The Cold War Didn’t End – Paul Jay

Paul Jay

Director Paul Jay discusses his upcoming documentary How to Stop a Nuclear War, featuring Daniel Ellsberg’s final interviews before his death. In conversation with Cole Smith, a former Air Force nuclear missile operator, Jay explains why Ellsberg’s journey from Cold War hawk to whistleblower provides the perfect lens for understanding our current nuclear crisis. The discussion covers Cold War lies, the risks of AI-controlled nuclear systems, and concrete steps toward disarmament, including phasing out ICBMs and ending launch-on-warning policies.

Mini Doc: Why I am Opposed to the War in Vietnam – Martin Luther King

Martin Luther King

In honor of Martin Luther King Day, we republish his speech, Why I am Opposed to the War in Vietnam. King’s speech broadened the scope of the Civil Rights Movement to include economic and global justice, linking the fight against racism to opposition to war and militarism.

King criticized the U.S. government for prioritizing military spending over addressing domestic poverty and inequality. He famously argued, “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”

Trump–Rodríguez Oil Talks Test Venezuela’s Sovereignty

Sharmini Peries

Venezuela’s oil industry has long been a site of struggle—between national sovereignty and foreign control, between social development and extraction for profit. In this wide-ranging conversation, Gregory Wilpert situates today’s crisis in that longer history, from the Chávez government’s effort to reclaim PDVSA for Venezuelans to the current U.S. strategy of tying sanctions relief to oil exports. As Washington pushes Caracas to increase production and redirect crude away from China, Wilpert examines whether interim leadership in Venezuela is navigating an impossible economic bind—or whether the country’s oil and sovereignty are once again being bargained under coercion.

Ukraine: Peace In Our Time? – Volodymyr Ishchenko & Richard Sakwa Pt. 2/2

Barry Stevens

Richard Sakwa and Volodymyr Ishchenko on what is misunderstood about this war — and why it matters for the peace we need so badly.  In Part Two, Sakwa and Ishchenko turn to NATO’s expansion, Russia’s internal politics, and the peace proposals now being pushed. Sakwa dismisses the claim that NATO is merely defensive and rejects the idea that Russia poses a serious military threat to Western Europe. He traces the crisis to post-war settlements that shut Russia out of Europe’s security order — even after Moscow sought NATO membership. Ishchenko argues that Central European states joined NATO less out…

The Deep Roots of the Ukraine War – Volodymyr Ishchenko & Richard Sakwa Pt. 1/2

Barry Stevens

Richard Sakwa and Volodymyr Ishchenko on why peace was lost—and who helped destroy it. Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine did not come from nowhere. In this first of two parts, Richard Sakwa and Volodymyr Ishchenko cut through the common narrative that reduces the war to Putin alone, without excusing the invasion itself. The failure — and in key moments, US sabotage — of an inclusive European security order after the Cold War helped lay the ground for conflict. Inside Ukraine, post Soviet class conflicts led to the weaponization of language, identity, and nationalism. And the far right used the threat…

Trump’s Oil Heist in Venezuela – Steve Ellner & Ricardo Vaz

Sharmini Peries

President Donald Trump entered office backed by fossil-fuel executives, hedge-fund financiers, and the AI-military industrial complex, then used sanctions, military pressure, and trade coercion against Venezuela to dismantle national control over its oil sector—culminating in a $2 billion crude deal that redirects Venezuelan exports from China to the United States and rewards major political donors. Prof. Steve Ellner and Journalist, Ricardo Vaz explain, this outcome is not an aberration, but rather the latest chapter in a long-standing struggle over PDVSA, oil sovereignty, and U.S. hemispheric dominance—where economic warfare supplants diplomacy and state power is deployed for private gain.

Venezuela: Trump’s War for Oil and Domination is a War Crime – Steve Ellner & Ricardo Vaz

Sharmini Peries

Following overnight U.S. airstrikes on Caracas, the seizure of President Nicolás Maduro, and President Donald Trump’s declaration that Washington will take control of Venezuela’s oil and effectively run the country, analysts Steve Ellner and Ricardo Vaz warn that the operation constitutes an unlawful use of force. They cite the combination of military assault, extraterritorial abduction, resource seizure, and alleged extrajudicial killings at sea as violations of international law and Venezuelan sovereignty.

Why Working-Class Consciousness Is the Real Threat to Elite Power – Paul Jay

Barry Stevens

Paul Jay and host Barry Stevens analyze rising progressive movements, from Mamdani’s victory in New York City to Sanders and AOC drawing massive crowds in red states, and why working-class consciousness has always been the real threat to American elites. They discuss why fossil fuel companies have known about the climate crisis for decades but chose denial, why AI could plan a sustainable economy, but is being used for profit and war. They examine the specific dynamics of Christian nationalism, the role of Silicon Valley in the authoritarian turn, and why the 2026 midterms could see significant progressive breakthroughs.

The Ukraine War is a Crime – Paul Jay 

Barry Stevens

Paul Jay rejects the false choice between  “Putin as a new Hitler” and the anti-NATO Left’s defense of Russia. Under the UN Charter and Nuremberg principles, Russia’s invasion is a war of aggression — there was no imminent threat and no “sphere of influence” justifies it. At the same time, NATO expansion was provocative and deceptive, and the U.S. refusal to take it off the table helped set the stage for war. The discussion highlights: •The Ukrainian people’s right to self-determination and to overthrow their own oligarchy; • how the Iraq War normalized lawless aggression and weakened global norms;…

Which Billionaires Are Pulling Trump’s Strings?

Paul Jay

Donald Trump called himself a “self-funder” in 2016 in an effort to show Americans he could not be bought off like the rest of Washington. Eight years later, Trump has yet to pledge even a dime of his own money to his campaign, instead relying heavily on the big-money donors he said could never influence him as president.


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