"News that's not known, or not known enough."
Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
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"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. |
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Dragon-free and peaceful
I was struck by the power and cogency response to the candidacy of Hillary. This is why I always scan though the dialogue looking for your responses. Informed, up to date and level headed by guarantee. I was just listening to a radio interview with Frankie Moore Lappe about her new book Getting A Grip. Sorry, it was on a station that does not seem to have archives. She covered a number of points that we folks, living at the left end of the political spectrum (including actual conservatives like me that have been pushed all the way around the circle and have ended up on the left by default) need to listen to. I haven't gotten the book yet (wife is just now setting to buy a autographed copy at a book signing in Fort Bragg) but Frankie says that what she had to say on the show is all in the book, so I feel comfortable in this case in recommending that people read it. One thing I remember starkly is her response to the whining about "speaking to the choir. Speaking to the choir is the first thing you want to do to make the choir more musical and effective. Decent people, regardless of whatever bias they may carry, know the value of fairness and inclusive politics. The kindling to start a fire of creative change is lying about everywhere waiting for a match. My bias is that the vast majority of us are at our core committed to a sense of shared decency. On the basis of that belief I often propose that we could immediately improve our process of government vastly by merely choosing to fill our elective office on the basis of random choice rather than continuing to depend on this smoldering wreck of a elected representative system we currently use. I am looking forward to reading in this book about the many encouraging and interesting experiments in direct democracy that are currently going on in the US. Is it a conspiracy that we almost never see coverage of positive developments like the localization movement, or teen peer courts, or restorative justice? This is a book that really covers unknown news. I knew Frankie some thirty years ago (I recently had a chance to speak with her after one of her speaking engagements and, sadly, she did not recognize me for which I can not fault her since I in no way resemble that dashing stud that I was thirty years ago). I have followed her career closely. To my mind a major failing of our so-called participatory democracy is the fact that it has failed to draft her as president. Here is a link to a video of Frankie speaking about her new book on YouTube. You can also find the video and more about the book at the web site, www.gettingagrip.org. And for those of you motivated to look at the video links, is that an attractive woman or what? Kind of Cher without the plastic surgery and, unlike Cher, Frankie keeps looking better.
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