“Microplastics are everywhere, and they’re harming us.”

“Actually, maybe not.”

“Hold on, that study might be flawed.”

“Bombshell… the whole field is in doubt.”

The headline isn’t “microplastics in people might be wrong,” but rather “quantifying microplastics in human samples is challenging, and the science is evolving in the right direction.”

If you’ve been hearing about microplastics recently, you may have been getting whiplash from the headlines. But you shouldn’t be.

Because this is what science looks like when it’s working: Researchers test new ideas and challenge each other’s methods. This helps refine what we know. What isn’t supposed to happen is a normal, healthy, scientific process getting manipulated into a dramatic storyline about a fictional scandal—a story that can leave the public confused.

The Myth Machine: How a Story We Tell Can Become a Trap

For over two decades, we’ve studied plastic pollution in the ocean. Scientists started describing the accumulation zones of plastic in the subtropical gyres, the places where wind and water currents concentrate floating debris. The research pointed to a truth that was complicated but clear: Most of the pieces are tiny, fragmented plastic—microplastics—along with some larger marine debris, like fishing gear.

But the media put a spin on it, and gave the world a simpler picture: a floating island of trash, “twice the size of Texas.” Some even called this a “garbage patch” you could supposedly walk on. People cried, “Why can’t I see it on Google Maps?” Some wondered if the US should plant a flag, and a handful of naive entrepreneurs fabricated fantastic ocean cleanup contraptions.

It was dramatic. Word spread. But eventually, it backfired.

All those who went looking for an island, didn’t find one. Instead they concluded, “It’s more like smog than a landfill,” and some pointed out, “Maybe it was exaggerated and the world had been duped.”

The pattern—one that goes oversimplify, sensationalize, backlash, dismissal—can drain urgency from a real crisis. Misinformation gets the headline. This gets repeated, as we’ve seen before in other environmental debates, such as the hole in the ozone layer, or climate change. The same thing is unfolding now with microplastics and human health.

What the “Bombshell” Reporting Gets Wrong

The recent article in The Guardian that sparked this debate focuses on a real issue. In our research studying microplastics in the environment and animal studies, measuring micro- and nanoplastics in human tissue is incredibly hard. It is particularly difficult when researchers are looking for very small particle sizes, where laboratory contamination from airborne sources becomes harder to rule out. This is especially the case in human tissue.

Microplastics are not like other contaminants, such as lead in water, where you can measure parts per billion, and lean on decades of standardized instruments and test methods. Plastics come in many polymers, sizes, and shapes. Nanoplastics behave differently than microplastics. And plastic is everywhere, meaning background contamination is always a risk. This is sometimes called the “pig pen effect”—it is a challenge to study a material that is so widespread.

The Guardian article is not a devastating blow. It’s a scientific debate around specific methods in a research field that is rapidly improving.

What’s the Real Headline?

The headline isn’t “microplastics in people might be wrong,” but rather “quantifying microplastics in human samples is challenging, and the science is evolving in the right direction.”

That difference matters. If the public hears “doubt cast,” then it translates it as “maybe plastic pollution isn’t really there or not that bad.” The question is, does it hold up across methods, across labs, across time?

So what has science taught us?

1. Yes, we do have microplastics in our bodies. A number of peer-reviewed research shows that plastics, or plastic-associated signals, are present in human samples. Some findings claims will hold up better with time. That’s normal.
2. Scientists criticize each other's studies. This is how science becomes more reliable over time. How methods get stress tested. By challenging assumptions, doing repeated studies, etc. weak studies get corrected or critiqued. In rare cases retracted. This isn’t chaos. It’s science.
3. Some headlines are hype. Microplastics science is new enough that every new study can feel like a “first,” which incentivizes media toward shock value. But, when scientific findings revise our understanding, the correction isn’t “nothing to see here.” The correction should be that science is a self-improving enterprise.
4. Scientists have been, and will continue revising the numbers. For example, early reporting suggested we each eat a “credit card” of plastic each week (subsequent studies estimated much less). Is that a bombshell? No, not really. And if it’s widely seen as such, it might suggest we should wait before we act (e.g., until every uncertainty is resolved). But, that’s not how public health works. We make decisions based on the best available science, and assess risk with limited data.

Weaponized Uncertainty

The biggest threat here isn’t scientific uncertainty, since there’s a considerable amount of scientific consensus that there is plastic in us. The biggest threat is weaponized uncertainty.

Environmental health has a predictable plot—when evidence starts piling up that a pollutant is harmful, a well-funded countermovement doesn’t always try to prove it’s safe. On the contrary, it tries to prove that the science is messy, uncertain, and “we need more data.”.

We’re not asking journalists to avoid urgency. Plastic pollution is urgent. Certain phrases, however, may signal that you’re being pulled into a pattern of mythmaking.

The industry has a playbook with favorite phrases, such as: “not conclusive,” “uncertain,” “scientists disagree,” “lack of consensus.” Disagreement in science is healthy. However, this (very routine) component of science can also become a winning political strategy used against science and public policy. Casting doubt can delay regulation.

Naomi Oreskes writes in Merchants of Doubt, “The industry had realized you could create the impression of controversy simply by asking questions.” That’s why our concern isn’t that researchers are debating methods. Our concern is that sensational headlines can warp debate, and give merchants of doubt an opportunity to skew public perception.

Red-Flag Language—It Should Make You Pause

We’re not asking journalists to avoid urgency. Plastic pollution is urgent. Certain phrases, however, may signal that you’re being pulled into a pattern of mythmaking, such as “bombshell,” or “debunked,” when what’s really happening is refinement. Those phrases shock and entertain, but do little to foster understanding.

What we actually need next is for the microplastics field to keep growing. Researchers across the board—from those that think studies are exaggerated to those that stand behind their research findings—are making calls for better lab protocols, contamination controls, reporting requirements, and inter-lab studies to validate results. These are unglamorous, but they’re what solidify early research findings into trusted science. A first-of-its-kind finding of plastic somewhere in the human body shouldn’t be framed like the final truth. It should be heralded as the beginning of a more complete picture.

The justices on the Supreme Court should not favor the president who appointed them because checks and balances demand that they uphold the law without passion or prejudice. The current Supreme Court has increasingly shown a pattern of siding with the Trump administration—a result made predictable by the court’s conservative majority. Immigration cases have, with rare exception, aligned along these partisan lines.

On June 27, 2025, the Supreme Court sidestepped the question of birthright citizenship and overruled lower court decisions that sought to protect it. The original plaintiffs filed suit to enjoin the enforcement of the executive order that identifies circumstances in which a person born in the United States is not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” thereby restricting the constitutionally guaranteed bestowal of birthright citizenship. The Trump administration petitioned the Supreme Court, which granted review. The plaintiffs argued that the executive order violates the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, as well as sections 1 and 201 of the Nationality Act of 1940—the constitutional guarantee that birth on US soil confers citizenship.

Before the case reached the Supreme Court, the district court entered universal injunctions barring the application of the executive order to anyone, thereby preserving birthright citizenship, and the appellate court denied the government’s request to postpone the granted relief. In its application to the Supreme Court, the government argued that federal courts lacked equitable authority to issue universal injunctions under the Judiciary Act of 1789, attacking the district court’s authority in order to preserve the president’s propensity to overstep his. The Supreme Court granted the government's application and held that Congress has not granted federal courts authority to universally enjoin the enforcement of an executive order. Reaching all the way back to pre-Revolution English law and the Founding Fathers, the Supreme Court reasoned that no such authority exists. Their reasoning reads as petulant and arbitrary, an invocation of ancient doctrine to narrow modern rights.

On September 8, 2025, the Supreme Court granted an application for stay by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The decision states that the Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes immigration officers to interrogate any alien (or person believed to be an alien) as to “his right to be or to remain in the United States.” They also found that they may briefly detain individuals if they have a “reasonable suspicion” that he or she is an alien illegally present in the United States, based on the “totality of the particular circumstances.”

The Supreme Court’s deep bias in favor of Trump administration policies gestures toward a reversal, through immigration cases, of the trenchant progress in civil rights litigation that the Warren Court and subsequent courts have made.

The Supreme Court’s interpretation of the law, however, takes tremendous liberties with the letter of these laws, essentially recognizing ethnicity as a basis for reasonable suspicion. Specifically, the California District Court enjoined immigration officers from making investigative stops based on, among other factors, speaking Spanish or English with an accent, and race or ethnicity. In a nutshell, the lower court forbade immigration enforcement from racially profiling Latine Angelenos. The Supreme Court overruled the lower court, reasoning that, while ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion, it can be a relevant factor when considered along with other salient factors. This argument is internally incoherent and contradictory, suggesting that racial bias is at once insufficient and persuasive evidence. Citing the myriad “significant economic and social problems” caused by “illegal” immigration, the Supreme Court sided with DHS, finding that the government would suffer irreparable injury from the injunction. The relevance of socioeconomic problems to the question of racial profiling and potential excessive force in the execution thereof is tenuous at best.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the dissenting opinion, in which Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined. She argued that “we should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job,“ as it would be a loss to our constitutional freedom.

On December 23, 2025, however, the Supreme Court issued an noticeably restrained opinion upholding a lower court’s temporary restraining order (TRO), which barred the deployment of the National Guard in Illinois. The court found that, under the Posse Comitatus Act, the military is prohibited from executing the laws, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress. The decision further stated that, before the president can federalize the guard under 10 USC §12406(3), he must have statutory or constitutional authority to execute the laws with the regular military and must be unable with those forces to perform that function.

The Supreme Court’s deep bias in favor of Trump administration policies gestures toward a reversal, through immigration cases, of the trenchant progress in civil rights litigation that the Warren Court and subsequent courts have made. The sitting members should consider what kind of legacy they wish to leave for future generations before siding blindly with our most autocratic president in history. Political expediency may be convenient in the short term, but history will judge harshly those who twisted our most sacred liberties to the advantage of an advantageous few, rather than standing with the people our Constitution was written to protect.

In the wake of the shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis, nationwide attention has been fixed on the deeply troubled aspects of federal immigration enforcement. But beyond the use of deadly force, the preventable death of Parady La in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention reveals another serious, often overlooked set of failures that demand examination.

A little more than a month into 2026, eight people have already died at the hands of the US ICE, signaling yet another year of lethal systemic failure. La was the fourth fatality, a 46-year-old Cambodian refugee, who died of drug withdrawal just three days after entering ICE custody at a federal detention facility in Philadelphia. This death was entirely preventable. When the government takes custody of a person, it assumes total control over and liability for that individual’s safety, health, and survival. Unfortunately, in ICE detention, that obligation is being violated again and again.

According to reports from inmates later confirmed by medical experts, La told detention staff he was withdrawing and requested medical care, but his symptoms, including persistent vomiting, were left untreated, resulting in his death. Drug withdrawal is a predictable physiological response when a person who is chronically dependent on a substance is abruptly cut off, often involving severe nausea, vomiting, dehydration, physical pain and panic, cardiovascular strain, and escalating medical instability. Substance dependence is a chronic medical condition, no different in principle from other conditions that carry known risks when left unmanaged, such as diabetes, heart disease, or epilepsy. When symptoms of chronic conditions go untreated, particularly in custodial settings where people are confined, closely monitored, and unable to seek care on their own, the resulting harm is entirely foreseeable. Rather than explaining why someone reporting severe withdrawal symptoms was left without basic medical care in government custody, the official death notice on ICE’s website devotes significant space to detailing La’s past criminal history.

This lack of accountability is not surprising given the decades long history of preventable deaths in ICE. A Human Rights Watch analysis of 18 ICE detainee deaths between 2012 and 2015 found that independent medical experts concluded substandard medical care likely contributed to at least 7 of those deaths, with evidence of dangerous medical practices present in 16 of them. In several cases, detainees repeatedly reported severe symptoms only to be dismissed or accused of exaggeration, with hours-long delays before staff intervened. One man was found unresponsive in a pool of bloody vomit after officers failed to enter his cell for minutes, and emergency responders were not called until it was too late. A peer-reviewed analysis of 55 deaths in ICE custody between 2011 and 2018 found that nearly all involved serious medical failures, including delays in care in 95% of cases, poor care delivery in 95%, missed or ignored red flags in 80%, and failures in emergency response in 82% of deaths.

These repeated failures point to a detention system with limited transparency and little independent medical oversight.

More recent findings reinforce these earlier conclusions. A 2024 joint investigation by the American Civil Liberties Union, Physicians for Human Rights, and American Oversight examined 52 deaths in ICE custody from 2017-2021 and found that 95% were preventable or possibly preventable with appropriate medical care. Medical experts identified recurring failures across cases, including misdiagnosis, delayed or denied treatment, interrupted medications, and inadequate emergency responses, with people living with chronic health conditions disproportionately affected. Yet ICE continues to rely largely on internal death reviews, limiting transparency and meaningful corrective action and allowing the same preventable failures to recur.

What makes this lack of accountability even more disturbing is that the agency has recently halted payments to the third-party medical contractors responsible for providing care to people in custody. Reporting indicates that ICE stopped paying outside medical providers in October 2025, with claims processing not expected to resume until at least April 2026, even as the detained population has grown to more than 73,000 people nationwide. Because ICE relies heavily on these providers for specialty and off-site care, the payment freeze has already led some clinicians to stop treating detainees altogether and others to delay or deny essential services, including medications and treatment for chronic conditions. For people held in civil detention, this decision further erodes the already slim access to basic medical care inside facilities.

These repeated failures point to a detention system with limited transparency and little independent medical oversight. ICE detention facilities operate largely out of public view and are structured through layers of bureaucracy and private contracting that disperse responsibility across agencies and vendors. Medical care is often delivered by outside contractors, oversight is primarily internal, and meaningful external review is rare. In this environment, gaps in care are difficult to trace, accountability is easily diluted, and preventable deaths are allowed to recur without clear consequences.

When the government confines a person, whether in a prison, jail, or immigration detention facility, it assumes full control over that individual’s ability to access medical care. People in detention cannot seek emergency treatment on their own, choose their providers, refill prescriptions independently, or remove themselves from unsafe conditions. Their health and survival depend entirely on the state. Providing timely and adequate medical care in custody is therefore a baseline obligation that must be followed.

From the recent gutting of the Washington Post to the rightward lurch of CBS, the sheer proliferation and variation of media failures and attacks on the press during Trump 2.0 are difficult to grasp. Regulatory bodies have become political weapons. Major news organizations have complied and retreated. Media ownership has consolidated in the hands of a few feckless billionaires. Taken together, these developments endanger our information and communication systems, our First Amendment freedoms, and our democracy. Yet they resist easy synthesis.

This essay offers a schematic for making sense of the chaos. I argue that what we’re witnessing isn’t a singular breakdown, but discrete and cascading layers of “media capture” that produce censorship, exclusion, and democratic failure. This analysis is a necessary first step towards structurally reforming—and, ultimately transforming—our media institutions and infrastructures to privilege democratic needs over profit and power.

The polycrisis afflicting our media necessitates a political economic analysis that focuses on ownership, control, and market structure. It also calls for critical analyses of how law and policy determine such power relationships—both how they’re weaponized against democracy and how they could be deployed to create a more democratic media system.

To understand contemporary media failures, we must tease apart overlapping but distinct forms of capture. There’s often a tendency to focus on state capture of media, especially in countries experiencing democratic backsliding, where both public and private media systems fall under government influence and control. US media failures, however, require a broader lens. Here, authoritarian encroachment is dependent upon preexisting forms of media capture—capitalistic and oligarchic. Below, I analyze how these layers build on each other but require different interventions.

Capitalistic Capture

Extreme commercialization has long defined the US media system. The US newspaper industry became highly commercialized in the late 1800s with its increased reliance on advertising revenues. US broadcast media followed a similar hyper-commercialized path when policymakers in the early 1930s essentially privatized the public airwaves instead of building a public media system. As a result, several corporate media networks came to dominate radio and flooded it with advertising-supported programming.

Television replicated radio’s hyper-commercialized model, with the very same corporations dominating another lightly regulated medium. Although the US eventually established a public broadcasting system in the late 1960s, it remained chronically underfunded—literally almost off the chart compared to other democracies in federal funding per capita. And Congress entirely rescinded even that paltry support last year.

Jeff Bezos purchased the Washington Post for less than half of what he paid for his superyacht, and now he’s dismantling the paper while currying favor with President Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, the few public interest protections that were installed to protect media diversity from unfettered capitalism—like the long-dead Fairness Doctrine—were gradually weakened or jettisoned altogether. The “Postwar Settlement,” a social compact which allowed commercial media to remain lightly regulated if they practiced social responsibility, has come undone over the ensuing decades as commercial logics overwhelmed public interest protections and professional norms.

The commercialization of US digital media began in earnest in the 1990s when the internet’s infrastructure, originally funded by the National Science Foundation, was privatized with little public debate. Today, capitalist logics permeate the entire digital stack, from the wires that deliver internet services to our homes (if we can afford the exorbitant rates from the “broadband cartel”), to the targeted advertising that operates as the internet’s core business model. Artificial intelligence is now following this same well-worn path.

In the extremely inegalitarian US, where billionaires command disproportionate power, treating our media as private commodities instead of public services all but guarantees concentration in the hands of oligarchs. To give one glaring example, Jeff Bezos purchased the Washington Post for less than half of what he paid for his superyacht, and now he’s dismantling the paper while currying favor with President Donald Trump. With primary media organizations reduced to the playthings of plutocrats, media oligarchy becomes the dominant paradigm.

Oligarchic Capture

As ownership concentration accelerates, US information markets tend toward monopolies and oligopolies. This trend, endemic to lightly regulated capitalist systems, has only increased with the erosion of media ownership restrictions, from the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to more recent “deregulatory” moves during two Trump administrations.

Extreme corporate consolidation creates a wide range of social hazards and harms. It has allowed Trump-aligned right-wing oligarchs to take control of vast media empires, from the Murdochs to the Ellisons. This kind of capture also manifests in algorithmic gatekeeping, such as Elon Musk’s X selectively amplifying and suppressing political speech. In Canada, Meta is blocking news media on its platform to avoid paying for content. More recently, concerns have risen that TikTok, following its acquisition by Trump-friendly owners, has begun to censor political expression.

Such oligarchic capture is the predictable culmination of what’s essentially a pay-to-play system where the highest bidder takes all. Under this regime, what Americans hear, see, and read is increasingly dictated by a handful of billionaires with their own agendas. These private tyrannies have the luxury of treating their media assets as a kind of “loss leader” for broader political and economic goals. Our hyper-commercialized media system was ready-made for this kind of weaponization, making authoritarian capture easy.

Authoritarian Capture

Highly concentrated media systems are structurally vulnerable to authoritarian capture. This is essentially the Viktor Orban model: Autocrats needn’t take over newsrooms at gunpoint; instead, they can count on friendly oligarchs to police the media for them. As a result, screens and airwaves are flooded with uninterrogated official narratives that flatter the administration in power.

In addition to arresting individual journalists, the Trump administration has engaged in various forms of regulatory intimidation. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman, Brendan Carr, who’s been known to sport a gold lapel pin featuring Trump’s profile, recently informed Congress that the FCC is not an independent agency. As if to prove the point, Carr has shamelessly used the FCC to carry out Trump’s agenda, often by punishing—or threatening to punish—perceived enemies. He has used mergers as leverage to extort major news companies and influence media coverage favorable to Trump.

If capitalist capture is the foundational condition that turns our media against democracy and enables other types of capture, then the most transformative remedy must confront that root problem.

In other cases, the administration has threatened regulatory intervention against recalcitrant media companies and individual commentators, such as the comedian Jimmy Kimmel. Recently, the FCC has threatened to apply the “equal time” rule—requiring that broadcast media organizations give equal airtime to competing political candidates—against late-night and daytime television shows, which previously had been exempt from this rule. As the Trump administration bullies the media, many organizations have capitulated.

While shifts in media ownership and conglomeration are often narrated as natural developments—often featuring dramatic twists and turns of individual protagonists and business interests—it’s important to remember that our media institutions are human-made, structured, and maintained through law and policy. They’re subject to change if we as a society so wish. We must resist any sense of inevitability and dare to imagine democratic alternatives.

What’s To Be Done?

One line of defense against authoritarian media capture is public interest regulation. But decades of regulatory capture—where government agencies internalize the logics and imperatives of the industries they purportedly regulate—have hollowed out such normative foundations, rendering them vulnerable to co-option and “discursive capture.” With anti-democratic tendencies already entrenched, new federal policies are nonstarters for the near term, though targeted state and local initiatives may still be viable.

A frequently invoked—though rarely realized—solution to media conglomerates is to simply break them up. Moreover, antitrust arguments have gained prominence amidst a growing anti-monopoly movement, exemplified by Lina Khan’s admirable work chairing the Federal Trade Commission. Such anti-corporate and anti-oligarchic politics clearly resonate with broad swaths of the public and should be encouraged. But this strategy can be overly reliant on competition policy, presupposing that trust-busting a few corporate giants will return social responsibility to the marketplace.

No doubt, preventing or dismantling media conglomeration is critical. We’ve seen the dangers of these vertically and horizontally integrated firms, with tentacles across advertising, content production, distribution, and data extraction. If nothing else, shrinking them and diluting their political and economic power would be real progress.

But dealing with systemic media market failures requires a more fundamental intervention. Competition alone won’t bring local journalism back to news deserts, eliminate surveillance advertising, or guarantee affordable broadband. Furthermore, smaller, profit-driven media entities are likely to exact some of the same social harms as larger ones. Many of these problems are capitalism problems, not just monopoly problems.

Fortunately, the anti-monopoly toolbox contains instruments that do more than tame capitalist excesses through market discipline. For example, the public utility regulatory tradition offers a diverse set of policy tools, ranging from robust public oversight to institutional arrangements approaching municipal and public ownership. These models can directly challenge corrosive capitalist logics at the level of media governance, reflecting a more democratic vision of ownership and control.

If capitalist capture is the foundational condition that turns our media against democracy and enables other types of capture, then the most transformative remedy must confront that root problem. We should endeavor to create non-capitalist information and communication infrastructures. The clearest antidote to hyper-capitalistic media—an argument I’ve made in these pages before—is to remove media from the market altogether and create public alternatives. A “democratic capture” of our media would ensure these institutions serve us all, not just the wealthiest few.

Such a policy program is decidedly ambitious and long-term. It requires not just a Project 2029 but a Project 2050 for structural media reform. Despite such distant projections, we must begin to clearly articulate these plans now. It’s precisely during dark political times that we must assert bold policy visions for a democratic future.

This piece was originally published on the LPE Blog.

Once upon a time, if you had described Donald Trump’s America to me (the second time around), I would have thought you mad as Alice in Wonderland‘s proverbial hatter — or, if you were a fiction writer, I would have considered your plot so ludicrous that, after reading a few pages, I would undoubtedly have tossed your book in the trash.

And yet here we are, not once (yes, all of us can make a mistake once, can’t we?) but twice!

And the one thing you should take for granted is that Donald Trump in the White House a second time around is the all-too-literal personification of imperial decline. In fact, decline is hardly an adequate word for it. We just don’t happen to have another word or phrase that would describe him and his crew aptly enough in all their eerie strangeness. Yes, this country, even in the best of (imperial) times, certainly had its problems. (Remember the Vietnam War, for instance, or President “Tricky Dick” Nixon and the Watergate scandal.) Still, nothing was ever quite like this, was it? Never.

The First American King?

A literal Mad Hatter in command in Washington, D.C. Once upon a time, who would have believed it? In fact, if we could indeed travel into the past and I were able to take you back to 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed, ending the Cold War, while China had not yet faintly “risen,” the world of that moment might essentially have been considered American property, lock, stock, and proverbial barrel.

This planet could have been thought of then as the property of just one great power — my country, of course — that, in imperial terms, had essentially been left alone on planet Earth in a fashion that might never have happened before in the history of humanity. And if I had then been able to see into our future and had tried to fill you in on the Trumpian world we’re now living through a mere three decades later, you would have quite literally laughed me off the planet (and, believe me, that’s putting it politely).

Truly, who could have ever (ever!) imagined this bizarre Trumpian era of ours in which the joker (in the worst sense of the term) in the ultimate deck of cards is indeed sitting in the White House. Yes, unbelievably enough, he was elected a second time in 2024 by a “sweeping,” “landslide,” “historic” 49.7% of American voters. It’s true, not even 50% of us voted to make him the first American king a second time around.

And if that made you chuckle just a little, well, stop doing so right now! Yes, what happened to us in Trumpian terms was and remains genuinely absurd. Still, given this deeply endangered world of ours, it should be anything but funny. Just imagine for a moment, a president who, before entering the White House, was essentially known for only one thing: being the host of the TV show The Apprentice (“You’re fired!”). Once upon a time, if you had described the (ir)reality we’re now living through, you would have been laughed not just out of the room but off this planet. You would, in short, have been fired.

In fact, if what we’re now experiencing were a novel, it would be considered to have the most ludicrous plot imaginable and, a few pages in, you would undoubtedly have tossed it into — yes, again! — the trash. (Unfortunately, it’s not just you or me but this planet itself that Donald Trump now threatens to toss into that garbage pail.)

So here we are in February 2026 and, like it or not, we’re all apprentices to one Donald J. Trump — oops, sorry, one President Donald J. Trump. And the ongoing TV show he emcees these days from the White House is undoubtedly the wackiest one in our history, as he fires not just everyone but everything that rubs him the wrong way from the Kennedy Center (gone!) to the East Wing of the White House (now rubble) to the U.S. Agency for International Development (once upon a time…).

One way to think about all of this is to go back in time and imagine that, long, long ago, Isaac Asimov or Ray Bradbury wrote a science fiction novel with a distinctly bizarre premise: that, at some future moment, thanks to the endless burning of fossil fuels, we humans would essentially threaten to burn ourselves off planet Earth. And when the voters of the world’s largest democracy heard that such a thing might, sooner or later, actually happen to us, they would respond by freely electing a genuine madman — who ran his second candidacy in 2024 on the all-too-bluntly apocalyptic slogan “drill, baby, drill” — to “lead” us into a literal hell on earth. Now, of course, that “president” is insisting that he be given the largest iced island on this planet, Greenland, that, were all its ice to melt (as indeed is already beginning to happen), could send global sea levels up by 23 feet and quite literally drown this world’s coastal cities. Imagine that!

And now, try to imagine this: in 2026, such terrible fiction is, in fact, our reality and one thing is guaranteed (excuse the colons inside colons but this is a strange, strange world to try to sum up): it’s only going to get worse in the three years to come before Donald Trump’s presidency is officially ended, if, of course, it ever does end. (As he typically said at one point last year, “Based on what I read, I guess I’m not allowed to run. So we’ll see what happens,” and he’s now talking about “nationalizing” — think “Trumpifying” — our elections!)

Given him and everything that’s gone on so far in his second term in office, including the way he recently had Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard accompany FBI agents to an election voting hub in Fulton County, Georgia, where they “seized hundreds of boxes containing ballots and other documents related to the 2020 election,” I wouldn’t count on anything Trumpian ending according to plan. Whew! That was one long sentence!

The Declinist President

When I launched TomDispatch (or perhaps it launched me) in November 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on this country, if you had told me that almost a quarter of a century later, our all-American world would not only be in significantly worse shape but unimaginably (as in Trumpianly) so, I would, of course, have laughed you out of the room.

Donald Trump, president of the United States, not once but twice? Back then, it wouldn’t have worked even as a terrible science fiction story or a truly bad joke. Yes, along with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy, we certainly had some lousy presidents. But in the hundreds of years since 1789, nothing — not a single president — faintly like him (and, yes, in such a context, he does need to be italicized).

And yet here we indeed are. I can’t tell you how sad it makes me feel, after almost 25 years producing TomDispatch, to be on nothing better than Donald Trump’s version of planet Earth and to be handing this deeply unsettled, not to say embattled, world of ours off to my children and grandchildren. I mean, honestly, how could we have elected a president (twice!) who, among other nightmares, is doing everything he can to literally burn this planet down by endlessly promoting fossil fuels (including, of course, Venezuelan oil), while doing his damnedest to wipe out wind power or really any version of clean energy that might in any way come to our rescue. (Thank heavens, he doesn’t control the whole planet and so, for the first time last year, wind and solar power generated more electricity in the European Union than did fossil fuels.)

It’s true, of course, that, in our history on this planet, we humans have had some genuine monsters as leaders, whether you’re thinking about Attila the Hun, Roman Emperor Caligula, Nazi horror Adolf Hitler, or the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin. But whatever else they did — and they were all true monsters — their goal was never to literally destroy this planet itself. Donald Trump’s way of joining humanity’s worst characters in our future history books (if, in that all too ominous future, they even exist) is, it seems, to lend a distinct hand in creating a literal global holocaust, even if in slow motion.

He is, in short, nothing less than the personification of an imperial power, once possibly the greatest of all time, and a planet, once possibly the most livable in our universe, both in grim and rapid decline. And imagine this, to put him in a strange perspective: the American people elected as president, twice, a man who, as a businessman, had either four or more likely six bankruptcies to his name, depending on how you care to count them. And count on this as well: by the time he’s done as president this second time around, he could well have (again depending on how you count) either five or seven of them on his record.

After all, he hasn’t hesitated to call global warming a “con,” “scam,” and “hoax,” claiming that “If you don’t get away from the green energy scam your country is going to fail.” In the process, he’s done just about everything in his power to promote fossil fuels, while trying to dismantle the creation of green energy, genuinely threatening (in his own strange fashion) to bankrupt not just this country but this planet. (Thank heavens, the courts so far have stopped him from destroying coastal wind power projects, though we don’t yet know how [his] Supreme Court will deal with such cases.)

It’s honestly strange (at least to me) that, while all of this is indeed reported in our media and Donald Trump is the eternal center of news attention, so little attention is paid to what he’s likely to mean for the future of humanity on this planet. Climate change, of course, seldom makes the sort of headlines and news that he creates day by day, hour by hour, no matter what he happens to be doing. And that’s doubly strange, because if he were a Stalin- or a Hitler-equivalent in another country, promoting the extinction of parts of humanity, it would certainly be headline news.

But while his words and acts, when it comes to turning this planet into a major heat zone, are certainly reported, they’re seldom the top of the news. They’re just another passing strangeness in the world of You Know Who. And that, under the circumstances, should seem strange indeed — or rather stranger than so much else that takes up our time these days.

Once upon a time, in another life and another world, if someone had told me about the planet I now inhabit (along with the rest of you), I don’t think I would have believed them. Donald Trump as president of the United States? You must be kidding (and it’s not even a good joke)! Our planet is melting in a climate broiler that we control and we’re not only not turning down the heat fast enough, but we Americans elected someone (twice!) determined to turn it up ever higher. Honestly, who would have believed any of that once upon a time?

Not me, I can tell you that. Even without climate change, Donald Trump’s presidency would have been an eye-poppingly strange experience. With climate change, however, he’s a nightmare beyond words — though, in a sense, he’s never beyond words. There isn’t a moment when he doesn’t want to say something to the rest of us, his apprentices, and be the center of attention for time immemorial. Yikes, I’m sweating!

In a recent article I argued that the world is now crossing a threshold from decades of growth and increasing integration to decades of economic shrinkage and political breakdown. This shift will create stresses that extend in scale from ecosystems and international relations down to households and individuals. Everyone will be personally—and likely profoundly—impacted by the polycrisis.

There are three components to this tectonic shift: environmental, economic, and political. It’s useful to think of this in terms of disasters, e.g. natural disasters, economic calamities, and government repression or civil war.

Every disaster is unique, but some general observations apply. When a disaster happens, our normal sense of time is interrupted and our priorities get scrambled. Suddenly, nothing matters but the immediate necessities of escaping harm and helping others to safety. People’s attitudes tend to be sober, purposeful, and helpful; hysteria is rare. Everyone’s implicit goal is to get back to something approximating normal. Importantly, disasters also tend to evoke a similar community-minded response in people: At least in the short run, they work together creatively to meet one another’s basic needs.

Environmental disasters are sometimes the easiest for victims to mentally comprehend, though not always to recover from. After floods, fires, earthquakes, and chemical spills, immediate response efforts are led by the affected region and surrounding communities, while longer-term recovery typically depends on national governmental assistance. Neighbors pull together to make sure all are safe (see this account of my experience during the 2017 wildfires in my hometown of Santa Rosa, California).

Severe political conflicts can therefore be more psychologically devastating than environmental or economic disasters. But, as we will see, they can also evoke extraordinary levels of community solidarity and mutual aid.

Economic disasters can linger for years and can scar a generation, as occurred during and in the wake of the Great Depression of the 1930s, and in the currency collapses that have plagued several nations over the last century. The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and the Covid-19 pandemic, though relatively short in duration, saw large-scale failure of businesses and disappearance of jobs. Again, it’s typically up to local communities to help meet people’s immediate needs until the national government can intervene to provide aid and stability.

Political disasters (including civil conflicts) are often different in significant ways. In some instances, they turn neighbor against neighbor, or communities against their national government. Government may hurt rather than help; indeed, government may be out to get you. Severe political conflicts can therefore be more psychologically devastating than environmental or economic disasters. But, as we will see, they can also evoke extraordinary levels of community solidarity and mutual aid.

The Great Unraveling of environmental and social stability will feature all three kinds of disasters. Currently, global breakdown is being accelerated primarily by an ongoing and worsening political calamity in the United States. In this article, we’ll go to the frontlines of conflict in Minneapolis to see how people are responding to a violent—even deadly—government-imposed crisis. As the Trump regime promises to end its surge of federal agents in that city, perhaps it’s a good time to reflect: What have we learned that might be helpful in future crises?

A City Under Siege

Recent events in Minneapolis and surrounding communities are being widely reported and analyzed. They’ve even been iconified in a Bruce Springsteen song. Our purpose here is to see what we can glean that’s relevant for the larger project of surviving the Great Unraveling.

First, some background facts. Following deployments of troops and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland, on January 6, 2026 president Donald Trump sent nearly 3,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents to Minneapolis—a medium-sized city of fewer than half a million residents. There is widespread speculation that the ICE surge was politically motivated, as Minneapolis is a bright blue* town in a blue state whose governor, Tim Walz, was the Democratic vice-presidential candidate in 2024. The massive deployment of federal agents dwarfed the city’s police force of 600 officers.

Trump and his officials have stated that the purpose of the ICE surge is to remove “the worst of the worst”—undocumented immigrants who are thieves, rapists, and murderers. However, officials have imposed unrealistic arrest quotas on agents, requiring them to round up more undocumented people than can be vetted for criminality—as well as US citizens and legal immigrants with green cards or refugee status. The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonprofit research organization, has found that roughly three-quarters of individuals currently detained by ICE do not have a criminal record, and that many who do were convicted of only minor offenses, like traffic violations.

Federal agents have focused their attention on places where undocumented people are likely to be found: restaurants, Home Depot stores, schools, and churches. Often, agents simply grab anyone who looks brown-skinned. They sometimes break into homes without warrants and effectively kidnap the residents, who are then sent to makeshift detention centers; family members may have no idea where their loved ones are for many days.

As a result, many immigrants and non-immigrants alike feel as though they are living under occupation by a hostile army. People are terrified, businesses are closed, workers are staying home, rent payments are falling behind, and children are not going to school.

Resistance Breeds Solidarity

The response of the people of Minneapolis and its surrounding suburbs has been peaceful but organized and insistent. Neighbors are protecting neighbors.

Minnesota has a longstanding tradition of mutual aid and of neighborhood organizing, which intensified after the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in 2020. Residents are making a disciplined effort to avoid violence, even when protesters are being attacked. They’ve created a leaderless cell-based pattern of organization, communicating through Signal (an encrypted social media app). Participants use pseudonyms, and every effort is made to maintain anonymity.

Actions undertaken in response to the specific needs of the community fall under four broad headings: documenting the actions of ICE agents; protesting their presence; protecting vulnerable people; and helping meet those people’s daily needs for food, shelter, schooling, and doctor visits. Often these actions require courage and creativity, as when massed members of the group Singing Resistance walk frozen streets, raising the spirits of fellow community members with songs of solidarity, grief, and rage.

I recently reached out to a friend who lives near Minneapolis to ask about their experience in resistance networks there. The story of what is happening there is best told by someone who is in the thick of it themselves, so I am giving over remainder of this article their words. This is an edited transcript of the comments from my friend, who wishes to remain anonymous:

“My first encounter with ICE was in mid-December. It was a very cold day. I saw construction workers trapped on the roof of a house they were building, and ICE had surrounded it. Very quickly, observers started gathering and blowing whistles. The workers on the roof weren’t prepared to be up there for a long time, so observers were trying to throw them blankets and handwarmers. In the end, one of the workers had to be taken to the hospital for possible frostbite.

"If anything positive is going to come from all this, it’s the fact that people are going to be more connected and more willing to help their neighbors."

“Later, I got involved in response efforts. We have ICE agents staying in hotels where I live, and there are some nicer restaurants that they like to frequent. There were reports of ICE outside one local restaurant. We talked with employees, who said there’s a table of ICE agents eating. Then we were able to identify a car of ICE agents outside, and people started surrounding the car and honking. This was before any of the observers had been killed [i.e., Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both gunned down by ICE and Border Patrol agents], so I think we were a little bolder at that point. One man even got out of his car and walked right up to the ICE vehicle and yelled at them. Then the local police came, but the cops usually say they can’t intervene."

“On another occasion, there was a report of ICE agents outside a [Mexican] restaurant. I was the second observer on the scene; there was already a lady there with her megaphone, making noise. We had identified three ICE vehicles in the parking lot. So, we started driving around trying to get their plates so we could have them in our records and verify they were in fact federal agents. The goal was to make enough noise to hopefully get the agents to leave. We’re honking and flashing lights at them, and they’re flashing lights at us. They were obviously irritated. Within 20 minutes, between 15 and 20 additional cars showed up to observe and show support for the cornered workers. One by one, they slowly left, and community members helped the workers who were trapped inside to get home safely in cars that weren’t identifiable to them."

“We’ve got a couple of contacts who live in big apartment buildings and who are vulnerable, and they’ve been go-betweens for fundraising. We’ve been able to fundraise to help people pay rent. It’s a domino effect: People are worried about going to work. They stop going to work, and restaurants temporarily close because a lot of their workers are vulnerable. As a result, they can’t earn money, and they’re at risk of losing their job."

“We get specific calls like, hey, we have this family that needs this or that, and people can raise their hands either to fund that, or to drop it off to the liaison who then distributes it, all to keep people’s information private."

“The ICE agents are adapting all the time. They’re changing up their cars, and they’re switching plates. There have been occasions where they are driving around without any plates at all. They were all wearing masks, and now a lot of them are wearing plain clothes to try and blend in more. But as they adapt, we do too."

“I think the community building going on has been impressive because, unlike what the media says, none of us have been paid a cent for this and never expect to be. At a protest the other night, one guy said, ‘There’s no amount that anybody could pay us to not show up for our neighbors.’ I don’t know why people can’t comprehend that people would be doing this just because they care about the well-being of others."

“It’s been an evolution. As people get more involved, they see the different pieces of the puzzle, and then they can contribute. The biggest thing for the people who’ve been leading it longer is that they’re getting burnt out. Many involved already have full-time jobs, and they’re also putting in full-time hours for this effort. So, the longer-term observers are keen to get more people in leadership roles so that the work can be distributed. And the ability to do that has come from just building trust with people you initially may only know anonymously through the phone. That trust comes from showing up repeatedly, putting in the time and effort, and vouching for each other."

“This is a community effort. I don’t think anyone is trying to be recognized for what they’re doing. Everyone involved knows that this is the right thing to be doing. There are a lot of people out there, especially in our government, who try to spin what’s going on here as being terroristic in intent, or that we’re just trying to interfere with government operations or hurt people. But that is so antithetical to what anyone here is actually trying to do."

“There’s risk involved, and the distributed leadership model helps diminish that because then individuals can’t be targeted as easily. But I know some of my local elected representatives have been involved, and they’ve been subject to threats, because they’re public and they’re not hiding their identity."

“Even when the imminent threat of people constantly being taken dies down, there’s going to be more need for community organizing and mutual aid. And so, hopefully, this is cementing a framework that we can continue to expand upon as needs in the community grow through whatever challenge may arise. I think if anything positive is going to come from all this, it’s the fact that people are going to be more connected and more willing to help their neighbors."

“Having these federal agents here and knowing my community is under extreme surveillance is unfamiliar and infuriating to me, but I know it is something like what many marginalized groups have contended with for decades or centuries."

“It is increasingly difficult to leave the house and drive somewhere without viewing every car with suspicion. We wave and smile as I pass through vulnerable neighborhoods, to show we are here to help and not harm. There is a sense that we are always ‘this close’ to an agent feeling justified to smash in our windows or detain us for simply practicing the rights the US Constitution entitles us to. We fear what may come next, what the retribution may be. It is frustrating knowing that if we call the cops with concerns regarding the illegal or unethical behaviors of these agents, we will be met with no response."

“But there is a power in this resistance, a feeling of deep connection and kinship to those around you, even if you just met or only know their online alias. You know you are on the same side of this battle for basic human rights. There’s a feeling that so many people have your back, even if they have never met you. Seeing extreme bravery from regular people encourages your own commitment."

“The biggest feeling of all, though, is the feeling that none of us are doing enough. Despite our efforts, people are still being taken from their families every day to potentially disappear in the system."

“The other frustrating thing, to me, is that this shouldn’t have to be our priority. It wouldn’t be if our United States government were set up in a way that wasn’t so focused on exploiting and ‘othering’ people for money and greed. We could be putting all this energy toward trying to build a more sustainable world rather than just protecting people from being abducted. But this is the imminent threat right now.”

Mardi Gras arrives, and masked federal agents continue their lawless violence under the false flag of "law enforcement." Meanwhile a federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration's latest anti-Haitian effort because, among other things, its racist foundation violates the law.

All of that is why phrases from Haitian singer Manno Charlemagne (1948-2017) have been coming to mind.

In one song, Charlemagne praises those who "unmask the wrongdoers" (demaske malpwopwete). In another, he scoffs at the bands of thinly disguised paramilitary cowards (yon bann fov mal maske). He might have been riffing on the Declaration of Independence's complaint about a king who sends "Swarms of Officers to harass our People," quoted last month by the federal judge who ordered the release of a 5-year-old boy and his father from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention in Texas.

Manno, as everyone called him, was Haiti's best-known singer-songwriter and a leading activist in his own country's fight for democracy. I was fortunate to have met him when I worked at Miami's Haitian Refugee Center in the 1990s, and we later translated some of his songs from Haitian Kreyòl to English.

Behind the masks are not just racists, but bullies, and bullies are cowards.

Manno's 1989 "Lamayòt" was written for Carnival, which in Haiti as elsewhere brings new political songs. As Edwidge Danticat explains, "A lamayòt is a mysterious box whose contents are known only to its owner, and which others can see only after they have paid some kind of price. In politics, lamayòt can refer to, among other things, trickery, a sleight of hand, and broken promises."

In "Lamayòt," Manno mocks the military oppressors who promote themselves and make up their own rules, thinking that guns and the power to intimidate make them right. But their masks and smirking, sings Manno, are the only flag they carry, and people see right through their pathetic Mardi Gras disguise: "Lan fè grimas se drapo nou pote... Pou mwen nou pa menm madigra k mal maske."

Despite a push from activists, and with Democrats following their lead, agents are sure to keep their masks on. Yes, it's to protect themselves—from accountability. ICE and the Border Patrol have always aspired to lawlessness, and under President Donald Trump they have moved further than ever in that direction.

In California this month, a judge ruled against a state prohibition on federal agents hiding behind masks, but only because the law doesn't also apply to state law enforcement. In response, State Sen. Scott Wiener has said he will push for a law that covers all officers. Wiener's statement could be from a Carnival song: "We will unmask these thugs and hold them accountable." The Field Office Director for ICE Enforcement and Removal (ERO) in San Francisco had told the court that the law should be struck down because"DHS does not intend to comply" with it.

Agents claiming to enforce the law—even when they actually do so—are violating federal law by refusing to identify themselves: "At the time of the arrest, the designated immigration officer shall, as soon as it is practical and safe to do so, identify himself." The city of Santa Ana has actually passed a resolution suggesting that the federal government follow federal law.

The Trump administration also claims that federal agents can give themselves permission to break down your door and check your papers or abduct you, though that's not how "permission" or warrants work. The Associated Press reports that the latest in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "ruses" includes the use of false license plates in violation of Minnesota law, and the impersonation of local police, construction workers, and utility workers.

Behind the masks are not just racists, but bullies, and bullies are cowards. That's why their bosses keep saying how brave they are while whining about their victimhood. In the first Trump administration, DHS Secretary John Kelly complained that his agents "are often ridiculed and insulted... and frequently convicted in the court of public opinion on unfounded allegations." In November, a deputy chief of Border Patrol told a California court that agents wear masks and "remove their badges, nameplates, or unique identifiers" because "incidents across the nation have created an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty" for them.

A Burmese-American named Ba Zan Lin spent 18 years "living under dictatorship and tyranny" in his native country. Last year he told a Buffalo (New York) audience, writes Geoff Kelly in the Investigative Post, "that the measures taken by ICE agents to conceal their identities—unmarked vehicles, face masks, no badges or name-tags—indicates their authority is vulnerable to challenges by ordinary citizens."

"'As long as they're still wearing masks, they're still afraid of us,'" Lin said.

"What you do to scare me only excites me," sang Manno Charlemagne. "Masked man, I'm not afraid of you. You're only a person."

On February 12, 2026, the US Environmental Protection Agency repealed the Endangerment Finding, a key determination for regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. This decision follows the EPA’s January 2026 announcement that air quality protections will be determined based on corporations’ bottom lines, not people’s health. These harmful decisions join a dizzying number of other regulations essential for environmental justice that have been dismantled, deregulated, or destroyed.

In these times, it would be easy to despair about how the tireless movement organizing labor that made these strides possible over many years has now been eroded. However, we cannot accept defeat. My decades of frontline organizing with workers and environmental justice communities toward a just transition shows that transformations come from our collective power. No matter the obstacles, we have the real solutions needed for the crucial work ahead, including during the upcoming Santa Marta conference.

Last year marked a huge moment for just transition. This movement and the principles that inform it often took center stage in grassroots organizing and during the United Nations Climate Summit in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025. The popularity of this concept, practice, and process reveals both promising and harmful co-opted outcomes for Indigenous Peoples, frontline workers, and fenceline communities. The language can be amplified by those most impacted, used to communicate their demands and desires, and it can be used as a tool for trying to undermine the hard work of community organizations and frontline communities.

At COP30, while we welcomed progressive news media coverage and the labor of journalists to cover such an intense few weeks of climate justice and just transition advocacy, we also witnessed reporting by some Global North journalists and news outlets that worked to minimize the credibility of frontline groups and community-based organizations, while amplifying the voices and positions of false solutionists and disaster capitalists.

Unlike some researchers who argue that the negotiations can be improved by using generative artificial intelligence for creating treaty drafts, we know who has the real solutions and who must be centered in building pathways toward just transition.

Much mainstream coverage of COP30 has not adequately addressed the indispensable role of grassroots organizing in pushing toward the successful implementation of a Just Transition Mechanism within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Several days before the official start of COP30, the Movimiento de Afectados por Represas held the IV International Encuentro (Meeting) of People Affected by Dams and the Climate Crisis. This global gathering resulted in the launch of an international movement. Similarly, the Peoples’ Summit, including a just transition axis, was integral in building relationships and movement power. These mobilizations and knowledge sharing spaces worked synergistically with the Global Day of Action for Climate Justice, which occurred on November 15, with people of the world overflowing into the streets of Belém. It was these preceding and concurrent gatherings that energized Just Transition cross-constituencies and that shaped the direction of the Just Transition Work Programme negotiations and the resulting Just Transition Mechanism.

Many celebrate the institutionalization of just transition as one of the greatest successes at COP30. However, much work remains in the implementation process for the new mechanism to actually advance a just transition. Without a commitment to and practice of Indigenous Principles of Just Transition and Just Transition Principles, this mechanism will become another failed effort and abuse of the labor of frontline peoples and grassroots groups who have fought so hard for so long.

Unlike some researchers who argue that the negotiations can be improved by using generative artificial intelligence for creating treaty drafts, we know who has the real solutions and who must be centered in building pathways toward just transition. Groups practicing agroecology and Landback, as well as waste pickers and many other frontline workers, are creating collective power that brings together the most affected workers and environmental justice communities, rather than pitting them against each other.

Additionally, as knowledge holders, Indigenous Peoples and Afro-Indigenous Peoples hold inherent and collective rights; accordingly, they should not be conflated as part of “civil society.” We know that Indigenous Peoples and civil society members must be the ones consulted and centered in these key United Nations negotiations and texts, not the corporate profiteers and their political cronies who pollute just transition possibilities at every COP and at many other conferences.

This year marks 35 years since I served on the drafting committee of the Principles of Environmental Justice and 30 years since I contributed to the Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing. These principles and the relationships and lived experiences that gave them life continue to inform and fortify our movements toward just transition and a livable world where we all can thrive. Let’s not forget these principles and the frontline peoples who made them possible.

Mardi Gras is a transnational, diasporic cultural tradition rooted in Christian liturgical calendars and continually reshaped through Afro-diasporic, colonial, and migrant histories. Across cultures and centuries, the passage from winter to spring has carried a shared meaning: renewal. It is a moment marked not only by seasonal change but by intentional pause, a time to reassess habits, responsibilities, and the ways individual actions shape collective life.

In New Orleans and across South Louisiana, that pause arrives right after Mardi Gras. Carnival season, with its music, artistry, and communal joy, gives way to Lent, a period traditionally devoted to reflection, restraint, and service. Similar practices appear across faiths and cultures, from Ramadan in Muslim communities to Passover in Jewish tradition and secular observances tied to the spring equinox. Each reflects a collective understanding that cycles of abundance must be balanced by intention.

Within Christian tradition, Lent centers on three practices: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. These concepts readily translate into environmental responsibility. Fasting becomes a restraint from unnecessary consumption. Prayer becomes a reflection on the consequences of habitual behavior. Almsgiving becomes solidarity with communities bearing the costs of environmental harm.

Plastic-Free Friday, a weekly initiative launched by RISE St. James, draws directly from these shared values. Rather than framing plastic reduction as individual sacrifice, the campaign presents it as a communal act of care, rooted in culture, seasonality, and public health. That framing matters, particularly along the Gulf Coast, where plastic pollution is a lived and often encouraged reality.

Mardi Gras Was Never Meant to Be Disposable

Mardi Gras is among the world’s most recognized cultural celebrations and is central to New Orleans’ identity and economy. Yet when the parades end, and the streets are cleared, the environmental consequences of Carnival season remain.

In 2023, Mardi Gras celebrations generated approximately 1,162 tons of waste over 11 days, according to data from the City of New Orleans Department of Public Works. An estimated 25% of that waste consisted of plastic beads, according to local waste audits and bead recovery organizations. While recovery efforts have expanded, reclaiming more than 10,000 pounds of beads during the 2025 Carnival season, these initiatives capture only a fraction of the plastic distributed each year.

Plastic-Free Friday leverages cultural timing, community norms, and shared identity to reframe plastic reduction as a public health intervention rather than a personal moral test.

Much of the remainder enters landfills, clogs storm drains, or is carried into surrounding waterways. Over time, these plastics degrade into microplastics that are now detected in soil, seafood, drinking water, and human tissue. Peer-reviewed research increasingly links microplastic exposure and associated chemical additives to endocrine disruption, reproductive harm, immune dysfunction, and elevated cancer risk.

These risks extend far beyond festival cleanup. They intersect with a deeper public health and environmental justice crisis that has long shaped life along the Gulf Coast.

Plastic Is a Public Health Issue

Plastic pollution is often framed as a waste management issue. In communities along Louisiana’s industrial corridor, it is also a determinant of health.

Plastic production relies on fossil fuels and petrochemical infrastructure that is disproportionately concentrated in low-income and predominantly Black communities along the Mississippi River. Residents living near these facilities experience elevated exposure to air and water pollution, higher rates of respiratory illness, and increased cancer risks, trends documented by the Louisiana Tumor Registry and federal environmental justice screening tools. From extraction and production to disposal, plastic reinforces structural inequities that shape who bears the health costs of modern consumption.

Every single-use item, whether a bottle, a bag, or a Mardi Gras bead, participates in that system. The connection between consumption and harm is rarely visible in moments of celebration, but it becomes clear when examined through a public health lens.

Plastic-Free Friday situates that connection within everyday life. By encouraging individuals and communities to reduce plastic use one day a week, the campaign lowers barriers to participation while fostering habit formation and collective awareness. Behavioral science research shows that recurring, socially reinforced practices are more likely to produce sustained change than isolated actions. Plastic-Free Friday leverages cultural timing, community norms, and shared identity to reframe plastic reduction as a public health intervention rather than a personal moral test.

Legal Challenges Along the Gulf Coast

Along the Gulf Coast, particularly in Louisiana, residents and environmental organizations have turned to the courts to challenge permitting practices they argue ignore cumulative pollution and disproportionate health risks. Lawsuits supported by national groups, including Earthjustice, contest permit extensions for proposed petrochemical and plastics projects in St. James Parish, where residents already face elevated rates of respiratory illness and cancer.

Through small but consistent acts of restraint, reflection, and solidarity, communities across the Gulf Coast can reduce plastic exposure, protect public health, and support those most affected by the plastic economy.

Additional litigation seeks broader remedies. Residents of St. James Parish, represented by the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic, have filed civil rights lawsuits alleging discriminatory land-use practices and calling for a moratorium on new petrochemical development. A federal judge’s decision to allow key claims to proceed reflects increasing judicial scrutiny of cumulative environmental harm linked to industrial siting.

These cases emphasize the limits of addressing plastic pollution solely through waste management. Plastic-Free Friday complements, rather than replaces, legal and regulatory accountability by addressing demand and public awareness.

Culture Endures

Mardi Gras is sustained by continuity, creativity, and collective participation. Plastic pollution imposes a lasting burden on the environment and health systems, persisting long after its causes are forgotten.

Plastic-Free Friday offers a culturally grounded and scalable response. Through small but consistent acts of restraint, reflection, and solidarity, communities across the Gulf Coast can reduce plastic exposure, protect public health, and support those most affected by the plastic economy.

As environmental challenges intensify, the path forward may not always begin with a sweeping transformation. Sometimes it begins more simply, with a pause at the end of a season, a shared intention, and a decision to choose differently, together.

Much has already been written about Secretary of State Marco Rubio's damage-control mission to the Munich Security Conference, sent to cool transatlantic tensions mere weeks after President Donald Trump hinted multiple times at annexing Greenland by force. But beneath the conciliatory tone was Rubio's explicit defense of the fight against “godless communist revolutions” and “anti-colonial uprisings” throughout the world, a horrific sanitization of the US-backed dictatorships that terrorized Latin America and beyond in the last century.

Rubio painted a sweeping narrative of Western civilization under threat. “The great Western empires had entered into terminal decline,” he declared, “accelerated by godless communist revolutions and by anti-colonial uprisings that would transform the world and drape the red hammer and sickle across vast swaths of the map.”

That line is a direct homage to the doctrines of Cold Warriors Henry Kissinger and Jeane Kirkpatrick, both of whom infamously argued that right-wing dictators were acceptable allies in the fight against communism—regardless of their brutality—because they were “authoritarian” rather than "totalitarian.” Yes, even if those “communists” were democratically elected, popular, and nonviolent.

The implication, delivered with straight-faced solemnity in Munich, is that the US-backed campaign against leftist movements in the Cold War was a noble defense of freedom, democracy, and Christian civilization.

The United States can continue down the path outlined by Rubio’s speech, but it will only accelerate its decline, alienate its allies, and create the very chaos it claims to fight.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the US helped set up Operation Condor, a network that far-right dictatorships operated throughout the 1970s and 1980s as a coordinated system of state terror across South America. The Chilean intelligence service chillingly described it as “something similar to what Interpol has in Paris, but devoted to subversion.” It was, also important to mention, explicitly framed by the US government to defend Christian civilization (also called the Banzer Plan).

Rubio's Christian civilization trope is an ode to a very specific, pro-corporate, pro-authoritarian, and white-supremacist Christianity, the same ideology championed by Donald Trump's MAGA movement. This is the same ideology that colonized, enslaved, and subjugated Latin America and the Global South, through the European institutions he lifted up in his speech. Centuries later, the United States resurrected this crusade through the CIA, which funded and even armed the rise of far-right, pro-capitalist Evangelical movements, to actively oppose and dismantle the more redistributive, popular Catholic churches rooted in liberation theology.

Many of the right-wing paramilitaries and dictatorships backed by the US were explicitly Christian. They, however, killed priests who did not adhere to rigid far-right fundamentalism—Catholic groups were central to the resistance. That Evangelical fundamentalism now fuels the region's new wave of right-wing leaders, including Jair Bolsonaro, Javier Milei, Maria Corina Machado, and José Antonio Kast, who are also fanatical supporters of Israel.

The Condor system maintained a centralized database tracking guerrilla movements, left-wing parties, trade unionists, religious groups, liberal politicians, and anyone deemed an enemy of the authoritarian regimes. These designated “terrorists” were hunted across borders, tracked down, and eliminated throughout the Americas and even in Europe, including France, Spain, Italy, and Portugal.

The United States actively designed, funded, and supported this architecture of repression, and then helped cover it up. The infamous, still-open School of the Americas trained torturers, while CIA stations shared intelligence with Condor operatives. US Embassies smoothed relations with allies and propagandized local populations.

In Bolivia, the US backed Hugo Banzer after his predecessor convened a People's Assembly of proletarian sectors to usher in populist reforms. That president was later kidnapped, tortured, and assassinated by the Condor system.

In Brazil, Washington supported the neo-Nazi-backed military coup that deposed social democrat João Goulart after he attempted mild economic reforms, ushering in two decades of brutal military rule.

In Chile, the US organized against socialist president Salvador Allende, who was instituting democratic, redistributive reforms. The Nixon administration famously declared it would “make the economy scream” in Chile, and went on to support Augusto Pinochet's coup, which brought torture, disappearances, and a dictatorship that murdered thousands. Rubio and the US currently back its Pinochet-supporting, grandson-of-an-SS-lieutenant President, Jose Antonio Kast.

On the topic of the SS, the US used Nazis as part of their anti-leftist subversion campaign in the Cold War. After World War II, the US set up “ratlines,” or escape routes, for Nazis and Nazi sympathizers throughout Latin America and Europe, to escape prosecution. They ended up being key architects of the US-backed right-wing dictatorships throughout the world including in Latin America, while many even joined anti-communist death squads.

Final Solution architects Adolf Eichmann, Klaus Barbie, Josef Mengele, and countless others all left for South America with help from the US State Department, which Rubio now commands.

The US also deposed socialist governments and installed brutal right-wing regimes in the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti (multiple times), Mexico, Nicaragua (multiple times through the Somoza family), Costa Rica, Honduras (multiple times), El Salvador, and Panama.

In Guatemala, the CIA overthrew socialist president Jacobo Arbenz after he dared to enact land reform that threatened the American United Fruit Company, whose political connections apparently mattered more than Guatemalan democracy. Guatemala was ruled by brutal military dictators for decades afterward, also regimes the US supported.

Mind you, this is only in Latin America—the US did plenty more of this in Europe, Asia, and Africa. This was all less than 50 years ago, and continues to this day.

Such is the legacy that Rubio defends when he mourns the setbacks to “Western civilization” made by “anti-colonial uprisings.” We must ask, why did those uprisings occur? Is Rubio implying that opposing colonialism is bad? Most of them occurred after centuries of slavery and subjugation, some of which was inflicted by the US.

This historical whitewashing serves Rubio's contemporary objectives. The United States is currently engaged in a multi-front campaign to reshape Latin America into a bastion of pro-American right-wing populism.

The administration has waged economic war on Venezuela, and Cuba, now on the verge of total humanitarian collapse. It swayed the last election in Honduras through disinformation and threats—continuing a pattern of US intervention that began with the Obama administration's 2009 backing of a coup against socialist Manuel Zelaya. Trump's first term engineered a coup in Bolivia against socialist Evo Morales, that Rubio enthusiastically supported.

Trump’s second administration has threatened strikes on Mexico and Colombia, imposed sanctions and tariffs on Brazil, and openly and covertly supported authoritarian parties throughout the hemisphere, including the Bolsonaros in Brazil, Milei in Argentina, Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, Daniel Noboa in Ecuador, Tuto Quiroga in Bolivia, and opposition figures across the region.

There is something profoundly ignorant in Rubio's performance. He and his boss have championed authoritarian tactics, openly supported neo-Nazi politics, praised dictators abroad, and destroyed democracy and the Constitution at home. To then stand before the world to declare that America defends freedom, democracy, and Judeo-Christian principles against godless revolutionaries is a ridiculous diminution of those very principles.

As Salvador Allende put it mere hours before his death at the hands of US forces at the Palacio de la Moneda, “While they have strength and will be able to dominate us, social processes can be arrested neither by crime nor force.”

In Haiti, more than a century of US interventions, coups, and support for corrupt and violent figures has produced a humanitarian catastrophe that now generates waves of migration, while the American right has the gall to turn around and fearmonger about Haitian migrants invading the country.

As Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says, “Foreign intervention can cause more damage than it seeks to prevent.” They create the migration crises that then become fodder for right-wing demagogues. They alienate Latin American populations, who increasingly view China more favorably than the United States, because while Washington offers only militarism and domination, Beijing offers infrastructure investment and trade (however problematic its own debt traps may be).

Many Latin American states would rather navigate imbalanced partnerships with China than submit to foreign invasions and coups from Washington.

The United States can continue down the path outlined by Rubio’s speech, but it will only accelerate its decline, alienate its allies, and create the very chaos it claims to fight. Or it could finally reckon honestly with its history and chart a different, humane course.

Eduardo Galeano once said, “Latin America is part of the world, which was for many years condemned to the system of power where intimidation had more strength than the vote.” By sanitizing these atrocities, Rubio is condemning Latin America and the world to that fate once again.

When President Donald Trump convened his so-called Board of Peace in Davos, Switzerland, a key item on the agenda was to endorse his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s extravagant (and, I might add, detached from reality) plan for a “New Gaza.” The rendering of Kushner’s scheme shows it to be more of a luxury resort for wealthy tourists than the foundation of a just future for the Palestinian victims of Israel’s genocide. But since the raison d’être of the Board of Peace was supposed to be dealing with the aftermath of Israel’s war on Gaza, the conversation, by necessity, had to address the needs of hundreds of thousands of now-homeless Palestinians.

Thus, Kushner presented a proposal for a model Palestinian community—the “New Rafah”—he intends to build to house Palestinians in Gaza. The plans for this New Rafah have been circulated since the meeting. Everything is covered: how Gaza’s economy will run; how its educational and health systems will create a new generation of hale and non-ideological Palestinians; and how the “new cities” will be laid out, function, and be governed. And everything has been calculated down to how many teachers, doctors, judges, religious leaders, and laborers will be needed per capita in each community.

If Kushner were preparing an owner’s manual for a complex piece of machinery or the instructions for installing and operating new software, this plan might seem flawless. But Palestine isn’t a video game, and Palestinians are human beings, not Lego pieces to be assembled, as per the instructions. Like every other people on Earth, Palestinians have emotional ties to their homes and families, and memories of the personal and collective injustices they have endured. This failure to consider the fullness of Palestinian humanity is the fatal flaw that will either stop the New Rafah before it begins or cause it to unravel soon afterward.

The refusal of those who have held power over Palestine to acknowledge the grievances and aspirations of its Indigenous Arab people isn’t new. In fact, it has defined their history.

Instead of acting to support Palestinians as their rights were systematically trampled, the US and other Western states have historically blamed Palestinians, while exonerating themselves and Israel.

For example, in 1919, when the British Lord Balfour was presented with the findings of the US-commissioned survey of Arab attitudes, which demonstrated their overwhelming rejection of his intent to grant the Zionist movement a homeland in Palestine, he famously responded, “In Palestine, we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting its inhabitants as to their wishes... Zionism… [is] of far profounder import than the desire and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who inhabit that ancient land.”

And Palestinians were not consulted when the United Nations drew up grossly unfair maps to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. Those maps gave the Jewish community over one-half of the land (despite its being less than a third of the population). The maps were rejected by Palestinians because more than half a million of them were disenfranchised without any say in the matter. Nor did Palestinians receive support when 650,000 of their brethren were expelled from the newly created Israel in 1948, or when, after the Oslo Accords, neither the UN nor the US would hold Israel accountable for sabotaging the peace plan through settlement expansion, land seizures, the erection of a wall, and the deliberate obstruction of the development of a Palestinian economy.

Instead of acting to support Palestinians as their rights were systematically trampled, the US and other Western states have historically blamed Palestinians, while exonerating themselves and Israel. The result of this century of systematic abuse and denial of rights has been to create a Palestinian community that is justifiably embittered and losing hope. And when they express these feelings, their grievances are dismissed and they are told to just “deal with it”—something that would never be said to, for example, Israelis or the Jewish people. This is because US policymakers understand the full humanity of the Jewish community. They understand their history of the losses they have experienced and their need to be respected and heard.

What we are seeing in the wake of the genocide in Gaza and in the midst of the state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing and erasure of Palestinian communities in the West Bank is just the same story playing out one more time. Every effort is made to make Israelis feel secure, while Palestinians are expected to lose their homes, families, and memories, and be resigned to being moved about like pawns on a chessboard and be grateful to have the opportunity to live in a model city once they have been properly vetted, biometrically identified, and de-radicalized. The bottom line is that Palestinians have never been permitted the human right to make their own decisions. The results have been devastating both for them and for the region. The reason behind the wars that have been fought and the aberrant behavior of some elements of Palestinian society can be found in one simple fact: the refusal to allow Palestinians the freedom to determine their future in a manner that recognizes the fullness of their humanity.

We’ve polled throughout Palestine a number of times in the past few years, and what we’ve found is that Palestinians don’t want to live under the control of Israel or any other external powers. They want the Israeli occupation to end, national unity of all factions in all parts of their country, and to hold a national referendum to elect new leaders and develop a plan for governance that can move them toward freedom and independence. They deserve nothing less.

The world is witnessing yet another manufactured humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in plain sight in Cuba. This crisis is not the result of any internal collapse or mismanagement. It is the deliberate outcome of United States policy, a policy of collective punishment designed to impose economic suffocation on an entire population to extract political change. President Donald Trump has openly declared his intention to overthrow the Cuban government by year’s end, meaning Washington is transforming its decades-old blockade into a full-scale siege. The Trump administration has absurdly designated the small, peaceful Caribbean nation as “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to the United States, weaponizing tariffs and economic coercion against any country that dares to sell oil to Cuba.

The consequences are immediate and impossible to ignore. Cuban authorities have announced that jet fuel will be unavailable at airports across the country starting this week, disrupting airport operations and grounding both domestic and international carriers. Canadian airlines have already announced contingency plans for flights to and from Cuba, assessing reroutes, suspensions, and assistance for stranded travelers. But aviation is only the most visible edge of a far deeper collapse. If Cuba’s energy infrastructure fails, people will die. This is not a metaphor. It is inevitable. Without electricity, food cannot be grown, preserved, or transported. Medicines cannot be produced, refrigerated, or administered. Hospitals cannot operate. Ambulances, incubators, and ventilators will stop.

This deprivation is not at all incidental. It is intentional. Administration officials and the extreme right Cuban American political establishment have been explicit: The goal is to inflict suffering, to manufacture hunger, medicine shortages, and nationwide blackouts as instruments of regime change. Washington’s intentions could not be clearer. The United States is attempting to strangle an entire nation into submission.

While the US pursues this deliberate campaign of suffering, Ottawa has once again chosen the path of procedural dithering, offering words instead of action. Canada’s response, to no one’s surprise, has been another Kafkaesque exercise in bureaucratic evasion. When Senator Yuen Pau Woo asked officials from the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade what Canada is doing to prevent this potentially catastrophic humanitarian disaster in Cuba, the exchange exposed more absence than action. Pressed for specifics, the response was: “There are no specifics.” The officials further conceded that “there is no humanitarian response plan for Cuba that I’m aware of,” explaining that Canada’s engagement has been framed as “more looking at the development context and not the humanitarian context.”

Canada is not responsible for US actions. But it is responsible for its response to them.

In practice, this distinction functions as a delay mechanism. The government is “looking into the matter,” as it so often does, deferring urgency behind the process while conditions deteriorate. The latency appears less accidental than structural. And, as usual, no timeline has been offered, no indication of when this period of observation will end, or when statements will give way to action.

This pattern is not all new, nor is it confined to Cuba. It is, in fact, a continuation of a long record of calibrated restraint and strategic silence. Canada’s response over the past few years has been consistent, predictable, and deeply inadequate. By now, Canada has perfected the art of tactful bystanding, present in language, absent in consequence. Ottawa has expressed concern, called for deescalation, and urged all parties to respect international law, but it has avoided naming responsibility and evaded confronting its closest ally. Canada criticizes outcomes while refusing to challenge the very system that produces them. This is simply appeasement dressed up as diplomacy. While statements are issued, the systems that produce these horrors remain untouched, leaving ordinary people, Palestinians, Venezuelans, Iranians, and now Cubans, to bear the consequences.

For the past two years, the United States has funded and enabled genocide in Gaza, where tens of thousands of civilians have been killed with US weapons, under US protection, with full knowledge that no meaningful consequences will follow. A recent Al Jazeera investigation revealed that US-supplied thermal and thermobaric munitions, burning at 3,500°CC, effectively evaporated nearly 3,000 Palestinians, leaving no trace of their bodies, a stark illustration of unchecked barbarism. And as we speak, Israeli authorities are reportedly preparing to execute Palestinian prisoners under mandatory death penalties in military courts for vaguely defined “terrorism” offenses, laws applied only to Palestinians. And yet Canada, despite claiming to have imposed an arms embargo, continues to supply ammunition and weapons parts that fuel this violence. Canadian factories produce fighter jet components, explosives, and munitions that flow through US channels directly into the assault, sustaining the machinery of death while Ottawa issues carefully worded statements of concern.

This silence is not confined to Gaza. After the United States launched strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, Ottawa responded with bland calls for calm and diplomacy. Still, it deliberately refrained from directly condemning Washington’s military action, instead echoing cautious G7 language about negotiation without even naming the US role in the escalation.

And when the US carried out large‑scale strikes in Venezuela and captured its president, Canada’s official statement did not even bother to mention the United States. And, instead offered abstract calls for all parties to “uphold international law” while leaving Washington’s unilateral intervention unchallenged.

In each case, Ottawa paid lip service to restraint while leaving raw power untouched, exposing how Ottawa’s posture has consistently privileged diplomatic caution over moral accountability.

Although recently, it did seem that Canada’s posture might be shifting, tellingly, not because of mass civilian deaths abroad. The change came only when US military adventurism edged closer to home. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s warnings about a collapsing rules-based international order only came after the US threatened Greenland, a territory tied to NATO allies and Arctic stability. Only then did Canada speak clearly about sovereignty, coercion, and the dangers of unchecked power. The timing is telling. It suggests Canada perceives the risks of impunity only when they threaten Western interests or its own proximity, while the devastation inflicted on others remains effectively invisible.

Even then, the response has remained largely rhetorical.

When Canada’s response to ICE’s documented brutalities of its own citizens is so plainly inadequate, it comes as no surprise that its response to US aggression abroad is equally hollow and insufficient.

And now, as the humanitarian catastrophe looms in Cuba, Canada appears to be relying on verbal gymnastics to maintain political correctness while avoiding meaningful action. Even though, on paper, Ottawa opposes US sanctions and the blockade, in practice, it offers no condemnation, no advocacy, and no protection for ordinary Cubans facing hunger, blackouts, and collapsing hospitals. Suffice it to say, Canada has by now perfected the role of silent bystander to nearly an art form.

Today, the mechanisms that enable atrocity, impunity, exceptionalism, and allied silence are on full display and fully operational, and Cuba is simply the latest victim. To call the United States’ behavior “outside the spirit of international law” would be a grotesque understatement. Washington treats international law as optional, shielding mass civilian slaughter through diplomatic vetoes, launching unilateral strikes with impunity, and sustaining devastation through overwhelming military support.

Canada is not responsible for US actions. But it is responsible for its response to them. Ottawa has deliberately hidden behind bureaucratic loopholes while allowing Canadian-made weapons components and ammunition to move through US supply chains and into Israel, insulating itself from accountability while profiting from the machinery of war. Carney’s government has offered no clear or urgent plan on Bill C-233, legislation intended to curb Canadian arms exports where there is a risk of war crimes. The bill continues to hang in limbo, while Canada remains embedded in US military supply chains. Canadian-made F-35 components and ammunition continue to flow to the United States, where end-use accountability effectively disappears. Simultaneously, Canada continues to export armoured vehicles and security equipment to US agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an institution that has detained Canadian citizens without explanation, due process, or urgency.

When Canada’s response to ICE’s documented brutalities of its own citizens is so plainly inadequate, it comes as no surprise that its response to US aggression abroad is equally hollow and insufficient. None of the people affected by the US aggression—Palestinians, Iranians, Venezuelans, Cubans, or others subjected to unilateral force—believe that Canada is in their corner in any meaningful way. None. Canada’s response serves no protective function at all. It is a calculated performance of concern, engineered to evade moral obligation without disrupting US power.

If Canada genuinely wants to make a difference, it can start with something simple and immediate: Sell essential goods to Cuba, food, fuel, and medicine. Not statements. Not carefully worded press releases. Tangible relief that keeps lights on, shelves stocked, and patients alive. Yet, as so often before, Ottawa may retreat behind another polished, empty statement while taking no meaningful action.

Ottawa’s approach is built on a reckless assumption that Trump’s chaos is governed by strategy, that US volatility is calculable, and that Canada will somehow remain exempt. That illusion has already collapsed. The same contempt for international law has now extended to Greenland, with explicit annexation threats aimed at allies. If Canada continues to hedge, appease, and delay rather than act on principle, it should not expect any support when its own sovereignty is challenged. Silence does not buy safety. It only invites escalation. If Canada does not adjust its course, it may find that when threats strike closer to home, there will be no one left willing to stand alongside it.

The government of the state of South Australia announced recently that its wholesale electricity price fell in Q4 ’25 to $37 AU per megawatt hour ( / MWh) (that would be $26.22 US). That’s the lowest wholesale electricity price in all of the continent of Australia. The reason the price is so low is because South Australia has a lot of wind, solar and battery power, and output was high late last year. Remember, October – December in Australia is spring into summer.

That’s 2.6 US cents per kilowatt hour. The average cost of electricity in the United States is roughly 17 cents per kilowatt hour, because it is mostly generated by expensive, dirty, planet-wrecking fossil fuels.

So here’s the thing: in Q3 of last year, the price of wholesale electricity was $104 AU / MWh.

That’s right. In one three-month period, the price fell by a third.

Since South Australia is demonstrating that wind, solar and battery can cause the wholesale price of electricity to plummet, it is also pulling the curtain from the Trump administration’s con game in the US.

It was not a matter of usage falling off. The government says, “underlying demand in South Australia ticked up by 1.2 per cent to a fourth quarter record high of 1,624 MW.”

Of course, how the fall in the price of wholesale electricity gets translated into consumers’ home electricity bills is politics, not engineering.

Some 74% of South Australia’s electricity consumption is provided by renewables, and the state plans to make that 100% by 2027, in only two years. Wind, solar and battery generated 100% of the state’s electricity for 99 days (27% of the time) in 2024, the last year for which full data are available as yet.

50% of homes in the state have rooftop solar. South Australia has been a pioneer in mega-batteries combined with its solar generation. The country as a whole has 3 gigawatts of battery storage capacity. South Australian needs more battery build-out, so as to smooth out the excess generation from rooftop solar at noon and during early afternoon, which has been producing negative energy pricing, forcing utilities to pay people to take their electricity.

South Australia, despite its small population of about 2 million, is widely seen as a demonstration project for what the renewables revolution can mean for the lives of people in the industrialized democracies. Its Labor government has been committed to the project. Only a decade ago, most of its electricity was coal-generated. Alas, its Liberals (i.e. conservatives) are now campaigning on more fossil fuels. Since so much of the progress was grassroots, with people just installing solar panels, the transformation seems difficult to halt or even slow substantially.

What the state is showing us is that wind, solar and battery power, when combined, are extremely inexpensive. Moreover, there is every prospect of solar panels becoming cheaper, more efficient, and less bulky over the next decade as scientific research burgeons. Renewables are already much less expensive than fossil fuels.

What the state is showing us is that wind, solar and battery power, when combined, are extremely inexpensive.

It is true that because they are a new source of energy, they are attended by construction costs, whereas old coal and gas plants built years ago have already sunk that cost. But wind and solar are now so cheep that in many localities it is less expensive to build a new solar farm and operate it than just to keep an old gas or coal plant in operation.

Since South Australia is demonstrating that wind, solar and battery can cause the wholesale price of electricity to plummet, it is also pulling the curtain from the Trump administration’s con game in the US. By using the might of the federal government to bolster coal and gas, Trump and his minions can keep expensive and dangerous sources of power in place, making you pay more for your electricity and arranging for your money to line the pockets of his Big Carbon campaign donors. If fossil fuels were competitive, Trump wouldn’t have to try so hard to stall permitting for new wind and solar projects.

Here’s how Kentucky Republican Congressman Thomas Massie responded on Sunday, during ABC’s “This Week,” to a question about the Trump regime’s handling of the Epstein files:

“This is about the Epstein class …. They’re billionaires who were friends with these people, and that’s what I’m up against in Washington, D.C. Donald Trump told us that even though he had dinner with these kinds of people, in New York City and West Palm Beach, that he would be transparent. But he’s not. He's still in with the Epstein class. This is the Epstein administration. And they’re attacking me for trying to get these files released.”

The Epstein Class. Not just the people who cavorted with Jeffrey Epstein or the subset who abused young girls. It’s an interconnected world of hugely rich, prominent, entitled, smug, powerful, self-important (mostly) men. Trump is honorary chairman.

Trump is still sitting on two and a half million files that he and Pam Bondi won’t release. Why? Because they implicate Trump and even more of the Epstein class.

Trump appears 1,433 times in the Epstein files so far. His billionaire backers are also members. Elon Musk appears 1,122 times. Howard Lutnick is a member. So is Trump-backer Peter Thiel (2,710 times), and Leslie Wexner (565 times). As is Steven Witkoff, now Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, and Steve Bannon, Trump’s consigliere (1,855 times).

The Epstein Class isn’t limited to Trump donors. Bill Clinton is a member (1,192 times), as is Larry Summers (5,621 times). So are LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman (3,769 times), Prince Andrew (1,821 times), Bill Gates (6,385 times), and Steve Tisch, co-owner of the New York Giants (429 times).

If not politics, what connects the members of the Epstein Class? It’s not just riches. Some members are not particularly wealthy, but they’re richly connected. They trade on their prominence, on whom they know and who will return their phone calls.

They exchange inside tips on stocks, on the movements of currencies, on IPOs, on new tax-avoidance mechanisms. On getting into exclusive clubs, reservations at chic restaurants, lush hotels, exotic travel.

They entertain one another, stay at each other’s guest houses and villas. Some exchange tips on how to procure certain drugs or kinky sex or valuable works of art. And, of course, how to accumulate more wealth.

Most members of the Epstein Class have seceded into their own small, self-contained, squalid world. They are disconnected from the rest of society. Most don’t particularly believe in democracy; Peter Thiel (recall, he appears 2,710 times in the Epstein files) has said he “no longer believes that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

Many are putting their fortunes into electing people who will do their bidding. Hence, they are politically dangerous.

The Epstein Class is the by-product of an economy that emerged over the last two decades, from which this new elite has siphoned off vast amounts of wealth.

It’s an economy that bears almost no resemblance to that of mid-20th-century America. The most valuable companies in this new economy have few workers because they don’t make stuff. They design it. They create ideas. They sell concepts. They move money.

The value of businesses in this new economy isn’t in factories, buildings, or machines. It’s in algorithms, operating systems, standards, brands, and vast, self-reinforcing user networks.

I remember when IBM was the nation’s most valuable company and among its largest employers, with a payroll in the 1980s of nearly 400,000. Today, Nvidia is nearly 20 times as valuable as IBM was then and five times as profitable (adjusted for inflation), but it employs just over 40,000. Nvidia, unlike the old IBM, designs but doesn’t make its products.

Over the past three years, Google parent Alphabet’s revenue has grown 43 percent while its payroll has remained flat. Amazon’s revenue has soared, but it’s eliminating jobs.

Members of the Epstein Class are paid in shares of stock. As corporate profits have soared, the stock market has roared. As the stock market has roared, the compensation of the Epstein Class has reached the stratosphere.

Meanwhile, most Americans are trapped in an old economy where they depend on shrinking paychecks and a diminishing number of jobs. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York just reported that mortgage delinquency rates for lower-income households are surging.

Affordable housing isn’t a problem that occurs to the Epstein Class. Nor is income inequality. Nor the loss of our democracy. Nor the deleterious effects of social media on young people and children.

When Silicon Valley’s biggest tech proponent in Congress — Rep. Ro Khanna — recently announced his support for a tax on California billionaires, to help fill the void created by Trump’s cuts in Medicare (which, in turn, made way for Trump’s second huge tax cut for the rich), the Epstein Class had a fit.

Vinod Khosla, one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capitalists, with a net worth estimated at more than $13 billion (and who’s mentioned a mere 182 times in the Epstein files but is no friend of Trump), called Khanna a “commie comrade.”

Khosla, by the way, is best known by the public for having purchased 89 acres of California beachfront property in in 2008 for $32.5 million, then trying to block public access to the ocean with a locked gate and signs. Despite losing multiple court rulings, including a 2018 Supreme Court appeal, he carries on with the dispute.

Not classy, but, shall we say, a typical Epstein Class move.

Distinguished Members of the Security Council,

The President of the United States is issuing grave threats of force against the Islamic Republic of Iran if it does not accede to US demands. His actions risk a major regional war that would be devastating. Asked if he wanted regime change, he responded that it "seems like that would be the best thing that could happen." When asked why a second US aircraft carrier has been sent to the region, President Trump answered "in case we don't make a deal, we'll need it ... if we need it, we'll have it ready."

These threats are in violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which declares that “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”

These threats come in the context of Iran’s repeated calls for negotiations. Moreover, on February 7, Iran’s Foreign Minister delivered a speech in Doha proposing comprehensive negotiations for regional peace, following a round of talks in Oman supported by the diplomacy of the Arab states and Türkiye. Even as a second round of negotiations has been announced, the US is resorting to escalating threats of force.

Today, the world is in urgent need of a renewed commitment to diplomacy.

The issue facing the UN Security Council in these perilous days is whether any member state, by force or threat of force, may place itself above the United Nations Charter that governs us all. At stake is the integrity of the UN-based international system.

One of the crucial roles of the Security Council is to call on member states to settle disputes by peaceful means such as negotiation, mediation, arbitration, or judicial settlement, without the threat of force or resort to force. Today, the world is in urgent need of a renewed commitment to diplomacy.

The current threat of an attack by the US did not begin with any failure by Iran to negotiate. On the contrary, it began with the United States’ repudiation of negotiations that had already succeeded.

On July 14, 2015, after years of extensive diplomacy, Iran and the P5 countries plus Germany concluded the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program would remain exclusively peaceful. In return, economic sanctions on Iran were to be lifted. The JCPOA placed Iran’s nuclear activities under strict and continuous scrutiny by the International Atomic Energy Agency and thereby ended the risk of a nuclear-arms breakout by Iran, a risk that Iran had consistently denied.

On July 20, 2015, the UNSC unanimously adopted Resolution 2231. That resolution “endorses the JCPOA” and calls upon all states to take the steps “necessary to support the implementation.” It terminated previous sanctions resolutions and incorporated the JCPOA into international law. The Security Council explicitly recognized Iran’s “right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes” under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and established a robust verification regime.

Yet on May 8, 2018, three years after the successful UNSC Resolution, the United States unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA. This withdrawal was actively lobbied for by the Israeli government. Since the late 1990s, Israel’s leadership has repeatedly, falsely, and hypocritically claimed that Iran was on the verge of obtaining a nuclear weapon, even as Israel itself had secretly acquired nuclear weapons outside the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and has until today refused to join the treaty and subject itself to its controls.

When President Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the JCPOA, the US reimposed wide-ranging sanctions in direct contradiction of Resolution 2231 and launched a campaign of economic warfare designed to cripple Iran’s economy that continues to this day.

The current threats by the US are therefore part of a long-standing pattern of feigning interest in negotiations while in fact pursuing economic warfare and military force. In June 2025, following the renewal of negotiations earlier that year, the United States and Iran entered a sixth round of talks. The US had characterized the negotiations as constructive and positive. The sixth round was set for June 15, 2025. Yet on June 13, 2025, the US supported Israel’s bombing of Iran. A week after that, the US attacked Iran under Operation Midnight Hammer.

The US assault on the UN Charter has now escalated once again to the brink of war, with US threats of force and acts of economic warfare proceeding daily. The US has been escalating its military presence near Iran and has repeatedly threatened to launch an imminent attack.

The administration has also been candid about its strategy of economic warfare. On January 20, in an interview in Davos, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described how the US had deliberately engineered the collapse of the Iranian currency, a dollar shortage, and a collapse of imports, all with the goal of fomenting economic suffering and mass unrest. Bessent described the resulting unrest as “moving in a very positive way here.”

The current threats by the US are therefore part of a long-standing pattern of feigning interest in negotiations while in fact pursuing economic warfare and military force.

The most striking aspect of the US campaign for regime change in Iran is the repeated US insistence that Iran must negotiate. Iran has negotiated, repeatedly. The JCPOA was negotiated and ratified by the UN Security Council. Even after Iran engaged in renewed negotiations last summer, it faced large‑scale air strikes on its territory. Now, the US openly avows the policy of economic collapse and regime change.

No country is safe if the United States can make brazen threats against Iran and indeed several other states in recent weeks, including Cuba, Denmark, and others.

It is both sad and poignant to recall that the United Nations was the brainchild of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He envisioned an era of great-power cooperation and multilateralism under international law as the basis of international peace and security. His wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, oversaw the drafting and adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The US at that time envisioned an era in which diplomacy would prosper, and a time in which law and justice rather than brute force would prevail, a time when we would honor the words of the Prophet Isaiah inscribed on the wall on First Avenue facing the United Nations: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war any more.”

To allow the UN Charter to be ruthlessly violated, no less by its host country, is to invite the return to global war, this time in the nuclear age. In other words, it is to invite humanity’s self-destruction. On behalf of We the Peoples, the UN Security Council carries the authority and heavy responsibility to keep the peace.

Sincerely yours,

Jeffrey D. Sachs
University Professor at Columbia University

Appendix. I humbly offer below an illustrative Draft Resolution by which the UNSC could fulfill its duty in the current context.

The Security Council,

Recalling the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, in particular the obligation of all Member States to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, as set forth in Article 2(4) of the Charter,

Reaffirming that the maintenance of international peace and security rests upon respect for international law, the authority of the Security Council, and the peaceful settlement of disputes,

Recalling its resolution 2231 (2015), adopted unanimously on 20 July 2015, by which the Security Council endorsed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and called upon all Member States to take actions necessary to support its implementation,

Reaffirming its commitment to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the need for all States Party to that Treaty to comply fully with their obligations, and recalling the right of States Party, in conformity with Articles I and II of that Treaty, to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination

Acting under the Charter of the United Nations,

1. Calls upon all Member States to immediately and unconditionally cease all threats or uses of force and to comply fully with their obligations under Article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations;
2. Acknowledges that the JCPOA constituted a valid multilateral negotiation endorsed by the Security Council, and recognizes that the abandonment of the JCPOA resulted from the unilateral withdrawal of the United States;
3. Decides that, under its authority, the UNSC mandates all States concerned to immediately engage in negotiations to conclude a renewed comprehensive arrangement on the Iranian nuclear issue, building upon the principles of the JCPOA and fully consistent with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons;
4. Calls upon all Member States to refrain from actions that undermine diplomatic efforts, escalate tensions, or weaken the authority of the United Nations;

Decides to remain actively seized of the matter.

Insecurity is spreading. The world is experiencing unprecedented armed conflict. Sixty-one state-based armed conflicts have been recorded across 36 countries. Eleven of these escalated into full-scale wars. Instead of “never again,” genocide is ongoing—again and again—without a response to prevent more.

Unfortunately, those leading have little understanding of the problem as they are part of the problem. A solution will have to come from elsewhere.

Rather than encourage peace or progress, US Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, recently advised his generals that the Pentagon will be guided by the 4th century Roman dictum, "Sis vis pacem, para bellum"—"If you want peace, prepare for war." Despite mutual vulnerability in an interconnected world, Hegseth stressed that“the only mission of the newly restored Department of War is this: warfighting… We have to be prepared for war, not for defense. We're training warriors, not defenders. We fight wars to win, not to defend.”

Military spending is skyrocketing—tripling for some NATO allies—like Canada, Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania.

So, what might be done? Is there a way to encourage cooperative, win-win approaches for people and the planet? Possibly.

The US Department of War already has a trillion-dollar budget and it’s projected to be 50% larger—$1.5 trillion—by 2027. Such a surge is only required when a government plans to fight multiple wars abroad and stifle dissent at home. Stephen Miller, (President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff), already claims that “we are back to a world that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”

Overall, the cost of preparing for more war is almost $3 trillion annually. Worse, if current trends persist, the United Nations warns that “global military spending could reach $4.7 to $6.6 trillion by 2035.”

Yet even that huge cost is dwarfed by the damage caused, with the Global Peace Index reporting, “the economic impact of violence on the global economy in 2024 was $19.97 trillion in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms.” As they note: “This figure is equivalent to 11.6% of the world’s economic activity (gross world product), or $2,446 per person. Military and internal security expenditure accounts for over 74% of the figure, with the impact of military spending alone accounting for $9 trillion in PPP terms the past year.”

Of course, most governments understand that no amount of military spending can guarantee a reliable defense or provide security in the nuclear era. Wars have seldom been winnable over the past 80 years, even for the most powerful. President Trump was correct to note the US has not won a major war since 1947. But that stops neither the current wars nor the extravagant investment to get ready for more.

Clearly, higher military spending leaves less for social security, climate action, healthcare, education, and poverty reduction. Precarious conditions spread, giving rise to extremes that generate further insecurity, with new risks of race, class, and civil conflict. Trust in government erodes when funds are available for weapons but not for human needs. Militarism follows, deepening a culture of violence, poverty, and extremes.

As President and General Dwight D. Eisenhower said: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies... a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed... Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."

With ever-higher costs, there are ever-higher risks. All the great powers are modernizing and expanding their nuclear arsenals. They still rely on nuclear deterrence, with a threat of total destruction held in check by rational leaders who are supposed to maintain a system of mutually-assured destruction (MAD) in a "balance of terror." Oh, oh! Even a limited use of nuclear weapons is understood to risk "nuclear winter," with starvation for those who remain. Just last month, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reset the hands of their Doomsday Clock at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest the world has ever been to catastrophe.

"Caveat emptor"—countries, like people, eventually get what they plan, invest in, and prepare for. Many are already suffering from the violence and militarism they fund, support, and share with others (e.g. foreigners that someone, somewhere labelled as progressives, terrorists, protesters, or activists).

Among the recent targets were Yemen, Nigeria, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Somalia, Minnesota, Los Angeles, and Portland. Does anyone really think this violence is for peace and security?

Who knows who is next? Will it be Cuba, Columbia, Canada, China, Iceland, Mexico, New York, Maine, or Iran again?

People heard of the deeper, "complex" problem when President Dwight Eisenhower warned:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

With globalization and generous funding, this complex expanded worldwide into finance, banking, and insurance sectors; big oil and gas; telecommunications; logistics; media; surveillance; big data; robotics; and AI.

Eisenhower’s warning wasn’t enough to stem the appeal of profits, power, and control. The unwarranted influence is now everywhere, diminishing political autonomy to the point where government leaders believe they can’t say, “No.” And, this complex depends on violent conflict to "keep the old game alive."

In short, endless war continues in a dysfunctional, war-prone system. And, this system is the primary impediment to progress on a shared climate emergency and sustainable development.

"Endless war" is the risk in following the dubious Roman claim from the 4th century: "If you want peace, prepare for war." Notably, the Roman Empire didn’t survive with its massive military spending and constant civil wars. Instead, let’s remember, "Peace is possible, if we prepare for it."

For now, it is crucial to redirect the current trajectory away from more war and a climate crisis—a lose-lose outcome for all.

So, what might be done? Is there a way to encourage cooperative, win-win approaches for people and the planet? Possibly.

UN-Prepared

Over 80 years ago—in the aftermath of two World Wars—the universal challenge was how to confine the institution of war, preferably before it kills more, possibly everyone.

The United Nations was founded in response, primarily as a state-centric, international peace system. "Saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war" is at the forefront of the UN Charter. To its credit, the UN works daily on all the shared global challenges—sustainable development, human rights, climate change, international law, encouraging multilateral cooperation for peace, nuclear disarmament, culture and education, food and water, even more.

Yet the UN remains a work in progress—underfunded, unprepared, and poorly equipped—constrained by its 193 member states, and hamstrung by the Security Council’s veto power. As it stands, the UN cannot prevent violent conflict, enforce international law, or protect people and the planet effectively. These limits reflect the interests and political priorities of the UN’s member states. Global military spending ($3 trillion) is approximately 780 times higher than the UN’s regular budget ($3.45 billion), which is considerably less than the budget of the New York City Police Department.

Yet these priorities and limits are not fixed in stone. The UN still has the advantage of an exceptional charter, universal membership, 80 years of experience, with established programs, operations, and offices worldwide. Notably, people have not experienced another world war in 80 years. It is also widely acknowledged that UN peace operations—in deadly, remote conflicts—have saved millions of lives and billions of dollars.

In short, the UN foundation is sufficiently solid to expand upon. And, this isn’t a radical or original idea either.

Shortly after President Eisenhower’s warning, President John F. Kennedy’s State Department outlined several of the key steps required in "Freedom From War, The United States Program For General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World." As officials noted:

There is an inseparable relationship between the scaling down of national armaments on the one hand and the building up of international peace-keeping machinery and institutions on the other. Nations are unlikely to shed their means of self-protection in the absence of alternative ways to safeguard their legitimate interests. This can only be achieved through the progressive strengthening of international institutions under the United Nations and by creating a United Nations Peace Force to enforce the peace as the disarmament process proceeds.The Alternative

A new Guide to a UN-Centred Global Peace System outlines 20 steps to strengthen the UN’s capacity to prevent war, uphold human rights, enforce international law, protect the environment, and promote disarmament. Included is a UN Charter review conference (to agree on an option to the P-5 veto), a financial transaction tax, another decade focused on a global culture of peace, a UN Parliamentary Assembly, defense transformation, development of a UN Emergency Peace Service (a more sophisticated option than a UN Peace Force), economic conversion, and a boost for the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Thankfully, work on most of these steps is already underway, supported by committed individuals and organizations. And, those who struggle to make the UN more effective understand that our scattered, siloed, and specialized approaches seldom combine to make a big difference.

What’s been missing is a compelling vision—"Peace on Earth is possible”—along with a coherent plan outlining a sequence of viable policy options. A shared vision should help to encourage the unity of effort and purpose required to mobilize diverse social movements and governments. And, once these steps for a more effective UN are implemented and combined, the result would be a UN-centered global peace system.

Paradigm shifts happen when prevailing systems are deemed inadequate or failing and when another option is widely viewed as better.

This guide is primarily a call to aim higher, pull together, and prepare now for that moment when new possibilities emerge. Cooperation is crucial to building the bridge between diverse sectors of civil society. With modest coordination and support, an inter-sectoral movement becomes possible.

Of course, this idea will be promptly dismissed as naive, wishful thinking, as "mission-impossible" for now. But as the political pendulum swings toward worse, the corrective swing back is likely to open the space and generate support for substantive shifts, even a safer system.

Just consider what’s distinctly different in 2026? Numerous governments are deeply worried and desperate to both avoid and constrain the new predatory hegemon. They know of safety in numbers and most realize that the one promising alternative is in an established multilateral counterweight, a more effective UN.

Within five years, peace on Earth—"mission impossible"—could become not just desirable, but widely supported, then possible. Millions of lives and trillions of dollars saved.

Paradigm shifts happen when prevailing systems are deemed inadequate or failing and when another option is widely viewed as better.

With the peace system proposed, there would be no further need for offensive weapon systems. National armed forces would shrink. Threats and tensions would fade. And, this new global system might cost $15-20 billion, freeing up trillions to help with climate adaptation and sustainable development. Imagine: We prepare for war no more!

Most of us understand that children are vulnerable, innocent, and must be protected and nourished. But too often in our country, and the world, that doesn’t happen—and now the US government is waging a global war on children.

It started with the closing of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), thus removing US humanitarian and development aid to people in the worst situations in the world. The cruel closure of USAID denied and continues to deny more than 95 million people access to basic healthcare and nutrition, leading to an estimated 1.6 million additional deaths in 2025, many of which were children.

The current administration also significantly weakened the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). These cuts, plus the closing of USAID, severely limit the international efforts of humanitarian organizations which work to control mother-to-child transmission of HIV. If funding for HIV prevention and treatment continues to fall, by 2040, an estimated 3 million children will contract HIV and nearly 1.8 million will die of AIDS-related causes.

As if that were not enough, the administration pulled out of the vaccine alliance Gavi, an international organization that has paid for more than 1 billion children to be vaccinated worldwide. This allows vaccine-preventable diseases to flourish among unvaccinated and vulnerable children. Many will be permanently disabled or die.

The administration turning its back on the “sh** hole” countries will come back and bite America in the ass, with innocents suffering the most.

The administration has directed these closings of international programs overwhelmingly against Black and brown people who, according to the president, live in “sh** hole” countries. This is his program of “America First,” where “those” people don’t matter—where their children don’t matter.

Moral judgement aside, helping those suffering in other countries is actually in our best interest. Not only would this show some badly needed humanity and compassion, it is also the best public health approach to protect all of us from contagious diseases.

But too many in the United States live in a right-wing news bubble where they aren’t aware of the suffering in the “sh** hole” countries or simply don’t care. And so many don’t realize that the diseases that foreign aid was working to control (AIDS, tuberculosis, polio, Ebola, and vaccine-preventable diseases) endanger us all. They are not just “their problem,” they are also “our problem.” As these diseases spread and multiply in other countries, the nature of the US economy and international trade will bring them here. The administration turning its back on the “sh** hole” countries will come back and bite America in the ass, with innocents suffering the most. Outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases are not “the cost of doing business,” as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Deputy Director, Ralph Abraham, MD, callously stated. The US has managed to “do business” while controlling vaccine-preventable disease for decades.

But the administration’s war on children does not stop with the “sh** hole” countries. Here in the US, the “Big Beautiful Bill” made draconian funding cuts to safety-net programs. This intentionally endangers children in millions of US families because it ends access to healthcare and adequate nutrition.

Even that was not enough. Robert F Kennedy Jr., secretary of Health and Human Services, has promoted an anti-science, anti-vaccine agenda by weaponizing the CDC to reduce the availability of vaccines in the US and to keep up a constant drumbeat of anti-vaccine disinformation. The CDC is no longer a trusted source of science-based public health information; it is now a clearinghouse for Kennedy’s anti-science, anti-vaccine misinformation, conspiracies, and lies. Many parents are rightfully confused by the barrage of anti-vaccine propaganda coming from Kennedy; vaccine hesitance is rising, resulting in soaring cases of measles, whooping cough, influenza and tetanus among children. And more will come as Kennedy’s flood of misinformation and fear-mongering about vaccines continues, supported by the highest levels of the administration.

Among this group dangerous beliefs are developing, exemplified by the comments of the Kennedy-appointed Chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, Kirk Milhoan. He recently voiced the belief that the individual freedom to refuse vaccines is greater than the freedom to choose not to be infected by contagious diseases. He questions requirements for childhood vaccines, and believes that declining vaccination rates are an opportunity to see what happens when vaccine-preventable diseases run rampant, rather than the tragedy that it is. This is not a sane or ethical experiment; history tells us the answer: The viruses and bacteria will win, and children will suffer.

Kennedy and the administration recently began this unethical experiment when they cut the number of vaccines in the childhood vaccine schedule, guaranteed to reduce vaccine use. Kennedy removed recommendations for rotavirus, Covid-19, influenza, RSV, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and meningococcal vaccines. These are serious diseases that cause children to suffer and die.

They claim that the new recommendations allow parents the “freedom of choice” about these vaccines, after “shared decision-making,” but this has always been the case for childhood vaccines. What they say is freedom has a tragic cost, and this version of freedom effectively declares that the death of children by vaccine-preventable diseases is an acceptable cost, the cost of doing business, with that cost paid in kids’ lives.

Some may call this freedom. We call it a war on children.

They told you.

Not once. Not quietly. Not in some obscure corner of the internet where plausible deniability can hide. They told you in court filings and local hearings, in affidavits and field reports, in newsroom investigations and academic papers. They told you in the patient language of law and the blunt language of organizing. And for years, the country found ways to argue with the messengers, or litigate the metaphors, or change the subject.

Now the evidence is arriving from so many directions at once that warning has become record, and record demands a response. The question is no longer whether someone warned you. The question is what you do when the warnings stop coming as claims and start coming as records.

In two weeks, the machinery of American immigration detention has been more thoroughly exposed than at any point in this country's history, not because the government opened the door, but because enough people forced it. Analysts at Syracuse have tracked the population shifts, reporters at Bloomberg and the Washington Post have mapped the warehouses, the American Immigration Council has documented the deadliest year in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention on record, Austin Kocher has shown that 92% of detention growth this fiscal year comes from people with no criminal convictions. Ninety-two percent. The Deportation Data Project at UC Berkeley Law has shown that release within 60 days of arrest fell from 16% to 3%. Hundreds of journalists, researchers, lawyers, and organizers have built a shared factual floor while the ground itself is being shaken. They deserve recognition, not rivalry. Amplification, not a race for credit.

The historical record offers no example of a detention system with these structural features that reversed course without public rupture, legal compulsion, or political defeat.

And still, the rest of the story has not been told.

Everything published so far answers the first-phase questions. How big is the system. How fast is it growing. Who is inside it. History asks a harder one. Not how big the system is, but where it is going. Not how fast it is growing, but when growth changes what the system is. Not who is inside it today, but what happens to the people inside it when intake keeps running, court capacity keeps shrinking, and the exits keep narrowing until the word "exit" becomes an administrative fiction. Answering that question requires a lens most of the current analysis does not use. The missing lens is not moral outrage. It is structural diagnosis, how systems change character when inputs outrun exits.

That is the lens I study. I study irregular warfare and state detention systems. That is not the career I started with. I am a West Point graduate, trained in the ethics of command and the obligations of the oath I took. I came to this work because the patterns I had studied from a distance were no longer distant, and because the oath does not expire. I have published that work in peer-reviewed journals. And I am telling you plainly: I have seen this structure before. Not in identical form, and not with identical ends, but with the same mechanics.

It appeared in the early Nazi concentration camp system before administrative pressure transformed improvised holding into something durable and escalating. It appeared in US counterinsurgency detention abroad, from the Phoenix Program in Vietnam to Camp Bucca in Iraq, where intake outpaced processing and produced the same result every time. Populations accumulated. Confinement lengthened. Exits never caught up. The vocabulary lagged behind the math. It always does.

Until the math catches up to you. That is why the spreadsheet matters. ICE publishes a detention statistics spreadsheet on its own website not out of transparency, but because a previous Congress wrote a disclosure mandate into law. ICE has complied reluctantly, delayed updates, and published selectively. Kocher has warned that the window is closing. But while it remains cracked, what you can see through it is damning. The crossing from processing to warehousing has already begun.

Start with scale, because scale amplifies every friction point downstream. More than 70,000 people are in ICE detention right now, across 225 facilities. The population has grown 75% in 12 months. That is not a surge passing through. It is a system swelling in place.

Then look at who is being held, because composition tells you what kind of force the system is applying. Nearly half, 48.4%, have no criminal conviction and no pending charges. They are held for the civil offense of being present without authorization. That is the government's own classification for the people in its own custody. Now look at the direction, because direction tells you what tomorrow will resemble. This year's detention growth comes almost entirely from people with no criminal convictions. The system is not detaining more criminals. It is detaining more people who have committed no crime, faster than at any point in its history. When that is the composition and that is the trajectory, the word "enforcement" stops describing what the system does. The word that fits is control.

Now follow the arithmetic, because the arithmetic tells you whether the system is clearing cases or accumulating bodies. Every month of this fiscal year, more people have entered that system than have left it. Every month. Net growth averages 3,000 per month. There is no month in which the system shrank.

Net growth matters because it proves the system is accumulating, not cycling. And once a system accumulates, the only question becomes which exits still function. Bond-posted releases account for 3-6% of all exits. For every 1 person released pending a hearing, 14.3 are deported. The system removes. It does not release. Read that ratio again. The system was built to take people in. It was never built to let them out. That is not a flaw in the design. It is the design.

That ratio points to the choke point. The court is what seals the system closed. Seven in ten detainees are tethered to a court system with 3.38 million pending cases and a bench that has lost more than 100 judges in the past year. Intake feeds backlog. Backlog extends detention. Extended detention drives growth. One loop. Self-reinforcing. Average bond wait times climbed 32% in four months. The door is not just narrow. It is closing while you watch.

Now here is the number that should end the argument. There are 7,252 people detained for more than six months. Among them are asylum-seekers who passed the government's own credible-fear screening. The government itself determined they have a legitimate claim to protection. Their average detention stands at 183 days and climbed 25% in three months. When the people with the strongest legal claims are held longer and longer, the paperwork may still say "processing." The calendar says captivity.

The calendar also tells you what captivity does when it becomes a baseline. Captivity at that scale does not hold still. It builds. If current conditions hold, the detained population will approach or exceed 100,000 by the end of 2026. The $45 billion appropriated through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act funds 135,000 beds through fiscal year 2029. Enacted law. Signed contracts. Revenue streams with lobbyists already defending them. Concrete does not dissolve because a press office changes its language. When a system starts building for those numbers, it is not preparing for a temporary spike. It is constructing a new baseline. The only question is what the system becomes once it reaches that capacity, and for that you have to look past the spreadsheet, because the spreadsheet was built to make sure you never see what comes next.

And when a system builds for long-term capacity, its failures stop being episodic. They become routine, and routine produces a record.

What remains is whether the rest of us decide that what is happening behind those walls is our problem. Not someone else's. Ours.

Here is what comes next.

Victor Manuel Diaz was arrested in Minneapolis. Eight days later he was found dead in ICE detention, hanging from a bed sheet. ICE sent his body not to the county medical examiner but to a military facility that does not release autopsy reports. When a government routes its dead to institutions it controls, the aim is not truth. It is the containment of the story.

Geraldo Lunas Campos died at Camp East Montana on Fort Bliss, asphyxiated while being restrained by five guards. He had asked for his medication. He was 55, Cuban, legally admitted to this country in 1996. The El Paso County medical examiner classified his death as a homicide. Two detainees who told the Washington Post what they witnessed received deportation notices days later. And it was not only the adults.

At Dilley, the South Texas Family Residential Center, the detained population tripled in three months. An estimated 800 children are inside. A measles outbreak was confirmed February 1. Members of Congress who visited described a 5-year-old as lethargic and depressed. A 5-year-old. In a facility the spreadsheet records as a line of numbers.

In the spreadsheet's categories, every one of these people occupies the same column. A man restrained until he stopped breathing is recorded the same way as a man who posted bail. A lethargic child is a digit in a headcount. An exit is an exit. A death is a departure. The system was not built to distinguish. It was built to count, and counting is not seeing.

What you see when you look past the count is containment masquerading as adjudication. A slow lengthening of stays. A piling up of people the system cannot move and will not release. A conversion of law into force so gradual that each day looks like the day before it, until you look back and realize the thing you are living inside has no name you are willing to say out loud.

Say it. The historical record offers no example of a detention system with these structural features that reversed course without public rupture, legal compulsion, or political defeat. None. Not one. The comparison is structural, not identical, and that is what makes it diagnostic. Structure determines what becomes possible and what becomes routine, long before anyone names the destination.

That is why the convergence matters. Every credible voice that has examined this system is arriving at the same conclusion from different directions. The analysts, the historians, the reporters, and the lawyers are standing in the same light for the first time. We were right. It is here.

One of those voices was not a professor or a journalist or a lawyer. He was a resident of Surprise, Arizona, and he stood at a city council microphone and invoked Ohrdruf. He was not performing history. He was reading the structure being built in his community and recognizing it in his bones. A windowless warehouse. A population detained for administrative reasons. A legal system too slow to process them. A government that builds faster than accountability can follow. He spoke because he understood the timing. You establish the record while the building is still going up, not after the concrete has set and the system has learned to call itself normal.

The record is being built. The full analysis is published as "The War Brought Home: The Recalibration" on my Substack. Kocher's biweekly analyses are at austinkocher.substack.com. The facility-level tool built by Kocher and Sawyer is at detentionreports.com. The AIC report is at americanimmigrationcouncil.org. Read them. Share them. They are what you hand to the person at your table who still thinks this is temporary.

But proof without witness is just a filing cabinet, and the witness is already underway. Lawyers have filed more than 18,000 habeas petitions and won nearly every case that reached a decision. Members of Congress have sued to inspect facilities their own government sealed from view. Communities in Surprise, Kansas City, and Shakopee have stood at microphones and said, "No." These people are not waiting for permission. They are building the record in real time.

They are also still the few. The system does not survive on the cruelty of its architects alone. It survives on three kinds of silence. Those who see it and approve. Those who see enough to be uncomfortable but have decided that discomfort is not obligation. And the rest of us, reading this right now, feeling the weight of it, not yet decided what that weight requires.

That middle is where every mass detention system in history found its operating room. Not in the enthusiasm of supporters, but in the silence of people who could see the wall going up from their kitchen window and chose to close the blinds. Every historical account includes the same figure. Never the architect or the guard. Always the neighbor who knew, who had every means to see, and who later claimed they did not.

The math is done. The facilities are mapped. The petitions are filed. The communities have shown what resistance looks like. What remains is whether the rest of us decide that what is happening behind those walls is our problem. Not someone else's. Ours.

No one else is coming. There is no cavalry over the hill. There is only the public, and the public is us. We are standing here, today, right now, in whatever light we have, with whatever we know, and it is enough to begin. Because when this is over, the record will not be in doubt. Only the witness will be.

Today, during my slog through the Substack messages, newspaper headline notices, and podcast reminders that hit my inbox every morning, two stories drew my attention. Both had to do with the fact that human beings have always moved around this planet, beginning long before there were any countries or maps to display the borders where one nation ends and another begins. I was reminded of a decades-old song by the Venezuelan singer Soledad Bravo, “Punto y Raya”—“The Dot and the Dash”:

Entre tu pueblo y mi pueblo hay un punto y una raya,
la raya dice no hay paso el punto vía cerrada

“Between your people and mine,” says the song, “there’s a dot and a dash. The dash says, ‘No entrance,’ and the dot, ‘The road is closed.'” Bravo goes on to say that, with all those dots and dashes outlining the borders of nations, a map looks like a telegram. If you walk through the actual world, though, what you see are mountains and rivers, forests and deserts, but no dots or dashes at all.

Porque esas cosas no existen, sino que fueron creadas
para que mi hambre y la tuya estén siempre separadas.

And she adds, “Because those things aren’t real, they were created so your hunger and mine would remain separated.”

Two Immigration Stories

Two morning news stories brought that song back into my mind, along with the human reality it expresses. Both appeared in the New York Times (and no doubt elsewhere). The first reported that the “United States population grew last year [between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025] at one of the slowest rates in its history.” Such a reduction in growth was in large part due to the Trump administration’s immigration policies. In 2025, immigration rates to the United States dropped by 50% compared to the previous year. Perhaps surprisingly, Trump’s vicious and deadly deportation efforts accounted for only about 235,000 of the 1.5 million-person net decline in immigration.

Much more significant were the barriers to entry created under Trump, largely through the influence of Stephen Miller, the man Steve Bannon has labelled the president’s “prime minister.” Those include the effective closing of our southern border to undocumented arrivals. The administration has also made legal entry to the US much more difficult in a variety of ways, including:

• Instituting a $100,000 fee to be paid by employers seeking to hire professional workers under an H1-B visa;
• Erecting barriers to foreign students, leading to a 17% drop in new ones enrolling in American universities;
• Fully or partially restricting entry by the citizens (including refugees) of 19 nations: Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen (full restrictions) and Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela (partial restrictions);
• Pausing all asylum applications by citizens of any nation in the world, leaving a backlog of 1.4 million cases;
• Capping all refugee admissions at 7,500 per year, a reduction of 94% from previous limits (with the exception, of course, of white South African farmers).

Why does it matter that the US population is growing more slowly while also aging? As the Times points out, this country “needs a large enough population of young workers and taxpayers to finance care for the nation’s older residents, whose numbers are swelling as the Baby Boom generation retires.” As any good Marxist will tell you, labor creates all wealth. In other words, a nation’s wealth (including that of its millionaires and billionaires) represents the accumulated value of work done by actual human beings. And that means an economy lacking enough workers will not be able to satisfy the grow-or-die logic of capitalism. Nor, if a reduction of the workforce is concentrated in jobs traditionally performed by immigrants, will that economy be able to feed its people. In other words, the stubbornly high price of groceries is not unconnected to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) terror campaign around the country.

Immigration reductions are part of the story of slowing population growth, but there’s another piece of the puzzle. During the Great Recession that began with a mortgage meltdown in 2008, Americans began having fewer children. In my world of higher education, we’ve known about this precipitous drop for a while. It’s been described as a “demographic cliff” that would become a (predictable) emergency for college enrollment 18-20 years later—that is, now. The entire higher education sector, which has grown steadily since the institution of the GI Bill at the end of World War II, now faces layoffs, retrenchment, and the closing of institutions.

What of the second story I read this morning? It concerned Spain, a country taking an entirely different approach to immigration. I’ve been lucky enough to spend time in Spain, meeting there, in addition, of course, to Spaniards, farmworkers from Mali and other parts of francophone Africa, and Central American waiters and taxi drivers, who could use their native language in a new land. (I wonder if they sound to the Spanish much the way I do—like a hick from the faraway sticks.)

Like that of the United States, Spain’s population is aging, but its response is the opposite of the Trump administration’s. Our president and his minions have made it clear in word and deed not just that they want almost no new immigrants, but also which few they would consider accepting. “Why is it we only take people from shithole countries, right?” the president asked last December. “Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden, just a few? Let’s have a few from Denmark,” he added. (Of course, that was before his spat with that country over his urge to take possession of Greenland.)

Unlike Trump’s crew, the Spanish government has issued a decree permitting undocumented migrants already in the country to apply for temporary residency, with permission to work legally there. Recognizing their contributions to fueling the major engines of the Spanish economy—agriculture, tourism, and construction—Spain has bucked a European and American tide of anti-migrant sentiment, the very one Trump sought to stoke with his remarks at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos. Because of mass migration, he opined, “certain places in Europe are not even recognizable.” Critics of Spain’s new policy on the left argue that the country has been less welcoming to African migrants, but the socialist government of President Pedro Sánchez denies this (at least publicly).

Homesickness

All of this has left me thinking about the sacrifices people make when they choose, or are forced, to find a new home nation. Those of us in the US, even many who support immigrants, documented and otherwise, can fall into a trap of believing that, given the choice, everyone would rather live here. But it’s not that simple.

I spent some time in the Nicaraguan war zone in the mid-1980s. In spite of everything I loved about the early days of that country’s revolution, and how angry I became at the campaign of sabotage and torture my country unleashed to support the anti-government “contras,” there were days when I ached for the familiarity of home. The Greek roots of the word nostalgia refer to the literal pain of not being in one’s home, which describes just what I felt. I missed the everyday ease of knowing how to act without giving offense. I missed automatically understanding what was happening around me as well as, in a war zone, being able to distinguish the difference between people’s ordinary behavior and preparing for a possible attack. Most of all, I missed the feel of my native tongue in my mouth and its sound in my ears.

I knew that I would be going home in a few months, which set a limit to my homesickness. But I remember wondering then what it would be like to be a refugee, to know I’d never truly be home again. I thought about my friend Tiana, a Brazilian emigre with many years in the US, who used to talk about how she ached to hear Brazilian Portuguese. “Everything we say sounds so much more affectionate in Portuguese,” she told me. “We don’t just ask someone to pass ‘the butter’; we call it ‘the little butter,’ like a pet name.”

My grandfather must have felt that same nostalgic ache. The story my father told me was this: In 1910, after the Cossacks came to my grandfather’s village in what is now Ukraine and killed his youngest brother, the family hid him under the hay in a horse-drawn wooden wagon and had him driven out of town. He then made his way across Europe to Antwerp in Belgium, where he boarded a ship for New York City with nothing more than the name and address of a distant cousin in Norfolk, Virginia, who’d paid for his passage. He was just 18. He would then work for that cousin, almost like an indentured servant, until he eventually saved up enough money to bring the rest of his family to this country. I found evidence to support this tale when I visited the Ellis Island website and found his name and the cousin’s address in Norfolk listed in the manifest of the ship he took from Antwerp.

Cruelty Is the Point (of the Spear)

All of this is on my mind a lot these days, because most weeks I spend some time accompanying people to immigration court hearings or to their appointments with ICE. Each time I do so, I’m struck by the courage it takes to leave your familiar home, however dangerous it may have become, carrying that ache of nostalgia with you, maybe for the rest of your life. Last week, I waited outside an imposing building in downtown San Francisco, while a woman I’ll call Celia entered for an ICE check-in. The last time she’d done that, in October 2025, she hadn’t come out. Instead, she was sent to one of California’s privately-run ICE centers, the California City Detention Facility (CCDF), where she was imprisoned for the next two months.

California Sen. Alex Padilla visited that detention center recently. Having been to many jails and prisons over the years, he reported that, among other things, he expected complaints about issues like the quality of the food. “But I was shocked,” he said, “at the amount and intensity of the complaints about lack of medical care. Like, even in prisons, even under conditions of war, there [are] basic standards that we are supposed to hold and maintain. That is not happening.”

A New Yorker story by Oren Peleg about the CCDF supports Padilla’s claims. Detainees with gastric ulcers, prostate cancer, bloody urine, heart failure, and other serious medical problems told Peleg that they couldn’t get the medications or treatment they needed. It seems that CoreCivic, the company that runs CCDF, may be withholding medical treatment to encourage people to leave the country “voluntarily.” That may help explain why eight medical positions, including those of a physician and a psychiatrist, have gone unfilled for months. As Peleg writes:

But staffing issues do not fully explain the lack of basic medical care at California City. "They do it so you give up," Julio Cesar Santos Avalos, who was a detainee at California City from September to November, told me. When he arrived at CCDF, Santos Avalos recalls a consistent push by staff for detainees to sign away their rights and self-deport. Instructions for how to self-deport are displayed prominently near phones where detainees communicate with their lawyers. Santos Avalos and many of the detainees and attorneys I spoke to believe the lack of medical care is part of that push.

Peleg concludes that the “detention center is aiming to make conditions so terrible that detainees stop fighting and decide to leave.” The case of Santos Avalos is particularly searing. He lives with “chronic pain owing to a foot deformity caused by childhood cases of polio and Guillain-Barré syndrome,” but he was denied pain medication and forced to sleep in a top bunk at the detention center. He eventually chose to return to El Salvador, a country he’d left at the age of seven. As is true for many immigrants who came here as children, the home he now aches for is one in the United States.

Imagine the courage it took for Celia to smile, give herself a shake, and walk through those doors, knowing that she could very well end up back at CCDF. That day, however, we were lucky. After about 30 minutes, she emerged through the large bronze doors free—at least until her next appointment in a few months (and assuming there’s no Bay Area ICE surge in the meantime). I say “we” were lucky, because, while my fears are minor compared to hers and those of other immigrants like her, I’m always afraid that someone I’m accompanying will be taken away, leaving me angry and helpless.

Seeking Refuge

Like nostalgia, the word asylum has Greek roots. It suggests being free from someone else’s right of seizure, and so, by extension, “refuge.” When people come to this country seeking asylum, they are looking for refuge from horrors of all kinds: political oppression, familial or institutional violence, war, torture, you name it. An asylum is, by definition, a refuge, a safe place. That’s why institutions for people with mental illness used to be called “insane asylums.” (It’s been suggested that Donald Trump confuses the legal concept of seeking asylum with the term insane asylum, which is why he thinks that other countries are sending their mental patients here.)

An asylum should be a safe place, even if it may never feel like home. But in the first year of Trump’s second term as president, it’s become clear that, for those seeking, or even granted, asylum, the United States is no longer a safe place. Increasingly, as those two recent ICE murders in Minneapolis have shown, it’s not even a safe place for the rest of us.

In his poem “The Death of the Hired Man,” Robert Frost wrote:

Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.

That’s what asylum is supposed to be in international law: the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

In these dark and frightening days, I often find a short sentence bubbling to the top of my mind: “I just want to go home.” I’m not quite sure what it means, but I think that, like so many people in Donald Trump’s America, I’m looking for a place that doesn’t yet exist, a refuge we will have to build with our own hands.

The pattern for a bright red melt the ICE hat popped up in my news feed the other day, and I immediately knew I had to knit one. That the pattern for the freshly renamed hat reproduces the pointed, tasseled hats Norwegians wore in the 1940s as a symbol of protest against Nazi occupation; that it comes from a small woman-owned yarn store in Minnesota at a time when it feels we are not far away from the catastrophe of Fascism and Nazism; that the proceeds from buying the pattern go to organizations that protect immigrant rights. All of this made it even more urgent that I get hold of some red yarn and start casting my stitches without delay.

I learned to knit as a young child from a woman who had herself learned from a woman who had herself learned from a woman. In Italy, where I was born and grew up, this was the norm for girls, though boys were never taught the craft.

As a teen, I enjoyed the meditative quality of the repetitive work of making something grow, one knot at a time. I marveled at the magic of my hands transforming linear yarn into a multidimensional artifact. I learned the patience needed to make and unmake and remake something until I could get it not perfect but good enough. I absorbed the anti-consumerist message of frogging, or unraveling, an old sweater that no longer fits and reusing the yarn to make a new one. I grasped the necessity to create plans before jumping into action.

Then life got in the way, and I let it all fall to the side while I concentrated on becoming a scientist and relocating to the United States to work in biomedical research. My hands turned to handling pipettes and tubes rather than yarn and needles.

But symbols are important. They speak through history, they tell us we are not alone, they let us say things that words often cannot express.

But without my consciously knowing it, it became clear that the same skills were needed in the lab as in putting together a knitting project. There it was, the need to slow down and plan ahead, to repeat the same gesture over and over again, to reuse old concepts for new discoveries, to build step by step until a complex theory emerges from the simplicity of a single experiment. During those years, my brain might have forgotten the practicalities of knitting, but the underlying lessons were all there.

In early 2016, after more than 20 years in the US, I applied for citizenship, hoping to contribute my vote against what would become President Donald Trump’s first term. Bureaucracy was too slow to allow me the privilege to cast my vote that year, but it did not stifle my willingness to protest what I saw as a dangerous development.

The pussyhat, which became a symbol of the protest movement against President Trump, brought me back to knitting. I got hold of some bright pink yarn and needles at my local women-owned yarn store and discovered that my hands still had the muscle memory of what I had learned decades earlier on the other side of the world. I knit a bunch of pussyhats for myself and my friends, which we sported at the Chicago’s women’s march on the gorgeous, hopeful day that was January 21, 2017.

It’s now almost 10 years later, and here we are again, knitting hats against the dangers to our democracy. The hat’s color has changed, from the pink that represented women’s rights to the red now pointing to the defense of immigrants’ rights. As a woman immigrant, I need both and I am sure I will need more in the future.

The color of the hats might have changed over these years, but what has not changed is the core message: the symbolism of knitting as the slow work required to build activism and resistance, and the need to take the time to plan before acting. Knitting as the symbol of the patience it takes to build something meaningful and complex, one knot at a time. As the symbol of the need to constantly make and remake, to reuse what we built in the past to create something that fits the moment. And of knitting, just like quilting, embroidery, and other textile crafts, as reclaiming the role of women in history.

Yes, I know, a handmade hat will not determine the success of our resistance. Just like the pussyhats did not prevent a second Trump term, the melt the ICE hats by themselves will not stop the violence perpetrated against immigrants and those who try to protect them. But symbols are important. They speak through history, they tell us we are not alone, they let us say things that words often cannot express.

When I went to get my skein of yarn the other day, a young man wearing the same bright red hat I was planning to make was at the store, chatting with the owner, who had set aside a basket of skeins of red yarn. The young man told me, matter-of-factly, that he had just finished knitting the hat he was wearing and was there to buy some yarn to make a few more hats for his friends.

And there it was, the symbolism personified. A male knitter, unthinkable when I was a young girl, who let me know, without needing to explain it, that women’s history should not only be reclaimed but also shared with those who can treasure it. A red hat and a basket of red yarn that signaled, “You have nothing to fear here.” That told me that the accent that inflects my English was welcome, not despised. That I did not need the copy of the US passport I have started to take with me wherever I go. That we can do this, together, one knot at a time.