Consensus Based Decision making ho

Hey guys, what's up.  I was watching Barack Obama talk to congress last night and it was pretty neat to see him use the rhetoric of sustainability that he did.  Now I'm not one to ever trust an American politician but its at least refreshing to hear a shying away from the focus on fear mongering that plagued the last 8 years. I was particularly impressed with Obama's pledges to invest money now to ensure stability in the future.  That's real adhesion to the sustainability code.  

It's interesting, because I was watching this documentary about Michael Moore last night called "Manufacturing Dissent" and there was a part focusing on his support of certain presidential candidates.  Anyways, it looked like he worked pretty hard in the 2004 election race to try to get John Kerry to inhibit a second Bush term, but we all know how that ended up.  It'd  be really interesting to see what would have happened had Kerry come out on top.  Would he have been touting the same lines of action that Obama is now?  Where would the US be heading now?  Could the economic crisis have been diverted or dissipated?

Being someone who has no idea how American politics work, I was struck by certain aspects of the speech.  For one, there were several instances where many members of the house rose in ovation of whatever Obama had said.  However a distinct section of the crowd refused to stand. Time and time again, one half of the crowd would stand and the other would remain sitting. It is this polarizing of opinions and issues that seems so ridiculous about politics.  It was funny because only when Obama spoke of trying to turn America back into a world leader did the other half of the crowd join in on the standing ovation.  I guess they had to show they care about America's hegemony and I guess that's what's so unsettling about American politics is that virtually the only thing both parties can agree upon is that America should be dominating the world.

But even with the additional parties that exist here in Canada, true embodiment of national sentiment is not achieved.  This was most obvious recently with the abortion of the proposed coalition between the liberals, NDP and the bloc.  Even though this coalition would have had policies vastly preferable to conservative policies, in the eyes of those who had voted for any of constituent parties, many opposed such a conjunction purely on the basis of ONE position of the bloc.  It just goes to show how hard it is to bring people together on a consensus when everyone's all ready pre-divided based on party affiliation.  

But how does one foster a decision making process based on consensus and community involvement in a country as populous and vastly spread out as Canada?

Who knows?