I've had a little time to mull this one over and I wanted to present my perspective on Doug Grow's email demagoguery column.
It seems that Grow is saying that it's at least possible that in a democracy a group of citizens can have too much sway over public policy. He says it's because we're not representative of the city and we're a small group of people. So I'll stipulate that 800 citizens is a fairly small group of people, and we're not representative of the city as a whole. And if you count those in favor of keeping Dairy Queen out of the park system then the number is even smaller than 800. But what bothered Doug Grow couldn't have been either of those reasons, not if he thought about it for a minute, which I'm sure he did. It can't really be about size or representative-ness because the pro-Dairy Queen supporters weren't representative of the city or a mass movement either. First of all, consider that there was no pro-Dairy Queen public ground swell until after the argument began in opposition to it. The pro-Dairy Queen plan was largely confined to Dairy Queen and the Park Board. If there hadn't been public opposition it would have stayed that way. The pro-Dairy Queen lobby consisted of Dairy Queen corporate representatives. Barbara Johnson says there is support among North-side politicians for having ice cream in the parks in North Minneapolis, but that isn't quite the same as saying Dairy Queen should get the business, and that doesn't necessarily represent a public ground swell either. It should be uncontroversial that Dairy Queen is less representative of the city than the members of the list. I just looked it up and Dairy Queen is actually a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Berkshire Hathaway's chairman is Warren E. Buffett. Wow. Talk about six degrees of separation. Dairy Queen represents Warren Buffett, not Minneapolis. I don't know how many Minneapolis residents are significant Dairy Queen (Berkshire Hathaway) shareholders. I would wager that compared to the total population, that number is also insignificant. So I'm going to call that a wash for the sake of this argument. So what does that leave Doug Grow to be bothered about? What's newsworthy about this? It has to do with what Annie Young said: "A few years ago, on an issue like this, we might have received five or six letters from those few people who had gotten wind of the proposal." What's different is that some Minneapolis residents are bypassing the traditional information sources, like the Star Tribune, and working together to keep informed and active on issues of interest to them in their community. We pick the issues we're interested in and we provide enough context and support for action to result from discussion. The technology bypasses the people who are used to framing public discourse. Were I Doug Grow, I might not be happy about that either. This form of communication is revolutionary. That's another uncontroversial truth. In a revolution, some people lose power as others gain it. Perhaps the Star Tribune is concerned about losing their monopoly on the public discourse, especially when it comes to issues that really matter economically to them. Like, say for instance, a new ballpark or two. I'm not saying that the office of the publisher told Doug Grow how to frame his article. I'm certain they didn't. But consider that to the extent E-Democracy grows in significance and changes the flow of political communication, it also erodes the power of those who controlled this communication up until now. Aaron Osterby Lowry Hill The Minnesota Daily, 1993-1996 _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
