President Barak Obama speaks at a "town hall" at Facebook headquarters, with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (R) in Palo Alto, California on April 20, 2011. UPI/Terry Schmitt
What the future holds for political participation?
Of some things, however, we can be certain. To maintain a position of dominance, even the most powerful people in the world rely on the inaction of others and the resignation that lies beneath it. The powerful became powerful by organizing other to work for them and creating incentives for profitably cooperative activity. It appears to be against the interests of the rich and the lucky for everyone else to be similarly well organized. The rich and the lucky benefit from making large-scale democratic reform appear hopeless. Paradoxically, they also benefit from making large-scale change seem easily achievable. For example, by casting a vote every four years for a candidate who promises something called “change”.
When we expect liberty and justice to appear miraculously, like fast food, without more rigorous forms of participation, definition, and sacrifice, we are like farmers who curse the dirt and pray for rain, but “want crops without plowing the ground.” Yet some people are already plowing.
So participate. Organize.
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