Well, I suppose five months is a pretty long respite, especially when it's after a mere 4 blog entries of scant length, dubious merit and indeterminate impact. (Well, probably determinate and zero or close to it).
As days go by and we have long passed the five year anniversary of the Bush coup and my rather rude awakening to things I had been made aware of but ignored for so long, I can't help but try to make sense of what the hell's going on and why. And, to my mind, the problem can't devolve to the actions of a handful of persons... no it's much more deep-rooted and widespread. DailyKos today had a diary which mentioned the work of Jamison Foser on the atrophying of the free press. (Links here and here). But there's another level, the cultural level, the sociological level, perhaps even the psycho-historical level, if one likes to think Hari Seldon's discipline legitimate. The question, in my mind, is what historical chain of events created the conditions which made our current impasse possible (particularly considering that so much has gone wrong with the US, otherwise the most free and enlightened society (and no, I won't entertain arguments on that--it's too easy)), and what strategy must one pursue in order to bring us out of our own dark age?
If you're in the biz biz, then you've probably run across John Kotter's Leading Change at some point in the last 10 years. If not, download the article from HBS Review's website--it's worth the $6.00 USD--or buy the book. Kotter researched the experiences of a number of organizations in implementing change, and used his data (and anecdotal evidence) to derive a (somewhat arbitrary perhaps) list of 8 characteristics which seemed to be essential for significant (i.e. not gradual and incremental) change to not only occur, but to take root and become the established foundation of a 'new' organizational culture.
I'm not going to go into all the details at this point--the article (8 pp) is short enough and well written--but you have probably already experienced some of the impact it's had. For instance, factor number 1 is "a sense of urgency". Look at corporate change initiatives, heck, look at any significant corporate initiative (even the corporate takeover of the US and the invasion of Iraq) and you will see clear PR designed to create a sense of urgency around their desired goals. A perfect example in the US was Bush's attempt to deal with Social Security "reform" by trying to convince Americans that change was required immediately in order to avert a catastrophe. Only problem is that Karl Rove didn't read enough of what Kotter suggested. Kotter's point was not that all such initiatives had to be driven by anxiety, fear and uncertainty, but that they needed to be urgent enough to make everyone recognize the priority of dealing with them. Bush's "War on Terror" and invasion of Iraq made it difficult to convince anyone that Social Security reform was really more urgent. And now there are far too many catastrophes that have already taken place to convince anyone that nebulous potential catastrophes 50 years distant are even worth thinking about.
The point is, Kotter provides a blueprint for implementing, enabling and entrenching change. It is less a high-level strategy and more of a series of tactics. This makes it ideal for those "caught in the middle" who must help others to change while struggling to understand it themselves, as well as those who design change initiatives. It seems to me that this is an approach that those of us opposed to the powers that be need to consider, inasmuch as our success will emanate from the changed behaviour of millions of our neighbours, brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers, not from preaching to the choir. This can seem manipulative, but it really is no more than anything else. If we can't find a way to change the views of our neighbours about some pretty profound problems facing us, we won't have much left in the not-too-distant future.
And the last point (maybe the only point?) is this: these things can only happen when there is movement and support which comes from the top down, but also engagement and input which goes from the bottom up. Meaning, we need to change the political masters and the politically governed both if we hope to make significant changes in the way our society operates. While we lament the cynicism and corruption of so many in the political class, we often overlook the voters who ultimately help decide who holds the levers of power. Progressive politics can't succeed based only on it's own merits, and we can't change the political culture simply by working to elect different politicians. We need to take Mr. Kotter's prescription for change and figure out how to use it to convince our neighbours that change is needed. Then we need to look at entrenching the results in the new political culture to prevent the same scenario from happening again in our lifetimes at least.
