Freedom & Prosperity Framework: Influences (and What’s Novel)
Democracy must ensure that corporate power serves the public interest
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Economic Order, Corporate Power, and the Public Interest: Freedom & Prosperity Framework pt. 4
Democracy must ensure that corporate power serves the public interest
Read moreFundamental Rights, Responsibilities, and Freedoms of the People: Freedom & Prosperity Framework pt. 3
Democracy must be grounded in transparency, public trust, and limits on private influence.
Read moreAmusing ourselves to death: new Sciencegasm meme nails it
The public interest is what the public is interested in, bitches. Thanks to Facebook, we all see new memes every day. Some of them are funny, some insightful, and a lot are of the preaching to the choir variety, which even though they’re right as rain, they occasionally get tiresome. Like a lot of us, frustrated as hell with the
Read moreThe Komen “reversal”: a crushing failure of America’s newsrooms
Yesterday I attempted to shed a little light on the PR crisis strategy behind the Komen Foundation’s sudden Planned Parenthood “backtracking.” Contrary to what Komen’s highly-paid PR crisis hacks and gullible headline writers at newsdesks around the nation would ask you to believe, The Susan G. Komen Foundation does NOT promise to fund Planned Parenthood in the future. They promise to let
Read moreAn open letter to President Barack Obama: congratulations – now, how will you spend your political capital?
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Read moreThe American Parliament: our nation’s 10 political parties
Part two in a series. Forgive me for abstracting and oversimplifying a bit, but one might argue that American politics breaks along the following 10 lines: Social Conservatives Neocons Business Conservatives Traditional Conservatives (there’s probably a better term, but I’m thinking of old-line Western land and water rights types) Blue Dog Democrats New Democrats Progressives
Read moreConservatives, Progressives and the future of representative democracy: what would an American Parliament look like?
Part one in a series. A little thought experiment for a Monday morning… Over the past few years I have tried to make as much sense as I could out of the American political landscape. By nature, I’m a theoretically minded thinker, and the point of these exercises has been to try and articulate the structures, shapes, motivators and dynamics
Read moreTime for America’s Freddie Mercury moment: there are more than 100 gay pro athletes in the US, and the sooner they get out of the equipment closet the better
In a recent discussion on one of my political lists Sara Robinson (easily one of the brightest folks in the blogosphere) made an important point about what often causes people to migrate from socially conservative perspectives to more progressive points of view. In describing her experiences with a particular activist group that helped people leaving fundamentalist religions (something that can
Read moreWhat would a progressive society look like? The Tricentennial Manifesto
One of my lists is currently engaged in a fairly dynamic discussion about “what is a progressive?” In thinking about the issue, I realized that it might help to ask the question a slightly different way: what would a progressive society look like? Maybe I can better understand what it means to be progressive in 2010 if I reverse-engineer the
Read moreGallup poll reveals that public questions PR industry credibility: are PR practitioners to blame?
A Gallup poll released in August indicated that the advertising and PR industries aren’t viewed very favorably by the American public. One-third of respondents voiced a positive view of the advertising/pr industry (6 percent “very,” 27 percent “somewhat”). Twenty-seven percent were “neutral.” Twenty-five percent expressed a “somewhat negative view,” while 11 percent were “very negative.” (The rest didn’t venture an
Read moreAmusing ourselves to death, circa 2010
This is the future – people, translated as data. – Bryce, Network 23 The future has always interested me, even when it scares me to death. I wrote a doctoral dissertation that spent a good deal of time examining our culture’s ideologies of technology and development, for instance (and built some discussion of William Gibson and cyberpunk into the mix).
Read moreArtSunday: Let the musicians die
Every once in awhile I come across unrelated stories that somehow associate themselves in my mind. Take these, for instance: First, I hope you saw Lex’s tribute to Starchild (given name, Gary Shider), he of P-Funk fame. As Lex notes, Shider experienced problems where the cost of fighting the cancer that killed him was concerned. Second, another American music icon,
Read moreEducating PlayNation: Obama, iPads, Xboxes and America’s culture of noise
President Barack Obama yesterday took a shot at America’s culture of noise and the media and entertainment technologies that foster it. In addressing the commencement exercises at Hampton University, Obama said: “With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather
Read moreSecession: a rough beast whose hour has come round at last?
I’d like to begin by showing you a picture and asking you what you see. Good. With that in mind, have a look at this one and tell me what you see.
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lullaby pit 