Tuesday, July 10, 2012

How to be political when excluded from the realm of politics

Three words: Life-Style Politics.

These three words might be associated with ideas like veganism, riding your bike, and not buying corporate goods like Nike, Coke, etc. And while I support these forms of life-style politics (for whatever reason), I want to argue that even these political acts are politically bankrupt and in a way just commodities -- in essence we are buying the experience of being political. 
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The way I understand politics is it is the act of shaping society through influential techniques for the benefit of one group. Therefore if we are denied the chance to participate in shaping our lives by the hoops and hurdles of bureaucracy, etc. then we should not pursue that realm of politics. Instead I am arguing that we implement the political process in our daily lives. For example, if there is a problem like grandparents staying at home during the day sitting in front of the TV, then this is what we should focus on, and work with others in our local areas to solve the problem. By working with other to address everyday problems (and I want to emphasize that the problems chosen should not be typical political problems like low wages, but issues that we don't even think of as being political).


I think that by implementing the political process into our everyday lives we can draw attention to the fact that the public is not actually involved in city, state, national, and international political issues.

In solidarity with the experimental committee. 

Experimental Democracy!

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