If you haven’t already, get off your lazy ass and head to the polls.

Or, conversely, forfeit your right to complain as this country continues to go to hell in a handbasket.

It’s one or the other, thanks.

On this, our nation’s birthday, I look back upon the framers of our Constitution, those proud members of the Continental Congress, and think: our Founding Fathers had some serious cojones.

I mean it. Huevos gigantes. Because I look at the process of starting a company – the terrifying difficulty of getting going in the first place, the utterly overwhelming process of faking everything on the fly, of coming up with answers as you go along, writing and re-writing the rules of how it all works – and I think, if that’s how hard it is to start a company, what must it be like to start a country?

So, from one entrepreneur to another, each July 4th, I toast wholeheartedly the Founding Fathers. Despite its flaws, as startups go, their whole ‘United States ‘ thing could have turned out a hell of a lot worse.

“Here sir, the people govern.”
– Alexander Hamilton, in a speech to the New York Ratifying Convention

Though, in recent years, my patriotism has been at times unduly tested, though at moments I have despaired for our ongoing experiment in national self-governance, each 4th of July, my love for America renews. For each Independence Day, I think upon the Founding Fathers, that motley band of forward-thinking, eloquent-talking drunks who, eleven score and nine years ago, had the outrageous, fortuitous cajones to say, “this whole ‘starting a new country’ thing doesn’t look too hard; let’s give it a go.”

The Founding Fathers! A group so sure that fortune favors the bold they willingly laid their lives on the line to stand behind the bold notion of independence, of a complex nation based on the simple ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Certainly, I have my concerns and quibbles with where this nation stands. But, on balance, I can understand why they inscribed the Great Seal with “Annuit Coeptis” – “Providence favors our undertakings”. More than two centuries later, I can’t help but think they were absolutely right.

Four years ago, when America didn’t get the President it voted for, I was angry with the system. Now, on the verge of America getting exactly the President it’s voting for, I’m angry with Americans.

And only in part because more of them voted for Bush, despite the counter-endorsement of literally every single intelligent individual and organization (the neo-con Economist!?!) in the country and across the globe. But also because, even in an election that was a Really Big Deal, an election that most people conceded would be the Most Important in a Very Long Time, an election that featured the best funded, most heavily manned get-out-the-vote campaign on both sides, most Americans apparently couldn’t be bothered to give a shit.

Observe the rough numbers:

• KERRY: 56 million
• BUSH: 60 million
• WHATEVER: 120 million

WHATEVER wins again!

Next time through, it’s likely Whatever will only broaden it’s lead; as I said in my last post, this may be my generation’s last gasp in the game of Big Politics, before they all transfer to the Whatever column for good.

Scary as that sounds, after a few days of thought, I’m less worried about it than I was before. Because, to be honest, I’m not so sure that Big Politics works. In an environment that’s so deeply divided along partisan lines, one where the majority apparently don’t care even vaguely about what’s happening, and where the majority of the rest are willing to vote for an administration that proudly flaunts unwavering stupidity as its prime virtue, I have trouble believing that the major change we need in the world will be pumped out of Washington any time soon.

Which doesn’t, for a minute, mean I don’t think it can’t begin elsewhere. If I’ve learned anything from running companies and spending time with countless entrepreneurs, it’s that a small, passionate group of people who understand the power of outside-the-box-thinking, the leverage of technology, and the thrust of the market can get amazingly disproportionate things done.

There’s strong precedent for it already in the political world. Solve homelessness? Common Ground will do it long before HUD. Quell soaring prescription prices without preventing drug company innovation? New PBM’s have a vastly better chance than any current FDA proposal might.

So, as was the case until just a few short months back, I’ll be reclaiming this blog from the realm of politics, giving up the guilty pleasure of shaking my fist at the heavens and the red states, to get back to how I’ve operated before, and how I’d suggest you do as well: when you see a problem, search out innovative groups and individuals already doing something extraordinary about it – they’ll doubtless be thrilled to have your help.

And, of course, if you can’t find a group doing something smart already, then start tossing ideas around in your own brain, looking at the problem from different angles, asking questions – smart ones and stupid ones. Sooner or later, when you least expect it – bam – an idea, and a good one. Then, regardless of who’s sitting in the White House, regardless of how little the rest of America appears to care, start doing what it takes to make the idea a reality. By now, you’re the only hope we’ve got.

Before I go back to my happily a-political blogging life, I’m putting it on the line and calling the election in advance:

Kerry wins, 271 electoral votes to Bush’s 267. Kerry picks up Ohio and Pennsylvania, Bush wins New Mexico and New Hampshire and ‘wins’ Florida in a dicey outcome that – because it doesn’t sway the election – fortunately doesn’t hold anyone’s attention as legal battles rage on there for several months. Also, the popular vote pushes Kerry to nearly 52%, with no real effect except that pollsters everywhere start thinking that maybe counting cell-phone only voters and overseas absentee voters might be a good idea after all.

Am I confident Kerry wins? Fairly. Am I still wet-my-pants nerve-wracked about the election? Without a doubt. And only in part because I can only begin to imagine the creative ways in which Bush can run the country into the ground given four more years. Mainly because, for the first time in their lives, my peers have thrown themselves headlong into the political process, have worked tirelessly on this election, have staked their hearts and souls on its outcome. I’m terrified that – if it all comes to naught – it’ll be the last time my generation really tries to make this whole ‘democracy’ thing work. I’m not really sure, long-term, what that disengagement would lead to, but I’m pretty certain it’s even worse than four more years of G. W. Bush.

Aside from occasional swipes at Bush in the sidebar, I rarely talk about politics on this site. A number of friends have asked about my own political standing, so, today, I’m breaking from the largely non-political nature of self-aggrandizement to lay down my own thinking. Don’t worry, though; come tomorrow, it’s back to inane blogging per usual

First, let me say that – the efforts of thousands of ‘warbloggers’ to the contrary – I truly believe blogging about politics rarely has any significant effect on the way politics plays out in the real world. Simply put, to change political outcomes, you need to change people’s minds, and the audiences for political weblogs are too self-selecting to do that effectively. I’d estimate that about 90% of the readers of any political blog already firmly agree with the writer’s position, while the remaining 10% would never possibly be made to agree with it, and are just there to heckle in the comments. In other words, 90% preaching to the choir, 10% lost cause.

That said, I must admit to feeling more than a bit of guilt for my online political apathy. Earlier in my life, I was much more politically minded; enough so that, one year in high school, I somehow pulled “Next Bill Clinton” in the yearbook. (That’s now funnier to me for it’s extra-political implications than it’s purely political ones, but I digress.) As I became increasingly immersed in the world of technology and business, however, politics began to take a back seat in my mind. At one point, I remember asking a very successful CEO whether he had ever thought about running for senator. His laughing reply: “I’d rather own a politician than be one.”

Over the last few years, however, the people around me have begun to politicize significantly, naturally pulling me back into the fray. On the one side, most of my film and Yale friends are classic left-liberals; on the other, most of the entrepreneurs and finance types I know are libertarians and neo-cons. According to any of the many, many online political affiliation tests, I fall squarely in the first group – and, of course, with New York intellectual hippy parents, and a Bay Area upbringing (amongst those the New York Times called in the early ’90s “the quiche and Volvo set”), that shouldn’t be a surprise. But, while I fall about as far left as possible on social policy, economically, I often make a poor liberal; while I agree with the liberal aims of wealth redistribution, I also place a rather un-liberal belief in the power of the free market.

Which is to say, I really believe in the efficiency of capitalism, at least as the best route for allocating resources to drive progress in science, technology and (resultingly) social change. At the same time, unlike libertarians, I also believe that markets tend to allocate resources without regard to social justice. If a goal of the system is to make sure nobody is left behind as the world moves towards the better (and, certainly, I believe that should be a central goal), then the market needs a bit of prodding. The question, then, is mainly one of building change through free market initiatives that are constrained just enough to require the solutions they naturally enact are socially just.

For a better explanation, consider something like the need for a livable wage, a complex issue with real difficulties on both side.

On the one hand, unskilled workers simply cannot live, much less build families, on $5 hour. Combined with the lack of health-care for the uninsured, and the profound lag of education in urban centers (well behind the average of our already overall rather ailing system), I don’t believe anyone can intelligently argue that these people aren’t getting the short end of the stick. The right’s answer, ‘education and training’, is remarkably ingenuine; do conservatives really believe that, with a few night courses, an immigrant janitor can retool himself into a high-paid software whiz?

At the same time, mandating that business simply pick up the slack by raising the minimum wage to $9 or $10 an hour isn’t economically sustainable. Mandating that private firms pay that much for people who, in purely economic terms, are only ‘worth’ $5, would simply put $5 skillset workers in competition with $10 skillset workers, leading to vast job losses across the $5 crowd, placing the group in a worse position than the one the living wage movement set out to fix!

That said, a number of remarkably intelligent, market-driven solutions do exist. I particularly like one proposed by Columbia University economist Edmund Phelps, who has researched extensively the possibility of a sliding-scale tax credit to employers. Phelps’ solution provides a real livable wage, yet is excellent from a business perspective, as $6 workers would still cost $6 of businesses’ money – with government putting up $3 or $4 to match.

As well as giving both employees and employers what they want, the solution even makes sense for society as a whole; from a strictly utilitarian perspective, the cost of the subsidy pays for itself, as research has shown that the social benefits of work (in terms of less crime, welfare dependency, etc.) exceed less skilled workers’ productivity (which limits what employers can offer in wages).

Which is to say, really intelligent solutions do exist to this and any number of other major problems in our country, from education and health care to foreign policy. The difficulty, really, is that the best solutions make poor bumper stickers, and politics, at least as practiced today, seems to consist mostly of rallying cry appeals to either the left or right’s lowest common denominators.

Which, in short, explains my issue with politics. Simply supporting candidates doesn’t seem to me to be the best way to improve the world. Instead, I’m vastly more optimistic about the possibilities of guiding the policy decisions made by select current officials, helping them towards approaches that improve at once both the lives of their electorate and their own re-electability. Certainly, lobbying has long been the tool of big business; so have complaints that big business seems to own government. Coincidence?

So, in short, such targeted, mercenary lobbying is where I focus my political efforts. It’s a primary focus of the Indigo Foundation, a nonprofit I chair. If corporations own politics, perhaps it’s time to take a more corporate approach to achieving less corporate aims. Rally’s are fine, but I’d rather have results.

All that that being said, come November, I’ll be voting for Kerry. Not because I’m particularly thrilled with him, but because I’m exceedingly appalled by the possibility of another four years of Bush. Even anyone not revolted by his record on social issues should be gravely concerned by the speed with which he’s running the country into the ground fiscally. Economically speaking, he’s perhaps the worst thing that’s ever happened to our government, and I don’t believe that statement is hyperbolic.

One final note: remember, for better or for worse, that we currently have a two party system. A cursory study of game theory explains that you can’t switch over to a multi-party system simply by slowly building the constituencies of third-party candidates over time. Feel passionate about the need for a multi-party system? Do something productive, like pushing hard for alternative voting systems, such as run-off voting, which, if implemented, would instantly create a rich multi-party political nation. Until then, realize that there are two real candidates, Bush and Kerry, and that by not voting for one, you unintentionally vote for the other. Which is to say, tell me you’re going to vote for Nader again in this election, and I swear I’ll punch you in the face.

A few friends have recently emailed to ask my thoughts, as a Yale alum, on the emerging Naomi Wolff / Harold Bloom sexual harassment scandal.

So, first, let’s outline the accusations, in slightly less vivid prose than Wolff employs in her article:

1. Wolff invites Bloom over for dinner.
2. After dinner, Wolff places her manuscript on the table.
3. Bloom say “You have the aura of election upon you.”
4. Bloom touches her leg.
5. Wolff staggers off and pukes in the sink.
6. Bloom finds his coat, says “You are a deeply troubled girl” and gets the hell out.

In Wolff’s own words: “Is that all? Yes – that’s all.”

So, for the sake of charity, let’s assume Wolff’s twenty year-old retelling of an event apparently experienced drunk enough to involve tossing her cookies is accurate. The question, then: is what occurred clearly sexual harassment?

Oddly, a few days back, I had a very similar conversation with one of my roommates; a female friend had touched his leg while they were talking, and he wondered whether that necessarily implied flirtation, sexual attraction. After a bit of contemplation, we concluded: not necessarily. We both could easily site female friends of varying ages who use touch in an almost maternal way – a pat to the arm or leg to imply support, understanding. Interpreting my roommate’s friend’s minor touch as sexual advance, we realized, might be reading waaay too much into the situation.

And, frankly, I think that assessment still stands in Bloom’s case. From the tone of his classes or his recent books (such as How to Read and Why), it’s immensely clear that the man sees himself as raining pearls of wisdom upon any of the undistinguished masses clever enough to recognize his undisputed genius. By Wolff’s own account, Bloom often “called students, male and female both, ‘my dear’ and ‘my child’.” In other words, Bloom is clearly a rather paternal individual given to consistently displaying non-sexual affection towards the acolytes gathered at his feet.

Certainly, I don’t blame Wolff for seeing otherwise, considering the context of the events. Invite your professor over for dinner and drinks in a darkened, candle-lit room, and even odd pronouncements like “you have the aura of election upon you” might be construed as overture to sex. Yet, by candle or classroom overhead lights, it’s the same Bloom. In other words, I don’t think Bloom was hitting on Wolff, I think he was just being his odd, paternal, vaguely affectionate self.

[For anyone looking for similar arguments, though perhaps voiced less kindly towards Wolff and her position, I’d suggest these three pieces.]

Addendum: In re-reading, I realize this post sounds vastly more “harassed, huh? oh, just suck it up” than I intended. In fact, whatever happened between her and Harold Bloom, I’m mainly upset with Naomi Wolff’s disingenous approach to the matter. She uses Yale’s poor response to her twenty year-old case to unfairly paint the university’s current strongly enforced policies against sexual harassment. She implies that Yale’s ignoring of her complaint is indicative of similar treatment of current students; from friends’ direct experience, I know that’s not the case. Certainly, if Wolff’s agenda was positive change at the school, rather than simply time for herself in the spotlight, perhaps she could have taken the time to actually research (or at least mention the existence of) the current policy and approach to dealing with new incidences of harassment, then propose suggestied changes. But, then, odds are the university would have actually listened to her proposals, and perhaps even implemented them. And where’s the New York cover story in that?