https://znetwork.org/author/phil-wilson/ Independent Left News, Analysis, Vision and Strategy Sun, 15 Feb 2026 15:01:59 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://znetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/cropped-Z_logo_512-32x32.png https://znetwork.org/author/phil-wilson/ 32 32 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-fantasy-of-trumps-imminent-demise-is-the-political-opiate-of-the-masses/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-fantasy-of-trumps-imminent-demise-is-the-political-opiate-of-the-masses/#respond Sun, 15 Feb 2026 15:01:50 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294750 David Pakman makes a fairly stunning observation: Trump’s perseverative trope about immigrants coming from “insane asylums” likely reflects Trump’s utterly moronic inability to comprehend that “political asylum” and “insane asylum,” despite sharing a common word, have vastly different meanings. An average person knows that an “insane asylum” provides respite, comfort and remediation for people who [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-fantasy-of-trumps-imminent-demise-is-the-political-opiate-of-the-masses/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-plea-for-sortition-and-direct-democracy-in-the-wake-of-the-epstein-files/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-plea-for-sortition-and-direct-democracy-in-the-wake-of-the-epstein-files/#comments Mon, 09 Feb 2026 16:48:43 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294511 The Epstein Files do not warrant shock and horror. A quiet nod of the head along with maybe a lopsided, very restrained smile might suffice. I will consider my most cynical smirk – the one conveying a sort of fatalistic disgust normally employed for train delays, and added charges to my cell phone bill. These [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-plea-for-sortition-and-direct-democracy-in-the-wake-of-the-epstein-files/feed/ 3 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-need-mass-leftist-media-to-fight-the-distortions-and-lies-of-legacy-media/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-need-mass-leftist-media-to-fight-the-distortions-and-lies-of-legacy-media/#comments Wed, 28 Jan 2026 20:25:05 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1294090 We seem to be in the midst of a widening crack in the edifice that supports US ideology – denial. Even the most oblivious pundits have been crawling out from under their wormy rocks to confess that, yes, Trump is a fascist. One of the latest is Jonathan Rauch, whose brand new piece, aptly titled, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-need-mass-leftist-media-to-fight-the-distortions-and-lies-of-legacy-media/feed/ 2 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/gaza-is-colonialism-on-steroids-and-the-template-for-a-renewed-assault-on-latin-america/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/gaza-is-colonialism-on-steroids-and-the-template-for-a-renewed-assault-on-latin-america/#respond Mon, 12 Jan 2026 13:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293391 The United States did not invent the concept of bombing civilians – that tradition originated with the Luftwaffe of Herman Goering and Erhard Milch that bombed Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. The US, however, has built an empire on the foundation of terrorism from the sky. Psychologically and metaphorically, the obliteration of unarmed civilians with [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/gaza-is-colonialism-on-steroids-and-the-template-for-a-renewed-assault-on-latin-america/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/judge-finds-acts-of-civil-disobedience-to-be-justified/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/judge-finds-acts-of-civil-disobedience-to-be-justified/#respond Thu, 25 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292762 Northampton District Court Judge, Mary Beth Ogulewicz, put her neck bravely within the noose of potential political and corporate retribution when she rendered the verdict on December, 23, “After consideration of the testimony, exhibits, applicable law and arguments of counsel, I find the defendants Not Responsible on all counts.” This is an astonishing verdict in [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/judge-finds-acts-of-civil-disobedience-to-be-justified/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/four-elderly-activists-face-charges-for-antiwar-civil-disobedience-in-northampton-massachusetts/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/four-elderly-activists-face-charges-for-antiwar-civil-disobedience-in-northampton-massachusetts/#respond Sat, 20 Dec 2025 16:30:53 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292566 Courtrooms create great theater. We recognize the dramatic tension between static, formal systems of protocol that protect vested interests, and the contrary movement – the human passion to tell grim stories without flinching. We live in a country that has evolved as the world’s most rapacious empire by concealing the suffering that transpires beyond the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/four-elderly-activists-face-charges-for-antiwar-civil-disobedience-in-northampton-massachusetts/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-alleged-dementia-is-beside-the-point-the-issue-isnt-fitness-but-fascism/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-alleged-dementia-is-beside-the-point-the-issue-isnt-fitness-but-fascism/#respond Sun, 14 Dec 2025 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1292351 During Trump’s first term it became something of a meme to compare Trump’s inner circle to the  collection of grotesque villains portrayed in Batman movies and cartoons. The Trump administration had seemingly been culled directly from Gotham City. In this 2017 warmup to fascism, Trump still had “Sloppy” Steve Bannon, moving chess pieces, Alex Jones’ [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trumps-alleged-dementia-is-beside-the-point-the-issue-isnt-fitness-but-fascism/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/imagining-the-merger-of-refuse-fascism-and-the-general-strike/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/imagining-the-merger-of-refuse-fascism-and-the-general-strike/#respond Tue, 02 Dec 2025 17:30:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291873 This is the time when everyone has a choice to make – actually a series of choices all premised on a single decision. Every US adult will consider whether or not to resist fascism. Some of us may be in better position to act – those with vulnerable immigration status, or with connections to those [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/imagining-the-merger-of-refuse-fascism-and-the-general-strike/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/please-register-for-the-general-strike-webinar-on-saturday-3pm-est/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/please-register-for-the-general-strike-webinar-on-saturday-3pm-est/#respond Fri, 21 Nov 2025 16:58:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291515 I heard from a former client of mine that he abruptly learned of the government shutdown from the checkout person at the grocery store. Poor people often have little investment in news reports and few follow political media. When you have nothing, your sense of agency erodes, and so my client had no advanced warning [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/please-register-for-the-general-strike-webinar-on-saturday-3pm-est/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mamdani-triumphs-while-northampton-massachusetts-challengers-fail-to-expand-the-franchise/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mamdani-triumphs-while-northampton-massachusetts-challengers-fail-to-expand-the-franchise/#respond Sun, 09 Nov 2025 13:20:54 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1291023 I worked my ass off on the local mayoral race, walking about 15 miles a day passing out homemade leaflets detailing the moral and legal indiscretions of our incumbent mayor of Northampton, Gina Louise Sciarra. For three days leading up to the election I placed my flyers in the gaping mouths of rotting jack-o-lanterns, under [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/mamdani-triumphs-while-northampton-massachusetts-challengers-fail-to-expand-the-franchise/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-suspension-of-snap-benefits-gives-no-kings-day-protestors-a-chance-to-participate-in-real-resistance/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-suspension-of-snap-benefits-gives-no-kings-day-protestors-a-chance-to-participate-in-real-resistance/#respond Fri, 31 Oct 2025 20:48:25 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1290701 We have two colliding forces – “end-of-the-world fascism” (EWF) and mass civil disobedience. Clearly, one will defeat the other. Right now the odds favor EWF – the fascist home team has a superior gerrymandering game, oil industry, tech and armaments cash piled up to the peak of Mount Everest and beyond, control of the means [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-suspension-of-snap-benefits-gives-no-kings-day-protestors-a-chance-to-participate-in-real-resistance/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/no-kings-day-needs-to-remove-democratic-party-influence-in-future-events/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/no-kings-day-needs-to-remove-democratic-party-influence-in-future-events/#comments Thu, 23 Oct 2025 15:59:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1290354 I attended the downtown local No Kings Day festivities in Northampton, Massachusetts, and estimate that some 1,500 people came out. I liked the crowds but the character and will of the people rather collided with the self-serving ambitions of Democratic Party speakers who hogged microphones that might have been given to ordinary people. The potential [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/no-kings-day-needs-to-remove-democratic-party-influence-in-future-events/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/admirals-and-generals-will-not-save-us-agency-rests-in-the-hands-of-the-public-alone/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/admirals-and-generals-will-not-save-us-agency-rests-in-the-hands-of-the-public-alone/#comments Mon, 06 Oct 2025 15:23:14 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1289567 The Nazi holocaust did not begin with The Wannsee Conference. Prior to the German invasion of the Soviet Union, representatives of the racial state – most likely Reinhardt Heydrich would have led this contingent – communicated with Wehrmacht generals to define the nature of military conduct in a war that Hitler conceptualized as a merciless struggle [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/admirals-and-generals-will-not-save-us-agency-rests-in-the-hands-of-the-public-alone/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/charlie-kirks-assassination-looming-fascist-consolidation-or-another-forgettable-act-of-us-violence/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/charlie-kirks-assassination-looming-fascist-consolidation-or-another-forgettable-act-of-us-violence/#respond Tue, 23 Sep 2025 16:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1288948 In our fascist dream scape we wander as if submerged in inky water – a slow moving, static, effortful environment, drowsy yet sleepless, punctuated by momentary flashes of distant rage. In one such discomforting burst we saw Charlie Kirk shot in the neck, blood spurting in a fountain of finality, witnessed in our mutual stupor [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/charlie-kirks-assassination-looming-fascist-consolidation-or-another-forgettable-act-of-us-violence/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/northampton-activists-make-progress-in-the-quest-to-evict-arms-profiteer-l3harris/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/northampton-activists-make-progress-in-the-quest-to-evict-arms-profiteer-l3harris/#comments Fri, 29 Aug 2025 18:12:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1287916 On Wednesday, August, 20, I go to protest – as I do every Wednesday at 6:30AM – at local arms profiteer, L3Harris. I know something might be up, because one of my companions at last week’s L3 demonstration warned me that people plan to block the company driveway. The police will make arrests. Protest leaps [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/northampton-activists-make-progress-in-the-quest-to-evict-arms-profiteer-l3harris/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-us-bloated-military-budget-is-the-mother-of-fascism/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-us-bloated-military-budget-is-the-mother-of-fascism/#respond Wed, 13 Aug 2025 18:40:53 +0000 US military spending mocks global norms with such salacious excess that we might imagine our country as being in the throes of a perpetual addictive seizure. Our national binge has been stoked with a chaotic hodgepodge of threats that leave us jonesing for a harder hit – we tremble, in our hallucinatory fears, about China, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-us-bloated-military-budget-is-the-mother-of-fascism/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-we-should-pay-attention-to-gerta-kellers-battle-with-the-alvarez-impact-theory/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-we-should-pay-attention-to-gerta-kellers-battle-with-the-alvarez-impact-theory/#respond Mon, 30 Jun 2025 16:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1285648 I am hiking along the Metacomet Ridge in Greenfield, Massachusetts – a rather steep basaltic structure, modestly less than five hundred feet high and topped by a stately brick tower constructed in honor of transcendentalist poet, Frederick Goddard Tuckerman.  Today, in mid spring, a cloudless sky and blissfully warm breezes carry the odor of blossoms [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-we-should-pay-attention-to-gerta-kellers-battle-with-the-alvarez-impact-theory/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/sky-wars-the-bombing-industrial-complex-of-us-terror/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/sky-wars-the-bombing-industrial-complex-of-us-terror/#respond Fri, 27 Jun 2025 18:23:27 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1285540 The bombing of Guernica in 1937 unveiled weapons of mass destruction aimed at civilian populations. While Picasso’s famous painting depicting that event brought cubism and outrage together, Guernica marks a more critical narrative demarcation point – the beginning of current US military culture. Hitler and Mussolini’s targeting of a Basque town in 1937 to assist [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/sky-wars-the-bombing-industrial-complex-of-us-terror/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/let-them-all-in-us-immigration-policy-imagined-as-atonement-for-crimes-against-humanity/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/let-them-all-in-us-immigration-policy-imagined-as-atonement-for-crimes-against-humanity/#comments Thu, 19 Jun 2025 15:48:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1285211 Immigrants and asylum seeking refugees are the political props that fascists exploit to seize control of all US government institutions. The white supremacist, masculinist Republican Party deploys a “persecutory narrative” to do three things – 1) Brainwash the public to believe that the utopian dream of “Leave It To Beaver” America has been squashed by [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/let-them-all-in-us-immigration-policy-imagined-as-atonement-for-crimes-against-humanity/feed/ 2 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/liberal-legacy-media-has-distracted-us-for-years/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/liberal-legacy-media-has-distracted-us-for-years/#respond Tue, 03 Jun 2025 16:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1284551 When we contemplate the dystopian landscape at this grim moment – the rotting corpse of liberal democracy, with its gaping death-head of Joe Biden, its confused center that will forever not hold, and its left wing in seemingly terminal internecine conflict, there are a million fingers to point. We can name Rush Limbaugh and Ronald [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/liberal-legacy-media-has-distracted-us-for-years/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/activist-diary-7-david-and-goliath-northampton-activists-want-munitions-icon-l3-harris-to-leave-town/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/activist-diary-7-david-and-goliath-northampton-activists-want-munitions-icon-l3-harris-to-leave-town/#respond Mon, 19 May 2025 17:56:42 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1283956 You might survive a nuclear strike, but I won’t. I live on the Sharpie X that some foreign general scratched upon the globe. Maybe all of us not residing in Hiroshima or Nagasaki suffer from an imaginative deficit when it comes to matters of mushroom clouds, slow radiation deaths, and the lucky creatures instantly vaporized. [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/activist-diary-7-david-and-goliath-northampton-activists-want-munitions-icon-l3-harris-to-leave-town/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/us-fascist-iconography-masculinism-kristi-noems-cosplay-and-the-persecution-of-trans-women/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/us-fascist-iconography-masculinism-kristi-noems-cosplay-and-the-persecution-of-trans-women/#respond Mon, 28 Apr 2025 14:14:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1283077 Masculinism has always driven fascist ideals – alienated men have time and again become fodder for movements that idealize violence, conquest and power. The MAGA version of masculinism has been built to battle long standing US trends of multiculturalism and the rise of women. Restless, frustrated male aggression may not be the only factor animating MAGA [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/us-fascist-iconography-masculinism-kristi-noems-cosplay-and-the-persecution-of-trans-women/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/there-is-no-democracy-without-direct-democracy/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/there-is-no-democracy-without-direct-democracy/#respond Sun, 13 Apr 2025 12:07:14 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1282390 The organization “The General Strike” aspires to mobilize approximately 11 million people committed to coordinating a massive work stoppage. The magic number of 11 million equals 3.5 percent of the US population – a figure that organizers argue will be large enough to transform the US power structure and give workers the agency to shape [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/there-is-no-democracy-without-direct-democracy/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/this-is-a-time-for-re-creation-and-reimagining-not-for-tepid-nostalgia/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/this-is-a-time-for-re-creation-and-reimagining-not-for-tepid-nostalgia/#respond Thu, 27 Mar 2025 15:47:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1281636 George Packer recently wrote an Atlantic piece that cleverly situated the Trump regime within a familiar Orwellian framework. According to Packer, Lindsey Graham, Mike Johnson and other slavish Trump sycophants have become comically ridiculous (Packer references Henri Bergson’s theory of comedy) in direct proportion to their ability to absurdly and mechanically mimic Trump’s perspective with the same [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/this-is-a-time-for-re-creation-and-reimagining-not-for-tepid-nostalgia/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-us-government-in-exile-gives-us-new-hope/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-us-government-in-exile-gives-us-new-hope/#comments Mon, 10 Mar 2025 15:38:18 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1280796 The first and most treacherous step involves admitting that we are fucked. That’s the hardest part. We live in a land with no democracy, no human rights and the sort of hope that meanders back and forth from full on surrender to visions of alien starships dangling diamond encrusted escape ropes above our heads. The [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-us-government-in-exile-gives-us-new-hope/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-trump-gaza-ai-video-gives-us-a-free-vacation-in-the-twilight-zone/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-trump-gaza-ai-video-gives-us-a-free-vacation-in-the-twilight-zone/#respond Fri, 28 Feb 2025 15:57:10 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1280382 The dialectic that struggles in my brain pits two terrible things against one another – I sometimes think that Trump’s fascist coup has been an example of the chickens coming home to roost. The US – the fount that always destroys, plunders, extracts, exploits and tosses bombs (nuclear and “conventional”) on civilians across the face [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-trump-gaza-ai-video-gives-us-a-free-vacation-in-the-twilight-zone/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/neocon-platform-the-bulwark-offers-up-ecomodernist-climate-propaganda/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/neocon-platform-the-bulwark-offers-up-ecomodernist-climate-propaganda/#respond Mon, 24 Feb 2025 16:01:22 +0000 The Democratic Party and their satellite media-sphere have an abysmal record on climate with all time fossil fuel champion Joe Biden – the Mike Tyson of carbon emissions – and Kamala “I love to frack in my spare time” Harris defining the so-called green segment of the US environmental continuum. The Donald “Drill Baby Drill” [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/neocon-platform-the-bulwark-offers-up-ecomodernist-climate-propaganda/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-victims-of-the-fascist-coup-will-be-prioritized-and-poor-people-will-be-among-the-first-to-suffer/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-victims-of-the-fascist-coup-will-be-prioritized-and-poor-people-will-be-among-the-first-to-suffer/#respond Wed, 19 Feb 2025 18:47:42 +0000 In the clusterfuck of Trump’s seemingly random outpouring of statements, EO’s and policy threats, we lose perspective – who will muddle through and who will be obliterated? As a retired outreach mental health worker, I now am forced to imagine the harms that will rain down on those with no power, who have a life [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-victims-of-the-fascist-coup-will-be-prioritized-and-poor-people-will-be-among-the-first-to-suffer/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/shut-the-us-down-before-fascist-consolidation/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/shut-the-us-down-before-fascist-consolidation/#respond Sun, 09 Feb 2025 16:54:18 +0000 Yesterday my wife and I and a friend drove to downtown Springfield for a rally against Trump, organized by Indivisible – a grass roots group focused on local protest movements. We had heard that Massachusetts senators Markey and Warren would be speaking in the flesh, but that rumor proved false. Two staff persons, one from each office, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/shut-the-us-down-before-fascist-consolidation/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/climate-overheating-is-the-greatest-capitalist-crime-ever-perpetrated/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/climate-overheating-is-the-greatest-capitalist-crime-ever-perpetrated/#respond Tue, 31 Dec 2024 17:45:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1277788 If climate overheating is the biggest threat to life on earth, one might expect that progressive platforms would be all over this issue. Of all the great crimes of capitalism – war, imperial conquest, siphoning pocket change from workers into bloated coffers of corporate wealth, shaking down ordinary people for a false promise of health [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/climate-overheating-is-the-greatest-capitalist-crime-ever-perpetrated/feed/ 0