An ‘Extremist’ in the United States

An Excellent Re-post from Nation of Change.

RobertJensenI am a mild-mannered (a polite term for “boring”) white Christian man, born and raised in North Dakota, a U.S. state known for being mild-mannered. I teach university courses on freedom of expression and the role of journalism in a democratic society, concepts I take seriously. I also take seriously my obligation as a citizen to participate in conversations about public policy, but I avoid shouting. And I don’t own any weapons.

But beware—I am an extremist.

I am not extreme in the way that U.S. politicians and pundits typically throw the term around these days. I don’t advocate violence to establish a theocracy (whether Christian, Continue reading

Our democracy no longer represents the people. Here’s how we fix it.

Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig makes the case that our democracy has become corrupt with money, leading to inequality that means only 0.02% of the United States population actually determines who’s in power. Lessig says that this fundamental breakdown of the democratic system must be fixed before we will ever be able to address major challenges like climate change, social security, and student debt. This is not the most important problem, it’s just the first problem.
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