Democracy Rising 9: Facilitating Democratic Conversations, Part 1
By Rosa Zubizarreta, Resilience.org
What forms of self-governance will enhance our efforts to create resilient local communities?
Tag: participative democracy
Not a Democracy
By Eliza Daley, By my solitary hearth
This is not a democracy. But it may be… soon… if we just acknowledge that it is not democracy. And start working toward making something that is.
The elites can’t stop climate change, but democratic cities can
By Yavor Tarinski, Resilience.org
It is time for the radical democratization of cities, in order for a meaningful and resourceful plan for action from the grassroots to be initiated. Anything less than this is simply a waste of time.
How Chileans went from jumping subway turnstiles to rewriting the Constitution
By Jordan Flaherty, Waging Nonviolence
Mass protests that began in 2019 in Chile — and have deep roots in the country’s militant history of resistance to neoliberalism — are about to bring about a new constitution.
What Could Possibly Go Right?: Episode 24 Thom Hartmann
By Vicki Robin, Thom Hartmann, Resilence.org
Thom Hartmann has been the nation's #1 progressive talk show host for over a decade. Recorded in the lead up to the US presidential election, Thom shares his thoughts on What Could Possibly Go Right?
Citizen Empowerment Against Conspiracy Theories
By Yavor Tarinski, Towards Autonomy
In order for the wave of irrational and anti-scientific conspiracies to be tackled in any meaningful way, people en masse have to be empowered.
Extinction Rebellion is showing Britain what real democracy could look like
By George Monbiot, The Guardian blog
Through his incompetence, callousness and greed for power, Johnson has done us two favours: exposing the shallowness of our theatrical democracy, and creating a potential coalition ranging from hospital porters to supreme court judges. Now we must decide how to mobilise it.
E-communitarian Democracy: What is it?
By Sirio López Velasco, Rebelion.org
We consider democracy especially in its direct, participatory and/or representative forms, and for the satisfaction of individual needs (within the ecological frugality prescribed by the third fundamental norm of ethics, and respect for interculturality).
A Common Indignation
By Dougald Hine, Bella Caledonia
Like the White Queen in Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, I have been practising, doing my best to believe impossible things before breakfast. Could these experiments with slower, deliberative modes of democracy carry the currents of indignation, transform them into a turning aside from business as usual? Could there be political leaders who come around to the need for such a turning, in the face of the enormity of the climate crisis?
XR: The Case for Deliberative Democracy
By Alex Bradbury, Red Pepper
This remark, made by a member of the Extinction Rebellion (XR) Citizens’ Assembly Working Group, is met by a spontaneous flurry of jazz hands from everyone in the small Kings College London meeting room. No, we’re not all frustrated musical theatre performers; waving ‘jazz hands’ are used in XR, and other activist groups, to express agreement during a group discussion. I can’t resist pointing out the irony of our reaction – we’re all agreeing we need to be less cult-like by raising our hands in unison and waving them about. Everyone laughs, but it strikes me that this points to a deeper challenge in our work.
Power, Friendship, and some Democratic “Rules”
By Russell Arben Fox, In media res
For those tired of the fake news and play hate, who are convinced by Austin and their own better natures that accomplishing something better is actually still possible within the American system, Hersh provides a new, detailed, 21st-century appropriate set of adaptable "rules" for us all, radicals or otherwise.
Reimagining Democratic Public Ownership for the Twenty-First Century
By Thomas M. Hanna, Mathew Lawrence, Open Democracy
The coming decade is arguably the most important in human history, especially as relates to climate and the environment. The status quo – of a planetary emergency and deep inequalities – is unsustainable and insupportable. Strategies for extending democratic public ownership over the commanding heights of the twenty-first century economy can open up a more innovative, sustainable, and inclusive futur
