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A growing political group of thought and feeling that is expressed by groups and individuals who are grouped around the ‘middle ground’ of politics, both left and right. What’s different about the Radical Middle is that many people who accept this view believe that one can take positions from both camps: a belief in the private sector and an affinity for public education, a strong religious conviction, a free economic trade model and a global compassion. It’s alright to not be just ‘left’ or just ‘right’ as political forces merge in coalitions and large continent-wide groupings, differences in opinion from the traditional party line emerge, and that’s ok.

Although the radical middle perspective can’t be summed up in a couple of glib phrases, here are some aspects that Radical Middle Newsletter likes to stress:

• One-world citizenship. A commitment to overarching human values and to a cosmopolitan identity as world citizens.
• Business and law. A recognition that what’s going on in certain boardrooms and law offices today may be more important — and more promising — than what’s going on in the traditional political arena.
• Consciousness. A recognition that values, virtues, attitudes, religion, and culture may have more to do with individual happiness — and social progress — than economic growth.
• One-world compassion. A refusal to accept that the well-being of people in Rumania or Nigeria or Malaysia is any less important than the well-being of people in Arizona.
• Ambition, achievement and service. In the Sixties it was a badge of honor to drop out. The strategy backfired. Today’s most socially committed young people are rushing to become doctors, lawyers, businesspeople, social workers, academics, and that is — or can be — a good thing.

I do a lot of things that I think people either don’t expect or think are at odds with my other views. I like the private sector, I don’t think the military is bad, I’m a homosexual and I understand the views of Christians. I love the public sector and I hate a lot about American politics though I adore the country whose views are being warped. I’m anti-war but I work with the Army, I protest to drop the debt, bemoan gigantic corporate profits yet want to work in Banking. I don’t think these things are contradictory and I think it’s time that politics didn’t pigeon-hole people into categories of voters and thinkers, assuming that everyone takes the same narrowminded or ill-informed views. My politics isn’t governed by the newspaper I read, the people I talk to or the place that I live. I get my news from hundreds of different sources, I interact with the political world in strange and unconventional ways and I like it when a news service recognises this.
I’ve signed up for the radicalmiddle.com monthly alert of relevant news articles, and I’ll update this site with news on how it turns out.

RadicalMiddle.com: Why “Radical Middle”?

Wikipedia.com: Radical Middle

And just an aside, I think of this as different from the Third Way. I think the third was is more placid, modifying previous policy positions of the past rather than being a direct, positive, aggressive force that simply doesn’t want to be pegged as either left or right. You can have both and neither at the same time and that is the Radical Middle. Third Way is just snapping centre-right economics onto left-wing social welfare. Its not bad but it’s not quite the same.