How to Fix Democracy - The Other 1% | Featuring Ralph Nader

The Other 1% | Featuring Ralph Nader

10/25/19 • 24 min

Consumer advocate, lawyer, and former U.S. presidential candidate Ralph Nader believes that democracy is about civic organization, not just public opinion. In his assessment, the American people have lost perspective and ceded control of politics to “big money.” But they should understand that there is broad popular support for many of the things they want, and the key is Congress. Nader, who made a career on circumventing big business control in Washington, urges Americans to put the focus on Congress, the most powerful branch of government, and remarks that, historically, it’s only taken concerted effort from 1% of the population to push major change. He reminds the public that there is something that politicians want more than money from special interests: your vote.

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Democracy Is Not a Fancy Beast! | Featuring John Ralston Saul

Canadian political philosopher and writer John Ralston Saul discusses how the crisis in democracy today is self-inflicted and intentional. The people, he says, have given up holding power themselves, accepting instead to gain influence over power. In pursuing good causes they have turned over the levers of power to business and the higher echelons of government. To fix democracy, Ralston Saul hopes that citizens — a concept he says has been abandoned — will seek to participate in democracy at local levels in order to reclaim the foundations of democratic power.

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The Art of Listening | Featuring Leon Botstein

Leon Botstein, music director and conductor, scholar, and president of Bard College in upstate New York, had once thought that the Berlin Wall would never come down. And he found the revolutions surrounding 1989 “frightening” because they could lead to the ascent of unregulated capitalism and the release of suppressed nationalism. Botstein explains that democracy “is harder than people expected” and worries that we are spending too much time staring at our smartphones and “mesmerized by nothing” rather than finding meaning and value by our own activity.

Referenced in the interview: https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/college-behind-bars/