We recently had elections across Europe and the general feeling is, that whilst the majority of people are still under the impression that they had a choice between one group of lying crooks and another, some are starting to smell the strong scent of BS and consequently political parties viewed as ‘extremist’, by the multicoloured opposition, are seemingly creeping up from everywhere.
cartoonmovement.com
Filling the European Piggy Bank
Whilst some may choose these options to keep their countries out of Europe, others may think these parties are a viable option; and they could be, but perhaps voting for them was the only way people could voice their discontentment. A more appropriate option to choose from, under the existing system, could be a ballot with a tick box‘none-of-the-above-get-rid-of-those-crooks-and-give-us-honorable-people-to-vote-for’ option. All this voting malarkey is irrelevant when those in charge, at local level, are effectively a non-elected group of CEOs.
Back in May 2013 Cheshire East Corporation appointed a new CEO with a less than austere six-figure salary, pension and performance related bonus salary (really?). Clearly there is no such thing as austerity at this level of the Corporation. Why would there be when all this is financed by us? Yet, the masses are constantly being bombarded, by the mainstream propaganda machine, with such fallacies as ‘we are all in it together’.
From what I’ve gathered, regardless of who’s ‘elected’, the root of the decision making is being done in the background by those unelected CEO’s who get their orders from much higher up the chain, rather than the people who pay their salaries and to whom they are supposedly answerable to; not exactly what the common people would call democracy.
It would appear that the word democracy means different things to different people
We have been so programmed through the education system and the propaganda mainstream media, to believe that democracy is fair, that we don’t even seem to notice how insane it is to potentially be settling for a master that 49% of the population didn’t want; that’s in theory, because to me it looks like in reality, with the democracy we have on offer and low turnout elections, that the percentages are much worse. Wouldn’t the current government be glad to have that sort of support in reality?
Democracy as a word has been hijacked by those in charge
thedailyblob.co.nz
The lie of democracy
With it they manipulate us into believing we have our say. We, the people, believe the hype that democracy is all about power to the people, freedom of speech, freedom of movement etc. but this is only true if you are an obedient citizen. But if you disagree with the system, you’ll soon find out that you don’t have the freedoms you thought you had. If you try to fly/sail/rail anywhere within or out of the UK you’ll find out that you don’t have freedom of movement either.
We go voting assuming we have a choice between different parties but what we really have is a selection of chosen ‘front men’ which the media will manipulate us into picking. The new front man will undoubtedly be worse than the previous one, as evidenced historically, and we will mistakenly accept this as some sort of freedom. We are so proud of our democracy that we want the whole world to have a piece of it. Witness the ravages our ‘democracy’ has done in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya… and of course, here.
So, what on earth is ‘democracy'’?
“Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking.” (Clement Attlee, Former UK Prime Minister)
That settles it then!
buyzombie.com
We never had democracy
I recently came across a French Economics and Law teacher, Etienne Chouard. He is clear and simple to understand; a quality that shouldn’t be over estimated but often is. I have found that some potentially good solutions are spoilt by over complicated and incomplete delivery. His quality as a teacher makes Etienne Chouard well aware that the education system is purposely producing compliant, debt ridden workers, or compliant debt ridden unemployed people, rather than empowered critical thinkers. The masses leave school struggling to think for themselves, permanently distracted by trivial issues, and are apathetic to how their country is ruled and by whom; so when addressing them, the message better be clear and straight to the point.
Whilst it is going to be a struggle to convince those who are apathetic, and oblivious to the status quo, the people negatively affected by the current situation are too busy surviving, with very little time to read through 100s of books, articles and videos; for them too, the message and guidance better be clear and simple.
Etienne Chouard proposes that history needs to repeat itself positively with a system that has proven to work in the past. It goes way back to over a couple of millennia ago.
After centuries of tyranny the Athenians had only one practical aim, which was to achieve real political equality. They were conscious that they were not going to achieve social, physical or economical equality, as this is something that can only be achieved individually. They wanted political equality. They wanted to be partners in political, collective decision-making. They didn’t want representative assembly. They wanted a people assembly, with one man, one vote.
With this in mind, when organising their ‘people’s assembly’ the Athenians set some sub-goals which were to be the back bone of the project.
- Political amateurism - They realised professional politicians are at the core of corruption, once politicians are professional politicians. They are no longer equal to the rest of the people.
- Rotation of power - Power corrupts therefore it was rotated with short and non-renewable mandates allowing no time for people to get corrupted.
- Sortition - The point of this democratic project was to be politically equal. An election leads to a professional politician and you always get the same people that will always have the power; those who can buy or influence it. Sortition is the action of selecting or determining something or someone by the casting or drawing of lots. Sortition works by always randomly taking different people to rotate duties, ensuring amateurism and thus equality is achieved.equalitybylot.wordpressSortition as a solution
The Athenians were realistic. They knew they were not perfect and that they could gear the general interest to their personal interest, they knew people could lie…
Therefore they ensured that their system encouraged every citizen to be a whistleblower and protected them. In those days dissidents were banned. Today they are far from being protected!
The Athenians made the choice to let dissidents express themselves. They implemented ‘isegoria’. That is freedom of expression for all, including freedom of speech, as their pillar of democracy.
The very fact that everyone could speak up about any of their concerns and views without risking reprisal was absolutely essential to keep democracy sound and clean. Isegoriaencouraged all citizens to be politically active. Everyone at the Assembly was able to speak about anything at anytime. Their concerns would be listened to carefully but anyone daring to speak about obvious nonsense would soon be ridiculed and sent out. There was order. The magistrates, who were drawn representatives, had the responsibility to keep the Assembly disciplined.
The institutions listened to the people and in return the people would work hard for them.
When institutions don’t listen to the people then the people are reluctant to get involved.
Today’s citizens are apathetic partly because of the institutions’ behaviour towards them. We are constantly reminded via the media (their mouthpiece) that whatever we do won’t make a difference and this is exactly what they want us to believe, when they know full well the opposite is true. They keep us looking the other way and a good proportion of the population is only too happy or too lazy to get involved.
Amateurism brought involvement and everyone had a chance to be drawn. The sortition made it possible for everyone who volunteered to be the president of the Athenian Assembly at some point in their lives as the position was drawn every single day and no one could be elected twice. The prospect for anyone, to be at some point the spokesperson of the group, changed the view people had on politics.
Just like we should be concerned by this now, the Athenians were scared of drawing incompetent idiots. The difference with their drawees and our elected is that Athenians didn’t give any power to their drawees. The Assembly was the one who made all the decisions. Sortition was not an alternative to elections where the power was left to the elected representative. It was something different to what we do now, although common practices such as judging conflicts between individuals, or assessing and implementing decisions reached collectively, would be achieved through similar procedures as our current system.
Ultimately the philosophy of our current institutions must change completely.
We need a system with control checks at all levels. The Athenians had such institutions controlling the sortition process, and beyond, at every step of the process.
en.wikipedia.org
Kleroterion
The sortition was done using a machine called the Kleroterion, which would draw volunteers daily out of the 2000 people putting themselves forward every morning at the Assembly. The drawees needed to be conscious of their duties and responsibilities. They needed to fear the consequences of their actions and be aware that they couldn’t’t come to power, be irresponsible or take advantage without reprisal.
To avoid a messy sortation, the Athenians used their institutions to control every stage starting with the ‘voluntarism’ to ensure participants were willing to be drawn. Drawing amongst everybody and then giving everybody the opportunity to refuse, could have been another option, since it is said that people who seek power should not have it.
By picking drawees randomly from the population, as it is done these days with jury service, this would increase the chance of picking a good person.
Statistics have shown that ‘only’ 4% of the population is made up of psychopaths.
Most of these will have made their way into powerful positions, happily controlling the rest of us whilst the others are making people miserable at work, in local government offices or controlling traffic etc.
Most normal people don’t want power but will accept the responsibilities given to them by sortition for the common good. The position for which a drawee would be elected would be short term, or for the duration of one specific project, non renewable within the same sector.
To prevent drawing a bad apple, they used ‘ostracism’. People would write up on a piece of pottery (ostracon) the name of those people they would not want to see being drawn. It’s interesting therefore to see the origin of the word that we use in our current language.
The names that came up the most would be excluded from political life for at least 10 years.
If we had such a system today, I cannot help but think that our parliament would resemble an abandoned Greek wedding after an enthusiastic plate smashing session, with some very unsavoury names on those pieces.
The next stage was ‘Docimasy’; a judicial inquiry into the civic standing and character of all persons drawn for public office. This was an aptitude filter to eliminate ‘nutters’, but not a competency test since the aim was to have political equality. All volunteers had the same political skills. Docimasy in the London parliament would have a devastating effect on most Members of Parliament.
During the mandate, if drawees were not performing, or were behaving dishonourably, the Assembly could revoke them instantly. If only…
Once again our system protects what we think is democracy
unknown
The brick wall of democracy
After their mandates were given the drawees were held accountable and they would have had to justify every action they took making this system a thousand times more protective and great for preserving public interest. If they had performed well they would receive honours and would be respected in society. On the other hand, if what they achieved turned out to be a failure, the Assembly would do everything in its power to rectify the errors and those responsible were held accountable, named and shamed.
In our current system we have the choice between the pest and the cholera.
We can’t even show our disgruntlement with a blank vote. Blank ballots are considered null and are discarded.
But who decides this?
Who writes these rules?
It is those who we elect, which makes this self-preservation on their part.
Why would they give us the choice to get rid of them?
They should not have the power to write the Constitution or the Laws. They would never write laws that shorten their mandate, or make them non-renewable. They would never write laws, which would allow for blank ballots. They would not talk about citizen juries. In fact, they would not write anything that would be detrimental to their own survival.
It would not make any sense at all. We leave the power to the elected to write the Constitution and Laws.
It is not honourable for a man of power to write the Constitution. This is what oligarchs do.
This is power robbery. This is our fault. We let this happen. We don’t make any sense. We have lost the ability to use common sense.
People would rather not get involved in politics because it is ‘boring’; unlike television, they don’t have time for it, but have plenty of time for soaps, sports, or shopping. They would much rather let the politicians deal with it and then suffer the consequences.
It is evidently wrong, like leaving Dracula in charge of the blood bank.
webclipart.about.com
Akin to foxes being in charge of the henhouse
The Athenians’ democratic way had control mechanisms before, during and after the mandates, thus ensuring the protection of people. The drawees could be revoked and held to account by the Assembly. If at any point, should there have been any concerns, they could act upon them. This is not something we can do in our current system but it is something we should imperatively do. Our parliament regulates itself via the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority and what’s more they are not even answerable to the Inland Revenue.
There shouldn’t be any surprise as to why we are in such a mess.
We let the foxes loose in the henhouse.
After going over the principle of the Athenians’ way, Etienne Chouard welcomes objections put through to him by skeptics and responds.
- With this system we will have bad people in charge.
First of all they won’t be in charge. The ones who are drawn are not in charge. The Assembly is in charge. Their duty is to serve the people. By voting, we elect our masters and by drawing we choose our servants. The institutions serve as filters where we either get rid of or punish bad elements. Elections seemingly attract bad people. The worst get elected, Blair, Cameron, Bush, Sarkozi, Hollande, Obama, Berlusconi etc., then they get to choose our ministers, who are chosen because of their loyalty and allegiance to their leader, not because they have any knowledge or idea about how to how run the position they are appointed to. Then there is the ‘whip’ system that discourages all but the honourable to toe the party line on crucial issues; this is truly scandalous. The whole lot is worse than the Mafia and we put them there. Good people don’t want to govern and as a result we end up with bad people in power.
- This can only work on a small scale.
When we vote, we imply we know those people and the only punishment when they fail is that they don’t get re-elected. Elections are more suited to small-scale situations like the village where we can see and speak to the potential mayors. With elections on a national or European scale we have no idea who we elect. We assume that those people are good, virtuous and knowledgeable in all subjects, that they would be proficient experts in fracking, GMO, nuclear energy, education, health etc. We assume that but we don’t control them and this is in contradiction with the scale. Such a big scale needs controls at every level whether they like it or not. Currently there are no controls.
- By voting everyday how can you have continuity, long-term vision for the future?
Zig zag governing; they are always going to change their mind? This isn’t true because the drawees are not the ones who decide; the Assembly does. The Assembly is the people. Out of 30,000 Athenians there were only 6000 within the Assembly. They were not always present. Sometimes they would go to work and sometimes they would sit at the Assembly. There would always be a core of people discussing issues, and out of the Assembly people would talk about it amongst themselves and be involved in the politics of Athens. People would then decide if they want or need to go to the Assembly and take part in the discussion further.
- You will designate unqualified people.
Are our current politicians competent? How do you designate anyone competent about nuclear power? Our incompetent ‘elected’ has launched over 2000 atomic bombs since 1945.
How about the perpetual wars? Decent people wouldn’t choose war but wars are good for business. Agent orange? Fracking? Bedroom-tax?
equalitybylot.wordpress
Sortition as a solution
A citizen Assembly would have been very unlikely to make such decisions. In Mali, a citizen Assembly discussed the pros and cons of GMO’s. People were drawn out and knew nothing on the subject. The drawees were selected from a pool of 290 farmers. They were given a place to work and finances to operate. For months they talked and asked questions to the likes of Monsanto and Bayer about the benefits of GMO’s and why Mali should or shouldn’t use GMO’s. They invited, spoke and listened to farmers and asked them why they didn’t want GMO’s. They also invited and listened to peasants from South America to speak about their experience living long term with GMO’s. They went back and forth between the people and the industry. There was an open meeting and discussion where the Malians would ask questions.
After 6 months the people of this Assembly were much more qualified than any MP in the world on matters of GMO’s. They had focused on that subject only and they were not financed by the industry. Being re-elected did not influence them, as this was not an option. They were watched as they worked through the process.
This is a model of true democracy.
For each subject, instead of taking decisions themselves, the drawees didn’t have institutions to help and them and were aware that the next day or at the end of a specific project they will be joining the people again, hence the importance of getting things right. Depending on the end report, they will decide on laws, and if there is any doubt, they could launch a referendum, which means everyone will be able to decide on the outcome. In Mali at the end of the process they unanimously decided to say no to GMO’s. They didn’t have enough evidence to prove that GMOs were not dangerous. Their opinions had much more weight that those of some ‘experts’ from ‘the industry’. The expert issue does not stand up because of the risk of the self-interest involved.With sortation, the people know what they don’t know, unlike the pretentious election of professional politicians who think they know it all.
shootingparrots.co.uk
Bombing those who disagree with you is tyranny, not democracy
The elected MP, who is for example a GP doctor, will know nothing about nuclear power. He might however become competent at it, but just like anyone else. Personally, I have been following such‘amateurs’ in the anti-fracking community and it is obvious as to the amount of knowledge people will acquire for the good of their community and the environment.
Interestingly and probably, few people know of our rights to initiate community and parish referendums. This law applies only in Wales and England and entitles local communities to a referendum.This would not be tolerated in the Athenian Assembly. In fact, the alarm would have been raised by whistleblowers relatively early on.Politicians do not even come close to demonstrate any knowledge, common sense or integrity on that or any other subject. They have personal financial interest with the industry that goes against public interest.
See Part 3, schedule 12, paragraph 18 of the Local Government Act of 1972
- The Athenian model was based on slavery, phallocracy and xenophobia.
They say it was only a small proportion of the people who dominated and controlled the masses. At the time, every one was into slavery. In comparison, if we fast-forward 200 years, our descendants might look back at the way we slaughtered animals in horror. Should they have mastered the way to produce clean and healthy non-animal based products, or should they have realised that although such products were always available, our government, keen to poison us for population reduction purposes, would suppress such information?
So, let’s not compare what isn’t comparable. This is an argument the elected groups put forward because they have a lot to lose by losing the election model. It is in their interest to confuse and ridicule the principle of sortition to ensure it does not even get discussed. It is in our interest to distinguish that not everything ‘bad’ is necessarily all‘bad’.
Politicians tend to follow a line where who doesn’t follow it is an enemy; remember George W Bush: “If you are not with us your are with the terrorists”.
unknown
If you're not with us you're with the terrorists... The terrorists being the government of course
This is far from being a democratic comment. Slavery in Athenian times was allowing this type of politics to be accessible to all in the same way machines should facilitate the opportunities for us now. With industrialisation we should have much more time to practice politics and other activities. We need to imperatively get rid of our parasites, who are stealing millions and billions from us every year, draining us of our energy. It is because they steal so much from us that we all have to work so hard. If the wealth we created were redistributed properly without being stolen by a privileged few, people would be wealthier and happier.
How can a system where people are drawn desynchronize political power and economic power?
How does it protect us better from abuses of power and how come elections, on the contrary, make all abuses of power possible and unpunished and allow the selection of practically always the worst of people?
Could it be that elections are based on a myth, based on a story we are told which does not correspond to the reality at all, which is even contradicted by the facts?
The myth of election is that we are capable of choosing good masters and because we chose them they are going to be good.
This is a myth and it doesn’t work.
arcticcompass.blogspot
The myth of the electoral system
To begin with, the idea may have been to have good aristocrats to govern, but the fact is that elections allow the ultra rich to buy power, the ability to buy media, to shape and influence opinions. Elections allow rich people to buy power and make the ordinary people politically impotent. The election of the constituent Assembly allow some people to write rules for themselves which allow them to do everything without consulting us. Just look up how many ‘Executive Orders’Barrack Obama has passed in his current term of office, which are totally undemocratic and the actions of a dictator rather than an elected representative. Don’t think his actions don’t affect us in the UK. They do when ‘we’ join in war mongering around the globe.
The political lie consists in making us believe that the current regime is democracy.
This is a huge trap. We can’t figure out any alternative because we have a word‘democracy’ which is acted upon as a dictatorship, in the same way as Orwell’s ‘newspeak’.
Experience shows us that since we started testing elections more than 200 years ago, in every country in the world, it has always resulted in giving power to the richest people, or the people serving them. Electronic voting has made it even easier for results to be tampered with.
Why else would banks buy newspapers?
Why would the defence industry buy magazines and television programmes?
It isn’t to make money, but instead to manipulate.
It is important to manipulate an election-based system.
The root cause of our political impotence is that those who currently write the Constitution should not write it because they have a personal interest, which is against our own, and against the interest of most people. Therefore, the solution could be to draw a constituent Assembly, which won’t have any self-interest, since it will be drawn and not be permitted to be elected by the institutions for which it writes. Mechanically, and by design, such an Assembly will settle all media issues. It will design institutions with a legislative power, an executive power and most importantly we will not name it‘government’ because the word ‘government’ is a trap; executive power will obey the orders of the Assembly. It will be a servant to the Assembly.
The word ‘government’ is misleading because it includes everything; I decide, I apply and I even judge. We should not accept the word ‘government’. A good Constitution does not allow for a ‘government’ it allows for executive power.
According to Montesquieu and the separation of powers, Parliament writes the laws but doesn’t apply them. Executive power applies the laws; you are the army but you do not write the laws. The judge watches and punishes if individuals don’t behave and settles those disputes. The triangulation of these well-separated powers means that none of them can become a tyrant. Montesquieu didn’t plan on the media. We know that the media are very powerful so we are going to have to put them under control democratically with citizen juries who check everything is OK, forbidding all companies to simultaneously own a media entity and submit policies controlling institutions.
We will also need to change the monetary system
exploringthenews.com
The monetary system is slavery
Obviously now if we write new institutions the constituent Assembly will have to think about how to deal with money.
The power in place won’t let us even do one bit of this project and it won’t happen by being nice about it and asking for permission. They have lured us into believing that paradoxes such as taking away our freedoms will protect our freedom and drone striking people in our name to protect them from violence. They are crippling this country by privatising everything and everywhere in their system we are called ‘customers’. Are we buying into a service they offer and can we therefore upgrade or downgrade at will? They like to call themselves ‘officials', instead of ‘public servants’. We better make sure we quickly reassert ourselves and re-learn our rights so that we don’t swap them for imaginary safety or fake comfort. Those things are a Venus flytrap and all in the name of something called ‘democracy’.
That the oligarchs, bankers and industrialists strongly defend the current system and elections is logical as it allows them to buy power, but the fact that the activists, left or right, struggling for a fairer society, defend elections despite the systematic failure and refuse sortition does not make sense. Is it because these people belong to the parties and that they venerate elections like some sacred cow? The universal suffrage is allowed to continue and despise sortition or expose it to public contempt.
400 years ago, following 200 years of sortition and 200 years of elections, the Athenian system shows that the current system is wrong. Anyone who believes that the current government and system of elections represent ‘democracy’ and power to the people are in denial.
Britain has a constitution despite some politicians telling us otherwise, or calling it obsolete. It has worked in the favour of the people so far but general apathy could easily make it a thing of the past by consensus. What Etienne Chouard discusses may not be the best solution for the UK but part of what he says should be worth considering, such as checks and balances at every level: -
- Checks of everyone and anyone in the political arena.
- Ministers not to be hand picked by other ministers, no more industry / government revolving doors.
- Shorter non-renewable terms of office.
- Not everything has to be taken right down to start with but wouldn't these basic checks just be using common sense?
slippin.com
The ultimate check and balance
People need to realise they have options. They have the power to change things. They have to make the distinction between their rights and the ‘privileges’ handed out by government. Our rights are ours to keep, privileges can be taken away.
The propaganda machine has worked hard on our perception of individual power. Most people think they have no power and there are also those that are too set in their ways; a bit too ‘comfortable’ to challenge what is going on. In my experience, many people only tend to see the evil of the current system when their personal wealth / affluence is fundamentally affected.
The longer it takes us all to ‘wake up’ and see the problems that we have, the less retrievable the situation is.
Compartmentalisation means that most people have no idea what is going on or what they are part of
One friend of mine who worked on the ‘Agenda 21’ project in the 1990’s thought it was a great project. So did the rest of her team. Those people are good people, but when evil comes to us dressed in a pink tutu it looks so cute.
Another friend working pretty high up in the police force has witnessed a number of unsavoury promotions passing him over. He is a straight guy who would not let himself be compromised. Unbeknown to him, in the current system, unless you are compromised you can forget about big promotions.
I certainly would not claim to have the solution, but the current trend seems to be for all advocates for change being endlessly at each other’s throats, or digging at those who are trying to effect change and arouse consciousness. This behaviour is ever so tiresome.
As long as the good guys can’t get on, the bad guys are laughing and this is making their job easy
Those who argue that time is running out and then waste it by discrediting others are being controlled by their egos.
Most people would agree that government is corrupt, wasteful, doesn’t have people’s interest at heart and they can’t organise a piss up in a brewery, etc. and yet we let them get away with it over and over again.
Then along comes a group of people with true ‘democratic’ plans, aspiring to wipe taxes, or at the very least reduce them and use them for the benefit of people and country. They have plans to support the most vulnerable, rebuild local and national industries, and what happens?
Nit picking from within our own ranks!
kennedyc.com
Compromise, not confrontation
Funny how we tolerate 95% or more crap from the government and various‘authorities’, but for those who propose seemingly decent solutions, even if we can’t agree on everything, we just won’t compromise a little?
Isn’t it about time we agree to disagree on the detail and focus on the bigger picture and concentrate our collective efforts on the greater evil; the current system? Whatever we do or don’t do there will be consequences.
Wouldn’t it be worth our while for all of us who want change things to align ourselves all together and regain some sort of control?
There are more of us than them.
Non-compliance doesn’t have to mean violence at all.
Whatever the solution is, surely there has to be a better way…
