Tilting to the left

Could it be that there is a sea change about to happen in American politics: are we tilting left?

Mind you, any change is not going to happen overnight. But if New Hampshire is beginning to move left, that might mean that New Hampshire's early Presidential primary may become a more prominent platform for moderate or left-of-moderate candidates. My perception of New Hampshire is that, like Iowa, more moderate to right-of-moderate candidates do very well in the primaries, because the population is relatively rural, with no major metropolitan centers within their borders. With New Hampshire slowly changing its colors, that has potentially national and historical significance for American Presidential politics.

The Northeast seems to be holding steady if not advancing its influence on the National stage. Massachusetts opens the door to gay marriage and then lets it stand; Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont has become a force in this Democratic Congress, taking on the Administration itself; and now New Hampshire may be altering the landscape of American politics.

I think for the first time not only do I feel like a "Northeasterner," but I am proud to be one.

Is Pax Europa nearing an end?

Europe has enjoyed a peace of sorts for over 60 years, since the end of World War II. Although there have been struggles, most of those have been in what was Eastern Europe, the border of the old Communist regime. This article in the times reminded me that all is not quiet around Europe: Russia is agitating again (because Putin is agitative), Europe is struggling with its identity and relationship to Islam, and under the present American administration is moving away from the United States.

Perhaps these last 60 years were just a pause between great wars, as so many pauses that have been seen throughout history. We thought we had war within the borders of the "old" countries licked, but perhaps we do not. And that great beast is slumbering far from our home fires, but is there nonetheless in the dark.

Failures of modern implementations of democracy: you are not free

The founding fathers enshrined in the Fourth Amendment the belief that all should be "secure in their persons." They believed that all are entitled to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Perhaps this is a leap requiring further support, but they conceived of the individual as self-sufficient and self-governing: each of us is our own Leviathan. The extension to their theory of the individual, or the exception to the rule of self-governance, was the social contract: that is, a contract in which individuals yield some aspect of their own freedom and self-governance in favor of received mutual benefits.

If we have lost the power to vote, are we still truly free?

A nation still at risk

In Study, College-Prep Classes Left Many Unready - New York Times



Wow, it is disturbing to see confirmation that my experience in the American system of education 20 years ago is still true, perhaps even worse. I remember hearing about the report on a A Nation at Risk, and it prompted high schools (and their student councils) to hold all kinds of "committed, thoughtful" discussions that ultimately led to nothing. I remember my first year at Harvard, feeling ill-prepared for the kind of analysis and debate that was the standard for most liberal arts classes--yet I had been a first-rate student in my home town. I remember catching some flack sometime either late in college or just after, when a local reporter innocuously called me to ask questions about how my high school had prepared me (or not) for college; although I stated at the time I felt prepared (I was not), I became the centerpiece of an article that asserted our local high school was doing a poor job in mathematics education. And I had previously been on friendly terms with all my math teachers. At the time, I chalked it up to a novice talking to the press, but the truth is that I wasn't really prepared for college in many dimensions. And apparently we are still sending kids off to college ill-prepared.

Failures of modern implementations of democracy: "your vote counts"

I was thinking this morning of an email I received from my local state party machinery: it was a request for help in a district having an off-cycle election for a vacant seat in the state Legislature. I realized that there is a flaw in current perceptions of democracy in the United States--the perception that "your vote counts."



Implicit in this email is that if you volunteer your time now, you can defeat an "opposing" party's candidate for office. The email, of course, went out to the entire state, so many volunteers who might answer the call are likely not even from the district holding the election. And those volunteers could shift the outcome in an election in which officially they have no voice.  Further, the voice of some of the participants (e.g., those who might vote for the "opposing" party) would be diluted by their activity.



And that's the flaw. If all you do is vote, you have already ceded power to the machinery. All of those volunteers (from other districts, no less) are "voting" through their activism, well in advance of the actual voting day itself. And how does one find out about all of these thousand ways to do more than vote? What if I were not on my party's mailing list--would have lost an opportunity to participate in this "extra-democratic" process? "Your vote counts" is a myth.



Beyond this simple email, I recall the process for electing a governor in my state. What I did not realize, had it not been for my neighbor, is that the process for choosing a governor starts many months ahead of time with caucuses in the individual wards within the state. A ward in an urban setting is an area several blocks in size defined as a unit for voting purposes. The caucuses are not well announced, are only attended by those who are active or within the communications reach of the state party. The purpose of the caucus is selection of delegates to the state's convention several months later. Even before you have arrived at a caucus, the major candidates have identified a slate of proposed delegates, with local organizers encouraging participants to vote for entire slates of delegates, rather than evaluate each delegates ability to represent your voice.



Again, this was evidence that your vote doesn't really count, because all of this work was happening many months in advance of the actual election day. And not everyone is aware that these caucuses are happening until it's over and the local press trumpets the results. Further, the sheer scale of the operation required by the state party machinery to influence outcomes in every ward demonstrate that your own voice, your own vote, has little chance of being heard on its own. The best you can do is choose the faction most closely aligned to your own goals and interests, and hope that you chose well. The massive aggregation of interest dilutes the impact of any single voice to near-zero.



"Your vote counts?"  Sure, but not for you.  Not in a system where activities other than voting pre-dominate, and are only available to a select few.  Not in a system that

dilutes individual voices in favor of factions, discouraging a voter from participating at all.



Find a new way to choose.

Is desire for secession a growing trend?

Seeing this article this morning ("Elections in Britain Reveal a Scottish Line in the Sand") evoked a thought: as the large nations of the developed world grow older, is there a trend towards decomposition? That is, will we see more secession movements in the 1st world?

The Scots in the United Kingdom are not alone in their slow movements towards secession: Quebec is well known for wishing to secede from Canada; Vermont has a small movement to secede from the United States; the Northern League in Italy has associations with secession; and the Basque nationalist movement has at times violently sought separation.

Within the United States, since at least the 1980's murmurs of "states' rights" continue to percolate, often associated with the apparent desires of the conservative political right to take the fight for many issues to the state level, complicating the ability of liberal politicians to engage the issue from a federal level.

I can make no assertions here, not having researched the subject thoroughly. There are some intriguing questions to be asked, however:

• Is this a real trend within the developed nations, possibly at least a slow-moving one? Or is this merely a defined feature of a nation, such that any given time period always includes a mix of patriots and secessionists?
• Are there common precipitating elements, whether economic, political, ideological, or technology-based?
• If the movement is real, what failures or defects of the large nation-state should be recognized?

It occurred to me on the way home tonight how similar the present economic environment in the United States (and perhaps all of the West) is not dissimilar to the feudalism in Europe's Dark Ages. Most of us are mere vassals, serving the lords of capital, the C-level executives who form the ruling class of our civilization. So if feudalism passed into history with the arrival of the Middle Ages--might it depart again?

If there were time enough in the world, I'd love to write a book about the topic. I can imagine the chapters thus:

I. Introduction (or Premise)
II. Characteristics of Feudalism
III. How Feudalism Ended
IV. Implications for the Present
V. Conclusion