Lost Highway Times...Paths in Oblivion

Not about polls.

Who is likely to be a voice in our society and who isn't?

Who are the people who are likely to be the official sources and who aren't?

This country has loads of opportunity, in a sense; we have loads of a certain kind of economic opportunity with a large middle class; but in terms of who actually can speak and be a voice in their community or in the country we're one of the least opportune countries out there.

It's a sort of devillish bargain which reminds me of Prussia during the German Empire, the state which was fought against in WWI.

Prussia was a union of individual German states, statelets, and independent cities which had been on their own for a thousand years.

It had a certain amount of confederalism which made it in some respects like the United States.

But the thing about Prussia was that although it had a culturally rich internal structure everything was controlled by an upper class which was pan-Prussia, pan the regional states.

It had no democracy, had no fixed civil rights. The parliament was a consultative body to the upper chamber, I believe, which was composed of nobles from each of the territories, which in turn was ruled over by the imperial administration.

Although a person might be able to have a wonderful life in Saxony or wherever, they still didn't have a voice.

The official voices were reserved for the elite.

But, there's one group that I'm conspicuously overlooking:the labor and political radicalist press of the time, which came and went. The movement continued on, though.

That gave people voice.

We don't have that, so picture Germany in the 19th century without a labor movement to speak of.

Or a real radical underground to speak of.

Or any of the other interesting things.

Just the sons of aristocrats getting into government and into officialdom and the rest living normal lives.

The phrase worker democracy isn't present in the culture of the United States and that's a shame.

My belief is that worker media is a good goal to go to, that everyone has a voice and can contribute to the press.

But that's miles away from where we are now.

Instead, it's assumed that making a living will be enough, that we won't need civic participation if we have enough money.

And now they're taking away the money...