Democracy

We're At The "Wright" Moment

Stephen C. Rose | Posted 09.14.2009 | Politics

Read More: Barack Obama 2008, Politics, History, Sound Bites, Obama Speech, Drama, Confusion, President Obama, Msm, Rev. Wright, Obama Administration, Democracy, Media, Jeremiah Wright, Sean Hannity, Politics News
Stephen C. Rose

Recall that the Reverend Wright debacle necessitated a solution that only Obama could create. It is the same thing now.

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Macaca Day 2009: From George Allen to Claire McCaskill, Video Trackers to Town Haters

Dan Manatt | Posted 09.12.2009 | Politics

Read More: Claire McCaskill, Health Care, Barack Obama, Macaca, Town Hall Debate, Social Media, Youtube Politics, Obama-Town-Hall-Meetings, Town Hall Debate Reaction, Youtube, Democracy, Town Hall Meetings, Social Media Networks, Twitter Iran, Politics News
Dan Manatt

Town Halls -- perhaps they should be renamed "Town Hates" -- have become the front lines of an anti-government revolt by various groups, including health care reform opponents.

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Despite Obama in Ghana, a Bad Month for African Democracy

Todd Moss | Posted 09.12.2009 | World

Read More: Democracy, Clinton, Todd Moss, Governance, Africa, Center for Global Development, State Department, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mauritania, Congo Crisis, Congo Violence, Congo, Presidency, Voting Problems, Obama Ghana Trip, Hillary Clinton Africa, Obama Ghana Speech, Africa-Democracy, African-Development, Gabon, Ghana Obama, Niger, Coup, World News
Todd Moss

In Mauritania the vote was so obviously suspicious that the electoral chief resigned and the opposition rejected the results.

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Who Are These People Anyway? The Gang of Six and the Politics of Health Care Reform

Jerome Karabel | Posted 09.12.2009 | Politics

Read More: Campaign Contribution, Baucus, Senate Finance Committee, Karabel, Bingaman, Democracy, Gang of Six, Health Industry, Bipartisan, Group of Six, Grassley, Senate, Health Care Reform, Health Insurance, Health Care, Snowe, Conrad, Enzi, Politics News
Jerome Karabel

With the outcome of perhaps the most significant domestic legislation since Social Security hanging in the balance, the question arises: who are these six senators and whom do they represent?

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Disrupting Democracy

Robin Lakoff | Posted 09.07.2009 | Politics

Read More: Democracy, Conservative, Logical Fallacy, Political Rhetoric, Health Care Reform, Socialism, Health Care, Town Hall Meetings, Politics News
Robin Lakoff

Liberals have devised ways to help the economically impoverished. Now we have to figure out what to do about the discursively impoverished.

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"Green Shoots" of Democracy in Afghanistan

Olivia Sterns | Posted 09.06.2009 | World

Read More: Hamid Karzai, Karzai, Abdullah Abdullah, Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan Election, Afghanistan Election 2009, Dr. Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan, Afghan War, Democracy, Taliban, Afghan Taliban, World News
Olivia Sterns

The forces of democracy are at work but they up against the violence of the insurgency and they are up against the state.

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Evangelicals Are the New Anti-Americans

Frank Schaeffer | Posted 09.05.2009 | Politics

Read More: Rachel Maddow, Jeff Sharlet, The Family, Theocracy, Obama, Democracy, Evangelicals, Politics News
Frank Schaeffer

The radical right movement in America is regrouping in the Senate and Congress and working hard to undo the Obama presidency.

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Arab Democracy: Is It a Criminal Offense to Be a Reformist Voice?

John L. Esposito | Posted 08.31.2009 | Politics

Read More: Arab World, Democracy, Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Arab Doctor's Union, Reformist Muslims, Muslim Brotherhood, Cairo, Abdel Moneim, Hosni Mubarak, Arab Democracy, Politics News
John L. Esposito

The arrest and continued detention of Dr. Abdel Moneim Aboul Fattouh symbolizes a long standing problem for which governments in the region and the West bear primary responsibility.

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The I-Factor

David Hoffman | Posted 08.30.2009 | Politics

Read More: Information Access Authoritarian, Spreading-Democracy, Zimbabwe, Authoritarian Regime, Moldova, Obama Democracy, Information Access, Authoritarian Internet Access, Iran, Democracy, Daniel Kaufmann, Politics News
David Hoffman

From Iran to Pakistan, information access puts authoritarian rulers in a dilemma.

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Is Obama Doing Enough on Democracy?

Damian Murphy | Posted 08.29.2009 | Denver

Read More: Democracy, Obama, Human Rights, Foreign Operations Budget, Denver News
Damian Murphy

There are basically three ways that an administration can support democracy internationally - through what it says, where it puts its money and what it does.

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The Skip Gates Arrest May Not Have Been About Race -- But About Something Even Worse

William Easterly | Posted 08.27.2009 | Politics

Read More: Bureaucracy, Civil Liberties, Democracy, Henry Louis Gates, African Americans, Civil Rights, Politics News
William Easterly

My guess is that Sergeant James Crowley was following an inflexible rule that you arrest anyone who shouts angrily at a cop.

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In Venezuela, a Tale of Two Judges

Robert Amsterdam | Posted 08.24.2009 | World

Read More: Russia, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela, Rule of Law, Robert Amsterdam, Antonio Ledezma, Democracy, Organization of American States, Barack Obama, Honduras Coup, Freedom of the Press, Human Rights, Oas, Honduras, Globovision, Eligio Cedeno, Yuri Lopez, Eligio CedeñO, Latin America, Cuba, World News
Robert Amsterdam

The fact that Chávez has taken over the courts means that Venezuela may look like a democracy to fawning movie stars and celebrity athletes of the vanguard left, but the core is rotten and lawless.

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The "Birthers" and Our Ailing Political Culture

Cynthia Boaz | Posted 08.23.2009 | Politics

Read More: Citizenship, Birthers, Obama Patriotism, Birther-Movement, President Obama, Barack Obama Citizenship, Democracy, Media, American Culture, Barack Obama, Politics, Patriotism, Progress, Sean Hannity, Media Criticism, Glenn Beck, Politics News
Cynthia Boaz

These birthers represent a small but vocal minority in this country who have somehow failed to grasp that American democracy is rooted in a set of principles, not a set of demographic characteristics.

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South Africa Protests: Government Vows Crackdown

Mail & Guardian | Posted 08.23.2009 | World

Read More: South Africa, Jacob Zuma, South Africa Protests, South Africa Riots, South Africa Democracy, South Africa Protest Crackdown, Africa, Foreign Affairs, Democracy, Advocacy, World News

Police fired rubber bullets and teargas on Wednesday at township rioters demanding better services and more jobs, in one of the biggest challenges to ...

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On Patriotism and Principle: An Open Letter to the President (aka "The GOP's Bridge to Anywhere But Here")

Cynthia Boaz | Posted 08.22.2009 | Politics

Read More: Obama Patriotism, Rush Limbaugh, Empowerment, Framing, Obama Press Conference, President Obama, Democracy, Obama National Security, Power, Barack Obama, World News, Dick Cheney, Foreign Policy, Torture-Apologist, Patriotism, National Security, Sarah Palin, People-Power, Glenn Beck, Global-Relations, Republican Party, Torture, Political Strategy, Republicans, Media, Gop, Politics News
Cynthia Boaz

Mr. President, talk to us directly. Tell us again why your election was only the first step, not the culmination, of a genuine movement to change the way we understand power, democracy, and our own roles in those phenomena.

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Should We Bring Back The 90 Percent Top Tax Rate?

Dave Johnson | Posted 08.21.2009 | Business

Read More: Taxes, Democracy, Business News
Dave Johnson

The way to prevent the destructive behavior we have been seeing from the top is with a steep progressive income tax with a high tax rate on income above a certain level.

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Mayoral Control of Schools: The New Tyranny

Gerald Bracey | Posted 08.21.2009 | Politics

Read More: Tyranny, Arne Duncan, Chicago, Michael Bloomberg, Joel Klein, Propaganda, Mayoral Control, Democracy, Failure, Education Reform, New York, Politics News
Gerald Bracey

School boards are fractious and try to micromanage. They are amateurs and prisoners of deeply rooted school bureaucracies. But do mayors do better?

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The Arabs Need a Nelson Mandela, Who Knows When to Go

Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi | Posted 08.20.2009 | World

Read More: Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, Lebanon, Yemen, Gamal-Abdel-Nasser, Algeria, Morocco, Democracy, Fatah, Hamas, Bashar Al-Assad, Nelson Mandela, Arabs, Egypt, Israel, Kuwait, Syria, World News
Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi

We desperately need a visionary leader in the Arab world, monarch or republican, who steps aside and oversees in his lifetime a peaceful democratic transfer of power.

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Interview with Arundhati Roy: 'We Need a Feral Howl'

Christina Patterson | Posted 08.17.2009 | Entertainment

Read More: Investment Climate, Globalisation, Nuclear Tests, Narmada Dam, 9/11, Afghanistan, India, Obama, Democracy, Booker Prize, The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy, Entertainment News
Christina Patterson

Roy is one of the only writers to have hit international stardom with fiction that won plaudits for its winsome playfulness and to have eschewed it, for more than a decade, for deadly serious polemic.

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The Other Iraq

Jeff Johnson | Posted 08.16.2009 | World

Read More: Iraqi Elections, Democracy, Kurdistan, Kurds, Iraq, International, President Obama, World News
Jeff Johnson

This region of Iraq has not seen a coalition casualty in nearly three years and has been able to create a social reality that stands in stark contradiction to the ongoing violence in Baghdad.

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The Failure of Democracy in West Virginia: Redefining "Alternative" Energy

Jerry Cope | Posted 08.14.2009 | Green

Read More: Coal-to-Liquids, Carbon Emissions, Alternative Energy, Greenhouse Gases, West Virginia, Carbon Credits, Political Corruption, Climate Change, Democracy, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Joe Manchin, Coal, Renewable Energy, Clean Energy, SB 297, Energy Portfolio Standard Bill, Epa, Obama Administration, Appalachia, Green News
Jerry Cope

Alternative energy is a standard reference to energy sources that are not carbon based. But in West Virginia, many of the designated "alternative" energy sources contribute not only significantly more GHG emissions than the dirtiest conventional coal fired plants, they emit toxic pollutants as well.

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Afghanistan: Could Britain be Losing its Appetite for War?

Cedric Perrier | Posted 08.14.2009 | World

Read More: Hamid Karzai, Uk, Afghan Afghanistan, Dear Leader, The Guardian, Afghanistan War, Democracy, Taliban, British Withdrawal From Afghanistan, Britain, Al Qaeda, Gordon Brown, Nato, Charlie Wilson, Northern Alliance, Pashtun, Bbc Newsnight, Dominic Moisi, Charlie Wilson's War, Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Geopolitics of Fear, Uzbek, Hasara, Tajik, Turkmen, World News
Cedric Perrier

Defense is clearly at the sharp end of the Government's ongoing budget cuts. Yet British coffers alone may not be the only reason Brown is willing to stand firm.

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Obama and Democracy in Africa

Larry Diamond | Posted 08.11.2009 | World

Read More: Democracy, Obama, Development, Africa, Ghana, Obama Ghana, Obama Accra, World News
Larry Diamond

No American president has ever spoken so candidly on African soil about the real roots of Africa's development malaise.

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Being Undermined by National News

Judith Ellis | Posted 08.11.2009 | Media

Read More: Congress, Politico, Lobbyists, New Media, Katharine Weymouth, Obama Administration, Washington Post, Democracy, Huffington Post, Media News
Judith Ellis

I will not subscribe to the Washington Post. But how can we come together as citizens of our great democracy and make them feel the impact of their action?

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Can We Register Voters Better? Yes.

Wendy Weiser | Posted 08.10.2009 | Politics

Read More: Democracy, Voter Registration, Election, Voting, Politics News
Wendy Weiser

Voter registration is the gateway to voting. But our registration system relies on 19th century practices, and, leaves millions of eligible voters out of the political process.

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