---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tom Crowl <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 7:49 PM Subject: Empowering the Citizens Voice To: *"In the work that’s essentially the gold standard in the field, it’s concluded that for roughly 70% of the population – the lower 70% on the wealth/income scale – they have no influence on policy whatsoever. They’re effectively disenfranchised. As you move up the wealth/income ladder, you get a little bit more influence on policy. When you get to the top, which is maybe a tenth of one percent, people essentially get what they want, i.e. they determine the policy. So the proper term for that is not democracy; it’s plutocracy."* Chomsky: The U.S. behaves nothing like a democracy<http://www.salon.com/2013/08/17/chomsky_the_u_s_behaves_nothing_like_a_democracy/> There are no excuses and there is no need to keep the great majority voiceless and shut out of the political process. The narrowness of opinion input is destroying the faith of the people in their government, producing bad policy... and is eroding the Enlightenment culture that makes democracy possible at all! The micropayment is an essential missing tool for an empowered citizenry... *and a fundamental of speech.* I'm not an experienced entrepreneur. That's obvious. But the pooled-user-determined account is the method to make the micropayment viable for its array of needed uses... charity, journalism and politics especially (but not only). Attention should be paid. And sooner-or-later it will be. With Great Impatience, *Tom Crowl* http://CulturalEngineer.blogspot.com -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/