Is grassroots political empowerment a fantasy, or could it be a reality?

[ViolentPanda]

I'm not sure that i would agree with you on that point. I talk to many people who almost seem to take a pride in not understanding the forces that mould their lives. Politics has become almost an abstract pseudo-celebrity side show, within this country at least. People enjoy moaning about parochial issues but can't be bothered to get off their arses to do anything about them commonly.

I'm inclined more toward voiceofreason's POV. It may be that less people express an overt interest in politics, but it's also true that membership of and/or participation in "new social movements" are at levels unseen since CND's Aldermaston years.
I'm convinced that a significant minority of the blame for a fall-off in "local issue" politics can be attributed to the ways in which party machines latch onto and attempt to dominate issues, usually solving nothing, but garnering a good few photo-ops. I'm convinced this contributes, through giving the politician(s) exposure to the detriment of the issues, to an attitude of "fuck that, why should I bother?" from people who might otherwise provide useful skills and insights to community politics

People being aware of wider issues but thinking, 'i can't be bothered to do anything about it'. And with disaffection and disenfranchisement comes a disengagement with 'normal' society. And if the only way that you can change things for the better for the poorest members of society is by scrapping the system of society that currently maintains and coming up with something new, who better to guide that process than the dispossessed themselves?

Hear hear, but to me it all hinges on people becoming aware that they can grasp control of their own lives without the mediation of "the state", and that means, as Bernie has made clear, finding ways to circumvent the state and it's "will to control", finding new mechanisms to activate and retain a true grassroots politics that works from the community upward, making any intermediary between the community and the state legally responsible for representing the decisions of the community, and avoiding the current farrago of the community representative, in the guise of a councillor or MP, representing the community's views only when it suits the party politics of that representative.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

The only point i disagree with you on is iro the 'membership of and/or participation in "new social movements" are at levels unseen since CND's Aldermaston years' - is it really? I'm not so sure, if i compare now with some (admittedly historic) years at the coalface if you like. As agreed, mainstream politics is discredited, so we need to look at things lower down.

Local authorities are basically local administration carrying out, by and large, roles and responsibilities that are centrally controlled and enforced by the Gulag. Unions collect subs, sell insurance, and sometimes mouth off about things. Sometimes. The radical left (and many anarchos) spend more time arguing about credibility and consistency than actually doing owt else. Swappies rule, maaaan. Music used to be political. So did lifestyles, like squatting and sabbing and smokin. And as i said before, i think many people don't vote, don't care about anything else beyond themselves or don't think they can have an effect.

The question for me is how to get people to think in the way you describe without appealing to a lowest common denominator, but rather appealing to the wonderful potential that there surely must be in such a diverse bunch of people. Community can be a very strange word in these days because, as we're demonstrating, communities can be virtual as much as real - the definition then becomes all important. And something that requires defintion will almost always produce arguments as to meaning. So you need a common reference point and that's what is missing i think, in the political activity that does take place. Its not single issue but there does need to be something to bind it together, if you understand what i'm getting at?

 

[durruti02]

what do people think of TELCOs model .. based on US grassroots community empowerment

http://www.telcocitizens.org.uk/