I love coming to dkos to read what others say. It gives me hope. There are so many bright, well spoken (written) folks here of all ages and genders.
I hope some of the people here, especially some of the younger (than me) folks, think about running for office. That said, I also hope people here remember this: Democracy is hard work. It takes compromise. It frustrates. It angers and if it is working, no one gets everything they want, 100% of the time.
MORE.......
I am a retired teacher. I had always tried to teach my students, through words and activities, that democracy is hard and requires work and participation. When they wanted a Fun Friday activity, I would allow them and their elected leaders (class president, vp, treasurer, secretary) to lead discussions and often they got frustrated. Just like we do. Sometimes it was easier for me to play dictator and decide what we would do.
One year I did this activity (I read about it someplace but I can't remember where but it reminded me of this quote "You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy, but you cannot have both."~Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis). That year I had about 25 students. When they went out to recess, I put a couple hundred pennies all around the room on the floor (but not evenly....some areas had a few some had a bunch). When they were ready to come in, all I told them was that there were coins on the floor, and they were allowed to pick them up and we would be doing an activity.
So we went in and they all grabbed for pennies. Some ended up with forty or fifty pennies, a few had one or two, and the rest averaged somewhere in between. Then I moved their seats. If they had very few pennies, they got stuck in the corner far away from the drinking fountain/sink. The more pennies they had, the closer they were to the water and the snacks. Without really explaining anything to them, I just rearranged things constantly, always making sure the kids with the most pennies got the best view, the most room, by putting the kids with few pennies close to each other in corners where it was a struggle to get past each others desks. I told them that the rest of the day we would have some "extra" recesses" but that they would cost them. I also started charging them for snacks. And then drinks.
As the day wore on, some of the kids were getting frustrated. Even some of the kids with lots of pennies noted the unfairness. I then told them they could "give away pennies if the wanted". But I reminded them that there was no guarantee there would be more pennies later on.
Later on, we all had a discussion on democracy, fairness, the classroom, friendships, greed. Some of them complained that some of the people had a lot of pennies because there were a lot of pennies in one place and they got their first, while kids, through no fault of their own at the end of the line, did not get the same chance to get lots of pennies.
Anyway, what I asked the kids (sixth grade) to examine were, I think, the issues we face in this democracy.
*What if they got to vote for a new leader? (I took that role obviously in telling them what the rules were). What would they want their leader to do? Decide for them>?
Redistribute the pennies so everyone had the same? Take all the pennies and not use money to buy recess and snacks?
Allow students to sit wherever they wanted regardless of how many pennies they had? Ask the kids with the most pennies to pay for the treats for the kids with the least amount of pennies? These kids were only 12 so it was hard for them. But I am guessing, like all things related to self-governance, it would be hard for any age group.
Our lesson never really reached any conclusions but hopefully gave the students much to think about.
My point is this. Democracy is hard. This blog, my classroom, families all demonstrate it.
The point of this diary goes along with is diary I just read:
Time to Move On
The author has made some good points. We need to change our infrastructure, our organizations, and most importantly we NEED TO GET GOOD, SMART STRONG CANDIDATES EVERYWHERE. But we have to accept this: there is no magic bullet, or magic candidate. To blame one group, one candidate, one age group is self-defeating.
If there is something to blame, in my opinion, it is the apathy and ignorance that grows out of comfort and wealth.
The first job of progressives is to stimulate activism in all sectors (so in that I agree with the Dean Plan): old, young, gay, straight, all ethnic and socioeconomic groups. Activism is only stimulated when people understand that there are consequences, often negative, by not participating.
When I read people blaming the "boomers" or the young kids or the extreme left or the pragmatists, I wonder, "Don't they get it? This government is for ALL OF US. That is why it is called "for the people, by the people, of the people." It is NOT for the people who only think like we do....
Trashing candidates for being pragmatists is astounding. Does anyone really believe that any dem who gets elected can go in and "DICTATE" anything? Do we want them to? I don't. We need to get back to the people. Al Gore said it well. It is the people.
It was the people, not the elected leaders, who got the Civil Rights movement going. Rosa Parks and MLK were not elected.
It was young people (most who are boomers now) who who were being drafted (or their brothers or boyfriends were) who started the anti-war/end the draft movement. It was young and old women together who fought long and hard for the vote and later for equal rights with property, with jobs.
We do need to restructure but it needs to start with the people. I have no answers of how to do that but I know kos and others have done a great job getting it started here, on the NET. But this NET stuff has to be turned into boots on the ground, on college campuses, in towns, in retirement communities. We have to build coalitions and empower people of all ages, races, gender, socioeconomic groups. Without their voices loud and clear in the voting booth, it will not matter who our candidate is. Nothing CAN change without the power of the people behind it. November, 2006, was a beginning, a start but it did not empower enough. Anyone who understands our government knows that. We cannot tear down our own party, our own liberal causes now because people are naive enough to think that one person (their candidate) can solve all the problems.
Anyway, I was going to respond to that thread but I was too vociferous for a response. We have a year or so to come together and commit to getting power back into the hands of the people, and getting leaders to hear us and not vice-versa.