> ....politicians go to great length to court the right people, propose the
>right legislation, to ensure that they get enough money to win the next
>campaign. This, again, brings us to a near-term view of the political
>process, and impedes, IMO, a systemic approach to government. >>
Bill H. (LO9590, 96-08-29) makes a similar point:
> The cycle of reelection which is pretty short term along with a
>population which really doesn't understand how we got into the various
>messes we are in encourages politicians to do something to make the folks
>who reelected them feel like we are DOING SOMETHING. As most of us would
>agree, cause and effect are not closely related in time and space (Senge,
>5th Disc. p.63) If I am a politician, I want to get credit (votes) for the
>risks I am willing to take while in office. >>
Ben & Bill,
This is a really good point, but I want to highlight the reason for the
short terms of office for congressal representatives: responsiveness to
the electorate. The constitution set the terms for senators at six years
to encourage the kind of long-term, deliberative thinking that you so
rightly hold as important. Unfortunately, this intended effect of the
longer terms seems to be weakening. Actually, probably a more accurate
way to say it is that other forces in the system seem to have gotten
relatively stronger.
The question I come to is: How can our political system best combine a
responsiveness to the electorate with the long-term, systemic thinking we
need to best address problems of governence?
-Jeff (BrooksJeff@AOL.com)
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>