Politics Archives - Page 44 of 109

Activism

Reflections on Violence

In defense of rioting, looting, and vandalism

April 15, 2021 • by E. Colin Ruggero and AK Thompson

_____ What follows is an excerpt from a longer interview with AK Thompson, conducted by E. Colin Ruggero, and published as part of a special edition of Theory in Action titled “Revisiting the Riot: 10th Anniversary of A.K. Thompson’s Black Bloc, White Riot.” Thompson’s book was first published in 2010 by the ...

Politics

Dan Crenshaw’s Eye

As he recovers from sight-saving surgery, will the second-term Texas congressman reflect on the health insurance that other Americans don’t have?

April 12, 2021 • by Claire Potter

_____ Last week, Representative Dan Crenshaw (R, TX-2) sent out a quietly heartbreaking press release. It notified constituents and colleagues that Crenshaw would be temporarily out of commission as doctors work to save his one partially-functioning eye. OK, you may not like Crenshaw very much: I don’t. He is a Trump baby, elected ...

Democracy

Brazil

Land of despair

April 8, 2021 • by Daniel Peres

Brazil faces two threats, both lethal. On top of COVID-19, the country faces another virus, lethal to democracy: the virus of autocracy. The pandemic is brutally sweeping Brazil. Almost 4000 deaths per day, according to official data. There is no reason to doubt that we will reach more than 500,000 ...

Politics

Biden Must Fire IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig

Trump cronies have no place in the new administration

April 8, 2021 • by Sion Bell

_____ Like many of former President Trump’s appointees, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles Rettig made a name for himself combatting the very agency he would later lead. Before getting appointed to the position in 2018, Rettig worked for over 30 years as a tax attorney in Beverly Hills representing some of ...

Biden Must Fire IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig

Politics

Don’t Dismiss Mitch McConnell’s ‘Warning’ to Corporations

It reflects larger, historical forces at work

April 7, 2021 • by John Stoehr

_____ As you know, the Republican Party is the party of business. It has been that way since the late 19th century. What you may not know is that some Republicans have always taken a dim view of corporate power, depending on their brand of conservatism. Prior to Ronald Reagan’s ascent, ...

Don’t Dismiss Mitch McConnell’s ‘Warning’ to Corporations

Politics

Is Corporate America Rebuking the Republican Party?

Georgia’s voting rights laws are forcing unlikely alliances between the Democrats and Big Business

April 6, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

_____ The Republican outrage over Major League Baseball moving the All-Star game out of Georgia after the passage of the state’s new voter suppression law reveals a bigger crisis in American democracy: the mechanics of our current system do not reflect the will of the majority. Consumer-driven corporate America is increasingly throwing ...

Is Corporate America Rebuking the Republican Party?

Economy

Infrastructure Is the Gift That Keeps on Giving

But the GOP will oppose this important jobs bill and the taxes one billionaires that could redistribute wealth to millions of Americans

April 1, 2021 • by Heather Cox Richardson

_____ This week, President Joe Biden unveiled a new $2 trillion infrastructure proposal titled The American Jobs Plan. The statement introducing the plan notes that the United States currently ranks 13th in the world for the quality of our infrastructure, and that our public domestic investment as a share of the ...

Infrastructure Is the Gift That Keeps on Giving

North America

The Case for Creating a National Lustration Commission for the United States

It’s a way to stabilize fragile democratic institutions

April 1, 2021 • by Monika Nalepa and Colleen Murphy

_____ The storming of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob on January 6 has made it clear that a surprising number of police and military veterans are currently affiliated with armed right wing militias. But suspending and firing a few police officers and soldiers in response likely won’t suffice. And any mass ...

The Case for Creating a National Lustration Commission for the United States

East Asia & Pacific

China’s Return to Global Dominance

What it means for America — and for the future of democracy around the world

April 1, 2021 • by John Keane

_____ When future historians look back on our discordant times, they will surely report an epochal shift of global importance: a transition from failed attempts to restore America’s greatness to China’s return, after two centuries of subjugation, to world pre-eminence. The writing is already on the wall, but strange prejudices, bitter ...

The Internet

Glenn Greenwald Punches Down

Worse, when he attacked an intern for USA Today, this established and wealthy journalist also threw the truth under the bus

April 1, 2021 • by Claire Potter

My disappointment with Glenn Greenwald, who I once admired for his work on the Snowden revelations, escalates. Watch as Greenwald, who has 1.6 million followers, deliberately exposes a recent college graduate, a woman, to a screaming mob of trolls on March 28, 2021: Screenshot via Glenn Greenwald's Twitter @ggreenwald. What a bully. More importantly, ...

Politics

The Struggle at Turkey’s Boğaziçi University

Attacks on higher education tighten the grip of the AKP’s hegemonic project

April 1, 2021 • by Birgan Gokmenoglu

_____ Late at night on January 1, 2021, by presidential decree, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appointed new rectors to five universities in Turkey. One was Professor Melih Bulu, who became rector of the prestigious Boğaziçi University. This liberal and pluralist institution hosts dissident students and faculty, including many connected to Academics for Peace, ...

The Struggle at Turkey’s Boğaziçi University

Politics

Obama Said He’d Close Guantánamo — These Activists Are Pushing Biden to Finish the Job

What should have been an end to the Guantánamo saga in 2012, was only the beginning of more grueling work for this anti-torture coalition

April 1, 2021 • by Jeremy Varon

_____ I remember, as if in a distant dream, repeating through sobs of joy and exhaustion, “It’s over. It’s over.” On live TV President Obama had just signed, as his first official act in January 2009, an executive order mandating the closure of the prison at Guantánamo. To Obama’s right stood ...