Progressive Values Stories: Jim Dean on Responsibility and Participation

There are stories galore in our community.  I mean, DFA – if nothing else – is about helping and supporting people to take leadership positions in politics, whether it’s running for school board, or it’s getting on a town committee, or whether it’s running for higher office.

There are stories galore here in California – I can tell you right now – I just ran into a gentleman from San Diego – Charlie Ames is his name – he’s a member of our community, but more than anything else, he’s on our rules committee of the California Democratic Party. 

He’s has to learn a lot, he’s had to deal with a lot of stuff that he probably didn’t know too much about when he first got in there, but he’s able to effect change because of his presence there, and his beliefs that the voters are driving the process. There are hundreds of stories like that. 

Edwin:  What about you personally, in your life – is it from your family?  How did you personally develop your sense of responsibility?

ANSWER:  Actually, it didn’t start well.  I was asked to go phone bank for Lindsay when I was 14 with my other older brother, Charlie.  And he gave me a list of people who were from the outer boroughs of Manhattan – who hadn’t seen a snow plow all winter.  And Charlie took the list of names from Manhattan that had been receiving all the city services under the Lindsay Administration.

So, I was calling all these people.  They weren’t happy to hear from me.  They weren’t particularly enamored with Mayor Lindsay because of the way he had handled some of the snow emergencies in New York that winter. 

So I learned a lot of new words that day.  I kind of went back and licked my wounds for about five years.  I got back into it afterwards working on some campaigns.  I worked very hard on Howard’s campaign for lieutenant governor in 1986.

I was in the private sector between then and 2006, but always I tried either to raise money or get involved.  Because it’s just very rewarding.  There are a lot of different stories that happened along the way, but really the success is being part of an effort to take over the political culture.

You have the election of the lieutenant governor Vermont as being part of that.

Edwin:  Getting involved in his campaign, you kind of took responsibility.

ANSWER:  Yeah, and it’s not easy to do that if you’ve got a different job, and you’ve got a family, and people you love and take care of.  We’re all pretty busy folks.  The fact that all these people are here at this convention really speaks to that more than anything else – citizens’ commitments to get involved. 

These delegates are not party professionals.  For the most part, they are people who work other jobs, who have other lives that they have to deal with.  And we need to keep getting more and more of those folks involved.

From Wikipedia - Participatory Democracy
Participatory democracy is a process emphasizing the broad participation (decision making) of constituents in the direction and operation of political systems. While etymological roots imply that any democracy would rely on the participation of its citizens (the Greek demos and kratos combine to suggest that "the people rule"), traditional representative democracies tend to limit citizen participation to voting, leaving actual governance to politicians.

See More Progressive Values Stories:
I am working on a documentary to answer the question, What are Progressive Values? and to articulate the Failed Conservative Values. So far, I have interviewed over 200 progressives and have placed over 450 video clips on YouTube with the various replies.  This is part of a continuing series of interviews of progressives telling their personal stories about their progressive values.  
 

Edwin Rutsch
What Are Progressive Values? Documentary Project
ProgressiveSpirit.com 
and Study Group

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