Democracy

Cornel West And The Campaign To End Political Apartheid

July 17, 2023 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. Educate! Cornel West, Corporate duopoly, Democracy, Democrats, Elections, oligarchy, Republican

The Republican and Democratic parties have no intention of allowing independents and third parties into their exclusive club. A series of arcane laws and rules governing elections make it extremely difficult for outsiders to get on the ballot, receive exposure, raise money, comply with regulations that are designed to advance the interests of Republicans and Democrats or participate in public debates. Third parties and independents are effectively disenfranchised, although 44 percent of the voting public identify as independent. This discrimination is euphemistically labeled “bipartisanship,” but the correct term, as Theresa Amato writes, is “political apartheid.”

The Dystopian Future Of US Public Education Is On Display In Houston

July 13, 2023 Jackie Anderson, Ruth Kravitz and Jay Malone, In These Times. Resist! Democracy, Houston, Privatization, Public Education, Texas

On June 1, the state of Texas removed Elizabeth Santos, an elected school board trustee, from office and replaced her with Janette Garza Lindner, the candidate she defeated in December 2021. The ousting was part of a larger takeover of the Houston public school system by the Republican-led Texas state government — a process that began in late 2019 and became formalized June 1 when Mike Miles, a charter school owner whose school administrator license lapsed five years ago, was installed as the new superintendent of the district by Gov. Greg Abbott along with an appointed Board of Managers.

Reform Caucus Rises, Sues For Elections In Amazon Labor Union

July 11, 2023 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. Strategize! Amazon, Democracy, Legal System, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

One year after the landmark union victory at the Amazon warehouse JFK8 on Staten Island, New York, the brightly colored posters that once adorned the glass at the iconic bus stop in front of the plant are gone. This was the bus stop from which Chris Smalls, Derrick Palmer, Connor Spence, Gerald Bryson, Jordan Flowers, and others launched an insurrection that won an unprecedented union authorization election at the 8,000-worker warehouse. The posters have been replaced by a torn letter dated January 17, 2023, asking the company’s lawyers to begin bargaining and recognize the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) as the exclusive bargaining agent.

Should There Be A Supreme Court?

July 10, 2023 Michael Hudson, CounterPunch.org. Educate! Checks and Balances, Democracy, oligarchy, Supreme Court

Vested interests create “checks and balances” primarily to make political systems non-responsive to demands for social reform. Historically, therefore, the checks are politically unbalanced in practice. Instead of producing a happy medium, their effect often has been to check the power of the people to assert their interests at the expense of the more powerful. Real reform requires a revolution – often repeated attempts. The Roman Republic suffered five centuries of fighting to redistribute land and cancel debts, all of which failed as the oligarchy’s “checks” imposed deepening economic dependency and imbalance.

The Not-So-Discreet US Campaign To Pressure Brazil’s Foreign Policy

July 6, 2023 Pedro Marin, People's Dispatch. Educate! Brazil, Coups, Democracy, Jair Bolsonaro, Lula da Silva, US Foreign Policy

The London newspaper Financial Times ran with the following headline last week: “The discreet U.S. campaign to defend Brazil’s election.” The report, written by Michael Stott, Michael Pooler and Bryan Harris, deals with a “pressure campaign” carried out by US officials throughout 2022, in order to prevent the thesis of fraud in the 2022 Brazilian elections from unfolding into a coup d’état. Translated and published in Brazil by the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper under the title “U.S. campaigned to defend Brazil from a possible coup by Bolsonaro,” the article in the Financial Times quotes a series of sources in the US government that agreed to talk about the movements carried out.

Unelected Board Raised Rent For Over Two Million New York City Tenants

June 28, 2023 Liberation News. Resist! Democracy, Housing, New York City (NYC), Tenant Rights

On June 21, New York City raised the rent for over two million tenants. After a pitched struggle over the last two months, the Rent Guidelines Board voted to increase rents on New York City’s rent-stabilized apartments. The increase for one-year leases will be 3%. For two-year leases, rents will go up by 2.75% in the first year and 3.25% in the second year. This year’s increase follows last year’s increase of stabilized rents by 3.25% for one-year leases and 5% for two-year leases, which was the biggest increase since 2013. After these two increases, tenants are paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars more in rent over an annual lease term.

Moranda Smith, Food And Tobacco Workers Fight To Expand Democracy

June 24, 2023 Jonathan Kissam, Labor Notes. Organize! Democracy, Labor Unions, LGBTQ Rights, Worker Rights and Jobs

June is Pride Month, which celebrates and commemorates the struggles of LGBTQ+ people for freedom. It is held in June to commemorate the Stonewall Riots, several days of protests that began on June 28, 1969, and launched the modern movement for LGBTQ+ rights. This June also marks the 80th anniversary of a remarkable strike at the giant R.J. Reynolds tobacco plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, which established Local 22 of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers (FTA). One of those strikers, a sharecropper’s daughter named Moranda Smith, would be elected to the national union’s executive committee three and a half years later, making her the first Black woman in the national leadership of a U.S. union.

What Is Urgent And Necessary In Haiti

June 16, 2023 Jean Saint-Vil, Black Agenda Report. Resist! CARICOM, Democracy, Haiti, White Supremacy

I greet you in the name of each common ancestor whose bones remain restless at the bottom of the Caribbean and Atlantic Oceans. I hope this brief note finds you in excellent health as it deals with an urgent crisis which requires that we summon superior collective wisdom, intelligence and, above all, courage. As you read this note, in the town of Jeremi (South-West Haiti/ Grandans), corpses are being pulled under collapsed rubble. The region was hit by a 4.9 magnitude quake early this morning. This occurred a few hours after floods had devastated large parts of the North, West and South of Haiti, causing loss of human lives, animals and property.

State Repression Targets The Stop Cop City Movement

June 8, 2023 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Atlanta, Cop City, Democracy, Police, State Repression

Atlanta, Georgia is no mecca. The idea that it is a “good for Black people” city is a lie. Atlanta is little more than a glorified plantation where powerful white people give directions to the Black people they choose to be overseers. The power of the latter group is severely limited of course. They can always be counted on to act on behalf of the white power structure they serve. No one should be shocked that members of the Atlanta City Council listened to hours of impassioned testimony from their constituents opposing what they call a Public Safety Training Center yet still voted to approve an initial $31 million expenditure by a vote of 11 to 4.

Anti-Colonialism And Direct Democracy

May 31, 2023 Yavor Tarinski, Resilience. Strategize! Anti-Imperialism, Anticolonialism, Colonialism, Democracy, Imperialism, US Imperialism

There has been this state-centered perception of anti-colonialism that tends to equate the term with any type of government that will stand up to US hegemony. This has led many to overlook the role of authoritarianism, considering it, wrongly, as a secondary issue, and thus pledge their support to autocratic regimes. Proposals such as that of “multipolar world”, which often seeks to reassert old imperialist glory and nationalism, have become a point of reference for the supporters of this brand of pseudo anti-colonialism. Activist Promise Li describes it as a faith in the reshuffling of the US hegemon’s power to a multipolarity of national elites to unlock better conditions of struggle, to which he adds that believing this would be idealism in its own right.

La Via Campesina Warns Of Democratic Frailty In Ecuador

May 22, 2023 Via Campesina, Resumen English. Resist! Democracy, Ecuador, La Via Campesina, Soft Coup

The peasant, indigenous, landless, women and workers’ organizations that are part of the international movement La Via Campesina around the world warn with great concern about the current context in Ecuador, marked by a serious political crisis, accompanied by a deep economic and social crisis, with high levels of violence by criminal groups, the State and the sectors of power that continue looting the people. On Wednesday, May 17, the president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso signed executive decree 741, which establishes the dissolution of the National Assembly. This in the midst of the political trial opened against him for accusations of embezzlement. The decree also calls for early general elections within 90 days.

Imran Khan’s Arrest Brings Pakistan’s Crisis Closer To Its End Game

May 14, 2023 Andrew Korybko, Orinoco Tribune. Educate! Coups, Democracy, Imran Khan, Pakistan

The post-modern coup that removed former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan (IK) from office last April as punishment for his multipolar foreign policy catalyzed cascading crises across the economic, judicial, political, and security spheres that have shaken this South Asian state to its core. The US-backed regime that was installed in his place refuses to hold free and fair elections as early as possible since they know they’d lose after the former premier’s PTI party won multiple by-elections over the past year. During that same time, the post-modern coup regime viciously cracked down on society by abducting dissidents and censoring the media out of desperation to retain power.

At UFCW, A Reform Movement Rises

May 6, 2023 Hamilton Nolan, In These Times. Organize! Democracy, Grocery Workers, Labor Movement, Worker Rights

Las Vegas — It was 7:30 on a Monday morning on the Las Vegas Strip, early enough to stand outside without sunscreen. A group of people — first a trickle, then dozens — wearing matching blue T-shirts that read “Organizing & Bargaining & The Right to Strike & A Voice in Our Union,” flooded the patio of the Mirage Resort & Casino pool, overwhelming the early morning smokers who had sought refuge there. This group was smiling, energized, far too wholesome for their garish surroundings. Like a team of underdogs before a critical game, they seethed with nervous excitement. These were the reformers.

Europe’s Fate

May 3, 2023 Patrick Lawrence, Consortium News. Educate! China, Democracy, European Union (EU), Multipolar World, NATO, Western Asia

If Emmanuel Macron got one thing done above all others during his recent summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, it was to put the question of Europe’s place in the global order before a lot of people who would rather not think about it. The French president, as is his habit, once again questioned Europe’s status in the Atlantic alliance, notably in his now-famous protest that Europeans cannot allow themselves to be “vassals” of the United States. “Strategic autonomy” must be the Continent’s aspiration, Macron asserted for the umpteenth time. Suddenly, the future of the Continent is squarely on the table.

Guatemalan Political Crisis; Critics Slam June Elections Disqualifications

April 27, 2023 Teri Mattson, WTF is Going on in Latin America and the Caribbean. Podcast – WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean Democracy, Elections, Guatemala

Campaigning began in earnest last month for Guatemala’s general elections, with political messaging filling the streets, local broadcasts and social media. But less than three months before the June 25 vote, concerns are mounting among national and international observers over the integrity of the process. At least 30 political parties are set to contest the upcoming elections, with more than 22,000 candidates registered to run for the presidency, congress, regional parliament and councils across the country. But Guatemala’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal, which governs elections, has blocked several opposition candidates from running on “dubious grounds."

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