Viewing Theocracy

ADDED 08/29/2018

HOW GERMANY’S MANTAR CONFRONT FASCISM WITH “CRUDE MUSIC,” CONTROVERSIAL ART

FROM 08/29/2018 | Revolver

BY GREGORY ADAMS

When Hanno Klänhard was a child growing up in Bremen, Germany, he and his friends were fascinated by a massive gold-colored sculpture that hung over a walkway in their town. “It’s a freaking angel with a sword fighting dragons!” the guitarist/singer of metal duo Mantar describes of the excitement he felt when he first came across the fantastical art piece. […]

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ADDED 08/24/2018

What Is Illiberal Civil Society?

FROM 08/24/2018 | Open Society Foundation

BY Adam Hug

It will come as no surprise that the post-Soviet space is facing the same challenges around the rise of populism and nationalism that are taking place across the world, nor that it faces some particular issues of its own. In its recent report The Rise of Illiberal Civil Society in the Former Soviet Union?, the Foreign Policy Centre brought […]

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ADDED 08/23/2018

False Concepts of Liberty

FROM 08/23/2018 | New Republic

BY WIN MCCORMACK

A few years ago, at a panel discussion I attended among labor leaders about the condition of unionism in America, one of the speakers launched into a diatribe against the Koch brothers and their funding of anti-union “right to work” laws. The brothers’ arguments in favor of them, he said, were predicated on a phony […]

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ADDED 08/20/2018

Trump Exploited the Authoritarianism of White Evangelicals

FROM 08/17/2018 | Washington Monthly

BY Nancy LeTourneau

One of the most challenging things I faced as I began to question the fundamentalist Christian worldview in which I had been raised was to learn to think for myself. That is because it was an authoritarian system based on fear. John Fea documented the history of the connection between evangelicalism and fear in this country and Sara […]

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ADDED 08/13/2018

The neo-fascist moment of neoliberalism

FROM 08/12/2018 | New Age - Bangladesh

BY Éric Fassin

How can we understand the simultaneous rise of the far right and the authoritarian evolution of neoliberalism? We need an anti-fascism that can highlight the latter’s role in this ‘neo-fascist moment’. ‘Hello, dictator!’ The president of the European commission thus welcomed the Hungarian prime minister to the Riga summit in 2015. If Senator John McCain […]

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ADDED 08/10/2018

The Rise of Hindu Fascism with Activist Shehla Rashid

FROM 02/22/2018 | TruthDig

BY Chris Hedges

In a recent episode of “On Contact,” host Chris Hedges and activist Shehla Rashid Shora discuss Hindutva fascism in India and draw parallels to the current situation in the United States. “Caste slavery is fascism,” says Rashid Shora, the face of the student movement in India, in conversation with the Truthdig columnist. “It is not […]

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ADDED 08/07/2018

Post-Communist Russia Is Not the Soviet Union

FROM 08/07/2018 | Real Clear Politics

BY Daniel J. Mahoney

The time has arrived for some moderation and clarity in thinking about contemporary Russia and its relationship to the Western world.  Ronald Reagan was not wrong in the 1980s to call the Soviet Union an “evil empire.” Its death in 1991 was a welcome victory for liberty, peace, and political civilization. But post-communist Russia is […]

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ADDED 08/03/2018

BJP rulers turning Tamil Nadu into fascism lab, repressive state imposing “development” projects: Civil society leaders

FROM 08/03/2018 | Counterview

BY Counterview

A civil society-sponsored public meeting in Delhi’s Press Club of India has alleged that Tamil Nadu has been turned into a fascist laboratory by India’s BJP rulers. Seeking to highlight the “voices from the south”, organized by the Delhi Solidarity Group, speakers at the meeting said that, over the past couple of months, the political […]

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ADDED 07/31/2018

Israel’s drift to authoritarianism: An illiberal ‘Jewish democracy’ embraces the populist nationalist model

FROM 07/30/2018 | Mondoweiss

BY Jamil Khader

Two important events happened towards the end of the third week of July in Israel: The ethnocratic settler-colonial state of Israel passed its new Jewish nation state law, which has been in the making for over two years now, and Hungary’s anti-Semitic Prime Minister Viktor Orban made a two-day visit to Israel. Despite the international uproar over the […]

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ADDED 07/30/2018

Orbán sees shift to illiberal Christian democracy in 2019 European vote

FROM 07/29/2018 | Euractiv

BY EURACTIV.com with Reuters and AFP

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Saturday (28 July) that European parliament elections next year could bring about a shift toward illiberal “Christian democracy” in the European Union that would end the era of multiculturalism. In an annual speech to ethnic Hungarians in Băile Tușnad in neighbouring Romania, Orbán portrayed the 2019 European parliamentary […]

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ADDED 07/30/2018

Black Lives Matter to stage counterprotest against ‘White Civil Rights’ rally in DC

FROM 07/29/2018 | The Hill

BY EMILY BIRNBAUM

The Washington, D.C., chapter of Black Lives Matter is planning to stage a counter-protest against the “White Civil Rights” rally scheduled to take place near the White House next month. The organizer of last year’s deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., received a permit in July to host a similar rally on Aug. 12 in the nation’s capital. The Black […]

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ADDED 07/26/2018

Bernie Sanders and Progressive Democrats Demand Lula’s Release

FROM 07/26/2018 | BrasilWire

BY Brian Mier

In a letter addressed to Brazilian Ambassador Sergio Silva do Amaral dated July 26th, a group of 29 US lawmakers, including Bernie Sanders and Congressional Black Caucus members Bobby Rush, Keith Ellison and Maxine Waters, demand that the Brazilian Government release the political prisoner Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has been held in solitary […]

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