Why I Don’t Like the Leading Democratic Candidates to be President of the United States

And why I would support anyone of them

“I am devastated. All of my public commitments are under attack. I thought there was progress during my lifetime. Democracy and the positive developments of democratic culture, free speech and expression, social justice and the fight against racism, sexism, class exploitation, xenophobia, and much more, all seemed to advance, even ...
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Why I Don’t Like the Leading Democratic Candidates to be President of the United States

With Impeachment, Messaging is Everything.

And the Democrats seem behind the curve.

Strategic communication. Trump’s White House has eliminated press briefings, viciously attacked the press and indeed all independent media sources, and organized a cynical and relentless campaign of disinformation via Twitter, Facebook, Fox News, Breitbart, YouTube, the One America News Network, and a range of other media. Trump in office -- with the ...
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With Impeachment, Messaging is Everything.

Post-Workers of the World, Unite!

Reconciling Open Borders and Post-Work Politics

Labour party members passed a motion at the 2019 conference asserting that “free movement, equality and rights for migrants are socialist values and benefit us all.” This socialist framing of freedom of movement emphasizes that migrants are workers and marks a clear contrast with Bernie Sanders’s description of open borders as a “right-wing ...
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Post-Workers of the World, Unite!

Romania in 2020

Fighting Corruption Just Got Harder because of Trump

The big unknown for Romania moving into 2020 is its relationship with the United States. Though Romanians have become more anti-American in the last few years, they are still the second most pro-American post-socialist state in Europe (Poland is in first place). Since 1990, the U.S. ambassador has played a ...
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Romania in 2020

Who is the Audience for the Judiciary Committee Hearing?

An Evaluation of the House Democratic Leadership’s Performance

I have long expressed my exasperation with the timid way in which the House Democratic leadership has only reluctantly moved toward impeachment, even in the face of the damning Mueller Report, and then has proceeded in the most narrow and legalistic way imaginable. Trump is a very dangerous President, and it ...
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Who is the Audience for the Judiciary Committee Hearing?

The Romanian 2019 Presidential Elections

Populism on the retreat

Romania was one of the post-communist countries to join the neoliberal bandwagon slower than the Visegrad group and made it to EU membership just when the 2008 global crisis was about to break. For over a decade after the end of the brutal Nicolae Ceausescu dictatorship, old communist apparatchiks together ...
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The Romanian 2019 Presidential Elections

The EU’s University in Exile

On November 15, Central European University (CEU) officially inaugurated its new campus in Vienna, Austria, having been arbitrarily ousted from Hungary. On the same day, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government opened another large sports stadium in Budapest. Predictably, the government-controlled Hungarian media focused on the latter event and ignored the departure of ...
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The EU’s University in Exile

Anarchafeminism

Towards an ontology of the transindividual

Yet, strikingly enough, in all the literature engaging with intersectionality, there is barely any mention of the feminist tradition of the past that has been claiming exactly the same point for a very long time: anarchist feminism, or as I prefer to call it “anarchAfeminism.” The latter term has been ...
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Anarchafeminism

Can Democracy Be Established Undemocratically?

The Ethical and Political Dilemmas of the Czechoslovak Velvet Revolution

November 17th, 2019 was the thirtieth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. This revolution, marvelous though it was, and its aftermath, I believe, demonstrates that creating a mature democracy out of thin air is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. The apparent success of the revolution hid flaws that seemed ...
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Can Democracy Be Established Undemocratically?

This Mess of Troubled Times

Has 1989 vanished beneath a mountain of interpretation and reflection?

The processes set in motion by the disintegration of the socialist economy in eastern Europe eluded all analytical frameworks. It was a time of ‘wild thinking’, in which received ideas were reconsidered and values re-assessed. We are still living through this troubled era, writes the historian of the Soviet Union ...
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This Mess of Troubled Times

Pete Buttigieg, Groypers, and Sesame Street’s 50th Anniversary

Episode 205

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: “Mayor Pete,” once a long-shot candidate, is increasingly a serious contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. Natalia referred to Michael Kruse’s POLITICO piece about the electoral viability of a gay candidate. Neil noted Buttigieg had won the 2000 Profile in Courage Essay Contest for an ...
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