Lawrence Lessig has a good entry on his experience in Brazil which shows civic participation in a model way. Of course, that's a model of democracy - participative democracy - which I believe is right. And it's a lot like what David Wilcox mentioned.
Of course, the trouble with participative democracy is when people - 'activists' - just keep coming in and giving the same canned speeches over and over again. One cannot discuss things that way, if there are only parrots then there can be no discourse. So in a lot of ways, these activists work against participative democracy by forcing doors close. I wish some people would figure that out.
Using the intelligence that we have, we probably should be discussing more and using canned phrases less. Or canned speeches. But to the unimaginative, there is no other way to support...
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