Young Europeans do not want political parties in their lives. Only 4% of young people (15-29 year olds) participate in a political party or trade union (on Euronews (2:02 mark) from Eurostat statistics). This is a clear figure of what young people want or do no want. Political party politicians and their acolytes would quickly blame the education system, capitalism, the television or even the Playstation for the lack of interest in politics of young people.

The European Union is a proto-democratic polity, focused on the city of Brussels, dispersed over 27 member states and 500 million citizens, based on a story of overcoming centuries of violence and held together by complex administrative procedures and a small number of Europeanised elites willing to invest time and effort in bridging the gaps that are still obvious.

I finished reading rebooting america on the 4th of July - 44 essays by very thoughtful people. You can read it too on dead tree or electrons. Here are some of my favorite bits.

Watch a video of Jerry Michalski at the New Politics Institute talking about "small 'g' governance" and join us when we pick up the theme on Wednesday in a participatory interview with Jerry.

Day 2 of PdF took us from personal democracy through participatory democracy to hyperdemocracy powered by a series of smart white guys with great presentation skills. This is how I think it went down.