The Big Shift

That's the great irony of the Duffy trial.  For all the talk about accountability, the legacy could mean less transparency - that government goes even darker, more underground.  We can pretend that's not a problem, but it has very real costs.

Let's get this out of the way quickly, so we can focus on the reality at hand.  No one political party is at fault for this underground communications network.  Equally, there are wilfully complicit public servants, just as there are public servants comfortable with their little internal fiefdoms who want nothing to do with open everything.

Pointing fingers of blame leads to a complex quagmire of egos, strategems, alliances, etc.  We're still trying to wrap our heads around the Middle East - let's not go down that road here.  

Besides, what's happening on the ground is so much more interesting.

For all its access to data, ability to take over venues at a moment's notice and generally insert itself into any community at any time, the political realm is drifting further and further away from the general public.  The way in which people interact is subtly changing the behavioural patterns, too - scandals make greater impressions than they would otherwise, manipulative communications strategies are increasingly exposed and parodied in real time.

Then there's the resistance movement of Virtuous Schemers within our public institutions who take public service very seriously and are even willing to put themselves at professional risk for the public good.

Meanwhile, there's demand for more and more open - and more and more engagement.  People don't want to be messaged, they want skin in the game.  They're finding communities that support that kind of approach beyond partisan politics - at places like CSI.

It's particularly true for a growing number of both millennials and folk generally squeezed out of the current economy who feel like they're in a "period of transition" and are trying to find where they belong, what value they have to offer.

Add to this everything from the decline of traditional economic engines (manufacturing, anyone?), significant demographic changes, climate change/severe weather events, global conflicts and their impact at home.

It is a period of civic turmoil.  But at least it isn't dull...