Glenn wrote:
The thing that bothers me locally is, why do the anointed and Penn Real Estate keep getting bolder rather than embarrassed? And more globally, why do I hear the same stories about identical process problems repeating across the country. In my opinion, we need to be more vocal about demanding the fundamentals of appropriate process. Otherwise, the blueprint that keeps showing up to subvert a democratic system; a system being taken for granted, will eventually succeed.
I'm concerned about this as well. I believe one factor that contributes greatly to this erosion of process is the erosion of citizenship (our public civic life) -- which has become increasingly replaced by capitalism (our private consumerist lives).
yes, you've heard me say all that before. but I recently heard bill moyers interview an author who says the same thing. his name is benjamin barber and he just wrote a book called "CONSUMED: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole."
listening to their conversation was illuminating -- it explores the relationship between democracy and capitalism (both of which are in trouble) on a local and global scale...
read the interview here: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/12212007/transcript1.html excerpt:
...Capitalism has put democracy in trouble. Because capitalism has tried to persuade us that being a private consumer is enough. That a citizen is nothing more than a consumer. That voting means spending your dollars spreading around your private prejudices, your private preferences. Not reaching public judgments. Not finding common ground. Not making decisions about the social consequences of private judgments, but just making the private judgments. And letting it fall where it will.
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