Populism

Mexico’s New Populist President Considers Foreign Pipeline Plans Despite Indigenous Protests

July 27, 2018 Martha Pskowski and Steve Horn, Desmogblog.com Educate! Indigenous Peoples, Mexico, Pipelines, Populism

Andrés Manuel López Obrador looked out at the crowd of reporters at a Mexico City Hilton Hotel the night of July 1. It was a moment that he had waited years for: his victory speech for the Mexican presidency. To win in his third presidential campaign, López Obrador, a left-wing populist whose roots are in the oil-producing state of Tabasco, had to calm business leaders, who warned that foreign investment would flee the country if he took office. However, the candidate who once said he would overturn Mexico's 2013 reforms privatizing its energy sector — which opened the oil and gas industry to foreign investment and created a subsequent pipeline boom — struck a different tone on election night.

Localisation: A Strategic Solution To Globalised Authoritarianism

July 21, 2018 By Helena Norberg-Hodge, Longreads.tni.org Strategize! Facism, New Economy, Populism

For those who care about peace, equality and the future of the planet, the global political swing to the right over the past few years is deeply worrying. It has us asking ourselves, how did this happen? How did populism turn into such a divisive and destructive force? How did authoritarianism take over the political scene once again? From my 40 years of experience working in both industrialised and land-based cultures, I believe the primary reason is globalisation. When I say globalisation, I mean the global economic system in which most of us now live – a system driven by continual corporate deregulation and shaped by neoliberal, capitalist ideologies. But globalisation goes deeper than politics and the economy. It has profoundly personal impacts.

Noam Chomsky On Populist Groundswell, U.S. Elections, Future Of Humanity, And More

March 26, 2018 By Lynn Parramore, Ineteconomics.org Strategize! Electoral Politics, Noam Chomsky, Populism

I don’t know if you know, but as late as 1966 in Boston we could barely have an anti-war action because it would be violently broken up with the support of the press and so on. By then, South Vietnam had been practically destroyed. The war had expanded to other areas of Indochina. The Reagan administration, at the very beginning, tried to duplicate what Kennedy had done in 1961 with regard to Central America. So they had a white paper more or less modeled on Kennedy’s white paper that said the Communists are taking over. It was the usual steps, the propaganda, but it collapsed quickly. In the case of the Kennedy white paper, it took years before it was exposed as mostly fraudulent, but the Wall Street Journal, of all places, exposed the Reagan white paper in six months.

Poverty Fuels European Extremism

June 4, 2017 Andrew Spannaus, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Finance and the Economy, Populism, Poverty, Right-Wing

By Andrew Spannaus for CounterPunch. Less stable employment conditions and the stagnation or regression of salaries have created the fertile ground for populist movements on the right in particular, which now mix their traditional nationalist and anti-immigrant rhetoric, with criticism of the economic orthodoxy of the supranational European Union (E.U.) institutions. In recent years the prevailing response from economists has been that many Western nations are simply unable to compete in sectors dominated by low costs and the high efficiency unleashed by globalization. This narrative, however, is used to hide a more troubling reality: government institutions have contributed directly to the economic difficulties with their own actions, driving down living standards through multiple waves of austerity and blocking attempts to break from the neoliberal principles that dominate among E.U. institutions.

Would America’s First Populists Recognize Trump’s Populism?

February 16, 2017 Caleb Maupin, www.dandelionsalad.wordpress.com Educate! Donald Trump, Populism

By Caleb Maupin for Dandelion Salad - This isn’t from a Donald Trump speech. This isn’t from an alt-right rant against globalism. The above text comes from “Why Communism? Plain Talk on Vital Questions,” published in 1933 by Moissaye J. Olgin, a leader of the New York City branch of the Communist Party. The Communist Party and the unemployed councils it directed involved hundreds of thousands of working class people, black and white, both native-born and immigrants. Together they stopped evictions. Later in the decade, they organized industrial unions in a wave of sit-down strikes. With slogans like “Fight or Starve!” they pushed the Roosevelt administration to create many key reforms, such as Social Security, unemployment insurance, food assistance, and the Works Progress Administration. Olgin and the Communist Party’s methods of agitation were not new in 1933.

Trump’s Phony Populism On Military Spending

February 10, 2017 Miriam Pemberton, www.otherwords.org Educate! Donald Trump, Military, Populism

By Miriam Pemberton for Other Words - The president says he'll protect our interests against the boondoggle weapons makers. Don't believe him. There’s a lot of misdirection going on these days. Anybody whose head hasn’t been spinning over the last couple of weeks has probably been in a nice news blackout somewhere. We’ll all need some strategies if we’re going to stay sane. One is making sure that in the midst of the controversy of the day, we keep track of the big picture. Here’s one attempt along those lines. Donald Trump has been taking credit for cutting $600 million from the contract for the biggest Pentagon buy in history: the F-35 “Joint Strike Fighter” plane.

Anti-Trump Protests Will Fail If Tied To Democratic Party

January 22, 2017 John Stauber, www.counterpunch.org Strategize! Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein, Populism, Trump

By John Stauber for CounterPunch. The massive, continuing protests against President Trump, #NotMyPresident, are not a movement and will only benefit Trump. They are an emotional tactic devoid of strategy, and one that has made Trump stronger and stronger since it was first unleashed during the Republican primaries at the beginning of 2016. ‘Trump is a racist narcissist pig, unfit to exist, much less govern,’ or so the meme goes. But despite losing the popular vote he mat slammed Hillary and the Democrat Party. The GOP scaredy cats who were fleeing him en masse he actually rescued and rose them to control both houses of Congress. As of this writing the Trump protests have not abated, and now this smells of serious failure, the type of total and complete butt kicking that Republicans gave to the so-called Wisconsin Uprising.

Left-Wing Populism And The Feminization Of Politics

January 16, 2017 Laura Roth and Kate Shea Baird, www.mareagranate.org Strategize! Feminism, Populism

By Laura Roth and Kate Shea Baird for ROAR Magazine - Two of the liveliest debates among activists on the European left these days relate to the strategy of left-wing populism on the one hand and the need to feminize politics on the other. Yet little has been said about the relationship between the two. What would a feminist reading of left-wing populism look like? How does left-wing populism fit in with the goal of feminizing politics? It is our view that populism is not only incompatible with the feminization of politics; it actually reinforces patriarchy. Faced with a choice between these essentially incompatible strategies, any hope of transformation will require us to abandon populism and make a genuine commitment to changing the way politics is done.

Trump: Not A Populist, He’s A Corporatist

December 1, 2016 Rick Claypool, www.medium.com Educate! Corporatism, Donald Trump, Populism

By Rick Claypool for Medium - Nov. 29, 2016 — As a candidate, President-Elect Donald Trump railed against the “rigged political establishment” and promised to “send the special interests packing.” The federal agency landing teams announced by the President-Elect’s Transition Team, however, suggest the entrenched establishment of corporate interests, Republican insiders and former lobbyists will have significant influence over the incoming administration. Out of the 75 landing team members announced by the Trump Transition organization, 70 percent (53 members) have some corporate affiliation.

Building A New Populism In The Era Of Trump

November 18, 2016 Chuck Collins, www.otherwords.org Create! Conservative, Donald Trump, Liberals, Populism

By Chuck Collins for Other Words - Imagine you’re standing in line for the American Dream. You work hard, sometimes in dangerous jobs. You lead a moral life. But the line is stalling, even moving backwards. Yet you see newcomers up front — some of them immigrants and people of color. Maybe you’ve worked all your life alongside African Americans and Latinos — more than most northern liberals have — but when you complain about people cutting you, those liberals call you racist.

Europe Must Reform To Avoid A Populist Domino Effect

June 30, 2016 Sven Giegold, www.huffingtonpost.com Create! Brexit, Europe, European Union (EU), Populism

By Sven Giegold for The Huffington Post - Brexit is an historic setback for the European Union, but not a death sentence. As sad as the referendum result is, it must be respected. After referenda over the European Union’s constitution were held in France and the Netherlands in 2005, it was “business as usual.” That mistake must not be repeated. Europe has to prove that it is capable of learning and changing. Reforms can’t be made by heads of government behind closed doors — they should be transparent.

Populism With A Brain

June 16, 2016 Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman, www.washingtonmonthly.com Strategize! Populism

By Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman for Washington Monthly - National Review recently described Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump as “two populist peas in a pod.” This was not a compliment. Across the political spectrum, people stick the “populist” label on politicians they see as exploiting the worst resentments and envies of some tribe or another. The segregationist George Wallace, by this reckoning, was a populist. So, too, Jean-Marie Le Pen. Yet there is a richer tradition of populism in the United States that has new relevancy today.

Eggs Fly In Iceland As Panama Papers Spark Populist Anger In Streets

April 5, 2016 Lauren McCauley, www.commondreams.org Resist! Capitalism, Iceland, Panama Papers, Populism

By Lauren McCauley for Common Dreams - Foretelling the kind of public backlash other ultra-rich tax dodgers can expect following the weekend release of the so-called Panama Papers, tens of thousands of Icelanders rallied in Reykjavik on Monday demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson. Gunnlaugsson is just one of the officials facing reprisal after a massive leak of 11.5 million documents from the global law firm Mossack Fonseca revealed a rigged system of elites who use shell companies in offshore tax havens to stash untold fortunes.

The Tug-Of-War Between Negative & Positive Populism

January 19, 2016 Bill Moyer, www.backbonecampaign.org Strategize! Democracy, Essay Review, Politics, Populism

By Bill Moyer Campaign - Disdain for the status quo in the US is nearly universal - AND - given the complexity and chaos of our times, change is inevitable. But who will define what "change" looks like? This dissatisfaction and inevitability represent our greatest opportunity and greatest challenge of our time. We must dislodge this Deep State and channel the energy of inevitable change toward a just and sustainable society. But our opponents are consolidating their power through treaties such as the TPP, institutionalizing their rule with the Deep State Mike Lofgren describes, and feeding a violent faux-populist arm of racists thugs to draw energy away from a populism that could actually deliver a future worth living for.

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