ABSTRACT
The previous chapter highlights an active mix of biking organizations at the national and local levels whose central mission is to influence allocation and policy decisions made by various governmental authorities. Such groups seek a place at the table where “who gets what” decisions are made, and they are thus integrally involved in politics. But to let the matter rest here would be to miss other essential dimensions of biking politics. Political action flows out of consciousness. In everyday life experience, people sort and share values; and in politics, they act on the basis of those values they deem politically important. Politically relevant values may ebb and flow. A dramatic event can sharply elevate a particular value, as the concern for security was elevated in the post-9/11 world. Values can also become more important because they resonate with changing experience. Interest in national health care policy grows, for example, as private systems of health care become more exclusive and less reliable.
