Prognosticating

Yesterday's Answer; Today's Question

Yesterday, to get a feel for American democracy's worst-case scenario, I read an article on the website VOX that suggested dysfunction in our politics could easily lead to a military coup.

This is simply not at all likely.

My immediate reaction was, "Where's your faith in America?"

After thinking it over, though, I decided that those who foresee a coup are simply viewing a decades-long struggle between Democrats and Republicans as a current crisis that has no such long history.

It may well be that we are experiencing an intensity of venom directed at the opposing party that is unprecedented, but hard feelings have been building for years, and are likely to be resolved in a predictable direction.

The year 2016 will see the nadir and reorganization of the Republican party as it copes with losing yet another presidential election.  The current disfunction in government will gradually resolve itself, however haltingly, as this process plays out.   We may be scraping the proverbial bottom, but I doubt we'll dip any lower.

Rojava -- It's Happened

Enlightened Leader Delivers

Americans are proud of Abraham Lincoln's phrase, "...government of the people, by the people, and for the people."  But we don't actually get together with our neighbors to govern ourselves; we elect representatives to do that for us.

For the several million people in Rojava (the mainly Kurdish area along Syria's border with Turkey), municipal assemblies see something like 50-100 people getting together to decide what their problems are and what to do about them.

Because voters in Rojava approved a progressive constitution, women receive equal treatment, the environment is to be protected, and education is to be universal; but these ideas were first decided on by a Kurdish leader, Abdullah Ocalan, living outside greater Kurdistan (as one might refer to the traditional homeland of the Kurds, which includes parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran).

That Ocalan chose wisely is to his credit, but is a leader's acuity enough?

Maybe, and if so, it's telling that foreign troops in Afghanistan and Iraq were, to a greater or lesser extent, unable to engender those same values.