National Initiative for Democracy

[diamondsoul]

I highly recommend everyone go to this site and vote if you believe the people in the United States have lost our right to self-govern. I realize many of us are edgy about giving out personal info, but this effort could work with enough nationwide support. Check out the various links, do a site owner verification whatever you have to do, but please seriously consider voting for this initiative. Take the risk, folks, it may be one of the few emaining avenues we have to snatch the country from the jaws of fascists like the ones in control of our White House today.

https://votep2.us/

There is a serious and comprehensive proposal to rectify this and other failures of the government to represent us. It was developed by one of the key people who brought peace in Vietnam. U.S. Senator Mike Gravel in 1971 single-handedly filibustered the Senate until they agreed to end the draft after 2 more years. At great personal and professional risk, he officially released the Pentagon Papers which exposed the lies and duplicity bulwarking our Vietnam policy. He was the first to oppose nuclear power. His organization Philadelphia II is preparing an amendment to the Constitution to permit We the People to propose and vote for the laws we want, in parallel to existing legislative bodies. Then we can vote to change the government's wicked military policies which arm our enemies and make us all the target of the oxymoronic "holy war."

This is not going to be "instant democracy" or even the "fast-track" which the President wants from Congress for trade issues. Our proposal includes extensive hearings, deliberations by randomly-selected "citizen juries" and public information. Claims by Washington Post uber-pundit David Broder that the initiative process in 24 US States is in the pockets of big money are largely false. The only academic studies of this show quite the opposite. See http://Vote.org/gerber. Most problems with initiatives are caused by the limitations imposed by the legislatures, which our proposal addresses.

We're not going to beg Congress for this amendment making them share power with us! (Gravel and others tried that in 1977, to no avail.) We're going to put the Democracy Amendment in the Constitution the way We the People originally ratified the Constitution -ourselves. This is called First Principles, known to few besides constitutional lawyers. We are convening a symposium to address this and other matters on February 16-18 in historic Williamsburg, Virginia. All details are on our web site at http://ni4d.org.

There are many other reasons for us sharing law-making power with politicians. This way we learn responsibility instead of being treated like children --abused children. It gives us an incentive to educate ourselves. It gives politicians some competition and incentive to do better. 100 years of state initiatives show an excellent track record of legislation; much was later adopted by Congress (see http://Vote.org). The 9/11 attacks give us a new reason: If the plane which crashed in Pennsylvania had hit the US Capitol as the hijackers apparently planned, the US would now be without a legislative branch of government. The "Legislature of the People" we propose would be everywhere, impossible to target.

Don't hate the government, become the government!

Evan Ravitz is an advisor to Philadelphia II and spearheaded Boulder's 1993 Voting by Phone ballot initiative. You can reach him at [e-mail]

[dweller]

1. Done

you should post this in GD for more eyes to read.

peace,
dp