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Liberal Democracy at the End of its Rope: The Participatory Democracy Alternative Part II
Orientation Unfortunately, in the United States the terms “liberal, “democracy” and “capitalism” are all mushed together according to the following logic: All democratic societies are liberal; All liberal societies are capitalist and All democratic societies are capitalist In Part I of my article, I challenged this logic because many capitalist societies have dictatorships and some […]
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Australia’s Compulsory Voting System
There has been an insufferable degree of smugness of late in the chatting classes about Australia’s electoral system. A special for Australian Broadcasting Corporation produced by veteran journalist Annabel Crabb has done much to swell the heads of officials, politicians and pundits. But the production called Civic Duty has to be seen alongside a general […]
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No Kings?
No Kings! YES! Of course! That’s what inspired American independence in the first place. But autocracy takes many shapes. How about No Oligarchs? Or No Deep State? No Police State? No Mass Surveillance? No Compromised Politicians? No Corrupt Judiciary? There was much enthusiasm and excitement. And talk of channeling that energy into constructive action. There […]
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When Media Tell Us Who “Won” a Latin American Election, Start to Ask Questions
AP (4/13/25) attributes Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa’s re-election to “voters weary of crime”—even though murders rose sharply under his administration. Elections in Latin America are often controversial. While many countries in the Global North regularly shuffle between parties offering alternating versions of neoliberalism, voting in Central and South America often offers starker contrasts: An anti-imperialist […]
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Ten Commandments for the New American Century
First Commandment: THOU SHALT TAKE MONEY OUT OF POLITICS No money in politics. Zero! First, people should stand up and declare unequivocally they will not vote for anyone who takes ANY money from corporations, lobbyists and PACs. Then, down the road, by having elections 100% financed out of public funds, we can build a democracy […]
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Failure of “Lesser of Two Evils” Argument
As the U.S. presidential election goes into its final sprint, efforts to portray one candidate or the other in a good or bad light are increasingly evident. In this vein, we see Donald Trump called a fascist, including by Kamala Harris and John Kelly, former Trump chief of staff. Meanwhile, Harris is doing her utmost […]
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Absolutist, Relativist and Cynical Thinking Styles
Orientation The mismatch between the complexity of the world and the simplistic manner in which we think about it The social, economic and political world in which we live is extremely complex, but most of the Yankee population does not have the thinking skills that can make intelligent decisions about this world and what to […]
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A Nation at Peace
To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To a warmonger, every problem calls for a war. WAR! WAR! FOREVER WAR! UNENDING WAR! Our current leaders are hypnotized by war. They lack the vision and resourcefulness to consider negotiation and cooperation. Peace is not in their thoughts. ‘Peace’ is not in their vocabulary. They are […]
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“Straight as a Die”: Giving Starmer a Free Pass
The BBC’s banner headline reporting the UK’s 4 July general election result was clear: ‘Chris Mason: “Starmer tsunami” and civility after brutality’ This alliterated nicely but gave the misleading impression that there had been a massive display of public support for Starmer. Mason’s own analysis pointed elsewhere: ‘The story of this election is one of […]
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What is Independent Political Action?
I recently found an unpublished essay written in 1979 by a comrade from Western Pennsylvania who argued passionately for the urgent necessity of independent political action. In The Time is Now: A Position Paper on Independent Political Action, Bob Bonner challenged the left to begin the process of building independent political organizations and to convince […]
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