Discourse that allows us to express a wide range of ideas, opinions, and analysis that can be used as an opportunity to critically examine and observe what our experience means to us beyond the given social/cultural contexts and norms that are provided us.
As mainstream media finds itself outplayed by Trump, Jon is joined by Mehdi Hasan, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of ZETEO. Together, they discuss his experience debating far-right conservatives on Jubilee, explore how Democrats could match Republican ruthlessness and tactics, and examine how America’s failure to stop the crisis in Gaza has undermined both U.S. credibility and Democratic moral authority. Plus, Jon talks Jay Leno and vindictive pricks. Unrelated.
0:00 - Intro 2:00 - Mehdi Hasan Joins 6:57 - The Far-Right's Shift in Rhetoric 11:55 - Liberals Are Not on an Even Playing Field 16:45 - Fox News vs MSNBC 21:58 - How Do You Battle Corporate Media? 31:15 - A New World Order 39:10 - Wider Fecklessness of the Democratic Party 52:00 - The Crisis in Gaza 1:02:49 - Democrats Need to Litigate a Vision for the Future 1:10:55 - Breaking Down the Discussion
[Présence Africaine, no. 40 (1962); translated by Connie Rosemont]
Frantz Fanon is dead. We expected this for many months, but against all reason, we were hopeful. We knew him as such a determined person, capable of miracles, and as such a crucial figure on the horizon of men. We must accept the facts: Frantz Fanon is dead at age 36. A short life, but extraordinary. Brief, but bright, illuminating one of the most atrocious tragedies of the 20th century and detailing in an exemplary manner the human condition, the condition of modern man. If the word “commitment” has a meaning, then it is embodied in the person of Frantz Fanon. He was called “an advocate of violence, a terrorist.” And it’s true Fanon appointed himself the theoretician of violence, the sole weapon of the colonized against the barbarism of colonialism.
However odd it seems, his violence was non-violent; the violence of justice, of pureness, uncompromising. His revolt was ethical, his approach one of generosity.
He did not simply join a cause. He gave himself to it. Wholly. Without reserve. Without measure. With unqualified passion.
A doctor, he knew human suffering. As a psychiatrist, he observed the impacton the human mind of traumatic events. Above all, as a “colonial” manhe felt and understood what it was to be born and live in a colonial situation; he studied this situation scientifically, aided by introspection as much as observation.
His revolt was in this context. As a doctor in Algeria, he witnessed the unfolding of colonial atrocities, and this was what gave birth to rebellion. It wasn’t enough for him to argue in defense of the Algerian people. He united himself with the oppressed, humiliated, tortured and beaten down Algerian. He became Algerian. Lived, fought and died Algerian. A theoretician of violence, doubtless, and yet more so of action. Because he had an aversion to mere talk. Because he had an aversion to compromise. Because he had an aversion to cowardice.
No one was more respectful of ideas, more responsible to his own ideals, more exacting of life he imagined as a practical ideal.
It is thus that he became a combatant, and a writer, one of the most brilliant of his generation.
On colonialism, the human consequences of colonization and racism, the key text to read is Black Skin, White Masks. On decolonization, again by Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth.
Fanon died and one reflects on his life; his epic side as well as his tragic side.
The epic side is that Fanon lived to the very end his destiny of a champion of liberty, mastering to the heights his sense of identity with humanity and that he died a fighter for Internationalism.
At the actual moment when he himself was entering the “great darkness,” at the brink of which he was reeling, he understands: “Come Comrades, it is better to change our thinking. To shake off and leave behind the great darkness into which we have plunged. . . . It is necessary to invent, to discover . . . for Europe, for ourselves, and for mankind, . . . to develop a new way of thinking, to try to bring forth a new humankind.”
I don’t know of anything more moving or greater than this lesson of life coming from a deathbed.
Aimé Césaire (1913-2008)
FRANTZ FANON SPEAKING:
"Now, political education means opening minds, awakening them, and allowing the birth of their intelligence as [Aime] Césaire said, it is 'to invent souls.' To educate the masses politically does not mean, cannot mean, making a political speech. What it means is to try, relentlessly and passionately, to teach the masses that everything depends on them."
"When we revolt it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe”
"Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.”
The Revolutionary Humanism of Frantz Fanon by Peter Hudis December 26, 2020 Jacobin
PHOTO: Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) is a Martinican philosopher, psychiatrist, and revolutionary who wrote on race and racism. (Frantz Fanon Archives)
The philosopher, psychiatrist, and revolutionary militant Frantz Fanon was a key figure in the struggle against European colonialism. Fanon’s innovative thinking on racism and its relationship to class oppression still speaks vividly to the present.
The renewed protests against racism and police brutality over the last year have supplied a fresh impetus for thinking about the nature of capitalism, its relationship to racism, and the construction of alternatives to both. Few thinkers speak more directly to such issues than Frantz Fanon, the Martinican philosopher, psychiatrist, and revolutionary who is widely considered one of the twentieth century’s foremost thinkers on race and racism.
Fanon had direct experience of French colonial rule, from the Caribbean to North Africa, and brought that experience to bear on his intellectual work. He played an active role in the Algerian revolutionary movement that struggled for independence in the 1950s, but he warned that independent African states would simply replace the colonial system with a national bourgeoisie unless they followed the path of social revolution.
Some of Fanon’s key works have been available in English translation for many years. However, the recent publication of over six hundred pages of Fanon’s previously unavailable writings on literature, psychiatry, and politics makes this a fitting moment to reexamine his thought anew.
Denaturalizing Racism
Born in 1925, Fanon grew up in French-ruled Martinique in the Lesser Antilles. He originally thought of himself — as was true of many others at the time — as French and not “Black.” That began to change when he enlisted as a soldier in the Free French Forces during World War II. The experience brought the racism of French “civilization” painfully home to him.
Returning to France in the late 1940s, Fanon immersed himself in the literature of Négritude, a French-speaking black pride movement. At the same time, he absorbed the latest European intellectual developments such as phenomenology, existentialism, psychoanalysis, and Marxism. This led to his first book, published in 1952 when Fanon was only twenty-six: Black Skin, White Masks.
Fanon’s great breakthrough in Black Skin, White Masks was to analyze racism in sociogenic terms, denying it any natural basis. Skin color may be biologically determined, but the way that we see and interpret it is conditioned by social forces which are outside of our control.
This phenomenon is so pervasive that race and racism come to appear as “natural,” transhistorical phenomena. For Fanon, such mystification cannot be stripped away by mere enlightened critique since it is deeply rooted in objective social realities and must be challenged at that level.
In recent decades, the “social construction of race” has become such a cliché that the radical implications of Fanon’s theoretical breakthrough are easy to miss. If race is socially constructed, it follows that specific social relations are responsible for its birth and perpetuation. What might those relations be? Fanon insists that they are economic:
The true disalienation of the black man implies a brutal awareness of the social and economic realities … the Black problem is not just about Blacks living among whites, but about Blacks exploited, enslaved, and despised by colonialist and capitalist society that happens to be white.
However, this did not mean that race is secondary to class, or that the struggle against racism was subordinate to the fight against capitalism. A phenomenon is not exclusively defined by its origin. Racism takes on a life of its own and defines the mental horizons of individuals long after some of its economic imperatives have faded from the scene. Fanon therefore insisted that “the black man must wage the struggle on two levels,” objective and subjective. Any “unilateral liberation is flawed, and the worst mistake would be to believe their mutual dependence automatic.”
Unfortunately, that “mistake” characterized the dominant forms of Marxism in Fanon’s time: they saw racism as (at best) a secondary consideration, while failing to produce a credible Marxist theory of racialization. For this reason, despite his firm opposition to capitalism, Fanon never associated with any existing Marxist tendency. As Sylvia Wynter summarizes Fanon’s novel position: “A solution will have to be supplied both at the objective level of the socioeconomic, as well as at the level of subjective experience, of consciousness, and therefore, of ‘identity.’”
From Object to Subject
For Fanon, the positive affirmation of identity was a critical moment in the development of self-consciousness. The liberation of black people as subjects hinged on the recovery of a sense of selfhood and dignity that has been robbed from them by the “white gaze.” Taking pride in the racial attributes denigrated by society in people of color would be a crucial way of challenging the naturalization of social relations that underpins racism.
Fanon developed this perspective through a critical engagement with Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. He argued that mutual recognition was impossible in a society defined by the racial gaze, since it meant that people of color were viewed as things: “I found that I was an object in the midst of other objects.”
This was the central issue for Fanon: racism does not merely deprive its victims of economic resources and social status. It also dehumanizes and depersonalizes them, leaving Blacks to “inhabit a zone of non-being, an extraordinarily sterile and arid region, an incline stripped bare of every essential from which a genuine new departure can emerge.” This produced an inferiority complex, a sense of lesser human worth. Those he called the “wretched of the earth” could transcend this only by securing recognition of their humanity, based on a positive affirmation of their racial or national characteristics.
Recognition is a much-misunderstood term in Fanon’s work. In modern political thought the phrase “politics of recognition” refers to mutual acknowledgement of the “equal rights” of citizens. All contractual relations, whether in politics or economics, involve recognizing the rights of the other party. Fanon did not speak of recognition in this sense at all.
He had no illusion that racism could be overcome by pleas for formal equality, since as he saw it, people of color were not perceived to be fully human and were thus written out of the social contract. He criticized those who sought recognition within existing society, viewing this as an effort to “become white,” whose practitioners remained subject to an inferiority complex.
Fanon aimed for a much deeper kind of recognition, one that would acknowledge the human dignity and worth of the marginalized and oppressed. Achieving that goal, he boldly stated, “implies restructuring the world.”
Fanon’s approach therefore offers an alternative to the way that debates on race, class, and identity often line up in the left today. He opposed the kind of abstract revolutionism that conceived of the proletariat as the guarantor of liberation while downgrading the importance of the struggle against racism. He also rejected the version of identity politics that looked for self-expression and solace within the structure of existing capitalist relations. This was especially evident in his work as a psychiatrist.
Sociotherapy
Fanon began studying psychiatry in Lyon in the late 1940s, and he originally submitted the text of Black Skin, White Masks as his PhD dissertation in 1951. His academic supervisors quickly rejected the work for its unconventional content. Fanon responded by turning in a technical study on the psychiatric implications of Friedreich’s Ataxia — a neurological degeneration of the spinal column.
The dissertation, which has only recently been published in English, is the last place one might expect to find a discussion of social relations. Yet Fanon’s insight on the sociogenic character of racism shone through here as well. He insisted that mental illness, while it might have organic origins, was “always psychic in its pathogeny.”
Fanon refused to reduce even neurological illnesses to their biological component. He was interested in the psychic toll they took on the living individual, guided in his approach by an implacable humanism:
The [individual] human being ceases to be a phenomenon from the moment that he or she encounters the others’ face. For the other reveals me to myself. And psychoanalysis, by proposing to reintegrate the mad individual within the group, establishes itself as the science of the collective par excellence. This means that the sane human being is a social human being: or else, that the measure of the sane human being, psychologically speaking, will be his or her more or less perfect integration into the socius.
This perspective would guide Fanon over the next eight years in the time he spent working at a series of psychiatric clinics, first in France, then in Algeria and Tunisia, where he practiced — initially under the tutelage of François Toquelles — “sociotherapy.” This meant liberating patients from prison-like conditions and seeking to integrate them into society.
Fanon and his colleagues made use of techniques such as occupational therapy, having patients produce newspapers and plays, and allowing them to freely associate with each other in the institution. In the course of this work, Fanon was still prepared to administer pharmaceutical drugs, and he even deployed shock therapy. But he did so while seeking to create a humanist environment that treated the patient as a person.
An openness to human possibilities grounded this approach, both in Fanon’s work as a psychiatrist, and in his later role as a revolutionary activist. His dissertation quoted a comment from Jacques Lacan:
There is an essential discordance within human reality. And even if the organic conditions of intoxification are prevalent, the consent of freedom would still be necessary.
If an “essential discordance” defines our nature, it cannot be overcome; in this perspective, alienation must be viewed as an integral part of human existence. Fanon responded by asking: “Would it not be better to leave open a discussion that involves the very limits of freedom — that is to say, of humanity’s responsibility?”
The opening pages of Black Skin, White Masks contained a vivid declaration: “Man is a ‘Yes’ resounding from cosmic harmonies.” Fanon conceived of freedom as a “world of mutual recognitions,” insisting that a desire “to touch the other, feel the other, discover each other” was an essential part of humanity’s very being.
The Algerian Revolution
After practicing psychiatry for several years in France, Fanon moved to Algeria in 1953, where he took up a position at the Blida-Joinville hospital, outside of Algiers. He did not make this move for political reasons, knowing little of Algeria at the time, and having had minimal contact with African liberation movements.
Fanon quickly discovered a “Manichean” society where the French settlers, about 10 percent of Algeria’s population, lived in a different world from its Arab and Kabyle masses. The latter were subjected to discrimination that was far more brutal than anything he had experienced in the Antilles. When the Algerian revolution broke out in November 1954, led by the newly formed National Liberation Front (FLN), Fanon embraced the movement’s aims and its advocacy of armed struggle.
Fanon now combined his psychiatric work with involvement in a revolutionary movement. He secretly hid FLN militants in the hospital and provided therapy to victims of rape and torture. He also became increasingly active in political debates within the FLN.
However, the links between Fanon’s psychiatry and his politics ran deeper than this. As Robert Young has observed, Fanon drew an analogy between societies under colonial rule and mental patients in need of treatment:
The revolution was the necessary form of shock that would enable the reconstruction of the colonized society . . . Fanon’s politics of freedom were closely modeled on, and derived from, his therapeutic practice.
Fanon conducted a series of detailed studies of Algerian society and culture in the 1950s, discussing the role played by religion in Muslim countries, the radically different sense of time that distinguished North Africans from Europeans, and the way that family and clan communities in Algeria were increasingly defining themselves by reference to a broader national community.
He looked in particular at the frequent refusal of the colonized to confess to having committed a crime, even in the face of clear evidence of their guilt:
We might be able to approach this ontological system that escapes us by inquiring whether indigenous Muslims really think of themselves as engaged in contractual agreements with the social group that now exerts power over them. Do they feel bound by the social contract? . . . what would the significance be of the crime, trial, and sentence if they did not?
As Fanon pointed out, confession depends on prior recognition, something that was missing in the colonial context: “There can be no reintegration if there has not been integration.” Since the social contract excluded the colonial population, they felt no obligation to abide by its legal or juridical norms.
The refusal to confess, he concluded, was an act of revolt. The failure of the system to recognize the humanity of colonized people impelled them to press for the complete uprooting of existing institutions, not mere reforms. The colonized subject — from the Arabs and Kabyles in Algeria to Blacks in sub-Sahara Africa or Black Americans in the US — would therefore be the vanguard force in battles for social transformation, according to Fanon.
Stretching Marxism
Fanon contrasted the revolutionary praxis of the colonized with the passivity and betrayals of the European Left. The French Socialist and Communist Parties supported the war of French imperialism against the Algerian revolution, which led to over half a million deaths.
A Socialist premier, Guy Mollet, presided over the violent clampdown in Algeria, while the Communist deputies in the French parliament voted in favor of war credits, despite their formal commitment to Leninist anti-colonialism. With the important exception of figures such as Jean-Paul Sartre, there was little active support for Algeria’s revolution from even the most radical sections of the European Left. This led Fanon to become increasingly critical of the paradigm that defined much of Western thought.
These considerations were central to Fanon’s last and most famous book, The Wretched of the Earth. He began writing the book after learning that he had incurable leukemia and died shortly after it appeared in 1961. Scholars often overlook the fact that The Wretched of the Earth does not completely turn its back on Europe. Instead, Fanon set out to critically rethink dimensions of European thought, including Marxism.
Fanon insisted that a Marxist analysis “should always be slightly stretched when it comes to addressing the colonial issue.” In Marx’s analysis of capitalist accumulation in Europe, the development of capitalism had torn peasants from the “natural workshop” of the land and transformed them into urban proletarians, who in turn would become a massive, compact, and revolutionary force through the concentration and centralization of capital. Fanon saw that this process was not being repeated in Africa.
The destruction of the continent’s traditional communal property forms did not lead to the formation of a massive, radicalized proletariat, since the colonialists did not industrialize Africa but rather underdeveloped it through the brutal extraction of labor power and natural resources. The peasantry remained the greater part of the population, while the working class in towns and cities was relatively small and weak. Because of this, Fanon argued that the peasantry and the lumpenproletariat would serve as the principal force of the revolution, not Africa’s nascent working class.
Some writers have criticized Fanon for exaggerating the role of the peasantry and overlooking moments when labor movements did play an important role in the African independence struggles of the 1950s and ’60s. While there is some justice in these criticisms, it is worth noting that Fanon agreed with Marx’s view that a social revolution could be successful only if it was the product of “the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority.”
Fanon, like Marx before him, rejected the notion that a successful revolution could be achieved by a minoritarian working class that was led — in practice or at least in theory — by a “disciplined and centralized” vanguard party. He was trying to sketch out a path for Africa’s revolutions that would not repeat the mistakes of revolutions that had preceded them.
A New Humanism
The most important contribution of The Wretched of the Earth lay in its prophetic warning of the fate that might befall the African revolutions if the struggle for independence did not develop into a social revolution — one that would establish what Fanon called “a new humanism.” Fanon was a passionate supporter of national liberation through armed struggle, but not as an end in itself.
By taking the form of a national struggle, he argued, the Algerian movement had avoided racial exclusiveness, bringing together Arabs, Kabyles, and Black Africans — as well as those white Algerians who were willing to surrender their privileges. However, he predicted that these struggles would fall prey to the machinations of the national bourgeoisie, unless they made a rapid transition to the phase of social transformation after independence.
By this Fanon meant a vision of development that would stand in opposition to Western-style capitalism as well as the top-down Soviet model of industrialization. He wanted the revolutionary masses to create a decentralized society in which they would have effective and not merely nominal control of its economic and political processes. For this reason, he came to oppose the form of organization being adopted by virtually all of the African revolutions (including the Algerian one): “The single party is the modern form of the bourgeois dictatorship — stripped of mask, make-up, and scruples, cynical in every aspect.”
Fanon contrasted the rich capitalist countries, in which “a multitude of sermonizers, counselors, ‘mystifiers’ intervene between the exploited and the authorities” to prevent a head-on clash, with colonial states where “direct intervention by the police” would “ensure the colonized are kept under close scrutiny, and contained by rifle butts.” The experience of recent years shows that the gap between the colonized world of which Fanon wrote and countries like the US has narrowed considerably. The buffers between the authorities and the exploited in the US are rapidly dissolving, while the racist animus that has pervaded every stage of this country’s history is now manifesting itself on a level not seen since the reversal of Black Reconstruction.
In light of the failed and unfinished revolutions of the last century, what remains critical is Fanon’s idea that successfully uprooting oppressive economic and political structures also requires us to transform the most intimate human relations, beginning with the way that we perceive each other in a racialized society. As Raya Dunayevskaya once put it: “It is not the means of production that create the new type of humanity, but the new type of humanity that creates the new means of production.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Peter Hudis is professor of philosophy at Oakton Community College and the author of Frantz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades.
Trump's cruelty, racism, & misogyny have been tolerated & whitewashed by corporate media & America for decades. Will the Epstein scandal finally force us to confront it and hold him accountable? I invited Jemele Hill back to The Left Hook to discuss why the Epstein scandal is once again revealing the rotten core of Trump that was already exposed by his actions, and why so many Americans, especially in corporate media, refused to listen to all the people of color who have been warning about his racism and misogyny for years. We also talk about the controversial American Eagle ad campaign featuring Sydney Sweeney and its troubling, quasi-eugenics framing. https://thelefthook.substack.com/p/tr...
As controversy over President Donald Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein continues to dog his administration, we speak with investigative journalist Vicky Ward, who has spent decades reporting on the deceased sexual predator, his rich and powerful associates, and the impact of his crimes. Much of Trump’s political base is in an uproar after federal officials declined to release government files about Epstein and his serial sexual abuse of women and girls, with Trump himself reportedly named in the documents.
“They were friends. They hung out with each other,” Ward says of Trump and Epstein.
Ward was among the first journalists to investigate Epstein when she profiled him for Vanity Fair in 2003. The magazine’s editor at the time, Graydon Carter, cut out the testimonies of two young women who had spoken on the record about Epstein’s abuse. Ward’s podcast and TV series of the same name is Chasing Ghislaine: The Untold Story of the Woman in Epstein’s Shadow, focusing on Ghislaine Maxwell’s role as a facilitator for Epstein’s crimes.
Transcript:
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.
In an attempt to quell the MAGA base uproar over the Trump administration’s refusal to release the files of the dead serial sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein, President Donald Trump’s deputy attorney general, who is Trump’s former private lawyer, just finished two days, Thursday and Friday, of meetings with the convicted felon Ghislaine Maxwell, who’s serving a 20-year sentence for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse young girls. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Maxwell met for nine hours at the federal courthouse in Tallahassee, Florida. This is Maxwell’s attorney, David Markus.
DAVID MARKUS: Ms. Maxwell answered every single question. She never stopped. She never invoked a privilege. She never declined to answer. She answered all the questions truthfully, honestly and to the best of her ability.
AMY GOODMAN: The meetings with Ghislaine Maxwell at a federal courthouse in Tallahassee come as President, Trump faces growing bipartisan pressure to release the government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein, longtime friend of Donald Trump. On Friday, Trump was questioned if he considered pardoning Maxwell.
KEVIN LIPTAK: Would you consider a pardon or a commutation for Ghislaine Maxwell if she’s cooperating —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s something I haven’t thought about. It’s really something —
KEVIN LIPTAK: If it’s recommended —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s something — I’m allowed to do it, but it’s something I have not thought about.
AMY GOODMAN: One of the first accusers of Jeffrey Epstein says she warned the FBI and the New York Police Department to look into his relationship with Donald Trump as early as 1996. Maria Farmer is now suing the government, which she said failed to protect victims. In a new interview with The New York Times, Maria Farmer said her only sense of justice has come from the conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s convicted sex trafficking accomplice. Maria Farmer also spoke on MSNBC with Jen Psaki about Ghislaine Maxwell.
MARIA FARMER: I’ve never met a more predatory, terrifying human being in my entire life. And neither had Virginia Giuffre, and neither has Annie or Anouska or many girls, like Chauntae Davies. There’s hundreds of us that were preyed upon by Ghislaine Maxwell. She’s a very dangerous person, and she threatened my life on many occasions. I’ve had to move and be in hiding because of this predatory child predator and just victim predator. So, it’s completely unacceptable for anyone to call her a victim. The woman is not a victim. She’s a victimizer.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Maria Farmer, who has alleged that both Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein abused her and her sister, Annie Farmer, who has testified about how Ghislaine Maxwell not only groomed and recruited her, but also took part in her abuse. Annie Farmer spoke on ABC News.
ANNIE FARMER: She was the one who asked me to undress. She was the one who exposed my chest. She’s the one who touched me. And I think that that was not unusual. I mean, that was something that came out in her trial and one of the things that she was found guilty of. If you — you know, the Department of Justice is clear on that, that she herself is a sexual predator who has participated in this abuse.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Vicky Ward, longtime investigative journalist, host and co-producer of the series Chasing Ghislaine: The Untold Story of the Woman in Epstein’s Shadow. It’s a podcast series. It’s a TV series. Vicki Ward profiled Jeffrey Epstein for Vanity Fair in 2003.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Vicky. Let’s go back to 2003, before we talk about this deputy attorney general meeting, the fact that you tried to get Maria and Annie’s story out so many years ago. You would have broken this story. But you talk about how the editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair stopped you from doing this, and it came out to be just a kind of profile of Jeffrey Epstein.
VICKY WARD: That’s right, Amy. And thank you for having me.
Yeah, you know, I was assigned to write about Jeffrey Epstein, who was an enigma back then. He was not someone whose name was in the newspapers, except for the fact that he popped up in the fall of 2002 as having flown Bill Clinton on his plane to Africa. And on the back of that, I was assigned to go out and find who this kind of Gatsby-like figure was, who lived in the biggest private townhouse in New York, who had an island, ranch in New Mexico. Where had his money come from?
And along the way, I discovered that he had a reputation for having a lot of young women around him. This was in addition to Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sort of like a Girl Friday. It was — her role became sort of very nebulous. And I did encounter the two Farmer sisters, who told me their harrowing stories. They went on the record, which was a very brave thing to do, given, as you heard Maria Farmer just there saying that, you know, she felt they were coming after her for a lot of her life.
And, you know, it was a difficult time for me. I was on a high-risk pregnancy, so once I had handed the piece in, I went on bed rest before I ultimately went into labor. Jeffrey Epstein was threatening me and telling me he was going to find out where I was giving birth, and he was going to have a witch doctor place a curse on my unborn children, if he didn’t like this piece. He was clearly furious about the fact that I had spoken to the Farmer sisters. That, more than anything else about what I had uncovered, enraged him. And when I was at home on bed rest, I heard from a fact-checker at the magazine, who emailed me, that he was in the Vanity Fair offices meeting with the editor-in-chief in person. I knew that the magazine —
AMY GOODMAN: This was Graydon Carter?
VICKY WARD: — was still waiting for photographs. Yes. And the next thing that I knew was, you know, when I saw a final galley of the piece, that was already on its way to appear in the published version of the magazine, the Farmer sisters’ allegations had been removed. And I will stress I didn’t, obviously, at the time have any idea of the scale of this awful sort of pyramid scheme that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell had going on with underage girls. But I did have the Farmer sisters. And obviously it was appalling, because they had gone on record, so Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were aware of what they had said. And it was a horrendous situation.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, Jeffrey Epstein, there was this deal that ultimately would take down Alex Acosta once he became secretary of labor, because he was the U.S. attorney in Florida that cut this sweetheart deal that meant Jeffrey Epstein could serve 13 months in a Palm Beach jail, leaving every day for about 10 hours, in which the allegations are he abused one young woman after another, 13 months, then he was out, and it would take until 2019 for the federal charges to be brought in New York. Now, that’s a lot to get in here. But these victims, let’s talk about how many you believe there have been. I mean, you have one victim after another saying they were victimized, and then Ghislaine Maxwell or Jeffrey Epstein would say, “Can you go get others?” One young woman said she can’t live with herself. She recruited like 40 kids in her high school, girls, often, you know, poor, needing money. They would be paid something like $200. Another said 60 — she recruited 60 friends. Are we talking upwards of a thousand people, children or young women, who were abused or raped by Jeffrey Epstein with the help of Ghislaine Maxwell?
VICKY WARD: Well, Amy, I mean, that’s actually a figure I think Pam Bondi — you know, I think she said “thousand.” I mean, one of the things that became very, very clear when, you know, I sat through Ghislaine Maxwell’s six-week trial was the sort of the cleverness, as well as the sickness, of the manipulation that went on inside Jeffrey Epstein’s household, beginning, if you like, with Ghislaine Maxwell, this very polished, sophisticated, Oxford-educated woman who spoke many languages, who knew presidents and heads of state all around the world. Once she had got these much more vulnerable young women inside that house, sort of effectively normalizing for them the incredible abuse that went on, you know, they were then incentivized to turn around and go and get, as you say, these other children. And it became — I mean, you know, one of the things that became very clear in her trial was the sickness, but also the scale of this web.
And, you know, one of the reasons that you sort of only had four victims come and testify at Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial was that there were complications with other stories, because, you know, Virginia Roberts, for example, who was, in a way, the single victim whose civil litigation against Ghislaine Maxwell ultimately caused this whole sort of house of cards to come tumbling down and Jeffrey Epstein finally to face the music in 2019, you know, Virginia Roberts’ story is a complicated one, because she then was accused of going out to recruit other girls. So, it’s a —
AMY GOODMAN: And Virginia Roberts, you’re talking about —
VICKY WARD: It’s a very complicated, horrible story.
AMY GOODMAN: Virginia Roberts, you’re talking about Virginia Giuffre, who was an outspoken survivor —
VICKY WARD: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: — and ultimately sued Prince Andrew, settled for some undisclosed amount —
VICKY WARD: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: — and apparently died by suicide, though it’s not clear if she died by suicide. It’s not clear Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide. But she just recently died in Australia at the age of 41.
VICKY WARD: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to get to President Trump, what his connection is to this, and who are the people who you feel have not been properly investigated, and this possibility — you heard Trump himself, you know, saying not clear whether she would be pardoned or her sentence commuted.
VICKY WARD: Right. And I also think, you know, it’s worth thinking about the fact that Ghislaine Maxwell is a citizen of many countries. You know, another option is whether or not she would be sent back to Europe or to England, you know, where there may be a different view of her, given her background.
AMY GOODMAN: “Given her background” meaning that she’s the daughter of Robert Maxwell.
VICKY WARD: Well, she comes — yeah, exactly. She comes from a family that’s very prominent socially in England that once held great power and great wealth. And, you know, it’s a different culture, different society. I mean, that, I think, would be an option.
AMY GOODMAN: He was — I mean, for people to understand, he was the — he was sort of the competitor with Rupert Murdoch, a media mogul, who she was very close to, and died mysteriously at sea, his body overboard.
VICKY WARD: That’s right. But he was also a politician. He was a massive worldwide publisher who had enormous influence all around the world. As you say, he died in very strange circumstances. He’s buried. He was given a sort of hero’s burial in Israel at the Mount of Olives. When he died, it emerged that he had basically robbed the pensions of his employees at this big media group. Two of his sons went on trial but were acquitted for that. But so, but this is a story that is very — this is a family, rather, that is very high-profile in England and in Europe.
You asked, Amy, though, about the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump. You know, they were friends. They hung out with each other. These were two guys, you know, between Donald Trump’s marriages, who were single and who both hung out with models. Jeffrey Epstein’s main financial benefactor, Leslie Wexner, was the owner of Victoria’s Secret, the most sort of prominent, you know, modeling organization in the world. We know, particularly last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that when — for Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday, the Journal claimed — Trump denies this, says it wasn’t him — that, you know, Donald Trump sent him a sort of racy congratulatory message alluding to Jeffrey Epstein’s private life. So, Donald Trump, you know, clearly, we do know, was aware of Jeffrey Epstein’s predilection for women and, you know, his sort of social life.
They did fall out. You know, interestingly, Donald Trump, who is very articulate about a lot of subjects, has not ever really explained why. He has said to, you know, campaign operatives around him, or did say back in 2014, when Virginia Roberts first sort of surfaced with her public claims about Epstein, that he had severed ties with him when Epstein had come after a daughter of a member of Mar-a-Lago. There is also reportedly a dispute that — well, there was a dispute between the two men over a piece of real estate near Palm Beach that both men wanted and that Donald Trump ultimately ended up getting at a bankruptcy auction and then flipped at a massive profit a couple of years later. But he’s never — he’s never actually talked about that in public. He has just said, you know, he’s just distanced himself —
AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds.
VICKY WARD: — from Jeffrey Epstein.
AMY GOODMAN: But we’re going to continue with a post-show with you, because it’s really critical to talk about what are these files the MAGA base and many Democrats and Republicans have called for releasing. Vicky Ward, longtime investigative journalist, host of the series Chasing Ghislaine.
Sydney Sweeney's ad shows an unbridled cultural shift toward whiteness Advertisements are always mirrors of society, and sometimes what they reflect is ugly and startling.
This week, American Eagle, which brought us baby tees and low-rise denim in the aughts, debuted an advertisement campaign starring actor Sydney Sweeney. Sweeney, 27, is featured doing all sorts of Americana things in her American Eagle denim — like leaning over the hood of a white Mustang or lying on the floor holding a long-haired German shepherd puppy. At the end of each video, an off-screen voice speaks over blocky letters declaring that Sweeney — blonde, blue-eyed and white — “has great jeans.” The wordplay was made even more explicit when American Eagle posted a video of Sweeney standing in front of a poster bearing her likeness with the word “genes” crossed out and replaced with “jeans.”
The internet has been quick to condemn the advertisement as noninclusive at best and as overtly promoting “white supremacy” and “Nazi propaganda” at worst.
The backlash has been swift and fierce, and some of it, at least, if you ask me, is fair. The internet has been quick to condemn the advertisement as noninclusive at best and as overtly promoting “white supremacy” and “Nazi propaganda” at worst. These critics point to the copy and the implication of calling a white person superior because of their genes. In the videos, Sweeney exudes a sort of vintage sexiness that caters to the male gaze. She embodies the near mythological girl-next-door beautiful but low-maintenance sexy femininity that dominated media in the 1990s and the early 2000s. Together, the campaign feels regressive and not retro, offensive and not cheeky.
The advertisement, the choice of Sweeney as the sole face in it and the internet’s reaction reflect an unbridled cultural shift toward whiteness, conservatism and capitalist exploitation. Sweeney is both a symptom and a participant.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about the rise and fall of another brand steeped in Americana: American Apparel. The column examined, in part, the role the now-shuttered company’s overtly sexual advertisements played in its success in the 2010s.
In both cases, American Apparel and, now, American Eagle, the cycle of outrage maintained or invigorated the company’s relevance. As we post, write, argue and engage, American Eagle is on a financial tear. It has earned controversial but lucrative status as a “meme stock,” a low-value stock that gains sudden popularity among retail investors. If the goal of paying for a high-profile advertising campaign is money and relevance, then by every metric this is a massive success for American Eagle.
Sweeney has been transparent that her goal as a public figure is to make as much money as possible. In an interview with British tabloid The Sun in 2023, she said: “I take deals because I have to. They don’t pay actors like they used to, and with streamers, you no longer get residuals. The established stars still get paid, but I have to give five per cent to my lawyer, ten per cent to my agents, three per cent or something like that to my business manager. I have to pay my publicist every month, and that’s more than my mortgage.”
In May, she faced viral controversy for selling Dr. Squatch soap that was advertised as containing some of her dirty bathwater. The advertisements, predictably, included Sweeney ostensibly naked in a bathtub. Last month, after she attended Jeff and Lauren Bezos’ gauche wedding in Italy, news spread that Sweeney was reportedly launching a lingerie brand with financial backing from the Bezoses. The internet was outraged, condemning Sweeney for aligning herself with American oligarchs like Bezos for a paycheck.
Sweeney, best known for playing a gratuitously topless Cassie on HBO’s “Euphoria,” has been sexualized for most of her career, including in many of her disparate business ventures and advertising campaigns, something she has also addressed. In an interview with The Independent, for example, she spoke to the double standard she faces: “When a guy has a sex scene or shows his body, he still wins awards and gets praise. But the moment a girl does it, it’s completely different.”
I cannot blame Sweeney for financially benefiting from a system that is going to exploit her either way. Still, her willingness to participate in such an obviously damaging — and, depending on who you ask, even dangerous — advertising campaign as the latest American Eagle collection is disappointing.
Popular American culture is, indisputably, becoming more puritanical and more conservative.
Advertisements, from American Apparel to the notorious Pepsi campaign with Kendall Jenner to a 1960s advertisement likening a new stove to a happy marriage, reflect what is pervasive in American culture at the time. Ads are always mirrors of society, and sometimes what they reflect is ugly and startling. Popular American culture is, indisputably, becoming more puritanical and more conservative.
It isn’t just that far-right ideology is proliferating on the fringe; our entire cultural ethos has moved further right, allowing for this sort of content. Young women are being radicalized through so-called clean skin care and healthy eating, internet slang once used exclusively by women-hating incels is mainstream, and people are unabashedly self-identifying as fascist on public platforms.
An advertisement that so many are condemning as a “eugenics dog whistle” fits into this movement. Sweeney and American Eagle deserve much scrutiny over this, but so does our own crumbling and fractured American culture that made this all possible in the first place.
In this episode of The Joy Reid Show, Joy proposes the following truth that she believes: the U.S. and Israel are the two biggest human rights abusers in the world right now; given the abuse and terrorizing of migrants by the Trump regime and the starvation and genocide Benjamin Netanyahu's government is unleashing on the Palestinian people -- in Gaza AND the occupied West Bank.
Then, our political panel talked Epstein cover-up, Ghislaine Maxwell's potential pardon, and the Columbia University and Paramount sellouts.
Joining the show: Nana Gyamfi, Executive Director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), the largest Black-led racial justice and immigrant rights organization in the US.
ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS: Rula Jebreal, award-winning journalist, international bestselling author, and foreign policy analyst renowned for her groundbreaking work in Europe, the United States, and across the Middle East.
IG: @rulajebreal
Jill Wine-Banks, MSNBC Legal Analyst and Author of The Watergate Girl Twitter (X): @JillWineBanks
Instagram: @jillwinebanks Lizz Winstead, co-creator of The Daily Show, comedienne, and human rights advocate, focused on reproductive rights with the Abortion Access Front.
Read Lizz's Rolling Stone essay: I Worked With Stephen Colbert. Here’s Why His Cancellation Should Scare You:
SUBSCRIBE to The Joy Reid Show channel so you never miss a moment! / @thejoyreidshow
ABOUT JOY REID:
Joy-Ann Lomena Reid (AKA Joy Reid) is a best-selling American author, political journalist and TV host. She was a national correspondent for MSNBC and is best known for hosting the Emmy-nominated, NAACP Award-winning political commentary and analysis show, The ReidOut, from 2020 to 2025. Her previous anchoring credits include The Reid Report (2014–2015) and AM Joy (2016–2020).
Israel Has Made Gaza a Hell on Earth by Seraj Assi July 28, 2025 Jacobin
How much longer will we watch Israel starve children to death and massacre civilians seeking food before American political leaders put a stop to this madness?
A charity distributes meals to Palestinians facing food shortages amid ongoing Israeli attacks and severe restrictions in Gaza City, Gaza, on July 28, 2025. (Ali Jadallah / Anadolu via Getty Images)
More than twenty months into the genocide, Israel has rendered Gaza a hellscape on earth. This hellscape is not an act of God, or a natural disaster, or some force majeure — it’s human-made, orchestrated by Israel, funded and armed by the United States, and cheered on by Western political elites.
For five hellish months, Israel has imposed a total blockade on Gaza, blocking all food deliveries to the starving population of two million Palestinians, almost half of them children, and condemning hundreds to a slow and agonizing death. Unsatisfied with forced mass starvation, Israeli forces carried out the equivalent of their previous flour massacre in Gaza almost daily, slaughtering over one thousand Palestinians seeking food. On Wednesday, more than one hundred international aid and rights groups appealed to governments to take immediate action in Gaza, where over one hundred thousand children are facing imminent mass death if this barbarity continues.
The humanitarian calamity is so horrific that top UN officials have abandoned their customarily restrained tone for outraged and emotionally charged condemnations. UN secretary-general António Guterres has berated the international community for ignoring the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, which he said presents a “moral crisis that challenges the global conscience.”
“I cannot explain the level of indifference and inaction we see by too many in the international community — the lack of compassion, the lack of truth, the lack of humanity,” Guterres told participants at the global assembly of the rights group Amnesty International.
Meanwhile, genocidal rhetoric continues to pour out of the upper echelons of Israeli leadership, with one minister pledging that Israel is “racing to wipe out Gaza.” The genocidal mania also includes an Israeli version of Donald Trump’s Gaza video, featuring a dystopian AI-generated scenario of an ethnically cleansed Gaza, with Trump Tower glimmering over the depopulated landscape.
US president Trump has once again cheered for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. In a recent interview, Trump openly called on Israel to cleanse Gaza, while virtually blaming Palestinians for their own death. He told Israel to “finish the job” in Gaza.
US complicity in the Gaza genocide goes beyond funding and arming Israel to the hilt with bipartisan blessing. Recent media reports have revealed that Israel and the Trump administration are coordinating a scheme to drive Palestinians out of Gaza, which could include countries like Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Libya — a revived Zionist dream as old as Israel itself, hatched originally by Zionist leaders like Moshe Dayan and Levi Eshkol, to transfer Palestinian refugees in Gaza to countries in North Africa (the Libyan Operation), or even to Latin America by air (the Moshe Dayan plan). “All of Gaza will be Jewish,” as one Israeli minister recently vowed.
Europe is faring hardly better. For over twenty months, the Western political class has refused to rein in Israel’s genocidal spree in Gaza. France’s recent recognition of a Palestinian state, while refusing to take immediate and concrete actions to stop the genocide and the forced starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, is a largely empty gesture, especially in the face of what the UN’s former aid chief describes as “the worst crime of the century.”
UK leaders seem to believe that Israel can always act with impunity and without consequences against Palestinians, while Germany has no qualms about making Palestinians pay for its past crimes against the Jews, with a horrifying repeat of past atrocities. Or as Hans Frank, a Nazi governor in occupied Poland, put it in his diary: “That we sentence 1.2 million Jews to die of hunger should be noted only marginally.”
For decades, Western leaders have winked at Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people, refusing to take a stand against the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the siege of Gaza, and the apartheid in the West Bank, marked by the constant dispossession and erasure of Palestinian existence, daily dehumanization and forced displacement, unhinged settler violence, systematic torture, and other unspeakable injustices, which together have culminated in the Gaza genocide.
According to international law, siege starvation is a war crime, a crime against humanity, and an act of genocide. The global consensus has been that sieges are “barbaric and medieval” and belong to a darker period in human history. And yet, for nearly two decades, Israel has imposed its devastating and suffocating blockade of Gaza without consequences.
This brutal and inhumane blockade, the longest in modern history, has been sustained and naturalized with Western support and blessing, whose leaders have become accustomed to seeing Palestinians ghettoed in concentration camps swollen by refugees, caged in a tiny enclave like sheep penned for slaughter, under constant bombardment and invasions, displaced time and again. If Gaza was already unlivable before the genocide, it’s now “worse than hell on earth,” to cite the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The new threshold, established in Gaza by Israel and its Western allies, is that a pariah state can starve to death an entire people and still be a member of the United Nations.
The Gaza genocide is the most documented genocide in human history. Future historians contemplating it will scratch their heads over how this unimaginable horror was allowed to happen in this enlightened century — how the civilized world watched it unfold in real time, broadcast by the victims themselves, and did nothing to stop it. As UNICEF spokesperson James Elder put it: “Gaza has shattered humanity’s records for its darkest chapters. Humanity must now urgently write a different chapter.”
For the horror of the Gaza genocide is not merely the fact that it was allowed to happen, but that it was allowed to happen for this long and for far longer than most genocides in recent memory — with the persistent backing of Western powers. The Srebrenica genocide, which marks thirty years this month, unfolded in a few horrific days in July 1995, prompting swift Western intervention. While Israel’s genocide in Gaza has reaped so far at least ten times as many victims as the Srebrenica genocide in Bosnia, no other genocide has garnered the same level of complicity and apathy from Western elites. Not to mention Arab complicity, whose leaders largely see Palestinian resistance and struggle for freedom as an existential threat.
In Slaughterhouse-Five, American writer Kurt Vonnegut describes the bombing of Dresden, which unfolded eighty years ago and lasted for two nights, as the “greatest massacre in European history.” One wonders what he would say about Israel’s unending slaughter of Gaza, which has been unfolding before our eyes for nearly two years, with no end in sight. Gone are the days when a Palestinian prisoner’s hunger strike would cause a global outrage. The new threshold, established in Gaza by Israel and its Western allies, is that a pariah state can starve to death an entire people and still be a member of the United Nations.
For twenty-one months, Western powers, led by the United States, have allowed Israel to plumb new depths of barbarity in Gaza almost daily without offering Palestinians even the dignity of humanitarian sympathy. They continue to do so even when the Western-backed destruction of Palestinians has brought the whole global order and postwar moral legacy to the brink of collapse. And they remain unfazed by Israel’s absolute contempt for the basic tenets of international justice, thus rendering Gaza, in the words of a prominent Palestinian human rights lawyer, “the graveyard of international law.”
This holocaust must stop now. Humanity itself is at stake. As Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), has put it: “Make ‘never again’ a reality. If we fail the Palestinians in Gaza, others are likely to be failed too in the future.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Seraj Assi is a Palestinian writer living in Washington, DC, and the author, most recently, of My Life As An Alien (Tartarus Press).
A U.S. Department Of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection sign is displayed at the CBP Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Kevin Carter / Getty Images
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently used an iconic image from the 1982 movie “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” to promote its white supremacist policies on social media.
“Even E.T. knew when it was TIME TO GO HOME,” DHS’s edited version of the movie poster reads, underneath a picture of E.T. and Elliot, the science fiction movie’s protagonists, riding a bike across the night sky. “Take control of your departure using the CBP [Customs and Border Protection] app.”
On July 16, DHS posted the image on its Instagram, X and Facebook pages. The Latin Times was the first outlet to report on the posts.
“Illegal aliens, take a page from E.T. and PHONE HOME,” DHS posted on Facebook. “If you are here illegally, leave NOW — the easy way — using the CBP Home App. You will receive travel assistance and a stipend to return to your home country. Take control of your self-departure: www.dhs.gov/cbphome.”
It seems unlikely that the movie’s director, Steven Spielberg, who advised President Joe Biden on his reelection campaign, would approve of its use. Billboard magazine has cataloged numerous instances of Trump using musicians’ work without their permission, which has prompted several lawsuits.
On July 23, DHS, along with the White House, also posted the 1872 painting, American Progress by John Gast — a depiction of manifest destiny — to its social media pages. Manifest Destiny is the idea that white settlers were ordained to expand westward and steal Indigenous people’s land.
“A Heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth defending,” reads the caption on the DHS Instagram post.
Many lambasted the agency for celebrating a concept used to justify the genocide of Indigenous people.
“You don’t need to be an art history major to pick up on the reactionary subtext of DHS’ messaging,” Zeeshan Aleem wrote in a commentary for MSNBC. “The agency is promoting the idea that America’s most authentic heritage can be traced back to its history of ethnic cleansing, racist social hierarchies and racial domination. The ‘homeland’ is to be expropriated and protected from savages, and the people who most belong are the European settler class.”
After over 21 months of Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza, the humanitarian crisis in the Strip has reached its worst point yet. 94% of Gaza’s hospitals have been destroyed or damaged. Dozens of children have died from malnutrition. And Israeli troops continue to kill scores of Palestinians as they try to receive food from the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.” In this second part of Zeteo’s live ‘Unshocked,’ Dr. Yasser Khan – a Canadian ophthalmologist and plastic surgeon who has traveled twice to Gaza since October 7, 2023 – describes to Mehdi and Naomi how Israel’s humanitarian assault on Gaza has turned injuries and disabilities in Gaza into, “a death sentence.” Dr. Yasser Khan: “It was horrific, the most horrific things that I've ever seen.” In the interview, Dr. Khan shares the stories of his many patients, the vast majority of whom he says were women and children. Dr. Khan also discusses how upon returning from Gaza, many of his colleagues in the medical field refused to believe such stories, with some even going out of their way to tell him that, “‘he’s done nothing to be a hero.’” Dr. Khan explains how he came to the conclusion that what he was seeing in Gaza was indeed a genocide and why he takes so much inspiration from the people in Gaza. Mehdi, Naomi, and Dr. Khan also take questions from a live audience. Do consider becoming a paid subscriber so you can get early access to exclusive content like this. Also, if you are interested in learning more about Israel’s assault on Gaza’s healthcare system, check out Zeteo’s most recently acquired documentary, ‘Gaza: Doctors Under Attack.’
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) speaking during a hearing on Capitol Hill on June 24, 2025 in Washington, D.C.Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) has denounced a bill advancing through the House that threatens sanctions on South Africa over its genocide case against Israel in the Hague and other actions against Israel, calling it an “extremist disgrace.”
Last Tuesday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee overwhelmingly voted to advance a bill that requires the U.S. to reexamine its relationship with South Africa and proposes sanctions on South African officials, specifically naming leaders of the African National Congress party. The legislation advanced 34 to 13, with bipartisan support.
It’s unclear if House or Senate leaders would put the bill to a full chamber vote. However, the advancing of the bill, introduced by Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson (Texas), is yet another show of U.S. lawmakers’ willingness to bend over backwards to please Israel in a time when it is committing genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank.
“Congress is threatening to sanction South Africa for their courageous leadership against the Israeli regime’s genocide in Gaza,” said Tlaib in a statement on social media on Monday. “H.R. 2633 is an extremist disgrace. Republicans and any Democrats who vote for this should forever keep [Nelson] Mandela’s name out of their mouths.”
The bill effectively says that the U.S. should punish South Africa for its criticism of Israel’s genocide, including its genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and referral of Israeli officials to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes in Gaza. The bill also names cooperation with China and Russia as a reason to reexamine ties — though South Africa also maintains close ties with U.S. allies.
Other Democrats have criticized the bill as counterproductive, saying that it would only push South Africa closer to adversaries by cutting ties with the U.S. They also criticized the Trump administration’s decision to establish a supposed refugee program for white Afrikaners that was reportedly explicit in only welcoming white people who already experience privilege in the country compared to the majority Black population.
Israel was once close with South Africa, in the apartheid era. Since the fall of South Africa’s apartheid regime, however, leaders have been critical of Israel and its apartheid against Palestinians.
Trump administration officials and U.S. lawmakers have taken numerous steps to retaliate against international figures and institutions in order to shield Israel from any shred of consequences for its genocide.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration sanctioned UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese for her continued advocacy for Palestinian rights.
This follows the Trump administration’s sanctions on ICC officials like chief prosecutor Karim Khan, after the House overwhelmingly passed a bill calling for the measure, over the ICC’s issuing of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former military leader Yoav Gallant — warrants that the U.S. has openly flouted.
Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labor. Before coming to Truthout, Sharon had written stories for Pacific Standard, The New Republic, and more. She has a master’s degree in environmental studies. She can be found on Twitter and Bluesky.
Palestinian American Student & Dad: 200 Relatives Killed in Gaza; VCU Withholds Diploma for Protest
Virginia Commonwealth University is withholding the diploma of a Palestinian American student because of her campus activism. In a hearing Tuesday, officials examined the case of VCU student Sereen Haddad, who was told she would not receive her diploma at her graduation this year because of her participation in a peaceful memorial commemorating violent police arrests at a student encampment for Palestine in 2024. Sereen Haddad is the daughter of Tariq Haddad, a cardiologist who grew up in Gaza. Dr. Haddad made headlines last year for rejecting an invitation to meet with then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken because of the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s actions in Gaza. The Haddads have lost more than 200 members of their extended family in the nearly two-year-long assault.
Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET.
Editor-at-large of "Jewish Currents," who writes "The Beinart Notebook" on Substack, Peter Beinart sits down with Jon Stewart to discuss his book, "Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning," and speaking out against Israel. They talk about learning from Jewish history to be the saviors rather than the oppressors, America and the U.N.’s failure to hold Benjamin Netanyahu accountable, the urgency of engaging in critical discourse with other Jews, and how listening to Palestinian stories can illuminate the dehumanizing conditions.
Joy Reid and her panel—including legal expert Paul Butler, journalist David Cay Johnston, and advocate Mini Timmaraju—break down Donald Trump’s shocking $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch over their reporting on Jeffrey Epstein. The discussion explores Trump’s legal threats, the unreleased Epstein files, Attorney General Pam Bondi’s role in suppressing evidence, and the disturbing parallels between Trump’s rhetoric and authoritarian tactics. The conversation then shifts to examining MAGA's obsession with Epstein while challenging Trump's base to push for genuine transparency and accountability.
Chapters: 0:00 Trump's $10B Lawsuit Threat 4:20 Why WSJ won't settle: Discovery risks for Trump 8:15 The REAL Epstein Files Demand 12:30 Trump's Bizarre Epstein Letter 16:00 Epstein's Extortion Racket 20:00 Epstein's Suspicious Death 24:19 Joy's Direct MAGA Appeal 27:31
Closing
ABOUT JOY REID:
Joy-Ann Lomena Reid (AKA Joy Reid) is a best-selling American author, political journalist and TV host. She was a national correspondent for MSNBC and is best known for hosting the Emmy-nominated, NAACP Award-winning political commentary and analysis show, The ReidOut, from 2020 to 2025. Her previous anchoring credits include The Reid Report (2014–2015) and AM Joy (2016–2020).
Harvard Is Said to Be Open to Spending Up to $500 Million to Resolve Trump Dispute
The sum sought by the government is more than twice as much as the $200 million fine that Columbia University said it would pay when it settled its clash with the White House last week.
Neither Harvard nor the government has publicly detailed the types of terms they might find acceptable for a settlement. Credit: Sophie Park for The New York Times
[Michael C. Bender, Alan Blinder and Michael S. Schmidt have been covering the Trump administration’s attacks on Harvard.]
July 28, 2025 New York Times
Harvard University has signaled a willingness to meet the Trump administration’s demand to spend as much as $500 million to end its dispute with the White House as talks between the two sides intensify, four people familiar with the negotiations said.
According to one of the people, Harvard is reluctant to directly pay the federal government, but negotiators are still discussing the exact financial terms.
The sum sought by the government, which recently accused Harvard of civil rights violations, is more than twice as much as the $200 million fine that Columbia University said it would pay when it settled antisemitism claims with the White House last week. Neither Harvard nor the government has publicly detailed potential terms for a settlement and what allegations the money would be intended to resolve.
President Trump has privately demanded that Harvard pay far more than Columbia. The people who described the talks and the dynamics surrounding them spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential negotiations.
Although the two sides have made progress toward a deal, Harvard is also skeptical of Columbia’s agreement to allow an outside monitor to oversee its sweeping arrangement with the government. Harvard officials have signaled that such a requirement for their own settlement could be a redline as a potential infringement on the university’s academic freedom.
University officials, though, concluded months ago that even if they prevailed in their court fight against the government, a deal could help Harvard to avoid more troubles over the course of Mr. Trump’s term.
The timing was unclear for when the administration and Harvard might reach an accord, but the university is expected to demand that any deal be tied to the federal lawsuit it brought against the government in April.
Mr. Trump said in June that his administration might strike an agreement with Harvard “over the next week or so.” Although that time frame has lapsed, the president has privately told aides that he will not green-light a deal unless the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university agrees to spend many millions of dollars.
The president’s focus on financial terms reflects a shift in strategy for the administration, which spent the first months of its assault on higher education highlighting the prospects of reorienting the industry’s perceived ideological tilt. Although the White House has tied federal research funds to its quest for negotiations with top schools since the winter, Mr. Trump’s focus on the financial conditions of any settlements emerged more recently.
Harvard declined to comment on Monday.
A White House spokesman, Harrison W. Fields, said on Monday that the administration’s “proposition is simple and common sense: Don’t allow antisemitism and D.E.I. to run your campus, don’t break the law, and protect the civil liberties of all students.”
Mr. Fields added that the White House was “confident that Harvard will eventually come around and support the president’s vision, and through good-faith conversations and negotiations, a good deal is more than possible.”
The Trump administration publicly depicted last week’s settlement with Columbia as a template for bargaining with Harvard and other universities it has targeted. And, indeed, higher education executives have spent days dissecting the fine print of Columbia’s agreement, a wide-ranging deal that goes far beyond addressing antisemitism. Many have focused on a provision that said no part of the settlement “shall be construed as giving the United States authority to dictate faculty hiring, university hiring, admissions decisions or the content of academic speech.”
Although some people assailed Columbia for agreeing to the deal, others saw the arrangement as a necessity and a model for others to consider.
“They didn’t admit wrongdoing — it’s a classic settlement,” said Donna E. Shalala, who was the health secretary under President Bill Clinton and led four schools, including the University of Miami and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “You don’t admit wrongdoing, and you preserve your right to continue as an institution.”
Mr. Trump, Dr. Shalala said, had a long record of “transactional” bargaining with powerful institutions.
“The details are less important than getting the deal and getting the win,” she said. “So if you know that when you go into a negotiation that it’s less ideological than it is getting a win, then you can get a win on both sides.”
Harvard is now weighing its own calculations. But it faces a different range of considerations than Columbia, including its outsize standing in American life, its legal battle with the government and its insistence that it will not surrender its independence to any government.
“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” Harvard’s president, Alan M. Garber, wrote in April, an early signal that the university might resist oversight like what the Trump administration has envisioned.
Harvard sued soon after Dr. Garber released his statement and after the Trump administration began to strip the university of billions of dollars in federal research money.
Although the judge, Allison D. Burroughs, did not immediately issue a decision in the case, her barrage of questions suggested serious doubts about the government’s efforts to tie research funding to accusations of antisemitism.
Mr. Trump repeatedly criticized Judge Burroughs after the hearing, where the university’s negotiations with the White House were not substantively discussed.
“Harvard wants to settle, but I think Columbia handled it better,” Mr. Trump said to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House on Friday.
His administration has not always insisted on payments from elite universities to settle disputes with the government.
When the administration cut a deal this summer with the University of Pennsylvania over accusations that the Ivy League school had violated civil rights laws by allowing a transgender person onto its women’s swim team, Penn agreed to apologies and policy changes but no financial penalties.
But the administration has been eyeing Harvard’s wealth for months, and Trump aides believe that the university is able to pay much more than Columbia did. Columbia’s $200 million fine will go to the Treasury, a White House official said last week, until Congress decides how to spend it.
In April, when a government lawyer sent Harvard’s legal team an array of potential actions by the university, one was the possibility of Harvard agreeing to a lien on its assets so the government could recoup federal dollars “in event of noncompliance in the future.”
The idea, included in a document that became public in connection with Harvard’s lawsuit against the government, gained little traction. When the administration sent Harvard a list of demands later that month, the notion of a lien was not mentioned.
Harvard has an endowment valued at about $53 billion. But most of the endowment is restricted, meaning that university leaders are limited in how they can tap a war chest that has long animated Mr. Trump and his aides. In a memorandum this month, Harvard’s leaders wrote that a series of actions from Washington — including an increase in the excise tax on endowments and the administration’s quest to eliminate grant funding to Harvard — could affect the university’s budget by close to $1 billion a year.
“We hope that our legal challenges will reverse some of these federal actions and that our efforts to raise alternative sources of funding will be successful,” the Harvard officials wrote. “As that work proceeds, we also need to prepare for the possibility that the lost revenues will not be restored anytime soon.”
Columbia’s agreement with the federal government was intended to restart the flow of federal grant money, which is essential to top research universities. About 11 percent of Harvard’s revenue comes through federally sponsored research.
Alan Blinder is a national correspondent for The Times, covering education.
Michael S. Schmidt is an investigative reporter for The Times covering Washington. His work focuses on tracking and explaining high-profile federal investigations.
A version of this article appears in print on July 29, 2025, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Harvard Open To a Settlement Of $500 Million. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper
Trump's Power & the Rule of Law: Jane Mayer (interview) | FRONTLINE
Jane Mayer is the chief Washington correspondent for The New Yorker and is the author of "Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right."
The following interview was conducted by Mike Wiser for FRONTLINE on March 24, 2025. It has been annotated and edited for accuracy and clarity as part of an editorial and legal review.
See a more complete description of our process here: https://to.pbs.org/4lVZKzA
This interview is being published as part of FRONTLINE’s Transparency Project, an effort to open up the source material behind our documentaries.
Explore the annotated transcript of this interview, and others, on the FRONTLINE website: https://to.pbs.org/4nZAtX5
To access the annotated transcript here on YouTube, scroll below and click “Show Transcript.”
Explore a collection of more interviews from “Trump’s Power & The Rule of Law” here on YouTube via this playlist: https://bit.ly/40ih9tV
The Playbook of a Dictator: UC Berkeley’s Erwin Chemerinsky on Trump and the Rule of Law
UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky’s 2024 book No Democracy Lasts Forever examined how democracies collapse and give way to authoritarian regimes.
Trump’s second term, Chemerinsky says, is following the playbook.
”If one were to design a path to authoritarian rule, it would be what we have seen in the first weeks of the Trump administration,” he wrote earlier this year. One of the country’s most prominent legal scholars, Chemerinsky has been speaking out on the need to protect due process and the rule of law and to defend against attacks on academia and the media.
Don't miss him as he returns to Commonwealth Club Word Affairs to talk about the most pressing threats to democracy—and the possible solutions.
July 24, 2025
Speakers
Erwin Chemerinsky
Dean, University of California, Berkeley School of Law; Author, No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States
Kirk O. Hanson
Senior Fellow of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University; Member, Silicon Valley Advisory Council, Commonwealth Club World Affairs
Photo courtesy the UC Berkeley School of Law.
Commonwealth Club World Affairs is a public forum. Any views expressed in our programs are those of the speakers and not of Commonwealth Club World Affairs.
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"I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against."
W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963)
"There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
"Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent. "
James Baldwin (1924-1987)
"Precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society."
Aimé Césaire (1913-2008)
"A civilization that proves incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilization. A civilization that chooses to close its eyes to its most crucial problems is a stricken civilization. A civilization that uses its principles for trickery and deceit is a dying civilization."
Nina Simone (1933-2003)
"There's no other purpose, so far as I'm concerned, for us except to reflect the times, the situations around us and the things we're able to say through our art, the things that millions of people can't say. I think that's the function of an artist and, of course, those of us who are lucky leave a legacy so that when we're dead, we also live on. That's people like Billie Holiday and I hope that I will be that lucky, but meanwhile, the function, so far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times, whatever that might be."
Amilcar Cabral (1924-1973)
"Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone's head. They are fighting to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children ....Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories..." .
Angela Davis (b. 1944)
"The idea of freedom is inspiring. But what does it mean? If you are free in a political sense but have no food, what's that? The freedom to starve?”
Duke Ellington (1899-1974)
“Jazz is the freest musical expression we have yet seen. To me, then, jazz means simply freedom of musical speech! And it is precisely because of this freedom that so many varied forms of jazz exist. The important thing to remember, however, is that not one of these forms represents jazz by itself. Jazz simply means the freedom to have many forms.”
Amiri Baraka (1934-2014)
"Thought is more important than art. To revere art and have no understanding of the process that forces it into existence, is finally not even to understand what art is."
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” --August 3, 1857
Cecil Taylor (1929-2018)
“Musical categories don’t mean anything unless we talk about the actual specific acts that people go through to make music, how one speaks, dances, dresses, moves, thinks, makes love...all these things. We begin with a sound and then say, what is the function of that sound, what is determining the procedures of that sound? Then we can talk about how it motivates or regenerates itself, and that’s where we have tradition.”
Ella Baker (1903-1986)
"Strong people don't need strong leaders"
Paul Robeson (1898-1976)
"The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative."
John Coltrane (1926-1967)
"I want to be a force for real good. In other words, I know there are bad forces. I know that there are forces out here that bring suffering to others and misery to the world, but I want to be the opposite force. I want to be the force which is truly for good."
Miles Davis (1926-1991)
"Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around."
C.L.R. James (1901-1989)
"All development takes place by means of self-movement, not organization by external forces. It is within the organism itself (i.e. within the society) that there must be realized new motives, new possibilities."
Frantz Fanon (1925-1961)
"Now, political education means opening minds, awakening them, and allowing the birth of their intelligence as [Aime] Cesaire said, it is 'to invent souls.' To educate the masses politically does not mean, cannot mean, making a political speech. What it means is to try, relentlessly and passionately, to teach the masses that everything depends on them."
Edward Said (1935-2003)
“I take criticism so seriously as to believe that, even in the midst of a battle in which one is unmistakably on one side against another, there should be criticism, because there must be critical consciousness if there are to be issues, problems, values, even lives to be fought for."
Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937)
“The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned. There must be pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will.”
Susan Sontag (1933-2004)
"Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager."
Kofi Natambu, editor of The Panopticon Review, is a writer, poet, cultural critic, and political journalist whose poetry, essays, criticism, reviews, and journalism have appeared in many literary magazines, journals, newspapers, and anthologies. He is the author of a biography MALCOLM X: His Life & Work (Alpha Books) and two books of poetry: THE MELODY NEVER STOPS (Past Tents Press) and INTERVALS (Post Aesthetic Press). He was the founder and editor of SOLID GROUND: A NEW WORLD JOURNAL, a national quarterly magazine of the arts, culture, and politics and the editor of a literary anthology NOSTALGIA FOR THE PRESENT (Post Aesthetic Press). Natambu has read his work throughout the country and given many lectures and workshops at academic and arts institutions. He has taught American literature, literary theory and criticism, cultural history and criticism, film studies, political science, creative writing, philosophy, critical theory, and music history and criticism (Jazz, Blues, R&B, Hip Hop) at many universities and colleges. He was also a curator in the Education Department of Detroit’s Museum of African American History. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Natambu currently lives in Berkeley, California with his wife Chuleenan.
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