"Someone could do a history poem (in Olson & WCW vein) based on investigations & juxtapositions of "democracy" as global phenomenon, as a project of states & multinational groupings - "democracy in Middle East/Asia/Africa/South America" etc. - juxtaposed, that is, with historical roots in New England local politics (sovereignty of the people out of village town meetings). What it all means to have a superpower on a democracy mission compared to the felt reality of actual civic life (what that used to mean, what it amounts to now).

(Been reading de Tocqueville lately.)" --Henry Gould

jeez, I'm into it. frankly, much of my interest in Olson concerns his indications in such directions. I've read a lot of the writers he bibliographized for Ed Dorn. I've had a couple public civcs lessons lately, one while poking around briefly in Salem (MA)last week (at the end of the 18th century Salem was the 6th largest city in the country and the richest per capita), and another from nat'l parks rangers on site at Hartwell Tavern in Lincoln. I wanted to jump into Locke and Federalist Papers and all that stuff. I am not a scholar by any means, whereas I surmise that Henry is, but this is in my mind, mayhap not exactly as Henry puts it. America the Poem (irony irony), and on.