Gilets Jaunes Referendum by Initiative of Citizens (RIC): Push to Revive a Democracy
The illusion of democracy The Gilets Jaunes movement took most observers and so-called experts in France and worldwide entirely by surprise, but it was actually completely predictable. The crisis simmered below the radars of France’s politicians, media, as well as those who considered themselves the enlightened figures of the intelligentsia for 50 years. By their […]
Are the Gilets Jaunes Today’s Sans-Culottes?
“Pour le peuple, il y a toujours la misère!” Anonymous Gilet Jaune From the Island of La Reunion to the Napoleonic symbol that is the Arc de Triomphe, through big and small towns, as well as the usually bucolic countryside in France, there is something special in the air: the smell of fires on barricades, […]
India: Modi’s Sacred Cow Is Neoliberalism
These days, even if you don’t read online journals, or thick books not asssigned by universities, Google is enough to tell you how messy the Indian economic and social situation is. Earnings are low. Unemployment has reached new heights especially among the young and, with the adoption of automation and privatization, this will only worsen. […]
The Global Rise of Fascism: Capitalism End Game?
It is everywhere. In a few years, it has metastasized like a cancer, on all continents. Its fervent proponents and ill-informed supporters call it populism or nationalism. In the Italy, Germany, or Spain of the 1930s, however, this ideology of exclusion and fear, defined by a hatred of the other, together with a tyrannical executive power, was called […]
Brazil’s Military Dictatorship: Bolsonaro’s Godfather Is Home from Haiti to Roost
It is bittersweet to be right about my prediction that the occupation of Haiti by Brazil would destroy its democracy. The real power behind the far-right congressman and former army captain, Jair Bolsonaro, who will take office on January 1, 2019 as Brazil’s president, is his mentor, the retired General Augusto Heleno Ribeiro Pereira. Mr. […]
