Mike Gravel 08 - Great, or the Greatest
Toward a raising of all issues related to Mike Gravel
For those interested in the political process and the upcoming election. We are dedicated to broadening awareness of Mike Gravel, his issues, his campaign and his progress. Please join the discussion and broaden our awareness.Maurice Robert "Mike" Gravel (IPA: /gɹəˈvɛl/) (born May 13, 1930), is a former Democratic United States Senator from Alas ...learn more
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Created: Sep 17, 2007
Updated: Aug 06, 2009
Membership: Open
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Topic: National Initiative for Democracy
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Flag comment for removal boostani over 2 years ago
I thought I'd start the thread on the National Initiative for Democracy (NI4D), which Gravel is the main supporter of
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What I'm wondering is how the National Initiative for Democracy plans on compelling congress to enact their plan, even if they get the 50,000,000 votes they want.
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I guess we'll just have to read about it. I am compelled by the concept but don't have any idea either of how it would actually work. I'll get back to you after I know more.
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The National Initiative website gives a good breakdown
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Hey Nico, I asked Senator Gravel your question last night, and he said that according to the constitution the people have the right to hold an election on any issue. Since the constitution doesn't specify how this type of election is to be run, the NI4D had to develop criteria to ensure that the votes represent the majority opinion of the whole country. The 50 million number (which is more like 60 million) was arrived at by counting the majority of people who voted in the most recent presidential election, since that's the closest thing that the US has to a general vote.
I asked if he anticipated a lengthy legal battle to make the Initiative a constitutional amendment after the number of votes was achieved, and he said that the Supreme Court doesn't normally get involved in political matters ("the 2000 elections not withstanding"), and with 60 million voters behind it, congress wouldn't be able to deny the will of that many voters. My personal opinion is that if we can get that many people behind this issue, then Gravel is probably right; congress would be blatantly hijacking democracy if they stood in the way of making this an amendment. It was very interesting having the conversation with the Senator. I told him about his WiserEarth fan club and he seemed genuinely pleased. |
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thanks for the update on the conversation Arash. hmm. what would it take to get 60 million people to vote for something outside of the business as usual voting? what would it take to actually move people to believe in their own collective power to make change? I suppose that is the conversation of the every revolutionary. If I understand the issue here, it is that the "National Initiative for Democracy" empowers people to make laws but in order to enact such a system that initiative has to be voted on. Or rather pushed into being by the people by way of direct democracy? Am getting this right?
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I heard today that Congress has a 11% positive approval rating. How sad is that? Bush apparently has a higher rating (29%). To move that 90% of the public that doesn't approve of congress, people need to believe in their own power and intelligence. I agree. I'm not sure what the solution to this is. I think a good first step is securing the support of political and corporate insiders, if not Congress then local and regional government officials.
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I would worry that even if the 60 million votes were somehow gathered, it would still be impossible for it to go through. There is no precedent, and congress could always object to it, protesting the method of vote gathering or some other BS excuse. What about pressing it state by state? Each state adopting the National Initiative first, forcing that state's elected representatives to support it in congress.
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Nico, it's interesting that you mention going state by state. 24 states, California being one of them, have already adopted the initiative process on the state level. One of the criticisms of the National Initiative is that people say that the country will go crazy with everybody creating initiatives for everything under the sun and we'll all be voted to death, but there was a group that compiled a list of all of the initiatives created in each of the 24 states since 1904, and it only came to 1,987, 821 of which were adopted. I'll post an interesting PDF describing the history of the initiative process, which is where I found the previous statistics, in the Resources section of this Group.
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Last November we here in California voted for a number of propositions that were difficult questions to answer. I was surprised we were given the opportunity to weigh in on such large topics. But grateful, nonetheless. they sparked a lot of good conversations and questions. Is this the sort of "power to the people" state level voting initiative that you are talking about boostani? If so, I can see this being easily implemented on a national level.
I also agree with Nico that the concepts of the National Initiative should be developed on a smaller level and built from the bottom up. this will hold more water for the general population and ultimately give people a lot more trust in the democratic process. |
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That's exactly what I mean, Adam. That feeling of being involved in the actual process of making the changes that you feel are important is something that I hope will inspire people to take back the power that we've outsourced to our elected officials.
A society has to be ready for certain levels of democracy, which is why you can't flip a switch and turn on democracy in Iraq. Two hundred years ago, this country was ready for representative democracy, but in the span of 2 centuries, we've seen that there are problems with corruption and partisanship that form over time with this kind of democracy. We also see that people are all too willing to tune out and give their leaders unchecked authority to make decisions that are not in their best interests. I think that in order to make big changes, we need to instill a sense of accountability back in the people. |
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What I'm quite upset about is the last Democratic debate in New Hampshire. Gravel and Kucinich each got less then 1/10 the amount of time that the other candidates got! They were also frequently cut off in mid speech. This is really an outrage and closely resembles how Ralph Nader was treated. That debate really was a sad display of how trashed the political process is, even within the party's themselves, not even looking at the issue of 3rd party participation.
Gravel put on a great show though, especially considering the severe constraints that were put on him. He was quick, honest and no holds barred as usual. |
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It's no surprise to me that Gravel and Kucinich were given little airtime. Last year, I found out that Time Warner only included senatorial candidates in the debates who raised at least $500,000. This meant that the only two people who New Yorkers got real familiar with were Hillary Clinton and her Republican challenger..who had no chance. Jonathan Tasini, the Democratic and genuine anti-war challenger to Hillary's run for US Senate, was excluded due to his lack of funds, as well as the Green candidate, Howie Hawkins..and all other third-party candidates. The sad truth is that the political process is not designed to be fair.
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Hey, all:
In the past few national election cycles, I have become very slow to endorse individual candidates early in the process, since I like to see as much of their unvarnished unpackaged unmarketed character and philosophy as possible, plus I find there is so much fundamentally wrong with the entire system, I have this "Oh, no, not again!" feeling sweep over me. I also do not like the "perennial campaign" trend, which automatically favors the rich. Many of the things mentioned here by some of you are some of the things wrong with the system. At the risk of implying I don't like it, I wonder why we don't fix the existing system in Washington (and all the State capitals, etc.) instead of this National Initiative for Democracy? I have said for a long time in several places, that there are at least three systemic conditions which desperately need fixing: campaign finance, lobbying, and elections. These can be done with a progressive, firm, determined Congress, and a President who supports them, by legislation. Two others that would have me dancing in the streets are the burial of the Corporate Person, and BushCo's impeachment, but those are unrealistic and another topic. As I understand it, NID requires a Constitutional amendment, which is a very lengthy process, and has not a guaranteed outcome. And it still for the interim leaves the conditions above in place, and after it is ratified leaves them in place until they can be fixed by another national election. I see the extended time required as being a huge window for more corporate damage to be done--socially, environmentally, and economically. The disastrous Presidency we are suffering through now (by most accounts, by even academically very conservative historians, the worst President ever) makes it likely that the next President will be a Democrat, but we have a bad record of getting beaten from behind--or getting beaten by a behind. Thus, there is no guarantee. It appears to me, we need to work hard to ensure the election of both a progressive President and Congress, and by mid-2009 these 3 conditions would be fixed, not to mention many many other needs. Of course, the forces who benefit from these disastrous conditions will do anything to protect them. To these forces, in their perverse minds, these systemic conditions are priceless resources. I simply think that even if we could get NID ratified, these systemic conditions will not be sufficiently addressed, and we would be trying unproven therapies on a patient, while conventional medicine works fine. But regardless of which means we use, we need to first make sure the election is fair, the person we want is elected, and we don't let it slip away due to overconfidence. I realize there are a lot of pros and cons on these issues, but that is just my assessment of them. David Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun! |
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