The Creation of Controversy

I mentioned in my blog post "The Green in Me" that I am doing some work for the DNR on how Minnesota should spend the Legacy funds for parks and trails. We had our first public meeting in Saint Cloud last week. Now when you think of public meetings, what words come to mind? I don't attend public meetings if I can help it, because here are my words: boring, frustrating, waste of time, patronizing, special interests, done deal.

About ninety people showed up in St. Cloud, and a remarkable thing happened (hoped for, to be sure...but you never know). These ninety people rolled up their sleeves and got to work. They shared written responses. They discussed issues at their tables with like-minded, and not-so-like-minded people. They voted. They agreed at their tables on how money should be spent. Take a look at these pictures from the event by David Simpkins of Minnesota Trails Magazine, and there's no denying how seriously participants took their roles as contributors to public decision-making.

There was a young girl at the meeting. She came with her dad and he kept saying that they were going to leave early. But every time dad wanted to go, the young girl wouldn't let him. She was learning at an early age the power of processes that help find common ground.

So, you might argue, that's much easier to do when there's no controversy. Having money to spend is a good problem to have. But on tough issues, the public is poorly behaved and close minded--take a look at the health care town halls.

But what if controversy is created in the way we develop public policy? Prior to the actual health care proposals, people were pretty united on the need for health care reform. Does the act of selecting a specific proposal without public discussion fuel controversy? If a proposal is made about something that people really care about and that proposal does not reflect their interests, of course they are going to be hostile and upset. The proposal puts them in a defensive position, with little to do but complain or fight. At this point they are losing something dear to them, and their minds are not in a particularly generous position to be open to other people's priorities.

Imagine if the DNR had chosen instead to develop a proposal behind closed doors and then shop it around the state in a series of town hall meetings (the typical public process). I think you'd see a lot of controversy. There are actually quite a few different viewpoints about how the money should be spent: motorized trails, local parks, natural resource preservation, horse trails, land acquisition, land acquisition, land acquisition. But because people's priorities are being fed into the proposal development and they have the opportunity to discuss trade-offs with people of differing priorities, there was no controversy at the meeting. Will everyone sing kumbaya when the final proposal is released? Unlikely. But there is no denying that people have a much broader sense of a common mission as a result of being asked to contribute in this way. Here's what participants said when asked for insights from the meeting:

• People came wanting to trumpet their personal projects but left feeling they were involved in something quite bigger.
• I realized I am not as radical as I thought.
• To think "we" and not "me."
• It is fun to disagree and vote.
• Many people are concerned and passionate about our world.
• I was amazed at how serious people were in what they were doing and how they took it all in.
• People are a lot more united on some of these choices.

We have defined leadership as "having the answers." Maybe we need a new definition as someone who works with the public to find the common ground needed to advance the radical changes we need to address our most perplexing challenges: education, the public debt, obesity, poverty, long-term care, social security, climate change, name yours.

you can weigh in on the Legacy Funds at www.citizing.org

Tapping Out

Have you ever watched mixed martial arts or cage fighting? Brutal. There are basically no rules, just to beat the crap out of the other person. Katlin Young from my school, the Minnesota Taekwondo Center, was the first woman ever to be broadcast in a mixed martial arts fight on network t.v. (Katie looks and is really tough, but she's also one of the sweetest people you could ever meet.) She got beat up really bad in this fight, but she didn't "tap out." Tapping out allows you to quit the fight when the pain is so excruciating that you can't go on any longer. You simply tap your hand on your body.

When competitors get in the ring, they are well trained-- and crossed trained. Katie started in taekwondo, but if she has no grappling skills in the ring and gets taken down, it's all over. Imagine what would happen if someone with little physical prowess and skill got put into the ring with Katie. They wouldn't last two seconds.

I'm increasingly picturing our economy and society as a cage fight. Earlier this week I moderated a pair of meetings hosted by the Family Housing Fund and the Northwest Area Foundation about a growing phenomenon: unscrupulous investors buying up homes in neighborhoods and then basically acting like slum landlords. This of course is made possible by all the previous predatory and subprime lending and the resulting spate of foreclosures. A report on this topic with a story by Steve Brandt of the Strib carried a startling fact: black and Latino families have lost an estimated $200 billion in equity in the foreclosure crisis.

I always wondered where the money went. I asked a respected economist this once, and he told me, "There was no money. It was all on paper." But wait a minute. If I hold on to my home and there is no transcation, then yes, my losses cancel my gains. But the foreclosure crisis was brought about by hundreds of thousands of transactions. In each case, the seller could have taken cash home and stuck in under their mattress. There were real money gains and losses involved. And sure enough, as I mentioned in my last blog post, lots of money was made on Wall Street.

And here we come to the uneven cage fight. We want "free" markets, but the problem is that "no rules" is a rule. It's a rule that allows the advantaged to take advantage. Wall Street made money hand over fist, in all sorts of ways. They are trained, have connections to money and power; they can shape markets, and with every transaction make a buck that turns out to be pretty risk free. How does the hard working person with only their measly hourly wage compete against this?

Their only recourse is to tap out. The question is, what happens when there's no one left to tap out?