Are you relevant to your government?

David Brooks in today's New York Times examines people's "Quest for Dignity".

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/opinion/01brooks.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

He relies on his years of reporting on popular uprisings and marches in his country, in Egypt today and around the world over the years.

I add to his conclusions by suggesting another important foundation for the thinking that brings about these great transitional or return to philosophical roots movements.

We know that our governments are always relevant to us. They set and enforce the rules of commerce, put enabling infrastructures into place and other activities that reflect how we see ourselves behaving as a community of common cause.

Governments can enable or disable all or parts of all that.

But are we relevant to our governments? Do our governments take our aspirations and needs into account as they plan and deliver their actions in our names? Have they set up the means for including our knowledge and opinions into their decision-making processes?

I think the people of Egypt today have determined that the answer to the question, "Are we relevant to our government?" is a resounding "No!".

We in Canada experience similar aspects the same continuum. We have a federal government that has spent millions of dollars of our money to gain access to information about us to see how we are reacting to their decisions and actions after the fact.

That same government continuously thwarts the efforts of citizens to access information about their actions, even though we ask after the decisions have been made and implemented in our name.

We who live in Alberta have for years faced the same characteristics of governing. Interestingly the current federal government's philosophy is rooted in that same Alberta fertilizer.