Blueprint For Accountability, Long Overdue

Mark your calendars for this Tuesday, March 27^th, 7:00 pm [EST].  Why?  The Culture Project will be running another of its Town Hall discussions, a live stream production from Georgetown University.  Stellar participants include:  Eliot Spitzer, Matt Taibbi, Dylan Ratigan, Ron Suskind, Van Jones, Heather McGhee and Jessie LaGreca.  See brief bio background here.

The discussion topic?  It’s all in the title—accountability, the very essence of a sound democracy, yet sadly, an ingredient we’ve seen purposely, repeatedly ignored and shunned by government and corporate leaders alike.

Occupy Wall St. brought public attention to the problem—the yawning divide between the 1% and everyone else.  Now, the hard work begins: how do we, public and private citizens alike, steer ourselves back to the premise that the Rule of Law is essential and applies to everyone.  How do we make our demands felt inside a broken, corrupt system, where our vote is compromised by big money, our voices drowned in the sludge of corporate and financial interests?

The plan or blueprint needs fresh dialogue, new ideas.

What precisely is the Culture Project? you might be asking. From the site:

CULTURE PROJECT is dedicated to addressing critical human rights issues by creating and supporting artistic work that amplifies marginalized voices. By fostering innovative collaboration between human rights organizations and artists, we aim to inspire and impact public dialogue and policy, encouraging democratic participation in the most urgent matters of our time.

The Accountability series is a slight departure from what the group has done before—programs addressing human rights issues.  But in a sense all of our rights are at peril, as is self-evident in the on-going Presidential campaign rhetoric.

The first of the series was launched with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in a discussion on torture and the War on Terror.  Subsequent presentations featured Robert Kennedy, Jr. ,who spoke to the continuing diminishment of American values and Cornell West last September spoke on the 40^th Anniversary of the Attica Prison Rebellion.

I wasn’t aware of these programs.  Hattip to Alternet for bringing me up to speed and alerting readers about the program scheduled for Tuesday night

This is another example of networking getting the message out and a live stream presentation made available, reaching a far wider audience than would normally be the case.

Personally, I’m a great fan of Eliot Spitzer.  Despite his past personal problems, I think he has a true gift in explaining the financial/legal shenanigans that Wall St. adopted and continues to practice as business as usual. All at the expense of the American public.  Dylan Ratigan has his own MSNBC TV show, Monday through Friday.  He’s a former financial guy himself and has a book out “Greedy Bastards,” which has spent weeks and weeks on the NY Best Seller’s List. He’s been screaming daily about the country’s breakdown, the systemic corruption and lawlessness pervading everything—the financial sector, education, healthcare, energy, etc. Matt Taibbi writes for the Rolling Stone and has been equally merciless in calling the TBTF’s out for the highway robbers they were and continue to be.  Add the other voices on the panel and I suspect the conversation will be lively and worth the 2-hour investment of time.

Live stream program will be found here.

Should be an interesting, informative night.  Let the brainstorming begin!