Front and Center with Steve and Michael Podcast By Steve Bhaerman and Michael Maxsenti cover art

Front and Center with Steve and Michael

Front and Center with Steve and Michael

By: Steve Bhaerman and Michael Maxsenti
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Front and Center ... ‘From Political Battlefields to Cooperative Playing Fields’ ... Writing Our New Story Together

We are facing and embracing the irony of our times. We seem more divided than ever, and yet there is a great desire to work together to face our evolutionary challenges. Our "beacon", is what Charles Eisenstein describes as "the more beautiful world our hearts know as possible."

Steve and Mike will host conversations with leaders and inspirational ‘ordinary people.’ There will be: Visionaries, Heroes of the Heart, Illuminators, Solutionaries and Connectors. People who bring people from all sides together in purposeful dialogue so we can develop a shared vision of the world we want to live in.

Through these conversations, Steve Bhaerman and Michael Maxsenti will work to deepen and expand our understandings to help us get off the battlefields and onto playing fields of collaboration and communion. There we can create the new story that our hearts know is possible.

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Episodes
  • How the New “Song and Dance” Can Help Heal the Old Song-and-Dance of Political Polarization

    How the New “Song and Dance” Can Help Heal the Old Song-and-Dance of Political Polarization
    Jun 27 2025

    Announcing NEW Signs of the Upwising Podcast

    Interview with Performance Artist and Shamanic Cheerleader Raina Satori


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbYQU9UeLgU


    “It’s time to bring red tribe and blue tribe together in sacred circle, to talk until they are purple in the face. The only way to overgrow corporate personhood is through purple peoplehood. “

    -- Swami Beyondananda


    I am happy to announce that I am launching a new podcast, Signs of the Upwising, to help we the people step off the political battlefield and on to a new cooperative playing field – or as Swami puts it, “to bring left and right front and center to face the music and dance together.”

    So it’s fitting that my first guest is Raina Satori, “shamanic cheerleader”, performance artist, and comedienne, who found herself in the unusual role of community “healer” during the COVID pandemic and lockdown. Living in Nevada County – California’s “gold country” – she found her community divided over compliance with the lockdown and mandate, particularly individuals who didn’t want to get the shot, and businesses who didn’t want to close down.

    Attending a People’s Assembly meeting with a diverse group of people who shared concern about their “sovereignty” – from old and young hippies … to elder conservative Christians … to libertarians, regen advocates, etc., etc. – she noticed that the guy running the meeting was in over his head. So she volunteered to be the facilitator, and all of a sudden a “serious” gathering was uplifted by levity.

    Find out how starting each meeting with a song and a sing-along helped “harmonize” the group, and how punctuating serious statements with something funny created camaraderie in a hugely diverse group. You’ll also discover why gathering groups like this in circles doesn’t work – much better to have everyone focused on the speaker up front – and why and how “toxic” individuals need to be reined in, and sometimes excluded.

    If you have any designs of bringing diverse viewpoints together to “humanize, humorize, and harmonize” please tune in.

    And … if you are in Northern California, please come see Raina and me in person on Saturday, July 19th in Sebastopol, and get a dose of this ho-ho-holy hee-hee-healing medicine. Buy your tickets here: https://www.peacetown.org/tickets/p/love-laughter-ever-after


    May the FARCE be with you,

    Steve Bhaerman


    JOIN THE UPWISING HERE.

    https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/cu/mkKHD6K/Join
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    48 mins
  • Front and Center Podcast “Podner” Michael Maxsenti Launches Congressional Campaign … And He Can ACTUALLY WIN!

    Front and Center Podcast “Podner” Michael Maxsenti Launches Congressional Campaign … And He Can ACTUALLY WIN!
    May 2 2025

    “We need a new PRECEDENT – government of the people, by the people, for the people where the government does OUR bidding, not the bidding of the highest bidder.”

    – Swami Beyondananda


    Front and Center podcast “podner” Michael Maxsenti, a self-declared “Rebel for Truth” is running as an independent thinking Republican for Congress in California’s highly-contested 47th Congressional District – and he actually has a chance to win!

    “Rebel” is an acronym for:

    Recognize the status quo has failed us.

    Educate yourself with nonpartisan facts and possible solutions.

    Be aware most representatives no longer represent US.

    Engage diverse sources of information and people.

    Lend yourself to the movement in some way.

    If you’ve tuned into our Front and Center podcast, you recognize Michael as a thoughtful, dedicated, independent thinker, a one-time Reagan Republican who started a conversation with a young #occupy self-described anarchist about a dozen years ago, that vastly expanded his political purview.

    Since that time, he has worked to bring all sides together in fruitful conversation, and is now a leader in the new United Independents movement. Most recently, he worked to organize the California Common Sense Party, Andrew Yang’s Forward Party, and then Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign.

    And now, when he should be enjoying his “reclining years,” he is running for Congress in a district on both parties’ “must win” list as an independent thinking Republican – and he just might win!

    The main thing he has going for him – in addition to being a successful businessperson, active in community service, dedicated to both individual freedom and community wellbeing – is, he is not a politician.

    Most elected representatives are professional politicians, meaning they must follow their party’s line or risk losing their career. Michael is beholden to no one other than “God, the Constitution, my conscience, and my constituents.”

    Michael is running in a district – where incidentally he has resided for fifty years – that is almost evenly divided, red and blue. And a time when people have had it up to here with the status quo, his populist view and “real person” persona might very well prevail over career politicians who represent the two-faced “uniparty” that keeps the public divided around the culture wars so that we the people don’t unite to hold our system accountable.

    And even though he is running as an independent thinking Republican without benefit of the party apparatus, he is not running alone. He is part of a new United Independents organization (https://www.unitedindependents.us/the-united-independent-movement) seeking to elect enough independent and corruption free candidates (Democrats, Republicans, and others) to create a “people’s wedge” to bring truth, transparency and accountability. If you stop and consider that more than 50% of American voters now identify as “independent”, and there is now a coherent voice to that independents movement, this is an idea whose time has come.

    And even though he is running in just one district, Michael is in a sense representing all of us.

    “I am,” he says, “a populist, meaning I respect the rights, the dignity, and the wisdom of everyday people. Right now, our representatives don’t represent us. They represent their political party establishment, and the major donors who finance that party. I’m running so that Americans from all sides can work together to solve real-world problems.”

    If you’re curious to find out more – about Michael's successes and setbacks and how they’ve shaped his candidacy – please tune in and find out for yourself.

    Want to find out more about his campaign and how you can get involved?

    Go here: https://www.maxsentiforcongress.com/

    The cliché says we get the government we deserve. Well, Michael says we deserve better. He invites you to help him deliver it.
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    58 mins
  • Writing Our New Story Together - From Divide-and-Conquer to Unite and Thrive

    Writing Our New Story Together - From Divide-and-Conquer to Unite and Thrive
    Dec 19 2024
    “Truth lives in our hearts. Beliefs lie in our heads.” – Swami BeyondanandaSome years ago I wrote an article for a progressive publication about Fox News and their propensity for spreading outright lies. I called the article “Come On Baby, Fight My Liar,” and I ended it by saying that conservatives obviously like being lied to – whereas progressives prefer lying to themselves.Needless to say, I got some pushback on the piece – and also some knowing nods of “yes, I know exactly what you mean.”What did I mean?Well, I had just been with a group of people where someone brought up the idea that the 911 Twin Tower attacks might have been an inside job. In response, one woman said – with a completely straight face – “Oh, no. If it had been an inside job I would have heard about it on NPR.”I think back over the past couple of decades when I presented some inconvenient truth that was outside the comfort zone of some of the spiritually-inclined folks I knew. They would put up their hand and say, “I don’t want to go there.”And my response would be, “Too late. THERE has already come HERE.”For years, I have watched otherwise compassionate, intelligent people take comfort in the phrase, “conspiracy theory” – the all-purpose catch-all that takes folks off the hook from having to look the heart of darkness in the face.It’s still operative, although I take heart that there are people waking up. I’m also cognizant of the old Navajo saying, “You can’t awaken someone pretending to be asleep.”So I will give you an updated example. Shortly before Thanksgiving, I published a piece on “How the Right Got Right, and the Left Got Left” – surprisingly I got only one piece of negative feedback from a reader who voiced her opinion in one word: Goodbye.In other words, I was canceled, which seems to be the go-to strategy of those unwilling to face a bigger reality than the one they are habituated to. Speaking of “canceled”, I was a bit shocked – although not surprised – to get two very similar emails from two women in response to that same post. One woman wrote:“THANK YOU SO MUCH...It’s refreshing to hear you say what I also think myself but have not the courage to speak out and then have to endure the wrath of the progressives I know. I was fairly traumatized by the reactions I got from dear old friends during the ‘scamdemic’ for questioning and not getting jabbed.” And from the other woman:“I would be very afraid to tell any of my friends or family that I voted for Trump because I would probably be ostracized. Same as for my stance on the poison shot. My friends and family have all gotten COVID and are still getting it even with the shot and the boosters.”“It's nice to know that I'm not alone in my thinking which seems to coincide with your views. You are a very brave man to put those thoughts out there. I guess I am a coward keeping all those kinds of thoughts to myself. Keep on keeping on, you brave souls!!” Please allow this to sink in.Inside the corral of the party dedicated to “saving democracy,” the issue of free speech never comes up – because people have learned to self-censor, or else.Talk about irony deficiency!And that brings us to this week’s Front and Center podcast, where we address both the “awful truth” and the awesome opportunity. The opportunity – as I suggested in the “How the Right Got Right …” post – is to leave the safe harbor of inside-the-corral narratives and seek to create a new story together. In other words, step off the political battlefield, and onto a cooperative playing field.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho5QfnhEIFsPlease watch this video where Cenk Uygur – founder of the ultra-progressive podcast Young Turks – suggests that it’s time for left and right to come front and center to create a true populist movement (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD4QVT8ws_8&t=3s). Uygur, who is not at all beholden to the Democratic Party apparatus speaks out about – well, about how difficult it is to speak out. This is surely a sign of the “upwising”, given the opportunity for collaboration around RFK, Jr.’s Make America Healthy Campaign, which largely reiterates progressive talking points from 20 years ago.Mainstream media, meanwhile, continues launching “dismissal attacks” on RFK, Jr. – anything to prevent the Democratic Party faithful from “trance-ending” the trance of separation – and from rallying around the functional aspects of his program. When I hear friends now referring to Bobby as a “sexual predator,” I know the media talking points they are parroting.Once we step up above the battlefield to see a broader view, we take another important step – seeking the whole truth together. This means, releasing our dependence on our side’s narrative and becoming familiar with unfamiliar ideas, so we can discover for ourselves how much of what is ...
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    58 mins
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