Direct Democracy

October 10th, 2006 by AthensProject

This was to be a reply to the issues post, but the reply feature may not be working at the moment.

I was pleased to hear that Senator Gravel has pledged to put his signature or veto up to a popular vote as consistent with candidates running for office under the Athens Project. This works hand in hand with The National Initiative effort. How much pork that comes out of Congress would be stopped if it had to get 50% of the public's nationwide support?

The health care issue is a personal favorite. The 1994 bid to implement it by the Clintons fell through when insurance companies weighed in with big contributions, commercial airtime, and threats. How much more expensive will it be when corporate interests have to convince/bribe millions of Americans instead of less than 300 representatives?

--Bill Jacobs

Coordinator, Athens Project (www.athensproject.com)

Comments

National Initiative

Submitted on May 31st, 2007 by notyouneek

I found Mike Gravel by accident when googling a name I wanted to use for a voter empowerment organization. No need to start it, he's done all the work:) I cried with joy when I read the National Initiative. It is the solution to every issue we have. The People are smart enough to know what their problems are and how to fix them. No one at the congressional level has any idea what day to day life is like. They don't know what issues are important to us and if they do they sure as heck don't have any solutions to offer us. Power to the People and God Bless Mike Gravel!!!!!!!!!!!

Hope you are able to

Submitted on June 1st, 2007 by Elliswonder

spread the word on Mike.

Hillary Doesn't Quite Get It

Submitted on May 31st, 2007 by Robert Mann

Asking voters to vote on her campaign theme song may be a start, but it's a long way from empowering them to set the guidelines for immigration policy.

Hilliary

Submitted on May 31st, 2007 by notyouneek

Great observation! It was a cool video she put out but I don't think anyone whose paying attention is going to buy into her being hip and humorus.

What's "hip & humorous" about a murderer?

Submitted on June 1st, 2007 by the Left Paw

The story that started the "What Really Happened" website seems to have largely Bin forgotten by the public: The Death of Vincent Foster. Hillary had, at the very least, tampered with evidence of a murder investigation, by taking loads of Foster's things from his office into her personal possession before the police ever saw a single thing! Foster was then, the First Lady's best friend and confidante. There is plenty of incriminating evidence (and some conjecture) of her guilt here:

Vincent Foster Cover-up

It's hard to believe that the Whitewater, the Children's Defense Fund and Marc Rich scandals haven't resurfaced yet either! Boy oh boy do Americans ever have a short memory/attention span!!!

the Left Paw

Progressive Mews @ whoisisabella.com

IT'S ABOUT CITIZENSHIP AND IT HAS A LOT TO DO WITH BLACK VOTERS

Submitted on May 28th, 2007 by Robert Mann

The anti-slavery movement and the Civil Rights movement stuggled to gain the full rights of U.S. citizenship for blacks.

Direct Democracy asserts the right (and the power) of U.S. citizens to decide major questions of public policy. It takes this power away from such big-money interests as the military-indutrial complex, the pharmaceutical industry, and the extremist pro-Israel lobby.

By contrast, here is what the Bush crowd thinks of the rights and power of U.S. citizens --

As shown in the "missing" Rove memos, the Bush crowd stripped hundreds of thousands of citizens (including many GI's and many blacks) from voting rolls in 2004 and plan to do it again in 2008.

SEE: Greg Palast on the missing Rove memos, as reported by BBC.
RFK Jr. on corporate control of the news media.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x28238

I know that the gravel

Submitted on May 24th, 2007 by Ian Graves

I know that the gravel campaign doesn't have much money but can't they ban and purge all of these advertising bots.

Note to Webmaster: Please install a search function

Submitted on April 30th, 2007 by hydrogenerous

I went to the backpage of the forums to grab this interesting article and bump it all the way to the top to make this point>>>

Please install a search function like this one --->

http://www.picosearch.com/index.html

It will make this website much easier to use. Sometimes members will want to return to previous post to edit or delete their own old messages. And this will help members to be self policing when trying to clean up content after having second thoughts about an item.

that sounds like an ad

Submitted on May 24th, 2007 by david

that sounds like an ad

Search Function

Submitted on May 1st, 2007 by admin

I put the search function on the right side of every page. Is this sufficient? You may contact the web staff directly by mailing to the info at gravel08 address.

This is my second attempt at a reply

Submitted on May 1st, 2007 by pacom

I don't see any search function to the right of my screen.

I am using the google search at the top of my screen -

which i guess, is supplied by my internet provider.

( This content has been edited by pacom , to maybe get by the censor.)

tannhauser PACOM , tanaiste

Getting direct democracy

Submitted on January 4th, 2007 by stripey7

I support much of the senator's platform, but especially direct democracy. I support the principle of NID and have voted for it. But I think it's important to also pursue constitutional reform through the mechanism provided by Article V -- the states' petitioning Congress to call a Constitutional Convention. If NID passes without that, it would be easy for Congress to ignore it by saying, "You didn't follow the rules. That has no legal force." But as documented at www.article5.org, more than enough states have already petitioned Congress for a Convention and it is now legally mandated to call one. It was, in fact, in connection with that effort that I discovered the Gravel campaign, while contacting presidential candidates to urge their support for a convention (Mike is the second official candidate listed by Wikipedia). I'm also writing my federal legislators to act on this, and then my state legislators to move for an independent Convention if this Congress adjourns without acting on its mandate. Eric Hamell Gondwanaland -- http://stripey7.blogspot.com

Influence

Submitted on October 11th, 2006 by jpeters

That's the point. Special interest will not be able to bribe millions of voters like they can legislators.

It takes kind of long to get

Submitted on May 1st, 2007 by somerandomchick

It takes kind of long to get a national election to actually... happen. How often would we vote?? Exactly how would this work?? That's what I want to know.

I also want to know what you guys think about Instant Runoff Voting, which I think would be crucial to going beyond the two-party system which has failed us so badly. Why can't there be a liberal and a conservative and a republican and a democrat and a libertarian and an independent...? Why can't we choose "Nader is my first choice, but I'll take Gore over Bush"?? (Because only Republicans campaign for Nader, that election-killer)

that's www.ni4d.us

Submitted on May 1st, 2007 by pacom

www.ni4d.us

I think I read there that the vote-taking goes on and on ,

and the voter can change his vote.

I would like to know myself if the vote totals are shown at all times present.

Talk about elections being *** horseraces *** ! ! !

tannhauser PACOM , tanaiste

For future initiatives, there would be only one vote.

Submitted on May 1st, 2007 by Donald Grbac

The election for NI4D is on-going until enough votes for it are accumulated. But that is not necessarily the way future ballot initiatives would be handled. There is a process (run by the Electoral Trust) that requires validation of initiative proposals, open debates on them, and finally an election for each initiative. The initiative would be on the ballot only once. Of course, another proposal concerning the former initiative could be submitted creating a new ballot initiative to be voted on in an election.

DON

Only democracy will save us!

somerandomanswer

Submitted on May 1st, 2007 by hydrogenerous

Look here first>>

http://www.ni4d.us/

I'm no expert on this subject, but I've written some of my opines about voting-reform in other posts in this forum over the past few days... I've had visions about ElectronicDemocracy since the days computers were built with vacuum-tubes [kudo's to Ted Stevens]..

...if the webmaster would install a search-function in this forum you could easily look up my other posts....(;-P)

Influence

Submitted on December 6th, 2006 by ezeflyer

Exactamente!

Direct Democracy

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