> -=^OmeN^=- wrote in message ...
> >http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,58715,00.html/wn_ascii
> >
> >"In October, the BBC plans to flick the switch on an ambitious website
> >designed to help Britons organize and run grassroots political
> >campaigns. The site, dubbed iCan, is designed to help citizens
> >investigate issues that concern them, find others who share those
> >concerns and provide advice and tools for organizing and engaging in the
> >political process."
>
> Fine. How about a grassroots political campaign to
> deal with left-wing bias on R4 Today programme?
>
> --
> Anton
The iCan plans do not seem to address those deficits of British democracy
which have hindered the success of many campaigns. iCan claims to increase
political efficacy but it appears to offer nothing more effective than
contacting and informing fellow citizens, plus maybe faxing your MP. None of
these strategies can remotely guarantee political change.
Elements of direct democracy can be effective, e.g. to change public
planning proposals, even to propose and enact new laws. We propose citizens'
initiative, referendum and recall, as ways to improve our "representative",
staid and unresponsive system of governance. See http://www.iniref.org
BTW, the beeb's iCan proposal is not original. We at Integral Studies
proposed a grass-roots system of (self-) governance, assisted by already
available electronic information and communication systems, in the mid
1990s. See
Open Forum
http://home.snafu.de/mjm/enter.html
PROPOSAL version 2 OPEN FORUM::CITIZENS RESOLVE
http://home.snafu.de/mjm/prop2.html
Citizen, Society, Polity
http://home.snafu.de/mjm/init.html
Sincerely,
Wallace-Macpherson