Recognizing this limitation of Aristotle's politics, the IAF's politics are inclusive. The IAF shares the perspective that politics is the birthright of everyone, a point to which this article will return. In this way, the IAF takes what is best about Aristotle's politics and enriches it, creating a politics that is accessible as well as associational.

Politics Today . . . or Electioneering

Creating a new politics in America is a great challenge. That challenge is underscored by the contrast between the kind of politics practiced today and the new democratic politics described above.

The conversation that defines democratic politics unfortunately is becoming a lost art in today's society. Instead of engaging in conversation, most of us engage in "station identification," where we basically identify ourselves and then listen appropriately while we are thinking about what we are going to say next. Or we avoid conver-sation completely, especially if we know it has the potential to expose tension and conflict, which political discussions often do. As a result, the real conversations of engagement--of listening, and particularly of listening to the other person as another, as someone who has adifferent perspective, a different point of view, a different story or history--do not exist anymore.

Our culture has developed a disdain for politics, because our politics no longer has any meaning; it is disconnected from real conversations about relevant issues. And what people normally mean when they talk about their disdain for or alienation from politics is, frankly, not politics at all, but electioneering or electoral activity.

Instead of politics, every four years we have a "quadrennial electronic plebiscite," which has nothing at all to do with politics and everything to do with marketing. What we engage in is the devotion of massive amounts of time and energy to marketing campaigns--campaigns designed to persuade people (who are viewed, in a fairly limited and narrow way, as consumers or as customers of political goods and services) that brand X is better than brand Y, or, to wit: Bill Clinton will provide better services than Bob Dole. That's what politics is all about today; it's about persuading us that something or someone is better than something or someone else. It is not about deliberation. It is not about developing those deliberative skills that Aristotle talked about. It is not about discussion of issues. As a result, electoral activity no longer connects to peoples' interests; thus, people feel disconnected.

The impact of this disconnection is reflected in the decline in political parties. Traditionally, parties have served as a vehicle for an agenda, one developed by, and thus connected to, ordinary peoples' interests. But parties no longer function this way. Instead of parties, what we have today is a kind of consensus arrangement, reflected in the constant drive for bipartisanship, that basically means there is only one party: the party for those with lots of money. Even though my perspective is limited, the Democratic party represents people who make over $150,000 a year; the Republican party represents people who make over $300,000 a year.

The rest of the people have no party, notwithstanding Pat Buchanan, Jesse Ventura, Donald Trump, and Ross Perot. They are the party of the nonparticipants, the unattached, the disconnected, the "great unwashed." But the great unwashed--those who have no party, no connections, no relationships, no money--do have the potential to develop the capacity to do politics, if only they could be taught how--if only they could be connected to institutions, such as families, schools, congregations, unions, and other voluntary associations, that can mentor, guide, and teach them how to be relational and practice politics. But unfortunately these kinds of intermediate institutions have been imploded or blown apart.