Austria’s parliamentary election on September 29 was widely hailed as a defeat for “populists,” as Sebastian Kurz’s conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) swept to victory amidst the collapse of its former coalition partner, the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ). The election had been prompted by a government scandal in May, centered on the FPÖ’s deputy chancellor Heinz-Christian [...]
Mathias Herup Nielsens ny bog ”Optimismens politik” analyserer det idémæssige grundlag for socialpolitikken. En skarp, kritisk fortolkning af det sociale systems underliggende forudsætninger og ideologiske komponenter, som systemet har udviklet de seneste 20 år.
Indlægget Jobcentrets sang: Du kan – og du skal kunne blev først udgivet på
“Everybody is doing it. So we are too,” said Rupa Pirikaka, somewhat uncertainly. ‘It’ is genetically modified (GM) Bt cotton seeds, now easily bought at the local market, or even in one’s own village. ‘Everybody’ is countless other farmers like her in the village of and across the rest of south-western Odisha’s Rayagada district. “They are More
I sniffed something was wrong in Lebanon when the central bank governor Riad Salame announced to us all that there were plenty of dollars in the system. No shortages. No tightening of the purse strings. I still have the papers with his announcement on page one. Both before, during and after the 1975-1990 civil war, More
Morning Consult polling shows no change outside its stated 1% margin of error over the last few weeks of polling. Where Joe Biden stood at 31.8% in crosstabs kindly forwarded to me by Morning Consult’s press officer two weeks ago (field dates September 17-23), Biden has risen slightly to 32.7% as of yesterday’s release (field More
For many years, BLM had plotted a massive deforestation project aimed at destroying ancient juniper trees living on Juniper Mountain in the Owyhee Canyonlands. The mountain is a long high ridge cut by headwater drainages of the Middle and North Fork Owyhee Rivers and Red Canyon Creek. Its right by the Oregon border, and has More
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes… known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom More
All those wondering who is in charge in Venezuela, should stop reading the biased and confusing corporate media and should look at who represents the country at the United Nations. The UN is not a perfect institution but it is one that is clear on the issue of membership despite powerful attempts at obfuscating that More
In his recent piece “Geo-engineering is a Scam“, Josue De Luna Navarro points out a fact that has always been true of the engineering profession (and also most other highly refined professions) that its students, first seeking education, and then as graduates seeking employment and lengthy careers, are destined to serve monied patrons, the Golden More
Along with being where all blood goes, the heart is an enduring metaphor. As Bernie Sanders recovers from a heart attack, now might be a good time to consider some literal and symbolic meanings. Bernie immediately used his heart trouble to advance a central mission. From the hospital, he tweeted: “I’m fortunate to have good More
A recent report on Venezuela by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is a grim portrayal of a country in a severe crisis. Yet, given the extensive media coverage given to this report, it is important to contextualize what is going on in Venezuela in light of the situation More
October 10 is World Day Against the Death Penalty. That the U.S. continues to use this broken and antiquated system of (in)justice is reprehensive in so many ways, but among the most important is the issue of sentencing people to death row wrongfully and executing people who did not commit the offenses that resulted in More
Ridhima Pandey was just nine years old in 2017 when she filed a lawsuit against the Indian government for failing to take action against climate change. Pandey’s fierce, astounding passion for the environment is not accidental. Her mother is a forestry guard and her father an environmental activist; and the whole family was displaced by More
What is Greta Thunberg’s superpower? She obviously has one, if not more. Your average sixteen-year-old doesn’t start successful global activist movements, address UN Climate Action Summits, and have those addresses go viral as death metal videos. Critics slam Thunberg as everything from “mentally ill” (a claim which got one Fox News guest blacklisted), to naive More
As one of the 7.5 million who recently put their bodies where their mouth are to visibly say “NO” to an out-of-control global climate crisis, this writer continues to reflect upon what lies behind the futility of so many climate crises, anti-war, pro-human protests of the past, and the even more aggressive protests that will More
It Has Happened Here and Everywhere It seems like just yesterday that we were celebrating the democratic wave sweeping Europe in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. It seems like yesterday that we hailed the Arab Spring and its potential for democratization across the Middle East. It seems like yesterday that we scoffed at More
Enhedslisten holdt årsmøde i weekenden. Her besluttede et flertal, på opfordring fra Hovedbestyrelsen, at løbe fra aftalen med Folkebevægelsen om økonomisk støtte i tilfælde af at kun den ene organisation i valgsamarbejdet kom ind. Man besluttede også at åbne for en debat om Enhedslistens syn på EU. Et skridt i retning af at følge op på [...] Alle på gaden! Lørdag den 12. oktober samles nationalister, nynazister og andre strømninger fra det alleryderste højre, når Scandza Forum for anden gang afholdes i København. Af Antifascistisk Aktion Men det bliver ikke uden modstand! Vi mødes i Folkets Park den 12. oktober klokken 10:00, hvor vi herefter sammen tager til Scandza Forum. Vær mobile, snør […]
Indlægget Alt-Right fascisterne [...]
Nej til EU i Norge støtter aktivt den politiske strejke og protest mod EU’s fjerde jernbanepakke den 10. oktober 2019. Overalt i Norge stopper togene kl. 12:00 til 14:00 på torsdag den 10. oktober. Jernbanearbejderne trækker i nødbremsen, så råderetten over togtrafikken forbliver på norske hænder, så sikkerheden og kravene til uddannelsen afgøres i Norge [...] A few weeks ago, two Democratic Party officials toured K Street shops to explain how lobbyists can donate to the 2020 Democratic Party convention in Milwaukee. Politico obtained documents showing that, for example, $300,000 gets you VIP credentials and glitzy skyboxes towering above the convention floor. In 2016, seventeen donors ponied up three-quarters of the [...]
Theodor Bergmann, who passed away in 2017 at the age of 101, was the last of his kind. Born to a middle-class Jewish family in Berlin in 1916, he gravitated to Germany’s explicitly socialist workers’ movement as a young boy and remained what he called a “critical Communist” for the rest of his life. Known [...]
In recent years, states around the country have passed numerous laws restricting the right to vote. But this effort to contract the franchise — a fundamental assault on political democracy — is not unprecedented. Since the founding of the United States, elites have used their power to disenfranchise and suppress the vote of those they’d [...]
Enhedslisten holdt årsmøde i weekenden, og her sprang partiet ud af skabet som erklærede EU-tilhængere, der på et kommende årsmøde vil fastlægge et nyt EU-program. Og de valgte simpelthen at løbe fra deres aftale med Folkebevægelsen om at støtte bevægelsen økonomisk. Hele deres ageren og taktiske spil ifht valgforbundet med Folkebevægelsen har været én gang [...] The first English-language translation of Vasily Grossman’s Stalingrad is no minor event. With the memory of World War II increasingly serving as a key battleground for Europe’s resurgent far right, the Soviet author’s long-dismissed prequel to Life and Fate has a clearly political charge. The stakes of this fight over memory were clearly brought into [...]
Århus har i mange år haft et sørgeligt ry som værende Danmarks hovedstad for nazister. Især grupper som White Pride har været med til at skabe det ry. Blandt andet ved tilfældige overfald på alle slags folk fra venstrefløjen. Af Antifa Info Aarhus For knap 10 år siden var det nået til et punkt hvor […]
Indlægget Antifascister i [...]
Det blev 4-1 til de såkaldte modernister i en række med spænding imødesete afstemninger på Enhedslistens årsmøde.
Indlægget Enhedslistens årsmøde åbner op for forandring blev først udgivet på
Smithfield Foods’ 2,000-employee bacon and sausage packaging plant in Smithfield, Va., sits a mile down the road from the company’s stately corporate headquarters and flagship restaurant, Taste of Smithfield, a tourist-friendly establishment known for its smoked pork brioche sandwich, Virginia craft beer and “piglets” menu for kids under 12.
Near the meatpacking plant on Church Street, the stench of bacon and [...]
Portugal held national elections on Sunday after four years of an unusual governmental solution known as the contraption (geringonça), drawn up in 2015 by the social-liberal Socialist Party (PS), the Left Bloc (BE), and the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP). To the surprise of many observers, this parliamentary agreement did prove able to sustain itself for [...]
One of the strengths of the protest movement is that it has no leaders but is almost entirely spontaneous, with a wide variety of slogans, but this means the government has nobody to talk to, not that it is trying very hard to negotiate its way out of trouble. Many Iraqis say that it is a mistake to get rid [...]
I have been to Kibera, arguably the world’s largest slum, a place where human shit runs in the streets.
But I’ve never seen poverty more severe than here. I’d come home. To my birthplace: Oakland. Homeless encampments cling beneath freeway overpasses like albatross, enlarging daily, fed in reverse by the excesses of tech-enabled hypercapitalism—our home-grown, capitalistic terrorism. More
Led by young people, climate strikers blocked traffic on two mornings at the end of last month in Washington, DC. On the first day, protestors chained themselves to a boat three blocks from the White House, and 32 activists were arrested. On the second day, activists targeted the EPA and Trump International Hotel. It was More
Canada recently seized and sold $30 million worth of Iranian properties in Ottawa and Toronto, a gross hypocrisy explains Yves Engler in light of oversights of more flagrant US and Israel terror victims. But the behaviour of Canada Foreign Affairs in joining the lawless US war of sanctions, embargos and military threats against Iran goes More
During the era of Sovietology, experts would pour over images of the gathered politburo in Red Square, gazing with grey monolithic interest upon the military hardware moving across the forum. An absent figure might suggest a potential coup; a new face, a sinister reshuffle. A wink, a smile, a glare, a compendium of bodily moves More
I went on CNBC’s Squawk Box this week to talk about a new proposal from Senator Bernie Sanders to put tax penalties on corporations with extreme gaps between their CEO and worker pay. This is an issue I’ve been working on for many years. In fact, a dozen years ago, in August 2007, I had More
During one week in late September, U.S.-led forces killed at least 70 civilians in two incidents in Afghanistan. A U.S. drone strike on September 19th killed at least 30 farmers harvesting pine nuts in Nangarhar province. Then on September 23rd, at least 40 civilians, including women and children, were reported killed in a combined U.S.-Afghan attack on a village in Taliban-controlled More
By telling all those small farmers at the town hall that there was no guarantee that small farms would survive, and saying, “In America, the big get bigger and the small go out,” Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue was parroting Nixon’s ag secretary Earl Butz, who coined the phrase “get big or get out.” By doubling down on that mantra, which [...]
Mt. Shasta, CA The Siskiyou Superior Court, on August 29, 2019, issued a Statement of Decision on Writ in the case of We Advocate Thorough Environmental Review (W.A.T.E.R.) and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe (WWT) v. Siskiyou County and Crystal Geyser Water Company, denying the Petitioners’ challenge. The Petitioners, W.A.T.E.R. and WWT, had challenged the validity More
One of the neglected consequences of the recent wars and civilian conflicts in many parts of the world is their effect on people’s education, particularly children’s education. Because of the close connection between education and health, these events have had a severe effect on people’s health –particularly on children- and on the countries’ development. In More
Chariots of War Chariots of war Were known in Ancient Rome As cars And ducks’re called duck Because they duck And honcks are so-called for their call As foxes — who’ll stalk In stalks of phlox, in flux, And flax and scratch their backs And sit and crack Their nuts and snack Owe their name More
During the Obama era, MSNBC emerged as a liberal challenger to Fox News, in some ways succeeding where earlier efforts to duplicate the reach of right-wing media had failed. But the history and politics of the network are more complicated than those who first became aware of it during the mid-2000s probably realize. These themes [...]
TW: anti-trans indhold, transmisogyni, bio-essentialisme. Lørdag d. 5. oktober 2019 aktionerede en større gruppe queer- og transfeminister ved at blokere indgangen til Kvindehuset og dermed stoppe en lesbisk gruppe med anti-trans (eller trans-kritisk, som de selv udtrykker det) agenda fra at organisere sig i huset. Kvindehuset blev desuden dekoreret med klistermærker, banner og plakater ved porten […]
Indlægget Ingen platform [...]
Thanks to their bungled suspension of Parliament, the Tories were forced to hold their annual conference the other week while the Commons was sitting. This meant rationing the number of MPs and ministers allowed to travel to their events in Manchester. Tory MPs complained this was “unfair” with Conservative Party chair James Cleverly saying, “the bottom line [...]
On November 6, 1975, Portugal’s public broadcaster RTP hosted an unprecedented debate between the leaders of the two main parties of the Left, the Socialists (PS) and the Communists (PCP). Eighteen months into the revolutionary process that had begun on April 25, 1974, PS general secretary Mário Soares and his Marxist-Leninist counterpart Álvaro Cunhal spent [...]
Hvad vil Ukraines nye præsident Volodymyr Zelenskij bruge sin post til? Liberalisere økonomien? Slutte fred med Rusland? Eller bare tiltage sig selv mere magt?
Indlægget Konfrontationerne tager til i Ukraine blev først udgivet på
D.D. Guttenplan, writing in the Nation, echoes what has become a recurring call for a “truce” between supporters of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. For Sanders supporters, this truce — as far as I can tell — can mean one of two things: 1) It is okay to argue that Sanders is preferable to Warren, even [...]
I næsten 4 måneder har Hongkongs befolkning i hundredetusindvis demonstreret mod den kinesiske regerings voksende indflydelse. Byens regeringsleder Carrie Lam har nu fået vedtaget loven om maskeringsforbud. Den stammer oprindeligt fra den tidligere [...]
Rachel Weber’s From Boom to Bubble: How Finance Built the New Chicago examines speculation and overbuilding of commercial real estate, focusing on Chicago in the 2000s. The book is based on ethnographic research of key real estate actors, pairing interviews with an analysis of financial structures and public policies that power the building (and overbuilding) machine. Developers [...]
The differences are big, they’re ideological — and they have consequences. Here is Elizabeth Warren’s plan for international climate adaptation and mitigation: …even if we reduce America’s emissions so that they are net-zero by 2030, we will still fall far short of the reduction in global emissions needed to avert a climate crisis … Here’s my plan for that: [...]
For many on the European center-left, Portugal stands as proof that it is possible to break out of austerity without any need for a “populist” offensive against Brussels. For the Guardian, Portugal today stands as “Europe’s beacon of social democracy”; for the New Stateman, it is “Europe’s socialist success story.” Since 2015 the Socialist-led government [...]
Across the country, critics of NCAA exploitation are celebrating the fact that California governor Gavin Newsom just signed the state’s Fair Pay to Play Act into law, affording athletes at the state’s universities the right to profit off of their names, images, and likenesses beginning in 2023. The Golden State seems to have opened the [...]
Har kapitalismen nået sin grænse? Karen Helveg Petersen diskuterer de klassiske marxistiske spørgsmål om profitratens tendens til fald i en tid præget af negative renter, politiske opbrud og opgør med den såkaldte fri verdenshandel.
Indlægget Er kapitalismen brudt sammen? blev først udgivet på
Ever since his shock election to the Labour leadership in 2015, Jeremy Corbyn has been dogged by allegations of “antisemitism.” Both the media and hostile MPs claim he has failed to confront Jew-hate in party ranks — one Tory minister even said Corbyn would be “the first antisemitic Western leader since 1945.” Often bound up [...]
I sommers var det 50 år siden det lykkedes at sende den første bemandede mission til månen, men siden Apollo 17 i december 1972, er der kun sendt robotmissioner. Der lå ingen ædelmetaller og ventede, så Månen var simpelthen ikke profitabel nok. Nu har teknologien i mellemtiden indhentet ambitionerne om at kunne udvikle minedrift på [...] Having defied long-held assumptions about the nature of the Republican Party and the conservative movement, the Trump era has undoubtedly given birth to renewed discussions about the character of the American right in the political mainstream. Much of the ensuing discourse has, however, proven frustratingly inadequate and incomplete: treating Trumpism as an aberration from earlier [...]
During a speech yesterday at an upscale Florida retirement village, Donald Trump announced a new executive order aimed at expanding the Medicare Advantage program — which allows private insurers to compete with traditional Medicare plans — so as to ward off the program’s alleged demise via Medicare for All. “Standing in solidarity with our nation’s [...]
Many activists in Milwaukee know Alex Brower. He has been key to several recent organizing projects in the city, helping to start a credit union to increase access to financial services in Milwaukee’s poorest areas, organizing Milwaukee substitute teachers into a formidable union, and a visible supporter for many working-class causes and labor drives throughout [...]
In December 2018, the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, took a trip to the colonial-era Cellular Jail in the Andaman Islands. The prison was a notorious institution under British rule and housed hundreds of anti-colonial activists. Modi, a member of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was there to pay tribute to one [...]
Omkring 50.000 amerikanske automobilarbejdere hos General Motors har nu strejket i 3 uger og lammet koncernens indenlandske produktion efter de den 16. september nedlagde arbejdet. -Med en styrke som ikke har været set i årtier i USA hvor de ansatte ved GM viser et modigt eksempel for arbejdere over hele USA og verden, skriver The [...] »Finansministeren snakker om, at der behov for - på en eller anden måde - at ændre regnemodellerne. Så det er jo interessant at høre, hvor dybt det egentlig stikker,« siger finansordføren fra Alternativet, som ikke mener, at det kan stikke særlig dybt. Nicolai Wammen (S) kan nemlig ikke genkende den hårde kritik af regnemodellerne fra økonom.
Indlægget Finansminister [...]
As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) celebrates seventy years of rule this week, protests in the semiautonomous city of Hong Kong continue to intensify. On Tuesday, Hong Kong police shot a teenage protester in the chest with a live round, the first such incident since protests exploded in June. Originally directed at a single anti–civil [...]
Allerede før den nye kommission er godkendt af EU-Parlamentet, blev en stribe kandidater ramt af anklager om rod i regnskaberne, omgåelse af regler, korruption og misbrug af positioner og offentlige midler. De kort sagt perfekte til embedet i EU’s centralregering. 19 af de 26 kommissærkandidater har i denne uge været til høring i EU-Parlamentet, hvor [...] School districts all over the country are experiencing teacher shortages. The main reason is obvious: teachers are seriously underpaid. The term coined to explain the phenomenon is the teacher weekly wage penalty, or “the percent by which public school teachers are paid less in wages and compensation than other college-educated workers.” This number reached a [...]
For the first time in half a century, the political left in the U.S. is ascendant. Bernie Sanders is holding his own in the primaries. A group of well-considered programs to save the environment and provide good jobs and health care for all is gaining political traction. And the need is dire. The climate is warming, the seas are polluted [...]
This past summer I was camping in rural Wisconsin with my partner and son when a huge thunderstorm forced us to seek out the closest local pub for dinner one evening. Our four-year old had been going through some kind of cranky asshole phase all summer and our options for feeding him in the middle More
Trump is fortunate in his enemies. Adam Schiff is one of the few politicians in DC whose hubris rivals Trump's own. Schiff will find a way to make the impeachment inquiry about himself and his own Inspector Javert-like rectitude--which may engender sympathy for a man (Trump) who deserves none. Schiff, who appears to have lied about his staff's contacts with [...]
Never underestimate the power of the United States’ American Exeptionalist and imperial doctrine. Look at the recent Washington Post revelation regarding wannabe fascist strongman Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian ambassador Sergey Lavrov in the White House in 2017. Trump told Lavrov and another high-ranking Russian official that he wasn’t concerned about Russia meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election because [...]
Nancy Pelosi’s first stint as Speaker of the House came after Democratic victories in the 2006 midterm election. Before that, she had opposed Republican efforts to impeach Bill Clinton for lying to Congress about his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky, but it was not until she became Speaker that she first plainly manifested what I, facetiously More
Every big personality or corporation uses algorithmic robots (“bots”) to boost themselves and their products. Until recently, US President Donald Trump had a Twitter following of around 59 million. But nearly half of those “followers” were fake, spam, and/or dormant accounts. Twitter’s purge of “Trump supporters” was actually a purge of fake accounts. (The real More
In what country are labor rights fully respected? The sad answer is: none. Labor rights are routinely violated around the world, and the trend is only getting worse. The International Trade Union Confederation has again issued its annual Global Rights Index and the result is no better than in past years. It’s worse. For example, the number of More
On January 17, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower gave his now-famous farewell address, warning the nation: In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let More
“Is there rain in your village?” It was Karabhai Aal on the phone from Banaskantha district in North Gujarat. “There is none here.” That was in the last week of July this year. “If it rains, we will go home,” he had declared with half a hope. That he was speaking to a non-farmer in More
“Now we are engaged….” – Lincoln, Gettysburg Address One real battle we are in now – human caused global warming – is a battle we realized very belatedly we are in. The other – the political one – is, in a President Trump retweet, heading toward “a Civil War like fracture in this nation” and More
The Saudis are taking a pasting. Video pictures from the Houthis of Saudi soldiers and their allies killed or surrendering inside the Saudi border town of Najran represent a devastating blow to a kingdom which is constantly threatening war against Iran. If it can’t protect its own armed forces inside Saudi territory, what is the More
Amidst that pandemonium of 1947, Jammu and Kashmir was the first state in the newly freed Indian subcontinent to have its own written constitutional plan. The constitution guaranteed enfranchisement of all adult citizens, men and women, and took particular care to protect the dignity and religious freedoms of minorities. The admirable egalitarian and democratic quality More
Senator Sanders. Sorry to hear about your heart surgery but it will make you stronger. We can’t let your opponents seize on this and imply that it proves something about your age or your heart. You have more heart than most of the dead-people-walking Democratic pretenders. A stent is a commonly used procedure to open More
“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster; when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil “Are you sure that you can skin griz? – line from film Jeremiah Johnson Edward Snowden’s newly-released memoir, More
On September 16, I visited South Africa, a country where many Palestinians have always felt welcomed, if not overwhelmed by the degree of genuine and meaningful solidarity. While having the honor to address many audiences in six, major cities, I have also learned a great deal. An important and sobering lesson is that while apartheid More
Back in the mid-90s, when the Internet was first taking off, spurred by AOL’s making the web available to the masses, it was easy to become a cyber-utopian. Manuel Castells, a Spanish sociologist, became one of its prophets. In books like the 2001 “The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society”, Castells recognized More
scan·dal /ˈskandl/ noun an action or event regarded as morally or legally wrong and causing general public outrage. It was to be expected. The miserableness of Trump and his overt racism, nationalism, misogyny, cruelty and belligerence would come to eclipse the crimes of other (let’s say all) former US presidents. I saw it after Bill More
The latest de-escalation of the trade war with China — with exemptions from some tariffs on both sides — has left markets uncertain as to whether it will end before there is serious escalation. But if I were managing a hedge fund, I would bet on it. To see why, we must start with Trump More
Neoliberals love to quote the World Bank’s rosy statistics about capitalism lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty. Unfortunately, those statistics are skewed and manipulated to the point of outright prevarication, as Seth Donnelly demonstrates in his new book, “The Lie of Global Prosperity.” He quotes a breathless World Bank press release, “soon 90 percent More
The USBS. Not very long ago, I was saying to an ardent, proudly feminist democrat that they should be careful what they wish for in their assuming that replacing Trump with Pence would be an improvement. The immediate response I received was (and which indicated the futility of my suggestion), “Well, at least he’s normal.” More
Hypersonic weapons close in on their targets at a minimum speed of Mach 5, five times the speed of sound or 3,836.4 miles an hour. They are among the latest entrants in an arms competition that has embroiled the United States for generations, first with the Soviet Union, today with China and Russia. Pentagon officials More
When the squalid, absurd and occasionally hilarious accounts are compiled by a sober mind, the Trump administration will stand out as much gargoyle with more than a touch of paranoia. But there will be one thing that might save the man who has given an era his name: The fact that there were those out More
One of the great (mostly) untold stories of the Age Of Oil is the array of toxic chemicals in hydrocarbon exhaust and the accumulation of exhaust-borne particulates in the bloodstream and brain. We are largely indifferent to these byproducts of our industrial-grade obsession with hydrocarbons, but our willful ignorance cannot hide the facts the way More
Does Trump understand democracy? I’m really asking. His approach to politics is combative — kill-or-be-killed. If you hit him, he will hit you back harder, no matter what the rules of the game are. That might be a great strategy in a WWE ring. It’s less good in life. Trump gives demeaning and sometimes racist More
Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has a message for policy makers: “Listen to the scientists.” As an engineer, I was glad to hear that. But I also believe it’s also vital for scientists to be vigilant about whom they listen to. For years, corporations funded junk science trying to undermine the climate consensus. Now, virtually More
Globally, human societies are veering towards the precipice of a cascading extinction event that is traceable to 20th century wars and to accelerated dangers following the end of the Cold War. This pivotal time could have seen the end of nuclear weapons and the near elimination of greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, the major nuclear weapons More
Bull trout are an iconic Montana native fish that have existed in our rivers, streams, and lakes for more than 10,000 years. But due to habitat destruction, interbreeding with non-native brook trout, and river dewatering for irrigation, bull trout are now listed as ‘Threatened’ under the Endangered Species Act. Although the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service More
“We are engineers. We don’t talk about politics.” I heard that phrase many times from my professors at the University of New Mexico School of Engineering. Throughout my engineering education, politics was — and it still is — a taboo topic. This attitude can even find its way into climate science. According to engineer — More
Karl Marx used a metaphor about a camera obscura to describe the contortions in the interpretations of ideology, and it’s also an interesting metaphor to think about how information is delivered to us from power. A camera obscura receives an image from a tiny hole where the image is then projected in a state that More
When I signed my letter of intent to medical school, I signed up to work with patients, not insurance companies. I wanted to be part of a team of nurses, doctors, pharmacists, and respiratory therapists — working together to make sick people feel better. I soon learned that medicine and health care are two different More
Americans are disgusted that Washington has become dysfunctional, even as Americans struggle with ever greater challenges — from stagnant wages and growing inequality to catastrophic climate change to soaring health-care costs to a decrepit and dangerously aged infrastructure. President Donald Trump blames House Democrats, saying they are “getting nothing done in Congress.” Don’t believe it. The record is clear: More
Though lacking the size and prestige of The New York Times or The Washington Post, The Storm Lake Times is arguably just as important. Two years ago, the small, bi-weekly Iowa paper (circulation: 3,000) won the coveted Pulitzer Prize for taking on agricultural water pollution in the state. If it weren’t for vibrant local papers, More
I feel like I’m watching a sitcom called “America.” Next episode: Will they impeach the president? Stay tuned! “Impeachment is therefore imperative, not only to protect the integrity of next year’s elections but to secure America’s continued democratic existence. If the House does its job, it will fall to Senate Republicans to reveal, in their More
Økonomien bør være det helt centrale fokus i forståelsen af globaliseringen. Vi kludre debatten ved at sprede den over for mange områder. Det er budskabet hos en af forfatterne bag det alternative forslag til delprogram om globalisering. Der er to forslag, som Enhedslistens årsmødet 5.-6. oktober skal tage stilling til.
Indlægget Derfor har vi skrevet et alternativt forslag [...]
In 2002, a new method of organizing was used by 20 organizations in a rural area of southwest Oregon to successfully confront an ATV threat in an area where no national, regional or local group had enough members to do much by itself. The nature of the campaign required numbers of people to turn out More
The Greta/AOC generation is marching for our place on this planet. We can all turn off lights, get off plastic, go vegan, ride bikes, sail the Atlantic, demand eco-straws, solarize our homes. But four gorillas block our way to survival. They demand a next step of mass action far beyond anything we can do as More
My wife and I watched a new Netflix documentary, “Hello, Privilege. It’s Me, Chelsea” on a day Pres. Trump retweeted words that his ouster via impeachment would spur a civil war. In her 64-minute documentary, Chelsea Handler interviews whites about their skin-color privilege, with a running commentary on the winners and losers of whiteness. She More
»Tallet burde få alle til at komme frem til den indlysende konklusion, at vi har ramt helt forkert med denne lov - og den burde rulles tilbage,« lyder kritikken, efter at Nick Hækkerup kommer frem til, at det såkaldte burkaforbud i sit første leveår har resulteret i bøder til kun 16 og ikke - som tidligere oplyst - 23.
When the lyrical muse sings, the creative pen dances. – Aberjhani, Splendid Literarium It is easy, when getting caught up in impeachment talk, crude behavior towards women, assaults on integrity, and other trump behavior, to overlook one useful didacticism that he has provided to the very young in this country. It is the art of addressing More
Rich Americans are much more likely to live into their 70s or 80s than poor Americans, new research shows. The new report from the Government Accountability Office, commissioned by Senator Bernie Sanders, shows how wealth inequality translates to lower life expectancy for working Americans. Sanders and others have offered a number of federal proposals to More
Last December, at the UN Climate Change Conference in Poland, elite decision-makers from across the world once again cosied-up to discuss how they might stop the destruction of our planet. Their lacklustre objective at this Conference being to simply implement the totally inadequate capitalist plans that were previously enshrined in the Paris Agreement that they More
The body politic has human parts: head, limbs, heart. That body has an abundance of these in the case of the royal giant that brandishes sword and scepter on the frontispiece of Leviathan of Thomas Hobbes. This colossus has arms and torso made up of his anonymous subjects, their backs turned to the reader and More
If you liked Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy, you can keep it.
That’s the message many Democratic voters are receiving this election, as they prepare to pick a contender from the gradually winnowing field of candidates to take on Donald Trump in 2020. And the reason is the continuing influence of a think-tank called the Center for a New American Security [...]
General Motors (GM) workers have been on the picket lines for seventeen days now, and just picked up their first weekly strike pay of $250. Strikers wonder who will hold out the longest — a workforce seeking justice or an immensely profitable corporation demanding more concessions? GM’s huge profits — $35 billion in the last three [...]
Liberaliseringer, frie kapitalbevægelser og beskyttelse af multinationale virksomheder. Det er udgangspunktet for at forstå globalisering, mener en gruppe græsrødder, der har kastet sig ind i Enhedslistens debat om et globalisering.
Indlægget Den kapitalistiske globalisering og hvorfor venstrefløjen bør udfordre den blev først udgivet på
Since Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families (ACF) has systematically altered language and removed information about unaccompanied migrant children from the website of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), the agency that oversees the children’s custody after they are transferred from the Department of Homeland Security. The changes are detailed in [...]
Enhedslisten diskuterer delprogram om globalisering. Indspark fra Mikael Hertoft, medlem af Hovedbestyrelsen.
Indlægget Global diskussion i Enhedslisten blev først udgivet på
Elizabeth Warren has finally released her health care plan. She calls it Medicare for All, but as Tim Higginbotham and Natalie Shure have both noted, she leaves out any number of crucial details about eliminating premiums, co-pays, and deductibles, or about providing dental, vision, hearing, and mental care. My concern is different. The wording on [...]
Still today, Abram Games’s posters provide some of the most iconic images of Britain’s war effort during World War II. As a poster artist at the War Office’s Public Relations Department, his work sought not only to mobilize the population in the anti-Nazi cause, but also to give them a sense of the kind of [...]
I forbindelse med artiklen “Højreekstremist åbner burgerbar i Nordvest” benyttede Konfront trompeten “Naziburgere:”. Det var ikke i orden og det vil vi gerne undskylde for. En dybtfølt undskyldning til alle burgere og i særdeleshed til de burgere, man kan købe på højreekstremisten Anahita Malakians burgerbar. Efter at Konfront i går offentliggjorde artiklen om, at Nye […]
Indlægget Konfront undskylder [...]
Nature is often treated as separate from politics — as something we can take for granted while we struggle over human affairs. Climate change has suddenly made nature political — or so it seems. But in fact, Jedediah Purdy reminds us, it has been that way all along. For two decades, Purdy, a law professor [...]
This week, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), representing more than 25,000 teachers and the roughly 400,000 students and families they serve, announced their intent to strike and set a deadline of October 17 to reach a deal with the city. In doing so, they build on their 2012 strike that inspired educators across the country [...]
Our elected representatives do not have to be bribed with campaign contributions from weapons makers to support the Department of Defense budget. They may, shockingly, be representing our nation. Australian political scientist David T. Smith states: “The National Security State maintains democratic legitimacy because of the way it disperses public and private benefits while shielding ordinary Americans from the true [...]
What is the fundamental relationship between Homo sapiens and our environment? Western environmentalism has long suffered from an implicit Malthusianism that casts humans as intruders upon a harmonious and static thing called “nature.” This worldview has driven much of conservationism. It is at the heart of the concern with “overpopulation.” It lurks within the common [...]
It would be a grave mistake to assume that the continuing political deadlock in Israel – with neither incumbent prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor his main rival Benny Gantz seemingly able to cobble together a coalition government – is evidence of a deep ideological divide. In political terms, there is nothing divided about Israel. In this month’s general election, 90 [...]
Capitalism Denotes Both an Economy and Society Not that long ago few mentioned Karl Marx or capitalism. Old Karl and the system he loathed were now safely locked in history’s dustbins (marked “No longer relevant”). Scholars spoke of “developed” and “underdeveloped” societies or “pre-modern,” “modern” or “post-modern” societies. They contrasted “pre-industrial” with “post-industrial” kinds of More
Much ink has been spilt in textbooks describing situations where autocratic states can behave badly. They abuse rights; they ignore international law and they ride roughshod over conventions. Liberal democracies may boast that they follow matters to the letter of the law, and make sure that citizens are given their fair and just cause in More
Despite the furor over the Green New Deal (GND), many of its supporters have no idea of the wide variety of views on it, especially within the Green Party (GP), where it originated in the US. From June through August, 2019 Missouri Greens held public discussions contrasting at least three distinct GP views to those More
Leftists are fighting, as they do, over which member of the Senate Democratic leadership is best prepared to lead them to the holy land (Denmark, basically). It’s important, then, to take a step back and acknowledge what we can: that in fall 2020, the Democratic Party nominee will be facing off against a proto-fascist who More
Sam and Eileen had traveled in an old car across the US in 1996. They had stopped at places I had long wanted to visit like the campus of Kent State University in Ohio, the site of the May 4, 1970 massacre of students protesting the Vietnam War. They had met on a beach in More
Earlier this year the Portuguese cartoonist António Moreira Antunes drew one of the most controversial political cartoons in history. His cartoon about U.S.-Israeli relations sparked so much controversy that The New York Times, whose international edition published it in April, decided to fire its two staff cartoonists, neither of whom had anything to do with it. Then More
Politicians are people with jobs and with bosses. On its face that seems like a relatively uncontroversial statement, but I’m always surprised at how much time people spend looking for high principle in the decisions politicians make instead of considering the mundane dynamics of political employment. In a recent column, I pointed out that Speaker More
Letting small slivers of a population amass as much wealth as they can grab might not be such a hot idea after all. Two decades into the 21st century, a half-century into an America growing ever more unequal, the notion that some people can become too rich is finally seeping into our mainstream political discourse. More
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador delivered his first state of the union address on September 1 from a position of strength. A little over a year since he swept the presidential election with 53% of the vote, he boasts strong majorities in both houses of congress and his approval rating stands between 60 and More
The Lolo National Forest is proposing to “salvage” log a portion of the 28,000-acre Liberty Burn near Seeley Lake, Montana. The Forest Service (FS) approved the logging using a categorical exclusion (CE) process. CEs were initially designed to permit the FS to do minor actions like replace an outhouse in a campground or replace signs More
I går aftes blev der demonstreret på Rådhuspladsen i København. Her samledes forældre, børn og ansatte i byens daginstitutioner, for at sende et klart budskab til politikerne på rådhuset og til regeringen. Kravet om minimumsnormeringer er et krav der skal gennemføres nu. Af Poul Andersen Den nye socialdemokratiske regering har sammen med støttepartierne Det Radikale [...] 
Mette Frederiksen har holdt sin åbningstale i Folketinget, og regeringens skrabede finanslovsforslag er landet. I talen oprullede statsministeren sin vision om et samfund bygget på tillid, som i de ’gode gamle dage’. Det hun beder om er tillid til hende og regeringen, at vi skal tro på løfterne om ”velfærd først”. Men mistilliden og utrygheden [...] The Chinese government put on a spectacular October 1 event in Beijing to mark the seventieth anniversary of the 1949 revolution. Mainstream media focused on the dangerous armaments that were paraded along Chang’an Avenue, a main Beijing thoroughfare, and how President Xi Jinping is a terrible dictator of an autocratic regime. No opportunity to stoke [...]
The news this morning that Bernie Sanders is putting his campaign on hold after being treated for a blocked artery has elicited understandable alarm from his supporters. It’s been compounded by news that his campaign has canceled a major two-week $1.3 million ad buy in Iowa, which, on the face of it, sounds even more [...]
Når det er klimaforandringerne, der idag sætter den politiske dagsorden. Når selve grundlaget for menneskelig eksistens på jorden er truet. Hvorfor så beskæftige sig med marxismen?
Måske netop derfor !
