An impregnated, but hopefully not inflated, Call for Papers from the Populist Party of America and its affiliate, the Midwest Alliance of Populist America:

The Midwest Alliance of Populist America - a regional affiliate of the Populist Party of America - is now accepting submissions for consideration for inclusion in a new publication dedicated toward exploring Populist issues concerning the Midwest of the United States. The publication will be an electronic journal published on a monthly basis and disseminated through two modalities of distribution: posting on the Populist America Web domain; and direct electronic mailing to subscribers of the Populist America Newsletter.

One should note, this does not qualify as an academic journal, due its failure to conform with the ritualized processes of peer review. However, the absence of the homogenizing effects of peer review - which essentially amounts to the reinforcement of the lowest common denominator belonging to the respective discipline, allows the contributor the existential freedom to innovate himself or herself though the stylization of both the submission’s contents and the rhetorical devices deployed to make the argument convincing.

Although any document format will be accepted - other than texts that are formatted into images - we encourage you to either use XHTML with CSS or Rich Text Format. Additionally, please include a brief biographical description as well as an E-mail address that can be used to contact you. If published, you can typically expect 50 to 150 letters in reaction from those who were exposed to your work.

Please send your submission to russellcole@populistamerica.com (for Midwest Submissions), or mboldin@populistamerica.com (for PopulistAmerica.com submissions). If your work is published, it will be licensed under a Creative Commons, and you will be free to use your work for purposes of publicizing it in different venues as long as you give reference to its original membership in one of the publications under the control of the Populist Party of America.

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Background on the Midwest Alliance and the Populist Party of America:

The Populist Party of America is a third party political establishment - Federally registered - that advocates direct democratic reform in the United States. Direct democracy is a theory of governance that finds its inspiration in the form of polity practiced by the Ancient Athenians, who established a robust, egalitarian form of decision-making - in the context of the narrowly defined extension of citizenship - determining the adoption and implementation of public policy. Citizens of the Polis would collect in order to form an assemblage, where deliberations, involving public dialog, could take place; a modality of political discourse that would culminate in a majority rules vote - referendum - which determined whether a policy proposal would be adopted or discarded. Interestingly, the Assembly afforded any member the opportunity to address his counterparts. The only determining factor for whom could acquire the pulpit was the extent of the rhetorical skills possessed by the individual, who desired to orate his position regarding the affairs of the state.

Although this model of political organization was far from perfect according to our own contemporary standards, which we might anachronistically apply to the Athenians when rendering an assessment of the social justice instantiated by their political system; an evaluative process that would no doubt result in criticisms regarding the limited scope of citizenship in Athenian society; a condition that precluded women and slaves from engaging in the affairs of state, or, for that matter, social intercourse outside the sphere of domesticity, altogether.

Nevertheless, a rehabilitation of the concept, democracy - an exercise that would direct our attention to the etymology of democracy, which is situated in the Ancient Athenian Polis - continues to provide a heuristic benefit. We would subsequently be armed with an alternative conceptualization of democracy to juxtapose with the form of Liberal Representative Democracy - which many contend to be a contradiction in terms - that we so often, as Americans, ethnocentrically espouse as the only appropriate sociopolitical configuration for a society that desires to assume a developed, advanced status; a condition actualized through processes of social maturation.

This American discourse, which pronounces a universalistic conception of freedom and democracy in terms reflecting its own provincial embodiment can be interpreted according to a discursive pattern that runs in contradistinction to the prototypical expressions emanating from the American sociopolitical establishment: America’s insistence of Liberal Democracy as the manifestation of the positive normative qualities of humanity is merely a metropolitan discourse that defines the subjugated nations of neo-Liberal Empire according to their conformity or lack of conformity with the mandates imposed by the provincial economic interests of Empire.

By and large, the current understanding of democracy pervasive in America when juxtaposed to a properly rehabilitated conception of democracy has little in common with the Athenian form democratic political praxis. Furthermore, since political discourse within America tends to neglect to consider - even remotely - methods and recommendations by which to enhance democracy in America, since it is generally presumed that America has already achieved a state that embodies democracy in its highest possible development, a comparison with an alternative archetype of democracy will, perhaps, engender critical reflection that holds the neo-Liberal democratic nation-state to standards other than the ones it has defined for itself.

With all of this said, the Midwest Alliance of the Populist Party of America invites you to submit articles that address the subject of democracy - and the form it should properly assume - in the context of the American sociopolitical configuration both in the present and throughout its history.

regards,

Russell Cole

russellcole@populistamerica.com

Coordinator of the Midwest Populist Party

Tags: constitution, democracy, direct democracy, government, Midwest, midwest alliance, midwest populist party, National, politics, populist party, Russell Coles Blog, self governance
Categories: Commentary, Midwest, National, Populist Party, Democracy, constitution, government, Russell Cole's Blog, self-governance, Politics, Direct Democracy
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The lexicon, democracy, has an etymology, which can be traced back to the Ancient Greek word for the mob, which is translated into our own language with its Roman alphabet into the term, demos. The term, demos, with the suffix typically attached to it, forms the referring expression, democracy; which we assert to be the rule of the citizens. It is the position of the Midwest Alliance that democracy is realized when the will of the Demos becomes the policy of the state. The intermediary devices that we currently have installed in American Empire’s political system are a device to mitigate the power of the Demos; the will of the people.

Furthermore, the distillation of the people’s expression of opinions concerning matters of state, which constitutes a quasi-republic, not a democracy, have been corrupted by elitist cronyism and the influence of special interests, which invest money into the campaign coffers of career politicians. We suffer from the rule of the provincial, which imposes its selfish head at the expense of the cosmopolitan interests of the Demos, the populace.

The Demos is not represented through this system of polity. Rather, it is provided with the illusory impression that it somehow affects the posture of the state through ceremonial occasions where each member of the demos is provided the opportunity to express himself or herself through the casting of a single vote for an individual, who indirectly, in theory, represents the individual in the affairs of state.

Let us recognize this pathetic ritual, which reinforces the collective representation of a democratic nation, as a device to propagate a false ideology. We do not live in a democracy, we live in Empire, which is controlled by a plutocracy that carefully manages the representation, the veneer, of an electoral system, which provides the Demos with preselected choices, which are the products of a complex system consisting of networking and cronyist quid pro quo.

This process, conducted among the elites, preselects those who will be our choices for representation in polity. The individuals presented to us are typically those with the most elitist alliances, as well as, those with the access to the necessary capital required to enter into the ceremonial pageantries of primaries. Following the series of ritualistic dramatic performances, one of the members of the power elite eventually assumes the role of Emperor; more commonly designated as President.

Our choices are made in advance, prior to our even becoming cognizant of candidates presented as electoral options. We live under the rule of single political party, because the ideological divergences between and among the assortment of individuals belonging to the elitist class are blown into consequential oblivion by the intersection of interests among the plutocracy of Empire, which consist of preserving their elevated status.

Therefore, the Power Elite is interested and defined by the following teleology, which gives shape to their primary project: The maintenance of the status quo.

Tags: american empire, centralization, democracy, direct democracy, foreign policy, localism, midwest populist party, politics, populist movement, power
Categories: Commentary, Global, Populist Party, Democracy, liberty, government, Russell Cole's Blog, Power, Politics, Third Parties, Empire, Direct Democracy
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We, The Midwest Alliance, have ostentatiously proclaimed that the collective representation of social and political reality, which predominately defines the most basic elements of the world-views of the majority of American subjects, is a false ideology; an illusory perception propagated by the “Manufactured Consent” engendered by a media that parades itself as news, but in actuality lacks any journalistic component.  The mass media is simply a means through which the managers of public relations disseminate their press releases.  There is no criticality involved in the reporting.

The pseudo-journalists, whose physically attractive appearances hold our attentions captive, are not investigating a story.  Rather, they are involved in a system of reciprocity with their sources, who offer them contents for their reports.  This amounts to a situation where the correspondent is obliged to frame a message that projects the image that the source is involved in crafting, in order to maintain the relationship.  It is embedded reporting in two senses of the word:  It is dependent upon the subjects of its coverage for access to their carefully planned dramaturgical performances, and, furthermore, it is prisoner to the corporate interests that have consolidated mass media sources in America.  These corporations depend upon politicians and people of power for the de-regulation of the media industry, which creates a conflict of interests that undoubtedly tarnishes any attempt at the production of authentic journalism by these profit driven entities.

Therefore, if we are two extrapolate from these two preceding propositions, we can conclude that the media has little or no independence from the elites who dominate American society.    Additionally, it is our position that this representation - the conventional political wisdom of American subjects shaped by the flow of discourse emanating from these media sources - is not an effective conceptualization of America and its system of polity, at all.  America is not a democracy, or even a Liberal democracy; it is Empire, which maintains a vestige of a dilute republicanism.  This is not hyperbole.  The rest of the world acknowledges that America is a facade of the edifice that it attempts to project as the care-keeper of the values associated with the Enlightenment.  We, as Americans, are alone in our oftentimes intransigent belief that we are the messengers of freedom in the world.  America implants within the Trojan Horse of “making the world safe for democracy,” a form of cultural and economic imperialism.  America is Empire.

Tags: democracy, empire, journalism, media, midwest populist party, populist, populist party
Categories: Commentary, Midwest, Society, Populist Party, Democracy, Empire, Media
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Midwest Americans,

Your inclusion in this Party in no way prevents you from remaining affiliated with your current party.  This is so, because the Midwest Alliance and The Populist Party, have a limited platform that consists of simply creating a democracy in the United States.  Please read bellow for a quick summation of the general principles that guide that party in its grass-roots efforts and, hopefully, you well see the pressing need for actualizing the basic elements embodied in the Party’s platform.  Since you will be involved in the party from its very inception, you will have the opportunity to influence the party’s structure as well as its platform.  Therefore, if you ever feel left out by the politics of the two business parties in America, then this is your chance to help dictate how you want your new political party to operate.  I shall, just briefly, describe some of the guidelines for the Party’s agenda that are provided by the national organization, which serve only as loose provisions for the grass-roots efforts that we will be conducting in The Midwest. 

The Populist Party is concerned with creating a democracy in the United States.  You might think, don’t we already live in a democracy?  Certainly not.  A democracy includes the populace’s participation in all of the various public policy initiatives that are formed through polity.  Consequently, the mere fact that decisions are often rendered by elites in the various, over-grown agencies associated with government, or the elitist intellectuals in academia, indicates that America, and The Midwest, suffer from a top-to-bottom political structure that cares little for the input of the average citizen.  The reform of this process is the primary objective of The Populist Party of America.

The Midwest Alliance of Populist America

Tags: grassroots, midwest populist party, populist party, third parties
Categories: Commentary, Midwest, Populist Party, Democracy
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by Russell Cole

Situating Extreme Democracy within a Larger Sociological Context

Sociologists usually consider two dynamics when providing explanations for the social systems that are instantiated by the interactions of the individuals comprising a pocket of humanity; a cultural group; a society: The first consideration is the actual structure of the social system, itself. I shall refer to this as a synchronic description of a social system. The second dimension to be included in the analysis is a description of the processes that lead to social change. I shall refer to this domain of analysis as the diachronic element to the sociological explanations provided for the observable social events occurring within the context of a social group, or aggregate.

Sociologists typically tend to concentrate their efforts on one of the before mentioned elements of analysis or the other, but rarely conceptualize theoretical frameworks that integrate the two dynamics of social interaction.

However, there is an exception to this generalization regarding sociological discourse. It is provided by an anthropologists of the latter half of the previous century. I am referring to Victor Turner, and his conception of communitas, which is the process through which social change occurs while continuing to maintain a social group or body.

Communitas is a liminal state; a state that falls in between two to other states, which possess structural properties. The intermediary state, communitas, however, fails to instantiate structural properties, and is, in fact, defined by its absence of structure. Therefore, communitas is a state of flux; a point of in-determinability; where the next state is decided by unpredictable factors which consist of the agencies of the individuals comprising the social group.

Communitas is a condition where the only aggregate property, which continues to persist, is the pure solidarity between and among the individuals within the culture. It is a state of pure community, void of the structural elements that we often associate with society. This aggregate property can be thought of as the pure emotive attraction between and among the individuals, who are involved in the communitas, and comprise the social group.

I now want to connect the concept of communitas with the concept of Extreme Democracy. Extreme democracy is a form of organization that is also constantly in flux, undergoing revision and change, due to the fact that there is no institutionalized structure. The shape that the organization assumes is always dependent upon the innovation and unpredictable inventiveness of the agents included in this network, who are not constrained by any objectified statuses and roles, connected with those statuses.

There is affiliation but no institutionalization. By extension: there is community, but no society; there is solidarity, but there lacks any structural impositions that are reinforced by the regulatory mechanisms, which maintain the integrity of a social structure. An Extremely Democratic organization is completely voluntary and completely egalitarian in the respect that there are no per-established statuses forming a hierarchical, vertical formation.

Statuses are constantly subject to revision based upon the agency of the individuals who are emotively attached to one another by virtue of the fact that they identify one another with a collective history and a shared teleology, or purpose, with regards to the fact that the agents perceive one another as working in conjunction under the pretense of a shared cause; although that cause can be reinvented by the agents who remain in the organization, in an ongoing basis, but is typically maintained in a form that does not alter its predecessor too abruptly, because such a change would alienate much of the membership. In short, the telos that unites the agents included in the organization is subject to Extreme Democracy. It is shaped and formed through the decisions made by the agents.

Tags: democracy, extreme democracy, midwest populist party, populist party, russell cole
Categories: Commentary, Society, Populist Party, Democracy, Social Change
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