The American Genocide

As repulsive, self centered, and delusional as our current president is, there are probably other worries that deserve more of our attention. One such issue is the end of our democracy as the billionaire class buys up almost all of our national media. Our elections are now inundated with their dark money, over a billion dollars spent last year to buy off our Congress. Elon is the personification of what our post democracy will look like. His Department of Government Efficiency worked hard to transfer over a trillion from the working class to the maniacal super rich. 

Another cause for our anxiety should be our emerging military empire. Since World War II, our country has waged wars of aggression all over the globe, leaving a trail of tens of millions dead. We have bombed, and sent missiles into over 30 countries since 1945. The cost of such war crimes has been staggering, both in terms of US soldiers dead and national treasure squandered. Our empire now has 800 military bases in over 80 countries or territories.  

Israel, our dependable partner in these war crimes, is engaged in the horrendous genocide of the Palestinian people. We arm Israel when it runs out of bombs and missiles. We try to hide the worst holocaust of the twenty first century. We own the hospitals that have been obliterated, the schools that have been showered with white phosphorus, and the prisoners who have been raped and tortured. This slaughter of the Palestinian people will forever be named the American Genocide. 

 

Getting Used to Ethnic Cleansing

Can't we just get used to ethnic cleansing if we try hard enough? There is Trump to divert our attention with his endless greed and corruption. There are these billion dollar wars spreading around the globe. And yet, just when we think we can forget about genocide, there is the news of 2,200 Israeli settlement attacks on Palestinian villages in July. 

These violent and racist settlers, backed by the Israeli Defense Force, do more than burn buildings and destroy olive trees. They shoot reporters, doctors and children, the same as Israel did in Gaza. According to Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times, "The IDF also rapes and tortures its prisoners, one of Israel’s standard operating procedures and a major element in the ill treatment of Palestinians.” (NYT May 11, 2026) Then there are these 4,300 recent civilian deaths in Israel's bloody attack on Lebanon. Can't we just change the channel? 

Part of the problem is that we are paying for all this carnage. We pour our tax dollars into Israel for each hideous war crime it commits. In turn, the Israel Lobby contaminates our elections by saturating each race with millions in donations. Pro-Israel groups spent at least 100 million recently on federal primary and general election races. We have let Israel turn our electoral system into a pay to play sham.

Get our bombs and missiles out of Palestine. Stop sending billions to a genocidal state. And get Israel out of our elections.

 

Overthrowing the Tyrant

The right wing element of our country is as close to
power as it has ever been. We have have survived racists like Woodrow Wilson. We have suffered under absolute liars like Tricky Dick Nixon. Our worst military defeat, the invasion of Vietnam, was built on false war propaganda. Through all of this, we have persevered, and so has our constitutional democracy. That era looks to be over.

The current gap between the rich and the poor is at a level that is historically unprecedented. The billionaires have captured our government, forcing cuts for the working class and tax breaks for the already filthy rich. The nation's president has become unglued; he is a completely self absorbed narcissist presiding over the most corrupt administration we have ever experienced.

Like most tyrants, Trump wants to control everything that we the people think. He has opened the door to junk science, attacked free speech on campuses, and created his own fascist organization that shoots first and asks questions later. His billionaire supporters have purchased most of the mainstream media, from the newspapers to the TV programming. That way we can't listen to Stewart, Fallon, or Colbert. We can't watch "60 Minutes," which often revealed governmental wrongdoing. 

If that were not threatening enough, Trump is pushing for endless wars. We had our chance to stop this madman when he conspired to overthrow the 2020 election. But like the Germans after the Beer Hall Putsch, we didn't stop the tyrant when we could have. 

Fred Nagel

Witness to Genocide

In 1945 German civilians from a nearby town were forced to view some of the atrocities that had occurred at Buchenwald, one of the most brutal of the Nazi concentration camps. Movie clips show the German civilians holding their noises and trying to look away from the piles of naked bodies and bones. The GIs escorting the civilians looked straight ahead, made speechless by the charnel house. Over 56,000 people had been murdered at the camp through starvation, exhaustion, disease and medical experimentation. 

Eighty years later, America has its own concentration camps to hide. Over 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been slaughtered by bombs, drones, and starvation. 20,000 children have disappeared into the dust and rubble. Here is a list of those who should be forced to look at this carnage of US militarism.  

Representative Pat Ryan has repeatedly voted for sending arms to Israel. The Israel Lobby bribed him with $416,135 last year (https://yourreprecord.org). Pat should cover his nose.

Several presidents of local colleges still proclaim that criticism of Israel is antisemitic. They have threatened students or had them arrested for expressing what is undeniably true: that Israel is a racist state, hell bent on exterminating the Palestinian people. These presidents should pack their bags for Gaza. 

Several county legislatures in the Hudson Valley have officially adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition, a false conflation of criticism of Israel with antisemitism. It is time that these legislators are forced to witness the genocide of the US empire.
   
Fred Nagel

Where is Antifa?

Calling all Antifa members: Your government needs you. President Trump, the ring leader of the January 6, 2021 insurgency against Congress, has issued an executive order labeling Antifa as a "domestic terrorist organization." 

In order for this order to stick, Trump altered the charge of "using fireworks" to "using explosives." He also labeled local organizers as "Antifa cells." The only problem was that these diabolical cells are so secretive as to be almost invisible. 

Why can't Antifa play by the book? When Trump sent his thousands of armed and masked Christian Nationalists into Congress to overthrow our democracy, they didn't try to be sneaky about it. There are photos and videos galore on what this right wing mob was up to. They crashed through the windows and doors of our Capital building. They vandalized lawmakers offices, destroyed historic paintings and statues, and illegally broke into classified computer files. 

In all, Trump's fascist thugs caused the death of five people, including a Capital Police officer. They injured 174 additional officers and caused $30 million in damages during this hours long assault on our nation's Capital. It was the worst attack on Congress in US history. 

But where is Antifa now that our president wants to do something about controlling violence in our country? Could it be that Antifa is a figment of our president's imagination? He can attack protesters at will by calling them terrorists while never owning up to his own violent efforts to steal a presidential election. 

Ceasing To Be a State

People have a right to exist, but the countries they live in do not. Should a country betray all measures of law or humanity, why their leaders should be arrested and all its institutional structures erased.

We have the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials as a template. At the end of the Second World War, the victors decided to remake Germany and Japan by locking up their former leaders and shredding their social structures. These weren't perfect trials, but they did create an expectation that such horrendous war crimes would never be allowed again. 

Two million people are being starved to death in Gaza. There are no hospitals, schools, or residential buildings left. There is no water that is fit to drink, nor sewage systems to keep the population safe. There is nothing left but the bombs, missiles and drones that eat up everyone's families. And the killing goes on, night and day. At least the Nazis tried to keep their mass slaughter secret, something that doesn't seem to worry the Israeli Defense Force. The pro Israel Lobby has spent tens of millions bribing Congress and the president to look the other way.

So when Israel falls because the rest of the world finally cuts it off, we know who should go to jail and what societal structures should be destroyed. Racial apartheid must come to an end, as should all the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian land. Israel, that failed colony of Western imperialism and racism, must cease to be a state.

Fred Nagel

Roger Waters & Mona Miari

Roger Waters: 

"Comfortably Numb":

Roger Waters & Mona Miari – Comfortably Numb Re-Imagined (Official Music Video)

A new interpretation of “Comfortably Numb”, a collaboration between Roger Waters and Palestinian artist Mona Miari. Featuring newly written verses in English and Arabic, the work re-frames the song through themes of displacement, memory, loss, and the enduring pursuit of justice and human dignity.