Tag: democracy

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Why citizens’ assemblies work

Like the Pennsylvania groundhog, I emerge from my cave to see if spring will come again.

This article has been bumping around in my head for a few days now and I THINK I’ve pinpointed what annoys me about it: none of the people pushing for citizens’ assemblies actually understand how they succeed, and in fact are pushing a really shitty narrative about people, society and politics as they do.

“It provides a safe environment to have a conversation. There is zero tolerance for conflict in that room. You’re allowed to express your opinion, whatever that opinion is, in complete safety, and people will be respectful of you too.”

The reasons put forward in the piece are basically: “true deliberation” solves political conflict; “ordinary people” come up with the best solutions because they find the “middle ground” and “reduce the noise” of “complex and divisive” issues.

And honestly, bullshit on most of that, and on the general ~vibe~ of the piece that “intractable” or “complex” or “divisive” issues are just ~matters of opinion~ and ~if we all sat down together~ and ~saw the human on the other side of the table~ we’d come to ~a true consensus~.

Consensus is great. And citizens’ assemblies are great. The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand are pretty hot on both.

But I think citizens’ assemblies work for very different reasons, and those reasons matter, and shutting down this wilfully apolitical, “we can all get along if we just stop shouting” narrative is important.

Here’s my take:

1. The majority of people hold progressive views. No, they don’t think of themselves as political, they haven’t Done The Readings, they wouldn’t necessarily place themselves square in the bottom left quadrant of politicalcompass.org. But they care about other people. They want their family, friends and community to be happy and healthy and free to live their lives. They value schools and hospitals and parks and pools and being able to get to work or school or indoor netball, to have autonomy in their lives and to know where to go for help.

They don’t really care if someone is gay or trans or has an unusual haircut, unless they are told lies about those people. They aren’t worried about immigrants opening cool new restaurants in their suburbs or someone getting to rest up after an injury unless they are kept in a state of personal economic anxiety, and told those other people are to blame.

And we know this. We know the majority of people support gay rights, trans rights, wealth taxes, paying teachers and nurses more, having thriving local shops and good jobs, bodily autonomy, and accepting and celebrating diversity.

So no shit Sherlock when you get a bunch of them in a room and ask them to devise solutions to social/environmental/political issues, they’ll deliver progressive results, which is to say: supporting human rights and equality.

But what about the opposition? What about the other side? If it’s so easy, why did thousands descend on our Parliament and set the goddamned playground on fire over vaccination?

2. The true opponents of progress are a fringe minority of a minority who run scared if they’re forced into real conversation about their views. And no, I don’t mean “everyone who opposes gay marriage” or “everyone who grumbles about taxes”, I mean the hardline, dyed-in-the-wool types who will never shift.

The grumblers? The anxious ones? Take the citizens’ assembly approach and put them in a room where they’re expected to listen to others’ views, consider the evidence, and form a clear-headed view. Reality has a left-wing bias. The talkback radio/InfoWars/Facebook Boomer meme arguments don’t stand a chance.

The hardliners? There are so few, and they are so unrepresentative they probably won’t get in the room. If they do, most will hide their true leanings. That’s why there’s still multiple New Zealand knitwear designers on Ravelry who I have to remember not to purchase from – because they don’t wear their “founder of Voices For Freedom” badges loud and proud on their business profiles, strangely.

But if that’s all true, Stephanie, why don’t these good changes just happen? Why don’t our political decisions match our community views?

3. The real obstacle to most progressive change is political will. Not lack of political will, not an absence of action, but a proactive, considered decision that nothing should be done. Ruling things out. An obstruction of good ideas by left-of-centre parties across the world who, if I’m charitable, believe the ridiculous myth that doing good things isn’t politically popular.

(That they’re not financially popular, I can agree with.)

There’s also the trap of organisational inertia. Once you’ve been in central government spheres – whether the Treasury benches or Opposition – you just get used to a certain way of doing things. Of course we can’t just feed the poor, do you know how many agencies and regulations and funding rounds and tripartite consultations would be involved? Of course we can’t just pass a good law, the other side will simply repeal it!

(My plea to the Labour Party for the new year is to notice how much National/ACT/NZ First do not care about such things.)

The RNZ piece itself discusses the way that people frequently ARE “ahead” of the political curve, and what our politicians consider “acceptable” or “responsible” or “vote-winning” policies. But that’s the point: citizens’ assemblies work, when they work, because not only are the majority of people caring, compassionate, progressive, and realistic, they’re also unconstrained by dogma about what is and isn’t politically possible.

So why does this even matter? If I like citizens’ assemblies and people are promoting citizens’ assemblies, why write a thousand(plus) words quibbling with their reasoning? Two reasons:

1. Painting basic human rights issues as “complex” is a copout, and portraying both sides as equally unreasonable, extreme or bad faith is harmful.

From the article:

“[Ireland], for the last 60 years, was unable to have a civilised conversation about abortion, because the minute the conversation starts, the people speaking retreat to the extremes and start shouting at each other,” he says.

The opposing “extremes” in the abortion debate are people who want to access healthcare and people who want to force people to be pregnant against their will. Those things simply aren’t equivalent. Pregnant people “shouting” because another side wants to use the power of the state to coerce them into undergoing pregnancy even if it kills them is not the same goddamn thing as anti-choicers “shouting” that doctors are murderers and pregnant people are sluts.

(Also, please stop falling for the right’s tactics of yelling about something and then insisting it’s “divisive”, when they’re the people doing the dividing.)

2. Telling people who are oppressed that they have to sit down and respect their oppressors is really shit. When people are fighting for their right to exist, to live good lives, to have basic equality, it is lethal to turn around and say “well you just need to sit down and break bread and form an understanding with the person who wants you silenced, closeted and/or dead” and to imply in the process that direct action like protesting or obstructing motorways is bad or unhelpful (they can be! But they aren’t inherently!)

This was my issue with the Human Rights Commission’s “dial it down” campaign during COVID which proposed “netiquette” to “take the heat” out of COVID discussions online and honestly I don’t have enough sarcastic quotation marks to express my scorn at the idea this is a ~both sides~ problem instead of a public health crisis being exploited by grifters and well-funded extremists to undermine our democracy.

Let’s conclude with the suggestion in the RNZ piece, that a citizens’ assembly could be useful for the “issue” of te Tiriti. And yes, that sounds a lot better than ACT’s bullshit referendum, but we must understand and state out loud that this isn’t a debate where two sides just happen to have different views for no reason. One side has facts, human rights, international law and decades of pre-existing constitutional debate to support its views and the other side just has racism.

A citizens’ assembly would not reach a good conclusion because ~the issue of te Tiriti is so nuanced and complex and we need to get ordinary people to take time to digest it~. It would (probably) reach a good conclusion because people are fundamentally progressive and the fringe minority are tiny and cowardly. Because one side is grounded in reality. Because these issues are not really complex and the obstacle is wilful political inaction.

That is how citizens’ assemblies succeed. And it’s important to say so, instead of depowering progressive politics and erasing the reality of our struggles, and the opposition we face.

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Taxes, greed and David Seymour

Fleshing out one of my recent Twitter rants, kicked off by this tragic bit of capitalist propaganda from the “leader” of the ACT “Party”:

Here’s the thing about taxes. Taxes are schools. Taxes are hospitals. Taxes are protecting our natural environment and biosecurity at our borders. Taxes support small business. Taxes support tourism. Taxes pay for the inspectors who keep our food safe and protect our export industries.

Taxes do all the important things “the market” won’t do because there’s no profit in it.

Parties like ACT exist to funnel money away from those important things via tax cuts, privatisation, and diverting public money to funding private organisations like charter schools.

That’s why they want you to think of tax as a burden, not the contribution we all make to keeping our society healthy and just. They want to pretend that “taxes” and “public services” aren’t one and the same thing. That’s why we have to change the frame on taxes. Not as a burden we need relief from, and not as the price that we begrudgingly pay for social stability and decent public services. Taxes are the way we all chip in to take care of the basics. Taxes are how we all share in building a stronger, happier, healthier, fairer country.

I’m a “net taxpayer”. And I love paying taxes.


And here’s the thing about the way David Seymour and the right glorify “net taxpayers”: it’s the clearest demonstration you need that what they truly value, in their hearts, is greed. They represent, and promote the interests of, people who already have plenty – have more than enough to live good lives – and who resent the contribution they have to make to society (because, as I had to explain to a “taxation is theft!!!” troll, we have democracy. We elect governments to pass laws, and you don’t get to opt out of them just because you’re selfish and narrow-minded.)

But this simply isn’t how the vast majority of human beings work. Look at the way lower/middle-income people give higher proportions of their income to charities, or give up their time to help local organisations. Look at the cultural importance we place on welcoming people, on hospitality, on caring for those who are more vulnerable. It’s not a bland calculation of disbursing surplus resources to guarantee returns. Many people who give their time and money to charity are struggling themselves, but are driven by wanting to support and care for others in even worse positions.

In contrast, politicians like David Seymour (who really has no grounds to complain about “net taxpayers” given where his pay comes from) belong to a bizarre fringe group who treat all human interactions as a cut-throat business negotiation: “what am I getting out of this? Where is the return on investment for this small talk?” This is not normal.

He must be great fun on dates.

People like Seymour don’t understand what a community is, so they refuse to see the benefits we all reap from supporting each other. They look at it like: I don’t have kids. Why should my taxpayer dollars go towards schools?

Because a well-educated population is happier and healthier and more stable and less likely to fall into goddamned fascism, that’s why.

That’s what betrays them as defenders of greed. It’s not ~enlightened self-interest~ or whatever marketing slogan they’re using these days. A strong civil society is in everyone’s self-interest! Whatever “extra” or “net” tax I pay is being returned to me in the ability to turn on my tap and drink clean water, or have proper roads for the bus to drive on to get me to work in the morning, or know that the food I buy for lunch is safe to eat.

It’s no surprise a lot of people buy into the idea that ~greed is good~ – that’s what decades of capitalist/neoliberal propaganda will do to you. But if there is a “natural state” of humanity, it is not the cold, jealous, suspicious attitude which the David Seymours of the world hold up as an ideal.

The right know this. That’s one of the reasons the ACT Party is still alive, aside from allowing National to distort the rightwing vote share in Parliament to hold on to power. ACT provide an excuse to National to bring in policies of greed like charter schools or letting property developers build slums on conservation land (just not in Epsom, because #epsomvalues). National knows it has to pretend to be friendly and relaxed and “just like Labour, only with a few tax cuts!”, because not even 1% of people vote for greed when it’s marketed honestly.

Tax is awesome. Greed is ugly. Let’s make that the conversation for 2017.

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We can fight this horrible darkness

Something a bit more inspiring for your Monday: images from the weekend’s airport protests across the United States, where hundreds of ordinary people turned out to voice their opposition to the Trump administration’s brutal, unfair immigration ban:

refugee-airport-protest

More at The Guardian; further reporting from Al Jazeera. Unfortunately some organisations like Uber chose to be on the wrong side of the resistance – and their subsequent backdown shows they know it.

Together, we can resist this. Ordinary people coming together and making a scene and standing up to the powerful and donating what time and resources and spoons we can and remembering to look out for each other. Love trumps hate. Trite but true.

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The other war of the polls

The Dominion Post has been given access to two polls telling slightly different stories about the Wellington mayoral race:

Two polls conducted in the past week have revealed Wellington’s mayoral race to be a three-way dogfight between Justin Lester, Nick Leggett and Jo Coughlan – but both polls tell different tales of how the election may play out.

Methodology nerds, sharpen your pencils, I guess?

Lester’s poll targeted “likely voters” – people who voted in the past two elections and would likely do so again this year. The poll commissioned by Leggett’s team quizzed eligible voters.

Leggett’s poll was conducted by Curia, David Farrar’s outfit. I’d assume they deliberately left the net wide to deliver the result their client wanted – I’ve eyerolled at more than enough of the surveys they’ve done for Family First, with questions quite clearly worded to deliver the kinds of “sex is terrible, gay people are evil, bring back draconian morality laws” headlines Bob McCoskrie likes to put on his press releases.

Lester’s poll could be equally flawe. But the ultimate conclusion – that it’s all going to come down to second and third preferences – means things are running as intended. That’s what I like about a preferential voting system. You don’t always get your perfect choice for candidate, but the collective, together, get the choice that pleases the most people overall.

Phil Goff probably wouldn’t be looking so secure of the Auckland mayoralty if Aucklanders weren’t burdened with good old First Past the Post – and because I’m a democrat, I have to say I think that would be a good thing, even though with the current field it would probably mean the Right would triumph with their stable of terrible, incoherent candidates.

If there’s a weakness in the current lineup of Wellington likelies, it’s that the odds seem stacked against outsiders. Practically everyone running for mayor is either currently on council or has been. The front-runners are the current Deputy Mayor, who has a major party behind him; a sitting Councillor, who unofficially has an even bigger political party behind her; and the Mayor of a neighbouring city, with a warchest big enough to have his face plastered onto every available surface in the CBD (though apparently not enough to get humble hoardings out to the northern suburbs?)

I long for a Chlöe Swarbrick kind of run – and in Wellington she’d have a much better shot. Maybe in 2019 …

Voting papers get delivered shortly. If you want to support some local campaigns that could make a real difference, might I suggest signing up to Our Democracy at together.org.nz?

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Nobody is entitled to votes

I caught the tail-end of a conversation on Twitter yesterday about the presidential primaries in the US, and the mathematical impossibility of Bernie Sanders winning the Democratic nomination.

The case was being made (by New Zealanders, though I’m sure the same conversation was happening bigger and louder in the States) that given Bernie “cannot” win at this point, he should withdraw and instruct his supporters to back Clinton.

I don’t think it’s coincidence that the people saying this were Clinton supporters. And I doubt they’d be saying the same of her if the situation were reversed. And it’s possible this wouldn’t bug me as much if I weren’t a fan of Sanders myself.

But it does bug me. Not because I dislike Clinton and not (only) because I support Sanders: because it speaks to a ridiculous, undemocratic sense of entitlement from some people of the left which I’ve seen far too often.

I get where it comes from. We all fervently believe we’re on the side of good, we all have a firm conviction that if we ran the world things would be rainbows and sunshine every day. And god it’s frustrating to see things go bad because the other team are in power instead. It feels like if there were any justice in the world, our team would always win every election in a landslide.

But to be a real democrat, to believe that democracy is the best way to choose who leads our government, requires a degree of humility. Knowing that you have to put the work in. You have to convince others of the merits of your case. You don’t make the decision: they do. Sometimes it’s not the one you want.

It’s not just about the principle. When politicians start thinking they deserve votes – from women, or union members, or people of colour, or young people – when they take that support for granted, everyone suffers. When a progressive party starts to assume, e.g. “we’ve always been good for women”, and stops actually being good for women, women aren’t obliged to keep voting for a party that’s harming them. And they may find it insulting to be told, “don’t you understand we’re your only option, because back in the day we did good things for you?”

To be a real progressive is to understand progress requires momentum. We can’t rest on our laurels and expect people to ignore present-day oppression and focus on historic victories, unless we are actively building on those victories.

We are not entitled to anyone’s vote. And if we aren’t giving people a reason to vote for us, it’s not their fault. It’s ours. This applies as much to Hillary having to go into a contested convention as it does to the UK Labour Party’s routing in Scotland or the continued “missing million” thorn in the side of the New Zealand left or any number of other examples.

If you believe in democracy, you do not fear a fairly contested election. So if you’re a (d)emocrat and you’re advocating that Bernie should just give up now, I have one question: what are you afraid of?

The response is often “it’ll hurt her campaign against Trump because something something BernieBros.” This is the hard bit about holding democratic principles: if people vote Trump because they’re bitter about losing the nomination, or just sexist douchebags, that’s awful. But we don’t disenfranchise people for being bitter, sexist douchebags.

Besides, Donald Trump is a repugnant human being who trades on fear and bigotry, so that’s another question: why would it not be easy for Clinton, if she’s such a good candidate, the demographics favour her, and her record is so strong, to defeat him?

Sanders has won huge support, even if it’s not enough, despite being a terrifying radical (at least in the US context). And I see a lot of overlap between the Clinton fans who want an uncontested convention and the “centrists” who so frequently say we need to meet people where they are or find out voters want in order to appeal to them. So I have another question: why doesn’t that apply when “where the people are” is a step to your left?

~

A note on “fairly contested elections”: no system is perfect, but let’s be really honest here, there is very little fairness in US elections or primaries. Let’s talk about voter registration, voter ID laws, or the fact that the superdelegate system which guarantees a Clinton victory was created specifically to stymie the will of the ordinary Democratic Party member, loooooooooong before we complain that Bernie Sanders has the gall to keep campaigning.