A.L. Carambassis, PhD

Educator. A member of the Australian Greens. PhD (Physical Chemistry)

[Pedro Torrijos @Pedro_Torrijos]

Este hombre se llama Mohamed Bzeek, vive en California y esa niña que tiene en brazos murió pocos días después de que le hicieran la foto, también en sus brazos. No era su hija. Era uno de los diez niños que han muerto bajo su cuidado. Porque Bzeek es padre de acogida y solo acoge a niños en estado terminal, para que no mueran solos.

Nació en Trípoli en 1954, antes de irse de Libia corría maratones. En 1978 entró en Estados Unidos con un visado de estudiante y allí se quedó. Vive en Azusa, una de esas localidades del extrarradio de Los Ángeles por donde circulan camiones y donde las casas tienen una pinta genérica, agrupadas sin llamar la atención.

En 1989 conoció a Dawn Rowe, que ya era madre de acogida desde principios de los ochenta, se casaron y empezaron a acoger juntos. En 1995 tomaron la decisión de dedicarse exclusivamente a niños con enfermedades terminales, los que nadie quería.

Me pregunto cómo fue ese momento exacto en que dos personas se sientan en una cocina y deciden que van a abrir su casa a los niños que se mueren, y en cómo esa decisión se toma, sin actas, sin nada que la registre, y sin embargo organiza el resto de una vida.

La primera niña que murió en su casa tenía un año, espina bífida, parte de la columna le crecía fuera de la piel. Murió el 4 de julio de 1991, mientras Mohamed se duchaba y Dawn preparaba la cena, él recuerda haber salido del baño y haber encontrado médicos en su salón. Lloró tres días.

Desde entonces ha acogido a unos ochenta niños, diez han muerto en sus brazos. El condado de Los Ángeles, cuatro millones de habitantes, lo llama cuando no hay nadie más. Lo llaman el padre de último recurso.

Muchos llegan sin nombre, nacen en hospitales y los abandonan, las familias no los nombran y en el papel pone "Baby boy", "Baby girl". Mohamed los nombra, les pone un nombre antes de que mueran.

Un nombre es gratis, cuatro sílabas, pero ese gesto, cuando se pone el nombre, decide si un niño que vivirá tres semanas existirá como persona o como registro administrativo.

Su hijo biológico, Adam, nació con osteogénesis imperfecta y enanismo, se ha roto casi todos los huesos del cuerpo. Dawn murió en 2015 de una enfermedad pulmonar y desde entonces Mohamed sigue solo, solo puede ocuparse de un niño a la vez. Cuando un periodista del Los Angeles Times entró en su casa en 2017 cuidaba de una niña de seis años con microcefalia, ciega, sorda, pies zambos, caderas dislocadas, no movía brazos ni piernas, tenía convulsiones. La había recibido con siete semanas de vida y le habían dicho que viviría unos meses. La sostenía durante las convulsiones y le hablaba aunque no oyera.

Sé que no puede oír, sé que no puede ver, pero le hablo, tiene sentimientos, es un ser humano.

En 2016, a Bzeek le diagnosticaron cáncer de colon, le pidió tiempo al médico, no puedo operarme todavía, tengo a un niño en casa que es terminal y tengo a mi hijo, que es discapacitado, no hay nadie más para ellos. En el hospital, ingresado, solo, dijo que por primera vez entendió lo que sentían los niños que cuidaba. Si yo a esta edad estoy asustado, cómo estarán ellos. Se operó y siguió.

Bzeek es musulmán practicante. Su historia se hizo internacional en febrero de 2017, justo cuando Trump firmó la orden ejecutiva que vetaba la entrada en Estados Unidos a ciudadanos de siete países de mayoría musulmana, Libia era uno de ellos. Ese mismo mes, en Azusa, el único padre de acogida de toda la ciudad de Los Ángeles dispuesto a llevarse a casa a los niños terminales era un libio musulmán.

Aunque mi corazón se rompa, dijo una vez, la muerte es parte de la vida, estoy con ellos hasta el final, los conforto, los quiero, quiero que sientan que tienen una familia, que tienen a alguien. Que no están solos.

[Peter Cronau @PeterCronau]

This is a dole bludger.

Bludging off inherited wealth and free cash doled out by a bought government.

[GregMarSci 💙 @BrisMarSci]

Your buddy @AlboMP @SenatorWong @RichardMarlesMP

Clinically insane, a paedophile rapist but sure, let’s give him $billions while throwing disabled people off the NDIS.

Labor values at their finest.

[Larissa Waters @larissawaters]

This is what it looks like when a government stops working for people, and starts working for the 1%.

And let’s not forget that last year, Labor received over $10 million in donations from the fossil fuel, resources and mining industry.

[GregMarSci 💙 @BrisMarSci]

Despite clear evidence from Norway that taxing resources DOES NOT scare off investment @AlboMP lies to justify not taxing these corporate thieves. How captured is he? We are not well served by the main parties 🤬

https://t.co/8lkSMTIbSn

[Robert Barwick @RobbieBarwick]

Utter lunacy.

Some Australians - at least 62% of the respondents to this poll - are so radicalised by the immigration debate...

...they focus on that while ignoring the clear and present danger of the fuel crisis, which risks food shortages, etc.

We're about to learn...

[David Ullrich @DavidUllrich202]

@liz_churchill10 https://t.co/NJvrB42a5U

[Peter Cronau @PeterCronau]

Trump is America’s ‘mask off’ moment revealing the America that has always been there hidden behind a Biden smile, an Obama smile.

“Trump lacks the relative decorum of his predecessors to mask the fallout of policies which are just as destructive as theirs, if not more.

“Trump is only an exception to American history in that he doesn't outwardly behave *presidentially*.

“He doesn't possess the charm, wit or likeablity of his predecessors to paint over America's horrors.

“He has laid it all bare; gloves off, mask off.”

[Robert Barwick @RobbieBarwick]

Memo to Australian media:

It is not "the president".

It is "the US president".

He's not our president. He's not the president of the world. He's the president of one country. Other countries have their own presidents.

Alternatively, you could say "the shithead president".

[Jeff Lormans @JeffLormans]

We desperately need a law that makes lying by politicians a criminal offence.
https://t.co/cdecqfjl2f

[GregMarSci 💙 @BrisMarSci]

I do not know how we move forward but somehow, between now and 2028, we need to have a clear plan of attack to purge Labor, Liberals & One Nation from this country. The endless gaslighting, all the while cheering for the genocidal Zionist regime & orange paedophile shames us all.

[George Tsakraklides @99blackbaloons]

“As long as we need 1.7 Earths to continue to exist, we are a species that is about to become a fossil”

[James Edward Hansen @DrJamesEHansen]

Science-based policies could successfully limit human-caused climate change, but when political parties are allowed to accept money from special interests, policies are distorted to the point of being ineffective. See Politics: https://t.co/Xj64zEZlZQ Also available on Substack: https://t.co/tmXiqhGrdJ

[David Shoebridge @DavidShoebridge]

One Nation, Liberals, Labor, they are all the same. They refuse to take on corporate power, refuse to invest in public housing and essential public goods, then play politics with immigration to divide and distract us.

[Carlos @agent_of_change]

Rest in power Michael Parenti (1933-2026), a giant among Marxist historians and political scientists. His writings and speeches are an invaluable resource for the study of – and struggle against – imperialism, capitalism and social chauvinism.

A true working class intellectual, Parenti remained true to the principles and positions of global class struggle, never watering down his analysis for the sake of respectability, popularity or a well-paid job.

He supported the socialist countries, he supported anti-imperialist struggle, he supported the oppressed and exploited everywhere. He never fell for “neither Washington nor Beijing” or other variants of Western ultra-left posturing. His analysis of “siege socialism” and the extreme challenges of building socialism in a hostile imperialist world remain as relevant today as ever.

Importantly, and in contrast to most leftist intellectuals, Parenti wrote and spoke in order to communicate ideas of liberation, not to make himself look clever. He had an unparalleled ability to condense important ideas into accessible, easily-understood language.

This quote from ‘Blackshirts and Reds’ is a searing indictment of the US-led imperialist system, and powerful riposte to the ridiculous “victims of communism” narrative.

“In pursuit of counterrevolution and in the name of freedom, US forces or US-supported surrogate forces slaughtered 2,000,000 North Koreans in a three-year war; 3,000,000 Vietnamese; over 500,000 in aerial wars over Laos and Cambodia; over 1,500,000 million in Angola; over 1,000,000 in Mozambique; over 500,000 in Afghanistan; 500,000 to 1,000,000 in Indonesia; 200,000 in East Timor; 100,000 in Nicaragua; over 100,000 in Guatemala (plus an additional 40,000 disappeared); over 700,000 in Iraq; over 60,000 in El Salvador; 30,000 in the ‘dirty war’ of Argentina; 35,000 in Taiwan, when the Kuomintang military arrived from China; 20,000 in Chile; and many thousands in Haiti, Panama, Grenada, Brazil, South Africa, Western Sahara, Zaire, Turkey, and dozens of other countries, in what amounts to a free-market world holocaust.”

[Vijay Prashad @vijayprashad]

Michael Parenti (1933-2026) died today. He has, as his son Christian said, 'gone to the Great Lecture Hall in the Sky'. A socialist from early into his life till the very end, Michael Parenti wrote in a feisty way and spoke bluntly the truths that were not always easy to digest in a wretched capitalist system. He was a fierce critic of imperialist wars and suffered the consequences of this because he could keep and then hold academic jobs even in liberal states such as Vermont.

The toughest test for all of us came when the USSR collapsed, and it was in this period that Michael Parenti played an important role in the Battle of Ideas, fighting the reactionary Western media and the intellectual cowardice of his peers. His books on Yugoslavia's destruction earned him terrible attacks, which he brushed off as the necessary price you pay in this struggle. In the midst of it all, Michael wrote 'Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism' (1997), a rebuttal to the anti-Marxist and anti-Communist blather that had begun to infect the world. The book remains an essential tool to fight against the ridiculous anti-communist historiography that demeans the great achievements of the workers' movements.

He spent the last period of his life within himself, which was a loss to the rest of us, and now his departure leaves us without that anchor which he provided.

Michael Parenti. Comrade. Our Red Flag dips in your honour.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

It's not hypocrisy, it's capitalism.

The bizarre behaviour of Western states and leaders often seems to betray a moral double standard. But in fact it is all perfectly consistent with a single standard, namely, the objective of maintaining the conditions for capital accumulation in the core.

On Iran, they tell us they "support the protestors". But of course they violently brutalize protestors at home, and never support protests against the governments of their often brutal client states.

They say they support "women's rights". But of course they actively support a genocidal regime that has massacred tens of thousands of women, live-streamed to our screens.

They say they want to see "freedom" and "democracy". But of course they prop up several repressive dictatorships in the Middle East.

They say they value international law. But they violate it regularly, in spectacular fashion, as easily as they breathe.

They say they want to see "liberation". But their explicit objective is to impose a puppet monarchy with zero real sovereignty, permanently subordinated to the US and Israel.

Why? Because they want to maintain the conditions for capital accumulation in the core.

This requires a massive flow of cheap labour and resources from the periphery. To keep it going, they do everything possible to crush any state or movement that seeks real sovereignty, because sovereign development in the South means that the South produces and consumes more for itself, so their resources and labour are less cheaply available for accumulation in the core.

This is why they are going after Iran. It's the same reason they are going after Venezuela and Cuba... it's the same reason they fantasize at going to war with China... it's the same reason they invaded Libya and Iraq... it's the same reason they assassinated Lumumba and Sankara. It's the same reason they prop up Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It's the same reason they support Israel's genocide.

The narrative of "double standards" presupposes that they have at least some shred of morality. But they do not. For them there is but one standard: the law of capital. And in the interests of this standard they will very gladly spit on every human value.

They will not shrink from genociding civilians by the tens of thousands - peasants and workers and children; they will not flinch at killing half a million people each year with illegal sanctions; they will rape the earth and doom our collective future without a qualm.

It is fruitless to appeal to capital, to imperialism, in moral terms. The objective is to defeat it.

[Bill Madden @maddenifico]

Like the far-right gaslighting that occurred in 1930s Nazi Germany, fascist authoritarians like Trump, JD Vance, and Elon Musk are attempting to normalize the horror being committed on a daily basis by Trump's ICE Nazis. 😳👇

[A.L. Carambassis, PhD @ARCaramba]

The problem for Trump is removing a person does not kill off the Bolivarian revolution. I have seen a number of videos appearing on this platform showing angry Venezuelans ready to defend their country. Che Guevara said before he was murdered "Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man!". In essence, by removing Maduro or anybody else they will not kill the cause.