International Labor Media Network
Working people throughout the globe face attack on their basic economic and social rights and the need to tell the stories of all working people is crucial
From Pacifica CRD, Kshama Sawant Draws Lessons from Minneapolis and Confronts Pro-War Politics; Frank Hammer Critiques Bipartisan Funding of the NED and AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center; Michael Parenti Unmasks the Class Functions of Fascism
capitalismraceanddemocracy.org/2026/02/23/kshama-sawant-draws-lessons-from-minneapolis-and-confro…
By Capitalism, Race & Democracy – February 23, 20265
Former Seattle City Councilor and socialist Kshama Sawant is now running against Washington Democrat Adam Smith in the state’s 9th Congressional District. Smith, who has held the seat since 1997, is a big supporter of the military industrial complex. Sawant spoke to Pacifica’s Steve Zeltzer about the developments in Minneapolis and the growing threat of world war.
***
The US Congress has voted to appropriate $315 million dollars to the National Endowment For Democracy in 2026. The NED has been giving roughly $70 million a year to the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center which has 400 employees and operates in 62 countries. Pacifica’s Steve Zeltzer interviews Frank Hammer, retired UAW Local 909 president, about the resumption of funding of the NED and Solidarity Center and why the AFL-CIO is now accepting money from Trump for the AFL-CIO’s international operations.
***
Next, we share Michael Parenti’s lecture, “The Functions of Fascism”, recorded on November 30, 1990 as part of the Real History series. This lecture analyzes the historical and economic underpinnings of fascist movements and explores the often-overlooked class dynamics behind fascism.
***
We thank all of Pacifica’s sister stations and affiliates who contribute to the production of this show. Today’s program was produced by the Capitalism, Race & Democracy collective, with contributions from Steve Zeltzer, Thomas O’Rourke and Polina Vasiliev.
You can find this and all previous episodes at our website “capitalism race and democracy dot ORG”. Make sure you click the subscribe button. Follow us on X, formerly Twitter, @PacificaCRD.
Thanks for listening.
Music:
Gil-Scott Heron, “Work for Peace”
Fearless Against ICE, from the Teamsters
capitalismraceanddemocracy.org
Former Seattle City Councilor and socialist Kshama Sawant is now running against Washington Democrat Adam Smith in the state’s 9th Congressional District. Smith, who has held the seat since 1997,…
I believe these actions were inspired by those of the ILWU Local 10 against Apartheid.
Bruce Springsteen releases anti-ICE protest song: ‘Streets of Minneapolis’
minnesotareformer.com/briefs/bruce-springsteen-releases-anti-ice-protest-song-streets-of-minneapo… BY:
MAX NESTERAK
JANUARY 28, 2026
12:43 PM
Bruce Springsteen released a fiery anti-ICE protest song on Wednesday slamming “King Trump’s private army” and venerating the observers and demonstrators who “stood for justice, their voices ringing through the night.”
The song from the rock legend comes just days after federal immigration agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA, on Saturday. He is the second fatality in a month, following poet and mother Renee Good, who was killed about a mile away in her car on Jan. 7. Both victims are honored by name in Springsteen’s lyrics, with the refrain, “We’ll remember the names of those who died; On the streets of Minneapolis.”
In a statement, Springsteen said he wrote the song on Saturday following Pretti’s killing and dedicated it to “the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.”
The title of the song echoes his 1993 song, “Streets of Philadelphia,” written for the film “Philadelphia” about the AIDS epidemic.
The song’s release underscores the cultural and historical significance of the resistance to the violent federal siege on the state still underway, which has mobilized tens of thousands in opposition and captured international attention through bystander videos documenting the federal agents’ brutality against immigrants and American citizens alike.
The song pays homage to the signature symbols of resistance — the whistle and the phone — which counter Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem’s “dirty lies.”
President Trump promised “reckoning and retribution is coming” for Minnesota and sent 3,000 federal agents and officers to the state in the “largest (Department of Homeland Security) operation ever.” But the operation, labeled a military occupation by local Democratic leaders, has turned public opinion sharply against the president and ICE.
Lyrics to ‘Streets of Minneapolis’
Through the winter’s ice and cold
Down Nicollet Avenue
A city aflame fought fire and ice
‘Neath an occupier’s boots
King Trump’s private army from the DHS
Guns belted to their coats
Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law
Or so their story goes
Against smoke and rubber bullets
By the dawn’s early light
Citizens stood for justice
Their voices ringing through the night
And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead left to die on snow-filled streets
Alex Pretti and Renee Good
Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
Trump’s federal thugs beat up on
His face and his chest
Then we heard the gunshots
And Alex Pretti lay in the snow, dead
Their claim was self defense, sir
Just don’t believe your eyes
It’s our blood and bones
And these whistles and phones
Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies
Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Crying through the bloody mist
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
Now they say they’re here to uphold the law
But they trample on our rights
If your skin is black or brown my friend
You can be questioned or deported on sight
In chants of ICE out now
Our city’s heart and soul persists
Through broken glass and bloody tears
On the streets of Minneapolis
Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
Bruce Springsteen releases anti-ICE protest song: ‘Streets of Minneapolis’ • Minnesota Reformer
minnesotareformer.com
Bruce Springsteen released a fiery anti-ICE protest song on Wednesday slamming “King Trump’s private army” and venerating the observers and demonstrators who “stood for justice, their voices r…
Pledging to support post-Block Pittsburgh journalism
actionnetwork.org/forms/pledging-to-support-post-block-pittsburgh-journalism/?fbclid=IwY2xjawPVLx…
Steve Mellon | Pittsburgh Union Progress
We think workers should be treated with dignity and respect. We know Pittsburgh deserves quality journalism. It's what we've fought for together, and none of us are finished.
Some of you may want different owners of the Post-Gazette. Others may want to spin up support that revives the Pittsburgh Union Progress. Others still may want an altogether different Pittsburgh daily news publication.
Regardless, if you want to meaningfully support local journalism in Pittsburgh, we want you to sign onto this pledge today.
We may share this list of signees with prospective owners. We will almost certainly use it to continue to try to unite folks around a shared vision of what journalism needs to look like in this community. And we want you to be part of it.
Will you sign by filling out this form today?
Just because the Blocks would rather shutter the PG's doors forever than follow the few slivers of labor law that exist in this country — that even this Supreme Court and the U.S. Solicitor General are upholding — doesn't mean daily written journalism needs to die in this town.
We can stand up to these bullies and walk past them, breathing life into something better together.
Will you pledge your support to that simple idea today?
Pledging to support Pittsburgh journalism beyond the Blocks
actionnetwork.org
I think workers should be treated with dignity and respect. I know Pittsburgh deserves quality journalism. That’s why I’m joining members of the Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh and signing this pledge t…
Americans Protest Trump’s Attack on Venezuela; Trump Bombs Nigeria on Christmas; UK Hunger Strikers Protest Gaza Genocide; Dr. Peter McCullough Exposes U.S. Biolabs and Biowarfare Risks
capitalismraceanddemocracy.org/2026/01/05/americans-protest-trumps-attack-on-venezuela-trump-bomb…
By Capitalism, Race & Democracy – January 5, 20266
Protests have erupted in the US after the Trump administration bombed Venezuela and kidnapped President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores on January 3, 2025.
An emergency rally was held in San Francisco to oppose the invasion of Venezuela. Austin Cole, of the Black Alliance For Peace, and Frank Lara, Executive Vice President of United Educators of San Francisco both spoke.
***
The Trump Administration bombed Nigeria on Christmas day, claiming to be protecting Christians, but Nigerian socialist Sadare Oladimeji says it has only encouraged sectarian divisions. He also discussed the social and economic conditions in Nigeria and the attacks on both Nigeria and Venezuela for their oil resources.
***
Eight Palestine solidarity activists are on a hunger strike in Britain over the continued support for the genocide by the British government. The Starmer Labor government has jailed thousands of opponents of genocide for simply having a sign supporting Palestine Action. At a rally at the UK consulate in San Francisco on December 22, an Irish activist compared the UK’s repression around Palestine to its repression in Ireland and talked about how it threatens the working class as a whole.
***
Dr. Peter McCullough reports on U.S. biolabs conducting research on pathogens with potential biowarfare and pandemic implications. He discusses gain-of-function laboratory methods that alter biological agents capable of triggering widespread outbreaks, alongside efforts to develop corresponding countermeasures. According to McCullough, these government-funded programs—often involving private companies and universities—operate at the crossroads of pandemic preparedness and biosecurity, where conflicting incentives may increase risk.
This McCullough Report excerpt aired originally on December 28, 2025 on America Out Loud.
And that concludes today’s edition of Capitalism, Race & Democracy. We thank all of Pacifica’s sister stations and affiliates who contribute to the production of this show. Today’s program was produced by the Capitalism, Race & Democracy collective, with contributions from Steve Zeltzer, Thomas O’Rourke and Polina Vasiliev.
You can find this and all previous episodes at our website “capitalism race and democracy dot ORG”. Make sure you click the subscribe button. Follow us on X, formerly Twitter, @PacificaCRD.
Thanks for listening!
Music:
LOWKEY’s New Song for Palestine
capitalismraceanddemocracy.org
Protests have erupted in the US after the Trump administration bombed Venezuela and kidnapped President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores on January 3, 2025. An emergency rally was held in …
706 family members of Palestinian journalists killed by Israel
wrp.org.uk/features/706-family-members-of-palestinian-journalists-killed-by-israel/
30th December 2025
Israeli forces bombarded the family house in the Nuseirat refugee camp of Al-Jazeera Gaza bureau head, Wael al-Dahdouh who is seen clutching his 18-month-old grandson. His wife and two other children were killed in the attack
ISRAEL has killed at least 706 family members of Palestinian journalists since the start of its genocidal war in Gaza in October 2023, according to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.
The syndicate’s Freedoms Committee said in a report released late on Saturday that Israeli forces are systematically targeting the families of journalists in ‘a war aimed at silencing Palestinian reporting’.
The report said the attacks represent a deliberate strategy rather than deaths as a result of war.
Israeli violence against journalists has ‘evolved to take on a more dangerous and brutal dimension, represented by targeting the families and relatives of journalists, in a clear attempt to turn journalistic work into an existential burden for which sons, wives, fathers, and mothers pay the price’, the union said.
Muhammad al-Lahham, head of the Freedoms Committee, said the pattern of attacks from 2023 to 2025 exposes Israel’s intent to crush independent reporting in Gaza.
Targeting journalists’ families, he said, ‘reveals that the Israeli occupation is waging a comprehensive war on the truth, making no distinction between the camera and the child, nor between the pen and the home.
‘The blood of the journalists’ families will remain a living witness to the crime of trying to silence the Palestinian voice,’ al-Lahham added.
The syndicate said Israeli forces killed 436 relatives of journalists in 2023, 203 in 2024 and at least 67 this year. The deaths continued even after many families had been forcibly displaced and sought shelter in tents and makeshift camps, it said.
The syndicate cited a recent case near Khan Younis, where the bodies of journalist Hiba al-Abadla, her mother and about 15 members of the al-Astal family were recovered nearly two years after Israeli aircraft bombed their home in the west of the city.
‘Hundreds of children, women and the elderly were killed because of a family member’s professional connection to journalism, in flagrant violation of all humanitarian and legal norms,’ the committee said.
According to the findings, Israeli attacks have repeatedly struck journalists’ homes, places of displacement and areas known to house media workers and their relatives.
In some cases, entire families have been wiped out, leaving journalists alive to bear witness to their annihilation.
The syndicate described this as a ‘qualitative shift’ in Israel’s behaviour, moving from individual targeting to collective punishment.
By turning families into targets, it said, Israel aims to intimidate society itself and ‘dry up the environment that nurtures the media’.
Beyond the death toll, the committee warned of severe psychological harm.
Journalists who survived after losing children, partners or parents now face trauma, family breakdowns and crushing guilt, and many have been forced to flee or suspend their work under the weight of Israel’s continuing violence.
Over the past year, Israel killed several journalists in Gaza in targeted assassinations, most notably Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif, falsely claiming that they were members of Hamas.
They are among nearly 300 journalists and media workers killed in Gaza during the war over 26 months, an average of about 12 journalists a month, according to Shireen.ps, a monitoring website named after Al Jazeera’s veteran correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh who was killed in the occupied West Bank in 2022.
Media freedom groups have condemned the Israeli attacks on journalists, but the killings have proceeded with impunity. Israel has never arrested or charged any of its soldiers for killing journalists.
While the targeting of the news media has intensified during the war in Gaza, Israel has killed dozens of Arab journalists over the past two decades.
In December, a report by Reporters Without Borders (Reports Sans Frontieres – RSF) found that Israel killed more journalists in 2025 than any other country.
The 2025 round up report said: ‘Nearly half (43%) of the journalists slain in the past 12 months were killed in Gaza by Israeli armed forces.
‘In total, since October 2023, the Israeli army has killed nearly 220 journalists, at least 65 of whom were slain either due to their work or while they were working.’
The RSF report added that ‘Israel is the second country to imprison the largest number of foreign journalists. As of 1st December 2025, 20 Palestinian journalists are behind Israeli bars, 16 of whom were arrested over the past two years in Gaza and the West Bank.’
The group noted: ‘Currently, 135 journalists are missing in 37 countries. Some have been missing for more than 30 years. Although news professionals go missing all over the globe, the trend spikes sharply in Mexico (28) and Syria (37).’
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission reported on Sunday on several cases of medical neglect among Palestinian detainees held in the Israeli Ofer and Megiddo prisons, following visits by its lawyers.
The commission noted the case of Nader Al-Sheikh from the village of Beit Surik, northwest of Jerusalem, who is serving a four-month administrative detention, who suffers severe tooth pain after being beaten during his detention, causing the loss of some of his his upper teeth.
Despite needing treatment, prison authorities have ignored his condition; he is currently held in Ofer Prison.
Another detainee, 19-year-old Mohammad Khalaf from Al-Am’ari refugee camp in Ramallah, serving six months of administrative detention, complains of pain in his left leg and requires medical care. He is also held in Ofer Prison.
18-year-old Ahmed Abed from Tulkarm suffers dizziness, vomiting, severe abdominal pain, and constipation following an urgent gallbladder surgery at HaEmek Hospital. He is currently detained in Megiddo Prison.
The commission held Israeli prison authorities fully responsible for ongoing medical neglect of Palestinian prisoners and called on international organisations, human rights institutions, and the Red Cross to intervene and address the issue comprehensively.
The Palestine Authority Government Operations Room stated on Sunday that the Gaza Strip requires around 200,000 prefabricated housing units to meet the urgent humanitarian needs of displaced families and provide safer shelter amid harsh weather conditions.
In a press statement, the operations room said the current storm has flooded and destroyed thousands of tents across Gaza, worsening the humanitarian emergency.
The statement noted that the Al-Rasheed Coastal Street, stretching approximately 26km, was flooded, damaging tents set up along the road due to rising sea waves accompanying the storm.
Partially destroyed homes have also collapsed, posing a direct threat to residents’ lives, amid a lack of safe alternatives for shelter.
The statement added that humanitarian organisations are unable to meet the urgent needs of displaced persons due to severe shortages in supplies and ongoing restrictions by the Israeli occupation on aid entering the Strip.
The operations room called on the United Nations and international organisations to pressure Israel to allow the immediate entry of prefabricated housing units and shelter supplies to alleviate the suffering of displaced persons and reduce the life-threatening risks they face.
In a separate development, the Arab League on Sunday convened an emergency meeting of permanent representatives at the request of Somalia to discuss Israel’s recognition of the Somaliland region in Somalia as an independent country.
The meeting was held at the League’s headquarters and chaired by the United Arab Emirates, with the participation of Assistant Secretary-General Ambassador Hossam Zaki and representatives of member states.
The Palestinian delegation was headed by Palestine’s Permanent Representative to the Arab League, Ambassador Muhamad Al-Aklouk, along with Senior Counsellor Tamer Al-Tayeb.
Al-Aklouk reaffirmed Palestine’s full support for the unity, sovereignty, and political independence of the Federal Republic of Somalia, in line with international law, the United Nations Charter, and resolutions of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
He stressed Palestine’s rejection and condemnation of Israel’s recognition of part of Somalia’s territory, describing it as an illegal act by an occupying power that undermines Somalia’s unity and stability and supports separatism.
He said the move is part of Israel’s broader attempts, as a colonial power, to destabilise regional and international peace and security, warning that it violates peremptory norms of international law and the principle of respect for states’ territorial integrity and non-interference in internal affairs.
Al-Aklouk called on the international community, the UN Security Council, the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, and the African Union to take legal, economic, political, and diplomatic measures against Israel, including economic boycotts, activating international accountability mechanisms, and freezing Israel’s participation in the UN General Assembly in accordance with Arab League resolutions.
He also warned that Israel has previously sought to use Somaliland within plans aimed at forcibly displacing the Palestinian people, particularly from the Gaza Strip, reaffirming Palestine’s absolute rejection of any forced displacement schemes under any name or pretext.
706 family members of Palestinian journalists killed by Israel – Workers Revolutionary Party
wrp.org.uk
ISRAEL has killed at least 706 family members of Palestinian journalists since the start of its genocidal war in Gaza in October 2023, according to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate. The syndicate…