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The Global Teach-In will take place simultaneously in a number of cities, starting on April 25th, 2012 at 12:00 Noon Eastern Standard Time. This interactive and participatory event will include discussions by experts, grassroots activists and citizens at large concerned about developing solutions to policy problems and creating alternative institutions. The Teach-In will involve face-to-face deliberation, teleconferencing and an internet-based broadcasting network. Local teach-in groups already exist or are in formation. Participate by organizing a teach-in, joining a local group or listening to the broadcast
Ben Manski: He was the initiator of the Wisconsin Wave, a broad coalition that has played a leading role in the Wisconsin uprising, and is also the executive director of the Liberty Tree Foundation, an associate fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies, and a co-founder of the Move to Amend coalition. Politically engaged since his early childhood in Israel and Wisconsin, now in his mid-30s, Ben Manski has worked for a variety of causes, notably serving as co-chair of the Green Party of the United States. Manski was a primary figure in the student movements of the 1990s, serving then as national coordinator of the Democracy Teach-Ins in the lead-up to the Seattle WTO protests. Today is a public interest lawyer, teaches sociology at Madison College, and remains a committed pro-democracy advocate.
Today states and nation states compete with one another for investment and the resulting jobs. In the end, politicians of whatever stripe are more accountable to investors and less to voters. This situation is often presented as a natural outcome of globalization and economic development. In a review of two recent books, David Runciman, a well-known British political scientist, shows that seemingly unrelated developments: the resurrection of London as a center of global finance, the stationing of corporations in Delaware, the rise of sovereign wealth funds, and even Saif al-Islam Ghadaffi's philanthropy, are all connected with the relentless pressures of pro-business lobbyists and less with elections.