Politics without Politicians?

According to Wikipedia, politics is the "the process by which groups of people make collective decisions".  Why is it then, that when I visit The New York Times Politics section, most of the articles are about politicians? The top three headlines in todays' NYT Politics section: "Gingrich push on healthcare appears at odds with GOP",  "As Romney steps quietly, Gingrich duels with others", "Huckabee gets star treatment on return to Iowa". Of the ten main headlined articles in the section, at least six deal with personalities more than politics. Today is no different than any other day in this regard. In much of the media,  political reporting is treated as either celebrity or sports reporting - Who said what about who? Who is winning and who is losing? Whose style is more appealing? and so on.

Politics has been reduced to this sad state partly because we have delegated our collective decision making to a small group (the professional politicians) which has developed into its own society with internal rules and conventions. If you want to join this group, you have to follow the rules and conventions to succeed, and so the society of professional politicians perpetuates itself, often to the detriment of society as a whole.

Were corrupt politicians like Jacques Chirac and Rod Blagojevich products of a political society that lends itself to corruption, or were they corrupt before becoming politicians and saw politics as a way to maximize their "take"? In the end it doesn't matter. Chirac and Blagojevich are just the latest in a long series of corrupt politicians, and the honest politicians who try to change the structure of the society of professional politicians find it difficult to impossible and often end up disillusioned and become outsiders in the political system.

The Canadian charitable organization Samara, which studies citizen engagement in Canadian Democracy, recently released a report "The Real Outsiders: Politically Disengaged Views on Politics and Democracy". It is interesting reading, and they sum up the feelings of many disillusioned citizens with a quote "Democracy's great: its politics I hate".  When you read the report, it is clear that it is the politicians that are hated, while the ideals of Democracy as still valued (check out the word clouds).

Suppose it was possible to achieve the ideals of Democracy: freedom, accountability, human rights, fairness, transparency, equality and so on,  without having the professional politicians which have failed us in so many ways. I say it is possible with Ikanocracy. If you haven't already, please read my paper on Ikanocracy (link at the top of this blog), and if you agree, help spread the word.