https://znetwork.org/category/topic/politics-gov/ Independent Left News, Analysis, Vision and Strategy Fri, 16 Jan 2026 01:56:19 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://znetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/cropped-Z_logo_512-32x32.png https://znetwork.org/category/topic/politics-gov/ 32 32 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-voting-alone-doesnt-build-democracy-and-what-actually-does/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-voting-alone-doesnt-build-democracy-and-what-actually-does/#respond Thu, 15 Jan 2026 16:58:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293501 Elections matter, but history shows they are not enough. Real democracy is built through organized civic power between elections. Voting matters. That needs to be said plainly—especially now. But let’s be frank: voting does not provide an immediate mechanism for holding politicians accountable when their actions violate the public trust, undermine democratic norms, or serve [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-voting-alone-doesnt-build-democracy-and-what-actually-does/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/barristers-powerful-speech-at-filton-trial-reminds-jury-of-its-right-to-defy-judge/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/barristers-powerful-speech-at-filton-trial-reminds-jury-of-its-right-to-defy-judge/#respond Thu, 15 Jan 2026 16:56:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293510 Starmer and the media need convictions to justify Palestine Action’s proscription as a terrorist group. Rajiv Menon KC spells out to the jury why it is a vital last defence against government tyranny. My thanks to Craig Murray, former UK ambassador turned whistleblower, for alerting me to what he rightly calls “one of the greatest legal speeches [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/barristers-powerful-speech-at-filton-trial-reminds-jury-of-its-right-to-defy-judge/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/minnesota-should-charge-ice-agent-with-murder/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/minnesota-should-charge-ice-agent-with-murder/#comments Wed, 14 Jan 2026 16:54:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293469 On Jan. 7, less than a mile from where George Floyd was murdered nearly six years ago, ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Nicole Good as she tried to drive away. Once again, video footage filmed by bystanders recorded a brutal murder by a member of law enforcement, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/minnesota-should-charge-ice-agent-with-murder/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-significance-of-last-weekends-1200-local-actions/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-significance-of-last-weekends-1200-local-actions/#respond Wed, 14 Jan 2026 16:53:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293477 The new year began on a very foreboding note. First was the Trump regime’s invasion of Venezuela to kidnap its President with the explicit purpose being to get control of its oil. Then, a few days later, came the killing of 37-year-old, mother of three Renee Nicole Good by ICE in Minneapolis, followed by Trump [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-significance-of-last-weekends-1200-local-actions/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fifteen-thousand-new-york-city-nurses-strike/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fifteen-thousand-new-york-city-nurses-strike/#respond Wed, 14 Jan 2026 16:52:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293463 Fifteen thousand nurses across 10 campuses in New York City’s three biggest hospital systems are on an open-ended strike. It’s the city’s largest nurse strike in decades. Picket lines stretched for blocks at Mount Sinai, Montefiore, and New York Presbyterian hospitals on January 12, thronged with nurses plus Teamsters, hotel workers, and university staff showing [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fifteen-thousand-new-york-city-nurses-strike/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/six-points-to-navigate-the-turmoil-in-iran/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/six-points-to-navigate-the-turmoil-in-iran/#comments Wed, 14 Jan 2026 16:52:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293456 Iran is in turmoil. Across the country, there have been protests of different magnitudes, with violence on the increase with both protesters and police finding themselves in the morgue. What began as work stoppages and inflation protests drew together a range of discontent, with women and young people frustrated with a system unable to secure [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/six-points-to-navigate-the-turmoil-in-iran/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-vets-in-labor-have-joined-fight-against-trump/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-vets-in-labor-have-joined-fight-against-trump/#respond Tue, 13 Jan 2026 17:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293410 In the U.S., seventeen million people, across multiple generations, have a shared personal identity based on their past military service. About 1.3 million former service members currently work in union jobs, with women and people of color making up the fastest-growing cohorts in their ranks. According to the AFL-CIO, veterans are more likely to join [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/how-vets-in-labor-have-joined-fight-against-trump/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-permanent-floating-police-riot/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-permanent-floating-police-riot/#respond Tue, 13 Jan 2026 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293430 ICE’s servile savagery differs from conventional policing in degree, but not in kind. The same structural reasons that lead to brutality in local police departments applied to a greater degree to ICE even before it became Trump’s personal Gestapo. None of ICE’s action lack precedent among law enforcement agencies.  Take the example of the murder [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-permanent-floating-police-riot/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/right-message-wrong-messengers-a-brief-history-of-oil-and-u-s-empire-in-iran/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/right-message-wrong-messengers-a-brief-history-of-oil-and-u-s-empire-in-iran/#respond Tue, 13 Jan 2026 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293437 Multiple things can be true at once. The Iranian people are engaged in a legitimate popular struggle against an entrenched political elite that has failed to meet their material needs and has answered demands for freedom and dignity with unconscionable violence and repression. At the same time, the U.S. has no political, legal, or moral [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/right-message-wrong-messengers-a-brief-history-of-oil-and-u-s-empire-in-iran/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-pathology-of-power-how-america-learned-to-love-state-violence/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-pathology-of-power-how-america-learned-to-love-state-violence/#respond Tue, 13 Jan 2026 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293435 There’s a scene playing out across American social media that should disturb anyone with a functioning conscience. A woman lies dead, killed by federal agents while serving as a legal observer. The video evidence is clear: she was waving ICE vehicles forward, her SUV was moving with its wheels turned away from officers, and the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-pathology-of-power-how-america-learned-to-love-state-violence/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/venezuela-where-the-politics-of-drugs-oil-and-war-intersect/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/venezuela-where-the-politics-of-drugs-oil-and-war-intersect/#respond Tue, 13 Jan 2026 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293439 In the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, lawyer Celia Flores, neither the ‘rule of law’ (if ever relevant to the United States), nor Venezuelan oil is the key issue. Rather, it is a desperate act on the part of a declining power in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), and an [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/venezuela-where-the-politics-of-drugs-oil-and-war-intersect/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/venezuela-its-much-more-than-oil/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/venezuela-its-much-more-than-oil/#respond Tue, 13 Jan 2026 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293441 As the US openly discussed schemes to add Greenland to its list of conquered territories, it became abundantly clear that “Alternative Energy” (AltE, solar, wind, hydro power) joined fossil fuels at center stage. [1]  Corporations which pull the puppet strings of governments are well aware that oil production will cease long before none remains in [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/venezuela-its-much-more-than-oil/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/zohran-mamdani-is-right-to-stand-by-cea-weaver/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/zohran-mamdani-is-right-to-stand-by-cea-weaver/#respond Tue, 13 Jan 2026 17:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293445 Last June, a tenant organizer named Cea Weaver wrote an article for Jacobin that bluntly opened with the line, “Real estate runs New York.” She noted that “poll after poll” showed that New Yorkers’ top concern is rent, but “disgraced mayor Eric Adams” openly declared, “I am real estate.” Former governor Andrew Cuomo, who was running to replace Adams, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/zohran-mamdani-is-right-to-stand-by-cea-weaver/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-is-the-us-left-so-chickensh_t/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-is-the-us-left-so-chickensh_t/#comments Tue, 13 Jan 2026 16:59:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293426 January 3, 2026, should be the date to end all discussion:  Trump’s raid on Venezuela should have clarified reality even to the most obtuse:  the US is not an “ordinary” country, as is claimed by observers all around, but is the center of the US Empire.  Its “leaders” seek to dominate the world.  Those of [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-is-the-us-left-so-chickensh_t/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/shackles-in-mentality-and-ocalans-revolution-of-mentality/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/shackles-in-mentality-and-ocalans-revolution-of-mentality/#respond Mon, 12 Jan 2026 13:03:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293387 ​The radical breakthrough quality of Abdullah Öcalan’s thought stems not only from exceeding the limits of the classical leftist paradigm but from the structural critique he directs toward the entirety of modernity. This critique is aimed at analyzing the integrated system of power that modernity has built around progress, growth, rationality, the nation-state, capitalist economy, [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/shackles-in-mentality-and-ocalans-revolution-of-mentality/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/suffering-isnt-a-competition-injustice-anywhere-is-a-threat-to-justice-everywhere/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/suffering-isnt-a-competition-injustice-anywhere-is-a-threat-to-justice-everywhere/#respond Mon, 12 Jan 2026 13:02:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293407 The start of 2026 arrives less as a new beginning and more as the potent aftershocks of the many earthquakes we endured in 2025. It was a year defined by widening wars, democratic backsliding, the systematic hollowing out of governmental, diplomatic, and humanitarian institutions, tariff-driven economic uncertainty, and the normalization of political violence in the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/suffering-isnt-a-competition-injustice-anywhere-is-a-threat-to-justice-everywhere/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ivan-cepeda-on-the-risk-of-us-meddling-in-colombias-election/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ivan-cepeda-on-the-risk-of-us-meddling-in-colombias-election/#respond Mon, 12 Jan 2026 13:02:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293385 Iván Cepeda is a senator for the Pacto Histórico, the left-wing alliance that backed Colombian president Gustavo Petro’s election, and its candidate to succeed him as president in the general elections of May and June 2026. A human rights defender, Cepeda has a long political career that has led him, at different times, to be [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/ivan-cepeda-on-the-risk-of-us-meddling-in-colombias-election/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/takebacktiktok-from-ellison-let-palestine-live/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/takebacktiktok-from-ellison-let-palestine-live/#respond Mon, 12 Jan 2026 13:02:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293399 CODEPINK co-founders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans call on TikTokers across the world to flood the platform for Palestine to #TakeBackTikTok from billionaire Larry Ellison, the media mogul soon to control TikTok’s US app. “We don’t have Ellison’s billions, his private Hawaiian island or his cushy ties with Trump, but we do have people power [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/takebacktiktok-from-ellison-let-palestine-live/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/10-reasons-why-ice-is-harassing-native-americans/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/10-reasons-why-ice-is-harassing-native-americans/#respond Mon, 12 Jan 2026 13:01:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293382 ICE and Border Patrol are increasingly detaining Native American citizens, and ignoring or refusing to treat Tribal ID cards as proof of citizenship. Just north of where ICE killed Minneapolis rights monitor Renee Nicole Good, agents have detained tribal citizens in the clearly Native neighborhood around Franklin Avenue, where the American Indian Movement was itself [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/10-reasons-why-ice-is-harassing-native-americans/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/justified-and-the-killing-of-renee-nicole-good/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/justified-and-the-killing-of-renee-nicole-good/#respond Mon, 12 Jan 2026 13:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293376 One of my kids recommended to me that I watch the program titled Justified. I was prejudiced against it because it appeared to be one of those Clint Eastwood “cops as killers” programs that have so warped American culture into one celebrating violence and war while somehow pretending to preach the gospel of Jesus, though [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/justified-and-the-killing-of-renee-nicole-good/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-ran-katie-wilsons-campaign-heres-what-we-learned/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-ran-katie-wilsons-campaign-heres-what-we-learned/#respond Mon, 12 Jan 2026 13:00:00 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293378 Zohran Mamdani has energized the US Left and offered a potential road map to socialists seeking political power. But most candidates don’t have Mamdani’s unique superstar charisma and most American cities aren’t so favorable to the Left. Ultimately, to win power nationwide, we’ll need a diverse set of playbooks. The successful campaign of Seattle’s new [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/we-ran-katie-wilsons-campaign-heres-what-we-learned/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-palestine-to-minneapolis-ice-and-israel-use-the-same-violent-playbook/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-palestine-to-minneapolis-ice-and-israel-use-the-same-violent-playbook/#respond Sun, 11 Jan 2026 17:13:03 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293373 On January 7, ICE agents shot Renee Good three times through her car window as she seemingly tried to drive away from them in Minneapolis. Then, they blocked ambulances from reaching her for fifteen minutes while she bled out in the driver’s seat with her partner beside her. Within hours, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was calling [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/from-palestine-to-minneapolis-ice-and-israel-use-the-same-violent-playbook/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/zohran-mamdani-has-quickly-gotten-down-to-business/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/zohran-mamdani-has-quickly-gotten-down-to-business/#comments Sun, 11 Jan 2026 17:08:38 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293371 Sworn in as mayor of New York just over one week ago, Zohran Mamdani is wasting no time beginning to govern. In his first week in office, his administration issued twelve executive orders, including two emergency executive orders. The previous administration took several months to hit that number. Many of the administration’s first-week executive orders, which are [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/zohran-mamdani-has-quickly-gotten-down-to-business/feed/ 1 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/think-you-saw-state-sanctioned-murder-you-failed-medias-rorschach-test/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/think-you-saw-state-sanctioned-murder-you-failed-medias-rorschach-test/#respond Sun, 11 Jan 2026 17:05:20 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293364 Millions have seen the video, but some reports suggest that you should not believe your eyes that saw ICE agents murder Renee Nicole Good as she attempted to slowly move her car away from them. What you are instructed to believe, according to Donald Trump (USA Today, 1/7/26), and those in media who obey him, is that Good was [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/think-you-saw-state-sanctioned-murder-you-failed-medias-rorschach-test/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/court-of-session-tomorrow-on-palestine-action/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/court-of-session-tomorrow-on-palestine-action/#respond Sun, 11 Jan 2026 16:14:08 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293348 In the Western world today, fighting for freedom feels Quixotic, but I shall nevertheless wake early tomorrow to be at the Court of Session in Edinburgh by 9am to fight the proscription in Scotland of Palestine Action. I remain extremely concerned for the lives of the Palestine Action hunger strikers. As I predicted, Starmer’s government [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/court-of-session-tomorrow-on-palestine-action/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/honoring-the-many-responses-to-renee-nicole-goods-murder/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/honoring-the-many-responses-to-renee-nicole-goods-murder/#respond Fri, 09 Jan 2026 19:40:46 +0000 https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1293303 I was leading the afternoon session in a room of Black clergy. I had been planning to announce happier news that our pressure on Avelo forced them out of the deportation business. But this breaking overshadowed it. I told them that an ICE observer in Minneapolis had been shot. They gasped. Somehow, the gasp was the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/honoring-the-many-responses-to-renee-nicole-goods-murder/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/chronicle-of-a-foretold-coup-the-attack-on-venezuela-and-the-narco-terrorism-fairy-tale/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/chronicle-of-a-foretold-coup-the-attack-on-venezuela-and-the-narco-terrorism-fairy-tale/#respond Fri, 09 Jan 2026 19:34:22 +0000 Current developments in Venezuela may appear to be unfathomable—until one recalls the long history of imperialist interference in Latin America and the Caribbean. The events of the first week of January constitute an escalation of a long-standing campaign to overthrow the Bolivarian Revolution and resume control on the country with the largest known oil reserves in the [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/chronicle-of-a-foretold-coup-the-attack-on-venezuela-and-the-narco-terrorism-fairy-tale/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-employers-invest-in-our-kids/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-employers-invest-in-our-kids/#respond Fri, 09 Jan 2026 19:26:22 +0000 The Trump administration has suspended over $10 billion of federal childcare funds for five Democratic-led states over alleged fraud. So what if childcare in the United States is already outrageously expensive, much higher than in other developed countries? But why is it that childcare costs in the US are so high? Socialist and feminist economist [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/will-employers-invest-in-our-kids/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/five-things-steward-training-gets-wrong/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/five-things-steward-training-gets-wrong/#respond Fri, 09 Jan 2026 19:21:02 +0000 Recently I did some training with a group of newly elected officers and business agents. We used their International’s steward training manual, but I felt it missed the mark on several issues. When I reviewed manuals from other unions, these mistakes kept coming up: 1. Representing two members who get in a fight One new [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/five-things-steward-training-gets-wrong/feed/ 0 https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/hugo-chavez-predicted-this/ https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/hugo-chavez-predicted-this/#respond Fri, 09 Jan 2026 19:16:43 +0000 On January 3rd, the United States invaded and bombed Venezuela and abducted President Maduro and First Lady Flores. This violent act of imperialist aggression by the Trump regime is a continuation of over two decades of hybrid warfare aimed at suppressing the Bolivarian Revolution. Over the past months, the US has been escalating aggression against [...]]]> https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/hugo-chavez-predicted-this/feed/ 0