"Welcome to the second edition of The Weatherman. I am Dylan Ratigan and this is an ongoing and evolving experiment in a direct conversation between all of us about anything that we want to talk about, as long as it's through the frame of The Shift.

The Shift ultimately represents complete and total change in not just our technological infrastructure, not just our communication infrastructure, even our transportation infrastructure. It's a unifying event and a completely shattering event, all at the same time, that comes with incredible darkness, loneliness and isolation, as well as incredible opportunity for creation and development, and you see it play out in personal lives constantly.

We see in our own lives. We see it the lives of those around us, and it also plays out in incredible ways before our very eyes on the biggest stage possible. The Shift is an interesting dynamic because as intimate as it may be for each of us, it is also something that we are witnessing in the global political world and the global climate situation that we're all navigating or at least internalizing, and for that matter, in the way that we both perceive and misperceive events around the world.

The premise or the theme that we talk about a lot is “Chaos and Clarity.”

The Shift creates a lot of both. In fact, you look no further than the American political system to see the complete and utter emergence of chaos. Not just in the way that this country is run, but the very basis upon which we are even attempting to run our country. I'll talk about it because it's in the center of the news cycle right now.

The criticisms that have existed from America projected into the world in the way that both American political power and American political institutions judge and condemn and shame and sanction other countries for their political behavior, their political systems, their backroom deals, their inability to seem to function in some way that is honorable, decent, has integrity or any other positive value associated with it is obviously deeply ironic, in this particular moment, as the Democratic primary caucus process, their candidate selection process, opens with the inability to count 172-thousand votes.

What could be more emblematic of the collapse and the darkness, if you will, of The Shift than what we're seeing happening in the Iowa caucus right now?

For a long time, and even as I ran for Congress myself two years ago, there has been a tremendous amount of criticism for those who have disengaged from the American political process. A lot of shaming for those who have disengaged from the American political process, and yet, when you look at the American political process, the percentage of Americans that are even registered as Democrats, 20 to 25% of the population, the percentage of the population that is even registered as a Republican, 20 to 25% population, leaves literally the largest percentage of American voters as those who are neither Democrats or Republicans.

In fact, the biggest voting block in any election is people who don't vote. When you look at the history of American politics, it wasn't always this way. There was a time when American politics actually was at least perceived to have some integrity..."

Listen to the podcast to hear what else Dylan has to say about the Democratic primary and The Shift. Several callers discuss how they are dealing with societal and personal problems in constructive ways that support their communities.

If you want to call into the show to speak with Dylan, send us a voice message here, please leave your phone number so our producers can call you to get you live on air:

https://anchor.fm/weatherman/message

The Weatherman Podcast Experiment Begins…

Welcome to this, the 1st edition of the Weatherman. I am Dylan Ratigan.

Thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. I'm actually in Italy, so it's the evening here. Our producer Meg Robertson is in New York and David DeGraw our other producer is in Los Angeles. Our callers are all coming from North America today. If you're listening to this right now, you probably read the launch email describing our objective with this call, which is relatively simple.

It's our own unique take, if you will, on the idea of a podcast.

When David, Meg and myself were discussing the idea of doing this, what became clear to us was that we all have a lot of respect and appreciation for what's happening in the podcast universe, especially those that are doing a wide variety of one-on-one interviews with various experts on specific subjects about specific things, but we were really looking at what's missing from the podcast universe.

In our opinion, we felt that there isn't a place where all of us can speak as a group. Even if it's a series of one-on-one conversations about our collective experience, in a way to create context for each of us about what we're calling The Shift. This shift is something that each of us is feeling in our own way. Some of us are very sensitive to the technological aspects. Some of us are very sensitive to the spiritual aspect of it.

This very podcast is a demonstration of the communication aspect of it. In fact, we're across nine time zones right now, but gathered together at this particular moment to have this conversation, and you know, when you look at the chaos of the news cycle, this is not going to be a podcast about the news cycle, obviously, but when you look at the chaos of the news cycle, I look at it as a series of events that are constantly without context, that are constantly without awareness, and they are basically like an open nerve ending that is in a constant state of reactivity. Even if it doesn't know what it is reacting to.

The goal with the Weatherman is to try to create some of that context to help understand why our politics are so extreme and so reactive. It is responding to the threat that The Shift represents. The threat of all of us connecting with one another. The threat of creating a system of power and solution and problem-solving that's not based on centralized command and control, enemy versus tribal enemy, in blame culture, but rather one of mutual awareness and mutual understanding that can be driven into not a world of fear and reactivity, but to an increasingly clear and calm place where we start to understand at the very least how and why our emotions and our thoughts treat us the way that they do, or why we experience them the way that we do....

I will do my best to serve as a moderator and as a literal Weatherman giving you a sense of what I'm hearing as I move around the world and have the benefit of talking to so many of you. Ultimately, in the spirit of the relay radio of the past, my ability to serve as the Weatherman will only be as good as your willingness to report in what you're feeling, thinking and experiencing, so that everyone else that is gathered around this broadcast can not only hear my perspective but can get a sense of your thoughts and your perspective.

It is our collective experience that will potentially create a way for us to move through the chaos that is being created by an unprecedented global paradigm shift and start to move us incrementally, moment-by-moment, breath-by-breath, day-by-day into increasingly longer periods of clarity.

If you want to call into the show to speak with me, send us a voice message here, please leave your phone number so our producers can call you to get you live on air:

https://anchor.fm/weatherman/message

Thank you for tuning in, hope to hear from you,

~ Dylan Ratigan

The world is rapidly transforming at a scale that is without precedent.

We are experiencing a paradigm shift, which affects everything at the same time - technology, transportation, communication, economics, production, distribution, governance, culture, spirituality and socialization among individuals across generations, demographics and countries worldwide.

While the old paradigm collapses, a new one is being born before our eyes. This shift is the biggest risk and biggest opportunity in human history.

Our fate rests on the urgency with which we understand our changing circumstances and help each other adapt. For all of our critical problems, the resources, time, talent and capital to solve every problem that exists in the world today is at its highest potential it has ever been.

Unfortunately, there's not much overall context for what's happening, which can create an incredibly untethered experience and a feeling of utter chaos. Each one of us is so close to our own specific set of experiences, with our own personal fears, needs and concerns. Whether it is outside of ourselves, or emotionally inside of ourselves, or both.

The crucible of this chaos can also create clarity, as we are forced to make decisions, adapt and evolve in the face of dramatic change. Chaos and clarity are something that is caused by this shift, and at the same time accelerates the very shift itself.

The idea behind this podcast is a simple one. We are in uncharted territory, riding over quickly shifting terrain with no maps to guide us. We need a higher resolution GPS to help us navigate the chaos that is spiraling around us.

We need to connect and align around our shared interests to find solutions.

As the pace of the shift quickens, I am reminded of the time that I raced the Baja 1000. Each race car out on the track in the Mexican desert has their own isolated experience, with their own set of problems, disconnected and unaware of the experience of anyone else who is participating in the same race.

Each of us were just at different points on the track. In order to coordinate and understand what was happening to all of us collectively, there was a single relay-radio man named, “The Weatherman,” who gathered, analyzed and reported on all the critical information that came into him from every different point on the track.

The Weatherman then relayed the information back to everybody else in the race. That's the goal of this podcast; to create a context for each of us collectively and individually, so that we have a better sense of where we are and what we're experiencing.

However isolated we may feel, we are actually part of a larger collective experience. Think of how isolated you might feel, or how I felt at 3 AM in the middle of the Mexican desert, broken down on the side of the road, oblivious to all the other issues and challenges that faced other participants in that race. That's how so many of us feel each day as we navigate the chaos of our own lives and feel a sense of disconnection that amplifies the fear and makes it more difficult to get any clarity or make any decisions, which only accelerates the chaos.

My hope with this podcast is to create a community dialogue, for all of us, in a way that helps to calm the chaos and connects our experiences, to help us find clarity and move forward in a way that allows us to help each other, without having to be so concerned all the time about our own well-being or so obsessed about what might be happening or who is to blame.

It is in the context of this unfolding shift that we look at the race track of all of our lives and seek to reconcile our experiences, individually, with each other, through shared information, shared experience and dialog, in a way that can help all of us make it down the track, in a way that's more fun, less scary and less upsetting for each and every one of us.

Send us a voice message here, leave your # so we can call you: https://anchor.fm/weatherman/message

Edith Leung is among the millions of women that have led the protests in Hong Kong, of which a third of the protesters are women. Edith is also a member of the incoming class of recently elected pro-democracy politicians.

Sitting in a cafe in Central over a pot of jasmine tea, Dylan Ratigan interviews Edith. The newly elected district representative sees change perpetuating and sustaining the two-systems-one-country protocol in Hong Kong, which is seen as at risk.

"It is a warning to the world that China is growing,” says Edith, who’s friend lost her right eye in a protest earlier this year. “An autocratic country like China, a Communist Party, being so large, being such a populated country, growing up. It is a threat to the world."

It’s overly simplistic for us to see Hong Kong as a frontline in the culture war between Chinese interests and Western interests. Of course, Hong Kong is the door to China and the rest of the world. It is easy to explain away Hong Kong’s protests as just issue between the Cantonese of Hong Kong and the Mandarin of China.

But there’s a lot we have in common.

Protestors are voicing the global issues around consolidation of centralized power – like we have in America, or the centralized power in places like Madrid at the expense of Catalonia, or similar issues that we are seeing in India, in La Paz, in Beirut and around the world.

What we are seeing in Hong Kong is just one of more than a dozen locations around the world. Whether it is in Barcelona, Beirut, La Paz or Paris where people are stepping into the street, sometimes with violence, frequently with non-violence.

So, what needs to evolve? The young people I spoke to in Hong Kong have changed the culture of protest since 2014. They now to try to move towards solutions with clear requests, based around a culture of non-violence and learning from past missteps.

“We had a failure after the Umbrella movement and we know why we failed, because we had separation of camps, so many different factions. At the end of the day, it turned out we got nothing” said Leung.

She says that she doesn’t want history to repeat itself. “We have solidarity and we have to go together and achieve all the things. We have failed in the past, so we cannot fail again. We think this is the last chance to fight for real freedom and real justice."

As millions of people take to the streets of Hong Kong to fight for their freedom and independence, a wave of young pro-democracy candidates were recently elected to District Council. From the frontlines of protest to political office, Dylan Ratigan interviews three leading members of a changemaking movement that has featured an unprecedented number of “women warriors.”

With Hong Kong as the gateway between China and the rest of the world, it is easy to see their fight for independence as a battle in the culture war between Chinese and Western interests. However, what we are witnessing in Hong Kong is also unfolding in more than a dozen nations around the world. Whether it is in cities like Barcelona, Beirut, La Paz, Paris, Madrid or Delhi, people are taking to the streets in record numbers.

While each nation clearly has its own complex cultural and political dynamics at work, there is a global trend and thread that links the whole: old established centralized systems of power, which consolidate wealth and resources at the expense of local populations, are under attack and clinging to power, as technological breakthroughs are decentralizing power and spreading pro-democracy movements throughout the world in unprecedented fashion.

In this new three-part series, we get a better understanding of what is happening on the ground in Hong Kong right now. Why are millions of people taking to the streets? What exactly is happening? Who is involved? Why is it relevant to America and people around the world?

Student loan debt is crippling our economy. We've seen an entire generation of students held down by crushing debt.

45 million borrowers are struggling with monthly payments, predatory and aggressive bill collectors and confusing repayment terms.

Nationally, student loan debt just behind mortgage debt in the United States. It accounts for a stunning 10 percent of debt balance – that's a total of $1.48 trillion nationwide.

According to New York state statistics, the average student loan debt in our state is $30,000.

The system is broken, and we have to fix it. If a student is trying to pursue higher education to better themselves and their future, they shouldn't be saddled with loans that take years, and sometimes decades, to repay.

Student loan debt doesn't just hurt borrowers. It's holding back our economy on a larger scale. Borrowers are often saddled with so much debt that they can't even begin to think of purchasing their first home, secure an auto loan, or fully participate in the banking system. Many have to delay saving for retirement for years, just to try and find the cash to pay their student loans off.

I spoke with Natalia Abrams and Cody Hounanian of Student Debt Crisis, a non-profit group advocating for a better structure for student loans. I originally met Natalia at the founding of Get Money Out over a decade ago. Since then, she's become a leading voice advocating for change in the student loan industry.

In a 15 minute clip, WATN host Jeff Graham talks with callers, including labor leader Ernie Labaff, about why Dylan Ratigan has the best shot of winning against incumbent Republican Representative Elise Stefanik.

WATN host Jeff Graham discusses why Dylan Ratigan is the only Democrat in NY-21 with the best chance to beat incumbent Republican member of Congress Elise Stefanik. "I think he's got kind of a different message," says Graham. "The only Democrat who can win in November -- I think that's true."

My campaign is running to reform broken politics that have completely disconnected the voter from the government. Not only disconnected the voter from the government, but allowed the government to become entirely beholding to these monopolies.

Whether it's in the tech sector, the banking sector, or the health insurance sector, an increasingly small group of concentrated entities have incredible influence over everything that happens in the lives of billions of us around the world. It's the natural progression of the economic cycle but, it also harkens back to Teddy Roosevelt in the end of the last Industrial Revolution. Then, we saw the consolidation with Carnegie and Rockefeller and others around railroads, oil, and banking.

We are there once again, and the stranglehold on our government is real. It is abusing the people of this country and the people of Upstate New York.

I've asked Steve Faktor to join us who is the CEO of IdeaFaktory, author, writer for Harvard Business Review, writer for Forbes, and formally the head of innovation and running innovation funds at a number of financial services firms including American Express and CitiGroup.

We’ve all experienced it: one-bar cell signals, calls that suddenly drop, or driving through “dead zones” without access to data.  And it’s not just inconvenient lack of coverage or dropped calls that we have to deal with. Thousands of residents live in areas where they don’t have access to reliable high-speed internet at home.

North Country economic growth will go hand in hand with expanding data access.  It’s one of the most foundational aspects to growing our economy. We will catch up to the rest of the country by getting broadband access up to date.  In many ways, we’re being left behind.

But, we can fix this!

I spoke with Kevin Lynch, COO of Nicholville Telephone Company and Slic Network Solutions.  They are one company providing greater connectivity across the North Country, with a focus on expanding the fiber optic network in the North Country.  He spoke with me about how wireless and wired coverage go hand in hand, and the future of fiber and data access in the North Country. Listen to our podcast here, with the full transcript below.