What Are Republics, Exactly? It’s A Good Time To Learn

• by: John P. Ruehl

11-13-2024 ~ Republican ideals have evolved over millennia, shaping governance across the globe. Modern republics continue to adapt, but face challenges in upholding their foundational principles.

The 2024 U.S. presidential election was framed as a crucial test for the nation’s political system, with ongoing concerns over oligarchy, mob rule, a breakdown of equal protection under the law, and the ultimate power of citizens to determine the fate of the nation.

Republics have suffered total collapses throughout history, and there’s no reason why the United States should be immune. The fear of that often prompts a superficial reference to the final fall of the Roman Republic or the end of Greek democracy.

But there’s a deeper history: Republics came into being far earlier in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean civilizations. And we can draw from a much wider range of examples to learn from as we try to understand the challenges and the opportunities.

A true republic is a political system without monarchy or concentrated political power in any office, branch, or individual. Elected officials represent citizens to make decisions on their behalf, with separate branches of government providing checks and balances. While many associate republics with direct democracy in our times, there’s a much wider array of power structures that developed in the formative era of republics. Read more

Anti-Haitianism: A Hemispheric Rejection Of Revolutionary Blackness

• by: Bertin M. Louis, Jr.

Bertin M. Louis, Jr. -Photo: University of Kentucky

11-13-2024 ~ From the United States to the Dominican Republic to the Bahamas, the collective scapegoating and mass deportation of Haitians for political gain lays bare a particular kind of anti-Blackness.

[This piece is part of a series analyzing anti-Haitianism with a hemispheric approach. Read the first article in the series.]

On September 25, 2024, Democratic representative Steven Horsford introduced House Resolution 1500 on the floor of Congress. The intent of the resolution was to censure Republican Congressman Glen Clay Higgins of Louisiana over a social media post that amplified false claims made by former president Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance that Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. In a post on X responding to an Associated Press article about Haitians in Springfield filing charges against Trump and Vance, Higgins wrote: “Lol. These Haitians are wild. Eating pets, vudu, nastiest country in the western hemisphere, cults, slapstick gangsters… but damned if they don’t feel all sophisticated now, filing charges against our President and VP.”

He continued: “All these thugs better get their mind right and their ass out of our country before January 20th.” Higgins later deleted the tweet but the damage was done. Condemnations flooded in, followed by the resolution to censure the congressman.

Such comments and lies reflect the worst white supremacist stereotypes about Haiti and Haitians. Broadly, anti-Haitianism consists of actions, beliefs, outcomes, policies, political strategies, and practices that reify the negative connotations associated with Blackness and Haitian identity. Trump and Vance both used the admittedly false anti-Haitian rumor as a form of anti-Black, anti-immigrant fear mongering to garner political support. Read more

The One-Word Explanation For Trump’s Stunning Victory?

• by: C.J. Polychroniou

C.J. Polychroniou

11-13-2024 ~ Corporate media pundits will not tell you, because it remains at the core of their belief system. But neoliberalism is not just an economic doctrine, but a political project that has now ushered us into the abyss of fascism.

Donald Trump’s commanding victory over Kamala Harris seems to have surprised a lot of people both in the U.S. and around the world. Yet, it’s not surprising that Trump pulled off this victory, especially since polls predicted a tight race. What is surprising though is the scale of his victory. In a deeply divided society with a two-party system, one would have expected that either candidate would have won by a narrow margin.

Trump’s victory, which will have a wide-ranging impact on all aspects of U.S. society and will reverberate through the global political economy, represents a genuine political earthquake. He won the electoral college and the popular vote by expanding his coalition with historic demographic shifts. Even democratic heartlands saw large swings toward Trump, while Kamala Harris underperformed with both women (thus indicating that abortion was much less of a key issue than people thought it would be in the 2024 presidential election) and young voters. Young male voters, in particular, swung toward Trump in a big way as Kamala Harris not only put women on top of her agenda but, in turn, had very little to say about men. As for the loss of the working-class vote, which so much has already been said and written about it, suffice to say that Harris also had nothing to say to the mass of citizens facing economic hardship. Strangely enough, Harris and the Democrats in general did not even try to convey to the public some of the success that Biden’s economic policies had in contributing to growth and employment. Read more

The Sustainability Scam: How Self-Interest Ruins Good Ideas

• by: Esther Afolaranmi, Carter Dillard, Beatrix Homler & Mwesigye Robert

11-09-2024 ~ We must ensure ecocentric standards to reverse environmental and social injustices.

We have laws to ensure children are born into a safe, sustainable, and unpolluted environment. These laws are also meant to empower future generations and guarantee birth equity. But far from ensuring that these rights are upheld, we disfranchise children at birth because they do not have a legal say in the actions of adults that impact their future.

Our ill-advised desire to prioritize economic growth over children’s futures has led to the climate crisis. It has also led to children being born into unequal conditions where they do not have equal access to welfare resources. This has resulted in the impacts of environmental degradation being felt unequally among different socioeconomic groups. Poor people, Indigenous groups, and people of color are, by and large, impacted more by the degraded environment than the wealthy and white segment of the population. This is the tragic legacy of environmental racism, which has been referred to as “the new Jim Crow.”

Those most affected by these injustices often have little or no say in shaping policies and laws, and their children eventually inherit this unequal system. In a capitalist, profit-driven economy, it is unsurprising that the corporate sector, driven by financial concerns above all else, is the biggest culprit in perpetuating these wrongs—particularly the extractive industries and industrial agriculture.

The Misinformed Power Grab
Most leaders—and the biggest beneficiaries of an unequal society—never came close to protecting children from the harm caused by the development model favored by the rich world. Instead, poor children grow up in a world to face the repercussions of a power grab by wealthy, primarily white, families.

The first misstep of dissociating the connection between human rights and environmental sustainability was taken in 1948 when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was signed, establishing fundamental rights for all people.

Twenty years later, in 1968, the United Nations held a conference in Tehran where some groups raised concerns about the impact of population growth (and, by extension, economic growth) on human rights. Despite these efforts, the concerns were never resolved, and the relevant changes were never incorporated into the UDHR. Read more

Neoliberal Fascism Is Now The Dominant Ideology In The United States Of America

• by: C.J. Polychroniou

11-09-2024 ~ The formation of a united front against this far-right realignment is more important and urgent than ever before.

It’s official. Neoliberal fascism has become mainstream in the United States.

C.J. Polychroniou

This is the only rational conclusion that one can draw from Trump’s decisive victory in the 2024 election. Indeed, Trump’s historic victory (which includes leading the GOP to a much larger-than-expected Senate majority and potentially in control of the House) has changed the nature of the Republican Party and shifted the center of gravity in U.S. politics in such earth-shattering fashion that it has led to the actual collapse of the Democratic Party.

Neoliberal fascism is now the dominant politico-ideological orientation in the United States and its dire consequences will undoubtedly be felt for years to come both inside the country and across the world. In this context, the formation of a united front against fascism is more important and urgent than ever before.

Under the leadership of Donald Trump, a political movement has been born that encompasses different major coalitions (working-class voters, women [whose share of support for Trump, ironically enough, went up by 2 percentage points from the last election], Christian fundamentalists, minorities [Black, Hispanic, Asian voters] and youth [though largely white and conservative], and the ultra-wealthy) all of whom have been drawn to the “America First” slogan. Read more

Community Support Helps The Orca Book Cooperative Stay Afloat

• by: Damon Orion

11-06-2024 ~ When COVID-19 hit, U.S. bookshops were an endangered species. Olympia, Washington’s largest independent bookstore survived by embracing the co-op model.

Bookshops have historically served as community gathering spots and hubs for social change besides being spaces where patrons can relax and feed their minds. A notable example is New York’s Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, which was the site of organizational meetings for the first gay pride parade in 1970.

“Oscar Wilde soon became Information Central. As the first gay bookshop in the country, we amassed something that proved to be invaluable for organizing a march,” wrote Fred Sargeant in his 2010 first-person account for the Village Voice.

Meanwhile, Washington, D.C.’s Drum and Spear Bookstore, “was a creative hub for Black power, Black consciousness, and internationalist activism” from 1968 to 1974, according to the Library of Congress. The bookshop eventually shut down due to debt.

Despite being bastions of societal advancement, community, and mental nourishment, bookshops have dwindled due to factors like competition from Amazon and the popularity of e-books. In 2021, the United States Census Bureau pointed out that “the number of U.S. [b]ookstores dropped from 12,151 in 1998 to 6,045 in 2019.”

The pandemic furthered this downward trend. In October 2020, Focus Finance reported that “sales turnover from brick-and-mortar bookstores declined by 31 percent from January to July 2020. Some bookstores are even seeing year-over-year sales declines as high as 80 percent.” Read more