Democracy

One hundred years ago, women won the right to vote in the United States. The women’s suffrage movement took decades of organizing to achieve success, from the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, to mass civil disobedience and protest leading up to the adoption and ratification of the 19th Amendment in… »

Stephan Lewandowsky, University of Bristol for The Conversation Britain recently elected a prime minister who unlawfully shut down parliament to escape democratic scrutiny and who tells blatant falsehoods whenever it suits him. Boris Johnson casually denies the presence of media in front of TV cameras and… »

By Karin Pettersson The news-media industry has long lamented how the digital revolution has broken its business models. Today, a majority of digital advertising money goes to Facebook and Google, and media companies are struggling to reinvent themselves through digital subscriptions. But the disruption hasn’t only affected… »

Despite its enormous popularity, the East Side Gallery has been neglected, left to decay, and hacked into pieces, parts sold off and the rest declared a dead museum piece. This work of art and the symbol it represents for the non-violent overcoming of walls between people and the walls in… »

This year the Worldwide Web is thirty years old. For the first time since 1435, a citizen from Brazil could exchange their views and information with another in Finland. The Internet, the communications infrastructure for the Web is a little older. It was developed from the ARPANET, a US Defense… »

By David Swanson It’s impossible in U.S. society not to frequently encounter the demand to vote, no matter what, no matter for whom, as a basic civic duty. Voting is supremely important, we’re told, a right, a responsibility, a moral requirement, something people died for which if you don’t use… »

British people are fundamentally disempowered by our political system. Other countries show that there’s another way. By George Monbiot for The Guardian They promised sovereignty, but at first it was unclear which variety of sovereignty they meant. Were the politicians who swore we would regain it when we left… »

The UK Supreme Court 11 justices have delivered a unanimous and damning judgement on Boris Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament for five weeks, according to him in order to prepare the next Queen’s speech (something the judges say it only takes five or six days) but in actual fact in… »

Matthew Cole, University of Birmingham for The Conversation Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, has confirmed that he will call a vote on holding a general election if MPs legislate to block a no-deal Brexit. His pledge came after he lost a key vote to the so-called rebel… »

In Hong Kong, organizers say as many as 1.7 million pro-democracy protesters took to the streets Sunday in the largest demonstration in weeks. Protesters marched in the rain as the popular uprising, which started 11 weeks ago, showed no sign of slowing down despite Chinese soldiers lining up on the… »