A critical response to the Manifesto signed by over 100 French academics and published in the newspaper Le Monde on 2 November 2020, after the assassination of the school teacher, Samuel Paty.
After the Trumpster Fire
9 November 2020, byTHE ELECTION IS now over except a few recounts, dead-end Trump lawsuits and two Georgia Senate runoffs. Most of America – and the world - is righteously celebrating the end of the Trump-Pence presidency and the specter of another four years of the national and international nightmare.
A reflection on the Puerto Rican elections
9 November 2020, byIn the 2020 Puerto Rican general elections, the trend of decreased support for the Partido Popular Democrático (PPD) and Partido Nuevo Progresista (PNP), the principal political forces for the last half a century, continued. After decades of neoliberal politics, after the government’s complete unwillingness to deal with an economic crisis that started in 2006 and continues 14 years later, Puerto Rico will have Pedro Pierluisi as governor.
Whoever Wins, This Election Is Not the End of Trumpism
8 November 2020, byJoe Biden and the Democrats have steadfastly refused to articulate a compelling alternative political vision to Donald Trump’s reactionary right-wing politics. Trump looks likely to have lost, but without creating an alternative to defeat it, Trumpism could return with a vengeance four years from now.
‘We just had the heart to fight the boss’
7 November 2020, byAn interview with activist To Chi-kuen of Borderless Movement by To Chi-kuen and Promise Li.
Democratic movement attacks the established order in Thailand
6 November 2020, byLed by young people and benefiting from broad support, the Thai democratic movement continues to mature. It is challenging the military-monarchist oligarchy, confronting the royal couple and harking back to the militant struggles of the past. The enthronement of King Rama X has opened a major succession crisis. More profoundly, a whole archaic order - which had succeeded in the 1990s and 2000s in aborting attempts to “modernize” the kingdom, shattering the hopes of democratization of society – is being called into question.
US Presidential Elections: Requiem for a threatened coup d’état
5 November 2020, byVote-counting in the US presidential elections is not yet over although Biden seems to be close to victory. A view from the US. [IVP]
The crushing of Chechnya’s aspirations for independence:
4 November 2020, by ,“The Chechen national movement emerged during perestroika, a time of real political ferment across the USSR, when a huge variety of ideas and currents that had been suppressed surged into the open. In a sense, nationalism provided a coherence and focus that was otherwise lacking in this new political landscape. But in the Chechen case, the trauma of the deportations added an urgency to the nationalist imaginary: many of the leaders of the movement had been born in exile, and were committed above all to ensuring the same disaster never befell their people again. Sovereignty became the means for achieving that.”
Bolivian Trade Union Leader Orlando Gutiérrez Gave His Life for Democracy and Socialism
3 November 2020, byThe death of Orlando Gutiérrez comes amid a surge in violence directed against the trade union and campesino movements in the wake of the coup in Bolivia last November.