Organisationsdebatten handlede i Aarhus Øst blandt andet om den rolle, Enhedslistens udvalg spiller. Else Mikél Jensen, Enhedslisten Aarhus Øst Vi[...]
Indlægget Udvalgene kan være en vej ind i politikudviklingen og bevægelsesarbejdet blev først udgivet på
Der er gang i en hel del gode og vigtige initiativer om mange spændende og relevante emner i Enhedslisten. Hovedbestyrelsens[...]
Indlægget Hvordan kommer det hele til at spille sammen? blev først udgivet på
During the weekend of February 9th, MSNBC regular Tiffany Cross blurted out the conditions under which MSNBC black pundits work. She said, "If I said a lot of the things that I really think, I would get filtered--we just can’t say that, we have to filter our own voices.” This explains why the black women on Joy Reid’s show can [...]
Unless Bernie Sanders wins enough delegates to capture the Democratic Party nomination on the first ballot, he is not going to be the nominee. The reason will be that the superdelegates–those same people who were his wrath in 2016–will come back to deny him the nomination. The Democratic Party’s superdelegates were a reaction to the More
During the election campaign the BJP minister Giriraj Singh said the Muslim-majority Delhi suburb of Shaheen Bagh was a “breeding ground for suicide bombers”. Campaigning for the BJP in Delhi, Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, well-known for stoking hatred and violence against India’s Muslims, cut to the factionalist chase by saying that (Muslim) “terrorists” should be fed [...]
My best friend from high school was in and out of the prison system the last two decades of his life. He was a drug addict. This was before the opioid epidemic; his poison was crack cocaine. His father had been a raging, violent alcoholic and his mother was a broken woman with chronic illnesses. My friend spent most of [...]
Time was, that a woman suffering from menopause, pre-menstrual syndrome, a heightened libido or lack thereof, was labeled “hysterical.” Her very real medical or psychological troubles were put down to an “emotional reaction.” For a while these symptoms were even attributed to a “wandering womb.” What? Yes, really. For years, if you were a woman More
Social Security is back in the news, as both Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg, two emblematic one-percenter oligarchs, raise the issue of its future as part of their campaign strategy. Trump (a faux wannabe billionaire) has put Americans on notice that while he may have promised during his 2016 campaign “not to touch” the New More
Bloomberg on Legalizing Pot: “What are we going to say in 10 years when we see all these kids whose IQs are 5 to 10 points lower than they would have been? I couldn’t feel more strongly about it, and my girlfriend says it’s no different than alcohol. It is different than alcohol. This is one of the stupider things [...]
Mikhail Bakunin, in that charming anarchist tradition, regarded the state as an evil to be done away with. Such collective formations were criminal, oppressive, eviscerating to the individual. The corporation might be regarded as a similar collective, adopting and aping elements of the state with, in some cases, greater latitude to achieve its object. At More
Earlier this week, Leader of the UK opposition Jeremy Corbyn challenged Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the House of Commons on the US extradition request for WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. Corbyn stated that Assange had been charged by the US “for exposing war crimes, the murder of civilians and large-scale corruption”. Backing the Council of More
The Bloomberg for President campaign office looks like a complete anachronism in the heart of Harlem in New York City. The office is located on Harlem’s famous 125th Street near the Metro North commuter railway station. The Bloomberg campaign office, a space that has the depth of a bowling alley, has a few campaign staffers More
“Qui se ressemble, s’assemble.” The English saying is “birds of a feather flock together.” Translated from Spanish: “Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are.” The folk wisdom that who we hang out with tells a lot about us is reflected in numerous proverbs. Whatever the language, who Ottawa chooses More
William Galston, a Brookings Institution senior fellow, said that “we are a government of men and not law.” It has no force until people enforce it. That is the underlying theme of Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig’s A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump’s Testing of America. The test is how far can one person, More
Back in the days of Thatcherism I watched a journalist interview a Conservative MP on British television. The MP had the wind in his sails and the journalist was decidedly in the doldrums. That was a scene often to be repeated. With an arrogance which we became accustomed to the MP, I can’t recall his More
Re: “Lima Group” meeting of February 20, 2020 in Gatineau, Quebec 18 February 2020 Dear Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: I am addressing you as a concerned Canadian regarding Canada’s foreign policy position vis-à-vis Venezuela. Your government has announced a meeting of the so-called Lima Group on February 20, 2020 for the reported purpose of “build[ing] More
…[M]en should be treated in such a way that there’s no fear of their seeking revenge… -Nicolai Machiavelli, “Mixed Principalities,” The Prince “You come at the king, you bess not miss.” – Omar, The Wire Donald Trump sat with Recep “Cepi” Erdoğan At a nez à nez cafe in the Golden Horn, Fog over the More
Bernie Sanders is leading in the Nevada polls, but he faces a major obstacle: One of the most powerful actors in state politics has come out swinging against his signature proposal—Medicare for All.
The 60,000-member Culinary Workers Union announced last Thursday that it will remain neutral in the Democratic primary this year. But in the past week, the union has sent [...]
Elizabeth Warren and Mayor Pete Buttigieg, two unelectable candidates apparently trying their best to outdo each other in alienating progressive voters, have recently tarred activists trying to make America a better place as “dark money” or super PACs. Meanwhile, an anti–Bernie Sanders PAC is giving the most absurd possible justification for its founders’ anonymity: people [...]
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In the first months of 2020, pandemic panic has spread faster than the novel coronavirus itself. Rural communities in China have built illegal blockades for self-isolation. Singapore has prohibited all travel to and from China. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued the first quarantine in over fifty years, and the [...]
The 2020s opened with dual crises. In Australia, unprecedented bushfires tore across a total area the size of Virginia, killing at least twenty-nine people and an estimated 1 billion animals, and destroying 2,000 homes. The news was flooded with images of thousands of people taking refuge on Australia’s southeastern coastline, the sun blocked by thick [...]
On Monday morning, Jeff Bezos announced the creation of a new $10 billion environmental foundation, the Bezos Earth Fund. This is on top of the $2 billion he already committed to the Bezos Family Foundation to build preschools and fight homelessness. The combined sum might be a fraction of his net worth, and Bezos might [...]
In 2010, Greece entered a period of extreme austerity measures, but also intense social and political struggle. The tectonic shifts produced by the crisis led, in 2015, to the election of Alexis Tsipras’s Syriza — a hope for Europe’s radical left. Yet despite impressive popular resistance, the “Troika” of European institutions soon brought the Greek [...]
A bizarre few weeks has seen the government nationalise Northern Rail, float the idea of a mansion tax and simultaneously call for cuts to both local and national government. For some, this is the inevitable result of a clash between ex-Chancellor Sajid Javid’s ‘small state’ impulses and Dominic Cummings’ desire to “level up” the economy and court new voters [...] Whether or not his prison uniform will be an "orange jumpsuit", US court files seen by Assange's lawyers reveal that, once extradited, Assange will be subject to Special Administrative Measures, known as SAMS. A 2017 report by Yale University Law School and the Center for Constitutional Rights described SAMS as "the darkest corner of the US federal prison system" combining "the [...]
In Iraq, “we need a homeland” is the most popular and persistent demand by protesters. It is not only chanted in slogans but also represented in people’s practices in the occupied squares, the most prominent of which is Baghdad’s Tahrir Square. What might sound like a purely nationalist sentiment is nothing less than a call [...]
It is no coincidence that the story of the Garden of Eden is about the loss of ‘innocence’ – Adam and Eve were the peoples that lived prior to their tragic immersion in a State. When States first appeared, as the archaeological evidence shows, people became hungrier, they were exploited, they were subject to hierarchy and terror. No wonder they [...]
More than ever, Bernie Sanders is public enemy number one for power elites that thrive on economic injustice. The Bernie 2020 campaign is a direct threat to the undemocratic leverage that extremely wealthy individuals and huge corporations constantly exert on the political process. No wonder we’re now seeing so much anti-Bernie rage from leading corporate Democrats -- eagerly amplified by [...]
The victory by Ireland’s leftwing Sinn Fein Party in the Republic’s recent election has not only overturned some 90 years of domination by the island’s two center-right parties, it suddenly puts the issue of Irish reunification on the agenda. While the campaign was fought over bread and butter issues like housing, the collapsing health care system, and homelessness, a united [...]
Last month George Soros had a New York Times column arguing that Mark Zuckerberg should not be running Facebook. (Does the NYT reserve space on its opinion page for billionaires?) The gist of Soros’ piece is that Zuckerberg has made a deal with Trump. He will allow all manner of outrageous lies to be spread More
If everything rich people tell us — about prosperity — happened to be true, Silicon Valley would right now be overflowing with exceedingly happy people. Silicon Valley, after all, has everything rich folks say they need to get an economy going and growing: an abundance of “successful” people with plenty of money to invest, spectacularly More
It is not uncommon for colonial governments to enact sedition laws with the purpose of stifling dissent; it is, following independence, for democratic governments to be enforcing them to quell critics. It is also exactly what the Modi government and party encourages in India. And it is what landed a 26-year old mother and her More
China’s economy is often presented as a powerful engine. This is, however, only one face of it. It has also been marked by vulnerabilities, and these have become more obvious over time, as the costs of high-speed growth have rebounded on the country, giving rise to social tensions that are straining the capacity of the More
The world is waiting anxiously to see whether the U.S. and Afghan governments and the Taliban will agree to a one-week truce that could set the stage for a “permanent and comprehensive” ceasefire and a withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign occupation forces from Afghanistan. Could the talks be for real this time, or will they More
Rational people cannot gloss over the arbitrary exercise of authority in Kashmir, nor can they legitimize the lack of accountability in the union territory. Subsequent to the revocation of the autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP made several tall claims to legitimize its decision. One of those claims was that the integration of J More
Interfering, corrupting and altering the views of electors is apparently frowned upon. But it all depends on who that manipulating source is. The Russians might be condemned for being meddlers of minds in the US electorate, but an American billionaire who hires battalions of influencing agents to get his word across on social media platforms More
On Monday afternoon of February 10, 2020, I went to the Classics department of Pomona College for a lecture on Herakles. Chiara Sulprizio of Vanderbilt University used cartoons and animation to help us understand the lasting influence and power of classical mythology. She chose the Soviet Union and Russia to illustrate how animated Greek myths may have More
“We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” —Benjamin Franklin Listen: we don’t have to agree about everything. We don’t even have to agree about most things. We don’t have to love each other. We don’t even have to like each other. And we certainly don’t need to think alike More
We fucked like there was no tomorrow. In a frenzy. Bodies yielded to pleasure. I got to your place late after being told that J had agreed to run for office. That was a relief and it made my decision easier. If J stood, I didn’t have to. I got his message when I got More
The 2020 presidential race didn’t get decided this week, but the choice before us did: more democracy or less of it. That’s the decision we are facing, and if the Democrats manage to foul this up, they may not get another chance. The very same day that New Hampshire held its primary, the president was More
Among Cruel Children Law’s rule is flourishing only where The body politic’s not bruised to pleasure spite And turn all hope for justice to despair, But blossoms into beauty born of right. O horn-rimmed Barr, “fighting back” there, Are you the law, or just the arm of might? O student of kabuki, Trump’s tweedy whore, More
Leder i det antifascistiske tidskrift Håndslag nr. 1/2020 I Thüringen – lige midt i Tyskland – var der valg i slutningen af oktober sidste år. Resultatet var snært med to næsten lige blokke, og tiden gik uden at der kunne udpeges en regeringsleder. Men så, efter knapt tre måneder kunne lederen af det liberale FDP [...] 
Just before the general election, a colleague and I met shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth’s team to make the case for scrapping the government’s flagship talking therapy service, Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT). It would have been a long, hard sell, even to a left Labour government. Politicians, NHS bosses and the media have [...] For more than a hundred days, Lebanon has been beset by mass protests, seeing up to a million people in the streets of a country of less than seven million inhabitants. Now known as Lebanon’s “October Revolution,” the demonstrations have emerged in response to a range of issues, from anti-austerity, the government’s mismanagement of the [...]
Bliv presse- og kommunikationsmedarbejder hos Enhedslisten i BruxellesEnhedslisten kontor i EU-Parlamentet søger en ny medarbejder til arbejdet med presse og[...]
Indlægget Annoncer og meddelelser blev først udgivet på
”The Healing Powers of Dude” er noget så usædvanligt som en serie, der bryder tabuet om psykisk sygdom i børnehøjde.[...]
Indlægget Ny børneserie bryder tabu om psykisk sygdom blev først udgivet på
Hovedbestyrelsen har søsat en debat om Enhedslistens fremtidige organisation og politiske retning. Den debat tager små og store afdelinger op[...]
Indlægget Organisationsdebat turnerer i hele landet blev først udgivet på
På et todages møde i Aarhus havde hovedbestyrelsen blikket rettet en lille smule mod fremtids fjerne mål og rigtigt meget[...]
Indlægget Klar til årsmøde med fremtidens socialistiske parti blev først udgivet på
Americans’ free-speech and other rights are being violated by state laws aimed at stifling the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) Movement against Israel’s illegal rule of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, both conquered over half a century ago. Twenty-eight states have enacted anti-BDS laws or executive orders that prohibit state agencies and state-financed More
Our nation is under attack. If the attack were coming from the sky, NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defense Command) would detect the threat. That is NORAD’s mission, to anticipate threats to our homeland. The current attack on our land didn’t originate in Russia or China; it began in Washington D.C., in January, when President Trump proposed dismantling NEPA – [...]
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has delivered a dramatic condemnation of the U.S.-drafted Middle East peace plan. No country, except Israel, has approved of the proposals at any public forum. Still, several nations around the world want the Palestinians to use the plan as a means of reopening negotiations with Israel by presenting its own vision. More
The chance of there being “just mercy” for Nathaniel Woods—facing lethal injection on March 5 for the killing of three Birmingham police officers—is as good as the chance Alabama will ever reform its dismal, no-justice-to-be-found-anywhere legal system; it ain’t gonna happen. A Hollywood movie and best-selling book about a legendary lawyer getting an innocent man More
“People wanted to kick the government and Sinn Fein provided the shoe to do the kicking,” says Christy Parker, a journalist from the beautiful but de-industrialised town of Youghal in county Cork. He speaks of the “chasm” between the elite benefiting from Ireland’s impressive economic progress and the large part of the population that has been left behind. More
The [...]
Crooked Donald Trump, the erstwhile failed gambling czar and corporate welfare king, is assailing Bernie Sanders for his “radical socialism.” How ludicrous given Trump’s three-year giveaway of taxpayer assets and authorities to giant corporations – a perfect portrait of crony capitalism. Others are joining the socialist labeling bandwagon, including corporatist right wing radio talk show More
Though it’s not on the official Colorado state calendar, every day’s a holiday for the oil industry in this state. News surfaced last week that the oil industry has been dodging its state taxes, and not just now and then, but systematically. The tax, called a severance tax, is based on a small percentage of More
Entering Singapore’s Changi Airport gives the visitor a glimpse of a mask fetish. Security guards wear it. As do the nurses and the various personnel who man cameras like anti-aircraft batteries, noting the approaching passenger in transit with due suspicion. The passenger, in turn, wishes to avoid showing anything that might be construed as a More
Now that the impeachment of President Donald Trump hasn’t reached the Democrats’ expected goal, it is time for them to change gears facing the coming presidential elections. Until now, the Democrats have let the Republicans take the initiative, using techniques not always politically correct, or right, and in the process losing elections that they should More
Now that polls show Bernie Sanders the clear front-runner in this race, leading the pack by 8 points and ready to win New Hampshire, it’s time to clear up one of the main Corporate Media myths about him: that “he can’t beat Trump.” First, pro-Israel fanatics like Alan Dershowitz and propagandists for the Corporate State More
As part of my last two essays on how Democrats can beat President Donald J. Trump, click here and here, I’ve added another five lessons. As an independent, as noted in my last essay, I’ve consistently been critical (to the present) of Democrats and Republicans in the areas of race, class, place, immigration, etc., as More
On February 10th, the White House released its budget for the fiscal year 2021. It broadly showcases the values promoted by Donald Trump and the vision he has for the future of the United States of America. Budgets are the practical extension of genuine commitments. Politicians, as a group, are famous for making promises that More
Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor. – Robert Frost The Black Cottage It must have been a bit of a downer for the trump. It came just three days before his acquittal of charges of misconduct that had been brought in the More
President Donald Trump pulled out a handgun at the National Prayer Breakfast this morning and shot Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, fatally wounding him. A day earlier, Romney had become the first senator in history to vote to convict a president of his own party in an impeachment trial. After the shooting law professor Alan Dershowitz More
Skal et Nej til overenskomstresultatet igen kunne overtrumfes genem de udemokratiske sammenkædningsregler? Ved OK17 stemte slagteriarbejdere, transportfolk og bygningsarbejdere et massivt NEJ til overenskomsten, men ved hjælp af sammenkædning blev OK-forliget alligevel gennemtrumfet. I 2017 var det mæglingsforslag, der blev sendt til afstemning med LO’s velsignelse efter at have været en tur gennem forligsinstitutionen, mere [...] Ode to the City Bus Ride the bus The city bus We ride the bus for fun Take it to the park To the museum For a really good time Take the B48 Not to get anyplace But for its own sake Look out the window That isn’t snow It’s the ice they throw From More
When I look at the Democratic primaries, I see an ideological struggle pitting Bernie Sanders against the party establishment. But that probably isn’t what most Democratic primary voters see. They’ve been watching a totally different contest: a months-long televised audition to find a qualified, appealing leader who can win in November. Ideological differences aren’t foremost [...]
Siden november har lokalafdelingerne diskuteret, hvordan Enhedslistens fremtidige politiske og organisatoriske udvikling skal være. Trine Simmel, medlem af Enhedslistens hovedbestyrelse[...]
Indlægget Debatlysten vil – og skal – ingen ende tage blev først udgivet på
I år falder kvindernes internationale kampdag på en søndag. Derfor er det oplagt at tage familien og vennerne med til[...]
Indlægget Feministisk overflødighedshorn: Det kan du lave på kampdagen blev først udgivet på
Enhedslistens Iran-gruppe blev dannet i slutningen af 2018 og tæller i øjeblikket omkring 8-10 fast aktive medlemmer. Rød+Grøn har talt[...]
Indlægget En travl tid for Iran-gruppen blev først udgivet på
Når en gammel mand, som har levet af maxiburgere og cola i mange år, lægger et billede på Twitter med[...]
Indlægget Verden ifølge tyranen Trump blev først udgivet på
In Australia, decades of public funding have led to the creation of a multibillion-dollar industry that produces no value, manufactures no products, and employs no labor. These late-capitalist enterprises instead profit by not employing labor. It’s the business of unemployment — and business is booming. Australia is witnessing the rise of the new digital workhouse. [...]
Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn discuss Acid Urbanism, including, The Right to the City, Communist Follies and Reclaiming the Streets. Edited and produced by Olivia Humphreys, Matt Huxley and Matt Phull. PRS LICENCE NUMBER: LE-0016481 Tracklist: D-Shake – Techno Trance/ The Lovin’ Spoonful – Summer in the City/ David Bowie – London Bye, [...] Vladimir Lenin once said, “there are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” Revolutionary changes can occur in unexpected ways, and that is what happened in the Irish general election last Saturday as Sinn Féin was returned as the most popular party in the country. The election result marks the first [...]
Udsendelsen 15. februar 2020 I første del af udsendelse taler vi om overenskomstforliget på industriens område, og de mange andre mindre overenskomster der nu er gået i gang med at forhandle. Det er langt fra et prangende resultat som industriens parter kom ud med, en beskeden lønstigning på 2,5 kr. på startløn/mindstelønnen, 400 kr. om [...] Nithya Raman is an urban planner who has spent her professional career working on urban poverty and women’s rights. She stepped down from her position as executive director of Time’s Up Entertainment to run in the March 3 primary for LA City Council’s 4th district, which saw its homeless population go up by 53 percent [...]
Last summer the Business Roundtable (BRT) announced it had turned over a new leaf and that, moving forward, it would honor all stakeholders. It sure has a funny way of showing so. Instead of “respect[ing] the people in our communities” and “protect[ing] the environment by embracing sustainable practices,” the BRT has teamed up with the [...]
On January 11, Victor Valencia was shot and killed by Los Angeles police. Unhoused, living under a freeway, and struggling with mental health issues, he was holding up a piece of a bicycle when cops opened fire. It took several days for the major papers in LA to report on Valencia’s death, and even then, [...]
The Frankfurt School has been credited — and blamed — for many things. Going by today’s panic over “cultural Marxism,” it must be vastly influential. Far-right strategist William Lind associated the school with university campuses resembling “small ivy-covered North Koreas,” given the supposed tyranny of political correctness. The white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens complained [...]
Many of us have come together tonight, some no doubt interested to see how this idea of “class warfare” suits Harvard. Since we announced this event, I have heard and seen people remarking with surprise and irony that Harvard should be the site of anything to do with a class war. But I assure you, [...]
Heavy rain and strong winds are set to hit the UK again this weekend, with Storm Dennis expected to strike just days after Storm Ciara caused severe flooding in Wales and the north of England. Once again thousands of people face waking up to find their homes and businesses underwater. Once again they will have [...] In May 2019 dockworkers in Genoa, Italy refused to load the cargo of the Saudi warship Bahri Yanbu. In a strike echoed by similar actions in Marseilles and Le Havre, workers at the northwest Italian port insisted that they would not be complicit in Saudi war crimes in Yemen. Yet the petro-monarchy’s “ships of death” [...]
Som tak til de mange faglige aktivister fra det private område, der bakkede op om de offentliges overenskomstkrav i 2018 blev der fredag givet tilbage ved en demonstration ved Tivolihallerne i København. Her demonstrerede offentlige ansatte skulder ved skulder med deres privatansatte kolleger. Dette for at bakke op om OK20 kravene om forbedringer der kan [...] 
Opbakning til Industriens forlig for OK 20 var det svært at finde på dagens demonstration i Horsens. Tværtimod lød vurderingerne, at forliget på ingen måde sikrer den nødvendige stigning i lønnen eller de lavest lønnede efter en lang række af dårlige overenskomster. OK17 er ikke glemt. Man afventer de videre forhandlinger på de andre områder, [...] In 2014, New York City quietly agreed to pay an $18 million settlement to the hundreds of people who had been ripped from the streets and locked away for peacefully protesting the Republican National Convention. Fittingly, Michael Bloomberg was no longer in office to hand the money out. Apologies don’t come easy to oligarchs. More [...]
PRESSEMEDDELELSE: I København giver i ikke plads til børn uden rige forældre. Boligmarkedet er et lukket land, hvis ikke dine forældre kan lægge store pengebundter til forældrekøb, som i øvrigt kun gør gentrificeringen af vores by værre. Dette presser folk uden penge ud af vores by, og mange af disse folk er unge. Derfor skal […]
Indlægget Autonom ejendomsmægler [...]
Private equity companies have Warren Buffett envy. Apparently, they’re quite jealous of Berkshire Hathaway’s investment autonomy and have decided to do something about it. Blackstone and Apollo have recently amassed more than $250 billion in “permanent capital,” tweaking their business model to lean more heavily on permanent investment vehicles that will provide these companies even [...]
Trump har fjernet USA’s forbud mod produktion og brug af landminer. En meget bekymrende udvikling, mener Enhedslistens forsvarsordfører, Eva Flyvholm.[...]
Indlægget Ophævelsen af landmineforbud er bekymrende blev først udgivet på
Michael Bloomberg is essentially an old school Republican. He hates Trump, the worst American president ever, but he loved George W. Bush, the second worst president in modern times. He may honestly think that black and brown lives matter, but, as mayor of New York City, he showed, time and again, that, for him gentrification – and its concomitants, mass [...]
This weekend’s Irish election was a truly historic event. For almost a century, politics in the southern state had been dominated by a right-wing duopoly of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. As recently as 2007 those two parties received 68.9 percent of the vote — this weekend that number fell to 43.1 percent. Sinn Féin, [...]
When the state becomes chillingly evil—enacting a Fugitive Slave Act to criminalize those helping to free slaves, or financing prisons and wars for the benefit of sociopathic profiteers—and when dissent is impotent and defiance is required, we need the sublimely mad. For his 2013 piece “A Time for ‘Sublime Madness’” (and his 2015 book Wages More
It's amusing as hell to see Nate Silver forced to eat his numbers and grudgingly declare Bernie the frontrunner. But if you're a Sandernista you have to wrestle with the fact that it's February and Nate Silver, one of the few people on the planet who has been wrong about more things than Bill Kristol, just said your guy's the [...]
Even when he’s losing, Donald Trump wins (and bigly!) every time. His secret? He knows how to tap into our nihilism with the same technique he used to milk investors of his real estate schemes. If greed is the stated ideology of capitalism, then nihilism is its less overt philosophical underpinning. A system of mass More
A medical issue on the [L] tracks” (I’m guessing someone collided with a front-car) kicked me and others off the CTA Red Line. A toothless old white woman who spoke like a poor Black woman cursed out loud for one minute straight to the disgust of most. I admired her fire and creativity. I ended More
If there is one issue that denotes the terminal decline of Labour as a force for change – desperately needed social, economic and environmental change – it is not Brexit. It is the constant furore over an “antisemitism crisis” supposedly plaguing the party for the past five years. The imminent departure of Jeremy Corbyn as More
Much has been written about the murky world of the UK PR firm Cambridge Analytica – a company acting by stealth which furnished the propaganda behind successes like the election of Donald Trump along with the British vote for Brexit. One of the faces that Alexander Nix, Cambridge Analytica’s shadowy boss, liked to push was More
One reading of the present shows us a hyped economic reality but also political and cultural realities hyped so far that simulacra is quite easily digested and regurgitated as reality. In a world of simulacra, reality is not only a vacated former presence, like a former tenant, but unrecognizable in any reappearance. It’s a war More
It’s a perfect time to recall a famous quote from one of the nation’s foremost philosophers, Yogi Berra: Its “déjà vu all over again.” Is the Democratic Party replaying the lost saga of 2016 but with a very 2020 twist? Bernie Sander (D-VT) appears to have been robbed of the 2016 nomination, beaten out by Hillary Clinton (Sec. of More
It must have enraged the historians who signed Sean Wilentz’s open letter to the New York Times and their World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) allies to see Abraham Lincoln knocked off his pedestal. How insolent for Nikole Hannah-Jones to write in her introductory essay for Project 1619 that “Anti-black racism runs in the very DNA More
This month Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro proposed a new bill promoting mining, expanded agriculture, and energy production on indigenous lands in the Amazon. Accordingly, private developers as well as private hedge funds will occupy and develop land that’s been home to indigenous people for thousands of years. Meantime during Bolsonaro’s first full year in office, More
National Public Radio’s Mara Liasson this weekend entered a new term into the corporate liberal establishment’s attack on single payer healthcare. Mandatory Medicare for All. As in — do you want Bernie Sanders’ Mandatory Medicare for All — or Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s Voluntary Medicare for Those Who Want It? It was the first time that More
Preface The forthcoming 2020 election is again highlighting the country’s apparently deep divides on race and class. A common formulation is that a hopelessly racist White working class is locked into the new Trump Republican Party which consciously has adopted a divide-and-conquer strategy based on race. The mainstream Democratic Party hope is that an electoral More
A negotiated solution to the ‘Palestinian-Israeli conflict’, at least the way envisaged by successive US administrations, has failed. Now, Palestinians and their allies would have to explore a whole new path of liberation that does not go through Washington. It is easy to place all the blame on the current US administration, setting apart dodgy More
December 16, 2014: President Obama signs into law omnibus spending bill that increases maximum possible individual political contributions from $129,600 annually to $777,600, substantially increasing the amount of money flowing through party committees. (Congressional Research Services) April 7, 2015: A Clinton campaign memo to the DNC articulates “Pied Piper” strategy to elevate the most extreme Republican candidates: “Our hope More
Last December the Washington Post published secret Pentagon documents showing the official lies that have undergirded the U.S. war on Afghanistan for the past 18 years. The opening paragraph of the article puts the matter bluntly: “A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell More
One would think that a National Prayer Breakfast would encourage transparency and truth; as prayer is a primary spiritual means of self-examination, confession, reconciliation, and moral resolve. The opposite was on display at the recent National Prayer Breakfast, attended by over 3500 guests, including dignitaries from over 140 countries, Congress persons, business officials, and faith More
“the obligation to confess is now relayed through so many different points…that we no longer perceive it as the effect of a power that constrains us” —Michel Foucault Happy Valentines Day to all Bernie Bros, Bernie Gals, and non-binary Berners. The first time I heard the Daddy component of Bernie Sanders explained was when Jeffrey More
Elections, I think most of us can agree, usually bring out the idiocy, superficiality, and illogic in everyone who can muster any. Imagine supporting, as many did, Sanders and then Trump because they were both “outsiders.” On Tuesday, I heard somebody on CNN announce that Sanders and Klobuchar were both “change candidates” (because you’d have More
The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), the largest and most powerful corporate lobbying group in California, placed first in the annual lobbying “competition” in California in 2019 with $8.8 million spent on influencing legislators, the Governor’s office and other state officials, a position it captures most years. The San Ramon-based Chevron spent the third most money on lobbying in California More
I’ve been working lately on an article about Extinction Rebellion, the direct action movement that emerged out of England in 2019 and has since gone worldwide to spread the message that radical civil disobedience is the only way to alter our deranged course toward climate catastrophe. XR, as the movement is known, espouses a noble More
The Trump administration is stampeding ahead with a rewrite of the regulationsimplementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This landmark law requires federal agencies to study—and let the public weigh in on—the environmental impacts of federal actions. Ironically, given NEPA’s central purpose of including the public in environmental decision-making, the Trump administration is already cutting More
The all-or-nothing New Hampshire gamble of Tulsi Gabbard has come up snake eyes. As I write, with 97 percent of the vote tallied, she is in seventh place, with a meager 3.3 percent of the vote, behind Tom Steyer. It is hard to imagine any path forward for her. And, frankly, one must acknowledge that More
Climate change isn’t real. Tobacco isn’t as bad as people say. Monsanto’s RoundUp doesn’t cause cancer. The fact that these statements are still considered valid by some people is not because they might be true or because some people are just stupid. That some deny these and other scientifically proven phenomena is testament to the More
Environmentalist Dr Rosemary Mason has just written the report ‘Bayer Crop Science rules Britain after Brexit – the public and the press are being poisoned by pesticides’. It has been sent to editors of major media outlets in the UK. In it, she outlines her concerns for pesticide regulation, health and the environment in a More
As Zimbabwe’s economy continues its descent since a military coup installed Emmerson Mnangagwa as the nation’s ruler in November 2017, his government’s response has been to double down on its ruinous neoliberal reform program. How much more austerity the Zimbabwean people can endure is another question, following an economic downturn of 6.5% last year and More
Climate change isn’t real. Tobacco isn’t as bad as people say. Monsanto’s RoundUp doesn’t cause cancer. The fact that these statements are still considered valid by some people is not because they might be true or because some people are just stupid. That some deny these and other scientifically proven phenomena is testament to the More
Leaving aside the content of the spectacular, embellished account that became Spartacus, Kirk Douglas, whose life ticked over into a century and a few years, left his own distinct mark on US cultural politics. At the very least, he managed to fashion a spear to direct through the Hollywood blacklist, an infamous compilation of the More
My first question is simple enough: After 18-plus years of our forever wars, where are all the questions? Almost two decades of failing American wars across a startlingly large part of the planet and I’d like to know, for instance, who’s been fired for them? Who’s been impeached? Who’s even paying attention? I mean, if More
For decades, Republicans have painted anyone left of Barry Goldwater as a “socialist.” Why? Because for a generation raised on the Cold War, “socialist” just seemed like a damaging label. And, probably, it was. You can tell, because many liberal-leaning figures internalized that fear. When Donald Trump vowed that “America will never be a socialist More
The Allied destruction of Dresden wasn’t the biggest or deadliest aerial bombardment of a German city during World War II. But it is by far the most infamous, largely due to Kurt Vonnegut’s anti-war masterpiece Slaughterhouse-Five. February 13 marks the 75th anniversary of what Vonnegut, who survived the bombing as a prisoner-of-war, called “carnage unfathomable.” More
“You’re a lying, dog-faced pony soldier.” Whoa, the Joe Biden campaign has rushed in to mop up this latest (to date) head-scratcher with an explanation like “oh, it’s a line from a John Wayne movie.” As if that explains why Biden said this to a young woman who questioned his sorry showing in the Iowa More
The mainstream media imposes some serious certainties on the 2020 presidential election that drive me into a furious despair, e.g.: Even though Bernie Sanders, winner of the first two Democratic primaries, is now leading in the national polls, he “can’t and won’t” be the party’s nominee “because in coming weeks,” writes Liz Peek in The Hill, “Democrats More
On January 15, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. According to the US Constitution, that makes the ERA part of “the supreme law of the land.” But, say others, not so fast: When Congress proposed the amendment to the states in 1971, it set a 1979 deadline (later extended to More
February 15 marks the day, 17 years ago, when global demonstrations against the pending Iraq invasion were so massive that the New York Times called world public opinion “the second superpower.” But the U.S. ignored it and invaded Iraq anyway. So what has become of the momentous hopes of that day? The U.S. military has More
Our variety of the human species, homo sapiens sapiens, emerged from out of bands of more primitive yet contemporaneous older variants of humanity well over 200,000 years ago and rapidly expanded in both their numbers and the range of their occupancy on our planet. The competitive pressure by this efflorescence of homo sapiens sapiens against More
Yogi Berra, the great Yankees catcher, had the memorable line, “It’s like deja vu all over again.” Bernie Sanders supporters might have been thinking the same thing after the fiasco of the Iowa caucuses. It was just four years ago that the corporate hacks who run the Democratic Party rigged the 2016 primary election process More
I recently spent three weeks at the border between El Paso, Texas and Juárez, Mexico. The experience strengthened my resolve, as a person of faith and Sister of Mercy, to share more about how the situation there concerns all of us in the United States. In the shelters where thousands of refugees await their court More
The recent elections in India’s capital city, which also has the status of a state, have raised quite an intellectual storm over the importance given to “religion” by politicians. Elections to 70-member Delhi Assembly, held on February 8, 2020, have led to the victory of sitting Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). His More
The regime of President Bashar al-Assad is winning the decade-old civil war in Syria. With the help of like-minded allies Iran and Russia, Assad is ruthlessly mopping up his remaining opposition. After the defeat of the ISIS Caliphate, the West has no security interests or oil reserves to protect in Syria. Its authoritarian Arab neighbors wouldn’t More
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the celebrity who moonlights as my Congressional representative, has repeatedly claimed to speak for “ordinary people,” but she refuses listen to them, even if they are constituents. In late November, shortly after the US-backed military coup that unseated the legitimate president of Bolivia, I together with my life companion requested a meeting with More
Billionaire media mogul Oprah Winfrey helped create a four-season television series – “Greenleaf” – about a black megachurch where worshipers whoop, sway, dance, wave arms, squeal, shout and shell out truckloads of money. Some commentators say the series “shows the best and worst of Christianity,” but I can’t find much best, only worst. The founder-preacher More
Once again, dearest motherfuckers, I feel obligated to reprise my roll as ‘that bitch.’ Do I really have to be the queer bummer who smashes the Buttigieg delusion? Are all the other faggot anarchists busy? Oh well, fuck it. Hand me my hammer and I’ll do what I do best, which seems to be pissing More
Dear Mayor Pete, It was recently brought to my attention that your father, the late Joseph Buttigieg (1947-2019), was a professor of English at the University of Notre Dame (1980-2017). He served as department chair and was granted emeritus status upon retirement. I’m sure he was a fine man. You must be proud of his More
Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and More
The myth of US American “greatness” is not only a right-wing narrative. Liberals too embrace the concept that the nation is fundamentally good; certainly, they insist, our worst days are behind us and we can all be grateful for the progress we’ve made. Leading us on this shining path have been enlightened figures like Lincoln, More
YIPPIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE – Abbie Hoffman, his war cry from Fuck the System (1967) The System Is the Solution – AT&T ad, circa the 70s One of the funniest bit I can remember reading about Abbie Hoffman was the time he tried to get himself arrested at a police station and the cops wouldn’t bite. His friend, More
There’s a lot going on in Trumplandia these days—from the Trumpus taking his Vindman Brothers Revenge Tour (“when you take out these terrorists, you have to take out their families,” he’d said) to elites everywhere freaking out over Bernie’s wondrous wins—but here’s a “little item” worth mentioning… Indeed, that’s what racist sexist tRumpist Medal of More
Industriens forlig giver hverken den forandring eller de forbedringer, der skal til. Det blev endnu et kriseforlig i rækken. Det er ikke godt nok. Hverken for dem det dækker eller som ramme for forhandlingerne på de øvrige områder. Rammerne må sprænges med et NEJ. Af Arbejderpartiet Kommunisterne,APK Nej til tilbuddet om smuler i stedet for [...] What if every week was a non-stop series of public spectacles? One big-time show after another. Every night a blockbuster. Sunday brings us the Super Bowl. Monday presents the undead Democratic Circus of the Iowa Caucuses, which slips past its time slot and far into the unforeseeable future. Tuesday it’s the State of Union address More
Still Brazil, Still India, Not Hegel, Not Pinker As we are human beings, the highest point of our culture should be being human. Is this what you feel? That humanity has aimed its bow this way? Instead of always becoming human humans became chattels and consumers, and if not they found themselves in profit’s way, More
The October uprising in Chile is an example of what we would call a generalized passage from private malaise to collective revolt, a moment in which those sufferings that had been lived in domestic confinement, with guilt and loneliness, are brought out into public space, and understood as socially and politically produced, awakening a will to struggle as well as [...]
Påstanden om antisemitisme mangler dokumentation, påpeger Alternativets retsordfører, efter partier har været ude at tage afstand til "stigende ekstremisme"
Indlægget Justitsminister leder forgæves efter beviser på stigende antisemitisme i »islamiske kredse«. blev først udgivet på
On Wednesday, a video started popping up all over Twitter showing a woman in her sixties interrupting a rally for Michael Bloomberg, the multibillionaire former New York City mayor whose self-funded presidential campaign is gaining traction. “That is not democracy!” the woman shouts over a chorus of boos. “That is plutocracy!” Within hours, Jacobin’s Meagan [...]
“Just last week, a 26-year-old guy was killed in one of our mines,” says Paata Samkharadze, sitting behind the desk of his cramped union office. “I just got off the phone with a couple of colleagues heading to his funeral.” Samkharadze has silver hair, faded tattoos on his forearms, and heads the Trade Union of [...] 