The Sub-Government
Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City Press-Citizen, August 21, 2019, p. A7
We worry where our country and world are headed. We rely on the media’s tweet trackers to tell us what’s next. It’s rumored our president wants to buy Greenland before it melts.
Our presidential campaign is being waged on teens’ screens of social media. Russia is fighting a war without bombs on the world’s democracies, including our own, and winning. Manipulation of emotions of anger, fear and hate can destroy democracies with escalating divisiveness from within, regardless of elections’ outcomes.
Meanwhile, much of the self-inflicted damage from Washington transpires beneath the radar – in good times and bad. Why? Campaign contributions; yes. But there’s more. Not the conspiracy theory of a “dark state” undermining the president. It’s what I call the “subgovernment phenomenon,” out in the open but unreported by the media, whether in Washington, Des Moines or Iowa City. [Photo Credit Common Dreams ("Ahead of a crucial vote . . . defenders of net neutrality . . . projected . . . 'Property of Verizon' on the [FCC's] building to draw attention to the corporate interests at play . . ..")]
On Saturday, August 24, 4:00 p.m., there will be a discussion of these issues at Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque St., in the course of a hopeful and sometimes humorous reading from Catfish Solution: The Power of Positive Poking. Hope to see you there.
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Nicholas Johnson, Iowa City
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What's the current state of our democracy?
Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City Press-Citizen, March 20, 2019, p. A7
Democracies can correct policy mistakes. They can't correct anything after the destruction of institutions without which we have no democracy: a respected, independent judiciary and mass media, public education, libraries – and efforts to ease and encourage voting.
The Iowa legislature politicizes our founders’ non-partisan judiciary, disparages the media, cuts funding for education, reduces the number who can vote and increases the difficulty for those who can. This is not just legislation, or politics as usual. This is how democracies die, “not with a bang but with a whimper.”
Sadly, this is happening throughout the U.S. and around the world. Planet Rulers now lists 50 countries’ rulers as “dictators.” And at home: What’s the state of democracy in Iowa City?
It’s essential we watch for the signs of a deteriorating democracy and know how to fight back.
On Saturday, March 30, 4:00 p.m., there will be a discussion of these issues at Prairie Lights, 15 S. Dubuque St., along with a reading from Columns of Democracy. Hope to see you there.
-Nicholas Johnson, Iowa City
For more on this event see, https://www.prairielights.com/live/nicholas-johnson
and, Columns of Democracy, Columns of Democracy.com
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