Whose party is it? I am fine with having only registered Democrats there. But, what is your idea of "the party?"

A lot of people, eh? Every conversation I have had that deals with the ward system, like say, the article on ward leaders in the City Paper that we wrote and people responded to, acknowledges that there are good and bad ward leaders.

Paulmier, my least favorite person in the world, says his meetings are open. I would take his word on that.

I don't know if the 9th ward (Chestnut Hill) is open, but they (and their ward leader, John O'Connell) are known for being extremely Democratic in how they do things. Someone with more knowledge than me can say whether that process proceeded John or not.

My point is that you are creating straw men and envisioning scary malcontents to advocate for a system that is broken, and failing the people of Philadelphia.

And, if saying the meetings of elected officials should be open to their constituents makes people suspicious, then they are in the wrong field.

The sergeant-at-arms part, or letting people come and assuming/understanding that they can sit politely?

Ben,

No one likes to be in a fight with one UA, let alone two. A UA gang-up normally makes me want to join the opposite team, but on this topic, Dan and Alex are justified. The ward system in our city Democratic party was formed by people not power players. You say you don't see the system changing with "outside pressure," well I am no outsider, I am a registered Democrat in the City of Philadelphia which makes me a member of the party and therefore a stakeholder in the system.

Lou says we need to thank City Committee for electoral victories in this state. I disagree: we need to thank Democratic city voters. It's true that City Committee has been a structure dedicated to turn out in general elections, but its power, as a whole, has been on the decline over the past few cycles and the only way to reverse that is to throw the doors to the system open and welcome more volunteers from the base membership of the party into meaningful and useful tasks to turn out votes and improve public policy.

As you well know Ben, I have thought about my rights as a member of the party carefully and i have chosen the path of least resistance to affect change by working outside of the party. However, I am entitled to my opinion about how and why the party should change and I do have the right to act on that opinion, as a member of the party, if I chose.

Ben, to be very clear, the reason anyone is fighting with you at all is that you are acting strangely in the view of those who have known you and talked to you and watched your writing over the past two years. You specifically really threw me for a loop with this:

However, I think that providing a list of grievances on a website and attacking the few ward leaders that do engage with us is counterproductive. If people want the ward system to change, they should run for committee person. If they don't want to run for committee person, they should join/form organizations that are seeking to build an alternative.

a-No one attacked any ward leader who runs an open ward.

b-You have a blog post still on the recent posts sidebar entitled "who is in charge of this mess" where you provide a list of grievances on a website.

c-Most importantly, you are seriously proposing that rank and file Democratic party members should only have a say over the way their ward is run by running and becoming a committee person? You seriously mean that? Seriously?

I'm sorry Ben, I know you too well to think you mean all that stuff.

Having recently been declared a member of "Philly for the Machine" by a blogger named "marioaver" who, for some odd reason, has a writing style that is strikingly similar to another blogger, who may or may not be connected with a campaign, I have to say--I think continuously raging against City Committee is about as fruitful as my trying to teach my dog to read.

My own experiences have actually been pretty good--here in the 2nd Ward and with the "machine" (whatever that means--honestly, I see a number of them here in Philly (does anyone really think Johnny Doc or Chaka is not a part of the or a machine???)), in general. That is why, it is important to remember, the DCC is a party--not a govermnent. Sure, there may be a monoploy in town, but this is what it is. The best way to fix it is to join it. Run for committee person in 2010.

Lou, are you really the most criticized ward leader in the city? (I would have thought that honor belonged to some of the less-well-thought-of councilpeople, many of whom are also ward leaders. Carol Campbell comes to mind.)

You've been criticized, but on this blog, criticism should be a point of pride -- it shows that people are listening to what you're saying. And I like that public officials and party officers get criticized to the same degree as campaign hacks and citizens who like to run their mouths. It all feels rather dignified. And I suspect that's probably part of the reason you continue to engage the group.

I think the union rep/committeeperson analogy is probably the best one, and it seems like you do too. I assume you also feel like you represent the Democrats in your division the same way? Do they often ask about or attend ward meetings? Do you keep them posted on what goes on there? (I'm genuinely interested, not trying to accuse.)

I wouldn't want to run for committeeperson, because 1) since I've never been informed of a meeting or allowed to attend, I genuinely don't know what meetings are like and 2) everything you've said suggests that the political part of it isn't a terribly good job. The people part, I like. And I've seen good committeepeople in action. I don't live in your ward, otherwise I would come to your meeting. Thank you for the invitation. I think all the ward leaders should make it to their committeepeople's constituents.

Like you, sitting at a computer is the easiest part of my day. The rest of it I'm teaching, grading papers, prepping lessons, meeting with students, foraging through bookstacks, and reading, reading, reading. So this, this is nice for me; glad it's nice for you, too.

P.S.: The best bet is to cut-and-paste into a word processor and spellcheck there, then paste it back. I don't think there's a built-in spellcheck feature.

Lou, I'm not sure how your family will react to your not being around on Thanksgiving, but consider this an official invitation.

Now, nobody at the table will be elected into the family, nor can anyone be voted out (I've tried numerous times to oust Dan, but so far the rest of the fam hasn't seen the light). But you are more than welcome to come eat with us at our table, espescially since it seems like it would mean so much to you.

I work for Damon K. Roberts in his run for City Council. Unless otherwise stated this and every comment by myself is the opinion of myself, and not of Damon or any other candidate, organization, committee, etc.

Watching meetings is not running the party.

And, you don't really care about party affiliation, right? It doesn't mean anything to you, and you switch back and forth so you can vote in different primaries? Well, it means something to me, and I think it means something to most people on here. And I think that is where a difference lies.

for a status quo of nonparticipation in representative democracy.

This isn't about good and bad ward leaders, and I would usually avoid this sort of thread except inasmuch as there are discussions of pumpkin pie.

But I don't get how there can be so much back and forth that ignores the connection between the reality of widespread non-participation and non-caring and the real potential of the committee/ward system to be affect that.

The other side of what Ben was mock-called out for saying--that the ward system is possibly a model of participatory democracy--is that this could be true. It's local politics on the most local (block-by-block) level. And even if no one really cares now (and I don't know if it is no one, or if we should be making the sort of "yay for tyranny of the majority" arguments that Raideradam has been), open meetings can lead to incremental increases in interest and involvement, not least because as a couple people start attending and watching they will be better informed and can spread that increased knowledge through informal and formal communications systems.

You can't care about something when you don't know it exists.

Anyway, I never registered Democratic until I moved to Philadelphia. I was a registered Independent, because the current party system rubs the wrong way against almost everything I believe in. But as a mechanism for involvement in government and policy in the city where I live, I think it is definitely worthwhile to engage with the Democratic Party and as a member I would certainly want access to representatives, meetings, and information.

But while discussion of constructive versus non-constructive engagement (or people arguing whether we should piss off Lou Agre or not) is valid, you have to understand that engagement with the party is not for everyone an end in itself. People like Ray and Brady have done tons of work in movements outside the party structure, and each have their own idea of how and how much you should engage or participate within it.

Jennifer