Alternating minorities versus a democracy based on majorities (3) The road to the future
- Category: Joost van Steenis
- Created on 15 September 2013
- Written by Joost van Steenis
<
I am interested in the road to a different future. On this road several elements of a new society will become visible. By travelling on this road citizens will feel freer by having more influence on their own life and on the general process of decision-making. How the new society will precisely look like will be the task of our offspring, of the people who live then. We can only make a start in the right direction.
I am interested in the road to a different future. On this road several elements of a new society will become visible. By travelling on this road citizens will feel freer by having more influence on their own life and on the general process of decision-making. How the new society will precisely look like will be the task of our offspring, of the people who live then. We can only make a start in the right direction.
To get ideas about a new society, distance yourself from the democratic system. The idea that majorities decide must be left behind. Active, interested and involved minorities of common citizens should decide. I call them Autonomous Clubs. These Clubs confront minorities of decision-takers. Any human can start or join a Club and all members have the same status what is not true in a democracy. Leaders of political organisations often use the silent uninterested majority of members to promote their ideas. The Clubs are small and temporarily and all members should be active so there is no need for a leader who can manipulate the Club. Any action should contribute to the idea that the 99% get more influence on their own life and the general social development. Only then humans become really freer.
The Nürenberg judges were succinct in this regard: “Individual citizens have the right to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity.” About the same idea as Jean-Paul Marat who talks about the right to become active when the freedom, safety and well-being of citizens is endangered.
The formation of temporary and alternating minorities of active, interested and involved citizens is contrary to what happens in democratic organs in which decisions are based on majorities that vote in the believe that leaders know what is best.
The Dutch phenomenon Fortuyn illustrates the changing attitude towards the democratic voting process. People turned away from the old left-right politics and followed the charismatic Fortuyn. In 2001 he won 17% of the votes in the Dutch elections. See http://members.chello.nl/jsteenis/letter25.htm. His political program emphasized the discontent of the Dutch voter with the political elite. Fortuyn hardly gave solutions but capitalised on the dissatisfaction. In later years the support of rightist and leftist populist parties rose to over 30%.
Fortuyn was murdered but it only increased the discontent and antipathy for the sitting political parties. After the murder of Fortuyn many people said that “They have murdered our Fortuyn who should make life better for us”. This is still in contradiction to the idea that citizens must get an own power and not remain dependent on leaders. The idea that others could make life better is incompatible with the idea that free people decide, people with their own Fourth People’s Power. That has not yet penetrated deep in the minds of the 99%. Citizens are dissatisfied but leaders who decide over and for masspeople can never solve this discontent.
That is the prime characteristic of democracy, people are allowed to vote but the elected decide. Democratic leaders continue to preserve their high posts even when it becomes more and more clear that the elected do a very bad job, that they are often corrupt, that difficulties are mounting and that the freedom of citizens is more and more restricted. Only successful actions by Autonomous Clubs that penetrate in the private life of leaders can destroy this deep rooted problem. Power is in a democracy in the hands of a select group of elected and non-elected leaders, in a new Humane World in the hands of free, active and involved citizens.
“The road to the future is more important than the future”
The target is the 1% and the goal a better future without selfish greedy rich. The Movement has no immediate demands but is in for the long trip to a new future in which a new kind of powerful citizens will come into existence. It is our prime task in to start on the road towards this new future.
In this future the 1% has ceased to exist and the 99% have learned to be active and involved in subjects that interest them. But discussions about new systems are utopian. It is preposterous to prescribe now how a new society looks like, that is the responsibility of the people who live then.
All systems, be it communist, anarchist, fascist or whatever, try to restrict the freedom of the 99%. Living autonomous people who have individual power must come first and not dead systems.
The road to the future is the most important event. By putting pressure on the 1% the 99% start to change in self-conscious citizens and become a new kind of people with a new kind of power that prevent that ever again selfish 1% rule the world.
How farther humanity proceeds on this road the better The People see how a New Humane society looks like. Now we have hardly any idea of a future where all people have the same status. To move is human but moving is now restricted by the greed and the domination of the 1%. And by outlived action methods that were not successful in the past.
The present activities should promote the power of common people and the importance of individual citizens. In these actions the 99% put direct pressure on people they have assigned as decision-takers. The 99% must force these people to take decisions in the interest of all people and not anymore in favour of a few already privileged people. Demonstrations and other mass actions only support the autonomous actions in the War of the Flea. In the New Humane Society The People have developed an individual power. Then the 99% do not govern but only control, veto or punish if assigned people take wrong decisions.
Movements differ from political organisations that slowly try to improve the present society without transgressing the boundaries set by the 1%. Political organisations restrict the creativity of the 99% because they have fixed short-term goals. They cannot break through the walls that keep us prisoner. We must break through these walls and start moving on the road to a different future. Only Movements have the power to reach the grassy meadows outside the walls.
Do not worry too much how the new future will look like. The road to the future is more important and more interesting than philosophies about the future. With a new kind of actions that pressure the 1% we take the first step on this road and reach a future in which not money rules the world but the well-being of all people who have the same status.
This article was first published on downwithelite.wordpress.com.