Open Left

My Fault, Not Nancy's (4.00 / 2)

I've often complained that we talk about how too much, and not enough about why, largely because it's easier. While I still think that my complaint is largely justified, I'll gladly make an exception in the case of Nancy's work

Actually, Nancy does have a whole lot of why, which you can find in her original diary here.  However, as good as that may have been, it was not unique, and I wanted to focus here on what was unique.

Her proposal reminds me of the email tagline I had for many, many years: "Let's put the information back in the informaation age."

"Senate passes expanded GI bill despite Bush, McCain opposition"

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sat Jul 11, 2009 at 13:09:03 PM CDT

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Apologies for the misunderstanding (0.00 / 0)

Yes, I agree that she's been very thorough about giving us the why part as well. It's just that the how part seems the real innovation, or at least it's the part which seems uniquely valuable to me.

It's an old, old problem. Political parties think only about how, and for the most part only a subset of that: how to win. The end result is there for everyone to see, and it ain't pretty.

Us radical types think a lot about why, but apart from a few real innovators, like Alinsky and maybe Tom Hayden back in his Newark days, none of us has done how very well. Once organic communities of interest -- and, to be honest, their ward-heelers -- disappear, we get identity politics at best, and at worst, the guy with the most money to burn generally has his way with us.

Getting the ideas out there helps, of course, and your point about how to engage non-activist ordinary citizens is well taken -- creating communities of the disaffected is tempting in that regard. That's what conservative demagogues and astroturf operations have done for forty years, and it worked well for them for a while.

The problem, of course, is that demagoguery as opposed to policy discussions has a nasty tendency to turn around and bite you in the ass, a la Sarah Palin. Anyway, I think Nancy's analysis is at least partially persuasive about why what she's proposing will work. In any event, despite some skepticism on my part, I really have nothing better to offer.

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by: William Timberman @ Sat Jul 11, 2009 at 13:38:49 PM CDT

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Yes, You've Hit the Nail on the Head! (4.00 / 2)

What else is there to offer that will fundamentally CHANGE THE SYSTEM so that the representatives we elect do not flout the popular and voters can decide what the nation's policy priorities will be and what candidates they want to run and elect to enact them?

We have just spent two years on so-called democratic elections to elect a Democratic president who has already reneged on his core campaign promises, notably his anti-war message and pledge to get out of Iraq (U.S. forces will remain in control of Iraq for the foreseeable future and he has now expanded Bush's "war on terror" into a massive new military engagement on two new fronts, Afghanistan and Pakistan).

Worse still, Obama is continuing and even expanding Bush's policy of indefinitely detaining suspects without charges, which is an egregious violation of international law and domestic U.S. laws.

In addition, despite his story about his mother's difficulties fighting cancer and insurance companies, he is unwilling to fight for the single payer system a majority of Americans demand. He can not even muster the courage to come out in favor of the public option that is the fall back position of Congressional lawmakers who can not bring themselves to oppose the insurance companies that have funded their election campaigns.

Quite clearly, unless we CHANGE THE SYSTEM, we will continue to be railroaded by our undemocratic electoral system into electing politicians who flout the popular will, just as President Obama and Congress are doing virtually across the board.

So I ask you, Mr. Timberman, and Open Left members, what is it that we, progressive activists, can do to CHANGE THE SYSTEM so that we voters set the nation's policy agendas and elect representatives who will enact them into law?

Or are we going to just have to put up with the current system and go through these electoral shams every couple of years to elect representatives who flout our will?

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by: Nancy Bordier @ Sat Jul 11, 2009 at 17:33:02 PM CDT

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Nancy, I'm with you in Rockland.... (4.00 / 1)

What more can I say? You walk it like you talk it, and I both respect what you have to say, and admire the effort it took to put it together. Nothing I've said here should be construed as a substantive criticism. My reservations, such as they are, are entirely based on what I know about human psychology, which at best is far from definitive.

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by: William Timberman @ Sat Jul 11, 2009 at 18:48:02 PM CDT

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All I was asking (4.00 / 1)

was what are our alternatives, which is what I think you were intimating also.

It would take years and possibly decades to change the system by trying to change electoral laws, voting rules, etc.

We should of course keep trying to make these changes, but if voters can be empowered by inventions like mine to set the agenda and basically play the role that political parties play of gathering voters together under a common policy agenda that will induce them to vote for party candidates, then my proposl is a more efficient and effective way to go.

Voters using my invention can do the exact same thing that political parties do while keeping control of policy agenda-setting, building consensus about policy priorities, and using their agenda to drive electoral processes.

Since the voters decide the agenda and who runs and gets elected to implement the agenda, what do political parties do that voters using my invention can't do? In the case of my invention, it is infinitely scalable so that any number of voters can join together to consensually build shared agendas at any level of government and run candidates at that level.

Voters using the invention can use it inside existing political parties, which would be the idea strategy, but if the major parties cling to their special interest financiers, voters can also break away from them and start their own parties and build an electoral base across party lines.

This is a far more democratic way to determine policy agendas and pick candidates to run on these platforms than the convoluted, obfuscating methods used by the two major political parties.

While I know that the primary system evolved and grew out of historical circumstances, the comical, undemocratic and agonizingly prolonged primary and general election processes in America are a national disgrace because after all the time and expense they entail, they result in the election of lawmakers who chronically flout the popular will.  

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by: Nancy Bordier @ Sat Jul 11, 2009 at 19:17:18 PM CDT

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