Often, I wonder: How do we practice local politics? What threatens local politics? Are local politics prevailing? Hopefully we can examine that here.
People now revel in all talk "local," and it has, in fact, become very chic to vouch for the local farmer, protest at city hall, start businesses downtown, and the like.
Consider the local theatre, ironically the most non-localized space in the city.
Documentaries contend that we should buy organically, home-grown produce to support the local farmer.
The industry, in addition to the rest of corporate America, encourages us to move from transnational to neighborly.
Yet, one conundrum remains: Why don't we vote for our mayors and city officials? Common discourse reveals a method in voting, by which we vote a politician into office so that he can change the way I live.
We have made voting "sexy," and twenty-somethings clock to the polls when federal offices open up for election.
We convince ourselves that only "new blood" can change the status quo.
But does the president choose where our children go to school? Do our senators decide if we have a public library or a park? Do congressional representatives advise us on how we should resolve our construction dilemma with Mrs.
Smith down the street so that we don't ruin her garden? In fact, we continually defer local dispute and debate to some higher authority.
Consider a situation where Contractor A breaches agreement with Contractor B; instead of direct discussion between the two parties involved, we rely on a higher power to establish rules and guidelines in order to resolve the local dispute.
Now, the first ranking official who governs the dispute may know both parties, their community, and their trade.
However, how often does the average American seek "another opinion"? Or files a legal appeal? Then after some time, legislators must step in to establish universal rules to avoid wasting time and money on litigation.
Our concerns rise higher and higher above local ground.
A high-ranking group of officials now decides the dispute between Contractors A and B.
However, the parties suspect selfish interests of the judicial group, and they seek yet another, "higher" authority.
Thus, a transgression occurs.
The pyramid of protection propels so high until it can no longer see the ground.
And eventually, entities so far away that they cannot possible reason through local circumstances judiciously ransack our local land, our memories, and our culture.
Yet, the cancer grows.
While this political deferral transpires, an economic trade-off obliterates our local grocers with chains, our blacksmiths and metallurgists with the complete erasure of their market, and our farmers with mass mechanical and industrial farmers.
Large, homogenized corporations with high influence flood the local market place.
Our towns morph into clones of corporate dominion.
McDonald's finds a home in every city, a Starbucks walks every street corner, and Wal-Mart strategically rest between a city's downtown and its suburban sprawl.
Meanwhile, we pour every ounce of capital into the pockets of CEOs, who control our space, time, and neighborhoods.
The capital then flows into the river of global capital which the fellows at Wall Street reduce to ghastly speculative digits rolling across a screen.
As the scenarios above multiply and compound, as they have for years and years, we grow weary.
Then the hippie grumbles about peace and justice, the tree-huggers calculate environmental damage, and local craftsmen join the American Aluminum Company of America, whereas the old craftsmen greet customers as Wal-Mart.
These groups rally together and declare voting and financial allegiance, followed by marketing a new, hip, organic, free-trade, fair-trade, local-friendly store.
Yet, they hardly endure the competition of pre-existing corporations, and if they do, the corporations buy or stomp them out.
They simply lack the capital to build or sustain something new.
Mathematically, our transnational capital of corporations simply dwarfs locally generated capital.
How do locals get the land back? Will capital find the answer? Is patriotism possible, do our local motherland and our distant, federal fatherland not tear us apart as child in a divorced home? Local politics simply cannot compete with such large, homogenous forces.
Can we practice local politics? I hope we can, but we must first put away romantic nostalgia, forsake resignations, and radically reconsider the intellectual resources for the good life.
We may not have the answers yet, but perhaps the time has come to attempt alternatives to the popular hipster and environmental methods.