[WDDM] Re: apologize for my "get back" poor attitude

[Antonio Rossin <rossin(at)tin.it>]

At 10:51 +0000 8-01-2007, Richard Moore wrote, in reply to Bruce Eggum :

(RKM)
>  My model is about a community reaching consensus through dialog.
>  The only voting would be to elect a slate of candidates to the city
>  offices by a 100% vote.  The elected officials would then implement
>  the policies that are determined by the community's ongoing dialog
>  process.  The officials would be ordinary citizens, not politicians
>  (as in the Cuban system).
(BE)
> >  I will go out on a limb here and define democracy as many refer
> >  to it as Representative Democracy. Here you have others making
> >  choices. Direct Democracy, (actually Democracy by meaning)
> >  has the peoples direct input to  the government and control of it,
> >  and requires decisions to be made by Referendum.  They may
> >  have appointed, elected, hired people but the people have final say.
(RKM)
>  So we have two different models of direct democracy, but I'm not
>  sure they're that far apart. Where you talk of 'referendum', I would
>  talk of a 'consensus document'.
(BE)
> >  Of course not all decisions need to be made by referendum.
> >  People are hired to pay bills, decide necessary purchases etc.
> >  However if the people making these decisions are "controlled"
> >  by the people and their decisions are "controlled " by the people,
> >  than democracy, direct democracy exists.
(RKM)
>  We agree on this, but we have different schemes for how the
>  people exercise their control.
(BE)
> >  We need think tanks, bulletin boards, video, computers, newspapers,
> >  media and all of that to inform people. Yes, some of these will
> >  have differing views, but that is the way of discussion and allows
> >  informed peoples to choose.
(RKM)
>  You are talking about people choosing among alternatives presented
>  to them. I'm talking about people arriving at their own proposals
>  through dialog. Rather than someone 'informing people', my model is
>  about people acquiring the information they need to find solutions
>  to their problems.


Hi democracy friends,

It seems to me so late, we have a democratic continuum at whose
two opposite ends we may see:

1. Extremely Representative Democracy, in which the people are
allowed to elect their delegates every five years or so, and nothing
more.

2. Direct Democracy, in which the people decide and control every
thing - and every member of the govt. staff.

Really, what such a democratic continuum is about, is Participation.

That is, people inclined to 1. want to restrict their social participation
down to the bare minimum.  Conversely, people inclined to 2. want
to increase their social participation as much as possible.

Let's agree, both of these democratic 1. and 2. opposite ends, as in
their "pure" form, look like utopia. Nevertheless, each one of  us
people cannot but be inclined either toward one or the other of them.

As for myself -- as one who dares say of himself  he is a lover of
Democracy -- I'm doing my best to emphasize on Participatory
Democracy.  That is, as a parent I managed to educate my children
towards being able to discuss and decide family policies *directly*,
and as a citizen, I'm managing to inform my colleague parents about
all the practicable know-hows to educate their children -- future
democracy doers -- towards the same utmost direct participation
into collective policies.

This is why I wholeheartedly agree with Richard, as far he is is
talking about how to facilitate the people to arrive at their own
proposals through dialog and acquire the information they need to
find solutions to their problems -- say, from grassroots bottom-up.

This is why I totally disagree to Bruce and to those like him, as
far as he wants to state out and decide top-down a constitutional
charter made with iron bureaucratic rules which the bottom people
must conform to in order to be called "Direct Democracy".


Cheers,

antonio