Greetings friends -- and happy new year!

The note below from Tom Atlee on the legitimacy of "we the people" offers
meaty issues to consider.  Democracy hinges on the legitimacy of "the
people" -- and we don't really have a good handle on what that means!
Especially when every group with a cause claims to represent the views of
the "people." 

I agree with Tom's view that "the only practical way to generate a
legitimate voice of We the People is to convene conversations among randomly
selected ordinary citizens who embody the diversity of the populace." 

I appreciate everyone involved with Wise Democracy Victoria for having taken the time to participate in our experiments with random selection in these "Kitty Hawk" days (as Tom puts it).  There's no doubt in my mind that random selection will prove itself to be a key component in representing the legitimate voice of the people.  False "majority rule" by a bunch of top-down control freaks and corporate yes men is proving to be an excellent motivator as we search for
new and better solutions!

Warm regards to all, and best wishes for a wiser democracy in 2012 and the
years ahead.
Cheers, George

http://tom-atlee.posterous.com/public-issue-conversations-and-the-legitimacy
Short URL:  http://post.ly/4htro

Public issue conversations and the legitimacy of "we the people"
by Tom Atlee

WHO IS "WE THE PEOPLE"?

I want to particularly highlight here what I see as a common misuse of the
terms "We the People" and "the People".  A conversation between ideological
partisans or interested, engaged citizens - to say nothing of statements
from a single advocacy group or movement or even an elected politician -
does not legitimately constitute a voice of "the People".  This is a major
factual error, a specious political fiction, and a strategic mistake of
gigantic proportions. 

When we assign the label "We the People" or "The People" to any part of the
whole public, or even to full-spectrum conversation among diverse partisans
on an issue, we are claiming a legitimacy that may not, on examination, be
actually justified.  I suggest this criteria applies even to our
majoritarian elections.  Although it is convenient and basically functional
to let any majority decide on a candidate or referendum, there is a factual
legitimacy problem when, for example, only half of the electorate vote:  In
this case 51% of those voting constitutes only 25% of the whole electorate -
to say nothing of "the People".  So we should be very skeptical about claims
that "the People" have spoken and seriously consider how we might correct
that potentially enormous flaw.

I suggest that a Citizens Jury of a couple of dozen citizens chosen by
stratified (demographic) random selection may actually constitute a more
legitimate voice of the whole "people" than thousands of partisan voters who
happen to be motivated to show up for a particular low-turnout election.
(This claim is further legitimized by the campaign strategies of "get out
the vote" and negative ads and electoral restrictions to "suppress the
vote".  When such manipulations of participation are going on, how can we
say that election results truly represent the will of "the People", the
whole people?)

I strongly believe - and I invite you to consider - that the only practical
way to generate a legitimate voice of We the People is to convene
conversations among randomly selected ordinary citizens who embody the
diversity of the populace.  There are many ways to do this and many
legitimate arguments about methodology and what role such citizen councils
should play in our democratic process.  But we must be very careful that any
part (group, conversation, council) that we choose or claim to represent
"the whole" (citizenry, community, country) actually and demonstrably does
embody - as fully as possible - the diversity of that whole.  I suggest that
the principle of a "microcosm of the whole" based on random and/or
scientific selection is AT LEAST as vital as elections for establishing
factual legitimacy when we wish to claim the mantle of "The People".

[COMMON TYPES OF POLITICAL CONVERSATION]

I see several diverse but not necessarily mutually exclusive types of
political conversation, and find that differentiating among them helps me
think more clearly about this topic:

1.  STAKEHOLDERS:  Stakeholder conversations involve people with interests,
information or power involved with a realm or issue, aiming to work out
their differences (especially conflicts, which are almost intrinsic to the
definition of "stakeholder" and "issue") and contribute their resources
(especially networks) to promote the good management of that realm or issue.
Watershed Councils, Stakeholder Dialogues, and Consensus Councils are
examples.

2.  IDEOLOGICAL PARTISANS:  Partisan conversations involve spokespeople for
opposing worldviews (usually two, sometimes 3-5 "sides") talking about their
differences and/or their common ground.  Many talk show hosts engage "both
sides" in debates about issues.  Perhaps the biggest contribution of the
transpartisan movement in the evolution of democracy has been to
progressively challenge and break down the hypnotic power of political
archetypes - left/right, liberal/conservative, tea party/occupy - to promote
the possibility that human beings - even such "obvious" enemies as these -
can actually talk together civilly and work together productively, not just
fight.

3.  ENGAGED CITIZENS:  Conversations in this category provide a forum for
whoever shows up to speak their minds.  Familiar examples include blogs and
their comment sections, most online forums, letters to the editor, call-in
shows, and public hearings. More productive conversational approaches in
this category include the World Cafe and Conversation Cafe (which can
involve many people in small-group dialogue while tracking the emergent
wisdom of the whole); Study Circles (which also help people learn about an
issue together); and Open Space conferencing (which helps people
self-organize into sub-conversations and work groups according to their
diverse interests in a topic).

4.  THE PUBLIC (aka "WE THE PEOPLE"):  These forums engage a representative
sample of a larger population - usually done using random and/or scientific
demographic selection.  Such ad hoc minipublics or microcosm "citizen
deliberative councils" explore public concerns, issues or proposals.
(Public opinion polls engage people's opinions in a similar way but do not
involve them in interacting with each other.)  Citizens Juries, Consensus
Conferences, and Citizen Assemblies do a fairly rigorous job of actually
engaging citizens in serious deliberation, through which they produce public
judgments and policy recommendations.  Deliberative Polls and 21st Century
Town Meetings are less rigorous but provide more public spectacle.  Wisdom
Councils provide a more open-ended, creative voice for "We the People", more
like a citizen-generated "state of the union address" and, by being done
regularly, build a communal sense that "We the People!" have collective
competence and power.

5.  EXPERTS:  Conversations among - or interviews of, or testimony from -
scientists, academics, etc., are designed to inform the public or officials
of facts, perspectives, causes and consequences involved in an issue and the
various approaches to it.  Experts are usually part of stakeholder
deliberations and are usually included as resources for citizen deliberative
councils (in which the experts are said to be "on tap, not on top").
Sometimes officials convene expert conferences to come to conclusive policy
advice for governments or professional organizations, such as the National
Institutes of Health Consensus Development Conferences and
State-of-the-Science Conferences convening medical experts to guide medical
practice and health care policy.

________________________________

Tom Atlee, The Co-Intelligence Institute, POB 493, Eugene, OR 97440
site: http://www.co-intelligence.org /  blog:
http://tom-atlee.posterous.com Read THE TAO OF DEMOCRACY -
http://www.taoofdemocracy.com and REFLECTIONS ON EVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM -
http://evolutionaryactivism.com Please support our work.  Your donations are
fully tax-deductible.
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People are rising up against plutocracy and corporate capitalism in growing movements around the world, such as "Yes We Camp" and "Occupy Wall Street."  One of the defining characteristics is to establish grassroots participatory democracy as a fundamental organizing principle.

“Yes We Camp,” one of the witty twitter hashtags of Spain’s 15 May movement, sums things up well. Inspired by the Arab Spring, galvanized by crisis, unemployment and austerity, fed up with the ineffective, corrupt, and often misanthropic political process, we are leaving our homes and moving to the street. In a blend of last-chance desperation and optimistic empowerment, we are building autonomous, totally democratic camps in city centers across the world. In these camps total inclusive democracy is praxis, everything is shared, and we build revolutionary consciousness everyday.
The camp is fundamentally organized around the principle of the General Assembly. If you’ve been in any kind of leftist meeting you have an idea of how it works: someone volunteers to be meeting facilitator, and people raise their hands to get on the ‘stack’. The facilitator calls on people in the order they volunteered, and only one person speaks at a time. They seek consensus rather than majority rule: all of the meetings I witnessed ended with dissenters agreeing to proposals and accepting the decision of the group. In a majority vote, voters are presented with a yes/no question and 51 percent carries the day, but in General Assembly proposals are built during conversation and debate, and as such actually reflect the desires of the group as a whole.
From the general assembly Los Indignados formed commissions, which focus on specific issues and questions within the camp, such as communication, international press, infrastructure, and food. These commissions set up their own booths and tents, where they work and remain available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to speak with the public walking through the square. Commissions all have their own assemblies, following the same methods. As such, all actions, choices, and movements are formed from the bottom up, not the top down.