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BLOG, AKA ONLINE NEWSLETTER: Sign Up to Receive Monthly Article Alerts Selected E-mails to the Editor ARCHIVES: ARCHIVE A: Access Past Mark Satin Articles, 2005- Present ARCHIVE B: Access Past Mark Satin Articles, 1999- 2004 ARCHIVE X: Access Past John Avlon Articles, 2004-06 RADICAL MIDDLE, THE BOOK: RESPOND TO OUR ARTICLES AND VIEW OTHERS' RESPONSES: Feisty E-mails to the Editor, 2008 Feisty E-mails to the Editor, 2007 Feisty E-mails to the Editor, 2006 Feisty E-mails to the Editor, 2005 Feisty Letters to the Editor, 2002-04 Feisty Letters to the Editor, 1999-2001 WHO WE ARE: About the Editor (In-House Version) About the Editor (By Marilyn Ferguson) About Our Wonderful Pledgers -- and How You Can Join Them About Our Directors and Advisors About Our Sponsor, the Center for Visionary Law RADICAL MIDDLE CONGRES- SIONAL SCORECARDS: 109th and 110th Congresses (2005-08) RADICAL MIDDLE POLITICAL BOOK AWARD WINNERS: SOME PRIOR RADICAL MIDDLE BOOKS: 50 Best "Third Way" Books of the 1990s 25 Best "Transformational" Books of the 1980s 25 Best "New Age Politics" Books of the 1970s SOME PRIOR BOOKS BY MARK SATIN: New Options for America (book drawn from New Options News- letter, 1983-92) |
Selected
E-Mails Here are some of the feisty e-mails and letters that are coming in to Radical Middle Online Newsletter. They're arranged in reverse chronological order. For selected e-mails and letters from 2007, go HERE; from 2006, HERE; from 2005, HERE; from 2002-04, HERE; and from 1999-2001, HERE. To send YOUR OWN e-mail to the editor, just click on E-Mail the Editor. ////////// The Bible and Politics July 1 / 15, 2008 We received so many wonderful emails and letters in response to our article "The Bible Is Our One Essential Political Book" (May 2008) that we crafted them into a separate, follow-up article! See HERE. ////////// The Bible and Politics (first cup) June 15, 2008 I'm worried over your favorable comments about the Bible ("The Bible Is Our One Essential Political Book," May 2008). While it is true that many cultures have derived inspiration and comfort from it, most of the worst atrocities in Western history have been inspired by biblical values. At the Biblical Errancy website, Dennis McKinsey has compiled a complete critique of the defects of the "Good Book." At the God Murders site, Gary DeVaney has compiled the worst deeds of the biblical god. Dennis and Gary and I, along with some others, are working together to bring believers to a true understanding of why the Bible is NOT a good book and its characters not good role models. You and your readers are invited to contact me at caliche@mail.com and join in our discussion. Carlos Arturo Serrano ////////// Here I am sitting in the rocking chair at the computer, reading about "our one essential political book." You have me smiling, reading fast and then closing my eyes, and rocking with a certain sense that the world might be in order after all. A lovely way to start the day. You have the courage of the Israelites stepping through the parted waters. Wynell Hosch ////////// The Radical Middle is NOT A CHURCH! John Dennis Coffey ////////// Excellent article, Mark! I've been a Bible student for decades, and still learned from your article. And I'll be reading it again to see what else I can learn. Jim Strasma ////////// What the Poor Need Now . . . Is Coaching? (concluded) June 1, 2008 Oh my, the condescension ("What the Poor Need Now," March 2008). Mark, I am surprised you would not think this through before you published. What the poor need now is money. I hate to break it to you, Mark, but there is alcoholism, wife beating, drug addiction, lawlessness, adultery, child neglect, lack of consideration, and out-and-out ignorance in every neighborhood in North America. Wealth does not create better behavior. Wealth creates thicker walls, and wide stretches of grass. The rich do not have to listen to each other in crowded tenements the way the poor do. But the noises of rich and poor are all the same. Do you not read newspapers? Same issues. More "newsworthy" because the subjects are wealthy and powerful. Take a bus uptown and check it out. Judy Graves ////////// I'd like to point out something you missed -- being poor is different from being low income. There are plenty of low-income "poor people" who for various reasons are choosing to be poor but are not really in need of coaching and are on a life-fulfilling path -- monks, college students, free-roaming travelers, people much preferring time to money (you're probably in that latter category). I don't view that as a problem. It is the "poverty of spirit" of which low income is often (but not always!) a symptom, that is a problem. When we target that -- as your coaching idea attempts to do -- then we will come closer to solving our real poverty problem. Luke Friendshuh ////////// What the Poor Need Now . . . Is Coaching? May 1 / May 15, 2008 We received so many wonderful emails and letters in response to our article "What the Poor Need Now" (March 2008) that we crafted them into a separate, follow-up article! See HERE. ////////// Integral Capitalism? April 15, 2008 Just thought I’d drop you a quick note to say how much I liked your (subtly spiral?) analysis of the recent capitalism literature, “Could Common Ground on Capitalism (and Globalization) Be at Hand?” (February 2008). Your framework gives some altitude to an evolving economic philosophy that we cannot do without if we are ever going to evolve what I like to call an “integral city.” Marilyn Hamilton, Ph.D. ////////// Great article, thanks! And very concise. My new book identifies “market fundamentalism” as one component of our existing structures that needs to shift. I am encouraged to see from your article that others are advocating a similar shift, in their different ways. John Renesch ////////// Good capitalism / globalization article. While I don’t agree with every detail, you are doing an excellent job of ideological peace-making. Michael Strong ////////// I love your courage to tackle this topic . . . great job! Rev. Margaret “Ka’imi” Nicholson ////////// Wonderful article -- I’m exhausted just thinking about the energy & work you put into it! Alvah S. White ////////// Thank you so much for your level-headed insights (“Could Common Ground on Capitalism (and Globalization) Be at Hand?,” February 2008). I come to the [radical] middle from the libertarian right, so it is refreshing to watch people who want to improve the way our economy works actually acknowledge the benefits of capitalism. There are several things that need to be (and can be) improved, but at its core, capitalism rewards those who do the best at generating wealth and creating things and services that people want. A lot of good comes out of that. I also tire of demonization of both sides of the issue. Corporations are not inherently evil, and Democrats and activists do not want to destroy wealth and control every aspect of our lives. Everyone wants a better world, we just don't always agree on how to get there. One thing I would like to see incorporated into attempts to change the economy is more system modeling, as well as more experimentation. The economic system is so complex now that no one can really predict all the effects their suggested changes might cause. So, I would like to see more humility and more willingness to adapt and modify policies according to how they actually work. Let’s develop policies in more of a learning mode. Luke W. Friendshuh ////////// Lessons of the New World Alliance (concluded) April 1, 2008 Your recent piece on the New World Alliance [“Participants Agonize Over (and Draw Lessons From) the Death and Life of the First Transpartisan Political Organization,” January 2008] was helpful, and will continue to help as some of us continue to work toward establishing the "City on the Hill." Why helpful? Because when you begin to get a longer view on how ideas evolve, it is easier to avoid discouragement. Lincoln Annas ////////// In your article on transpartisan organizing, in your second response to the fairly laid-back and meditative former New World Alliance Chairman Bob Olson, you wrote, "All I felt was that [as the Alliance's co-founder and first staff person] I'd failed to meet the terms of my contract with God. (Perhaps I have a different God.)" I wasn't there and it's not my place to comment really. Yet, I have to ask what it is to have a "contract with God"? Did you mean a contract with yourself? I have come to rely on a God of Grace and Forgiveness so much that it is difficult to imagine a legalistic Deity who would hold one accountable for a "broken contract." Now forgiving yourself is another matter . . . far more difficult. But surely God Himself / Herself is willing to renegotiate the terms with you. I mean, are we not also divine? What's a little forgiveness between one God and another? Just maybe it is everything. Wynell Hosch Dear Wynell: I do feel I was put on this Earth not only to conceptualize and help start the organization that became the New World Alliance, but to ensure that it succeeded, Moral Majority-style. My whole journey from 1964 (dropping out of school to do civil rights work in Mississippi) to 1983 pointed to that. It is only now that I can rationally get beyond that notion, but the Alliance's failure still feels like a dagger to the heart. Why repress that feeling or theologize it away? Failure is human, and owning up to failure helps people do better next time. -- M.S. Dear Mark: It seems to my un(law)schooled mind that the artificial constructs of agreements between men (to use the language of the Old Believers) are getting in the way of God's grace to you. It is enough to BE. I am that I am, and all that. You are blessed to know your purpose. But you do not have to judge the degree of fulfilling it. -- W.H. ////////// Lessons of the New World Alliance (continued) March 15, 2008 Thanks to all 15 of you for your UNUSUALLY PERSONAL & CAUSTIC accounts of what it was like to try to create a healing, post-partisan national political organization in the days of Jimbo Carter & Ronald Ray-gun [“Participants Agonize Over (and Draw Lessons From) the Death and Life of the First Transpartisan Political Organization,” January 2008]. Human nature being what it is, I’m not sure my generation will learn from you OR do any better . . . unless you count “Internet organizing” as the real thing. George Hauser ////////// Your Alliance reflections article inspires many thoughts, including
The timing of your article was perfect, as I labor over what’s next for the wider “green” community here in New Zealand and beyond. I like to say that, here in 2008, we find ourselves running on the intellectual fuel placed in the tank during the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s. There is clearly an angst to transcend this, step beyond it. But I have yet to be inspired by thought / practice that goes beyond it. Brendan Hoare
////////// I have just read with interest the article on the fate of the organizing activities of the New World Alliance. Some of the difficulties the article mentions are recurrent. I can testify to that, as I am a “child of the 1950s” in terms of social movements -- banning the A-bomb tests in the atmosphere was my first political activity, even before the creation of SANE. As a World Federalist -- I joined that organization in 1951 (and was the student rep on their executive council) -- I knew Norman Cousins. Later, when I was working in Gabon, Africa, I knew Albert Schweitzer well. Ralph Nader was a year ahead of me at Princeton, and Edward Said was a classmate. So the 1950s were not all that quiet! And they were as filled with process and ego clashes as was the Alliance in the 1970s and 1980s. (I still have a copy of the Alliance’s “A Transformation Platform.”) I was sorry to see that Donald Keys, one of the Alliance’s Governing Council members, was not among your article’s 15 contributors. Don and I had been in communication, as I had been on the Advisory Board of his Planetary Citizens, and he was on the Editorial Advisory Board of my periodical Transnational Perspectives. The last we were in touch, he was living as something of a hermit on Mount Shasta in northern California, but that was several years ago. Rene Wadlow ////////// Lessons of the New World Alliance March 1, 2008 The New World Alliance appears to have been a WONDERFUL collection of brilliant folks [“Participants Agonize Over (and Draw Lessons From) the Death and Life of the First Transpartisan Political Organization,” January 2008]. Many thanks for posting their reminiscences. Has your acquaintance with Spiral Dynamics helped in understanding what they bumped us into? In the late 1970s the holistic / integral tier was hardly evident, and the “mean green meme” was just getting started. We’ve been wildly evolving ever since. Dick Werling ////////// Re: your article on the New World Alliance and all the human tensions & problems therein. Have you read Jacob Needleman’s books Why Can’t We Be Good? (2007) and The Wisdom of Love (rev. 2005)? Both are relevant, to put it mildly. Carol Dworkowski ////////// I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Why did the New World Alliance aspire to be so large scale? Why didn’t you work for change inside the U.S., say for a political candidate? Ted Kennedy could have used your help in 1979-80. Gary Hart could have used that help in 1983-84. We sure could have used your help now in changing the way things are going. P. Edward Murray ////////// Perhaps the most important lesson we can take from the New World Alliance is that picking one compelling mission is (a) essential, and (b) an art. It seems to me that what most of us want is to have elected representatives who are motivated by collaboration and pragmatism, rather than ideology and partisanship. How many of our current challenges could have been averted years ago if activists from a generation ago had focused on getting centrists, moderates, and independents elected, rather than swinging for the fences? Paul Silver ////////// Some Scorecard! (continued) February 15, 2008 Do your 21 radical-middle members of Congress ("There Is a Radical Middle in Congress," December 2007) view themselves as part of a movement? Apparently, some do. But I’d feel more confident this meant something if these folks formed some kind of caucus -- a more creative and electric version of the Democratic Leadership Council. (Maybe they need a secret handshake!) So what can mold our radical-middle caucus into an entity and hold it together? What politically palatable idea could they organize around? Actually, it can’t be around an idea, least of all the idea of “centrism.” As Olympia Snowe has found (according to the last part of your article), the term “centrist” is seen as too wishy-washy even by some members of Congress. These folks really must organize around the radical-middle way of doing things -- the process -- a better way of interacting and engaging issues [see our “post-partisan” article HERE - ed.]. That, of course, is not at all wishy-washy, and it cannot be co-opted by partisan political parties, because then they wouldn’t be partisan any longer. Mike Van Horn ////////// Your Congressional Scorecard demonstrates once again that the “middle” is hard to define. Briefly, one’s position on the political spectrum tends to shape one’s perception of all the other positions on the spectrum. So Clinton is seen as as a Communist by the extreme right wing and Bush as a Fascist by the extreme left wing, etc. In order to move toward a radical middle or transpartisan society, promoting better public policies in Congress is not enough. We are going to have to understand why voters align with different policy positions and how to move them upward to more complex (and generally more benign) psycho-social levels. I commend my work on the “assimilation / contrast effect” to you and your readers [see, e.g., HERE, HERE, and HERE - ed.]. Right now we are using its general approach in Palestine with Fatah and Hamas, and earlier we used it in South Africa. Dr. Don Beck ////////// The world of your Congressional Scorecard is so narrow! See, for contrast, the world of my new speculative science fiction novel, The Virtual Librarian: A Tale of Alternative Realities. According to Gwyneth Cravens (author of a sophisticated new book about nuclear power), “The Virtual Librarian is a page-turner as well as an absorbing introduction to the mysteries of the virtual world that has come into existence thanks to the digital revolution. . . . The narrative reveals that what we assume to be ‘reality’ is not as solid as we might imagine, while what we designate as ‘virtual’ may in fact be far more real -- and certainly more influential -- than we might expect.” The book evokes some serious societal issues, looked at from new vantage points. For example, instead of scaring us about progress, technology, and globalization (as many politicians do), it suggests that technologically advanced machines can teach us the importance of our being completely human -- so long as we let such machines optimize their performance as machines. Isn’t the radical middle supposed to be committed to life as an expanding adventure? Ted Rockwell ////////// Some Scorecard! February 1, 2008 Re: “There Is a Radical Middle in Congress” (December 2007): Terrific article Mark! Paul Hosse ////////// I am a state legislator in North Dakota. Is there much writing or activity on appropriate state legislation? Eliot Glassheim ////////// I am from India. Students of politics throughout the world study American politics very closely. Even though she doesn’t make your Congressional Scorecard, we in India feel that Sen. Hillary Clinton is the most impressive of radical centrist politicians. Also, it is not only necessary to find out who the radical centrists are in the U.S. Congress. We need to identify them in the world. For example, Indian democracy is under attack from left-wing Maoists AND from Islamofascism, and Hindu extremism is more a reaction to these than a genuine radical centrist position. Democracy all over the world will be under threat if we have centrists on one side and religious fundamentalists, extreme leftists, and militarists in the opposition space. American democracy has a bright future so long as centrist and radical-centrist politicians can be found on both sides of the American political divide, among Republicans as well as among Democrats. Bireshwar Banerjee ////////// Interesting -- but what are your standards? Anybody who lists Dick Durbin and Nancy Pelosi as “middle ground thinkers” needs professional attention. The quote you use from her is a pathetic joke. I can’t see how Olympia Snowe earns any credit, at least from your writeup. Being a liberal Republican (or conservative Democrat) ought not be the criterion. I thought Barack Obama might qualify -- he does in style, but not in substance -- he’s a down-the-line leftie, but nice about it. His “not filibustering judicial nominations” doesn’t add up to much for me. John McClaughry ////////// Is "Clintonism" What You're After? February 1, 2008 Your Congressional Scorecard article (“There is a Radical Middle in Congress,” December 2007) raises the issue whether the “radical middle” is merely the new American political center, midway between liberal interventionists and laissez-faire reactionaries. In a recent article in the New York Times Magazine, Matt Bai (author of The Argument, which you reviewed in October 2007) describes and rues that milquetoast space as “Clintonism.” Is Clintonism what you're after? Bai convincingly demonstrates that all the major Democratic candidates now embrace Clintonist policies, and that those policies have completely displaced the BIG visions and policies of many earlier Democrats. Bai concludes his perceptive assessment by worrying that, since political campaigns are now being driven 100% by electability (as determined by sophisticated market research), all candidates will end up supporting politically popular, conventional, incremental initiatives – although our circumstances may actually call for unconventional, innovative solutions. Tricky business, this democracy. David Pearce Snyder Dear Dave: I have tirelessly promoted in this newsletter the idea that the “radical middle” is NOT AT ALL what Bai calls Clintonism. It is, instead, a principled capacity to learn from (as distinct from a wimpy eagerness to split the differences among) ALL political perspectives. That should make it politically popular. And it is an insistence on USING those learnings to create public policies that are at once imaginative and cost-effective, creative and pragmatic. That should also make it popular . . . as well as transformational. The radical middle is nothing if it is not transformational. (“Transform, but be grounded” -- radical middle version of “Trust, but verify.”) For that reason, I am as dissatisfied with the results of our 2005-08 Congressional Scorecard as were you and many other readers -- though I persist in seeing it as a useful and (painfully) illuminating experiment. Few -- if any -- of our elected legislators are genuinely radical middle, and we have our work cut out for us. ////////// Had We But Vision Enough, and Time (continued) January 15, 2008 The November issue of Radical Middle is supposedly on the topic of political vision today [“State of Our Political Vision 2007”]. But none of the authors you discuss offers a vision of an ETHICAL WORLD, which I do in my booklet Living the Good Life (2007). Marvin C. Katz, Ph.D. ////////// Thanks for your review of recent “visionary” books. But here is the real question:
You are right about one thing: in such a future, partisanship would not be the driving energy! Instead we’d want a future where genuine health in each entity (human, social, environmental, economic, etc.) reinforces health in all others. Stewardship of the whole would draw its energy from charrette-like design collaborations. For my own work along these lines, see the online draft of my book Fix the Whole Enchilada. I’d welcome your feedback. Steven H. Johnson ////////// Your description of Nordhaus & Shellenberger’s book Break Through certainly makes it sound like the most compelling visionary book of 2007 -- and of the four books you discuss, I expect I’d agree with you. But I’m not enthusiastic about the government programs they recommend. For a more free-market-oriented approach to environmental problems, see my paper “Sustainability in a Bright Green Future.” Michael Strong ////////// I remain most in allegiance with the wild-minding, fringe-edging, “new age” spiritual visionaries -- yet every focus has its playspace. The wonder of it all! Whatever we do and serve forth with, so long as there be love & more love, it will remain worth the trip. I just hope that, in retrospect, we will be able to comprehend why we allowed ourselves to explore so much suffering and lesser-quality pathways. Trucia Quistarc ////////// Had We But Vision Enough, and Time January 1, 2008 Thanks for keeping hope alive in the ever-widening gloom of Campaign ‘08 and global politics American- (or should I say, Wild West-) style. I am referring, of course, to your article about Matt Bai’s, Todd Gitlin’s, Paul Hawken’s, and Nordhaus & Shellenberger’s political visions, “State of Our Vision 2007” (November 2007). Prof. Robert Ciapetta ////////// I was seriously disappointed with the “20 key propositions” you derive from Nordhaus & Shellenberger. Basically, you present readers with a scatter-shot of glib aphorisms suggesting an amiably activist, incoherent future. Of course, chaos theorists would probably endorse that view, since they argue that whenever complex systems pass through a fundamental transformation, their futures become briefly unextrapolable and uncertain. And there is certainly every reason to believe (as Nordhaus & Shellenberger apparently do) that we are passing through a transformational moment. Dave Snyder ////////// Loved your comparative review of a number of key visionary books. Two of the visionary strategies I’ve written up on my own site -- Integral Strategies -- make use of the Maslow model of development, which Nordhaus & Shellenberger apparently also use to good effect. Matthew Kalman ////////// You AND Hawken AND Nordhaus & Shellenberger are right about the main thing. In an environment in which the U.S. cannot solve (or even define!) its problems, the institutional strategy of addressing public issues individually is analogous to seeing trees and not the forest. By making issues separate and competing entities, single-issue politics creates a free-for-all that divides citizens who otherwise would be allies. America’s biggest problem isn’t Iraq, George W. Bush, or even the excessive partisanship of the two-party system. It is, in fact, single-issue politics. Coming up with a common vision is key to beginning the debate America desperately needs. Joe Mokler ////////// FOR E-MAILS PRIOR TO 2008, GO HERE. |
THE RADICAL MIDDLE CONCEPT: Over 40 Good People (Try to) Describe the Radical Middle 50 Best Radical Middle Books of the '00s (so far) Five Best Radical Middle Magazines, annotated Over 20 Arguably Radical Middle National POLITICIANS GREAT RADICAL MIDDLE GROUPS AND BLOGS: NEW: Over 50 Great Radical Centrist Blogs - all with their bloggers named and described! NOT JUST RADICAL MIDDLE: Ten Best U.S. Political Novels, annotated 25 RED- HOT RADICAL MIDDLE INITIATIVES: Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget Information Technology & Innovation Foundation Institute for Alternative Futures National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation Republican Main Street Partnership SOME PRIOR RADICAL MIDDLE INITIATIVES: Generational Equity and Communitarian platforms,1990s U.S. Green Party's "Ten Key Values" statement, 1980s Civil Rights Movement, 1960s (your editor is HERE, 6th from bottom) |