CLASS WAR: THE WEAPON OF COMMUNITY

"Beers & Ideas from Front of Yonge Township"

Daniel Celovsky

March 24, 2025

We are organizing locally.

We are in a Class War against a small ruling class elite. We want the power and freedom to chart our own path.

A few of us neighbors got together to share a few beers and discuss it. We explored how to best govern our community ourselves. We want local empowerment. We came up with a plan to take it.

And - in our community - we are going for it.

We are hoping other communities do the same. We are sharing our plan and strategy with you in the hopes that you are inspired to fight for the freedom and power of self-determination in your community.

Unity is the kryptonite of the ruling class. We are the weapon they cannot thwart.

Getting the ball rolling is easy. Gather up a few neighbors and share a few beers. This is something we can all do and actually win the freedom and peace we all want. We can win the Class War.

Your comments are always welcome. Discussion is how we all get better at this. We will get good at it because we outnumber them not only in our numbers, but in our ideas, our creativity, and our passion.

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We are not getting the political leadership we require. By every metric, we know in our souls that we are not moving in the direction we want. The evidence surrounds us. Our levels of trust in all of the institutions of our society has deteriorated to rock-bottom levels. We all know it.

We demand change. And we don’t get it. We have been doing things wrong — and it’s time to change course.

We got into the practice of focusing our political energy (and rage) at the federal level of government. We have been doing it for as long as I remember. It’s gotten us nowhere.

At some point, we need to step back and reflect on what all our energy (and rage) has delivered to us across the decades of time. It’s not much. In fact, it’s even less than nothing because our overall lives are not significantly improving, and the futures of our younger generations are actually deteriorating. We all know it because we can see it.

A few quick facts bear that out. My experience shows it clearly. I am sure that you experience similar variations, reach the same conclusions, and share the same results.

During the period of time my parents participated in the working class (from the 1950s and into the 1990s) to my own kids entering their phase of participating in the workforce, some very serious changes demonstrate the deterioration we are discussing. The results are not at all unique to my family. They are common to us all. We all know it.

My dad worked full time and his wages rendered him capable of affording a mortgage on a home, two family vacations a year, a family car, and to even set aside some money for my brother, sister and myself to pay for college. It was the middle class. His employer offered the benefit of being a long-term gig in itself. He was given a pension plan, healthcare benefits and more. He never had to go to work sick as he was provided with paid sick leave. This was fairly standard in many families.

I can now contrast that to the reality of my own three kids' experiences who have entered the workforce in the last 10 to 15 years. Their employment is tenuous … the need to switch employers is a volatile constant. They are not careers as much as they are “gigs”. Employment benefits are virtually non-existent. Their wages can barely support the basics of life - meaning their partners have to focus on being active in the workplace as well. Home ownership is a rarity for their generation. Paid sick leave? Forget about it; crawl into work if you have to. Family vacations are infrequent and limited.

We all experience the same circumstances. That is evidence of total societal failure.

Meanwhile, we have expended so much energy on discussing, debating and demanding political change towards individual freedom, global peace, and equitable justice. And we see none of it. In fact, the scales have tilted in the opposite direction on all fronts.

Corruption in our government institutions and among our political representatives is rampant. It is standard operating practice. Corporations became monopolies. Banks are well beyond being too big to fail. Somehow our elected officials manage to increase their wealth into the millions on salaries that simply defy such financial success. In 2008, bankers managed to tank the economy through defrauding the public, but were rewarded with public bail-outs. And not a single banker went to jail. Most got lucrative bonuses!

Our overall health has deteriorated with chronic illness being the new normal. Many of us live on a diet of pharmaceuticals. We cannot trust health, food, and agriculture agencies to keep us safe and healthy from predatory corporate interests. We can’t trust anything offered by our governments.

The truth is in the evidence. It’s evidence we can see with our own eyes.

All our energy (and rage) focused on federal politics over the past three or more decades has not improved a single thing. Our kids are not better off. We can all see it. We need to change our focus. And we have to change our strategy.

The bottom-line is that my kids are not better off than the generation of my parents. And all our efforts to change the trajectory have not done a single thing. The demand to change our strategy cannot be more obvious — just based on the evidence alone.

I have tried many things to improve the lives of my kids. Like several others, I tried a run for federal office on a third party ticket that was only futile from the outset. I joined protests that only got me arrested. I repeatedly called out and wrote to my representatives which only got me ignored. None of it changed anything. The evidence proves it.

All this energy (and rage) was spent with nothing to show for it. In fact, the trends of income inequality have only radically widened and the stresses placed on my children have only become more severe. Basically, we got a billionaire problem. When my parents entered the workforce, the top marginal tax rate on incomes over $400,000 was 90% or more. There was no billionaire problem!

We got endless wars which all could have been avoided. These wars are constant - when they finally get to ending one, they just start another. We got corporate power concentrated into the hands of equity managers who own the majority of the corporations representing every industry in our marketplace.

And there is not a single government agency or office that deserves trust. The education system stinks. The justice system is skewed in favor of the corrupt people in power. The media is a propaganda machine. Our universities are controlled by corporate “sponsors” promoting their own interests.

All our efforts to change the direction of our society towards peace, justice, equity and freedom have only resulted in the opposite. IT IS NOT WORKING. We all know it.

It’s time to redirect our energy (and rage). It’s time to change things up. It is time for a new strategy.

I have extensively read and researched the dynamics of societal power in a search to find the levers where actual change could happen. It all boils down to one source of power: That is the power of the united people. Power of the people through unification is the only dynamic that makes total sense.

United people have all the power. It’s been borne out repeatedly across history. We can even sum it up: we face the challenges of a Class War. And the two sides of this conflict can be easily defined as the majority of the people versus the few who thwart the wishes of the majority for their own personal benefit. This is obvious to us all.

The few who have control today have only one weapon: Money. They are the few - but they are organized around money. We are the many - but we are not organized at all. The enemy knows this and they spend considerable amounts of money to make sure it stays that way. Prevent unification by stoking division. That is what all the corruption is about.

My favorite quote:

As such, we need to get organized. We organize around our numbers.

What we cannot do is to continue to repeat the same tactics and strategies that we have been trying for decades. They do not work.

Instead of organizing at the top (the federal government level), I propose we organize at the bottom. Locally.

That is where my focus is. I got together with my son and a few neighbors to discuss this. We shared a few beers and talked about it. We came to one clear conclusion: We are going to organize ourselves to take the democratic seats of our local town hall. We are going to run a full slate of candidates for every position in our town hall. A slate of candidates that we - together with all our neighbors - choose ourselves.

We are going to organize now for our next local election.

This makes sense on more than one front.

First, it involves organizing with our neighbors. We have already talked with many of them. They share the same views and want the same results to happen. The common ground vastly exceeds any of our differences. Perfect! We can organize on the common ground.

Secondly, the elite class cannot cover all the local communities. There are just not enough of them to be everywhere. Furthermore, they don’t live in my local community - there is no place here to park their yachts or private jets. Basically, they just wouldn’t fit in here. As such, their ability to resist our local action is limited. That is a tactical advantage.

Thirdly, local organizing vastly builds up our defences against the ruling class. Organizing on the common ground of our neighbors gives us the power to resist anything they throw at us from their ivory towers and corrupt offices of power. Put it this way, they can’t even see us.

Fourthly, it does not require a lot of money or resources. Their corrupt media has no power over neighborhood common sense. They cannot distort or place a fake narrative over what we together discuss on what we actually see. Furthermore, the rise of independent media is a weapon in our favor. Basically, we immunize ourselves against their most powerful weapon of propaganda (aka bullshit). That is another tactical advantage.

And - fifthly - we can achieve immediate outcomes to make our lives better. We can deliver improvements to our local community and neighborhoods quickly. As soon as we control our own town hall, we start delivering positive change in our community. We can score some immediate wins. The trajectory of power shifts from its negative direction into a positive direction.

We are going to organize around our own local Town Hall. We are doing it here — and we hope other communities pick up the torch of power and do the same everywhere.

HOW WE ORGANIZE LOCALLY

The above diagram demonstrates exactly why organizing politically at the local level is the right approach.

What we have been doing to date - by focusing on trying to change the foundation of political power at the federal level - has only defeated ourselves because we have given the Establishment their one single isolated point of power to isolate us. Focusing our strategy on the Centralized structure of power, we have allowed them to corral us at a single point - which they can easily direct their advantage of money, corruption and propaganda to defeat. We have played right into their sweet spot.

Our change in strategy towards the Distributed model of power thwarts their strategic advantages. Focus on local … and focus on multiple local fields of battle in this Class War. Their weapons of money, corruption and propaganda cannot cover the ground.

As such, a few of our neighbors have united to change the seats of power at our local town hall. We are going for it!!!

Let me paint the picture of our own situation and approach. I am sure we all have variations based on our own personal local dynamics and demographics … but the approach should be generally consistent in all local communities.

Our local community is called the Front of Yonge Township and it is located in Eastern Ontario Canada just across the St. Lawrence River from upstate New York.

The population here (from the 2021 census) is 2,595. It’s even a small decline of 7 people from the census five years earlier. About 300 people live in the only town of Mallorytown — which is where the township’s Town Hall is. There are 1,070 family dwellings of which only 35 are classified as apartments. As such, most people actually own their own homes and pay local property taxes. It’s very rural, covering 125 square kilometers or 78 square miles.

In conclusion, we have a small rural township here. The neighbors all share the same concerns and struggles. And - through discussions - we share the same rage on the political failures of our society in general. We got a lot of common ground. That we can build on.

LOCAL POLITICS

As my son and I shared a few beers with our neighbors, our discussion explored our local political landscape and we noticed something. First of all, many people have no idea who our Mayor even is. Secondly, many have not heard from the town council at all about anything. We just pay our property taxes and accept whatever we get for our money. Hmmm …

So we did some basic research. The last local election was in 2022 (with the next one scheduled for 2026). The Town Council consists of five people (the Mayor and four “at-large” Councillors). Every single one of them was Acclaimed. Not a single person ran against them!

Things were not much better in the previous (2018) election. The Mayor was acclaimed then too. The four Councillors had one person run against them (five people ran for the four positions). Voter turnout was 28.26% with 390 votes being enough to be elected. Total voter turnout was 672 people.

There are also four School Board Trustee positions. Two of those were also acclaimed. The other two won their four-year terms with 145 and 6 votes respectfully.

This is a joke! So, we dug into the possibilities of it. When’s the next election? It will be sometime in October 2026. Nominations have to be submitted between May and August 2026. Good. Now we know the basic rules. Given that it is only March 2025, we have 18-months of time to get our act together to take on the 2026 Election! If we started to organize a full slate of candidates among ourselves, we could actually do something here!!!

Our next steps became obvious to us. Let’s expand this discussion with all the rest of our neighbors. Let’s find out what they want for our community and compile a list of issues. Let’s fill up a slate of candidates that we all decide on together.

THE IDEA OF DIRECT DEMOCRACY

It was at that point where our discussion got even wilder and better. (Maybe it was the beer that brought us there …).

What if what we do here (in our small township of only 2,595 people) can inspire other communities to do the same?

Let’s look at that diagram of democratic power again:

We are merely one node in the Distributed chart of power. What if other nodes started taking the same action? We could actually work together. Sharing ideas and resources. Building a positive energy vibe.

We all know that to actually change things, the key ingredient is people uniting. What better way to unite people than through the local political level? There is absolutely nothing stopping us. We aren’t even doing anything radical: We are just following the rules of society that we were given.

Power to the People.

After we shared a few more beers, this idea became an even wilder idea (the power of beer and conversation!). We were feeling the power and the energy was rising. We got creative and let the ideas roll.

It’s like the freedom of charting our own destiny gave us some creative juice. Words like freedom and self-determination became common themes.

Could we build an on-line system that engages everyone in our township to work together to make our community constantly better? We envisioned an online system where everyone could present ideas, discuss ideas, debate ideas, and even vote on ideas. It’s so obviously possible. The technology has been here for three decades! Why has this not already been done?

For a basic simple example to give it a practical theoretical test, we selected the issue of dog tags. (We all just got our annual renewal notices.) Currently the township demands that we get a new dog tag every year. A better idea would be to get one dog tag for life.

If we had such an online local system of democratic engagement, we would float the issue on April 1. We would open discussion and debate for two weeks until April 15th. Those for lifetime dog tags could present their case. Anyone could offer alternatives. Anyone opposed could present their case. Discussion is open and transparent to all. Once discussion is closed, the dog tag issue is put to an open vote for another two weeks (until April 30). The majority wins, and Town Council is required to make it a law.

We could do this on every single issue. Every citizen has a right to raise an issue and to have their say on any issue. And everyone can access it online at their convenience. The votes can also be done conveniently - with two-week long open voting periods.

This is essentially called Direct Democracy leveraged by the online technology we have had for decades now. The only problem being that nobody has done it yet. We can do it right here.

The result is awesome; our Township would be ruled by the people. The elected town council is merely there to process the wishes of the community itself. It’s true direct democracy!!! The role of elected representatives is merely to foster and engage a system of democracy and execute on the democratically decided outcome. The Town Council would have no role in setting the rules of our community. The community itself does it. This should apply to every single issue.

The next logical question is: Can we build such a system? The answer is: Absolutely!!!

Luckily, my working history involved designing heavy-use industrial database systems and platforms. I know how to design these systems, and actually work with programmers to code them. It’s not that complicated or expensive to build. We could build a direct democracy system for our township to actually do it. An online system of direct local democracy.

Geez, we could make that the cornerstone of our entire election campaign platform!!!

A couple of beers later, our creativity just expanded even further!!! It got exciting and you could just feel the creative freedom and power of the people rise and soar.

That is when it got really good. Could we share this system that we will build here with other communities that want the same local democratic power? Damn right we could!!!

Is it the beer talking now? Or do we have something here? That is up to other communities to decide for themselves. But we can certainly offer it. We could cost-share both its construction and ongoing hosting and maintenance. We could also connect all the local communities using it to combine it to cover provincial/state and federal issues. Shazam!!! All of a sudden the power of local organization starts to feed all the way up to the national level.

IT IS DOABLE. ALL OF IT. And the seed can be planted in a community of 2,595 people. Welcome to freedom. Welcome to the democratic rule of the people.

And adios to the corrupt ruling elite class. This Class War is now winnable.

MOVING FORWARD/NEXT STEPS

We have the advantage of time but need to use it wisely. Our next local election is in October 2026 giving us time to do some productive preliminary work.

We need to expand the excitement of our initiative across the township, engaging all of our neighbors. We have some of us prepared to start the process.

The first preliminary steps are obvious:

1. Generate awareness across the township. Let all our neighbors know we are here.

2. Compile and verify an initial list of the issues important to everyone.

3. Find candidates to fill a full slate of the elected offices. We agreed that we should focus on a majority of younger people on this one. (it’s their futures.)

4. Poll the idea of the online direct democracy platform to flush out what everyone wants it to be. Start to design/verify its essential requirements.

5. Seek others outside our community that wish to conduct the same actions in their own communities and open the gates for idea-generation and sharing. Essentially, find other “nodes” in the distributed structure of power as presented in that diagram. Build alliances.

Our approach over the next few months should yield us a full slate of local candidates, an initial platform of issues, and the strength of alliances. The proposed design of the online platform would also unfold. And - most importantly - a positive energy of direction to individual freedom and community empowerment should take hold.

We can continue to present our progress reports on this Substack platform —hopefully inspiring others to share ideas, improve on ideas, and to even initiate similar actions in other communities.

Our deadline to achieve our initial goals is Labor Day this year. That will have us fully organized. Everything else can be expected to unfold from there.

I can honestly state that this strategy for political power is the solution we have been seeking for decades. I feel it - and I feel its positive energy with everyone I discuss it with.

We will present our action to independent media outlets and other organizing groups. This can get as wild as we choose to take it. A small rural community called the Front of Yonge Township with 2,595 people can be the starting point to actually change everything.

I can see this all working. But let’s keep one thing in mind: Our mission here is not to set an agenda based on issues. It is to deliver the tools of actual democratic power to the people - our neighbors. Empower them to take care of every single issue themselves. And I fully bet they will get every single issue right because they will be discussing every issue together. Our role is to give them the power and the tools they need to do their part. They will take it from there.

Another quote applies:

Our job here is simple. Just take the first steps.

Where can this actually go? That is up to us. To do this, we do not need leaders; we just need organizers, facilitators, and educators. Let’s give the people the opportunity to actually have direct participatory democracy. I bet they all want it. And that is where our power is. United people - at the local level - is where our power is. Let’s catch our power and let it soar!!!!

Consider it for your community. Discuss it with your neighbors. I bet your community can roar just like mine can. And - together - we can roar loud enough to achieve the peace and freedom we all want our communities to thrive in. We can change the trajectory we are on.

If you have questions, or if you want to engage your community along with ours, please feel free to comment below or reach out to me via email at dancelovsky@gmail.com . Sharing ideas makes us all stronger. Discussion improves the ideas we share.

Get together with a few of your neighbors and share a few beers. That is how it starts. Let the ideas flow.

LET’S MAKE OUR COMMUNITIES ROAR TOGETHER.

Cheers!