i checked out a book from the library that hasn't been checked out since 1976, which was in fact a very good year for me. i was five years old and since my grandpa and uncle were in the fire department i got to ride in the fire truck at the pet parade in la grance park. the pet parade is, as you might expect, when the people of the town bring out the dogs, cats, birds, and so on, and march them down main street. it could be any main street, but this main street was in la grange park, illinois. la grange park is about 15 miles west of chicago, it is where i was born, it is where my mother was born and lived her whole life. in fact my father lived there too, they met in high school. and they wrote love letters to each other when he joined the marines to avoid the draft.

also in 1976 my parents bought their first house, i went to a new kindergarten, and i got a cat, named tammy, but we always called her kitty. we named the cat tammy because my mom used to like to sing the song "tammy's in love."

so anyway, this book i got that hasn't been checked out since 1976. it's called "prelude to franco" and its about don miguel primo de rivera, a dictator in spain from 1923 - 1929. he was overthrown by another dictator, who returned spain to a constitutional democracy, but then was overthrown by Franco. i'm reading about rivera b/c he's an interesting study as a dictator, an odd character. delusional, yet clever. and i'm trying to better understand the political history of spain leading to its civil war in 1936, which i've already written about at length to most of you.

the other 'dictator' i'm interested in is cleisthenes, about 500bc, in greece. it's interesting because books call him a dictator, but the word didn't really come into play until the romans, so technically, he was just a tryannical leader. what's interesting about cleisthenes is that as he realized he was about to lose power to competing oligarchies he gave the government to the people, and contitutional rule, in order to increase his popularity. greece, or more appropriately, athens, had been divided into four tribes, based on family and property, and these tribes ruled the state. he broke up the tribes and made them ten, took away the surnames and replaced them with 'demos' (a name you get based on your district) and enrolled new citizens, trying to remove the baggage of heredity. according aristotle this worked, according to others it didn't. either way, this was the formal beginning of democracy. now if we consider that the root of democracy in practice was formed out of a leaders quest for power over other oligarchies, there's room for suggestion that the very essence of democracy is flawed. i'll develop this point later, just think about it...

so here we are now, 2500 years later, living under something some could call democracy (i wouldn't), and there's an opportunity for people to express their opinions about a significant issue, this weekend near times square. significant enough to draw 100,000 non-new yorkers. many of you will be going to this, perhaps to strengthen your understanding of democracy, perhaps to instigate new movements. it's exciting.

it makes me wonder: will the first republic of the united states fall or be transformed? i'm slightly nervous that 100,000 people cramemd into a small corner of new york city, unable to march and let off the angry steam that's been building, will result in chaos, ironically more chaos than if the protesters were allowed to march. (the reason from on high about why they are allowed to rally, but not march, is to prevent chaos). it's sad to me that those who represent us, and more or less what they call democracy, can't see the logic in this and their ignorance will, if not this time, then the next, be the spark that lights the movement away from democracy into something potentially beautiful or hideous (and history tends to show us the hideous: ceasar, cromwell, bonaparte, franco, mussilini, stalin, etc). they are digging their graves, and probably ours too.

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