Author: Bill Weinberg

Africa
El Fasher

Podcast: Darfur again —a genocide foretold

Throughout the 18-month siege of El Fasher, capital of Sudan’s North Darfur state, international human rights observers had been warning that the city’s residents faced a general massacre when it eventually fell to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Yet nothing was done, apart from ineffectual Great Power diplomacy that had zero impact on the ground. Now that the foretold massacre is underway—with hundreds killed, thousands missing, and no end in sight—calls are at last emerging for boycott, divestment and sanctions against the United Arab Emirates, the apparent underwriter of the genocidal RSF. In Episode 301 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes the contrast with the situation 20 years ago, when #SaveDarfur was a cause cĂ©lèbre—and asks what has changed. (Photo: Roman Deckert via Wikimedia Commons)

New York City
Zohran

Podcast: fascism, socialism and the NYC mayoral race

In Episode 301 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg offers his anarchist annotation of the New York City mayoral candidates’ debate. He makes the case that the promise of “socialism” represented by Zohran Mamdani is (alas) not as real as the threat of fascism represented by Curtis Sliwa—or acquiescence to fascism represented Andrew Cuomo. Both Cuomo and Sliwa invoked the too real possibility of Trump attempting to abrogate New York’s municipal powers if Mamdani becomes mayor. However, this contingency could heighten the contradictions in a politically salubrious way—prompting the needed rupture between progressive-run localities and the illegitimate Trump regime. (Photo: Jim Naureckas/Flickr)

Planet Watch
Wiphala

Bolivia, Syria & the challenge of plurinationalism

The recent political reversal in Bolivia raises the question of whether the advances of nearly 20 years of rule by the indigenist left will survive—including a constitution that refounded the state as a “plurinational” republic. In Episode 299 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg explores how the lessons of the Bolivian experience can be applied to Syria, where the new revolutionary government faces a challenge in Kurdish and Druze demands for regional autonomy. (Photo: Aymara march in Oruro, Bolivia. Via Wikipedia)

North America
Trump

Podcast: Better anti than fa, thank you II

Trump’s call at Quantico for the armed forces to use American cities as “training grounds” and fight the “enemy within” was quickly followed by militarized ICE raids in Chicago and mobilization of the National Guard. His National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), issued four days before the Quantico meeting with Pentagon brass, explicitly identifies “anti-fascism” as a threat that must be targeted with the full power of the state. In Episode 298 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to deconstruct the propaganda and examine the apparatus being employed to impose a fascist order in the United States—and explore the prospects for resistance, and even non-cooperation within the rank-and-file of the federal forces. (Image: APE)

North America
antifa

Podcast: Better anti than fa, thank you

Trump’s executive order designating Antifa a “domestic terrorist organization” was quickly followed by a mobilization of federal troops to anarchist hotbed Portland and a highly unusual call for a gathering of military brass from around the world in Quantico—to take place the day before the government will be shut down if a Congressional deal is not reached. These evident preparations for mass repression, or even an auto-golpe and establishment of a Trump dictatorship, were conveniently followed by a sniper attack on an ICE facility in Dallas. In Episode 297 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg argues that Trump’s attempted criminalization of anti-fascism portends an imminent consolidation of fascist rule in the United States—and asks what we’re going to do about it. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Syria
SDF

Syria: clashes follow al-Sharaa ultimatum to SDF

Fighting broke out in the village of Um Tineh, in Syria’s Aleppo province, between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and forces aligned with the Damascus regime, leaving at least seven civilians dead. The SDF said the clashes began with a drone attack on the village, followed by artillery bombardment, damaging local homes. The violence came three days after President Ahmed al-Sharaa warned that the SDF’s failure to integrate into the Syrian Armed Forces could provoke Turkish military intervention by year’s end. Planned talks in Paris on how to incorporate the Kurdish autonomous zone into the new government were broken off by the transitional regime last month. Turkey has repeatedly bombed SDF-held territory in Syria over the past months, as the threat of Arab-Kuridsh ethnic war looms larger on the ground. (Photo: SOHR)

Watching the Shadows
Calvo Sotelo

Podcast: Charlie Kirk = Calvo Sotelo?

Some are drawing an ominous analogy between Charlie Kirk and Horst Wessel, the early martyr of the Nazi cause. In Episode 296 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg offers a more ominous analogy still: to JosĂ© Calvo Sotelo, the Spanish fascist leader whose assassination in 1936 provided the expedience for Generalissimo Franco’s coup d’etat that initiated the Spanish Civil War—and ultimately brought a decades-long dictatorship to Spain. Trump’s declaration of antifa as a “terrorist organization” since Kirk’s assassination is an open acknowledgement of his fascist intent. Fortunately, anti-fascist protesters are repudiating Kirk, and the wave of racist terror and anti-left reaction now being unleashed coast to coast. (Image mash-up: CounterVortex)

Europe
Armata

Belarusian political prisoners as pawns in power game

NATO launched a new exercise dubbed Eastern Sentry in response to the ongoing joint Russia-Belarus military exercise dubbed Zapad (West), which involves thousands of troops, naval maneuvers in the Baltic Sea, and simulated nuclear strikes. Yet two US military observers were invited to Belarus to observe the Zapad exercise, standing on a viewing platform to review forces from the same Russian army that is fighting in Ukraine. This appears to be part of a US rapprochement with Belarus, coming days after 52 Belarusian political prisoners were released in a US-brokered deal. However, the dissidents protest that they were expelled to Lithuania and not given the choice of remaining in their own country. One, former Belarusian presidential candidate Mikola Statkevich, has already been returned to a penal colony after refusing to accept exile. (Photo of Russian T-14 Armata tank via National Security Journal)

Watching the Shadows
Charlie Kirk = Horst Wessel

Podcast: Charlie Kirk = Horst Wessel

Charlie Kirk was not just a “conservative” but a white supremacist who denigrated the advances of the Civil Rights era and sought to impose patriarchical subjugation of all but white men. Yet he was opposed as insufficiently “pro-white” by the so-called “Groyper Army” of Nick Fuentes. This raises the possibility that the anti-fascist rhetoric of Kirk’s accused shooter, Tyler Robinson, was actually fascist pseudo-anti-fascism. In any case, those who are making the analogy to the early martyr of the Nazi cause Horst Wessel are all too likely to be vindicated: Kirk’s death could similarly be exploited to consolidate fascist rule in the United States. In Episode 295 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg breaks it down. (Image mash-up: CounterVortex)

Mexico
Culiacán

Mexico: march for peace in violence-torn Culiacán

Civil society organizations in the Mexican city of Culiacán, capital of Sinaloa state, held a march for social peace that brought tens of thousands to the streets, with ongoing public vigils over the following days. Held under the slogan “Ya basta, queremos paz” (Enough already, we want peace), the mobilization was called to mark one year since an outbreak of violence in the city as rival factions of the Sinaloa Cartel vied for supremacy. The death toll in Sinaloa over the past year is said to exceed 1,800, with local activists counting another 2,800 disappeared. (Photo: Trasciende Noticias via Facebook)

Greater Middle East
Freedom Flotilla

Israeli strikes target Hamas in Qatar —and Greta Thunberg in Tunis?

Unprecedented Israeli air-strikes on buildings in Qatar’s capital Doha apparently targeted senior members of Hamas’ external leadership—precisely those involved in ceasefire negotiations. The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the operation, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying that the attack was “a wholly independent Israeli operation.” He added: “Israel initiated it, Israel conducted it, and Israel takes full responsibility.” However, the White House quickly confirmed that it was informed of the operation beforehand. On the same day as the Qatar strikes, organizers of a flotilla carrying aid for Gaza said their lead ship was hit by a drone while anchored at the port of Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia. A video posted by the Global Sumud Flotilla appears to show a lit projectile falling from the sky onto the vessel before flames erupt on the front deck. The ship sustained some damage, according to later footage posted on social media. One day later, a second vessel in the flotilla was evidently struck, causing similar damage. The Global Sumud Flotilla’s most prominent member is Greta Thunberg, internationally known for her climate activism and now a leading figure in the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. (Photo: FreeGaza via Wikimedia Commons)