Against the Current

Following the murder of Alex Pretti, ICE and Border Patrol agents observe protesters. Pretti was the second person killed by federal agents and the third person shot. The week after the death of Renee Good on January 7, agents shot Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg but the Venezuelan man survived. (Chad Davis CC BY 4.0)

ON SATURDAY MORNING, January 24th, Alex Jeffrey Pretti was on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis, filming with his phone masked ICE agents as they interacted with a group protesting their presence.

Observing that one of the agents shoved a protester to the ground, he placed himself between the two and reached to help her up. The goon pepper sprayed Pretti as others moved in, grabbing him from the back and forcing him down. Although he tried once more to help the woman, he was hit several times with the spray canister as the goons continued to pummel him....

THE PUBLICATION OF the new U.S. national security doctrine in early December 2025 marks a sharp break with the past due to its openly militaristic, authoritarian, and ideologically reactionary nature. Under the guise of strategic realism, the Trump administration is now embracing a logic of unapologetic imperial dominance, fueled by neo-fascist references, climate denial, and an explicit rejection of human rights and multilateralism. In this Q&A, Éric Toussaint analyses the document, placing it in its historical, economic and ideological context. He highlights the major implications for....

Almost everyone is currently talking, and rightly so, about Trump's clearly stated intention to occupy and annex Greenland “by hook or by crook.” However, no one has even mentioned what would be by far the most important and serious consequence of this imperialist and colonialist act of unbridled Trumpism: the enormous....

1. Chronicle of an Announced Attack

THE UNITED STATES’ military intervention against Venezuela, culminating in Nicolás Maduro’s kidnapping on January 3, 2026, has been in preparation for a long time. In an article published in February 2019, entitled “Donald Trump, the End of Globalism, and the Crisis in Venezuela,”(1) I argued that the then-president revealed with unprecedented candor the true objectives of U.S. imperialism: not the defense of democracy or human rights, nor the (selective) respect for international treaties based on liberal ideology, but control over resources with strategic and economic value. Already at that time, Trump openly criticized his predecessors for not having “taken the oil” from Venezuela or Iraq, or the rare minerals from Afghanistan, making explicit a predatory logic that liberal discourse traditionally concealed....

Teachers struck for several weeks, demanding permanent employment, reinstatement of those sacked and salaries to match soaring prices.

LARGE RALLIES IN support of Syria’s ruling authorities were organised last month across various cities controlled by Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government. Whilst they were presented as demonstrations ‘against division’ and for the unity of the country, sectarian slogans were heard amongst protesters.

It was a similar case for the massive demonstrations celebrating the first anniversary of the Assad regime’s fall. These events highlight....

Trump began his military operation by targeting boats, then moved on to capturing oil tankers in preparation for kidnapping Maduro and his wife the morning of January 3. (venezuelanalysis,com)

We reproduce an article expressing the initial reaction of the Ukrainian left-wing organization Sotsialny Rukh (Social Movement). The article was written in the hours following the announcement of the attacks by the United States armed forces against Venezuela. Edited machine translation.

The morning of 3 January marks the beginning of a widespread attack on democracy and the relative peace of the peoples of Latin America -- and far beyond....

We, the Communist Party of Bangladesh (Marxist–Leninist) and Radical Socialist (India), condemn in the strongest terms the current wave of communal violence, religious fundamentalism, and attacks on democratic and secular spaces in South Asia, particularly in Bangladesh, and the dangerous political repercussions these developments are producing in India…

The Moragahakanda Laggala Bridge on the Moragahakanda–Hettipola Road has been washed away by powerful floodwaters. The bridge was an important connection linking the Matale, Polonnaruwa, and Kurunegala districts, facilitating agricultural transport and access to the Moragahakanda Reservoir -— the largest in the Mahaweli Development Project. Heavy rains continue to trigger extensive flooding across multiple areas of the country.

CYCLONE DITWAH RIPPED through Sri Lanka between 27 and 29 November. The toll is devastating. Seven days later, the official count is 486 deaths and 341 missing. To which should be added five navy and one air-force officer killed in rescue operations; and an electricity board technician electrocuted while repairing a power line. As search teams reach previously inaccessible areas this week, the fatality count has grown exponentially, and some fear it will climb into four digits. We may never know the true number.

Hundreds of thousands are sheltering in state, community, and private facilities, as well as with family and friends. More than 41,000 homes have been fully or partially destroyed. As many as 108 roads are currently impassable; 247 km of road are damaged; 40 bridges are destroyed, isolating homes and hamlets, and hampering rescue and relief efforts. Electricity, water supply, internet, telephone, and transport services have been disrupted in all 25 districts. Over 1.5 million people....

Auricelia Arapiun

“We don't sell our land because it is like our mother. Our territory is our body. And we don't sell our body. We don't sell our mother. We wouldn't sell it, because it is sacred.

“And we start suffering pressures of invasion, pressure from mining, from agribusiness, which has expanded a lot, pressure from logging companies, which are deforesting our territories. And we have been resisting.” —Auricelia Arapiun, Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB).

Second Ecosocialist Meeting, Belém, Brazil, November 2025.
(Participation included 99 organizations and more than 350 people, including a strong presence of organizations representing Indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants.)

WE GATHER AT moment of profound capitalist attacks on life,...

Tom Alter

Contact the Committee to Defend Tom Alter for more information and to get involved in this important defense work.

On October 12 Suzi Weissman interviewed Professor Tom Alter, a tenured professor at Texas State University and author of Toward a Cooperative Commonwealth the Transplanted Roots of Farmer Labor Radicalism in Texas for KPFK's "Beneath the Surface" program. A popular professor, he was fired on the basis of a well-known neo-fascist's filming of an online conference where he was discussing different methods of movement organizing.

Suzi Weissman: Welcome to "Beneath the Surface." I'm Suzi Weissman. Professor Tom Alter, a tenured historian at Texas State University, was fired on September 10th after he was accused of inciting violence in a video of him speaking at a socialist conference. His remarks about organizing and defending workers was secretly recorded....

Symbol of U.S. imperialism, Udo Keppler, cover of Puck magazine, June 29, 1904.

DURING ITS FIRST nine months, the Trump administration has deployed warships and military infrastructure to the Caribbean, blown up small boats accused of drug trafficking, imposed 50% tariffs on Brazilian products — in opposition to the outcome of the democratic trial against former President Jair Bolsonaro and other coup plotters — and exerted extreme pressure on the Mexican government to force it to reduce the flow of Latin American migrants across the border and combat local drug cartels.

These are just a few elements of the brewing storm, whose explanation cannot be reduced to the strident and unstable personality of the neo-fascist president in the United States. The heinous televised murder of those on the small boats in Caribbean waters....