Civil Conversation

[Harrison Owen]

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:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of kerry
napuk
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 11:55 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
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
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