I envision an organization with a fourfold mission:
to function as a provider of knowledge and physical assitance to social units—large and small—requesting guidance in initiating a DD form of government via Planning Cells.
to train the personnel who will actually teach and assist these social units to conduct Planning Cells, which I prefer to call Citizen Advisory Committees as I believe it is more descriptive of the groups' function.
to educate all segments of society with knowledge that DD is the only true democracy, acquaint them with the benefits of DD, and impress upon them that many traditional social illnesses, such as poverty and ignorance, can be eliminated only within the environment of a true democracy.
to make the organization financially self-sufficient.
Enthusiasts understand the only chance for Direct Democracy to take root upon Earth is totally dependent upon, what seems to be, an insurmountable task of educating the public. But the task is not insurmountable.
This organization would create and produce a DD course and textbook titled "Direct Democracy As A Political Option." The contents would be based upon experiences of Professor Dienel and his Planning Cells in Germany, Citizen Juries in the U.S., and would describe other DD experiments around the globe. The organization would be responsible for persuading college, university and, perhaps, highschool administrators to integrate the DD course and textbook into their political or government curricula.
Another of the organization's activities would be the promoti ofon DD to the progressive and non-profit segments of society and the production of a booklet for the general population called "Take Control Of Your Political System: How To Make Citizen Advisory Committees Work.
A third—and probably its core—activity would be to solicit and train students as interns to perform one, or more, of four different activities.
to become a working board member and/or officer so that it will be possible to relinquish operation of the organization to the younger generations as soon as feasible.
to become Programmers and Moderators who will go where requested to help conduct Advisory Committees and the initiation of DD political systems.
to go out into the world of females and spread the word that the only possible way to bring true equality, justice, and peace to planet Earth is for females to demand equal political authority with males in determining their society's priorities, and that establishing a bottom-up political system is the only possible way to produce such gender-equal societies.
to spread the word among the Earth's young non-students.
Logically, there are two groups that should lead any movement for DD: the academic and the scientific communities. It's the students, teachers, scientists, and philosophers—the active seekers of truth and knowledge—who will be a stabilizing element in any attempt to initiate true democracy, and they should assume their advisory role at the very beginning.
Why preference for the academic and scientific communities above all other segments of society? For four reasons.
First: As opposed to the economic and political segments, which thrive in environments of greed, deception, and hypocrisy, the inhabitants of both the academic and scientific communities are thoroughly immersed in environments that value truth and knowledge, making them the most logical ones to transmit these values to all of us.
Second: These people already possess networks of communications. Through seminars, special classes, sports competitions, and many other ways, teachers, students, and working scientists freely communicate with their counterparts around the world.
Third: Many in both communities possess a long-held distrust and dislike of the political and economic elite gained from personal experiences.
Fourth: Like the population-at-large, student populations are transitory: here today and gone tomorrow. But unlike the lack of cohesion within the general population, after graduation, there is often a unique continuity and camaraderie within student populations. And, of course, there will always be new generations of students.
These are the reasons I recommend the academic and scientific communities as the movement's core. They are the only segments of our population that will, most likely, guarantee the new organization the intellectual integrity and stability necessary in the transitional period during which a society morphs into a true democracy.
In all probability, however, neither adult teachers, scientists, nor philosophers will volunteer to lead the movement, for as a whole, they are passive/submissive people, prone to discussion rather than action. In addition, most are fixed in habit, dependent upon Establishment dominated institutions or corporations for economic survival, and fearful of Establishment reprisal. Sadly to say, such fears in the United States are well founded.
It means unless the young students of the world—who are still idealistic, optimistic, and unbowed by the pressures of our low, animal-level, hostile societies—initiate this effort for a better future and give it an immediate universal cohesiveness that only they can, I don't believe true democracy on planet Earth will ever happen.
I believe we must engage the young of the world in this project, for it is their future with which we are concerned, therefore, I believe they should have a substantial voice in what that future will be. We should instill them with the skills necessary to promote and successfully conduct Citizen Advisory Committees (the basic skills necessary to maintain a direct democracy) when and where requested, and educate them with the knowledge necessary to operate the organization. I believe their energies should be harnessed in ways to assure them a safe, peaceful future. I also believe that once they understand the proposed organization is the vehicle that would make it possible for them to be the very first humans to enter a deliberately created future of their own design, they will finance the project and make it economically independent.
I've envisioned such a democratically structured society named America. Why not read about it and see what a true democracy could be like? Hopefully, you might then join with me and help to make our world a safer and better one.
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