I share your (various) doubts about the people behind the AE process,
but I *do* welcome the concept of a more open and engaged and
egalitarian process for supporting existing politicians who are not
insiders at the big show (e.g. Kucenich, Gary Johnson) and for maybe
finding/exposing/supporting people who *don't* already play in politics
(or at least not nationally).
I'm not particulary deluded (or misiguided?) by the AE folks into
believing they have my best interests at heart... I suspect they
recognized that this was an inevitable development and wanted to be in
control of whatever part of it they could. That alone is a little
nefarious.
But to be honest, the important question is "what *would* be a better
process/circumstance for all of this?" Who *could* foster/muster
something like this. I'd be equally (differently) scared if it were
GoogleZon doing it... like
Vote.Google.com ? Maybe someone like EFF could do something less
muddied by conventional money and politics?
Certainly not FRIAM or TED or ???...
It is an interesting "experiment" even if it is openly flawed in some
(not so?) obvious ways... I'm less interested in believing this will
lead to first-order useful/meaningful results for the next election than
I am in understanding what this class of "meddling" can mean for our
whole process.
As for Doug's article.. I'm not very inclined to like anything I hear
from big-money traders about politics, if just on principle.
I think the concept that putting oneself (and career) on the line by
going on the ballot and risk being voted out of the process "by the
process" is interesting but probably both not very thought through and
hyperbolic at the same time.
I'm hoping that this election year brings some qualitatively new things,
and ideally ones I am more impressed with than the 2000 and 2004
elections. The "draw" of 2000 and the *re-election* of Bush in 04 were
both fairly big things in politics in my opinion (not ones I welcome,
especially in retrospect, but big things nevertheless).
I think our only viable option at this point is to give Obama 4 more
years to unlimber the rest of his skills and experience now that he's
had time to settle in, learn some ropes, lay some foundations. Maybe
the public are tired of their obstructionist congresspeople and will
elect some more who are interested in getting things done. Or maybe the
divisiveness will continue and expose itself yet more?
Meanwhile, 2016 is sure to be a hoot. I predict things will have
changed as radically by then as we could wish, if not neccesarily in an
appealing direction.
- Steve
This article sums up my feelings on the subject:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/46692982
--Doug
On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 9:58 AM, glen <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I don't think it would help me. An e-mail directly to me might
make me
feel like one of the cool kids. But my main concern is the sense that
Americans Elect is a corporation, not a democratic process. Don't get
me wrong, I'm all for corporations to the right purpose and context.
But AECorp seems a bit shadowy to me. If I were pressed to be
concrete
about my feelings, I'd have to say that it's just too difficult to
investigate the clique members involved. And when I do find some new
piece of data about them, it's nefarious ... like the identities
of the
largest funders and the evolution from Unity08.
I just don't get the feeling AECorp has my best interests in mind.
Not that that's a big deal. The Demopublicans don't have my best
interests in mind, either. But at least they admit that they're
political parties, whose sole purpose is to help politicians get (and
stay) elected as long as they tow the party line. That seems more
authentic than a shadowy corporation that claims it's not a party,
funded mostly in secret by long-term behind-the-scenes political
players.
These data should be prominent on their website, not hidden in PDFs I
have to hunt for. And even if they privately sent _me_ all that data
and it was all above board, I would still wonder why it wasn't on the
website so anyone could see it immediately.
Gillian Densmore wrote at 03/15/2012 06:42 PM:
> That might help. I know I used to get emails from them mostly
about what
> to make there logo to look like. Part of the problem at least on
my end
> is lac of transperency and comunication. Maybe I needed to
somehow know
> I needed to watch the forums or something. Even then discus ala
FRIAM
> would(V) helped at least in my case.
>
> On Thu, Mar 15, 2012 at 7:02 PM, Greg Sonnenfeld
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
> <mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>> wrote:
>
> If you want I could ask the regional coordinator to give you
guys an
> e-mail so you could discuss your concerns.
--
glen
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
