TONY BENNETT - PHILOSOPHER IN THE KEY OF C

Tony Bennett and I are old enough to remember WWII. I mention this, because WWII was the last time most people still were born and died within the same 50-mile radius. Small farms or towns or city neighborhoods.

With the war, and the corresponding explosion of transportation technologies and migration habits, all that changed. More than ever, Americans have become a people on the go. Rather than having the same home, job and circle of friends, there are many of each throughout our lifetime. Now, when Tony sings "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," he's reflecting a national fact of life. What's more, we're not only leaving our heart throughout this vast land, but also this vast planet.

Consider all those neighborhoods, careers and friends you left behind. You can remember each of them, and very likely each of them can remember you. Your "heart" actually beats in countless distant places and people. Giving it more wings and less roots than at any time in the history of the human heart.

Which brings us to this thought: Are we better or less for this? While the question can be addressed by philosophers, sociologists, economists and clergy, let the political scientists have a crack at it.

In recent years they've been looking at the consequences of this mobility on our stability as a functioning democracy. When the Founding Fathers created this government, it was still a 50-miles-radius world. How has the system held up under such exponential changes? True, there's been a "wave of democracy" sweeping the world ever since WWII, but these democracies have had an uneven success rate. Including ours.

To function as intended, a democracy has to find ways-and-means that allow the will-of-the-people to find expression that is fair, just, and viable. But while our living constitution has provided for this for generations, this generation may be witnessing a break point. Because in this generation, the distance between the will-of-the- people and the agenda-of-the-government has been chocked with thousands of unelected, unseen and virtually unrestricted power-players.

Too many to count, they go by such names as advisers, strategists, media consultants, poll-takers, lobbyists, and dirty-tricksters. Each a pro, each a player, and each for sale...! Your "will" is hardly of much concern; the "welfare" of the nation is of even less concern; the name of the game they play with such skill is winning. Winning your vote, or your rage or your silence when and where they need it most.

So while Tony reminds us how our hearts have been left behind in all those places and people in our life, our hearts have increasingly become chess pieces moved around by unelected to-the-highest-bidder experts whose interest in democracy is most likely defined in dollars.

When you think about it this way, your "heart" could almost break....