LA ESQUINA CALIENTE (THE HOT CORNER) - A STUDY OF PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY IN ACTION AROUND THE WORLD

PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY vs REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY

We as citizens of the United States observe politics from afar and the vast majority of us may participate in the political process only to the extent that we go to the polls once a year to vote. We may endeavor to follow the news accounts of our nation's politics as they unfold, and of the consequences those political actions yield, but we have little power to influence our "democratically" elected officials. Perhaps we write an occasional letter to our senator or representative, but we almost inevitably receive a vague and impersonal response explaining why they will vote in our opposition.

Over the decades, our representative democracy has been systematically undermined and has ultimately failed in preserving the well being of the people of this nation. The system that the founding fathers painstakingly devised in order to best serve the interests and the will of the people has been corrupted and the systems of checks and balances on power that they instituted have been stripped away. Most of us accept this reality as being beyond our control and continue to observe, comment, and complain without aspiring to achieving any real change, without any hope of instituting a new system of governance that would instead take directly into account your views, and the views of your neighbors, and would empower you to make real positive change possible in your communities.

This site will attempt to explore in depth the places in the world where people are successfully bringing about that type of change in the face of similar odds, where an alternate form of democracy, which is called participatory or direct democracy, is taking root. Initiative, referendum & recall, community councils, and grassroots organizing are but a few ways in which direct/participatory democracy is achieving great success around the world.

Our system of representative democracy does not admit the voice of the people into congressional halls, the high courts, or the oval office where our rights and our liberties are being sold out from underneath us. Our local leaders and activists in our communities, and even those local elected officials who may have the best of intentions are for the most part powerless to make real positive change happen in our neighborhoods, towns and villages when there is so much corruption from above.

In places like Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Brazil, South Africa, India, and the Phillipines, new experiments in grass roots community based governance are taking place. There is much to be learned from these and other examples of participatory democracy from around the world when we try to examine how this grass-roots based governance could begin to take root here in our own country in order to alter our political system so that it might better serve the American people.

In the hope that one day we can become a nation working together as a united people practicing true democracy as true equals, we open this forum…
LATEST ENTRIES:

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

ESPAÑA: Democracia Directa por Internet

Democracia Directa

FRANCÍ XAVIER MUÑOZ SÁNCHEZ - Madrid - 05/08/2008

Fuente: http://www.elpais.com/articulo/opinion/Democracia/directa/elpepuopi/20080805elpepiopi_13/Tes

El Gobierno acaba de anunciar un proyecto que estudia hacer factible el voto electrónico por Internet para los emigrantes españoles. Este sistema se utiliza en Suiza desde 2005, lo que demuestra que Internet se puede poner al servicio de una democracia directa. El por qué no quieren los políticos, de momento, plantearse esta posibilidad es algo que habría que preguntarle a ellos, pero sin duda se podría crear una página web oficial donde cada Gobierno o Administración (europea, nacional, autonómica y local) abriera la posibilidad de que los ciudadanos nos registráramos en ella con usuarios y contraseñas, y de este modo pudiera consultar nuestra opinión acerca de cualquier medida, proyecto o idea que quisiera sacar adelante. Las democracias actuales son representativas e indirectas. Internet abre el camino para que, algún día, sigan siendo representativas pero directas. ¿O es que los políticos tienen miedo a conocer nuestra opinión sin el mensaje interpretativo que se le da siempre a los votos?.

Posted by Democracy By The People at 10:48 AM

Labels: , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)