So much beauty I witnessed this morning seemed to, contradictorily, express such harmony and continuity while, at the same time, appear so delicate. A lovely humming bird, like a little magician, dancing from bloom to bloom; and a large, extended family of geese feeding, not above or below the man-made waterfall around which they normally congregate, but on it, while the flow of water was slow and steady, today.

It was a reminder to me – not that I should need it – of how important it is to consider often ways in which people and communities need to work together as stewards and, it being Independence Day, what this imperative

has to do with governance. (I loved pondering the idea of “purple mountain majesties” today and fondly remembered taking this photo a few years ago in Wyoming.)1

Given all the havoc Wall Street seems to have wreaked not only on human well-being but on the natural environment over the last quarter of a century or so with the sector’s merger with the journalism industry, I wonder often about what remedy may still be possible and, lately, sometimes I think it might be helpful to start a new political party to address the problem.

One of the world’s most influential corporate news founders once famously quipped that, in the ever-more immersive world of television journalism, what matters most is not red or blue, or necessarily even political at all, but green. And, as I’ve been writing for going on eight years now, I wonder what kind of force could help either reign in or counterbalance this arguably most dire threat to the functionality of our democracy.

Democracy is, after all, arguably more important now than ever. A recent Rasmussen poll (and one Scott Rasmussen reportedly called “the most terrifying poll result I’ve ever seen”) indicated that while, among Americans generally, only 7% would want their favored political candidate to cheat in order to win, among the so-called “politically obsessed” top 1%, 69% would. I continue to believe it could well be the merger of the stock market and corporate news sectors – and all the corruption this allows – that is largely causing the ever-widening wealth gap in the U.S. and a too-often inverse relationship between bank account and heart size; but, regardless, I believe it is essential for everyone to remember, today, that those who do not endorse this kind of behavior still receive one vote each and that their numbers vastly outweigh their counterparts’.

One benefit of establishing a Purple Party, in my opinion at least, in addition to drawing the best from both political sides, would be to mark a distinct departure from complicity with governance operated largely by a publicly-traded and for-profit yellow journalism sector.

But doesn’t practically everyone say they oppose the primacy of yellow journalism?, one may ask. Of course. But very few actually take steps to counter it. What about all the nonprofit news organizations doing less sensationalistic journalism out there? Don’t they count? a critic may continue. Not yet, in my opinion, and not so long as they continue to abet their corporate counterparts’ misdeeds either by refraining from confronting them in order to benefit themselves from the media sector’s growing influence as a collective lobby, or by, more egregiously, actively covering up such harms through the use of intimidation or other means.

One reason I believe the exclusion of a qualified political candidate from this past week’s nationally televised presidential debate seems so concerning is that, so far as I can tell, he is one of the only voiced public figures in the world willing to talk meaningfully about the role of corporate influence on governance today. And I think he should still be able to raise the issue in dialogue with his competitors as the dominance of a pro-conflict corporate news sector and its effects – including what does appear to be a worsening tendency on both sides of the political aisle to behave anti-democratically as a means of self defense – arguably only continues because we allow it and that, by actually talking about the phenomenon, we can take the first step in remedying it, regardless of how we label ourselves.

What if we held a new debate, and soon, featuring all three of the top presidential candidates across the political color spectrum focused solely on this issue?