https://znetwork.org/author/normansolomon/ Independent Left News, Analysis, Vision and Strategy Tue, 09 Dec 2025 20:01:01 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://znetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/cropped-Z_logo_512-32x32.png https://znetwork.org/author/normansolomon/ 32 32 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-need-to-know-how-corporate-democrats-made-president-trump-possible/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-need-to-know-how-corporate-democrats-made-president-trump-possible/#respond Tue, 09 Dec 2025 18:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292170 Ten years after Donald Trump first ran for president, he stands at the helm of Titanic America. How did this happen? No factors were more pivotal than the outlooks and actions of the Democratic Party leadership. Scrutinizing them now is vital not only for clarity about the past. It also makes possible a clear focus [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-need-to-know-how-corporate-democrats-made-president-trump-possible/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/democrats-in-congress-are-out-of-touch-with-constituents-on-israeli-genocide/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/democrats-in-congress-are-out-of-touch-with-constituents-on-israeli-genocide/#respond Wed, 03 Dec 2025 19:17:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291904 Last month, some House members publicly acknowledged that Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza. It’s a judgment that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch unequivocally proclaimed a year ago. Israeli human-rights organizations have reached the same conclusion. But such clarity is sparse in Congress. And no wonder. Genocide denial is needed for continuing to appropriate billions of dollars in weapons [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/democrats-in-congress-are-out-of-touch-with-constituents-on-israeli-genocide/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-mamdani-show-was-amazing-downsides-for-progressives-could-turn-out-to-be-steep/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-mamdani-show-was-amazing-downsides-for-progressives-could-turn-out-to-be-steep/#respond Tue, 25 Nov 2025 17:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291651 Across the political spectrum – with alarm on the right and delight on the left – the display of warmth from President Trump toward Zohran Mamdani on Friday set off shock waves. Trump’s lavish praise of New York’s mayor-elect in the Oval Office was a 180-degree turn from his  condemnation of the democratic socialist as “a pure true communist” and [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-mamdani-show-was-amazing-downsides-for-progressives-could-turn-out-to-be-steep/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/victims-without-victimizers-how-corporate-democrats-led-to-the-trump-era/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/victims-without-victimizers-how-corporate-democrats-led-to-the-trump-era/#respond Wed, 22 Oct 2025 17:50:31 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1290289 The human condition includes a vast array of unavoidable misfortunes. But what about the preventable ones? Shouldn’t the United States provide for the basic needs of its people? Such questions get distinctly short shrift in the dominant political narratives. When someone can’t make ends meet and suffers dire consequences, the mainstream default is to see [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/victims-without-victimizers-how-corporate-democrats-led-to-the-trump-era/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-guernica-to-gaza/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-guernica-to-gaza/#respond Fri, 29 Aug 2025 18:05:56 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1287911 Killing from the sky has long offered the sort of detachment that warfare on the ground can’t match. Far from its victims, air power remains the height of modernity. And yet, as the monk Thomas Merton concluded in a poem, using the voice of a Nazi commandant, “Do not think yourself better because you burn [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-guernica-to-gaza/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/dnc-leaders-are-pretending-that-u-s-weapons-dont-enable-the-slaughter-in-gaza/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/dnc-leaders-are-pretending-that-u-s-weapons-dont-enable-the-slaughter-in-gaza/#comments Mon, 25 Aug 2025 16:13:06 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1287717 This week will go down in history as a time when the governing body of the Democratic Party had a chance to oppose the U.S. government’s arming of Israel. But with the first Democratic National Committee meeting in seven months getting underway on Monday, the DNC’s leadership is determined to derail a resolution calling for “an arms [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/dnc-leaders-are-pretending-that-u-s-weapons-dont-enable-the-slaughter-in-gaza/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-genocidal-partnership-of-israel-and-the-united-states/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-genocidal-partnership-of-israel-and-the-united-states/#respond Mon, 28 Jul 2025 13:30:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1286677 For decades, countless U.S. officials have proclaimed that the bonds between the United States and Israel are unbreakable. Now, the ties that bind are laced with genocide. The two countries function as accomplices while methodical killing continues in Gaza, with both societies directly – and differently – making it all possible. The policies of Israel’s government [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-genocidal-partnership-of-israel-and-the-united-states/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/genocide-made-invisible/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/genocide-made-invisible/#respond Mon, 07 Jul 2025 16:34:33 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1285915 Whatever the outcomes of Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House on Monday and the latest scenario for a ceasefire in Gaza, a bilateral policy of genocide has united the Israeli and U.S. governments in a pact of literally breath-taking cruelty. That pact and its horrific consequences for Palestinian people either continue to shock Americans or gradually [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/genocide-made-invisible/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-rage-of-billionaires-and-the-frenzy-to-stop-zohran-mamdani-from-becoming-new-yorks-mayor/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-rage-of-billionaires-and-the-frenzy-to-stop-zohran-mamdani-from-becoming-new-yorks-mayor/#respond Mon, 30 Jun 2025 16:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1285635 The Supreme Court’s first chief justice, John Jay, would have empathized with the billionaires who’ve been freaking out ever since Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York last Tuesday. “Those who own the country ought to govern it,” Jay insisted. But now, oligarchs accustomed to such governance are furious that the nation’s [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-rage-of-billionaires-and-the-frenzy-to-stop-zohran-mamdani-from-becoming-new-yorks-mayor/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/bombing-iran-is-part-of-the-usas-repetition-compulsion-for-war-war-war/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/bombing-iran-is-part-of-the-usas-repetition-compulsion-for-war-war-war/#respond Sun, 22 Jun 2025 15:58:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1285315 Twenty years ago, one day in June 2005, I talked with an Iranian man who was selling underwear at the Tehran Grand Bazaar. People all over the world want peace, he said, but governments won’t let them have it. I thought of that conversation on Saturday night after the U.S. government attacked nuclear sites in [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/bombing-iran-is-part-of-the-usas-repetition-compulsion-for-war-war-war/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/no-kings-day-was-historic-now-we-need-a-powerful-and-independent-movement-against-trump/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/no-kings-day-was-historic-now-we-need-a-powerful-and-independent-movement-against-trump/#respond Mon, 16 Jun 2025 16:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1285082 The huge decentralized turnout for No Kings Day has shown that grassroots power can be a major force against the momentum of the Trump regime. The protests were auspicious, with 5 million people participating in 2,100 gatherings nationwide. Activists are doing what the national Democratic Party leadership has failed to do – organize effectively and inspire mass [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/no-kings-day-was-historic-now-we-need-a-powerful-and-independent-movement-against-trump/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/is-nuclear-winter-a-climate-issue/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/is-nuclear-winter-a-climate-issue/#respond Mon, 09 Jun 2025 16:36:28 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1284777 Thirty-five years after the start of the nuclear age with the first explosion of an atomic bomb, I visited the expanse of desert known as the Nevada Test Site, an hour’s drive northwest of Las Vegas. A pair of officials from the Department of Energy took me on a tour. They explained that nuclear tests [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/is-nuclear-winter-a-climate-issue/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-bad-does-it-have-to-get-before-the-dnc-declares-an-emergency/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-bad-does-it-have-to-get-before-the-dnc-declares-an-emergency/#respond Wed, 28 May 2025 16:08:31 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1284296 Midway through this month, Democratic Representative Hakeem Jeffries sent out a fundraising text saying that he “recently announced a 10-point plan to take on Trump and the Republicans.” But the plan was no more recent than early February, just two weeks after President Trump’s inauguration. It’s hardly reassuring that the House minority leader cited a [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-bad-does-it-have-to-get-before-the-dnc-declares-an-emergency/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-to-fight-trump-without-caving-to-corporatists/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-to-fight-trump-without-caving-to-corporatists/#respond Mon, 19 May 2025 16:22:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1283928 RICHARD ESKOW: In a recent column you asked, “What’s preventing a united front against the Trump regime?” You say, “America desperately needs a united front to restrain the wrecking ball of the Trump regime.” I get the “wrecking ball,” but why do we need a united front? What’s wrong with a multi-pronged approach from various [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-to-fight-trump-without-caving-to-corporatists/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-us-left-vietnam-50-years-ago-today-the-media-hasnt-learned-its-lesson/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-us-left-vietnam-50-years-ago-today-the-media-hasnt-learned-its-lesson/#respond Thu, 01 May 2025 15:56:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1283211 The last helicopter liftoff from the roof of the American embassy in Saigon on 30 April 1975 marked the end of the Vietnam war. Fifty years later, mythology about US media coverage of the war is locked into the faulty premise that news outlets were pivotal in causing Americans to turn against it. Some say that [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-us-left-vietnam-50-years-ago-today-the-media-hasnt-learned-its-lesson/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-vietnam-and-gaza-wars-shattered-young-illusions-about-u-s-leaders/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-vietnam-and-gaza-wars-shattered-young-illusions-about-u-s-leaders/#respond Wed, 30 Apr 2025 17:30:49 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1283158 Eight years before the U.S.-backed regime in South Vietnam collapsed, I stood with high school friends at Manhattan’s Penn Station on the night of April 15, 1967, waiting for a train back to Washington after attending the era’s largest antiwar protest so far. An early edition of the next day’s New York Times arrived on newsstands with [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-vietnam-and-gaza-wars-shattered-young-illusions-about-u-s-leaders/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/whats-preventing-a-united-front-against-the-trump-regime/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/whats-preventing-a-united-front-against-the-trump-regime/#respond Mon, 28 Apr 2025 15:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1283058 Back in 2016, I was convinced that, had Bernie Sanders won the Democratic presidential nomination, he would have beaten Donald Trump because he would have taken some of Trump’s White working-class voters. So here’s my fantasy for election 2028 — you know, the one in which Trump (the man who once threatened to be a dictator for a [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/whats-preventing-a-united-front-against-the-trump-regime/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-pro-israel-pro-peace-advocates-cling-to-genocide-denial/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-pro-israel-pro-peace-advocates-cling-to-genocide-denial/#respond Wed, 19 Mar 2025 16:16:46 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1281225 Israel’s renewed assault on Gaza comes several months after both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued reports concluding without equivocation that Israel was engaged in genocide. But very few members of Congress dare to acknowledge that reality, while their silence and denials scream out complicity. In a New York Times interview last weekend, the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-pro-israel-pro-peace-advocates-cling-to-genocide-denial/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-the-warfare-state-paved-the-way-for-a-trumpist-autocracy/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-the-warfare-state-paved-the-way-for-a-trumpist-autocracy/#respond Fri, 28 Feb 2025 16:12:46 +0000 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-the-warfare-state-paved-the-way-for-a-trumpist-autocracy/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/democrats-irritated-by-voters-who-elected-them-need-an-attitude-adjustment/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/democrats-irritated-by-voters-who-elected-them-need-an-attitude-adjustment/#comments Mon, 24 Feb 2025 16:35:54 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1280207 The Capitol’s phone lines have been overwhelmed this month, and some Democrats are complaining about the deluge of calls from voters who implore them to fight the Trump administration. Too often the responses to the calls have amounted to passing the buck rightward. “It’s been a constant theme of us saying, ‘Please call the Republicans,’” Virginia Democratic [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/democrats-irritated-by-voters-who-elected-them-need-an-attitude-adjustment/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-u-s-media-hide-truths-about-the-gaza-war/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-u-s-media-hide-truths-about-the-gaza-war/#comments Mon, 13 Jan 2025 16:57:05 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1278380 A few days before the end of 2024, the independent magazine +972 reported that “Israeli army forces stormed the Kamal Adwan Hospital compound in Beit Lahiya, culminating a nearly week-long siege of the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza.” While fire spread through the hospital, its staff issued a statement saying that “surgical departments, laboratory, maintenance, and emergency [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-u-s-media-hide-truths-about-the-gaza-war/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/genocidal-president-genocidal-politics/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/genocidal-president-genocidal-politics/#respond Mon, 06 Jan 2025 18:11:52 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1278058 When news broke over the weekend that President Biden just approved an $8 billion deal for shipping weapons to Israel, a nameless official vowed that “we will continue to provide the capabilities necessary for Israel’s defense.” Following the reports last month from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch concluding that Israeli actions in Gaza are [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/genocidal-president-genocidal-politics/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-congress-members-face-a-lawsuit-for-funding-israels-war-on-gaza/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-congress-members-face-a-lawsuit-for-funding-israels-war-on-gaza/#respond Thu, 02 Jan 2025 16:56:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1277900 On the last day of 2024, the deputy general counsel for the House of Representatives formally accepted delivery of a civil summons for two congressmembers from Northern California. More than 600 constituents of Jared Huffman and Mike Thompson have signed on as plaintiffs in a class action accusing them of helping to arm the Israeli military in [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-congress-members-face-a-lawsuit-for-funding-israels-war-on-gaza/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/now-it-can-be-told-after-all-the-harm-has-been-done/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/now-it-can-be-told-after-all-the-harm-has-been-done/#respond Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:58:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1277595 This week, the New York Times reported that the U.S. government made war in Afghanistan while helping to “recruit, train and pay for lawless bands of militias that pillaged homes and laid waste to entire communities.” Those militias “tortured civilians, kidnapped for ransom, massacred dozens in vendetta killings and razed entire villages, sowing more than a decade [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/now-it-can-be-told-after-all-the-harm-has-been-done/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/omnicide-joe/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/omnicide-joe/#comments Mon, 25 Nov 2024 16:52:10 +0000 President Biden has never wavered from approving huge arms shipments to Israel during more than 13 months of mass murder and deliberate starvation of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Biden’s crucial role earned him the name “Genocide Joe.” That nickname might seem shrill, but it’s valid. Although Biden will not be brought to justice for serving [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/omnicide-joe/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/looming-fascism-and-the-question-of-hope/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/looming-fascism-and-the-question-of-hope/#comments Thu, 14 Nov 2024 16:55:00 +0000 When some leading thinkers at the London School of Economics saw fascism take hold in the 1930s, Oxford history professor Ben Jackson said in a recent BBC interview, they “argued that in those circumstances the people with economic power in society, the property owners, are willing to cancel democracy, cancel civil liberties, and make deals with political [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/looming-fascism-and-the-question-of-hope/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-victory-and-elite-power-over-the-democratic-party/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-victory-and-elite-power-over-the-democratic-party/#respond Thu, 07 Nov 2024 16:56:00 +0000 A pair of quotes, separated by eight years, spotlight a chronic political mentality at the top of the Democratic Party: “The path to victory in a state like Michigan, Harris campaign officials are betting, is through suburban counties that are home to many college-educated and white voters,” the New York Times reported three weeks ago. “For every blue-collar [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-victory-and-elite-power-over-the-democratic-party/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/this-is-not-a-drill-fascism-is-on-the-ballot-but/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/this-is-not-a-drill-fascism-is-on-the-ballot-but/#comments Mon, 28 Oct 2024 15:28:08 +0000 The conclusion that Donald Trump is a fascist has gone mainstream, gaining wide publicity and affirmation in recent weeks. Such understanding is a problem for Trump and his boosters. At the same time, potentially pivotal in this close election, a small proportion of people who consider themselves to be progressive still assert that any differences [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/this-is-not-a-drill-fascism-is-on-the-ballot-but/feed/ 2 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/whats-certain-about-results-of-the-presidential-election/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/whats-certain-about-results-of-the-presidential-election/#comments Tue, 22 Oct 2024 16:01:00 +0000 While the name of the next president is unknown, some outcomes of the election can be foreseen. For instance: Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are supporters of boosting already-huge Pentagon budgets along with continuing U.S. warfare in many forms. Trump likes to pander to voters who don’t want endless wars, but his actual policies as president kept them [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/whats-certain-about-results-of-the-presidential-election/feed/ 2 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/time-for-a-united-front-against-trump-and-realism-about-harris/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/time-for-a-united-front-against-trump-and-realism-about-harris/#comments Mon, 14 Oct 2024 17:17:24 +0000 With Election Day just three weeks off and voting already underway in some states, the race for president is down to the wire. Progressives could make the difference. While no one in their left mind plans to vote for the fascistic and unhinged Donald Trump, some say they won’t vote for Kamala Harris because of [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/time-for-a-united-front-against-trump-and-realism-about-harris/feed/ 1