comodin
11-09-2015, 07:54 AM
I received this in my e-mail today, and I thought it should go further. Eventually, anyway. Details below the article.
https://media.sailthru.com/12x/1jz/7/1/55940a81bc4ef.jpg
(https://link.thenation.com/click/5488775.25199/aHR0cDovL3d3dy50aGVuYXRpb24uY29t/562e487c3b35d0d8618b525cBc253af95)
Voter turnout in the United States is abysmal, and politicians across the country have been making voting even more difficult through discriminatory voter ID laws, drastic cuts to early voting days, and other measures that make it harder for people—particularly poor people and people of color—to get to the polls.
That’s why The Nation has joined with Brave New Films, Democracy for America, and nine other organizations in calling on President Obama to declare Election Day 2016 a national holiday. Will you join us? (https://www.signforgood.com/electiondayholiday/?code=nation)
A federal holiday would give people across the country the day off, and ensure that many more busy families can take the time they need to cast their ballots. It would also shine a much-needed spotlight on low voter turnout and access to the polls.
For democracy to work, voters need time to vote. Call on President Obama to make Election Day 2016 a federal holiday.
(https://www.signforgood.com/electiondayholiday/?code=nation)
(https://www.signforgood.com/electiondayholiday/?code=nation)
A day off for voting! This is a wonderful FIRST STEP towards true democracy, since it facilitates voter participation.
However, once the votes are counted, and new (or the same old) people take over, there will remain the usual problem, that the promises which got them elected are often broken or forgotten once in office. I trust you don't need me to give you examples.
If democracy, which means "rule by the people", is really to be effective, voters need something more reliable than election promises, in order to make responsible decisions about how they are to be governed.
What really decides what gets done and what does not, is the allocation of funds —"your tax dollars at work!"
Therefore, if the voters are going to control how their country is governed, they must control how their money is spent.
Obviously private citizens are in no position to micromanage the vast activities of government, but given one full day to vote, they could, using computers, vote their preferences for the allocation of money. Imagine that each voter votes 20 times, each time allocating 5% of the available money as he or she sees fit, between the various broad activities of the government. After each 5% allocation, each voter would see the effect of the accumulated votes, and could decide their next allocation accordingly. How many people would agree to increasing the "defense" budget? How much support would there be for alternative energy? How much would be allocated to auditing the Federal Reserve? And beyond these already existing categories, there could well be others that currently don't exist but should, and among many millions of eligible voters there may well be some with ideas so far unimagined.
It could be objected that this could only produce chaos. The voters are too ignorant of the fine points of government. What if foreign policy were left to the judgment of the masses? Or the regulation of the food supply? Or the evaluation of drug safety?
To this objection, there are two responses. First, that it amounts to denying that democracy is possible, because, if you don't think the people are capable of intelligent self-rule, then you don't believe in democracy, and all pretense to that effect is hypocritical sophistry, a cardboard replica of democracy in order to fool the people. Second, it is by no means obvious that genuine rule by the people would be so disastrous. In some respects, at least, it could hardly be worse than the appalling and suicidal course taken by the present system. Would we still be torturing people in Guantanamo Bay, and sending them to secret prisons around the world? Would we be provoking China into a confrontation in the South China Sea? Would we have given the treasury of the nation to the bankers who caused the financial crisis, because they were too big to fail? Would we allow the Fed to continue as the private creator and lender of all the money we use, to be repaid at interest, which would have to be borrowed from, and "owed" to, these same lenders? Would we have appointed Monsanto executives to oversee food production policies? Would we have promoted fracking? Would the United States, once regarded as the "shining city on the hill", the "last, best hope for democracy", still have a policy of lurching around the world, bashing up smaller nations, bombing their weddings and the funerals they have caused?
Or would we, say, transform the military into the most efficient distribution system the world has ever seen? Instead of producing intense suffering and death, which is no way to "make friends and influence people", why not give them food because they're hungry, build them shelters because they're refugees, provide water purification and hygienic sewerage, repair ecological devastation, replant forests. And so on, and so on. A thousand constructive things to be done. Expensive? A fraction of what it costs to keep the world repressed and angry!
That's one example of how "the people," supposedly too ignorant to understand the intricacies of Great Power, might nevertheless make an imaginative leap beyond the ferocious and imbecilic proclivities of those who now control us.
The Nation, according to its logo, has been "instigating progress since 1865". So, I suggest that this next step towards genuine democracy be promoted as far as you can do it, and I hope you agree.
https://media.sailthru.com/12x/1jz/7/1/55940a81bc4ef.jpg
(https://link.thenation.com/click/5488775.25199/aHR0cDovL3d3dy50aGVuYXRpb24uY29t/562e487c3b35d0d8618b525cBc253af95)
Voter turnout in the United States is abysmal, and politicians across the country have been making voting even more difficult through discriminatory voter ID laws, drastic cuts to early voting days, and other measures that make it harder for people—particularly poor people and people of color—to get to the polls.
That’s why The Nation has joined with Brave New Films, Democracy for America, and nine other organizations in calling on President Obama to declare Election Day 2016 a national holiday. Will you join us? (https://www.signforgood.com/electiondayholiday/?code=nation)
A federal holiday would give people across the country the day off, and ensure that many more busy families can take the time they need to cast their ballots. It would also shine a much-needed spotlight on low voter turnout and access to the polls.
For democracy to work, voters need time to vote. Call on President Obama to make Election Day 2016 a federal holiday.
(https://www.signforgood.com/electiondayholiday/?code=nation)
(https://www.signforgood.com/electiondayholiday/?code=nation)
A day off for voting! This is a wonderful FIRST STEP towards true democracy, since it facilitates voter participation.
However, once the votes are counted, and new (or the same old) people take over, there will remain the usual problem, that the promises which got them elected are often broken or forgotten once in office. I trust you don't need me to give you examples.
If democracy, which means "rule by the people", is really to be effective, voters need something more reliable than election promises, in order to make responsible decisions about how they are to be governed.
What really decides what gets done and what does not, is the allocation of funds —"your tax dollars at work!"
Therefore, if the voters are going to control how their country is governed, they must control how their money is spent.
Obviously private citizens are in no position to micromanage the vast activities of government, but given one full day to vote, they could, using computers, vote their preferences for the allocation of money. Imagine that each voter votes 20 times, each time allocating 5% of the available money as he or she sees fit, between the various broad activities of the government. After each 5% allocation, each voter would see the effect of the accumulated votes, and could decide their next allocation accordingly. How many people would agree to increasing the "defense" budget? How much support would there be for alternative energy? How much would be allocated to auditing the Federal Reserve? And beyond these already existing categories, there could well be others that currently don't exist but should, and among many millions of eligible voters there may well be some with ideas so far unimagined.
It could be objected that this could only produce chaos. The voters are too ignorant of the fine points of government. What if foreign policy were left to the judgment of the masses? Or the regulation of the food supply? Or the evaluation of drug safety?
To this objection, there are two responses. First, that it amounts to denying that democracy is possible, because, if you don't think the people are capable of intelligent self-rule, then you don't believe in democracy, and all pretense to that effect is hypocritical sophistry, a cardboard replica of democracy in order to fool the people. Second, it is by no means obvious that genuine rule by the people would be so disastrous. In some respects, at least, it could hardly be worse than the appalling and suicidal course taken by the present system. Would we still be torturing people in Guantanamo Bay, and sending them to secret prisons around the world? Would we be provoking China into a confrontation in the South China Sea? Would we have given the treasury of the nation to the bankers who caused the financial crisis, because they were too big to fail? Would we allow the Fed to continue as the private creator and lender of all the money we use, to be repaid at interest, which would have to be borrowed from, and "owed" to, these same lenders? Would we have appointed Monsanto executives to oversee food production policies? Would we have promoted fracking? Would the United States, once regarded as the "shining city on the hill", the "last, best hope for democracy", still have a policy of lurching around the world, bashing up smaller nations, bombing their weddings and the funerals they have caused?
Or would we, say, transform the military into the most efficient distribution system the world has ever seen? Instead of producing intense suffering and death, which is no way to "make friends and influence people", why not give them food because they're hungry, build them shelters because they're refugees, provide water purification and hygienic sewerage, repair ecological devastation, replant forests. And so on, and so on. A thousand constructive things to be done. Expensive? A fraction of what it costs to keep the world repressed and angry!
That's one example of how "the people," supposedly too ignorant to understand the intricacies of Great Power, might nevertheless make an imaginative leap beyond the ferocious and imbecilic proclivities of those who now control us.
The Nation, according to its logo, has been "instigating progress since 1865". So, I suggest that this next step towards genuine democracy be promoted as far as you can do it, and I hope you agree.