Long Island Red Rose

Whom Is ICE Actually Recruiting?
ICE has lowered standards to facilitate a massive hiring spree. Many of the new recruits are plainly unqualified. Are some also white supremacists or domestic terrorists? “More than doubling ICE’s ranks has meant cutting training from 13 weeks to six, raising the maximum age cap from 40 to none at all, scrapping the college degree requirement, and adding a $50,000 signing bonus. Now pretty much anyone can become an ICE agent. During Donald Trump’s first term… there were still guardrails that kept the president from assembling his own paramilitary force.” Not now. The Nation

‘The Biggest Act of Union-Busting in U.S. History’: Trump’s War on Federal Workers Stirs a Movement
With 300,000 employees gone and collective-bargaining rights eliminated, the administration has hobbled organized labor. Did it also start a movement? For a growing rank-and-file movement of mostly younger union members, which works across agencies and is known as the Federal Unionists Network (FUN), the shutdown presented an unusual opportunity. Like the progressive upstarts challenging the old-guard leadership of the Democratic Party, FUN is pushing the national unions to fight the Trump administration more vigorously. With the shutdown, FUN saw a chance to show that the fate of federal workers is inexorably bound up with the public’s welfare. NYT

History of struggle from Reconstruction to today offers lessons – and strategies.
Today's struggle against fascism and reaction can draw on past struggles in U.S. history. Rishi Awatramani in In These Times discusses the successes (and weaknesses) of the post Civil War Reconstruction effort to rebuild American society on a democratic basis rooted in racial justice; of the New Deal Coalition and the Communist Party's Popular Front strategy during the 1930s to overcome the Depression; and Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition with its challenge to emerging neo-liberalism and the reactionary offensive launched by the Reagan Administration.

Those under attack by ICE all need support in struggle – not only “the saints”
Andrea Pitzer writes about the need to combat ICE and police dragnets not only by defending the innocent, but also defending those whom society would condemn — that is the way to challenge the entire ideological framework used to justify mass deportations, mass incarceration. See the "Innocence Trap: Survival should not require sainthood" in her Degenerate Art Substack post.

The Blood-and-Soil nationalism that killed Alex Pretti and Renee Good
The [white-nationalist vilification] campaign against Good is different—because The Homeland takes particular and perverse interest in women deemed insufficiently reverent of hearth and home. In defending the undocumented, Good violated the sanctity of The Homeland, which is to say that she questioned the divine promise of American soil to a mythical and singular people. For The Homeland is not “The State” or even “The Country.” The Homeland is not defined by simple geography. It exists beyond laws and norms. It is unconcerned with traditional American concepts like “liberty,” “freedom” or “pluralism.” The Homeland is that piece of earth providentially deeded to The Volk. The Homeland’s borders are drawn in untainted blood, its sanctity exemplified in proper gender conduct and the fulfillment of gender roles. It is The Homeland that ICE venerates in its recruitment posts festooned with victorious white settlers and vanquished indigenous Americans. Ta-Nehisi Coates in Vanity Fair

Trump family business, cronies thickly clustered around Greenland and its critical minerals
As usual, if you follow the money, Trump’s lunatic (and perhaps not yet abandoned) pursuit of US “ownership” of Greenland — unlikely without military conflict with our supposed NATO allies — may be a shake-up move to grease existing Trump Organization attempts to corner the province’s rare-earth mineral resources. “As Trump Talked About Taking Greenland, Former Employees Gained a Foothold in the Arctic Island: Two men who worked with the Trump Organization hold shares in GreenMet, which signed a deal with a company ready to mine critical minerals in Greenland,” relates the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. Two other longtime Trump regulars have administration positions, OCCRP continues, one as chief of the US Geological Survey and the other as director of the US Arctic Research Commission, a presidential advisory body "typically run by academics,” which he is not.

Homeland Empire
From Venezuela to Minnesota, Trump is trying to create a borderless American power, collapsing the foreign and the domestic into a single domain of impunity. “Kinetic action” in military terms is the application of force or motion to produce physical damage. Kinetic action is the favoured mode of the latest Trump administration: we live in its aftershocks, racing to make sense of what just happened. Over the past year it has repeatedly violated the rights of citizens and foreign nationals — while also making a spectacle of these violent acts. Even when the “worst of the worst” turn out to be hairdressers, drywallers, fishermen or soccer moms, nothing will interrupt the imposition of serial brutality…” Nikhil Pal Singh in Equator.

Sanaz Azimipour’s “The Political Economy of Survival,” published by the Rosa Luxemburg Institute, describes the background to the protests now taking place across Iran. She stresses that the internal conditions in Iran are key to understanding the resistance and repression in the streets, rather than the actions of external actors who are attempting to interpose themselves.

Trump dog-whistles for the MAGA faithful in speech to corporate suits at Davos
Trump’s TACO offramp on Greenland caused relieved exhalations in Davos, but his speech showed a darker subtext as it deviously “sought to ‘unify’ the [white] west rather than divide it. Trump surmised [paraphrasing]: Yes, we might have our internal squabbles, but I am bringing tough love because we are all in this together. We are the standard bearers of western civilisation. We must resist the barbarian hordes. We must save the white man.” The Guardian’s David Smith assembles plenty of evidence for the Davos speech’s oblique play to Trump’s base.

Illumination on the American Religious Landscape
“The Religion of Whiteness” looks at the emergence, among some white Christians in the USA, of a religious culture based on shoring up white identity and racism while being "perniciously shrouded in Christian language, expression, symbols and thought forms." Englewood Review of Books via Portside

We Need Radical Abundance
If we want abundance, we have to ask: an abundance of what exactly, and produced under what economic logic? Traditionally, critiques of bureaucracy take the perspective of the little man caught in the obtuse machinations of faceless corporations or an unyielding state. Kafka’s Joseph K., for example, or Catch-22’s Yossarian. Even The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy begins with protagonist Arthur Dent lying in front of a bulldozer to thwart an intransigent planning department. In recent years, we’ve seen the return of anti-bureaucratic mobilization, but advocates for “deregulation” in 2025 are more likely to be on the side of those employing the bulldozers than those lying in front of them. This apparent reversal of position results from a dramatic transformation in the nature of bureaucracy over the last 40 years. With democratic socialist mayors in New York and Seattle, the Left needs to understand this change, the way it was engineered, and how we might enact a similar transformation in the opposite direction to deepen democracy. The Nation (Substack)

Pressure from the ground: Black Minnesotans on survival and strategy.
If you’re watching footage [of the Minnesota resistance] and noticing who is most visible right now, you’re not wrong. Many of the people on the frontlines are white Minnesotans — and that is not a failure of solidarity. In fact, it is solidarity in practice. What you’re seeing is them leveraging their privilege and strategies learned from Black Minnesota organizers over decades to respond and protect marginalized communities. At the same time, this visibility reflects intentional organizing happening behind the scenes — decisions about who should be out there, when, and how. Don’t mistake this for a lack of care or attention from Black and brown communities. There is strategy happening in real time, and it is deliberate, thoughtful, and necessary. Zedé’s Substack

Stop ICE? Go After Its Corporate Collaborators: ICE can’t function without help from the private sector. So we should force the private sector to stop helping.
There are many well-known ICE-fighting tactics that we can and should use, like protests, know-your-rights trainings, and neighborhood watches. But two recent victories show a promising, relatively underutilized path forward — one that deserves to be pursued further: we can target businesses to break from ICE. ICE relies heavily on the private sector to help carry out its Gestapo-like crusade against immigrants and their allies. Without the logistical, financial, and political support of business, its capacity to terrorize our communities would crumble. Labor Politics via Portside

ICE Has Become a Rogue Paramilitary
It’s time we see ICE as it already sees itself: a rogue internal paramilitary force dispatched by the Trump administration to terrorize vulnerable people and violently intimidate political enemies into submission. As Senator Bernie Sanders observed, “ICE, Trump’s domestic army, is now attempting to occupy Minneapolis. Let’s be clear: This is a Trump authoritarian power grab — an open attempt to suppress dissent and heighten conflict after ICE shot and killed a mother of three in broad daylight.” The only silver lining here is that the Trump administration, trapped in an echo chamber of its own making, is clearly overplaying its hand. Nearly all Americans have seen the videos of [Renee] Good’s killing, and a majority of Americans believe it was unjustified. Furthermore, ICE’s already-low favorability has tanked to the point that more Americans now support abolishing ICE than oppose doing so. Jacobin

… And patterns and models for elections at all levels

There has been a lot written about Zohran’s remarkable victory in New York City and some (not as much) about Katie Wilson’s in Seattle. That said, the articles below are important as a reminder to focus on the collective effort and organizational work that enabled those victories — and to avoid falling into the trap of relying on mainstream media, which always prefers personalities to issues:

• As to NYC, the Indypendent has an excellent article by its editor John Tarelton that recaps the election — its roots in Occupy and persistent organizing that continued after setbacks — and prospects for what’s next.

• FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) examines the coverage of Zohran’s campaign by the New York Times, NBC, CBS, the New Yorker — i.e. corporate media — all reinforces the perspective of corporate Democrats who will do everything to deny the importance of what that election meant.

• As for Seattle, two organizers who were deeply involved in Katie Wilson’s mayoral campaign detail the strategic decisions and tactics used during her campaign that were the basis of her victory.

The 1999 WTO (World Trade Organization) protests and the subsequent repression were the basis for a renewed radicalism in Seattle that is the backdrop to Wilson’s campaign. An article in Prism discusses a documentary about that history: New film on 1999 Seattle WTO protests offers lessons on resistance and police violence.

A reckoning over capitalism. People aren’t respecting capitalism. The twist is that this isn’t necessarily capitalism’s fault. A measured take in the WaPo (!) on three of capitalism’s clearest failures — health care, big tech platforms, and the private-equity extraction machine — and how the state has failed in its turn to take a role in market regulation that even Adam Smith said was necessary. Not a fire-breathing excoriation of market exchange relations per se, but a sober and detailed walk-through of capitalism’s baddest apples in a hypercorrupted state paralyzed by its dependence on corporate political finance. WaPo

How Protesters Became Content for the Cops
The tactics behind protest policing are changing — from one of cooperation to intentional antagonism for political marketing purposes. In 2025, protest policing in major US cities increasingly took on the character of a spectacle: overwhelming deployments, theatrical staging, and aggressive crowd-control tactics that emphasized signaling power over maintaining public safety. This was not a one-off episode; it followed the deployment of federal troops into multiple Democratic-led cities, prompting lawsuits and court challenges that local leaders described, with justification, as militarized intimidation. WIRED

Mamdani’s demand: excellence, not mediocrity, in an increasingly democratized polity and community
“Zohran Mamdani has introduced several changes to American politics—joining ideological maximalism to policy minimalism, crafting a winning political identity as a Muslim socialist, taking a stand on Palestine, listening to voters. One innovation has not received the attention it deserves: his pledge, on election night, to ‘leave mediocrity in our past’ and make ‘excellence…the expectation across government.’ Since the French Revolution, professions of excellence and proscriptions of mediocrity have been mostly the preserve of the right. True to form, Mamdani’s conservative opponents have warned that socialism will send the city slouching toward shabbiness. Since the 1970s, Democrats have largely ceded this rhetorical ground to the right. Instead of offering an alternative vision of excellence or mounting a robust case for different values.” Not Mamdani. - New York Review of Books via Portside

Over 8.3 Million Workers Will Benefit From Minimum Wage Increases on January 1
Nineteen states will increase their minimum wages on January 1, boosting earnings for more than 8.3 million workers by a total of $5 billion. In addition, 47 cities and counties will raise their minimum wages. For the first time, there will be more workers in states with a $15 or greater minimum wage than in states with the federal minimum of $7.25. Economic Policy Institute via Portside

Jordan Atwood, in Nation of Change, quotes extensively from interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez, making clear that the Venezuelan government remains unified in its opposition to the Trump administration's attempted regime change. Similarly, Chris Gilbert, who lives in Venezuela, gives a sense of the broad opposition to US action within the country and around the world in a CounterPunch article.

Michelle Ellner, a Venezuelan living in the United States, expresses her opposition to the assault on her country. Z magazine.

Vijay Prashad and Taroa Zúñiga Silva, writing shortly after the attack, put Trump's action in the context of the systemic opposition by every US administration to the Bolivarian Revolution: also in CounterPunch.

Chris Hedges in America the Rogue State: Under dictatorship, “absolute power at home and absolute power abroad expands. It feeds off of each lawless act. It snowballs into totalitarianism and disastrous military adventurism. By the time people realize what has happened, it is too late…If nations and people do not bow before the great Moloch in Washington, they are bombed. This is not about establishing legitimate rule. It is not about fair elections. It is about using the threat of death and destruction to procure total subservience.”

Longtime activist Michael Albert provides us with a call to action in Z, concluding with lines chanted by students during the Vietnam War: “out of the schools into the streets.” Albert adds “The times certainly do need to change.”

AI is coming for young people’s office jobs. That’s good news for the construction industry
More young people are following the money and going into trades like construction where AI can’t easily replace them

Older workers are getting older — the National Center for Construction Education and Research estimates that about 41% of the current construction workforce will retire by 2031. And the current administration’s immigration policy has not only dried up the flow of potential overseas workers but has driven many construction workers — even those with proper documentation — underground. The building of data centers has surged over the past few years and construction workers on those projects are in such high demand they’re seeing pay jumps of 25% to 30% compared to their previous jobs — and in some cases, much more. We’re already seeing this trend develop. Trade school enrollment is up significantly since the pandemic and is expected to increase as much as 7% annually through 2030, a rate significantly higher than other forms of higher education. The ranks of students studying construction trades alone rose 23% over the past year, according to another report. Young people are not stupid. They’re following the money. The Guardian

The Rich Never Lose a War: No Blood for Oil!
Once again, we find that Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) must raise our voices and speak out against another potential imperial blunder. From Vietnam to Central America, to the Middle East, and Ukraine, we have had to pull out our banners and add our voices and our perspective as veterans to those fighting against imperial aggression. Now we must focus on Venezuela and the mounting US war in the works. The United States built its international reputation on claiming the resources of other countries as its own. Recent aggressions by the Trump Administration are nothing new and they are not even schemes of his own making. We are encouraged to think he’s the ringleader, but Trump, although a dangerous maniac on his own, is the willing lightning rod for multinational business interests and the Nazi ideologies spreading here at home. More from the National Office of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) December 30, 2025

Keeping Power Utilities in Corporate Hands Doesn’t Make Sense
A new study shows that socialist plans to take over the privately owned power utility in The Hudson Valley would lower rates for users and improve its long-term health. A bill introduced by Sarahana Shrestha, a democratic socialist assemblywoman in the Mid-Hudson Valley, and her state senate colleague, Michelle Hinchey, calls for a state takeover of the utility company serving the area. A feasibility study by NewGen Strategies and Solutions, commissioned by Shrestha’s office, says a public takeover would provide millions in savings to New York State and its ratepayers. According to the study’s projections, a publicly owned utility — unlike a private company — would no longer have to pay state and local taxes or make profit for its shareholders, allowing it to save $15.2 million in its first year alone. After that, the savings keep growing. Public ownership of power companies is better for everyone but the rich. Jacobin via Portside

The New Surveillance State Is You
Privacy may be dead, but civilians are turning conventional wisdom on its head by surveilling the cops as much as the cops surveil them. Jennifer Granick, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, says the practice [of documenting law enforcement activity] likely goes back “centuries.” Indeed, documenting police activity is likely as old as policing itself. “The difference [today] is that technology has made it so everybody has a video recorder with them at all times,” Granick says. “And then it's very easy to get that recording out to the public.” WIRED

The Plans that Failed
The lessons of the Soviet experience are many and encompass not just the dangers of political authoritarianism but those of bad economics. Soviet planning made immense progress in its early years, but as time went on the gap between the East and West only grew wider. It’s hard to overstate the novelty of [the Soviets’ State Planning Committee — est. 1923] Gosplan’s work. It created the first national system of accounts, capturing a vast country’s entire economic activity, years before such a feat would be attempted in the West. In the following decade, it would be asked to do much more. By the 1930s, the mixed economy of the NEP period had been replaced by a system of total state ownership coordinated by administrative resource allocation. Whereas the early Soviet Union pioneered indicative planning, meant to shape public and private investment and smooth out market fluctuations, this new type of planning sought to mobilize immense resources directly through state decree. By the early 1930s, the market would be dismantled, not influenced. Jacobin

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Thank you MDC DSA for compling!