Conversations with leaders who bring people from all sides together in purposeful dialogue so we can develop a shared vision of the world we want to live in.
Steve Bhaerman and Michael Maxsenti conduct interviews that will work to deepen and expand our understandings.
These conversations will get us off the political battlefields and onto cooperative playing fields. There we can create the new story that our hearts know is possible.
We – Steve Bhaerman and Michael Maxsenti -- launched our Front and Center podcast in September with the intention to help all sides get off the political battlefields and onto the cooperative playing fields so we could write our new story together.
Our first seven guests have shown us the pathway to turn this ideal into the REAL DEAL – by awakening the recognition of what is possible and highlighting how to navigate there. This seemingly dark time is actually leading us to the birth of a new era for humanity, an era of REUNION …where we can come together as a family to face our common challenges, and thrive in harmony with the web of life and the web of love.
We know how busy most people are, and we want to make sure you get the essence of these conversations so you can start this New Year as encouraged and optimistic as we are
about the future. So, to clarify our intention and help see a path forward, we’ve distilled more than seven hours of conversation into two 17-minute videos …and now we’ve boiled THAT down to this very short 10-minute video.
Here are the purposes, principles, and practices that emerged from conversations with Charles Eisenstein, Charles Randall Paul, Bobby Austin, Shawna Bluestar Newcomb, Thom Hartmann, Glenn Aparicio Parry, and Joan Blades:
1. To step off the battlefield and onto a new playing field, we need a UNIFYING VISION that expresses our common human aspiration to live in a loving, healthy and coherent world – best expressed by Charles Eisenstein’s phrase, “The more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.”
2. The great obstacle to achieving this heartfelt aspiration of humankind is the learned habits of separation. To address this separation, we invited Charles Randall Paul to explain the concept and benefits of “religious diplomacy” – accepting and holding the peaceful tension between opposing viewpoints so we can seek the whole truth together.
3. Bobby Austin shared how “public kinship” can bring diverse viewpoints together around a common purpose and develop a common culture that allows us to disagree in our minds while staying united in our hearts – unity without uniformity.
4. To further ground our unifying vision, we next invited Shawna Bluestar Newcomb to bring forth her Native American perspective, and show how we can evolve from the “doctrine of domination” to “the reverence code” that connects us to the web of life, and the web of love.
5. Our next guest, talk show host Thom Hartmann, spoke about the “Lost People” – the disconnection of European people from their own indigenous roots that made the doctrine of domination possible – and led to the collective trauma that we must acknowledge and begin to heal to build kinship and experience reunion.
6. To acknowledge the Native American contribution that has been largely ignored and to bring forth its wisdom that is so needed today, we invited Glenn Aparicio Parry, author of “Original Politics”, to tell the story of how the Native Peoples influenced America's founders and our sacred purpose – unity and diversity. He also emphasized the importance of bringing together the indigenous and the modern, the feminine and the masculine, the progressive and the conservative, so that we have the FULL POWER of wisdom on our side to guide our actions.
7. With the understanding that we needed to bring all these concepts and perspectives into the room to bring forth a greater wisdom, we wrapped up our foundational series with Joan Blades, founder of MoveOn.org and co-founder of Living Room Conversations – a platform to have the “re-humanizing” conversations that provide the foundation for collaboration and reunion, where the dignity of everyone is respected.
So that’s the boil down, folks.
What we require now is a compelling and unifying vision to lift us beyond our differences so we can work together for the thrival of each and all.
We can heal the separation, by affirming kinship in the heart, even as we have disagreement in our heads – unity without uniformity.
Our vision must be compatible with the web of life, and the web of love, and we must acknowledge and heal the collective trauma that is part of our human DNA.
We must cultivate the wisdom of all sides and all polarities to improve the human condition, and “overgrow” the human conditioning.
To do so, we must engage in rehumanizing conversations that respect the dignity of everyone.
From this foundation of vision, kinship, unity and diversity, respect and acknowledgment, we begin this New Year, bringing all sides front and center to face the music and dance together. We hope you will join us on this journey to a healthier, more joyous, and more prosperous world.
Steve Bhaerman
Michael Maxsenti
January 3, 2022
“If a speech falls freely in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, is it still free speech?” – Swami Beyondananda
In 1974, the satirical troupe, Firesign Theatre, put out a comedy record, Everything You Know Is Wrong.
Now, 50 years later …looks like they were right.
When we think of censorship, we think of overt repression of views, like book banning, or even book-burning. But in these times, where so much of what we think we “know” comes from digital sources, the censorship is so silent and stealthy that we haven’t a clue how the information we receive has already been filtered and focused by someone unknown to us. And how we are convinced we are “thinking our own thoughts” but are in fact parroting planted narratives.
On this episode of Front and Center, Michael and I review and unpack an eye-opening interview with psychologist and journalist Dr. Robert Epstein, on what he calls the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME). Epstein, a former editor of Psychology Today, has ...
“It’s not vicious lies they are looking to censor.
It’s those vicious truths they’re worried about.”
– Swami Beyondananda
Last week I wrote a post suggesting that free speech censorship was the gravest existential threat to democracy. I was heartened by the positive response, although I found something very curious about the few pushback emails I got. Not one of them objected to any of my points about free speech, or even addressed them. All of the negative feedback boiled down to: “Donald Trump is worse!”
That’s the problem with “lesser evil-ism.” We accentuate and amplify the evil on the other side (in this week’s podcast you can view the contrast between what mainstream media said that Trump said and what he actually said), while refusing to acknowledge the lies and contradictions on our own side.
That’s how evil prevails.
So I want to try a thought experiment.
Imagine there’s no Donald Trump.
(Imagine there’s no Donald …
It’s easy if you try …
No red-hat wearing MAGA’s
The red team runs another guy ...
“The best way to overgrow the ‘deep state’ is by cultivating a deeper state.”
-- Swami Beyondananda
Here is the oxymoronic political contradiction of our times. We seem more polarized than ever, and yet the vast majority of us long to work together for mutual benefit. Perhaps the resolution of this seemingly impossible “shituation” can be found in the “real” American dream of our founders: individual freedom AND collective wellbeing.
The accentuated polarization of our times has put these two universal aspirations in conflict with one another. But what if they need to co-evolve together? Is there a way to transform these dueling dualities into dynamic-duo dance partners?
Our guest this week on Front and Center, Foster Gamble (www.freetothrive.com), has spent his adult lifetime seeking what he calls a “universal morality” that is not imposed from the top down, but realized from the individual on up. Growing up in privilege – he’s a Gamble as in Proctor & Gamble – ...
An Interview With Pioneering Black Journalist Glen Ford
“It’s time to move past identity issues and focus on the IDENTICAL issues we all face – clean air, clean water, clean food, and clean government.”
-- Swami Beyondananda
Bamboozlement. Isn’t that a great word?
According to Wiki Politiki guest Glen Ford, pioneering black journalist, that was a term Malcolm X used to describe how the power structure has used race politics – most recently the #BlackLivesMatter movement -- to keep folks from poking around the real issues.
The son of famed disc jockey Rudy “The Deuce” Rutherford, who was the first Black man to host a non-gospel television show in the Deep South – Columbus, Georgia, 1958 – Glen was reading newswire copy on-the-air at age eleven. Glen’s first full-time broadcast news job was at James Brown’s Augusta, Georgia radio station WRDW, in 1970 – where ‘The Godfather of Soul” shortened Glen’s surname to “Ford.”
Sadly, Mr. Ford passed away ...
An Interview With Pioneering Black Journalist Glen Ford
“It’s time to move past identity issues and focus on the IDENTICAL issues we all face – clean air, clean water, clean food, and clean government.”
-- Swami Beyondananda
Bamboozlement. Isn’t that a great word?
According to Wiki Politiki guest Glen Ford, pioneering black journalist, that was a term Malcolm X used to describe how the power structure has used race politics – most recently the #BlackLivesMatter movement -- to keep folks from poking around the real issues.
The son of famed disc jockey Rudy “The Deuce” Rutherford, who was the first Black man to host a non-gospel television show in the Deep South – Columbus, Georgia, 1958 – Glen was reading newswire copy on-the-air at age eleven. Glen’s first full-time broadcast news job was at James Brown’s Augusta, Georgia radio station WRDW, in 1970 – where ‘The Godfather of Soul” shortened Glen’s surname to “Ford.”
Sadly, Mr. Ford passed away this ...
“There are no sides, only angles. And when we see it from the right angle, we’re all on the same side.”
-- Swami Beyondananda
Part 1 of 2
Here is an “irony supplement” to munch on.
America is in the midst of the most politically polarizing times since the Civil War … and yet, a 2018 Pew Research Center poll found that nearly 80 percent of Americans in each party believe it’s important for Republicans and Democrats to work together on issues.
Huh? How could that be?
Are we that schizophrenic … or, is there a deep longing to find our sane and sacred center at the heart and soul of who we are?
On August 25, 2020 Wiki Politiki interviewed family therapist and author Bill Doherty, co-founder of Braver Angels, an organization dedicated to bringing the polarized sides together to find a new angle – where instead of dehumanizing the other side, we re-humanize the other.
In December 2016, Braver Angels co-founders David Blankenhorn, Bill Doherty, and David Lapp brought ...
“Truth lives in our hearts. Beliefs lie in our heads.”
– Swami Beyondananda
Some years ago I wrote an article for a progressive publication about Fox News and their propensity for spreading outright lies. I called the article “Come On Baby, Fight My Liar,” and I ended it by saying that conservatives obviously like being lied to – whereas progressives prefer lying to themselves.
Needless to say, I got some pushback on the piece – and also some knowing nods of “yes, I know exactly what you mean.”
What did I mean?
Well, I had just been with a group of people where someone brought up the idea that the 911 Twin Tower attacks might have been an inside job. In response, one woman said – with a completely straight face – “Oh, no. If it had been an inside job I would have heard about it on NPR.”
I think back over the past couple of decades when I presented some inconvenient truth that was outside the comfort zone of some of the spiritually-inclined folks I knew. They would put up their hand and say, “I don’t want to ...
“When you find yourself on a vicious cycle, for goodness sake, stop pedaling and get off.”
-- Swami Beyondananda
From Steve Bhaerman:
One of the biggest challenges for me in the wake of the election results has been speaking into the field of grief, anger, profound disappointment, hopelessness and despair so many of my progressive co-hearts have been experiencing.
And …I’ve been watching this slow-motion train wreck for nearly four years, so I was not surprised.
I began this election day by taking my own advice and following my conscience. I abstained from voting for President. My choice was neither of the above. My prayer was for the American people to make the wisest choice possible – and I let it be with that.
I went about my business peacefully, spent time in nature, watched inspiring, entertaining and educational programs Tuesday night and went to bed without following the “hearse-race.”
In sharp contrast to my rage and horror when it happened in 2016, I...
Since the election, I have been thinking and praying about what was the most important contribution I could make to help MAHA and MAGA succeed.
Last week, after receiving Kelly’s support, I decided to get in the arena…I am running for the House of Representatives in the CA Congressional District #47.
I’m committed to representing you and everyone in our district as a common sense Republican. Together, we can work to get the government on the side of the people and out of the hands of the uniparty Democrats and status quo Republicans.
🙏😎
