Makha piya áya

People may feel that their voices and opinions are not being recognized, but they still express(in dozens of polls) their connection to aspects of their governments. We need them to actually. It is in the little stuff, literally at the street level; fixing potholes, keeping parks open, having public schools, knowing that emergency services are there at the touch of 911, participating in (Cinti) dozens upon dozens of community groups and organizations.
We need to define what a better working government is. Cicero reminds us all that "politics is the art of compromise" in the affairs of the governing of the people. We live in a very complicated society, where layers upon layers of intersecting issues must be addressed to keep it functioning, to maintain its being. In order to improve it at all, we must more fully understand how we can better make the compromises through enlightened, educated, participatory action. This is the Common Ground!!

We live in a social/cultural milieu that requires all of us to first access economic value in order to fulfill our needs. Basic human needs no longer are accessible freely. For example: If we want clean pure water, we must use $$ to access it, whether we choose to do so as a large group or community through taxation and subsequent water treatment or as individuals buying water filters and/or bottled water. Corporations need profits to meet their shareholders demands that now require them to dispense with efforts to control their toxic pollutioning of water and through lessening of their tax burdens. They can use their economic power to produce legislative results that favor their profitability. Yet through ignoring the impacts of these choices the corporations are in every way moving the burden of these profits onto communities and individuals. Health care costs rise as clean water diminishes. The overall tax base of communities shifts from corporate and stakeholders to the citizens and local businesses. While they don't have the economic power to enact their agendas they don't want to pay more than their fair share of taxes and costs for simply maintaining their lives. Where are we going to find common ground here? How are we going to demonstrate to a diverse group of special interests (as Brian pointed out--a thousand committees) that they can work towards improving their governments, when they can't understand or acknowledge the necessary and fundamental compromises.
Now we know, us being the we here, that there are better ways for corporations to act in relation to the environment that would not reduce their profitability, but would require them to reduce their overall profits(two very different things). These actions however fly in the face of those financial interests who rely on the profits, not profitability, to continue to make their own profits. To "regulate" the corporate behaviors that pollute water (and we could discuss air, food, shelter, clothing, energy, relationship, etc. as any of the factors for this example) the citizens would need to be empowered and enlightened to act in very large numbers. To garner such diverse support(remember we just want cleaner water) there would need to be many significant compromises. Competing corporate interests would need to faciliate some of this, but also some surprising basic social political views would need to be mediated. We can't simply say that people are: are burnt out, tired, apathetic, polarized, uninformed. This isn't true; they are overwhelmed by the complexity of the processes and decisions necessary to act. A great number of the "middle 50%" of the citizenry are identifying with libertarian views coupled with more immediate concerns with their own personal welfare. If we surveyed those that participate on the web forums i believe we would be able to identify many contradictory positions held to be true by most of the people. Common ground has to become internalized before it becomes communitarian. What tools, perspectives, strategies do we have in our own minds at this very moment that can work to create common ground within individual beings??? It is one thing to say this, it is quite another to do it.

The overwhelming success of the conservative message machine has been its simplicity in presenting a mindset construct for its believers. It does so with some powerful either/or frameworks. The earth is abundant, it was given to us, we can use it anyway we want. Profit is good, property is the reward of profit giving one dominion over property to do with as one wants. There are chosen people and there are not chosen people. There are winners and losers. There is work and there is play. Play is the reward for work, upon which one can choose to acquire and use property to increase the thrills of play(think fossil fuel based recreational vehicle use--big in the Cincy area). And so far forth.

Unfortunately in this formulaic message are embedded lots of hidden ones. Among these hidden ones are also competing interests. If i sell fuel i don't want health care corporations to increase their profits at the expense of people choosing to use more fuel for recreation. If i own some real estate i don't want people playing on it, so i want public places designated for that play, but i don't want ot use my economic resources to pay for it. If i believe that everyone who is poor has chosen that path and that they can do something about it without governmental assistance, then i need to regulate capitalism in order to prevent increases in joblessness and healthcare crisis bankruptcies, and so forth. When these hidden factors arise, they overwhelm the sensibilities of the citizens and they choose to offload their democratic responsibilities on their chose representatives, who have already been selected by various competing economic interests to promote and foster specific legistlative responses.

We all know this. But i haven't seen anything other than platitudes and aphorisms that would provide any opening of common ground. 21st century post-modern life is extraordinarily complicated. Rectifying some sort of internal peaceful coherent willingness to compromise our own values and beliefs in order to embrace a 'better democracy" isn't easy. I don't see us being able to do that. I don't think we want to. And therein lies the problem. When i reread what Dave first wrote there is an underlying progressive populist sentiment. He wants to hold that the more informed and educated the electorate becomes the less likely they will be to hold views that are detrimental to their own well being. I don't think this is true. One of the many many things Nick and Sloane have taught me over the years is that we leftist progressive types tend to choose to ignore our own complicities in using fossil fuels and supporting corrupt institutions and so forth. Until we embrace that duplicity we will find it difficult to be given credit for our efforts at creating common ground.