Showing posts with label Voting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Voting. Show all posts

Beyond Voting: the central issue of Power laid bare.




"To vote or not to vote, that is  a good question to start a conversation, an exploration, to express a desire to understand how democracy functions and how it ought to function."

The Power Inquiry of 2006 looked at this is a lot of detail.

By asking people why they don't vote.

Seems like a good approach.

If done well, and if people are being honest, the it would produce useful information, evidence... it would test current public domain assumptions on the matter.

They did it very well.

It's amazing what listening to people, what hearing and understanding with feedback can create, in terms of expressing and identifying needs, and then helping people to meet those needs, if they need help, if they request help...

What they found was that people's perception of professional politicians was accurate.

Liars, cheats and crooks who represent those who lobby them with cash incentives, who protect entrenched Power to Rule the People through the control of social and political institutions and exonomics, whilst pretending otherwise.

What they found was that a growing constituency of people were ACTIVE in their local communities, providing short and long-term support services to the poor and vulnerable, and the community at large, which had .historic roots in victorian local philanthropy mixed with a tradition of peasant self-reliance, how communities of peasants and later workers have long organised to help each other...

What they found was that for many people political activism was action on the ground to deal with issues in their area. Voting does not convey the same degree of social committment, and could be said to be inferior in many ways, if a citizens political action was limited to voting.

The Power Inquiry found that the Community Voluntary Sector was larger than membership of political parties by a massive margin, that as a diverse commjunity, it was politically and ethically aware and was taking active responsibility in their local areas.

They found that the Community Voluntary Sector was well versed in delivering services those they helped really needed, fund raising, consciousness raising, treasury management, listening and learning from those the served, in essence the skills of self-Governance.

What they found was that the Community Voluntary Sector crossed all age and income groups.

What they found was that the Community Voluntary Sector was also versed in real democracy, in real decision making and policy creation and implementation.

What came out of The Power Inquiry was a series of recommendations for meaningful changes which would devolve power as a SHARED RESPONSIBILITY to the grass roots.

One of which was removal of the official post of Party Whip. 100% anti-democratic post.

One of which was no private funding of parties for Elections. A fund based on the number of the electorate registered, to be split equally between all candidates.

One of which was a re-call at every level of Public Office. A form of oversight.

One of which was lowering the voting age to 16. Inclusion of the young because they are not represented, and quite often are very well aware of the issues of the day, and yet excluded.

One of which was introducing Democratic Power to students in secondary Schools, to give them a responsibility and voice on matters that affect their lives. You cannot exercise or share Power unless you have some MEANINGFUL practice.

A NOTA segment on the ballot box. We ought to be able to register non-confidence in those offering themselves up for election.

And much else besides....

The Three 'leading parties' Lab/Tor/LibDem attended the conference in 2006, and praised the initiative and content of The Power Inquiry report, before an audience of more than 500 people.

Two days later, they dismissed the Power Inquiry as 'impractical.'

'Impractical'!

And then the assault on the Community Voluntary Sector was initiated, by people who KNEW the crash of 2008 was coming, and who knew they could use that to justify the cuts to the Community Voluntary Sector, and the privatisation of much of the work being done by the Community Voluntary Sector.

In other words, a clear manipulation and assault on pro-Democracy activism at the local level, designed to stress the Community Voluntary Sector, which they KNEW would also harm many of those whose lives were being supported by the Community Voluntary Sector.

And this has been carefully ignored by mainstream media, because it was and still is intentional professional cruelty designed to undermine REAL democratic intelligence within the UK.

The Greens, SNP and Plaid are gaining ground BECAUSE their policies are HUMANE, above all else.

The issue of voting/not voting is being manipulated to mask this cruelty and intentionality.

That The State and Established Power are willing to be cruel to protect, enhance and expand their power is OBVIOUS - Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and our own bloody history (when read accurately, away from school texts and media history programs).

Few people ever fought and died for freedom, the majority fought and died because they were enlisted, or because they were socially conditioned to support the State. None of the political leadership fought, other than the likes of Churchill who fought the Boers and treated their civilian population with horrific abuse.

The treatment of Greek Resistance fighters post liberation of Greece, by UK Military and State, ought to be standard subject in school Histories. The UK Military and UK State enlisted those within Greece who had collaborated with the Nazis to slaughter those who had resisted on the basis that the resistance was largely populated by 'communists'.

The response to African Democratic Nationalists post WWII discloses the nature of Power in the UK. The response to Iraqi Democratic Nationalists in late 2003 disclose the nature of Power in the UK.

They plunged Greece, Africa and Iraq into a nightmare of Authoritarian Government proclaiming LIBERTY! They KNEW exactly what they were doing, and remain unapologetic about it.

Russel Brand said WHY he doesn't vote, rather than urging people not to vote per se.

And his intention was misrepresented. Willfully misunderstood.

I will vote Green, not because I think the Green candidate can win, but because the Green Candidate represents a humanist approach that is humane, that is kind, that is more empathic and that is practical, and I'd rather lose standing for that, than win a Pyrrhic victory claimed by excluding the Tories from Government, when in fact Government is the entirety of Parliament and Local Councils, and our acceptance of them as our Rulers, with the grass roots excluded from real decision making.

I vote for the entire community, not for my special interest,or traditional alliance.

I vote because I think on these matters, deeply and I care about all the people in this country, non excluded.

And I vote Green because I despise the political culture, in power and on the streets, that enables the protection of serial pedophiles in Church and State Institutions, the cover-ups, the wars, the profiteering, the lies.

I am not hopeful of an outcome based on one election.

I am hopeful because there is a growing awareness of all that I have indicated above, and it will continue to grow, year on year, generation on generation.

I vote thinking of long term outcomes, thinking of my grandchildren and their contemporaries.

I totally get why so many people do not vote, and I would not dare suggest to them that they are incorrect, given all that I have indicated above.

This election is 100% illegitmate BECAUSE of the cover-ups of the War Crimes, the cover-ups of priofteering and cover-ups of the sexual abuse of children by members of the Power structure (it also happens in families, the cover-ups..) has not been tackled head-on., Not by Power and not by the people at large.

The only reason we know what has been going on is because brave SURVIVORS broke the stories, again and again and again, in the face of opposition within the Police, within Councils, Schools, Churches and the great offices of State.

We all need to think and think again on this. Not least because we are adults with a core responsibility towards each others welfare that defines our very humanity. Whether we like it or not.

We need to act as mature responsible adults. Way beyond mere voting.


Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

Thank you for reading this blog.

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UK Local and European Elections, the reality of The Vote exposed.

The vast majority of people in the Western style democracies are unaware that they have been purposefully infantalised and that voting on it's own, as it is currently set up is an immature form of democracy.

I was unaware of this myself for many years. I don't 'blame' the people who have been conditioned, nor do I feel any anger or frustration towards those of us whose conditioning has been so intense, because it is so ubiquitous. It permeates education, it is promoted through media, left and right, it's part of marketing's purpose through 'aspirational marketing'. Infants, children, teens, young adults, young parents and elders are all targets of the conditioning processes.

I say this because I see that the power disparity between and infant and an adult, the child and a teacher, the bully and the bullied, the 'doctor and the patient', is mirrored by the current power disparity between any individual adult or grass roots collective and The State... all too often Government ministers insist on telling us what is good for us without meaningfully including us, our stated concerns and useful insight in the discourse on what is or is not 'good for us'. They rule, we obey. Thus we the people are maintained in an infantile state.

 
Mature Democracy requires that the individual citizen is directly involved in the decision making processes over all matters that affect his or her life, and that he or she works with the community, to participate in the implementation of any policies that emerge from such discourse.

This is a matter of maturity and of personal and collective responsibility. The fact that so few people even get to the level of acknowledging this simple point reveals the utility of State Education as it exists for the preservation of Political Power to Rule Over the People.

There is NO mature democracy anywhere on Earth at this time.

The power disparity between and infant and an adult is mirrored by the current power disparity between an adult and The political and economic State... a healthy adult will care for the child, allow the child to explore and discover and articulate who she or he is and will nurture the child for the child's outcomes rather than the parents desired outcomes. A healthy parent will foster empathy and autonomy in the child.

Classical and modern politics did, and does none of this, and most often does the opposite, with dreadful results for those who have to endure: be they people conned into taking on mortgages which turn homes into investments and profits for developers, be they people whose land and water is poisoned by fracking or mining or other 'resource development', or parents who are under stress and being regulated rather than supported by Social Services, be they elders divorced from the extended family, placed in 'care homes', cared for by poorly paid, badly trained workers, care homes which are run as profit centers for private enterprise, be they civilians caught in the cross fire of 'just wars' (Iraq, Afghanistan) and civil wars where proxies are trained, funded and let loose (Syria, Libya and Africa and South America in the second half of the 20th Century), be they children diagnosed with ADHD and coerced to take 'medications' to 'manage' their symptoms, be they Survivors of institutional abuse, ranging from asylums to Guantanamo Bay... So many people whose lives are blighted by the actions of the State.

There's more I could lay out here... the point is made.

It's a feeble argument to lay those adverse outcomes against the more positive outcomes of State action as a balance sheet, for that argument demeans those who suffer and minimise the meaning of their lived experience...

As far as I am aware, the only document coming anywhere near describing the practical steps towards a mature democracy, one in which all citizens participate as equals, where responsibility of power is vested in the grass roots, where active power - that is the power to act- is devolved to the community is The Power Inquiry 2006.

You won't have heard of it because all the political parties feel threatened by it's insight into how power operates and what is needed to devolve that power from those who currently hold it,and all too often abuse it, to the grass roots where transparency can function effectively as a restraint on power accumulation and deepen accountability.

http://www.jrrt.org.uk/publications/power-people-independent-inquiry-britains-democracy-full-report

It's a .pdf, and so worth reading and studying...

And yes, by all means, do vote for the greens, or independents or others if it means something, even as a protest vote.

But do not expect that your vote is an exercise in meaningful Participative Democracy. It's not.

I urge my readers to familiarize themselves with The Power Inquiry document as a starting point in their own explorations of how democracy in the UK might be deepened, strengthened and nurtured!


Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe

The Power Inquiry recommendations : a brief review.

Russell Brand talks about two areas of interest to us all in the Paxman interview.

These are

a) the cruelty of the way Political, economic and religious power as we know it behaves - war, poverty, misogyny, concentration of wealth.

and

b) the desire of ordinary folk who have empathy, intelligence and the energy to render Governance incapable of such cruelty, yet who feel totally excluded from so doing due to the current political systemic and institutionalised set-up.

We are excluded from policy decision making, we are excluded from adequate oversight, and our concerns raised, when harms are caused, are brushed aside.


a well known war criminal, free and at large, unindicted, 
simply because the people are excluded from policy decision making.

The Power Inquiry of 2006 looked at how political and legislative power could be devolved to the grass roots, to those people who are largely imbued with common sense, decency, empathy, intelligence and the energy and a natural desire to render Power incapable of such cruelty such as The Iraq War or the mistreatment of 'failed' asylum seekers, or the mistreatment of the elderly in privatised 'care' and so on, if they had the opportunity.

In essence this is about Power Relationships of old being superseded by shared power with empathy based relationships at it's core as a future and necessary social and cultural trajectory.

Here is a brief list of Power Inquiry Recommendations:

You can download the full POWER INQUIRY REPORT in .pdf format  from this web page.
- it's a very inspiring document!

Rebalancing Power

There needs to be a re-balancing of power between the constituent elements of the political system: a shift of power away from the executive to Parliament, away from central government to local government. 

Much greater clarity, transparency and accountability should be introduced into the relationship between the Executive and supra-national bodies, quangos, business, and interest groups. 

Too much power goes unchecked. The aim here, in The Power Inquiry, is to allow the freedom for our elected representatives to be the mind, heart, eyes, ears and mouth of British citizens speaking at the vert heart of governance.

1. A concordat should be drawn up between executive and Parliament indicating where key powers lie and providing significant powers of scrutiny and initiation for Parliament.

2. Select committees should be given independence and enhanced powers including the power to scrutinise and veto key government appointments and to subpoena witnesses to appear and testify before them.

This should include proper resourcing so that committees can fulfil their remit effectively. The specialist committees in the Upper House should have the power to co-opt people from outside the legislature who have singular expertise, such as specialist scientists, or those who work directly in frontline services when considering complex areas of legislation or policy.

3. Limits should be placed on the power of the whips. Indeed the Party Whip is anti-democratic in nature and should be abolished.

4. Parliament should have greater powers to initiate legislation, to launch public inquiries and to act on public petitions.

5. 70% of the members of the House of Lords should be elected by a 'responsive electoral system' (see 12 below) - and not on a closed party list system - for a maximum of three parliamentary terms. To ensure that this part of the legislature is not comprised of career politicians with no experience outside politics, candidates should be at least 40 years of age.

6. There should be an unambiguous process of decentralisation of powers from central to local government.

7. A concordat should be drawn up between central and local government setting out their respective powers.

8. Local government should have enhanced powers to raise taxes and administer its own finances with oversight and consent by it's local population. Participatory budget decision deliberations by the people from whom that revenue is received.

9. The government should commission an independent mapping of quangos and other public bodies to clarify and renew lines of accountability between elected and unelected authority.

10. Ministerial meetings with representatives of business including lobbyists to be logged, transcripted and listed on a monthly basis.

11. A new overarching select committee should be established to scrutinise the executive's activities in supranational bodies and multilateral negotiations, particularly in relation to the European Union, and to ensure these activities are held to account and conducted in the best interests of the British people.

Real Parties and True Elections

The current way of doing politics is killing politics. Russell Brand is not lying. Russell Brand  is being accurate, Paxman agrees but differs in that he claims that if you don't vote the you have no right to complain, which is an opinion position rather than the reality of Power Politics as we know them because it's a way of avoiding the central issue of powerlessness by being excluded from the key parts of decision making processes.

The fact that the voting system does not provide the ability to reject all the candidates -  None of The Above - is problematic, as is the First Past the Post system.

An electoral and party system which is responsive to the changing values and demands of today's population must be created.

This will allow the development of new political alliances and value systems which will both regenerate existing parties and also stimulate the creation of others.

12. A responsive electoral system - which offers voters a greater choice and diversity of parties and candidates - should be introduced for elections to the House of Commons, House of Lords and local councils in England and Wales to replace the first-past-the-post system.

13. The closed party list system to have no place in modern elections.

14. The system whereby candidates have to pay a deposit which is lost if their votes fall below a certain threshold should be replaced with a system where the candidate has to collect the signatures of a set number of supporters in order to appear on the ballot paper.

15. The Electoral Commission should take a more active role in promoting candidacy so that more women, people from black and minority ethnic communities, people on lower incomes, young people, representatives from vulnerable groups and independents are encouraged to stand.

16. The voting and candidacy age should be reduced to sixteen (with the exception of candidacy for the House of Lords which ought to be come an Upper Chamber).

17. Automatic, individual voter registration at age sixteen should be introduced. This can be done in tandem with the allocation of National Insurance numbers.

18. The citizenship curriculum should be shorter, more practical and result in a qualification.

19. Donations from individuals to parties should be capped at £10,000, and organisational donations capped at £100 per member, subject to full democratic scrutiny within the organisation.

20. State funding to support local activity by political parties should be introduced based on the allocation of individual voter vouchers. 

This would mean that at a general election a voter will be able to tick a box allocating a £3 donation per year from public funds to a party of his or her choice to be used by that party for local activity. It would be open to the voter to make the donation to a party other than the one they have just voted for.

21. Text voting or email voting should only be considered following other reform of our democratic arrangements.

22. The realignment of constituency boundaries should be accelerated.

Downloading Power

The people want to nurture a culture of political engagement in which it becomes the norm for policy and decision-making to occur with direct input from citizens. This is the central plank of The Power Inquiry. This means reform which provides citizens with clear entitlements and procedures by which to exercise that input - from conception through to implementation of any policy or decision.

I repeat it's about the move from older Power Relationships to sharing power at the grass roots, where empathy and connection can inform the decision making processes. Empathy and connection are actually common sense qualities to nurture for there can be no meaningful community without these..

23. All public bodies should be required to meet a duty of public involvement in their decision and policy-making processes.

24. Citizens should be given the right to initiate legislative processes, public inquiries and hearings into public bodies and their senior management.

25. The rules on the plurality of media ownership should be reformed. This is always a controversial issue but there should be special consideration given to this issue in light of the developments in digital broadcast and the internet. Further legislation needs to be drafted to prevent exploitative and manipulative media content that misleads, misinforms or deliberately targets know biases and vulnerabilities of any person or group.

26. A requirement should be introduced that public service broadcasters develop strategies to involve viewers in deliberation on matters of public importance - this would be aided by the use of digital technology.

27. MPs should be required and resourced to produce annual reports, hold AGMs and make more use of innovative engagement techniques.

28. Ministerial meetings with campaign groups and their representatives should be logged, minuted and listed on a monthly basis.

29. A new independent National Statistical and Information Service needs to be created to provide the public with key information free of political spin.

30. 'Democracy hubs' should be established in each local authority area. These would be resource centres based in the community where people can access information and advice to navigate their way through the democratic system.

These ideas are a starting point in the solution to the problems, the frustration, the despondency most people feel when facing up to the problems of Politics and Power.

Russell Brand was merely being honest.

Russell Brand is not the 'answer' and he knows it.

Of course he knows it, he's not stupid and he's not a megalomaniac.

He's a man who has seen through difficult experience some of the consequences of poverty, addiction and he is someone has thought about it in some depth.

And now he is speaking out against the hypocrisy.

As most of us do in our living rooms.

WE are the answer. All of us adults.

This is a choice we must make as mature adults, of we are to give meaning to our affirmations of love to our children, on behalf of their children and grand children.

Kindest regards

Corneilius

"Do what you love, it is your gift to universe."

This blog, like all my other content creation work is not monetised via advertising. If you like what I present, consider sharing my content. If you can afford the price of a cup of coffee or a pint of beer/ale/cider for a few months, please donate via my Patreon account.

Thank you for reading this blog.

https://patreon.com/corneilius - donations gratefully received





Russel Brand : talk about the issues, not about the personality

Attack the man, avoid the discourse.

My thoughts on RUSSELL BRAND : TALK ABOUT THE ISSUES, NOT ABOUT YOUR OPINIONS ON A PERSONALITY (WHICH AMOUNTS TO MERE GOSSIP)...
If we use the Russell Brand story to discuss and explore the issues, rather than talk about Brand, we have a better chance of changing things...

None of us KNOW anything about him other than his media career, and the issue here is he is saying things we know are basically true on a public funded forum that refuses to admit those truths.

So the issue is what we need to discussing.

And that issue is HOW, in practical terms, can we shift Power from a Centralised Executive to the grass roots?

Do you have any practical suggestions on this, or insights? And would you like to share them?


I'd like to hear them.

It's frustrating to observe the manner in which people are talking about Russell Brand, and not the issue we all face.
His comments are relevant, even if they are incomplete.

So here's my current take on the situation we are faced with.

1. Voting for people or Political Parties who, once in positions of Power, act in the interests of Power, irrespective of the mandate they sought during the election or claimed once in Office is not a genuine democracy.

If one votes under the current system, one has conceded consent to whatever those 'elected' do, even if they do different to their election manifesto, even if what they do harms you. The only people who are not ruled by consent, are those who DO NOT VOTE.

Their voices are censored because they refuse to submit to the intellectually morbid system of electoral politics currently in place. They are castigated and chastised for their refusal to play the game whose rules the comprehend as being biased towards Power, away from the people.

In other words, the VOTING people of the UK, by the very act of legitimising Governance as we know it, consented to the Iraq and Afghan Wars, to the bail-outs of the banks, to the austerity cuts because the act of voting as it stands is merely a fig leaf for Centralised Power to RULE, which continues to behave as it has ever done.

The VOTING people of the UK by refusing to THINK about the REAL VALUE of voting give their consent, perhaps unwittingly, yet that unthinking practice of voting 'because it's the thing we are told to do because people struggled so hard for the vote' is avoidable by examining the situation using information that has been verified and THINKING clearly on the matter...

2. Democracy if it is to be fully realised requires that citizens have a direct and active role in those decision making processes that affect their lives. This has been rejected by the Political Classes out of hand.

3. The Power Inquiry of 2006 addressed this very issue in some detail, and it's findings revealed that many, many more people were, and are engaged in community and voluntary work that has an effect BECAUSE the of futility of voting under the current system. That is not apathy. That is working around an adverse situation to bring benefit to their communities and to all communities.

David Cameron called the Power Inquiry 'impractical'.

Then he and his advisor's, recognising the threat implicit in the Power Inquiry Report, sought to undermine that voluntary and community action, and the political awareness it represented, by de-funding councils which lead to defunding of voluntary and community action, and by privatising aspects of it to replace those voluntary services with for-profit services.

Had Labour been in Power, they would have done pretty much the same, as they bailed out the banks when it was not necessary. None of the parties in power had much concern for the people of Iraq, much less have they any real concern the most vulnerable people in the UK, including our children.

4. The sheer frustration of activists who have access to information on the issues we all face that can be checked, tested and verified and to which Power, if it was being exercised for the peoples benefit, SHOULD respond with appropriate action, yet does not, is intense.

5. So I urge that people write about actions that have taken place and actions that we can take that can have an effect, rather than criticise a public face, Russell Brand, who makes commentary.

For example, WHY is Tony Blair a free man? His actions transgressed International and National Law, as well as being immoral.

His actions broke 6 international treaties, including the Kellog Briand Pact of 1928 which was the basis of the Nuremberg Trials. Furthermore, he and those who enabled those wars to take place are liable under the UN Genocide Convention, and under UK Law The 2001 Human Rights Act,

The same applies to the NATO bombing of Libya, which he and  supported fully, and David Cameron actioned, and would also have applied had Cameron succeeded in his attempts to garner support for the bombing of Syria.

Had these Laws been more properly studied and understood, perhaps the population of the UK could have acted in a way that might have prevented those wars from being pursued by the UK Government at the very least.

7. Young people SEE what is happening, they understand the harm and pain so many people are suffering and that these harms are AVOIDABLE and wonder why their elders are so ineffective, so feeble, in the face of avoidable calamities.

Russell Brand understands this.. and this is what he was talking about - people want Power because we are intelligent, empathic and very well educated as to how the world works, and we feel the need to change that by direct participation.

We want to be able to construct laws and have full oversight of Governance.
And this is both reasoned and rational.



Kindest regards

Corneilius

Do what you love, it's Your Gift to Universe