[P2P-F] Fwd: Review of Extreme Democracy - Underlies & Enhances #OWS

Thu Nov 24 21:08:47 CET 2011

Electoral Reform is the only initiative that is:

1)  VERY attractive to all parties outside of Occupy [Independents,
excluded political parties, union members, moderates angry at how the two
party tyranny has destroyed the Republic

2)  Focused on the ROOT CAUSE, which is the total corruption of Congress.
NO OTHER ISSUE matters in this context.

3)  ACHIEVABLE in 3-6 months if the electoral reform summit (has its own
Twitter page now) comes off (Reform Party and Centrist Party may endorse),
all 435 representatives are confronted during the holiday recess, the
demand is made on 5 January, and we burn any representative that fails to
co-sponsor the bill.  Obama cannot veto it.  This is DO-ABLE.

I don't own this initiative, I'm just the spark plug, I certainly would be
thrilled if you took an interest and used your powers and knowledge to move
the initiatve into core consciousness.

This is also a MODEL for Occupy global.

Very respectfully,
Robert

On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 2:46 PM, Devin Balkind
<devin at sarapisfoundation.org>wrote:

> Nearly everyone within OWS agrees we need to separate the state and the
> corporations, end corporate personhood, etc.  What we need is for people
> who have become comfortable sharing their ideas to engage in the often
> uncomfortable task of organizing their communities into strong assemblies,
> building consensus for their proposals and advancing it through their
> assemblies and helping organizing the regional, national and international
> movement so we can implement.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 12:45 AM, Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net
> > wrote:
>
>> thanks Devin,
>>
>> I understand indeed that this is the process of ows, you have to go
>> through the community as a contributor in order to get traction for any
>> proposal,
>>
>> but I also understand that robert has people in different ows camps who
>> agree with the separation of corporation and state platform,
>>
>> we'll see what comes out of it!!
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 4:53 AM, Devin Balkind <devinbalkind at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> There's a constant debate within ows about whether electoral politics
>>> are relevant.  General consensus seems to me to be that the electoral
>>> process has some relevance, but not enough to engage the movement to
>>> organize for political ends.  People would prefer to organize their local
>>> communities and rebuild civil society from the ground up, not reform
>>> political society from the top down.  The people organizing Ows (in NYC at
>>> least) appear to have very strong anarchist instinct but many don't
>>> understand that term or take it seriously so there's a modest lack of
>>> philosophical continuity; but that's being offset by the emergence of an
>>> open source 'do-ocracy' where people who 'advance' in the informal
>>> meta-organization are those who work well with others and get shit done.
>>>  It's beautiful.
>>>
>>> If anyone wants to advance something in the #occupy movement such as
>>> electoral reform, I suggest writing up your plan, passing it through your
>>> local ga, implement locally, promoting it on the occupation's website (rss
>>> is more important than social media) then do the same with your regional
>>> ga's, and continue promoting it until you achieve the result that you seek.
>>>
>>>
>>> If you're not tirelessly advocating your position and advancing your
>>> projects within the ows framework you're not engaging in the do-ocracy.  If
>>> you're not engaging, don't be surprised when your ideas aren't implemented.
>>>
>>> DWB
>>>
>>> On Nov 23, 2011, at 1:41 PM, Michel Bauwens <michel at p2pfoundation.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>> From: Robert Steele < <robert.david.steele.vivas at gmail.com>
>>> robert.david.steele.vivas at gmail.com>
>>> Date: Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 1:10 AM
>>> Subject: Review of Extreme Democracy - Underlies & Enhances #OWS
>>> To: <Robert.David.Steele.Vivas at gmail.com>
>>> Robert.David.Steele.Vivas at gmail.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I bought this book in October 2010 because I was getting to know both
>>> Mitch Ratcliff and Jon Lebkowsky better, but at first pass through it did
>>> not really draw me in. Then OccupyWallStreet happened. I read the book on
>>> the flight from the US to Spain where I am talking about commercial
>>> intelligence and integrity in the messed up new world, and this time
>>> around, the book GRABS ME.
>>>
>>> Because #OWS has brought to life the ideas the co-editors and various
>>> contributing authors understood well before 2004 and articulated in 2004,
>>> now I can absorb this book as much more meaningful and inspirational.
>>> Anyone associated with OccupyWallStreet in any way from direct to indirect,
>>> should read this book. I am donating my copy to the George Mason University
>>> Library as I do all my new books (they took over my entire library when I
>>> joined the UN back in 2010).
>>>
>>> QUOTE 6): "Politics is always changing as a society incorporates new
>>> technology for disseminating information and connecting people."
>>>
>>> QUOTE (11): "The whole history of democracy and technology has set the
>>> stage for what happens next."
>>>
>>> In the first contribution Joichi Ito (now head of the MIT Media Lab)
>>> suggests that emergent democracy is an open process melding social software
>>> into democracy. I observe that no one now elected to office is serious
>>> about using social software to properly understand any issue or harness the
>>> collective intelligence of their constituency on any issue.
>>>
>>> Weblogs are digital grass roots equivalents.
>>>
>>> Helpful to remind ourselves that democracy is defined by having the
>>> supreme power vested in the people and exercised directly--NOT what we have
>>> today in the USA's inverted totalitarian democracy, see Democracy
>>> Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism
>>> (New in Paper)<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/069114589X/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk>
>>> .
>>>
>>> Democracy NEEDS the competition ideas that in turn demand free speech.
>>> Rule by Secrecy is anti-democratic (and also enormously wasteful). See Griftopia:
>>> A Story of Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in
>>> American History<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385529961/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk>and Rule
>>> by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the
>>> Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060931841/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk>
>>> .
>>>
>>> All of the authors share concerns with creemping restraints on the
>>> information commons and all of the authors are optimistic about the
>>> emergence of extreme democracy. For the latest book along these lines, see
>>> Peggy Holman's Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1605095214/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk>
>>> .
>>>
>>> From Gary Johnson and so totally relevant to #OWS it is scary good:
>>>
>>> QUOTE (25): "In complex systems the role of the leader is not about
>>> determining direction and controlling followers. The leader maintains
>>> integrity, mediates the will of the many, influencing and communicating
>>> with peers and other leaders. The leader becomes more of a facilitator (or
>>> hub), and custodian of the process, than a power figure."
>>>
>>> The entire book is rich with footnotes and most of them provide URLs.
>>>
>>> Three types of network emergence: creative (smallest), social
>>> (middling), and political (largest). I myself am frustrated by #OWS
>>> spinning in circles over demands and grievances while failing to move
>>> aggressively on what US Day of Rage correctly (in my view) calls for as the
>>> singular demand: Electoral Reform. I like to say there is nothing wrong
>>> with America the Beautiful that cannot be set right immediately by
>>> restoring the integrity of our electoral process and hence our governance
>>> and hence putting corporations back into the box (they hold commissions
>>> from the public). Everything else is down in the weeds, in my view, but of
>>> course necessary to the process.
>>>
>>> QUOTE (32): "Weblogs create a positive feedback systems, and with tools
>>> for analysis lke Technorati, we can identify the importance of information
>>> at the political level by tracking its movement across the weak ties
>>> between networks and network levels."
>>>
>>> TRUST is a critical aspect--one governments no longer enjoy in most
>>> artificial nation-states--and the book as a whole is huge on both the
>>> process of creating public trust, and the means by which the public can
>>> carry out counter-surveillance on the government as well as corporations.
>>>
>>> QUOTE (38): "We can bootstrap emergent democracy using existing and
>>> evolving tools and create concrete examples of emergent democracy, such as
>>> intentional blog communities, ad hoc advocacy coalitions, and activist
>>> networks."
>>>
>>> Mitch Ratcliff articulates a deep confidence in people that I share
>>> (search for 2010 HUMINT Trilogy also Reflections on Integrity).
>>>
>>> QUOTE (60): Extreme democracy, taking a cue from the recent evolution of
>>> software development, 'extreme programming,' anticipates a politics based
>>> on lowered friction in communication that increases the diversity of ideas
>>> and opinions that can be brought to bear on the development of public
>>> policy."
>>>
>>> In other words, as I articulated in 1995 in a Government Information
>>> Quarterly article, we can create a Smart Nation that harnesses the
>>> distributed intelligence of the Whole Earth. NOT what the two-party tyranny
>>> wants to hear.
>>>
>>> QUOTE (76): "Emergence, to a great degree, is simply what we don't plan.
>>> How to arrive at the best possible unplanned outcome is what emergent
>>> democracy is about."
>>>
>>> I had to read that several times to appreciate the depth. It drives
>>> directly to the point that top-down hierarchies are not democratic, and
>>> that indigenous bottom-up consensus processes are. I have a note to the
>>> effect that extreme democracy crosses all boundaries and takes place in
>>> real time. In other words, it is the opposite of bureaucratic stove-pipes
>>> and special interest earmarks, and restores holistic analytics and
>>> long-term thinking.
>>>
>>> QUOTE (89): "A political philosophy must incorporate more than the
>>> experience of participation. An analysis of power, define ideas about the
>>> role of the citizen and the government, and the principles society will
>>> embrace about the value of the individual are required as well. See The
>>> Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates That Define and Inspire Our
>>> Country <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812976355/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk>and also What
>>> Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to
>>> Create a United States<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684848716/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk>
>>> .
>>>
>>> Several of the authors focus on the Howard Dean campaign and Joe
>>> Trippi's brilliance in the first cut of a political web that actually
>>> engaged people. The conclusions are generally negative--the first cut,
>>> while brilliant, clustered like-minded people but did not cope with actual
>>> issues. The web effort could also not overcome Dean's inherent problems
>>> with himself and others. The bottom line: the web aspect must help the
>>> totality (human-centered) address new challenges in a visibly effective
>>> manner. Rah rah and hand-holding are not enough. Real information, real
>>> issues, real people, real outcomes are essential.
>>>
>>> Steve Johnson focused on technology amplified collective action as the
>>> next big thing. He also hits hard on my biggest concern with #OWS, as shown
>>> below.
>>>
>>> QUOTE (100): "Influencing elections and legislation is the sene qua non
>>> of effectiveness."
>>>
>>> It is driving me mad that #OWS is mumbling about going after 2014 and
>>> 2016 seats when an Electoral Act of 2012 is online now, could be demanded
>>> on 6 November, and if not implemented by 15 February 2012, used to create a
>>> General Strike that flushes the US Congress down the toilet, and the
>>> two-party tyranny with it.
>>>
>>> Ken White makes the very important point that reform is not redesign.
>>> See Ideas and Integrities: A Spontaneous Autobiographical Disclosure<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0020926308/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk>and Redesigning
>>> Society (Stanford Business Books)<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804747946/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk>
>>> .
>>>
>>> Valdis Krebs focuses on our biggest challenge right now: the atomized
>>> voter. He shows three levels of voting engagement:
>>>
>>> 01 The atomized voter
>>>
>>> 02 The demographic voter
>>>
>>> 03 The social voter
>>>
>>> He makes the point that strangers do not influence social voeters, and:
>>>
>>> QUOTE (124): "Instead of having strangers call voters, or knock on
>>> doors, the campaign should find well-connnected supporters and have them go
>>> out into their clusters."
>>>
>>> QUOTE (126): "The network strategy does not require a large war chest of
>>> political contributions. It does require time and energy and understanding
>>> of the social dynamics."
>>>
>>> I have a note: 100 million voters times $10 each is US$1 billion. 2012
>>> is a do-able do if #OWS will integrate, adapt, and MOVE.
>>>
>>> Ross Mayfield gets into online communities, flash mobs and flash
>>> fund-raising, flash lobbying, participatory politics.
>>>
>>> Danah Boyd focuses on engaging people and engendering community. There
>>> are so many local to national design opportunities inherent in the economic
>>> crash (Wall Street can ignore reality, but reality will not ignore Wall
>>> Street) that I am actually positive about the near future. We are about to
>>> become "sane" as a nation and stop doing the wrong things at greater
>>> expense.
>>>
>>> Adam Greenfield contributes a chapter, "Democracy for the Rest of Us:
>>> the Minimal Compact and Open-Source Government" that I consider worthy of
>>> stand-alone circulation. He talks about portable citizenship and the open
>>> source world being flexible, adaptive, extensible, infinitely reproducible
>>> (#OWS!!), non-local, interoperable and mutual, and highly robust.
>>>
>>> QUOTE (211): "Whatever else it [extreme democracy] achieves, if
>>> anything, I hope you take from it the essential recognition it shares with
>>> open-source development: that we can teach ourselves what we need to learn,
>>> share whatever knowledge we glean, build on the insights of the others
>>> engaged in the same efforts. Just as the novice programmer is invited to
>>> "hack" open-source software, the minimal compact invites us to demystify
>>> and reengineer government at the most intimate and immediate level." We can
>>> hack democracy."
>>>
>>> Ethan Zuckerman offers some very important wisdom on the need to
>>> recognize the rest of the world - the five billion poor - as imminent
>>> beneficiaries of any tools, processes, and success that we enjoy, and I
>>> especially like his recognition that smart phones are not going anywhere
>>> fast in the extreme poverty world. There it is dumb phones and talk radio.
>>> I really really like his emphasis on how we should design tools (and
>>> networks) for all the world, not just the 1st world.
>>>
>>> Roger Wood is phenomenal in his focus on the FACT that all political,
>>> social, and economic structures boil down to the individual.
>>>
>>> QUOTE (248): "All initiatives are born, all decisions are made and all
>>> actions are taken by individuals. The individual human, uniquely endowed
>>> with the capacity for thought and reasoning, is the source of all political
>>> action. Power, as the ability to cause action in society, comes only from
>>> people."
>>>
>>> Adina Levin discusses specific tools and functions:
>>>
>>> 01 Dialog and deliberation (this is what the National Council for Dialog
>>> and Deliberation does, but their tools are non-existent)
>>>
>>> 02 Researching policies and strategies (this is the core of Open Source
>>> Intelligence (OSINT) and public intelligence
>>>
>>> 03 Educating public and the media (not well developed today)
>>>
>>> 04 Identifying supporters (#OWS has done that -- 99%)
>>>
>>> 05 Gathering and motivating supporters (this is where #OWS lacks a
>>> strategy, vision, funding plan, and political plan)
>>>
>>> 06 Raising money, mobilization (early days yet, I am certain we can
>>> raise $1 billion a year as a democracy subscription in the USA, much more
>>> once this migrates to the rest of the world).
>>>
>>> I put the book down with huge admiration and respect for all of the
>>> contributing authors and the two editors especially. I believe that the
>>> Arab Spring and the demonstrable Hypocrisy (search for Jon Lebkowsky
>>> Hypocrisy Video) of the current Administration were seed crystals for #OWS,
>>> and #OWS is a seed crystal for something much much larger that ultimates
>>> engages 300 million US voters and then billions of global voters. It is a
>>> rare privilege to be alive today and in association with Extreme Democracy.
>>>
>>> See Also:
>>>
>>> The Tao of Democracy: Using co-intelligence to create a world that works
>>> for all <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591095204/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk>
>>> Conscious Evolution: Awakening Our Social Potential<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1577310160/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk>
>>>
>>> - - - - - - -
>>>
>>> *Review Permalink to Vote and/or Comment<http://www.amazon.com/review/R3J8Z2NQKKP6DQ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm>
>>> *
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> Devin Balkind
> Director, Sarapis Foundation
> devin at sarapisfoundation.org
> @devinbalkind
>
>
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