Politics

The European Union May Be On Verge Of Regime Collapse

January 28, 2015 John Feffer, www.truth-out.org Educate! Europe, Finance and the Economy, History, Politics, Social Change

And yet, for all this success, the European project is currently teetering on the edge of failure. Growth is anemic at best and socio-economic inequality is on the rise. The countries of Eastern and Central Europe, even relatively successful Poland, have failed to bridge the income gap with the richer half of the continent. And the highly indebted periphery is in revolt. Politically, the center may not hold and things seem to be falling apart. From the left, parties like Syriza in Greece are challenging the EU’s prescriptions of austerity. From the right, Euroskeptic parties are taking aim at the entire quasi-federal model. Racism and xenophobia are gaining ever more adherents, even in previously placid regions like Scandinavia.

Syriza’s Historic Win Puts Greece On Collision Course With Europe

January 27, 2015 Ian Traynor and Helena Smith, www.theguardian.com Educate! Elections, Greece, Left, Politics, Syriza

Voters handed power to Alexis Tsipras, the charismatic 40-year-old former communist who leads the umbrella coalition of assorted leftists known as Syriza. He cruised to an eight-point victory over the incumbent centre-right New Democracy party, according to exit polls and projections after 99% of votes had been counted. The result surpassed pollster predictions and marginalised the two mainstream parties that have run the country since the military junta’s fall in 1974. It appeared, however, that Syriza would win 149 seats – just short of securing the 151 of 300 seats that would enable Tsipras to govern without coalition partners. “The sovereign Greek people today have given a clear, strong, indisputable mandate,” Tsipras told a crowd of rapturous flag-waving party supporters.

Tens Of Thousands Protest As US Ally Resigns In Yemen

January 26, 2015 AP, www.mashable.com Resist! Politics, Protest, Yemen

Tens of thousands of Yemenis marched in protest on Saturday against Shiite rebels who hold the capital, amid a power vacuum in a country that is home to what Washington describes as al-Qaeda's most dangerous offshoot. Some 20,000 hit the streets of capital Sanaa, where demonstrators converged on the house of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who resigned Thursday along with his cabinet. It was the largest protest since the rebels, known as Houthis, swept into Sanaa in September. Protesters carried banners, and chanted slogans denouncing the rebels and demanding the restoration of the president. Scuffles involving knives and batons broke out in one instance in Sanaa when rebels tried to block one procession, leaving two demonstrators and one Houthi injured.

Nationwide Actions Mark Fifth Anniversary Of Citizens United

January 21, 2015 Eleanor Goldfield, www.occupy.com Organize! Campaign Finance, Democracy, Law, Politics

The corporate money machine has been snaking its way through our government for much longer than five years. However, this Wednesday marks the fifth anniversary of the moment when that snake went from insidious slithering to a boa constrictor-like tightening on our feeble and fragile democracy. Five years ago, the Supreme Court's ruling in the case of Citizens United v. the Federal Elections Commission allowed corporations and unions the right to spend as much money as they want to influence elections. It gave rise to dark money spending and Super PACs where donors remain hidden from public view while funneling millions of dollars into state and federal elections.

Cuban Scholars: “US-style Democracy Not Only Option”

January 19, 2015 Aviva Chomsky, www.roarmag.org Educate! Cuba, Politics

On December 17, 2014, President Obama announced that he was ordering “the most significant changes to our policy in more than fifty years” and that the United States was “changing its relationship with the people of Cuba.” While only Congress can lift the embargo, the changes Obama announced were indeed significant: re-establishing diplomatic relations, opening a review of Cuba’s designation as a sponsor of state terrorism, and further easing travel, trade, and aid restrictions. The speech came on the heels of a series of embarrassments for the United States, as clumsy covert programs aimed at promoting ‘civil society’ in Cuba were revealed and WikiLeaks cables acknowledged that US-supported ‘dissidents’ had little importance to Cuban society.

Building Outside The Democratic Party

January 14, 2015 Brian Jones, www.jacobinmag.com Strategize! Democratic Party, History, Politics

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, has done a great job representing his real constituents — the finance, real-estate, and fossil-fuel industries. The rest of us haven’t had the same luck: workers in New York have seen cutbacks in hospitals and classrooms and promises of more hardship to come. I agreed to be the Green Party’s 2014 candidate for lieutenant governor of New York because I deeply believe we need our own political representation. Everything about this election points to widespread dissatisfaction with a rightward-moving Democratic Party. Democratic voters stayed home. The turnout was a record low in New York State, with Cuomo receiving nearly a million fewer votes than he did in 2010.

Could Keystone Be America’s Last Pipeline?

January 12, 2015 Elana Schor, www.politico.com Resist! Environmental Justice, Oil & Gas, Politics

All that has changed. As Keystone’s problems imprint themselves on the nation’s political DNA, environmentalists and local advocacy groups are using the same template that has stalled it for six years to stoke resistance to fossil-fuel projects from coast to coast. Word is out in the oil and gas industry that NIMBY is the new normal. From fuel-starved New England to the refinery country of California, the legacy of the pipeline fight has become an organized and galvanized local resistance to new energy infrastructure. Recent example: Elizabeth Warren came out against the New England pipeline DeVito is fighting way back in August, delighting activists in her home state. The next target of anti-pipeline forces: Hillary Clinton, whom they still remember for musing in 2010 that her State Department was “likely” to approve Keystone.

Why Movements Should Care About Azealia Banks

December 28, 2014 Kate Aronoff, www.wagingnonviolence.org Educate! Art, Hip Hop, Politics, Racism

The #BlackLivesMatter movement is quickly creating a national context whereby celebrities across industries are being forced to take sides. To date, sports stars have been the most active in their support of the movement. As it grows, more TV, movie and music personalities are likely to follow suit. Iggy Azalea’s racism, then, isn’t just in poor taste, but also beginning to fall out of step with a new mainstream of dialogue on race in the United States, one being crafted by organizers both online and in the streets. It’s a context, like that of the 60s, which gave artists like Harry Belafonte an even wider audience, and made his messages — not dissimilar from those of King and other movement leaders — resonant with increasingly broad swaths of the American public. Hip-hop artists have kept a critical consciousness on race alive in the United States, even as other genres — and a number of mainstream hip-hop artists — have drifted back towards a detachment from politics.

Who Is In Charge Police Or Local Government

December 25, 2014 Scott Jay, www.libcom.org Educate! Government, Law, Police, Politics

The view that most in the US hold of the police, even many critics of police misconduct, is that they are ultimately accountable to the leadership of the city in which they operate. The mayor is the democratically elected chief executive and the police are committed to following their orders. Since city leaders typically defend and excuse police misconduct, the responsibility seems to rest with City Hall. However, police actions against Occupy Oakland, along with longstanding issues of police accountability during a decade-long negotiated settlement, show how little control Oakland City Hall has over its own police force. While long simmering disagreements between the Oakland Police Department (OPD) and Oakland City Hall have often been papered over by pubic relations efforts, they have come to the surface during several contentious moments over the years.

Obama Ready To Defy Base In Order To Advance TPP

December 5, 2014 Deirdre Fulton, www.commondreams.org Educate! Finance and the Economy, Obama, Politics, TPP

President Barack Obama is ready to buck his liberal base in order to advance the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the pro-corporate international trade deal currently being negotiated in secret by the United States and 11 other Pacific Rim countries. In a speech before the Business Roundtable, an association of conservative CEOs of major U.S. corporations, Obama indicated that he was ready to go head-to-head with Democrats, labor unions, and environmentalists—core groups that oppose the TPP and other so-called "free trade" pacts—in order to move the controversial deal forward. He listed trade as one of his top four economic priorities for the remainder of his presidency, along with tax reform, immigration, and investment in infrastructure.

Why We Need A “No Compromise” Climate Movement

December 4, 2014 Scott Parkin, www.counterpunch.org Strategize! Climate Change, Energy, Environment, Law, Politics

Fast forward to 2014, the crisis surrounding the fossil fuel industry’s exploitation and destruction of the earth has only worsened. According to climate scientists, April, 2014 became the first month that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere reached 400 parts per million further pushing us towards a climate catastrophe that includes floods, droughts, mega-storms and greater social and economic inequity. Another recent report states that the earth has lost half of its wildlife in the past forty years due to unsustainable killing for food practices and habitat destruction. Studies have also found that people living near mountaintop removal mine sites are twice more than likely to suffer from cancer than people from other parts of Appalachia. Furthermore, mountaintop removal has been linked to high rates of birth defects.

White House Delaying Torture Report, Waiting For Republican Chair

November 21, 2014 Ali Watkins, Ryan Grim, Sabrina Siddiqui and Michael McAuliff, www.huffingtonpost.com Organize! CIA, Congress, Politics, Torture

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, waited for the immigration discussion to end and then pulled out a prepared speech that she read for five or six minutes, making the case for the release of the damning portrayal of America's post-9/11 torture program. "It was a vigorous, vigorous and open debate -- one of the best and most thorough discussions I've been a part of while here," said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.). Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who served as intelligence committee chair before Feinstein, was furious after the meeting, and accused the administration of deliberately stalling the report.

Ferguson Struggle Has Already Altered Black Politics

November 21, 2014 Glen Ford, www.blackagendareport.com Organize! Ferguson, police brutality, Politics

Whatever happens after the grand jury announces it decision on whether to indict the cop that killed Michael Brown, the people of Ferguson have already altered the political landscape. They have rejected the counsel of the local and national Black Misleadership Class, who specialize in diverting and suppressing any movement that threatens their patrons among the rich and powerful. They have seen through the con game run by the so-called Black power brokers, whose job is to head off any possibility of a rejuvenated Black mass movement. The fact that protests in a small town outside of St. Louis have put local, state and national security forces on high alert is testament to the failure of the Black Misleadership Class to contain the growing movement. And, if Al Sharpton and his local Missouri counterparts cannot keep the Black masses under control, then the appointees to Gov. Nixon’s Ferguson study commission have been rendered redundant before they begin.

One Party Planet: An Analysis Of Today’s World

November 20, 2014 James Wan, www.roarmag.org Educate! Globalization, Politics

There is plenty of rightful outrage at corruption, endemic poverty and systemic exploitation, yet from most political discussions to mainstream media debates, and from well-meaning ethical consumerist actions to celebrity-sponsored charity campaigns, there appears to be an implicit acceptance that what we’re doing on a broad scale is basically fine. The problem, apparently, is that we need to do it a little better, tweak it here and there, or add something else on top. It is well-known that workers’ rights in many places are systematically trampled on; that a billion people are chronically malnourished even though we produce enough food to feed the world one and a half times over; that the governments of developing countries lose at least $1 trillion each year through tax havens; that levels of greenhouse gas emissions are accelerating despite an apparent commitment from world leaders to decrease them; that the richest 1% of the world own half of all global wealth; and that, according to World Bank figures, 80% of the world’s population live on less than $10/day while 60% live on less than $5.

The (Dis) Loyalty Of The Black Political Class

September 18, 2014 Bruce A. Dixon, www.blackagendareport.com Educate! Congress, Money As Speech, Politics, Race

When a billionaire wants your old time civil rights organization, your historically black college, your morning drive-time deejay, or your black congressman, there ain't nothin' you can do. These Janes and these Joes who make up the current black political class, from the preachers to the so-called civil rights leaders to the Congressional Black Caucus, they just ain't loyal to the masses of African Americans they purport to represent. The current black political class, with the Congressional Black Caucus at its highest level, was raised up in the wake of our people's historic Freedom Movement against racial segregation and domestic apartheid. Fifty years ago, most of us imagined that having more black faces in high places would mean a better life for all of us. We were wrong. We've gone from six or seven black members of Congress to a crew of 42, from few or no black behinds in the big chairs of City Halls, the speakers of state houses, and few in the leadership of big county governments to more than 13,000 black elected officials, and thousands more in appointed offices. At the same time, relative black unemployment hasn't moved an inch, black family wealth has fallen off a cliff, gentrification is still the only urban economic development policy, and the nation's black 13% accounts for over 40% of its prisoners. Far from representing our people's urgent needs, wants and desires in the halls of power, the supposedly powerful black political class has nothing but contempt for ordinary black people and excuses for its impotence.

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