Civil Conversation

[kerry napuk]

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
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