Despite all the bold promises about breaking up with the old ways that Trump made during the election campaign, by his recent actions at the international scene one would conclude that in fact, Kissinger's doctrine is pretty much alive and well...

Trump’s Support and Praise of Despots Is Central to the U.S. Tradition, Not a Deviation From It

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Consider this party platform and tell me what you think:

- direct democracy
- a new national constitution
- public vetoes over new laws
- greater scrutiny of the workings of government
- strict safeguards for individuals’ online and offline privacy
- public ownership of the country’s natural resources

Sounds commie? Populist? Utopian? Well, these ( Read more... )

Greetings, my fellow shocked political observers political clairvoyants! Now that the dust of the election has settled somewhat, I shall say a few words on the issue as well. See, the whole world was watching with dismay, morbid curiosity and growing horror how the tragicomical and rather vulgar reality show that the US presidential campaign ( Read more... )

A popular showman with a huge ego who often likes to get involved in politics in my tiny God-forgotten country, has initiated a referendum on several questions that he believes are of national importance. Since we're going to have presidential elections next month as well, the vote will be combined with this referendum. After some reviewing from ( Read more... )

While we're about populists, here's the case of Orban's Hungary. He's been trying to assert his "unique" role in Europe for a while (we've talked about this recently here), and now he staged a referendum that he was sure he'd win. The issue was the migration policy that he argued was imposed by Brussels upon the rest of Europe against the will of ( Read more... )

Poland's recent undemocratic policies are actually threatening the unity of the EU even more than the Brexit. UK's aspirations to emancipate itself from the rest of Europe could always be contained to some extent by the remaining participants in the European project, by means of their close economic ties. Despite the temporary volatility of the ( Read more... )

So, evidently Turkey deciding to revert to Kemalist routes shows it's not a proper EU state.

Meanwhile France ensures that it can strip nationality on grounds that are presumably no more consisently enforced in La Belle France than here in the poor benighted backwards USA.( cut for number of links )

Does seem to be hitting a bit of a rough patch.

In the Baltic States, the concept of Double Genocide is leading to the idea that Jews are the misfortune of the region and brought the massacres in the 1941-5 period on themselves by supporting the Soviet Union.( cut for length )

"America is not a democracy, it's a republic". I've heard this adage way too often, and it has boggled me at times, admittedly. I mean, what's wrong with direct democracy?

Let's look at this.


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