Talking In The Trenches

by: Paul Rosenberg

Sun Jul 19, 2009 at 20:20


Last weekend, we had a very interesting discussion about Nancy Bordier's web-based tool gor bottom-up self-organizing.  In the course of the discussion, perhaps the most fundamental questioning of the whole concept came from educationaction, here, for example.  Although they come from very different directions, I regard both Nancy and educationaction as valuable contributors to our community, and I wanted to make a few comments that I hope will help enhance the value of their different perspectives, by stressing how they both contribute in different ways.

This is especially timely in that we're going to be running a diary by educationaction on the front page this coming Friday, 11 AM EST, with a special guest appearance by Mary Pattillo, author of Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City, which the diary builds upon.

There are two big-picture comments I want to make.  First, I think it's fair to say that Nancy represents a strain of thinking generally associated with the progressive tradition, while educationaction reflects the populist, working-class critiques of that tradition.  This is a long-standing debate in American politics, which shows no signs of going away anytime soon, and so it's frankly ridiculous to expect any two individuals to rush things along.  What we can hope to do is find and focus on the more fruitful results from this tension.  Second, I think it's crucial to remember that none of us is grand generals in charge of vast armies.  We're talking in the trenches here, lucky if we command the next sentence that comes out of our mouths, so that it doesn't turn around and bite us.

Thus, educationaction raised a number of concerns that he had about what Nancy hadn't done in the process of developing her concept.  And while I agreed in the abstract, and felt it was important to have him draw attention to these things, I also felt that it was important to realize that, like most of us on the left side of things, Nancy is working with very limited resources, without any sort of far-sighted institutional support.

Paul Rosenberg :: Talking In The Trenches
Given who we are, and the conditions we work under, I think that Nancy's situation is very typical of what each and every one of us can expect to face if and when we take on some new task that is beyond the realm of the well-worn and everyday--tasks which are also very important, but ones that are relatively well-understood.

At the same time, I think educationaction was guite correct to raise his concerns.  One thing we do have, whatever else we may lack in the way of resources is our critical intelligence--not only that, but our experience, and the knowledge gained by studying the experience of others.

It's up to us as a community to make the most of our differences as well as our similarities, for in doing so, we create a model for the kind of world we want to live in.  Above all, I hope that by giving such differences room to breathe in, we create the space for the emergence of new ideas and insights that draw strength from both sides--as well as form other perspectives.

As I began this diary, I thought I had a great deal more to say.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover I was wrong.

Until y'all start commenting, that is!

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Talking In The Trenches | 50 comments
Agree in the Abstract, Not Sure about This Case (0.00 / 0)
Hi, Paul.  I happened to pop in when this popped up.

My concern about the dialogue with Nancy is really that it wasn't a dialogue.  It is completely legitimate not to expect someone with limited resources to be able to answer every question one asks about their model.  But as far as I can tell, she didn't want to answer any of them.  This troubles me.  I feel like my original concern about her stance on her project came out fairly strongly--one of conversion more than commitment.  

It's all relative.  But at some point, especially when someone appears in a space like this to have a dialogue, there is at least the appearance of not enough responsiveness to reasonable questions.

I was also troubled by the way the conversation seemed to end in what verged on personal critique.  I suppose one could say that my comments about her conversion to "religion" fell in the same level--but I feel like this was a reasonable concern relevant to her stance.  Her comments don't actually bother me personally that much--if you are going to come on here you have to be okay with it.  But it raised questions about her particular position vis a vis welcoming critique on any level.  

(I should not have mentioned the SF novel in the comment you link to, by the way--I'm afraid it came off as trivializing her work, which was not intended--so for that I accept responsibility).

The question is how much openness to critique one should have when one is developing a model with limited resources.  This is a nuanced question with much gray area.  My feeling, however, is that Nancy fell on the not welcoming enough side--especially appearing on Open Left.

At what point is someone developing such a model so resistant/defensive that their contributions become potentially problematic because of the inflexibility of their approach.  (The whole "I patented it" e.g. "I control it?" raised red flags, for example).  

You are framing this as a general continuum of difference in approach.  I think you are right in general.  But this is a particular case.  And in this specific example it seems relevant to ask whether the specific position taken is problematic.

Okay, that's long enough :)  

--Aaron Schutz (Core Dilemmas of Community Organizing)

I can't seem to find a three-paragraph (4.00 / 1)
explanation of Nancy's idea, and got lost in a fog, clicking back through links. Any link to a brief explanation would be much appreciated. (Far as I can tell, it's a website that allows people to establish political priorities, and then form local and national groups of likeminded folk to pressure politicians?)
Grr. Dropped half the sentences from that (0.00 / 0)
comment, for some reason. Obviously, you quoted the four-bullet-point list. But I'm looking for the 'elevator pitch,' the thing I say to my neighbor when we meet at the mailboxes. "There's this great website where you ... what?"

It's ... what? Facebook for politics? Find your political 'friends', and leverage your network, both nationally and locally, by organizing together?

[ Parent ]
Interactive Voter Choice System (4.00 / 1)
My invention empowers voters across the political spectrum to set the nation's policy priorities for the first time in history and elect representatives who will enact them into law. It gives voters the power to end the current special interest-driven political party system by taking over existing parties or creating new ones.

The free web-based consensus-forming and coalition-building tools I invented empowers U.S. voters to:

   * Directly set their policy priorities across the board and use them to reset the nation's priorities by publicizing them in nationwide public opinion polls, whose results can be disaggregated down to the local level;

   * Identify and contact like-minded voters with similar policy agendas so that they can join forces to build political networks, coalitions and winning voting blocs of any size at local, state and federal levels;

   * Use their political networks, coalitions and winning voting blocs inside, outside or across party lines to run and elect representatives at all levels of government whom they can hold accountable for enacting their policy agendas into law;

   * Use their political networks, coalitions and winning voting blocs to rejuvenate existing political parties or build new political parties.

The invention is designed around a unique consensus-building mechanism that empowers voters not only to create self-organizing political networks that can function as voting blocs, but also self-organizing federations of networks/voting blocs that can nominate and elect candidates at any level of government, including the presidency.  

[ Parent ]
I read that much! But I'm a little slow, and (4.00 / 1)
sometimes need thing spelled out.

My translation: It's a website where people identify their political priorities. Then they find other people with the same priorities. Then they vote together if they can find politicians who represent those priorities. And if the blocs are big enough, they try to make them into national news.

So take one of our bigger blocs--marijuana legalization. Me and all my stoner friends form a huge national bloc. And then we send out press releasing saying that 8.2 million voters support legalization, and let it be known that we'll vote for anyone who supports this priority? (And we do the same for local issues, too--off leash dogs in the park, whatever.)

I suspect I'm missing some steps, here.

I support gay marriage. So I joined EqualityMaine. I get their emails about events, votes, whatever. A bunch of other people do, too. This is kinda like that, but more Facebook-y, and a tool that can be used for any particular policy?

[ Parent ]
You're Getting the Hang of It (0.00 / 0)
I would just clarify that once you and your like-minded friends connect with each other on policy priorities you collectively support, you can pressure incumbents to enact them by letting them know that you have the votes to defeat them for re-election if they do not comply.

Or, you can run and elect your own candidates who commit to enacting your agendas.

You might want to re-visit Paul's initial post last week-end where he summarizes how the invention works in 5 steps. Just click the following: Empowering A Progressive Movement-A Web-Based Tool For Bottom-Up Self-Organizing.

[ Parent ]
Well, I'm not clear on how (0.00 / 0)
that particular thing differs from where we now stand. Politicians know that they needn't agree with my priorities, then need only disagree with my priorities less than the other guy.

But I'll shut up and do some reading now (and by 'now', I mean tomorrow) before I raise any other objections you may have already addressed.

[ Parent ]
The Difference Is (0.00 / 0)
that my invention provides a mechanism that enables you to identify and contact voters in your election district who share your priorities, which you cannot now do.

You can join a national group that is built around pursuit of a common goal, like the legalization of marijuana, but unless that group has an organization and website technology that enables all the members to contact all the other members, you will not be able to make common cause with them in your district to compel your elected representatives to enact your priorities into law, or to run your own candidates if the incumbents refuse to follow your lead.

My invention is primarily designed to empower voters who live in the same election district to connect with other voters in the district who share their policy priorities across the board, or on just a few issues.

Once you can identify and contact people in your electoral district, you can build a political network that can work inside or outside existing party lines to nominate YOUR candidates for office who pledge to enact your policy priorities. This is not something that you can do right now.

More later. . .

Thanks so much for your interest and curiosity.


[ Parent ]
I Should Also Add (4.00 / 1)
that you can use my invention to build your own local coalition joining voters who favor legalization of marijuana, for example, with voters who favor gay marriage.

You can keep expanding your coalition by adding new policy priorities that will attract more voters to your original coalition.

By continuously expanding your coalition to include more voters, you can calculate the point at which you have enough voters to win local primaries, i.e. roughly 50% plus 1 of the voters who voted in the last primary.

Once you start getting close to that number or exceed it, you will have all the clout you need either to:

a) convince incumbents to enact your policy priorities into law once you let them know that the voters belonging to your coalition are numerous enough to defeat them in a primary or
b) run your own candidates for office straight away.

If you use my invention to build coalitions comprised of enough voters to win primaries, you will be doing everything that political parties traditionally do and more. You will have empowered your voters to set the agenda for your local election district and run and elect candidates who will enact your voting bloc's agenda into law.

You will have basically transformed/superceded the political party system as we know it because it will be voters (rather than parties, party-backed candidates and the corporate special interests that fund them) who set legislative policy agendas and elect candidates who will enact them into law.  

[ Parent ]
I take issue with your synthetic approach (4.00 / 1)
You say:
By continuously expanding your coalition to include more voters, you can calculate the point at which you have enough voters to win local primaries, i.e. roughly 50% plus 1 of the voters who voted in the last primary.

I'm afraid that you will lose too many people while they work on getting their disparate voting blocs to develop. IMO, you want a tool that will achieve mass adoption, and quickly, at that. That means one that can help determine consensus voting blocs quickly.

Please see my comments in my post, below, where I say,

At the end of the day, you should probably also insist that voters rank (weight) the 4-8 prioritized issues. Why? Because you need an antidote for fragmentation, which I don't think you can escape, otherwise.
 

435 Dem Primaries 2012
Coffee Party Usa
TheRealNews.Com
[ Parent ]
Rank Ordering is Part and Parcel of the Invention (0.00 / 0)
Rank ordering is part and parcel of the invention and the patent application I submitted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. To read it, click here.

Consensus-building within self-organizing socio-political networks created by voters using the invention will be facilitated by a voting utility that will be provided on the website.

I also suggest you may want to look at a diagram of the Interactive Voter Choice System by clicking here.  

[ Parent ]
Correct me if I'm wrong but (0.00 / 0)
your patent application only allows for ranking of policy options(?). This is what I referred to as an "issue". It's good to see that you have anticipated that, but what about the ranking of solutions to those policy options/issues? Is that there, or not? (Beyond a dichotomous flag.)

Also, would you please provide us with an explanation of what the n.sub.X notation means? I've designed many a database, but never had formal schooling in databases. Does the n.sub.X notation have to do with database normalization?

Finally, the only diagram I see in the link you provided is that of 2 decks of cards. If that's the diagram you refer to, I'm not sure why you are referring to it. Those are 8 categories of policy options/issues, correct? The total policy options/issues comprising those categories will be much more numerous.

To get the McDonald's level voters using the system, I would definitely hide the majority of policy options/issues. The analogy is to standard interface design, where a 'Details' or 'Show Additional Options' or some such button is provided. Only the motivated/advanced user will click that button.

I'm not sure, but I may be thinking of voting blocs as more transient phenomena than you are, at least from the perspective of the McDonald's user. To me, as the blocs are driven primarily by issues, and not an ideology, for the McDonald's user they will come into focus (being) 6 months, say, before candidates announce for an office. After
election day, Joe Six-pack will want to ignore politics completely for a year, then do the minimum to once again participate in an effective voting bloc.

Readers of political blogs, such as this one, will want to participate more fully, weighing in on more issues, and getting into the detailed elaboration of at least some of them.

Joe Six-Pack Voting Bloc, anybody?   :-)

435 Dem Primaries 2012
Coffee Party Usa
TheRealNews.Com

[ Parent ]
You must have seen the diagram (0.00 / 0)
or you would not have asked the question about the "n.subX notation" no?

Or did you get that from the patent application?

In any case, here is the link for the Diagram.

I checked this link myself and it appears to be correct.

[ Parent ]
Ah-ha! I think that's what I was missing. nt (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Please see my response to Metamars above (0.00 / 0)

[ Parent ]
Our Side Always Disses Soundbites, BUT (0.00 / 0)
I've done 3 different careers, none of which have been politics*, and KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) has worked in all three careers cuz it is keeping things simple.

wow.

I clicked on her url below, I get paragraphs. Where are the 4 BULLET points? Where is the elevator speech? I'm not spending 1/2 an hour on any 1 diary, unless it Hamlet, Richard III or The Great Gatsby.  

oh, by the way, in politics the righties do such an outstanding job at KISS (and I am NOT being sarcastic) that their entire fantasy world provides lots of answers, despite the fact that their fantasy world is pretty much divorced from the realities they piss on our heads.

KISS is great.

rmm.

* I don't do politics cuz I don't have money, and, having grown up on welfare, I KNOW being broke sucks.

Here is an ANECDOTE people can chew on -- 9 out of 10 of hte people I've met in my life who don't care about money come from relative affluence. NOT donald trump rich, just able to fix the car / replace the car, fix the teeth / replace the insurance company affluent.

from what I've seen in politics since I was 12 in '72 in Massachusetts - those most likely to be successful in politics are those who can afford the car and teeth problems until the phone rings with that save-the-world job.



It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way

[ Parent ]
Yeah, I completely agree. (4.00 / 3)
And I suspect that neither Nancy nor Paul are, shall we say, terrified of complexity.

But I'm also starting to get a glimmering of why Nancy's so excited about this. At least some of the most basic, basic stuff (if I'm reading it correctly) strikes me as so useful and so obvious that it's hard to believe nobody's done it before.

A networking website where you choose your top political priorities and are linked with others who share those priorities, with a special emphasis on your town and state. That seems like a complete no-brainer to me. I'd sign up for 'prosecute torture' and 'gay marriage' and a bunch more in a heartbeat, and at least stay a little better informed and connected, even if I didn't get really involved.

Of course, I'm a bit technologically challenged, and don't know if people are doing this sorta thing on Facebook or elsewhere already--and if it's possible to overlay this on existing technology and communities--and I haven't mulled any of the more complex ideas. But just that one thing (if I understand it correctly) is pretty deeply neat.

And speaking of the right's ability to KISS--which I also envy (and about which Paul wrote a series of excellent diaries last year)--this strikes me as a leftie, activist, version of Beck's 'We Surround Them'. That there are progressive everywhere, and if we--or even just the net-and-policy-savvy slice of 'we'--band together, we'll be more effective.

But I should shut up and give it a real read if I wanna keep blathering.

[ Parent ]
sounds like a good idea actually, and WTF (0.00 / 0)
since we're sharing Change The World Websites

http://liemail.com/bamboograss...

Beware, for the Politics-Should-Be-Sesame-Street & then the world would be nice Crowd - I'm NOT polite.

What the Dems do, or, what I've seen as a lowly worker bee peee-on on lots of campaigns over 30 years, the Dems want what I call Cowpatch grassroots.

We're all supposed to be just a lying around, waiting to get chewed up and shat out, or, shat on, or pissed on, or stepped on, or some combination of all of the above. And, after the snow flys and the banners and signs are trashed, we sit ignored ... and regrow and get healthy AND get ready for the NEXT summer fall campaign of getting shat upon ...

The truth is, people will participate a LOT more IF:

1. they're doing stuff they give a shit about,
2. they ain't having their time wasted by:
  a. idiotic processes,
  b. idiotic power struggles,

figure out how to make a system with 1, 2.a. and 2.b working CONSISTENTLY, NOT dependent on who shows up, and there will be a LOT of rove / mcaulliffe wannabees deservedly un-fucking-employed.

rmm.  
   

It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way

[ Parent ]
I actually think that your #1 (4.00 / 1)
dovetails perfectly with Nancy's idea. She talks about one effect of letting people set the priorities is that they (we) become energized. (And I'll check the link--thanks.)
[ Parent ]
Is it possible? (0.00 / 0)
Seems to me that a democratic form of government will always be dependent upon who "shows up" and how many show up. That's why the "cowpatchs" are needed from time to time, they have to show up on election day, or caucus day.

To the extent that an invention such as Nancy's can promote and facilitate organization it can be effective at getting people to "show up" on a more consistent basis. But like all tools, the results will depend upon who uses it, and how effective they are in doing so.  

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
One of my assumptions (0.00 / 0)
is that voters will spontaneously show up to vote once they can actually drive the electoral process by using my invention to set the nation's policy agendas, build networks/voting blocs of voters who share these agendas, and run slates of candidates who pledge to enact them into law.
[ Parent ]
Gaining Traction versus Splitting Hairs (0.00 / 0)
I appreciate what you have written in this diary, Paul, although I think you have endowed the divergence that erupted between myself and another Open Left commentator with more depth and significance than I did.

I can see that you both want to delve into the dynamics of why and how people engage in the political process.

Where I am coming from is closer, in my view, to the nitty gritty of civic engagement in electoral and legislative processes than to theories thereof.

I think both of your may be correct that my The Interactive Voter Choice System may not automatically appeal to certain segments of the electorate.

But, tactically speaking, I invented it for the voters I met when I ran for elective office and the 100 million people who already use the Internet to engage in electoral and legislative processes, particularly the members of the Millennial generation.

Once the tool is fully developed and tested along the way, I am quite confident that it will be enthusiastically embraced by Millennials in the first phase, and then by older progressives born before Millennials.

So what I am trying to do is find people who tend to agree with me, based on what I have written in my book, Re-Inventing Democracy and provided on the prototype website, Citizens Winning Hands, to help me move it to the next stage.

These collaborators are people who glimpse its possibilities even though their feasibility has not been scientifically demonstrated. Needless to say, many of them may have questions and doubts about certain aspects of it. That is only natural.

But what I am not looking for are people who look at my invention and pretty much decide at the outset that it will not work or that I have not done what they think should have already been done.

So when the dialog last week-end required me to spend the better part of two days responding to the criticisms of someone who had already decided it would not work, I was not only uncomfortable but disappointed that I did not have more time to interact with the folks who had posted comments that indicated they saw my invention's possibilities in connection with their own engagements.

Disagreements are natural and needed. But in the case of empowering the emerging progressive majority to kick over the tables of the plutocrats and take over government, what I think we progressives need to do is figure out with whom we want to pool our ideas for developing winning strategies. Everybody should feel free to do their thing without having to do battle with people who are of a different mind.

The Open Left member who repeated the same objections over and over again was not helping me do what I was trying to do, which was to find people who wanted to collaborate in moving it forward.

He was insisting that I accept his criticisms, which I see he has repeated again today above. Of course I rejected them last week and repeat my rejection of them today. So nothing has changed.

Instead of gaining traction for one among many possible approaches, I feel that we are splitting hairs in a stand-off that cannot be remedied.

So I am a bit puzzled about how to continue the dialogue that Paul started on the subject of empowering the emerging progressive majority without repeating the negative pattern of last week.

Possibly Open Left members who posted comments on this topic might share some of their reactions to what transpired.


What transpired: (4.00 / 1)
I wrote a WWII thriller which hinged on (say) the flight of the Enola Gay.

A reviewer slammed my book in PW because we all know that the Enola Gay successfully dropped the bomb. Where's the suspense?

So that's what happened. Genre confusion.

You're an evangelist for an exciting (to you, at least!) idea. Far as I know, that's a necessary step in the lifecycle of new ideas. But someone else is an evangelist for a different (yet equally exciting--to him) idea. So you're looking for support and affirmation of your idea, and he's looking for support and affirmation of his.

That's all fine--except for being a recipe for a roadblock. I propose that the two of you ignore each other completely, and both happily go on your own ways, both doing excellent and non-overlapping work.

Of course, I stumbled into my seat during the intermission, so what do I know? Hell, I still can't quite tell exactly what your 'invention' is--I presume it's more Kindle than Facebook, or you'd call it a 'website'?

[ Parent ]
I Love Your Response! (0.00 / 0)
Thanks so much for your wise words, especially the following:

That's all fine--except for being a recipe for a roadblock. I propose that the two of you ignore each other completely, and both happily go on your own ways, both doing excellent and non-overlapping work.

Last week-end, after my critic posted a message entitled, ""This Will Be My Final Comment", I wrote a response entitled "Good-Bye".

So I thought that, per your wise counsel, we would both go our own ways.

But lo and behold, here he is back again repeating the same criticisms.

So what do you suggest at this stage?

BTW, you can see a prototype of the website, Citizens Winning Hands, that I developed to give folks like you a glimpse into how the "bottom-up self-organizing" tools and services my invention engenders might be made available free of charge to voters of any political persuasion.  

[ Parent ]
Your response would have been dead on except for (4.00 / 1)
Last week-end, after my critic posted a message entitled, ""This Will Be My Final Comment", I wrote a response entitled "Good-Bye".

So I thought that, per your wise counsel, we would both go our own ways.

But lo and behold, here he is back again repeating the same criticisms.

So what do you suggest at this stage?

Re-read your comment without the above blockquote.

See? Better?

Laying down a sword is hard to do. Just ignore the noise.

BTW, Earplugs work when I mow my lawn.  

"They pour syrup on shit and tell us it's hotcakes." Meteor Blades

[ Parent ]
Have you read his diaries? (4.00 / 1)
He writes great stuff--he's smart and committed and really thoughtful. Like you. But the two of you are arguing at cross-purposes here, or something--it's like you stepped into each others' blind spots.

"Yes, goddamit, but the whole point of my novel is WHAT IF the Enola Gay was sabotaged on the ground?"
"It wasn't. We all know it wasn't."
"But what if it was? That would've changed the course of the war in the  Pacific--changed history in ways that--"
"If you check Wikipedia, you'll find that EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED! What kind of 'thriller' completely lacks any hint of a thrill? I love your twist ending, where Hitler dies in the end. Nobody's gonna see that coming."

What I suggest is emailing him off-site and saying, 'Wow, that didn't go as well as it could've, let's just start ignoring each other for a while, shall we?'

And I know him exactly as well as I know you--which is to say, not at all--but you're both completely on the same side, and this is just one of those silly internet things. On the other hand, I still hate that fucking reviewer.

[ Parent ]
Well, No (4.00 / 1)
not exactly.  In this case, I don't have a different position to push necessarily.  Nor were all of my questions critiques, or meant to be critiques, some of them were simply questions.

And yes, I'm not actually talking directly to her at this point.  Clearly she doesn't want to talk.  But Paul is raising a broader issue, for which that dialogue is simply a useful example.  And I think the broader issue is relevant.  

At what point does evangelism become problematic?  How much openness to dialogue should someone have if they are going to legitimately draw wider support?    

--Aaron Schutz (Core Dilemmas of Community Organizing)

[ Parent ]
Well, I think those are all good questions, (4.00 / 1)
and I'm a fan of your diaries, as I mentioned above. But I think that those questions are your passion, just as this idea is Nancy's. This dilemma, if I remember correctly, fascinates you: the tension between ... political and community organizing? Fostering an awareness of the limits of our own activism? I loved your diaries about seeing the Obama campaign in that light.

I just suspect that it's best to raise those questions without using you and Nancy as an example, now that the two of you have gotten off on this strange foot. (Of course, that's part of my larger 'Blame Paul' philosophy.)

I actually doubt that the two of you disagree about much. You're just asking some questions about the use the symbolism in her coming-of-age novel, and she sees the thing as a legal thriller. Other than that, you see eye to eye ...

[ Parent ]
Point Well Taken (4.00 / 1)
I just suspect that it's best to raise those questions without using you and Nancy as an example, now that the two of you have gotten off on this strange foot.

You are probably right.  Clearly this dialogue rubbed me the wrong way.  And even in this abstract sense it clearly isn't productive.  I'll leave it to others to judge.

In any case, if the model works, I'm all for it.

--Aaron Schutz (Core Dilemmas of Community Organizing)

[ Parent ]
Process-Wise (0.00 / 0)
What would have been valuable to me is if you had stated:

1. First, what you found positive about the invention (I had the impression that you found nothing of value in the invention)

2. Second, what you would suggest going forward (such suggestions might have given me reason to believe you were trying to help me reach my goal instead of convincing me to stop trying altogether, which is the impression I got)

3. And at any point, what experience you have that might help me improve upon what I am proposing.

If you re-read all of your comments, I think you will see just how seriously, to quote your own words, "this dialogue rubbed me the wrong way."

As much as I tried, I never got any sense that you were wishing me well or trying to help me in any way, but rather that you found so much fault with my invention that you could not be encouraging in any way.

In my view, a constructive dialogue cannot be furthered when one party, rightly or wrongly, interprets a critic's interjections in this manner.


[ Parent ]
Another idea (4.00 / 2)
Sorry if this is already present, and I am just repeating.

I had earlier suggested factoring issues and suggested resolutions differently - using fewer issues (4-8) for novice users, as well as a broader spectrum of possible solutions, which would reflect a richer and presumably more realistic typology of voters. The net/net would be a taxonomy of sorts, which Nancy could help kickstart by doing the basic homework of prioritizing the issues to pre-determine the top 7, and figuring out a richer, but not excessive voter typology.

Although I had also written that building a concensus can't be automated, given the state of artificial intelligence, it should be a relatively simple matter for a programmer to create a program that can automate determining concensus in the sense of horse-trading, where voters have already indicated degrees of acceptance.

As an example, let's take health care. Suppose this issue is suitably refined to have, amongst possible solutions offered to voters looking to form a voting bloc,
1) single payer
2) strong public option, no trigger
3) middling public opton, with trigger
4) let people suffer and die, but not before going bankrupt (some might want to call this 'the Republican option' :-) )

Voters can assign a ranked (weighted) vote, e.g.:
1) strongly support
2) medium support
3) weakly support
4) don't support
5) (maybe; I have to think about this) violently opposed - will not join any voting bloc that supports this position

Computing voting blocs, when this sort of information is in your database, should not be a problem.

Unfortunately, this is more work on the part of the voter, and I am strongly urging to take aim at the masses who will likely never participate in e-democracy beyond a level analogous to a McDonald's patron. However, it isn't that much more work, and I think it could indeed be widely adopted.

This is somewhat reminiscent of what dating web sites are like (I think; I've never used any). I expect that questionaires are principally determined ahead of time by the company marketing their match-making service, though it would be a simple matter for Juliets (and Romeos) to be given the ability to add additional questionaires. I don't know if this is done or not, but regardless, I expect 99% of users to use the standardized questionairres.

Now that I think about it, somewhat, if you offer the ability to give weighted support to issues, it may be advisable to just toss the idea of a voter typology out the window. Constellations of voting blocs will appear, naturally, and these constellations will constitute a de facto typology.

At the end of the day, you should probably also insist that voters rank (weight) the 4-8 prioritized issues. Why? Because you need an antidote for fragmentation, which I don't think you can escape, otherwise. (OK, I see from your comments elsewhere in this thread that you have a synthetic, evolutionary process in mind to counteract fragmentation. I simply can't believe that this is less work for users than what I am suggesting, here. In fact, I think it's a lot more work. I would suggest that you experimentally try competing approaches, if in doubt.)  E.g., if the top 7 issues "naturally" lead to 4 voting blocs that will get support of 90% of the e-democracy early adopters, that's swell. Except that this will not be sufficient to unseat an incumbent. Ergo, what you should do is offer the participants several sets of results, essentially suggestive of what the results of an instant runoff election would look like, if candidates were equally funded and 100% faithful to the voting bloc. E.g., your scorecard would look like this:

Top 7 issues:  90% of voters comprise 4 voting blocs
     INSUFFICIENT to unseat Senator X in the upcoming primary

Top 6 issues:  90% of voters comprise 4 voting blocs
     INSUFFICIENT to unseat Senator X in the upcoming primary

Top 5 issues:  90% of voters comprise 3 voting blocs
     INSUFFICIENT to unseat Senator X in the upcoming primary

Top 4 issues:  90% of voters comprise 2 voting blocs
     SUFFICIENT to unseat Senator X in the upcoming primary

Top 3 issues:  90% of voters comprise 1 voting bloc
     SUFFICIENT to unseat Senator X in the upcoming primary

How to determine what is sufficient and what is not will be tricky, in the early stages of adoption. That's because you won't know how many voters will really follow through on commitments to vote for a candidate who supports the Top 4 or Top 3 issues. However, armed with the results of a consensus process, those citizens who participated can then go out an proselytize to their neighbors and friends who didn't participate, hopefully leading to more votes for the voting bloc approved candidate than were even pledged through the e-democracy application. (I'm assuming that the e-democracy concensus will closely match the desires of voters who don't participate, though I could be wrong about that. I doubt it, but it's possible.)

In a Day 2 implementation, you probably want to have a second vote where Voter Guides ("gurus", watchdogs, etc.) weigh in, and more detailed positions are negotiated between champions of those detailed views. Likely, the more motivated e-democracy voters will vote as a higher percentage of participants. (Both good things, IMO.)

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What you suggest is far more complicated and burdensome to voters than I would like (0.00 / 0)
The Interactive Voter Choice System (IVCS) as I have originally envisioned it is far simpler and less complicated than what you propose.

I have strong doubts that the vast majority of voters would want to get involved in something as complicated as you propose.

Probably we will end up with something more complicated than I have proposed and less complicated than what you propose.

My core intent is to enable like-minded voters with similar policy agendas to find each other and have social networking tools at their disposal that they can use to form political networks which they can transform into voting blocs.

The last thing I would want to do is to "pre-prioritize the issues to pre-determine the top 7". Even if I had the illusion that I could do this (which I do not have), it would go against the entire thrust of the invention, which is to let voters determine their priorities and then use their agendas to set the nation's policy agendas.

Basically, I do not quite grasp what you are proposing and just at the outset think that if it is too complex and overwhelming for me to contemplate, then it would also have the effect on voters.

I want to keep the basic tool as simple as possible, though I am open to other approaches and ways of accomplishing my end goal, which is to let voters, not political parties, special interests or rogue incumbents, set the nation's policy priorities.

Obviously, there is much to discuss here. . .

[ Parent ]
"Complicated" has meaning in terms of implementation, or user (4.00 / 1)
Those are definitely not the same thing. I don't believe that a Day 1 application which works along the lines I indicated is complicated in either sense. Also, my main argument for the Day 1 sketch wasn't targeting simplicity for the user, it was targeting the level of commitment required. I.e., my belief is that what I suggest requires less commitment. Since it seems no more complicated than filling out an online dating service questionairre, I don't think it's worth debating whether it is simpler than your proposal, or not. The relevant question, from where I sit is: "Is it simple enough?". And the relevant question, in terms of comparing my Day 1 sketch to what I understand of your invention, is "Which is easier to mass-market quickly, due to demanding little from users but capable of delivering much?"

These questions are sort of abstract - I have not even produced a screen mock-up of what I'm talking about, much less a prototype that people could walk through. However, while I haven't studied your website deeply, I don't think that you have produced such, either.

So, let my ask you to inform us of what your developmental status is. Being a software developer, and even knowledgeable about software design methodologies that I haven't used that much, personally, I do have a sense of what it takes to pump out an application.

Specifically, do you have
1) screen mockups?
2) use cases defined (i.e., explicit scenarios where a user's serial interaction with the system towards a specific end)?
3) other UML design artifacts, such as class diagrams?
4) any feedback from users who have tested your system?

I think you'll find that most everybody at OpenLeft supports what you're trying to do, but it's not crystal clear how we can help you, at this stage of things, without knowing what "this stage of things" is. :-) It seems that you want serious feedback in terms of design requirements, and perhaps help in assembling a management team, which you can then incorporate into a business plan to present to social investors. Is this correct?

I think some members of the community are a bit frustrated in not fully grasping what stage you are in development, and thus a bit baffled as to how they can help you. So, I think some clarification would lessen frustration, and make exchanges with the community more fruitful.

I will call you in few minutes, but I have put some of my concerns here in a public forum because I think there's some unnecessary tension that's resulted from misunderstandings. Part of the job of a software designer, BTW, is to help end users crystallize their thoughts. So, hopefully my background will be of some use, here.

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[ Parent ]
Suggestion -- adopt new messaging (4.00 / 3)
This has been a fascinating diary to read--I commend Paul for creating a "safe place" for critical discussion.

Nancy, as you move from the ideation/creation process to the roll-out phase, I have a simple suggestion: stop using the phrase "my invention."

Stop using the word "my" and stop using the word "invention." They are both getting in your way of accomplishing what you have said you want to accomplish.

The people you want to empower with your website don't care who created it. Repeatedly saying "my" (instead of 'our website' or 'this tool') undermines the goal of bottom-up empowerment. The website will be successful once there are thousands of people using it who feel like they own it.

Also, the word 'invention' and mention of a patent immediately raises red flags for some people. I don't know what your motivation was for getting a patent, but it is not without downside. Some of your natural allies do not believe in the patenting of software or business processes. There's a strong overlap between net activists interested in topics like net neutrality / creative commons / patent reforms / free+open source software and bottom-up political organizing. Every time you say 'invention' you risk alienating a potential ally.

Please accept this suggestion as a constructive criticism. I think the website has great potential and I would love to see it flourish.

They call me Clem, Clem Guttata. Come visit wild, wonderful West Virginia Blue

I agree with WVaBlue about the messaging (0.00 / 0)
The other thing about software, especially internet software, is that it very much can be a "build it and they will come" reality. There's a reason that some software is called "viral" and the reason is that if it fills a real need then it spreads itself.

Now granted some softwares can't fill a need until it has enough adopters. And to some extent that will be true here.

And thirdly the issue of true ownership could easily become critical. Ideally your software will handle the ownership process along with the other chores. Clearly it needs to be community owned. Yet there are dangers there as well, witness Pacifica radio.

Then there is the question of why did Paul write this up. It is clearly too early to be trying to sell this to users as it's not ready for use. So one has to assume that this is an attempt to sell it to potential investors, either monetary or labor investors. I think that is the cause of some of the confusion here. And selling to investors makes this very much one of an ownership question. Investors will want to influence some of the decisions about either the product itself or the process of promoting the product.

Jeff Wegerson

[ Parent ]
It is first of all (0.00 / 0)
a call for collaborators.

I have taken the idea to its present state working alone for the past four years because I wanted to take the time needed to put its best foot forward to the best of my ability.

Investors care as much about the management team as about the idea itself. So I need to start building a team.

Yes, the issue of organizational form is an important one, which I think about constantly.

The main thing is to protect the core idea, the "invention", if you will, so that the core idea cannot be pirated by anti-democratic parties that do not wish to see the U.S. or any other country become an authentic democracy in which the people are truly sovereign. The corporate special interests that have turned our democracy into a plutocracy come to mind.

I remember reading that oil and gas interests, and possibly car manufacturing interests, actually patented a car that could run without using fossil fuels. They used the patent to legally prevent the development and manufacturing of such a car. The goal was to keep people dependent on gas.

I would not want to see my invention patented by someone else with the intention to prevent the people from creating authentic democracies.

On the topic of investors, signs of active support on the part of the progressive community will be important.

Last but not least, developing and testing the "bottom-up, self-organizing" tools of the invention, and building a fully-functional website around them, is not going to cost a ton of money. There are many ways to accomplish these tasks by calling on the resources and good-will of the progressive community.

I should also mention the issue of ownership. Investors, even employee owners, want to see that the management of an enterprise can make decisions in a timely, appropriate and cost effective/efficient manner.

My responsibility is to build a business that is as participatory as possible without becoming incapable of making decisions that are simultaneously in the best interests of the investors and the public. That has been a core challenge of democracy and capitalism for quite some time. It is and will remain a work in progress. I am confident that there are modus operandi that can work on all fronts.

[ Parent ]
Gary Null is a successful inventor, activist, businessman, and progressive (4.00 / 1)
IMO, you should contact him, immediately. I assume that he spends most of his time doing research, and wouldn't want to be involved in the day to day operation of an e-democracy invention. Nevertheless, he may know people who do have such availability and talent. Heck, he can put out a call for such people on his radio show.

Also, I have recently heard him talk about not re-electing anybody. That is a dangerous idea, as some states that have passed term limits have come to regret them. However, I'm sure he'd be very interested in a tool to help actually carry out a good deal of incumbent-dumping.  

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[ Parent ]
Great Idea (0.00 / 0)
Why don't you contact him?

You can explain the context of Open Left and how and why this topic is being discussed and what you see my invention offering.

Contacting people like Gary Null (whom I admire and have been following for years) might really help speed things along.


[ Parent ]
sigh... (0.00 / 0)
I guess you didn't like my advice.

They call me Clem, Clem Guttata. Come visit wild, wonderful West Virginia Blue
[ Parent ]
sigh II. . . (0.00 / 0)
Hey WVABlue,

I guess you didn't like my response to your advice.

Or else you haven't had time to read the comments I posted in reply to your comment:

"The reason I applied for a patent"

"It is first of all."

Also, what words do you recommend as a substitute for "my invention"?

What I am proposing goes far beyond the idea stage so I am unwilling to refer to it as "an idea".

Also, I think we have to blend views from Larry Lessig and the Creative Commons culture with those of entrepreneurs launching start-up businesses.

Possibly there are people frequenting Open Left who know more about how to blend these cultures than I do. Suffice it to say that I think we are at an initiatory phase of doing so.  

BTW, I do find your input constructive here.  

[ Parent ]
I hear your concerns about corporate interests (4.00 / 1)
patenting in order to lock up the ideas. But it is my impression that a lot of this is similar to Facebook and Myspace, not in functionality but in diverseness of pieces and just as neither Facebook nor Myspace was able to patent themselves into monopoly positions, so will likely your approach to things be amenable to various ways of accomplishing the same ends. But you have studied this and there may well be some key components that might need patenting. Sort of like the case of "one click payment" that Amazon or someone patented. But others have come up with other ways for people to use their credit cards online.

As far as authoritarians using the ideas well I have two things to say about that. One was my thought that the means justifies the ends often. Meaning that one of the reasons that they have not been so successful with blogging is that blogging is a very democratic medium. It doesn't work well as a top-down medium. It really doesn't suit their style.

The second thing is that there is the classic split amongst progressives where one side calls the other fascist or authoritarian. If you try to keep out authoritarians then you will have to define the term. As soon as you do that you will have created a potential split within a potentially progressive movement. I am saying that merely as a precaution to you. Perhaps you are quite aware of the issue. If so forgive me.

I used the word "investors" in the sense of someone that would "invest" their time and energy in promoting these ideas. Already many of us here have invested a lot of time working with you by commenting. Just as you felt that you were wasting your time attempting to communicate to some who you did not feel were commenting in good faith, in any case you were investing more of your time in these ideas of yours. I meant investors of that sort and potentially others that might actually work directly on physical or intellectual or software pieces of these efforts.

Once again I would point you to the work of James Green-Armytage and his proposal for Direct Democracy by Delegable Proxy. Also there are the academic folks that like to kick around alternative voting processes like the ones as Electorama. Some of them have even made attempts to put up alternative voting efforts onto the web. One difficulty with these folks is that they tend to be so academic in their approaches that nothing is ever quite perfect enough and they keep looking for better ways.

Another potential resource are the folks at TechPresident.

Again perhaps you are already aware of these folks, and again my apologies. There are a lot of folks sort of searching for the "holy grail" of democratic software interaction and community and political activism internet software. Jerome Armstrong over at MyDD has recently talked about adding social networking aspects or community building aspects to MyDD.

And again, to repeat myself, I really suspect that when someone actually constructs it, "they will come", meaning it will grow virally within the progressive community.

So keep up the good work and illegitimi non carborundum.

Jeff Wegerson

[ Parent ]
Thanks (4.00 / 1)
Hey Jeff,

Thanks for your thoughtful response.

Working backwards, I agree with your "they will come" observation. I am fairly confident that once we develop, test and fully build out the Interactive Voter Choice System (IVCS) website, its end-users will grow virally.

I recently attended the Personal Democracy Forum in NYC where I met the two principals and told them about my work. I believe they are the movers and shakers behind TechPresident.

As for the burgeoning interest in e-democracy, I have no doubt that the team that will be masterminding the system's the future will cause it to evolve well beyond its initial core concept. At the outset, however, I think it best to keep it as simple as possible and stick to the core concept.

I like your broad definition of investor. Within the entrepreneurial framework of launching a start-up web venture, I think of investors primarily as folks who bring capital, experience and expertise to getting it off the ground and seeing it through the break-even point at least.

In terms of your broader definition of investor, I do really believe that IVCS once capitalized and launched as a business will be able to provide remunerative opportunities for many political entrepreneurs, whether working inside the company or as outsourced service providers.

IVCS really does have potentially robust revenue streams that I anticipate will enable us to provide the core services to voters free. Not only will it be able to operate in the black but also provide a respectable return on invested capital.

On the topic of patenting, I do think that the core tools and services are unique enough to qualify for a patent. We shall see whether I am correct as we move through the process.

As for pirates and other knaves, I tend to think that IVCS is too unique and socio-politically purposed to lend itself to the various forms of purloining that are standard in the industry. I could be wrong about this, as we shall also see moving forward.

As for authoritarians using IVCS, that is certainly a possibility. It is designed for the full political spectrum of mainstream voters. While I am confident that the emerging progressive majority will use it most fully, there are myriad possible configurations of policy agendas from which voters can choose.

Thanks again for your thoughtful comments.

BTW, I cannot find an email for you. Is it a secret?

 

[ Parent ]
nancy (0.00 / 0)
I think you figured it out on your own. :-)

Interactive Voter Choice System is a much better way to refer to it.

Over time, you may be able to figure out an even snappier branding for a website (maybe add some words so the acronym is CIVIC?*), but for the time being IVCS works just fine.

*Something like... Community of Interactive Voter Information and Coalitions ?

They call me Clem, Clem Guttata. Come visit wild, wonderful West Virginia Blue

[ Parent ]
The reason I applied for a patent (0.00 / 0)
is fairly straightforward.

I am familiar with some of the more famous patent fights regarding software, e.g. Linux.

What I did/do not want to have happen is for me to put out my idea and then have someone else apply for a patent for it in order to prevent ME from using my own idea.

Stranger things have happened. The battleground of patent and trademark wars is riddled with dead bodies.

The other reason for applying for the patent is that I want to be able to offer the tools spawned by the invention free of charge to all individual voters.

That means I have had to develop a business model and plan that contains revenue streams that are robust enough to offset the cost of providing the tool free of charge. It would be difficult to create these revenue streams if other entities were offering the same services, especially if these entities were monopolistic and well-healed and could easily engage in extended price wars to put me out of business.

So I am going to have to raise capital, hopefully from the social investing sector, and it is much easier to do so if there is a patent-pending or patented invention involved.

I should also mention that I anticipate that once a business built around the invention is capitalized and becomes revenue-producing, it will then be able to pay for outsourced services provided by other political entrepreneurs who would otherwise find it difficult, if not impossible, to find sources of remuneration.

[ Parent ]
Turning Politics into Marketing and Citizens into Consumers (0.00 / 0)

A few days ago I heard an enthusiastic fellow on NPR going on about "consumer-driven marketing" or some such. The idea is that a group of people with a strong interest in a certain kind of product - the example he used was mountain bike aficionados - would collaborate to produce the specifications for their ideal product. Mountain bike companies would then compete to offer the bikers the best deal on a batch of bikes that matched their requirements. The bikers would sign up to buy the bikes with the winning company which would then build them.

They way people are talking about this tool sounds like a version of the same thing. People would create a feature list for their perfect candidate. Smart politicians would quickly recognize this tool for what it is: an online focus group, and monitor the online dialogues closely. They would then customize their pitch to make sure it contains all of the desired product "features."

I know marketing has become an integral part of politics and political science. But my personal sense is that it is a big part why we are in trouble. I think it is a particularly dangerous trap for progressives who are fighting against money and privilege. We will never win at that game.

If two duck walk alike and quack alike, it doesn't mean they're twins (4.00 / 2)
It turns out I recently was trying to find folding bikes (and blew a chance to buy a folding mountain bike for $100, because I fell asleep after waking up bright and early :-( ) . There are choices galore for consumer products, already, and you can pretty much always get what you want just by coming up with the cash. I predict that a specialized mountain bike, details specified by enthusiasts, would likely be a very marginal market.

With politics, it's very different. We do not have great choices presented to us, generally, and if we do, the candidates seem to have little chance of winning, due to their inferior campaign financing, plus media imposed subtexts and framing that make the outliers seem a bit odd and unlikely to win.

The main danger that I can see is that optimizing democracy empowers unrealistic citizens, who want more than they can reasonably pay for. I'd been thinking of writing about the need, eventually, to generate reasonable cost and tax estimates for any issue/policy option that's presented to the public. It's also advisable, if possible, to project increases/decreases in standard of living resulting from various policy options.

What's killing us right now, though, is the greedy plutocratic class who have managed to also lower expectations of working people to "lucky if we survive with our job intact". Doubtless, Obama resonated with large numbers of voters because his rhetoric catered to Americans yearning for somebody who cared about them, and saw their future and potential as bright. Alas, his deeds don't match his ability to make inspirational speeches.

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[ Parent ]
If we had a voter-driven system (0.00 / 0)
like I propose, I think voters would be more likely to keep the cost of legislative policies within reason than the current crop of plutocrats.

The failed bankers and speculative financiers thought nothing of looting the federal treasury of the $12.8 trillion that Congress, the president and unaccountable agencies like the Federal Reserve authorized to bail them out of their own self-inflicted insolvency.

If voters were actually in control of government, I do not believe they would have ever allowed the looting to take place.

Moreover, the The Interactive Voter Choice System will give voters the opportunity to learn about and carefully weigh their options, and then build consensus about these options as their agendas evolve to keep abreast of changing circumstances.

Once tens of millions of voters are actively involved in setting the nation's priorities and shepherding them through electoral and legislative processes, there will be far more well-informed, cost conscious people involved in the budgetting process than the political elites in Washington, D.C. who spend as much of the people's money as they can to further the interests of the wealthy few.

[ Parent ]
The idea (0.00 / 0)
behind the The Interactive Voter Choice System (IVCS) is to empower citizens to exercise their popular sovereignty.

When fully developed and deployed, it will provide bottom-up self-organizing tools and services free of charge that voters can use to articulate their policy priorities, and join forces with voters who share their priorities to build political networks.

These political networks can run and elect their own candidates for office, either inside or outside existing political parties. They can use their shared agendas to hold their elected representatives accountable for enacting their agendas into law. If they fail to exert their best efforts to do so, the voters can use their networks to defeat them in upcoming elections.

I agree with you that the electoral process has become a marketing operation. But the IVCS is intended to enable voters to replace the political marketeers with their own candidates running on their own policy platforms.    

[ Parent ]
I am not questioning the intent behind IVCS. (4.00 / 1)
I am simply suggesting that its effects may turn out to be something other than what was intended.

I also want to suggest that there are some intrinsic limits to the Internet as an organizing tool that we ignore at our own peril. The net is after all disembodied and anonymous. As someone pointed out earlier, we must concern ourselves with who the candidate is as a person, not just with his or her positions on issues. If we loose sight of that fact then we slip into judging candidates based on product-like "features." And hard experience tells us that politicians are experts at manipulating our perceptions in that regard - hence the risk that IVCS might provide them with an online focus group that makes it all the easier for them to do just that.

Progressive politics has to be rooted in people's lived experience in confronting power and privilege. That means, as someone else suggested, starting at the local level. It is out of the experience of working together in protest of the current system or in efforts to build counter-institutions such as labor unions, worker-owned businesses, community banks, tenant unions, and free clinics that political leaders worth voting for are likely to arise. The net can be used to supplement that work, but it cannot substitute for it.

Someone also pointed to another potential weakness of IVCS: it might encourage fragmentation. This entire notion of people somehow negotiating how much weight to give various issues in defining candidates worth supporting makes me uneasy. We have already had huge territorial fights over that sort of thing. And again politicians are expert at playing groups off each other. We need to encourage dialogues in which, for example, gay rights advocates and environmentalists can find ways that their struggles against power and privilege overlap. Those kinds of conversations will probably have to start on the local level as well where people can build trust based on direct experience with each other.

An Internet tool could help with this process - people don't and can't meet with each other all of the time. But even then some of the conversation will have to be private and not subject to trolls and thread slippage introduced by outsiders however innocent they may be.

Remember, much of the right wing ascendancy was engineered initially at the level of school boards and city councils. We need to do something similar. That at least will keep us grounded and embodied when we venture onto the net.

[ Parent ]
You raise many good points (4.00 / 1)
As a preface, though, I'll say that we don't need to get everything perfect on the first shot. So, it's good to anticipate problems, partly so that we can anticipate Plan B solutions and have them ready to go, if needed. Bill Gates made a fortune with "good enough" software (Windows 95 was released with over 20,000 bugs, IIRC), and we can also proceed with a certain level of procedural defects.

As to specifics (though I don't have time to write too much):

"we must concern ourselves with who the candidate is as a person, not just with his or her positions on issues."  In terms of gauging their consistency, and to some extent their honesty, I agree. I have suggested a candidate and pre-candidate pipeline, and though I haven't developed the idea much, I actually want to start introducing citizens to utilizing such a thing even in their teen years. I also would at least encourage pre-candidates to meet potential future voters in a public space, a few times a year, and to debate other pre-candidates at such events as well as field questions from the public. I don't think Nancy views such a thing as undesirable, per se, but complicated and detracting from the focus of her invention. If this is developed outside her system, though, there's no reason why it can't be utlized by citizens within her system. (Another idea that I don't want to elaborate on is creating an explicit "vouch for" network. e.g.: "Hi, I'm Rush Holt's brother, and vouch for his honesty in saying that he will only support healthcare option X.")

"Progressive politics has to be rooted in people's lived experience in confronting power and privilege. " Are you talking in terms of progressive politicians, progressive activists, or progressive voters? There are literally millions upon millions of Americans who already have progressive views on many issues (e.g., healthcare), who are not going to man phone banks, help build-up "counter-institutions", etc. Should not their votes be respected, in a putative democracy, anyway? I have expressed a similar notion as saying that we should target the masses of citizens who will manifest a McDonald's level of participation in an e-democracy. While we have a Pareto's Rule-like phenomenon applying to citizens who are activists, vs. non-activists, the fact is that all citizens get to vote. Thus, while I respect activists more than non-activists, I think that you are viewing the problem as harder than it actually is. (This reminds me of a funny Boy Scout patrol leader I had who used to have a comedic/sadistic grin on his face as he helped stuff ever more camping gear into our backpacks. He used to say that "The hard way is the ONLY way!" Well, suffering gladly endured may build character, but I don't think most Americans are eager to excel in that direction. :-) I'm quite fine with providing an easy way for American democracy to actually work, and I'm sure Nancy is, also. )

"it might encourage fragmentation." Nancy's vision is of synthetic, evolutionary process of unification. My concern is not so much that that can't happen, but that it might occur too slowly. (There will always be some fragmentation going on - people will change their minds about priorities and positions, after all - but a common mindset of "we need to find allies and mitigate our differences" will tend to hold it in check.) I think a useful way to think of this is in terms of numbers of interactions needed to form a concensus. If they are relatively few, the unification can happen quickly. If they are too numerous, then the unification will not happen quickly, and given American's short attention span (more characteristic, I presume, of the McDonald's voter than a voter from the politically active class), I'm afraid that many will fall by the wayside. I suggested ways around this, though they may turn out to be unecessary, and they would not encourage or allow as much creativity on the part of the activist classes. Personally, I will continue to view my suggestions regarding a policy option instant runoff procedure as a Plan B.

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[ Parent ]
Talking In The Trenches | 50 comments
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