We the People…

The fact that the phrase sounds antique should warn us of the scale of our folly. We have lost, given away, pawned the power we once claimed. We have ceased to be who we once were. Or at least who we claimed and hoped to be – The People. Now who are we? The Consumer?  The Unemployed. The Unwanted?  “We, the Unwanted” does not have the same ring about it does it? And yet that is what we are fast becoming. It is time to chose. Sit in front of your television or computer screen and let it sooth you, until one day you too find you have have become one of the unheard, unlamented, Unwanted. Or reach out to others and grasp hold.

It is surely time that we re-assert what the phrase “We, The People” once meant. It is symbolic I know. But symbols are powerful. And the powerful fear them.

For too long now we have been supine, docile and cowed. There have been sputterings of resolve when a million people took to the streets to oppose the War in Iraq. But the rulers of the day ignored us and ‘the people’ simply went home vaguely disquieted, perhaps a little hurt at being ignored but mainly just confused as to what to do next – if anything.

For decades now we have let others have the initiative, let others define what was acceptable and legitimate. When it was never their position to do so. This must stop.

Once, a certain people declared, “No taxation without representation.” It was and still is a simple idea. You may not tax me unless you represent my interests. Only those with my interests in mind may ask me for taxes. Today that definitiion of democracy has withered and been quietly replaced by another similar sounding but actually radically different version – I would say perversion – of democracy. Today we are taxed by people who represent every interest but ours. They are still representatives but not of our interests. Democracy has now become a kind of opera – more and more lavish in direct proportion to its separation from ordinary people and their lives.  Every four or five years we get to chose between two teams who represent some interest which is not ours. They may represent the interests of bankers, or global corporations, or militarists and the industrial complex which gets rich from their adventures, or some other grouping within the machinery of the State, or the intersts of a powerful global 1% – whatever interest they serve it is never yours and mine. For those who will clamour and say the Democrats or Labour or La Gauche represent the interests of the labour unions, WAKE UP!  It’s been decades since that was even partially true. Labour under Blair and Brown was Thatcherism by another name and ignored a million people who said very clearly and en masse, that the Bush/Blair war was unjust, illegal and unwanted. The Democrats under Obama followed the same financial and economic ideology as Bush, even chosing the same people to run things, and was as warlike and arrogant as well. Change? Tell it to a moron. He might believe you.

Democracy is broken. No one represents us. We are allowed only to chose between different teams of The Entitled who, once chosen, ignore us completely. The whole idea of a mandate has mutated. Once that idea meant that a government could do what it had said it would do when it was trying to win our votes. Beyond those things, it had to consider ‘The People’.  Today all parties consider that being elected means to be handed absolute power to do whatever they feel like doing, whatever they can ram through the tattered remains of accountability and oversight.

Elected dictatorship in installments is what we have today.  And when each installment, no matter the different names and colours of the teams, is almost indistinguishable from the last, what is representative democracy if not a street parade of oversized cartoon characters and their pantomimed arguments. Are we not entertained?

If we do not speak up soon we will find when we finally do, nothing is heard but grunting and bleating. We are, to borrow a phrase from the brilliant Roberto Callaso, already walking through a vast slaughter house. And those who run it have no good intent.

It is past time when we must revivify what We the People means. We must stop reacting like frightened animals and take the initiative.We cannot allow those who presume to rule over us to continue to tell us what ‘must’ be done and to over-rule all debate by  insisting ‘there is no alternative.’ We must state what We the People will accept and what we won’t, what we regard as legitimate and what is not. It is for us to decide these things not them. It may seem like just words and on one level of course it is. But it was only words when it was said the first time. What those words did the first time and can do again, is to stop our rulers’ proclamations always being against a blank and passive background. Simply by declaring what We will and won’t tolerate or accept we force their proclamations to appear as what they are – aggressive, partisan and debateable.

You might say that it will still be just words and that blood would still have to be spilt upon the ground before their point had force. Which may be true. But still, simply by re-stating that there IS a “We the People” we take a stand, and are heard.

 

So here is my suggestion, for what it might be worth – What matters is that we state what WE will and won’t accept, what WE do and do not recognize as legitimate. What matters is how many of us sign. It does not matter that we may not all agree or that we may have differing lists. What matters is that they are not so different, that we can all stand together, and all take back what is ours – the power to DECIDE for ourselves what powers we lend and what powers we do NOT.

We the People:

Will not accept taxation for the purpose of paying off, even temporarily, private banking or other financial debts.

We will not accept the rulings of international arbitration panels on which our interests are not represented and which are convened on the basis of Bilateral Investment Treaties about which we were not consulted.

We will do not recognize the right of bond holders of ANY standing to be given seniority over the tax payers and people of a nation. We will NOT bail them out.

We reserve the sovereign right to decide in the event of another finacial crisis, who does not get paid, whose wealth is anulled. It is not for the unelected market and its experts to tell us.

We, the people do not accept the right or authority of private or unnaccountable State organizations to collect, hold or use private data gathered by any means that the law and courts have not specifically and publically granted.

We do not accept the legitimacy of any private law enforcement body.

We do not accept that there is any justification for secret or unaccountable bodies to hold any power over us. We simply do not recognize they have any legitimacy.

We will not tolerate military actions taken in secret without any parliamenary and public accountabilbity and permission.

We reserve the absolute right to hold to public and legal account any leader who takes actions which disregard the above. No elected official is above the law and no leader has the power to aquit those the courts have proceeded against.

No organization is above or outside the law.

We the People do not accept that any organization is too big to prosecute or too big to fail. Any organization that becomes so or remains so depsite this clear instruction, and then fails, forfeits its entire worth to the public purse at a post bankruptcy price.

 

I offer this as a start only. Others will no doubt be better informed and able to formulate a far clearer, better and sharper declaration.

If they do, I would like to sign it and offer it to as many others as technology will permit me to reach, for them to consider signing. The internet gives us this chance, to put up a document that any number of ordinary people can chose to sign. People might wish to have a seperate version for each Nation. Or, in a global world, perhaps we need to remain together as the global 99%. What matters is that enough of us sign so we can really say with a single voice – WE THE PEOPLE serve you notice that we are back!

137 thoughts on “We the People…”

  1. The consumers are what we used to call the workers. But everyone thinks that workers have to be paid, so just re-label them as consumers.
    All they do is consume and consuming is a bit sinful (especially if you don’t mention that they work) so you can kick consumers around. They’re not virtuous.
    All economic problems can be presented as being caused by consumers consuming more than they need or deserve.
    Well, that’s what it sounds like to me when I read our newspapers.
    I think consumers is one label we should reject if we are to remember who we are.

      1. Agreed. We’ve completely lost thenotion of citizenship and what it means in the new ‘market-driven’ society that has developed over the past thirty years.

        One point I would add to Simoncz’s points is that the way the global economy works nowadays means that if the problem is ‘consumers consuming more than they need or deserve’, then the reverse must be the case for the producer nations – the German economic model which still frowns at private debt accumulation, or the Chinese worker whose requires two years total wages to buy a washing machine or fridge.

        Once there is no more demand or credit to buy this flood of foreign goods the economy of the producer nation suffers almost as badly as the ‘consumer’ economies, except those that are ‘deeply financialised’ like the US and UK.

        The key is to find a balance where a proportion of surpluses are directed to a reconstructed IMF as a social development fund (originally proposed in the mid 1970s but quashed by US financial interests) where loans/grants are given to deficit countries on condition that they reconstruct themselves as more ‘balanced’ economic models. This is the only way that I can see a return to the more balanced economies that characterised the Bretton Woods era (1944-71) and which led to consistent growth levels (and prices) across this entire global area.

        Then, I think we can probably do away with the debt peddlers and money markets by taking the right to issue fiat credit away from private banks and then give it back to the state in the form of a national investment bank of some sort.

        1. Was with you right up to the last paragraph. A state controlled ‘central bank’ would rapidly devolve into a carbon copy of what we have now. Still gives the dudes in charge the ability to print money and funnel it first to their chums, who obviously get to spend it at it’s full current value. As happens now, the money will eventually trickle into the rest of the economy – but by then it’s been devalued by inflation. In short, you’d still be giving a competitive advantage to the already rich – who are already rich and least NEED such advantage: They get to spend every pound/dollar/etc at 100% of it’s value while Joe Public gets shafted with cash that’s worth maybe 80% by the time he gets his mitts on it.

          What’s needed are competing currencies, under private control and independent oversight. The fact that they *are* competing will drive them to do so efficiently – all of them want to maintain or increase their value relative to the rest.

          The other VITAL step is to force government to allow payment of such taxes as it’s citizenry decide are tolerable (not many, IMHO) in any of the above competing currencies, or in any combination of them. As long as they can compel payment only in, say, the Pound, they have the power to FORCE you to use that particular currency, whether you want to or not. As long as that is the case, competing currencies, on their own, wouldn’t solve the problem; Government would simply require payment in whichever of them it had the most control, or could arrange to have a ruinously unfavourable exchange rate with the others.

          If you leave them them any loose rope at all, they’ll use it make a noose for you!

          1. Or we could turn it [the central bank idea] on it’s head, and issue money as debt to citizens instead of ‘benefits’ or allowances and raise government funds from turnover taxs’ on anyone doing business accepting this fiat.

  2. You have put your finger on the unspoken wound of the 21st century. You are not alone though, there is a low background noise emminating from the small minority of people who have not completely succumbed to the mass media. One way or another the instability of our present system will reach a tipping point and hopfully enough of us do have the chance to say “we the people” and not Heil the Dictator.

    1. There’s an old Hindu saying, Bill. It goes something like this: “You have every right to work, but you have no right to expect anything for it”.

      I know the truth of this statement: harvesting potatoes last year, I received back half as many as I had planted. The realities of nature bite hard, especially when you’re not ready for them. Thankfully I have a supermarket down the road 😉

  3. We,the greeks,spaniards,italians (and the other PIGS around the world) never could understand what you guys over there are waiting for.50 million US-citizins on food stamps;Millions of families who lost their homes;

    Finally,get up.wake up,take it to the streets.In case you did not noticed that but the whole world is waiting for you guys.YOU are the only remaining “super power” since two decades..if you will take it to the streets the whole world will follow.Do NOT WAIT any longer!!!

    1. i do not understand our complacence as “Americans”. this site has given me a glimmer of hope that i am not alone in thought. as has your response. so thank you ! in response to Kostas .

  4. Shades of the great Tom Paines ‘Rights of Man’. Which fomented the American Revolution and had input to the French Revolution. Karl Marx forecaste this present debacle in his Communist Manifesto.

    Where do I sign up.

  5. The first thing we must do is to get enough citizens to sign a petition to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot to forbid any kind of monetary or otherwise contributions to any political contender in this whole country and only allow public funding of political races. It should also forbid any elected or appointed official from taking private employment in any area they have been in a position to influence for a period of 5-10 years after leaving public employment, to stop the revolving door goings on. Then perhaps we would have officials who truly want to serve their country and we could possibly start cleaning up the mess. As long as most all our politicians are bought off, nothing will change.

    1. Linda,

      I was thinking that I am the only one who considered such a fix. I praise your mindset!
      I would only like to add the following:
      Any Public official must undergo ANNUAL AUDITS every year he/she is in office, and for 10 years after exiting office. (this will squash any secret payoffs/corruption)

    2. agreed – possibly the most important thing which could be done in each nation – at the moment that is how change works – there is no global mechanism

    3. I agree with the get money out of politics. Though I think the remedy is to get BIG money out. I think people should be able to LOBBY (pay money to Envirnomental Lobbists, Pro-choice Lobbists, Anti-choice Lobbists (for the other side), Gun-Limitation Lobbists, NRA, etc.

      But I would limit the annual cumulative spending on ALL political action for any human-p3erson to (say) $5000 adn make it illegal for any non-human-person to spend ANY mkoney for poliical action. See my essay.

    4. What I’ve said many times, stop the corruption paying people who purport to work in the interests of the majority.

      To be sure they do that, they must live much as the majority live – living by their labour, not by accumulated wealth. Pensions should be suitably modest too. Early retirement on large and guaranteed public pensions is a largely hidden route to living off wealth. The majority cannot do this.

  6. trappedintrudopia

    The basic flaw in our commonly accepted contemporary ‘western’ version of democracy practiced today, is a willful inability to understand and accept human self-interest as a major behaviour driver.

    Missing the key ingredient of this motivator leaves a gaping hole in the process, through which cascade cohort after cohort of politicians solely concerned with their next election.

    Inability to see the implications of missing key elements will sink western democracies as surely as it doomed the Titanic.

    There is a remedy; we can save the ship we’re all on. But it will likely take a very severe crisis indeed, before enough of the vested interest prattle can be moved aside. It is a process adjustment, to allow for a balance between the ability to produce re-distributable resources, and the never-ending ideas and requests for resources for whatever worthy purpose enough voters can be polled as interested.

    The recipe is simple, and in some ways reflects the realities of earlier versions of democracy that we have discarded at our own peril.

    Step one:
    Fog a mirror? One vote

    Step two:
    Fog a mirror and pay Property Tax? Two votes.

    Step three:
    Fog a mirror, pay property tax, and pay (more than token) Income Tax? Three votes.

    Balance restored, and resulting in a society growing ever more prosperous and fair.

      1. Golem,

        May I suggest you look at the Harrogate Agenda very carefully before making any commitment? I have glanced briefly over it and it has more than a smack of “get on your bikes” to the poor. It has some excellent ideas for improving local democracy but not a whole picture. Anyone remember Derek Hatton in Liverpool? There is also no mention I have found of economics except that budgets must be agreed.

        Sounds like another bunch of the “household fallacy” to me. Click on demand 5 and see the attitude to Foreign Aid for example. I would not be comfortable supporting these people.

  7. Couldn’t agree with you more Golem – bring it on and the sooner the better.

    Frustratration is bulding up (see here http://bit.ly/1b3VtzX) and it needs a sane, safe, productive outlet.

    This article by Owen Jones is yet another example of people like you looking for an answer to the present situation.
    http://ind.pn/1eXxcPJ

    There are a lot of people out there who think the same way.

    Remember two things: you can’t be wrong if you are right, and you don’t stop fighting for justice simply because those around you don’t like it. You keep on fighting. (Robert Riley Aboriginal Activist 1955 -96)

  8. brilliant! Golem and thank you again. It was worth the wait. To oppose without abuse is the action of a ‘human being’ . Being human and what that entails is our only strength. This situation we are in must summon from within us our humanity or we go round in circles and arrive back where we started as has already happened. A vote every five years is meaningless whilst the opposite is voting with every breath we take so long as we live.

    That which we are against has no reason and will not respond to it hence every single one of the 99% can sign up and the 1% will still get their way. I cannot enunciate the solution with sufficient clarity but i know a man who can. If you are interested in the practical evolution of being human then please see http://www.premrawat.com

  9. Brilliant idea to put together such a list as it puts into perspective what we are up against, making the fragments into something that is whole, which in turn concentrates the mind to the full state of our present & ever worsening predicament.

  10. The People are the same as always – the collective who is not conscious. Nothing is new in the world that is important.

    Nothing has changed lately. Except that this unconscious collective may have started to become more conscious by individual affirmation of reality.

    The masses, or “the 99%”, are responsible for all social problems. The 1% are merely a proxy elected by this mass.

    This is why it is evidence of deep personal denial for anyone to blame the wealthy, the powerful, politicians or anyone of thing outside of themselves.

    Protests movements from all quarters are effectively speaking the language of slavery. Fed up because what they freely keep choosing, keeps harming them. never asking for slavery, per se, to be abolished. Just that “I am the new master an the old master is punished.”

    The following is a perfect exposition of this collective ignorance of reality – a dream world of slavery known mythically as The Matrix:

    Root Cause – Why property values will never be taxed

    http://www.meltfund.com/2014/01/root-cause-why-property-values-will.html

  11. There is no doubt that, unless there is a mass awakening and forceful assertion of the sort of demands suggested here, the status, wealth and general living standards of the mass of western populations will continue to decline – perhaps precipitately.

    The problem is that, although the drivers of this process are accurately identified, it is arguably somewhat naive to talk about regaining serious influence over them. The masses have never wielded such influence – as the suppressed histories of the genesis of both world wars, the Iraq war and barbaric British Imperial/colonial ventures too numerous to list, all too amply illustrate.

    Mass manipulation of perception and belief has come a long way in the century since World War I when the general population, whilst having no influence over the march to war, DID have a rather better understanding of who was orchestrating it, for what purposes and for whose benefit, than the utterly clueless mass-media consumers of today.

  12. Wasted words unfortunately. Nothing will EVER, EVER, EVER change. Time is better spent learning how to cope with the existing, awful system.

    1. So you have given up before any start is made!
      Unfortunately, you raise an important issue and there will be many who will think in this way.
      The greatest challenge to bringing about real democracy will be to defeat that mindset and motivate the many (99%).

      1. Before any start?! These problems have been clear as day for at least 10 years. It will take another 40 before the “start” you are looking for is made and I will be senile.

    2. “If ye do not value liberty, and prefer
      the tranquility of servitude
      better than the animating contest of freedom,
      go home from us in peace.
      We ask not your counsels or your arms.
      Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.
      May your chains set lightly upon you,
      and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”
      (Samuel Adams)

  13. I read ‘We the People… ‘ today having read Owen Jones’ article yesterday, that Joe has posted above. The two articles begin to establish some form of blueprint for the future. Are we really beginning to see a ‘manifesto’ or Agenda of Hope, as Jones puts it, beginning to emerge, that is a real alternative to the right wing agenda to which most politicians today subscribe in some form?
    There are aspects that look back to the past – no taxation without representation. There are aspects that open up a new future – real local democracy with the full involvement of elected local tax payers, workers and citizens on the the boards of banks and commercial concerns. Isn’t that ‘Localism’ in reality, Mr Cameron? The control needs to be wrested back from the few (1%) and taken over by the many (99%). You guys establish the manifesto and I will certainly sign, but we need much more than just signatures!
    A word of warning, considerable attention must be given to how it would be possible to motivate those, who are crushed by poverty, exploitation, exhaustion from the relentless grind of having to work all hours for meagre wages and by the cynical and insidious manipulation of the facts by the unscrupulous politicians and much of the media supported by the 1%.
    Much work is still to be done but me thinks that there might be a glimmer of hope!

  14. couldnt agree more David!

    i would like to share this post on my site: takeourpowerback.net.

    is that ok with you?

    Direct Democracy could transform our political landscape and re-empower We The People.

    JR

    1. I am definitely coming round to some form of Direct Democracy, with a minimum ‘backstop’ of sacking incumbent representatives & demanding a fresh election by binding referendum following a petition.

      I think we could begin to get some real democracy this route.

      It’s hard to see how the present Turkeys will ever vote for Christmas, the existing institutions are so locked in serving themselves, not the people.

  15. Outstanding writing. I’ve tweeted it to those who follow me and encourage others to spread the word. More people need to read what Golem XIV has proposed. I think it will resonate with a lot of people. We need to have the kind of conversation he is proposing—although what he has written is just fine with me.

  16. Great post, as always, David! Thank you

    We, the People, we are the Nation,
    The Soul of the Land in manifestation.
    We are the stewards of all she bestows,
    We are the yesterday, glued to tomorrow.

    We are the Temple, the priests and the flock.
    We are the method; the vehicles; the stock.
    We are the warriors, artists and scribes,
    The teachers, the healers, protectors and guides.

    We are the source of the outcome we seek:
    The Light and the Strength and the Hope that we need.
    We are the draughtsmen and builders of Will.
    We are the answer; the cure for our ills.

    For we are the Soul and the hand of our fate
    And we are the banners and trumpets of State.
    Albion’s creatures in Sovereignty’s land:
    We are the People – we are the Command.

    1. So how do we take this forward?

      I would suggest we would ideally want three things:

      The declaration to be put up on its own site where it can be revised and refined.

      Put up in a way that allows people to sign under it – name, address – as you would any petition.

      And most ambitious – get it translated into other languages. Why should we not stand together with Spaniards, Greeks, Italians, Argentinians, Portuguese, Germans, the Japanese and the French?

      1. Hi David.

        You could talk to the people at 38 degrees? Anyone can start a petition but I think this would get more traction if they pushed it front and centre, especially since we have lost against the coalition on the Lobbying Bill.
        Apparently the starting gun has gone off for the 2015 elections. Each party is failing around for the agenda that will see them take power.

        How about we give them OUR agenda, unmediated by spin doctors, focus groups and lobbyist! I reckon 6million signatures is a tipping point.

        1. Exactly so.

          And I agree it should be, as far as possible, an international campaign. Will have more impact, I feel, plus it has the irony value… The globalists wanted an interconnected global ‘community’; Well, now they’ve got one! Hope they choke on it!

      2. Hi David,

        I came to admire your work, when I happened to see one of your films (the one about the heart) in Arte TV. So first of all thank you.

        Concerning your wish to reach out to us Germans, we have a platform for open petitions https://www.campact.de/ that could be interesting for your purpose. They have already gained more 330.00 signatures for a petition against TTIP which covers one of your goals.

  17. We ARE global already – think climate, ecology and communication at the very least, never mind the numbers of families in which different passports are carried, the “third culture” children, or our common interests and humanity.
    In a very minor issue re the world stage I posted about why anyone eligible should vote NO in Scotland on the independence referendum see my thoughts here

    All of us need to think what collaborative co-operation can mean – difficult when we have taken in a different world-view all our lives, indeed possibly all our human history. Examine feelings as well as thoughts!

  18. Interesting analysis and observation. The same observations, about our entitled political classes, seems to be made by Orwell in Animal Farm (1943 [the very last sentence]) “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”.

    So perhaps its not necessarily a new observation, but a comment on the corruption of our politicians. Perhaps its because we have more information at our fingertips, that the process seems to be accelerating.

    Then again, if you want to know the truth about who is best served by our politicians, you can follow the money. The rich getting richer and so forth.

    At least they haven’t got round to “trickling down” hard financial information to those they purport to serve, Though the spoon feeding of the electorate with dodgy economic data and other “good news” might indicate they would like too.

  19. But unfortunately everyone in America just wants to get through the livelong day and retire to their giant screen tv, 1000 channels, medication of choice, and meager holiday. Democracy takes overtime and everyone is tapped out.

  20. Mike Malone is definitely onto something !

    “We the people …” is the beginning of a new constitution and I believe this is a necessary place to start ie forget legislation. However I would take issue with Mike and the word “again” in the phrase : “What those words did the first time and can do again”. Modern constitutions have been written by or for the political class of people who are soon be elected to office – the conflict of interest is obvious and has not failed in the case of France and the USA to lead to the untouchable status of elected officials who once in office feel no further need to represent their constituents interests.
    We desperately need a new republican constitution BUT written “by the people for the people”; not by potential legislators.

    Moreover I do not believe you can legislate against “vested interest” in representative democracy. Framing an effective text of law that would allow a court to sentence an MP who is covertly representing interests other than those of his electorate, seems extremely problematic.
    Therefore, in addition to a new republican constitution written by us we also need an overhaul of the democratic process. The major problem in our form of democracy is that accountability disappears as soon as the returning officer announces the result.
    Any elected person should be scrutinized regularly in the course of their duties and the possibility to revoke their mandate at any moment if they do not appear to be representing the common interest should be built in.
    Eg A former French Minister for Health secured the purchase of 94 Million doses of flu vaccine to be administered to the French people during an “epidemic” – her family is in the the pharmaceutical industry. Whilst no law was broken the potential conflict of interest is such that the minister’s mandate should have been revoked immediately and a new election held.
    Greek democracy contained some very interesting mechanisms whereby people were chosen to office by drawing lots, anybody who wanted to be elected put forward his name and the names drawn from an urn. This ensured that powerful groups could not control the representatives. If I understand correctly during the 200 years that the process was in use almost none of the elected officials were rich. People under 30 or incapable of carrying out their duties were excluded or dismissed if in office.
    I am not suggesting this as a perfect model but we can not continue with our present parliamentary system.

    I also agree with Mike Malone on one other very important point. 99% of us agree on the essentials – let’s work out the question of communism, capitalism etc later when we have our new people’s constitution and an adequate legislative institution correctly representing us.

    Peace to all !

    PS I am repeating a lot of what I have heard and read from the French economist Etienne Chouard who is discussing precisely the same question as Mike but in France.

    1. i do not understand out complacence as “Americans”. this site has given me a glimmer of hope that i am not alone in thought. as has your response. so thank you !

  21. WE THE PEOPLE – all 7+ billion of us, are all linked and, though unique, independent, individual beings, we are of truth (we are all of thought, of consciousness, of mind).

    All insecurity is thought …. it’s not real unless you think it so.
    All people are well … it’s simply that many people don’t know it.
    The perceived problems of the world could be over-thought in terms of:
    – Avarice
    – Hubris
    – Systemic failures
    – Intellectual failures
    Yet the missing link is truth (truth = thought = consciousness = mind).
    The TRUTH is missed _ misunderstood, misinterpreted, mistaken.

    WE, THE PEOPLE, will link up in understanding.
    In following our inside-out wisdom, we (and the awakened generations to follow) will not only generate sustainable solutions, they will successfully implement them.
    Body and mind are connected aren’t they.
    WE, THE PEOPLE, are the solution _ the intelligence _ the source _ the embodied cause and effect.
    There are only three elements to realise … and then, for the rest of your life, you may enjoy peace of mind.
    People who are well do well.
    TRUTH seems to be understood in stages.
    People busy-mindedly dismiss it as inconvenient nuisance.
    Then, as they catch a glimpse, they ignore it.
    In ridiculing it, they uncover the point that truth is funny, ironic, paradoxical.
    In opposing it, as they fight away the increasing clarity, they uncover yet more truth.
    And then truth is accepted as self-evidently true … impossible to mis-cons-true.
    In the long-distant past, people weighed hearts in balance with truth, misunderstanding the pure and simple nature of the ISNESS and the ALLNESS.
    WE THE PEOPLE – all 7+ billion of us, are of TRUTH.
    Whether or not we understand TRUTH, the results of TRUTH will be experienced.
    WE, THE PEOPLE, are all born, gifted with thought, able to change our mind and to either enjoy or lack enjoyment simply because we were never told about nature, AKA truth.
    Somebody should have told us.
    Now we have a chance to ‘go tell the world’.
    The first step for WE, THE PEOPLE, is to get selfish and to learn to listen and learn, to uncover nature for ourselves.
    Teachers and coaches only teach well that which they understand, inside-out.
    And that’s my I.O.U. to anyone who will listen …. Inside-Out-Understanding.
    And why do I (and many others) do this?
    Because it works. Results.
    People, who in innocent ignorance, are unwell become able to self-correct, to enjoy well-being for the rest of their lives.
    That’s what I understand is required for WE, THE PEOPLE.

    It’s THAT we think that matters … not what we think.
    It’s uncovering who you are, the essence of you, as mind and body connected (heart-felt, gut-reaction, intuition … wisdom / intelligence / instinct / common sense).
    At Harvard, they say that ‘the human mind displays a very limited capacity to contain the intelligence we sense.’
    What they and scientists are uncovering from nature is that the new operating platform they have been looking for already exists.
    Metaphorically, there is a switch in the head which, when on, off or reset to default, lights up all the circuits and connects us, WE, THE PEOPLE, to the wisdom of nature we have innocently misunderstood … until now.
    That there is a physical Intelligence (that heals the body) is accepted and known as self evident.
    That the same Intelligence is a psychological Intelligence which, when understood, results in self-correction, is only just coming to light.
    It’s time to tell the world – but we must learn that the world cannot listen until, pointing to where we now understand, the consciousness awakening we are all witnessing, is sensed and so experienced, inside-out.

  22. Sign up to support the campaign for a real democracy

    http://www.agreementofthepeople.org/

    Millions are disillusioned with our political system, which is a democracy in name only. The present system favours the rich and the powerful over ordinary people as the economic crisis shows.

    Living standards are plummeting, inequality is growing and the welfare state lies in ruins. But top bosses and bankers are doing very nicely, thank you.

    All this means that our votes count for very little.

    Parliaments in Westminster, Cardiff and Edinburgh are totally inadequate as a means of popular representation, democratic control and accountability.

    So we need a democratic constitution based on new political, social, economic, legal and ecological rights.

    Sign up and support the campaign for an Agreement of the People for the 21st century. Please add your or your organisation’s name and ‘like’ on Facebook.
    Supported by:

    Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers
    Communities Against the Cuts
    John McDonnell MP
    Bill Bowring, Professor of Law, Birkbeck College, University of London
    A World to Win
    People’s Republic of Southwark
    Rotherham Against the Cuts
    National Community Activists Network
    Real Democracy Working Group of Occupy London
    People’s Assemblies Network
    National Coalition for Independent Action
    Wigan Borough Green Socialists
    Runnymede Project
    Republican Socialist Alliance
    Grattan Puxon, International Romani Union, Gypsy Council and secretary of Dale Farm Residents Association
    More Supporters…

  23. While I applaud the demands I am concerned how we are going to enforce them. It seems to me writing, reading and commenting on blogs can be educative but will not lead to actual change on the ground unless we have a mechanism.
    Until I see a practical mechanism for change coming about I will suggest we cannot completely dump political parties as with all their faults they maybe one of the few mechanisms that can implement our demands. Remember one key reason political parties are not accountability is because most people do not actually demand accountability from them in practice.

    1. Dear Maurice, et al

      A good reason for dumping political parties is that (with the exception, in the UK, of the Greens in my opinion) they don’t represent ‘we the people’ any more. They evolved to govern on behalf of the state and have morphed to govern of behalf of corporate power, the ramifications of which everyone following Golem’s blog is totally aware of.

      Peter Mair was considered the authority in this regard, please see here
      http://bit.ly/1hMXtkp

      Could you add a comment please and we can continue that discussion there.

      Activists – the people who actually get things done – despair at ordinary people’s ignorance and lack of curiosity as to what is happening around them but even more so at those who do know but find some reason or other for doing nothing whatsoever about it.

      The intelligentsia are despised for their weakness as enactors. They try to hide their weakness/cowardice in a labyrinth of hypothesis.

      As redracam and Gerry Gold have pointed out, ‘we need a democratic constitution based on new political, social, economic, legal and ecological rights’ and there are people out there trying to do it. Let’s actively get behind them and anyone else is actually doing something decent out there to change this god awful system that is destroying democracy, our living standards and the planet.

      Golem’s followers have enough collective brain power to come up with a course of action – let’s not anything or anyone distract us from doing exactly that.

      1. I agree with Joe and the general tenor of what has been said above, we do need a new constitution that is not based on narrow political dogmas that are bound up inextricably with the party system. This system no longer serves ‘The People’. The agenda was moved to the right by Thatcher and all parties now offer a slightly different version of this same narrow thinking.
        The People are largely ignored and it’s the markets, the corporations, the banks and powerful rich, supported by elements of the media that control this right wing agenda and its political frontmen/women.
        David Malone, Owen Jones and other likeminded people have put forward a new agenda. We need to get behind this and ensure that it reaches The People. We need ‘Leaders of the People’ that ensure that the world hears and understands how valuable this new agenda would to them. There are many out there who can’t focus on this because they are crushed by austerity and just getting by.
        We need those who can grab their attention and offer a real alternative to this corrupt and exclusive system.
        How about it David and Owen!?

  24. Hi David.
    Could you get a petition raised via 38 Degrees? I think you would get more traction if you talk to them about our aims first as it would need to go front and centre; a response to losing the fight on the Lobbying Bill.
    Since the starting gun appears to have gone off on the 2015 general election and each political party is flailing around looking for the right policy moves to ease them into power, how about we give them OUR agenda, unmediated by spin doctors, focus groups and vested interests.
    The barrier before action is quite high in my opinion. I think they think we can be ignored below around 6 million signatures. Representative democracy is a busted flush with the current bunch. We need to move to participatory democracy and getting people actively involved.

    1. Hello Art,

      What an intriguing idea. I am a memeber of 38 degrees but don;t know any of them. By any chance do you? Or anyone else here?

      If not I’ll just try to get though myself.

      1. I am just an ordinary member same as you. No special privileges I’m afraid.
        There is a number – 0207 970 6023 or email address – [email protected]

        Member sponsored petitions are on this page – http://38degrees.uservoice.com/forums/78585-campaign-suggestions

        But, as I said, there is too much noise for something this wide ranging to get much publicity.
        If not, maybe you could team up with Unite? I am trying to think of existing organisations that are already big enough to pack a punch. Other suggestions welcome…

      1. Thanks Art and Joe.

        I contacted them by email today. They suggested I mention the idea on their facebook page. I’ll try to do so tomorrow. Though I confess I am still not very good with FB.

  25. How about a Danish translation ? Most popular FB comment on the story below :: { Gave him a link to this page )

    Rasmus Varnich Blumensaat “Approx. 200.000 people signed a digital petition against the partnership with Goldman Sachs. Our Minister of Finance refused to take note, even though that number is ten times the signatures needed to found a party eligible for parliament and double the amount needed for The White House to respond to a US petition. In a country of only 5 million people, it boggles the mind”

    .http://www.businessinsider.com/denmarks-deal-with-goldman-sachs-2014-1

  26. “Birmingham University student protest leads to 14 arrests”

    http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jan/30/birmingham-university-student-protest-arrests

    “Red-shirts ‘ready to resist’ Thai army coup, set up capital in Chiang Mai”

    http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1416916/red-shirts-ready-resist-thai-army-coup-set-capital-chiang-mai

    “Warning bells ring over British current account deficit”

    http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/business/2014-01/30/c_133086013.htm

    “China’s manufacturing PMI falls to 6-month low”

    http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2014-01/30/c_133085572.htm

      1. Golem XIV, thank you for that. I post because…

        “The more one knows, the more one will be able to control events. This sentence is found in the works of Francis Bacon.”

    1. We the people desire to live in empathy, peace and co-operation.

      The criteria for public policy should always weigh carefully whether it progresses in this direction. There are few, if any, absolutes, but we can endeavour know in which direction we journey thru’ life, collectively and individually. The direction of travel, personally & collectively is perhaps the only thing we can know with any confidence.

      I rather liked this quote from the new Walter Mitty film:

      To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other and to feel. That is the purpose of life.

      Or more simply:

      To See the World. To Find Each Other and to Feel. The Purpose of Life.

        1. Likewise Golem, best wishes 🙂

          I have a good feeling about this year, seems definitely an uptick in concern and action for the matters we hold dear. Still a small minority, but growing and becoming more visible I think.

      1. I don’t think there can be any doubt that David is right. I can’t think of a single case recently or in history more generally where real democracy has thrived following people being brave enough to face the vile oppressor on the street.

        What are the mechanisms that leave us in the hands of scoundrels and the majority of us thinking most of our politicians are decent, hard-working people against all the evidence? These days we could have much more sophisticated petition, recall and decentralisation through technology, write laws to be administered by representatives, open our professions to direct qualification at university and real commercial pressures. There is a great deal we’d need to plan for to prevent the defaulting to scoundrelism, including ensuring our armed services and police are of the people.

        Having taught in universities too long, I now believe we’ve been had at very deep levels by false history and education based in child-minding and ranking against very skewed academic criteria. Most of our upbringing and decision-making remains medieval. Economics is frankly a farce. The transfer of knowledge and ideas to practice is almost nonexistent. Our newsrooms are stocked with huge bias long recognised in research and people who seem not to know material in standard texts.

        There are huge problems from mass media through to bodies supposedly providing public scrutiny like the IPCC, Ofstead, Care Quality Commission and the utterly farcical financial regulators. Performance management fraud is everywhere. Chilcott is yet to report to we the people and the standard of public scrutiny so low Blair was able to claim he acted in good conscience and is at peace with god.

  27. I am late to this party again. Kept a keen eye out for more blogs during December and January, then became bogged down in the usual daily grind. On my return today I find a reply to my very first question here (thanks again David) and an excellent spurring on, as well as more blogs. This has really invigorated me after this rather dismal weather we have been experiencing in the South West.

    In December I signed some petitions on 38 degrees, wrote an email regarding clause 118 from The Care Bill and even received a reply from that from my local MP and the House of Commons representative in London. Aye, small beans to most, but a big deal to someone who has grown tired of talking to many, many people, yes human people (that is why I used the old term we the people), from left, right, up, down, red, white, blue, yellow, centre who all agree that we need real change. One older gentleman even proposed a revolution. Yet they just sit and talk, moan, whinge, rant momentarily and conclude there is nothing we can do. But there is, we are so very many and they are so few. Imagine a flood of millions of people at Downing Street or Parliament Square. Not fleeting, not there full of hate and destruction, but determined. Steady, peaceful, relentless. Maybe then they will take note that we the people do not want what they are proposing any more?

    Time to turn this dream into reality.

  28. Why not start thinking in the new. And reject the old way of thinking:

    http://www.meltfund.com/2014/02/projection-harmony.html

    “Projection Harmony – A theory about the harmony between the development of life in all individuals and the creation of every society.”

    “Following a piece from one of our clients, a psychologist by trade. Like marmite you can take it or leave it. This chap lives by his views on it and is rather wealthy. Winning with MeltFund is all about psychology. All you need other than that is some primary school math and to avoid the news and the experts.

    The piece is a raw draft paper of primary research by him. He wants it placed in the public domain so that it cannot be fenced off and kept away from potential clients of The Fund. He’s well aware only 1% of people will be able to understand it, so there is no worry about competition.”

  29. “GP magazine Pulse reported on 7/2/14, “Patients who have opted out of the scheme will still have their records sent to the HSCIC stripped of identifiers” (see 4th paragraph from bottom of this article). This confirms something buried on page 9 of NHS England’s recently-published care.data Privacy Impact Assessment [PDF] (UPDATE 12/2/14: there appeares to be a problem with the official link to the PIA, so here is a copy), which states:”

    http://medconfidential.org/how-to-opt-out/

  30. I liked this account of society. Here in Australia this account is factual and all that ever changes is the faces, not the representation. “For the people” has no meaning as government is rarely to do with the people.
    The worst part of the whole language of deceit is that the media is owned by big business interests and the propaganda campaigns these organisations run are for the benefit of their owners and the big business conglomerates associated with these behemoths. The recent Federal election in Australia was orchestrated by Rupert Murdoch…a one time Australian but now an American citizen. Murdoch in association with Australia’s other big media houses hijacked the election campaign and saw to it that his conservative party, together with some of the most malicious and bad politicians ever seen in this nation, was elected. And then the first Budget handed down contained a 1.5% tax cut FOR BUSINESS whilst lying about the needs of the nation which were not being addressed in any way.
    My eyes are open but lets not hold our breath for the rest of the nation which is content sitting in front of the TV or being at the club bending the elbow or gambling. We get what we deserve not what we should get.

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