[P2P-F] Fwd: Review of Extreme Democracy - Underlies & Enhances #OWS

Wed Nov 23 19:41:58 CET 2011

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Robert Steele <robert.david.steele.vivas at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 1:10 AM
Subject: Review of Extreme Democracy - Underlies & Enhances #OWS
To: Robert.David.Steele.Vivas at gmail.com

I bought this book in October 2010 because I was getting to know both Mitch
Ratcliff and Jon Lebkowsky better, but at first pass through it did not
really draw me in. Then OccupyWallStreet happened. I read the book on the
flight from the US to Spain where I am talking about commercial
intelligence and integrity in the messed up new world, and this time
around, the book GRABS ME.

Because #OWS has brought to life the ideas the co-editors and various
contributing authors understood well before 2004 and articulated in 2004,
now I can absorb this book as much more meaningful and inspirational.
Anyone associated with OccupyWallStreet in any way from direct to indirect,
should read this book. I am donating my copy to the George Mason University
Library as I do all my new books (they took over my entire library when I
joined the UN back in 2010).

QUOTE 6): "Politics is always changing as a society incorporates new
technology for disseminating information and connecting people."

QUOTE (11): "The whole history of democracy and technology has set the
stage for what happens next."

In the first contribution Joichi Ito (now head of the MIT Media Lab)
suggests that emergent democracy is an open process melding social software
into democracy. I observe that no one now elected to office is serious
about using social software to properly understand any issue or harness the
collective intelligence of their constituency on any issue.

Weblogs are digital grass roots equivalents.

Helpful to remind ourselves that democracy is defined by having the supreme
power vested in the people and exercised directly--NOT what we have today
in the USA's inverted totalitarian democracy, see Democracy Incorporated:
Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism (New in
Paper)<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/069114589X/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk>
.

Democracy NEEDS the competition ideas that in turn demand free speech. Rule
by Secrecy is anti-democratic (and also enormously wasteful). See Griftopia:
A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in
American History<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385529961/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk>and
Rule
by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the
Freemasons, and the Great
Pyramids<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060931841/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk>
.

All of the authors share concerns with creemping restraints on the
information commons and all of the authors are optimistic about the
emergence of extreme democracy. For the latest book along these lines, see
Peggy Holman's Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into
Opportunity<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1605095214/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk>
.

>From Gary Johnson and so totally relevant to #OWS it is scary good:

QUOTE (25): "In complex systems the role of the leader is not about
determining direction and controlling followers. The leader maintains
integrity, mediates the will of the many, influencing and communicating
with peers and other leaders. The leader becomes more of a facilitator (or
hub), and custodian of the process, than a power figure."

The entire book is rich with footnotes and most of them provide URLs.

Three types of network emergence: creative (smallest), social (middling),
and political (largest). I myself am frustrated by #OWS spinning in circles
over demands and grievances while failing to move aggressively on what US
Day of Rage correctly (in my view) calls for as the singular demand:
Electoral Reform. I like to say there is nothing wrong with America the
Beautiful that cannot be set right immediately by restoring the integrity
of our electoral process and hence our governance and hence putting
corporations back into the box (they hold commissions from the public).
Everything else is down in the weeds, in my view, but of course necessary
to the process.

QUOTE (32): "Weblogs create a positive feedback systems, and with tools for
analysis lke Technorati, we can identify the importance of information at
the political level by tracking its movement across the weak ties between
networks and network levels."

TRUST is a critical aspect--one governments no longer enjoy in most
artificial nation-states--and the book as a whole is huge on both the
process of creating public trust, and the means by which the public can
carry out counter-surveillance on the government as well as corporations.

QUOTE (38): "We can bootstrap emergent democracy using existing and
evolving tools and create concrete examples of emergent democracy, such as
intentional blog communities, ad hoc advocacy coalitions, and activist
networks."

Mitch Ratcliff articulates a deep confidence in people that I share (search
for 2010 HUMINT Trilogy also Reflections on Integrity).

QUOTE (60): Extreme democracy, taking a cue from the recent evolution of
software development, 'extreme programming,' anticipates a politics based
on lowered friction in communication that increases the diversity of ideas
and opinions that can be brought to bear on the development of public
policy."

In other words, as I articulated in 1995 in a Government Information
Quarterly article, we can create a Smart Nation that harnesses the
distributed intelligence of the Whole Earth. NOT what the two-party tyranny
wants to hear.

QUOTE (76): "Emergence, to a great degree, is simply what we don't plan.
How to arrive at the best possible unplanned outcome is what emergent
democracy is about."

I had to read that several times to appreciate the depth. It drives
directly to the point that top-down hierarchies are not democratic, and
that indigenous bottom-up consensus processes are. I have a note to the
effect that extreme democracy crosses all boundaries and takes place in
real time. In other words, it is the opposite of bureaucratic stove-pipes
and special interest earmarks, and restores holistic analytics and
long-term thinking.

QUOTE (89): "A political philosophy must incorporate more than the
experience of participation. An analysis of power, define ideas about the
role of the citizen and the government, and the principles society will
embrace about the value of the individual are required as well. See The
Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates That Define and Inspire Our
Country <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812976355/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk>and
also What
Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to
Create a United
States<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684848716/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk>
.

Several of the authors focus on the Howard Dean campaign and Joe Trippi's
brilliance in the first cut of a political web that actually engaged
people. The conclusions are generally negative--the first cut, while
brilliant, clustered like-minded people but did not cope with actual
issues. The web effort could also not overcome Dean's inherent problems
with himself and others. The bottom line: the web aspect must help the
totality (human-centered) address new challenges in a visibly effective
manner. Rah rah and hand-holding are not enough. Real information, real
issues, real people, real outcomes are essential.

Steve Johnson focused on technology amplified collective action as the next
big thing. He also hits hard on my biggest concern with #OWS, as shown
below.

QUOTE (100): "Influencing elections and legislation is the sene qua non of
effectiveness."

It is driving me mad that #OWS is mumbling about going after 2014 and 2016
seats when an Electoral Act of 2012 is online now, could be demanded on 6
November, and if not implemented by 15 February 2012, used to create a
General Strike that flushes the US Congress down the toilet, and the
two-party tyranny with it.

Ken White makes the very important point that reform is not redesign. See Ideas
and Integrities: A Spontaneous Autobiographical
Disclosure<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0020926308/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk>and
Redesigning
Society (Stanford Business
Books)<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804747946/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk>
.

Valdis Krebs focuses on our biggest challenge right now: the atomized
voter. He shows three levels of voting engagement:

01 The atomized voter

02 The demographic voter

03 The social voter

He makes the point that strangers do not influence social voeters, and:

QUOTE (124): "Instead of having strangers call voters, or knock on doors,
the campaign should find well-connnected supporters and have them go out
into their clusters."

QUOTE (126): "The network strategy does not require a large war chest of
political contributions. It does require time and energy and understanding
of the social dynamics."

I have a note: 100 million voters times $10 each is US$1 billion. 2012 is a
do-able do if #OWS will integrate, adapt, and MOVE.

Ross Mayfield gets into online communities, flash mobs and flash
fund-raising, flash lobbying, participatory politics.

Danah Boyd focuses on engaging people and engendering community. There are
so many local to national design opportunities inherent in the economic
crash (Wall Street can ignore reality, but reality will not ignore Wall
Street) that I am actually positive about the near future. We are about to
become "sane" as a nation and stop doing the wrong things at greater
expense.

Adam Greenfield contributes a chapter, "Democracy for the Rest of Us: the
Minimal Compact and Open-Source Government" that I consider worthy of
stand-alone circulation. He talks about portable citizenship and the open
source world being flexible, adaptive, extensible, infinitely reproducible
(#OWS!!), non-local, interoperable and mutual, and highly robust.

QUOTE (211): "Whatever else it [extreme democracy] achieves, if anything, I
hope you take from it the essential recognition it shares with open-source
development: that we can teach ourselves what we need to learn, share
whatever knowledge we glean, build on the insights of the others engaged in
the same efforts. Just as the novice programmer is invited to "hack"
open-source software, the minimal compact invites us to demystify and
reengineer government at the most intimate and immediate level." We can
hack democracy."

Ethan Zuckerman offers some very important wisdom on the need to recognize
the rest of the world - the five billion poor - as imminent beneficiaries
of any tools, processes, and success that we enjoy, and I especially like
his recognition that smart phones are not going anywhere fast in the
extreme poverty world. There it is dumb phones and talk radio. I really
really like his emphasis on how we should design tools (and networks) for
all the world, not just the 1st world.

Roger Wood is phenomenal in his focus on the FACT that all political,
social, and economic structures boil down to the individual.

QUOTE (248): "All initiatives are born, all decisions are made and all
actions are taken by individuals. The individual human, uniquely endowed
with the capacity for thought and reasoning, is the source of all political
action. Power, as the ability to cause action in society, comes only from
people."

Adina Levin discusses specific tools and functions:

01 Dialog and deliberation (this is what the National Council for Dialog
and Deliberation does, but their tools are non-existent)

02 Researching policies and strategies (this is the core of Open Source
Intelligence (OSINT) and public intelligence

03 Educating public and the media (not well developed today)

04 Identifying supporters (#OWS has done that -- 99%)

05 Gathering and motivating supporters (this is where #OWS lacks a
strategy, vision, funding plan, and political plan)

06 Raising money, mobilization (early days yet, I am certain we can raise
$1 billion a year as a democracy subscription in the USA, much more once
this migrates to the rest of the world).

I put the book down with huge admiration and respect for all of the
contributing authors and the two editors especially. I believe that the
Arab Spring and the demonstrable Hypocrisy (search for Jon Lebkowsky
Hypocrisy Video) of the current Administration were seed crystals for #OWS,
and #OWS is a seed crystal for something much much larger that ultimates
engages 300 million US voters and then billions of global voters. It is a
rare privilege to be alive today and in association with Extreme Democracy.