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I'm joined today by Jed maury he is the author of this book
the great American disconnect seven fundamental threats to our democracy
jed really great to talk to you all very quickly just kind of give the audience
the list so they know what these threats are that we're talking about and then
we'll delve into it
you talk about deregulation speculation fundamentalism the assault on liberty
militarization incarceration and manufactured consent
in reading through the book I was interested because
there's kind of a mix above threats some love which seem to resonate more with
traditionally the American right
and some probably more of them with the American Left
whatever your politics that led you to write this book
United writing a book actually was an incredible
personal exploration love my personal politics because
it allowed me and which our profession does
I it allowed me to really investigate my personal feelings about it but
research-based and I
dispensed with that a few things that I help dear
I learned a great deal through the writing process
I would say that my politics in general are very progressive
I'm but not hand to your point I'm interested though
at this moment in our history where we have this bizarre
intersection in some cases between the progressive end of the spectrum
and then the some other conservative and and/or
libertarian and at the spectrum yet it seems especially with things like the
assault on liberty and you talk about the used to be espionage
act by President Obama when we look at signature strikes in drone usage
there are problems with that policy that we hear from the progressive left as
well as the libertarian right
not always the same explanation for why there's opposition but at least there
seems to be somewhat have a shared concern our goal there
I think in general mainstream media
these they think tend not to go very deep they use these issues in a very
shallow way
on that allows them to turn them into talking points for one side or another
I and what I tried to do was really have a deeper examination
0 where these policies come from
and how exactly we got to this point forget about how
anybody's manufacturing them on one side or another to score political points but
why exactly would find urself in the circumstances that we are today
will interestingly I was thinking along those lines and I wonder if you would
agree that when we look at your 7
threats we can explore all of them through the lens
above inequality in the United States if we look at deregulation
favored by the rich in big corporations if we look at speculation your second
threat
speculation has been that baby a wall street if we look at
a military stationed there a huge companies and rich people getting even
richer through the military's asiana police and and
a fighting terror do you explore this lens
i doing in the you know the XOR
these threats are really tributaries for more fundamental aspects of who we are
as a nation
that Ben and things that we battle and have battled throughout our history with
whether that's said talking about just
general human nature with greed I it's an inherent racism that still exist in
this country
on and at the center in
imperialistic entitlement that we we still hold dear to
so I'm examining them with those beings are at the root causes
and looking at the intersection of them and I think people will be surprised at
how much they actually do
intersect how much this same players are behind the scenes
%uh all these different threats no question you know one of the ones you
have is manufactured consent
and when we look at that one big corporations and executives are
controlling the media and then if you look at
seemingly a separate one for example speculation
speculation leads us back to wall street very large media conglomerates and some
have the same executives that are involved in big media
are involved in the big financial firms either as members aboard the director et
cetera
so it's very interesting how 7 seemingly very different
threats for example fundamentalism and military is Asian
also connect when we look at the religious basis being used
to both wage war and oppose certain social policies in the United States
do you think that this seven threats can be boiled down in terms of their
origin I
I think that boil down to a couple different places and one is this
idea of American exceptionalism and the fact that we do have imperialistic
tendencies that we do see ourselves as separate and above
all other nations and but we have
also this bizarre self-loathing aspect to it where
we honor civil liberties in our speech in the way that we conduct our
our politics in the public but behind closed doors in the way that the laws
are written in the way that media has been consolidated in way that
corporations and game shops such a foothold in this country
really belies that that fundamental aspect in civil liberties that we've
gone to
so n you hit on the ultimate on
manifestation of all these different items which is really in this grows in a
quality that we're experiencing right now
and that's finally reach the the mainstream media
and of course forces are going to work to try and claim it in different ways
and try to
manipulate it different ways so that they can still achieve the same end
result but the fundamental fact exists that
their is gross inequality in this country and of course
in the rest of the world in an effort to kind of be more pragmatic
and solution-oriented which is something that a lot of my view suggest I try to
do in 2014
the last couple minutes if the interview what types of solutions could be look at
how could we
improve the situation that you describe is is based in the seventh rats when I
think its solutions my mind goes to two things
I could make the case individually for the seventh right I won't do that
because I want you too can you give us your thoughts and they would be
looking at how politics is funded and looking at media because
media coverage for most americans is how they see
all seven of these threats or don't see them as the case may be. in so I would
focus on
money in politics and media do you agree or is the solution elsewhere
I agree it would be very difficult to affect any sort of positive change that
would attack this
gross inequality that we're experiencing right now on
and really this economic depravity that it that is so
ever-present that you you would have to get back to the room have money in
politics and get the money
out of politics and that seems like a really big job
but it's something that's necessary to facilitate other aspects a
things that we can fix in a real politics sans I'm
where I go but you know i i tend to go back to the economic arguments
our I start the book with deregulation speculation
I think that that readers will be surprised and just how
bar we have gone from the fundamental aspects and even capitalism
we believe that we live in this capitalistic society in that it is
produced an overall good
but if it it is so easy to legislate
a few fixes with respect to deregulation and curbing
rampant speculation that could at least returned some normalcy into the economic
system that more people would be able to participate
and we know one one message I would love to convey
is we need to have a better discourse in this country to get away from trying to
I claim that one side or the other is trying to redistribute the well
and get ourselves back on a path where we were talking about creating a more
equitable
access to wealth people would be very surprised by just how
ring economic system is absolutely and the best those things are
xel the best example I've come up with and I'd been talking about it for years
and ultimately side actually used I think in the movie
I think it was in Park Avenue the documentary park avenue is
the right will often point to the rules are the same for everybody and I think
the mint the monopoly analogy is perfect
if everybody playing Monopoly plays by the same rules
it might seem like things are fair but if one of the players
comes in after the property has been giving it up
the bank has already given away all that money just because on paper you're
playing by the same rules doesn't mean everyone has the same shot at success
and that really seems to encompass a lot of what's going on within a quality
right now yeah and this is this is not just something that happened overnight
this was an assiduous
effort over the past four five decades to really create a system
that rewards a specific type a behavior and I talk a little bit about that at
the end of the deregulation segment where you talk about some of the
greatest quantitative the arrests in the world
are basically saying that you know we don't have a market problem
even though elektronik training is adding a new element everything
but what we have is a a behavior problem where we're rewarding the wrong behavior
in worse than that we've legalized that typeof
reward system over the past several decades and every
administration share some with the blame
in in that ideology in the in the I deregulation
as an ideology we've been speaking with Jed maury the book is the great American
disconnect seven fundamental threats to our democracy really each of the seven
threats is worthy of its own
in-depth discussion check out the book and jet thank you so much for joining us
David can't thank you enough for having me on