PRISM

Commentary

More on Direct Democracy

I live in the town of Tamworth, New Hampshire, USA, in a country that claims to be a bastion of democracy, ruled by the people for the people. While there are parts of the structure here that abide quite closely by this principle, there are many contradictions, flaws and ways in which our democracy is imperfect, and at present some of the pillars of this house are severely undermined, shaky and even literally under siege.

To examine all the levels of government in this multilayered society would require a book - complexity is part of the problem. However, I need to make some generalized and unsupported statements at this point, for reasons that I hope will become clear.

Tamworth is one of the small New England communities that still has an annual town meeting. From the earliest days of its history once a year the residents of the town gathered to approve the functioning and budget of the town's administration and its various services, the schools, the maintenance of the roads, the dump, the police and fire services and much more, mainly paid for by the all-important property taxes paid by the residents. The traditional day-to-day administrators of the town are elected “selectmen”, who for reasons varying along a spectrum from pure altruism to a desire to keep a finger on the pulse and in the town pie, give much time through the year for negligible direct monetary compensation. Other monies come into the town's finances from many instruments of the state and the federal government, and these were not generally discussed, but they didn't loom large. There is no doubt that in its pure form this system was highly democratic, with the people having their say, their vote and their oversight of the way their town was run. No remote authorities, no political parties, at least not obviously, the town's resources being allocated by citizens who could look each other in the eye. Decisions were made by voice, with a secret ballot only if the balance of the ayes and nays was not clear

It's not quite complete and unadulterated today. In addition to the traditional meeting, there is voting by secret ballot the day before where important measures can be decided without discussion, and the selectmen are elected. A wide variety of issues can be presented for a yes/no vote, which might otherwise come up the next day at Town Meeting - a different mechanism. Other towns have less Meeting decision-making than Tamworth, and pride in the old ways remains here strongly. The feel is still of grass-roots democracy, however incomplete.

In New Hampshire there are counties, where there is a small but separate set of responsibilities and officers such as sheriffs, but this level of government is not very significant compared with other parts of the US – the towns are the main level here. Larger towns and cities have mayors, with a different apparatus.

The next level for examination is therefore that of the State, our New Hampshire. There are many overlapping functions and responsibilities here, most of which make perfect sense. As far as the democracy of the state is concerned, New Hampshire has a huge House of Representatives, with each representative having a quite small district to be responsible for. At this level the main national political parties begin to rear their ugly heads. The division of functions between a chief executive, the governor, an executive council and a state bureaucracy, the law-making House and senate and an independent judiciary mirrors the federal level. Political discussion carries at least some of the individual opinions of representatives from the districts, and the feel of small community access to decision-making is to some extent preserved. This is precious but inadequate.

Moving up to the federal level, we see our very imperfect and peculiar national democracy currently under considerable threat. We have two senators and two members of congress, and in their different election cycles all the ills of the system emerge. Gerrymandering, voter suppression and other gross manipulations of the system are less here in our Yankee stronghold than in many other states, but in most ways we are subject to the same political pressures, where vast amounts of money are expended, and where a notional “elector” rides off on horseback to a notional “college” to vote for a president on our behalf under rules developed a quarter of a millennium ago. There is of course much more to be said here, but I would rest my case that the process we have is far from clear and a long way from one citizen, one vote of equal power.

So how much do the inconsistences, the failures and the outright manipulations matter in the end? Isn't it inevitable that a system so old and complex, developed for a vast country of many local cultures and diverse populations, should have its creaks and outright contradictions and end up not being equally fair to all its turbulent citizenry? To make a huge and questionable generalization, I'd say that for most of its existence the system has delivered acceptable results for the majority of voters, for all the injustices suffered by significant minorities, which I have no right to gloss over.

Until now. Trump, “Stop the Steal” January 6^th. 2021 and the 25% of voters who it seems can be persuaded of almost anything however unlikely, are symptoms and causes of an unprecedented crisis of US democracy. The two main political parties are divided, ineffective, often powerless in their divisions and gridlocks, and are being manipulated by extremists. None of these ills are entirely new, but the accumulated weight at present is truly unprecedented.

The present crisis will have to be fought immediately among the pillars and weeds of the existing system: but what of the future ?

We have the means to achieve direct democracy in mass society, to have our Tamworth Town Meeting format at state and national level – and eventually global level. What is required is a universal electronic voting system, so that in effect there would be a parliament of citizens with no intermediary representatives. Voting could be restricted to specific groups for decisions and law-making for localities and special interests and people for whom the decision was relevant. The executive and judicial branches of government would adapt to the changing demands of the times, but the simplicity of the voting system would be a major force for social stability and creativity.

There is no question that we have the technical ability to make this a safe system – that ordinary citizens can participate in legislation by plebiscite. Once the registration system is securely in place, it can easily be employed at the global level, and we can at last begin to rise above the level of national politics. The reactionary forces of the old elites and supremacies will scream fraud and the openness of such a system to abuse everywhere, but they will scream at any change for the better, fairer and more just. I would argue that the change is not just desirable, but essential in today's conditions – and that the real choice we have is ultimately between effective democracy and totalitarian rule. (The latter is all too conceivable – and if we can survive the planetary environmental crisis who would care whether we lived under dictatorships in 5000 years' time? I do not say this tongue in cheek, but should make it clear that I believe that route produces untold mass suffering of the most brutalized kind.)

The plain fact is that we are not built to believe that the Common Good includes strangers, foreigners and humans of other cultures, ethnicities and genders. Unless something fuels a significant change in this very human mindset, we shall find a way to destroy ourselves, at least through one way from the choice with which we are presented. Spirituality, religious conversion or the operation of superior logic based on adequate information would seem to be the only adequate ways forward. Our track record indicates disaster: we need literally to rise above ourselves. This also seems to be a human possibility. I vote for democracy: how about you, and you ?

To be continued...

All Hands on Deck (continued)

ALL HANDS ON DECK – A NEW BLOG/WEBSITE FOR 2022

"All Hands On Deck" is designed to be a determinedly positive response to our present world circumstances. It is not intended to be a revolutionary broadsheet, and accepts that at present we are stuck with a ramshackle collection of nations, institutions, companies, organizations and mechanisms within which we operate now, in 2022.

Movements which begin outside the normal tracks are commonly called "grassroots."Any movement that starts anywhere else is a minority bid for power. We are grass first, and our roots are where anything good should begin. I am proposing this forum, "All Hands on Deck", for the whole citizenry irrespective of age, and so embracing the young, including those normally discounted from public debate, not only because of a desire to respect the creativity of people of any age and right to opinion that all should have, but also because of a belief in the power of our collective determination and will to survive if indeed we call upon all hands. We are all entitled to a voice in the promulgation of ideas and reports on action at all levels in response to the crises upon us.

"All Hands on Deck" is designed to -

- review current events in the light of history, to better understand the present;

- allow for the putting forward of any practical ideas in a spirit of brainstorming, in that ideas or plans posted can be read without adverse comment in the first place;

- report on plans and initiatives to be undertaken at the local, national and global levels - we are called to operate at all three levels in the modern world;

- report on the progress of the plans and initiatives, and evaluate them.

These four functions are deliberately combined in one forum: at present many positive thoughts and suggestions are coming at us in separate streams which I submit need to be cross-fertilizing each other in one place.

The blog is designed to communicate and allow for conflicting visions and differences of opinion without malice or personal attacks. The editor(s) of the blog will reserve the right to censor contributions which promote discord or division among our common humanity. All contributors are assumed to share the view that we and the planet in general face an existential threat, but that it is in our power to address it. Extraordinary times demand extraordinary ideas and measures, but the small and the mundane have an essential place too.

One early contribution will be a piece by Richard Posner on Direct Democracy. We hope to expand readership particularly, but by no means exclusively, among the 14-24 age group. I am inviting my students (and those still of college age) to participate. The site should be up and running by the middle of the month.

Please send any thoughts and intended contributions to me by email.

Richard

Richard Posner

Sunday, October 31, 2021

All Hands on Deck

The approach of the storm that some have warned about, some have closed their eyes to and denied, and many have only recently looked into the sky to see, looms closer every day. The pace of events is accelerating, and we are past the point where taking to the streets to demonstrate and protest is on its own an adequate first step. We may need to make our disquiet known, even our anger in some circumstances, but we need as urgently to develop our voices for many positive purposes, and to cooperate with others in the grand business of envisaging a happier future and planning the steps to get there.

Like many, I still believe in the vision, determination and ingenuity of humans to get us out of this immediate mess, provided that we are not already past a major tipping point we have failed to recognize. I have little faith in capitalism and its processes, which are the dominant ways of our dealing with the resources of this world, nor do I believe much in our current political leaders, nor in our systems of informing the general public, nor the giants of social media that bind the communities of interest together, nor the frail international and transnational structures that at present are the only counterbalance to the forces of greed, narrow parochialism and atavistic darkness.

As an albatross worn around my neck, this disillusionment is often quite powerful and comprehensive enough to stifle me. However, I do believe in the human capacity for optimism against the odds, and in the irrational hope I seem to specialize in, which strikes when things are heading towards the worst. In my “Little Book” I suggest a collective planning mechanism, a flexible system of constantly refreshed ideas and group decision-making that would produce a rapidly forward-moving agenda. This suggestion would constitute one step towards a genuine “participatory democracy”, where the line between electors and representatives disappears, the one making the other irrelevant.

I am still little hazy on the details, especially when it comes to completely secure and reliable electronic communications, but the idea is simple: the citizenry listens to and weighs up arguments before voting on government measures for the common good. Every voter participates from home or some other convenient place. You could vote on your phone. While there remains an executive and civil service, the legislature becomes essentially virtual, a true mass assembly. This kind of immediate or “participatory” democracy has never before been possible in societies larger than small tribal groups, but it is within our reach now.

Participatory democracy is therefore possible in the near future, but we do not have it yet. And when to comes to action, to “All hands on deck”, the present is what we have, and at present we are stuck with the ramshackle collection of nations, institutions, companies, organizations and mechanisms we have now, in 2021.

Movements which begin outside the normal tracks are commonly called “grassroots.”Any movement that starts anywhere else is an overweening bid for power. We are grass first, and our roots are where anything good should begin. I am proposing a forum called “All Hands on Deck”, specifically aimed at the young as well as adults in general, for any humans to have a voice in the promulgation of ideas and reports on action at all levels in response to the crisis upon us. I shall go into this more in my next commentary.

October 30th. thoughts

I wrote this last year - the weather was a little different and the moon was keeping its own timetable, but I hope this doesn't matter too much among friends Tomorrow's works whatever the weather.

Richard

OCTOBER 31st. (2020)

Last night - Halloween 'Een

Twice in a blue moon

That bony old disk up there

Sails in perfection

Deeper and deeper

Swimming down the atmosphere

Searching for firm ground

I walk under the sky.

The brilliance of sun echoes

Picks out my footsteps

Pools of blue darkness

Shadow the edges of my path

Soak up my plain sight

At a stately pace

Lining the bright stepping stones

Ghosts, ghosts following

Virus-free. www.avg.com

Saturday, October 23, 2021

A sharper night sky

October 23rd.

Star sparks at its heels

The moon casts sharp-edged shadows -

Fall bite in the air

(That's the last of the triptych)

Richard Posner

Virus-free. www.avg.com

A very different night

Peering through the mist

Above the dripping forest
The moon, glimmering

Richard Posner

Virus-free. www.avg.com

Tamworth 2.56 AM, October 21st.

Moon rising high, clear,

Slowly beams down the silence.

Earth locked in stillness

Richard Posner

Saturday, October 16, 2021

Space Travel for All

(William Shatner has taken a brief trip into the threshold of space at the age of 90.)

Mr.Shatner, I am unimpressed.

There are some things one does not have to do in the flesh.

I have gone before you, through the blue to the black. It is a beautiful, awe-inspiring, sobering, lonely, heart-wrenching thing to do.

The human mind, of which I have a functioning but not exceptional example, possesses a power of the imagination that renders a few expensive minutes on the threshold of space a self-indulgent unnecessary luxury.

I am struggling to try to employ this mind of mine, an improvable faculty, my starting point.

The majority of people in the world are still living in circumstances which they find familiar enough so that they are not driven to panic. Not today.

But today we learn that at the global level we have totally failed to curb our carbon emissions so far.

Most of us perceive the planetary environmental crisis to be in its early stages. This is not true, but we are simultaneously inundated with information concerning the crisis and besieged by a sense of unreality because of the means through which we are informed.

I need to learn how to use my powerful imagination to see through overabundant information and over-complexity in the same way I can leap into space without wasting precious resources. I can train myself, but education from others can help.

I put down my pen, step outside, and in my mind rise glorious into the sky. I possess the most powerful spaceship on Earth, the human brain. We certainly need this perspective as we struggle to keep the planet habitable.

Richard Posner

Saturday, October 9, 2021

At Home with Odin

It's morning,

A bright sun rising, clear sky.

Hugin and Munin are ready

The world beckons

Off to school I like to think,

Eager, tireless, off on their lonely flights,

My children, the best of me scanning the Earth.

My one eye lacks perspective,

I have no depth perception

I'm not what I was, hunting for meaning,

One just gets by.

Right side, left side of the brain:

What can I make of this flat map,

Can never make a true projection?

Cannot reconcile the images that circle

Looking for a way to make sense

To shape a picture from the cues

The facts to shape to truth.

So off they go, my brave ones,

My gleaming black sky riders

Pure purpose, unerring

To the end of the world

And back for supper

Unscathed, to give the news.

Richard Posner

Wednesday, October 6, 2021

The Common Good

Commentary: The Common Good

Rather than make this a philosophical analysis and exploration of the concept, this piece is concerned with the United States and how the common good is understood and accepted in varying degrees among different populations and cultures in the country.

A recommended background book is the excellent "American Nations" by Colin Woodard , "a history of the eleven regional cultures of North America." In it, Woodard argues that the original European settlers in many parts of North America often arrived as groups with cultures steeped in histories of oppression, marginalization and exploitation by elites and governments in the lands from which they came, which made them natural frontier-dwellers and individualists. This applied especially to the White settlers in "Greater Appalachia" who became very important in creating a broader "national" culture from Appalachia into their territories of expansion, especially in the southern Midwest and in Texas. Their natural opponents, who had other adversaries for different reasons, were the Yankees, whose influence spread from the narrow-minded Massachusetts Bay theocracy far into the Mid-West, and eventually the Far (Coastal) West as well. Of the eleven Nations, only the Yankees and the Native Americans could be said to have a strongly-developed sense of their overarching societies and the paramount "Common Good" that dominated their ideas as to how they should order and govern their communities . The others were either individualistic to the point of anarchy, or had authoritarian and predatory elites at the tops of pyramids of exploitation of discriminated class- and/or racist- lower orders.

Tribalism has always dominated American society. The tribes may appear to be different from their originals, geographically dispersed and often hidden or unacknowledged, but they persist nonetheless. In his book Woodard makes two major, connected points, that to an extraordinary degree the original settlers in most areas left an indelible mark on the culture of that part of the US right up to the present day, and that this mark can still serve as a predictor of the political leanings of that area's population, even now. So much for the melting pot and supposed national identity. Some find that Woodard overstates his case, but it is powerfully persuasive.

From the viewpoint outlined above, then, it is not surprising that seventy million eligible Americans remain unvaccinated in October 2021, or that the Republicans have a firm "Base" of mostly poorly educated lower-income supporters who are eager to support a party run by rich white men who seek to serve their own selfish interests at the expense of everyone else. Trump is a member of that group, with an extra dimension of extraordinary populist genius. This large tribal group is so easily exploited, especially when manipulated by modern media so savvy in the ways of stirring up fear, hated and existing insecurity. The world according to Fox, many other channels and a huge section of the internet, once entered tends to be the entire source of information, the true, skewed, and the rank lies. Goebbels would weep with envy at the sweeping power and effectiveness of it.

For the tribes caught in this web, the "Common Good" smells of Big Government, the high-spending Democrats, taxation and attacks on "Freedom." They are constantly reminded that the same lot are out to "take our guns away" and allow "Our" women, and even those Gays and other deviants, to have license to kill our babies and generally act immorally. I wish I was exaggerating; alas, for about a fifth of the current electorate, I am not. I will need another time to explore possible ways out of this quagmire. I believe that there are ways, but worry about the timescale.

Richard

Richard Posner

Time - and Time again

Wild time pads softly,

Parallels my walk: glimpses

Among the shadows

Tamed time on a leash

Steadily pulls us onward,

Our fates intertwined

Richard Posner

A Poem for October and the long nights ahead

The Wild Hunt of the Skies

In the woods the quiet day settles

Dry leaves restless

Wind-whispered twigs and branches

Twilight creatures watching, waiting.

Over the mountains the storm threatens

Each layer a rise of elemental being

Till high, high in the darkening sky

In the clear cold thinning air

The faintest sound of trumpets

Shrill, shrill, a galloping of sound

Begins to finger-circle the porcelain dome

To raise the note that carries the tune.

The far-off beating of the drums

Begins, a giant heart's quickening pulse

But drums or hooves? You cannot tell -

A tempest of shadows gathering

A lance of darkness over the forest

Drawing a curtain over the canopy

Shuttering the brightening moon.

And then we see them,

The horsemen howling and shouting to the night

Their mounts wild-eyed, foaming

The hounds baying

The trumpets, the drums,

The beating of paws and hooves on empty air,

The ecstasy, the dark purpose

The speed reckless, the abandon, the savagery -

It is the wild hunt of the skies

The ancient ride of feral souls

It batters the horizon, and is gone.

And the silence of catharsis fills the woods.

Richard Posner