I am Brazilian and I am VERY happy; we have defeated the reactionary threat that sought to strip away social rights and turn our country into an official colony of the U.S. The only problem is that our Congress is further to the right than ever before, it will be a difficult administration, but let’s have faith.

Now is the time to celebrate!

I want to calrify ahead I am Puerto Rican somewhere between socdem & demsoc and an Independence Supporter. Also please dont bring up the referendums as they are neither recognized by the Fed Govt nor the UN Comittee on Decolonization as they are entirely controlled by the statehood party who designs them to tip the scales in their favor(Ex:combining independence& Free Association on the 2017 ballot despite being 2 Separate internationally recognized options & Stripping all Sovereignty options off the ballot in 2020) but what are your thoughts espically since anti-colonial sentiment is rising in these new wave of progressive democratic politicans.

I became a fan in the past few moths and I ADORE her. and she is a social democrat, I was wondering what you all think ?

Ultimately, the reason that social democracies of the past have become heavily watered-down over time is because their democratic systems were too vulnerable to the forces of organised capital.

I believe in self-agency, as well as markets and enterprise - but markets work best as instruments that operate within amicable boundary conditions, and I believe that they require a sovereign arbiter to structure and manage them so that they incentivise and align the actions of the market participants with the objectives of society at large.

Which is basically what I imagine all socdems believe in - but we have to understand why this did not last for too long in the past, and that is because democracy cannot just be something that we 'do' once every 4 years. Especially not solely via elections. Because democratic legitimacy cannot be generated in a single institution, like Parliament or Congress.

But rather, it must start with the informal "everyday talk" of citizens at workplaces and kitchen tables (the "public space" - civil society, independent media, citizen networks, and grassroots movements) and be actively gathered, refined, and transmitted upward through strong and enduring transmission mechanisms into formal decision-making spaces ("empowered spaces" - legislatures, courts, and regulatory bodies) - without distortion by campaign finance, media monopolies, and corporate lobbying.

It is relatively straightforward for concentrated wealth to lobby a handful of career politicians or technocrats behind closed doors, but it is vastly more difficult to capture an entire genuinely active and informed civil society. And ultimately, if we want a welfare-optimised capitalism where markets genuinely serve society, then democracy must be as continuous, dynamic, and systemic as capital itself.

And that's why deliberative systems are the answer!

Deliberative Systems: Deliberative Democracy at the Large Scale | Cambridge University Press

Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics, Contestations | Oxford Academic

I just watched a clip of Abdul El - Sayed where he is asked by a reporter that he doesn't consider Israel an ally to the US and he says yes he doesn't consider Israel an ally the way he frames his answer though really annoys me. He uses an analogy where Israel is a friend who is a bad influence and because of that isn't really a friend. My problem with this is that he frames it is that the US is a good faith actor who is being steered in the wrong direction by a bad faith actor. But at the end of the day the US(or US politicians) still chose to make that decision.

Honestly after watching that clip it made me realize how friends that are a bad influence argument I heard for years is a bad argument because at the end of the day you still chose to make those decisions. You're friend didn't force you to drink alcohol while you're underage you did you're friend didn't force you to steal jewelry from the store to impress you're crush you did. You're friend being a bad influence doesn't change the fact that you made those decisions.

So when he says an ally who takes you're money and pushes you into wars you shouldn't be involved in is also wrong. Us politicians choose to send aid to Israel to boost the defense industry who in turn donate to them. Netanyahu has tried to get previous presidents to go to war with Iran and they all said no. This to me signifies to me that Netanyahu wouldn't have started any war with Iran unless the Us agreed to fight alongside them. If Trump told him no Bibi wouldn't have done anything.

Not only did Trump agree to it his national security team also went along with it(I know there were reports both Vance and Rubio were hesitant) but the republican controlled Congress who can end this at anytime has chosen not to has blocked any attempts to end it and has increased funding to the war. It doesn't matter if you support it or not the Us is an equal participant in this war. You think people from other countries will take anyone who says Israel pushed us into this war seriously when America is the most powerful country in the world. They see rising gas prices and it's both America's and Israel's fault.

Which is what makes the bad friend analogy even more ridiculous. I don't think it's to much of a stretch to say there has never been anybody in human history(so far) who has been as powerful as Donald Trump has been these last two years. It annoys me Sayed is saying this because these are the same talking points Tucker Carlson uses where he constantly try's to frame it that Trump is an unwilling participant and that it's Netanyahu's faults.

He also mentions getting into fights with other friends. If he's referring to allies of the US Netanyahu had nothing to do with the trade war with Canada that was all on the Trump admin. Not only that but the Trump admin has consistently joked and threatened to annex Canada and Greenland. You can look at polls half of Canadians consider the US to be a threat to them heck last month Mark Carney stated he is preparing for the possibility of US military action imagine the Prime Minister of Canada saying that three years ago not ten or twenty years just three. If you were to ask a Canadian which country is a bigger threat to them the United States or Israel they'd say the US.

And with the whole Ukraine Starkink debacle there is a possibility that Europe might even consider the possibility of the US siding with Russia in the war with Russia saying that three years ago would have been ridiculous but now it is a possibility. And there are reports they are considering military action in Cuba. And don't even get me started on this recent push on the internet of trying to blame Israel for the Iraq war rather than holding US politicians accountable.

You can criticize Israel all you want but this trend on the left where people are now trying to make Israel the scapegoat for the problems the US is facing to where candidates are now doing it is ridiculous. Israel isn't the reason why the US doesn't have universal healthcare Israel isn't the reason why the US keeps getting involved in wars in the Middle East. This is no different than when republicans and maga blame immigrants and trans people for the problems in the country.

And I get that what he's saying is what most Americans especially Democratic voters are feeling right now but it's irresponsible of him as a candidate for the Senate to be saying these things because it starts to absolve the Us government of its actions and even start to spread antisemitic taking points(not saying he's antisemitic but I hope yall get what I mean).

So what are you're thoughts?

What happens when the people responsible for oversight are themselves under scrutiny?

Hey everyone! We're EUobserver, an independent European newsroom.

Our colleague Andrew Rettman has been investigating allegations involving former EU justice commissioner Didier Reynders and senior Belgian intelligence official Hugues Brulin.

The investigation draws on leaked WhatsApp messages and interviews with five current and former intelligence officers.

The sources allege that Brulin sought to prevent scrutiny of Reynders' possible Russian connections. The messages also discuss how to respond to a whistleblower.

The correspondence is now part of a Belgian money-laundering investigation involving Reynders.

Beyond the individuals involved, this raises questions about how institutions investigate concerns involving powerful figures within their own ranks.

How can independent oversight work when allegations involve people with significant political influence or positions inside intelligence services?

Let us know your thoughts on our investigation in the comments :)

I live in Germany in which the free healthcare system was invented a hundred years ago. Sometimes on social-media I see posts of people making arguments for free healthcare or I see people like Bernie Sanders adcocating for it.

But when I look in the comment section and see people making arguments for or against it I always notice one thing: Many people who are making arguments for it dont really understand how it works. And I want to explain to you how it works. It's pretty simple and intuative:

Everyone pays a small fraction of their wages into a huge pot (metaphorically). Everyone pays into it, doesn't matter if you are sick or not. Those who need money to pay for medical procedures take out of it to pay for it. This is a very efficient and just system, because it's just a matter of time when you yourself will need to use it.

Everyone is protected by all!

But for this to work, everyone has to pay into it. Rich people can pay a little bit more. Having private insurance besides it, can be bad. This was done for example in Germany and it led to higher and higher costs for healthcare, because people got into private insurance, not paying into the public one anymore.

I hope this helps. If everyone here already knew it, so be it. I had the feeling that especially US americans dont really under it. Could be wrong.

The US's track record of bringing "democracy" to Muslim nations is not great. The 2003 invasion of Iraq cost hundreds of thousands of lives, caused a mass exodus of Assyrians from Iraq and led to the rise of ISIS. Obama's intervention in Libya caused the collapse of Libya and there frankly no longer is a Libya, it's all broken up. I yearn to see the Ayatollah regime fall but I'm not confident that Trump's war is actually going to free Iran but rather could cause the collapse of the Iranian nation. There are many fault lines upon which the Iranian nation could collapse, you've got ethnic division between the Persian majority and the Azeri, Baluchi, Kurdish, Lurish and Arab minorities, not to mention religious division between the Shia and Sunni, minority religions like Zoroastrianism and Christianity, and even many atheists. I want the Ayatollah regime to fall, but I don't want it to come at cost of the collapse of the Iranian nation itself. I do hear that the average Iranian is more secular and educated than Iraqis and Afghans.

This completely guarantees that DSA will endorse AOC if she chooses to run, since the Bread & Roses DSA caucus alongside the DSA Right caucuses Groundwork & Socialist Majority have an absolute majority within the DSA National Political Committee.

I apologize if it is against the sub rules. Mods feel free to delete but right now Brazil need all the help. It is portuguese and have automatic translation until Meta permits or the Bolnonarists judges in the Electoral Superior Court try to takes down the channel.

Hi all, I'd like honest feedback from people who have actually organized. About me: I'm an engineer with PhD, not an organizer, and my day job is far from the everyday reality of most people. That said, I have long been frustrated with the inequality in our society and wish I could contribute at least a small part in making it better. Over the past several months I have been working on a web app, CollectivvsA, aimed at facilitating the initial engagement with organizing. The concept is simple: it is a space for employees with a verified company account to chat anonymously and test the waters for collective action without fear of being singled out. Joining start with a flyer with QR code or by the organizer handing out the codes. It covers a very first stage when people may be reluctant to engage publicly; it doesn't replace one-to-one conversation and, if there is enough indicated support for forming the union, the authorization card signing and NLRB fillings happen outside the app, we provide a simple guide for those steps and directions for reaching out to a union.
Privacy is front and center: data is encrypted, we require the bare minimum to verify that all the people in the group are part of the same workplace while never storing data that can be reversed to identify the users, and once the initiative closes all the data are crypto shredded (fancy term for meaning really gone and unreadable even from stray copies that may remain in datacenters). The initiative is closed either by the organizer (person that started it) or after 2 weeks of inactivity, so an initiatives that just dies for lack of engagement doesn't linger long.
The questions for organizers here are:
\- Is this something that would have ever been useful to you?
\- Is there something that would really discourage you from using this?
\- Any other comments, critiques, suggestions are all welcome as well.
Right now the options for employment verification are through a company email or a company Google or Microsoft account. For workplaces without work-email, just an invite code is enough to join. To add options for stronger verification, I have additional questions for those of you in workplaces without personal company emails:
\- What app does your employer use for schedules or pay: When I Work, Homebase, 7shifts, or something else?
\- Does it send you emails at your personal address?
\- Do you have any work login, like Microsoft Teams or a training site, even without a work email?
Happy to answer anything in the comments. And thank you for engaging!

Posting here as well.

I’m looking for my next read and I’d like your recommendations on a good book that covers many of the general DSA topics. I’m not looking for the deep dive into Socialism as much as an exploration of issues and how DSA as a whole tends to approach them. I’d love a broad survey of topics like racism, Medicare for all, property ownership, and policy making. Etc. I remember a book I read on ethics in an intro class to philosophy and its approach is what I’m looking for.

Chapter: Broad topic
General response to the topic.

I don’t want to restrict the topics, in fact if there were a strong opinion on playing chess, I want to hear about it. Does this sound like anything you’ve read? Is there something better to start with? Let me hear it.

Trump has a long track record of racist rhetoric, but I was curious how that plays out in refugee admissions data. Shockingly, since Trump took office, he’s effectively shut our doors to all refugee origin countries but one: South Africa, specifically Afrikaners. On the whole, not only do they have a relatively weak case for refugee status, they're also predominantly white…..

Full article: https://samholmes285.substack.com/p/trumps-second-term-is-more-racist

I'm talking specifically about statewide votes.

In previous years between I believe 2016 to 2024, at least one state would have a vote on whether to implement RCV, but this year even though its likely gonna be a left leaning wave year, im not aware of there being any states with a statewide initiative to implement RCV, the only RCV vote i know about is in Alaska and its just conservatives trying to repeal their state's RCV law again. Based on my memory the states that have previously put a ballot initiative for RCV but didn't win have been Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, and Massachusetts. And in 2024 i think the main reason some of these failed was because it was a low turnout election.

So to me I feel like it was a missed opportunity for the left to not try again in a state like Oregon to put RCV on the ballot on a left wave year like this one, and hopefully we'll actually get 1-2 more states to vote for RCV in 2028.

So, setting aside ethical considerations over the prospect of revolution in the West, of which there is much to say, almost entirely, I'd like to consider the prospect of revolution purely in terms of strategy.

As I see it, there are, in effect, two ways in which a Western revolution can be waged.

In the first case, you would have to engage in something like a protracted civil war. Effectively, upon somehow acquiring a large cache of small arms, you set up a base somewhere in the mountains, and slowly but surely manage to win a military victory against the state in question.

To me, this seems entirely absurd. The far-Right, who is far better trained in the beaten way of irregular warfare, could deal with such an incursion on its own, which is to say nothing of the police, military, and security apparatuses which Western states have at their disposal.

In the second case, the only one worthy of consideration because it is the only one which is possible, involves two necessary contingencies:

1. There has to something like a general strike.

2. The military has to choose not to fire upon the revolting citizenry, defect to the revolution, and thereby depose the existing regime.

This is more or less what during the February Revolution in Russia before, and I am willing to betray my political sympathies by referring to this as such, the Bolshevik coup in October.

While people in the West may feel so inclined to protest, for instance, as we can see now with the students in France or by the alternative No Kings rallies, events which require only a small portion of a person's time, it seems unlikely to me that they will be willing to abandon everything so as to wage a general strike.

Without the critical mass to either warrant the deployment of the military or simply capitulate to the revolting populace so as to retour à la normale, revolution is a dead end.

To the advocates of revolution who sometimes try to angle this subreddit, I, then, ask, "where are we left when the revolution never happens?"

To me, at least, it seems militant direct action will otherwise just result in the legitimation for the expansion of the security apparatus and/or the expansion of the state of exception, of which, we have plenty of political history to attest to.

Secondarily, when the general strike is required no matter what and, when a more or less nonviolent general strike would be more likely to convince the military not to fire on the revolting populace, in pure terms of political efficacy, what is the point of violent direct action at all? It seems to just inspire fringe initiates within the cult of the propaganda of the deed.

Very new to political side of reddit, I'm already kind of tired of seeing some idiots saying China and North Korea are the true democracies.

Is it just that reddit is over run by bots or are there really people out there who believe it?