The E.U. and U.S.: Equal Partners

In 2026, even though the U.S. had 50 member-states and the E.U. had only 27 states, both unions were large enough to constitute what in historical terms, with the European early-modern rather than (the smaller) medieval kingdoms in mind, empire-scale republics. As long as elected representatives hold office at the federal level in both political unions, both unions can be said to be republics (as well as containing republics—or, as Ken Wheare wrote in Federal Government, “wheels within a larger wheel”). Were either union to have only five or so states, the empire definition would not be satisfied. Also, that definition includes the requirement of cultural heterogeneity between (as distinct from within) the states. Being on the same (empire) scale is just one of several ways in which the two unions belong to the same political type. It was in this respect rather than based on the sheer number of states that Sophie Wilmes, vice-president of the European Parliament, said that the U.S. should not regard the E.U. as a little sister (i.e., a junior partner). I contend that she was correct.

Including but going beyond economic and political dependence internationally, Wilmes insisted that the U.S. deal with the E.U. as an equal. “What is very important regarding the United States is that we are talking to each other as equal partners and not as a big brother against the little brother or the little sister.”[1] To be sure, little brothers (and I have one who is a decade younger) are perfectly capable of bossing around older brothers. Even so, concerning the context to which Wilmes was referring, the U.S. was dominate on the Iran War and trade tariffs. In fact, the Commission had acted against giant American computer-technology companies on invasion of privacy and anti-competitive grounds only to be threatened by the Trump administration with (retaliatory) tariffs.

It is arguably from the standpoint of not feeling respected that the E.U. leader was speaking out to assert the E.U. as equivalent to the U.S. and thus worthy of reciprocal respect. Put somewhat crassly, just because the American tech companies could have undue (and anti-democratic) influence in American government does not mean that the latter should not respect E.U. law that differs from U.S. law concerning the tech sector. Equal, or reciprocal respect rather than a claim as to the equivalence of the two unions as falling under the same political type is the basis of Wilmes’ public remarks.

Even so, the demand for equal respect is premised on the unspoken assumption that the E.U. and U.S. are indeed equivalent political unions, whose respective states are thus equivalent. In terms of territory and population, the states cluster. The only exception is Alaska, which is larger than even the European Union, not to mention any E.U. state.  That the political unions are both empire-level, cluster in terms of population (i.e., hundreds rather than tens of millions), GDP, and even territory is the grundlagen upon which comparative politics as an academic sub-field in political science and in practice (including in journalism!) should be based even though this foundation is rarely made explicit. Considering the widespread occurrence of political category mistakes with respect to the E.U. and U.S., scholars, government officials, and especially journalists could have done more to make the equivalence explicit in 2026 when the E.U. official made her statement. In 2025, while speaking with the E.U.’s ambassador to the U.S. at Yale, I made this plea in vain, for E.U. officials were then afraid that making the equivalence explicit would give Euroskeptics such as Viktor Orbán more ammunition with which to dismantle the Union, which was certainly not a “bloc.”

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1. Vincenzo Genovese, “’The E.U. Is Not the Little Sister of the US,’ European Parliament Vice-President Wilkes Says,” Euronews.com, 29 April, 2026.

Congressional Subpoenas: The Case of the Clintons

The rule of law is absolutely essential to a representative democracy being able to endure even as strong personalities in public office may seek to bend or even dismiss law for their own purposes. The notion that anyone subject to law gets a pass according to one’s own discretion and power is toxic to a republic being regarded as fair. Just as everyone has a right to due process in legal proceedings in the U.S., no one is above the law there. This applies to former presidents and secretaries of state, and thus to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Their written statement in refusing to recognize a Congressional subpoena as valid—a presumptuous stunt to be sure—reveals that they held the presumption of being able to decide whether a law to which they were subject was valid. This presumption could also be seen when Bill Clinton occupied the White House, for he deliberately lied under oath, “I did not have sexual relations with” Monika Lewinski even though she had performed oral sex with him in the Oval Office when she was a White House intern. My point is that the underlying pattern is clear with respect to a lack of regard for law itself (even though both Clintons went to Yale’s law school) and the presumption of setting oneself in the position of invalidating law to which one is subject. That Bill Clinton was no punished with incarceration in the 1990s was unfortunate even for him and his wife as they were not afforded the opportunity to learn a lesson.

On January 21, 2026, members of the Republican group in the U.S. House of Representatives began the process “to hold former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary in contempt of Congress” because the couple had repeatedly refused to honor a Congressional subpoena to testify on the Epstein sex-girls racket.[1] Photographic evidence that Bill had been in contact with Epstein had been made public, and members of the House had questions for the Clintons regarding what they may have known of Epstein’s crimes. Even though the demand for testimony sounds reasonable enough, Rep. James Comer, the chairman of the relevant committee, had said at the start of a hearing in which the Clinton’s attendance was required that the Clintons had responded not with “cooperation but defiance.”[2] Such a blatant response to a Congressional subpoena is astonishing because, as Comer said, “Subpoenas are not mere suggestions, they carry the force of law and require compliance.”[3] The Clintons contended that the subpoenas were “invalid because they do not serve any legislative purpose.”[4] But it is not for subpoenaed people called to testify to assess whether any such purpose is being served, for otherwise anyone could disregard a Congressional subpoena simply by declaring there to be no legislative purpose.

In his ethical theory, Kant argues that if universalizing a maxim results in a contradiction, such a maxim is unethical.  For example, if no one were to tell the truth, no one would believe anyone else’s truth-claims and so making such claims would not make any sense. Universalizing the maxim that it is ok to lie would result in no claims being made. Similarly, were everyone to act on the maxim, a person subject to a Congressional subpoena can determine the validity of said subpoena and act on that determination, it would not make sense for Congress to issue subpoenas because none would be honored. Universalizing that maxim results in the absurd, so that maxim is unethical.

Another formulation of Kant’s ethical theory holds that rational beings should be treated not merely as one’s means, but also as ends in themselves. In presuming that the committee members were merely playing political games in issuing the subpoenas and dismissing them, the Clintons were treating the members as means only (to the Clinton’s own ends) rather than as ends in themselves worthy of respect by virtue of being rational beings. Why worthy of respect?  Because to Kant, it is by the use of reason that we assign value in the world, so reason itself must have absolute value and thus be worthy of respect. To Kant, the formulations of his Categorical Imperative have the necessity that law does.

It is such necessity, both in law itself and in ethical principles, according to Kant, that the Clintons repeatedly and conveniently overlooked or dismissed outright, and with impunity. It is significant, therefore, that being in contempt of a Congressional subpoena can carry time in prison. There is a good reason for that, so I submit that the criminal charges should be automatic rather than depend on a majority-vote in the House chamber. Obviating accountability by means of political deals does no favor to the guilty in terms of lessons learned, and no favor to an institution that looks weak if its subpoenas can be ignored with impunity. Impunity for some and jail for the rest is no way to run a republic that is based on the rule of law.

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1. Stephen Groves and Matt Brown, “House Republicans Begin Push to Hold the Clintons in Contempt of Congress Over the Epstein Probe,” APnews.com, January 21, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

A Tale of Two Republics: Arizona and California during the Coronavirus Pandemic

An educated and virtuous citizenry is essential for a republic to endure, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, two former U.S. presidents and rivals, agreed in an exchange of letters. Interestingly, both men died on July 4, 1826. Of course, the vote on independence had occurred on July 3, 1776 and the Declaration was signed over weeks rather than dramatically on July 4, 1776. Unfortunately, false narratives can take on a life of their own. Another example involves the U.S.'s "sun-belt" states, whose surging popularity from the 1980s at least through 2020 has masked the true conditions of the underlying cultures. Maricopa county, in which Phoenix, Arizona is located, was in the top 10 nationally for numeric increases in population from 2010 to 2020. Lest it be supposed that that county improved, a survey in July, 2019 listed Arizona as 49th out of the 50 States on elementary education (K-12th grade). 
Relatedly, Arizona's Medicaid system had a sordid reputation in terms of how well the subcontracting companies and non-profits managed themselves and were held accountable. As of 2020, Arizona still had a significant number of ideological voters who believed that Medicaid was a form of sordid socialism, which unjustly had taken the place of horrid communism. Because Medicaid had become the unwanted step-child in that political culture that still boasted that "taxes are theft," tight budgets and the State's bad education system resulted in subcontracting organizations, including medical clinics, conveniently embellishing their low-wage employees. Reports emerged of nurse-practitioners claiming to have the same training as physicians and even specialists such as psychiatrists and dermatologists, and of counselors misrepresenting themselves as being synonymous with therapists. In fact, Arizona's Medicaid tumor even reduced mental health to behavioral health so the cheaper behavior-trained counselors rather than therapists could be hired and relied upon. 
Furthermore, the organizations in Arizona receiving most or all of their funding from public-aid agencies like Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and Medicaid were reputed to suffer from administrative incompetence without much accountability from either of those two government agencies. It was quite strange to read of the non-profit organizations and companies, including medical clinics, refer to themselves as agencies. Such lying with impunity also served to dissimulate any criticism of administrative incompetence. That low-class sub-culture of dependent organizations could count on the low education level in the state and its notable anti-science (and anti-intellectualism) ideology not to know better. In fact, no one would be likely to push-back on the Medicaid employees in the state who mispronounce the technocratic acronym for the state's Medicaid program, AHCCCS, as access rather than ah-kehs. In Arizona, the letter C is not hard (like a K) if an S follows, rather than just an E or I. You're wrong, ignorance that can't be wrong has the gall to say. You're wrong, I don't need to keep six-feet away from people. You're wrong, my people don't need enforceable government orders. Relative to California, we could rightly expect that Arizona would botch its management of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. 
The same ideology that compromises Medicaid at the ballot-box resists government itself, and thus any of its constraints, including physical distancing and the wearing of masks in stores. The following statement from Anthony Fauci, director of the National Center for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, applies especially to Arizona: "One of the problems we face in the United States is that unfortunately, there is a combination of an anti-science bias that people are--for reasons that sometimes are, you know, inconceivable and not understandable--they just don't believe science and they don't believe authority."[1]
A poorly educated and bigoted citizenry may arrogantly dismiss the advice of public health officials like Fauci. In fact, in a local culture wherein strangers are generally known, especially to new-comers and visitors, to be noticeably aggressive in public and especially on public transportation, the ideological and/or badly educated residents may even lash out just for being asked to keep a certain distance or to put on a mask. 
At least in Phoenix, customers were not keeping six feet from each other in stores, including in the crowded grocery stores, in spite of the fact that the governor had ordered it. Employees and customers alike presumed to be immune from the store policies and the law. Both were left unenforced. From a management standpoint, this demonstrates gross incompetence, and from a Nietzschean standpoint, pathetic weakness. 

Therefore, I contend that the governor of Arizona, and the government of Phoenix, badly misjudged their own residents in March, 2020, especially in relying on businesses to enforce the governor's physical-distancing order on customers and even the managers' own employees. As against offenders generally, the governor left the physical-distancing order unenforceable! Nietzsche would say that such power is borne out of weakness. Even the governor's stay-at-home order was stated at the outset to be unenforceable. Issuing an executive order and saying that it will not be enforced turned the order into a guideline--something that was too weak for the ideologically anti-government residents (and there were many) in the Phoenix metropolitan area. It is my right to stand where I want, even if it means that I or other people get sick as a result. As Matt Shumway put it on Twitter, "No dog muzzles here. I value freedom and the U.S. Constitution as opposed to tyranny and rolling over and obeying simply because I'm told without questioning the narrative." Matt and many other Arizonans were not bothering to maintain a reasonable distance from other shoppers in stores, and the managers were looking the other way in spite of the governor's order. With such exaggeration and callous selfishness being a significant feature of the political culture there, only a foolish governor would place his reliance on the people to self-govern, or willingly enforce the order.  
As yet another data-point, a significant number of local bus drivers were ignoring the city council's guideline of a maximum of ten passengers on a regular-length bus. Why issue a health measure as a guideline when it is reasonable to assume that drivers of the sordid local bus company would abuse their driver discretion rather than regulate even unwilling passengers? Some of the local-creeper bus drivers, who were known generally to be hostile to their riff-raff ridership, used their discretion during the month of March (before the hot months!) to close all of the window-slits. Apparently those drivers did not believe in disbursing any virus enclosed onboard in the air. Ignorance and power, a toxic cocktail that is endemic in Arizona, do not exactly form a united front in combating a pandemic. In fact, viruses do remarkably well in dysfunctional cultures because the people are not adequately protected, given their conditions. Not even the local police were maintaining 6-feet on non-emergency (e.g., noise complaints) calls for service. 

California's government was more pro-active (and thus sensible) in March. The governor knew that enforcement of public-health measures is important even where the population is reasonably educated and not out to protest government measures even against a dangerous pathogen as instances of tyranny. Ironically, that government could have relied more on its people and companies than Arizona's government could have, and yet California's had the common sense to know that given the health threat, enforcement would still be needed. 
In early March, California health officials were urging companies (esp. tech) to have employees work from home, companies such as  Google, Apple, and Facebook complied, as did their respective employees. There was a general sense that this was important, and people listened.[2] In other words, people were being responsible. This suggests that they were capable of self-governing themselves, and they were sufficiently mature to recognize that they were not being subject to unconstitutional government control and thus did not need to feel the need to fight back by deliberately not complying. What a difference a border makes! 

Unlike Arizona’s stay at home order which came later and without enforcement, California’s first shelter-in-place order that applied first to a wide swath of Northern California including the Bay Area on March 16, came with enforcement. The California-wide order was issued on March 19; Californians could “not leave home except for essential things such as food, prescriptions, health care and commuting to jobs considered crucial.”[3] Crucially, this order was enforced too. Generally speaking, in issuing orders in a timely manner and enforcing them, California’s government was being responsible in being realistic, which is important even if people take the matter seriously.

To be sure, California was rapidly becoming a “hot spot” for the virus, whereas Arizona was not so designated. That California’s order was “one of the most draconian at the time,” hence exceeding measures in New York City, another hot-spot, suggests that the California Government was acting responsibly, even making the important assumption that enforcement would be needed even though people were taking it seriously. “Why people are praising San Francisco,” the mayor there said, “is because everyone here knew how important it was to follow instructions.”[4] Such maturity is essential for a properly working governmental system based on self-governance (i.e., the People over its government).
Whereas businesses in California undertook to enforce the distancing and lower maximum occupancy limits, store managers in the Phoenix metro area were openly admitting that they would not enforce even the store's own policies, even those that dovetailed with the governor's executive order (e.g., physical distancing). Managers of grocery stores refused even to enforce the policy (and law) on their own carefree employees. 
So in March, 2020, I predicted that Arizona would become a hot-spot. Certainly by mid-June, this had come to pass. In that month, Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was still advising Americans to follow physical-distancing recommendations and wear masks in public, which includes in stores. As of June 13th, at least 13 States, including Arizona, were showing an upward trend in average daily cases--an increase of at least 10%--over "the previous seven days, according to an analysis of John Hopkins University data."[5] As in March, April, and May in Phoenix, I saw little if any physical distancing at the time in public, including on sidewalks and inside stores. 
A survey by the CDC released on June 12th indicates that close to 80% of Americans had self-isolated in May, and 74% had worn face-masks in public either always or often.[5] Arizona opened for business on May 15th in line with President Trump's wishes, whereas California's governor was more cautious. So the percentage of residents in the Phoenix metro who self-isolated could not have been anywhere near 80 percent. Judging from the stores, I would estimate that less than half of the people were wearing masks. Even this might be an over-estimate, considering that Arizona had more than its share of people who refused to weak masks out of an anti-government-control political ideology. Viruses do not walk around such ideologies. In fact, such people put themselves at risk to make political points. This is why I brought in the poor condition of primary education in Arizona. The anti-professional bias, also very much extant in the middle and lower socio-economic classes in Arizona, undoubtedly played a role in the dismissiveness of even the guidelines. 
In fact, if we can assume that the people nationally who were self-isolating and wearing masks in public in May were also careful to keep at a distance from other people in stores as well as in public otherwise, the practically non-existent physical-distancing being practiced in Phoenix contrary to the governor's order suggests that even in this respect Arizonans (including the store managers and employees!) were falling short relative to the national percentages. Hence Gov. Ducey's ineffectual approach, which included his faulty trust that businesses would enforce at least their own policies on not only customers, but also employees. At a press conference on June 17th, the governor declared that the virus was spiking again, and that he would leave it to the local governments whether to require face masks  . In his tone as he reminded businesses that they would be held accountable, I contend he subtly acknowledged that businesses such as grocery stores had not complied to his physical-distancing executive order in March and still in effect in June. I wonder if he realized just how pathetically many of his citizens had taken his heed on distancing. Arizona is not California, either in terms of citizenry or governance.

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1. Jacqueline Howard and Veronica Stracqualursi," Fauci Warns of 'Anti-Science Bias' Being a Problem in US," CNN.com, June 18, 2020.
2. Ray Sanchez and Dan Simon, “What California Is Doing Right in Responding to the Coronavirus Pandemic,” CNN.com, April 3, 2020.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.
5. Madeline Holcombe, "Fauci Says Second Wave is 'Not Inevitable' as Coronavirus Cases Climb in Some States," CNN.com, June 13, 2020.
6. Ibid.

CEO Compensation: How Much Is Too Much?

From the previous year, the medium value of salaries, bonuses and long-term-incentive awards for the CEOs of 350 major American companies increased by 11% in 2010 to $9.3 million, according to the Hay Group.  Corporate net income increased by a medium of 17% and shareholders medium returns, including dividends, increased by 18 percent. Share prices also increased more than the CEO compensation. However, bonuses increased 19.7%, which is just barely more than the percentage increases in corporate profit and shareholder returns.
Of course, comparing percentages can be misleading because the base amounts can differ markedly. Ten percent of 100, for example, is less than ten percent of 1000. The issue regarding CEO compensation may have less to do with comparisons to corporate net income and stockholder returns, as these are different categories, than to the absolute amount of the compensation.
One might compare, for example, the amounts earned by a typical CEO and a typical worker. In 2000, on average, CEOs at 365 of the largest publicly traded U.S. companies earned $13.1 million, or 531 times what the typical hourly employee earned. The corresponding ratio in 1990 was 85 and in 1980 it was only 42, according to Finfacts. It is unlikely that the contributions, and thus value, of CEOs to corporate bottom lines were increasing accordingly--both in absolute terms and relative to the sweat of hourly employees. In fact, Sarah Anderson points out that many of the executives responsible for the financial crisis of 2008 used it as a springboard financially. Specifically, at ten of the financial firms that received bailout money, executives were awarded stock options when the market was at bottom. After the taxpayer funds helped lift the price of the stocks, "the executives who brought the global economy to the brink of disaster" saw their portfolios increase in value by $90 million. This surely violates the maxim of justice as fairness, especially as theorized by John Rawls.
Furthermore, it is doubtful that American CEOs are more talented than those in Europe and Asia. According to Finfact, income inequality in the U.S. was, as of 2003, greater than anywhere else in the industrialized world. One could be excused for asking whether the highest CEO figures are beyond even what one person could reasonably spend (without giving tens of millions away at a time without a thought) even in a very comfortable life of luxury.
Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman, for example, topped the list at $84.3 million, more than double his 2009 pay. Even if a significant portion of this figure are stock options that cannot be sold for several years, the total amount is so far beyond what a person can use even for luxuries that one might wonder what impact it could have on the CEO. Moreover, the amount dwarfs by many times the salaries even of middle level managers, not to mention workers. The amount itself is sufficient to raise some questions.
For example, can the worth of a particular CEO to a corporation really be worth $84 million?  Is that amount necessary to motivate or sufficiently reward a manager who happens to be the CEO? Is the potential CEO labor market really so limited? Is corporate governance itself at issue? Given the influence that CEOs can have over the boards tasked with overseeing them as well as setting executive compensation, the obscene numbers may be indicative of the conflict of interest.  Where a CEO is chairman of the board too (i.e., duality), the conflict of interest is structural and bears on corporate governance itself. That American CEOs get paid more on average than European CEOs suggests that the American compensation amounts may be due to arrangements pertaining to American corporate governance rather than occurring naturally from a competitive labor market.
From a governmental standpoint in a republic, the high CEO compensation signifies concentrated private power. Such power may be an inherent threat to representative democracy wherein each citizen able to vote has one vote. In other words, the pay may incur systemic risk to the republic itself as a representative democracy. Such concerns can and should constrain even private contracts, for individual transations should not be allowed to put the whole at risk.Yet if concentrated wealth already has bought the mainstream candidates and government officials such that they are in its grip, the high compensation amounts are effectively protected and the republic can be expected to run without contradicting this particular powerful vested interest. The only way out of this negative feedback group is for the people to recognize the manipulation and corruption in the halls of their government and vote accordingly. The problem is that such action is apt to be decentralized unless candidates outside the vested interests can raise above the din of the party lines.

Sources:

Joann Slublin, “CEO Pay in 2010 Jumped 11%” The Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2011, p. B1.

Michael Hennigan, "Executive Pay and Inequality in the Winner-Take-All Society," Finfacts, August 7, 2005.

Sarah Anderson, "Can Europe Pop the U.S. CEO Pay Bubble?" CommonDreams.org, September 2, 2009.

See related essay: "Wall Street Bonuses and TARP: A Tale of Two Cities"

When Partisanship Takes on Science on Global Warming: The Part before the Whole

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams concurred on the following preference—namely, a natural aristocracy of virtue and talent over the artificial sort of birth and wealth. Talent here is not merely skill, but also knowledge. Hence the two former U.S. presidents agreed that citizens ought to be given a broad basic education in free schools. The corollary is that as a citizenry lapses in virtue and knowledge, decadence will show up in public discourse and consequently public policy. If kept unchecked, the tendency is for the republic to fall.
Therefore, as governor of Virginia, Jefferson proposed a Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge in 1779. His rationale was that because even “those entrusted with power” who seek to protect individual rights can become tyrants, popular education is necessary to render a republic secure. Jefferson’s hope was that by teaching “the people at large” examples of despots in history, the electorate would be more likely to recognize despots in their own time and throw the bastards out on their noses. As for those whom voters put in public offices, Jefferson believed that “laws will be wisely formed, and honestly administered, in proportion as those who form and administer them are wise and honest.” Hence, “those persons, whom nature hath endowed with genius and virtue, should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights of their fellow citizens.” This is why, beginning at around 1900, law schools in the American states began to admit applicants to the undergraduate degree in law (LL.B. or J.D.) who had already earned an undergraduate degree in the liberal arts and sciences. It was not as though the undergraduate degree in law had been promoted to graduate status.
Having had largely self-governing, popularly-elected colonial legislatures for much of the seventeenth century, the nascent American republics would stand on the two pillars of virtue and talent (including knowledge) instilled in the self-governing peoples themselves as well as their elected and appointed public officials. It is said that the only constant is change, as in the extent to which an electorate is virtuous and generally knowledgeable, as well as in the related rise and fall of republics. One notable example is ancient Rome, which went from being a republic to a dictatorship under the purported exigencies of war. Lest the rise and fall of republics seems a bit too dramatic to be considered realistic, I offer the more modest thesis that a decline in virtue and knowledge among an electorate renders the public policy increasingly deficient in dealing with contemporary problems. The matter of climate change is a case in point.

According to a study at Yale in April 2013, Americans’ conviction that global warming was happening had dropped by seven percentage-points over the preceding six months to 63 percent. The unusually cold March—quite a reversal from the previous March—explains the drop, according to the poll’s authors. The cold may actually have resulted from a loosening in the artic jet-stream southward—like a rubber-band whose elasticity has been compromised—due to more open water in the arctic ocean and thus less temperature differential in the air. Even so, only 49% of Americans believed that human activities were contributing to global warming. In fact, only 42% of Americans believed at the time that most scientists had concluded that global warming is really happening. Thirty-three percent of Americans were convinced that “widespread disagreement” exists among scientists.
In actuality, a study showed of more than 4,000 articles touching on human-sourced climate change, 97% of the scientists having written the articles conclude that human-caused change was already happening. Less than 3% either rejected the notion or remained undecided. “There is a gaping chasm between the actual consensus and the public perception,” one of the study’s authors remarked. “It’s staggering given the evidence for consensus that less than half of the general public think scientists agree that humans are causing global warming. This is significant,” the author concludes, “because when people understand that scientists agree on global warming, they’re more likely to support policies that take action on it.” Going back to Jefferson and Adams, ignorance among the electorate in a republic can be sufficient to divert enough political will that legislation needed to fix a societal (or global) problem is sufficiently thwarted.
Perhaps some of the apparent ignorance on global warming in 2013 could actually have been partisan angst. If President Obama favored policies predicated on the assumption that human-sourced global warming was then already underway, just his support alone could have been enough for some Republicans to hold firm in their denial of even other-sourced global warming. In holding knowledge hostage to score cheap partisan points, citizens and their representatives do not demonstrate much respect for knowledge as well as virtue; the vice of partisanship subdues the good of the whole in preference for the good of a part.
If Jefferson and Adams were correct that a virtuous and knowledgeable citizenry is vital to the continuance of a republic, the extent of ignorance and partisan vice related to global warming in spite of the nearly unanimous scientific conclusion and the huge stakes involved may suggest that the American republics and the grand republic of the Union may be on borrowed time (and money). Moreover, that the ignorance and vice pertains to global warming enlarges the implications to include the continuance of the species. That is to say, a virtuous and educated species may be necessary for its very survival.

See this PSA on global warming: http://www.thewordenreport.blogspot.com/2013/05/global-warming-psa.html


Academic Sources:

Philip Costopoulos, “Jefferson, Adams, and the Natural Aristocracy,” First Things, May 1990.

Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, “Americans’ Global Warming Beliefs and Attitudes in April 2013,” Yale School of Forestry and Environomental Studies, 2013.

John Cook, Dana Nuccitelli, Mark Richardson, et al, “Quantifying the Consensus on Ahthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature,” Environmental Research Letters, 8 (2013) (2), pp.

Press Source:

Tom Zeller, “Scientists Agree (Again): Climate Change Is Happening,” The Huffington Post, May 16, 2013.

Protest Movements 101

David Johnston of Reuters opined on October 7, 2011, the Occupy Wall Street “protests show signs of sparking a major change in U.S. politics by creating common ground among people with wildly divergent views. The key to their significance will be whether they foster a wholesale change in political leadership in 2013 or whether Americans return a vast majority of incumbents in both parties at all levels of government.” But are “wildly divergent views” really represented, and did the movement translate dramatic camera-ready protest parades and sit-ins into grassroots work to get specifically anti-corporate candidates past the primaries and into office in 2012?  I contend that from the get-go, the Occupy Wall Street movement set itself on a trajectory antithetical to being able to answer both of these questions in the affirmative. In so doing, the movement’s “non-leaders” sowed the seeds of the movement’s demise—or at the very least of being relegated as partisan and thus contained as a sub-part in the system.

In terms of a diversity of views, a poster board in McPherson Square, where “Occupy D.C.” pitched camp, listed, according to USA Today, “the group’s wide-ranging goals, including economic justice, education reform, repealing the Patriot Act, District of Columbia home rule and an end of the two-party system.” One protester claimed all these agendas are related because, “Everyone has a voice here.” That doesn’t really explain why the goals are related. I contend that the reason is because the group is populated by liberal Democrats.

While symmetrical with the Tea Party in the Republican Party, my pigeon-holing of the Occupy Wall Street movement deprives it of the anti-big-business populism that is salient in much of the Tea Party. Indeed, traditional agrarian Republicanism contained a strident thread of anti-corporatism, as big business, like big government, is fully capable of trampling over the individual. As Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) used to say on the U.S. Senate floor, “I’m for the little guy.” This is vintage Republican populism, which the “Occupy Wall Street” excluded from the get-go by failing to delimit itself in terms of topics. In other words, the “Occupy Party” may be undercutting itself by association.

It is in the corporate interest that the movement be relegated as partisan and left-wing. It is in the political interest (and comfort) of Republican officials to keep the movement from engaging in joint operations with Tea Party organizations or absorbing some Tea Party members; that would essentially muzzle representatives like Eric Cantor who would not want to insult those members.

The movement’s organizers (and there are leaders even if they claim to have a “leaderless” movement) failed to resist the ideological temptation to permit liberal Democrats who are “off topic” with respect to Wall Street and big business generally and with respect to government officials to join in anyway. Even apart from being stigmatized as simply partisan, the group ran the risk of running off course, like a sailboat without a rudder in the water. The boat goes wherever the wind takes it. To get an idea of how even just one protest event can slide, a nebulous “Stop the Machine” protest in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. on October 6, 2011 “was intended to protest the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan . . . but morphed into a multigroup demonstration that decried corporate greed as well as drone attacks.” Even the best placed intentions can find themselves on the losing end of a “morphing” if the boat had no rudder in the water. So a protest event against the corporate takeover of Congress (i.e., a plutocracy) could easily morph into an anti-war rally where pot-smokers beat bongos and dance in tie-dye shirts, while singing songs from another century that was anything but peace and love. While convenient and fun to the protesters, they would quickly lose credibility in much of the wider American society. Considering how much of that society might subscribe to an anti-Wall Street and big business lobby movement, the ideological convenience came at a steep, though perhaps hidden, cost.

As far as the impact of the Occupy Wall Street movement on the primaries and general election in 2012, the most likely scenario is that turnout of liberal Democrats gets a boost. This marginal impact would be indirect, rather than from a deliberate strategy in the movement to transition protesters into campaign volunteers for anti-corporate candidates urged to run by the movement. Ideally, such candidates could be found and supported for the primaries of both of the major parties. For example, agrarian populist Republicans could readily support a Republican candidate who advocates repealing the “legal person” corporate judicial doctrine (and thus corporate political spending), capping executive compensation on Wall Street, and breaking up the banks as well as companies that are too big to fail (or simply a danger to the republic form of governance).  In short, the notion that there is no ceiling for economic liberty can be replaced by a social-contract notion of solidarity based in the viability of a republic form of government and of market competition. As such, the movement’s goals could easily have been bipartisan, with only the Rockefeller Republicans in opposition.  Alas, so close but so, so far.

Had the Occupy Wall Street movement’s leaders been oriented to getting specifically anti-corporate candidates elected on both sides of the aisle, the movement would have limited itself to a few specific policy proporals. The very existence of the mega-corporation (and the mega-compensation levels) could have been at issue. Indeed, specific proposals capable of fundamentally redefining capitalism from its mega-corporate (with mega-lobbies) variety could have been linked to setting up and supporting particular candidates for a variety of state and federal offices. The movement’s leaders would have had to bend over backwards to make sure that Republican populist (e.g., agrarian) candidates were given just as much support. This would likely have included supporting some Tea Party candidates—the movement’s litmus test being stridently narrow yet uncompromising on providing the corporations with some loop holes or watered-down policies. Most importantly, for the movement to have succeeded in terms of policy would have meant supporting candidates who are not liberal! It could almost be said that such self-discipline alone would merit success at the ballot box. In contrast, taking the road most convenient has meant that making a radical change in corporate capitalism is not likely, at least from the “Occupy Wall Street” crowd.

Consider the following observation from Brendan Burke, a truck driver and punk rock musician who studied philosophy in college. “I have heard a thousand different things people are concerned about — inadequate teacher pay, no jobs, the rich not paying their fair share of taxes and all of it was about how we working people are not getting a fair shake.” The thousand points of light here sound to me like a grab-bag from the left wing of the Democratic Party. A small town Republican who is skeptical of big business (and big government) would naturally take one look at these causes and view the entire enterprise as partisan and left-wing. In other words, Burke’s observation confirms my sense that the movement quickly tracked to the liberal Democrat agenda writ large without even attempting to achieve a sufficient focus either on topic or on grass roots mobilization to significantly change the election results in 2012. At most, liberal Democrats will be more likely to make it to the ballot box on election-day in November, 2012. The usual suspects re-elected who had been sympathetic to the movement will have no fire under their bellies to maintain the movement’s push for fundamental change. Once again, real change will be in terms of incremental regulations rather than systemic change. Perhaps this is simply how American governance gets done.

If I am correct in my prediction, the culprit was none other than ideological selfishness or greed at the expense of driving home one radical change. It is ironic that greed (i.e., the desire for more) compromises efforts to curtail monetary greed. Perhaps the protesters were so upset in part because they knew deep down that they shared something with the bankers on Wall street: being driven by an unwillingness to resist the temptation to have more of whatever is in line with self-interest. I suspect that the corporate (and political) elite depended on this selfishness to derail the protest movement, and the protesters did not disappoint.

Given the immense wealth (and thus power) that the large American corporations and banks have, I am utterly astonished that a window could open even a crack to occasion a societal decision on whether the large corporation—the so-called “legal person”—should continue to exist in the United States. Less astonishing, the window began to close even as the movement was beginning to spread. It was a self-inflicted wound. The movement’s fate, as if predestined, will likely be taken to mean that the modern corporation itself has become virtually untouchable, meaning that it cannot be challenged politically within the system. The mega-corporate form thus ensconced in American society, pressure from the related increasing economic inequality will likely build until the system ultimately bursts open, at a much, much greater cost.

There are indeed huge costs in keeping the party going, whether in Goldman Sachs’ tower or on the street below. I suspect that neither Wall Street nor its antagonists—both of whom have been acting like predictable character-actors— grasp this point; both appear so narrow-minded yet proud. I can’t be wrong, they were undoubtedly thinking as they gazed at each other in 2011 from afar. The bankers refused even to acknowledge any culpability for the financial crisis of 2008 and the protesters were so sure they were on the right side of truth that they provided free admission to virtually any friendly agenda. What if a pro-life protester had shown up?

It would be nice if the great silent majority—those Americans who simply go about their daily business while quietly but astutely observing Wall Street and the protesters from afar—would take the reins from the arrogant and the proud in order to enact systemic change. At least from the vantage-point of a decade into the twentieth century, I suspect that many ordinary Americans like you and me had come to the uncomfortable conclusion that our political-economic system had in all likelihood been wrecked along the rocks of unbridled ambition. At the very least, many of us probably felt that, given the financial crisis of 2008 and the consolidation of special-interest power in Washington, both the financial system and the federal system were in need of major repairs, but had received only fine-tuning at most from vested interests. In other words, most citizens were probably wondering: where are the adults? It is indeed difficult to detect any such creatures among either the childish CEOs, such as Fuld (truly a lunatic), Coyne (a card-playing child), O’Neil (an insecure tyrant), Thain (selfishness incarnate) and Lewis (just plain dumb), or the angry yet somehow playful protesters. Tweedledum and Tweedledee could not put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Unfortunately, there is no Mother Goose either; sorry to say, but I'm afraid we must tackle the hard egg ourselves. Hopefully, we will muster the requisite determination before that egg completely spoils amid the stench of the sordid spoils of corporate capitalism in the stygian halls of Congress.

Sources:



David C. Johnston, “Occupy Wall Street,” Reuters, October 7, 2011. 

Donna L. Leger, “Protesting ‘Occupiers’ Spread Message Beyond Wall St.,” USA Today, October 7, 2011. 




See related essays: "Occupying Wall Street" and "A Self-Regulated Protest?"

Debating Federalism

It could be maintained 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 satisfactorily 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.

For more on this topic, see: Two Federal Empires and American and European Federalism

Political Black Holes: On the Power Behind the Throne

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, has a black hole. If this is news to you, there is no need to go hide under a rock. It turns out our black hole is not the biggest by far, and it doesn't spew out a lot of excess energy that falls into it. Even so, it is ours, and we can be glad that we have one of our very own even if it isn't the biggest one on the block. In case you are interested in seeing it’s baleful look in a picture, I’ve got bad news for you; it is invisible. No light can bounce off it.  You are probably wondering how the scientists found it.  Well, they knew that black holes are in the center of galaxies, so the crafty lab coats used light to find our center because there is too much gas there for much there to be visible to us.  The scientists noticed that the speed of stars speeds up around a certain point and posited the existence of a highly-dense black hole.

Using the phenomenon of black holes as an analogy, political "scientists" might investigate whether power, whethere in business, government or society, tends by its very nature to consolidate. In the Micheal Moore documentary on capitalism, two members of congress point to the immense power of an anti-democratic corporate banking elite that was able to turn around the House vote on the bank bailout (TARP) using the democratic leadership as runners. If so, such power was invisible to the public. Likewise a black hole is of course invisible. In the case of the banking elite, we couldn't point our fingers at who exactly gave the marching orders that turned around the no-questions-asked government loans to the banks too big to fail.  Nor do we, or will we, know who told the U.S. Senators: hands off meddling in foreclosures.  Indeed, we shall have no idea whether a power behind the throne told Congress not to even debate the alternative of giving the TARP money directly to home borrowers in trouble.  That this was not seriously debated for foreclosures involving mortgages that banks and mortgage companies should not have given in the first place hints of the existence of a massive albeit hidden political black hole. Finally, such a black hole may have been behind the administration's decision not to push for banks too big to fail to be carved up while extant rather than simply "orderly liquidated" once they have fallen under their own weight.

Neither the American people nor the American media companies go far enough in investigating even the existence of invisible black holes in the American political universe, let alone what damage they do from the standpoint of the public or common good.  Micheal Moore suggests that Citibank and Goldman don’t fear popular election much because they expect the 1 person, 1 vote thing won’t turn on them because most people think they could be in the elite too. The financial elite is 1% of the vote; 1% of the population holds 90% of the wealth, so if the other 99% happen to wake up and notice, they might take back the reins. The big business would be worried, but, alas, Wall Street is not shaking in its golden boots. As to why, I would add to Moore’s explanation by pointing to the extent to which Americans are manipulated without even knowing it.  Lest it be missed, the giant media companies are corporate too.

Is it an accident, for example, that so many stories on Afganistan pop up when it is in the interest of the defence contractors? Are they simply using the people to urge Congress to support a surge?  I would call this “direct manipulation” because we are being summoned to debate what has been put on the table for us.   The other kind is “indirect,” which involves a political black hole keeping an issue or policy-option off our radar screens.  President Obama’s suggestion, for example, that the banks too big to fail be reduced in size (and money) so they would not be so dangerous in failing, quietly went away. In looking for indirect manipulation, the important thing to notice is the absence of  any visible event or change that could explain the removal of a proposal by some new issue being covered by the media. We ought to be examining what political black holes do not want us to talk about because of private interests. For instance, we now know that health insurance companies gave their surrogates "death panel scare stories" to fan out discussion of a public alternative in health insurance.  Scaring a proposal off the radar screen is among the silent weapons used by political black holes.  Again, the source of such weapons is invisible.

So like sheep, the American people is led to debate or focus on something or to forget something else, In the process, we are unwittingly giving up, or failing to grasp, our democratic power, which can be used for the public good. To be sure, there are excesses and drawbacks in democracy and these too should be discussed, but there are hidden dangers to political black holes, and we miss these if we do not even know that such things exist.  That is to say, the democracy we do have may be rather wan in comparison to the gravity of the political black hole at the center of our political society.

Perhaps the question on your mind is:  So how do we get it back?   It might involve nothing short of waking up out of the Matrix.  So many of us don’t realize how much we are being manipulated.  Realizing it, and not tailoring our thoughts and discussions along its lines will wake others.   Once people start waking, we can start to look for candidates who do not, like Obama, take a $1 million from Goldman after promising real change.  We need candidates willing to forego being bought out by the elites who sense that democracy might possibly get the upper hand in an election.  Pay particular attention to the matter of teeth in such candidates’ proposals with respect to big business…and ask at their speeches whether they are taking money from the establish that has a vested interest in the status quo.  Don’t buy the “I’m not influenced by money.”  …which should be treated as a laugh line.   If you find genuine candidates willing to effect systemic change even where it is at the expense of the big corporate players, know that the elite will offer such candidates so much if the elite view the candidates as viable and  not under their control.  Control, by the way, can be more subtle than using a leash.  This is perhaps my major point here…political black holes are invisible and yet their anti-democratic gravity is HUGE…even as it is in a tiny space, or office.

In the Roman Empire, the games in the arena (which means “sand” in Latin) were a devise to distract as well as mollify and entertain the masses.  Today, we have American Idol and the Super Bowl, as well as the World Series.  Besides their entertainment value made possible by the talent involved, these idols are effective in gravitating popular attention…and this can be useful to the extent that the US is a plutocracy (i.e. ruled in the interest of the top 1% of the wealth) and vested powers fear the 1 person, 1 vote power of democracy.  But as Micheal Moore points out, Citibank and Goldman Sachs can rest easier knowing that many of us don’t use the power of the vote to take from the banks because many of us believe we might be among the plutacracy one day. 

I would add that we tend to be easily manipulated into following the media’s current (which, kein Zufall, tends to move around the interests of the major houses so as not to disturb the islands of capital).   We stop wondering about the distant promises to do something about the banks too big to fail because the media has conveniently stopped reminding us.  We forget that an option is to break up the banks too big to fail (which, by the way, have gotten bigger since September, 2008 and are still active at the casino).  We unthinkingly join the media in debating Obama’s banking consumer protection proposal, as though that were primary.  In other words, Goldman Sachs, which was Obama’s largest campaign contributor according to Micheal Moore (over $1 million), is content to have us debate a potentially pain so we will be appeased by Obama’s pledge of “real change” and not ask, demand, or VOTE to apply anti-trust law to financial houses.   In short, we allow ourselves to be dupped and we don’t even know it.  We don’t even realize we are taking our eyes off the eight ball.  Goldman lets Obama have four more years and 1 person, 1 vote is once again not a threat to either Goldman or the change agent that the bank bought.  Don’t expect Obama to rock the boat in bringing any real change that is not in the interests of the most powerful of the corporations.  Obama’s challenge is to show us just enough that looks like real change while not acting outside the interests of his corporate backers.  However, aren’t real change and status quo vested intersts mutually exclusive?  If so, how does Barak Obama get around this?  He gives us just enough to appear…   Meanwhile, the systemic change that is needed on the players at fault in September, 2008, goes by the wayside and we remain vulnerable even though We the People are convinced that a new consumer protection agency will do the trick.  The trick, ladies and gentlemen, is on us–and we don’t even know it.  We don’t know what we don’t know…while we presume we know it.

In 2009, Moammar Gadhafi of Libya gave a speech  at the annual opening of the General Assembly at the UN in New York City.  Substantively, he pointed to the drawbacks in having the UN remain in New York.  He also advocated a permanent seat for the African Union in the Security Council.   Fifty-three states are represented in that Union.  In an interesting twist, he remarked that the US contains fifty countries, so Africa too deserved a permanent seat.  I was utterly surprised that the man who was disorganized and sporatic in his delivery (and whose government would kill hundreds of unarmed protesters in 2011) could grasp the nature of the US in terms commensurate to the AU. He added that the EU should have a seat.   This makes a lot of sense because it is not fair for three of the EU’s states to have seats while all of the 50 United States have one. It occurred to me in listening to his speech that he understood the nature of the US as an empire-scale polity better, actually, than most contemporary Americans do. This is a bad commentary on the condition of civics classes in American high schools.  So I was surprised to find the mainstream media report the speech simply as “disorganized" without reporting any of the substance, as though there had been no serious content whatsoever.   Someone must have wanted to discredit Qaddafi for political or economic reasons.   The summary verdict was so immedate and total that none of Qaddafi’s content was covered.   The media’s treatment had all the footprints of a hidden strategy--that is, of a black hole's pull.  If I am correct, I’m left surprised that the subterfuge itself could be so blatant.  For a journalistic standpoint, the reporting was really bad.   Alternatively, the journalists could have reported what the man had said (as well as on his style and approach) and have left it to the readers to decide whether the content should be dismissed due to the style.   Something else was going on.  I’m just not sure what. I contend that something else typically goes on in terms of what is debated in the public discourse via the media. The invisible source steering and pruning what travels across our public radar screen is none other than a political black hole: a very dense concentration of private power functioning akin to an invisible elephant in a small living room. One person senses a trunk--another a leg--but we as a people miss the very existence of the elephant.  We are too distracted, and this is no accident, as it manifests by the very black hole that we do not suspect exists.

In short, both the content and frequency of topics reported by the media bear traces of the black whole that they are orbiting. As long as the source of the gravity is invisible, the black hole will continue to be quite useful.  Put another way, as long as Americans take the press reports as simply journalism, we will miss what is going on behind the scenes and therefore continue to be subject to being manipulated.  Micheal Moore asks: when will democracy ascend over the power of big business?  It is possible, but not probable.   This, by the way, is the expression that Kant uses in discussing his Kingdom of Ends (treating rational beings as ends and not just as means). Beyond the latent or actual subterranean power of corporate America over our public airwaves and legislative chambers, we ought to reflect on the threat to a republic in there simply being political black holes.

  

See: Nova on Black Holes
 (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/blackhole/)