Mark Satin

Mark Satin (born November 16, 1946) is a U.S. lawyer and editor of the online political periodical Radical Middle Newsletter. He graduated from the New York University School of Law in 1995, and his article "Law and Psychology: A Movement Whose Time Has Come" (Annual Survey of American Law, 1994, issue 4) was an early articulation of the now-emerging concept of "therapeutic jurisprudence" (see Prof. David Wexler's Therapeutic Jurisprudence website).

He is a proponent of radical centrist politics. His most recent book, Radical Middle: The Politics We Need Now, 2004 (ISBN 0-8133-4190-6), won "Outstanding Book Award 2004" from the Section on Ecological and Transformational Politics of the American Political Science Association (see Section 26, APSA Awards website).

Satin was a green activist from 1984 to 1990, and was a primary editor, with feminist philosopher Charlene Spretnak, of the founding document of the Green Party (United States), the Ten Key Values statement (see Greta Gaard, Ecological Politics, 1998, pp. 141-145).

Satin's hard copy monthly newsletter, New Options (1983-1992), well known as "Washington DC's idealistic political newsletter," received Utne Reader's first "Alternative Press Award for General Excellence: Best Publication from 10,000 to 30,000 Circulation." The most widely discussed New Options articles are collected in Satin's book New Options for America: The Second American Experiment Has Begun, 1991 (ISBN 0-8093-1794-X).

In the 1970s, Satin was co-founder and executive director of the New World Alliance, a U.S. New Age political organization that sought to go "beyond left and right" (see Art Stein, Seeds of the Seventies, 1985, pp. 134-139). It drew on the ideas of Fritjof Capra, Duane Elgin, Willis Harman, Hazel Henderson, John Vasconcellos, and many other "transformational" thinkers, as well as ideas in Satin's book New Age Politics: Healing Self and Society, 1979, orig. 1976 (ISBN 0-440-55700-3).

In the 1960s, Satin was co-founder and executive director of the Toronto Anti-Draft Programme, a major draft dodger assistance organization during the Vietnam War (see Pierre Berton, 1967: The Last Good Year, 1997, pp. 197-203, and John Hagan, Northern Passage, 2001, pp. 74-78). Satin's book Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada, 1968 (ISBN B0006BYDLA), was an underground bestseller, selling 65,000 copies by mail from Toronto and inspiring at least that many pirated, bowdlerized, or mimeographed knock-offs (see Joseph Jones, "The House of Anansi's Singular Bestseller," Canadian Notes & Queries, No. 61, 2002, pp. 19-22).

Satin serves as advisor to Centrist Coalition, Reuniting America, Vasconcellos Project, and other U.S. activist organizations. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, USA.