Taking Back Ownership: Yes, We Can
Dave Winer and Baratunde say exactly what I’ve been trying to articulate in inarticulate ways.
Dave:
The money to pay for the war came from somewhere. As it has for many Americans who borrowed against the equity in their homes, there must be a day of reckoning for our economy as a whole. We’ve been charging our collective lifestyle, this luxury of an occupation of Iraq which is a lousy investment for the American taxpayer (where’s the return?) but a great investment for Bush, Cheney and friends in the oil and defense industries. We won’t know how much money Bush gets after he leaves office and becomes a private citizen, but I bet he becomes a billionaire from kickbacks he gets from selling us out. This is a tax, and it’s our future they have been spending.
Baratunde:
Money rules the world. If the money is increasingly from the people, then we have a shot at actually getting a seat at the table. It’s not just talk. It’s not just promises. It’s the real deal.
And just now, this Tweet from Amy Gahran on something completely unrelated and yet completely related:
You get a better sense of who your community is and how to serve them when you bring them into your project.
When I was about six, postal rates went up and I remember asking my mom what the big deal was about a penny. At six, I understood that one penny bought just about nothing. Mom pointed out to me that my penny by itself bought nothing, but when millions of people put their pennies alongside mine, it added up to millions of dollars. So simple, yet as Dave says, we’ve allowed the framing of the penny to be placed in negative terms when it shouldn’t be. This was the point of my post earlier this week on the inevitability of taxes.
This is more than a question of taxes and finance, though. It’s about leadership. One million people have a stake in Obama’s nomination by way of donation. As Baratunde points out, that model, the small-donor model, gives ownership of our governance back to those who are governed, and puts us on a platform to be heard. You can see it already. I don’t believe that Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic caucus in the House would have been nearly so resolute about standing up and letting the Protect America Act expire if they hadn’t felt empowered by what they were seeing in terms of action, donations, turnout, and attention to this primary campaign. For some inexplicable reason, it wasn’t enough to give them the majority in 2006 without also lifting them with the power of our collective voices.
This election is a turning-point. Whatever the outcome, the electorate is learning to speak and speak powerfully, one penny at a time.
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