But my question comes back to deliberative vs. liberal democracy. I agree that having mere information without conversation is not enough; however, can meaningful conversation occur without information? It seems to me that the relationship between deliberative and liberal democracy (or even journalism) is, and should be symbiotic, and either choice alone creates a lose-lose situation for the people. Lastly – Journalism and democracy are definitely for all, though they certainly are mostly utilized by the elites. A shame, really.

In 2005 we bolted a 350-pound to the floor in our Dallas ISD middle school in a poor inner-city area of Oak Cliff. At that time our students, 98% Hispanic, were projected to have a 37% probability for graduating high school. In 2005 the 8th grade class was allowed to write letters to themselves documenting their life history, family history, and plans for the future. This letter was a project in Language Arts Class after the final state testing finished at the end of the year. Well over 90% of student chose to participate.

That first class did not get to see the vault installed as that happened during the summer of 2005. However, they knew their letters would be placed into the vault and they would be invited back to a 10 year class reunion in November of 2014 at which they would both get their letters back and be invited to speak with the then current 8th grade classes about their recommendations for success. They were warned to expect questions such as “Would you do anything differently if you were 13 again?”

That first 8th grade class of 2005 to write letters for the vault made up the 2009 graduating classes at both Pinkston and Sunset high schools where most or our middle school students attend. Both high schools had the largest graduating class since before 1997!

An annual ritual has formed of our 8th grade students posing in front of the vault with their Language Arts class holding their letters that last week of 8th grade. Their photo is taken and then they line up to place their letters, one by one, onto the shelf for their class inside the vault. There are 10 shelves. Then the next day they each get two copies of that photo with project details on the back including the month and year of their 10 year class reunion. They are reminded that they will be invited to speak with the then current students about their recommendations for success, and the type questions they can expect.

They project is now spreading to 4 more schools within Dallas ISD this next year. That is the power of story. See project details at http://www.studentmotivation.org.

Marshall Ganz is right!

The important question is not how can we make Democracies more relevant to the masses but understand what is it actually for and why it continues to fail us in whatever form we reimage it in.

What is the underlying philosophy which drives our policy processes from conception to initiation to completion?

As has been pointed out on this site equal input into a decision making process is an unattainable goal as each person has a different view on what equality means on every possible issue confronting humanity.

We try to address this by creating access to policy processes via interest groups only to find out they are at times, given the nature of humanity, stacked with the like minded and not representative of the general population. Even then it is argued some individuals or groups should be more equal than others.

Nothing appears to work no matter how hard we try to include others of a different persuasion. They just end up white anting the process wasting resources and time.

Democracies in their currant form will continue to throw up the Hitler’s and Stalin’s etc. Why? It has nothing to do with the ability to enable more to have access to the decision making process it is for what purpose this decision making process was created and perpetuated.

The answer is in the nature of our hierarchical framework business, political and personal. Although diminishing accountability is an aspect mostly referred to the most critical facet is diminishing contradictability. The further away a citizen is from a superimposed hierarchy position, no matter how knowledgeable, expert or capable of averting catastrophe, the less able a citizen is to influence decisions emanating from that position.

This form in itself is not the reason for Democracies failure, nor any of the other forms we have tried for policy processes, it is the reason for it’s existence, the underlying philosophy which currently drives each of us in our daily toil, in almost every social context, which is a continuing cause of human beings inability to achieve outcomes which we desperately at times need.

Until it is realised what the real issue is and what philosophical change is required so we humans do not continue killing each other in the millions as well as slowly destroy our planet humans are destined to repeat their mistakes.

People in the West don’t realize the amount of debate that goes on in the Chinese blogs. Certain things are taboo, but other criticism and debate goes. The blogs, particularly on the Peoples Daily are an important part of the CCP’s decision making process.