This is part of what that doc No Other Land was about too - a thriving non violent civil disobedience movement in a small Palestinian town and it was ethnically cleansed

"Canada’s “elbows up” plan for asserting sovereignty looks less like defending against American aggression and more like doubling down on the denial of Indigenous rights in the service of short-term economic gain." canadiandimension.com/articles/vie...

Miles O'Brien fan club assemble.

I have an opinion piece in the New York Times today on how the labor movement has failed to step up to the moment in countering Trump, even as Trump unilaterally strips public sector workers of collective bargaining. Labor will die as a movement if this continues. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...

I wonder if any university admins have thought even a little bit about what it looks like to unleash LLM chatbots—as a university-purchased, -promoted, and -legitimized “educational” enterprise technology— on a student population in the grips of a well-documented college mental health crisis

In response to Trump's auto tariffs GM is reshoring by spending $4 billion in expanding production at factories in Michigan, Kansas, and Tennessee. But this isn't going to produce a return to the glory days that MAGA envisions for a couple reasons: (1/3) www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Weingarten is a plague on modern labor and is representative of the centrist neoliberal democrats in the Party. She wants the victory of Mamdani but fundamentally opposes the DSAs grassroots organizing strategy which she totally ignores. www.nybooks.com/online/2025/...

If there is one lesson to draw from the history of fascism in the interwar period in Europe, it is this: Democracy falls if and when mainstream conservatives and centrist/center-right elites decide to make common cause with extremists because they consider the “radical Left” the more acute threat.

Can’t stress the importance of labor and community organizing in this moment as shit is about to get qualitatively worse than it is now. If you aren’t a part of a social movement, mutual aid network, or union I would join up as it’s going to be critical in the coming years for social survival

this is the level of funding where all the possibilities for American politics that have been described as hyperbolic over the past decades - the comparisons to Nazi Germany and other nightmares of the 20th century - become logistically possible and politically likely

This week the Dem Party leaders/electeds have: - helped MAGA pass a shady crypto bill in the Sen enriching Trump - rallied around an alleged sex pest to be NYC’s mayor - offered milquetoast responses as the regime unleashed an illegal strike in the ME And people wonder why the party’s brand is 💩

Mahmoud Khalil is free.

I have never felt so gaslit.

Old Mission Peninsula - Lake Michigan

Any Democrat who can’t stand up and speak out now against the Trump-Netanyahu regime change war should not even consider running in 2028. You’re not who this country needs.

Thinking about him again

Amazing how hard it is to write: “Police shoot at journalists.”

Students and groups in/surrounding every university with highly-paid administrators (all of them, literally) and frustrating town & gown relations should be doing this. These guys make unconscionably high salaries for delegating work and doing little.

a Venn diagram of people who go to protests and people who post strident judgments about what protesters are doing wrong

Trump's mega bill giving a massive tax cut for the rich while gutting Medicaid for the poor is grotesque, but it would also grant 800 billion to immigration enforcement. If you think ICE is bad now, it will get a whole lot worse if this passes. slate.com/news-and-pol...

“The University of Michigan is using private, undercover investigators to surveil pro-Palestinian campus groups, including trailing them on and off campus, furtively recording them and eavesdropping on their conversations…”

The Right is so ideologically committed that they can’t see a bootlicking lackey when it’s right in front of them. Ono would have done everything they would have wanted and then some.

Whitmer’s failure of political consciousness has very high stakes for her personally and still she doesn’t get it

Fascinating and provocative Chartbook from @adamtooze.bsky.social on modernity and the Holocaust via uneven and combined development. Here are some of my thoughts on the piece that consider modern colonialism, a 🧵: adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-...

Thinking about running for Congress so I can have affordable high quality healthcare prospect.org/health/2025-...

Santa Ono says he “declined to politicize the institution.” While Pres of UM, he: 1. Cancelled the student vote about BDS because he personally disagrees with boycotts of Israel. 2. Prosecuted peaceful pro-Palestinian student protesters. 3. Fired a staff member at the bequest of the ADL.

Krugman's worst tendency is his defense of cheap labor in the global south. Yes GDP/capita has risen in Bangladesh, but so has the gini index measuring inequality. The benefits go to a comprador class while the poor get nothing. paulkrugman.substack.com/p/tariffs-an...

“Massive numbers of students are going to emerge from university with degrees, and into the workforce, who are essentially illiterate…Both in the literal sense and in the sense of being historically illiterate and having no knowledge of their own culture, much less anyone else’s.”

The suggestion in the article is that the AG (who is a Zionist) bowed to pressure that she recuse herself for bias, and this was ironically exacerbated by a Zionist group that sent a public letter of support to emphasize she was not biased, which suggested bias! www.freep.com/story/news/l...

Happy May Day

Following yesterday's read-in and months of negotiations, LEO-GLAM union (#librarians, archivists, curators) has announced they will quit their contract with U-M. Faculty and students: let management know how much you value your partnerships with LACs in research, instruction & student engagement!

The significant increase in the use of AI for essays this semester is making my teaching life a living hell

Absolutely pathetic

The biggest obstacle to confronting American authoritarianism is the eagerness among Democrats, and other leaders in the liberal establishment, to collaborate with the aspects of authoritarianism they support.

This could be a great statement except that two of these regents threatened to defund DEI in the press even before Trump took office and this op-Ed doesn’t answer: Are you reinstating the staff who were fired? Are you signing the Mutual Defense Compact? Are you dropping charges against students?

"Each decision — each erased name, each revised syllabus, each closed program and department — was framed as necessary, even patriotic. Within a few years, German universities no longer served knowledge — they served power." www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/o...

The Big10 collective defense fund is a good idea, but it bears repeating that this is a mess that they are in part responsible for making. For eg - Umich Democrat regents directed the state AG to prosecute peaceful protestors and fired another last week without any due process. heal thyself!

Washtenaw County Sheriff won't cooperate with ICE. Good. Things are bad and times are dark. But I am very, very, proud of my community tonight. The only way we are going to get through this to the better future our community deserves is standing strong together for our neighbors and what's right.

The very best of America’s shitposters are now outgunned by their Chinese peers. Balance of power has shifted.

America's contradictory position towards globalization in one chart:

9 years after the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline….

Hey University of Michigan union supporters, Michigan union supporters, Michiganders, or union supporters (international travelers will definitely get at least 2 BEERS on me) come to downtown Flint for this rally tomorrow. Our admin is acting like jerks, so we need to have a good showing!!

One way to read America MAGA's policy endgame is compare it to Argentina's MAGA policies that have resulted in the widespread use of debt financing to make everyone precarious and reliant on financial speculation to survive. www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...

the diag. ann arbor. april 10. 5pm. mark your calendars and share widely! @umich.edu

Today's Headlines

The University of Michigan Black Student Union has released a statement on the dismantling of DEI at the institution. "To Santa Ono: You are a coward, and bending to the will of fascists will not save you. To the regents: We see you for the racists you are." Via: www.instagram.com/p/DH1qbq8JpvJ/