I agreeto Idea Train skilled community organizers to strengthen our democracy.
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Train skilled community organizers to strengthen our democracy.

Why Is This Idea Important?: Developing new technologies is critical to promoting a transparent and open government; however, it is equally important to develop people - organizers - who can effectively use the new technologies to increase “participation” and “collaboration” in government and strengthen our democracy.

Invest (and encourage others to invest) in community organizers to achieve greater “participation” and “collaboration” in government. This will increase transparency in government and strengthen our democracy. Investing in new technologies is important, but “Tools don't build houses. Carpenters build houses," explains Marshall Ganz, who has been credited as the architect of President Obama's field campaign. Who knows? One of the community organizers who is developed by this approach might go on to become President.

See also:

Innovations that increase transparency, participation, and collaboration:

http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/3505-4049

Government use of social media should focus more on “small groups of smart people arguing with each other” - Clay Shirky

http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/3528-4049

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Submitted by kim 3 years ago

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Comments (11)

  1. george.polisner

    I attended Wellstone Action training awhile back -it was terrific. The additional resourcing and investment in strengthening community activism is an important building block in a participatory democracy. The significance of civic and community engagement should begin in our schools and be a required course in each grade.

    3 years ago
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  2. igienger

    Forgive me, I'm going to extend the metaphor:

    Without the tools, how can a carpenter practice and improve his craft?

    I'm with you all the way, but I think the tools need the carpenters and the carpenters need the tools. I want to improve both.

    3 years ago
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  3. Jonathan Geeting

    This is a really cool idea. All the talk about Open Government in the digital age is all well and good, and I find it appealing as a college-educated young white person living in a major city. But what about all the people who aren't as privileged as me? The people who don't have the time to read about policy and monitor ongoing debates in Congress? The people who can't afford Internet access? The people who can't read even if they could? An expanded effort by the gov't to bring Americans into policy discussions is great news, but an effort needs to be made to involve people who aren't online. Coordinating with community organizers is a great idea for bringing more people into the process.

    3 years ago
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  4. chloe_658

    I'm sorry, but the only community organizers I've ever heard of is ACORN and from I've read and seen on news channels about it they are a corrupt socialist organization who are being investigated in 14 states and have employees who have been prosecuted in many sates over voter fraud. I do not want any of my money going to community organizations if that is what they consist of.

    3 years ago
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  5. kim

    In response to chloe_658, another community organizer you've probably heard of is Barack Obama; according to the official white house website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/President_Obama/: "After working his way through college with the help of scholarships and student loans, President Obama moved to Chicago, where he worked with a group of churches to help rebuild communities devastated by the closure of local steel plants."

    3 years ago
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  6. Nathan Poe

    We live in a Republic, NOT a democracy. Just throwing that out there.

    3 years ago
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  7. jwelborn3434

    kim, I think you unintentionally proved chloe's point but I doubt you will ever realize it.

    3 years ago
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  8. unclebud626

    The past community oranizers have been politicized. This is eveident by ACORN and others. ACORN is being investigated by more then 15 states for voter fraud and other issues.

    3 years ago
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  9. stacey

    One thought about nationwide grassroots organizing is that it shouldn't be needed if the "representative gov't" is actually representing ! The way the system is set up to function, my local, state and federal elected representatives are interested in and responsive to their local constituents.

    I realize that national organizing is the current detour we have to take because of the powerlessness of an average citizen. BUT this state of affairs should ITSELF be addressed as a problem, not treated as a given and accepted.

    3 years ago
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  10. jwelborn3434

    stacey, well said!

    3 years ago
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  11. freedomfighter4theplanet

    Democracy Versus Republic

    These succinct definitions of what is Democracy and what is a Republic was produced by the US Army in 1928, These definitions have been quietly withdrawn since, soon after.

    Democracy:

    A government of the masses.

    Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of "direct" expression.

    Results in mobocracy.

    Attitude toward property is comunistic-negating property rights.

    Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate. whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.

    Results in demagogism license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.

    Democracy is the "direct" rule of the people and has been repeatedly tried without success.

    A certain Professor Alexander Fraser Tytler, nearly two centuries ago, had this to say about Democracy: " A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of Government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that Democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a Dictatorship."

    A democracy is majority rule and is destructive of liberty because there is no law to prevent the majority from trampling on individual rights. Whatever the majority says goes! A lynch mob is an example of pure democracy in action. There is only one dissenting vote, and that is cast by the person at the end of the rope.

    Republic:

    Authority is derived through the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them.

    Attitude toward property is respect for laws and individual rights, and a sensible economic procedure.

    Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences.

    A greater number of citizens and extent of territory may be brought within its compass.

    Avoids the dangerous extreme of either tyranny or mobocracy. Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment, and progress.

    Is the "standard form" of government throughout the world.

    A republic is a form of government under a constitution which provides for the election of:

    an executive and

    a legislative body, who working together in a representative capacity, have all the power of appointment, all power of legislation all power to raise revenue and appropriate expenditures, and are required to create

    a judiciary to pass upon the justice and legality of their governmental acts and to recognize

    certain inherent individual rights.

    Take away any one or more of those four elements and you are drifting into autocracy. Add one or more to those four elements and you are drifting into democracy.

    Our Constitutional fathers, familiar with the strength and weakness of both autocracy and democracy, with fixed principles definitely in mind, defined a representative republican form of government. They "made a very marked distinction between a republic and a democracy and said repeatedly and emphatically that they had founded a republic."

    A republic is a government of law under a Constitution. The Constitution holds the government in check and prevents the majority (acting through their government) from violating the rights of the individual. Under this system of government a lynch mob is illegal. The suspected criminal cannot be denied his right to a fair trial even if a majority of the citizenry demands otherwise.

    Difference between Democracy and Republic, in brief:

    Democracy:

    a: government by the people; especially : rule of the majority.

    b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.

    Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences

    Republic

    a: a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president : a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government.

    b: a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law.

    Democracy and Republic are often taken as one of the same thing, but there is a fundamental difference. Whilst in both cases the government is elected by the people, in Democracy the majority rules according to their whims, whilst in the Republic the Government rule according to law. This law is framed in the Constitution to limit the power of Government and ensuring some rights and protection to Minorities and individuals.

    The difference between Republic and Righteous Republic is that in the Republic the Government rules according to the law set up by men, in the Righteous Republic the law is the Law of God. Only in the Righteous Republic it can truly be said "One nation under God" for it is governed under commandments of the only One True God and there is no pluralism of religions.

    Autocracy declares the divine right of kings; its authority can not be questioned; its powers are arbitrarily or unjustly administered.

    Mobocracy: 1. Political control by a mob. 2. The mass of common people as the source of political control.

    3 years ago
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