What is the Radical Middle?

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Sat, 1 Oct 2005 13:43:44 -0400

What is the Radical Middle?

 

 

 

The Thom Hartmann Program

http://www.thomhartmann.com/radicalmiddle.shtml

 

 

What is the Radical Middle?

 

The Founders of this nation represented the first Radical Middle. Back

then they called it " being liberal. " As George Washington said, " As

Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all

those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are

equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever

to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality. "

 

They didn't want King George or his military or corporate agents

snooping in their houses, mails, or private matters; preventing them

from organizing together and speaking out in public in protest of

government actions; imprisoning them without access to attorneys, due

process, or trials by juries of their peers; or reserving rights to

himself that they felt should rest with the people or their elected

representatives. (They ultimately wrote all of these in the Bill of

Rights in our Constitution.)

 

They also didn't want giant transnational corporations dominating

their lives or their local economies. When, in 1773, King George III

signed the Tea Act - a massive tax cut for the British East India

Company - they protested this first attempt to WalMart-itize America

by preventing the Company's ships from landing in several cities up

and down the eastern seaboard, and boarding and destroying over a

million dollars (in today's money) of tea in the ships that did dock

in Boston. This was the beginning, by the Radical Middle, of the

American Revolution.

 

The Radical Middle has always believed in fairness and democracy, and

understood that completely unrestrained business activity and massive

accumulations of wealth into a very few hands can endanger democratic

institutions.

 

As James Madison said, " There is an evil which ought to be guarded

against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity

of holding it in perpetuity by … corporations. The power of all

corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth

acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses. " Similarly,

John Adams wrote that when " economic power become concentrated in a

few hands, then political power flowed to those possessors and away

from the citizens, ultimately resulting in an oligarchy or tyranny. "

 

Thomas Paine, among others, wrote at length about the dangers to a

free people of the massive accumulation of wealth, and following the

excesses of the Gilded Age - which led to massive corruption of the

American government by corporate and wealth-based interests - laws

were put into place limiting the size and behavior of corporations

(such as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act), and taxing inheritance of the

most massive of family estates so that a new hereditary aristocracy

wouldn't emerge in the nation that had thrown off the economic and

political oppressions of the hereditary aristocracy of England.

 

The Radical Middle always believed in the idea of a commons - the

things that we all own collectively, and administer the way we want

through our elected representatives. Our parks, roads, police, fire,

schools, and our government itself. Our ability to vote in fair and

transparent elections. Our military and defense. Our systems for

protecting our air, water, food, and pharmaceuticals. Our ability to

retire in safety if we've worked hard and played the game by the

rules, and to know that an illness won't financially wipe us out.

 

Regardless of electoral politics (since both of the major political

parties often overlook these values, and both have become corrupted by

wealth and corporate influence), poll after poll shows that the vast

majority of Americans embrace the values of the Radical Middle.

 

In recent years, America has been hijacked by the Radical Right.

Corporations now write most of our legislation. Our elected

representatives cater to the interests of wealth rather than what is

best for the commons we collectively own, or what will sustain that

bulwark of democracy known as the middle class. They have, in large

part, seized control of our media, wiped out our family farms, and

wiped out small, middle-class-owned businesses from our towns and

cities. They seek a " merger of corporate and state interests " - a

definition Mussolini used for what he called " fascism. "

 

The Radical Right has even gone so far as to use sophisticated

psychological programming tools, like Newt Gingrich's infamous " word

list, " to paint the Radical Middle as some sort of insidious

anti-Americanism.

 

We in the Radical Middle are calling for nothing less than a

restoration of democracy, of government of, by, and for We The People,

in a world that works for all.

 

see also: www.radicalmiddle.com