Maybe you've experienced this. You take interest in something you've not noticed before, say a car of a particular color. Then you start noticing this thing all over the place when you didn't before.
Maybe that's what's going on with me and the thesis I'm pursuing about the potential power of principled people on the left & right joining forces to challenge the power and policies of the establishment. I've been addressing this topic in the past few episodes of
GDAE Podcast:
Part 1: (20-min abridged) - The Thesis of the Left & Right Joining Together. Motivations and Defining the Thesis. Real-world example: Challenging the Consolidation of Media Ownership.
Part 2: (30-min) - More than a Hypothesis: Real-world examples of Left/Right Joint Efforts to Challenge the Establishment. The call to "Audit the Federal Reserve."
Part 3: (30-min) - More Real-world examples. The late-1800s Populist Movement & the current movement calling for strict adherence to 10th Amendment of the US Constitution.
Now I'm starting to see more real-world cases and other people observing this social phenomenon. The Tea Party movement, for the most part, is NOT a part of this left/right coming together. That's in part because it's partly co opted by corporate sponsors and demagogues like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck (tho the concerns of its diverse membership are similar).
This is also not about establishment conservatives who reject the Tea Party, or , or at least hold them at a distance. Tho, there can be some intersection these principled establishment conservatives too. One example is the conservative and liberal lawyers who challenged the constitutionality of California's Anti-gay marriage Proposition 8. (The two lawyers were conservative Ted Olsen and liberal David Boies, the two of whom battled each other in the Bush v. Gore 2000 election coup). But lets face it, Olsen & Boies are part of the establishment mindset.
It's hard to pin down this phenomenon, in part because it is diverse and complex. But, when you hear the examples and discussions on the previous podcasts, it starts to take shape. I'll be expanding on more examples in the August
GDAE Podcast, so stay tuned.
Sources:Originally posted on
Challenge the Establishment Blog.
We Are Wisconsin
For about two years I've been producing segments for the GDAE podcast that "beat the drum on prosecuting Bush administration officials for their crimes." I've generated nearly 40 segments, each about 1-3 minutes.
The next episode of GDAE Podcast, #18, addresses the issue of American Exceptionalism. The following excerpt from the podcast is motivated by a blog post by Lance Stegall, the Seminal:
