LET'S PREHEND applies human ecology and culture design to outline an organic political party. Let's call it the LETS PARTY.

The reconstruction of organic political life, ROPL, involves increasing the quantity, Ei, and health, Ai, of democracy. Consider these several factors:

Adequacy of government, democratic or not, is a foundation for developed and healthy culture, an E chart measure from Fig 6-1, p.?. The degree of responsibility of the government is a major issue in politics. Simply stated, the conservatives see government as intrusive and incompetent and prefer a decrease in most government functions, except those involved with police and military, increasingly necessary to support the disparity in wealth. In contrast, the progressives want government to maintain public health welfare and to protect the public from special interests.

The objectivist position is called "omnist" (p.99). Omnism means total responsibility for basic needs, but also for the higher needs of individual and culture. Whether conservative or progressive, every act of government effects the entire society. Therefore, government as well as every citizen carries infinite responsibility - like it or not, accept it or not.

Starting at the bottom, citizens need to know what they are voting for and why. Political adequacy, Ei, measures more than personal attention and adequate information. Face to face communication on the issues of the day are necessary to understand what's going on. Therefore, a grass-roots organization that meets regularly and discusses issues in breath and depth is crucial. SUSTAINABLE LUXURY, LIBERTYVILLE, WARD SYSTEM, suggest ways to support such political activity as part of everyday life. At best LETS PARTY rests upon small groups in their community. But given the lack of community in modern culture, the gathering of interested people may suffice. People must be free to not participate, and not feel guilty.

This grass roots citizens group, called a GRASS, might well be the sized most efficient at communicating, a quasi-clan size. Its informal roots might well be the extended family at home, but since people increasingly live in isolation or minuscule families, a ROOTS, quasi-extended family group under GRASS might provide temporary sustenance, both politically and psycho-culturally. ROOTs provide the elemental human understanding that supports the whole democratic system. People are always invited to understand, but are free to stay stupid.

Each ROOT selects one member to join the next level up, the GRASS. GRASSes meet regularly to hash over the issues from the higher levels and concerns from the lower levels.

The next level up, call it the BUSH, also meets regularly. Thus the ROOT representative who is also a GRASS rep and BUSH rep spends considerable time at meetings of all three groups. The problem becomes worse up the hierarchy of groups, TWIGs, BRANCHes, TRUNKs, finally up into the WOODs, the FORESTs, whatever these groups are called. At these levels, face to face communications are augmented with electronic channels. Fortunately the new media make this system feasible, raising the adequacy of communications up to the complexity of modern society.

Since most socio-cultural process go unnoticed in the great political subconscious, only those issues that are raised to consciousness get attention. Therefore, democracy requires that the content of mass media match the complexity of the culture, avoiding the problems discussed in JELLY AND JAM, p.261.

This Ei coherence means that the top level of the party, call it the ECO, will focus a profound overview of the human condition, an infinitely responsive readiness, a broadly and deeply adequate program, and a coherent and understandable presentation. That is the function of high Ei leadership. Such a high level of discourse can exist only if grown organically up and down the i scale of the system.

One need not and cannot predict the details or levels of this organization. Most likely, the people who rise in the system are selected by people who know them, and who trust and respect them. The problem of the strange that permeates abstract culture is alleviated by this structure.

Formal structure, that compulsion of abstraction that infests the western tradition with rationalist-idealist rigidity, is neither needed nor wanted, especially on the lower levels. If GRASS ROOTS levels cannot make up their minds when to meet or who represents them, perhaps it is better that they fuss over who pays for the tea and cookies. What better way to help the average traumatized citizen to relax, perhaps later to move beyond their infantile isolation toward dealing with weightier matters.

The media, including the ubiquitous internet, offers infinite channels to go over the heads of the ROOTs groups with a variety of concerns and grievances. We can expect a lively community of discourse to develop, wide ranging and inclusive. The border between political matters and broader human concerns will fade.

As the organic political organism develops, formal and rigid patterns will recede. The operating structure, influenced by the extreme complexity and versatility of the new media, will also become a pulsating organic mass, quite unlike the abstract rationalist structure the present politics presents. Gradually organic organization on various levels will displace abstract structures in unpredictable ways. The RIDLYs may freak out and demand what they call `order' but what is really disorder. No problem. They will be offered good jobs.

The problems of the culture will be resolved at the lowest possible level. Conflicts will `subside' downward to the local level. This is Robert Leach's principle of subsidiarity, SUB, p.252. For example, bad behavior is a problem for those immediately involved. Only an impasse can drive a problem up to a higher level. Currently the ancient skills of conflict resolution are reviving and will gradually displace the adversarial system.

Obnoxious people, OOPs (p.233), will always be with us. Each of us has mischief, sometimes referred to as `sin from our origins'. The more organic the culture, the more likely the reform. Naughty people are best handled by their friends and relations, not by the prison system currently reaching new heights of hopelessness. As one woman from a Navaho culture commented about a lad gone bad, "He acts as though he had no family." "*It takes a village to raise a child", and to keep him straight.

The abstract mind cowers in fear at such a prospect, distorting organic complexity into an image of amorphous mass. Their denial ideology protects them from awareness of their own complex conspiracy. RIDLYs project their own fascistic images onto the other, expecting oppression and disorder to feed their paranoia. Their strident demand for freedom will be exposed as a victor's demand to exploit the vanquished. (WE, p.242) As the culture busies itself with unpredictable complex and organized activity, the RIDLYs will be left in isolation, until they choose to participate.

The many who choose to be loners, pursuing their own bliss, as Joseph *Campbell puts it, will be supported and protected in ways they may never recognize. Most citizens will acknowledge that loners are often responsible for the highest of human accomplishments.

As the competence and quality of management improves enough to maintain a sustainable high culture, details that we now consider political will wither away. The petty squabbles and ingenious spins that now dominate political life will be handled at the ROOTs level where they belong. Those political primitives unable to enjoy this level are free to live politic-free lives, like the majority of present day citizens. These barely human creatures will lead happier and richer lives, even if they never experience the political joy of a ROOTs meeting, even if they never comprehend their good fortune and how it all happens.

The platform of the LETS PARTY is pervasive and implicit. Stated simply the purpose of the LETS PARTY is "... to fix what's broken and make life better." Translated, that means "... to increase the Ai an Ei of the human ecosystem."

Democracy does not mean a sampling of subjective whims, no matter how well informed. That is infantile subjectivism. It does not mean a balance of powers or the interest of the majority. That is politically primitive process.

The details of the platform are worked out in the usual objectivist method, similar to the scientific method but not as reductionist. The platform includes statements of what's so (human ecology) and what's to be done (culture design). Platform groups, both face to face and electronic, then chew, digest and assimilate. This process continues as the program develops and details are worked out. Disagreements are handled in the usual scientific way. The new theory must include the old, the context must be created to include all concerned. Unresolved disagreements must not be rejected and rarely postponed. Instead, disagreements are a crucial contribution to be diagnosed to the satisfaction of all concerned, including those who adamantly disagree.

Transition to ECO government is simple. It just grows, like Topsy, and gradually and harmoniously displaces what is currently called `government', which evolves and transcends as described in FUTURE, p.348.

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