Building Participatory Democracy: Start A Post Election Advisory Committee
Bert Garskof (Photo: Thomas Good / NLN)
I was happy as someone to the left of the Democratic Party to join the Obama
campaign. We needed to do the hard work of electoral organizing alongside
the thousands of Obama volunteers. A progressive government was desperately
needed to moderate the worst excesses of late capitalism and they knew it.
Obama touched millions of people, especially young people who were
dissatisfied w/o (mostly) being political, and even fewer being consciously
leftist in any way.
I think that these Obama volunteers could become the base of a mass ongoing
movement that lives on after Obama wins, a movement that would be in place
to give the Obama Administration direct, on-going, immediate information
from the base up and hear what Obama thinks from the Government down.
We can try to create such grassroots advisory committees in every district.
Even if we cannot make these ideas realities everywhere or even anywhere,
raising the ideas is a good thing. And in some places we may be able to do
it. Every town, or ward or even neighborhood that succeeds in creating a
post-election advisory committee would be a great lesson, a great guide for
others to build more participatory democracy.
Bert Garskof
Connecticut
Original post by Bert Garskof and reposted by Radical Blogs
