Forum Post: Our common concern is democracy
Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 3, 2011, 6:02 p.m. EST by GammaPoint
(400)
from Oakland, CA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
I believe this movement and its members are very intelligent and have a wide variety of (sometimes conflicting) ideas of how our society should be organized, how it should be done, etc. But the one thing we have in common is that I think all of us want democracy. We all want our fair share of representation in government. Whether you think corporations have undue influence or unions, you can agree that it's not the average American.
We should unite under our common concern and make this movement an unnegotiable demand for greater democracy. Public financing of elections and means to break up the two-party system (whether it's by elections implementing IRV or something else).
This is something that we can ALL get behind. I don't care at the moment whether you want to increase the corporate income tax or eliminate it. I don't care whether you want to strengthen unions or break them up. I don't care if you want more war or less war. I don't care if you are concerned about the environment or think global warming is a scam. I don't care about any of that. Let's establish democracy together and then hash out these other issues later through democratic means and through discussion with each other.
Once we unite behind a single message, others will join us.
6 of 7 states with REAL, publicly-financed "clean" elections got them via ballot initiatives: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_elections The most fundamental reform is NATIONAL ballot initiatives, with improvements to prevent problems like those in California. The best project to get them: http://Vote.org
We are not a deomocracy. We, the United States of America are a REPUBLIC. The difference means everything.
Nowhere in that post did the poster say the US is a democracy the poster said we WANT democracy.
I've never heard this argument voiced in any circumstance except to explain why Americans have been disenfranchised.
Even if it were true that America is a "republic" and thus its government should be beholden to the wealthy corporate "elites", then I want nothing of this republic and let's change this "republic" to a "democracy".
we need sub forums and a wiki to implement these kinds of process and content discussions.
Agreed. A real forum with topics that go to the top when they are active and real moderators would be fantastic to organize ideas.