Harvard University’s Dennis Thompson discusses the sources of partisan intransigence and legislative gridlock in American political life.
What role does ideology play in the current impasse in national governance? What role does the electoral system itself play? How can the people’s representatives move beyond gridlock and ideological partisanship to effectively govern the nation and resolve the problems it faces?
Thursday, September 27 @7:00 pm
3 Church Street, Cambridge
Harvard political scientist Theda Skocpol discusses the Tea Party. What are the sources of this group’s influence? How is it like other recent attempts to create a third party in our de facto bipartisan system? What impact is it having on current policy debates? On the 2012 election cycle?
Wednesday, September 14 @ 7 pm
Political activist and consumer advocate Ralph Nader discusses his latest book Only the Super Rich Can Save Us! Described as a work of imagination, but not of fiction, Nader’s newest book challenges our vision of the American dream.
How does Nader’s provocative message resonate with American voters as an economic recession drags on? Recorded Thursday, May 5
Wendell Potter, currently the senior fellow on health care at the Center for Media and Democracy, discusses his new book, Deadly Spin. As an executive for a major health insurance company, Potter was on the inside team that created the public relations strategy to challenge threats from government regulation. He eventually left his 30 year career and wrote his whistle blowing critique, Deadly Spin. In 2009, Potter testified before Congress, giving powerful specifics of industry practices to “dump the sick” to increase shareholder value. This forum was recorded November 30, 2010.
(recorded in October, 2010) Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig argues that American democracy is broken and that only a concerted effort to change the way Congress operates can restore our system of government. What changes are necessary? And how will they come about?
View the presentation on YouTube here.
Author Paul Loeb discusses his idea of citizenship.
It’s more than political engagement, he argues, in his underground bestseller Soul of a Citizen. How do his narratives of creative, moral, and emotional citizenship play out in our age of cynicism and fear?