Opinions

At this time of year often people talk of going home for the holidays, of travelling to see family and friends, and of spending time in places where they grew up, reminiscing about the past and discussing, or even arguing, about the present. At this time the topic of politics… »

By Petur Gudjonsson A little while ago we wrote about a new mental landscape appearing in Chile. And we said that this positive phenomenon will happen everywhere, within a few years. There are protests all over the planet but they do not seem to be manifestations of this new landscape… »

“When I look at you, suddenly, everything is fine again. Your peacefulness, innocence and unconditional love remind me of the beauty this life holds” Christmas in its core is the celebration of Jesus‘ birth, an important prophet of our history or the “incarnation of God”, if you believe it to… »

The Amazon rainforest is a crucial life-support ecosystem. Without its wondrous strength and power to generate hydrologic systems across the sky (as far north as Iowa), absorb and store carbon (CO2), and its miraculous life-giving endless supply of oxygen, civilization would cease to exist beyond scattered tribes, here and there. »

By Camillo Mac Bica, Ph.D. I remember being far from home, family, and loved ones. Thrust into an alien and hostile land I didn’t even know existed. Christmas dinner choppered out to a desolate LZ. The space on the chopper where the cold turkey and warm beer had been, quickly… »

Could degrowth, community, and basic income create a sane economy? An interview with one of the godfathers of the basic income movement, Phillippe Van Parijs. Philippe Van Parijs for openDemocracy-Beyond traffic and slavery. Phillippe Van Parijs is a philosopher at the University of Louvain and a founding member… »

By Farhana Haque Rahman By any measure this has been a devastating year: fires across the Amazon, the Arctic and beyond; floods and drought in Africa; rising temperatures, carbon emissions and sea levels; accelerating loss of species, and mass forced migrations of people. As seen through the… »

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies The trove of U.S. “Lessons Learned” documents on Afghanistan published by the Washington Post portrays, in excruciating detail, the anatomy of a failed policy, scandalously hidden from the public for 18 years. The “Lessons Learned” papers, however, are based on… »

Why in the world should Elizabeth Warren choose to run for vice president? The obvious answer that can save you the time of reading further or, you know, thinking, is my blatant sexism. Clearly, every time I’ve supported female candidates in the past for City Council, House of Delegates, Congress,… »

This form of radical trust devolves power away from top-down government, often with some very unexpected results By George Monbiot for The Guardian You can blame Jeremy Corbyn for Boris Johnson, and Hillary Clinton for Donald Trump. You can blame the Indian challengers for Narendra Modi, the… »