Our Democracy Must Be Revived — If We Hope To Achieve The Dreams of Our Wisest and Best

Posted on November 28, 2007 by Mike Bock

John Dewey said, “What the best and wisest parent wants for his or her own child, that must the community want for all of its children.”

Dewey hit philosophical gold when he came up with that one sentence. It is a sentence worthy of several book length contemplations. Dewey’s sentence makes a powerful suggestion about who should most influence a community; in his view it should not be the dumb, the bigoted, the uninformed, or the political powerful who should have the most influence — it should be the wisest and the best. What a great idea.

It is interesting to contemplate what actions a school board might take, if its members were the best and the wisest citizens in the community. It is interesting to contemplate what actions the Ohio Assembly might take, if its members were the best and wisest citizens in the state. If our democracy was working as it should, and produced democratically committed quality leadership, it is a safe bet that our institutions would become transformed and we would experience revolutionary improvement in every aspect of our lives.

But our democracy is not working as it should. One good example of how our democracy does work is from a few months ago when Montgomery County Republicans announced that in my House District, the 37th, Peggy Lehner was anointed their choice to take John Husted’s place in the Ohio House. Regardless that Peggy needs to win the March 4 primary and the November election, it is widely assumed that her ascendancy to the House from her gerrymandered district is assured. The Republicans discouraged other potential Republican candidates from participating in the primary. Whether Peggy is the wisest or the best in her district or whether she is far from being so, doesn’t really matter. The Party has spoken. Clearly, our democracy is not working, because, our political system is all about projecting partisan power, not about promoting effective democratic processes.

So, how can our democracy be improved? It seems to me it will take a lot of hard work. Many more people need to be brought into the process and to bring those people into the process will require effort. The 25 or so Republicans who anointed Peggy is simply not a large enough or diverse enough group to be qualified to choose a representative for 110,000 voters. Democrats are guilty of the same types of actions. It’s not a one party failure. Our democracy is not working because both major political parties are failing us. Our democracy will improve when sufficient voters and party members demand improvement. Wouldn’t it be nice if grassroots Republicans as well as grassroots Democrats started to demand that their own parties exercise effective democratic processes, such as promoting vigorous primary contests?

I believe many voters are ready to abandon knee jerk partisanship and are hungry for their democracy to become more effective. Democrats need to try harder. And Republicans in Democratically gerrymandered districts need to try harder, too. A party that shows a commitment to reviving democracy in a gerrymandered district, and that shows a commitment to promoting good candidates in a vigorous primary contest, I believe, would receive unexpected support from voters who are sick of the current closed system. A party that would promote a vigorous primary contest, I believe, would receive support from many voters who feel neglected by their party and who would welcome a chance for meaningful political input and participation.

Wouldn’t it be great if DaytonOS could be at the center of an authentic democracy effort that would create an effective connection of voters in Montgomery County — an effort sufficient to improve our political system? This is not a small goal. As I said, to revive our democracy will take a lot of work.

Two important dates are upon us — January 4, 2008 and March 4, 2008. By January 4, 2008, we need to greatly expand the list of candidates in both parties who are seeking election to the Ohio House and the Ohio Senate. And between January 4 and March 4, we need to find ways to use the power of the internet to create authentic community where these primary candidates can have an opportunity to articulate their ideas and where they will have the opportunity to meaningfully interact with their potential constituents.

I am hoping, and I think it is possible, that DaytonOS can help create the type of community where meaningful political discussion helps wise and good ideas to emerge, a community that gives potential leaders the means to effectively communicate. I like Dewey’s sentence. It says to me that we need to revive our democratic process so that, as a community, we can identify and pursue what is wisest and what is best, and so that, as a community, we can reliably identify and elect those who will best legislate for us.

I believe here is the idea whose time has come: We need to work to vitalize our democracy so that the dreams of the wisest and best among us will come to the fore, so that the greatest hopes for our democracy can come to reality.

Posted in Opinion | 12 Comments

Few Candidates Have Returned Petitions to Run For Montgomery County Legislative Seats

Posted on November 27, 2007 by Mike Bock

With only about one month remaining before the filing deadline, there seems a lack of candidates seeking to be elected to represent Montgomery County in Ohio’s Legislative Assembly. The lack of candidates seems surprising because all but one of Montgomery County’s legislative seats are “open” seats; because of term limit laws, the incumbents are prohibited from seeking reelection to the same seat in this election cycle.

January 4, 2008 is the deadline for filing to run as a candidate for the Ohio House or the Ohio Senate. Fifty signatures are required to run as a candidate for either the Republican or Democratic Party. To run as an Independent, the number of signatures required is a percentage of votes cast within the district during the last governor’s election and for an Ohio House District the average number of signatures required is about 400 signatures. The candidates who will be chosen to represent the Republican and the Democratic Parties will be determined at the primary election to be held on March 4, 2008.

According to the Montgomery County Board of Elections, these are the candidates who have currently filed for Montgomery County’s legislative seats.

  • For Ohio House 36th District, seat currently held by Republican Arlene Setzer: Seth Morgan, Republican of Huber Heights, and Charles Morton, Democrat of New Lebanon, have filed.
  • For Ohio House 37th District, seat currently held by Republican John Husted: Peggy Lehner, Republican of Kettering, and Andrea Eveslage, Democrat of Kettering, have filed.
  • For Ohio House 38th District, seat currently held by Republican John White: Terry Blair, Republican of Centerville, and Tom Young, Republican of Centerville, have filed. John Doll, Democrat of Centerville and Chad Kingsalver, Democrat of Centerville, have filed.
  • For Ohio House 39th District, seat currently held by Democrat Clayton Luckie: Only Clayton Luckie has filed.
  • For Ohio House 40th District, seat currently held by Democrat Fred Strahorn: Ann Siefker, Republican of Dayton has filed; Victor Harris and Roland Windburn, Democrats of Dayton, have filed. And Sherry Green, Independent of Dayton, has filed.

For the Ohio Senate District 6, seat currently held by Republican Jeff Jacobsen, no one has yet filed to run for this Senate seat.

Posted in Local/Metro | 4 Comments

Bill Moyers, At Four Freedoms Ceremony: We Need To Rekindle FDR’s Passion For The Poor

Posted on November 23, 2007 by Mike Bock

Bill Moyers gave the following remarks at the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute’s twentieth-anniversary Four Freedoms ceremony, where he received the Freedom of Speech award. The remarks below were printed in The Nation

Thank you for this recognition and the spirit of the evening. Thanks especially for giving me the chance to sit here awhile thinking about my father. Henry Moyers was an ordinary man who dropped out of the fourth grade because his family needed him to pick cotton to help make ends meet. The Depression knocked him off the farm and flat on his back. When I was born he was making two dollars a day working on the highway to Oklahoma City. He never made over $100 a week in the whole of his working life, and he made that only when he joined the union on the last job he held.

He voted for Franklin Roosevelt in four straight elections, and he would have gone on voting for him until kingdom come if both had lived that long. I once asked him why, and he said, “Because the President’s my friend.” Now, my father never met FDR. No politician ever paid him much note, but he was sure he had a friend in the White House during the worst years of his life. When by pure chance I wound up working there many years later, and my parents came for a visit, my father wanted to see the Roosevelt Room. I don’t know quite how to explain it, except that my father knew who was on his side and who wasn’t, and for twelve years he had no doubt where FDR stood. The first time I remember him with tears in his eyes was when Roosevelt died. He had lost his friend.

We can’t revive the man and certainly we wouldn’t want to revisit the times, but we can rekindle the spirit. There are 37 million people in this country who are poor; there are 57 million who are near poor, making $20,000 to $40,000 a year–one divorce, one pink slip, one illness away from a free fall. That’s almost one-third of America still living on the edge. They need a friend in the White House. My father, with his fourth-grade education and two fingers with the missing tips from the mix-up at the cotton gin, got it when Roosevelt spoke. “I can’t talk like him,” he said, “but I sure do think like him.” My father might not have had the words for it, but he said amen when FDR talked about economic royalism. Sitting in front of our console radio, he got it when Roosevelt said that private power no less than public power can bring America to ruin in the absence of democratic controls.

Don’t think for a moment he didn’t get it when Roosevelt said that a government by money was as much to be feared as a government by mob, or when he said that the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. My father got it when he heard his friend in the White House talk about how “a small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor–other people’s lives.” My father knew FDR was talking for him when he said life was no longer free, liberty no longer real, men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness–against economic tyranny such as this. And my father listened raptly when his friend the President said, “The American citizen”–my father knew the President was speaking of him–“could appeal only to the organized power of government.”

So thank you for reminding us that liberalism is less about ideology and doctrine than about friendship and faith–the bond between a patrician in the White House and a working man on the Texas-Oklahoma border and their mutual belief in America as a shared project. Thank you for this reminder of how we might yet turn the listing ship of state. My father thanks you, too.
Re-printed from The Nation

Posted in M Bock | 2 Comments