LBCC Philosophy Club & Students for Equal Education present Dollar Democracy with Professor Peter Mathews

November 20, 2014

Based on his book, ”DOLLAR DEMOCRACY: WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR SOME; HOW TO RECLAIM THE AMERICAN DREAM FOR ALL", radio/TV Political Analyst and Professor of Political Science and Sociology Peter Mathews, holds a talk and town hall at Long Beach City College, sponsored by the Philosophy Club and Students for Equal Education.

Vigorous audience participation resulted over many of the topics covered: the American Dream and the “good society”; Corporate Personhood and the Buying of American Elections; Voter Alienation and Low Turnout; the Dismantling of California’s Tuition Free World Class Public Higher Education; the Huge Student Debt Burden; the Defunding of Public Investment through Corporate Tax Loopholes; the Reversal of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal Concept of the Common Good (“General Welfare”) by Ronald Reagan and the “Supply Side” Economists; Industrial Policy As Practiced by Germany and Other Countries that Sustains a Strong Economy and Strong Middle Class; the Effects of Private Money in American Politics Resulting in Inadequate Health Care, Education, Food Safety (GMOs, Pesticides) Environmental Sustainability, Clean Water, Air, and Soil; the 2008 Wall Street Crisis and the Great Recession and its Devastating Effects on the American Middle Class and Poor; the Huge and Rising Gap between Rich and Poor; Social Mobility in the U.S. Versus Britain and Sweden; and Solutions to These Fundamental Crises: Senator Paul Wellstone’s Example, Clean Money Elections as Pioneered in Maine and Arizona, and a 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that Would Declare that Corporations Are Not Natural Persons With Natural Rights and that Money Is Not Speech. Professor Mathews explains how these reforms would move us from a “Dollar Democracy” to a “Real and Deep Democracy”.

Questions and Answers (Part 2)