Shepherd's Musings

The blatant murder of George Floyd set off a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest. Will this amorphous movement focus on clear demands? The state seems to have responded with violence; have we created a police state, what do we do about it? Slowly we have realized that the delicate balance that maintained order in our society was sitting atop an unstable relationship between the ruling classes and the masses, are we finally waking up to that reality? 

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We don't really talk about class in America but without class consciousness, we will not be able to understand power well enough to win reforms. The elites have been waging a war against the interests of those who are not privileged enough to be in their class and don't have their free-market orthodoxy. Learning about their tactics is also essential to combat the business offensive and reclaim our democracy. 

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Tension is building as some have begun to protest the stay-at-home orders; will we simply chastise them and call them idiots, or can we look a bit deeper at their concerns and try to empathize with them and focus our energy at holding the people with power accountable instead? They ultimately don't trust the government we have today, and frankly, I don't either. Trust is going to be important now more than ever. Will we continue to trust wolves in sheep's clothing, or will we start to make demands and hold our leaders on both sides of the aisle to account.

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Thank you, Bernie. Not me, Us.

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In the face of the ongoing crisis, focusing on solutions is the best course of action; however, the transformative change we want cannot be implemented without power. Will we strike the balance between insider and outsider strategy to actually make a change in Washington that will for once benefit the working class? Are our allies who become insiders effectively challenging the powers that be and are we ready to start to take the power to set the narrative away from mainstream media?

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The pandemic undoubtedly has caused severe economic distress which we haven't yet really felt yet. Congress pushed through what seemed to be a historic stimulus package but is it actually comprehensive enough to meet the gravity of this unprecedented situation? We seem to have forgotten the frank and decisive leadership of FDR, but if we do study his accomplishments and vision, we can find that remembering our American social democratic roots, might just be the way to get us out of this mess.

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Covid-19 panic starts to hit the United States. Different parts of the country are shutting down, workers are being laid off, and our leaders are scrambling to try and respond in a way that will be proportional to the kind of devastation we could see on the horizon. After this crisis, we will emerge a new nation and perhaps a new planet. Will we give into isolation or create a new form of global cooperation?

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Pandemic creeps up on humanity and we seem generally unprepared. How will we respond? Will we learn from this or give into panic? Mainstream Media's narrative beats organizing again in the democratic primary as Joe Biden tightens his grip on the nomination. Will we trust a deteriorating candidate who represents the same neo-liberal policies that got us Trump, to beat him? Will we take a longer-term view of our situation and vote for the future? Or will we succumb to fear and choose a return to the Obama era, that in many ways brought us the precarious position we are in today?

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Welcome on our trek through the ideological desert! In this episode, I introduce the podcast and jump straight into a post-mortem of Super Tuesday and where Bernie and his #NotMeUs movement can go from here. Jim Clyburn saves the day, Obama assembles the centrists, Bernie gets beat on Super Tuesday, but it's still neck and neck. A new race has emerged, the one we were expecting and the line has been drawn in the sand; its Us vs Them. Which side are you on?