Crowdsourcing Our Way Out of the Crisis of Democracy

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/activism/crowdsourcing-our-way-out-crisis-democracy



***SNIP


Have we reached that point? Many think so. A recent poll found 74% of Americans agree the broken political system needs to be fixed first. The poll found that “corruption of government by big money and frustration with the abuses of the political ruling class: incumbent politicians, lobbyists, the elite media, big business, big banks, big unions, and big special interests unites Americans.” And, “the battle lines of the new political order are emerging. When presented with the proposition that ‘the real struggle for America is not between Democrats and Republicans but mainstream America and the ruling political elites,’ over 66% of voters agree.”

According to the poll, Americans see the sad reality of the state of the country and are ready to rebel:

- “Eighty-six percent of all voters believe political leaders are more interested in protecting their power than in doing what’s right for the American people.


- Eighty-three percent believe the country is run by an alliance of incumbent politicians, media pundits, lobbyists, and other interests for their own gain.


- Further, 79% believe that powerful interests from Wall Street banks to corporations, unions, and PACs use campaign and lobbying money to rig the system to serve themselves and that they loot the national treasury at the expense of every American.”

We have highlighted how representative democracy often does the opposite of what super-majorities of the people want (see also this and this). The people see this lack of representation and turn off — half do not register to vote and in most elections tiny minorities of registered voters bother to vote. Recently there have been reports about how government no longer represents the people but represents a small minority of the wealthy (see these three reports here, here and here). Academics are beginning to describe the United States as an oligarchy, plutocracy or managed democracy. All this adds up to: The US government has lost its democratic legitimacy .

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. I've thought for about 5 years now that we should be doing

'government kickstarter' campaigns to raise money for things the House won't approve, like the money needed to get Gitmo closed down. If Congress won't pay for things, the citizens should be able to decide to directly pay for things, cutting Congress out of the loop.

[merrily]

2. We pay twice; they pay not at all.

We pay them out of our pockets, via taxes, to do nothing. Then we pay out of our pockets, via crowd sourcing, to do what they should have done with the tax money we paid. Meanwhile, whatever they do (or don't do) is on the taxpayers' dime.

And when they do do something, it's often the wrong thing.

The system is FUBAR.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

3. But at least we'd actually be getting things done.

And be able to bypass Boehner and Co simply not funding getting those specific things done.