The Great Upwising: It’s Time For We the People to Face the Music and Dance Together
Phi Beta Iota: Full read recommended, provides reflections on we are and why all past liberal and transpartisan initiatives have failed. And then the author points to #UNRIG (Steele – McKinney) as a way forward.
Just as surely as the upwising entails recognizing the shadow of our “opponents”, the exploiters and extractors, it is equally important to see how “resistance” itself is a fixed game, being played by the exploiters’ rules.
So … what do we do instead?
I’m glad I asked that question.
To answer it, we need to venture a bit further out of the (ballot) box, and for that purpose, I’ve linked to a provocative and yet promising interview with a blunt and visionary one-time Marine Corps and CIA intelligence officer, Robert David Steele.
Steele, Robert, with Caitlin Johnstone, “Interview with Robert David Steele,” SoundCloud, April 21, 2017.
Trudy and I met Robert — and his colleague on a new transpartisan venture, former Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Georgia) — at the Transpartisan Citizens Summit in 2009. While you might not agree with everything he says, Robert is one of the few out there who understands why and how we need to overgrow the “two-party tyranny”. He is also an advocate of “open source intelligence” and truth and reconciliation. The intention of the movement they are launching — Unrig: Beyond Trump and Sanders is to awaken awareness of the “deep state” and coalesce a movement for electoral reform (the Election Reform Act of 2017) to make sure the missing ingredient in government by the people — the people — are actually represented.
The planks include:
- Universal registration of voters, including prisoners
- Free and equal ballot access for all citizens
- Tightly drawn, un-gerrymandered districts
- Free and equal public funding
- Free and equal media access
- Inclusive debates
- Open primaries
- Election Day holiday, free public transport
- Paper ballots and exit polls
- Ranked choice voting, instant runoff to include minority party candidates
- Transparency in legislation — no secret clauses
- Economic and financial democracy — end opposition to unions, nationalize central banks
Recognizing that this platform has been formulated by a “left-winger” and a “right-winger” should be cause for encouragement, if not celebration. To me it illustrates what can happen when left and right come front and center to create a new conversation, instead of the divisive one that has kept corruption in the driver’s seat.
