Peaceful Political Revolution in America

John Mulkins
  • 4.8 (5)
  • POLITICS
  • BIWEEKLY SERIES

"The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government."  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, James Wilson, Thomas Paine, and many other American patriots and revolutionaries completely agreed with this simple but compelling statement made by President Washington. Yet today, very few Americans know what the basis of our form of government is, let alone understand what it means. This Podcast will dive into the most important and most censored story in America. We will uncover the myths behind our constitutional history and reveal some of the startling facts about our founding as a nation. Hang on tight! If you haven't honed up on your American history, if you think you understand our American political system, you may be in for a shock. Peaceful political revolution is your unique American heritage. It is what makes our democracy so special and what makes your role in American politics so important. Are you ready for a peaceful political revolution? Where does it come from? How does it happen? What can you do to change our political system for the better?  We will address these questions and many more in the upcoming Podcasts, so hang on. If you think our politics are bad and only getting worse, you may find that a peaceful political revolution is the antidote.

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  1. S3 E1 The Next System and American Constitutionalism with Dr. Ben Manski

    EPISODE 1

    S3 E1 The Next System and American Constitutionalism with Dr. Ben Manski

    Welcome to the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast. I’ve been on a kind of sabbatical this past year. So much has happened, and I really needed to take the time to explore some of the major developments which, in several important ways, relate directly to the issue of our Constitution. The first was the issue of UAP disclosure. In a stunning announcement, members of Congress revealed that UAPs have most certainly been retrieved and reverse-engineered by our own government—in secret, with the cooperation of a handful of very significant, and very private aerospace corporations. This revelation is profoundly significant, especially as it relates to government transparency and public accountability. Emerging from that conversation was a broader discussion about the nature of reality itself. It turns out that what we call “reality” is not as concrete as we once believed. Quantum entanglement, quantum fields, gravitic propulsion, consciousness, telepathy—all these topics have profound implications for humanity, which led me to reflect on the kind of society we are, and the kind of society we might become as we enter the 21st century. Our current systems—economic, political, and ecological—are literally collapsing before our eyes. We are entering a profound transformation. As futurist Peter Leyden has often stated, we are in a period of system collapse which will give birth to entirely new systems—ones that could enable us all to create a better world. What and how these next systems arise, requires us to understand something about the nature of change. That is why I thought it would be a good time to talk to Ben Manski. Ben studies the participation of ordinary people in the deliberate constitution of their societies. His work encompasses social movements, law, politics, climate and ecology, technology, and corporations, focusing on democracy, constitutionalism, and system change.  Manski  practiced public interest law for 8 years and managed national nonprofit organizations, direct action campaigns, and political campaigns, and parties for 25 years. Dr. Manski is an assistant professor of public sociology and director of Next System Studies involving research into the relationships between, systemic crisis, system design, social movements, and American constitutionalism. https://libertytreefoundation.org/ https://www.benmanski.com/ https://nextsystem.gmu.edu/about https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sociology/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2025.1362848/full

    55 min
  2. S3 E2 Constitution-Making in America with Sanford Levinson

    EPISODE 2

    S3 E2 Constitution-Making in America with Sanford Levinson

    Welcome back to another episode of the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast. Today, I will be talking with Sanford Levinson. Levinson is the W. St John Garwood and W St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law. He teaches Law at both Harvard and the University of Texas Law School in Austin. Sanford is the author of over 450 articles and book reviews, and seven books, including Our Undemocratic Constitution, Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance, and Democracy and Dysfunction. Sanford is an early proponent of replacing our Constitution with a more democratic one, and for several good reasons; he knows more about our outdated and increasingly dangerous Constitution than almost anyone in America. I first interviewed Sanford in May of 2022, at which time he offered to come back to talk about his experience with the Democracy Journal project to draft a new model constitution for the United States.  Levinson chaired the project, calling upon several prominent legal scholars to contribute to the contents and style of this ambitious document. My hope is that this conversation might shed some light on the process and pitfalls of constitution-making in America, as we uncover some of the challenges even the best of planners have encountered. You may not know that in 2020, the National Constitution Center had also commissioned the drafting of three new models, each reflecting the values and goals of three very different worldviews. Specifically, these models were designed to reflect a Progressive, Libertarian, and Conservative worldview.  None of these models got much attention. In Sandford's own words, they just fell flat. Apparently, the American public had no interest, and the media graciously obliged by ignoring the whole thing. Was it the process, the results, or American hubris that led to the failure to engage the American psyche in the deliberations, or was there a deeper, and even more concerning problem?  I began our conversation by asking Sanford why no one had simply proposed to draft a more democratic model.  Outro Persuading the people that a convention is thinkable should be easy in a democracy. After all, that's what democracies are based on. I can think of a lot of things that are more unthinkable than a convention, like what our world will look like in a post-3-degree world. Tune in next time for a heated discussion about the failure of government to confront the Climate Emergency, with Dr Peter Carter, climate scientist and founder of the Climate Emergency Institute. This conversation is about to heat up!

    1 hr
  3. S3 E3 Confronting the Climate Emergency with Dr. Peter Carter

    EPISODE 3

    S3 E3 Confronting the Climate Emergency with Dr. Peter Carter

    S3 E3 Confronting the Climate Emergency with Dr. Peter Carterz Nov 24, 2025 Welcome to the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast. Dean of Law at UC Berkeley, Erwin Chemerinsky, Sanford Levinson, George Van Cleve, and many others have been calling for constitutional reform for a long time. They say we will not solve the Climate Emergency until we change our now-outdated and dangerous Constitution. Climate scientists, more than most political scientists, understand our climate is in serious trouble, and governments are failing to address the gathering threat of global warming. Johan Rockstrom, Michael Mann, David Suzuki, James Henson, and Paul Beckwith foresee a pretty grim future for humanity. The chronology of climate-related unnatural disasters is rapidly escalating. Unprecedented Crime, by Dr. Peter Carter and Elizabeth Woodworth, is a rich, legally grounded indictment of our government's failure to act. Peter is concerned, and like many, getting more concerned every day. I want to understand his frustration over the failure of government to respond to this unprecedented crime, and to discuss his thoughts on game changers for survival.  Confronting the Climate Emergency with Dr. Peter Carter takes listeners deep into the link between ecological collapse and political malfeasance. From David Suzuki’s call for a climate revolution, to COP 30 in Brazil, from Bill Gates’ inequality blind spot to the visionaries behind the Venus Project, this episode asks the hardest question of all: Can we confront the climate emergency before it is too late? Dr. Carter and I explore the crime scene, the power of citizen action, the technologies shaping our future, and constitutional reform in this episode of the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast. Because democracy, like all living things, must evolve—or perish.

    1h 23m
  4. S3 E4 Movement Building with Ben Price

    EPISODE 4

    S3 E4 Movement Building with Ben Price

    When people talk about democracy in America, we often focus on elections… on candidates… on the latest headlines coming out of Washington. But the deeper question—the one that shapes everything—is this: Who actually holds power in our society? Is it the people? Is it our communities? Or is it wealth… concentrated power… and institutions that were never designed to answer to ordinary citizens? Today’s episode is all about movement building. Not the kind of movement-building calling for protests or boycotts. Not the kind of movement building that fades when yet another crisis emerges …But the kind of movement building that reshapes the legal and political foundations of our society. The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, or CELDF, has been at the forefront of a remarkable experiment in democracy. An experiment that asks a simple but radical question: What if communities had the legal authority to defend their own environment… their own health… and their own future? Ben Price serves as the National Education Director at CELDF, where he has spent more than two decades helping communities organize, learn, and take action. He has mentored local leaders across the country as they developed ordinances asserting community rights and the legal rights of ecosystems. His book, How Wealth Rules the World: Saving Our Communities and Freedoms from the Dictatorship of Property, examines how modern law has evolved to prioritize property and wealth over democracy and community self-government. The book earned the Independent Publishing Award’s Silver Medal in Finance, Investment, and Economics, and it has sparked important conversations about the relationship between law, economics, and democratic power. What makes Ben’s work especially important for our conversation today is that he doesn’t just analyze problems. He works directly with communities trying to solve them. Communities asking: How do we organize? How do we build durable movements? How do ordinary people reclaim authority over decisions that affect their land, water, and future? And perhaps most importantly, how do we build movements that are strong enough to challenge systems that have been in place for generations? These are exactly the kinds of questions we need to explore if we are serious about creating a more democratic constitutional order in America. Constitutions don’t change simply because people write some ideas down on a piece of paper. They change when movements emerge that are powerful enough to demand something better for everyone. Ben Price has spent years helping communities wrestle with the practical realities of movement building—what works, what doesn’t, and what it really takes to transform political power from the ground up. Today, we’re going to talk about organizing… democracy… and the long road toward structural change. Ben, welcome to the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast. LINKS: https://celdf.org/ https://celdf.org/resources/multimedia/ https://celdf.org/resources/blog/ https://celdf.substack.com/

    1h 4m
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"The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government."  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, James Wilson, Thomas Paine, and many other American patriots and revolutionaries completely agreed with this simple but compelling statement made by President Washington. Yet today, very few Americans know what the basis of our form of government is, let alone understand what it means. This Podcast will dive into the most important and most censored story in America. We will uncover the myths behind our constitutional history and reveal some of the startling facts about our founding as a nation. Hang on tight! If you haven't honed up on your American history, if you think you understand our American political system, you may be in for a shock. Peaceful political revolution is your unique American heritage. It is what makes our democracy so special and what makes your role in American politics so important. Are you ready for a peaceful political revolution? Where does it come from? How does it happen? What can you do to change our political system for the better?  We will address these questions and many more in the upcoming Podcasts, so hang on. If you think our politics are bad and only getting worse, you may find that a peaceful political revolution is the antidote.

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