Populist Party Newsletter 09-28-06

Direct and Extreme Democracy in Civil Society by Stephen Neitzke Extreme Democracy (ED) is a set of technology- and sociology-bound political concepts being developed in hopes of changing the nature of representation. ED advocates want citizen activists to have a greater role in governance, mostly through digital technologies that can bring together dynamic, ever-changing, issue-driven majorities (as opposed to traditional, rigid, party-line, ideology-driven majorities). They want the representative govt -- the repocracy, rule by representatives, new word to take away their false claims to democracy -- to become more responsive to citizen consensus. Read More... Rumsfeld's Guinea Pigs by Heather Wokusch It barely made news last week when Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne called for the testing of nonlethal weaponry on US citizens in crowd-control situations. According to Wynne, "If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation." Read More... Neo-Progressives by Joel S. Hirschhorn What is now apparent is that we have a whole lot of "neo-progressives," people who have no hesitancy in supporting mainstream Democrats in the name of defeating Republicans. Neo-progressives cannot resist the temptation to support the lesser-evil as a pragmatic strategy, justified in the name of saving the country from yet more years of Republican dominance. Read More... The Third Depression by A. Scott Piraino To finance our current account deficits, we have to import three billion dollars in cash, every working day. Our deficits now consume 80 percent of the entire world's net savings, and our demand for debt is increasing.   This is unsustainable. Read More... How Terrorists Profit from Drugs by Harry Browne If drugs were legal - if Smith Kline, Eli Lilly or Bayer could sell drugs - prices would be so low that the profit would be no larger than in computers or food. So how could the terrorists make big money in such a business? Read More...