Organizing for America | Adam Roberts's Blog: Direct Democracy

Direct Democracy

By Adam Roberts - Nov 30th, 2007 at 1:00 pm EST

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Former US Senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska), who is also running for the Democratic Nomination, has been sponsoring a new way to view the true meaning of Democracy, and with it, ultimately handing the power of legislation to the people. The National Initiative movement, an effort formed by Mike Gravel's "The Deomcracy Foundation" is a constituional amednment that would enable the people to use ballot initaives to vote alongside existing Legislative bodies, on all levels of government. The organization seems to have worked out many of the major technicallities, with many checks to inusre coporations, lobbyists, and a rash unconsitutinal decsion from the people, have no power in the system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Initiative

http://www.nationalinitiative.us/

In fact, people would even be able to safely vote through many means, even the internet. This is a grand ideal, one of which many would say is equivalent to the feared "majoritarian dictatorship" or "Mob Rule," and should be whole-heartedly rejected. These people are simply uninformed of the matter. All this system would be doing is essentially adding another check to our horribly malfunctioning Checks and Balancing system. The Legislators have long since abanonded the will of the people for corporate greed and lobbyist bribes. Imagine the leaps forward we would make if the people had command over legisltation. The vast majority of America wants the horrible NAFTA system to be repealed; Congress and the President both refuse to do so, instead choosing fake promises. Animal Rights Reform, better tax policies, ANYTHING that the people wanted (provided its constitutionality) could be provdided. If there was a national initiatve for it, the will of people would prevail and it would be immediately abolished.

The problem is clear; Gravel is scoring in the 1% range and probably will not recieve the nomination. Which is why I am encouraging you to ask Obama to also endorse this idea. It is a bold one (bold being the one the thing that politicans hate, of course), but if the people were informed on a massive level, I am sure this idea would be well receieved.

I encourage you to spread the word on this, and convince Obama and his numerous supporters to grab ahold of this plan.

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