Transforming democracy in times of crisis
Can this crisis provide a window of opportunity to re-organize and shift power to build radical democratic systems that genuinely care for the environment and our collective well-being?
building resilient societies
Diversifying Power: Excerpt
A trusted and competent government is an essential component of the transformative changes required to simultaneously confront the climate crisis and reduce economic and racial injustices.
Gritty Hope: now what could possibly go right?
“What could possibly go right?” To hold such a brazen question in tough times, we may just have to dig deeper into our souls, and accept that “right” may not ripen for decades or even centuries.
Even as my heart breaks for those suffering the consequences of our monumental blindness to the cost of modernity, I still ask, “What could possibly go right?”
Tufton Street: Fiery Words Under a Police Helicopter
Writers are by the nature of their trade rebels – rebelling against the past and its hostilities that hold us all ransom, breaking convention, the rigidity of the status quo, so that entropy does not set in and life can flourish. Their loyalty is not to their upbringing, but to their art.
Extinction Rebellion is showing Britain what real democracy could look like
Through his incompetence, callousness and greed for power, Johnson has done us two favours: exposing the shallowness of our theatrical democracy, and creating a potential coalition ranging from hospital porters to supreme court judges. Now we must decide how to mobilise it.
Rushing to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, McConnell shows power trumps principle
People in public life tend to fall into one of two broad categories – those motivated by principle, and those motivated by power.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on Friday night at the age of 87, exemplified the first.
A history of true civilisation is not one of monuments
Civilisation is a way of talking about human history on the largest scale. From the cave paintings of Lascaux to the latest MoMA exhibition, it binds human history together.
Education in a Time of Collapse
The assumption that the future is going to be just like the past is untenable. If we keep educating our students on the basis of this assumption, then that means we’re not preparing them for the world.
The risk of a progressive reversal
Thinking about the post-pandemic future and the scenarios that could emerge is as challenging as it is important. One cannot conceive of a more pressing issue for a progressive movement. Finding a workable response is thus of critical importance.
Wendell Berry’s wisdom in a time of pandemic
Our health is therefore predicated on more than our own physical resilience. To be healthy, we must acknowledge—and love—the entire web of life we are part of.
If democracy looks doomed, Extinction Rebellion may have an answer
At the heart of a new climate emergency bill lies a simple idea to cut through Westminster groupthink: a citizens’ assembly.
Truth and Redistribution
Economic justice cannot take root or flourish when the wealth, power, resources, news media, book publishers, educational curricula, technological surveillance, prisons, business capital, and all of our existing institutions are owned or controlled by a handful of plutocrats.
