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<div><font face="Arial">Harrison</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">Thanks for raising the possibility of open
space in politics.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">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.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">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.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">So, why not propose a virtual open space
national event to create Dean's platform</font>? 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.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Hey, this could be exciting and fun! </div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Cheers</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Kerry</div>
<div>Open Futures</div>
<div>Edinburgh</div>
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