One Nation, Indivisible: Reconnecting the public with its public servants
(Page 2 of 2)
March-April 2009
by Julie Hanus
Savvy collaboration between the public and its public servants promises not only to narrow the knowledge gap Palmer’s referring to; it’s likely to foster greater engagement and personal investment among all involved. After all, as Americans have seen again and again, when people who depend on government services—like education, policing, or welfare—are given a measure of responsibility and control, those services dramatically improve.
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What’s more, just as the president is once again imploring people to ask what they can do for their country, opening the door to a more vibrant give-and-take would help build trust and engender a sense of collective purpose. Much of the good work currently done on the local level, like revitalizing neighborhoods and revamping city blocks, takes place at the grass roots. And people laboring on the front lines often harbor a deep-seated distrust of politics and political institutions. This us versus them mentality, reports the New Republic (Sept. 10, 2008), is something Obama started addressing almost 20 years ago, not long after leaving community organizing in Chicago to attend law school. “The problem we face now in terms of organizing is that politics is a major arena of power,” he said at a public symposium. “That’s where your major dialogue, discussion, is taking place. To marginalize yourself from that process is a damaging thing, and one that needs to be rethought.”
As those legions of campaign-primed voters press state and local governments to toe the participatory line, a new political-social structure promises to emerge, one in which governments, citizens, activists, and organizers collaborate in pursuit of the greater good. The results ought to be dazzling.
“It’s blindingly simple,” Simon Woolley writes in the New Statesman (Nov. 19, 2008), but “putting faith and confidence in ordinary individuals [inspires them] to do extraordinary things.”
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