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00651: On what I mean by the meaningfull WDDM

From: "M. Kolar" <wddm(at)mkolar.org>
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 21:12:46 -0600
Subject: On what I mean by the meaningfull WDDM

Or a postscriptum to the just finished vote:

Dear WDDM-ers!

We can and definitely will continue the WDDM site as the depository of the DD
related (and more generally democracy-improvement related) information, links,
suggestion. For this no formal organization is necessary. Just the dedication
of one or a few people.

But it would be even better if we could put together a group of people that
would be able to produce basic documents appealing to a large number of
democracy-minded people, under which WDDM members from all over the world would
be willing to sign, something similar to SIMPOL, but more DD oriented. We could
then speak with a single voice, participate for example in simultaneous
letter-writing campaigns in various countries, or send the same proposals to
the politicians/parliaments in various countries, start similar education
initiatives among your people.

Right now, we for example even don't have a statement what we actually mean by
Direct Democracy ...

The 2000 WDDM founding members were apparently mostly the "DD model people".
Most of them have formulated their own models on how a DD society should be
organized, which institutions it should have. The models had some similar
features, but they were also in completion among themselves. Also, this was to
some extent a top-down approach. They had these more or less finished models
and wanted them to put in practise apparently by establishing DD parties, that
would win the elections and introduce these models. This approach has the
danger that any political party, even a DD one is susceptible to corruption or
at least to accepting the current particracy methods once in power. But if this
danger would be successfully avoided, then one would expect that the citizens
would see hopefully soon the advantages of these models "more or less forced
upon them from top" by the successful DD politicians, educate themselves in DD,
and accept DD for good.

Even for this approach it would be beneficial to have a meaningful WDDM,
formulate just one DD model, and try to get it accepted simultaneously in many
countries.

I would say, that it is not that important right now to formulate very detailed
DD models. More important is to get as many grassroots people as possible to
learn about DD and start to think in a DD way, and then they would themselves
demand from their politicians the changes from below. Once they get DD started,
the detailed way how a DD society would be organized would evolve with time and
needs of the people all the time anyway.
For this approach the meaningful WDDM would be even more important. It would
help, if WDDM could prepare good educational materials and start simultaneous
information campaigns all over the world, try to get young people interested in DD.
This could be our long-term goal.

If you are interested in something like this, please follow the discussions in
the WDDM Forum and/or Wiki.
If you have some other ideas and suggestions, please post them there, too.

Mirek



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