Sign in

Joe Guinan

@joecguinan.bsky.social
1.9K followers 1.4K following 75 posts

Blackburn-Irish exile in the imperial metropolis · President of @democracycollab.bsky.social · There are real alternatives · Views strictly personal

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Joe Guinan
John Barry @profjohnbarry.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
"Yankee Go Home - Oil and Empire" Stiofan O'Nuallain chatting to @joecguinan.bsky.social of the @democracycollab.bsky.social about Venezuela, Imperialism and the end of the 'rules based order'. open.spotify.com/episode/4aQA...
Poster depicting a map of South America with the words 'Yankee go home' and images of an oil 'noddying donkey' and American troops and helicopter
031 3
Reposted by Joe Guinan
Rivkah Brown @rivkahbrown.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
The belly flop is the signature move of this government. “Phase two of my government starts today,” Keir Starmer intoned on 1 September, signalling little more, it turned out, than his own hubris. A portrait of a PM in his final throes, by @joecguinan.bsky.social novaramedia.com/2025/09/15/a...
novaramedia.com
Arrogant and Inept, Keir Starmer’s Hubris Is Blowing Up in His Face | Novara Media
Liberals and lobby journalists jubilated last year when the grownups were finally put back in charge. Now, Starmer’s future and indeed Labour’s seem as certain as an iceberg lettuce, writes Joe Guinan...
0116 11
Reposted by Joe Guinan
University of Wisconsin Press @uwiscpress.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
The first event of @pelledragsted.bsky.social's U.S. tour for his book, Nordic Socialism: The Path Toward a Democratic Economy, is coming up August 1: @politicsprose.bsky.social will host Dragsted and @joecguinan.bsky.social @democracycollab.bsky.social. Details: politics-prose.com/pelle-dragsted
At the top, a banner with repeating thumbnail images of the cover of NORDIC SOCIALISM, set at an angle. Then, photos of Pelle Dragsted and Joe Guinan. Then text that reads "Pelle Dragsted & Joe Guinan in conversation, August 1, 2025, 7 PM. Politics & Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave NW, DC.
0105 10
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
Everywhere we look there are new tripwires being laid, actions by the Trump Administration that could easily serve as the proximate cause or trigger of a financial crisis that could cause a chain reaction ending in a great crash. www.democracycollaborative.org/blogs/a-grea...
democracycollaborative.org
A Great Trump Crash? — The Democracy Collaborative
Everywhere we look there are new tripwires being laid, actions by the Trump Administration that could easily serve as the proximate cause or trigger of a financial crisis that could cause a chain reac...
172 7
Reposted by Joe Guinan
Democracy At Work @democracyatwork.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
Check out this recent episode of @redneckgonegreen.bsky.social with @joecguinan.bsky.social of @democracycollab.bsky.social #democracyatwork #educate #agitate #organize #redneckgonegreen @democracyatwork.bsky.social
021 2
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
For more on the Doctrine of High Wages and the industrializing economic strategy of the American School, see Michael Hudson’s book ‘America’s Protectionist Takeoff, 1815-1914: The Neglected American School of Political Economy.’
book cover of ‘America’s Protectionist Takeoff, 1815-1914: The Neglected American School of Political Economy.’Back cover of Michael Hudson’s book ‘America’s Protectionist Takeoff, 1815-1914: The Neglected American School of Political Economy.’
010 1
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
Trump’s “cover story, and perhaps even his belief, is that tariffs by themselves can revive American industry. But he has no plans to deal with the problems that caused America’s deindustrialization in the first place.” —Michael Hudson www.democracycollaborative.org/whatwethink/...
democracycollaborative.org
Return of the Robber Barons — The Democracy Collaborative
Donald Trump is promoting a false narrative of what made America’s nineteenth century industrialization so successful. Instead of supporting a regrowth of U.S. industry, the effect of Trump’s tariffs ...
130 3
Reposted by Joe Guinan
Democracy Collaborative @handle.invalid · 14/04/2025
Return of the Robber Barons: read Michael Hudson’s @democracycollab.bsky.social paper on Trump’s tariffs and his inverted understanding of what drove the success of America’s nineteenth-century industrial takeoff. www.democracycollaborative.org/whatwethink/...
democracycollaborative.org
Return of the Robber Barons — The Democracy Collaborative
Donald Trump is promoting a false narrative of what made America’s nineteenth century industrialization so successful. Instead of supporting a regrowth of U.S. industry, the effect of Trump’s tariffs ...
095 9
Reposted by Joe Guinan
Phil Free @philfree.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
“With all this activity the principles of another, very different economy begins to come into view. Finance in this economy would be put back in the service of people, communities, & the planet.” Community Wealth Building - @joecguinan.bsky.social www.democracycollaborative.org/blogs/creati...
democracycollaborative.org
Creating a just economy through shared ownership — The Democracy Collaborative
Twenty-five years ago, when The Democracy Collaborative was formed, we set about the work of political-economic system change.
131 3
Reposted by Joe Guinan
Democracy At Work @democracyatwork.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
Don't Miss today's New @redneckgonegreen.bsky.social with @joecguinan.bsky.social of @democracycollab.bsky.social at 6PM ET LIVE on the @democracyatwork.bsky.social #youtube channel here: youtube.com/@democracyat...
021 2
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
Subscribe here: www.democracycollaborative.org/tracking-the...
Tracking the Crisis - We read the news so you don’t have to.
011 1
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
If it simply serves us and our close allies in our need for manageable information about the new Trumpian moment, it will have met its purpose, although we are curious to see whether it might reach a wider audience – our tag-line is “We Read The News So You Don’t Have To!”
100 1
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
With “Tracking the Crisis” we aim to release ourselves and our allies from the debilitating cycle of reactivity to the constant outrage-manufacturing machine, ensuring we keep abreast of developments but aren’t paralyzed or overwhelmed.
100 1
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
Steve Bannon has been open about this as a strategy: “All we have to do is flood the zone. Every day, we hit them with three things. They’ll bite on one, and we’ll get all of our stuff done, bang, bang, bang. These guys will never be able to recover, but we got to start with muzzle velocities.”
100 1
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
“Tracking the Crisis” was born of a recognition that part of what we are witnessing is a deliberate strategy to disorient and overwhelm people with the scale of the current political onslaught.
100 1
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
We are pleased to launch “Tracking the Crisis,” our news aggregator and once-weekly round-up, which tracks the Trump Administration’s administrative, legislative and other actions, as well as an array of movement responses. The link for subscribing is www.democracycollaborative.org/tracking-the...
democracycollaborative.org
Tracking the Crisis — The Democracy Collaborative
277 7
Reposted by Joe Guinan
Democracy Collaborative @handle.invalid · 26/02/2025
📝 NEW TRAINING: Introduction to Community Wealth Building Join us to learn about Community Wealth Building as an approach to local economic system change starting in your place and/or community. Register here ⤵️ www.democracycollaborative.org/events/intro...
democracycollaborative.org
Intro to Community Wealth Building Training — The Democracy Collaborative
021 2
Reposted by Joe Guinan
Democracy Collaborative @handle.invalid · 26/02/2025
Last week Minister Tom Arthur told the Scottish Parliament about the irrefutable advantages of Community Wealth Building TDC’s CWB Global Lead @neilmcinroy.bsky.social continues to promote, develop and advise on the model across Scotland Scottish CWB legislation is due later this year
Scottish street scene
042 4
Reposted by Joe Guinan
Eleanor Finley PhD @eleanorfinley.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
Join Northern Virginians for the Democratizing NOVA Summit 2025 at George Mason University! #NorthernVirginia #nextsystem #systemchange @democracycollab.bsky.social #NoVA @georgemasonu.bsky.social
042 4
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
The ‘centre left’—increasingly aggro-centrist and anti-left—faces a series of deserved extinction-level events in the deepening crises ahead, and it’s imperative that we sever our ties with these liabilities and establish a separate left-populist pole of political attraction offering an alternative.
070 7
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
The Third Way formulation—neoliberal economics plus status quo establishmentarianism, with tokenistic faux social liberalism ineffectually triangulated away to right-wing authoritarianism—is among the least popular politics there is in this Age of Anger. www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...
theguardian.com
German election live: Conservatives projected to win and far-right AfD in second
Friedrich Merz claims victory for CDU/CSU alliance as incumbent chancellor Scholz concedes defeat; Alternative für Deutschland almost doubles vote share to 20%
120 2
Reposted by Joe Guinan
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
Teddy Roosevelt established the U.S. Forest Service. Trump and Musk are taking their buzzsaw not just to the New Deal and Great Society but to the gains of the Progressive Era when the modern state was established. The Gilded Age Robber Barons are back! www.sfgate.com/california/a...
sfgate.com
Federal funding cuts are crushing California's small mountain towns
Calif. mountain towns are surrounded by public lands. They're already dealing with the fallout of cuts to the U.S. Forest Service and land management agencies.
186 8
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
Teddy Roosevelt established the U.S. Forest Service. Trump and Musk are taking their buzzsaw not just to the New Deal and Great Society but to the gains of the Progressive Era when the modern state was established. The Gilded Age Robber Barons are back! www.sfgate.com/california/a...
sfgate.com
Federal funding cuts are crushing California's small mountain towns
Calif. mountain towns are surrounded by public lands. They're already dealing with the fallout of cuts to the U.S. Forest Service and land management agencies.
186 8
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
Super late to this, I know, but the second book is, if anything, even more terrifying and prophetic than the first, with its far right president promising to make America great again—written in 1998. Perhaps dystopian fiction really is serving as a how-to guide for fascists!
Parable of the Talents front coverParable of the Talents back cover: 

Originally published in 1998, this shockingly prescient novel's timely message of hope and resistance in the face of fanaticism is more relevant than ever.

In 2032, Lauren Olamina has survived the destruction of her home and family, and realized her vision of a peaceful community in northern California based on her newly founded faith, Earthseed. The fledgling community provides refuge for outcasts facing persecution after the election of an ultra-conservative president who vows to "make America great again."
150 5
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
This kleptocratic looting and smashing of America’s federal government will turn out to be as significant as Pinochet-era Chile or post-Soviet firesale privatisation, which gave rise to Russia’s oligarchy. Given that we’re unlikely to go back, where’s the left’s post-Trump theory of the state?
051 5
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
Nice piece for @democracycollab.bsky.social by Joana Ramiro.
111 1
Reposted by Joe Guinan
Neil McInroy @neilmcinroy.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
The energy sector’s ‘Wind Rush’ risks replicating existing patterns of financialized extraction. www.democracycollaborative.org/whatwethink/...
democracycollaborative.org
The energy sector’s ‘Wind Rush’ risks replicating existing patterns of financialized extraction — The Democracy Collaborative
The Democracy Collaborative’s Neil McInroy has recently chaired a taskforce on incorporating Community Wealth Building approaches into the devel opment of the renewable energy economy in ...
022 2
Reposted by Joe Guinan
Democracy Collaborative @handle.invalid · 19/02/2025
If Community Wealth Building approaches are to continue to grow and become the foundations of a more sustainable economy, they’ll inevitably come into conflict with existing models of financialization and extraction. A look at offshore wind in Shetland: www.democracycollaborative.org/whatwethink/...
democracycollaborative.org
The energy sector’s ‘Wind Rush’ risks replicating existing patterns of financialized extraction — The Democracy Collaborative
The Democracy Collaborative’s Neil McInroy has recently chaired a taskforce on incorporating Community Wealth Building approaches into the devel opment of the renewable energy economy in ...
041 4
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
The opposite of the canary in the coal mine, the very last person for whom the penny drops!
191 9
Reposted by Joe Guinan
Chris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
The last time a foreign president tried to seize European territory, European governments responded by confiscating the assets of his billionaire cronies.
712645 126
Reposted by Joe Guinan
Democracy Collaborative @handle.invalid · 24/01/2025
Only a few days in, and already we can see the broad shape of what Trump’s Second Term will bring — a radical effort to reshape and repurpose the administrative state. www.democracycollaborative.org/blogs/shock-...
democracycollaborative.org
Shock and Awe: Trump’s First Hundred Days — The Democracy Collaborative
Only a few days in, and already we can see the broad shape of what Trump’s Second Term will bring — a radical effort to reshape and repurpose the administrative state.
021 2
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
The immediate challenge is not to be shocked and awed into confusion and debilitating paralysis but instead to formulate a counter-response commensurate with the scale of the challenges and capable of reaching the vast majority of ordinary Americans. www.democracycollaborative.org/blogs/shock-...
democracycollaborative.org
Shock and Awe: Trump’s First Hundred Days — The Democracy Collaborative
Only a few days in, and already we can see the broad shape of what Trump’s Second Term will bring — a radical effort to reshape and repurpose the administrative state.
376 7
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
“IN THE LAST YEAR of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. began to move toward an ever-more-profound and radical understanding of what would be required to deal with the nation’s domestic and international problems.” From the archive, Gar Alperovitz on the MLK he knew. sojo.net/magazine/jan...
sojo.net
Beyond the Dreamer
As the country marks Martin Luther King Jr.'s 85th birthday, a veteran activist explains why it would be a mistake to remember King as only a great civil rights leader.
021 2
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 01/01/2025
“The most unpopular incoming government of all time.” Well done to all concerned! www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...
Quote that Sir Keir leads “the most unpopular incoming government of all time.”
042 4
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 01/01/2025
So shall the world go on, To good malignant, to bad men benign, Under her own weight groaning, til the day Appear of respiration to the just, And vengeance to the wicked... —John Milton, ‘Paradise Lost’, XII. 537-41.
043 4
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 30/12/2024
Working link: www.keywiki.org/Consumers_Op...
keywiki.org
000 0
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 30/12/2024
The Exploratory Project for Economic Alternatives was one of the predecessors of @democracycollab.bsky.social
020 2
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 30/12/2024
The alternative to the Volker Shock and Carter’s embrace of neoliberal economics. Consumers Opposed to Inflation in the Necessities (COIN) was backed by over 100 members of Congress, and proposed sectoral planning, price controls, and public ownership.
keywiki.org
231 3
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
Some reading from the archives: Who’s afraid of public ownership? journals.lwbooks.co.uk/renewal/vol-... Privatisation, a very British disease. www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemoc...
000 0
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
And now the public will pay a third time through higher bills to remedy underinvestment and repair the failing infrastructure, allowing shareholders to evade responsibility for their prior orgy of looting and pillaging and malign neglect. Privatisation is a scam and always was.
100 1
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
The public paid the second time through underinvestment and the wider costs of poor performance, lack of infrastructure leading to water-use bans on a rain-sodden island, and the costs of pollution, environmental cleanup, and loss of leisure activity and enjoyment of nature.
100 1
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
The public paid the first time through the ‘sweeteners’ and undervaluation of the water infrastructure at the time of privatisation, when the new private water companies were born debt-free because of public subsidy.
100 1
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 19/12/2024
Privatisation unmasked. The privatised water companies have been used as ATMs for withdrawing cash by their private shareholders. Loaded up with debt to finance dividend payments, there has been no investment, and the public will now have paid three times. www.theguardian.com/money/2024/d...
theguardian.com
Average water bill in England and Wales to rise by 36% over five years
Firms accused of forcing households to pay for years of underinvestment after Ofwat agrees to increases to help fix sector
162 6
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
The private finance engine that Labour has installed at the heart of its economics is a machine that lowers not increases growth, and concentrates the returns amongst the wealthiest asset owners, driving inequality and indebtedness. tribunemag.co.uk/2024/07/no-w...
“The financial sector then is extractive from the real economy…” Quote from linked article.
0106 10
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
Since we’re now being told we should have bombed Syria in 2013, a piece from the archives on our record on bombing. www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemoc...
opendemocracy.net
Bombs away! Air power as panacea
When will we turn aside from a century of bombing and begin to invest in the conditions of peace?
021 2
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
As Israel and Turkey bomb Syria, the Starmer government suspends asylum for people fleeing Syria because they view everything through a cynical geopolitical (and domestic political) lens rather than a humanitarian one. If you are in the British Labour Party, this is your enduring shame.
082 8
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
Events in New York City remind me of Jack London’s The Assassination Bureau Ltd., a strange outlier in his work. As the system tanks and we all descend into Hell, it’s surprising there hasn’t been a lot more of this about. Kim Stanley Robinson picks up the thread in The Ministry for the Future.
Cover of Jack London’s The Assassination Bureau Ltd
142 4
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
Solidarity with our friends in South Korea and the struggle to preserve democracy, political freedoms, the rule of law, and due process. Coming soon to a post-democracy near you!
0102 10
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
This isn’t a communications problem, though—at least, not only one. The Starmer government is actively screwing over many people and promising to do little to make things better for the majority, lest Blackrock’s profits suffer. Programmatically, they are a void. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Labour’s big relaunch won’t solve its biggest problem: this government doesn’t speak human | John Harris
Farage and Trump are winning because they understand the politics of emotion, while Labour is lost in numbers and statistics, says Guardian columnist John Harris
082 8
Joe Guinan @joecguinan.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
Sinn Fein tried to triangulate like centre left parties the world over, but centre left parties the world over are in rapid secular decline. They forgot they needed to win first, and that required sweeping in with a popular and populist left programme. Instead, they bled votes right and left.
040 4