Ascension Cafe

Stranger:

I mean that really true and assured opinion about honor, justice, goodness and their opposites is divine, and when it arises in men’s souls, it arises in a godlike race.

– STATESMAN (Plato 360 BC)

Fostering Innovation [4:20]

{7A} The Air, the Water, the Soil, and the Seed [8:00]

The Air and the Water [9:48]

The Soil [18:53]

The Seed [20:50]

{7B} Privatizing the Common Wealth [22:37]

True and False Liberty [22:54]

Diminishing external restraints have always been contingent upon augmenting internal restraints. [24:59]

The Theft of Democracy [26:39]

Outsized Influence [33:18]

Defining Common Carriers [38:25]

Public Works [46:10]

National Highways [48:22]

I’m in Business Baby! [50:12}

Sears [55:35]

The Amazon is on fire and the American farmer is Toast! [56:55]

Yet Another Failure to Learn [58:23]

Insider Trading on Steroids [59:30]

{7C} The Constitutional Republic [1:01:33]

Stranger:

But the art which holds sway over them all and watches over the laws and all things in the state, weaving them all most perfectly together, we may, I think, by giving to its function a designation which indicates its power over the community, with full propriety call “statecraft.”

– STATESMAN (Plato 360 BC)

[00:04:07] A Quick Review[00:16:33] The Sentinel Card[00:18:09] Manslaughter[00:21:38] Whited Sepulchers[00:25:28] There is a War on the Poor[00:27:29] True Competition[00:30:06] The Great Swindle Continues[00:32:06] Efficiency versus Skimming[00:33:18] Masquerading in Conservative Garb[00:40:00] What Counts as a Subsidy, as Entitlement?[00:40:10] Energy[00:48:35] Food[00:51:00] Food & Drug Nexus[00:52:05] The Dynamics of International Relations[00:54:58] Manufacturing from Z to A[00:57:00] Retail[01:00:07] True Free Enterprise[01:02:20] Financial Services[01:03:06] Big Pharma[01:07:57] Offloading Losses & Expenses[01:08:12] The Gig Economy[01:16:48] Again, Taxpayers Pick Up the Slack[01:18:59] The Most Parasitic Business Model[01:22:56] The Third Rail of Politics[01:27:29] The Power of Incumbency[01:30:41] Bring them in, train them, return them as emissaries of social uplift

Stranger: Then if we bisected intellectual science as a whole and called one part the commanding and the other the judging part, might we say we had made fitting division? – STATESMAN (Plato 360 BC)

Strength in Numbers [01:50] Selective Depopulation [05:06] (A brief history of eugenics) Herd Immunity [08:39] Deciding Who Will Live and Who Will Die [10:57] Rebuilding the Economy [13:07] Enslaving the Masses [15:55] (How the oligarchy surreptitiously creates conditions of peonage) Salute the Citizens You are Sworn to Serve [20:55] Weakness in Numbers [24:06] Foreign Potentates [27:59] The Virtuous Cycle [32:14] The Enemy of Democracy’s Enemy is My Friend [36:49] OODA Loops and the IFF [36:49] (A cultural adaptation of the Identification Friend/Foe system) A Useful Analogy [38:38] Heads Up! – Situational Awareness [41:12] We the People [41:52] Form a More Perfect Union [46:41] Establish Justice [48:08] Insure Domestic Tranquility [50:03] Provide for the Common Defense [55:14] Promote the General Welfare [58:27] Secure the Blessings of Liberty to Ourselves and our Posterity [01:01:26]

Stranger: People nowadays are likely to take into consideration enforced subjection and voluntary obedience, poverty and wealth, law and lawlessness as they occur in governments, and so they divide two of the forms we mentioned, giving to the two aspects of monarchy the two names tyranny and royalty.

— STATESMAN (Plato 360 BC)

This is the fourth episode in the eight part series Framing 2020. This episode includes:

The Fall of the Soviet Union [00:26]

Glasnost & Perestroika [01:57]

Vouchers [03:32]

Capitalizing on Human Misery [06:05]

Grabification [08:01]

The Kleptocracy Initiative [12:03]

Leveraging Experience [13:06]

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Stranger: Can we wonder, then, that our soul, whose nature involves it in the same uncertainty about the letters or elements of all things, is sometimes in some cases firmly grounded in the truth about every detail, and again in other cases is all at sea about everything, and somehow or other has correct opinions about some combinations, and then again is ignorant of the same things when they are transferred to the long and difficult syllables of life? – STATESMAN (Plato 360 BC)

This is the third episode in the eight part series Framing 2020. This episode includes:

Deceptive Practices [00:20]

Dumb it Down – Smack em’ Down! [01:25]

Freedom of the Press [02:26]

Common Sense [03:59]

Squelching Diversity of Opinion [05:38]

Feigning Jurisprudence [08:07]

Dark Money [09:06]

Deceptive Practices Revisited [11:00]

Actual Citizens versus Corporate Citizens [12:38]

A Whirlpool of Information versus a Cesspool of Disinformation [17:16]

Cheating [19:10]

The Death Contract [22:04]

The Money Lender [24:59]

Meanwhile in the United Kingdom [28:15]

The Erosion of Standards [29:01]

The Gold Standard of the Golden Rule [32:02]

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Stranger: Apparently, then, we must expect a complete description of the statesman only when we have defined the manner of his rule over the state. – STATESMAN (Plato 360 BC)

This is the second episode in the eight part series Framing 2020. This episode includes:

* Playing With Fire [00:26]* A Weapon for Peace [02:08]* Entrepreneurial Spirit [4:10]* Class Warfare [06:42]* Healthcare [10:07]* Leveraging Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear (FIBS) [12:32]* A Templated Malady [16:20]* Rape Somebody Else! [19:38]* A Parabolic Analogy [20:54]* Looking for Authenticity [24:21]* Skirt Capitalism [25:59]* Leveraged to the Hilt [28:47]* Too Big to Fail or Jail . . . Not! [31:04]* Introducing the Crypto Mine [34:15]

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Framing 2020 is a briefing for independent voters. It advances the principles of statesmanship over those of partisan politics. It advocates for authentic democracy and focuses on unpacking many of the issues that tend to be oversimplified or ignored by career politicians.

This Introduction is the first episode in an eight part series. It is available as audio through a free podcast subscription at www.Framing2020.com where transcripts and other educational materials are also available.

To the extent it provides a deep dive into the most vital issues, Framing 2020 is intended as a resource for those sincerely concerned about the future. It was casually yet effectively crowd sourced over the water cooler, across the dinner table during meetups, and on about twenty-five hundred ride-share treks. It was written to help each of us better articulate positions that are important to those who care about what the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States have advanced.

Subscribe to the Eight Part Series