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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella)

@rebeccagsf.bsky.social
60 followers 42 following 114 posts

Philosopher, knitter, spinner, newish weaver, 70s lesbian. Author of Mainstreaming Torture and American Nuremberg.

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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
This kind of force feeding is torture. It violates the international Convention Against Torture, whether the victims are suffragists, Guantánamo prisoners, or ICE detainees. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
ICE given permission to force-feed Cuban hunger striker with gastric tube
Exclusive: court orders seen by Guardian show agency given approval to fit Texas detainee with tube without his consent
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
A remarkable essay, all the more remarkable because the NYT agreed to publish it. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/02/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | My Home Is Besieged By Israeli Settlers. This Flag Is My Only Protection.
As Israeli settlers encroach on his home, one Palestinian American man has hoisted the American flag.
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
NY Times didn't highlight this, but it's an important historic move for US military. Pentagon is taking a stake in Venezuelan oil. We see this in autocratic states like Egypt & Iran; a military becomes a powerful economic entity, independent of the rest of the govt. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/31/u...
nytimes.com
How the Pentagon Is Getting Into the Venezuelan Oil Business Under Trump (Gift Article)
The Defense Department’s Office of Strategic Capital, founded by the Biden administration to give loans to bolster the U.S. defense industry, is helping lead President Trump’s oil deal.
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
As AI rapidly infiltrates so many domains of human life, here's a look at the state of play with lethal autonomous weapons. My latest from Tomdispatch, via The Intercept: theintercept.com/2026/08/26/a...
theintercept.com
It’s Time to Rein in Lethal AI Drones
Now that AI-guided drones are being deployed and tested in real wars, humans need to act, as AI agents scheme in the digital shadows.
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
After almost a quarter century, Tomdispatch will stop publishing in a week or so. Here is my last story for Tom. www.juancole.com/.../torture-....
juancole.com
Torture, Racism, War and Male Chauvinism: Fighting Back
( Tomdispatch.com ) - This is my last article for To...
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
From my partner and her blog Happening-Here:
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
I’ve got a new article out from Tomdispatch on how the US has exported gangs, climate change, and dictatorship to El Salvador: znetwork.org/znetarticle/...
znetwork.org
Gangs and Climate Change, Born in the USA
Recently, I had the opportunity to stand in a friend’s kitchen eating pupusas, the Salvadoran national food, while listening to an update on conditions in
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
You're wrong, @blopeep.bsky.social. Mint chocolate chip is the lesbian national ice cream, and therefore, by definition good.
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
This is a response to Randi Weingarten, president of my union, the American Federation of Teachers. I have great respect for Randi, but she is wrong to have gotten AFT in bed with Microsoft on bringing AI to classrooms. We don't have "a seat at the table"; teachers (and students) are on the menu.
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
Melania Trump wants to replace teachers with robots. @rweingarten.bsky.social "Both [first] lady and robot extolled the virtues of further integrating robots into the educational and social lives of children" at a meeting of "first ladies" of the world. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/u...
nytimes.com
Melania and the Robot
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
A new piece about Trump's concentration camps: www.commondreams.org/opinion/trum...
commondreams.org
The Dead and the Dying in Trump's American Gulag | Common Dreams
A system of concentration camps is being built and it's time the nation reckon with this monstrosity before any more people are killed.
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Abu Aardvark @abuaardvark.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
It enrages me that the Iran fiasco had basically relegated Israel’s absolutely horrific assault on Lebanon to a sideshow which barely gets noticed. That alone should be a crisis that grips the urgent attention of the entire world and nobody even notices.
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
The State Dept is considering withholding lifesaving assistance to people with H.I.V. in Zambia to force the government to give the US "more access to the country’s critical minerals." Because why should we provide meds that both cure and prevent transmission? www.nytimes.com/2026/03/16/h...
nytimes.com
U.S. Considers Withholding H.I.V. Aid Unless Zambia Expands Minerals Access
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
Justice delayed, but granted now, at least until the inevitable appeal. This is what some of us have been hoping for for almost 20 years.
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
This is how people die in concentration camps. #AmericanGulag
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
"When crazy people have nuclear weapons, bad things happen." True that.
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
The bombing will continue until world peace is achieved.
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
OK. That's all I can take.
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Andrea Pitzer @andreapitzer.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
This week @jamellebouie.net had some questions for me about where the US is at now and why the term "concentration camp" might be a useful way to think about the crisis. (He interviewed me eight years ago for Slate on a similar topic. Let's hope we don't end up having the same discussion in 2034.)
messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com
What exactly is a ‘concentration camp’?
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
@jamellebouie.net's interview with Andrea Pitzer captures what we face now: We are at an early stage of a concentration camp society. As I've written elsewhere, the interplay between visible violence and secrecy is how torture regimes work to repress resistance. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/21/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | What Exactly Is a ‘Concentration Camp’?
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
Got a new piece out from Tomdispatch on the courage of refugees and other migrants and the sorrow of leaving home. #migration #refugees #ICE tomdispatch.com/on-seeking-a...
tomdispatch.com
On Seeking Asylum and Refuge
Today, during my slog through the Substack messages, newspaper headline notices, and podcast reminders that hit my inbox every morning, two stories drew my attention. Both had to do with the fact that...
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Her observations about South Africa resonate with me. My partner and I spent 3 months there at an anti-apartheid paper in 1990. It was the place most like the US of anywhere we'd been.
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Sarah Lazare @sarahlazare.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
Unions and community orgs are calling for a Minnesota-wide shutdown in 10 days to protest the ferocious assault by federal immigration agents. They're saying on Jan 23, no work, no school, no shopping. SEIU Local 26, UNITE HERE Local 17, & others are supporting, w/ more to join. By me, Amie Stager
inthesetimes.com
“We Are Facing a Tsunami of Hate”: Amid ICE Crackdown, Unions and Community Groups Call for Minnesota Shutdown in 10 Days
Following the ICE murder of Renee Good and an assault on the state by federal immigration forces, a labor-community coalition is calling for residents to refuse to work, shop or go to school on Januar...
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
I've got a new piece from Tomdispatch up at Common Dreams: www.commondreams.org/opinion/lies...
commondreams.org
12 Years of Lies, Torture, Drones.... and Hope? | Common Dreams
I began writing for TomDispatch during Barack Obama’s somewhat disappointing second presidential term, observed with horror Trump’s first time around, slogged through the Biden years, and now find mys...
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
If you want a good recent history and analysis of the destruction of Sudan, read this from Hammer and Hope: hammerandhope.org/article/suda...
hammerandhope.org
In Sudan, the People’s Revolution Versus the Elite’s Counterrevolution
Elites profit off war at the expense of one of the most powerful movements for emancipation in the 21st century.
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
Sudan, the other genocide, and its unexpected lessons for the U.S. resistance to Trump. My latest from Tomdispatch: www.laprogressive.com/foreign-poli...
laprogressive.com
Sudan, the Forgotten Genocide
While the Trump administration hasn’t exactly taken sides in Sudan’s civil war, that doesn’t mean there’s no blood on its hands.
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
NYT's Savage & Barnes get the key point: "The focus on the second strike and the nuances of the law of armed conflict could end up being a favor to the Trump administration." Even without second strikes, these attacks on civilian boats amount to murder. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/u...
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
Clerical workers FTW! (*SS*ecretary Pete Hegseth. Very appropriate typo on his table tent at today's cabinet meeting.)
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 27/11/2025
This is amazing news. Now get it to low-income country where women have less access to testing and treatment!
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Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
If you have to get permission to teach in your area of expertise from people who are definitionally not qualified to adjudicate your expertise then you are no longer working at a university. You’re working at a state propaganda factory.
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
The Guardian has a horrifying article on conditions at a privately-run ICE detention center in California. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
theguardian.com
People held in ‘decrepit’ California ICE facility sue over ‘inhumane’ conditions
Lawsuit against US government alleges ‘life-threatening’ medical neglect and says residents frequently go hungry
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
WTF, Democrats? If you fold now, you -- we -- got nothing out of 40 days of defiance.
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
New piece today from Tomdispatch.com on the incompetence -- inadvertent and strategic -- of the Trump administration: tomdispatch.com/trump-is-bad...
tomdispatch.com
Strategic Incompetence in the Age of Trump
I first heard the expression “strategic incompetence” in El Salvador in December 1993. Along with my partner and two friends, I’d been recruited to do some electoral training there. We were working wi...
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
Snyder is right; this is a dangerous precedent.
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
Yup. Pretty much what we expected. Racism is no longer something to hide.
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
I've got a new, and angry, piece from Tomdispatch today. It's about the death of civil rights in this country, at the hands of white nationalism and its agents on the Supreme Court. tomdispatch.com/going-backwa...
tomdispatch.com
Going Backwards on Rights with Trump
Warning: dangers in the mirror are often closer than they may appear. In other words, the next few paragraphs may seem to be hyperbole but are, in fact, expressions of reality (animated by a cold
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
Better late than never.
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
Valarie was my union local's California Federation of Teachers representative. She's awesome! And totally right about Thiel.
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African American Policy Forum @aapf.org · 17/09/2025
@karenattiah.bsky.social is a voice for the TRUTH!
Karen Attiah was the last remaining Black full-time writer for the Washington Post opinion pages. She was fearless in her pursuit of the truth and her willingness to speak it to power. To fire her for her strengths, to erase Black voices — especially those of Black women — from one of the most influential newspapers in the country speaks volumes about who is allowed to have an opinion right now in America and who isn't. The chilling effect of this firing, the diminished influence of Black journalists on our mainstream understanding of current events, and a political environment tilted towards silencing dissent are reshaping the way we live our lives and forever rewriting the history future generations will have access to.

Kimberlé Crenshaw
Co-Founder and Executive Director of AAPF
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Jamelle is right to be proud of this one. He's said exactly what had to be said: these white nationalists despise the founding ideas of this country, and would replace them with an American identity based on race. The supreme court has murdered the 4th & 14th amendments.
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Simon Rosenberg @simonwdc.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
Trump is ending rule of law in America and the rules-based order around the world. Always seemed to the central thrust of his project this time and it was has been far more successful than many are willing to admit now.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
FUCK ME DO NOT DESCRIBE TRUMP'S PLANS IN THE HEADLINES WITHOUT NOTING THEY ARE ILLEGAL.
Post Headline: Trump moves to fire top Federal Reserve official Lisa Cook
The president moved to oust Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook over unproven allegations that she committed mortgage fraud, ratcheting up his push to bend the independent central bank to his will.Trump Says He Is Removing Lisa Cook From Federal Reserve Board

President Trump took the extraordinary step of moving to oust Ms. Cook in a legally dubious maneuver that could undermine the independence of the nation’s central bank.
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David Rothkopf @djrothkopf.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
This is such an outrageous not to mention idiotic lie. This whole charade would be a joke were it not also so dangerous.
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
Here's the money quote, calling for a general strike: "If the Trump administration continues on its course … the only force that could respond to that effectively is a labor movement that is willing to withhold its labor, and in a general way.”
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Lisa Schiff @lschiff.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
An important and powerful interview! Everyone in #Academia, please take a moment to read this and reflect on strategies going foward! #DefendResearch #Action
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
I've got a new piece up from Tomdispatch. Here it is at the L.A. Progressive. There's also an oral version, which is surprisingly human-sounding. (In fact, it sounds a little like me. Odd.) www.laprogressive.com/war-and-peac...
laprogressive.com
On Seeing the Future Too Clearly
Today, there’s a consensus in this country that the Vietnam War was more than a mistake; it was a decade-long exercise in overreach and overkill.
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Stephen Zunes @szunes.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
The Israeli finance minister announces "We conquer, cleanse, and stay... On the way, we annihilate everything that still remains.….We're breaking Gaza apart, leaving it as a pile of rubble, total unprecedented destruction." And the Democratic Party leadership still supports arming this government.
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Rebecca Gordon (she/her/ella) @rebeccagsf.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
@missionlocal.org What's up with the sheets of plywood lining the fence along the sidewalk in front of Horace Mann Buena Vista on Bartlett Street? Any idea?
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Allison Gill @muellershewrote.com · 07/08/2025
NEW: The Department of Veterans Affairs just terminated union contracts including AFL-CIO (AFGE), NAGE, NFFE, SEIU, and nursing unions NNOC and NNU. nurse.org/news/va-term...
nurse.org
VA Just Terminated Most Federal Union Contracts, National Nurses United Included
The VA has terminated union contracts for over 360,000 healthcare workers, including nurses—raising urgent concerns about staffing, patient safety, and veteran care nationwide.
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News Eye @newseye.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Photo of the Day. Israel threatened reprisals if the press filmed Gaza from above during airdrops. This is why. A scene of destroyed & burnt out buildings in what is left of Gaza City, the pre-war home to 800,000 people. Credit to Post photographer Heidi Levine who defied the ban & took this.
From above everything looks grey or black. Smoke is seen rising from building ga at the top of the photo. In the foreground many buildings have collapsed entirely. Photo credit to Heidi Levine taken for the Washington Post.
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