Why subscribe?
For the past 15 years, I have published wide ranging political and social analysis as a bi-lingual columnist for Truthout, Pressenza, the Montevideo Portal in Uruguay and Resiliente Magazine in México. My reporting on food safety has been cited by the NY Times, while my investigative reports on the abuse of international trade tribunals and the US government’s decades long suppression of graphic torture photos helped bring both issues to international attention.
After co-founding the 1.7 million member Courage Campaign in California more than a decade ago, then traveling the state for several years training and organizing progressive activists, I realized that in a heavily propagandized post-9/11 world, our vision of the United States had been so fatally constricted that any possible solutions were beyond the reach of traditional, putatively left-right party politics.
Months before the 2016 US election, I made a decision to begin traveling worldwide researching transformative citizen-driven civil initiatives and civic experiments in Europe and the Americas. In 2017, based on the startling ubiquity and quality of scalable and duplicable citizen innovation I encountered in every country, I started Reimagining Politics, a non-profit, crowd funded educational project whose mission is to showcase these high impact citizen’s civic models to the largest possible audience.
Your Substack subscriptions give me the financial independence to continue sharing uncompromised investigative journalism, analysis and truth telling in support of that mission on a regular basis.
I have always written to explain things to myself when I could not find substantive answers in the corporate media. In an age of pandemic, mass social conditioning and a global surveillance state, critical thinking has begun to break down. I believe it is more important than ever to share my unvarnished journalistic findings about the health and prospects for citizens’ democracy across the world as a powerful antidote to corporate newspeak.
My work is not written on a deadline. I feel the pressure to explain the extraordinary events of the day, but I also take the time to research and think. It is hard work to resist the fevered imperatives of the now.
If you are hungry for a deeper, more philosophical perspective on our broken politics, a perspective that is almost wholly missing in political journalism today, I hope you will become a paying subscriber to keep my reporting and writing truly independent. There is no better group of editors than a community of engaged readers.
What you will get
As a subscriber ($5/mo. or $50/yr.) you will be the first to receive my reports and analyses once or twice per month with a larger perspective on what is happening behind the biggest stories of the day.
This newsletter is also an open invitation to readers to celebrate passion, nuance, empathy, humor and joie de vivre constructed from smart social-political analysis and colorful story telling in our public lives. This requires a willingness to travel far off the beaten path to awaken a broad sense of political and imaginative possibility.
These are the rough categories under which I will publish.
Political & social analysis & reporting from a more philosophic perspective. (e.g., see my Covidnomics series.)
Personalities - Stories about people and their projects (See Goldmines, Glacier & Dandelion Wine.)
Photo and video stories
Interviews
Book excerpts
What people are saying about Michael Meurer
“Meurer's breadth of perspective and knowledge, incisive decoding of neoliberal bullshit, provision of context and highly developed sense of irony provide a piercing diagnosis, and then he demonstrates how it all could be otherwise — compelling!”
– Leslie Thatcher, Editor Emeritus, Truthout.org
“Michael Meurer is an American original and that rarest of things today – a truth teller.”
– Robert K. Tanenbaum, former Deputy Chief Counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations
"Michael Meurer’s voice is essential for these times. He is an original thinker with three rare qualities: a vast knowledge, a deeply human perspective and a keen eye to see beyond the obvious. Michael shows you the forest while others are busy staring at the trees."
– Martín Otheguy, Deputy Editor, Montevideo Portal, Uruguay
“There is no topic Michael Meurer can’t speak on with erudition. I have personally witnessed him hold the rapt attention of groups of people on subjects ranging from theater to economics and everything in between, and he brings this same engrossing intelligence to his writing. The fact that his self-deprecating sense of humor is as deep and sharp as his intellect is icing on an already delicious cake.”
Jennifer Lassalette, Assistant General Manager – Actors Studio West
"More than ever before we are in need of new solutions that embrace peoples' participation, direct democracy and self-governance of communities. Michael Meurer not only finds and studies these new models which are emerging all over the world, but also writes about and connects them, helping them gain strength and access to a wider audience. His solution-orientated work and writing could not be more timely, bringing much needed hope and a vision for a better future for all."
Evelyn Rottengatter, Editor Geman-language edition of Pressenza International Press Agency
Michael Meurer’s storytelling brings the realities of politics and policy to life and gives us a deeper understanding of how people are affected through a unique mix of presence and listening backed by rigorous research and data. Anyone looking for intelligent assessments and frank commentary on today’s challenges to democracy should follow and support his work.
-Dr. JJ Walcutt, Senior US Government Science Advisor and author of “Who the F*** wants to be President”
OUR TRANSLATOR
Luciana Slaen is our Spanish language translator living in Cordoba, Argentina. She is a social anthropologist, teacher of English and Spanish as second languages, translator-linguist, mother of two and wife of one, often in the same day. In her role as anthropologist, Luciana’s ongoing exploration and interpretation of cultural differences makes her the ideal person to guide us in making Reimagining Politics a fully bi-lingual, international and multicultural project. Luciana loves gardening, growing her own food, dancing flamenco, traveling, hiking and having drinks or mate with friends.
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