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02698: Direct Democracy

From: Georges Metanomski <zgmet(at)yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 10:19:51 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Direct Democracy

Direct Democracy

This proposal is concerned with the practicalities of DD
and with what, if anything, we can do to promote it.

My view of the DD is exposed in

http://findgeorges.com/ROOT/WRITINGS/POLITICS/shadow_eng.html

It's, of course, open to discussion, but, unless refuted, I'll
use it as the bedrock of my assertions. Let me quote its
conclusion (understandable only in the full context of the
essay):

**
Three issues seem essential for starting to move
towards the DD:

1.Getting a Shadow Parliament within the Particracy.

2.Establish a logistic 3 Functions support.

3.Propound Sincerity, which appears to be the
critical condition of DD. A very limited experience
seems to point to "self applicable attitude".
An example:
A small forum discussed pollution and found out rightly
or wrongly that the worst pollution source is the
factory breeding of animals. Besides pollution it
involves unacceptable suffering of animals and mental
corruption of attendants who become potential sadistic
Auschwitz guards. The group condemned eating meat. Not
as a theoretical principle, but as a self applying
decision and all members stopped eating meat.
Another very limited and positive experience consisted
in stages in Kibbutzim, confronting fellows with the
sincerity of the unique ever realized genuine DD.
**

I propose to start with logistic

**
Consensus of a Group of that size may only be achieved
with help of an adequate "3F" (I&D&R) E-Platform:
1.Initiative (supporting individual proposals)
2.Debate (consensus building)
3.Resolution (upon a consensus threshold; no snapshot
  vote)
**

and in particular with the usually neglected function
2.Debate (consensus building). Without a rigorous debate
a community will not know what it really prefers and
vote as a media-conditioned bandwagon.

And the Kibbutzim experience confirms on the one hand
the critical importance of the Debate and, on the other
hand, that the unique issue never debated was the DD
itself. It was taken as granted that all legislative
decisions are taken by the entire forum after the debate
reaching consensus level prefixed (by the forum) in the
constitution.

I can recall long debates concerning:

-moving to industry by creating a plastic factory, or
staying with agriculture,

-having children sleep in a dormitory, or in parents'
houses,

-installing TV sets in particular houses, or create
a big TV facility in the common entertainment center.

Briefly, I think that the apprenticeship of DD starts
by learning the proper, rigorous, logical debate,
entirely free of emotions, ad hominems, off topics
and preconceived ideas.

That's why I disagree with Mirek when he says that
discussing Muslims immigration and Sharia has nothing
to do with DD. It has all to do with apprenticeship
of DD. With one reserve: it's too difficult for us,
still incapable, as we are, to discard emotions and
preconceived ideas.

That's why I propose, as our first DD apprenticeship,
to discuss much simpler issue of windmills in the context
of climate changes. I'm sure that the outcome of proper
debate will be very different from the initial view.

Let's suppose that a rural community got a proposal
to install a wind farm, justifying it on the one hand
with the moral obligation to curb the global warming
and, on the other hand, offering substantial money
benefits.

Will the WWDDM members consent to give the pre-debate
spontaneous votes "for"/"against"? With a short
justification.

If we master the art of rigorous debate, we might
initiate a blog promoting the DD via most controversial
issues of actuality, which may captivate large public.

Georges.







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