of Kirk reduces him to a sharp debater, a youth organizer, or a rising figure in the far right. What is largely ignored is the substance of his arguments, which helped normalize a culture of hate, white nationalism, authoritarianism, and violence itself.

Kirk’s record is clear. He called George Floyd a “scumbag,” dismissed Martin Luther King Jr. as “awful,” and labeled the Civil Rights Act of 1964 a “mistake.” He claimed the racist “Great Replacement” theory is real, insisted that immigration is a deliberate strategy to erode the white population, and derided the very idea of white privilege as a fabrication. He “compared pandemic vaccine requirements to apartheid during a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson.” He argued that Israel was not starving Gazans,” in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He spread a vicious falsehood about Yusef Salaam of the Central Park Five, wrongly insisting he had taken part in a gang rape, an attack that was not only defamatory but also part of a long pattern of baselessly criminalizing Black men as predators. Kirk smeared gay people and “encouraged students and parents to report professors whom they suspected of embracing … gender ideology.” He trafficked in antisemitic stereotypes, once claiming that “Jewish dollars” were funding Marxist ideas in education as well as policy that pushed for open borders.

Perhaps most chilling was his defense of mass gun violence. Kirk declared that some gun deaths, (assuming this includes children), are simply the price “of liberty” to protect the Second Amendment. At a time when classrooms have become sites of recurring carnage, such remarks treat murdered children as collateral damage, erasing the human cost of the U.S.’s obsession with guns and elevating ideology over life itself.

These are not isolated remarks; they form a worldview that dehumanizes, divides, and elevates cruelty into a political principle. To remember Kirk only for his debating skills or his reach among young conservatives is to miss the disturbing truth: he championed ideas that normalized hate and legitimized violence as a way of governing.

This kind of scapegoating reveals the larger strategy: any event, no matter how tenuous, will be weaponized to justify crackdowns on dissent.

Kirk’s murder — tragic and senseless — cannot be separated from the broader U.S. landscape in which violence has become the grammar of politics, hatred is given more weight than compassion, and truth itself is sacrificed at the altar of power. In this climate, the needs of ordinary people and the promise of the common good are not only neglected but treated with disdain. To confront this reality is not to deny grief, but to name honestly the world we now inhabit, one in which the struggle for justice and human dignity has never been more urgent. Kirk’s death is not an aberration but a grim marker in the U.S.’s descent, where violence has become the lifeblood of politics and hatred the currency of power. This is not simply a tragedy — it is the death rattle of democracy itself, a notice that the nation is being hollowed out from within by those who thrive on cruelty and contempt.

According to Reuters’ data, the United States is now in its most sustained stretch of political violence since the 1970s: more than 300 politically motivated attacks have erupted since January 6, 2021. In just the first half of 2025, nearly 150 such incidents have been recorded — almost double the number during the same period last year, according to University of Maryland researcher Michael Jensen. This is not simply a wave but a storm.

According to one study that has been referenced by the National Institute of Justice, between 1990 and 2020, the far right was responsible for 227 ideologically motivated attacks that resulted in 523 deaths, while the far left was linked to only 42 such attacks, causing 78 deaths. These figures almost certainly underestimate the extent of far right violence, since U.S. courts have often been reluctant to classify groups on the right as extremist and because law enforcement agencies have historically directed their surveillance and investigative resources toward the left, leaving right-wing violence less scrutinized.

To make matters worse, the Trump administration removed the reference to this study from the National Institute of Justice website, in addition to removing other data that sought to make sense of the numbers behind ideological violence, an erasure that can only be understood as a politically motivated attempt to downplay the threat posed by far right violence.

Soon after the anniversary of 9/11, it is worth recalling that what followed those attacks was not a defense of democracy but an endless reign of state violence: the devastating invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, torture programs and extraordinary renditions, secret CIA prisons, and the horror of Guantánamo. The lesson is unmistakable: the machinery of political and state violence has long been driven by those in power — not by the left.

This is the climate in which Kirk lived and spoke. To grieve his death honestly is to reckon with the country that made such violence thinkable. Warnings even in the liberal press have too often turned the assassination into a warning aimed not at Trump and his allies but at Democrats, liberals, and the left — cautioning them not to be too harsh in criticizing Kirk’s ideological position lest it fuel Trump’s threat to dismantle democracy. Even worse, some commentators have rushed to defend the abstract principle of free speech while ignoring the substance of Kirk’s far right beliefs and the culture of cruelty he helped to spread. The implicit suggestion is that if liberals and progressives provide “balance” and soften their rhetoric, the cycle of violence will somehow abate.

Such arguments miss the point. They deflect responsibility away from Trump, whose hateful rhetoric has both normalized and legitimized political violence, and place the burden instead on his critics. To imagine that silencing dissent or softening critique will stop the advance of authoritarian violence is not only naïve but dangerous. Trump does not need to weaponize Kirk’s death; he already thrives on scapegoating and making use of tragedy to deepen his culture of fear. The machinery of authoritarian power is already in motion: democracy and the rule of law have been steadily dismantled, the streets militarized, and mass detentions and deportations normalized against those marked by race, origin, or dissenting politics. At the same time, the regime tightens its grip by punishing local officials and judges who resist its illegal edicts. Cities are being militarized as tanks are now rolling through the streets of Washington, D.C.; Chicago; and Los Angeles. What is unfolding is not a response to one tragic event but the consolidation of a politics of terror that has been years in the making.

Kirk’s killing is not merely the sorrowful loss of a single life; it stands as a foreboding emblem of a nation in decline. It signals that the atmosphere of U.S. democracy has grown toxic, choked by a politics of violence. What we are witnessing is not an isolated act but the symptom of a wider rot, the erosion of civic bonds, the elevation of cruelty into common sense, and the slow unravelling of a republic that once fashioned itself, however falsely, as a model of freedom. To treat this moment as nothing more than personal grief is to ignore its darker portent: it announces that the pillars of democracy are cracking, and the edifice itself is beginning to crumble.

The current collapse of democracy is neither accidental nor abstract. It has been fueled by Trump’s poisonous rhetoric, which has turned politics into a theatre of humiliation and cruelty. His demonization of opponents has moved from the fringes into the mainstream, shaping a culture where enemies are to be destroyed rather than debated. In this climate, the very air of public life grows toxic, turning grievance into license.

As Robert Pape warns, U.S. politics may be on the brink “of an extremely violent era … The more public support there is for political violence, the more common it is.” When the culture itself becomes a breeding ground for violence — supercharged by the rampant acquisition of guns and the spectacle of cruelty — every killing echoes as more than personal loss. Kirk’s death is not just another entry in the ledger of political violence; it is an omen. It tells us that a republic drunk on resentment and hatred cannot breathe freely, that the poison that a politics of domination has released into the cultural bloodstream cannot be easily contained. If this moment is ignored, if it is seen only as the misfortune of one man rather than the symptom of a larger crisis, then the canary’s warning will have come too late.

A short report on A5 in Seattle and a few reflections on nationwide.

Yesterday, a massive day of coordinated protest nationwide called by Indivisible and 50501 and dozens of other groups. April 5^th Hands off Democracy, government agencies, immigrants, civil rights, etc. I hoped for at least 10K here and it easily exceeded that-likely 20-40K-maybe 25-30 is decent estimate. The media here said “thousands” or said 7,000 registered but that it was impossible to tell how many. The center grounds were packed around the central fountain, with one area cordoned off for grass growth-but likely 10-15K here with thousands more packing paths into area and scattered over the center grounds.

We started out driving from home at 11. Driving through our side of town we saw groups at every bus stop with signs-at first thinking people were just protesting there, then realizing people were waiting for buses. We thought we saw a friend on way down, who was planning to catch bus to meet us at the protest. So we turned around, here a guy with a sign told us the buses were packed and he couldn’t get on so was apparently headed home. We called our friend and he was actually at home so we stopped by his place and picked him up.

On the way we stopped at one bus stop asking if 2 people wanted to get in for ride, and 2 women did-so off we went. On the way down we talked about the state of things, history of protests in our lives-from anti-Vietnam war days to WTO and exchanged info on what we were headed for and how to protect and go forward through repression.

We were magically able to grab a parking spot only 15 minutes walk away from Seattle center grounds where the protest was held. People streamed in on all sides. Everywhere the center grounds were packed, with people still coming at noon. We made our way to the Flag Pavillion area. For some reason they had a space on south end cordoned off on the grass, maybe to protect that area, but all around and down by the fountain the crowd was packed in-later looked to me like 10-15,000 just from what was in the main area-but later seeing more people to north entrances and on all sides, so my guess is 25-30K.

We worked our way closer to the stage near north end of center grounds to hear a native American speaker-Collen Echohawk, followed by a Latino immigrant speaker, Both were good and defiant, hitting all the things under attack, emphasizing standing together, not allowing regime to pick off immigrants, trans people and all the most vulnerable-and emphazing love for each other and resistance.

There was a big focus on the power people have to stop this vs. the courts or Congress or voting with most of these first speeches at least. Not in opposition to the latter-but this was their focus, which I thought positive. Chants from the stage reflected this. “Who saves us? We save us” led by the immigrant speaker and later, “Ain’t no power like the power of the people and the power of the people don’t stop”, from famous WTO protests.

We listened then to Pramilla Jayapal-Congressperson who’s about the best the Dems have to offer. She’s a good speaker and was pretty strong, pointing out billionaires are responsible for all the things people are experiencing and the reason for rising prices, rising rents, etc. –kind of trying to repolarize the Trump/MAGA arguments about who’s to blame, but emphasizing also repelling all the attacks on all the people including against dissent.

She’s organizing “Resistance Labs” to train people en masse (reports 20K so far) in civil disobedience, so has some handle on the level of the danger and kind of opposition necessary, though what they will do or organize isn’t clear.

So Pretty good speeches, though only stayed for first three.

Unfortunately the sound system was way too small-good for maybe 5,000, so most people in crowd over whole grounds couldn’t hear the speeches. It seemed to me the organizers had vastly underestimated how many would be drawn to this event. Space not big enough for entire crowd and sound system nowhere near powerful enough. I tried to pan around with video to see size of ground from what we could see.

We tried to then leave to walk around and see what was going on, the size of crowd, etc. . It was so completely packed in it took maybe 20-30 minutes to move through a massive and at times a bit frightening scrum, to move about a hundred yards-and to the north, there were more masses of people far away from central stage area, reflecting my estimates (and others )of tens of thousands.

We finally got through. All around the center ground area there were people with signs, people dancing, drum corps, music, bands and people with signs of every kind. I wondered if the people who had been waiting for buses ever even got here and wouldn’t be surprised if many didn’t.

A good day. Still however, I strongly believe the resistance will be set up if the Dems, even left Dems, are allowed to lead it. Will they, or will masses with new leadership push past them or at least push through them to not be led into something short of defeating this?

This could well sharpen if repression sharpens, which seems very likely. I think being part of a UF type coalition, if not organizationally at least programatically with very broad forces is important overall and at this stage especially, although it’s not clear where this will end up or if Dems and some associates will become a barrier. Helping and working with people to develop political awareness of the stakes and the real danger the regime represents, and what it will take to defeat fascism, I see as central, and forging forms of leadership.

Another question-where is it at with youth, on campuses and high schools and working masses as much as known? A friend feels there has to be more emphasis on the working class and bringing out class interests as way to strike deeper and to basically repolarize sections of people to side with resistance, and to unite people. There’s some point to this seems to me.

So A5 nationwide was very positive in my estimation, and it’s quite clear despite media underplaying nationwide,-eg. an early NYT article reported A5 protests as “thousands in several cities” and later saying “protests in cities and towns nationwide” without specifying numbers or even numbers of locations as I recall-(which was 12-1400). Then today Sunday-the massive protests estimated at 2-3 million from what I have heard so far, have completely evaporated from NYT Sunday edition.

They swiftly refocus on impacts of Trump’s tariffs with Americans “wrestling over” how they will be effected. And how Trump’s 3^rd term talk “tests democracy” . This is of course maddening, but completely typical of how they represent capitalist ruling class interests opposing yet at same time normalizing and abetting fascism by undercutting the danger, while trying to keep masses outrage and interests confined, underplayed and only occasionally let out to channel people under the wing of those ruling class forces who want to try to maintain the center, with the U.S. as a functioning imperialist empire in the traditional way.

One point standing out. Yesterday was powerful and shows real potential, yet we’re not yet at the point of the very important in my mind, Refuse Fascism outlined goal of filling streets and town squares day after day with millions and non-violently bringing the regime and country to a standstill and forced out by the opposition, ala South Korea. The potential is there, but you can see the level and understanding is not there yet. Will it become that? Key question. What will it take for that to happen?

Some Observations and Speculations on the “Logic” of the Trump/Musk Regime

The following are meant as ruminations on the title topic with full admission some of it is somewhat speculative. I mean it as a way to put thoughts out there to think about and stimulate thoughts or discussion with whoever reads this, instead of any final conclusion. I’m drawing on several pieces, including the New York Times (NYT) opinion piece mentioned below, a book by Nancy Maclean mentioned below, but also my own thinking.

Do Trump and His Regime Want a Recession?

With the stock market diving after Trump’s back and forth imposition of tariffs and the response from trading partners and other indicators, some economists are saying the possibility of a “Trump recession” is growing. Added here are the mass firings of federal employees and shuttering of whole government agencies, cuts to science and university funding by the Trump regime, targeting of immigrants, moves to slash social security and Medicaid, etc. The slashing of the Federal Aviation Administration by Musk’s DOGE comes right when there have been 6 recent plane disasters, and air travel from Europe and Canada has also dropped with U.S. tariffs being imposed and airline stocks dropping.

Some are asking, what “end game” are Trump and Musk going for? And as some NYT opinion writers recently asked, “Is the Destruction the Point?” A question I’ve been ruminating on is, these people are fascists, don’t they need to create through their chaos and destruction still some type of stable new fascist status quo?

I don’t know, but it does look at least more possible with Trump’s whipsawing tariff policies and their effect on the stock market and overall economy that Trump and the billionaires backing him may even be aiming for recession, or at least fine with it. And they may see it as a way to generate enough misery, grinding down of the populace and chaos that they can even advance their position.

I fully admit here I’m speculating about how such a situation could be used by them.

A recession may mean bankrupting of certain companies or industries and if that happens, those associated with or favored by Trump who have the capital would be best positioned to snap them up.

This would flow with a strategy of further building their fortunes and personal empires by seizing larger market share and even taking over other whole industries their capital has not penetrated yet, or to the degree they would like. Musk in particular, (and no doubt other tech and other capitalist interests behind Trump), likely has goals of spreading into and taking over other industries and markets.

Musk has got Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink, Twitter, and Neuralink-which has already planted chips in people’s brains, frightening as that is. It appears he is moving to have Starlink take over the FAA air traffic control system. Gee, what could go wrong? Starlink is what the Ukrainian military uses and provides internet access to 125 markets worldwide. He wants to develop sex robots, as he recently said in an interview with Joe Rogan. They likely have all kinds of insane and destructive ideas, maybe to more completely privatize and take over health care or myriad other industries and markets globally.

A good bit of the slashing of government Musk’s DOGE has focused on targeting agencies and individuals that were providing oversight of his own companies or even had cases in front of them involving his companies.

Of course glorying in dreams of ultimate power and unlimited expansion is one thing and doing it is another. As seen by the myriad problems Musk is now facing from Tesla’s sales tanking globally, diving stock price, spreading boycotts and protests at Tesla dealerships. Other capitalist electric car companies from China and Europe and even Mexico are seeking to expand sales as they seek advantage with how hated Musk and Tesla have become. Meanwhile, X is crashing, SpaceX rockets exploding yet again, etc. Not to mention growing anger and revulsion worldwide and resistance within the U.S. at his ugly billionaire, chain-saw wielding, Nazi saluting, Cybertruck flaunting, AFD supporting arrogance.

Trump and his billionaire backers are so stuffed with arrogance they believe they’ll be able to fool the people into believing something else is to blame if there’s a recession – other countries, immigrants, trans people, the “Radical left Democrats” -or else suppress, intimidate and cow into submission the rest. They think they will be able to control the narrative and overwhelm any other narrative from taking hold. This is the way Trump has been operating for years and he has mainly gotten away with it to this point.

The Twisted Workings of the Trump/Musk Mind

It’s a dark and ugly place to go, but I’d like to try to delve into the Trump/Musk brain, or more accurately, what seems to be the mindset they operate from and their “logic” if it could be called that.

This group seems driven by extreme corruption and exterminating any limits to capital-expansion and profit-making, as well as attaining what they hope will be unchallenged power for themselves . Their worldview is that they are “the makers”, the “Kings”,-smarter, better, and more deserving than the “takers”-the mass of people, (See Nancy Maclean’s book on the roots of this ideology “Democracy in Chains”)

This is why they see every type of government service that provides anything for people’s health or survival-whether AIDS drugs in Africa, Medicaid or social security in the U.S., or the myriad other governmental services for food or aviation safety, scientific inquiry and knowledge, education, national parks, environmental protection, or programs benefiting non-white people or women as simply “waste” to be eliminated. Eliminating this “waste”, which drains money and thus influence and power that should accrue to the “takers”, is what the Department of Government Efficiency aims to do.

They also see themselves as the ones with the guts, smarts and audacity to shoot for the moon and remake the world according to their own desires, unlike the “losers”-other politicians and businessmen who are still playing by the old rules. Power is measured in what you can acquire, how you can shatter what has existed before and what you can get away with that no-one else could previously.

They revel in their ability to make people do what they want and think what they want them to think. They glory in making others submit, in destroying enemies, in “winning” as Trump sees it, and not being “a loser”. Trump wants to be able to say, “I want Greenland for the U.S. and I have the power, so it should be mine.” Or the same for making Canada the “51^st state”.

I agree with psychiatrists who from afar, have analyzed Trump as an extreme or pathologic narcissist. A sociopath with no social conscience, no compassion, no regard for how many people suffer or are destroyed by the actions of he and his regime. A man who is pathologic too in how he is viewed and portrayed, as seen by his obsession with rally numbers, his exaggerating his popularity, or his actual non-landslide but declared “landslide” victory over Harris and the size of the “mandate” resulting. A person, who as the aforementioned NYT opinion writers piece said, sees what he’s doing as creating a spectacle and desires to be the biggest spectacle.

This is lunacy, pathological depravity, yes, but also a depravity created out of the logic of capitalism, his own inheritance of wealth and entitlement, and the broader “American experience” of empire, war, genocide, racism, oppression of women, and destruction of the planet.

Those in this regime headed by Trump and Musk, (no matter his official title), are out to accomplish what the extreme right has dreamt of for many years, doing away with government support of all or almost all social programs-Social Security, Medicaid, U.S. supplied aid globally, and many others goods and services that people rely on to live. Then privatising whatever’s left.

The aim is to destroy any limits to this groups self-aggrandisement and profiteering. To knock down any laws, rules or convention that stands in their way. And to achieve an iron grip of control over the entire political process, the law, the culture, education, etc.

They want to destroy public education, take over colleges and take a sledgehammer to intellectualism, science and anything else that would cause people to be able to think, reason and figure out what is really going on.

They want to outlaw political dissent and deport or lock up those who oppose them, as seen so sharply in the arrest and planned deportation of Mahmoud Khalil despite bringing no charges against him and him being a legal green card holder with supposedly the same Constitutional rights as citizens in this country. They want to set a precedent, that anyone can be accused, without evidence, of “support for terrorism. They’re starting with a Palestinian protester who did no more than speak out and organize people against the U.S. backed genocide in Gaza. But it will not stop there. White supremacy, racism, mysoginy and unparalleled American chauvinism are all bound up in this single fascist package.

The MAGA vision and especially the base is increasingly looking like a road to power, to be used and brought into motion whenever some opponent needs threatening or targeting, or else in future repression vs. resistance to Trump. Apparently some Congressional Republicans told Democrats that they won’t take a position opposing Trump for fear they will be so vilified on social media someone will come after them or their family. Whether this is true or an excuse, or both, isn’t clear.

The Christian nationalist element within the regime here is interwined and I don’t think really at odds with the above. Many of these power elements with Trump are Christian nationalists, like Pete Hegseth, along with being fine with serving billionaire profit-making. Whether there will be more tension here, or with the MAGA base more generally, such has been seen between Bannon and Musk, remains to be seen.

They think they can do it and they are on the road. It’s very dangerous and also completely illegitimate. It will only be stopped by massive, unstopping opposition and resistance throughout society with millions in the streets repeatedly. In this, there is real potential, as seen by the spread of protest currently throughout the U.S.

Destruction in LA–Capitalism’s Perfect Firestorm

By Curtis Johnson

1.17.25

The Palisades and Eaton fires in LA have killled 25 people. Tens of thousands have been forced to evacuate. Thirty people are still listed as missing. The fires are not fully contained, and dangerous conditions sparking further fires continue to persist as of now.

Thousands of people have seen their homes and often all of their most precious keepsakes destroyed. Some have lost friends, relatives and neighbors. Places of small business have been completely burned to the ground. As of this writing, 12,000 homes, businesses and other structures have been destroyed, mainly in the communities of Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Photos of these communities show the scale of destruction, with block after block laid to waste.

Pacific Palisades is a mixture of wealthy and middle class residents, including a number of Hollywood celebrities, some of whom have seen their homes destroyed. Altadena is a working and middle class community of mixed nationality and a center of a vibrant Black community. Black people moving from the south to this area during the Great Migration were often prevented through redlining of moving into many parts of LA, but were after a time able to settle in Altadena. Now whole areas of this community have been devastated. The Black community here and more broadly has been coming together to provide aid, determined to rebuild.

Fascist MAGA Lies and the Deeper System Responsible.

Added to the suffering of thousands from the fire’s destruction as well as from days of smoke which is toxic (as I pointed out in an 2017 piece in Truthout) the fascist MAGA-ites led by Trump are taking advantage of the suffering to blame immigrants, lesbian fire officials they claim are hired “through DEI policies”, etc. Perched like vultures on the verge now of full power, they are spreading lies that the problem is California officials diverting firefighting resources and water to programs for immigrants and to save the Delta smelt, a small endangered fish in the San Fransisco Bay Delta region.

The lies continue despite fire officials pointing out that they and no other municipal fire force in existence could have stopped the speed and explosiveness of this fire (which while true points up a big problem for the future). One example of this is that traditional fire policy calls for three fire engines for a single house fire, but here there were thousands upon thousands of structure fires, do the math. Of course Trump et al offer no evidence of any of their claims, just more stuff they have made up, and a number of articles have pointed out the lies in these allegations.

MAGA republicans are now trying to bludgeon California officials by threatening to withhold federal aid unless they further submit to advancing Trump’s hateful anti-immigrant, white supremacist fascist program.

The truth of the matter is there are actual deeper reasons these fires and others like them all over the planet are increasing and levels of harm exploding, which we’ll explore below. And these are reasons that the fascists in particular want to divert attention from.

At the heart of this is global climate change and the increasing heating and drought it causes which sucks vegetation and soils dry, predisposing them to burn. Climate change is largely fueled by the capitalist countries of the world, and largely those in the developed world, continuing to burn fossil fuels. They continue to do this because of how highly profitable fossil fuel exploitation is, and because in the intense competition between various powers, control over fossil fuel resources play a key role in who will come out on top. Global carbon emissions continue to rise, despite the clear crisis this has created or the claims to be addressing the problem.

In combination with climate change, there are a myriad of other ways capitalism functions that are to blame. This, includes continuing destruction of wildlands and endless development that negates natural limits and increases the number and spread of wildfires.( Wildfires are of course a natural phenomena, but are now taking place at an unprecedented scale.) Further reasons lie with the system’s inability to adequately prepare for or take account or really fully plan for such natural disasters, at least in the way the situation really demands.

All these reasons are driven by capitalism, a system that can only function by turning things needed by humans into commodities to be sold for profit. A system that is driven by competition between various interests and entities to maximize profitability in competition with others and therefore makes decisions and allots resources based on profitability and in the interests of continuing that pattern of functioning. A system that is anarchic and unable to plan development and growth, or control or limit it, based on long terms needs of people or ecosystems.

Because of this embedded pattern of functioning, capitalism is driven by it’s own dynamics to put profitability over human lives and ecosystems. In it’s functioning, capitalism and capitalist enterprises view nature and its bounty as simply a free gift to be extracted for maximum profitability instead of something to be cherished and protected.

Both Democrats and Republicans represent the interests of capitalism. The phenomena leading to such disasters as the fires in LA will only become more destructive under a fascist, white supremacist Trumpian rule, that claims in lunatic fashion that climate change which is already catastrophic, is a hoax. Trump promises to “drill baby drill”, removing even minor limitations Dems have put in place, which have done nothing to truly address the climate crisis. Remember during the election how Biden and Harris “countered” Trump’s attacks on drilling by pointing out that under their administration the U.S. has become the largest producer of oil and natural gas on the planet? Which is true. Or how Harris “countered” Trump in Pennsylvania by saying, no she doesn’t oppose, but supports the destructive practice of fracking?

Let’s look deeper at what is taking place in LA.

What Fueled the Fire’s Explosiveness

The Eaton and Palisades fires in LA both started in hills above LA in what is often called the “wildland-urban interface”, where homes and development have spread into formerly wild areas. Such building has been allowed to spread under pressure from developers despite the danger of sparking wildfires that this type of development poses, particularly in drought prone areas like LA. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) warned how this pattern of development is heightening the danger of destruction to human communities and wildlife and altering the natural ecology in a paper written in 2021 “Built to Burn”

The CBD also pointed out how the California State Assembly passed legislation in May of 2024 that would have opened the way for even more development in the state’s high risk fire hazard zones and allowed developers to skirt fire hardening rules for buildings and other fire reduction measures. Fortunately, this bill died in the California Senate but shows the pressure capitalist developers continue to try to exert, despite the danger.

The LA fires spread extremely quickly because of powerful Santa Ana winds, at times in gusts of hurricane strength. The winds spread the fire not mainly by pushing them along the ground, but by sending chunks of burning embers miles into neighboring communities, setting them alight. Embers from incinerated buildings were then blown by the winds throughout. The Santa Anas are a normal occurring phenomena this time of year, but what made them so destructive was their strength in combination with other extreme fire conditions, including a delay in winter rains.

Earth.org calls the conditions fueling the LA fires a “lethal combination of high temperatures and very low humidity, dry vegetation, and strong offshore Santa Ana winds” allowing the fires “to grow and spread much faster than they could be contained.” Very fast fires of this type cause the burning of 75% of the structures burnt in the US from 2001 to 2020.

Meterologist Eric Holthaus says the conditions in LA match what the National Weather Service calls “extremely critical fire weather…sustained winds greater than 30 mph, relative humidity of less than 10% in the presence of drought conditions and temperatures warmer than 70 degrees. This is the first time in history these criteria have been met anywhere in the United States during the month of January.” LA county experienced the hottest summer in 130 years this year and has had virtually no measureable rain since May 2024. At the outbreak of the fires the humidity in the air was reportedly about 2%.

Historically, California and the Southwest U.S. more broadly have suffered periodic droughts, sometimes lasting even decades (see The West Without Water by B. Lynn Ingram). But recent droughts have been the most extreme in recorded history. A scientific paper titled “Indicators of Climate Change in California” shows that investigators using tree-ring data back to the year 800 found the southwest region of the U.S. “determined 2000-2021 to be the driest 22-year period in the region” over the last 1200 years.

And this is not simply due to natural causes. Other scientific work cited in the paper showed about 19 percent of the dryness in 2021 and 42 percent in 2000-2021, were attributable to human-caused climate change. This work also pointed out that “Climate change will continue to make dry and warm years happen more often and drought conditions will worsen” (for scientific sources see link).

The link between climate change and increased wildfires is very well established. A report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) titled “Wildfire climate connection” says, “Climate change, including increased heat, extended drought, and a thirsty atmosphere, has been a key driver in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires in the western United States during the last two decades.” Studies cited there demonstrate that climate change has been the “main driver of the increase in fire weather in the west” and a key factor in the doubling of wildfires in the west between 1984 and 2015.

Climate in Southern California is shaped by many factors, including swings in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation ,( a natural phenomena of shifts between warm and cool phases in the Pacific every 20–30 years) and in the El Nino, La Nina climate cycles, which may bring much more rain or less. The years 2022 and 2023 were El Nino years that brought heavier rain to southern California and even more snowpack to the Sierra Nevada mountains. The Sierra Nevada have in general suffered from low snowpack during drought years and more rain relative to snow due to climate change. The heavier rain in the LA region during 2022 and 23 caused enhanced vegetation growth. That vegetation then dried to tinder this past very dry year, providing even more fuel for fires in LA.

Fire experts interviewed by the LA times say the LA fires are symptomatic of the return of largescale urban fires, thought until recently to be a thing of a bygone era-such as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. But urban fires have hit California, especially since the 1990s, and more recently “devastated Gatlinburg, Tennesee in 2016, the towns of Superior and Louisville in Colorado in 2021 and Lahaina, Hawaii”, two years ago. The town of Paradise and nearby communities in northern California were wiped out by a wildfire in 2018 killing 85 people and destroying 50,000 structures. The Camp fire that destroyed Paradise was sparked by a badly maintained Pacific Gas and Electric transmission line.

The immediate origins of the LA fires are not proven yet, though residents near the origin of the Eaton fire recorded video of fires breaking out near electrical transmission lines owned by California Edison and some are now suing Cal-Ed.

As the fires continue and people try to overcome the destruction and losses they’ve suffered, people all over have poured in money to aid in their recovery. In a refutation to the hateful BS spread by Trump and MAGA to try to ramp up support for his vicious plans to deport millions of immigrants and despite their fears of ICE roundups, day laborers in LA have come together to take up support efforts for victims of the Altadena fires. This is truly an example we can learn from, to stand together and support immigrants and others who will be coming under increased attack, and to refuse to accept a fascist America.

The certifiable lunatic Alex Jones tweeted on X that the LA fires were the result of a globalist conspiracy to wage economic warfare on and deindustrialize the great USA. To this, Elon Musk, the richest, and arguably one of the most obscene individuals on the planet responded “True”. Are these the people we will accept to be dictating over our lives and our planet?