Subjects Archives: Democracy

  • Berlin Bulletin by Victor Grossman

    Sunday suspense

    Only one force is genuinely suited to exposing the lies and redirecting emotions away from attacks on the poorest victims and towards solidarity with them against the truly guilty forces on high. It is the Left.

  • Berlin Bulletin by Victor Grossman

    Making everyone happy

    After four and a half months of haggling and recrimination and, four days past the deadline, an all-night session, the three parties had finally settled on a coalition government program—179 pages long.

  • Let them eat crack (photo credit: Bansky)

    Utopia and populism

    My view is that liberal critics of populism, standing on their heads, get it wrong. If made to stand on their feet, they’d have to admit that populism actually represents the failure of liberal democracy.

  • Photo: Partido dos Trabalhadores

    A trial for Lula and Brazilian democracy: What’s next for Brazil?

    Brazil has just taken another step toward the dismantling of its democracy. On January 24, an appeals court confirmed a previous ruling against former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party), sentencing him to over 12 years in jail.

  • Berlin Bulletin by Victor Grossman

    GROKO or NO GROKO?

    It happened in Bonn last Sunday, on January 21st. There were close to 650 delegates, the gallery in the congress hall was also packed with observers. The suspense was almost visible, also among the demonstrators outside. All over Germany millions were watching closely to see if the future path of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), […]

  • Laurent Joffrin and Alain Badiou

    Alain Badiou debates reformist Laurent Joffrin

    Alain Badiou is former chair of philosophy at École normale supérleure and author of In Praise of Politics. Laurent Joffrin is editor of Libération newspaper—and a reformist who defends existing social democracy. Alain Badiou recently announced that he would stop running his seminar. He also announced that he would soon be publishing The Immanence of Truths, completing […]

  • Berlin Bulletin by Victor Grossman

    Crisis in Germany?

    The impasse in forming a government in Germany has dragged on since election day, September 24th—often like a traffic gridlock, hardly moving forward. But Germany is Europe’s main central power—and with no proper government!

  • Moshé Machover

    Eroding the consensus: imperialism, democracy, Zionism & the Labour Party

    Science for the People is in the process of relaunching as a publication in the United States. The original magazine archives can be viewed here. Click here to sign the petition to investigate Moshé Machover’s expulsion from the Labour Party. Science for the People (SP): Thank you for speaking with us. As the details of […]

  • Capitalism by Sergej Bag

    Capitalism unhinged: crisis of legitimacy in the United States

    This is expanded and updated from an article first published in German in Das Argument: Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Sozialwissenschaften, no. 323 (2017/3); republished with the kind permission of its editors; originally presented in a panel “The Crisis of the Political,” Institut für kritische Theorie, Berlin, June 9, 2017. For their comments and suggestions, I […]

  • Berlin Bulletin by Victor Grossman

    From gender to Jamaica

    It didn’t affect many people directly, but even small victories are welcome these days. Germany’s Constitutional Court just ruled that no-one should be forced to declare themselves officially male or female. It thus created a third open category anyone can opt for (or be opted by parents when still a child). I think everyone can […]

  • An image allegedly taken after the destruction of Monument to the Victory of the people of Slavonia in Croatia, 1992.

    Only intelligent planning can save us

    Universalism is not an innocent concept. In “The Grandeur and Twilight of Radical Universalism,” published shortly after the fall of historical communism, Ágnes Heller and Ferenc Fehér, former Marxist philosophers and disciples of Georg Lukács, accused Marx and his followers of turning the Hegelian concept of universalism into a philosophy of praxis, a “predictive and action-orienting device” applied to change the world.

  • Alexis Tsipras and Yanis Varoufakis

    Yanis Varoufakis’s self-incriminating account of the Greek Crisis (Part 3)

    [box type=”note” style=”rounded”]Part 1: Proposals Doomed to Fail Part 2: Varoufakis’s questionable account of the origins of the Greek crisis and his surprising relations with the political class Part 3: How Tsípras, with Varoufakis’s aid, turned his back on Syriza’s platform [/box] Yanis Varoufakis traces his collaboration with Alexis Tsípras and his alter ego, Nikos […]

  • Yanis Varoufakis’s self-incriminating account of the Greek Crisis (Part 2)

    [box type=”note” style=”rounded”] Part 1: Proposals Doomed to Fail Part 2: Varoufakis’s questionable account of the origins of the Greek crisis and his surprising relations with the political class Part 3: How Tsípras, with Varoufakis’s aid, turned his back on Syriza’s platform [/box] In his latest book Adults in the Room, Yanis Varoufakis gives us […]

  • Elias Jaua (Venezuelanalysis photo)

    The other battle: to consolidate commandante Chavez’s dream

    Beyond electoral battles and victories, the Bolivarian Revolution must fight a strategic battle every day; that is the battle of ideas. This cannot be waged simply through theoretical debate alone, but through the real practice of political ethics.

  • Shredded Grants. Union of Concerned Scientists.

    Trashing science in Government grants isn’t normal

    There is now a political appointee of the Trump administration at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), John Konkus, reviewing grant solicitations and proposals in the public affairs office.

  • Burning bolivar

    The campaign against the economic war and corruption in Venezuela

    The resounding Chavista victory in the October 15 gubernatorial elections provides a golden opportunity to take bold measures to overcome shortcomings even while risking clashes with powerful individuals or groups.

  • Berlin Bulletin by Victor Grossman

    Jamaica, traffic lights, threats and knees

    The left can only succeed and make gains by taking the lead in overcoming confusion and directing anger against those truly responsible for issues impacting the working class: in direct opposition to the scapegoating of conservatives and liberals alike.

  • Photo credit: Al Jazeera

    ‘Brazil has lost control over its natural resources because it has lost its sovereignty’

    One of the main issues of Michel Temer’s government is the surrender of Brazilian natural resources to national and foreign economic groups.

  • AdD supports marching in Germany

    Germany and the rise of a ‘fascist international’

    Germany funds foundations for its political parties. If the far right gets one, we’re one step closer to globalizing the alt-right.

  • Berlin Bulletin by Victor Grossman

    Merkel clobbered while rightists threaten

    A key result of the German elections is not that Angela Merkel and her double party, Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Bavarian CSU (Christian Social Union), managed to stay in the lead with the most votes, but that they got clobbered, with the biggest loss since their founding.