The U.S. is an imperial power. After World War II, it emerged as the global hegemon. The right turn accelerates under Reagan and continues today. Its salient features are a massive transfer of resources from the poor to the rich, an increase in state power and an aggressive interventionist foreign policy enabled by a huge military apparatus with bases all over the world. The empire’s activities are hidden under layers of deceit and subterfuge. A sophisticated propaganda system keeps the public basically unaware. No one has done more to expose actual U.S. domestic and foreign policy than Noam Chomsky. Recorded at the University of Colorado.

2024 was the hottest year ever recorded. 2025 will probably be even worse. Our planet is heating up. If present trends continue, a UN panel of scientists says it would be “disastrous for humankind.” Fossil fuels, including coal, are major contributors to global warming. So, what is the regime in Washington doing about it? It’s promoting fossil fuels with its mantra-like chants “Clean, Beautiful Coal” and “Drill Baby, Drill.” However, energy from the sun and wind is cheaper, more reliable, and better for the climate. And it’s growing faster than any energy source in history. Bill McKibben says, “Our liberation and our destruction are arriving at precisely the same time. Everything is going wrong, except this one big thing. Our species, at what feels like a dark moment, can take a giant leap into the light. Of the sun.”

Official U.S. policy in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is one of being the great enabler for Israel. A new study from the Cost of War Project at Brown University finds that the Biden and Trump regimes in the last two years have given Israel $21.7 billion in military aid. In addition, Washington extends crucial diplomatic and political support to Israel. Omar Shakir of Human Rights Watch says, "When you talk about double standards in international law and human rights, the United States is at the top of the list.” There’s one set of rules for the master and his allies, in this case, Israel, and another for everyone else. The Israeli genocidal assault on Gaza has turned it into a slaughterhouse. The likelihood of a viable Palestinian state seems distant.

We are at a dangerous moment in human history. Philosopher and thinker David Korten says, “We stand at a crossroads between two possible futures. In one future, we continue on the path of separation and likely bring the human chapter of creation’s journey to an untimely end. In the other future, we find our rightful place as responsible, loving members of the Earth community in an ecological civilization, helping to guide creation’s journey into a future of harmony and new possibilities.” The choice could not be more profound. It is, in a real sense, a test of what it truly means to be human.

In mid-September, the UN issued a report stating that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Israel vehemently denies the charge. Genocide is the crime of crimes. It is a highly charged and loaded word.  To verify it requires clear and unambiguous evidence. The term was coined by the Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin. Genocide combines the Greek prefix “genos” (race, tribe) with the Latin suffix “cide” (killing). Lemkin was aware of the Armenian genocide carried out by the Turks earlier in the 20th century. During the Holocaust, he lost many family members. Lemkin and others were responsible for the Genocide Convention, which was passed unanimously by the UN in 1948. In addition to the recently released UN report, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, as well as two prominent Israeli rights organizations, B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, declared that Israel's military actions in Gaza constitute genocide.

Millions of years ago, a huge asteroid hit what is now the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The global forests and grasslands burned. The smoke from the resulting fires marks one of the greatest extinctions in Earth’s history, including not just dinosaurs but also fish, plankton, ammonites, and plants. A decade-long Ice Age ensued. A war with just a few of the world’s thousands of nuclear weapons targeted on densely populated cities could plunge Earth into the same types of conditions that the dinosaurs experienced. A war involving Russia, NATO, and the United States could kill billions of people. And what is the U.S. doing? It is upgrading and modernizing all components of its nuclear weapons arsenal at a cost of over a trillion dollars.  With the possibility of nuclear war, humans may end up like the dinosaurs.

The era of traditional colonialism, with a few exceptions, is over. But it continues in new shapes and forms to have a profound influence on former colonies all over the world. We are in the age of what may be called neo-colonialism, where former colonies are simultaneously independent and dependent. Neocolonialism is a more insidious form of imperialism in which more powerful countries keep developing nations in a state of economic dependence. This dependent relationship is seen primarily in structural inequality, where the rich countries exploit the resources and labor of the poor. Colonialism fostered and institutionalized racist ideologies that continue to manifest in systemic racism. Scholar Robin D.G. Kelley says, “It's important to recognize that the consolidation of the modern colonial state and the rise of the fascist state occurred pretty much at the same time. The modern colonial state and the fascist state are both particular forms of capitalist states.”

Algorithms are processes or sets of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by computer. Sounds innocuous enough. But hang on. It has a dark side. Algorithms can make mistakes due to biases, poor design, coding errors, or flawed assumptions. They can collect and process large amounts of personal data which can put people’s privacy rights at risk. There are lethal dangers. Koohan Paik-Mander warns the algorithms that missiles have spawned “have been a scourge on Mother Earth and our own humanity with our smartphones, satellites, robotics, AI, nuclear power and all the rest through which civil society has unwittingly become militarized through and through.”

There is a class in this country that reeks of obscene wealth. From mansions in Beverly Hills and the Hamptons, they fly around in their private jets and sail the seas in their luxury yachts. Left behind are countless millions who are subjected to austerity programs and lectures about hard work. The rise, not just in the U.S., but globally, of right-wing politics is fueled by economic inequality. Goebbels was Hitler’s minister of propaganda. He always insisted that it was a mistake to rely on logic and facts to manipulate people. The skilled propagandist, he said, must focus on emotions, not reason. Everything must be depicted in simple terms and constantly repeated. Resentment is a powerful force. We see it in today’s politics.

The right-wing war on education is well-documented. The battleground extends from elementary and middle school all the way up to Harvard and Columbia. Books have been cut from curricula and pulled from school library shelves. Teachers have been fired. Schools that teach critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion are being threatened with defunding. The radical right wants to control what is being taught. They want to turn the educational system into an indoctrination machine. Their goal includes plans to abolish the Department of Education. Students who peacefully protest and exercise their First Amendment rights have been, in some cases, suspended, expelled, and even denied their diplomas. Some international students have had their visas cancelled and may face deportation. Jesse Hagopian says what’s at stake is the freedom to expose injustice and to tell the truth.