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Is the U.S. Actually a Democracy?
With the US election taking place tomorrow (11/3/20) and one of the worst presidents this country has ever seen occupying the highest office, I keep hearing a similar battle cry: “VOTE NOW TO SAVE OUR DEMOCRACY!” My sincere hope is that this message is possible and that US democracy still does exist, even if it’s just hanging by a thread. Still, as we head into the election, I have an anxious reply on repeat in my head: You can’t save something that doesn’t exist. Does US democracy still exist? Or is it actually dead? Some of the world’s leading economics…
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Lessons & Truth from Coup 53 Documentary
Recently I had the pleasure of pre-screening Coup 53, a documentary directed by Taghi Amirani, edited by Walter Murch, and featuring a brilliant character reenactment by none other than Ralph Fiennes himself, who is somewhat of a legend in the film world (he played Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter, for instance). This film was a revelatory masterpiece covering the 1953 CIA + MI6 staged coup in Iran that overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. This story blew the doors off my mind and taught me so much that I – shamefully – did not even know about the…
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What is Democratic Socialism?
According to the book, Democratic Socialism: A Global Survey by Donald F. Busky, democratic socialism can be defined as combining the “ideas of liberal-democratic government with that of social ownership and control of the economy.” The author goes on to say that it is a “wing of the socialist movement that combines a belief in socially owned economy with that of political democracy.” The term “democratic socialism” is often used to distinguish those ideals from a more traditional view of socialism, which aligns itself more with communism than a democracy. Critics of this view democratic socialism as being a watered-down…
