Citizenship - "Politics By Another Name"

I haven’t been under any delusion about the possibility of citizens coming together on a national scope to take their country back. Our divisions, even the good ones, are so pronounced, and the challenge of starting a national conversation so confronted with obstacles, that the possibilities are indeed remote. As the political season heats up again, partisan angles will flood the conversation, threatening to detach it from its grassroots mooring. But where else is there to start? We must each begin the process of becoming democratic agents, taking the lead and steering a delicate course of deliberation and decision-making.Last week I had a pleasant visit with Sean on my front porch swing. We had never met and he wanted to discuss these summer posts and how they might be parlayed into something greater. We concluded that the best thing to do would be to just start a conversation with some people next week and see where it goes. That’s about the best we can do at this stage.Last month I attended a board meeting for an NGO in Calgary and made another new friend in Ida. We had been Facebooking for months and took the opportunity to introduce ourselves to one another. It turns out she has written her own stuff on some of the issues of citizenship. She drove all the way up to the airport for the visit and we came away from it determined to stay and touch and to keep working in our own respective circles to bring back a broader progressivism into our politics.These are the ways we must begin. Some will say they have already undertaken such initiatives and that is an important point. Now they must be expanded. But it will be networking on the cheap – in homes, churches, over the Net, local homes and coffee houses. It will be quite unlike how those that direct our societies arrange their meetings.I haven’t meant to use the term “elites” in a pejorative fashion, but the fact remains that they have far more resources than we and they utilize those advantages to press for the changes they desire. Their access is immediate and their influence global in scope. They fight for what they want and we can’t hope to counteract the more selfish aspects of their pursuits unless we combine our forces and use our democratic franchise to fight for the Canada and values we want. Most of the elites are dedicated to a better world, but it is the world that primarily advantages them. They are pioneers, visionaries, who have stimulated growth, linked the globe, and created prosperity. But in the main it has been an unequal prosperity, as their pursuit of efficiencies and profits have thrown the world and the natural order into a state of imbalance. Their vast wealth and access gives them power, whereas our only real claim to power is through the democratic process itself.When they meet, they really make it count. I learned to a certain degree while in politics that the most powerful people are closely connected to one another through networks that reinforce each other. They fly business or first-class, stay at the best hotels, enjoy uncommon security, dine on the best meals, and converse in some of the greatest venues in the world. Whether it’s the G8/G20, the economic forum in Davos, annual meetings, vacation gatherings in the most plush resorts, or in the private of ornate board rooms, they pursue their respective agendas together and that makes all the difference.In a very real way these power brokers and agenda-setters own the keys to the planet, and now the planet is in a difficult state. They haven’t managed it as well as they should, and with governments stripped of much of the will or resources to challenge that status quo, we might be living in these days of transition for some time.Yet it’s our planet too. But what chance do Ida, or Sean and I have against such a vast array of wealth, access and power? Like the three of us, the majority of you have known things are out of kilter for some time and have attempted in your own way to bring us back from the brink. Obviously, at least on a grand scale, there has been little to show for our efforts. But at this particular moment in time all we really have are each other, and a history of progressivism that was far more inclusive than it is at present.We must begin the process of building politics by another name. This new deliberative politics is not the ideological or partisan politics of the moment, but it is the necessary politics of democracy and can only prevail if we as citizens engage one another on a broader spectrum. We must put into practice what U.S. president Woodrow Wilson claimed needed to be done: “We must learn to meet, as our fathers did. There must be discussion and debate, in which all freely participate. The whole purpose of democracy is that we may hold counsel with one another, for only then can the general interests of a great people be compounded into a policy suitable to all.” There it is, clear and concise - and sadly out of reach at the moment. We can’t meet in the most expensive places or dine on the best food, but we can make a difference in the confines of our own living rooms and community coffee shops. “Politics by another name.” I like that. Now we just have to find ways to practice it.