Coming back to 2011, we were creating new ways for improving democracy
At that time, October 2011, I stated a bunch of ideas as a blueprint on how to improve democratic systems and so how to make thrive on Earth sustainable from a political standpoint.
Now reality has overcome fiction and Brexit has shown us the worse of democracy used in a bad way. England today March 13, 2019 has been in the verge of the abyss, only for a few votes England has avoided the worst recesion that the world has ever seen which would have affected Europe and the fragile stability in the whole world as a collateral effect.
But let´s recapitulate, I am happy on one hand as in the end the movie looks like will not end in drama but I wouldn’t want it to happen again, so let’s have some fun and let’s give it a thought on what has really happen here and as I was saying recently to a friend: «Democracy is like a nuclear energy, in a good use it can save humanity as we have never seen,but with a bad use, it can totally wipe out humanity and other species totally from this planet»
What I said in 2011
- We live in the information era, let’s take advantage. I didn´t use the term Big Data at that time, now I use it. We can use technology to do a safe system of participative democracy… But beware of the misuse as I will state in a minute.
- With the proper information in hand, people are able to take nice decisions and as wikipedia, Apache Foundation and Linux Foundation has proven a million minds together give better solutions than only one mind. Truth is there are certain minds as Linus Torwalds the creator of Linux that make the difference, but he was not alone, he standed on the shoulders of giants as Newton itself stated and Linux wouldn’t be real if it weren’t for the Community so in the end the participation of the Community plus the experience of these kind of talented people with a Nobel prize some of them, others no, the mix and only the mix made the difference. And little use would have Linux if it weren’t that the whole humanity uses it to improve our own standards of living with collateral outcomes such as Internet and the like.
- In democracy there should be a government who governs but the Community should have easy mechanisms to stop the action of Governments when governments do wrong (that’s when I wrote the black humour with somebody voting a party that improves the sanitary systema at the same time it comes up with the idea of reducing human population in an assassin way just because they are in Power.
- This shared governance I stated had to be linked with the sharing of Knowledge and Information, people are able to define creative ideas on that ground.
- Then it appears the word, the damn word… «Referendum» that is the cornerstone, the Big Weapon, the heart of the mechanism. I studied Switzerland case as a success case of use of that Weapon of Mass Destruction and proposed several ways to improve the Switzerland case.
- At the heart of every sentence there was a «this only works when People have the whole information and the system is well designed for the information to flow»
- I stated this is unstoppable as long as Internet exists and there is not an extintion. Now I have my doubts on if there are people with power that would prefer an extinct humanity than a loss of power. Just the idea makes me very furious. That’s the why of that dragon image from the author Anne Stokes.
- I also stated the importance of the huge respect to our past, NO matter how bad it was, we must never forget it and learn the lessons from it. Bretton Woods and Oil system is dying but we develop most of what we have today under the umbrella of that system. Obviously it is becoming useless but in the transition we should never be so critical of the flaws as respectful of the good aspects. At the time it was created probably it was the best possible idea. You cannot huge from a wealthy situation the decisions you took on a dire strait situation.
- And yeah a lot of pretty stuff, I see that the book I used to cultivate myself is no longer available so I am going to share it Guidebook+to+direct+democracy with permission of Switzerland govern
Well, said that, let’s go direct to the Point:
Lessons from the Brexit
Many people states that the Brexit is an exercise of democracy, People voted that the UK should leave the EU and the Government just acted as People mandated.
Some would even say that it is happening why I stated in my article from 2011 and UK is giving a lesson on democracy by means of non less that the BEAST, the Referendum.
And then look at that dragon and then look at me… NO. On the contrary. What has happened here it is just the opposite of what I stated. It is exactly the wrong use of the referendum.
I have been following a case Sue Wilson vs the Prime minister. Indeed, She is the only reason I am writing these lines, a brave girl alone fought the outmighty British Power with no other thing than the reason, herself against everybody.
Sue Wilson, who has lived in Spain with her husband for 11 years and helped bring the case, said: “We have heard far too often that Brexit is the ‘will of the people’.
“On the evidence now available, it cannot be said with any degree of certainty that the result would have remained the same had the law not been broken.”
The case will argue that Brexit must be declared void and the notification of Article 50 quashed, because “various criminal offences may have been committed”.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-void-high-court-ruling-arron-banks-investigation-when-december-christmas-a8649001.html
I read a little about the case in court and bingo! She is right.
Then the judge didn’t admit the trial against UK government as supposedly it was late after almost two years from that Theresa May did the crime of using UE 50 article using that «will of the people», he never said it was not a crime, only that it was late.
Well the Law Power didn’t stope the government power but I guess that this is a pantomime because everybody who knows the facts know that Sue Wilson was right.
Why?
…
First. This is NOT the will of the people. This morning I was discunssing with my indian friend Raj about this. He sais that India is now improving thanks they are opening themselves to the world. Then why on Earth would people from England would want to hide themselves in a cave and go into an historic recesion??
Just today the UE confirmed that Rusia used facebook for a massive Big Data excercise Cambridge Analytics style as it is stated in the brilliant movie called «Brexit», but… this is geopolitics, Russia as a competitor wants a weak Europe to take advantage. But Rusia here is not the one to blame, dishonesty is always potentially present in every competition. Europa has been in the verge of falling from within, putting the whole world at risk including Rusia (boomerang effect)
I explain this to Raj with the following example:
«Imagine I ask you if I should go to Mexico on holyday, and I only tell you that I love Mexico and that I will get a good tan going to Mexico, and then you say ‘yes, go to Mexico’, then I go to Mexico and ruin my life because oh my God, I didn’t tell you I had only 2,000 pounds in the bank, and I had to finance a job opportunity with that money and feed my family. Then I spent all in that trip to Mexico and with a domino effect I ruin my following 20 years, all Raj fault because you told me to go to Mexico.
Looks like a joke isn’t it?
Well that joke is precisely what happened with England, Europe and Brexit. And non of the Actors saw, or denounced, the clear illegality until Sue Wilson.
The People had so much information on UK leaving Europe consequences as Raj on my trip to Mexico. Worse than that, as the electoral commision (https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/electoral-commission) has proven People voted on lies. Imagine myself telling Raj that if I go to Mexico I am going to have 300 million pounds in my account every week and I am going to be the happiest man in the world… he would yell at me … GO!
This is exactly what has happened.
But why?
Contrary with what I stated in 2011, here there has no been flaw of information and there has been an inversion in the control… instead of people in the exercise of power working with economic assessment of nobel prizes or the like taking action on a decision they would think is good for the thrive of England, the UE and the World… and only then if People require with the 1000 votes mechanism I talked about in 2011 that would trigger an active exercise of information on all the facts that lead to the decision then properly coming to a powerful atomic bomb referendum, in this case James Cameron who never thought leaving Europe was good, asked abruptly to 50.000.000 souls with no information at all about the implications of leaving UE in this way, prey to the lies of Rusia, Cambridge Analytics and all the rest of the people orchestrated by Arron Banks who surprisingly after winning the Brexit campaign instead of fighting for a nice exit just ended his game on «how to disrupt people by lying in 2 months» and totally dissapeared from the political scene.
He is the villain ok, but what happened with the polititians? Instead of going to court to denounce what Arron Banks did they misleaded even more the prey population by assuming what they say was their will and it was a mandate and until today 307 members of parlament has been in the verge of putting England in the Abyss and all the civilized world in jeopardy. Shame on them OK, but let’s keep the constructive spirit of this blog,
what has happened and how can it be solved?
First thing: Facts, Transparency and Information.
Europe was born to combat the hate. First and over all Second World War proved that we were able to destroy ourselves easily more with the appearence of nuclear weapons. There will always be disputes between countries, but bonds and love should be the solution of separatisms and hates. All for One and One for All. A common legal frameworks and a big effort bring peace and stability to the area. USA was an inspiration but Europe did better in many ways and the rest of the world is copying.
Instead of that, that is a fact. British people voted on the lie that if UK would leave Europe the NHS (health service) would receive 300 million pounds extra per month.
So people voted yes let’s leave of course what the hell are we doing inside the EU.
Second: Law on Referendum
As I said, a referendum can be a weapon of mass destruction. Powerful but must be used with care. A Law on how to use it must be enforced the same there are mechanisms for the use of nuclear weapons (never use them in the end)
First the referendum must happen after some big number of bright minds have debated until the extenuation about the decision to be taken. Never, as it happened with the Brexit, a referendum should be the base of a decision of a Parliament. Anybody such as Theresa May acting in this way should be judge under criminal law.
Second the referendum must take place, once these number of qualified minds who thought about the decision have explained in all possible ways all the pros and the cons of the decision to make. TV, Cinema, Audio, Video… AND there is clear evidence that the people who are going to vote has listened to the pros and the cons
Third the referendum will only succeed if at least an 80 % for unimportant matters or a 90 % for important matters of the People should agree in the final decision. Yes 90 %. If you read the book Guidebook+to+direct+democracy backed by the Swiss government, it is clear that they state that many decisions take one year or two years to pass the referendum, but is it bad?
Let’s think for a minute… yeah the group of work on the parliament have proposed a law to increase VAT but after seeing the facts only 60 % of people think that it is OK, is the other 40 % stupid? Let’s see with them what is wrong… maybe the VAT increase should be applicable only in certain goods, or maybe we should do a whole new VAT legislation putting taxes on environmental issues instead of goods…you know when we have polish enough the Law that shines like a diamond… then we will get the 80 % needed and will pass the referendum!
And what if it would have never past the referendum… there is an Spanish said that says, if something works, do not touch it… maybe it was better to leave the VAT legislation as it was… or let the People propose creative ideas using Direct Democracy, BUT then create working groups and enter the referendum cycles in order to pass.
What happens with the Brexit in that sense is a joke… 51% vs 49% on a decision that in Switzerland would require at least a 80% after a huge information exercise.
Four: any lie or mislead stated by any stakeholder in the referendum must be considered a criminal offence.
There is a lot at stake, nobody can say out of the blue that England is going to be able to put 300 million pounds if they separate from EU and be free in the streets. Even if they say that because the pound is going to hyperinflate and then 300 million pounds will be worthless so the claim is a fact… even in that case the clame is MISLEADING, and any MISLEADING claim said by any stakeholder in any binding referendum must be considered a criminal offence and be prosecuted swiftly, postponing any referendum date until the MISLEAD claim is clearly understood as a lie by all the people who are going to vote on a referendum.
Does this sound hard?
Harder is to go bankrupt due to a mislead decision. Harder would be that a weak Europe resucitates the hate and this put us into a war. So due to the powerful nature of the referendum as potential arm of mass destruction we should take advantage of referendums by doing fresher democracies but at the same time we have to define a clear Law on Referendums with clear criminalization to any stakeholder responsible for misleading and also with a clear procedure. First Law and informaton, Second vote, Third final decision…
Third: Understand Democracy and Power
I have read these important days in the fate of the XXI century Europe that the government is against democracy by not acting on the «will of the people»
Well with all due respect, let me explain to all of you as a conclusion that democracy well understood is not only about voting.
Democracy’s first leg is Law, only under the rule of a good Law based on Human rights protecting people from hate and crime, only under that kind of Law can democracy be democracy. And if we are going to use referendums in our modern democracies, a Law in referendum at least as hard as I stated is more than necesary and nothing can be over the Law for the democracy survival.
Democracy’s second leg is Transparency, education and flaw of information. The knowledge and the information about the facts must be everywhere and not only in the hands of a few. Press has a crucial role on this but also internet and how we learn to diferentiate the facts from the lies or the misleads is even more important in this century. Misleading and promotion of hate must be a serious crime, but educating people on double and triple check any claim as protection against misleaging is a MUST
Democracy’s third leg is voting and freedom to express ourselves in all media. I am now exercising this leg. The crime should be mislead. Give false promises. Anybody should be able to state an opinion or and idea to improve life of others. Voting in a general election for our next presiident is crucial but just the tip of the iceberg on a powerful democracy. Voting on referendums giving us power of veto over our president’s decision is the evolution of democracy. And it is important to use referendums. What we learn from Brexit is that it is important to use referendums in the correct way, with care of not unleashing its destructive power.
And the soul, more than the legs is contect in this phrase of Russeau I used to give a thought about the Law “As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State “What does it matter to me?” the State may be given up for lost”
This meand the Power will go out from the people to go to some few CORRUPT hands and it will be our fault because we don’t care about the power we have so we are giving it to the corrupt and history shows recovering power can take centuries.
This feeling of own responsibility for the affairs of our planet is the soul of democracy. In the case of Brexit, voters should care about having all the pros and cons regarding the decision to make. Sadly they were not prepared and were pray of misleaders due to the fact that no referendum Law was used to protect them.
Thanks Sue Wilson for trying facing Goliath with a stone.
Today we have been near to the abyss, let’s learn from the lessons from the Brexit and let’s start acting with responsibility in the future that gives us another opportunity.
Love