Challenge the Establishment: common

Sunday, October 31, 2010

GDAE Podcast - Episode 36

October 31, 2010 - Released

Left / Right Populism - Part VII

Can genuine conservatives and progressives clean up our democratic institutions?

Motivation for Reaching out to the Political Right on Issues of Common Concern: Preventing the Drift toward "Barbarism".

Right-Wing TV/Radio Incitement: The case of Byron Williams who attempted to murder eleven people in San Francisco after listening to Glenn Beck and others.

Walden Bello: A historical perspective on the Drift toward "Barbarism" and its relation to the Movtiation to reach out to genuine conservatives.

2006 Conservative Essay: "Now Is the Time for a Left-Right Alliance: A rebel alliance already exists that could stop Bush administration attacks on the Constitution."

Prosecution of Bush Officials: Beating the drum with the help of revelations from WikiLeaks of US complicity with abuse and torture.

Iraqi Blogger Raed Jarrar: Personal experience with WikiLeaks revelations.

Start with Episode 29 for Full Series on Left/Right Populist Alliance
or
Start with Episode 30 for Quick 20-minute Kickoff

Play Episode 36 from this page:

Click to Download Episode 36.

Play Episode 35 from this page:

Click to Download Episode 35.

Listen to Part V in the series, Episode 34:

Listen to Part IV in the series, Episode 33:

Listen to Part III in the series, Episode 32:

Listen to Part II in the series, Episode 31:

Listen to Part I in the series, Episode 30, (20-minute abridged version):

Monday, March 29, 2010

After a discussion about commonalities on the left and right of the political spectrum, a friend of mine summed up a compelling new politics. The "party" of Principled People versus what he called demagogues... it's not about "left" and "right."

Aside: I think he used the term "demagogues" for effect and simply meant "unprincipled" people. Admittedly, on controversial issues the notion of one's "principles" breaks down; the subject of abortion is one such example. But one can recognize principled people who conduct themselves in a fair and honest way.

Today's political situation is in flux and this "new politics," were it to manifest itself in electoral party politics, would be temporary. It would be an instance of moderate elements of the populist left and right asserting control to refresh a corrupted political system. Common people on the left and right recognize the corrupting influence of big money in both legislative and judicial elections.

Other areas of common interest between common people on the left and right include:

Concern about...

Consolidation of wealth perpetuated by Wall Street's culture of anything goes .

Consolidated control of the mass media

Consolidation of corporate control ... Big Business that outsources jobs and makes it impossible for small businesses to compete fairly.... monopolies, cartels, oligopolies.

We're concerned with what some call "activist judges"... like those Supreme Court judges who recently decided that corporations should have MORE influence over the political electoral process when the Citizens United case before them should have been decided on more narrow grounds.

We share a concern about police brutality

In other words, we share concerns about the consolidation of power among a small sector of our society.

We didn't like the bank bailouts that perpetuated this power when we had a chance to put the bankers in their place.

We believe in national sovereignty, something we give up with so-called "free trade" agreements written by transnational corporate lawyers.

We share opposition to warrantless wire tapping and other privacy invasions of the USA PATRIOT Act

We're mutually concerned about the erosion of of Posse Comitatus Act, which places limits on the US military's use of police powers for domestic law enforcement.

Similarly, we share concerns about the CIA conducting domestic operations contrary to its founding charter.

We share concerns about joblessness and homelessness

We share the concern that the two major political parties are increasingly out of touch with real concerns of the people, in part because we recognize they have been captured by a dysfunctional political system corrupted by the consolidated power referenced earlier.

Sources:

GDAE Podcast Episode 29

Challenge the Establishment

Sunday, October 31, 2010

GDAE Podcast - Episode 36

Monday, March 29, 2010

A New Politics

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