Active Humanism

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Gravel

In a Nutshell

Metamorphose

Patriotism

Port Huron

Sheehan

Take Your Stand

Talk of the Town

The Plan

True Democracy

USA Today

Web One

What If?

Why Change?

Word to Students

BEFORE THE MOST COMMONLY asked questions about True Democracy, or Direct Democracy, or Participatory Democracy— all the very same political form—are answered, two attitudes about politics held by millions of Americans must be addressed: "I'm not interested in politics," and "politics has nothing to do with my needs or wants."

These are not only negative attitudes, they are destructively false. You should be interested in politics, because it has a lot to do with your needs and wants. Politics is mostly about money and wealth; who gets it, who doesn't get it, and who keeps it. It's related to how little you make in wages or salary, how much politicians can take of your earnings in taxes, and how much businessmen can steal from you with overpriced products. Does this sound like something in which you shouldn't be interested? Is all of this really unrelated to your life?

In totalitarian countries, where citizens live under brute-force rule and constant fear, rulers take whatever they want of the nation's natural resources for themselves, and tax common citizens for as much as they want. Commoners can do little about the situation without using brute force.

In the United States, which claims to be a democracy, our economic rulers also have taken much of the nation's natural resources for themselves, and our political leaders tax us for as much as we let them get away with. We have the latent power to peacefully do something about it, but we don't. Which is why, in the United States, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Just like in totalitarian countries.

The answer is for common people to get involved in "politics," but not the politics of our "representative" democracy, which is too heavily stacked against us. We should get involved in a system that allows each and every one of us to participate in determining the values and laws which govern our society.

The theoretical "America" described on this site describes such a political system.

How is this "America"'
different than the U.S.A.?
America is a "true" democracy as opposed to the "pseudo" democracy currently used by the American people. It is a political system within which all citizens, rich and poor, male and female, white and colored participate directly in selecting the values, laws, and regulations affecting their lives.

Won't control of government by
the ignorant, emotional masses be
disastrous for minority rights?
Won't it interefere with our successful
system of deliberation and debate?
No! That's propaganda preached by rich minorities of all places and times, and it's not true. The efifciency of such a government is totally dependent upon its design. If its powers are restricted to the legitimate needs of the citizenry and society, and government is prohibited from interfering with a citizen's personal life and choices, such a government will never become tyrannical.
However, this theory of the people's potential as tyrants is constantly being proven wrong by citizens of other countries who have incorporated into their political systems such deliberative processes as Citizen Planning Cells created by Professor Peter Dienel of Germany or Citizen Juries advocated by the Jefferson Centre in the U.S. These deliberative systems have shown that unknowing and uneducated people, once informed of the true problems and all the options, can make decisions equally as competent as any legislator, and quite often making better decisions.
Inherent in a functional system of true democracy is an educated citizenry. Theoretical "America" provides every citizen with the necessary knowledge, skills, and discipline to effectively administer government and attend the welfare of society.

Why should anyone believe
a true democracy will work better
than a representative one?
All political systems ever to exist on planet Earth, from rule of one, such as in a dictatorship, to rule of few, such as in the Roman Empire, to rule of many but not all, such as in Classical Greece have been "them against us" systems; hierarchical systems; systems hostile to their common citizens; systems that created negative, unhealthy social environments for commoners.
What the people of planet Earth haven't seen is a government managed by all of its citizens; a form of management by which all contribute to mold the values and laws governing their lives. Only such a politically organized society, with its ability to thoroughly diffuse political and economic power holds the potential to create a comparatively classless society; a society in which no individual or group has the power to send other citizens to fight and die in unnecessary and unwanted wars; a friendly society which cares for and nurtures all of its citizens.
The function of this website, as it is with many others, is to create a virtual meeting place around which discontented American commoners who wish to make this a better country may rally. It is irrelevant whether the cause of discontent is racial discrimination chauvinist abuse, economic injustice, environmental destruction, corporate dishonesty, whatever. The objective is to unite and fuse common Americans into the country's greatest political force, change the Americn political system, and then intiate the common sense changes that our "leaders" stubbornly refuse to make.
Strategies and objectives are based upon the following six premises:

1. We commoners must actively produce such change ourselves, now, before the corporate rush for global rule removes the opportunity for individuals to do so peacefully;

2. Neither our political leaders, religious leaders, nor economic rulers will ever do it, or they would have attempted it by now;

3. The core reasons for such change are the flagrant bias of the American System towards rich, white, privileged males, the deliberate removal from common Americans of hard earned civil liberties, and the subversion of whatever chance the US ever had of becoming the planet's first working true democracy.


4. There isn't time to wait for the various activist groups to realize that all the problems they confront are the consequences of class bias and the misuse and abuse of economic and political power by wealthy Americans.
In essence, privileged citizens of this country have been waging a war against common working Americans for over 200 years, but working Americans of post WWII generations aren't aware of this truth, as their parents, grandparents, and great grandparents were, and they don't understand that their separate battles are merely minor battles that can provide only minor victories.
It is a unified war that must be fought and it is the war against the "American Establishment" --those powerful, wealthy Americans who control the nation's corporate, financial, and political systems.

5. The only way to fight this war is to marshall the forces of those who fight for black rights, female rights, environmental rights, human rights, social rights, labor rights, and family rights. And the only way to win the war is to give the millions of voters who have withdrawn from the system and don't vote, a reason for voting;

6. There are no other logical options for thinking people who wish to claim the rights and fair treatment they have been denied for so long, and which only a true democracy promises to deliver.
 

Isn't this revolutionary talk?
Yes, and no! In a way it is, but it isn't a new revolution being proposed. It's a continuation of the one begun in 1776 and diverted with sneaky words by the American privileged for their own benefit.
It's the change expected by every American colonist who fought to discard rule of the English king. It's the change advocated by the farmers of the late 19th century in their fight against moneylenders and the undue concentration of wealth and power. It's the change advocated by the young Americans of the '60s and '70s in their Port Huron Manifesto. It's the change for right over wrong. It's the change from pseudo-democracy to true democracy. And it's a change long overdue.

Isn't it impractical, if not impossible,
to have a direct democracy within our
republican form of organization?
Yes! But the major drawback of the republican form is that there are too many chiefs and too many powerful self-interests within the republican form of governance. There are fifty states and one federal government. The people are ruled by fifty-one different sets of political and economic gangs. There are fifty-one sets of laws, and fifty-one sets of taxing formulations. Many Americans haven't really understood that the U.S.A. isn't a single country, but merely an association of states (which in Europe are called countries). Nor are most Americans aware that legally they are first New Yorkers, Californians, or whatever, before they are "Americans."
Fictional "America," on the other hand, is a single, unified, political structure. It's citizens are truly "Americans," all governed by one set of laws and one set of taxes. There are no professional politicians, for the people administer government and make the laws.  

Won't a strong, central government
which plans the overall society be
dictatorial? What about "government
is best which governs least?"
It is true and always will be true, when applied to them-against-us governments such as found in hierarchical social systems; governments comprised of people whose interests are unrelated to the interests of the governed, governments with unregulated powers that allow these people to care for their interests at the expense of the governed.
Such a statement is neither true, nor relevant, in a true democracy where the government is us. All of us.

What can I do to help change our political
form of government to a direct democracy?
Tell one person a day about this site. Buy the CD described on this website to help us raise the funds to initiate and maintain the non-profit educational organization described on the link called "The Plan." Tell your friends and associates to buy a copy also.
Begin reading about true democracy and visit the websites recommended on our links page to see how many other alarmed and discontented Americans realize it's time for change. Spread the suggestion that it's time to form a third political party. Not one that merely changes the names and faces of public officials, but one that promises to change the American System.
We'll also take any contributions you might wish to make to the cause of true democracy. You and all the other common, working citizens of the United States are the only ones who can transform the idea of change into the reality of change. Just remember, if you don't reach for the brass ring, you can never grab it!