Organizing Notes
Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.
He offers his own reflections on organizing and the state of America's declining empire....
Saturday, October 31, 2026
Friday, October 30, 2026
Video from Turin, Italy as cops attack march: MANIFESTO FOR GLOBAL PEACE & THE ABOLITION OF WAR
Protest march against war and the high cost of living; violent clashes break out repeatedly in Torino between demonstrators and police.
Note the comments below the video. Just click the translation.
MANIFESTO FOR GLOBAL PEACE AND THE ABOLITION OF WAR
Peace is not made with weapons!
The global arms industry costs nearly $3 trillion a year in economic terms. Almost half of this sum is spent by the United States alone, making it the most warmongering nation on the planet. Indeed, the U.S. arms industry is thriving, and weapons lobbies rage everywhere, enriching centers of power.
But other countries are not far behind when it comes to armaments.
With the same money invested in the military sector, almost all other evils could be permanently solved in a cascading effect (hunger, disease, poverty, drugs, persecution, the social breakdown of the family, unemployment, slavery, natural disasters...).
Furthermore, all military personnel and workers surrounding the arms industry would be transitioned into high-level civil and social roles. No one should fear losing their job: this conversion guarantees that every human and professional resource will be employed in sectors of progress and well-being, eliminating unemployment in the sector.
The Inevitable Dilemma: Preventing the Apocalypse.
Yet today we are witnessing an escalation of threats and winds of war. And when the wind blows upon a forest already in flames, it can only worsen the fire. With the armaments currently available, the extinction of humanity is highly probable. Given the current production potential of weapons, we face a single choice: what do we prefer?
● To keep producing weapons until warehouses are full, only to empty them by unleashing wars?
● Or to avoid the final Apocalypse, which is mathematically and statistically certain if we continue down this path? To those wiseacres of history, high-culture scholars, and professors who dismiss comprehensive disarmament as a mere "UTOPIA," we say clearly: yours is a grave mathematical and logical error.
Eliminating what guarantees our self-destruction is not utopia; it is pure logic for survival. As prophetic voices like Pope Francis and Gino Strada have reminded us: it is not enough to limit weapons or regulate conflicts. War must be ABOLISHED entirely, and weapons must be banned forever.
The Action Plan: 5 Essential Steps.
Therefore, the only right and possible way is to abolish war. How to do it?
1. Closure of all arms industries.
2. Total disarmament of all armies in the world, including NATO.
3. Dismantling of all existing military arsenals.
4. An end to all sanctions for all countries.
5. Restoration of socio-economic relations among all nations.
Otherwise, there will be no Peace.
Final Appeal to the Powerful and to the People.
The arms race will breed tension and fear among Peoples. Lack of cooperation between countries due to conflicts will cause social ties to disintegrate and push foolish minds to seek solutions to problems that are so absurd, environmental and humanitarian catastrophes will become inevitable.
This message is addressed to all the leaders of the Earth who have the intelligence and foresight to understand it. If, however, the majority of rulers fail to demonstrate this intelligence, then there will be no other salvation for Humanity except the People's Revolution: the united, peaceful, and global response of all citizens of the world who demand Peace and reject War.
Best regards,
Thursday, October 29, 2026
“No Israeli tourists” in Thailand
This week on The Disclosed, we investigate the rising tensions between local Thai communities and foreign visitors, exploring how cultural friction, property disputes, and regulatory crackdowns are testing Thailand's limits.
π The Flashpoints: Viral conflicts in Koh Samui, protests in Bangkok, and community pushback over unpermitted projects in Chachoengsao and Phuket.
π The Regulatory Crackdown: Fast-track deportation laws and strict oversight targeting rule-breakers, nominee structures, and unauthorised zoning.
π The Diplomatic Stakes: High-level talks between Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow and Israeli Ambassador Alona Fisher-Kamm balancing national dignity, public order, and vital bilateral ties.
π Reported by @Tameryn.sh
AI: Are we just sitting ducks?
We took Ro Khanna to Pennsylvania to talk to workers about AI, and how it could kill their jobs.
The Silicon Valley lawmaker’s district is getting rich off AI.
We sat him down with workers who share the fear of millions of Americans — that AI could take everything.
Israeli election mess, African summit in Moscow, Latest Iran news
- Ahmed Eldin: Whoever governs Israel after Tuesday’s election, Palestinians will live under the same occupation, the same siege and the same settlements. The two blocs fighting over the Knesset agree on all three. They fight about Netanyahu, about drafting ultra-Orthodox men and about the power of the courts. On the question that decides whether millions of people live free, Israeli politics settled its answer long ago, and the answer is no. Diana Buttu said it plainly in Al Jazeera two days before the vote: the election may change “the face of the government, not the policy.” The exit polls promised a close race, and the count delivered a stalemate. With 84 percent of ballots counted on Wednesday afternoon, the Central Elections Committee gave Netanyahu’s bloc 54 seats, Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition bloc 49 and the Arab parties 17. Neither bloc comes close to the 61 needed to govern. Turnout reached 77.7 percent, the highest since 1999. Saul Sadka saw only two paths: a unity government of Netanyahu and Eisenkot, or Netanyahu as caretaker until another election in the spring. On election day, Muhammad Shehada reported what he saw: incitement from the top of government, Ben Gvir’s police at Arab polling stations, election workers obstructing Arab voters, Hebrew-only ballots, and Likud activists sent to film and intimidate.
- Sovereignista: FlΓ vio Bolsonaro fled Brasil to the US with his wife and daughters after his presidential election defeat, CNN Brasil reports, amid fears of arrest after a court ordered his passport seized. US officials confirm Bolsonaro landed in Miami. He reportedly crossed the Argentinian border on foot and then flew to Ecuador and then Miami. He was granted a visa to enter the US. Bolsonaro flew with his Italian passport. This has been described as a classic CIA extraction operation planned well in advance.
- Islander Reports: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov this week told a room of African editors what the Western client media spends its life tiptoeing around... political independence came with the 1960s wave of decolonisation, but Africa's "second awakening" will be economic, with its richest resources used "in Africa itself so that added value is created there, rather than in the former colonial powers." The UN's own trade body backs him up, with UNCTAD counting 46 of Africa's 54 countries as commodity dependent. And today 48 of those 54 states turned up in Moscow for the 3rd Russia-Africa summit, 22 of them at head of state level (up from 17 in 2023). He told them a story that says it all. More than once, in a "friendly" country, he couldn't get his own plane refuelled because the oil facilities belonged to Western companies that had decided Russia was "behaving badly". Today Putin went further, quoting Thomas Sankara on debt as "neocolonialism" and accusing the West of trying to drive Africans back into "debt bondage" on predatory terms.
- “That sounds INSANE to me”. Mehdi talks to Palestinian human rights lawyer Noura Erakat about her arrest and attorney Lydia Ghuman about the billion dollars worth of Israel bonds that Palm Beach County in Florida bought to fund the genocide that she was protesting.
- PressTV: Francesca Albanese put under the US gun at the UN again. A US envoy to the UN has called for the removal of UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Palestine, Francesca Albanese, calling her a “moral fugitive” and a “lunatic.” US Representative for UN Management and Reform Jeff Bartos accused Albanese of harboring hatred toward the US, the West, Israel, and the Jewish people. “[The UN] allows a charlatan to soil the UN uniform—even as she stokes the very conflicts this body was created to end—and even as her words are found in terrorists’ chants,” he said. He claimed that UN colleagues have privately expressed similar views, characterizing Albanese and others like her as “institutional poison” and “good for no one.”
- Trump framed the recent talks initiated by Vice-President Vance through Qatar as “to deliver humanitarian/aid supplies to Iran.” This statement below is obviously aimed at American voters in hopes to make Trump appear 'peaceful and compassionate'. The US list of demands that was given to Iran, via Qatar, reportedly insisted Iran include 'nuclear concessions' as part of a deal ahead of the elections. Tehran did not accept this “demand.” Iran continues to insist on its seven long-standing conditions.
- Chairman of Iran’s National Security Committee Arya Yadegaar: Iran’s Parliament's plan for withdrawing from the NPT is ready. The chairman says: “MPs have prepared bills for an exit strategy from the NPT, based on national interests, political and military doctrine.” Exiting the NPT has been a topic of discussion for a few days now in Iran. A very probable solution that was discussed is a 3-month plan to exit the NPT, in case the US & Israel attack Iran again. Right now, one of the main obstacles for Iran to exit the NPT is China & Russia. But this can be solved by not allowing IAEA inspectors, but allow Russian and Chinese inspectors in Iran. In this plan, Iran would agree to temporarily freeze its enriched materials, but on the condition that China and Russia guarantee that if the US attacks again, they will support Iran's withdrawal from the NPT and Iran's development of nuclear weapons. However this is only discussed and not actually official (yet).
- Elijah J. Magnier: The Israeli elections between the right and the right parties: very fair and with multiple choices. (ha, ha) The right was not expected to win the majority over the right. Therefore, the two right camps will have to renew the elections or one right goes to war to force the other right to form one right government. Clear?

- Craig Murray: The social democratic compact that underlay western democracy is fatally fractured. Public provision is despised, and eked out grudgingly where the politicians whom the billionaires control see it as absolutely unavoidable to keep the helots quiet. The wars in Ukraine and Iran are directly responsible for much of the inflation. They are, however, a consequence of the concentration of wealth, not a separate factor. Billionaires make money from war. They make money from weapons and from lending to governments. They make money from military and security contracts. They make money from high hydrocarbon prices. They make money from asset value fluctuations between hot war and negotiation. Billionaires drive war.
- Larry Johnson: If you want to understand what Washington’s war with Iran is costing ordinary people, forget the think-tank reports. Go to Sihanoukville, Cambodia, where a few hundred mostly American retirees spent Wednesday packing their lives into suitcases on a few hours’ notice. They had bought a home on the sea. The sea, it turns out, runs on diesel. The MV Odyssey, operated by Florida-based Villa Vie Residences, set sail in October 2024 on what was billed as a continuous, never-ending voyage around the world. The pitch was irresistible to a certain kind of American retiree: sell the house, buy a cabin for several hundred thousand dollars, and live at sea, wandering from port to port, with a promised minimum residency of 15 years. Some passengers did exactly that. They sold their homes. They gave away the furniture. They traded the HOA meetings for the Mekong Delta. The brochure, unfortunately, did not include a section on the Strait of Hormuz. Here is what happened, according to the company’s own numbers as reported by CBS News. Before the war began in late February, the ship’s fuel cost about $700 a ton. It now costs between $2,000 and $3,000 a ton. The Odyssey burns 700 to 800 tons a month. Its monthly fuel bill went from about $400,000 to roughly $2 million. Per cabin, fuel went from about $1,800 a month to between $6,000 and $8,000. The company did what any responsible business would do when its biggest variable cost tripled or worse. It slowed down. It spent five or six days in each port, waiting for the Middle East to calm down. Let me repeat that, because it is the most poignant business strategy of 2026: a cruise company decided to wait out an American war with Iran. Many of us have been waiting since 1979. It didn’t work. On Tuesday, October 27, the company suspended operations in Cambodia.
Interview with Fra Hughes from Ireland - arrested by Israel
Ken Jones of Witness Against Empire interviews Fra Hughes from Belfast, Ireland about the current Israeli extermination of the Palestinian people.
Fra has been a long-time supporter of Palestine and over the years attempted to bring aid to the people there by land convoys thru Europe.
He was on the last two flotillas to Gaza and on the 2026 version he was arrested and jailed by the IOF.
Fra currently coordinates a Palestinian aid program in Belfast where they raise funds and send the money for human aid supplies to Gaza.
Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Operation 'Just Cause' and Pete Williams
This is a chapter from my book entitled 'Come Together Right Now: Organizing Stories from a Fading Empire'. At the time of this I was working for the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice.
“From Mexico to Argentina, Latin American governments today roundly condemn the use of force by the United States against General Manuel Antonio Noriega of Panama.”
—New York Times, Dec. 21, 1989, p. 24
“I appreciate the support that we’ve received, strong support from the United States Congress, and from our Latin American neighbors.”
—George Bush, Dec. 21, 1989, reported in New York Times, Dec. 22, 1989, p. 16
On December 20, 1989, in the dead of night, George H. W. Bush (King George I) invaded the country of Panama ostensibly to go after one bad apple by the name of Manuel Noriega. It was called Operation Just Cause, but the cause was not just. Manuel Noriega had been on the CIA’s payroll since the 1950s when he became an informant, paid over $200,000 a year by the U.S., to spy on his fellow classmates at a military academy. Over the years, this corrupt man had been a CIA operative during at least six U.S. presidential administrations, going back to the first years Nixon was in office.
The invasion of Panama was done, in part, to re-establish U.S. control over the Canal Zone, but also to help justify the existence of the military-industrial complex. All signs pointed to the collapse of the Soviet Union just two years later. We were about to lose our big enemy and had no good “enemy” prospects lined up. What was a war monger to do? Go bomb someone who could not retaliate of course. Another reason for the invasion was to field test new high tech weapons systems like the Stealth bomber. It was used to drop bombs that “liberated” the Panamanian people from our bad boy, Noriega.
El Chorrillo, a poor neighborhood, was bombed, shelled with heavy artillery, strafed, and finally burned to the ground by U.S. troops. One resident, a young mother, told investigators after the invasion that “helicopters were firing all kinds of weapons because you could hear the bursts, and explosions were of different intensities...The lights in the neighborhood went out and houses began to burn. It was chaos. People tried to leave their burning homes but found themselves between two fires...tanks, and armored cars, and U.S. soldiers on foot advancing, firing. We could hardly believe it.” Another resident reported that a group of U.S. soldiers came down his street and “entered each house. We saw the people—the residents—coming out, followed by soldiers, and then we saw the houses, one by one, go up in smoke. The U.S. soldiers were burning the houses.”
In order to hide the dead, the U.S. military dug mass graves and bulldozed bodies into them. Cremating bodies was another method used to destroy the evidence of the massacre. A report from the Panamanian National Human Rights Commission claimed that in Cocle province “hundreds of bodies were cremated” by U.S. troops using flamethrowers.
Some speculated that another reason for the invasion was that Noriega had not followed U.S. orders to assist in the illegal U.S. war on Nicaragua in 1986. This was punishment for his “betrayal” of his bosses in Washington.
For me, it was painful to watch the U.S. media grovel and promote the invasion as something patriotic, when in fact it was a sad and despicable moment in American history. The main Pentagon spokesman during the invasion was a guy named Pete Williams who, today, works as a reporter for NBC-TV. Now imagine that today you are watching your TV evening news wanting to believe that you are getting the best fair, balanced, honest reporting possible and then Pete Williams comes on the screen. My first reaction is to feel sick to my stomach. I remember that he was the Pentagon spokesman during Operation Just Cause and that he lied through his teeth about the reason for the invasion and insisted that we were not killing innocent civilians.
Pete Williams has no credibility. He is not a journalist. He is a Pentagon operative who has been placed inside the mainstream media to pose as a reporter. His job is to gain the confidence of the American people and to lie to us every chance he gets. And because very few people will remember all the way back to December, 1989, they will believe Pete Williams at NBC. But I won’t. I will always remember that Pete Williams at NBC is really Pete Williams at the Pentagon. The same tall man with glasses—he lied to each of us about how the U.S. never killed innocent people in Operation Just Cause. It was an action to liberate the Panamanian people. Pete Williams said so......
But I won’t forget..........Pete Williams at NBC/Pentagon/NBCentagon......
Bruce
Tucker Carlson: 'The U.S. is at war with Russia'
By providing targeting information and weaponry to Ukraine the US keep the war going.
It's very dark and sick and corrosive of American interests, Tucker adds.
The same people who pushed Trump into the war in Iran are the same ones who are preventing him settling the Ukraine war.












