Op-Ed

We have long argued that the Israeli war and genocide in Gaza must catalyze a change in the overall political discourse on Israel and Palestine, particularly regarding the need to free Palestine from the confines of victimhood. This shift is necessary to create space where the Palestinian people are seen as central to their own struggle.

 It is unfortunate that centering a nation in a conversation about its own freedom from colonialism and military occupation requires years of advocacy. But this is the reality Palestinians face—often due to circumstances far beyond their control.

“The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible.”

The words are from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (where else?), explaining the root causes of a dystopian world. The book may be a work of fiction, but his words are deeply embedded in reality – we need enemies, the worse the better! This certainty may well be humanity’s most profound existential threat. I fear it could be “the meteor” that hits Planet Earth, ultimately spelling extinction for the dominant species.

Mostly what we do is prepare for – and wage – war. We always wage it in self-defense, even when in retrospect its motivating factor is colonial conquest. When it comes to the manifestation of power, at its core are the words “us vs. them.” That captures the public spirit so much more fully than cooperation, connection, understanding . . . or, groan, love.

As far as I’m concerned, this is humanity’s primary challenge of the moment. It’s time to transcend war, the meteor of our own making.

My husband, former Congressman Dennis Kucinich and I first met twenty years ago over a rather unromantic yet profoundly important topic: monetary reform. The second time we met we were engaged and three months later we were married.

It was 2005, and, at that time, I had spent nearly a decade working with the Forum for Stable Currencies, a group based at the House of Lords in London, dedicated to exploring banking malpractice and the hidden mechanics of money creation and its systemic impact on society.

My journey into this lesser-known field began much earlier, in my teenage years, when a deep concern for the root causes of social and ecological destruction led me to ask a fundamental question: What is the greatest systemic driver of these crises?

Through a series of seemingly serendipitous encounters, I discovered monetary reform—a topic rarely discussed, yet foundational to the structure of our economy and the fate of nations.

“. . . I write today from a position rare for a former prosecutor: to beseech you to commute the sentence of a man I helped put behind bars.”

Thus begins one of the most stunning letters I have ever read, written almost four years ago by former U.S. Attorney James H. Reynolds to President Joe Biden, pleading with him to exonerate former American Indian Movement (AIM) leader Leonard Peltier, who had been convicted of murdering two FBI agents at South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975.

Erica L. Green, a White House correspondent, covering President Trump and his
administration, reports on Trump’s task force to “prosecute anti-Christian violence
and vandalism” (https://nytimes.com/2025/02/07/trump-anti-christian-bias.html).
Green writes: “President Trump signed an executive order on Thursday aimed at
eradicating ‘anti-Christian bias’ in the federal government by having agencies
review policies and practices that he says have tried to squelch religious activities
and activism.” Trump “announced the order at the National Prayer Breakfast,”
where he “appointed his new attorney general, Pam Bondi, to lead a task force at
the Justice Department to spearhead the effort.” Green continues: “Mr. Trump said
the task force would ‘fully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our
society’ and ‘move heaven and earth to defend the rights of Christians and
religious believers nationwide.’”
Trump criticized former President Biden for supporting the convictions of anti-

Gitmo, of course!! It’s the freest place “we” have – by which I mean the American government, a.k.a. Donald Trump. No rules apply there, be they international humanitarian law or the U.S. Constitution. It’s a dumping ground, a black hole.

It’s the most secure place for America to hold, as Trump put it a few weeks ago, “the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people. Some of them are so bad we don’t even trust their countries to hold them because we don’t want them coming back.”

Anne Garrels (1951 – 2022) was a US journalist who worked for National Public Radio during the Iraq war and authored of Naked in Baghdad.

 Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism students were mostly in high school when National Public Radio (NPR) correspondent Anne Garrels endured the “shock and awe” bombing of Iraq, chronicling her experiences in the book Naked in Baghdad. 

 But when she spoke at the university in 2008, that didn’t curtail their questions about the Abu Ghraib scandal, the dubious government contactor Blackwater, government censorship, reporters embedding with the active military operations and war reporting as a female when Garrels.

 Casually dressed in a leotard, flowered skirt, ballet flats and bare legs, Garrels discussed the progression of the war, the effect of escalating violence and kidnappings on reporting and everyday life in Iraq and her personal experiences as a reporter and a woman.

In this chaotic news cycle, America’s worst plane crash in a generation already feels a generation old.

But the administration’s response to the tragic January collision that killed 67 people over the Potomac is worth revisiting. Not only because the loved ones of those lost deserve answers, but because it highlights a MAGA playbook we’ve seen repeatedly now — and we’ll see again very soon.