On April 2 Ecuador will choose a new president. For the first time in a decade, Rafael Correa’s name will not be on the ballot. After ten years in office, Correa is stepping down from the presidency and, however temporarily, stepping away from politics.
As a long-in-the-tooth, organizational psychologist, I have noticed that my field generally knows little about the organization of government or the art of governing, concentrating as it does on the other part of the corpocracy, corporate America. In this short essay I define governing, list its various forms throughout the ages and in America, and then close by proposing a model for governing in America that is definitely different from the way she has always been governed.
What Does Governing a Nation Mean?
As I contemplate the state of the American psyche thirty days into the Donald Trump administration I am amazed at the breath of difference between the divergent camps of supporters and detractors. Watching the growing gulf between left and right over the last few decades I’ve seen any vestige of an American political identity consumed in the twin fires of the liberal and conservative camps. Loyalty to party over country has found its ultimate manifestation in the election of a woefully unqualified reality television star to the highest political office in the western world.
On December 13 Ecuador’s National Assembly passed a law compromising the independence of its public universities. The mandate, in this small country, where everything is personal, is aimed specifically at the two institutions of higher learning that offer only post-graduate degrees: Andina University and the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, aka FLACSO.
Over the past decade, Bolivia has managed some extraordinary achievements, for instance becoming the first country in the world to reach the UN Sustainable Development Goals in terms of access to water. In spite of it, these news that could bring hope to people around the world are subjected to censorship from the dominant Latin American and western media. More than that, the media proceeds to relentlessly misinform and demonize all the leaders from the Global South that dare disobey the empire.
Awakened by his presence, I was startled but not frightened. Somehow he seemed familiar and non-threatening. He stood there in the dim light of a single energy-saving bulb from my reading lamp. I put aside my dog-eared, yellowed copy of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughter House Five. A Children’s Crusade, arose from my chair, and approached him for a closer look.
Cannon Ball, North Dakota (Oceti Sakowin or Council of the Seven Fires Camp) – Today, the people won a major victory in the fight to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The US Army Corps of Engineers sided with the Water Protectors and refused the final permit that would have allowed Energy Transfer Partners to drill under Lake Oahe. There will be battles ahead but this was another amazing people-powered victory. When people unite, we have power. This time people power defeated big oil and big finance.
The struggle at Standing Rock, North Dakota, between the Sioux people and their supporters and the oil corporations and banks trying to run a dangerous pipeline for filthy Bakkan crude oil through their sacred lands and underneath the Missouri River was cranked up to a new level of violence Sunday and in ensuing days as National Guard troops and the Morton County Sheriff’s Department, bolstered by volunteers from various other police departments conducted an all-night attack using maximum violence, including flash-bang concussion grenades, rubber bullets, mace, teargas and three water canno
On September 23, 2016 Marine Harvest sued Alexandra Morton and John and Jane Doe and All other Persons Unknown for trespass, nuisance and damages. On November 16, 2016, I joined three hereditary Dzawada’enuxw chiefs who filed a response to Marine Harvest, the biggest salmon farming corporation in the world based in Norway.
