When Putin goes low . . . Trump will follow

In an interview today that's to be aired in full on Fox News right before the Super Bowl, Donald Trump re-iterated his respect for Vladimir Putin and hope the he will direct Russia to help the United States in various international struggles.  His interviewer, Bill O'Reilly, protested that "he's a killer, though.  Putin's a killer."

Trump's response mixed positive facts with a horrifying normative implication for the United States: “There are a lot of killers, we’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country’s so innocent?”

There is important factual truth (shocking, I know!) in Trump's words: the United States government has overseen, directly or indirectly, operations that have killed innocent people in foreign lands--and our country--for years.  The most recent example is the raid in Yemen last week that killed civilians, including children--perhaps as many as nine children.  Such murderous operations have gone on under Democratic presidents like Barack Obama, with drone-strikes that involved frequent civilian deaths, and Republican presidents like George W. Bush whose misguided judgment led our country into wars that seem endless, and involved the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of innocents at the hands of agents of our government.

But every president before now has lamented such outcomes, and given us a moral example that these were either mistakes, or at the very least that they were the unavoidable results of dilemmas where the greater good of American lives and security, or the human rights of others (as in 1999 when President Clinton bombed Serbia to force a halt to ethnic violence being carried out against Kosovars), had to be weighed more heavily than the lives of innocent people.  The worthiness of the results and wisdom of these decisions can be argued by those who sit on the sidelines of power (and I've certainly argued against them in the case of the attack on Serbia, the Iraq war, etc.), but the basic moral vision that innocent life ought not to be taken unless truly necessary, has been fundamental to American values, at least as we explicitly embrace them, and recommend them to our countrymen, our children, and the world.  Republican Senators like majority leader Mitch McConnell and Ben Sasse of Nebraska referred to this in their push-back against the president declaring things like "America is exceptional" and “There is no equivalency between the United States of America, the greatest freedom loving nation in the history of the world, and the murderous thugs that are in Putin’s defense of his cronyism. There’s no moral equivalency there.”

Trump, though, would have us not only look upon what evil America may have wrought in moments of confusion, foolishness, or cold-blooded utilitarianism for what we believe is good, but reject the idea that these evils are to be avoided.  He seems to assert not only that we are no better than Putin, but that Putin's mercenary approach to rulership is laudable, to be embraced.  This moral stance is horrifying, for the killing in Putin's Russia is about his own political gain--from the devastating way that he prosecuted the 2nd Chechen War that helped catapult him to power in 2000, with murders in torture internment camps1 to the killings of dozens of journalists2 and opposition figures,3 including that of former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov two years ago on a bridge right across from the Kremlin, to the proxy-war he's backing in Eastern Ukraine that has already cost ten thousand lives in just two years.  If Putin is a killer, as O'Reilly and others on the right who are uncomfortable with Trump's embrace of the Russian leader well know, it's by design, by his choice against morality, for his own gain; it's not accidentally, in spite of making efforts to provide the "moral leadership" upstanding Americans like Senator Sasse hope for.

But even while Sasse and other prominent old-guard Republicans still adhere to such values beyond politics, that "the US celebrates [a] free press . . . . celebrates political dissent," Trump's new politics of the right is about stopping at nothing to get what you want.  This is not exclusive to the group in the White House, but is growing in the grassroots.  Here in Lubbock, "one of Lubbock's most well known radio personalities," Chad Hasty, broadcasting on KFYO radio, argued in his morning show on January 27th that people should not be allowed to move to Texas if they'd ever been involved with the Democratic Party.  If Trump would make a religious test for the immigration of people to the United States, his grassroots supporters seek to avoid dissent and open electoral competition with political tests to determine how people can move around within it.

If Trump would re-make America as a place where human life is routinely placed below not only national interest, but political expediency, as a place where those outside of the single ruling party do not have the same freedoms and privileges of its adherents, a place where we are impressed by Putin's "toughness" and shrug at the brutality and unfairness of his regime because no moral rules ought to constrain us from "getting ahead," and if Trump's allies in places like Lubbock are already cultivating cadres willing to jettison all the basic tenets of democracy to perpetuate one-party rule, then principled Republicans will soon have no place in such a party.

Meanwhile, those of us on the other side of the political spectrum must not stand around hoping for a moralizing revolution inside the Republican party that would change its current trajectory.

Instead, we must stand up, wherever we are--even here in the most conservative part of Texas--and threaten and punish the Trump machine at the ballot-box, because that is the only way to be listened to: by displacing the Republican monocracy that Trump is constructing to resemble Putin's Russia.

Notes:
1Emma Gilligan, Terror in Chechnya: Russia and the Tragedy of Civilians in War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010)
2Nadezhda Azhgikhina, “The struggle for press freedom in Russia: reflections of a Russian journalist” in Europe-Asia Studies v. 59, no. 8 (Dec 2007), pp 1245-1262

3Masha Gessen, The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (New York: Riverhead Books, 2012)

Two Elections: Russia & America, mirrors of Apathy & Stability

Russia's 2016 Parliamentary Elections--Sunday, September 18 2016

Last Sunday, about 48% of eligible Russian voters (according to official data) turned out to give Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party a victory in the 4th parliamentary election since he came to power.  It's been dubbed Russia's most boring election yet.  The government probably manufactured about two fifths of its victory through fraud, but the 2nd, 3rd, & 4th place parties all support the Putin system, too, and the only parties that truly stand as opposition attracted the votes of barely a twentieth of those bothered to show up.  This is one of the lowest turnout national elections Russia has seen since the fall of Communism (although the 36% of Americans who voted in our last Congressional elections is even worse).  Are Russians suffering under Putin's regime, and thus desirous of a change, but too afraid to vote for it?  Or is the Russian electorate genuinely quiescent because hardly anybody is really that dissatisfied with the system?

Two years into Russia's most severe recession since the 1990s, the latter answer seems correct to me.  From my many trips there, and contacts I keep up with friends and former students there, the impression I've always had reflects the perspective one Russian facebook user posted about on Monday, to explain why Russians of his generation don't come out in support of the opposition.  The late 1980s and 1990s in Russia were so horrific, economically, and left such an indelible mark on Russians' political consciousness, that they have become the touchstone for comparison to determine how things are now.  In 2016, budgets have been cut, inflation is up (especially on food), and in a few places wage arrears (employers--including government entities--can't make payroll, and so simply fall into arrears in what they owe workers, sometimes for weeks or months) have shown up again.  But unlike the 1990s, nobody is losing their life savings to inflation.  People all have jobs and enough to eat.  Apartment blocks aren't wallowing in horrific states of dilapidation, nor being blown up by terrorists.  People have cars, access to health care, and many can still afford seaside vacations (many in newly-acquired Crimea, which is ironically probably cheaper now than it was three years ago, the last time Russians vacationed there under a Ukrainian government).

Could things in Russia be better?  Of course they can--Russians were doing extremely well economically less than a decade ago.  But that was under Vladimir Putin's rule, as well, so why vote against his party?  Today's democratic opposition, as disorganized and divided by petty personal ambitions as it is, is also directly connected in Russians' minds to the 1990s, the Yeltsin era--and economic depression that has no comparison in the minds of today's Russians.  The idea that a European standard of living and degree of public freedom, a reduction of corruption and the installation of a pluralistic society with the levels of comfort and opportunity that people enjoy in Germany, France, the Low Countries, or even the Central European post-communist countries that are now in the EU seems unrealistic for most Russians.  These social goals, that inspired Ukrainian protesters in late 2013 and early 2014 who wanted to bring that country into the family of Europe simply don't look plausible in Russia.

So then, why rock the boat?  On the whole, Russians would prefer the known path they are on, even if it seems headed downhill, than to blaze a trail off in a new direction--perhaps over a cliff.  And the majority of Russians would really just rather live their own lives, attend to the prospects of their own family, friends, and themselves, then wear themselves out engaging in politics, which at best cannot change things, at worst could be dangerous, and in any event will be exhausting and dispiriting to those who have any public spirit to begin with.

Americans: Citizens or Subjects?  Participants in Democracy?

The majority of Americans are almost exactly like the majority of Russians, in terms of how they feel about commitments to their own, personal, private spheres vs the public sphere and participation in their own democratic government.  Americans have a far higher quality of democracy than do Russians: far less corrupt, far more open to participation (which is far safer), far more avenues to voice their opinions, and far more competition and capacity to hold their leaders accountable than Russians.  But while some Americans take up the privileges and duties of citizens of a democracy, the vast majority of them don't act like they live in or care about democracy--they act just like the majority of Russians do.

Here in Texas, I've been working in the past week to register voters, which means walking up to complete strangers, asking point-blank if they're registered to vote yet, and if they want to, then helping them fill out a brief form.  While many students and grocery-store customers have been willing to, the great majority are not willing to register.  Of those who won't, many will respond that the choice they face for president this year is so dismal that they're not interested.  Others, expressing something similar, say it won't matter who they vote for, because all the choices are bad.  (The majority of those who refuse have clearly not even thought enough about it to articulate, or probably even have, a reason.)

While these opinions are certainly disputable, what is indisputable is that the reason we have the two most unpopular major-party nominees in history is that the huge majority of Americans didn't care to participate in the primaries: On the Democratic side, about 17 million people voted for Hillary Clinton, and 14 million against her, while on the Republican side, 13 million voted for Donald Trump, and 16 million against him.  While the fairness, process, funding, and media attitudes during the primaries are all open to criticism by those who don't like one, the other, or both candidates, the greater truth is this: 160 million Americans eligible to participate in the process that produced these two candidates failed to do so.  Maybe some were physically, financially, or bureaucratically unable to participate, but not all of them, nor surely even a significant portion.  If just one tenth of those who failed to show up when we picked our major party nominees (a process that's been virtually unchanged in most of our lifetimes, that is taught about in required classes in middle schools, high schools, and many colleges--at least here in Texas it's required), had done so and voted for other candidates--against Hillary & Donald--we would have a different pair of nominees this November.  This is indisputable.

The fact that those who claim they won't participate now because they don't like the choices on offer have no one but themselves to blame (their own failure to participate during the primaries) is piquant, but probably not worthwhile to dwell upon.

Perhaps worthwhile is why the majority of Americans, like the majority of Russians, can't be bothered.  There are lots of negative pressures or personal failings we could assign as causes for how low people's interest & desire to participate is.  But still, this is America, the country that claims a unique history, tradition, and very identity with Democracy.  Moreover, this is the government that rules the land--that holds power of life and death over everyone ("a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence"), that decides peace & war, how much you'll have to pay in taxes or traffic fines, controls education, trade, abortion, infrastructure.  It's really important, and not just for "this election."

But my answer to the question of why so few Americans care to participate in what's regularly upheld as a hallmark of American-ness takes a different approach than a speculative weighing of the costs & benefits of expending the rather scant resources of time & energy to participate.  I'm interested in opportunity costs: what else are Americans doing with the small amount of time & effort that they could otherwise have spent on registering to vote, generating enough of an opinion to cast a vote, and then casting it?

They're doing much the same things Russians do: they're eating dinner, going grocery shopping, answering a friend's text, heading to work.  Often they're dealing with their kids, maybe watching TV, possibly working long hours, maybe at multiple jobs, or exhausted from doing the same.  They're trying to figure out which Costco account to sign up for; they're trying to get tenure; they're talking to their spouses or taking care of elderly relatives.  They're fixing their cars or mowing their lawns, or snapchatting with a potential hook-up.

They're engaged in their private sphere of social and economic activity--family & friends & career & household (including both work & entertainment).  These take up so much of most people's time & energy, that there's nothing left over for democracy, even though the bare minimum of voting takes very little effort, for most people.

This is certainly not true of everybody--after all, 60 million people did vote in the primaries, and an additional 60 million or so will probably vote in November; and many people go to school board meetings, or volunteer time for charity work.  But I'm not speaking of those people; I'm talking about the ones I can't get to register to vote.  Public-spiritedness may be alive and well in a fraction of the American population today, but that fraction is too small.  Indeed, at the last Congressional election in 2014, I know a number of political science professors who didn't bother to vote.  If educators within the very field of politics, responsible for the instauration in future generations of the values of our American democracy are too pre-occupied with trials and travails of their own private spheres to vote, there's a big problem in America.

The private sphere has been so valorized in America, and the fields of activity that contribute to private flourishing--education, career, kids, house, cars, nutrition, fitness, entertainment, insurance, tax-planning, retirement, vacation, health care--have undergone such hypertrophy in both their number, and more importantly, the imperatives of attending to them, that for the vast majority of Americans, there is no obligation to one's (or one's family's) private flourishing too small push out any activity undertaken in the public spirit.  Even among those with the most resources, who've gotten the best educations and high-paying jobs, we often congratulate ourselves for fulfilling the bare minimum requirement of democracy by merely voting.  The idea of stumping for candidates, volunteering time to register voters, or even running for office is barely conceivable to most of us--we're too busy to make democracy work.

One of the most pernicious catalysts of this problem is social media: facebook posts about politics and the election are a palliative for many people's pinches of conscience about participation (especially academics) that emotionally exempts us from the responsibility to actually do anything outside the virtual world that might make a real difference, to connect with the unengaged, or with people from different walks of life.

Now I'm sure that most people who post on facebook about how terrible this or that candidate is, or how desperate the stakes of the elections are, or how unjust are the agents of justice hired by our elected official, do almost always vote.  But we should see that as a  bare minimum.  Many give money, too, which does do something, but also alienates the donor's political responsibility onto some paid staffers somewhere, who are overworked & underpaid (often to an unconscionable, and now actually illegal degree, by Democratic no less than Republican candidates), usually undertrained, and often hamstrung by a lack of willing & able campaign volunteers.

If everybody who posts on facebook about politics spent an equal amount of time signing up new voters, phonebanking for the campaigns of the candidates who would address the injustices that bother them, or knocking doors to identify supporters & get out the vote, instead, we would go a long way towards making American democracy real, rather than the money-dominated, mass-media-manipulated, de-personalized and anti-community elitist affair it appears to so many to be.  I challenge everybody who reads this to catch yourself before you post or re-post something about the election, and instead spend those few seconds looking up how you can volunteer locally to register voters, or help your preferred candidate or party.  And then actually do the volunteering.  As I found out when registering voters this week--whether ex-felons or college students who didn't know they were eligible, it can be really uplifting and inspiring.

America & Russia: The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity

I challenge us all (myself included!), because we need it--we need our American democracy not to come to resemble Russia's.  Because there are those who want it to, the ones backing the presidential candidate who has lionized Russian president Vladimir Putin, although for the most part, they know not what they do.  This is one phenomenal inversion of the Russian case in America: if Russians are hesitant to stand up for change in the face of a poorly-performing autocracy because they know--and are afraid--of how much worse things can get, then a dangerously large swath of Americans are pushing for the destruction of our values and institutions because they don't know how good they have it.

It's true that in the past few decades, things have gotten worse for a lot of people in America.  Income inequality has gotten worse in this country, the jobs on offer are worse and less stable than they were before and the expenses most Americans face are harder to afford. Higher education seems more out of reach to many Americans than it used to be.  The solutions that America has used to address racism, crime, drugs, low-quality education, and deficit spending have evolved their own pathologies and problems.  But to submit the whole system to the guidance of someone like Donald Trump is to call for a leap into the abyss (I suspect I'm preaching to the choir for anyone likely to come across this blog).

If the 1990s are the reference-point for Russians, and as problematic as Russian society is today, they won't risk standing against injustice & corruption for fear of returning to that abyss, for Americans backing Trump, the reference-point is the imagined era when America was "great."  And the dark reflection of Trump supporters being so enamored by the force of anemoia (I had to look this up) that they will risk any amount of upheaval, corruption, and destruction offered by a sexist, violent, bullying, lying, arrogant, faithless, corrupt excuse for a businessman whose entire career has been devoted to swindling people, and whose only qualification to be leader of the free world is his celebrity, is a reality that would have been unthinkable in any previous era of American democracy.  (Ironically for the implicitly backward-looking slogan of his campaign, there is no way that someone as ethically bankrupt and devoted to private gain at the expense of other people and the public good could ever have come this close to the presidency in any historical era of American greatness he or his supporters might point to.)

Fortunately, those American voters so callous, foolish, and (in some significant proportion) undoubtedly racist enough to desire to loose Trump's blood-dimmed tide upon the world are not so numerous enough to overwhelm this nation.  They're only about 4% of our population, to judge from primary voting.  And yet 4% filled with passionate intensity may easily bully and bludgeon the rest of us into submission, if we continually show so little conviction as to spare no time from our "busy" schedules for any but the bare minimum of democratic participation.

We friends of justice, equality, and democracy may feel like the biggest enemies we are fighting are Trump, and racism, and the Koch brothers.  But the truth is that our biggest enemies are our own pre-occupations with the private sphere, our own fears that we will not flourish sufficiently if we don't devote almost every morsel of time & energy to our careers, families, children, homes, nutrition, etc.  I may feel good that I spent six hours registering voters this week, but that's the first real political action I've participated since the end of my stint with Bernie Sanders six months ago.  I've been as woefully reluctant to cut into my private sphere as anybody.

But from now on, I'll pledge not to.  I'll start with the next 17 days of voter registration here in Texas, but I won't let it end on November 8th.  Please join with me, pledge mutually, as did the fifty-six signatories twelve score years ago--whether you're already engaged in multiple public spheres and activities, or whether you like me have fallen submerged into the all-consuming private sphere, and want to turn over a new leaf--a real one, not just a virtual one.  Make some campaign calls!  Find out how to register voters in your area!  Knock on some doors for a candidate who will lead us higher up the mountain towards a more perfect union, rather than over a cliff into the abyss.  Leave a comment if you want, so I'll know you're with me, and have the conviction Yeats was so concerned for the lack of!

Political is the Personal? Update from Texas!

No longer Virginia Jew 5159--now apparently I'm Texas Heathn 6247

Well, it's been a long eventful summer, and as Labor Day approaches, an overdue blog post emerges!

After spending most of June & July teaching economics at Piedmont Virginia Community College, I drove back to upstate New York where with the help of a good friend (Ed!), I packed most of Jasmine's & my earthly belongings out of another good friend's barn (Stephen!) and into a POD, which went hence to Texas ahead of (although ultimately behind) us.  Jasmine & I met up in South Jersey, where we left VJW 5158 at the old homestead, and then sallied forth across a number of states with a gill-filled CRV (and a cat burrowing his way through boxes, tote-bags, and other paraphernalia) first to Wisconsin, and ultimately here to Lubbock, Texas.

Our last stop before hitting our new home was Amarillo, where we enjoyed the Big Texan Steak Ranch, though I held myself to an 18 ouncer, and we got this swell bumper sticker, which joins Bernie on the back of the ol' CRV.

Now that I'm here, attached as a Visiting Instructor to the Texas Tech Political Science Department, I've got some interesting professional obligations.  One is to help write the online course content for the university's version of what the Texas Legislature calls "GOVT 2306 Texas Government (Texas constitution & topics)".  All Texas college students must take this course, which should involve the following "Learning Outcomes":

• Explain the origin and development of the Texas constitution.
• Describe state and local political systems and their relationship with the federal government.
• Describe separation of powers and checks and balances in both theory and practice in Texas.
• Demonstrate knowledge of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of Texas government.
• Evaluate the role of public opinion, interest groups, and political parties in Texas.
• Analyze the state and local election process.
• Identify the rights and responsibilities of citizens.
• Analyze issues, policies and political culture of Texas.

Basically, it's an area studies political science course about Texas!  And who better to develop the expertise & content for it than a comparativist who focuses on regional politics and loves to study BIG countries, like Russia, and Brazil, and now Texas!

I'm very excited for the endeavor, and hoping to fit in some politics, too, while I'm in the area--although it's been challenging so far to find much in the way of electoral activity to devote myself to.

Since the incumbent Republican congressman here is retiring, I thought perhaps it might be an momentous juncture in West Texas politics, as these are generally opportune moments for a challenger, especially a Democrat, in a presidential election year!  Apparently, though, it was not opportune enough of a moment, in the eyes of Democrats, to bother to put forward a candidate to run against former George W. Bush staffer & Texas Tech alum & former vice-chancellor Jodey Arrington.  At least, back in December of 2015, when the deadline for declaring candidacies passed, it didn't seem very opportune.  Thus, the Texas 19th is one of seven (out of 25) Republican-controlled districts where Democrats apparently went gentle into that good (?) night, without even "some dude" to present a token barrier to continued right-wing Congressional dominance.

But wait!  The Democratic party is hardly the only party of the left purports to stand against the conservative agenda!  The Green party apparently has a candidate in the race (at least according to Ballotpedia), although when I tried to find his web-site, the closest I got was a facebook page from 2014, and no response to my queries through it.

My next thought was to get involved in the Lubbock County Democratic Party, as a I had such a wonderful (if brief) experience with the open and diverse Albemarle County Democratic Party in Virginia during my all-too-short time as a resident there.  Alas, the Lubbock Democrats' online presence amounts to something called a "parse error: syntax error" and some other machine-speak--though a cached version of the site does yield a phone number.  I called and left a message with the Chair about a week and a half ago . . . no response yet.

We'll see what can be unearthed in terms of electoral activity here in Lubbock in the coming months, but I'm starting to get the sense that if Texan political culture ever does embrace competition at the ballot-box, it's not General Election day.  It may only be found in the primaries, where more than a half-century ago, it was only the Democratic primary that mattered, while today it may be only the Republican primary (and its run-off, which we missed by three months).

More updates coming soon!

Berning CVA

Canvassing in Culpeper VA Sat, Nov 14: Charlottesville Bernie troops provide reinforcements for the local Bernie outpost!

So the blog's been a bit moribund recently, alas!  Why?  Basically, because we've been so busy!  Jasmine & I both applying for lots of part-time work--looks like I'll be an Adjunct Prof of Economics for Piedmont Virginia Community College in the spring semester . . . unless something more compelling comes up before my background check clears.

But much more than professional activities, we've been busy with Bernie volunteering!  Apart from diving into organizational work of the Charlottesville & Central VA for Bernie volunteer group, we've been getting out the word collecting signatures for Bernie to get on the VA ballot.  The state actually has one of the higher bars to getting on the primary ballot (in fact, in 2012 Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum & other Republicans failed to make it on the ballot, leaving the Republican field to just Mitt Romney & Ron Paul).

On Election Day here in VA, when the entire state senate was up for re-election (and where Democrats put up the feeblest of efforts against Republican gerrymandering), Jasmine & I trolled our local polling places with Rachel, another Bernie volunteer, collecting well over a hundred signatures. We also collected a few nasty comments about Mao Zedong as well as accusations of the purveyance of male bovine excrement, due in part to a deficit of wisdom owing to our failure to have been born when Barry Goldwater was running for president.  We later learned that the precinct where we were (Baker-Butler elementary school, our own polling place, though we became Virginia residents too late to vote in the election) is the most conservative in Albemarle County (where Democrats swept the County board of Commissioners elections).  In other precincts around the city & county, our colleagues found lots of people willing to sign for Bernie: over 1,150 just from our Charlottesville group (Bernie apparently needs 5,000 for the whole state).

And even in our precinct we gathered over a hundred signatures and even got about half a dozen names of people local to this part of the county who want to join the offshoot Bernie group we're trying to start: Albemarle North for Bernie.  We have our second meeting this week at a volunteer's house in the beautiful town of Barboursville, where the pretty terrific and famous wine is made.

And we've found other outlets for our enthusiasm for the political revolution--such as the Charlottesville Raise Up for $15 minimum wage rally, where we showed up in Bernie paraphernalia and got to speak to the crowd, and even made it onto local TV, NBC 29 (about 20 seconds in)

and into the local paper, the Daily Progress, where Jasmine was quoted extensively, following her comments at the rally about the insecurity of non-benefit, temporary work, like the adjuncting she did at Colgate.

In general, it's exciting how vibrant a community we've found around here, and how much people like us seem to be accepted into at least certain quite politically active sectors--like the county Democratic party, one of whose vice chairs wanted to have coffee with me after meeting at the polls and invited me to their monthly meeting.

The abundance of dynamic grassroots political and social activism that we've found in Virginia could be due to many factors.  That Virginia is a purple state in flux, where Democrats and others on the left perceive chances to change things in the coming years, may inspire the openness to new actors & allies that they know such change will require.  This itself undoubtedly stems from a huge difference with Central New York: Central Virginia (and the whole state, really) is an area that is growing, on the upswing, and as new people arrive, looking for new opportunities, the ferment only feeds upon itself.  Central New York, by contrast, is decades into a demographic & economic decline, with young people, activists, and entrepreneurs (political, business, or otherwise) often needing to go afield for opportunities if they don't already have a secure place in the region's economic, political, or social structure.  Hamilton, NY has been lucky to attract a notable exception in the past several years in Good Nature Brewing, and its success and planned expansion do incite hope that more people will buck the trend by investing in Central New York, which those who have managed to make a solvent life there know has much to offer.

Of course, Charlottesville is exceptional in many ways, too: one of the wealthiest and most liberal areas of "non"-Northern Virginia, it's a hotbed for all kind of social, artistic, and political activities (and with the persistent delight of Southern courtesy that sets it apart from a Cambridge, MA or Brooklyn).

Culpeper, Virginia, by comparison, an hour up the road towards DC, is neither as prosperous nor as liberal.  Jasmine & I got to experience it yesterday when we drove there with some other local Charlottesville Bernie-supporters to join the lone member of the Culpeper for Bernie group, Earl (see the photo above), in collecting signatures at the farmers' market.  Culpeper is in Virginia's 7th Congressional District (one that's gerrymandered even more Republican than our 5th District) and no surprise it was the most in need of more signatures to be collected for the campaign.  The farmers' market was not nearly as active as what we've seen in Charlottesville, or in Hamilton (even though Culpeper has about 5x the population of the latter!), and it was a scrabble to get many signatures.

Interestingly, we got a bunch of signatures from people who said they're hardly regular Democratic voters, but want "anybody but Hillary" to be the next president.  Depending on which of the current occupants of the Republican clown-car gets nominated for president next summer, a Democratic nomination of Bernie Sanders could well generate a curious new phenomena: the Bernie Republican, foil of the famous Reagan Democrat.  We'll see.

But yesterday's jaunt was important for reasons besides just the signatures: one was helping Earl (and a couple of people who came out of the woodwork as potential Bernie volunteers) shore up his own sense of a movement for Bernie.  If there really is to be major political change in this country, a movement, then it's going to take people moving, at least for a few hours, a day, or a weekend: going physically to places where the movement is not as strong, and spreading the word, wearing the T-shirt, putting a human face to the concept of "Democratic Socialism" (which, after going over it with the chair of economics at PVCC, we decided is really just a brand of Keynesiansm).

And that's why we're here in Virginia, with no jobs, trying to get something started.  I was really excited this weekend by the people we met--vendors in the Farmers' Market who donated parmesan bread to the Bernie volunteers, an African American lady from a local church who's really excited for Bernie (and told us that she thinks her community might be holding its collective nose if Hillary is the name next to "D" on the ballot next fall), several Spanish-speakers who were  not registered to vote, but had clearly never been approached before in this country as members of a civic polity, and even some of the anti-Bernie people who were interested to mix it up a bit.  People like us--not just me & Jasmine, but everybody in the picture above--getting out there, talking to strangers, believing that there's more on offer for America than dynasties, elites who "know better," and apathy of the masses, and putting themselves on the line for something are what it will take to give the lie to the easy rationalization that Bernie can't win (which is in many cases = "we're stuck with the mediocrity we've got").  We can do it--not for Bernie, but for the sake of this country, and a people that need to wake up and realize that they can take back their own democracy.

Democracy in America: Civil Society, Academic department meetings, and Insurgent political campaigns

With apologies to U Chicago Press, whose image I am using.

So, after a long series of over-loaded trips for two aging Japanese stalwarts (a '97 Toyota Camry, to be rewarded with some expensive exhaust work; and an '03 Honda CRV), Jasmine & I arrived at our cabin, on the outskirts of Charlottesville over a week ago.  Since Virginia isn't into profusions of municipal governing bodies (the opposite of New York!), we live in no town or city, but Albemarle County is our only governing entity under the level of the Commonwealth of Virginia.  I'll have to rhapsodize about the idylls of county living in another post, though (as well as tell other news): this one is about organizing for Bernie.

So I was involved in CNY for Bernie, based in Hamilton, in the couple of months before leaving, although peripherally, since I knew I was leaving.  I was also in touch with a group in Baldwinsville, NY, and like to think I helped inspire them to get their group off the ground.  

Volunteering for Bernie, it turns out, is do-it-yourself, at least at this point in the campaign.  Nobody from the campaign (still thinly staffed outside IA & NH) will tell you what to do, organize events, or lead.  You have to be the change you've been waiting for, and lead yourself.

Arriving in CVA (as I've gathered the Charlottesville region is known), Jasmine & I attended our first Bernie event just three days later, a Happy Hour at the local bar Firefly.  We met a number of enthusiastic Bernie supporters, including some students half our (my) age or younger, and a number of other enthusiasts from local activists to entrepreneurial pet-sitters to old-hands of VA politics known to chew the fat with the likes of Bob Goodlatte.

One fascinating dynamic, though, common to both groups, is how hard it is to run a meeting.  In fact, as an outsider trying to participate without elbowing my way in, it was clear that these group, full of goodwill and energy, and a lot of fellow-feeling, have as many impediments to administrative accomplishment & efficiency as any department or program at Colgate University!

Having cogitated at length upon (not to mention contributed to) the function & dysfunction of multiple such committees at Colgate, I often thought to myself, "Well, this must be so dysfunctional because we're a bunch of professors; how can we hope to achieve administrative functionality and positive group dynamics when they are the very things that are dis-incentivized by academia."  But if this is true, then a sample of academics should perform much worse administratively than any randomly-met group of individuals.  But two such (in CNY & CVA) randomly drawn groups (selected purely on being pro-Bernie) seem to evince the same difficulties, of getting hung-up on the short term, or even terminologies, sidetracked by emotional commitments, failure to listen to each other, tendency to speak out of a feeling of needing to speak, rather than to move the group towards a goal, and oversensitivitiy to "authoritarian" leadership tendencies in running a meeting, among others.

This presents a dangerous power imbalance in society: if groups of citizens met for bringing change to a politics that serves the status quo; groups of academics who devote themselves to wisdom & expertise in fields that could serve society; or other collections of individuals not already part of the power-structure of the managerial class (which extends from government through private business, higher education, and even established NGOs and non-profits) cannot get their act together and organize themselves, then the organizations of that power-structure will never face the kind of challenge that can hold them accountable.

This is true of university administrations vis-à-vis faculties, workers vis-à-vis employers, union members vis-à-vis union leaders, HOA or Condo Association members vis-à-vis their boards, and of course, citizens vis-à-vis their governments, not to mention a plethora of other cases where the advantages of the already-empowered are amplified by their fewness in number and honed administrative experience.  

But in the words of E. E. Schattschneider, "The only defense against organization is counterorganization" (Party Government, 1942; p. 44).  In truth, this is no more or less than a call for Americans (or anybody) dissatisfied with a status quo that seems not serve the common good to return to the roots that Tocqueville found when criss-crossing this country in the early 19th century:

Tocqueville found that everywhere in America, groups of citizens were always organizing and learning how to run a meeting, how to work together in a group over time, how to act collectively.  Even the most Rugged Individualists in what were then the "western" states would get together and discuss, work in groups, solve problems, and advance collective goals.  The only cure for not knowing how to run a meeting is to keep holding meetings and try to learn how to run them better--or identify someone with the knack for it, and help them learn.

Unfortunately for Democracy in America, today in this country so many of us are so busy with our own individual or family demands, desires, and responsibilities, that hardly anybody wants to join groups that hold regular meetings anymore.  We're happy to send checks (or simply donate online) to the social causes or political campaigns we support, but this does not teach us the skills to actually enact democracy--it is not participation.

Tocqueville worried that democracy in any country might lead to tyranny and violence, as it had in Revolutionary France.  The rare genius of America that he found was that so many citizens were involved in enacting democracy, practicing citizenship, so that those who made it to the top could be restrained by masses of educated, activist, and administratively well-versed citizens who themselves committed to holding the powerful accountable.  These were not the masses of Europe who transformed into mobs bringing a bloody dictator like Napoleon Bonaparte to power (Vladimir Lenin?  Mao Zedong?).

Today, we have dissatisfaction with leadership in both our political parties, and in other spheres of the society, as well.  But how much of it inspires the patience and self-sacrifice of . . . going to meetings?  It seems all too little--much more goes into the shouting, posturing, and anger that could bring an American Napoleon to power--perhaps Donald Trump?