Beyond Privilege, Guilt and White Culture: The Politics We Actually Need

I keep hearing a similar story. Someone steps into “privilege” work hoping to grow, and instead walks away feeling shamed and under attack, as if their identity is the problem. One reader online put it starkly:

Tim Hjersted

Dockerworker Strikes in Solidarity With Gaza Have a Long Legacy

Since dockworkers operate at a crucial “choke point” in the military supply chain to Israel, their boycotts are a powerful form of solidarity with Gaza.

Peter Cole

FDR Warned Us about Organized Money. The Threat He Saw Now Dominates Both Political Parties in the US.

“We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know...

Films For Action

Trump’s Orwellian Militarization of American Cities

By the end of "1984," Winston is brutalized into accepting the lies. This need not be our fate. Trump's attempt to send troops into American cities can and must be resisted.

Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan

Gratitude in the Great Unraveling

If collective survival is possible, there will be a lot of work ahead. We’ll be more effective in that work if we’re unburdened by hate and recrimination, and are instead rooted in gratitude for life, nature, and community.

Richard Heinberg

The US Is Broken. Time to Think About What Comes Next

Recalling William Appleman Williams' vision for a continental confederation of regional commonwealths.

Patrick Mazza

Don't Let a Fascist Like Trump Act as Judge, Jury, and Executioner

Would it be okay for the Mexican military to blow up a US fishing boat because they believed it was smuggling deadly guns into Mexico, even if they offered no evidence? Would that be acceptable to this administration?

Sanho Tree

I Became 'Antifa' as a Child; I Never Looked Back

“Never again” means each of us taking a stance. This starts with protecting and using our words.

Maria Perez

Republicans Are Trying to Make Fascism Edgy and Hip

By declaring all opposition to themselves anti-fascism, MAGA isn’t leaving much mystery about their leanings.

Kyle Schmidlin

Men: You Need Feminism! (Because Patriarchy is a Plot to Kill You!)

This post is dedicated to men, however you define yourselves. Because right now there’s so much talk circulating about masculinity, touting warrior culture and the need for men to be more manly men, that it’s important to understand what patriarchy actually is.

Starhawk

Let’s Talk About Communism

The word communism has been dragged through history as a banner for human politics. However, its Latin origin, communis, means shared, as in belonging to all. Long before Marx or Lenin, this was not an ideology but a condition of existence. Everything that lives participates...

Don Christoff

How to Live Under Right-Wing Rule

Fascism, like communism, is an abstraction to Americans. We know little about it. We have not lived under it. Given current circumstances, let’s see if we are fast learners.

James Rothenberg

How Billionaires Benefit From Government Shutdowns

America’s richest often push for shutdowns to dodge taxes, avoid regulation, and slash benefits for working people.

Igor Volsky

Start Building the World You Want to Live in After Trump's Dark Age

As Trump demolishes the old and drives America toward a darker future, the Democrats’ instinct has been to grieve, resist, and dream of restoration. But restoration may be the wrong goal.

Richard Sclove

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fought Crime Lords—Not Working Class People. They Would Oppose ICE.

Common-sense immigration reform points to the world the Turtles fought to build; militarized dragnet deportations point to Shredder’s vision for the world. Any kid can see that. Why can’t we?

Tim Hjersted

Laying the Groundwork for Social Strikes

Mass “people power” uprisings, general strikes, and other forms of withdrawal of popular acquiescence in tyranny have established or restored democracy in many countries. While the conditions for such “social strikes” are far from mature in the US at present, a time may come...

Jeremy Brecher

How to Counter the Growing Threat of Agent Provocateurs

Those who want movements to fail will try to lure them into violence. A new handbook shows how to reduce that risk.

George Lakey

Can Nonviolent Struggle Defeat a Dictator? This Database Emphatically Says Yes

The Global Nonviolent Action Database details some 40 cases of mass movements overcoming tyrants through strategic nonviolent campaigns.

George Lakey

The True Meaning of Democratic Socialism: A Union Educator’s View

If Mamdani is elected mayor, as it now looks he will be, he will not be the first democratic socialist elected as the mayor of New York City.

Leo Casey

Solidarity With Venezuela’s Left Opposition: A Call for Principled Anti-Authoritarianism

The global left must stand up for left thinkers and activists facing persecution in Venezuela, and reject false anti-imperialism that allows an authoritarian drift.

Daniel Chavez

Trump's Anti-Immigrant Violence Is a Message for the Rest of Us

This is how it always starts, this process of getting citizens used to the government using violence that will one day be turned against them.

Thom Hartmann

The Travesty of the Nobel Peace Prize

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize has once again gone to someone whose moral record stands at sharp odds with the spirit of peace itself—someone who has either openly justified or quietly enabled state violence, occupation, or genocide.

Partha Banerjee

'Peace' Has No Meaning When Right-Wingers Like Maria Corina Machado Win the Nobel Prize

As Venezuelan-American, I know exactly what Machado represents: the smiling face of Washington’s regime-change machine, the polished spokesperson for sanctions, privatization, and foreign intervention dressed up as democracy.

Michelle Ellner

Venezuela’s Opposition Used UN Meeting to Lobby for US Coup

The opposition’s proposed total economic surrender to US corporate interests would doom Venezuela to the same conditions that led to Chavez’s rise to power.

Joseph Bouchard

The Robots Are Not Here, but AI Is Still Supercharging US Militarism

This new AI-centric military-industrial complex threatens to become an unaccountable superpower wielding new levels of control at home and abroad.

Nicholas Rabb

Israeli Government Votes to Implement Trump Peace Plan for Gaza, Hamas Pledges to Uphold It

According to the Israeli newspaper

Juan Cole

Why Not Take Over the Hollowed-Out Democratic Party?

Any effort by backers of an authentic working-class politics to seize the party will be like elbowing your way into a crowded subway car: lots of company and perhaps impossible to find a seat.

Les Leopold

Jane Goodall: “Fight to the Very End”

“I have no doubt that we have the tools to make the change, but do we have the will to make the change?"

Ted Glick

Designing Land Access With Deep Time in Mind: Moving Toward a Timeless Ethic of Land Stewardship

When we begin to act with deep time in mind, perhaps future generations will remember us not for what we took, but for what we tended, protected, and passed on.

Darby Weaver

Bioregioning: The Defining Practice of Regenerative Cultures

One could say that ‘bioregioning’ is our species long-term evolutionary survival pattern and hence a return to it may well be the most promising pathway our species can take through the tumultuous if not catastrophic decades ahead.

Daniel Christian Wahl

Trump’s War on America

Trump’s newest presidential memoranda criminalizes critics of empire, capitalism, Christian nationalism, abuses by the state and those who fight racism and gender discrimination.

Chris Hedges

Digital Tools Are Fueling the Rise of New “Time Exchange” Solidarity Economies

Through time exchanges, members earn time credits by helping others, then redeem them when they need help themselves.

Ella Fassler

Peak Oil for Gen Z: Seven Questions and Answers for a New Generation

Peak oil calls on us to imagine a lower-energy future and to start adapting now. It’s a game-changer, and a life-changer.

Richard Heinberg

11 Haitians—Including 8 Children—Killed in 'Kamikaze' Drone Strike on Birthday Party

"Who, ultimately, will assume responsibility for this attack: The prime minister? The transitional presidential council? Private security companies? The leadership of Haitian National Police?” asked one advocate.

Brett Wilkins

Censorship Is a Structural Problem: Huge Corporate Power, Not Just a President, Is Muzzling Comedians

As corporate media accelerate their censorship of comedians and journalists, we must realize that we got to this dire situation because of old-fashioned, bipartisan corruption in Washington. The problem didn’t begin with Donald Trump. It began long ago, especially in the...

Jeff Cohen

Conservatives Are Using Charlie Kirk’s Death to Enact Sweeping Speech Crackdown

The US has entered a new era of McCarthyism as the Trump administration equates leftist critique with “terrorism.”

Daniel Moritz-Rabson

We Are All Antifa Now

The designation of the amorphous group antifa as a terrorist organization allows the state to brand all dissidents as supporters of antifa and prosecute them as terrorists.

Chris Hedges

Debunking Gad Saad's "Suicidal Empathy" Theory

Gad Saad’s “suicidal empathy” thesis is the kind of shallow culture-war framing that sounds clever in a tweet but falls apart when you look at it seriously.

Tim Hjersted

Challenging Corporate Power and Rights Has Never Been So Important

So if we want real change – and a world where future generations of all life, not just human beings, can live in peace with equal rights and justice for all – we have to tackle corporate rights, powers, structures and impunity.

Helena Paul

Degrowth and Liberty: Being Free With Less

How is freedom, a polysemantic term, understood by the majority today? What is the relationship between modern freedom and the perpetual growth system? And what kind of freedom would post-growth have to put forward?

Florent Marcellesi

The Martyrdom of Charlie Kirk

Martyrs are used by messianic movements to sanctify violence. To show any mercy or understanding toward the enemy is to betray the martyr and the cause the martyr died defending.

Chris Hedges

Eleven Dead on the High Seas. Trump Is Testing the Waters For Illegal Military Rule in America

The recent massacre in the Caribbean was a step toward making America a police state under President-for-Life Trump.

Mitchell Zimmerman

Your Socialist Grandfather Wants You to Fight for Economic Democracy

"The left" must get back to what was its original reason for existence—to fight for one-person, one vote democracy in the economic as well as political systems that govern our lives.

Gary Engler

The Stalin Card

Every time someone critiques capitalism, or suggests alternatives like public ownership, workplace democracy, or real economic self-governance, you can count on a predictable response: someone parachutes into the comments with “Mao! Stalin! Pol Pot!” like it’s a mic drop.

Tim Hjersted

The Real Prison Is Traffic: Debunking The 15-minute City Conspiracy

Most American towns before the 1950s were already 15-minute cities. What changed wasn’t freedom—it was corporations dismantling transit to profit from cars and sprawl.

Tim Hjersted

100 Ways a Green New Deal Would Make America Great

The Green New Deal is often framed as a response to climate change — but whether you see it as a crisis or a hoax, the real point is what it delivers here at home: millions of good jobs, lower energy bills, stronger communities, and true energy independence. It’s about...

Films For Action

How “Anti-Establishment” Conspiracies End Up Serving the Establishment

I’ll be honest: my favorite conspiracy theories are the ones that sound anti-establishment, rebellious, and free-thinking — but in practice, they do the establishment’s work for them. The ones that get people so convinced they’re resisting power that they never notice how...

Tim Hjersted

Fear Can’t Hold Forever: How the Machinery of Tyranny Destroys Itself

When rulers isolate people to keep control, they also plant the seeds of their own downfall.

George Cassidy Payne

Missing Words: How Can We Respond to Our Biggest Challenges If We Don't Have Words to Describe Them?

In 2022, I did an Earth Day talk called Words vs Reality, and it cataloged three dozen or so terms that – from a systems perspective – would actually require new labels. For example, fossil fuels might better be labeled flammable fossils, or consumer might be human. After...

Nate Hagens

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn: An Overview of Key Lessons

Have I mentioned how important I think Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael is? I reread it recently for the first time in a while, and was again impressed with how many important modernity-challenging ideas are packed into one novel.

Tom Murphy

The Story of B by Daniel Quinn: An Overview of Key Lessons

Oh No. Is Do the Math about to get hijacked for another long series about a Daniel Quinn book, like it was for Ishmael?

Tom Murphy

My Ishmael by Daniel Quinn: An Overview of Key Lessons

We’re awkwardly caught between being too intelligent to work as well as turtles and mushrooms, but not intelligent enough to be like angels or gods. The flaw, then, is intelligence, which gives us enough power to screw up the world. It’s a special curse.Yet, we need not...

Tom Murphy

A Localism Manifesto

With this manifesto, we are putting national governments everywhere on notice. We are not going away. We will become bolder in our local experiments and in our challenges to your authority.

Michael Shuman

B’Tselem Admits Israel Is Committing Genocide

With B'Tselem admitting that Israel's actions in Gaza are genocidal, it's looking increasingly difficult for cowardly western leaders to keep pretending Israel isn't committing genocide

Another Angry Voice

Act While It Still Matters

“One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” – Omar El AkkadWhen he posted on October 25, 2023, he also shared video of Gaza, in three...

Wim Laven

Moral Injury: Murdered In Gaza Disappeared In America

The displaced and bereaved in Gaza, and the disappeared in America, are not the only ones experiencing injury. We who witness and cannot stop it also lose confidence in our ability to effectively support decency and justice.

Abba A. Solomon

The Regenerative Revolution Is Now: 30 Documentaries About Regenerating Ecosystems, Local Economies, and Healthier, Joyful Lives

Regenerative living is a revolutionary philosophy rooted in reciprocity, creativity, and care.

Films For Action

The Persecution of Francesca Albanese

The sanctioning by the Trump administration of Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur, is an ominous harbinger of the end of the rule of international law.

Chris Hedges

Trump, Epstein and the Deep State

The Trump administration’s refusal to release the Epstein files and videos is done not only to protect Trump, but the ruling class. They all belong to the same club.

Chris Hedges

Warning Unheeded: A Black Woman’s Reckoning

Ignored Warnings, Predictable Consequences, Disastrous Outcomes

InflexionPoint Podcast

Profiting From Genocide

The latest United Nations report names hundreds of corporations, banks, technology firms, universities, pension funds and charities that profit from the Israeli occupation and genocide.

Chris Hedges

Gaza’s Hunger Games

Israel is weaponizing starvation. The objective is to dismantle all remnants of civil society and reduce Palestinians to herds of desperate scavengers who can be driven from historic Palestine.

Chris Hedges

War Deja Vu

The lies told to ignite the war with Iraq have been resurrected to ignite a war with Iran. The assessments of intelligence agencies and international bodies are dismissed, replaced by hallucinations.

Chris Hedges

Israel's Strike on Iran Was Terrorism. No More Excuses. We Must Demand an Arms Embargo Now.

Israel's unprovoked attack on Iran Friday has killed not only high-ranking military officials, but also six Iranian scientists, including two prominent nuclear experts. Nearly 80 civilians, including children, were also reported dead and over 300 were injured after Israeli...

Tim Hjersted

Never Forget? Never Forgive? Never Again?

Let’s talk about memory, forgiveness, and the selective outrage that props up the logic of endless war.A commentor told Films For Action on a recent post:

Tim Hjersted

The Rule of Idiots

In the last days of all empires the idiots take over. They mirror the collective stupidity of a civilization that has detached itself from reality.

Chris Hedges

How the Fantasy of Trump as an Anti-Establishment Rebel Protects the Status Quo

A persistent fiction continues to capture the imagination of a significant segment of the American public — the notion that Donald Trump is, or ever was, an “anti-establishment” figure. It is a narrative so easily disproven by evidence and logic that one must ask why it...

Tim Hjersted

Empire With Decorum: the Complicity of Cory Booker and the Crisis of the Democratic Party

During Cory Booker's 25-hour speech, which many mistook for an act of moral courage, he never once mentioned the atrocities committed by our so-called ally, Israel. No acknowledgment of the white phosphorus dropped on civilian neighborhoods, no mention of the starvation...

Tim Hjersted

Toward a Sacred Cosmology of Belonging: to Heal the World, We Don't Need Shame or Blame, We Need to Remember and Reconnect

In our search to understand the immense suffering caused by colonization, racism, and centuries of domination, it’s natural to feel anger, grief, even guilt. These are human responses to the recognition that something sacred has been desecrated—that entire peoples, cultures...

Tim Hjersted

Dems, Do the Right Thing and Stop Funding Genocide

On April 3, Sen. Bernie Sanders forced votes on the floor of the Senate on two Joint Resolutions of Disapproval, specifically S.J. Res. 33 and 26, each intended to stop the transfer of particular weaponry to Israel.

Elizabeth West

Open Reality: Meeting the Polycrisis Together With All Beings

This writing began with the premise that humans are not alone in this world, and that our largest problems are rooted in imagining ourselves alone. The original focus was on climate change. During the years of writing, society fell apart in multiple ways. I found myself...

Shodo Spring

From Despair to Possibility: Regeneration as an Antidote to the Great Unraveling

While a lot of time, energy, and resources will be necessary to stop the erosion of civil rights and defend democracy during a second Trump administration, it’s essential that we don’t neglect the equally important work of building alternative systems and cultures.

Don Hall

Universal Basic Income: Answering The Common Objections

Whenever the idea of a Universal Basic Income comes up, certain objections are raised almost immediately. These concerns deserve real answers. So here’s five of the most common objections, addressed plainly and clearly:

Tim Hjersted

Why We Need a Workers' Bill of Rights in the Age of Automation

There's a basic question hanging over the future of work that almost no one in power is asking out loud:

Tim Hjersted

Stop Blaming Immigrants. Start Blaming the Real Criminals.

Let's get something clear: undocumented immigrants commit less crime than U.S. citizens. This isn't speculation. It's not "just one study." It's the consistent finding of virtually every serious analysis over decades. Study after study has shown that immigrants, both...

Tim Hjersted

10 Lessons for Stronger Movements

Our real opponents are the billionaires, the war profiteers, and the politicians in both parties bought by corporate money—not the few imperfect allies we have in power, and not the working class people who vote or think differently from us.

Tim Hjersted

American Concentration Camps

Once a regime starts to send people to concentration camps — including those in El Salvador — it creates a system of detention that eschews due process and disappears citizens into black holes.

Chris Hedges

The Deportation-Industrial Complex Is The New War on Drugs—And It's Just as Corrupt

Spending hundreds of billions on mass deportation for non-violent civil offenses or misdemeanors is the “war on drugs” rebranded. And it’s true—just like the war on drugs, mass deportation doesn’t solve the root causes of anything. It scapegoats vulnerable people, militarizes...

Tim Hjersted

The Next Person in a Cell With No Charges Could Be You

We are now in the midst of a outright coup against the Constitution, against the United States, and against our founding ideals. If we don't fight for and win the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, our democracy is dead.

Thom Hartmann

First They Came for Mahmoud Khalil

The Trump administration’s nationwide roundup of international students accused of holding opinions it dislikes is picking up speed, sowing fear, separating families and driving people to go underground or out of the country. This targeting appeals to President Trump and his...

Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan

Yes. It's a Genocide - The Evidence Is Overwhelming

When analyzing the ongoing assault on Gaza, it is imperative to begin not with slogans or opinion, but with the clear and unequivocal framework of international law. The UN Genocide Convention of 1948, to which nearly every nation on Earth is a party—including Israel and the...

Tim Hjersted

Localization Action Guide: 137 Actions to Resist and Renew

Join the localization movement to build resilient local economies and flourishing communities. Local Futures produced a detailed Localization Action Guide to encourage everyone to 'GO LOCAL' - anytime, anyplace. It offers tangible and tested ways for individuals, communities...

Local Futures

Restoring Lies and Insanity to American History

The assault on historical memory by the Trump administration is designed to obliterate our shared understanding of reality and whitewash the crimes of the past to whitewash the crimes of the present.

Chris Hedges

The Self-Defeating Politics of the American Left

Bernie Sanders has always been more flawed than many on the left would like. His refusal to call Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide, along with several of his foreign policy votes over the years, have been disappointing. Bernie's latest mistake was at a "

Tim Hjersted

The Real Sheepdogs of the Left

In response to Bernie Sanders and AOC's "Fight Oligarchy" tour, the same chorus of voices rings out: “Don’t be fooled by these so-called progressives! They’re just sheepdogging for the Democrats!” They say it's just another trap designed to herd our revolutionary energies...

Tim Hjersted

We Asked Our Community How to Make America Great—Here's What They Said

We recently posed a simple question to our community on Facebook: How can we make America great? We got hundreds of comments.

Films For Action

The Right's Wokeness Problem

Paul Graham’s recent essay on “wokeness” is useful—not because it offers an entirely sound analysis, but because it provides a fascinating case study in ideological blind spots.

Tim Hjersted

Pentagon Contractors Don’t Save Lives or Money — Medicaid Does

Cutting life-saving services to further enrich billionaires and Pentagon contractors is the worst possible option.

Hanna Homestead

The Illegality of Russia's War Does Not Justify Perpetual War

The Russian invasion of Ukraine was a clear violation of international law. It meets the definition of a war crime under the UN Charter’s prohibition on the use of force, barring cases of self-defense.¹

Tim Hjersted

Musk and Rogan's Three-Hour Echo Chamber: Unpacking the Unfounded Claims

How a marathon conversation turned into a conspiratorial manifesto—unchecked claims about Democrats, voting, and immigration, fact-checked and debunked.

Jane Prescott

Elon Musk Is Wrong: Without Empathy, Civilization Ceases to Be Anything Worthy of the Name

Elon Musk’s attack on empathy is an old reactionary trick. First, he sets it up with a weak disclaimer:

Tim Hjersted

10 Ways to Fix America's Rigged Monopoly Game

Alright folks. Real talk. We’ve reached a point where the top 1% owns more than the bottom 90% combined. That’s not a bug in the system—it’s the system working exactly as designed.

Tim Hjersted

We're Seeing the Beginnings of Mass Noncompliance

Over a million federal workers refused to comply with Musk’s email ultimatum last week, offering a glimpse of what mass noncooperation can look like.

Daniel Hunter

Our 2 Choices: Join the Democratic Party to Transform It, or Acquiesce to Fascism

Because of the structure of American society and politics, the Democratic Party is the only institution positioned to challenge, defeat, and reverse the Trump administration’s ongoing destruction of our constitutional order.

Alan Minsky

Behind Trump's Antiwar Bluster, His Goal Is to Turn Ukraine Into a Resource Colony for US Corporations

The cynical choreography of empire follows a familiar script: first, a nation is shattered by war; next, the vultures descend to divide the spoils.

Films For Action

Make Earth Great Again: a Manifesto for Ecological Democracy

Make Earth Great Again (MEGA) exists to support and amplify the movements that are actively working towards a just, regenerative, free and egalitarian world. MEGA seeks to reclaim the Earth from corporate globalization and create a society that honors all beings on the...

Films For Action

How a Progressive Government Would End the War in Ukraine

"The Democratic Socialists of America condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and demands immediate diplomacy and de-escalation to resolve this crisis. We stand in solidarity with the working classes of Ukraine and Russia who will undoubtedly bear the brunt of this war, and...

Films For Action

Attacking Trump Without a Positive Alternative Is a Losing Game

Trump winning twice is not an accident. It’s the result of the abject failure of a [liberal] political strategy that ignores financial reform and attempts to nudge the Democratic Party forward based more on identity than class.

Les Leopold

The Left Needs to Learn the Difference Between Imperfect Allies and Our True Opponents

Tearing down the few allies we have in power is a gift to the establishment. The problem isn't their imperfections. It's that there's only a few of them instead of hundreds.

Tim Hjersted

#DemEnter + #DemExit: A Unified Playbook for Beating Corporate Democrats and Republicans

How do we take on the corporate establishment that has captured both the Democratic and Republican parties? This article proposes a strategy that unifies the two main approaches.

Tim Hjersted

Added By
Date Added
Views
Topics

Share

Info