What is it about Random Selection??
In recent months I’ve discovered that random selection offers unexpected gifts to our efforts to create more fair, functional, and intelligent politics …
End-of-year lists and wiser democracy
Several end-of-year lists for 2013 demonstrate that things are, indeed, getting better and better and worse and worse faster and faster. Personally, …
“The Public” is way deeper than “public opinion”
This remarkable description of systemic problems in the quasi-democracy of the US, and of the proper conception of “the public” and its …
Are political dichotomies really so illusory?
Dear friends, In anticipation of challenges to my assertion that our political dichotomies – especially the liberal/conservative, blue-red divide – are illusions, I offer the following references: 1. The “Purple USA” map – http://en.wikipedia.org/…
Public Engagement Change We Can Believe In
Below is an interesting piece about the Obama campaign by a fellow named Larry Greene. Alhough I’m not endorsing Obama, this message is written in the spirit of the Co-Intelligence Institute’s “Politician’s Pledge” and it reflects my own sense of …
Strategies to rein in corporate power?
There are many emerging strategies to counter corporate control of our political life (quite in addition to efforts to counter their control of our economic lives). Seeing this as a necessity if we are to have effectively empowered public wisdom, …
Can Congress overturn Citizens United without addressing corporate personhood?
This is a critical development: See http://bit.ly/xiMvYM. This article claims that Citizens United and other such recent decisions were NOT, in fact, based on a corporate personhood argument (see the pretty decisive excerpts below and other excerp…
A presidential candidate signs the Co-Intelligence Institute’s Politician’s Pledge
Robert Steele, a long-time colleague of mine and presidential hopeful with the Reform Party (see PS below), has just become the second politician to sign the Co-Intelligence Institute’s Politician’s Pledge. This pledge commits the politician to ta…
Hopeful trends to build on in 2012
As the new year – the oddly fabled year of 2012 – is upon us, all sorts of people are making predictions, making wishes, making commitments (as well as making money, making trouble, making plans…). I like the approach of Sarah van Gelder, editor…
Corporate election financing is more about power than free speech
The ACLU is considering reversing its support of the Supreme Court Ruling allowing unlimited campaign contributions by corporations. It has long maintained that government regulation of campaign contributions violates the free speech guarantees of…