Somatic Nation?
Lawrence Lessig has words for Iowans, via Jay McCarthy.
Good luck to my favorites in Iowa. As I’ve indicated a bunch of times, I’m a split Democrat
Deliberation Day
This in honor of the festivities in Iowa tonight …a radical proposal to help voters make better decisions, offered by Bruce Ackerman & James Fishkin:In our soon-to-be-released book, we offer a new way of thinking about democratic reform, proposing a new national holiday: Deliberation Day. It would replace Presidents’ Day, which does no service to the memories of Washington and Lincoln, and would be held two weeks before major national elections.
Registered voters would be called together in neighborhood meeting places, in small groups of 15 and larger groups of 500, to discuss the central issues raised by the campaign. Each deliberator would be paid $150 for the day’s work of citizenship. To allow the business of the world to carry on and as many as possible to participate, the holiday would be a two-day affair.
If Deliberation Day succeeded, everything else would change: the candidates, the media, the activists, the interest groups, the spin doctors, the advertisers, the pollsters, the fundraisers, the lobbyists, and the political parties. All would have no choice but to adapt to a more attentive and informed public. When the election arrived, the people would speak with a better chance of knowing what they wanted and which candidates were more likely to pursue the popular mandate.It sounds to me like nationwide OpenSpaceTech on the future of the country. I don’t need to think very long to know that I vote AYE! I’d much rather see federal campaign funds spent this way than on juicing more advertising. I wonder how many of these gatherings that federal matching funds money could fund.