Partisan politics is something we actively avoid discussing on this site. Instead, we prefer to operate in the domain of provable fact. But that doesn't mean that we have written off the political process entirely.
Yes, we believe our own efforts (and those of most of our readers) are much more effective when targeted at the individual and local levels. And we don't hold out hope that sovereign governments will suddenly start implementing solutions that constructively address the economic, energetic, and environmental issues we focus on at this site.
But we are still citizens of the countries in which we live. There is a political mechanism (however broken) for effecting change through our voting power and our civic involvement.
In this week's podcast, Chris talks with Marianne Williamson, a first-time Congressional candidate from California, about the options available to us. This is not an endorsement of Williamson or her political views, but an exploration of the political system with an "outsider" candidate – one whose observations will likely resonate with many PeakProsperity.com members.
This interview addresses key questions like: What power do we have as a populace to effect change? What change should we be demanding? How should we be demanding it?
On the Foundational Importance of Economic Justice
Any time you have even the most subtle economic tyranny, you are going to have an analogous situation elsewhere. As soon as you allow for economic injustice, do not be surprised if there are other forms of political injustice. I think that is important, first of all. If you allow the unholy alliance between government and moneyed interests to protect their perch, when it has to do with economic power, it is not surprising to see that there will be the same drive to protect that perch in terms of political power. That is why you see a connection between unfair banking policies, unfair tax policies, unfair trade policies, and even unfair criminal justice policies. It is all connected. The knee bone is connected to the thigh bone there. Whether it is something like economic justice because of the dominancy of unfair influence wielded by the corporate sector in terms of tax and banking, the NSA spying or the Trans-Pacific Partnership, even the National Defense Authorization Act, any time you are giving power in general to any one group, they are going to wield it within every context that they possibly can.
On the Need to Maintain a Healthy Sense of Protest
The capacity and permission to healthy protest is the lifeblood of a democracy. If freedom does not include the freedom for the reasonable guarantee that you can gather in group protest and it be safe and a safe place for you to go with your children, then it is like you were saying before: of the people, by the people and for the people, we are currently mocking the Gettysburg Address. We are a government of a few of the people, by a few of the people and for a few of the people. Lincoln said that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people would not perish from the earth. It is already perishing.
Not only does of the people, by the people, and for the people – as we were talking about the fact that you cannot disconnect the economics and the civil liberties, if you are talking about what you are talking about now, which is what you just described. To show up at an Occupy protest meant you were surrounded by SWAT teams with the kind of technology that they had and the kind of stories we have all heard from Amy Goodman and others, then our democracy is in serious trouble.
Those of us who are old enough remember a time when this was not true. I am not saying the Vietnam protestors were not looked at and that their leaders were not harassed. There was not what there is now. I think what concerns me sometimes with young people is that they do not remember a time when it was not this way. Once again, the psychological factor is there. Too many people are becoming inured to transgressions against our civil liberties.
Take the NSA spying. If you have a newspaper report where the NSA spying is put right next to an article about Kim Kardashian’s wedding dress, and you are not from a generation that would guffaw at that, that is what you were brought up with. You do not remember a time before the Telecommunications Act of 1996. You do not know. That is what concerns me now. Once again, it is a psychological issue. We are losing our healthy sense of protest.
Click the play button below to listen to Chris' interview with Marianne Williamson (27m:59s):
by bankers-slave-2