CHANGE OF GEAR
The Banking Crisis 2012
Britain’s total debt was £5.494 trillion or 392% GDP in Oct. 2011 (Institute of Economic Affairs). The Government reckons it as £2.422 trillion or 173% Gross Domestic Product.
The debts belong largely to the financial sector and should have been met via bankruptcies within it.
It may be necessary to create new, clean banks and move to them. Beyond the control of swindlers. The power to create money has to be taken from banks. The Parallel System could foster new answers. It needs activating by Electors.
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The first concern is attitude. Conventional politics is about self-righteousness.
Parallel Politics is about what we can do ourselves to build anew and better, to upgrade, to design and make stunning products and services and, above all, to change ourselves, as necessary. It has no time for or patience with blamers, whiners, free-riders and the work-shy. It attracts solvers of problems, those willing to develop new possibilities and ready to do whatever is needed.
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Total Challenge (P11)
What we can do ourselves
How do we pay off debts piled upon us?
By creating more wealth. By reinvention. By pooling volunteer brains. Not fearing short-term hardship or testing. For, when we take command of our destinies amazing things can happen.
Precisely how?
Discover fresh solutions within ourselves and between ourselves! Offering resources to each other next. Based upon convincing plans. Away from official sticky hands and bankers. Sharing goodwill and know-how for pleasure and for free, for a fair period. Deciding to do “the impossible”. Using war-time spirit. Making a fun-filled adventure out of raw, potential disaster.
The Challenge: What can you achieve (yourself, your friends, family or team, your town or district), beyond all expectation, in 365 days? How can you grow as a individual too, in experience and in character, not just income, in the same time?
The direction and choice is yours. What can you transform or make superb? At home. For others. In other ways. Gather and cook your best ideas. Do not limit yourself! Be bound by nothing and no one. Expect and plan the most inventive and rewarding period of your life! Focus on possibilities and opportunities, not difficulties. Improve your ideas, daily. Avoid old grooves and cul-de-sac habits. Rethink. Use new methods. First, outline. Later, detail the adventure. Begin now!
Join a group with the same determination. Register your intentions privately. Tell us your goals, if you wish. Say when you start. or re-started. Perhaps, giving names with addresses of referees, chosen by you, to guarantee the accuracy of your results. What shall we do with your information? Probably, little or nothing. Likely, file it. It is yours, not ours! You can change plans. Twelve months on, show us the results! Say if you would like them published by us. [First here in The Daily Difference blog, which launches The Electors Charter. We shall stay interested in your progress. Whoever you are!]
Start from any situation or handicap. Get totally committed and passionate. Adapt as you go. Keep going! There are no actual rules here beyond what you know is superb, legal and moral. There are no creative limits, except those imagined. A new life awaits you. Decide to walk towards it. Turn dream into exciting, practical reality.
Keep with us on the website http://ddiff.com/ (standing for The Daily Difference).
Here is the new public sport! We can fight a double-dip depression by “total” reinvention, individually, in volunteer teams, using the hidden talents of people from all ages and backgrounds, indeed worldwide. For eventual, mutual astonishment and delight.
Hard work, maybe! Lots of fun, though! Totally worthwhile, because you perform at your real best, when you are your real self! So, it may well benefit your health, too!
You can start with “nothing”! For, rich ideas are all around us. We have to re-focus, to notice them. Use the website. Get the backing of others! Empower yourself and them. (This Charter began as “nothing”! Its Proposals are fledglings that must learn to fly. With more eggs hatching. Each started as an idea. Keep pushing forward, regardless!)
You could take a minimalist approach. Imagine you are a mixed seed packet full of surprises! How many unexpected and surprising “flowers” can you grow and “sell”? Nurture seed-ideas! Turn them into amazing-plants. Then offer them! Swap them for better ones. Suddenly, one super-bloom demands your full attention. Congratulations! Now you have begun on the next stage. For, not everyone will love your new flower. It has to win in the market-place. It has to be marketed. Maybe another flower, so-far undeveloped, will change into a glorious orchid, sought by many. Grow your ideas! A number will fail. Many! That’s normal. Others will cross-pollinate and surprise you.
Some people may want to contribute by offering prizes, without any strings attached. (The real prizes are internal, of course.) But encouragement helps. Ideas need legs. Other people need help getting their first, rough ideas. Some want ideas developed. The target is to make your ideas world-class! This requires, over time, extraordinary quality in every detail, judged through your Customer’s eyes. What is wonderful to you may seem valueless to others. So, make it better. Until it is irresistible! Get help to make it so. Then, you too will be delighted. Keep pushing! One starting secret is to use whatever you have, tangible or intangible, and who you are as a person.
Following-through is key. Even so, if you make a basic mistake, the very best idea in the world may be stillborn, wasted or forgotten. So, total reinvention is much better! It includes personal growth as well as growing an idea into a concept. Then, a lovely product or exciting service will grow far better! Developing the back-ups needed.
Incidentally, The Electors Charter began as emotion: anger. Its main thoughts came in a flash, around February 1992, (the time of the European Union’s Maastricht Treaty), which totally ignored the wishes of sovereign Electors. My ideas, some, decades-old, were recast. Shattering, amazingly-creative dreams followed. This particular section was from my outline course called Opportunity Unlimited forty years ago, abandoned because of the death of my mentor. I parked the Charter project, too! I did not want to step into the cow-pie of politics or compose some primary text. But, nobody else, it seems, realized how a Charter from the People can enable us all to retrieve our lost power and to grow more! Or that it could recast politics. So, I urge you to recycle old ideas. Use the best and graft quite new things to them. You will be surprised! Age has very little to do with it. (OK yes, maybe some variety of insanity does help.) Attitude is everything! It’s the engine that lifts you above the darkest clouds.
You have the same 3 pound or 1.36 kilo brain as everybody else. It is how you use it, trust it and reward it that matters. It’s your best friend and on duty for every moment of your life. You have been an entrepreneur since birth! Whatever your job, or lack of one or even of money, you can astonish yourself. Your beliefs always set your limits. Run your life, rather than others and circumstances do it for you. Become so valuable over time to others that you can fix your terms, if you need to.
The purpose of “365 days” is to begin. To get momentum. To break through all initial fear and self-doubt. To not feel or stay isolated. To love re-inventing almost anything. Especially, yourself. Finding how to be much more flexible, mentally and physically. Helping others do the same.
Register for your Total Challenge, now!
[Some people may wish to ask me, personally, for help in developing their ideas. At the website, I shall announce meetings for such groups. If there is sufficient interest. Editor.]
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Redesigning our Future by Towns (P12)
Take a blank sheet of paper.
Or, if you prefer, an electronic page.
Imagine all of Britain, (the most willing and creative people that is), are ready to help you, encourage you and improve your ideas and plans.
What have you got to lose, do you say?
Re-phrase that! Say aloud: What could I gain?
And give?
Give?
Yes, your talents!
You reckon you haven’t got any?
You are in a state! What about goodwill? Have you got any of that?
Aha. You have!
Let’s start with that. Let’s start with the belief that there are other people around who have some of the answers you need. You just haven’t met them yet. So, how about some ideas to meet them?
Such as?
Well, as many people have similar challenges to you, we need a way to bring them together. With others, too. So, here is one.
I call it Town Challenge. It is Proposal 11 organized locally. But more than that. It starts with Aberystwyth, Wales, where I am. Miles from everywhere, some may say. No major industry. Dependent upon its university.
Ideal! Let’s make it a magnet for new ideas. Make it the imaginative epi-centre of Wales!
In fact, while we are at it, let us be truly territorial and take a slice off England. In a non-racist way. And from Scotland too! Look at the map of Britain and be ambitious! Draw a new border-line from top to bottom, making Aberystwyth the floating ‘capital’ of Britain’s West. (On a kind-of shared basis!) Everything west of the motorways M5 and M6 is ours, stretching from Torquay in Devon to Carlisle in the North. (Don’t worry! The British Government won’t even notice, as they concentrate on London and all that.) Then, we acquire everything west of the A474 motorway to Glasgow, (which we add for convenience sake and to get it free of Edinburgh). Then, all west of the A82 and using the convenient geographical divide from Fort William to Inverness and upward. Add the Isle of Man, the Orkney and Shetland islands and we are almost done.
(OK! OK! The Scottish Parliament is more awake and would notice what we are doing. But they have the good Scottish sense to realize that we in the west need to band together!)
So, what have we got? The less-rich part of Britain. The most beautiful, too. The area with the most potential for new thinking and digital inventiveness. A Digital Valley. Share brains! Offer resources! Channel incoming investment. Make it the zone to visit for conferences, holidays and redesigning our common future. And more.
The EU won’t like it? Tough!
So, we can start with Town Challenge in Aberystwyth. (I must remember to ask the population!) But anyone in Wales could join in the creativity. And anyone in our new ‘territory’, from the south-west to the north-west can participate and make it what they like. (Joint creativity is part of being a democracy!)
As for Aberystwyth being the “capital”, I mean it in a fun-flexible way. In rotation, with any other towns and cities in the west that decide to go creative and are really up to the mark. Decided by some sort of public vote. (Hey! Letting people decide their own future might catch on!)
What about the rest of Britain? Well, we would spread the word about Town Challenge. Sending missionaries. We could send ambassadors to London. We can twin towns. We can compete for the Best Town in Britain, if so inclined.
Dream bigger, rather than focus on staying small!
Actually, as there is no divide in the digital world, I would make “west” to include “the West”, so, by invitation, adding as part of a specially-creative, fun-commonwealth, Ireland, Iceland (which has a fabulous democratic history), Canada and the USA. And perhaps others will join.
All for starters, of course. Acquiring territory is addictive. Ask the EU.
The future? “No one knows what the future will bring.” are true words. But by not designing our future we fix its shape to one of perilous uncertainty and potential chaos!
By deliberately finding ways to work together creatively, we can do far more than we ever realize!
Publicity? No one knows about these ideas. Only a handful know of The Electors Charter. (Although if our spy organizations do what they apparently do, somebody in London and Washington may be aware. If so, I send my seasonal greetings to them!) With 2012 five days away, I need to publicize the Charter and The Daily Difference blog! Anyone inspired to help, please do so!
Because this Charter has grown too long, I shall publish a much shorter version by the 31st December.
Happy New Year!
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Part III: Command from the People
The time has arrived for Electors to “rule” as intended: by choosing, cross-checking, and correcting, each selectively, as rulers do. Parliament has its job. Electors have theirs as employers of the State, of businesses and organizations: applying the united brainpower of an enterprise-democracy to upgrade society and its systems.
In reality, 650 Westminster MPs cannot properly represent 60,000,000 unique persons in their needs, know-how, experience, and creative thought. Representation becomes a delusion: a political dis-empowerment and economic abuse. It has enabled our take-over by the EU and being bled by financiers. For us to lodge our entire faith in such a Parliament is to collapse our intelligence like stars into a black hole.
The antidote is Parallel Democracy, which releases the educated capacity of society for public business. The Ultimate-Service Union triples the People’s authority, linking Electors Together, Taxpayers Together and Customers Together. The nemesis of the EU is Super-Democracy. United People enlarges the system. Parallel Democracy is made into an agent and bailiff service by the People. They make it an Inspector-General, compelling excellent behaviour by government and other organizations.
The branches of Government are many. Power is taken by dividing and ruling us with a bewildering range of agencies with ever-altering purposes. They are irresistible and incorrigible, until they are matched by greater power with superior authority.
Is this a take-over of government? No. We regain control. Democracy is government of government by the People! We re-establish that fact. Second, the unseen purpose behind democracy is the flowering of our very best talents as individuals. It is not electing a government, which Representatives, in self-interest, place first!
The question arises, could (or would) the The Compendium or United People replace Parliament at some time? No! Unless Parliament lost its mind completely or its actual physical existence. Then possibly, “No” could and would need to be: Yes. For, it is a back-up, by intention. Parliament’s presently-claimed status cannot stay the same! Electors will no longer tolerate its untrustworthiness. Their contribution cannot be held inert, bottled by the Parties for 4 years, then added as a kind of sauce at Election-time for their exclusive benefit. Parliament has been found out.
The EU will be corroded by The Parallel System: no Electorate authorised it. (For, had one done so, the EU would have bowed to their supremacy.) Its leaders assumed millions of Electors were too stupid to devise a superior solution. Massive cynicism was installed. In extreme crisis, the backbone of genuine loyalty is missing. There is no better unity or purpose for a collection of democracies than real democracy. The EU bites into our sovereignty. But, we alone have the Right to digest government and State, with other centres of power. The EU, the giver of “rights”, has no right to exist!
Electors, Taxpayers, and Customers in global association may tackle gross power imbalances with true legitimacy. Politicians like to divide this Big Three. In Parallel Democracy, we link arms to re-integrate their triple democratic rule.
Representative Democracy, historically excellent, actually cuts democracy in two! In ancient Athens, the men (only) met regularly to settle public business, including war and taxes, by their votes. We, for originally practical reasons, send individuals whom we know virtually nothing about to the capital to act in our interests. Based on trust. Which proves unfounded. Sovereign citizens are treated by parliaments as irrelevant. Parallel (or Super-) Democracy helps restore democracy for still greater purposes.
We do not argue that “rule” by the People guarantees wisdom. It does not! Arrogance and stupidity are universal risks. We do argue that taking away electoral sovereignty by bogus democracy, as the EU does, shows why correction by Electors is essential! Rule by the People exercises responsibility and teaches citizenship. The more power rulers possess, the more vital it is for Electors to scrutinise political action, Taxpayers to check accounts, and Customers to measure value. The Westminster and Brussels-Strasbourg Parliaments are hamstrung by design. They give only an air of democratic legality, while plundering resources for the EU and those behind it.
We do not say every man and woman should vote on everything, Athenian-style. We require more say in ultimate matters. We say: around 60,000,000 British brains, with millions globally to consult, are sometimes more likely to find answers and policies, given a Parallel System, than 650 MPs or less and 730 lords and EU-empire officials. The complexities of government, business, markets, science and technology, compel us to ask: Can a very few individuals, a President or a Prime minister, run a modern state effectively? (Let alone a continent!) And be engaged responsibly beyond it, too? Parallel Democracy opens up possibilities. It is not legislative. It is inventive. Giving independent oversight. With annual votes available for Electors.
It will be asked: “Why do not Electors, Taxpayers and Customers use the democratic tools now available? Why do they not write to or visit their MPs?” Many do so, with zero effect! About the EU, MPs do not want to hear. They know! Government powers grow inexorably and threateningly. Where is the needed counter-balancing growth of control by the People over MPs, government and bureaucracies? How could shrewd correction come from the Parties that voted this situation into being, who maintain it, and via the EU extend it to their advantage? It cannot come from a declining Press.
The Electors Charter consults the People! The Charter of Fundamental Human Rights and the intended EU Constitution were foisted on us, with no intention of correction. This Charter is under electoral control. Electors world-wide are invited to improve it. And add key documents to it.
Some (hasty) readers may respond by saying: Surely, Democracy is …Democracy! What is so different between Representative and Parallel (or Super-) Democracy? It is quite true, there should be little difference! It is because the current system is corrupt and incomplete that a corrective System is needed. So much difference then becomes apparent that we can say PD begins by being all that RD is not! It consults, listens, collects and weighs information from the public and acts responsibly. It is a means to “Control, Correct and Command” those serving the public, who are not up to the task. At low cost. Simply. Informally as possible. (Though, politics is never just simple!) It registers what is exceptional and better and promotes it, as necessary. It intends to do better than RD. By friendly competition, raising standards.
[Addition to the original text: Parallel Democracy, generally, keeps itself apart from conventional political party debate and discussion. Which is a waste of energy, drawing attention to the main parties that are redundant. It has other work to do.]
The 8 Elements of Parallel (or Super-Democracy)
Sovereign people Command and Control by: Choice, Cross-Checking, Correction, Creativity, Converse and Co-operation. This fresh meaning for converse [with a 1st syllable emphasis in pronunciation] is wider and deeper than debate or conversation. It is serious mental cultivation: social, personal and political. (Latin, con-versation, to keep turning-over. Chambers Dictionary) So, Con-[together]verse [turn over] issues.
Parallel Democracy is informed politics with maturity and integrity: calmer, deeper thinking and longer discussing. Skeptical of Representative Democracy, as it is now. Distrustful of monopoly press and broadcasting. Requiring hundreds of blooms rather than half a dozen. Parallel Democracy is to straighten what is crooked. (As is the job of rightful rulers: namely, the People. It is the first purpose of genuine democracy).
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THE 2 SYSTEMS COMPARED
[Items over a decade old. Added only to explain the genesis of this Charter.]
Parallel Democracy nurtures the needs of successful groups: openness, honesty, honour, curiosity, encouragement, genuineness, trustworthiness, imagination, freedom to be wrong, respect, patience, clarity, knowledge-exchange, adventure, discovery, empathy, reverence for truth, prompt, effective action, surprise, fervency, understanding, fun and all other rich Ultimates, latent in citizen-goodwill. Or, it is nothing. It reaches the parts no representative and no federal politics can reach. It is more profoundly of the people, by the people and for the people. It magnifies then obeys the inward laws of conscience. It delights to serve. These values mould its actions.
Representative Democracy flatters all voters: the lazy and industrious, the wilfully-ignorant and the willing learner, the outright bigot and careful thinker, the exploiter with the nurturer, the cynic and the considerate: one man, one vote. It is 2-dimensional: politicians and people, government and governed. So, it frustrates, and cannot tap, of right, the generosity behind democracy, which is its main drive. It sucks up goodwill with little in return.
But there is a 3rd dimension, our unique, personal potential, like a secret gold-mine within all men and women. It may be completely undiscovered until inspiration, focus, and passion are linked with purpose, courage and encouragement to fulfill our supreme role in life. Here is real El Dorado [not that mythical land of abundant gold described by Spanish explorers] for this new millennium! Governments, predatory by nature, are wholly trespassers upon it.
Parallel Democracy is not for rivalry but excellence and “exquisition”, (making exquisite: those degrees beyond excellence). In our political family, is the ‘child’ or ‘wife’ more important than the ‘husband’? It depends on who you ask, and when. They serve one another! Family life is about joint growth. Parliament and monarchy are our venerable, respected, political parents, who have brought us to maturity. Now graciously, we need to fulfil the extra responsibilities of inheritance. Politically, we have come of age. (Critics have other views about our political parents. But our parents are our parents.) Blaming them for the actions or inactions of their ancestors is moralistic posing. Only by learning and giving respect, within our constitutional family, do we deserve respect and grow more united.) Sovereignty needs humility or it is made contemptible by arrogance and show of power.
AGAIN: WHAT PARALLEL DEMOCRACY IS
Parallel Democracy re-entrenches the authority and power of Electors. It is a way to regain and use the goodwill and latent talents of citizens for worthwhile goals. It citizen-watches government and organisations worldwide. It brings answers more than problems. It encourages, experiments and puts superb suggestions from the public into action, if necessary. It helps them devise extra income for themselves and widespread improvement. It is smart, mutual-help with unrestricted citizen-enterprise to add benefits personally, commercially, nationally and internationally.
Longer-term, it may begin businesses to tackle screaming problems, launch youth and educational services, rehabilitate ex-prisoners or addicts, investigate and publish via new media. It needs no EU right or State permission. It uses rights, opportunities and responsibilities inherited, that democracy confers. It embodies good citizenship.
It is not for lazy complaint or self-indulgent spasms. It is not to belittle or undermine Representative politics, but re-shape it from the bottom up. Parliament gains support to tackle stubborn problems. Citizen-power is realised, but stays an un-drawn sword. It attracts mature participants and repels all fools. Windbags, whiners, bitter critics or abusers of public goodwill, fail its standards and exclude themselves. It is not to grasp but to give and to achieve consummately, building shared advantages.
It taps the experience of the owners, funders, and testers of our society. For, that is what Electors, Taxpayers, and Customers really are! They can offer Parliament a triple heart-bypass. They can go to the core of matters, use specialist skills, consider new methods or higher standards, design new disciplines, and get better results. They become a national grid of intelligent power to boost both public and private life. They extend self-government and by beliefs and actions seed renaissance.
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NOTES ON TERMS
[Well over a decade old. Written for the concept stage. Several topics removed in this Short version. Found in post (W), Archives, December 2011]
Sovereignty, the primary word of politicians, is ultimate legal authority. They claim it. They use the self-serving device of the ‘sovereignty of Parliament’ to grasp it. By it, they grant, themselves and it, powers as gods. Only because we have enabled them to do so. In fact, politicians are powerless, penniless nobodies, until ennobled by Electors with lent and limited powers. Electors are sovereign till they die. Parliaments exist by their say-so. Power flows from the People, who either use their ultimate authority, title, legal right and power, or get abused! Party politicians are beggars acting as princes. Our task is to cross-check and correct them. Citizens have ultimate authority as a life-long internal asset: externalized, confirmed and anchored by the Vote. History records rulers conferring charters, rights and privileges, on temporarily favoured, much-needed followers, with powers taken from them initially. The EU’s Charter plus Constitutional Treaty do this. But, in reality, our personal sovereignty is non-transferable! Always, we must confer power in part only. We must perpetually adjudicate. No one: monarch, State, government, institution, or temporary leader, can appropriate our power “legally”. A legislature daring to transfer our powers to others, without unmistakable and lasting public concurrence, sets about annulling its own rights. ‘Rule by the People’ encapsulates democracy. It invalidates both the EU Commission and all EU structures. It shakes the foundations of disloyal Parliaments. It makes reform, by the responsible action of the People, possible. It totally condemns the three current parties to the disfavour of Electors and to their possible dissolution.
Democracy is a mechanism to control and moderate government. It is not token representation with slowly-diluted electoral authority. By Parallel Democracy real control is possible. A wider avenue is cut for conscientious citizenship. Representative Democracy has drawbacks in an age demanding ever-faster personal judgement and self-government. Parallel Democracy harvests the minds of the willing electorate, without adding one straw to the back of our creaking system. It develops several extra, load-bearing institutions. It is a growing-device. It stretches and exercises the latent talents of Electors, Taxpayers, and Customers: key synonyms for the aware and responsible community. It re-attracts Electors’ lost goodwill. It helps Parliament to govern governments. Consequently, by merit and right, greater power can return to the rightful owners, reversing a long disconnecting trend. We add double-checking controls and underscore the principle of government inferiority. One day, key buildings of parliamentary democracy in Great Britain, Europe and elsewhere, may be destroyed, as may palaces and ancient landmarks. Making Parallel Democracy operational becomes important, as an installed back-up. After a devastating crisis, it is an instinct to rebuild as before, as Churchill did. But, our present democratic form is not the ultimate one in history. It is one stage along our path. The new system, active, and dispersed throughout the population, would be resistant to attack. As a principle of citizen-responsibility, it could become indestructible. Politics and democracy carry too much historical baggage for simple meaning. Now with Parallel Democracy, a more contemplative, less-impulsive companion is presented. Its noun converse is neutral, calmer, and skirts tradition.
Earth was lent to mankind: to individuals, not governments!
Just as The EU Charter and Constitution have been used by politicians, their officials and constitutional lawyers, as irresistible levers to prise government by the People from the hands of the People, so The Electors Charter is the progressive mechanism by which the People deliberately regain, improve and keep it.
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RELEVANT QUOTATIONS
TONY BLAIR (British Prime Minister 1997-2007)
We are not the masters. The people are the masters. We are the servants of the people… What the electorate gives, the electorate can take away. (1997).
Quite true. Especially the warning at the end! It applies to all Parties, the Government, Parliament and the EU.
DAVID CAMERON (On entering 10 Downing Street as Prime Minister, 11 May 2010)
One of the tasks we……have is to rebuild trust in our political system…Yes, it is about making sure people are in control! And that the politicians are always their servants. And never their masters!
Sir, you quote this Charter! To get trust, first trust us! Set our supremacy unambiguously in law and Parliament second. Then, we believe you! We agree those in government are not masters. Most certainly, leaders of the EU are not!
WOODROW WILSON (U.S. President 1913-21)
Liberty has never come from the government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of government power, not the increase of it. (1912)
Nothing comes from government, without having been taken from us first. The history of the last century and this is the history of the increase of government power. Government needs limitation, lasting reduction and democratic control.
People and provinces must not be bartered about from sovereign to sovereign as if they were chattels, or pawns in a game. Self-determination is not a mere phrase. It is an imperative principle, which statesmen will henceforth ignore at their peril. (1918)
EU bartering was done by Ministers for decades, purposely without a mandate from the People. Now MPs are in peril.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT (U.S. President 1933-45)
The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over its government. (1938)
Today we detect the first phrase as self-serving. Note the words sovereign control. Note also that we are to maintain it.
EDMUND BURKE (Member of Parliament, political philosopher)
The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion. (1784)
The EU delusion has been fed by elected politicians, showing that the House of Commons cannot again be fully trusted.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN (U.S. President 1860-65)
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. (1848)
This ‘right’ is not found in the EU Charter of Fundamental Human Rights. For, the EU is a slow-motion coup d’état.
RAMSEY CLARK (ex- U.S. Attorney-General)
A right is not what someone gives you: it’s what no one can take from you.
Why? Because it is innate. All government is composed of lent powers, resources and rights, borrowed from the People.
TONY BENN (English parliamentarian, ex-Cabinet Minister, 1925- )
What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? How do we get rid of you?
Questions asked by him as an MP, when meeting someone in power. Now, it is Electors who need to use such questions.
PAUL VALERY (French philosopher 1871-1945)
Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
WILLIAM PITT (British Prime Minister 1783-1801 & 1804-6)
The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail- its roof may shake- the wind may blow through it- the storm may enter- the rain may enter- but the King of England cannot enter. (1763)
E.U. police can remove him to any EU jurisdiction without proven justification in a British court or habeus corpus. So much for Parliament as the guardian of our liberties! It is the unashamed betrayer of them.
JOHN SELDEN (English jurist 1584-1654)
Ignorance of the law excuses no man; not that all men know the law, but because ’tis an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to confute him. (1689)
This most convenient argument has led to unlimited law production, loss of effective leverage over Parliament, indirect disenfranchisement by the EU, and a political correctness culture. No man knows if he is ever wholly within the law or outside it! EU legislation is around 90,000 pages, so far. Citizens need to command a drastic simplification of law.
CHARLES DICKENS (1812-70)
The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained throughout all its narrow turnings. (1852)
Dickens could have been talking also of EU law, that extends power for itself.
My faith in the people governing us is, on the whole, infinitesimal; my faith in the People governed is, on the whole, illimitable.(1869)
A.J.P.TAYLOR (English historian 1906-90)
[A]ll change in history, all advance, comes from the non-conformist. If there had been no trouble-makers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves. (1957)
BERNARD MALAMUD (American novelist 1914-86)
There comes a time in a man’s life when to get where he has to go- if there are no doors or windows –he walks through a wall. (1973)
Likewise for a nation, an electorate, any responsible people anywhere, in time of testing, who are free in their hearts.
MARGARET READ (English anthropologist 1901-78)
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
ERNEST BARKER (English political philosopher 1874-1960)
Sovereignty is unlimited- unlimited and illimitable. (1951)
It resides in the People by birth and political inheritance. It is neither the property of Parliament by presumed transfer, nor of the EU, in any part of it, by open or secret removal. Parallel Democracy opens this “unlimited and illimitable” character of sovereignty for practical use by the People. And it guards it from parliaments, governments and lobbyists.
EDWARD R. MURROW (American journalist, 1908-65)
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.
EVGENY MOROZOV
WikiLeaks is what happens when the entire US government is forced to go through a full-body scanner. (on Twitter, Nov 28th via web re-tweeted by 100+ people)
Sounds good for political health! If the People are forced to undergo intimate examination regularly, for tax or if flying, politicians and governments need to be examined as closely, and regularly too! Parallel Democracy is the equipment.
The above quotations, discovered after writing, were checked mostly in The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations.
THOMAS JEFFERSON: If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. [And not just the American People!]
In 1828, Mayer Amschel Rothschild expressed contempt for governments attempting to regulate international bankers such as him: “Allow me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who writes the laws.”
Sir Josiah Stamp, president of the Bank of England in the 1920s: “Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth; take it away from them but leave them the power to create deposits, and with a flick of a pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again.
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THE PEOPLE’S DECLARATION
A draft for public consultation
THE ELECTORS CHARTER exposes the cause of the decay of Representative Democracy. It re-establishes our inherent rights. We are sovereign over governments, not vice-versa. It introduces Parallel (or Super-)Democracy as an inventive back-up system, giving citizens massive extra leverage.
THIS DECLARATION associates Electors world-wide against misgovernment and abuses of power of every sort.
WE, THE CITIZENS OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF DEMOCRACY, hereby re-assert our inalienable, sovereign power, which is ours in stewardship, and not by Government gift of rights at any time, whether from elected or from unelected persons.
This same power, our forefathers lent, in part, to various leaders and governments, in the form of authority, goodwill, resources, and skills, for clear and agreed purposes. Over time, their borrowed authority and key resources were kept. Their ownership rights faded, and were long ignored.* Today, that sovereignty, now ours, is claimed by nation-states and lusted by all political Unions.
Our inherent authority was attested by our fathers, in blood and by their faith, in many struggles. It is enshrined in the Vote itself. We reclaim all regulating power that is undeniably ours, not forcibly, as was taken, nor arrogantly, as has been held, but with passion, conviction, and vision, resolving to use this power with sound judgment and all due respect. Never to lose it again!
Parallel Democracy opens our title deeds, confirming our authority over public business. By it, we shall straighten our bent Representative Democracy till it runs parallel to our wisest thinking, our finest desires, and our profoundest needs. We shall shape our world for which we are responsible, not be driven by ambitious governments or businesses for short-term gain into long-term disaster.
Thus, we give notice to all parliaments, assemblies and senates; to all officials, politicians, advisers, lawyers, lobbyists, and to all who touch our democratic system at any point, and to all businesses and organizations serving us, that a new political age begins. That: we Citizens are the Owners, Funders, and Testers of our politics, economy, and society. We shall rule and judge government, whatever lawyers’ words are woven to confuse or lessen the fact.** We shall examine their books, because they are indeed ours. We shall monitor and lift all standards within our domain of duty and responsibility.
This day, in full support of law***, we declare ourselves free of rotten representation and imposed powers that refuse to honour the sovereignty of the People in accordance with this Charter. We call Parallel Democracy, methodically, into being to re-establish, entrench and exercise our supremacy.
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* In some countries, people were crushed by wars about supremacy, succession, territory or by penal taxes. Some became serfs, tenants on their own land, for generations. Original freedom, fairness, and self-rule became lost memories. But sovereignty continued to belong to each suppressed individual. It belongs to each capable and aware person today, in or outside a democratic system
** It is the trick of drafting lawyers to reduce sovereignty over time, via thousands of unrelated cuts, in regulation and law, to give the State or others possession of our money, property and future, and to put increasing obligations from the State upon each individual. Elected politicians legalize these impositions without asking us. Who permits the State to exist? Who re-assesses it? Parallel Democracy restores supremacy to the People, enabling them to shackle the dangerous pretensions of, and slim the size of, their Nation-State, which in the passage of time is temporary.
*** Obeying the law is vital to democracy and society. However, democratically-illegal-law over decades is another thing entirely. Sound judgment is required. Let all obey The Great Law! “Do unto others as ye would have them do unto you.” That is, in conscience, wholeheartedly, not cynically. When Members of Parliament or corporations rob the People of sovereign control, the People use Parallel and Super- means to re-balance Parliament.
© Alastair Lancaster,
December 2011
Contact and website: http://ddiff.com/
A draft, issued for consultation, as the end part of the First British Edition 2011 of The Electors Charter, The Beginning.
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