The Political Season

So we are entering the political season - primary here in Kansas, but things have started to  bubble up all over the country.  What do you make of the campaign literature that has been or has begun to filter into your mailbox?

I for one see nothing but propaganda - an "anti-Idea" message with pictures (no doubt the sound will come soon).  What I would love to see is, in the candidate's words his basic approach to politics, his constituency and life in general and where politics and life intersect.  This is not a novel - maybe 10 short points about what they actually feel about issues (and not the issues that we are fed to be concerned about).

So this is the first salvo in the Washington Movement - plains words that deal with attitudes, philosophy and approach to their desired political roles.

Ground Rule for the Washington Movement

"This isn’t just a rhetorical point. It is commonly and accurately observed that no one in the U.S. Congress really deliberates anymore. Congressional “debate” amounts to a series of talking points aimed not at colleagues but at activist audiences, who are perfectly happy to punish a legislator who deviates from their agenda as a result of deliberation or the acquisition of greater knowledge. This leads then to bureaucratic mandates written by interest groups that restrict bureaucratic autonomy."

can't attribute, but is on target for the current state of affairs.

Ground Rule #1 (there are only 10)
You must be able to read and employ the skill of reading for all legislation put before your governing body.  All legislative bills, amendments, actions, call to order etc., must be read. Once read, debated.  If there are no merits to debate then the proposed material does not belong in the assembly's action agenda.

This rule is the perfect antidote to excessive legislating as well as an over-enthusiastic staff and corresponding office holders.  If you can't or haven't read it, you don't know what's in it and that isn't representative governing. 

It's a modern form of blindness.

Small beginnings

Its a start, but we have to begin again. The Washington Movement is not a bad approach to restoring a sense of perspective to politics, the government (at state and federal levels), and the process that engulfs the public.

The Washington Movement Defined

The Washington Movement was initially founded back in 1840 and was an abstinence organization that, at its inception, looked a lot like a more modern-day Alcoholics Anonymous.

This newly form movement by the same name has nothing to do with this earlier precursor except in its name.
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With the Washington movement proposes to do is form the foundation for a growing disenfranchisement of the current political party apparatus.  We want to test.  What will we test? Candidate's ideas and politics, their political ecosystem and their votes and affiliation.  How will we model our testing criteria:  by using as our model one of the most disinterested political characters in Western political history/theory – George Washington.

Of the founders, he was one of the few to be commercially successful and died leaving a legacy to his heirs without debt.  Additionally he was the only founder to free his slaves at his death and struggled with this decision throughout the last quarter of his life – not questioning the rightness of it but fearing for the success of the revolution.

He was meticulous in his concern for maintaining a arm's-length distance from the policies and politics he would eventually oversee and went to great lengths to provide a respectable gap between policy and his own self-enrichment.

The Washington Movement in 2013 recognizes that this is not 1776.  However, the many poorly informed commentaries about modern politics as being somehow out of alignment with an earlier more agreeable golden age of public policy wherein legislators saw eye to eye on many divisive issues is simply wrong.  And yet a man like Washington somehow managed to bridge what today appears to be a chasm.

Our goal then will be to reintroduce the concept of disinterestedness into the modern political sphere in the hopes of capturing a plurality of politicians whose imagination, morality, and ethics can be engaged.

dis·in·ter·est·ed

 adjective \-təd\

: not influenced by personal feelings, opinions, or concerns

: having no desire to know about a particular thing : not interested

We will not limit this concept to people elected to office, but instead seek to make efforts to inform the greater population of the potential of non-full-time politicians, competent and informed who seek to positively impact the public arena without fulfilling career ambitions in that same arena.


If you're interested, join us by initially re-blogging this post or liking it or tweeting at or just tell your friends about it so that we can they begin to generate interest and enthusiasm in the concept.