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Democracy

We Who Believe In Democracy Must Fight To Make It Real

We wake daily to new spectacles of violence and humiliation: kidnappings in broad daylight, attacks on unions, LGBTQ people, women, and immigrants, the erosion of long-cherished rights. It’s no longer a tricky question whether we have tipped into authoritarianism. The answer is yes. To fight back, we have to confront what the Trump administration is exploiting: fear. We are living in fear, cowed by it. Each workplace and free speech crackdown, each violation of democratic norms, feeds on the paralysis that fear produces. Fear is the fuel of authoritarianism. Democracy is its antidote. But all around us is evidence of how thoroughly democracy has been hollowed out—and it didn’t start with Trump. Democracy is its antidote. But all around us is evidence of how thoroughly democracy has been hollowed out—and it didn’t start with Trump.

Youth-Led Pro-Democracy Movement Makes Gains In Mozambique

Since the presidential elections in autocratic Mozambique last October that were marred by corruption, according to the opposition and international watchdogs, a nationwide pro-democracy grassroots movement has been notching serious gains. It loosely calls itself Anamalala Ngimi, meaning “We are the solution.” The protests were sparked by Venâncio Mondlane, a 51-year-old political outsider who became the main opposition candidate for president. He began exhorting Mozambique’s youth not to take the fraud lying down during provocative live-streams on YouTube.  “We worked via the medium available in the hands of every young Mozambican — a smartphone — and asked them to lead at a community level,” Mondlane said. 

The Fight For The Roof Depot Continues

Minneapolis, MN — On August 11, 2025, the East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI) held a press conference in front of the Roof Depot site. They have fought continuously for three years around the Roof Depot issue, which was sparked when the City of Minneapolis wanted to demolish the former Sears warehouse building on 27th Street and Longfellow Avenue. The building had been built when a pesticide plant was in operation nearby, and it had effectively trapped arsenic particulates; this was the main reason the community stopped the demolition – to avoid being poisoned by toxic clouds. The city’s original plan for the site included a public works expansion, which drew pollution concerns over the possible introduction of over 800 diesel trucks moving in and out of the area, kicking up air impurities in the process.

How NYC Teachers Ran A Slate To Build Member Power

Teachers measure time in school years, not calendar years. As the new school year begins, I’ve been reflecting on my experiences from last year as an unexpected candidate for president of the 200,000-member United Federation of Teachers in New York City. When last school year started, I was focused on teaching my students, supporting colleagues, and coaching middle school soccer. Running for the highest office in the largest local union in the country was not on my radar. I didn’t see myself as a potential presidential candidate, but fellow organizers within the UFT reform movement did. In January 2025, I accepted the nomination to lead the Alliance of Retired and In-Service Educators (ARISE), a coalition slate uniting three major reform caucuses in the UFT: MORE (the Movement of Rank-and-File Educators), New Action, and Retiree Advocate.

How Does China’s System Really Work?

Today, I have the pleasure of being joined by the renowned Chinese scholar Zhang Weiwei. He is a professor at the prestigious Fudan University in Shanghai. He has millions of followers on Chinese social media. And we just participated in an academic conference. Professor Zhang, it is nice to meet you. I want to begin asking you about your idea of the “China model”. This is something you have been speaking about for many years, for almost 20 years now. If you look at China’s economic development in recent decades, it’s amazing. The statistics don’t lie. 

Climate Change Tests The Wildlife Conservation Model In Namibia

“I want my children to see a rhino with their own eyes — not only in Etosha [National Park],” says Sofia /Nuas, a member of the Sesfontein Conservancy Committee, located in Namibia’s arid northwest. She’s sitting in the shade of a large sausage tree, yet even on this winter morning temperatures have quickly soared to more than 30° Celsius (86° Fahrenheit). Life in this hot and dry region is already tough, but climate change will intensify it. With a population of less than 3,000, Sesfontein is a small settlement located in the Northwestern Escarpment and Inselbergs of the Nama Karoo Biome. Cattle and goats meander across dusty roads, but tourists are also drawn to the desert-like outpost for its enigmatic landscapes and a chance to glimpse some of the world’s last free-roaming, critically endangered black rhinos (Diceros bicornis), as well as Namibia’s famed desert-adapted lions (Panthera leo) and African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana).

The Report On Human Rights Violations In The United States In 2024

2024, as an election year in the United States, was a year of special concern that featured aggravating political strife and social division. Such a landscape offers an opportunity to review the state of human rights in the country in an intensive manner. Money controls U.S. politics, with partisan interests above voter rights. The total spending for the 2024 U.S. election cycle exceeded 15.9 billion U.S. dollars, once again setting a new record for the high cost of American political campaigns. Interest groups, operating in the "gray areas" beyond the effective reach of current U.S. campaign laws, used money to wantonly manipulate the fundamental logic and actual functioning of U.S. politics.

How Finance Wrecked Democracy

Michael A. McCarthy’s The Master’s Tools is about the power that finance exerts over people. He inquires into the problem and how it could realistically be solved: Why has finance capitalism left people worse off and further wrecked democracy along the way? Why does the financial sector increasingly determine our lives and politics… ? [H]ow might an alternative to investment for profit leave people better off, reinvigorate the demos, and rebuild democracy? (xii) When I started reading the book I thought maybe McCarthy’s response to these questions could be better reviewed by someone whose work is directly related to them. Still it seemed like an excellent resource for someone who is seeking to learn about the subject. It soon became apparent that the point of his book — ‘democratizing finance’ (9) — calls for responses from outsiders to the author’s field.

What Does Cuba’s New Legal Gender Recognition Law Entail?

On July 18, Cuba’s National Assembly of People’s Power approved a sweeping reform of the Civil Registry Law, which will allow transgender people to update their legal gender on official documents without requiring gender reassignment surgery. The reform was unanimously approved by the Cuban Parliament and aligns with the provisions of the 2019 Constitution and the Family Code, approved by referendum in 2022. In addition to legal gender recognition, the new law legally recognizes affective unions between unmarried couples and allows parents to choose the order of their children’s surnames, opening the door to more equitable and less normative practices in family structure.

China’s Five-Year Plans Democratic, People-Centred And Grounded In Material Reality

In a wide-ranging interview with Global Times, Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez describes China’s Five-Year Plans (FYPs) as democratic, people-centred, and grounded in material reality. He emphasises that China’s success in planning stems from its ability to align governance with popular needs and long-term strategy. “China is known globally for its effective governance and for its record of keeping its promises”, he notes, citing the 13th FYP’s targeted poverty alleviation campaign as a key example of practical planning based on extensive grassroots research. Carlos stresses that these plans are not top-down decrees but involve widespread consultation, making them highly democratic and responsive to the needs of the people.

Capitalists And Their Black Middlemen Are Colonizing Jewel Of Westchester

Today, Mount Vernon, New York, faces a 21st-century plan for colonization implemented by backroom deal-making where developers, politicians, and the Black misleadership class join forces to plot how to divide our city. Their tools aren’t the treaties and the weapons of old, but of rezoning maps and austerity budgets. Their targets aren’t the ivory and rubber that European colonists sought in Africa, but Black neighborhoods, Latino labor, and the political autonomy of working-class people. Mount Vernon, a majority Black and Latino community, is often called the “Jewel of Westchester”.

What Kind Of ‘-ocracy’ Are We? The Choice Is Yours

It’s time to choose your “–ocracy,” the one you think best fits a US society and system in free fall.  There are some choices to suggest.  We live not only in a plutocracy, it is also at the same time both a kakistocracy and a thanatocracy.  What it isn’t any longer is a democracy, and it hasn’t been one for some time now.  Our efforts should thus be directed at making it the kind of democracy it’s supposed to be. Let’s explain these terms so that you can make an informed choice.  In doing so, let’s start with plutocracy because it’s the one getting the most attention lately.

Unpacking The Localism Manifesto: Solving Our Crises From The Bottom Up

The United States is a failing country. Political leaders at all levels have failed to effectively solve the many crises we face such as the climate crisis, economic insecurity and growing inequality, and the need for affordable housing, education, and health care, and more. Action at the local level, where people have the most control, offers a pathway forward. Clearing the FOG speaks with Michael Shuman, author of A Localism Manifesto, which can be found at The Main Street Journal. Shuman explains how decentralized action works, the principles involved, and how it offers a radical new politics that can heal the current polarization of our society.

Struggle For The Freedom Charter Goes On

The Freedom Charter was adopted in Kliptown 70 years ago, on 26  June 1955. Thousands of delegates travelled across South Africa — by train, by bus, on foot — to take part in the Congress of the People. They met under an open sky, gathered on a dusty field where a wooden stage had been erected. Armed police watched from the perimeter but the atmosphere was determined and jubilant.  One by one, the clauses of the Charter — on land, work, education, housing, democracy, peace — were read aloud, and each was met with unanimous approval. The charter distilled months of discussion and collective vision.

State Power, Corporate Power Or ‘Little Powers’?

As I write, New Zealand is also facing the biggest sucker of electrical energy ever created – digital data storage and delivery. This was bad enough when it was being sent directly to electricity-powered digital ‘appliances’ (phones, personal and commercial computers, screens of all kinds),9) but in 2023 a new and extremely energy-intensive function was introduced – machine learning, commonly known as AI. It is extremely difficult to get accurate data on the contribution of different industries to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as each one has an obvious interest in disguising how big their contribution is.
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