Transcribe your podcast
[00:00:00]

Yo, I'm Baratunde Sunday, and I want to tell you a crazy story from my childhood when I was nine years old, my mother gave me a special assignment. She said it was up to me to come up with a system we would live under after democracy and maybe capitalism had failed. I repeat, I was nine years old and I know that's a wild assignment, one apparently I failed at because all the headlines 33 years later, I'm talking about democracies in crisis, democracies at a tipping point, and I agree.

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But which way our democracy tips, that's up to us.

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And that is the spirit of my new show, How to Citizen with Baratunde. By the way, I'm the bearer today in that title, there's no other Baratunde. It's a one Baratunde show, but it's not an only Baratunde, because in this show, I'm going to introduce you to people who are tapping into that collective power. We are all a part of organizing communities to make a difference and change outcomes in areas as diverse as public safety, worker rights, voter turnout, even our food systems.

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Did you know that we can keep ourselves safe without giving all of our money to the police department? Did you know that we can build an economy that works without giving all of our money to Jeff Bezos? I know is while this show is going to involve you in that project, could it be very authoritarian for me to make a show? Kawahata citizen, I just talk down at you instead. I'm inviting you in literally to be a part of the tapings of the show, which we do live with the audience and also to convert some of that news rage.

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You're probably sitting on into action where we are going to give you things you can do to be a better citizen. Our media isn't fake, but it is incomplete because so far much of the message we've been getting is how broken the world is as opposed to all the work being done to mend it. Much of the message we've been getting is how alone we are, how powerless we are.

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But there's another side to the story that talks about us as a part of something greater, something that we can do together, that sees the current moment as an opportunity with pandemic revolution and all to reimagine and reclaim this word citizen, take it back from those who've weaponized it against people who don't have the right paperwork and convert it into a verb big enough to invite us all to participate in determining our society, how it works and for whom the human being.

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The many, not just the few. How do citizens with Baratunde do it literally takes all of us that includes you coming August twenty seven to the I Heart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcast.