I wrote a response to David Esrati’s article,  “Perot Was Right.” My point is that for a movement to have any power, it must be seen as winnable.  The idea of starting a third party sounds, to me, well meaning, but a loser — tilting at windmills — idea.  Who wants to get on a train to nowhere?  Starting a third party sounds like something that would be awfully hard to accomplish.  I’m thinking there is a big group of citizens who could be inspired to dedicate some time and energy to activism — but they are looking for something doable.

My point is that the problem is not that there are only two parties, the problem is that the parties are corrupt and anti-democratic in their operation.  Transforming the political parties we already have, I feel, is key to vitalizing our democracy:  And, unlike the goal of starting a third part, the goal of transforming the current parties, I feel, could inspire an authentic grassroots movement.  I wrote at Esrati’s:

There are only 360 precincts in Montgomery County and each precinct may choose one delegate.  We simply need to raise up a vision of how an authentic democratic community — a transformed Montgomery County Democratic Party — would operate, sell that vision to the Democrats in Montgomery County, and get a delegate to run in each precinct to support a plan for transformation.  We have four years to get all of this accomplished.  Doable.

I’m looking for several long term projects to develop on this web-site, and Step One, for this project, asks that someone accomplish a giant step:  Develope a vision of a transformed Montgomery County Democratic Party, one that would operate as an authentic democratic community. Such a giant step seems a worthy goal and maybe it can be my second book — after this one is completed:  Kettering Public Education In The Year 2022: How Do We Get To A Great Future?

According to Wikipedia: An operating system (OS) is a set of system software programs in a computer that regulate the ways application software programs use the computer hardware and the ways that users control the computer.

It is interesting to think in terms of systems. Every person has a body, and the body is a system. How to manage the human system so that an individual enjoys the optimum output of health and vitality is a central question of medicine and education. We are far from understanding what the human OS actually is, or how it works, what it is that regulates our ways and makes us who we are.

It’s interesting to attempt to see society as a system and to take the viewpoint of an anthropologist and attempt to understand how the operating system of our society actually works. W. Edwards Deming, the “quality” genius, liked to ask a CEO, whether, or not, his or her company was a “system.” Sure, he said, you have meetings, and goals, and quotas, and people running around, and phones ringing, but, Are You A System? Or are you simply a collection of individual profit centers?

Dayton, Ohio, I’d say, also fails Deming’s definition of “system.” Dayton stays as it is because of inertia, and because a lot of stake holders, individual profit centers, like the way things are. And Dayton is no different from Kettering and every other area.  Our public school organization, I’d say, also fails Deming’s definition of “system,” and again, is a collection of individual profit centers, resistant to change.

If our region will ever grow into its potential, we are in need of huge transformations and transformation is usually powerfully resisted by the status quo. The need to transform our system of public education is a powerful example of the need for system reform, and also a powerful example of how individual profit centers in the status quo resist transformation.

Our challenge is to find a way to get a powerful Operating System called democracy to become functional. But, to have democracy, you must have community — and that’s the hard part. Just like the fact that the OS for a computer has no meaning unless it is functional in a computer, democracy has no meaning unless it is rooted in community. And community is lacking. Here in Kettering, I am continually shocked how tiny the group is that shows up to League of Women Voters “meet the candidates” public meetings — and those who do show up are not the “community,” but friends and family of the candidates.  It’s a good question:  Where is the Kettering community?

Creating authentic community is the challenge.

Luckily this huge obstacle — the lack of community — is more overcomable here in 2010 than in any previous time. We have powerful and inexpensive tools of technology needed to educate ourselves and to social network and effectively work together. We simply need leadership and a vision of what is possible.

The OS in DaytonOS suggests a grandiose thought — that this little web-site might help vitalize the operating system called democracy in the Dayton region. I’m working on a plan for DaytonOS for this fall season, and I will report soon.

See:  How Can The System Known As The United States Be Made To Work To Provide “Liberty and Justice For All”?

In the race to be elected to the U. S. Senate, Democrat Lee Fisher is challenging his Republican opponent, Rob Portman, to debate in seven different locations in Ohio. There were seven Lincoln Douglas debates in the Senate race in Illinois in1858. Fisher’s challenge for seven debates suggests he is seeking to re-make history in the Senate rate in Ohio in 2010 by copying an idea from 152 years ago.

I hope that Portman will agree to Fisher’s challenge — even though, I’m sure, they’ll be plenty of Republican strategists who will tell him not to do so. Portman has a whale lot more money than Fisher — like $6 million more — and so, unless Fisher starts to generate money quickly, this money advantage means that Portman can buy a lot more media time than Fisher. In the limited time I watch TV, I’ve seen a lot of Portman ads, but not one Fisher ad.

So, if Portman has the money to command the media, why should he cooperate in helping to build a free stage that Fisher would share equally?

But I hope that Portman will agree to debate. And maybe public pressure will help encourage him to do so. And, wouldn’t a Lincoln Douglas format be great? I’d feel Ohio would be making a breakthrough if we could use a debate style that was a valuable means of communication152 years ago.

The original Lincoln Douglas debates were each 3 hours — a length of time, probably unreasonable to attempt in today’s culture.  If it followed the original Lincoln Douglas format, a modern day 70 minute debate, would look like this:

Candidate A: 20 minutes
Candidate B: 35 minutes
Candidate A: 15 minutes

In four of the debates, candidate A would go first, as above. And in three of the debates, candidate B would go first. And every debate, the order would alternate. Each debate would focus on the question:  Who should be chosen to hold the office of U. S. Senator, as one of two senators representing Ohio?