Democracy Archives - Page 36 of 55

Democracy

The Empire Strikes Back

Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement faces an uncertain future

May 28, 2020 • by Mark Frazier

On May 22, 2020, the National People’s Congress (NPC) in Beijing announced it would debate a new national policy for Hong Kong, a draft piece of legislation with an imposingly long and misleadingly soporific title: “Decision of the National People’s Congress on Establishing and Completing the Hong Kong Special Administrative ...

Democracy

Troilus and Cressida and a Diseased Body Politic

Reading Shakespeare in a time of plague

May 28, 2020 • by Emily Pitts Donahoe

We are perennially curious about what Shakespeare can teach us about our own world, hoping to find instruction and solace in his plays, poems, and exemplary turns of phrase. Recently, this curiosity has produced a score of tweets and articles speculating about Shakespeare’s productivity during periods when the plague ravaged London, ...

Troilus and Cressida and a Diseased Body Politic

North America

Lessons from the History of the Left

A network of SDS veterans reflects on the importance of elections

May 28, 2020 • by Robert J. S. Ross

On Monday, April 13, the Democratic nomination contest de facto over, I learned that Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), would refuse to endorse Biden, in accord with a contentious decision DSA made during the summer of 2019 not to endorse any other Democrat for president if Bernie Sanders was not ...

North America

An Open Letter to the New New Left From the Old New Left

Now it is time for all those who yearn for a more equal and just social order to face facts

May 28, 2020 • by Former leaders of the Students for a Democratic Society

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country.…“…[L]ay your shoulders to the wheel; … Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope ...

An Open Letter to the New New Left From the Old New Left

North America

A Letter to the Bernie-or-Bust People

Why I’m voting for Biden

May 28, 2020 • by Sarah Newman

In 2000, I was a member of the Green Party and working for its presidential candidate, Ralph Nader. A twenty-something living in San Francisco, I took the bus every day to the Green Party’s campaign office in the city’s Mission District. It was a cavernous, dusty old store-front with political ...

North America

The Two-Party System is Toast

What the socialist path to power looks like

May 28, 2020 • by Honda Wang

During the early stages of the 2019–20 Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders was a persistent progressive thorn in the side of the Democratic establishment. He regularly maintained a solid second place in the horse race, polling between 15–18 percent once Joe Biden officially announced his candidacy in April 2019. In June, ...

North America

The DSA, Left-Bashing, and Joe Biden

We are about as interested in endorsing Biden as Biden’s campaign is interested in our endorsement

May 28, 2020 • by Annie Levin

The decision by Democratic Socialists of America to not endorse Joe Biden in the general election has been met with cries of alarm by some of our progressive friends. We are told that we are living through a second Weimar era and electing a Democrat to the presidency is our ...

North America

Why Socialists Should Support the Democratic Ticket in November…

… Even if it is led by Joe Biden

May 28, 2020 • by Max B. Sawicky

Enthused by the wave of support for the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016, I joined DSA shortly after leaving the federal government the following year. The group seemed well-positioned to take that wave of support and turn it into something enduring. My optimism has been elevated by the emergence of ...

Why Socialists Should Support the Democratic Ticket in November…

Democracy

Misinformation in a Moment of Crisis is Incredibly Dangerous

May 26, 2020 • by Jonathan Beale

It’s madness. But it’s not difficult to imagine people resorting to similar actions now, influenced by misinformation about how to stave off the novel coronavirus. Most of us would also take desperate measures to evade death. And indeed, unreasonable desperate measures are multiplying during the Covid-19 pandemic. Gary and Wanda Lenius, ...

Misinformation in a Moment of Crisis is Incredibly Dangerous

Democracy

Liberty in the Time of Corona

What does it take to be free in a liberal democracy?

May 20, 2020 • by Cécile Laborde

The coronavirus pandemic has led to the severe curtailment of civil liberties and the lockdown of billions of people worldwide. Some states’ reaction to the pandemic has been seen as more effective than others. In particular, authoritarian governments, such as China, now boast about their efficient management of the crisis and are providing support and ...

North America

Do Not Presume a Fair Election

“Obamagate” reveals the skulduggery still to come.

May 15, 2020 • by John Stoehr

The president and his confederates in the United States Congress have spent the last several days manufacturing a controversy for the press corps to report and debate. Donald Trump has dubbed it “Obamagate.” It seems to have something to do with the previous administration’s lawful handling of the case of former ...

Europe & Central Asia

Letter from Glasgow

Labour renewed in a Britain unchanged

May 14, 2020 • by Simon Jones

But then in late April, the blossom trees awaken in the resurgent sun, their brilliant petals a thrilling antidote to the months of grey. Within days of their fading arrives the full vibrancy of the parks and countryside around Glasgow, a reminder that the trade-off for living somewhere so apparently ...