Democracy in Boston

Last year we spent the fall preoccupied with the TeaParty, both the historical event in colonial Boston and the contemporary political movement.  Then in the spring, as we turned our attention to  democracy and the 19th century we were presented with outbreaks of popular protests in Madison, WI and across North Africa.  Now, as we consider the re-making of America, urbanization, and the like, the Occupy Wall Street protest is spreading across the nation and its Boston expression presents an opportunity to think about democracy, social movements, and re-making of America in today's cities.

This NPR (WBUR) story about the Boston Occupation (LINK TO STORY) was playing as I drove to work.  It describes the ground-level organization of a "village" within the city and toward a re-imagining of democracy as something closer to ancient Athens than to the modern voting booth.  Maybe this encampment is a sort of "city on a hill" in a park, an effort to demonstrate a Utopian vision in which tweets bring in a blizzard of dry socks and news of each evening's general assembly is carried by word-of-mouth.  One of the interviewees, or perhaps the commentator, observed that this sort of democracy is slow and time-consuming.  Lots of meetings and conversations are needed before concrete goals emerge with consolidated support.  Nonetheless, there is something hopeful and encouraging about this aspect of the movement, a belief in "government by, for, and of the people."

Link to a long blog post about democracy in the Boston encampment.