After returning to Cambridge not too long ago, just as all underclassfolk were leaving, many friends have asked me what I learned/did/enjoyed in the three months in Nicaragua I substituted for my Harvard spring. I've found it nigh on impossible to 'summarize', let alone describe, my time abroad - not because the depth or awesomeness of the experience makes conveying it impossible (doubtless that's how some very nice people have interpreted my inability to list 'lessons learned'), but really only because a few sentences, well thought-out or not, can never do justice to a whole semester (whether in Managua or in Harvard Yard). For those reasons I think it may not be best to post here about what happened there - at the very least, I'd be 'forcing it', a habit which my campers last summer made me promise to kick. Furthermore, all that's relevant about my trip, in the cambridgecommon sense, will probably make itself explicit in the course of posting soon enough.

For example: my final paper for the program I was enrolled in tried to discuss the 'gutting' of politics that follows from today's forced coupling of 'democracy' and capitalism. I looked at the Free Trade Zone in Nicaragua with this theme in mind - in my opinion, the premises of these types of mega-Projects - the idea, however expressed, that development can be planned by an educated, 'expert' elite - make clear the emptiness of what passes for democracy today.[1] I recently came across this news story looking at past speeches given by America's commander-in-chief (excerpt below), notable not merely because his words are shown to be flatly absurd, but also because his posturing demonstrates excellently the weakness of this country's democratic fabric.

In a "Rose Garden news conference", Bush is quoted as saying (on Iraq):

"I recognize there are a handful there, or some, who just say, `Get out, you know, it's just not worth it. Let's just leave.' I strongly disagree with that attitude. Most Americans do as well."

Not only, as the article notes, does Bush totally misinterpret public polls, his analysis is pathetic. Those who say - "get out" - are not necessarily also arguing "it's just not worth it". His need to characterize those who advocate for immediate withdrawal as pessimistic nationalists, only lacking faith, willpower, and the manly courage of their fearless leader, reflects how American politics is framed to exclude viewpoints that are fundamentally distasteful. This is so obviously inimical to democracy, precisely because it prohibits productive, deliberative, and inclusive discourse. It can never be asked, within the limits of the paradigm that Bush defines here, whether people oppose the war for reasons more principled than blind nationalism. Perhaps because the war was completely illegal and illegitimate under international law? Perhaps because its architects manufactured, cooked, and fabricated the intelligence? Perhaps because of imperial designs?

Some might suggest that I've picked an easy target - that Bushisms are hardly indicative of a political climate in critical condition. However, I insist that the Democrats are minimally different, and excluding the fringe 'hopefuls without hope' (Gravel, Kucinich), politicking in the USA requires that certain assumptions central to the sanctity of the political arena remain unshaken, if ever even challenged. Most obviously these include the belief in the essential benevolence of US foreign policy (have Democrats read "Killing Hope", by William Blum?) [we could surely name others: that the American Dream is glorious and viable, that anti-capitalism is inadmissable, that we must not question our founding fathers, etc.] Paul Street, a radical historian and activist who writes regularly for ZNet, has made it his pre-election mission to discredit Obama (in particular) and the Democrats (more generally) on these points (see, for example this and this).

What we should be challenging, more broadly and more crucially, is the "rule of experts"-ideal ensconced in this political model. Its incompleteness facilitates the calcification of these aforementioned "Points of Unity". Politicians live a politician's life; they are funded by certain groups, educated in similar ways, and usually isolated from their constituents in very real ways (financially, spatially, racially, etc.). Yet they monopolize Power. This obviously defies democracy, since democracy most deeply demands the entering of everyone into politics; it is highly egalitarian, and ideally extremely hostile to this paternalism. No one should be empowered to decide for anybody else. Instead, we must all participate in the making of our world. In the case of the Free Trade Zone in Managua, for example, Nicaragua grants a group of dogmatically-educated technocrats (a man I interviewed had five textbooks on his desk, one of which was Mankiw's "Principles of Economics" in Spanish) the right to chart a course for the future of the hundreds of thousands of people directly or indirectly affected by their proposals. The structure of today's politics subscribes to this basic belief in the ability of a smart, well-educated class of people to direct a country. [2] Does the autocratic essence of this arrangement not trouble us? Surely we, even as Harvardians who (all other things being equal) benefit from this status quo, still understand the integrity of a radically democratic polity?

[1] In my opinion, development should never be understood as a technology of government, since that necessarily de-links it from politics. It is not simply the likely result of certain, correct set of policies, but most importantly a state of politics - a way of organizing government that empowers and liberates each citizen.
[2] Immanuel Wallerstein, pioneer of world-systems theory, traces the origins of this arrangement very persuasively: "Liberals put their faith in one key premise of Enlightenment thought: that rational thought and action were the path to salvation, that is, to progress. (...) It followed that ‘normal political change’ ought to follow the path indicated by those who were most rational—that is, most educated, most skilled, therefore most wise. These men could design the best paths of political change to pursue; that is, these men could indicate the necessary reforms to undertake and enact." (from this essay; PIN needed).