Dublin - Event Notice
Thursday January 01 1970

Public Meeting: Why don’t the people decide state policy?

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | event notice

Wednesday November 28, 2012 22:20

by Peoples Convention - The Peoples Convention

info at cppc dot ie

0863805005

Having a say in state policy

We would like to invite you to our public meeting in the Central Hotel Dublin.

This meeting is being held on the eve of the Government announcing the State's budget for 2013, something which is SECRET up until a few hours before it's passing by Dáil Éireann.

Adoption of the budget is a pre-ordained fact as the 'inner circle' of Government will instruct the cabinet and their Party 'whips' to force it through.

Our constituency representatives (TDs) will NOT be coming back to consult us on the different aspects of the budget, therefore they will NOT be representing us when they yield to the 'whip' and impose the budget policy on us.

The national budget, the State's income and expenditure for an entire year, directly affects every citizen ... surely it is the democratic right of every citizen to a say on this? In fact, should the citizens not have the entire decision in regards to the State's income/expenditure?

This budget will be passed regardless of the citizens views on this matter, since vested interests have already decided on its parameters. Most of it will be dictated by the ECB/IMF and will have received the nod in Germany before our Constituency Representatives have even gotten to see it.

Regardless of policy preferences, regardless of ideological differences, regardless of party allegiance (if any) you are invited to come and discuss why the citizens do not decide the policy of our own state - this is fundamental to democracy!

We need to build a movement for the empowerment of citizens, not the political parties or any other vested Interests.

This meeting is hosted by the Peoples Convention. Our aim is to organise so that the people of every constituency can SELECT and ELECT their own constituency representatives at every level of government, ignoring the political party system and their private selection process. They will then continually MANDATE these representatives and CHECK-UP on implementation of our decisions, and RECALL those representatives when they fail in their duty to represent the constituency.

If you would like more information contact Diarmaid O Cadhla 086 3805005

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Comments (1 of 1)

Re: Why don’t the people decide state policy? -Using the Wikipedia model for democracy

by T

Thu Nov 29, 2012 21:14

The CPPC distributed an A5 flyer at the anti-austerity protest last week which makes a good case and contains good points. You can read the contents of that here:
http://www.cppc.ie/let-us-adopt-the-solution-that-leads...nt-2/

However dealing with the practicalities of people deciding state policy and I think the CPPC are on the right track, one model on how to do this is that people should adopt the "Wikipedia" model.

The Wikipedia model refers to many aspects of the phenomena of Wikipedia and that is, it is one of the few social projects that almost everyone is capable of contributing to, it is largely voluntary, the results are available to all for free and it harnesses the full diversity of opinion and knowledge and not just experts, within the general population.

In the case of applying this model to democracy and just taking the budget as an example, one possibility would be to setup a wiki on a website and its pages would contain a breakdown of the state costs and budgets. So it would have sections for each department and sub pages for each sub-department and could be filled with summary tables at each level to show where the money goes, how it is spent, who gets it and so on. By harnessing the knowledge of everyone, they would help provide some of the figures which could be extracted from all the different layers of government by virtue of people having direct access and people going through reports and other public information and freedom of information derived data.

It would then shine a light into every layer of the state and because of this, it would be easier to see what the needs are and what the real priorities. The other benefit is that it is harder for state officials to hide stuff. After-all a democracy is not just about citizens making decisions but about fully informed citizens making decisions. In any walk of life trying to make a decision about something over which you have little knowledge is hazardous at best and probably relies on chance to make a good decision, but when you are informed and know something about the subject area, then it is likely you can make a better decision. And so likewise for the process of democracy itself.

This same concept could and should be applied to discover how much money really has gone to the banks, developers, bond-holders and all the rest as I am sure the public is only aware of the very tip of this giant iceberg. Indeed every aspect of public life and the workings of the state should be laid out and picked apart by the collective body of the public working along lines like this.

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Public Meeting: Why don’t the people decide state policy?

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