By Yavor Tarinski, Towards Autonomy
All the modern short-cuts (such as self-help, esotericism etc.) are tools that can give us an illusion of being free in an unfree world. Actual freedom is nothing short of genuinely democratic action.
By Mark Engler, Paul Engler, Waging Nonviolence
Those promoting co-governance describe it as a new relationship between social movements and the candidates they help win office — a partnership in which activists and elected officials work to maintain a long-term relationship, closely coordinate strategy and advance grassroots priorities.
By Bart Anderson, Resilence.org
You know a satirical movie has hit its target when the mainstream reviewers call it “shrill” and “overblown.”
By Samantha Rose Hill, Open Democracy
Truth isn’t political. If anything it is anti-political, since historically it has often been positioned against politics. Truth-tellers have always stood outside the political realm as the object of collective scorn.
By Eva Schonveld, Justin Kenrick, Medium
We can choose to believe the future is inescapably set in stone, and thereby make it so; or we can dare to create an opening for a different future, and so give us all a chance.
By Rachel Ramirez, Grist
Indonesia’s sinking capital of Jakarta and the surrounding areas have been inundated with rain, triggering landslides and floods that have killed dozens of people.
By George Monbiot, The Guardian blog
If there is a formula for the new demagoguery, there must also be a formula for confronting and overturning it. I don’t yet have a complete answer, but I believe there are some strands we can draw together.
By Helen Camakaris, The Conversation
Like most people, I hoped climate policy would improve, but years of infighting and adversarial politics have resulted in a dearth of climate action, where cooperation might well have yielded positive results. One solution to this frustrating deadlock is to place the responsibility for climate policy at arm’s length from political actors. We need a Council for the Future, tasked with the long-term thinking that eludes so many of our elected representatives.
By Tegan Tallulah, The Climate Lemon
The fact that climate change is mostly caused by the rich and yet the poorest, who have done least to cause it and have the least resources to respond, will be hit most seriously by the damaging impacts – is uncomfortable. But it is important.
By Matías Bianchi, Cristian León, Open Democracy
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.
By Ian Hughes, Open Democracy
Is it possible to transform politics around values such as empathy, solidarity and love? Many progressive commentators think so, and have laid out different plans to put these ideas into practice. But empathy and love seem in short supply in the actuality of politics today, crowded out by hate and intolerance.
By Mathew Lawrence, Laurie Laybourn-Langton, Red Pepper
It seems that the short lived cycles of electoral politics means that politicians chase short-term goals, rather than tackling problems such as climate change which require long-term, global thinking. The test of a capable politician in 2018 is whether they take a stand against cavalier resource extraction.