Democracy

Richard D. WOLFF

Is there one human nature or do different cultures create their own versions of human nature? Are contemporary geopolitical conflicts to an extent manifestations of what has been called a “clash of civilizations?”
Francis Fukuyama, Alexander Dugin and Ivan Krastev engage in a 90 minute conversation about democracy, liberalism, human nature and what is happening in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

On American Democracy
In American political discourse we frequently hear the term “our democracy.” For example, the Russiagaters are fond of this term. The term grates. The sound of the utterance “our democracy” is not as bad as the sound of fingernails scratching a chalkboard, but it’s reminiscent.

On July 15, Luis Fernando Camacho, leader of the violent coup against Bolivian president Evo Morales and current candidate for the Bolivian presidency, issued a desperate appeal to the Organization of American States.

On July 15, 2020, the right-wing candidate for the upcoming October 20 presidential elections in Bolivia, Luis Fernando Camacho, issued an appeal to the Organization of Americans States (OAS). Camacho, who led the violent coup (backed by Trump, Trudeau and the OAS) against Evo Morales last fall complained about the electoral system.

Trump’s Main Crime is Criminal Negligence
Trump cannot turn back time and re-do February and early March. He cannot undo the damage caused by his inaction on the virus. The fact is, tens of thousands of people in this country became infected while the president pooh-poohed the problem. He showed ignorance and indifference, acting belatedly–as we (some of us) now know, too late to successfully contain the pandemic.

Festishizing democracy

Eric Zuesse
First, the force that is ending freedom will be identified and described; and, then, the force that they fear and hate the most (and are trying to destroy) will be identified and described.
THE FORCE THAT IS ENDING FREEDOM
The force that is ending freedom is empire.

In a fully developed bureaucracy there is nobody left with whom one can argue, to whom one can present grievances, on whom the pressures of power can be exerted. Bureaucracy is the form of government in which everybody is deprived of political freedom, of the power to act; for the rule by Nobody is not no-rule, and where all are equally powerless, we have a tyranny without a tyrant.
― Hannah Arendt, On Violence

It is many years ago that Jean-Paul Sartre wrote an essay, which was, in fact, the preface to his magnum opus, The Critique of Dialectical Reason, the title of which was “The Search for Method”.
A significant transformation from his critique of Heidegger, Being and Nothingness, Sartre attempted to liberate European Marxism from its captivity in Russian party ideology and restore its historicity.1