Kerry Wrote: "As the process is one of the closest things we will ever see to participatory democracy, it should have a natural application to politics. However, there are a few big barriers to such an application - politicians and politics. Politicos love to play power games and are driven by monster egos, not exactly prerequisites for sharing. Moreover, politics have become media perception (and huge spend) exercises that negate personal involvement and rely on manipulation, often promoting fear."
You are correct on the barriers, which makes what is happening now with the Dean campaign all the more remarkable. It will be interesting to see how long this situation continues, now that he has definitely moved to the front-runner position - but for the moment what you are suggesting in terms of building a platform could happen. Simply create a Meet-Up group and go for it. Could go nowhere - or catch fire. And a further interesting point. As near as I can figure out, every single respondent to my thoughts here has come from some place OTHER than the USA. What does that tell you? Harrison -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of kerry napuk Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 11:55 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Civil Conversation Harrison Thanks for raising the possibility of open space in politics. As the process is one of the closest things we will ever see to participatory democracy, it should have a natural application to politics. However, there are a few big barriers to such an application - politicians and politics. Politicos love to play power games and are driven by monster egos, not exactly prerequisites for sharing. Moreover, politics have become media perception (and huge spend) exercises that negate personal involvement and rely on manipulation, often promoting fear. We were approached by a minority party in Scotland to do an open space on issues in constituencies around the country. It occurred to me that it would be more productive to have a national event, rather than a series of smaller ones where convergence of priorities might be awkward and time consuming and mitigate against a critical mass talking in real time. So, I suggested why not let ALL the party members come together in open space and create the party's Manifesto (what you call the Platform in America)? If members created the party's position on key issues, what it really stood for, participants would have commitment and ownership at point of participation and would go out and work to get their people elected. So, why not propose a virtual open space national event to create Dean's platform? I believe Gabrielle Ender has the software to do the exercise. Another variation might be to have individual Meet-up Groups propose their issues, actions and priorities and report into the virtual event, allowing convergence around majority positions. Letting voters decide for once what their party and candidate really stand for sounds pretty novel to me. Hey, this could be exciting and fun! Cheers Kerry Open Futures Edinburgh -- * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
