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Ideologies & Structures antid‚mocratiques
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  1. Against Anarchism
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2013
    A critical theory of the public sphere should incorporate neo-anarchism’s best insights, while rejecting wholesale anarchism. Neo-anarchism fails to sustain the tension between fact and norm required by a critical theory.
  2. All Rights Reserved: Now We Know the Final TTP is Everything We Feared
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2015
    The release by Wikileaks of what is believed to be the current and essentially final version of the intellectual property (IP) chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) confirms our worst fears about the agreement.
  3. America Likes Democracy, Except In Venezuela
    Chavez in the Crosshairs
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2012
    Venezuelans can be sure that their vote counts. The government in Venezuela has done everything to increase voter registration and participation.
  4. The American Deep State
    Wall Street, Big Oil, and the Attack on U.S. Democracy
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2014
    Scott makes a compelling case for a hidden "deep state," a second order of government behind the public or constitutional state, that influences and often opposes official U.S. policies.
  5. American Fascists 
    The Christian Right and the War on America
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2006
    Hedges examines the Christian Right's origins, its driving motivation and its dark ideological underpinnings, with interviews and coverage of events such as pro-life rallies and weeklong classes on conversion techniques. Hedges argues that the movement resembles the young fascist movements in Italiy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, movements that often masked the full extent of their drive for totalitarianism and were willing to make concessions until they achieved unrivaled power. He challenges the Christian Right's religious legitimacy and argues that at its core it is a mass movement fueled by unbridled nationalism and a hatred for the open society.
  6. Bakunin
    The Philosophy of Freedom
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1993
    An attempt to portray Bakunin's political theories in a coherent manner.
  7. Bakunin, Mikhail
    Connexipedia Article
    Resource Type: Article
    Russian anarchist and revolutionary. (1814-1876).
  8. Bakunin on Anarchy
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1971
    An anthology of Bakunin's writings.
  9. Bakunin on Marx and Rothschild
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1871   Published: 1979
  10. Bakunin vs Marx
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1979
    The debates between Bakunin and Marx transcend petty personal squabbles and embody two diametrically opposed tendencies in the theory and tactics of socialism, the authoritarian and libertarian schools respectively.
  11. Bakunin vs. Marx 
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1978
    The anarchist-Marxist split started with Bakunin, who systematically misrepresented Marx's positions.
  12. Beyond the brexit debate
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2016
    Whatever the result of the Brexit referendum, of one thing we can be sure: Britain will neither be invaded by marauding Turks, as anti-EU campaigners suggest might happen if the country votes 'Yes', nor will Western civilization collapse, as EU president Donald Tusk fears after a 'No' vote. There will undoubtedly be economic and political turbulence, but Britain will not be staring into the abyss, however it votes.
  13. Blocking Progress 
    Consensus Decision Making In The Anti-Nuclear Movement
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1983
    Howard Ryan maintains that consensus is wrong in principle and in practice: "The problem is not so much that individuals are being irresponsible or somehow abusing the consensus process. The problem lies in giving individuals that kind of power in the first place. Consensus turns majority rule into minority rule. That's not democracy."
  14. A Blueprint for a New Party
    With the rise of Donald Trump, we need to think seriously about what it would take to form a democratic organization rooted in working class
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2016
    A proposal for a national political organization that would have chapters at the state and local levels, a binding program, a leadership accountable to its members, and electoral candidates nominated at all levels throughout the country.
  15. Brexit and the new hostility to participatory democracy
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2016
    The reaction to Brexit illustrates the desperate need for the Left to return to first principles. For, as the result broke on social media, a remarkable number of progressives directed their anger not at anti-immigrant demagogues and opportunist politicians but against the voters themselves and the very idea of a referendum in which they might express their will. It's merely the most recent illustration of a growing estrangement from democracy, not only on the mainstream Right but also on the Left.
  16. Britain, Europe and the Real Crisis
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2016
    The decision by British voters last week to leave the European Union has brutally exposed two features of contemporary British politics. The first is the depth of popular disaffection with mainstream political institutions. The second is the paralysis of the political class in the face of this disaffection.

    The Brexit victory was buttressed by a coalition of disparate social groups. Traditional Conservative supporters in the shires and the suburbs have long been suspicious of the European project. Few were surprised that they voted in large numbers against EU membership. What shocked many politicians and pundits about the referendum result was the extent of hostility in traditional Labour Party heartlands, in the North of England, in the Midlands and in the Welsh valleys.
  17. Can the Egyptians Come to Canada to Liberate Us?
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2011
    As I sat glued to Al Jazeera for two weeks watching the Egyptian revolution unfold from my home in Toronto, I must confess to having experienced feelings of jealousy. How nice it must be, I thought, to live a country where people want democracy.
  18. Canada After Harper
    His Ideology-fuelled Attack on Canadian Society and Values, and How We Can Resist and Create the Country We Want
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2015
    Essays documenting the breadth and depth of the Harper government's attack on institutions, policies, and programs that embody values and principles shared by most Canadians: education, health care, women's rights, science and research, the economy, labour unions, water and natural resources, and Aboriginal affairs.
  19. Canada's Distorted Electoral System
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2000
    Canada's electoral system is undemocratic
  20. Consensus decision-making 
    Connexipedia Article
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2010
    Article about the group decision making process known as consensus decision-making.
  21. The conspiracy to censor the Internet
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2017
    The political representatives of the American ruling class are engaged in a conspiracy to suppress free speech. Under the guise of combating "trolls" and "fake news" supposedly controlled by Russia, the most basic constitutional rights enumerated in the First Amendment are under direct attack.
  22. The Corporation 
    Resource Type: Film/Video
    First Published: 2004
    The Corporation explores the nature and spectacular rise of the dominant institution of our time.
  23. The Death of Democracy
    Israel's Flood of Anti-Democratic Laws
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2011
    Democracy is dying in both Israel and the United States, and much of the world is turning away in revulsion.
  24. Defend Brazil!
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2016
    Enough weeping! Latin America has wept incessantly, continuously, for years, decades and centuries. Its people robbed of everything since the days of Columbus, since Potosi. Tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions have been slaughtered here, in the last five centuries; first by the conquerors, then by their descendants and serfs, and finally by the Empire of Lies as well as the treasonous local 'elites'.
  25. Democracy for the Few 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1988   Published: 1995
    How does the U.S. political system work and for what purpose? What are the major forces shaping political life and how do they operate? Who governs in the United States? Who gets what, when, how, and why? Who pays and in what ways. These are the central questions investigated in this book.
  26. Democracy in a Neoliberal Order
    Doctrines and Reality
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1997
  27. Democracy in the Unites States? Fugetaboutit!
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2007
    We who want a more equal and democratic society are the vast majority. There is no reason for us to feel hesitant about speaking our minds and talking revolution to our friends and neighbors, our co-workers, and even people we meet in the course of shopping and so forth. When millions of Americans feel that they are not alone in wanting a revolution, that's when things will start to change. That's when people will start to think creatively and concretely about how to make it happen. Until then, we'll remain on a treadmill to nowhere, with everybody feeling that they are just one lonely person who "can't fight city hall."
  28. Democracy Is that it?
    New Internationalist June 2000
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    First Published: 2000
    Democracy has become commonplace and its original meaning -- "rule by the people" -- has got lost. Real democracy depends on active citizenship, something that's missing from contemporary culture. Articles cover democracy in Canada and the developing world, economics in relation to democracy and politics in Pakistan.
  29. Democracy loses out
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1978
    The people can say what they want, they can vote how they want, but the bureaucrats make the decisions.
  30. Democracy was never intended for degenerates
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2016
    This is not a left vs right debate -- today, as a century ago, the anti-democratic impulse comes from both left and right, from both reactionaries and self-defined progressives.
  31. Destroying the Commons 
    How the Magna Carta Became a Minor Carta
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2012
    Our rights and liberties are under ever-increasing attack.
  32. The Disconnect in US Democracy
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2004
    Noam Chomsky describes how the American people are excluded from political participation, claiming that action must also come before and after elections and not only once every four years.
  33. Dismantling Democracy
    Stifling Debate and Dissent in Canada
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2015
    An extensive dossier of the Harper government's attacks on democracy, debate, and dissent.
  34. The End of Politics
    Corporate Power and the Decline of the Public Sphere
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2000
    From the events of privatization, economic globalization, spread of violence and gun culture, and the end of the cold war, Boggs explores the depoliticization process in the United States.
  35. Everything under control, Life in a managed society
    New Internationalist April 1985
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    First Published: 1985
    A deluge of commercial messages are subtly undermining the consumer's ability to make autonomous decisions. Discussion of why, and how, social control is becoming the norm in Western societies.
  36. Falsifying History and Ourselves: Anti-Democratic Propaganda in the Classroom
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2001
    Contrary to the views promoted by FHAO, the true facts about Germany during the Holocaust show that 1) working class Germans fought the Nazis; 2) anti-Semitism did not come from ordinary people; and 3) anti-Semitism was a weapon used by Germany's industrial and aristocratic elite to attack not only the Jewish minority but the entire working class.
  37. Fascism
    What it is. How to fight it. (A compilation)
    Resource Type: Book
  38. Fascism and Big Busness
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1939   Published: 1973
    A history of the rise of fascism in Europe and the role of big business in supporting fascism.
  39. Fascism and Big Business (excerpt)
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1938
    Events have demonstrated with tragic clearness that the moment the working class allows the fascist wave to sweep over it, a long period of slavery and impotence begins - a long period during which socialist, even democratic, ideas are not merely erased from the pediments of public monuments and libraries but, what is much more serious, are rooted out of human minds. Events have proved that fascism physically destroys everything opposing its dictatorship, no matter how mildly, and that it creates a vacuum around itself and leaves a vacuum behind it.
  40. Fascism and Socialism
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1945
    Fascism is not a product that is specifically Italian or specifically German. It is the specific product only of decaying capitalism, of the crisis of the capitalist system which has become a permanent one. It has a double origin in the determination of big business to revive the profit mechanism by exceptional measures and in the revolt of the pauperized and despairing middle classes.
  41. Fascism Shall Not Pass
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1936
    On all fronts communists, anarchists, socialists and republicans are fighting shoulder to shoulder. We have also been joined by non-party people from town and country, because they too have realized what a victory for fascism would mean to Spain.
  42. The Great Class War
    1914-1918
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2016
    In this critical, revisionist account, historian Jacques Pauwels shows how the First World War was rooted in class strife that begin with the French Revolution in 1789 and continued long past the war itself. As Pauwels sees it, war seemed to offer major benefits to the European upper classes of the early twentieth century, who felt threatened by the seemingly irresistible process of democratization or, as they saw it, the "rise of the masses." War was expected to serve as an antidote to social revolution, causing workers to abandon socialism's focus on overthrowing the established order via internaitonal worker solidarity in favour of nationalism and militarism.
  43. Greece again Can Save the West
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2015
    The 'Greek crisis' is not about debt. Debt is the propaganda that the Empire is using to subdue sovereignty throughout the Western world.
  44. Harper, Serial Abuser of Power: The Evidence Compiled
    The Tyee's full, updated list of 70 Harper government assaults on democracy and the law.
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2015
    Stephen Harper and his Conservatives have racked up dozens of serious abuses of power since forming government in 2006. From scams to smears, monkey-wrenching opponents to intimidating public servants like an Orwellian gorilla, some offences are criminal, others just offend human decency. Here are 70 instances of abuse of power by the Stephen Harper government.
  45. The History of Democracy 
    A Marxist Interpretation
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2013
    Roper traces the history of democracy from ancient Athens to the emergence of liberal representative and socialist participatory democracy. He argues that democracy cannot be understood separately from the social and economic contexts in which democratic states operate.
  46. Hollowing out democracy and law
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2017
    The recent actions of the Catalan government are not those of politicians respecting democracy. The reaction of the Madrid government, which criminalize political dissent, are equally disturbing.
  47. How Democracy Ends
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2021
    The pandemic events of 2020-2021 outline a potential pathway for a future democratically elected President of the United States to systematically end democracy.
  48. How will we get to an ecological civilization?
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2015
    Capitalism's infrastructure, which is designed to dominate nature, cannot simply be taken over and used for an ecological transformation. Only a complete, root-and-branch change will do the job.
  49. Individualist anarchism
    Connexipedia Article
    Resource Type: Article
    Refers to several traditions of thought within the anarchist movement that emphasize the individual and his/her will over any kinds of external determinants such as groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems.
  50. Is Stephen Harper displaying fascist-like tendencies?
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2012
  51. Is this what a police state looks like?
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2010
    The corporate security state is not static - it will keep filling more and more space to the extent that they are allowed to by civil society. The police actions in Toronto are one of those key moments, one that we will look back on as a time when the authoritarian governments we now endure tested our resolve. They know exactly what they are doing. There was no spontaneous 'over-reaction.' There were no cops 'out of control' - the obvious fact is they were always in control. The decision to allow the Black Bloc to do its destructive work without any intervention at all was strategic. They were assisted in their work by the Black Bloc, some of them agents provocatuers, all of them enemies of social change.
  52. Israel's education system peddles intolerance and lies
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2014
    John Kerry spent last week testing the waters with the Israelis and the Palestinians over his so-called framework agreement – designed to close the gaps between the two sides. But the issues he is trying to resolve appear more intractable by the day.
  53. Jura Federation
    Connexipedia Article
    Resource Type: Article
  54. Keep raising the issue of democracy
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1989
    Socialists should keep hammering away at the issue of democracy.
  55. The Mass Psychology of Fascism 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1933   Published: 1970
    Wilhelm Reich's class study, written during the years of the German crisis. Reich repudiates the concept that fascism is the ideology or action of a single individual or nationality, or any ethnic or political group. He understands fascism as the expression of the irrational character structure of human beings whose needs and impulses have been suppressed.
  56. National Anarchism
    Connexipedia Article
    Resource Type: Article
    National-Anarchism is a syncretic political current that was developed in the 1990s by former Third Positionists to reconcile anarchism with nationalism and in some cases racial separatism. It has philosophical roots in the writings of Julius Evola and the neo-Spenglerian Francis Parker Yockey, and claims Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, Leo Tolstoy, and Max Stirner among its influences. Critics are concerned that national-anarchism may be the potential new face of fascism. They argue that by adopting selected symbols, slogans and stances of the left-wing anarchist movement in particular, this new form of post-war fascism hopes to avoid the stigma of the older tradition, while injecting its core fascist values into the newer movement of anti-globalization activists and related decentralized political groups.
  57. National Catechism
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1866
    Bakunin sketches out his vision of an anarchist social and political revolution, stating that "in order to prepare for this revolution it will be necessary to conspire and to organize a strong secret association coordinated by an international nucleus."
  58. The Nazi Seizure of Power 
    The Experience of a Single German Town
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1965
    A study of how the Nazi takeover took place in one German town.
  59. On Translating Securityspeak into English
    In the Land of False Cognates
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2012
    The Security State has its own language: Securityspeak. Like Newspeak, the ideologically refashioned successor to English in Orwell’s “1984,” Securityspeak is designed to obscure meaning and conceal truth, rather than convey them.
  60. One Vote for Democracy 
    Consensus vs. democracy
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1986
    Makes the case that the democratic model is better than the consensus model for activist group decision-making.
  61. Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - October 8, 2015
    Elections
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    First Published: 2015
    Elections are the topic of the week, with items related to the October 19 Canadian federal election, and also to broader issues of parliamentary democracy, voting and whether voting can bring about change, and the neo-liberal attack on democracy. Articles look at the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, the financial takeovers of Ukraine and Greece, and debt bondage. Also: a discussion of James Hansen's fossil fuel exit strategy, and a critique of Alinsky-style organizing.
  62. Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - July 2, 2016
    Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn, and Contempt for Democracy
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2016
    Brexit, the British vote to leave the European Union, has thrown the political elites into turmoil and confusion. The referendum was supposed to be a safe political manoeuvre, a way to produce an appearance of democratic legitimacy for the profoundly undemocratic structures of the EU. The gambit turned out to be a spectacular miscalculation, as millions of people turned out to express their opposition to a state of affairs that is leaving the majority worse off while enriching a small minority. This issue of Other Voices looks at the Brexit referendum, elite loathing for democracy, and the related attempt to get rid of Labour's leftwing leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
  63. Peril from the Right
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2012
    Many serious observers hold that the crisis in Europe has not come to an end. With the restructuring of the Greek national debt and the enlargement of the European Stability Mechanism, only time was bought, yet the fundamental problems of over-accumulation2 and the imbalances of the current accounts among the members of the Eurozone still persist.
  64. Poisoning the Democratic Well
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2015
    Opponents of so-called free trade deals have always struggled with the question of why these international treaties don't generate more alarm and vocal opposition from Canadians. These treaties, after all, trump all other Canadian authority to make laws -- provincial legislatures, Parliament, the courts and even the Constitution.
  65. A Profound and Jarring Disconnect
    The Writing on the Wall
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2011
    How the US government has gone against the wishes of the public majority on key issues.
  66. The Program of the International Brotherhood
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1869
    Bakunin maintains that his revolutionary anarchist vision "excludes any idea of dictatorship and of a controlling and directive power." but then goes on to say "It is, however, necessary for the establishment of this revolutionary alliance and for the triumph of the Revolution over reaction that the unity of ideas and of revolutionary action find an organ in the midst of the popular anarchy which will be the life and the energy of the Revolution. This organ should be the secret and universal association of the International Brothers.... a sort of revolutionary general staff, composed of dedicated, energetic, intelligent individuals, sincere friends of the people above all, men neither vain nor ambitious, but capable of serving as intermediaries between the revolutionary idea and the instincts of the people."
  67. Puerto Rico: a Junta By Any Other Name
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2016
    Empire is once again fashionable. The financial crisis that is presently gutting the island of Puerto Rico plays out like the world's worst case of botched assisted suicide. The sell of its municipal funds and its constitutionally guaranteed promise of repayment to investors has plunged the island into a very precarious situation for its millions of citizens and the opportunity of a lifetime for hedge fund vultures.
  68. Radical Democracy 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1997
    Lummis revives the meaning of democratic struggle and critques the economic and technological processes that have hindered its growth.
  69. Revolutionary Catechism
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1866
    Bakunin believed that workers were very far from being able to attain revolutionary consciousness on their own. To imbue the masses with this consciousness and to prevent the deformation of a resulting revolution, Bakunin felt that the only alternative was to organize a secret International Fraternity headed by himself. Bakunin was convinced that this kind of vanguard movement was indispensable to the success of the anarchist Social Revolution.
  70. Right-Wing Populism in America
    Too Close for Comfort
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2000
    Examines the historical roots and current situation of right-wing populism in the US. Berlet and Lyons highlight the dangers of right-wing populism in affecting the political system and opportunities for social change.
  71. The Secret Secret
    Of Wikileaks and Literacy
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2010
    Only those with proper clearances can participate in discussions that affect significant aspects of our lives. Certain technological achievements, our collective ethical decisions (torture, secret prisons, air strikes, etc.), our collective behavior towards other nations and peoples (foreign policy discussions) and more are often obscured by state secrecy. Like the medieval clergy, those holding classified clearances are the sole legitimate interpreters of the 'really important' knowledge. In effect, they are a caste that guides our political and technological cosmologies.
  72. A Short History of Black Voter Suppression
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2012
    The Right's organized movement to suppress the votes of African Americans and Latin Americans, and the urban and rural poor by means of the passing of voter ID (Poll Tax) laws in states receives no mention in the dominant media.
  73. The Silent Takeover
    Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2001
    A combination of globalisation and the growing power of major corporations is rendering democratic governments impotent for influencing key decisions that affect the lives of ordinary people.
  74. Some Pundits Think the Solution to Right-Wing Populism Is Less Democracy
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2016
    The core orthodoxies of neoliberalism are under attack by populist forces, and commentators are scrambling for a response. Some are suggesting more left-wing red meat. Others, a moment of self-reflection. But a number of pundits are doing that most noxious of political commentary pastimes -- equating right and left responses to the failures of globalization and advocating that "elites" should fight back against the forces of inconvenient democracy.
  75. State Lawlessness on the Rampage
    The Menu for 2011
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2010
    As 2011 dawns, public discourse in America has the country primed for a fascist dictatorship.The situation will be worse by 2012. The most uncomfortable truth that emerges from the WikiLeaks saga is that American public discourse consists of cries for revenge against those who tell us truths.
  76. Taking the Risk Out of Democracy 
    Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1995   Published: 1997
    The twentieth-century history of corporate propaganda practiced by U.S. businesses and the ways in which such corporate propaganda was exported to, and adopted by, other western democracies especially the United Kingdom and Australia.
  77. The Venezuelan Opposition does not want Democracy or Elections
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2017
    Interview with Jorge Martin, secretary of the "Hands Off Venezuela" solidarity campaign. The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela is facing its most challenging times. The right-wing opposition, backed by the United States, is engaged in a full-blown regime change campaign, with violent protests occurring daily and resulting in over 50 casualties. The chavista supporters of the government have also taken to the streets in defence of the Bolivarian Revolution, and President Maduro surprised everyone by calling for a Constituent Assembly. Jorge Martín, the secretary of the "Hands Off Venezuela" solidarity campaign, give his understanding of the sitution and where it might lead. He discusses how western media are distorting the reality and presenting a one-sided picture, the role of international solidarity, the lack of progress made by the opposition and where things might go from here.
  78. Top 5 Reasons Eaters should be Worried about Obama's New Trade Deal
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2015
    The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a wide-ranging deal that would expand corporate rights across member states to the detriment of worker rights, the environment, and public health.
  79. The Trickledown Revolution
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2010
    The first step towards re-imagining a world gone terribly wrong would be to stop the annihilation of those who have a different imagination - an imagination that is outside of capitalism as well as communism. An imagination which has an altogether different understanding of what constitutes happiness and fulfillment. To gain this philosophical space, it is necessary to concede some physical space for the survival of those who may look like the keepers of our past, but who may really be the guides to our future.
  80. The Two Souls of Socialism 
    Socialism from Above vs. Socialism from Below
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1960   Published: 1970
    It was Marx who finally brought the two ideas of socialism and democracy together, because he developed a theory which made the synthesis possible for the first time. The heart of the theory is this proposition: that there is a social majority which has the interest and motivation to change the system, and that the aim of socialism can be the education and mobilization of this mass-majority. This is the exploited class, the working class, from which comes the eventual motive-force of revolution. Hence, a socialism-from-below is possible, on the basis of a theory that sees the revolutionary potentialities in the broad masses, even if they seem backward at a given time and place. Marxism came into being in self-conscious struggle against the advocates of the Educational Dictatorship, the Savior-Dictators, the revolutionary elitists, the communist authoritarians, as well as the philanthropic dogooders and bourgeois liberals.
  81. The Tyranny of Structurelessness 
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1970
    Contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no such thing as a "structureless" group. Any group of people of whatever nature that comes together for any length of time for any purpose will inevitably structure itself in some fashion. The structure may be flexible; it may vary over time; it may evenly or unevenly distribute tasks, power and resources over the members of the group. But it will be formed regardless of the abilities, personalities, or intentions of the people involved.
  82. We must win back democracy, even if it takes Hedges' revolution
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2016
    While the banks, elites, and the super-rich have been scrambling to try to hold onto their billions following the UK's shocking vote to exit from the European Union, the anger expressed by the leave side was another emotional cry to end the control that corporations and the elite have over everyday people in many Western countries.
  83. What is Stephen Harper doing to Canada? How can we stop him?
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2015
    The Harper regime has had a toxic effect on Canada. The wealthy are better off, but most Canadians are worse off, and rights and freedoms, democracy, access to information, and science have suffered. How can we stop him? Here is a factsheet which can be downloaded, printed, and distributed as a two-sided flyer.
  84. Who Will Tell The People
    The Betrayal Of American Democracy
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1993
    An exploration of the undermining of U.S. democracy, starting with the basic issues of who gets heard, who gets ignored, and why.
  85. Why Consensus Decision-making Won't Work for Grassroots Unionism
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2009
    Wetzel contrasts consensus decision-making with democratic decision-making to explain why the latter is more suited to activist groups.
  86. 'Worse Than We Thought': TPP A Total Corporate Power Grab Nightmare
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 2015
    On issues ranging from climate change to food safety, from open Internet to access to medicines, the TransPacific Partnership (TPP) is a disaster.
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Links Selected Internet resources featuring information about alternatives.
Calendar Events from across Canada. Also see: Sources Calendar and news releases.
Publicity and Media Resources, publications and articles to help you get publicity and raise awareness. Plus Media Names & Numbers Canadian media directory, the Parliamentary Names & Numbers Canadian government directory, and mailing lists.
Donations Connexions welcomes your support. Your donations make our work possible. Volunteers always welcome.
Mission Connexions exists to support individuals and groups working for freedom and social justice. We work to maintain and make available a record of the theory and practice of people struggling against oppression and for social change. We believe that the more we know about the struggles, victories, and defeats of the past, and about those who took part in them, the better equipped we will be to bring a new world into being. Connexions maintains a physical archive of books and documents, and is engaged in an ongoing project to build and expand an indexed digital archive of documents. We try to feature a wide variety of resources reflecting a diversity of viewpoints and approaches to social change within our overall mandate of support for democracy, civil liberties, freedom of expression, universal human rights, secularism, equality, economic justice, environmental responsibility, and the creation and preservation of community. We are internationalist in our orientation, but as a Canadian-based project we feature an especially extensive collection of Canadian documents and profiles of Canadian activist organizations.