Public policy, social issues, gender politics, religion, civitas, and other taboo topics fall under the hammer of Shava's iconoclasmic force of natural philosophy.
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Justice for All -- as the prison population in the US reaches 2,000,000
Wednesday, April 16, 2003
4:06 PM
If you asked me, there are three causes for our large percentage incarcerated.
One obvious cause is the war on drugs -- and I'd leave it as an exercise for the reader why we have such excessive issues with addiction and intoxicant over-use in this country -- a question which should be addressed before we can truly debate legalization of whatever, IMNSHO.
Another cause is the breakdown of that civil society formula I proposed:
o...Everyone has something to win.
o...Everyone has something to lose.
o...Everyone has some faith in the system to preserve the first two.
How many of those incarcerated are felons by dint of a total loss of faith in civil society, and what can we do to change that?
And last (and this is my particular bailiwick) we have a Jeffersonian democracy without a well educated and informed electorate. Ask most any 20 year old what input he or she has into the system, and s/he will tell you "I have one bullshit vote that isn't worth making." Our current system seems to go out of the way to keep people from understanding how to influence their own democracy.
My crusade is to educate the members of our democracy in civics. It sounds very simple. But no children in public school learn real civics, and I rarely meet a person my own age (44) who understands the mechanisms by which s/he can influence the system.
About five years ago, I was brainstorming with a PoliSci professor, as to how people don't teach real civics, and he speculated that some of his grad students don't really understand "the system," because it's complex systems theory. I was skeptical, because my son Joseph was about five at the time, and he was really internalizing the ecological model. Ecology is, essentially, a metaphor of complex systems theory that is introduced so early now as to be a basic part of our cultural myths.
My goal is to write a curriculum which explains the real workings and inter-relationships of all the players: media, bureaucracy, elected officials, NGOs, trade/business association, voters, and so on. A curriculum that explains how to get access to each of these players, and how to test the results of your efforts. Creating organizing plans, and media plans. Volunteer coordination for grassroots groups.
I see so many young people now who are being told that they need to vote to get a voice -- and they (rightly) know BS when they smell it! To bring up a new generation of involved citizens who can do more than march in the streets and raise hell, we need to reinstill civitas by empowering these folks.
Without an empowered citizenship, the erosion of civil society, loss of rights, and rise of fascistic practices in this country is nearly assured.
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