How about DU as a REAL political party, with REAL political power

[deliusmax]

Hi everyone at DU,

I am from the Netherlands, I've been a lurker and a great fan of this site since several months. I signed up specifically to be able to ask all of you a question.

Currently, in the Netherlands there is a huge distance between average citizens and politicians. This was reflected for instance by the recent referendum on the European constitution: although 85% of elected representatives on both sides of the political spectrum were for the constitution, an overwhelming majority of the dutch public voted against it.

Personally, I believe strongly that people should be more involved in politics. The more involved people are, the less chance you have of corruption and lying politicians. In fact, I believe the less power politicians have, the better.
Which is why I came up with the following:

Together with a friend I have been considering setting up a forum similar to DU, except that it would also be a political party.
What we would do is allow members to start polls and vote on any of political issue they desire.

We would run in the 2007 elections with one promise: if we get a seat in the "tweede kamer" ("congress") the elected person in that seat would consistently vote according to what the majority of the forum wants. All issues on the political agenda would be posted on the site, where all forum/party members are free to vote, give their arguments and discuss.

In Holland, we have a system of proportional representation. In the last election, the amount of votes needed to get one seat (out of a 150) was around 66,000, which is less than the current number of DU members!. There is no reason why such a forum could not attract that many members in the Netherlands, with 16 million people and the one of the highest numbers of internet connections per capita in the world.

This shows to me that it can be done, and once you get one seat in the "tweede kamer", you get media attention, more traffic to your site and it might easily get very big.

One possible problem: our forum would not ban any person on the basis of his/her political beliefs, so translated to the American situation: you could get Bush haters and Bush lovers in one forum, which could make for nasty discussions and some heavy moderating. However it would not be feasible to ban one group of people because it would go against the idea of the forum.

So tell me, fellow DU-ers: what would you think of this idea? Would you vote for such a party? Could you think of any pitfalls?
I would love to get your input on this, and if it becomes a hit, I'll be sure to mention you on the site we are building right now!


:toast:

[stellanoir]

1. good luck to you

it's unfortunately slightly tougher for us here under the oppressive forces with which we must contend.

hope you find real representation before we do. I'd put the odds with you.

blessings

[deliusmax]

2. Thanks,

I think we are indeed better off with the political system we have.
I guess any system that does not lead to an AWOL, horse milking Chimp at the top of the food chain is better than the current system in the states.

However I also think that it's time to take it to a next level and let everyone have a REAL say in politics, not just once every four years.

I am just not sure if our plan would work.. For instance, the forum could get hijacked by a well organised vocal group that abuses the real power the forum has to force a position on a certain issue..

[Zorra]

3. I like the idea. Thanks

Have to think about it some more though.

Welcome to DU.
:hi:

[endarkenment]

4. I assume that the netherlands has a parliamentary system

with proportional representation. We have an institutionalized two-party winner takes all system that makes it nearly impossible for third parties to even get one representative into congress. The best DU can do is be an active force within one of the two major parties, and we should perhaps be more explicit in doing that.

Why can't DU be an effective counterforce to the DLC? How did the DLC manage to take control, and how can we organize and act to move them the heck out?

Dean has partially shown the way: divorce fund raising from whoring to the corporate oligarchy, but it seems that despite the fact that we outraised the GOP and did so through individual contributions, and got Dean installed as DNC chair, the same corporate-whore DLC leaders are still running the show. What's up with that and how do we change it?

[deliusmax]

5. It IS a lot harder for you guys over there,

and DU's chances of acquiring direct power are close to non existent.
So the ways you suggest to have some indirect influence through fundraising or changing opinion is probably the best DU can do right now

But if you had the system we have, would you vote for DU, in other words: would you vote for an internet discussion board? Would you want to be able to have direct access to power or would you be afraid that it would become a populist party, tailored to the dumbest of its members?

[crispini]

6. I think it's an interesting idea.

So, do your seats not have a geographic component? Because the reason why such a thing would not work over here is that DU'ers are in a wide variety of legislative districts that we cannot not all vote for the same person -- it would not be possible for us to do such a thing.

[deliusmax]

7. Right now, there is no geographic component,

in the election system, although there is talk of introducing it. they think it will encoruage voter participation.
At the moment, they divide the number of people who voted nationally(around 10 million) by the number of seats (150), and that's the amount of votes needed for a party to get one seat. Quite simple.

It is late right now over here, so I won't be reading replies to this thread until the morning.

Keep the suggestions coming though, any ideas are appreciated! I'll read them tomorrow!

[crispini]

8. Well, then I'd say GO for it.

I think what in effect you are doing is creating an "internet representative" who would then respond to their "internet consitutency." In a perfect world (ha!) our elected representatives would respond to their "geographic constituency" in the same way, i.e. would listen to their voters and vote the way the people they represent agreed to. Of course, with the influence of money and corporations in our system, it doesn't always work out that way. BUT, in those situations where the races are very tight and it's harder to get re-elected, the representatives ARE more responsive to their voters.

The only think you might consider is narrowing down your scope a little bit. If you pull your political participation from across the board, you're going to have problems establishing a consensus direction. You may want to say, "Ok, we are generally on the left side of the spectrum" and then go from there. Just a thought.