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…

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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

CANADA: Candidate Supports Direct Democracy


Unfortunately this candidate from British Columbia who is a strong supporter of direct democracy only received one percent of the vote in the recent Canadian elections which saw gains for the conservative party. - Editor


Seymour spreading awareness

Published: October 09, 2008 6:00 PM
Updated: October 09, 2008 6:21 PM
Source:
http://www.bclocalnews.com/okanagan_similkameen/vernonmorningstar/community/30723499.html

This is the last in a series of profiles on Okanagan-Shuswap candidates for the Oct. 14 federal election.

Darren Seymour of the Canadian Action Party says Canadians need to turn off the television and learn what is happening in their country.

Running in the federal election for the second time, Seymour says Canadians should be aware that over the past 50 years, Conservative and Liberal governments have given control of the country over to multi-national corporations.

“The feds have handed over the most sacred, crucial responsibility that a government has and that is creation of money for the country,” he says emphatically. “ Most people don’t understand money has to be created and as country grows more money has to be created. It is the most vital factor that determines the health of the country.”

He insists the majority of the money is being created as debt by the private banking industry.

Seymour also believes Canada’s sovereignty is being destroyed with deals like Free Trade. He charges that the deal had nothing to do with free trade, but was a corporate bill of rights.

“Now there’s the Security Prosperity Partnership, which is being created as quietly as possible,” he says. “This is seriously going to destroy the ability of Canada to make decisions about its own future.”

Instead, Seymour cautions the country will be dictated to directly by the biggest corporations in North America. He says Canadian taxpayers are mostly unaware that they are paying for 20 working groups “that are integrating and harmonizing all aspects of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico into a North American union, benefiting the biggest corporations and not benefiting small business or the Canadian people.”

Another key point Seymour says his party would address is the presence of the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan, something he says was built on U.S. administration lies perpetrated by large media outlets.

“There’s overwhelming evidence 9-11 was carried out by elements inside the U.S.,” he says. “People have to take responsibility to discover the truth if we’re going to take our country back.”

Seymour recommends voters visit globalresearch.ca before they decide how to vote.

A stock trader by profession, Seymour became interested in politics about 10 years ago when he delved into the banking system..

“It was my first awakening that things are not the way they seem. There’s lots of underlying stuff going on that we don’t know about,” he says. “It evolved from there, I became more aware and started doing research and learning.”

He says the more he learned, the angrier he got, and the more he wanted to get involved.

“I wanted to do something to engage in the world I live in.”

Seymour started an organization called Our World Community Collective, which was designed for people to learn collectively about their governments. He also designed a voting system that would allow voters’ concerns to be heard.

In his direct democracy system, members of the group identify their top concerns, with action taken on the issues most frequently addressed.

“If I am elected, I will donate 75 percent of my salary to the direct democracy system, where we can learn together and vote on what we want to do about it,” he says.

“The Canadian Action party is the only solution to get us out of this downward spiral.,” he says.

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