Volunteer Grecia Ricart (front) raises her fist signaling silence during survivor rescue work in a collapsed building after an earthquake at Mexico City, on Sept. 22, 2017. Picture: [e]David de la Paz/Xinhua /PA Images. All rights reserved This article forms part of the special “Mexico Elections 2018: depolarisation and disinformation” produced in partnership with Revista Nueva Sociedad in the framework of our project #EleccionesAbiertas2018  The political parties of Mexico seem to have endorsed the triumph of the divide et impera (divide and rule) political strategy ahead of citizens taking to the polls on the 1st of July. Polarisation in the political and civil sphere in Mexico increases on a daily basis,…

WARNING: This article contains disturbing illustrations. A new cartoon by Bruce MacKinnon, published this weekend in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, has gone viral for being a powerful and disturbing depiction of the Republican Party’s continued support of alleged sexual abusers. For the past two years, the party has backed politicians who’ve been credibly accused of sexual misconduct, namely Donald Trump and Alabama senatorial candidate Roy Moore. The Republican Party has continued this trend by supporting supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh has been accused of sexual abuse by three women, including Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who claimed Kavanaugh attempted to rape her in 1982. MacKinnon’s cartoon shows a blindfolded Lady Justice being…

Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than 20 years ago. Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town. A great black stove is its main feature; but there is also a big round table and a fireplace with two rocking chairs placed in front of it. Just today the fireplace commenced its seasonal roar. A woman with shorn white hair is standing at the kitchen window. She is wearing tennis shoes and a shapeless gray sweater over a summery calico dress. She is small and sprightly, like a bantam hen; but, due to a long youthful illness, her shoulders are…

Long before President Donald Trump called kneeling NFL players “sons of bitches” and Laura Ingraham admonished LeBron James to “shut up and dribble,” sports was a point of cultural and political collision for black athletes. “The newspapers used to call sports pages the ‘toy department’ for a reason. It was, after all, only a game,” writes Howard Bryant, an award-winning journalist, author, and senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. “But sports was always more than that for the black athlete.” In his new book, “The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism,” Bryant explores the deep, complicated history of sports, race, and dissent in America.  Today, as…

Although Beatrice and her children left the house right after the Cowboys game, there were already three people in line at the Wal-Mart when they arrived. Three people, and the Lions had just started playing. Who gets in line before the end of the Cowboys game? Beatrice thought, setting up her lawn chair. She tugged her beanie down her forehead and sunk her gloved hands into the pockets of her poofy jacket, which made her look heavier than she already was. Her eldest set up his chair next to hers, and then set up chairs for his brother and sister. Her youngest cried that he was cold, and her daughter…

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just sent shockwaves through the political establishment that could simultaneously create space for more bipartisan cooperation with Republicans while also aggravating her base of progressive lawmakers — especially those who came to power after the historic 2018 midterm elections. In an interview with The Washington Post, Pelosi said she has no plans to impeach President Trump, telling the paper: It’s an interesting political argument which essentially comes down to saying don’t take Trump seriously as a figurehead and instead focus all your energy on defeating his policies and eventually defeating him as a candidate in 2020. However, impeachment is also a driving force for Pelosi’s progressive…

Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Bruno Rodriguez, Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs. Photo: EU, All rights reserved. The European Union (EU) and Cuba are showing signs of moving towards establishing a strong relationship. This is happening despite a string of previous meetings, misunderstandings, US policy under Donald Trump, and the persistence of sectors within and outside the EU and the island opposed to advancing bilateral ties. On May 15, the first ever joint Council between Cuba and the EU was held in Brussels. The High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security, Federica Mogherini, and the Cuban Foreign Minister,…

The openMovements series invites leading social scientists to share their research results and perspectives on contemporary social struggles. XR twitter. November 17, 2018. Fair use. During October and November 2018, a new environmental campaign called Extinction Rebellion (XR) has attracted widespread mainstream media attention in the UK, with its call to ‘Fight for Life’ in the face of an ‘unprecedented global emergency’. Currently, it is trying to set up chapters in many other parts of Europe and the US as well. A series of high profile actions, including a blockade of the UK government’s Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, culminated on Saturday, November 17, in a day of…

Black Hole A pupil in the eye of stars, Sits in utter silence as it tugs upon space. Ancient light warps slowly Around the hole, curves into a circle. If we were to fall into it, We could look up in peace, As we saw ourselves, and the entire universe Warp and shrink Into a window that just floats away Into blackness. Engulfed by a power even light can’t escape. Can you imagine nothing? Nothing. It must be quite peaceful.