Politics

Yes, Putin and Russia are fascist – a political scientist shows how they meet the textbook definition

By Alexander Motyl, Rutgers University – Newark | – When Vladimir Putin unleashed an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, the Ukrainian media, public and policymakers almost unanimously began calling the Russian president and the state he leads “rashyst.” The term is a hybrid of a derogatory moniker for Russia – “rasha” – […]

Climate Crisis

The Five Horsemen of Today’s Apocalypse

John Feffer

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Once upon a time, the tutelary gods of nationalism and internationalism met for a chat. They had a superb perch above the clouds. From there, they could see everything happening on the Earth below and they set to arguing, as they so often did. Sophia, the goddess of internationalism, began by […]

Far Right

No Pasaran: Ukraine 2022 – Why We must Stand against Putin’s Fascism

John Feffer

Vladimir Putin is the Franco of today, and Ukraine must become the graveyard of Putinism. By John Feffer | – The last surviving member of the International Brigades that fought the fascists in Spain in the 1930s died last year at the age of 101. Josep Almudéver Mateu, born in France, remembered going into battle […]

Canada

How a Fringe in Canada caught the Far Right Trump Disease, fueled by US Money and Fox

Dan Dinello

Chicago (Special to Informed Comment) – Using behemoth-sized vehicles as weapons, truckers shut down Canada’s capitol city Ottawa and blocked several bridges to the United States, including the Ambassador Bridge responsible for a quarter of the trade — 360 million dollars per day — between the United States and Canada. Car manufacturers including Toyota and […]

censorship

Banning ‘Maus’ only exposes the significance of this searing graphic novel about the Holocaust

The Conversation

By Biz Nijdam | – A school board in Tennessee voted unanimously in favour of removing the graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman from its Grade 8 language arts curriculum in January. Maus is based on interviews with Spiegelman’s father, Vladek Spiegelman, a Polish Jew and Auschwitz survivor, and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 […]

Far Right

Could Plea deal and Political Ban of former PM Netanyahu Topple the Israeli Government?

Middle East Monitor

Adnan Abu Amer | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – Israeli parties have witnessed successive developments recently, including the likelihood of a political explosion following a possible deal with Leader of the Opposition and head of the Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu. This will have a direct impact on the party itself, and on the […]

Far Right

France’s Eric Zemmour and the Strange Story of Fascist Minorities Promoting Hate of . . . Minorities

Mohammed Samaana

Belfast (Special to Informed Comment) – Before joining university in England, I knew that encountering racism was inevitable. What I did not know was that my first encounter was going to be with a dark-skinned teenager who was with his two white friends when he told me with his English accent “go back to your […]

Authoritarianism

How democracy gets eroded – lessons from a Nixon expert

The Conversation

By Ken Hughes | – Now that a full year has passed since the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, the 2020 election and the republic, it’s evident that the attack never really ended. Instead, it spread out to other, less visible, more vulnerable targets. Donald Trump had hoped to reverse his election loss […]

Left Politics

A Few Magnificent Things That Happened in 2021

Peter Certo

By Peter Certo | – ( Otherwords.org) – It would be easy to survey the end of 2021 and see another year in wreckage. There’s the pandemic that won’t end. Rising inflation. Climate disasters. A democracy that looks creakier by the day. And that was before West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin hit the brakes on […]