Dungey State University Public Service Announcement

All the Podcasts listed in this announcement can be found at www.dungeystate.com and on iTunes under the title, “Deeper Dive.” You can find the DSU podcast under the, “News and Politics,” podcast section.

You can follow all DSU activities on our DSU Facebook page, our DSU You-Tube Channel, and on twitter @urdsu.

Why this Public Service Announcement?

Regardless of your ideological perspective, we are witnessing a fundamental crisis in and transformation of the American social and political space. It is now essential to convey non-ideological, non-partisan philosophical and theoretical information to the general public so citizens may have a deeper understanding of what is taking place, and so they can make more informed, strategic decisions.

The purpose of the PSA is to connect current issues/events in the news to the specific podcasts that engage, interpret, and contextualize these events. They are organized by theme.

1. The Emergence of Authoritarian trends in the Executive Branch. There are

5 podcasts that deal directly with this issue.

A. From Liberal Democracy to Authoritarian Democracy, August 17, 2016.

B. Machiavelli and the DNA of Authoritarian Democracy, August 23, 2016.

C. Hobbes and the Democratization of the Prince, August 30, 2016.

D. Locke, the US Constitution, and the New Machiavellian Prince, September 7, 2016.

E. The Perfection and End of Liberal Philosophy, July 6, 2016.

2. The Powerful President/Executive and Executive Orders/Policies.

A. What is Executive Power? January 5, 2016.

B. Executive Power, December 31, 2014.

C. The Legality of the NSA Spying Program, December 31, 2014.

3. Civil Disobedience and Resistance.

A. Civil Disobedience and the Season of Political Discontent, April 4, 2016.

B. From Thoreau to Foucault: Metaphysical and Postmodern Accounts of Resistance and Civil Disobedience, April 12, 2016.

C. Colin Kaepernik, MLK, and the Philosophy of Protest and Civil Disobedience, September 20, 2016.

4. Political Violence and Revolution.

A. Fear, Death, and the Collapse of the American Political Space, March 10, 2016.

B. De-Legitimization, Political Violence, and Lockean Revolution, March 18, 2016.

C. Locke’s Subjectivist Philosophy of Revolution, July 25, 2016.

D. Ukraine and the Post-Revolutionary Society, December 31, 2014.

5. Hate and the Collapse of Tolerance.

A. Where Does the Hate Come From? November 30, 2015.

B. Liberal Philosophy, Tolerance, and Where We Go From Here, November 15, 2016.

6. How Did Donald Trump Win?

A. The Political Outsider, November 13, 2015.

B. America’s Thrust for the Political Outsider, November 20, 2015.

C. Plato Would be Horrified By Trump’s Rise, May 5, 2016.

7. Globalization and Economic Contributions to Political Crisis.

A. The Rich Should Get More Votes, December 31, 2014.

B. Prediction 3, The Rich Should Get More Votes, December 31, 2014.

C. The Oxfam Report, January 30, 2015.

D. TPP in a Deeper Historical and Theoretical Context, October 7, 2015.

E. Economic Justice, October 28, 2015.

F. Money in Politics, December 7, 2015.

G. Globalization and the Managed Decline of the Western Social-Welfare Democracies, April 27, 2016.

H. Requiem for Liberal-Democratic Capitalism, September 13, 2016.

8. Governmental Dis-function and the Crisis of Legitimacy.

A. Shutting Down the Government, December 31, 2014.

B. Indiana’s Freedom of Religion Law, April 2, 2015.

C. Rand Paul and the Dangerous Myth of ‘Our’ Country, September 3, 2015.

D. Kim Davis and Her Big Misunderstanding of the Constitution, September 16, 2015.

E. The Three Flashpoints of Religion and Politics in America, September 28, 2015.

F. The Battle Over Filing Scalia’s Seat, February 18, 2016.

G. The End of Legitimacy, October 25, 2016.

9. Is America an Orwellian State? (A Postmodern View)

A. The Truth about the Orwellian State, January 12, 2016.

B. The Orwellian State, Part 2: Language as Power, January 25, 2016.

C. The Implications of the View that Language is Power, February 4, 2016.

D. Foucault in the Real World, February 8, 2016.

9-9-2016

This is my first official post on this blog. I will keep it short. It has been an extraordinary year and the most intense, volatile, and significant presidential election in sixty years. There are real, serious, and far-reaching economic and political challenges facing the American economic and political space. A recent post by Larry Summers observed that in 25 years over one-third of adult males will be unemployed. (I think his numbers are conservative). In addition, the on-going integration of the global political order is bringing an end to the nation-state system and preparing for new forms of political organizations. Both of these movements--the economic and political--are irreversible. The fear surrounding these epochal changes is immanent and visceral. It is this fear that is producing a deep and comprehensive anxiety in the private and public consciousness of hundreds of millions of Americans. In multiple domains of American economic, social, and political relations, this fear and anxiety has led to increasing questions about the legitimacy of the legal and political institutions of America. It is in this maelstrom of consciousness, power, and politics, that we are conducting a presidential election.

Just when one thought that things could not get more complicated, more strained, and more fragile, there was the release of the now infamous Trump audio recording. The recording is repugnant. It does not matter that it was private. However, the release of this tape is the worst thing that could have happened and it represents a significant danger. If the Clinton campaign orchestrated it for political advantage, it is the single worst strategic blunder in American political history. In fact, the potential advantage gained by the release of the tape--it destroys Trump's campaign and hands the White House to Clinton--is precisely what makes is so uniquely dangerous. Why? For the first time in my political memory, and perhaps even for the first time in the history of presidential elections and debates (someone correct me if I am mistaken here. Quite possible), the question of the legitimacy of the political system and the peaceful transition of power has been called into question. I was astonished to hear Mr. Holt, the moderator of the first presidential debate, ask each candidate, with complete seriousness and gravity, whether he or she would accept the outcome of the election. Each candidate begrudgingly said yes. It was a truly surreal and terrifying moment. Here we had the candidates on live television, before almost 100,000,000 million voters, nervously discussing the potential end of the Republic. A sort of democratic theatre of political suicide. Right now, the only thing separating the peaceful transfer of power and the continuity of government and social and political instability is a thin thread of legitimacy. If the release of this tape leads to a significant and blistering defeat of Trump, then it is likely that his supporters, already peering into the economic and political abyss, and who already feel abandoned by the economic and political transformations now underway, will interpret the loss as caused by this dirty, underhanded "October" surprise, orchestrated by the Clinton machine and the "establishment" elite. Having no where to turn, and no longer willing to commit to what is left of the legitimacy of the process and institutions, they may, as the Governor Kentucky, Matt Bevin, recently said, turn to violence. In this case, Clinton will have won the election, but lost the nation.

DSU PODCASTS ARRANGED BY THEMES

Clinton May Win the Election, But Lose the Nation