The Lessons of the Great Beaufort Skedaddle
On the 157th anniversary of the Great Beaufort Skedaddle, it’s worth remembering that sometimes doubling down on one’s way of life brings about catastrophe from which there is no recovery.
Society featured
The American Civil War didn’t End. And Trump is a Confederate President
In the 158th year of the American civil war, also known as 2018, the Confederacy continues its recent resurgence. Its victims include black people, of course, but also immigrants, Jews, Muslims, Latinos, trans people, gay people and women who want to exercise jurisdiction over their bodies.
The Price of Failed Promises in Brazil
When social reformers fail to make good on their promises, it is of little surprise that they get punished. Any legitimate State or ruling body needs to maintain the trust of its citizens in order to function. When trust is lost, the vacuum is created for the “strong man” to walk in.
Now What? From Political Innovation to Democratic Resilience in Latin America
All alarms have gone off in Latin America’s democracies. Bolsonaro’s triumph in Brazil is the consolidation of an emerging global trend which uses social aversion to politics to establish authoritarian and often openly anti-democratic alternatives.
Regenerative Cultures: Review
“Designing Regenerative Cultures” by Daniel Wahl is an essential guidebook for our time that everyone should read, young and old. Through this book we come to realise deeply that there is a way out of the madness of our current societal systems in which so many people and non-human species have become trapped.
Zero-Sum America: An Empire Headed Toward Collapse
Driven by zero-sum thinking, the rigid, inflexible, ideological thinking and obsessive need of our collective human ego to be absolutely and imperatively “right”, is rapidly driving our Nation and our American democracy toward collapse.
Our Political Saviors: the Republicans
So what really interests me is whether we may be entering another ‘Machiavellian moment’ when smallholder republicanism may, at least in some places, arise as a response to new times and challenges.
‘Dark Municipalism’: The Dangers of Local Politics
Continuing our discussion of the potential pitfalls of radical municipalism, we want to address this toxic strain of localism – what we’ve termed dark municipalism – and why it is so dangerous. If a diverse, egalitarian, and ecological local politics is to be successful, it must develop strategies for addressing and combating these tendencies.
The Case for Reparations
Even if we accept that useful things were shared during colonialism – universities, for instance – that is not the same as saying they were a benefit of colonization. Colonialism is not a necessary vector for the transfer of knowledge or technology.
How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them
In his new book “How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them,” Yale professor Jason Stanley warns about the dangers of normalizing fascist politics, writing, “What normalization does is transform the morally extraordinary into the ordinary. It makes us able to tolerate what was once intolerable by making it seem as if this is the way things have always been.”
Thinking of Suing the Trump Administration on Climate Change?
In the past week or two Trumpsters gave climate defenders new reasons to take the Administration to court—of either the legal or public opinion variety.
The Response Podcast Episode 1: Radical Approaches to Disaster Relief in New York
In our new podcast series, The Response, we aim to share a perspective that isn’t extensively covered in the mainstream media. Specifically, we ask the question: how do communities come together in the aftermath of disasters — often in the face of inadequate official response — to take care of each other?
