Democracy
Democracy, Peace, Social Justice
Fairness To Fascism: Trump’s Bait And Switch
“Forgotten men and women”. “Struggling families”. “Mothers and children trapped in poverty”, not “sharing the wealth” of “the establishment”. On one reading, Donald Trump’s inauguration speech is full of left wing imagery and ideas. So much so that I have seen it explicitly suggested that it was the kind of speech that Bernie Sanders might have given. Following his rejection... Read More
Democracy, Social Justice
Building Momentum for Change
Does strategic community organising create and lead sweeping social change? Or does social change momentum arrive from disruptive actions and sweep individuals and organisations along with it? This is the question tackled by US labour, civil rights and immigration rights activist brothers Paul and Mark Engler in This is an Uprising; the answer, of course, is ‘both’. [...]
Democracy, Social Justice
Understanding the anti-elite Trump vote
The aftermath of the stunning victory of Donald Trump to the White House has left many asking the same question: how on Earth did he do it? While the analysis is still fresh, and formulating, one can highlight three theories as to why Trump will be the next President of the United States. The first, and probably most common among... Read More
Democracy, Social Justice
Rebuilding the Public Sphere
For decades there has been concern in social and political theory about ‘the decline of the public sphere’. According to many prominent writers on the issue, an effective role for the public sphere in the exercise of political power is something that we have lost. For Hannah Arendt in her work The human condition (1958), societies in the modern age... Read More
Democracy, Environment, Social Justice
Reflections on Green Values
Gösta Lyngå has been involved in Green politics for over 30 years, including as a Greens MP in Sweden. In this essay he offers his reflections on the ongoing relevance of core green values and their importance in meeting the environmental, social and economic challenges of today. [...]
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Coming soon…….
The what section then looks at the alternative approaches. We’re going to look at the alternatives to the economic, political and social systems of our world. What are the alternatives, what do they look like, and what is the best approach? That’s what we want to discuss here…. [...]
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Resisting the ‘law of greed’
What is an investor-state dispute settlement? It's complicated, but it has the potential to bridge traditional political divides, as Kyla Tienhaara explains. [...]
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Democracy resides in participation in organisations
What is the place of NGOs in our democracy? Joan Staples has some thoughts on this matter. [...]
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Culture, Democracy, Social Justice
Art and Activism
Alex Kelly explores the power of art and story in responding to the changes we are experiencing and will continue to experience as a result of the climate crisis. [...]
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Green Ethics
An interview with Peter Singer Peter Singer is one of Australia’s most influential and controversial public intellectuals. A moral philosopher and bioethicist, Peter is best known for his books Animal Liberation, a seminal text for the animal rights movement, and Practical Ethics, which explores why and how a living being’s interests should be valued. In 1996 Peter and Bob Brown... Read More
