Subjects Archives: Democracy

Abby Martin goes on the deadly front lines of the anti government protests in Venezuela and follows the evolution of a typical guarimba—or opposition barricade. She explains what the targets from the opposition reveal about the nature of the movement and breaks down the reality of the death toll that has rocked the nation since the unrest began, and how a lynch mob campaign came after her and the Empire Files team for reporting these facts.

Many on the Left have been deeply critical of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) since before it was fast-tracked into law by former President Bill Clinton in 1994. Now, President Donald Trump’s current plan to renegotiate NAFTA is poised to make the massive trade deal even worse.

US policy toward Cuba (Trump reverses Obama’s Cuba deal, limiting travel and trade, 17 June) has been hijacked by a clique of Cuban-American politicians, who have sold their support in Congress to President Donald Trump. Above all, these individuals – and Trump – have demonstrated the corrupt and clientelist nature of the US political system. Can such a system serve as a symbol of “freedom” to anyone in the world?

When the US bombed a Syrian military airfield in April, the White House said US intelligence had confirmed the Assad regime used chemical weapons in the town of Khan Sheikhun.… Veteran journalist Seymour Hersh reports US intelligence actually warned president Trump it had no evidence that the Syrian military had used sarin gas.

If you reject from the outset the idea of uniting a majority based on shared economic interests, then pretty much all you’ve got left is the “thoughtful and humane co-optation” of racism and xenophobia.

In what is being called the “biggest protest crackdown since the Civil Rights Era,” Republicans in at least 20 states have put forward or passed laws with the intention of making protest more difficult and the punishment for expressing dissent more draconian since President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.

A limited partial breach has been made in the neoliberal edifice, through the demonstration by Corbyn, McDonnell and their allies that a programme and leadership that challenges these orthodoxies and proposes alternatives to them can do better electorally than those which conform to it.

The experience of the last three decades has clearly demonstrated that social struggles in and of themselves are not sufficient to stop the drift to the right and re-establish a dynamic of social advances. That requires going beyond defensive strategies and creating a positive alternative project that is authentically social and democratic.

When it came to the general election in Britain, everything was settled in advance. The Conservative Party led by Theresa May was supposed to prevail. The Labour Party, victim of its own confusion, its refusal to support the will of millions of members and voters who wanted to put an end to the straitjacket of the European Union, was supposed to be trounced.

While Jeremy Corbyn didn’t become Prime Minister, he did pull off the most stunning upset in recent political history. And he did this by turning out voters who, according to all received wisdom, would never vote, above all the young and poor.

In a number of recently posted articles (see here) it seemed clear that a UK General Election upset was in the making, despite the tirade of anti-Corbyn commentary from mainstream media in the UK. Now it has happened.

This whole project to hollow out institutions has only one aim which is the creation of a predatory state whose only reason for existence is to accumulate and plunder the country’s resources for the benefit of family members of Jacob Zuma, as well as the network of greedy, corrupt families who also benefit from crony capitalism.

Following the script by the experts and strategists of the CIA, specialized in destabilizing and tearing down governments, counter-revolutionary tactics in Venezuela have made a “quality jump”: what began with a warm-up on the streets has now transitioned to a non-declared (but nonetheless bloody) civil war.

This short satirical film from Bella Caledonia (by Edinburgh filmmaker Bonnie Prince Bob) was originally banned by YouTube when it was released three weeks ago (it has since returned). As far as we are concerned it is a brilliant piece of propaganda that should go viral once again.

Since losing the presidential elections the Democratic Party has been waging non-stop war against President Trump, focusing on his allegedly dubious connections with Russia. Abetting them have been members of the security and intelligence services who have been leaking information to the press. You might say that ‘all is well in love and war’, and that it’s quite fair to use whatever weapon one can to attack your political opponents. But in this case, I think, the attacks have not only long since became entirely divorced from reality but have also descended into gross irresponsibility.

Words like fascist and authoritarian get thrown around too promiscuously. But there is no other way to describe David Clarke, who today announced that he was named assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. (The Department has not confirmed Clarke’s appointment.) Clarke occupies the extremist, anti-democratic fringe of far-right officials, even by the standards of the Trump administration.

On a recent visit to Britain, Noam Chomsky explained that an “extremely hostile media” is damaging Jeremy Corbyn’s appeal, and as a result is responsible for Corbyn’s unpopularity.

The U.S. media’s treatment of the crisis in Venezuela is almost as craven as the corporate media in Venezuela itself. Articles like the following from TeleSur, and an article we recently posted from The Dawn, provide a much-needed corrective. As Marta Harnecker explained the April 2017 issue of MR (“A New Revolutionary Subject“): “The attacks […]

Monthly Review Press author Gerald Horne, Robert Pollin and Paul Jay discuss the debate within the Trump White House on whether to leave the Paris climate accords or just undermine them; and how this relates to the fight within the Democratic Party.

From El Salvador, where the meeting of Chancellors of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) is being held, the Minister of Education and leader of the Presidential Commission of the Constituent National Assembly affirmed that one of his goals is to restore the principle of cooperation of the powers, because that’s the only way to preserve peace in the country given the opposition’s lack of will to dialogue.