At last. Some real info about what folks are DOING about DD somewhere.
Thanks Filia for filling me in. I was wondering what was going on with
DD in The Netherlands...one of the most enlightened countries in the
world (don't deny it).....
First, thrill to the fact that you live in a "democracy" where so many
parties actually have "access to the media" and the public, as confused
and perplexed as it may be, at least can hear a wide variety of
viewpoints. Unfortunately, I live in the USA where that is not true. We
are developing a Soviet-style media here. I had to laugh the other day
when I read an editorial in The Moscow Times excoriating American
"democracy" as a sham. We live in a topsy turvy world, do we not?
I also noticed on the web the other day that I have been quoted in the
Referendum Platform, probably by Arjen....and....hey....at least there
IS such a thing in The Netherlands. No such thing in the USA...although
a few folks here and there have tried to organize national referenda or
initiaitves on the web....but it is a much larger country...and much
more difficult to do. But you folks there have some room to talk, to
organize, to try. Here, it is next to impossible. Dane gave it a good
try with IRI...but I don't hear much about them any more. The only
things that happpen with DD here are at the state and local levels with
I+R...which are still working well, though more or less irregularly.
Not much growth in the number of states and cities that use it since
about 1920.
As an EU outsider, and a mere observer, I really haven't studied the EU
Const. However, I know I'd vote against it and work with anyone who
opposed it for whatever reason. Why? Because it sounds like it is
moving towards an American model of Federalism, which in case you
haven't noticed, is turning into a bizarre combination of 1984 and Brave
New World. Plus, of course, there is zero DD in it. Which is exactly
like the US Const. Any movement towards DD in the US Const is so tiny
that it isn't worth mentioning....at least at this point in time. The
Feminist Movement begun in Seneca, NY in the 1840s is about where the US
DD movement is today at the national level.
Filia mentioned "Amsterdams Initiatif"--in which half of her? and Arjen
established some sort of local (?) system and then "dissolved." What
was that about? Has anyone in the Netherlands tried Dienel and Crosby's
citizen juries? Or done any national "deliberative polls" along the
Fishkin lines to help the national debate? Or Carolyn Lukensmeyer's
"AmericaSpeaks" model there? Believe me, they work wonderfully in
facilitating a national deliberative process...that is far superior to
what the professional media do, left to their own old and obsolete ways.
I haven't heard boo about any of these new models of public
deliberation being used to bolster the EU Constitutional Debate. It
would help a great deal, but apparently Europeans aren't paying
attention to the few excellent deliberative democratic experiments that
are going on the USA and elsewhere. Which is sad. It's the one thing
we seem to do well, since no one really pays them any mind here and
therefore they are not threatening to the power boys. So they ignore
us. But you shouldn't.