{"id":1351,"date":"2010-10-25T10:16:53","date_gmt":"2010-10-25T15:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/inside.augsburg.edu\/news\/?p=1351"},"modified":"2010-10-25T10:16:53","modified_gmt":"2010-10-25T15:16:53","slug":"a-preamble-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/2010\/10\/25\/a-preamble-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"A Preamble Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1352\" alt=\"boyte_preamble\" src=\"http:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2013\/04\/boyte_preamble.jpg\" width=\"280\" height=\"185\" \/>Harry C. Boyte is the co-director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg College. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on organizing theory and practice at the University of Minnesota&#8217;s Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and is in demand as a keynote speaker with faculty, students, and professionals.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Americans this election season are in an angry, anxious mood that defies easy labels. As Joel Klein describes in a <em>Time <\/em>cover story based on conversations across the country, &#8220;People told personal stories and made complicated arguments that didn&#8217;t fit neatly into their assigned political categories.&#8221;\u00a0<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>While people worried that the country may be moving toward a &#8220;European style of Big Government,&#8221; they also felt strongly that the unfettered market is no solution. &#8220;The disgraceful behavior of the financial community&#8230;was the issue that raised the most passion.&#8221; The financial crisis has led &#8220;more than a few people to question their own values and those of their neighbors.&#8221; Frank Rich echoed this insight on October 24 in the <em>New York Times<\/em>. &#8220;So many know that the loftiest perpetrators of this national devastation got get-out-of fail free cards [and] that the too-big-to-fail banks have grown bigger.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It is worth recalling that in 2008, we elected a president whose message was &#8220;Yes we can,&#8221; based on the idea that large changes require a process of civic action far beyond what government alone can accomplish. He had learned a philosophy of civic agency\u2014that we all must become agents of change\u2014from his days as a community organizer. &#8220;I&#8217;m asking you not only to believe in my ability to make change; I&#8217;m asking you to believe in yours,&#8221; read the campaign website. Civic agency infused the campaign. As Tim Dickinson put it in <em>Rolling Stone<\/em>, &#8220;The goal is not to put supporters to work but to enable them to put themselves to work without having to depend on the campaign for constant guidance.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This message resembles the Preamble to the Constitution: &#8220;We the People&#8221; establish government as the instrument of our work, &#8220;<em>to form a more perfect Union, establish justice&#8230;promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty&#8230;&#8221;<\/em> Citizens sensed then\u2014and perhaps we all know even better now\u2014that it will require a Preamble movement if we are to revitalize a strong sense of citizenship and ourselves as citizens, not complainers or customers of government. Only citizens can recall that government is &#8220;us,&#8221; not an alien &#8220;other,&#8221; the resource and meeting ground for our common work.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Harry C. Boyte is the co-director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg College. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on organizing theory and practice at the University of Minnesota&#8217;s Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and is in demand as a keynote speaker with faculty, students, and professionals. Americans this election &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[540,609,1195,1237,2328,2329,3089],"class_list":["post-1351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-center-for-democracy-and-citizenship","tag-citizenship","tag-government","tag-harry-c-boyte","tag-preamble","tag-preamble-movement","tag-we-the-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1351\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}