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Fundamental political change

Mitch Kapor is blogging about "a movement for fundamental political change," where he says

What's worse, there is a conventional wisdom which tells us that there are no viable alternatives to the unacceptable ones in front of us. Everyone I've ever asked who is “serious” about politics has told me a third party is either futile, or worse, counter-productive.

Well, being out of tune with the conventional wisdom doesn't faze me any more now than it did at the dawn of the PC era in the late 1970's and dawn of the internet era in the early 1990's. I have seen waves of fundamental change overtake and transform common knowledge time and time again, and I believe it can happen again.

I've become completely convinced that we need to begin a process of fundamental political change in the U.S., not in the form of a new party per se as a new multi-faceted movement of ideas, organizations, and cultures, based around a vision of democracy which is fundamentally open, participatory, and decentralized.

...I'll be speaking with Zack at MeshForum in a couple of weeks, and what I thought I'd say is very close to your “multi-faceted movement of ideas, organizations, and cultures.” We've been discussing at Greater Democracy how the parties (especially the Democrats) aren't responsive to the national conversation, in fact avoid the potential to build real communities and sponsor real discussions. Our politicians are doing all the talking and none of the listening. It strikes me as inevitable that a different kind of political force will evolve through social networks that are supported by communication networks (i.e. the Internet).

jon posted this at 8:14 AM
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