If you are one of the nearly five million American Indians living in the United States, you have a new place to call home in Washington as of November 3. Coinciding with the White House Tribal Nations Conference, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) announced the opening of an embassy designed to give tribal sovereign nations a permanent base in the nation’s capital from which to monitor and lobby U.S. government activities that collectively affect them.

Most are familiar with the fact that the United States is governed through a federal system, with different powers allotted to the national government in Washington and to the various state governments. But tribal sovereignty is increasingly recognized as a third component of U.S. federalism because each nationally recognized tribe has a certain amount of autonomy from both Washington and the state. There’s a relatively new term out there for this, “tri-federalism,” which appears to be an evolving, if not a de facto description of how things are. (Political science fans might want to also check out this article.)

As a couple of my colleagues described it, American Indians are essentially dual citizens of the United States and their respective Tribal Nation.

NCAI describes the new embassy as “a home away from home for tribal leaders and representatives conducting business in Washington, D.C.,” which will “strengthen our coordination and multiply the positive aspects of advocacy work on critical issues facing Indian Country.”

That’s very important, as people like Alma Ransom of the Mohawk Bear Clan would argue, because there have been “budget cuts from past administrations and damaging inserts to bills on Capitol Hill, placed during ‘midnight meetings,’ that have harmed Native people.”

Want to learn more about Native Americans in the United States? America.gov is offering a special page this month to mark National American Indian Heritage Month.

It got me thinking about the power of art and artists to stand outside a situation and bring a unique lens to certain aspects or issues we otherwise overlook. Sometimes, that lens can help focus attention when we grow complacent. Sometimes, it is a lens powerful enough to change the world.

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s antislavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin immediately leaps to mind. Her novel depicted the cruelties and inhumanity of slavery so vividly that it shocked many Americans into taking up the cause of abolition. Supposedly, when President Abraham Lincoln met Stowe after the onset of the Civil War he said, “so this is the little lady who made this big war.” Pablo Picasso’s Guernica depicting the trauma to civilian life under the Franco regime in Spain is another famous example of art as social criticism and an incitement to change.

“Ruined” tells the story of women living amidst the chaos and violence of the ongoing civil war and rebel conflicts in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Although the title refers to the female characters who have been the victims of rape and violent sexual mutilation, the story is also about survival and human resiliency in situations of indescribable horror.

One scene underscores the idea that democracy as an ideal and democracy in practice are very different things. Elections alone are not enough to ensure the safety and freedom of people. DRC actually held internationally-endorsed elections in 2006 that were largely non-violent and without major irregularities. Fighting continues today, however, and the elected government faces overwhelming political and security challenges.

Of course, the real power of the play and the lens Nottage brings to the conflict in DRC is the stories of the women fighting to scratch out an existence, however meager, in the middle of what the U.N. has termed the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis.” I point you to this gut-wrenching monologue from one of the characters in the show describing her assault, and this piece, which gives more background on the play and the conflict in DRC. Do you have other examples of particularly moving pieces of art, theater, or literature as a force for change in your country?

But Obama has made a point of reading 10 representative letters a day from the public “to stay in tune with America’s issues and concerns,” according to the White House.

“These letters, I think, do more to keep me touch with what’s happening around the country than just about anything else,” Obama says in the video.

Kelleher says the daily letters create “a good dialogue – a direct relationship between constituents who have these concerns and the President who desperately wants to get those messages.”

Do you think these daily letters can have an impact on the president? How do citizens communicate with government leaders in your country?

Sooner or later, every American student learns that the United States isn’t actually a “democracy,” meaning rule by the majority, but rather a “republic.” How significant is that distinction? Is “democracy” described as “the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried” by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, even desirable when you consider its true meaning?

Democracy is a term that gets thrown around nearly every day by American leaders and others around the world. What they are not advocating, however, is the concept that if 51 percent of the people vote tomorrow to invade the neighbor across the border or dispossess you of your belongings, you have to simply accept the will of the majority. Nope. I think “rule of law” is a more accurate way of putting it, with the important caveat that those laws were written, scrutinized, passed and upheld by your freely and fairly elected representatives.

I don’t know. Perhaps “rule of law” just doesn’t have the same flair or instant recognition as what the term “democracy” connotes.

If you have 10 minutes and adequate bandwidth, check out this video I discovered on American government which argues that there are really only two forms of government in the world: republics and oligarchies. Do you agree?

There has been a lot of international interest in Stolac’s school, despite the fact that for many in the town, segregated education is fine with them. Martin Luther King III, son of famous civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., visited Stolac and spoke with education officials and students about their school.

I recently spoke with Biljana Meskovska, who works with Realizing the Dream, a nonprofit organization King III founded. I asked her why anyone outside of Bosnia should care about Stolac. “There is no society that is stripped from problems, especially ones of discrimination, segregation, in one form or another,” she said.

It’s a good point. In the United States, segregated schools were ruled illegal in a famous 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education. Of course, in reality, segregation doesn’t just suddenly end because a law declares it so. The debate about equal access to education continues today.

“The level of globalization makes it necessary for us to care not only about what is happening in our own societies and countries, but throughout the world as well, as our own well being depends more than ever on the well being of our neighbors,” Meskovska said. Do you agree?

Are there programs like Schoolhouse Rock in other countries? If you know of any, please share!

In the United States, there are more than 600,000 elected offices in the United States. Additionally, there are numerous ballot measures and special elections that come up on a regular basis. For some it feels like that on any given Tuesday, someone somewhere in America is probably voting on something. Last week in fact, there was a special election for a federal office, a few states held off-year gubernatorial elections, and several cities including New York City and Atlanta held municipal elections. Atlanta’s ended without a clear winner in the mayoral race, so a run-off will be held in a few weeks. More elections.

But Americans have carried this craze for democracy and elections even further, and it is now a huge part of our entertainment life. Reality television often lets those watching at home vote, online or via phone, for their favorites to continue on the program. From American Idol to Dancing with the Stars, many of these shows rely on democratic fan participation. I am personally a fan of So You Think You Can Dance, and I exercise my right to vote regularly. That show also gets us to vote on Tuesday. At least we’re consistent.

The thing I find interesting though is that these shows sometimes get more voters than off-year Congressional elections in the U.S. It makes me wonder how much is the subject matter and how much is the ease of voting by text message or simply placing a phone call. Would more people vote in political elections if they could do so from the palm of their hand? What about outside the United States – could SMS voting make it easier for people in new democracies to voice their support in elections?

Of course, there are many problems with this – verifying voter eligibility and fraud to name only two – but we are continually looking for ways to make voting easier and more accessible using modern technology. As Stephen Kaufman recently mentioned, “Scantegrity” technology lets voters check online after they have cast their vote to make sure it was recorded accurately. It’s still a paper ballot, but it could help ensure every vote is counted correctly. What do you think about using new technologies to make voting easier?

November 11 is Veterans Day in the United States, when Americans honor all members of the armed forces, living and dead, who served during times of peace or war. Unlike some holidays that are celebrated on Mondays so workers can have a three-day weekend, Veterans Day happens on the actual date. It derives from the day in 1918 when the armistice took effect ending World War I — the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. A lot of other countries also honor their veterans on November 11 but call it Armistice Day or Remembrance Day.

Across the United States people hang American flags outside their homes, there are speeches and parades in big cities and little towns, and there is always a ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington. A color guard representing all military services executes “present arms” at the tomb, the president lays a wreath and a bugler plays “Taps.” (Click on this Arlington Cemetery link to hear a rendition of Taps.)

U.S. servicemen and women serve “under the most difficult circumstances, and [make] sacrifices that many of us cannot begin to imagine,” says President Obama in his Veterans Day proclamation. This is true of military personnel all over the world, of course.

There are some differences, though, between militaries in democracies and those under other types of government. Harry S. Truman, the 33rd U.S. president, put it simply: “If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military.” In democracies, military leaders advise elected leaders and carry out the elected leaders’ decisions. That is one reason Americans can honor our military and our veterans without a sense of fear or oppression. We know they are protecting us and protecting our freedom, and we are very grateful. That’s the truth. Back in the Viet Nam war era, soldiers returning home were often harassed and scorned, but today no matter whether you are for or against U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, you still support the troops. This advertisement is a great example of the “We Love Our Troops” sentiment in America (and the marketing of it).

President Obama also put in a nutshell the reason why American civilians feel good about the 1.5 million people who wear the uniform today and the 23.2 million who did so in the past:

“These men and women possess an unwavering belief in the idea of America: no matter where you come from, what you look like, or who your parents are, this is a place where anything is possible,” said Obama. “Our veterans continue to stand up for those timeless American ideals of liberty, self-determination, and equal opportunity.”

This brief article says it better than I can: Civil-Military Relations from the State Department publication Democracy in Brief.

Do you believe that civilian control of the military helps protect both a nation and the freedom of its people?

Voting usually involves a sizable time commitment to stand in long lines and get your eligibility checked before finally proceeding to the voting booth. But after it’s over, do you ever get a lingering suspicion that your effort may have been in vain and your vote will not actually be counted?

The recent November 3 election in my town, Takoma Park, Maryland, saw the first-ever use of a voting system that would allow you to verify that, in fact, your vote was counted and your time was not wasted. It also lets you play the role of being your own elections monitor to ensure that your vote went to the candidate of your choice.

The system involves the use of paper ballots and specially designed ink that prints a unique three-letter code once you have marked your choice. The voter writes down the serial number of their ballot and the codes. After the polls close in the evening, they can go online and type the serial number of their ballot and see an image of it. Then they can check that the three-letter codes that were revealed when they made their choice are in fact the same ones on the ballot they see on the computer screen.

Of course, on the technical and transparency side, there is more to it, and I encourage you to check out this article.

Also, in full disclosure, I did not do my civic duty and go to the polls, where our mayor was up for re-election and there were a few contested and uncontested city council representations at stake. Otherwise I would now be able to report on my own test of the new system. Next year I promise to do better.

Back in my long-ago youth, my übercool friends and I disdained the highly popular and hugely overrated Saturday Night Live comedy sketch show for the less viewed but vastly superior SCTV, a series produced by the Toronto, Canada based Second City troupe. The conceit was that SCTV was a really lousy independent television station and the sketches were programs broadcast on that station. Very, very late on Saturday nights (not even VCRs existed in this era), as my underage friends and I schemed ever more elaborate more plans to obtain beer, we chortled knowingly as Rick Moranis impersonated Dick Cavett interviewing himself. (Money line: “Woody and I tend to shy away.”)

On one memorable episode, a Soviet television station hijacked the SCTV signal, forcing westerners to endure braggadocio about the wonders of Soviet technology, represented by new Russian “mini-cams.” (Each could fill a house.) YouTube has preserved a sketch that nearly sent me to the hospital from uncontrollable laughter a quarter-century ago: I give you “What Fits Into Russia with Feliks Dzerzhinsky.”

Even in the late 1970s, it seems, the Soviet Union was something of a joke, and Dave Thomas is very funny as the Soviet blowhard. Except it wasn’t, and he isn’t. The real Dzerzhinsky, we might recall, founded the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police, which, as Wikipedia rather primly puts it, “performed mass arrests, imprisonments, and executions of ‘enemies of the people.’” Nor was the Soviet Union was a joke during the SCTV era. As an important book about that time is entitled, from the Soviet viewpoint, The World Was Going Our Way. Before the microprocessor changed the world, a nation that excelled at refining iron and steel, at fashioning nuclear warheads, at forcibly imposing its ideology on other nations was a real force. The world changed in ways that made it impossible for the inflexible communist system to keep up, but that did not become clear for a while longer. It never was inevitable that the Cold War would end the way it did.

As the world celebrates the Berlin Wall’s demise, a brief history lesson is in order. The Soviet Union was evil. Like any regime dedicated to an ideology rather than the needs of real human beings, it murdered with abandon. Stalin killed millions more even than Hitler—his own people and others. And this does not count those who survived the gulag, those whose lives were mutilated by the lack of basic freedoms, and the entire nations deprived of their freedom and self-determination by force of Soviet arms and Soviet-controlled “indigenous” communist movements.

So yeah, I cried when the Wall came down. I was 27 years old, had never set foot in Europe, and in truth had never endured any loss of freedom greater than working in an air-conditioned office five days a week. I cried, and I was ashamed of every person I met that day who didn’t.

A personal note: I’ve been kicked upstairs to a position of greater “responsibility.” (This means less time in Microsoft Word and more in Microsoft Outlook.) I’ll be stepping back from this blog. But I’ll be reading it. And if the genius kids who run this space—I almost surely am older than Tanya and Michelle combined—get out of line (NOTE TO GENIUS KIDS: history did not begin with the election of Barack Obama), well… to quote a leading contemporary American political philosopher, “I’ll be back.”