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Bread, circuses and inequality – a dishonest bargain
Bread, circuses and inequality – a dishonest bargain How does consumerism undermine democracy? Flickr/dcmaster, CC BY-NC 2.0 China leads the way the Chinese people surrender democratic citizenship for the promise of individual gain through private consumptionOver the decade of the 2000s I visited China several times. At some point on each trip a Chinese acquaintance would assure me, […]
Paris Attack Will Foster an Orwellian Police State
Paris Attack Will Foster an Orwellian Police State Since November 13, 2015, France entered a state of shock. Friday the 13th will no longer be only associated with exploitation Hollywood horror flicks, but will become forever linked in the collective psyche to the mayhem in Paris that occurred on that fateful night. It took only […]
Arming Dictators: An American Tradition
Arming Dictators: An American Tradition Recently the Obama administration announced another military aid package for Pakistan: eight F-16 fighter jets. Once again considerations of human rights and democratic values have been sacrificed to strategic calculations. Recall, the robust figures for US military assistance to Pakistan: more than $20 billion in weapons, training, and other activities between […]
How Technology Kills Democracy
How Technology Kills Democracy In shutting down whistleblowing and investigative journalism on national security issues, the U.S. government can use its technology to determine who is speaking to whom and then use that metadata as evidence of leaks, a chilling new reality is that endangers democracy, writes Norman Solomon. Of all the excuses ladled out for […]
Time to Repair Our ‘Damaged’ Democracy: Stephane Dion
Time to Repair Our ‘Damaged’ Democracy: Stephane Dion New foreign affairs minister, a long-time vote reform advocate, dishes on fixing our system. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s choice to represent Canada on the world stage, Stephane Dion, will have his work cut out for him promoting the Liberals’ brand of democracy as foreign affairs minister. The […]
Sheldon Wolin and Inverted Totalitarianism
Sheldon Wolin and Inverted Totalitarianism Sheldon Wolin discusses his ideas with Chris Hedges in this still from Hedges’ interview with Wolin for The Real News Network. (TRNN via YouTube) Sheldon Wolin, our most important contemporary political theorist, died Oct. 21 at the age of 93. In his books “Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted […]
A New Biography Traces the Pathology of Allen Dulles and His Appalling Cabal
A New Biography Traces the Pathology of Allen Dulles and His Appalling Cabal AS I READ The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government, a new book by Salon founder David Talbot, I couldn’t help thinking of an obscure corner of 1970s history: the Safari Club. Dulles — the Princeton man and […]
Let’s Help Canada’s Newspapers Stop Embarrassing Themselves
Let’s Help Canada’s Newspapers Stop Embarrassing Themselves In this post-Harper era, our democratic institutions must be fixed. Start with media. Observing the cathartic effect of the end the Harper regime reveals just how traumatized millions of Canadians were by nearly 10 years of rule by this vindictive prime minister. The analogies and metaphors keep coming: […]
Attacks On the Press Escalate Ahead of Turkish Elections
Attacks On the Press Escalate Ahead of Turkish Elections ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, Turkish riot police stormed the offices of Koza Ipek Holding, a media group in Istanbul housing the Bugun TV channel and the Bugun and Millet newspapers. “Dear viewers,” a Bugun TV anchor casually announced during the early morning broadcast, “do not be surprised if you see police in […]
Democracy and Monarchy
Democracy and Monarchy Regarding the country as their own private property, the monarchist-aristocratic class will wish to preserve the capital-value and thus will promote the mechanisms that allow for wealth accumulation. Democratic interests, on the other hand, are by nature populist and short-term thinking. The masses have never been rational, nor has the monarchist-aristocratic class […]
Food Sovereignty: This is What Anarchy Looks Like
Food Sovereignty: This is What Anarchy Looks Like “This is what democracy looks like” goes the popular protest chant. However, it’s not democracy that captures the imagination, provides answers, and drives today’s resistance movement. Something much more interesting has been taking place during protests, forums and intentional communities. In his book The New Left the anthropologist David […]
Neil Macdonald: Government sensitivity over you hearing about ‘sensitive’ information
Neil Macdonald: Government sensitivity over you hearing about ‘sensitive’ information Deputy minister calls in the RCMP after media leaks at her department Canadian democracy has, we are told, been maliciously undermined at Citizenship and Immigration, and the department’s top public servant is determined to set things right, on behalf of the Canadian people. Deputy Minister […]
Reflections on Modern Democracy
Reflections on Modern Democracy Democracy – but only when it goes your way! Over the years of watching the democratic process I’ve noticed something important. People tend to reject democracy, indeed, fight it tooth and nail, when it doesn’t go their way. But when it does, well, it is the tops. Consider the case of California’s Proposition 187. Then […]
Venezuela isn’t looking too hot
Venezuela isn’t looking too hot If anarcho-capitalists should move to Somalia, then socialists – especially, “social democrats” — should move to Venezuela. The country is a complete disaster. But don’t take my word for it, read what a Caracas homemaker said after she tried to buy three cans of sardines and was ordered to put one back […]
The Curse of Totalitarianism and the Challenge of an Insurrectional Pedagogy
The Curse of Totalitarianism and the Challenge of an Insurrectional Pedagogy Introduction The forces of free-market fundamentalism are on the march ushering in a terrifying horizon of what Hannah Arendt once called “dark times.” Across the globe, the tension between democratic values and market fundamentalism has reached a breaking point. [1] The social contract is under assault, […]
