Electric Politics Podcast (Political)

Americans seem to have lost sight of the meaning of democracy. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a democracy is "a government by the people" and especially the "rule of the majority." Most Americans think we have a democracy but we clearly do not have a system of majority rule. What we have is a sort of deformed, failed oligarchy, but apart from naming the right analytic categories what really matters is that people don't talk enough about or think enough about what democracy would do for us if we had it or how we might go about getting it. Indeed, if you want to level the finger of blame for our current system it fairly points at all of us! Here are a few of my thoughts on what's happening. Total runtime eight minutes. Propāgandā fidē .

America is the only country in the world with a constitution that forbids democracy. What's most remarkable, however, is not that a cabal of slave-drivers in the eighteenth century would try to impose themselves on future generations but that two hundred years later those future generations would worship their anti-democratic political system on the grounds that it provides "freedom." To be honest, it's a greater political horror — and it had already happened — than even George Orwell could have imagined. If there's a silver lining it may be that although nobody seriously talks about changing the constitution or, better yet, adopting an entirely new, democratic constitution, that's because nobody ever thinks — really thinks — about the possibilities. Eric Black is one of the few journalists who gets what's happening. And I encourage listeners to regularly read his outstanding columns. Total runtime thirty five minutes. Exēgī monumentum aere perennius .

Meta-discussions about the U.S. Constitution can be problematic. It seems to me that the rhetorical values we use in talking about the Constitution are almost perfectly contradicted by the rules laid out in the document itself, or rules we have subsequently dreamt up and improperly ascribe to it. Most complicated! But meta-discussions, I think, always deserve the benefit of the doubt. Besides, how else would we analyze the Constitution as a quasi-religious text? But that would take us past the limits of this show. Here, I talk with gifted rhetorician and constitutional law scholar Robert L. Tsai , author most recently of America's Forgotten Constitutions: Defiant Visions of Power and Community (Harvard University Press, just published this Monday). Thanks, Robert, for your historical insight! Total runtime forty four minutes. Cōnsēnsus facit lēgem .

The scholar activist travels a rough, winding road — or sometimes no road at all, blazing ways into the unknown. I find great inspiration in the work of Dr. Staughton Lynd — in, for example, his book Class Conflict, Slavery, and the United States Constitution (Cambridge University Press, 2009, the second edition with a new, brilliant forward by Robin Einhorn) and in all his selfless work on behalf of the dispossessed and powerless. Yet I face a paradox: I want more because I believe in more, despite my profound ignorance regarding whether more can be achieved. Here, we talk about society and social change. Thanks, Staughton! Total runtime forty two minutes. At spēs nōn frācta .

Realists have insufficient say in this administration's foreign policy. Take, for example, Crimea. It's of no intrinsic importance to the United States, our full-throated protests smack of hypocrisy, and we're in the process of giving up a great many substantive benefits from a working relationship with Russia for... what? Nostalgia for frontier justice? In fact, Washington is putting on a very scary display of delusional behavior... Even worse, those delusions are widely shared: swept along by groupthink and propaganda most Americans can't assess the Crimean crisis objectively. Thus it was refreshing — indeed, congenial — to talk with Dr. John Tirman , who puts foreign policy problems in a human perspective. But there's no silver lining. We will just have to cope with the less than peaceful consequences of our poor political judgment. Total runtime forty three minutes. Grātis anhēlāns, multa agendō nihil agēns .

Money, it seems, has invaded our lives down to the molecular level. Which begs the question: do we control money or does it control us? How much of a paradigm shift is necessary if we are, indeed, to reassert control? Dr. Costas Lapavitsas , using a sophisticated Marxist approach and meticulous empirical analysis, offers some answers in Profiting Without Producing: How Finance Exploits Us All (Verso, 2014). He's extremely well informed, working the cutting edge of money theory. Thanks, Costas! Total runtime thirty seven minutes. (Blame me for iffy audio — this is why mostly I avoid cell phones.) Volentī nōn fit iniūria .

If you think about it, money is a public good, albeit of a somewhat unique sort. By nature benign, when it falls under the control of a tiny minority to be used mainly for their own benefit it becomes toxic. Our recurring and increasingly severe financial crises, then, are only superficially about money: in fact, we're having a deep, epochal crisis of democracy. To talk about all of this I turned to the brilliant documentary filmmaker (formerly of the BBC) and blogger, David Malone . Another real revolutionary, in the best sense. Total runtime fifty five minutes. Alia tentanda via est .

Debt slavery: just a scary metaphor, or something real that's gradually capturing us? Can a political system so highly leveraged through personal debt really function? What's the long term narrative arc here? To talk about debt and what kinds of things people might do — and are doing — to refuse payment on unfair debt I turned to Dr. Andrew Ross , author most recently of Creditocracy (OR Books, 2014). These are broadly cross-cutting, critical issues. Andrew's one of the good guys. Total runtime forty four minutes. Male parta, male dīlābuntur .

Belief is not really an option. You're going to believe there's some higher power, some greater spiritual meaning to existence, some kind of being in transcendence, or you're going to believe there's not. (Agnostics believe that a person is able to not believe, which is slightly embarrassing.) Whichever path you take, however, you won't be able to prove how reality works. The difference is that having Faith with a capital "F" moves mountains. Unfortunately for us, people often have Faith in extremely harmful inspirations... So here's a short, impressionist meditation on the need for a new, modern Faith — or at least a Faith in Faith — among those preponderantly attached to a liberal, humanistic philosophy. Total runtime eight minutes. Rēligiō locī .

One feels frighteningly disoriented, hearing an American president support deadly mob violence for what is, essentially, counter-revolutionary change (in the form of IMF austerity). The president's message may be directed at unknown people far away but the effects are certain to be felt here, possibly for generations, as the bindings of what relative peace we have come undone. I was extremely fortunate to be able to talk with Dr. Stephen F. Cohen about the crisis in Ukraine. He's in a tiny minority willing to discuss what's really happening. This is an unscheduled podcast on breaking news. [Audio file reposted at The Nation , here .] Total runtime forty eight minutes. Vae victīs .

It's difficult to say which is more astonishing: that it's possible to cure a fatal illness by opening energy gates with mental concentration, or that mainstream medical science has so blinkered itself that it refuses to examine the data. But data there is, in abundance, from an academic who in every other way is entirely reputable. Dr. William F. Bengston , author of The Energy Cure , has been doing anomalous scientific research for decades and has produced revolutionary, consistently replicable results. He's also very honest in saying that he can't explain why his methods work. It's something of a mystery, and a challenge. Thanks, Bill! Total runtime forty minutes. Dulce est dēsipere in locō .

Ukraine is split culturally and politically between East and West, but not in such a way that either side clearly could dominate the other. Forcing choices on Ukraine (as the EU and the U.S. sporadically seem to want to do) only exacerbates the tension. But given recent events, tensions breaking out into a civil war is not at all unthinkable. To me this is vaguely reminiscent of the circumstances surrounding the former Yugoslavia before its unhappy dismemberment. To talk about Ukraine I turned to Dr. Nicolai Petro , currently on a Fulbright grant in Odessa. Thanks, Nicolai, for your professional judgment! Total runtime fifty one minutes. Vōx clāmantis in dēserto .

At the moment I'm odd man out on the left. I see Snowden not as a hero but as a criminal. I agree with Edward Lucas , senior editor at The Economist , who says Snowden may well be an unwitting agent of Russian intelligence, and that that would be the most favorable possible interpretation of his actions. Snowden, indeed, has been laying his doubletalk not only on the U.S. government but on the public. His story, to be blunt, does not add up. For details you really should read — with an open mind — Edward Lucas' just published ebook, The Snowden Operation: Inside the West's Greatest Intelligence Disaster (99¢ at Amazon). With thirty years journalistic experience, including coverage of espionage, cyber-security, and Russian foreign and security policy, Edward Lucas is a sensible soul. Total runtime thirty minutes. Satis ēloquentiae, sapientiae parum .

Straightforward classical logic obviously doesn't entirely capture human decision making. Yet it often seems as if something logical exists in our illogic. Wonderful fodder for the arts! Now it turns out, amazingly enough, that human illogic, from a perspective of quantum probability, sometimes may not be so illogical at all. And in certain categories of cases quantum probability provides much more robust predictive power regarding judgment than we can obtain from classical reasoning. Quantum analysis applied to cognition is a brand new field. A very small number of psychologists are doing the work so I feel rather lucky that I was able to talk with Dr. Emmanuel Pothos , a leading theoretician. Sub speciē aeternitātis .

You can't race a four-in-hand at the Daytona Speedway. Nor can you expect James Madison's Fourth Amendment to provide useful guidance about modern intelligence collection. That's just a disconnect. The reality is we do not have a Stasi state and, if we did, it seems to me that intelligence collection would be the least of our worries. Moreover, Edward Snowden's release of vast secret archives is self-evidently incommensurate with his declared aims. Real damage has been done for very little apparent gain. That's my two cents but, to get a reality check, I turned to Sir David Omand , until recently one of the world's leading secret intelligence practitioners. An extraordinarily thoughtful man. Total runtime forty four minutes. Praemonitus, praemūnītus .

A signature failure of American government, our health care system is a world-class disgrace. Instead of its purpose being the public good it mainly serves predatory market forces. And the fact is, the so-called "Affordable Care Act," aka "Obamacare," doesn't bring necessary, fundamental changes. To talk about the ACA, the alternatives, and how to get them, I turned to the progressive activist Dr. Margaret Flowers . Thanks, Margaret, for your great work! Total runtime fifty minutes. Nōn est vīvere sed valēre vīta est .

You don't have to travel to South Asia to find people with reincarnation experiences. It happens here, too, and occasionally an American child will remember extraordinary details about their past life. About how they were a pilot, for example, or a golf pro. In a few of these cases the extraordinary details check out. How to explain it? Dr. Jim B. Tucker , Bonner-Lowry Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia, has been studying the phenomenon for years. His latest book, Return to Life (St. Martin's Press, December 2013), will give you the shivers! It's definitely a strange world out there... Total runtime forty three minutes. Mortuī nōn mordent .

In November 2012 three teams, French, Swiss, and Russian, exhumed Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to try to determine his cause of death. Independently, they took samples from his body, mausoleum, and surroundings. The French and the Russians concluded that he died of natural causes. The Swiss, however, say their analyses "moderately support the proposition" that Arafat was poisoned with a lethal dose of Polonium-210 (in November 2013 they released a comprehensive technical report ). Given their meticulously assembled evidence the Swiss conclusion seems worded, perhaps, with an overabundance of caution. Nevertheless, they may well be right in that we'll never know for certain what happened. To get a better sense of the Swiss perspective I turned to their lead author, Dr. Patrice Mangin , one of the world's top forensic pathologists. Total runtime twenty seven minutes. Occultae inimīcitiae magis timendae sunt quam apertae .

Color me skeptical but I don't see how a technocratic "third way" can be a sustainable political strategy. Instead — and perhaps I'm being too hard on the Democratic party here — all it really demonstrates is a failure of imagination. When ordinary people decide political questions they want more than merely logical policy arguments. They want to feel like they're doing the right thing. Yet when it comes to politics our language of moral choice has become chronically impoverished. Why is that, I wonder? ...Here's what I think, in about five minutes. Sapere audē .

Every journey starts with a single step. So, too, every revolution starts with a single idea, that justice requires a new social covenant. A revolution is about health care, but it's not about health care. It's about nuclear disarmament, but not about nuclear disarmament. It's about protecting the environment, but no, it's not. It is always, though, about democracy, a process that flows inevitably from justice if only ever imperfectly. To talk about democracy in America — and why people like the idea — I turned to the progressive activist David Cobb , who has a much better sense than I do of the pulse of the nation. Thanks, Brother! Total runtime thirty one minutes. Omne tulit pūnctum quī miscuit ūtile dulcī .

The budget and the national debt have become a political wedge that threatens to fracture America's constitutional order. Built-in constitutional tension has become dangerously unstable. If there's a potential fix through the electoral process (which I doubt) it's elusive: this crisis has been building for decades. What's clear, though, is that we can't continue to lurch from fiscal cliff-hanger to fiscal cliff-hanger. Indeed, that would be pretty much like having no government at all. To talk about how bad things have gotten I turned to Dr. Louis Fisher , who knows more about American governmental process than most. Thanks, Lou, for your rock solid perspective! Total runtime forty six minutes. Possunt quia posse videntur .

They're extremely agitated. They're desperate to get what they want but have run out of options. Now they've seized hostages and are making dire threats. You should keep the innocent safe but avoid deploying unnecessary force against the hostage-takers. What to do? For some advice on hostage situations — specifically on the House Republicans' budget/debt ceiling demands — I turned to Gary Noesner , formerly the chief of the FBI's Crisis Negotiation Unit. A thirty year FBI veteran, Gary is one of the top hostage negotiators in the world. His politically impartial advice is well worth listening to. And his memoir Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator (Random House, 2010) is a great read, highly recommended! Total runtime forty three minutes. Audī alteram partem .

If the President unilaterally blows past the debt ceiling he breaks the law. If he unilaterally chooses which programs not to fund so as to avoid blowing past the debt ceiling he breaks the law. If he, again unilaterally, raises taxes to stay under the debt ceiling he breaks the law. It's a trilemma... From a constitutional point of view there is a fundamental prohibition on Congress telling the President to do Congress' job. And from a narrower but not unimportant political perspective, does it make sense for Congress to vote for popular spending programs and then make the President make the unspecified, unpopular cuts? No! House Republicans think they have found leverage through the debt ceiling but in the final analysis that leverage works only against themselves. There may be some danger, though, that the President, if forced, chooses the wrong law to break. To explain all this I turned to the brilliant lawyer and economist Dr. Neil H. Buchanan , one of the few people in the country who understands what's happening. Thanks, Neil! Total runtime forty five minutes. Silent lēgēs inter arma .

It's not so easy to balance the curiosity of a child with the cynicism of a policeman, or a secret agent. But Inspector O, of North Korea, manages to look for things where others dare not go. And finds his answers. A deeply satisfying literary figure, O also helps us look into the mirror at ourselves, possibly to be amused at our constant predicaments. Writing under the pseudonym James Church, a former western intelligence officer with decades of experience in Asia has brought out a series of five brilliant novels about the adventures of Inspector O — the latest, A Drop of Chinese Blood (Minotaur/Macmillan, 2012), featuring O's nephew, Major Bing. Great fun. Hopefully there will be many more! Total runtime fifty one minutes. Rīdendō dīcere vērum .

It's rare for an officer still in uniform to become a whistleblower. LTC Daniel L. Davis earned his bones reporting publicly the results of his investigations into how things are failing in Afghanistan. Now, refocused on a bigger picture, Danny is calling for a purge of high level military brass. And why not? It's a useful conversation to have. The fact is, our military is not immune from American political decay... Thanks, Danny! Total runtime thirty five minutes. Sal Atticum .