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The Chris Hedges Report: The Looming Catastrophe In The Middle East

It has become quite rare to hear any meaningful accountability for Israel’s actions from Israeli citizens themselves. Israeli journalist Gideon Levy is an anomaly in Israel by today’s standards, as for his entire career he has challenged the apartheid and occupation of the Israeli state. On today’s episode of The Chris Hedges Report, Levy joins host Chris Hedges to discuss his book, The Killing of Gaza: Reports on a Catastrophe, and explain the spiritual destruction, both of Israel and Palestine, that the current genocide in Gaza is causing as well as the implications of new military operations in Lebanon.

The Middle East After Nasrallah

There is no doubt that leaders do matter in the life of nations and movements, no matter how much one must acknowledge the role played by the masses of ordinary, working people. The death of Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser in 1970 changed the political landscape in the region forever and helped launch what is commonly dubbed the “Saudi era” (i.e., the domination of Saudi Arabia over the affairs of the Arab world). Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s impact on the Arab-Israeli question has been, perhaps, bigger than Nasser’s because he has been more effective — from the standpoint of the Arab struggle against Israeli aggression and occupation — in his understanding and containment of the Israeli threat towards Lebanon and Palestine.

This Land Is Co-Op Land

I’m standing on the dock, watching sunlight reflect off the waves, when the sound of a bell calls my attention to the Finnish dance hall towering over the lakeshore. The mojakka—a Finnish beef soup — is ready. I head to the dining room with the dozens of other people who have gathered here at Mesaba Co-op Park for the annual midsummer festival, a weekend of live music, talent shows, maypole dancing and meals. The park consists of more than 240 acres of land, including a spring-fed lake. Such places are usually owned and administered by a government or kept as private retreats by companies or rich people. Mesaba, in contrast, is neither privately nor government-owned, but collectively owned by members of a cooperative who foster relationships with each other and the land outside of corporate or government structures.

The Corporate Campaign To Repeal The New York Stock Transfer Tax Rebate

Ray Rogers is a veteran of corporate campaigns – pressuring corporations to recognize unions and stop blocking progressive legislation. Unions have hired his organization Corporate Campaign in battles against Farah Slacks, J.P. Stevens & Co., Hormel, International Paper, American Airlines, Inc., Campbell Soup Co. and Coca-Cola. Now Rogers has launched a campaign to repeal the stock transfer tax rebate.

Defending Humanity

Anyone taking up the question of our shared humanity in the late summer of 2024 must begin with mention of the Gaza crisis, or — with the escalating violence in the West Bank — the wider Palestine crisis. These events are of world-historical magnitude. They challenge any idea of humanity we may have until now held as truths held to be self-evident, as we Americans would say. That seems to be over now. It is as if an era in the human story has ended, and we enter upon one that requires us to think again, maybe for the first time since the 1945 victories, when those who came before us looked back upon the wreckage of the 1930s and 1940s and asked, “Where is our humanity?”

How The Neocons Subverted Russia’s Financial Stabilization

In 1989 I served as an advisor to the first post-communist government of Poland, and helped to devise a strategy of financial stabilization and economic transformation. My recommendations in 1989 called for large-scale Western financial support for Poland’s economy in order to prevent a runaway inflation, enable a convertible Polish currency at a stable exchange rate, and an opening of trade and investment with the countries of the European Community (now the European Union). These recommendations were heeded by the US Government, the G7, and the International Monetary Fund. Based on my advice, a $1 billion Zloty stabilization fund was established that served as the backing of Poland’s newly convertible currency.

The Revolutionary Fire In The People Starts With A Song

Mallu Swarajyam (1931–2022) was born with an appropriate name. From deep within the mass movement against British colonialism that was initiated by India’s peasants and workers, and then shaped by M. K. Gandhi into the movement for swaraj (self-rule), Bhimireddy Chokkamma drew her baby daughter into the freedom movement with a powerful name that signalled the fight for independence. Born into a house of reading, and able to get books through the radical people’s organisation Andhra Mahasabha, Mallu Swarajyam obtained a Telugu translation of Maxim Gorky’s Mother (1907).

The True History Of How Hamas Was Created

Following the October 7 attack, claims began to surface suggesting that Hamas, the Palestinian group behind the attack, was funded by Benjamin Netanyahu to obstruct a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority and that Hamas was, in fact, a creation of Israel. However, Israel did not create Hamas, and this notion represents an exaggerated misinterpretation of historical events. So, where did these claims originate, and is there any basis for them? To fully understand the origins of these claims, we must look back to 1973 when Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, a Palestinian member of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded the Mujamma al-Islammiyah.

Native Boarding Schools Were Genocidal: Healing Starts With Truth

When I was in middle school, at a majority-white public school in Montana, I was given an assignment to interview a grandparent about their childhood. The questions were designed to help us better understand what we did and did not have in common with each other. When I interviewed my maternal grandmother, I asked her whether there was ever a bully at her school. Her answer surprised me; she said she was the bully. “I always had soap in my mouth,” she said, punished for “talking back” to her teachers—and punished for speaking her first language: Blackfeet. My grandmother was a student at the St. Ignatius Mission and School, a church-run, assimilationist boarding school on the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana.

US Steel Threatens To Go Rogue

On July 6, 1892, America’s most profitable corporation sent 300 Pinkerton agents to overpower the workers at its Homestead, Pennsylvania, steel mill, all 3,800 of whom the company had fired four days before as a way to break their union. In the ensuing battle, seven workers and three Pinkertons were killed. That corporation—Carnegie Steel—was a marvel of its time, dominating America’s huge and growing steel industry. In 1901, J.P. Morgan worked out a merger between Carnegie and other leading steelmakers, which entailed paying a then-unheard-of $480 million for Carnegie’s stock (half of which went to Andrew Carnegie himself). The newly created behemoth was named United States Steel.

What We Can Learn From The Cold War History Of The AFL-CIO

Labor journalist and historian Jeff Schuhrke’s first book, Blue-Collar Empire: The Untold Story of US Labor’s Global Anticommunist Crusade, dives into American labor unions’ role in Cold War-era interventions across Asia, Latin America, and Africa, and their lasting impacts today. Out September 24 from Verso Books, Blue-Collar Empire examines this history, and draws lessons for the present day. One of the main operations Schuhrke explores is the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), a partnership between the AFL-CIO and the CIA, intended to promote free trade unionism abroad. Under the guise of education, officials with AIFLD worked with the State Department and other Washington officials to surveil and squash radical worker movements abroad that they suspected to be communist—at times resulting in violence, repression of workers’ rights, and strengthening of right-wing dictatorships.

Chris Hedges Report: The Middle East’s Roots Lie In The Fall Of The Ottomans

Modern borders represent mere lines in the sand when understanding the deep history behind the forces that drew them. In the contemporary Middle East, nations such as Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, and most notably Palestine, cannot be fully understood without delving into the region’s intricate past—especially the pivotal role of the Ottoman Empire’s influence. Eugene Rogan, the Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at the University of Oxford, joins host Chris Hedges to discuss his book, “The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East,” and explain how the modern geopolitical makeup of the region came to be.

America’s Nuclear ‘Downwinders’ Deserve Justice

It’s been nearly 80 years since the first atomic bomb was tested in New Mexico. Communities have been reeling ever since. For generations, Americans who live “downwind” of nuclear testing and development sites have suffered deadly health complications. And this summer, funding for the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) expired, putting their hard-earned compensation at risk. Coming alongside sky-high spending on nuclear weapons development, this lapse is an outrage. Funding for these communities, which span much of the country, should be not only restored but expanded. Alongside New Mexicans, people in Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, Utah, and beyond have suffered health complications from nuclear testing in Nevada. And fallout from decades of tests ravaged the Marshall Islands, which were occupied by the U.S. after World War II.

Will Bangladesh Be Another Egypt?

The day after former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina left Dhaka, I was on the phone with a friend who had spent some time on the streets that day. He told me about the atmosphere in Dhaka, how people with little previous political experience had joined in the large protests alongside the students—who seemed to be leading the agitation. I asked him about the political infrastructure of the students and about their political orientation. He said that the protests seemed well-organized and that the students had escalated their demands from an end to certain quotas for government jobs to an end to the government of Sheikh Hasina.

The Rise And Coming Demise Of The Israel Lobby With Ilan Pappe

The Israel lobby wields as much or more influence over American politics than any lobbying group in Washington. As Ilan Pappé, the Israeli historian, professor and author, and host Chris Hedges detail in this latest episode of The Chris Hedges Report, the lobby’s rise to power consisted of diverging ideological factions uniting in pursuit of their shared interests in controlling the land of historic Palestine. The history and manifestation of this systemic corruption of the Zionist lobby, hyper-dependent on coercion and total control, is thoroughly described in Pappé’s new book, Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

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Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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