A People’s Ball Preview Please
March 13, 2008
The Nation recently put out an article called The People’s Ball, a vision of Obama’s inauguration, where he would plan events for the thousands of people that would come to his inauguration in D.C. At these events, people would organize, hold meanings and discuss the future. Von Hoffman, the article’s author, calls this would-be organization a ”permanent, democratically self-governing, political-social organizational entity of a new and unique character.”
It sounds genuinely exciting to me, and it should be to all people of all parties. But it recently occurred to me that if Obama were to have some kind of preview of this event, say at one of his rallies in North Carolina, then Clinton and company could no longer say that he is all rhetoric. Workshops on how to build networks, how to hold debates, how to approach contentious issues in a practical manner, how to eliminate corruption and so on. Imagine it. Wouldn’t you be excited about being at this kind of event with other people who want to change politics in the US?
