Nick J. Licata remembers Woodstock as those three days in the summer of 1969 when it felt as if youth shared a belief that they could both enjoy and change the world; social justice at home and abroad was important, and doing something about it was possible.
In "The Whole World is Watching," Patricia Vaccarino reminds us that fifty years have passed since the Chicago Democratic Convention anti-war protests took place in August, 1968. Now in 2018, the whole world is indeed watching to see what Americans will do to restore normalcy to the White House. Restoring normalcy means we need to take back our democracy.
Let’s begin with some political theory. Aristotle, in his great treatise, the Politics, concluded that there are, basically, only two different kinds of governments in terms of the outcomes for a society — those that serve the common good, or the public interest, and those that have been co-opted to serve the self-interests of the people who hold political power.
Plato’s great dialogue, the Republic, written more than 2000 years ago, remains one of the most influential works about social justice ever written. The twentieth century novelist and social philosopher Ayn Rand, perhaps the most influential conservative/ libertarian voice of the present day, had a radically different vision. So, it might be useful to do a brief comparison between Plato and Ayn Rand.
