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Democrat Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson said during an Armed Services Committee hearing in late March, 2010 that Guam would be in danger were more US troops sent there. “My fear that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize,” he said in all seriousness. “We don’t anticipate that,” responded Adm. Robert Willard.

Did Hank Johnson's constituents want their representative in the U.S. House of Representatives to be at least nominally educated?  Lest one replies with "of course," it could also be that people may want their represenatives to be like them, or at least to reflect what they value. It could be that Rep. Johnson's district was inhabited by people who didn't value education. My hometown is such a place. Going to graduate school is tantamount to evading the real world. The implication is that investing in one's education is to waste one's time on something of little value. Of course, you can't fight ignorance or change people's values where they are convinced that they are correct.  It is perhaps not a surprise that representatives could be found in government having that mentality where it is common among constituents.

It is also true that larger the electorate, the less it can make an informed decision regarding the candidates campaigning to represent it. This is why the delegates to the US Constitutional Convention said there is more democracy at the level of state legislatures (e.g., more retail, less wholesale, politics). The EU Parliament has almost 800 reps (newly expanded, though I understand not yet filled), yet is not twice the US population, so the electorates per rep are smaller. However, a governmental body so large is apt to be cumbersome. The state governments in the EU, like those in the US, have smaller districts for their legislative lower houses (and perhaps their senates as well). In smaller districts, the candidates and the elected representative are more apt to be known by a given voter (or by someone the voter knows). Two (or even three) degrees of separation are better than relying on tv commercials, which are geared to presenting a given candidate as he or she wants to be seen. A viable republic ought not rely on a candidate’s preferred self-presentation because judgments in governance involve the actual person–hence the voters ought to know it.

A major implication from my reasoning here is that both American and European state governments ought not allow the balance of power to shift too much to the US and EU level, respectively. On the last day of the U.S. Constitutional Convention, George Washington, who had kept quiet throughout in his role in presiding, asked the delegates if they would make one change. Rather than a U.S. House representative to represent at least 40,000 inhabitants, the minimum should be 30,000 because that would allow for greater democracy. Of course, the setting of a minimum is far different than a maximum; the average district population has never been 30,000.  At the turn of the twenty-first century, it was more than 600,000.  The constitutional delegates would have thought such an arrangement to evince an aristocrisy, there being so few representatives relative to the population. The average citizen's voice would surely be lost, the designers of the U.S. constitution would be wont to say.  I suspect their response would be not just to send more power back to the state governments, but also to urge many of the large and medium states into federal systems themselves. Particularly where a state is heterogeneous, it makes sense for it to have a federal system with states ranging from large metro areas to four or five counties (as in Germany, whose Lander span from Bremen to Bavaria).  Unsere grosse Staaten sollten von Deutschland lernen. It could be that in modernity, the West has grown too accustomed to larger and larger electorates.  Has the E.U., for example, set any limit to its expansion from the vantage point of its democracy deficit?  Furthermore, has the U.S. tackled the problem of how to reconcile the large districts in the U.S. House with the problem of that body itself having too many members?  If it continues to be assumed that Congress can and should legislate on virtually anything, the tradeoff between representation and the size of the House must be addressed.

According to David Firestone of The New York Times, a “surprising number” of the Tea Party members were calling for the repeal of the 17th Amendment of the US Constitution during the election campaign season of 2010. That amendment, which was ratified in 1913, provides for direct election by the people of each state of US senators. According to Firestone, “allowing Americans to choose their own senators seems so obvious that it is hard to remember that the nation’s founders didn’t really trust voters with the job. The people were given the right to elect House members. But senators were supposed to be a check on popular rowdiness and factionalism. They were appointed by state legislatures.” That it may seem so obvious to us does not mean that we have it right. Yet Firestone presumes so in writing, “a  modern appreciation of democracy — not to mention a clear-eyed appraisal of today’s dysfunctional state legislatures — should make the idea unthinkable.” Should it really?  Firestone seems biased in his dogmatism.

For one thing, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1786 didn’t want to restrict direct representative democracy in the US Government to the US House only out of fear of mob rule as Firestone suggests.  They thought the direct power of the state governments in the US Government would be necessary to keep the new empire from consolidating at the imperial level (i.e., in the US Government). Firestone himself admits that to most authors of the Constitution, “allowing states to appoint the Senate was the linchpin of the entire federalist system and the real reason there are two houses of Congress.” Whereas the British House of Lords represents wealth, the US Senate was to represent not only that, but semi-sovereign republics as well.  The latter likens the US Senate to the European Council rather than to the upper chamber of one of the EU’s states.  Firestone makes a category mistake where he avers that it “may be true that appointed senators, accountable only to state legislators, would never approve of many useful federal mandates designed to put the national interest above local parochialism — including everything from the minimum wage to the new health care reform law.” States commensurate with European kingdoms/countries are not local polities.  Furthermore, reducing the US Government to a “national” interest ignores the semi-sovereign nature of the states (and thus the international principles in the design of the US Senate as opposed to the US House, which is national in nature).

Firestone seems to misunderstand what the US Senate is.  In referring to returning to having the state legislatures appoint their delegates to the US Senate as an “elitist notion,” Firestone forgets that state legislators are elected by the people and in fact have smaller electorates than do US House or Senate members.  Empowering state legislators would ironically be to bring power back closer to the people.  ”Senate candidates have to raise so much money to run that they become beholden to special interests,” Tea Party members say according to Firestone.  The members ”argue that state legislators would not be as compromised and would choose senators who truly put their state’s needs first.” That in turn would restore checks and balance to federalism, wherein both the state and federal governments would be checked (by the other). This is not just a matter of state rights; rather, it is a matter of a viable federalism instead of consolidation. As Tim Bridgewater, who ousted Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah as the Republican candidate writes, “We traded senators who represent rights of states for senators who represent the rights of special interest groups.” By rights of the states, one can infer an empowerment of the representatives elected by the people of the states.  Such a change would hardly be anti-democratic or elitist; rather, it would reduce the power of the elitism in Washington DC.  A writer ought to be careful in dogmatically writing that something is ridiculous or unthinkable, for the lack of thought could come back to haunt him or her.  It is clear that Firestone is not very open to the possibility that he could be wrong.  The arrogance of centralized power at an empire-level is truly remarkable, even in its press.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/opinion/01tue4.html?hp

Even though people the world over instinctively recoiled as reports came in of Gadhafi's violent retaliation against Libyan protests on February 21, 2011, the official reaction from the US Government was muted at best. The refusal to act on an intuitive response to immediately remove the Libyan dictator's ability to wantonly kill people resisting his right to rule may have come from concerns that the mounting tumult of a change of government in a major oil-producing region of North Africa could cause even just a disruption in the supply of crude. Indeed, even the mere possibility was prompting a spike in the price of oil (and gas)--what one might call a risk premium. Even the prospect of an ensuing nasty electoral backlash from consumers having to face a possible increase in their largely non-discretionary gas expense was not lost on their elected representative in chief at the White House.  Even five days later, after some serious press on the rising price of gasoline hitting American consumers, the most the president would do is proffer a verbal "demand" from afar that Gadhafi leave Libya.  "When a leader's only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against his own people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule and needs to do what is right for his country by leaving now," the White House said in a statement. The dictator must have been shaking in his boots.  In actuality, Gadhafi had lost his legitmacy to rule five days earlier, and by the day of the statement the American administration could have been actively involved with willing EU states in stopping him inside Libya. Given the progress of the protesters-turned rebels and the behavior of Brent crude that week, the interests of the American consumer (and Western oil companies, as well as the business sector over all) were by then firmly in line with an enforced regime change in Libya.  Oddly, the old dogma of an absolute governmental sovereignty was colluding with an inherently excessive risk-averse corporate political risk methodology to hold America back from acting as midwife to a new political awareness breaking out in the Middle East.

On the day of Gadhafi's self-vaunted shooting spree, Brent crude benchmark vaulted past $108 a barrel (settling at $105.74, a two-year high).  On the following day, it rose to $111.25. On the first day of March, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 168.32 points, or 1.38%, to finish at 12058.02, its third triple-digit decline in the past week. Oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange, already up 6% this year, jumped 2.7% to settle at $99.63 a barrel.  Brent Crude in London hit $115.42 a barrel, the highest settlement since Aug. 27, 2008.The graph below shows the change in oil, though the change looks astounding in part simply because the graph only goes to 15%; were it to go to 100%, the picture might seem less dramatic.

The Wall Street Journal had reported already on February 21st that the rise was "driven by increasing unrest in the Middle East." Specifically, worries that the turmoil in Libya was curtailing output of that country's oil were said to be driving the price climb. However, USA Today cites Darin Newsome, an energy analyst at DTN, as pointing to the role of speculators around the world as propelling the price of oil. "The flow of money plays an enormous role in the direction, speed and volatility of these markets." In fact, the market mechanism itself may be flawed because speculators could push commodity prices out of sync with the underlying supply of the respective commodities. Turmoil in Libya cannot be blamed for the ensuing “creation” of artificial value (such an increase, by the way, had fueled the housing bubble in the US that came in for a hard landing in 2008). In fact, the rise in world oil prices began before the final third of 2010—before the prospect of widespread popular protest in the Middle East was realized. Indeed, the climb during the last third of 2010 looks a lot like that which took place in the first third of 2009 (during a recession). It was not until well into February, 2011, that the turmoil in the Middle East appeared, according to MSNBC, “to pose limited risk to global oil supplies. Neither Tunisia nor Egypt produce oil or gas.” Such “limited risk,” besides being mitigated, cannot very well be projected back well into 2010 to explain the rise in the price of gas.


Incidentally, another interesting feature of this graph is the sustained drop in 2008, before the financial crisis in September (and the U.S. Presidential election in November!).  The “V” pattern at the end of 2008 is classic “electoral.” It suggests that the price of gas may be very attuned to the electoral interests of those in power, and therefore to government policy. My contention in this essay is that this dynamic was alive and well in Washington when Gadhafi was turning on his own people.

In any event, The Wall Street Journal observed on the day after the massacre that rising oil prices "could have big implications for the U.S. economy." Although perhaps overreacting from the day's news, it is true that the price of oil has a big impact on a consumer-driven economy. Energy expenses, like food, are nondiscretionary, Howard Ward of GAMCO Growth Fund told MSNBC. “And they’re now poised to take a bigger share of wages than we’ve seen in several years. That will have a dampening impact on discretionary spending. We still have an economy that is 70 percent consumer spending.” In such an economy, how could politicians turn a blind eye to domestic consumer interests, even at the expense of defending human rights abroad? Arjun Murti, an oil analyst at Goldman Sachs, told The Wall Street Journal that even as people "put so much emphasis on the U.S., . . . what is going on in the rest of the world matters as much if not more."  However, elected representatives are inclined by their desire to stay in power to put world news through the prism of their constituents' pocket-books, and thus to frame foreign policy to protect their consumers. In other words, an elected representative is apt to be more finely attuned to the grievances of his or her electorate than to stopping human rights violations abroad. Perhaps it is such politics that keeps heads of democratic governments from agreeing on an intergovernmental or international military mechanism that would act to stop a regime once it has violently turned on its own people.

Besides the political implications from consumers being even potentially shell-shocked by higher gas prices, the business sector can be expected to be averse to political instability in a region of the world in which so much oil is produced.  This aversion is, in my view, overly risk averse. As MSNBC points out, it is unlikely that any new regime in an oil-producing country would withhold supply as a matter of policy because “any new government would badly need those oil revenues.”  Libya produces only 2% of global supply of crude, and the Saudi-controlled OPEC cartel would make up for any loss.  “OPEC is ready to meet any shortage in supply when it happens,” the Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, said at a news conference after an OPEC meeting, according to The New York Times on February 23rd. “There is concern and fear, but there is no shortage.” In my view, the minister’s statement reflects the excessive risk aversion in corporate political risk departments, for while fear is perfectly understandable for a protester who is being gunned down in the streets, the emotion represents or points to an over-reaction among managers assessing the political risk in financial terms from the vantage point of their carpeted offices in the steel fortresses of the modern cities.

In another piece in The New York Times on February 23rd, Clifford Krauss put forth the argument that the relative quality of Libya’s reserves magnified its importance in the price spike.  Saudi Arabia has more than 4 million barrels in spare capacity, but it includes “heavier grades of crude that are higher in sulfur content and more expensive to refine.” Larry Goldstein, a director of the Energy Policy Research Foundation, an organization partly financed by the oil industry, argues that “Quality matters more than quantity.”  Furthermore, should Europe need to buy sweet crude from Algeria and Nigeria, that could push prices higher. “Nigeria and Algeria are already producing flat out so they can’t come up with another million barrels a day,” Michael Lynch of the Strategic Energy and Economic Research consultancy firm, said. “That means there will be a scramble for lighter crude supplies.” The last time there had been a shortage of sweet crude (in 2007 and early 2008), oil prices soared to more than $140 a barrel, although the cause then was spiraling demand. Moreover, placing quality before quantity seems questionable to me  in looking at supply as it interacts with demand. Furthermore, the analysts are discounting the impact of the Saudis and OPEC to counter for any increase in costs by increasing supply. The New York Times reported on February 23rd that “Tom Kloza, the chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, estimated that the Saudis could pump an additional 1 million to 1.5 million barrels in a matter of days.” Additionally, OPEC has “a reserve capacity to deliver an additional four million to five million barrels to the world markets after several weeks of preparation. That is more than twice the oil that world markets would lose if production were halted completely by unrest in Libya.”  In other words, in the wake of Gadhafi’s massacre as Brent crude hit $110, the business analysts should have realized that the Saudis would have to virtually agree or otherwise go along with any cost-induced spikes. Or course, the political risk analysts have also argued that the Saudi royal family could fall, given the spread of protests throughout the region. To be sure, that is a possibility, but not necessarily as the analysts play it out or with a cut off in Saudi oil.

On March 2nd, The Wall Street Journal ascribed the previous day's market jidders to fears of unrest intensifying in Saudi Arabia as authorities there arrested a prominent Shiite cleric who had been calling for political reforms. "If there are problems in Saudia Arabia, we will feel it and that's causing concern, obviously," said Marc Pado, a U.S. market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald. Also, Iran reported clashes between protestors and security forces in Tehran. Concerning Saudi Arabia, which seems to have been the epicenter for the worry, analysts believed at the time that the political instability in Bahrain meant that Saudi Arabia itself could be at risk. Indeed, the political risk argument may have come down to this contingency.  Kloza points out that unless the unrest were to spread to the streets of Jeddah and Riyadh, “I think it’s a very manageable situation and prices are closer to cresting than they are to exploding higher.” Even he could be overstating the risk, for besides discounting the financial appetite that a republic in Arabia would have in selling oil, his analysis projects too much based on a kinship between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The New York Times article also points to oil experts who argued at the time that the “island nation has a majority Shiite population with cultural and religious ties to the Saudi Shiite minority that lives close to some of the richest Saudi oil fields.” However, there are a number of “ifs” that must first be satisfied before this fuse could have gone off.  For one thing, Saudi oil fields are well defended. Also, that a majority population might do something does not mean that as a minority population it would do likewise (and in a different and much larger country). Were the unrest sweeping the Middle East to hit Saudi Arabia and turn it too into a republic, it would be a part of the broader sweep. In other words, I think the analysts overstate the significance of Bahrain and, moreover, miss the bigger picture (i.e., the transformation of the Middle East into democracies from autocracies). Such a historical transformation of the entire region could well be happening. but that doesn't necessarily mean that a significant sustained cut-off in the supply of oil would result. Indeed, such a conclusion ignores a basic fixture in human nature: greed. It is ironic that political risk analysts in business would miss that element. In short, they are over-reacting via over-projecting.

Going overboard in making projections is one indication of an excessive aversion to risk in a personality.  I suspect that this bias in corporate political risk analysis comes not only from like personalities, but also from corporate culture, which eschews controversy of any sort. In the rarified corporate office, conflicting values are willowed away in favor of the hegemony of efficiency and the associated business technique. This cultural aversion to uncertainty impacts business practice, including political risk analysis. A well-run corporation would have someone in that department saying, in effect, “hey, loosen up, guys.”  When it really is bad, such as it was in September, 2008 when the financial system almost collapsed, business is typically caught off guard just like the rest of us.  In terms of the protests in the Middle East, we can take it to the bank that business was on the side of political stability, and thus, the extant regimes.

The price of oil affects so many industries that virtually any industry can be expected to lobby for foreign policies that give priority to the stability in the status quo (rather than to revolution).  That is, both consumer and business interests could be expected to have pressured elected representatives in the U.S. Government to resist giving too much support to the protesters in the Middle East. For example, President Obama’s policy was that Mubarak should stay in power through the transition even as events in Egypt were rapidly forcing him out of office. Whereas strategic interests such as the Suez canal might have been foremost in Obama’s calculation regarding Egypt, oil, and thus American consumers and business, might have been primary in his muted statements in the wake of Gadhafi’s retaliation. This sets up an interesting dilemma. While the immediate reaction of most people worldwide who were recoiled in horror at the atrocities in Libya on February 21^st was for something to be done right away to stop Gadahfi even if it meant more chaos in the short-run, business political risk analysis proffered an alternative course--that of reducing the turmoil immediately even if that meant retaining Gadhafi in power. Whereas proponents of democracy and human rights viewed the protests in Libya as a good thing, such people would be surprised to find the activity portrayed from the business standpoint in negative terms even in our midst. For example, USA Today reported Peter Beutel, of Cameron Hanover, as saying, "We have all the wrong things working together at the right time: an economic recovery, (stocks) making new highs, a lower dollar, strong seasonal demand and unrest in the heart of oil production" (italics added).  Libyans putting their lives on the line is also unrest in the heart of oil production. It is the starkness in the vector of valuation (i.e., very good vs. very bad) that is striking here. That a person in one house could have been viewing the spreading protests in the Middle East as instantiating a much overdue development in government while a person next door was disdainful of all the unrest attests to how differently the same event can be viewed.

 From the standpoint of the environment of international business, standing on human rights is not as much of a priority as an observer might want. In other words, what is good for GM is not necessarily good for the world.  The theory that increasing international business (e.g., trade and foreign direct investment) leads to or guarantees peace suddenly looks insufficient as a sufficient philosophy of international business.  An implication is that if corporate lobbyists have real sway over governments, the latter can be expected to shy away from policies and actions that would increase short-term political instability even where such turmoil were a good thing from the standpoint of democracy and human rights. Politicians who allow themselves to be controlled by corporate executives can be expected to overstate stability and shortchange leadership (and real change).  It may be that even the very existence of large corporations in a republic could thus be problematic from this standpoint. Corporations, and even ironically elected representatives, may be predisposed to advocate policies that are at odds with expanding democracy in the world.

In general terms, I contend that both toady politicians and the timid business executives who do not want to rock the boat for financial reasons are short-sighted even by their own rather narrow criteria.  In the case of Libya, were an overwhelming multinational military force to have descended on Libya as Gadhafi's men were ravaging Libyans on the streets rather than waiting for the U.N. Security Council to act, Gadhafi could have been stopped in his tracks in short order and thus order and civilians preserved (i.e., oil supplies undisturbed and a slaughter averted). Of course, as with any military action, things can go wrong.  To be sure, military action is always risky. For example, Gadhafi could sabotage the Libyan oil wells as Saddam did in Iraq in the first Gulf War (1992). However, the failure of the world to take first initiative could have given Gadhafi time to set up explosives ready at the touch of a finger in Tripoli. Indeed, there were reports on the day following the massacre of Gadhafi intending to blow up the oil wells anyway.  So the destruction of Libyan oil production could have come either from the world acting or failing to act in the wake of Gadafhi's violence against the protesters. Given the ambiguity of such risk, corporate political risk analysis would probably still come down in favor of retaining Gadhafi because the status quo is typically presumed to proffer the most stability. This I would call the fallacy of the status quo, which I believe dominates bureaucratic and state department thinking.

Instead of placing corporate political risk analysis on center stage, I submit that business is not the focal point of society (or politics). At the societal level, the hub and spokes stakeholder framework must be replaced by a web-structure wherein there is no central entity. Corporate political risk analysis from this broader perspective should be consulted without being allowed to become dominate. Therefore, governments around the world ought to overcome the presssure from their respective corporate political risk analyses in favor of human rights to place real limits on governmental sovereignty backed up by an international or multinational force on permanent stand-by, with a mechanism for activation agreed to before any occasion.  Such a leap would of course take principled leadership. Such leadership could be partially reconciled with more immediate strategic political interests by making the mechanism go into effect after the present term of office. While not optimal, this method would indeed deliver (eventually). 

Hence, even after five days of carnage in Libya and worsening volitility and price spiking of oil, as well as gasoline and jet fuel, at the expense of the American consumer and business firm, the Obama administration--the regime of real change--could only muster a statement and a freezing of assets. "When a leader's only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against his own people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule and needs to do what is right for his country by leaving now." It would be almost a month after Gadahfi had turned on his protesting people that the U.N.'s Security Council brought itself to act in authorizing all necessary means for member countries who want to step in to protect civilians in Libya. By that time, the protesters had become armed rebels and Gadafhi's military had been on the roll, killing rebels and civilians alike. A clean cut would have been better than a period of indecision.

Sources:

Jerry DiColo and Brian Baskin, "A Stealth Comeback for $100 Crude Oil," The Wall Street Journal, February 22, 2011, pp. C1, C3.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704506004576173961240139414.html?mod=ITP_moneyandinvesting_0

Gary Strauss, "If Unrest Spreads, Gas May hit $5", USA Today, February 22, 2011, p. AI.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41739499/ns/business-personal_finance/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/business/energy-environment/24oil.html?_r=1&hp

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/business/global/23oil.html?ref=todayspaper

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41785849/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/africa/18nations.html?hp

United Russia, the party led by Prime Minister Putin, decided in August, 2010 not to submit the name of the governor of Kaliningrad, Georgy V. Boos, for reappointment. The decision appeared to put pressure on governors to do more to ensure the satisfaction of those they govern, or to at least keep a lid on dissent. Governors had been popularly elected in Russia until a 2004 decree by Mr. Putin, then Russia’s president, that gave the president responsibility for appointing them. In that decree, the president is to select governors from a list of candidates drawn up by the governing party. Critics have said that the practice has made governors beholden to the Kremlin and insensitive to the popular sentiments. This can be problematic on two grounds.

In an empire-scale polity the size of Russia, which is inherently diverse,  insensitivity to popular sentiments can create pressure that could cause the federation to eventually explode. Being geographically separted from the rest of Russia and comparable to a small country, Kaliningrad is undoubtedly in a position to have expectations arise from its people concerning some extend of self-governance. As Russia treats its constituent republics like a republic’s provinces, the people in the republics are likely to take offense and demand more in terms of self-governance more in line with that of the EU’s states.

Secondly, the appointment power evinces a democracy deficit. The inability to elect governors was one of the central grievances when 10,000 people protested in Kaliningrad in January, 2010 to call for Mr. Boos’s ouster. Konstantin Doroshok, the head of the Kaliningrad branch of the opposition group, Spravedlivost, said of United Russia’s decision to deny the governor a second terms, “On the other hand, it is important to understand that the people have not been given the most important thing: the real opportunity to independently elect governors.” To the extent that the protest was over the constitutional change rather than Georgy Boos in particular, United Russia may have taken the wind out the Baltic sails without having to directly address the raison d’etre of the complaint. Even so, the pressure for more self-governance is likely to intensify in Russia’s republics. In excessively consolidating, Russia may go the way of the USSR.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/world/europe/17russia.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=russia&st=cse

The UN’s Electoral Complaints Commission recommended in 2009 that Afganistan’s Independent Election Commission invalidate 210 polling stations where the ECC found “clear and convincing evidence of fraud.”  The IEC in turn announced a run-off election because Karzai no longer had over 50% of the vote.  MSNBC reported that “the Karzai-influenced election commission may refuse to call for a runoff.” CNN reported that Karzai and Abdullah were trying to “cut some sort of deal” on a coaliation government that would have obviated, or skirted, a run-off.  Such a compromise would have been woefully inadequate from the standpoint of democratic process.

Even Karzai’s announcement that he would go along with a run-off can be read as presumptuous.  If he didn’t want to go along with it, he need not have taken part.  That one candidate’s feels his refusal to participate would or should cancel an election suggests a rather squalid presumptuousness that ought to be made transparent to the voters.  It is a sad commentary on representative democracy that the Afghan IEC’s decision was probably dependent on Karzai having been under international pressure to agree to the run-off.   Is it too idealist to insist that the candidate should have been informed by the IEC of its decision rather than permitting it?   For one of the candidates to have had a de facto veto on the election commission evinces a lack of democratic infrastructure.  It is like a cart pulling the horse.

In retrospect, we know that Karzai’s victory was fraudulent, even though he continued on in the campaign as a viable candidate.  What does it say when fraud is not punished?  Is having a run-off sufficient punishment?  Were all of the candidates benefitting from the fraud tossed out and a new open election held, would this be so catastrophic? I contend that the protests that occurred in the Middle East in 2011 for greater democracy can be interpreted as having been occassioned by years of frustration stemming from the sort of electoral facade perpetuated by dictators such as Karzai.  If so, the costs of not nipping electoral fraud in the bud far outweight any trouble involved in insisting on electoral accountability.  In the case of the U.S., foreign aid to Afghanistan could have been cut off in 2009 unless or until an open and fair election could be verified. With such a substantive signal given and repeated with regard to other dictators in the Middle East who were using the facade of democracy for legitimacy, some of the mass protests taking place two years later might have been obviated and lives saved that were otherwise lost.

Sources:
http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/10/23/karzai-challenger-prefers-opposition-to-coalition/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33394277/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

One might argue that federalism gets in the way of solving problems that are simply too important to go unsolved.  In short, the argument is that federalism impedes progress on important issues. State to state differences should not be tolerated, he argues, where important needs are involved. “Resources and die-hard beliefs in the role of local government vary too much from state to state” for us to trust State government to deal satisfactorally with grave problems.   I suspect this view is widely held today.

In response, I would argue that the choice of a governance system should only partly be determined by the ease by which particular problems are solved.  In designing the U.S. Government to include a separation of power between the three branches, the delegates in the constitutional convention of 1787 were looking to thwart the solution of problems by the Union’s general government.  In addition to fearing tyranny from a consolidation of power into a few hands, they believed that the functions of that government should be limited because the state legislators are closer to the people, and thus better as republics.  Rather than being problematic,  differences between the States (generically), or republics (more specifically), are natural.  Given the scale involved in many of the States alone, how could a Union of many such republics be anything but inherently diverse?  To ignore the differences and impose one solution on all is artificial and likely to build up pressure for eventual dissolution.  Such pressure can unwittedly be built out of ignorance.   So “ease in solving problems” may actually be antithetical to the criteria we want for designing our system of governance spanning a continent. I would argue, moreover, that it is short-sighted to re-orient a system of governnance to the whims of what is best for handling particular problems of the day.  To subject long-term viability to the vissitudes of the day is to subject one’s posterity to ruin.

One could also point out that federalism is a historical means to forming the Union and is therefore antiquated (as the Union is now formed).  Some of the delegates to the constitutional convention would argue that they had to put up with the continued existence of the States simply due to the politics (i.e., the intractability of the delegates defending their respective States).   Certainly Hamilton would have preferred to do away with the States—replacing them with administrative districts of the federal government.  I believe that a significant number of Americans today share Hamilton’s view.  If this sentiment is dominant among the citizens, we should give serious thought to a constitutional convention for the purpose of replacing federalism with consolidation, officially through an amendment.  Even though I believe that this option is not compatible with having a republic at the Union level, if a super-majority wants to change our system of governance, it should be changed (assuming a “constitutional moment” of reflection and debate on the proposal).

I do not believe that federalism was merely used as a political means of achieving agreement on the creation of a general government.  As I have written in another post, the diversity spanning an empire-scale polity can be accommodated by federalism.  Some large States are sufficiently large in themselves that they have diversity that could justify a federal system.  Consider, for example, California and Illinois.  Each of these republics is sufficiently diverse in its provinces that federalism could accommodate the different cultures and bring legislation that is more fitting and less compromised for all concerned.   That new States have been added to the Union since its founding—some of the last of which being quite different culturally from the others (e.g., HI and AK)—means that there could be even more diversity within the Union today than when it was founded (assuming that transportation and communications technology has not totally overridden the diversity inherent in the territorial scale of empire).  Paradoxically, the need for federalism could be more pressing today.  I have already argued that republic principles may be stretched too thin at the empire scale.  This, plus the matter of accommodating diversity within the empire, strongly points to the utility of restoring federalism. 

Finally, someone could say something like,  ”I believe in the power of each State, but I have NO confidence in the people” running the State governments.”  This point may resonate with the extant condition of state government today in the United States. That is, the eclipse of the State governments has almost certainly had an impact on the quality of the representatives the State level.  Do the best and brightest really want to work in a legislature that has been reduced to considering by and large local government issues?  What sort of person would agree to campaign for a rather impotent position?   The situation now is markedly different than in the revolutionary period, when the preference of the best and brightest of the politicians was to serve their respective countries.   Even as late as 1860, General Lee felt obliged to fight for his native Virginia—turning down Lincoln’s request that he fight for the U.S. Government.   So presumably were a balance of power restored such that State governments would have real power over the issues that really concern us, we might find the quality of our State reps improve.  We might have better candidates to choose from, and we might take more interest in their campaigns.  So I would argue that the enervated conditon of State government today should not be taken as indicative of how such government would look were it restored to a balance of power with the U.S. Government. For example, were the National Governor's Association given a formal role in determining American foreign policy, we might see better candidates running for governor.

In closing, I want to note that being in a large Union that is inherently diverse does require a certain amount of tolerance for regional differences.  “Not trusting” a State’s people who have a different understanding of government or who feel a different way on a problem is not consistent with having a Union.  That is to say, we won’t last as a Union if a dominant faction in one region imposes its ideology on States in other regions spanning the continent.  A certain humility is necessary.  Of course,  a Union has certain bed-rock common principles (in our case, representative democracy, for example) that delimit certain behavior and laws (e.g., holding other races in slavery).   The problem is the slippery slope wherein one uses “common principles” to impose one’s own ideology and the natural diversity spanning a continental Union is not accommodated.   The people of a republic will naturally want out if their way of life is imposed upon without justification.   In short, being in a Union requires having a sufficient tolerance that can admit that not every State is going to solve your important problems in the way you want.   I suspect that this Union has lost too much of this tolerance (contributing to divisive partisanship at the federal level).   One size fits all over a polity spanning across a continent (and beyond!) is likely to involve bitter partisanship because people view the approach as all or none.   To be sure, there may not be sufficient tolerance anymore among Americans to allow for a viable system of federalism.  Moreover, federalism itself is not perfect, so debate on it could lead to a decision by the popular sovereign to make the United States officially consolidated.  In my view, however, such a debate is urgently needed, for otherwise the American people will continue to live a consolidated lie under the rubric of federalism on parchment.

A constitutional moment engaging the citizenry is urgently needed with respect to the system of government in the United States. In short, the citizenry should decide, as a people, whether to revert back to a federal system or to make the political consolidation that has ensued official. If the latter, Alexander Hamilton's suggestion that the states be districts of the US Government, whose energy he thought could not directly extend to the outer reaches of the empire (i.e., into the wilderness of states distant from the seat of the U.S. Government). This was Hamilton's view in the U.S. Constitutional Convention; his writings eventually published in The Federalist Papers were meant to sell the proposed constitution rather than to give his own proposal. His own view may have come to pass, though through incremental Congressional encroachment on the turf of the governments of the several states and concurring U.S. Supreme Court assuaging (or enabling) doctrines.  I submit that this process of change over many years has eventuated in a gap between the system of governance as it is and as it is to be constitutionally.  Whereas some people argue that we must revert back to the constitution following a "strict" construction, I believe we the people, as a people, should commence a constitutional moment of heightened attention and debate concerning whether we want centralized consolidation (i.e., no states), decentralized consolidation (i.e., states as districts), or federalism (which entails dual sovereignty and a balance of power between the general government and the governments of the states).  I believe the latter is the best suited for an inherently diverse empire-scale political union, but that the people reach a decision is the imporant point now.  For otherwise, we will continue to live a lie--to claim to be a federal system while actually being consolidated: essentially flying with miscalibrated instruments. 

Actually making a decision on the type of political system is better than having the system inadvertantly change as a byproduct of whatever issue is being legislated at the moment. If the latter habit continues, I suspect that the United States will continue along the trend of consolidation at the expense of the State governments, with Congress, the U.S. President, and the U.S. Supreme Court gaining more and more power without sufficient checks on their abuse of power.  Progressives could look back on Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court allowing President George W. Bush to essentially declare war on Iraq and command the forces, while conservatives could look back on "Obamacare" applying to every state. Being concerned about the government of the Union having too much power is or ought to be an American proclivity. So too, the need for a decision on what type of political system the United States should have bears on every citizen, regardless of party.  This is what a constitutional moment is, after all; the people itself rising to discuss the system of government itself without being distracted by partisan issues of the day. To be sure, such a moment requires self-discipline among the people and responsibility in the media, so to keep on topic.

I find myself wondering why I even make the arguments.  It would take so much energy and agreement just to get to a constitutional moment wherein the citizenry as a whole become engaged in revisiting the governance system itself.  We are so easily distracted, and do we, as a citizenry, really care whether our government is federal or consolidated?   It might be that most of the citizenry is ready to say good riddence to federalism.  If so, then so be it.  Let’s at least make a decision.  If we as a people are incapable of making such a decision, it might be asked whether we are capable of democracy itself. It would be ironic if we were preaching democracy to the Middle East while not embracing popular sovereignty here at home.

On February 17, 2011, The New York Times ran two major stories that have a common denominator: angry protesters. Bahrain and Wisconsin are not typically thought of together.  Bahrain is a small kingdom in the Middle East whereas Wisconsin is a large republic in North America. In mid February, 2011, both were enveloped in protest at their respective capital cities.

In Manama, Bahrain, the army took control on February 17th; on the following day, the military would use automatics against a group of protesters. Before the army had taken control of much of the capital city, the police had opened fired on protesters camped in Pearl Square--that occurred a day after the king had said that the protesters could use that park to express themselves. According to The New York Times on February 17th, "As the army asserted control of the streets with tanks and heavily armed soldiers, the once- peaceful protesters were transformed into a mob of angry mourners chanting slogans like 'death to the king,' while the opposition withdrew from the Parliament and demanded that the government step down."  In short, violence had turned on peaceful protest, turning the capital city into a near warzone, and that situation was repeated the next day.  From the standpoint of the protests in Madison on February 17th, the scene of carnage in Manama would have been difficult to imagine. My thesis is simply that the difference should not be overdrawn, as both the people in Manama and Madison are human, all too human, and thus able to engage in similar actions.

In Madison, protesters had begun protesting on February 16th. I happened to be in Madison on that first day and I witnessed the protest. On the 17th, the protesters were congregating at the seat of government when opposition walked out of the Senate (and in fact out of Wisconsin). With the majority party one person short of a quarum in the Senate, the walkout on Walker (i.e., the governor: the head of state and chief executive of Wisconsin) left his the bill reducing benefits for public employees and restricting their unions' collective bargaining rights to wage negotiations (up to the rate of inflation in Wisconsin) in limbo. The New York Times reported on February 17th that "Walker’s plan was upending life in the capital city."  On the 18th, the paper reported that on the previous evening as the rallies against the bill grew, "(p)eople screamed: 'Shut it down! Shut it down!' Drums pounded. Students, some barefoot, danced." This description is more revealing than one might suppose at first glance.

Even though the protesters in Madison can be distinguished as a group from the protesters in Manama, the protesting Wisconsinites should not be treated as a homogenious mass. In fact, the presence of out-of-state university students broadened the protest beyond Wisconsin. Furthermore, although some of the students were doubtless deeply involved in labor issues, many of the students I saw on their way to the protest on the 16th looked excited rather than angry. Some even had little pictures painted on their faces as though they were going to a summer art festival or rock concert. Later in the week, a large drum circle took shape inside the capitol. At times protesters seemed more concerned by what they regarded as insufficient attention on them by the national media than by their cause. It's all about me! Watch me! That is not a true revolutionary attitude.

The more disgruntled, personally-invested protesters (i.e., actual workers) might have been mobilized by the unions that would receive less in union dues if public workers had the right to withhold union dues (a feature of the proposed bill). In other words, greed rather than anger might have been motivating some of the protest organizers even if most of the unionized protesters were motivated by principle. Also, in addition to teachers attending on principle, schools may well have organized their students to attend as a group. Before lunchtime on the 16th, I witnessed a very large number of students walking from their school to the capitol. Their presence seemed organized; that is, I had the sense that the students had not spontaneously self-organized themselves; moreover, they seemed excited about the cancellation of classes and hence no quizzes (remember how that felt?) and stimulated by all the excitement in downtown Madison. None of the high school students I saw looked angry.  Looking at them, I noticed the party atmosphere--far from a revolution in the works. 

Therefore, lots of agendas (including the labor-protecting one that was passed on by the media) went into the protests in Madison. My point is not that the protesters were somehow fakers; I did not get that sense from watching them, and I saw many (especially the workers themselves) who were protesting on behalf of the right to collectively bargain. Rather, my point here is that things that are notably different may look like one fuzzy blob from a distance (i.e., through the media). Just as it is easy to conflate the various segments at a distance into one angry mass, it might seem like the protests in Madison were essentially like those that were taking place in Manama at the same time. I argue this point first, after which I suggest some underlying potential commonalities based on human nature and political organization generally.

In terms of being different, shutting down the Senate temporarily is a far cry from a revolution wherein an entire government is to be permanently shut down and replaced. Treating the passage of a bill as though it were a matter of life and death smacks of hyperbole. Responding to the flight of the democratic senators, for example, Senator Scott Fitzgerald said, “This is the ultimate shutdown.” Well, no, Senator; the ultimate shutdown was occurring in Tunesia, Egypt and Libya. What was going in Wisconsin was not revolution even if that language may have served the protesters' various purposes. The difference between the two protests can be appertained by contrasting college students in Madison dancing barefoot while protesters in Manama were facing live gun-fire. Screaming "[temporarily] shut it down!" is not like screaming "stop shooting at me!!!" Protesting for a real revolution seems like a world away from protesting to "stop the bill." Accordingly, the pictures below of the protest in Madison show a scene remarkably unlike the one above of the violence on the same day in Manama.


In Madison, the likelihood that the protests would turn violent was perceived on both sides as being so remote that protesters were allowed inside the capitol building, where all three branches of the Government of Wisconsin are situated.


Whereas the police and military in Manama were mobilized on the 17th to remove protesters from a city park, the Wisconsin National Guard (the military) was nowhere to be seen as protesters engulfed even the capitol building itself in Madison. Even when the capitol police wanted to clear the building for cleaning on the Sunday of the second week, the protests were able to remain. In fact, the Wisconsin National Guard had been notified by the government of possible activation not to protect the government from the protesters or to clear them, but, rather, to step in to perform vital governmental functions should the public employees go on strike. In short, the image of college students--pre-inclined to join any protest on the left while studying at a historically progressive (yet internally corrupt) university--dancing barefoot as "angry protesters" in a seat of government is difficult to reconcile with the pictures we have seen of protesters in the Middle East getting shot at and carried to hositals. I wouldn't blame one of the real protesters for shaking one of those students and saying, "Hey, this is serious!" 

Why were the protests in Madison so different on the surface from those in Manama? Why did the drama turn Madison into "a political circus," according the USA Today, while mourning protesters (and even the medics trying to help them) were getting shot at? My knee-jerk explanation is that the tradition of democracy and protest that had by 2011 been so engrained in Wisconsin that no one there would have suspected in February of 2011 that violence would erupt. Furthermore, in spite of there being a protester's sign displayed at the protests in Madison identifying Gov. Walker in Wisconsin with Pres. Mubarak in Egypt in "One Down, One To Go," the Wisconsin protesters' goals did not reach toppling the republican legislature and chief executive, or even the form of government itself.  This said, I contend nevertheless that the disjunction or dichotomy between the protests-to-violence in Manama and the protests-as-festival in Madison is in part illusionary. Imagine, for example, some blue coller unionists in the capitol building suddenly losing their cool and pushing against the police and the latter over-reacting.  Imagine how quickly the barefoot dancing would turn to horror amid real-time images at point-blank range of blood and open wounds. Suddenly, the stakes would get very real--yet I suspect that the protesters would still shink from demanding an actual revolution wherein the government itself would be deposed or overthrown. In other words, the distance between Madison and Manama would have been narrowed, but not eliminated.

The inhabitants in the United States are muffled from the starker political protests that go on in other regions of the world; so much of the status quo is presumed in the U.S. Also, the difference between a real dictatorship and the republic form of government, and the difference between the political culture of Bahrain and that of Wisconsin make a difference, to be sure. However, a political protest by a mob is inherently unstable; the police and military in Wisconsin were just as capable of violence as were the police and military in Bahrain.  This point is often lost on people living in a society whose political system has been stable for over a century.

Just a week before the protests, a Madison police officer had been dismissed for "overbearing, oppressive, or tyrannical conduct." Visiting Madison for the day on February 16th, I personally witnessed similar conduct by a policeman. Having no idea why there was a crowd at the capitol, I walked to one of the street baracades to ask a Madison policeman. I started chatting with him lightheartedly about the protest.  He told me that 40 buses were on their way from across Wisconsin, and I mentioned my thought that government is indeed more accessable to a Wisconsinite in Wisconsin than in Washington, D.C., so it makes sense to me that more domestic policy should be decided by the Wisconsin Government (and less by the General Government). I wasn't sure what the policeman thought of my mini-lecture on federalism, so I did not belabor my point.  In the context of the noise from the protesters, I then mentioned offhandedly what I had heard earlier that day from some local residents concerning the local apartment building owners and managers being unethical with deposits and  regularly ignoring complaints by their adult tenants about drunk college students regularly disturbing them in the middle of the night. I told the policeman that I was surprised that the property owners and students get away with the collusion there. Furthermore, I said I would have thought that the police department would have come down on the local property owners for not being responsible in managing their buildings. The policeman's reaction was, frankly speaking, pathological and excessive. He  began quickly walking away from me, stating in an aggressive tone, "I don't know about that case! WE ARE DONE HERE."  While he was walking away from me as though he had temporarily lost impulse control, I tried to remind him that I had said that the local property owners were the corrupt parties in those cases--that the police had simply not broken up the collusion between them and the drunk college students.  I had not mentioned a particular case, so I was surprised by the irrationality of his apparent need to assert his ignorance of any particular case. His assumption, in other words, was way off (and his emotional reaction was excessive), and yet he had the gun.  This is what really concerned me. Additionally, his reaction itself, being disproportionate, could have been an indication of guilt concerning the existence of a cozy relationship between the local property owners and his department. In short, I was left to question an on-duty policeman's state of mind and impulse control, ironically as I walked in the direction of the "angry" protesters. A friendly chat amid the festivity of the protesters had quickly turned on me, and in a most irrational and bizarre way. I could see how the police, whether from incompetence, psychological make-up, or corruption, could feel themselves justified in suddenly attacking protesters based on some imagined provocation. In other words, I could visualize Madison becoming more like the capitals such as Manama in the Middle East. However, such a visualization could not gain much traction due to the very different political contexts.

On Saturday, February 19th, Tea Party and pro-labor activists protested peaceably outside the seat of government of the republic of Wisconsin, while "Libyan forces opened fire on mourners leaving a funeral for protesters Saturday in the flashpoint city of Benghazi." Both were simultaneous front-page stories on msnbc.com (and CNN)--the Libyan death toll from protests reaching 100 due to the 15 killed on that Saturday, while Wisconson senators were praising the lack of any violence in five days of mass protest. The contrast could not be starker. Besides the obvious difference in violence, protecting the bargaining power of public-sector unions in a republic is a world away from deposing a dictator.



Even so, the potential of an underlying common denominator based on human nature, from which violence is possible at any large protest, should not be so easily dismissed even where there are limited aims, a mitigating poltical culture, and a relatively open political system. To support this point, I now turn to the matter of the more fundamental substratum existing in the concurrent protests in Madison and Manama (Sana, Yemen and Benghazi, Libya could easily be substituted here for Manama).

For one thing,  Madison may not have been any less corrupt than Manama at the time of the concurrent protests. Apart from the progressive students that the university there is known for, the city itself is rather provincial.  For example, La Follette remarks in the preface of his autobiography that the political boss in Madison was quite corrupt and exclusionary. In the 1930s, the inside group in the city government twice thwarted the will of the people expressed in two referendums that Frank Lloyd Wright's plan for a city building on one of the city lakes be built (Monona Terrace was finally built in the 1990s). The reason, according to a PBS documentary on Wright, was that the city "leaders" didn't like him. Similarly, in the early 1990s one of the dean's offices at the university in Madison lied to a professor up for tenure in the early 1990s about the result of his tenure vote (which I believe is a felony) simply because some people at the university didn't like him. Even twenty years later, academics warn about the vindictive politics at that university. Even faculty at the university talk openly of the corruption. For example, one spoke openly to colleagues at other universities about having complained in utter futility to the university's chancellor about the chief of the university's police department notifying students' parents of the respective students' criminal records with the department (which is against privacy laws). The chancellor apparently told the professor that he didn't want to go up against the lesbian. A fish rots from the head down. So it should not be surprising that physicians from the university's hospital (or medical school) were blatantly handing out fake sick notes outside the capitol to local teachers who had called in sick to join the protests. The ends justify the means every time, right?  Perhaps it could even be said that the violence at the Vietnam War protests at the university in the late 1960s were stoked by (and perhaps an unconscious vent releasing pressure from) the stolid corruption in the university's administration. In short, the city (and the University of Wisconsin) may suffer from a corrupt insider element that does not feel itself constrained either by fairness or the law, and this could potentially sow the seeds for revolution. The seed, after all, is in the harvest.
That Wisconsin is a republic (i.e. a policy characterized by representative democracy) whereas Bahrain was a kingdom at the time does not mean that abuse of power by public authorities was not possible in either polity. Moreover, the problems in Wisconsin at the time of the protests there likely went far beyond the Wisconsin Republican Party imposing its will against the entrenched unions and state employees. Judging from the extent of corruption in Madison at the time, the protesters there were probably not going far enough in their demands. For one thing, the firing of the chief of police could quite reasonably have been added to their demands. Such a demand would move Madison closer to the protesters at the time in the Middle East. Outside Sana University in Yemen, for example, a few hundred people complained on February 17th of corruption and poor government services. According to USAToday, Mouath Hamed, for example, said that corruption was killing Yemen. Also unlike the protesters in Madison, the protesters in Sana  declared, "This is the beginning of the revolution," and they faced sticks and electro-shock weapons as the students in Madison danced barefoot. To the extent that Madison was similarly corrupt, there was the potential for such protest (and governmental response) there too. Had that potential been realized, I suspect the students would not have been dancing barefoot for long.

The capital city of a republic can be so corrupt that protesters in such a city should demand mass resignations of  entrenched, corrupt and incompetent civil servants in order to clean up the people's house. It could be objected that my American cultural bias shows through here; to expand protest demands merely to include getting rid of civil servants can be labeled as an Americanization of what in terms of the Middle East protests would include the ouster of top government officials and the cessation of extant constitutions. To be sure, the American constitutions are already democratic. However, it is only to the extent that a constitution really is democratic that it can be expected to not be treated by protesters like a constitution in the Middle East that props up a dictator. For instance, to the extent that office-holders in a republic can protect themselves as entrenched incumbants from the electoral check afforded to the people by a democratic constitution, the protests of the people could come to approximate those in a dictatorship, even in America. That is to say, the curtain of political stability that we presume distinguishes us from them could be ripped down the middle if the corruption continues to get worse. Depending on the salience of popular sovereignty in the American republics, it is possible that the sort of demands made by the protesters in the Middle East could be carried by westerly winds and take root in the United States. I am not advocating such protests because they risk the total collapse of civic order. Also, unlike dictatorships, republics can perhaps repair themselves without such violence. Even so, I acknowledge that fundamental protest that treats the system of governance itself as illegitimate--"Shut it down for good!"--could take root in any of the United States if sufficient public frustration builds up amid the hubris of wealth and power.

Furthermore, I assert that the potential for such protest was latent even in the barefoot-dancing (and drumming) protest in Madison even though that protest was (shortsighted in being) limited to defeating a bill. Wisconsin really would have shaken things up in the United States had the removal of corruption there and the associated  entrenched  public  authorites been the key demand. While some of the protesters did seem to have sufficient gumption (or partisanship) to protest until the head of the government resigned, even such a demand would have been viewed as too unrealistic (or radical) by most of the "progressive" protesters themselves in the land of La Follette. A real revolution must go beyond partisan-ship to clean house rather than merely rearrange deck chairs.  One would like to think that representa-tive democracy obviates such spring cleaning. However, no political system is perfect.

Abstractly speaking, human political nature is a constant in the human race; accordingly, the potential for escalation and ensuing violence should not be summarily dismissed on the basis of an assumed sui generis American civic culture that is somehow immune from revolution. In the American context, the driver to watch is the extent to which the corruption of wealth entrenches itself in the halls of government at the expense of government of, by and for the people. Public officials desirious of favors, good relations, friendship, or money are tempted to develop cozy relationships with entrenched private property interests at the expense of the public good and justice. At the time of their respective protests at least, Madison and Manama may not have been so different in this regard. Therefore, even though the pictures of the respective protests in Manama and Madison clearly suggest marked differences in the nature of the protests, the underlying dynamic might have been more alike than the barefoot dancers in Wisconsin could have known, for they were generally blind in their festivity to the true corruption in their midst. It is far easier to see corruption in the other's yard than on one's own street.

In summary, America is not an island isolated from human nature. We are not so exceptional or protected as the political culture we have built up may suggest to us.  As incredible as it may seem, both in terms of aims and governmental reaction, the protests that were spreading throughout the Middle East in early 2011 could manifest at some time manifest in any of the United States. It is not as though American public-private liasons are so pristine or salubrious that fundamental protest could not take root. We are not so different--not so immune--as we might suppose. It may be that the Tea Party included traces of this more fundamental level of protest in the 2010 election season in declaring that the U.S. Government had gone beyond its constitutional authority in certain respects and was to that extent illegitimate as a government. It should not be lost on any of us that the subterranean human political dynamic stemming from human nature can surface at any time, anywhere. Specifically, the human proclivity to engage in corruption and even violence and to protest arrogant governmental encroachment on human liberty are the real dynamics going on under the surface anytime, anywhere, there is political authority and mass political protest.  A political culture can moderate this dynamic only to a certain extent, even if appearances seem to say otherwise. Any type of government invented by man is mortal, and flawed, being constructed by and inhabited by human beings. Likewise, human nature is mortal, and flawed. The interaction of political organization and human nature cannot be segmented by region or political system such that one area or type is somehow different, or safe from the latent violence that is almost inherent in the interaction itself. So the protests in Madison and Manama were in some important ways very distinct, but in a more fundamental sense they were made of the same stuff--albeit realized outwardly differentially because of the different types of polity and cultures.

In the end, good government is based on caritas seu benevolentia universalis (higher human love, that is, universal benevolence) rather than privilege and partiality. The people of any polity have the right and  responsiblity to insist that the people they put in authority over them use their power on the basis of compassion rather than corruption.

Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/world/middleeast/18bahrain.html?hp

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/us/17wisconsin.html?ref=todayspaper

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/02/16/us/WISCONSIN-8.html (poster of Mubarak and Walker at the protests in Wisconsin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/us/19wisconsin.html?pagewanted=2&hp

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_1a175cce-30c3-11e0-b614-001cc4c03286.html  (on the psychology/corruption in the Madison police dept)

Iona Craig, "Protests Spread, Worsen in Middle East," USA Today, February 18, 2011, p. 8A.

Dennis Cauchon, "In Wis., Pitched Battle by Unions," USA Today, February 18, 2011, p. 1A.

Concurrent lead stories on protests in Libya and Wisconsin on February 19, 2011:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41658587/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41664858/ns/us_news-life/
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/02/19/rights-group-estimates-84-killed-libya-protests/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/19/saturdays-protests-wisconsin-expected-biggest/

On La Follette of Wisconsin, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._La_Follette,_Sr.

Perhaps by looking back on one's own time as though it were already historical, it is possible to assess whether what one is witnessing on the global stage is truly significant from the standpoint of human history or merely of that which history is replete. In the context of the popular protests in the Middle East in early 2011, the question is perhaps whether the world was witnessing a Hegelian burst of freedom or merely more of the same in terms of political revolutions.

According to The New York Times, popular movements were "transforming the political landscape of the Middle East" in the wake of the protests in Tunesia and Egypt.  For example, in Bahrain, "as in Tunisia and Egypt, modest concessions from the government [were] only raising expectations among the protesters, who by day’s end [on February 15, 2011] were talking about tearing the whole system down, monarchy and all."  The prime minister, Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, the king’s uncle, had been in office for 40 years. Accordingly, the protesters were asking not only for the release of political prisoners, but also "the creation of a more representative and empowered Parliament, the establishment of a constitution written by the people and the formation of a new, more representative cabinet."

The New York Times placed the protests in Bahrain in the wider context of the protests that had recently occurred in Tunesia and Egypt. The Bahrain protests, "inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, have altered the dynamics in a nation where political expression has long been tamed by harsh police tactics and prison terms." (italics added)  However, it was not clear at the time of the protests whether the thread of inspiration was determinative to such an extent that the landscape of the Middle East itself would be transformed as a result. In allowing the protests, the king of Bahrain may have assumed that he could stay in control and thereby reduce the strength of the "inspiration" by giving the protesters some space to do their thing and presumably get it out of their system. However, Ibrahim Matar, an opposition member of Parliament who joined the crowd of protesters, said, “Now the people are the real players, not the government, not the opposition.” It is interesting that he dismissed his own movement (i.e., the opposition) rather than trying to take credit for the uprising.  If Matar was correct, the spread of protests throughout the Middle East had the wherewithal to fundamentally change the means by which people would be governed in the region. That is, the protests could have been a transformative wave wherein people finally had within their sight the possibility that government could be of and by the people. The revolutions in Tunesia and Egypt would not have been isolated incidents in a long world history of sporatic revolutions without autocratic government itself being expunged from the tired face of the earth. The question that captivated the world watching the Egyptians protest was whether something different might have been going on. 

Whereas the twentieth century had hosted technological change on many fronts, political development was not among the areas of progress. When the twenty-first century had gained enough of its own years to claim its own time, the question may have become whether the human race was  ripe then for a leap in political development. If so, the trigger would not be in the democratic nations that preach representative democracy; rather, it would be in the people themselves who had lived under autocratic rule. It is as though there were a spreading suddent awareness that they didn't have to take the abuse anymore; they could simply say no--though "simply" is the wrong word here as saying no in a state such as Iran, for example, was at the time still prompting a barrage of bullets from government soldiers. It was clear that the autocratic governments had different strategies with respect to the protests.  The question was perhaps whether the thrust of the wave had rendered the choice of strategy nugatory. In other words, was the world witnessing the beginning of the end for autocracy or dictatorship as a means of governing human beings, or merely the latest round in a series of revolutions that have been an intractable part of human history?  Did Tunesia unleash a burst of freedom that can be placed in a Hegelian progression of human history wherein human spirit comes to realize itself in greater freedom, as per its nature? That is to say, were we witnessing a Hegelian moment? Can the protests in the Middle East in 2011 be interpreted as marking a fundamental political change or even a new awareness in humanity?  I suppose the answer would depend on whether the protests spread like a forest fire across highways and byways such that no dictator would remain standing not only in the Middle East, but, moreover, in the entire world as well.

Lest we get too carried away in celebrating the salubrius evisceration of autocratic government, we should not forget that representative democracy is far from perfect. Left without any viable competitors, this system of government could be more subject to abuses from within. If representative democracy is the beneficiary of the extinction of autocracy, might democracy as an ideal be like capitalism in the wake of the demise of the USSR (and communism in China)?  In other words, might the hegemony of representative democracy ironically make it more likely that the drawbacks of such democracy gain in force, or at least become more transparent?  Just as the financial crisis of 2008 rather than the USSR demonstrated that the market mechanism itself is flawed in how it accommodates increased volatility (by freezing up rather than accommodating it), perhaps once the world is populated by republics we might come to see the internal flaws in what the U.S. Founders called "excess democracy."

The protests in the Middle East reminded the world that history is not very predictable. Similarly, history can be quite ironic, given the fixity inherent in human expectations. As we the West welcome our brothers and sisters in the Middle East into the family of free nations, let us not get too self-congratulatory, for our institutions are far from perfect.  We are all human, all too human. Yet in spite of human nature as its constant, human history may contain a progression wherein humanity the world over comes to realisations that insist upon or inevitably lead to greater self-realization. Humanity's realization in the early twenty-first century may involve political development. I suspect that the next turn will concern religion. After that turn, the world will be quite different than for those who lived before even the technological revolution in the twentieth century.  In other words, modernity may well be characterized in terms of succeeding intervals of technological, political and religious transformation--altogether evincing a huge amount of change even as human nature remains constant.  The question might be how much change is possible given the constancy of our nature, or do some change elements change human nature? In the context of the protests in the Middle East, human nature looks pretty much the same as it has been for eons.  Yet the future change may shift the basis-point in human biology and psychology such that even more change becomes possible.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/world/middleeast/16bahrain.html?ref=todayspaper

Is the typical American self-centered and greedy, or is there a civic-mindedness that yearns to bracket one's own interests?  In other words, is there more to American society than being the sum of the parts? Is there something more than the aggregate?  I don’t mean to criticize individualism here; creativity and liberty, for example, are individualistic traits that highlight a person's character and virtue. Nor do I mean to point to one of the two major parties. One could point to the democrats protecting unions at the expense of a free market for labor just as one could point to rich republicans holding tax cuts hostage unless they are included even though they could afford higher taxes.  If there is something more to American politics than asserting one's own interests, who is to represent the civic component?

The American Founding Fathers assumed that a given republic requires a certain level of disinterestedness or impartiality among the citizenry. The Founders thought that gentlemen freed up from the pressures to make money were obliged to serve in government precisely because selfish monetary pressures would be less pressing among the already rich. So the Founders were startled when common folk began winning more state legislative seats.  The concern was that the immediate economic interests of the folks would carry the day over what would be needed legislatively for the public good.  Reading this, a modern American is apt to be surprised that the Founding Fathers might not have been so populist as the American mythos might have suggested. The Founders might also be critiqued for being blind to the possibility that moneyed gentlemen might legislate in the interest of their class at the expense of the folks. In short, American populism may not have been an ideal at the inception of the union of states. The question here is less historical, however, than on how and by whom the pubic good might be asserted.

Lest one look to the presidency, the sheer amount in financial backing renders the occupant captive to the financial elite, which in turn has a vested interest in its own interest and the status quo in which it has done so well.  Real change in the public good at odds with the status quo is not likely to come from the White House. Lest one look to the U.S. Supreme Court in protecting individual rights, the fact that justices are nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, which among other things represents wealth, suggests that the high court will stamp rather than impede extensions in Congressional and presidential power, which in turn has a strong financial-interest backing.

The question of standing up for the public good where the financial elite such as Wall Street has a direct financial interest in perpetuating systemic risk was at the fore in the wake of the financial near-meltdown in September of 2008.  The subsequent banking regulation reform was highly watered down by Wall Street's involvement in the very writing of the law. For example, the existence of investment and commercial banks that are too big to fail was not seriously questioned, not to mention confronted. Instead, "incentives" not to increase further in size were included. Whereas in history monoliths such as Standard Oil and ATT were broken up by the high court, Congress could not bring itself to break up the still risk-prone banks even in the wake of the banks' self-induced crisis.

So the question remains: what of the public or common good--the public square that goes beyond the sum of the parts?  Who, if anyone, is to stand up to the vested interests to push through real change that is necessary to the survival of the United States as a going concern?  I suspect that the usual suspects have the American public debating secondary issues so such primary questions are kept off the radar screen of public discourse. Lest it be forgotten, the American media companies are interwoven into corporate America. There may be a vicious self-perpetuating feedback cycle wherein the public is kept from raising a movement that would question the matrix on which the financial elite has thrived. The question may thus be whether this cycle can even be broken.

Micheal Bennet, who represented Colorado as a U.S. Senator, told a journalist in 2009 that the possibility of losing his seat  in 2010 should not hold him back from voting for health-care reform even if it were unpopular in Colorado.   Voting in line with the best interests of his fellow citizens would evince a degree of political integrity that I suspect few in the biz have today. However, might a representative be wrong and his or her constituents right about the long term best interest? Is a U.S. senator necessarily smarter or more capable of insight? Lest Bennet be criticized here for failing to have represented his constituents, one might take a look back at Madison’s Notes to the constitutional convention. 

The US Senate was designed or intended to represent the State governments and to serve as a check on the US House, whose members are supposed to vote according to the ephemeral passions of their constituents.  The difference between taking a long term view and voting on the basis of the mood at the moment can be seen by contrasting an election every  six years from one every two. The different lengths of the respective terms in office is no accident, my friends.  So it turns out that if the U.S. senator tells his constitutents that he is voting contrary to what they think is best now, he is acting as the office has been designed.  Those people who are wont to criticize such a senator tacitly presume that they cannot be wrong about what is best for themselves—which is exactly why a check on them and the US House is needed. Of course, where the best interest of the electorate differ from that of the state government, a U.S. senator is in a real pickle, as he or she is charged with representing his or her state as a polity and to resist current pressure from the citizens therein who are his or her electorate.  It is possible that there is an internal inconsistency in the aims of the U.S. Senate, particularly where providing a check on the representative democracy in the U.S. House is at odds with the interests of the state government.  Perhaps the U.S. Senate should be redesigned so as to be oriented to one principal function.  In terms of federalism, this would have to be providing the state governments with a direct involvement in the general government of the union. However, what would then serve as a check on the proclivity in the U.S. House to mirror the momentary passions of the people?

Source: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/11/22/freshman-dem-passing-health-care-reform-worth-losing-my-seat/

The New York Times Sunday Magazine (11/29/09) ran a feature on Joe Biden as the Vice President of the United States.  Besides his experience and knowledge from having been a seasoned U.S. senator, Joe Biden is a man genuinely content in his own skin, and, it might be said, genuinely happy.  This, perhaps more than anything else, is vital to high level public official because sound judgment is important in those jobs. Ruling is not simply about how much one knows, or even how much experience one has; it is fundamentally about feeling at ease in who one is.  Ultimately, a positive vision springs from one’s state of mind and innate values.  One need only contrast Joe Biden with Richard Nixon, for example. Foreign policy comes up for both, but their tempraments could not be different.

My question is this: to what extent is our “Electoral College as popular election” geared to selecting the best candidate for president?  If the most popular is apt to be a people-pleaser, how comfortable is he (or she) likely to be in his (or her) own skin?  Furthermore, is the most popular necessarily seasoned with experience?  In short, if our current mechanism for selecting the president is oriented to privileging the flavor of the day, is this really the way we want to pick our presidents?    When we see a people-pleasing president cave to the business interests for support because popularity is not a sufficient basis of legitmacy, should we really be surprised?   What I see is a seasoned and knowledgeable vice president who is generally happy and getting along with people at the White House and in Congress, yet he did not do well at all in the popularity contests (i.e., the primaries).   I suggest that we have it backwards if we assume that Joe Biden is best as vice president because he did not fare well in the electoral contest.  As a case in point, he has been urging restraint in acquiescing to the pressure to add troops to Afganistan.  He wants a narrow focus, rather than a sensationalistic “surge.”  I suspect that he would stand up to big business and the military were he president because he wouldn’t need their approval to be content in his own skin.  Were he president, I suspect he wouldn’t need a second term.  Could that be said of a person who relishes popularity?

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/magazine/29Biden-t.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=joe%20biden&st=cse