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19. Promoting DD Here are a few suggestions for promoting Direct Democracy: 1. Find others interested in DD and discuss it with them. 2. Think globally, act locally. Set up a local COMMITEE for DIRECT DEMOCRACY (CDD). in your family, neighbourhood, school, work or Internet, whichever you consider suitable. Members of a CDD must be DD activists, not just sympathizers. 3. A CDD must meet regularly to discuss local and general issues relevant to DD, to decide on activities and carry them out. Each CDD must finance itself and act as an independent unit. 4. Promote DD in any way possible, by word of mouth, print, radio and TV, on the Internet, in discussion with friends at work or in school. 5. Every CDD must be self-reliant, but should help other CDDs and create new ones.When a number of CDDs exist, they should organize a local, regional, national or international conference to coordinate activities, to learn from each others’ experience and to assist CDDs that need help. In time all CDDs should help create a World DD Movement to coordinate activities of all DD movements. This does not mean the world becomes one huge DD. DDs will merge if their members want it. 6. A DD movement must not be organised like traditional political parties. It must not have an Executive Committee deciding on behalf of others. It must have a Coordinating Committee (CC) to facilitate coordination between CDDs and to aid the exchange of ideas, but every CDD is free to reject the proposals of a CC. Proposals from a CC are not orders, they are suggestions. 7. A DD organization has no person or committee deciding for others. The DD movement is an embryo of the political system it wants to create. Every creation is shaped by the mentality of its creator. Relations between members of a DD movement must be like those they wish to see in a DD society. They must cultivate their own autonomy and respect the autonomy of others. Anyone supporting DD must not behave as a dictator in the family or any other sphere of life. 8. If your CDD can implement DD at work, in a school, village or borough, it should do so, and be prepared for fierce opposition. Don’t wait till DD is implemented everywhere. In small domains DD can work without electronic means. Experience gained from such cases will help other CDDs. However, as long as the entire society is not a DD every local DD will be subjected to strong pressures from those who dominate the larger society. Local DDs may be perverted or crushed. It is therefore essential - eventually - to run the entire society as a DD. 9. Use humour. Politics need not be grim or boring. Jokes are a powerful political weapon. DD can be fun. Exposing RR can be fun. Don’t just criticize - propose constructive DD solutions to every social, political or psychological problem. Be creative, invent new solutions, but keep your feet on the ground. 10. Don’t be deterred by those who say DD is impossible. Millions believed human flight, lunar landings, use of nuclear energy, curing infertility, changing hereditary traits’, were all impossible. Lord Rutherford, ‘Father of nuclear physics’ declared in 1938 that any practical use of nuclear energy would be impossible. In 1945 Hiroshima disproved him. In politics those saying ‘impossible’ usually mean ‘undesirable’. Check up on the motives of those who say DD is ‘impossible’. |
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