Democracy Archives - Page 58 of 97

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#BlackLivesMatter and the Democratic Necessity of Social Movements

What active citizenship can look like and what it can accomplish

November 8, 2017 • by Deva Woodly

– Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison 1787 “We who believe in freedom cannot rest.” – Ella Baker 1964[1] Social movements are often regarded as potentially hazardous disruptions, uprisings that interfere with the normal mechanisms of politics -- insurgencies that must be either repressed or swiftly re-incorporated into the regular legislative process. In ...

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A Year Later, Democrats Roar Back

Post-election analysis, and inaugurating Purple Wednesday

November 8, 2017 • by Claire Potter

It wasn't just Donald Trump's unexpected win over Hillary Clinton, but the year of political rancor and division that had set me adrift. I have friends and colleagues, mostly those who -- quite properly -- viewed Clinton's defeat as a bitter reflection of their own encounters with sexism, and who ...

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Older Workers’ Gender Gap in Paid vs Unpaid Work Hurts Women’s Retirement Savings

October 2017 Unemployment Report for Workers Over 55

November 5, 2017 • by Teresa Ghilarducci

Both men and women ages 55-64 spend the same amount of time working each week -- 47.9 hours a week for men and 48 hours a week for women -- including both paid work in the labor market and unpaid household work. But of this total, men spend more time in ...

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Pentagon Anti-war March

50 years later Vietnam War protestors reunite

November 3, 2017 • by Jo Freeman

On October 21, 1967 some 50,000 people marched on the Pentagon to "Confront the Warmakers" about the War in Vietnam. Fifty years later about one hundred of them met in DC to commemorate the event. They began the evening of October 20 with a small rally in front of the Pentagon. After a couple speeches, ...

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Who are the Rebels in the Catalan Democracy Crisis?

Evil is never obvious

November 1, 2017 • by Jordan Luber

Catalonia has 16% of Spain’s population. It accounts for 25% of its exports and 19% of the Spanish GDP. After Spain’s financial collapse in 2008, the secessionist movement began to gather steam, saying that Catalonia gives more money to Spain than it gets back.[1] In 2014 an unofficial, non-binding referendum ...

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What Cass Sunstein Gets Wrong About Marxism, Sanders, and American Politics

Heightening the Contradictions and Missing the Point

October 31, 2017 • by Jan Dutkiewicz and Andrew Norris

Sunstein mentions, in his lone footnote, that his account of Marx and Lenin’s views on “heightening the contradictions” is “a brisk summary of some famously complex and ambiguous arguments.” But the problem is not that his summary is overly brisk, but that it is fundamentally inaccurate and is used as ...

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The Manafort Indictment

Twelve Counts — and I’m Still Counting

October 31, 2017 • by Claire Potter

For those of us who have been waiting almost a year for some good news, yesterday's indictment of Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates was a real lift. The bonus news that someone who had been flying under the radar -- George Papadopoulos, a former foreign policy adviser to the ...

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Jeffrey C. Isaac, John McCain and Me

Thinking about a Democratic Antifa

October 27, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

Isaac documents the danger that is White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. General Kelley’s disciplined authoritarianism may be more “adult” than that of his boss. Yet, as Isaac observes, it is enabling and not controlling the threat Trump presents to American democracy. Analyzing the interactive context of Trump’s telephone conversation with ...

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No Muslim Ban Marches in D.C.

October 18th 2017

October 27, 2017 • by Jo Freeman

Two thousand people rallied and marched from Lafayette Park to the Trump Hotel on October 18. Organized by immigrant and civil rights groups, it was the culmination of a couple weeks of activities to demand that there never be any ban in Muslims entering the U.S. The day before a federal judge in ...

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Mourning Poland’s Burning Man

Polish man sets himself on fire after distributing letter condemning PiS Party

October 26, 2017 • by Sławomir Sierakowski

The text of the letter is eminently rational. It carefully enumerates and decries actions taken by Poland’s government that, according to Polish and international courts alike, amount to an attack on the rule of law and liberal democracy. The letter accuses the government, controlled by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, ...

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The Case for Curiosity in the Fight Against Anti-Blackness

Why We Need a Beginner’s Mind

October 26, 2017 • by Shanelle Matthews

In part, the dearth of curiosity about Black people is a direct result of the ways in which anti-Blackness and white supremacy obscure Black people’s inherent value and worth. In the face of this reality, we have to find a way to build and broaden people’s curiosity about Blackness anyway. ...

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The Virality of Patriotic Antiracism

Combat Veterans and Geopolitical Racism

October 25, 2017 • by Amir Sadeghi

Today, however, the struggle to destabilize the institutional fabric of disenfranchisement, imprisonment, and wealth inequality risks being buried by viral images of combat veterans “taking a knee,” or the children of service members killed in combat signaling their support for the “cause.” Generally speaking, it has become patriotic to stand ...