How could we get there?

Dear Roger. As far as I remember "Earth Constitution" designs a parliamentary system, with representatives, elections and political parties. Am I wrong?

Yes, that is correct. But world political parties have yet to
emerge. Peter Graves-Goodman out of Miami is working on this.

In a message dated 12/11/2015 9:28:36 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
[email protected] writes:

Dear Roger. As far as I remember “Earth Constitution” designs a
parliamentary system, with representatives, elections and political parties.
Am I wrong?

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Ok. So just to be sure. I am not for this kind of democracy. I am for real democracy. Even at a global level. Specially at a global level, but in combination with others. For me, real democracy means any from several combination of existing advanced democratic systems like direct, deliberative, participatory or by lot.

Germa, Roger, Fabio, Barnaby -

I'm excited to see this discussion unfolding.

What do you think about Liquid Democracy?:
https://youtu.be/fg0_Vhldz-8

There are others, like yourself, exploring alternative forms of
elections. Dealing fairly with 7 billion people is not easy with many
people still short of computers, electricity, etc.

Computer approaches are not ready yet for prime time for a number of
reasons as the rigged Bush elections illustrate -- fraud is too easy, both
at the voting booth, and when final calculations are tabulated.

Rasmus Tenbergen was working on an "electronic World Parliament" but I
don't know if he's made enough progress. Probably, with computer surveys,
we will at least be able to let people voice their preferences (war, no war)
etc....but who decides what is placed on the ballot?

Anyway, direct participatory democracy will likely be most effective in
small groups. We are unclear how to apply it for millions of people:
Does each person decide what world legislation should be presented, or do they
break down into smaller committee's?

Even if what you call "real democracy" is technically figured out one day
in the future (not impossible), one still has the problem of who gets to decide
what world legislation is to be presented to the world to vote on?

What will be the wording? Who decides what gets to be voted on?

The Earth Constitution is open to amendments. If a better democratic
procedure better than representative democracy is developed, then we could
change the Constitution. But so far, no one has offered anything concrete
and real, and tested.

For example, some activists believe that 50% of the World Parliament should
be women, not just anybody elected from the 1000 electoral districts.
This type of change could be made at an amendment constituent assembly.
Some think the representative should be from NGO's.

-- Roger Kotila

In a message dated 12/11/2015 2:24:26 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
[email protected] writes:

Ok. So just to be sure. I am not for this kind of democracy. I am for real
democracy. Even at a global level. Specially at a global level, but in
combination with others. For me, real democracy means any from several
combination of existing advanced democratic systems like direct, deliberative,
participatory or by lot.

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Liquid democracy will probably work best in smaller groups. The Earth
Federation has advocated local people's assemblies to discuss issues, and then
pass their ideas on to their representative in the World Parliament, or to even
present a candidate for the Parliament.

There will be many people in Liqiud Democracy uninterested in keeping up,
or participating...or too busy doing other things. Should we make voting
mandatory?

I'd like to see a people's vote on war! Should we outlaw war? Should
those involved in war and war making be prosecuted as world
criminals? ...including defense contractors, especially those working on
nuclear bombs, cluster munitions, depleted uranium munitions, phosphorous, and
other weapons of mass mutilation?

-- Roger K

In a message dated 12/11/2015 2:35:49 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
[email protected] writes:

Germa, Roger, Fabio, Barnaby -

I’m excited to see this discussion unfolding.

What do you think about Liquid Democracy?:
https://youtu.be/fg0_Vhldz-8 ( https://youtu.be/fg0_Vhldz-8 )

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Dear Peter,

I see liquid democracy as too perfect for this imperfect world. I think, among others, it wants to be a solution to the problem of not enough citizen direct participation, but it's not the only proposal dealing with this problem and by the way, this problem is not a big obstacle in itself in my opinion because just 15% of people participating in referendums, citizen conferences, participatory budgets, etc. will always be much more than 0,000...1% of people participating in a representative parliament, or 40 - 60% voting for others once every 4 years. The problem I see is that in liquid democracy system, there is a big possibility that parties always be the majority and engaged people with their own ideas the minority, so the latter won't be motivated to participate except as a way of making propaganda of these ideas. But this is what more or less happens in Switzerland with semi-direct democracy and in my opinion it is not enough. However maybe my prediction is wrong, so in fact I believe the best about LD is to try it first at a small level and learn from the process.

Dear Roger and friends, the idea I am working on as one of the proposals that I am including in a future book, is a combination of direct democracy for all the main topics, many citizen panels for deliberating on how to make more concrete the results of the previous referenda, and finally a Parliament with MP by lot, so without parties, in charge of translating into laws the results of both the referenda and the panels. This can be valid in my opinion for a medium-size country level. Probably global level needs more complexity because of interacting with regional, national, and local levels. And then other combinations are possible too (including by using liquid democracy as a part of it).

Hi all,

Since the discussion has shifted towards democratic models, I'd like to suggest people read this excerpt from an essay of mine detailing a model quite similar to the Liquid Democracy models discussed above, but different in a few key ways which I think make it more easily scalable to the national and global levels, as well as less complex and more user friendly. That is here: https://austingmackell.wordpress.com/democracy-without-elections/ ( https://austingmackell.wordpress.com/democracy-without-elections/ )

However I also think that discussing this kind of detail at this stage is the wrong order of operations. The first thing to do, as I suggested above, is to try and coalesce all these different scattered groups with very similar aims into one global movement. Indeed as the discussion above demonstrates there are differences within these groups probably as large as the differences between them.

Of particular note is the Campaign for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly or UNPA. If people take the time to check it out I think they'll be impressed by how detailed and progressed these efforts are. I really think that this campaign can serve to unify the myriad of small groups behind a single goal, and in doing so lay the groundwork for a more meaningful discussion of the particular parliamentary model most desirable at the global level - which I agree must be a more responsive, transparent and therefore more truly democratic than the legislatures we currently have at the local, state/provincial, national and regional levels.

I'm CCing one of the key organisers of this campaign, Andreas Bummel, in this reply in hopes of encouraging this collaboration.

Solidiversity to all.

Dear friends,

I have encouraged Bummel's UN Parliamentary Assembly campaign because
he has done really well attracting former and current Members of
Parliament to the concept of representation at the UN via a second
House.

Unfortunately, no provision is made for either the UN General Assembly
or the proposed UN Parliamentary Assembly to have any decision-making
power that matters. Wars and world crimes will continue
unabated. Human rights will not be protected. Private corporate
power is elbowing its way in to the UN.

Nevertheless, the emerging Earth Federation
Movement will need these MP's to help support the Earth
Federation's Earth Constitution which calls for a World
Parliament with real "we, the people" authority. [The design of the
World Parliament may later be changed under the
Constitution's amendment process.]

And yes, people may be inspired to unite behind the notion of a "we,
the peoples" Parliament. But they will be disappointed if there is no
power except the power to consult and to make "recommendations" to the UN
Security Council (the fate of the UN General Assembly which has no power to
speak of).

Calls for "World Parliament Now" will be exploring the Earth
Constitution to determine what authority a Parliamentary Assembly at
the UN should have. As it stands, the UNPA will probably end up in the
same position as the current UN's Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)
which consists of parliamentarians from different nations, but which has no
decision-making authority of any significance.

Unfortunately, the UN Charter is the problem.
It's defective: an undemocratic war system. (Think of the
undemocratic UN Security Council which keeps all of the power.) The
Earth Constitution was written by a worldwide group of world
citizens/world federalists realizing that the UN Charter could not do the
job.

In late December, in India, the Federation's Provisional World Parliament
meets.

-- Roger Kotila
Editor, Earth Federation News & Views

In a message dated 12/14/2015 10:39:32 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
[email protected] writes:

Hi all,

Since the discussion has shifted towards democratic models, I’d like to
suggest people read this excerpt from an essay of mine detailing a model quite
similar to the Liquid Democracy models discussed above, but different in a few
key ways which I think make it more easily scalable to the national and global
levels, as well as less complex and more user friendly. That is here: https://austingmackell.wordpress.com/democracy-without-elections/ ( https://austingmackell.wordpress.com/democracy-without-elections/ )
( https://austingmackell.wordpress.com/democracy-without-elections/ ( https://austingmackell.wordpress.com/democracy-without-elections/ )
)

However I also think that discussing this kind of detail at this stage is
the wrong order of operations. The first thing to do, as I suggested above, is
to try and coalesce all these different scattered groups with very similar
aims into one global movement. Indeed as the discussion above demonstrates
there are differences within these groups probably as large as the differences
between them.

Of particular note is the Campaign for a United Nations Parliamentary
Assembly or UNPA. If people take the time to check it out I think they’ll be
impressed by how detailed and progressed these efforts are. I really think
that this campaign can serve to unify the myriad of small groups behind a
single goal, and in doing so lay the groundwork for a more meaningful
discussion of the particular parliamentary model most desirable at the global
level - which I agree must be a more responsive, transparent and therefore
more truly democratic than the legislatures we currently have at the local,
state/provincial, national and regional levels.

I’m CCing one of the key organisers of this campaign, Andreas Bummel, in
this reply in hopes of encouraging this collaboration.

Solidiversity to all.

—

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