Global Left Midweek – July 30, 2025

The old is dying and the new struggles to be born

The Ideology of Artificial Intelligence

The AI hype is essentially propaganda, the main purpose of which is to accelerate layoffs, to fuel financial speculation, and to divert investment and resources toward a new jump into the abyss by economic and political elites.

“Woke” Superman Versus MAGA Whiners

Guess who won? It wasn’t Fox News.

Federal Pressure Splits the Building Trades

One week into President Donald Trump’s first term, top building trades officers were chumming it up in the Oval Office, celebrating a reboot of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. But when Trump returned to office this year, things were very different.

Israel and the United States, Partners in Genocide

During this century, in the Middle East, the U.S.-Israel duo has vastly outdone all other entities combined in the categories of killing, maiming, and terrorizing.

Dispatches From the Culture Wars – July 29, 2025

Monster time

This Week in People’s History, Jul 30-Aug 5, 2025

Former President Harry Truman grins at President Lyndon Johnson during the Medicare/Medicaid bill signing ceremony
It’s Your Birthday Medicaid, Chin Up! (1965), A Night at the Opera in the Infield (1925), Who Won the Civil War, Anyway? (1900), Candidate Reagan Shows His True Colors (1980), Robert Purvis, Fighter for Justice (1810), The Jury Knew Right from Wrong

‘South Park’ vs. Trump: Little Children Shall Lead Them

Satan! Jesus! In its 27th season opener this week, titled “The Sermon on the Mount,” the Paramount Plus animated show “South Park” provided by far the most comprehensive and trenchant critique of Trump’s first six months back in office.

‘People Don’t Want To Be Complicit in War Crimes'

People are starting to really see that direct line between themselves as US taxpayers, and where and what their money is being spent on, and just how it’s actually being used to abuse, assault and murder Palestinians.

Israeli Attacks Kill 62 in Gaza Amid ‘Tactical Pause'

"There is nothing humane or tactical about letting a trickle of aid in after a man-made famine has started while continuing to bomb starving men, women, and children, even in so-called safe zones," one advocate said.
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Popular

Tidbits- July 17-Readers Comments: GOP Budget ‘Total Betrayal’ of Working Class; Immigration and Health in Rural America; Story Behind Removal of Univ of Virginia President – Eliminate DEI As Fight Against Anti-Semitism; David Schwartzman-RIP; More;

Readers Comments: GOP Budget ‘Total Betrayal’ of Working Class; Immigration and Health in Rural America; Story behind removal of Univ of Virginia president - eliminate DEI as fight against anti-Semitism; David Schwartzman-RIP; Announcements; more...

Trades Unions Are Split in Their Response to Trump

The Trump administration is attacking jobs and wages in the building trades, as well as the rights of immigrant workers. Building trades unions have been divided over whether to try to curry favor with the president or confront the attacks head-on.

Culture

books

Playing With Academic Fire

Hatim Kanaaneh Jadaliyya
This study of three late 1940s kibbutzim, writes reviewer Kanaaneh, “analyzes how these so-called leftist settlements” related to their Palestinian neighbors in “the land and the farming villages that were then wiped out of existence.”

film

The Undeniable Greatness of Jaws

Eileen Jones Jacobin
Jaws is rightly celebrated as a landmark, generation-defining hit. But it’s not sufficiently recognized as a great 1970s film, exemplifying that rocky decade’s political ire, acerbic social critique, and the lingering practices of realist cinema movi

poetry

Night Owl

Patrick Daly
California poet Patrick Daly reflects on the reach, and limits, of the imagination, where nature, art and politics intertwine in often disturbing ways.

books

McCarthyism and Its Victims: Here We Go Again?

Paul Buhle Portside
Repression is certainly in the air, its effects likely to be as chilling as intended: people are afraid and have good reasons to be afraid. Reviews of two recent books on Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and the Long War Against American Communism.

History Lesson

Laleh Khalili Jewish Currents
Adam Kirsch’s On Settler Colonialism is an anti-woke screed disguised as serious scholarship.

Labor

labor

Mamdani Returns From Uganda and Visits Slain Officer’s Family

Emma G. Fitzsimmons The New York Times
Mr. Mamdani will address the shooting at a news conference with two groups whose members had been killed in the attack: 32BJ SEIU and the Bangladeshi American Police Association. The press conference will be held at the 32BJ headquarters.

labor

Labor’s Strategy Must Lean Into Synergies

Alex Caputo-Pearl, Jackson Potter, Jesse Sharkey and Stephanie Luce Convergence
The ferocity & scale of onrushing authoritarianism demand that we think beyond binaries. We can’t counterpose electoral & strike action: we need to do both. And we can’t decisively defeat MAGA without effectively challenging the neoliberal model.

labor

Trades Unions Are Split in Their Response to Trump

Natascha Elena Uhlmann and Keith Brower Brown Jacobin
The Trump administration is attacking jobs and wages in the building trades, as well as the rights of immigrant workers. Building trades unions have been divided over whether to try to curry favor with the president or confront the attacks head-on.

labor

Longshore Workers Remember the Struggle To Free the Charleston Five

Kerry Taylor Labor Notes
“I know I'm not going to be here 25 years from now, but for those who will be, keep this thing alive, keep fighting,” said Riley. “There's a lot of hard work, blood sweat and tears, and death on those docks that got us where we are today.”

Friday nite video

video

Why Children Get so Many Vaccines

Children get a lot of shots in the first few years of life. Here’s why they get them and why they get them when they do.