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Momentums snappy social media campaigns gleaned millions of shares. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Not so long ago, in the slur-filled era before this years election, Momentum, the grassroots group of supporters for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, were routinely dismissed as armchair activists, cultish Trots, delusional young nafs, or some combination of the three. Now, media coverage of the group carries headlines such as How Momentum changed British politics for ever and How Momentum HQ perfected social media outreach.

The 24,000-member group didnt deserve those dismissive pre-election labels, but it has certainly earned the more recently positive ones. Credited with mobilising the youth vote, Momentums snappy social media campaigns gleaned millions of shares. The group also sent scores of campaigners some of them first-time canvassers into the countrys most marginal constituencies, helping to drive up support for Labour, house by house and street by street.

Using an online map of marginal seats as well as WhatsApp and phone banks to enlist and direct activists, the group transformed Labours canvassing game, helping to turn seats such as Canterbury, Sheffield Hallam, Derby North and Croydon Central into Labour wins. MPs who may once have criticised the group are now more enthusiastic, while Momentum organisers say that, since members and constituency campaigners worked so closely in the past six weeks, relations are more cordial. Those who were divided over past splits in the Labour party got to know each other and found that they got along.

Now, Momentum wants to build on the oh, lets just go with it momentum to militate against any complacency over Labours dramatic increase in voter share, now at 40%, or disillusion that the party nonetheless lost the election. Since the general election, the Labour party has gained 35,000 new members, while 1,500 have joined Momentum. With greater numbers, capacity and credibility, the task now is ensuring more activists join in and are election-ready because who knows how soon were going to have to do it all again.

But elections arent the only focus. For a start, Momentum wants to move away from the idea that political campaigning only takes place when votes are needed. It plans to engage in community action, whether thats voter registration campaigns or support for local causes, so that the group and, by extension, the Labour party, is organically active at grassroots level. Not to re-open old wounds and definitely not now the Labour party is united in support for its leader but this terrain might have been broached sooner, were it not for Momentum instead having to rally in support of Corbyn during last years leadership challenge.

In any case, such endeavours, however embryonic, have already begun. Last year, local Momentum groups started to collect and volunteer for food banks. Now, national organisers are looking at the possibility of running these independently, although the idea isnt to provide tinned beans bearing party slogans so much as to support local communities in tackling hardships also addressed by Labours political offer. At a time when so many have been terribly affected by the recession and Conservative austerity cuts, there are multiple social issues where Momentum could get involved.

The focus seems to be on harnessing the political engagement unleashed by Corbyns leadership and fostering unity among Labours different voter groups. This pursuit of collectivism, in the face of decades of rampant individualism, was always one of the more radical aspects of Corbyns leadership. It was in evidence throughout his campaign speeches, where he often spoke of societys many cohorts as one community, binding together groups young and old, black and white, nurses as well as builders and office workers that are more often encouraged to compete against each other in the current economy.

Momentum draws inspiration and cross-pollinates ideas with the leftwing Syriza party in Greece and Podemos in Spain, both of which were fed by practical, grassroots organising to counter the effects of crippling austerity cuts. In Greece, for instance, the social movements that ran health clinics, food banks and legal aid centres were the blood supply for the Syriza party now leading a coalition government. In the UK, Momentum is also looking at growing the information-sharing debates developed by the World Transformed, which launched parallel to the Labour party conference in Liverpool last year and hosts political events.

The intention is to convert social media clicks and shares into practical action: the demand for Momentums election campaign training and turnout on the doorstop has shown that there is a desire to get involved, given the means, confidence and skills to do so. Its also pretty much what grassroots democracy looks like a movement that chimes with and feeds into a viable political party. And its this combination a left wing effective both at parliamentary and community level that could help turn the Labour party into an unstoppable political force and propel it into power.

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Momentum's grassroots democracy can make Labour an unstoppable force - The Guardian

America should thank Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback.

After his election in 2010, the hard-right Republican launchedthe state on an adventure in conservative policymaking by slashing personal income taxes in what came to be known as the Kansas Experiment. It was an effort to show that running a state according to conservative economic orthodoxy would deliver jobs and growth that would in turn offset the lost tax revenue.

The experiment failed spectacularly. Since Brownback took office, Kansas growth and employment have both lagged behind the country as a whole. In 2016, economic output in the state was up a scant 0.2 percent compared to growth of 1.5 percent nationally. During Brownbacks tenure as governor, employment in Kansas is up about 6 percent half that of the U.S.

The tax cuts also hurt the states finances, shrinking revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars and helping to open up a budget deficit of roughly $900 million over the next two fiscal years. Kansas has tried to make up for the shortfall by repeatedly raiding the states highway fund meant for infrastructure improvements, skimping on pension contributions, and cutting education spending.

Predictably, those tactics have proved wildly unpopular. In April, a poll showed 66 percent of Kansans disapproved of Brownbacks performance as governor, making him the second-most-unpopular governor in the country, behind only New Jerseys embattled Chris Christie.

After an influx of moderate, anti-Brownback Republicans were elected to the state legislature in 2016, Kansas decided enough was enough. Earlier this month, legislators overrode Brownbacks veto of a large tax increase set to raise $600 million a public acknowledgement that the people of Kansas no longer want to be governed as Republican guinea pigs.

But the states turn away from Brownbackism was more than yet another illustration of the fact that tax cuts arent a foolproof way to boost economic growth. Kansas also shows that American politics are not necessarily destined to become more and more extreme.

Brownback never hid what he intended to do as governor of Kansas, and his supporters got what they voted for. After a few years, however, they learned that what they voted for was an economic mess. Having tried extreme right-wing economic policy and seen the damage it inflicted, they then changed their minds and voted for moderate lawmakers.

This is how a healthy democracy works. But in recent years, American democracy has become increasingly unhealthy, in part because Americans have been shielded from the impact of the policies for which they claim to be voting. As a result, the conservative wing of the American electorate has failed to correct and continues on an increasingly extreme course.

For example, Republicans regained control of Congress in 2010 in the aftermath of the Great Recession, empowering tea partiers who were focused on cutting back government spending a crucial component of the economic recovery and setting off a string of destabilizing fights over the U.S. debt.

These fights amounted to mini-crises that slowed the recovery. But they didnt push the economy back into recession, thanks in large part to extraordinary efforts by the Federal Reserve to effectively bail out the economy and keep interest rates at historically low levels. Effectively, the Fed an unelected quasi-independent branch of the government managed to shield the economy from the impact of what people actually voted for.

Then theres Obamacare. Many people in states like Kentucky, West Virginia, and Ohio were able to obtain health care coverage thanks to President Barack Obamas signature law. A few years later, many of these same people voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump, a candidate who ran on an explicit promise to do away with Obamacare.

Some didnt realize their health care was, in fact, Obamacare, while others took Trump at his word that hed come up with something terrific to replace it. But no doubt many didnt believe they would actually feel the effects of the policy for which they voted because of the checks the legislative process puts on a president.Even one whose party controls both houses of Congress.

It should be pretty easy for Republicans to run the country the way they want right now, yet the first several months of the Trump administration have shown the GOP is having difficulty enacting major legislation.

That doesnt mean the party is backing off its agenda. House Republicans pushed through a plan to undo the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, the financial overhaul designed to make the banking system safer after the financial crisis. And all signs indicate that Senate Republicans are serious about producing a bill that would effectively destroy Obamacare, resulting in millions of Americans losing their health insurance.

But the lack of major legislation in the early days of the Trump administration does suggest that Republicans dont want to set off a broader Brownbackian backlash. One could argue thats politically savvy. And in the short term, its probably better for the country if policy doesnt lurch toward the extreme right.

But over the long term, American democracy needs a fundamental course-correction to a more moderate path. And one way to temper the current Republican appetite for extreme policies may be if America, like Kansas, gets a good look at what those policies do when actually put into practice.

Go here to read the rest:
Kansas' shattered economy shows that democracy can still work - VICE News

The first sign that this was no ordinary opening night of Shakespeare In The Park were the TV crews, and particularly one from Inside Edition.

The same questions were being asked of those going into the Public Theaters Julius Caesar on Monday night in New Yorks Central Park.

How did they feel about the scene in which Caesar, dressed as Donald Trump and played by Gregg Henry, would be bloodily cut down by Brutus and his fellow assassins? What did they think of the controversy, fanned by outrage on Breitbart and later Fox News, around the show that had led Delta Air Lines and Bank of America to withdraw funding from the Public Theater, one of the most venerable arts institutions in New York?

As the events of the weekend seeped into Monday, there were other questions: What of the statements of the National Endowment for the Arts and American Express, distancing themselves from the organization, as if it were a foul stink on the sidewalk? Would there be counter pro-Trump protests?

Shock. Outrage. Rinse. Repeat.

Sad to report to the right-wing fire-starters and Newt Gingrich who invoked the Publics production darkly on Good Morning America on Tuesday morning, but those in attendance Monday night queued for gin and tonics without obvious blood-lust in their eyes, and took their seats, quietly leafing through programs. There were no, I cant wait to see how he dies heard by this reporter.

At least the brouhaha meant Shakespeare was on primetime. If this episode has proved anything, it is the relevance and currency of Shakespeare, many hundreds of years after his plays were first performed.

Also on Monday, eagle-eyed social media users rightly equated the flattery that Trump sought and received from his cabinet with King Lear, at the beginning of that play, demanding the same explicitly stated devotion from his three daughters, Regan, Goneril, and Cordelia. Cordelia declines of course, leading to her father disowning heruntil realizing, too late, she was the most honest and well-meaning one of all.

This PR blitz on the Bard might be welcome, driving ever younger generations to his work, even if the questions of the TV reporters to Caesar-goers were askew. Self-evidently those attending the show were not outraged, as they had come to see the play.

The productions detractors had not realized that a Caesar, dressed as Barack Obama, had also been killed in a production five years ago. Caesar is a figure of power, and different productions in different eras configure him as the leader-figure of that moment.

But most clearly, many of those criticizing the play had not seen it.

The shocking thing about this production of Julius Caesar is not the murder of Caesar itself, bloody as it is, but how the play evokes the fragility of democracy, and how power can corrupt and itself be corrupted.

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Before the performance began, Oskar Eustis, the Publics artistic director took to the stage to loud cheers, asking those assembled to video the speech and post it to social media.

Eustis, quoting Hamlet, said one of dramas functions was to hold a mirror up to natureto show the age his form and pressure. The public aimed to do the same as Shakespeare, Eustis said. When we hold the mirror up to nature often what we reveal are disturbing, upsetting provoking thingsthank god. That's our job.

The Publics mission, said Eustis, was to say that the culture belongs to everybody, needs to belong to everybody; to say that art has something to say about the great civic issues of our time, and to say that, like drama, democracy depends on the conflict of different points of view. Nobody owns the truth, we all own the culture.

In the play itself, its characters in modern-day dress, Gregg Henry as Caesar wears a red tie, and carries himself as Trump would. But he does not affect Trumps tone of voice. He does not swagger exaggeratedly. He does not make his Caesar into a modern-day drag act, to be laughed at or booed. He is Trumpian, not Trump.

Yes, Calpurnia (Tina Benko) speaks in a Slavic accent like Melania Trump, and yes, this drew scattered laughsbut it was no more offensive than a Saturday Night Live skit.

Before the slaying of Caesarwhich occurs not at the end but midway through the playwhat is striking is the gender and color-blind casting, both refreshing and freeing. We also see protesters attired in Resist garb.

When it occurs, the murder of Caesar is brutal, just as Shakespeare wrote it. But it is, whatever your political affiliation, Caesar being murdered, not Donald Trump.

Among the audience, no doubt dismissed as diehard lefties in the minds of the plays detractors, there was no sense of delight at the scene on opening night. One person to my left clapped, tentatively. The rest of the audience sat in silence. The assassins immediately start falling to pieces, interrogating their actions and their consequences. The country falls apart. This Julius Caesar is the very opposite to a positive advertisement for the joy and benefits of a Trump assassination.

The trajectory of the play, which has been largely ignored in the hysterical news coverage of recent days, advances a subversive and ambivalent vision of power and patronage.

Caesar is a divisive figure, just as Trump is one. But Shakespeares emphasis, and the Publics focus, is on what plotting to diminish and take away his power will do to society; what does it mean for democracy; and how easily political and cultural threads can be torn dangerously asunder when such a political assassination takes place.

That Caesars murder occurs midway in the play is important because the sweep of the following half is one of terrible and truly tragic consequences. Mark Antony and Brutus have many supporters and many enemies, and the public itself is representedingeniouslyby around 20 to 30 planted actors in the audience, who shout approval or dissent to speeches being made. This polyphony is the polyphony of democracy, and later the destructive discontent of an imperiled democracy.

This is also a Shakespearean tragedy, so those same bodies ultimately join the main characters in going to war over what they believe, and the truly shocking thing is not the bloodied body of Caesar, but the massed corpses on the stage by the plays end.

Those bodies you can see as real and metaphorical casualties of the arrogant exercise of power, and the manipulations of those who wish to co-opt it. The personal tragedies are real, and the possibility of the death of civil society is real.

Anybody who watches this play tonight will know neither Shakespeare, nor the Public Theater, could possibly advocate violence as a solution to political problems and certainly not assassination, Eustis had said in his introduction.

This play, on the contrary, warns about what happens when you try to preserve democracy by non-democratic meansit doesn't end up too good.

One of the dangers unleashed by that is the danger of a large crowd of people manipulated by their emotions, taken over by leaders who urge them to do things that not only are against their interests but destroy the very institutions that are there to serve and protect them.

That is borne out in the conception of the production. The Publics Julius Caesar does not delight in the death of Donald Trump in any way. It cautions a watching audience instead about what we expect and invest in our leaders, about how they exercise authority, and what can happen to a society where the toxicity of extreme political ambition and inflammatory rhetoric infects the body politic.

That may not be the soundbite Inside Edition is looking for, but its the more complex truth of an unjustly denounced theatrical production.

See the original post:
DemocracyNot Donald TrumpDies Brutally in 'Julius Caesar,' Just as Shakespeare Intended - Daily Beast

BBC News

Has British democracy let its people down? - BBC News BBC News The general election demonstrated that the British democratic system was not serving its country well. and more »

Read more here:
Has British democracy let its people down? - BBC News - BBC News

We Indians tend to be a little too glib about our democracy. We take it for granted, assume it not just exists but is renewed whenever elections take place. Some even believe we have an excess of the stuff, slowing down decisions and suffocating reforms, in contrast to China, which makes up for its deficit of democracy with rapid growth and popular enrichment.

In reality, does India qualify as a democracy? Regular elections to form a government, multiple parties that compete and a multiplicity of media outlets are necessary parts of a democracy, but not sufficient ones. Protection of fundamental rights of individuals and groups and the rule of law, active participation of the citizenry in public life, apart from institutional dispersal of power and the ability of the people, the ultimate sovereign, to hold all arms of the state to account are other essential ingredients of democracy. On these, we fall short.

When groups take the law into their hands, and beat up individuals or even kill them, the rule of law disappears. When teachers appointed to village schools play truant and get away without being sacked, citizen participation in public life and popular ability to hold parts of the state to account break down. When Christians are attacked for proselytisation, minority rights are breached. When Dalits are attacked by socially more powerful groups and the state fails to prevent or penalise such attacks, not just the rule of law but equality before the law also breaks down.

Democracy in the Making In those parts of India where sections of the people challenge the authority of the state, such as in Kashmir, the Northeast and the tribal belts of central India, individual rights and liberty are abrogated not just of the militants but of ordinary people as well.

When a member of the higher judiciary pronounces, in court, the cow to be his mother, he puts personal values and custom in place of the law of the land he is dutybound to uphold. This is as much breakdown of the rule of law as a legal dispute taking decades to be settled beyond final appeal.

Individual liberty is rviolated when undertrials languish in jail for years, only to be pronounced not guilty by the courts later, after their youth and vitality have drained out of them and their dear ones have passed on, broken by grief, if not old age.

India is better understood as a democracy in the making, rather than as a full-fledged democracy. And this is not a particularly uncommon thing in the history of nations.

When the American revolution produced its first constitution and provided for elections, about 6% of the population qualified to vote. Slaves, women and those without property did not qualify. Just like in Athenian democracy. Europe had to go through wrenching revolutions, multiple rounds of them, to achieve universal adult suffrage. Women got the right to vote much later. Black Americans continued to be disenfranchised till after the civil rights movements of the 1960s. Even today, some southern states make it difficult for black people to register as voters, leave alone take part as equal citizens in public life.

Challenge and Opportunity Democracy must be understood as an evolving system of expanding rights of the ordinary people. Its defining virtue is that its governance structures offer the space for people to add to and enhance their realised rights. In theory, this should be easier in India than it was in the countries that first secured democracy. Indians got their democracy gift-wrapped, when they got Independence. If democracy were a building with many rooms, Europeans had to struggle to build those rooms one by one, before occupying them, whereas Indians already had those rooms designed for them by Europeans and built for them by the framers of the Constitution, but still have to train themselves to move into them. This is not all that simple. When you design and build a room yourself, you know what it is for. When you stumble upon a room that you never knew you could enter, you might be intimidated into staying out.

The good news is that sections of the traditionally excluded are asserting their right to be part of national life on an equal footing. The Dalits are an obvious example. But they encounter violence, as in Una in Gujarat and in Sahranpur, in UP.

Muslims are being intimidated out of a key traditional occupation, of butchering animals for meat. Transportation of cattle, whether legally or illegally, runs the risk of violent death at the hands of vigilantes. The sale of cattle for slaughter now stands banned by fiat.

These are instances of extreme violation of democracy. But they are also invitations to expand democracy by resisting them. The resistance could take multiple forms, ranging from legal challenge to popular protest. Organising such resistance is a way of building democracy and leadership credentials.

Democracy has to be earned, through struggle to acquire and enforce rights. Whom does this challenge beckon, is the question.

Views expressed here are the author's own, and not Economictimes.com's

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View: Recent violations of democracy also offer a chance to build a new India - Economic Times