Perhaps I was a bit too harsh to feminists, products of time as I am of mine. My romantic spleen longs for true groundswells of change, and I am angered by partisan politics and the some at the expense of some. Perhaps if I wax choleric I will prompt responses in kind, and who does not love kind responses and flamewars.
Maybe it is just that my frame of mind is dependant on that impossible blank slate. Bring me an eraser. Oh to be young in a young country! Give me destiny and an open frontier and I'll do my best Jefforson. It is only amidst concrete walls and decay that we must act the Lenins of the world, or the Stalins. If an age of I-beams demands men of steel I should be unsurprised that a copper-wire century creates bronze and calculating change.
The Thanksgiving season is on us. A season for gorging on turkey, tripping on triptophan and falling asleep in front of the football game. Thanksgiving was once the celebration of survival and a fresh chance in a firewashed land. All it took was the accidental genocide of a thousand peoples (and the calculated genocide of a thousand more) to give us two or three centuries of frontier. What is the new frontier? It took less than a decade for the digital prarie to become corn-growing land. Is space that final frontier? I think not in my generation.
The Jefforsonian ideal is predicated on indpendant incomes. The Friedanian ideal is predicated on independant incomes. The difficulty is that we now live in a society with no real frontier, where jobs are the product of amorphous corporates and bureacracy. Working outside the home gives a woman independance from her husband, but not full freedom. Dependance is merely shifted from one employer to another. Under the market economy, we are all dependants on the cheifs of industry; our corporate fathers take home the lions share of the bacon while we are left to clean the slaughterhouse.
At the risk of sounding like a Luddite, perhaps farms are the answer. If vegitarianism was mandated, or at least meat made a luxury, corporate farms would not be so requisite. Less land is needed for crops if they are eaten before being processed through the meat machine. More land could be left fallow for prarie or woodlands. Water rights would be less problematic in the West. We could hunt for pleasure and for the occasional meat, but grow most food on local farms. Urban areas could set up empty lots for community vegetable plots. A small slice of farm is a great fall-back for lean times. At the same time, because we are so connected through the interwaves of the wired aether, we could remain connected and continue the majority of jobs from localities.
This is a dream. We are the products of our time, and this type of sea change would require a generation of pigs who had not known farmers to stand on their hind legs.
Tuesday, November 21
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others
For those of you who thought there was something wrong with feminism, it turns out you were right. In the process of making women as a group more equal to men as a group, the feminist movement has added to the growing trend of inequality between social groups. According to the New York Times Magazine article, this is because marriages accross income groups are less common and within highly educated couples, women are increasingly likely to max out their potential education and earnings. What's more, it turns out that marrying up used to be one of the primary means of social advancement. This can be seen in the fact that the increased inequities between socioeconomic groups is mirrored by a decreased rate of social mobility. Hrm. A seemingly correlated trend is that interracial marriage has been on the rise largely because it is no longer as likely to imply interclass marriage. Double hrm.
Now before anyone accuses me of being a masogynist oppressor, let me explain myself. The feminist movement was largely in response to the division of labor which typically placed men in the factory or the office and women in the home. This is clearly an unequal type of situation. The man, through his labor, generated liquid assets (read: cash money) while the woman generated nontransferable goods and services (a clean house, dinner, children). This gave the man much more freedom to spend the returns on his labor while leaving the woman dependant on him. The thing is, this was not the situation from time immemorial. In fact, this division of labor was largely the product of the industrial revolution; as you go back in time, women get more equal to men, not less. Prior to Adam Smith and the division of labor, pretty much everyone (minus a few kings and such) was on pretty much equal footing, the problem was that they were all equally poor. Division of labor created wealth, but it also created more divisions of wealth. Without the industrial revolution and the agricultural revolution, there would not have been such a need for the sexual revolution. Discuss in groups: why do we call it the Enlightenment when it created inequality?
So all the progress of the women's movement, the civil rights movement and so on? Well, they have created equal (or nearly equal) standing under the law. This has allowed some women and minorities to enter the upper classes. Once they are there, they keep their wealth in the family by ensuring that their children get educated and marry well. They probably don't care if their daughter marries a black man, so long as he's a doctor (or for that matter, if their son marries a Puoto Rican, so long as she's an executive). "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife," wrote Jane Austen 200 years ago. Today she would probably write "...in want of a rich wife."
So what has happened to all the unpaid labor that women used to perform. Well, most of it is paid labor now, and gets outsourced. All the housekeeping, laundry and childcare is done primarily by the working poor, mostly, it should be pointed out, by women. The triumph of feminism is to find other women to oppress, and to do it under the justifying auspices of the market.
Now before anyone accuses me of being a masogynist oppressor, let me explain myself. The feminist movement was largely in response to the division of labor which typically placed men in the factory or the office and women in the home. This is clearly an unequal type of situation. The man, through his labor, generated liquid assets (read: cash money) while the woman generated nontransferable goods and services (a clean house, dinner, children). This gave the man much more freedom to spend the returns on his labor while leaving the woman dependant on him. The thing is, this was not the situation from time immemorial. In fact, this division of labor was largely the product of the industrial revolution; as you go back in time, women get more equal to men, not less. Prior to Adam Smith and the division of labor, pretty much everyone (minus a few kings and such) was on pretty much equal footing, the problem was that they were all equally poor. Division of labor created wealth, but it also created more divisions of wealth. Without the industrial revolution and the agricultural revolution, there would not have been such a need for the sexual revolution. Discuss in groups: why do we call it the Enlightenment when it created inequality?
So all the progress of the women's movement, the civil rights movement and so on? Well, they have created equal (or nearly equal) standing under the law. This has allowed some women and minorities to enter the upper classes. Once they are there, they keep their wealth in the family by ensuring that their children get educated and marry well. They probably don't care if their daughter marries a black man, so long as he's a doctor (or for that matter, if their son marries a Puoto Rican, so long as she's an executive). "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife," wrote Jane Austen 200 years ago. Today she would probably write "...in want of a rich wife."
So what has happened to all the unpaid labor that women used to perform. Well, most of it is paid labor now, and gets outsourced. All the housekeeping, laundry and childcare is done primarily by the working poor, mostly, it should be pointed out, by women. The triumph of feminism is to find other women to oppress, and to do it under the justifying auspices of the market.
Wednesday, November 15
The Prescience of Peter Sellers
As you may have gleaned from previous posts, I am a big Peter Sellers fan. This began, unsurprisingly, with an appreciation for the Pink Panther films (which wilipedia tells us are named after the MacGuffin of the first film; cool term btw), especially A Shot in the Dark. I have previously referenced Being There (incidentally, the first DVD I ever purchased) as the origin of my broad use of garden metaphors. Others more famous and well written than I have frequently talked about Dr. Strangelove, especially in reference to the game theory of MAD (a hidden or unstated threat has no utility in strategic bargaining). Today, I'm most interested in The Mouse that Roared, a story about a small country dependant on a single export (Pinot Grand Fenwick) that gets displaced by a cheaper alternative (Pinot Grand Enwick, made in California) and facing the collapse of its markets, declares war on the United States in the hope of being defeated and gaining Marshal Plan style economic assistance. It ends up winning the war by capturing the Q bomb, a WMD, in its invasion of the US. Does any of this sound familiar? It's certainly not like there are any little countries whose economies get overpowered by the big powers or that turn to threatening the US or acquiring WMD to get international attention. The end of the movie results in a coalition of the "small countries of the world" continuing control of the Q Bomb to assure world peace. This sounds like a pretty good idea to me.
But I'm particularly interested in the way the collapse of a traditional industry causes panic in the small country. The specific hilarity of The Mouse that Roared aside, it is surprisingly accurate in its depiction of the responses to economic collapse. Most countries (or regions, or individuals) hurt by the market tend to turn either to government support or to extermism as solutions to their situations. Grand Fenwick effectively turns to both, choosing to attack the US and ultimately steal a WMD in order to get attention and economic assistance. There are clear problems with both of these tactics, extremism destabalizes and causes further economic, social and political problems. Economic assistance often leads to dependence and further collapse of local industry. Welfare, for example, was created as a temporary support for people going through difficult times and unable to find work. For many people, it has turned into a lifestyle, incidentally a lifestyle frequently associated with violence and crime. Idealy, there should be some way to rectify economic collapse without creating the conditions of dependence or further destabalization.
I feel somewhat conflicted about philanthropy, much as I do about welfare and perhaps more so. Welfare is founded on the belief that there should be a social safety net that provides for people who are unable to provide for themselves. I firmly believe in this type of safety net and the it is the government's job to provide one, even if I am somewhat conflicted about the conditions that welfare generates (would these conditions be better off without welfare, almost certainly not, could they be better if welfare worked differently, maybe). But philanthropy bothers me on another level as well. I don't like the idea that it is the job of the rich to provide directly for the less fortunate in large part because it justfies the wealth of the very rich. The standard type of gala-fundraising nonsense feels awfully patronizing; philanthropy tends to target sexy issues rather than particularly needy ones; so much effort is put into fundraising and so comparatively little into action; these are all issues that further concern me. I would prefer to live in a world, or at least a country, where the government provided for nessecities (and niceities, like music and art), and where the class of super-wealthy did not exist. I am increasingly realizing that this is not the case and that the private sector must provide. I am far from the only one who doesn't like the traditional means of giving, however.
As detailed in an extensive section in the New York Times recently, new types of philanthropy are arising to fill the needs of a failing system. Cheif among these are philanthropic entrepreneurship, whereby development ideas are treated like business startups. Groups of the new superwealthy, including the leaders of Virgin, Google, Ebay and other new-market types have been funding ideas that can return profits or at least provide for their own operating expenses. While this at first seems somewhat ethically questionable (especially the potential to make a type of investment tax-break), it makes a great deal of sense. Microfinance has proven itself capable of giving returns on investment that can then be put back into further microloans. These big players have also invested in things like drip irrigation systems that should provide a return but also make a substantial difference in some localities. Other investments, like in renuable energy, have the potential to create newly profitable market segments, but do so in a progressive areas. Still other of these measures have ways to generate revenue for their operating costs to break the fundraising cycle.
For those of us who are not rich enough to privately fund major investments in these types of projects, there are other smaller ways that people are getting involved. I am kinda scheptical about charity-oriented products, but everyone else seems to be really into that. While I like the idea of spending concienciously, this type of effort is still just a new means of fundraising for traditional campaigns. Paying for a new hospital wing is one thing, a kind of one-time major expense; certain other types of giving qualify in similar ways, especially natural disasters like Katrina or the Asian Tsunami of a few years back. But the majority of charitable needs are ongoing, whether they involve food kitchens, job training, famine relief, AIDS research or what have you, locking you into a cycle of fundraising. I am quite doubtful about claims that these types of product sales will do much to relieve this; most of these products are going to be seasonal or faddish type of promotions that will simply be replaced by the next hot charity when the next major retail season rolls around. Their bigger contribution seems to be to rehabilitating the tarnished images of major corporations.
That's not to say that shopping can't be a political experiance, that it can't help build community and social networks and such. I have recently been getting into the idea of buying local products, or at least supporting local businesses to the greatest extent possible. This would seem to create a real trickle-down effect, with local businesspeople more likely to spend their profits locally and support other local businesses. In fact, I'm increasingly convinced that the flaw in supply-side economics is primarily in terms of scale. Increasing savings is a good way of increasing investment. The problem is that national (and international) banks mean that your savings is more likely to be used for investment outside of your locality (maybe outside of your country), when what is really desirable is that your savings become loans for local businesses. This book makes the argument that local currency is a good way of keeping local gains local and spurring local investment (local local). That strikes me as a bit hokey, hard to set up and to keep running. However, the idea of putting money in local banks seems like a cool one.
There are also mutual funds set up for ethical investing (by avoiding war-profiteering companies, oil companies, companies that test on animals or whatever your pet issue might be; also ones that focus on investing in alternative energy, green agriculture, healthy food and in the community). The problem is that these funds don't always do as well as most traditional ones; perhaps the way to look at it is that you are forgoing some level of profits in liu of making profits and giving some of them to charity. It certainly seems more productive than investing in companies that create negative effects and then spending charity money to help reduce those effects.
Basically, I'm becoming more open to some of these different ideas for investing in social development as ways to improve things independant of government. Some ideas, like drip irrigation and microfinance, seem capable of taking off on their own. In other cases, government regulation or lack of regulation stands in the way. France has recently decided to tax imports from countries not in keeping with the Kyoto Pact to help level the playing field, and honestly, protectionism may be benificial for many local industries. And, as I've talked about before, in many cases, standards that make sense for international distribution are prohibitive for local producers in local markets.
But I'm particularly interested in the way the collapse of a traditional industry causes panic in the small country. The specific hilarity of The Mouse that Roared aside, it is surprisingly accurate in its depiction of the responses to economic collapse. Most countries (or regions, or individuals) hurt by the market tend to turn either to government support or to extermism as solutions to their situations. Grand Fenwick effectively turns to both, choosing to attack the US and ultimately steal a WMD in order to get attention and economic assistance. There are clear problems with both of these tactics, extremism destabalizes and causes further economic, social and political problems. Economic assistance often leads to dependence and further collapse of local industry. Welfare, for example, was created as a temporary support for people going through difficult times and unable to find work. For many people, it has turned into a lifestyle, incidentally a lifestyle frequently associated with violence and crime. Idealy, there should be some way to rectify economic collapse without creating the conditions of dependence or further destabalization.
I feel somewhat conflicted about philanthropy, much as I do about welfare and perhaps more so. Welfare is founded on the belief that there should be a social safety net that provides for people who are unable to provide for themselves. I firmly believe in this type of safety net and the it is the government's job to provide one, even if I am somewhat conflicted about the conditions that welfare generates (would these conditions be better off without welfare, almost certainly not, could they be better if welfare worked differently, maybe). But philanthropy bothers me on another level as well. I don't like the idea that it is the job of the rich to provide directly for the less fortunate in large part because it justfies the wealth of the very rich. The standard type of gala-fundraising nonsense feels awfully patronizing; philanthropy tends to target sexy issues rather than particularly needy ones; so much effort is put into fundraising and so comparatively little into action; these are all issues that further concern me. I would prefer to live in a world, or at least a country, where the government provided for nessecities (and niceities, like music and art), and where the class of super-wealthy did not exist. I am increasingly realizing that this is not the case and that the private sector must provide. I am far from the only one who doesn't like the traditional means of giving, however.
As detailed in an extensive section in the New York Times recently, new types of philanthropy are arising to fill the needs of a failing system. Cheif among these are philanthropic entrepreneurship, whereby development ideas are treated like business startups. Groups of the new superwealthy, including the leaders of Virgin, Google, Ebay and other new-market types have been funding ideas that can return profits or at least provide for their own operating expenses. While this at first seems somewhat ethically questionable (especially the potential to make a type of investment tax-break), it makes a great deal of sense. Microfinance has proven itself capable of giving returns on investment that can then be put back into further microloans. These big players have also invested in things like drip irrigation systems that should provide a return but also make a substantial difference in some localities. Other investments, like in renuable energy, have the potential to create newly profitable market segments, but do so in a progressive areas. Still other of these measures have ways to generate revenue for their operating costs to break the fundraising cycle.
For those of us who are not rich enough to privately fund major investments in these types of projects, there are other smaller ways that people are getting involved. I am kinda scheptical about charity-oriented products, but everyone else seems to be really into that. While I like the idea of spending concienciously, this type of effort is still just a new means of fundraising for traditional campaigns. Paying for a new hospital wing is one thing, a kind of one-time major expense; certain other types of giving qualify in similar ways, especially natural disasters like Katrina or the Asian Tsunami of a few years back. But the majority of charitable needs are ongoing, whether they involve food kitchens, job training, famine relief, AIDS research or what have you, locking you into a cycle of fundraising. I am quite doubtful about claims that these types of product sales will do much to relieve this; most of these products are going to be seasonal or faddish type of promotions that will simply be replaced by the next hot charity when the next major retail season rolls around. Their bigger contribution seems to be to rehabilitating the tarnished images of major corporations.
That's not to say that shopping can't be a political experiance, that it can't help build community and social networks and such. I have recently been getting into the idea of buying local products, or at least supporting local businesses to the greatest extent possible. This would seem to create a real trickle-down effect, with local businesspeople more likely to spend their profits locally and support other local businesses. In fact, I'm increasingly convinced that the flaw in supply-side economics is primarily in terms of scale. Increasing savings is a good way of increasing investment. The problem is that national (and international) banks mean that your savings is more likely to be used for investment outside of your locality (maybe outside of your country), when what is really desirable is that your savings become loans for local businesses. This book makes the argument that local currency is a good way of keeping local gains local and spurring local investment (local local). That strikes me as a bit hokey, hard to set up and to keep running. However, the idea of putting money in local banks seems like a cool one.
There are also mutual funds set up for ethical investing (by avoiding war-profiteering companies, oil companies, companies that test on animals or whatever your pet issue might be; also ones that focus on investing in alternative energy, green agriculture, healthy food and in the community). The problem is that these funds don't always do as well as most traditional ones; perhaps the way to look at it is that you are forgoing some level of profits in liu of making profits and giving some of them to charity. It certainly seems more productive than investing in companies that create negative effects and then spending charity money to help reduce those effects.
Basically, I'm becoming more open to some of these different ideas for investing in social development as ways to improve things independant of government. Some ideas, like drip irrigation and microfinance, seem capable of taking off on their own. In other cases, government regulation or lack of regulation stands in the way. France has recently decided to tax imports from countries not in keeping with the Kyoto Pact to help level the playing field, and honestly, protectionism may be benificial for many local industries. And, as I've talked about before, in many cases, standards that make sense for international distribution are prohibitive for local producers in local markets.
Thursday, November 9
Midterm Madness
Well, the midterm elecitons are over, although it remians to be seen what the exact results will be. It looks as if the Democrats have taken control of the House and the Senate will be something very close to an even split (probably a very slight Republican majority). Keep in mind that these counts include plenty of very conservative Democrats, in particular democrats who are conservative on the so-called "moral" issues. What exactly will this mean for American politics in the next two years? I'd like to leave that to the true pundits, although not without a few words first.
It's probably just that I'm a pessimist, but I don't really think that a narrow majority in the house can mean much good for Democrats and especially for real liberals. At this point, the Dems will, at best, likely have enough influence in Washington to stop some of the worst of the administration's proposals. The problem is, it is already too late to do much about some of the truly damaging ones (the war, the patriot act, the war, enviornomental measures, the war oh and did I mention...the war). Even the ability to block depends on strong party discipline, something the Democrats have not been known for recently and that I'm not really sure is such a good thing anyway. Given the fact that many of the Democrats that have been reelected and replaced Repulbicans in battleground districts are really quite conservative, it seems unlikely that they will being doing very much standing fast on very many issues.
Furthermore, the Dems already have a (justified) reputation for not having very much in the way of their own ideas. Many Democrats tend to simply defend old and decaying social support programs and oppose the worst of the conservative agenda. Liberals really need their own progressive agenda if anyone is going to take them seriously in the long run (even though, for individual elections in the current negative campaigning vein, blandness seems to be the supreme virtue). I know that I am looking for real progressives with ideas for positive change and am continually dissapointed by the options the Democrats give me. How long before people like me start looking elsewhere again.
Some pundits may call the election a referendum on Bush, but the fact is, this is not a president who has shown himself to care much about public opinion as long as it does not effect his ability to push his agenda through. Granted, he will have less free reign now than with a Republican majority, particularly as the GOP attempts to disentangle itself from his bloody coat-tails. But generally I expect the country and the world to be disappointed at the lack of change in the wake of the election.
Finally, I tend to be highly skeptical of any reading of history that overstresses individual actors. Sure, we would not have made such bad choices as a country without Bush, but he nevertheless represeted and continues to represent a coalition of big business (espeically big oil and big guns) interests with ultra-conservatives and the conservative Christian interests. Even if there was another individual at the head of this movement, I don't think it would differ that terribly much. What this does point to is some continuing structural problems with American democracy that allow certain types of displined and wealthy minority (albiet significant minority) interests to exert their control over the majority. Our particular variety of federalist system creates a two-party system. In this type of system, minority interests are able to dominate the discourse if they are able to dominate one of the two parties. Then, just add in a segment of the economy built around government contracts and profiteering and you've got a structure that's gonna continue to dictate most of the actualities even if they don't technically control the government.
It's bad enough that majority rule often leaves 49% of the population without a voice, but when one wing of a party is able to dominate, it gets even worse. Consider if a special interest is able to control 10% or 20% of a party. A large portion of the rest of the party consists of faithful who will vote for the party pretty much regardless and another significant block who consider the party a lesser evil. Then all that group needs to do is connect a soapbox issue that is central to another 20% voting block of swing voters to bring the party into power. Then, once the party is in power, gerymandering, strategic politics and the like can help them continue their dominance. In this way, you can have something more like 10% of a party which constitutes 50% of the actual voters who constitute 40% of the actual population dictating policy. That comes out to 4% of the country making policy. Doesn't sound much like democracy to me, but all it takes is a two-party system, a disciplined voting block and a soapbox issue.
Soapbox issues are what I call issues that inflame public opinion in excess of their social importance. I think I've mentioned these before. They tend to be issues that people dont' like to hear called trivial, and they are not really trivial issues, but they are issues that are not as important for themselves as for the role they play in voting (and/or public opnion). Abortion and gay marriage are big ones in this country. Both are issues that I (like most people) have pretty strong opinions on. However, they are not issues that have huge impacts on the everyday lives of most people, unlike, for instance, foreign policy, social services and taxation which people tend to ignore or misunderstand except when there is a major crisis. I was massively depressed to hear important voting blocs inerviewed on the radio say essentially "who cares about the war as long as taxes stay low and gays can't marry." In what world are gay marriage and an ongoing and terrible conflict even close to the same importance?!?!
One idea I've been batting around is to try to disentangle these issues from eachother. To a certain extent, all issues are inter-related because they all have some financial component to them. However, it seems to me if we were able to fairly well disentangle, say, "moral" issues from foreign policy ones and fiscal policy from environmental problems and create partially seperate voting bodies to decide on these issues, it might help matters a bit. The way things are now, we elect representatives to vote for us on all issues, but what if were were to elect a seperate representative for "moral" issues, social services, domestic issues, foreign policy and fiscal policy. There would need to be some way of connecting the decision-making, particularly the ever-important ability to tax, but this seems like a good start to making politics a little more about the real issues and less about soapbox ones. As much as I am for gay marriage and pro-choice, I would willingly let these rights fall by the wayside if it meant I could get my more central concerns with broader-reaching concequences heard (especially since I think most people would tend to agree with me on some of these issues...) I dunno.
Here's a cool new way to make bread. I'm looking forward to trying it out.
Another cooking thing I've been into recently: using cinnamon and nutmeg as savory spices.
Cumin, cinnamon, hot peppers and tomato is apparently a Persian thing. It makes really really good omlettes.
Today, I tried roasting cauliflower with black pepper, garlic, olive oil, nutmeg and cinnamon. Really delicious.
It's probably just that I'm a pessimist, but I don't really think that a narrow majority in the house can mean much good for Democrats and especially for real liberals. At this point, the Dems will, at best, likely have enough influence in Washington to stop some of the worst of the administration's proposals. The problem is, it is already too late to do much about some of the truly damaging ones (the war, the patriot act, the war, enviornomental measures, the war oh and did I mention...the war). Even the ability to block depends on strong party discipline, something the Democrats have not been known for recently and that I'm not really sure is such a good thing anyway. Given the fact that many of the Democrats that have been reelected and replaced Repulbicans in battleground districts are really quite conservative, it seems unlikely that they will being doing very much standing fast on very many issues.
Furthermore, the Dems already have a (justified) reputation for not having very much in the way of their own ideas. Many Democrats tend to simply defend old and decaying social support programs and oppose the worst of the conservative agenda. Liberals really need their own progressive agenda if anyone is going to take them seriously in the long run (even though, for individual elections in the current negative campaigning vein, blandness seems to be the supreme virtue). I know that I am looking for real progressives with ideas for positive change and am continually dissapointed by the options the Democrats give me. How long before people like me start looking elsewhere again.
Some pundits may call the election a referendum on Bush, but the fact is, this is not a president who has shown himself to care much about public opinion as long as it does not effect his ability to push his agenda through. Granted, he will have less free reign now than with a Republican majority, particularly as the GOP attempts to disentangle itself from his bloody coat-tails. But generally I expect the country and the world to be disappointed at the lack of change in the wake of the election.
Finally, I tend to be highly skeptical of any reading of history that overstresses individual actors. Sure, we would not have made such bad choices as a country without Bush, but he nevertheless represeted and continues to represent a coalition of big business (espeically big oil and big guns) interests with ultra-conservatives and the conservative Christian interests. Even if there was another individual at the head of this movement, I don't think it would differ that terribly much. What this does point to is some continuing structural problems with American democracy that allow certain types of displined and wealthy minority (albiet significant minority) interests to exert their control over the majority. Our particular variety of federalist system creates a two-party system. In this type of system, minority interests are able to dominate the discourse if they are able to dominate one of the two parties. Then, just add in a segment of the economy built around government contracts and profiteering and you've got a structure that's gonna continue to dictate most of the actualities even if they don't technically control the government.
It's bad enough that majority rule often leaves 49% of the population without a voice, but when one wing of a party is able to dominate, it gets even worse. Consider if a special interest is able to control 10% or 20% of a party. A large portion of the rest of the party consists of faithful who will vote for the party pretty much regardless and another significant block who consider the party a lesser evil. Then all that group needs to do is connect a soapbox issue that is central to another 20% voting block of swing voters to bring the party into power. Then, once the party is in power, gerymandering, strategic politics and the like can help them continue their dominance. In this way, you can have something more like 10% of a party which constitutes 50% of the actual voters who constitute 40% of the actual population dictating policy. That comes out to 4% of the country making policy. Doesn't sound much like democracy to me, but all it takes is a two-party system, a disciplined voting block and a soapbox issue.
Soapbox issues are what I call issues that inflame public opinion in excess of their social importance. I think I've mentioned these before. They tend to be issues that people dont' like to hear called trivial, and they are not really trivial issues, but they are issues that are not as important for themselves as for the role they play in voting (and/or public opnion). Abortion and gay marriage are big ones in this country. Both are issues that I (like most people) have pretty strong opinions on. However, they are not issues that have huge impacts on the everyday lives of most people, unlike, for instance, foreign policy, social services and taxation which people tend to ignore or misunderstand except when there is a major crisis. I was massively depressed to hear important voting blocs inerviewed on the radio say essentially "who cares about the war as long as taxes stay low and gays can't marry." In what world are gay marriage and an ongoing and terrible conflict even close to the same importance?!?!
One idea I've been batting around is to try to disentangle these issues from eachother. To a certain extent, all issues are inter-related because they all have some financial component to them. However, it seems to me if we were able to fairly well disentangle, say, "moral" issues from foreign policy ones and fiscal policy from environmental problems and create partially seperate voting bodies to decide on these issues, it might help matters a bit. The way things are now, we elect representatives to vote for us on all issues, but what if were were to elect a seperate representative for "moral" issues, social services, domestic issues, foreign policy and fiscal policy. There would need to be some way of connecting the decision-making, particularly the ever-important ability to tax, but this seems like a good start to making politics a little more about the real issues and less about soapbox ones. As much as I am for gay marriage and pro-choice, I would willingly let these rights fall by the wayside if it meant I could get my more central concerns with broader-reaching concequences heard (especially since I think most people would tend to agree with me on some of these issues...) I dunno.
Here's a cool new way to make bread. I'm looking forward to trying it out.
Another cooking thing I've been into recently: using cinnamon and nutmeg as savory spices.
Cumin, cinnamon, hot peppers and tomato is apparently a Persian thing. It makes really really good omlettes.
Today, I tried roasting cauliflower with black pepper, garlic, olive oil, nutmeg and cinnamon. Really delicious.
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