New York Democrats,
please consider this perspective from the other end of the world.
Questions:
1. What is the relevance of the following?
• Zephyr Teachout’s corruption expertise, and
• Tim Wu’s Internet expertise.
2. Will New York be the center of power in the Internet-era world --
-- like it was in the post-WWII world?
Answer No. 1:
Corruption and the Internet are now the two biggest political issues in the world, as demonstrated by the following:
Corruption is fast becoming the dominant de facto global ruling ideology, notably of:
• Russia;
• China;
• Koch-purchased climate denialism;
• The too-big-to-fail financial sector holding veto power over US government policies and prosecutions; and
• The US military-cum-surveillance industry complex that, since Eisenhower, has bought enough legislators to achieve immunity from Presidential veto power over spending on weapons (and, largely, over the wars encouraged by this spending).
The Internet is becoming the dominant medium for:
• Making money;
• Perceiving and distorting reality;
• Political organizing; and
• Governmental surveillance and repression of troublemakers.
If "Net Neutrality" (a phrase coined by Tim Wu) is lost, then the Internet will magnify the dominance of money over political perceptions and power.
Answer No. 2:
New York City’s world-leading status will be at risk in the Internet-era world, in which:
• geography matters less;
• automation reduces the need for expensive human workers;
• Silicon Valley has been ahead of NYC in developing the Internet and other disruptive technologies, and
• populist hiccups -- like the recent NYC De Blasio election (which said more about New Yorkers than about De Blasio himself)-- are inconvenient to oligopolists.
...But, in an alternative scenario:
New York can retain world leadership by:
1. Turning out to vote for corruption expert Teachout and Internet expert Wu;
2. Showing the world the vulnerability of financial oligopolists to voter pushback even in their long-time capital;
3. Giving the world an anti-corruption example;
4. Helping open the eyes of people worldwide, to see through
corruption’s ideological disguises, including
• Communism,
• Nationalism,
• Religious Fundamentalism,
• Tea Party-ism,
• Third-Way-ism,
• Austerian-ism, and
• Incremental-ism;
5. Attracting, like in prior eras, a new wave of talent, coming to New York to find technological and economic opportunities, and to escape and push back against worldwide corruption.
Question: What is possible and necessary for NYC Democrats?
Answer:
• The world will notice how NYC Democrats vote in this primary:
• NYC Democrats should notice Seattle’s recent election of Socialist candidate Kshama Sawant, which showed that America’s urban Democratic voters are more ready, than anybody (including they themselves) realize, to vote against Democratic-labelled politicians who fail to represent Democratic values.
• Seattle voters doing this in a general election, in contrast with the easier circumstances of the New York Democratic primary, should be a wake-up challenge to NYC voters, as follows:
if you are still the heart of the world’s leading city,
now is the time to show it.