I recently read a magazine article that stated that an armed insurrection could never happen in the US, despite a distressingly high gun ownership. The argument is that people have got so complacent that all they would do if there was a oppressive and morally corrupt government would be to update their blogs.

[insert comment about how the current US government is oppressive and morally corrupt]

Here in the rural DR, the key factor is not complacency and blogs, but simplicity and chickens. I was having a chat with one of my neighbours recently, who informed me that she always voted Reformista because when it was in power in the late nineties, they gave her a chicken. She said "I always vote reformista because they are the only party that did anything for me. They once gave me a chicken." The president at the time was Balaguer, a man who made Machiavelli's prince look like Dubya. He knew fine that he could buy people's votes not with electrification schemes and improving the education system and hospitals, but with simple handouts to poor rural farmers. They saw the representatives of this man come to their village, and give them a chicken that they said was the personal gift of the president. In return, the villagers forgot all his violent repression and vote rigging, and committed themselves to a lifetime of voting Reformista, simply because of a chicken. One fears for democracy if the price of tolerating a fairly repressive quasi-dictatorship is a few chickens.

Of course, the other political parties have learnt from this. In the village, electicity was installed the day immediately before the presidential election. At the last election parties of all colours were seen handing out basic household goods (i.e. bags of rice and packets of beans) from pick-up trucks decked out in party colours. Every Dominican owns at least three baseball hats with a political slogan, though they are quick to say "it is for the shade only", rather than indicating any allegiance. If you want to find out what party they voted for, you are better off looking at the colour of their chickens.