Daniel Celovsky
October 19 2023
I apologize for the length. However, I felt it is absolutely necessary to explain the dynamics of the power we have available to us. If we are to change the system, then we all need to unite on how we go about doing just that. We all need to be on the same page. And - most importantly - we need to be focused on the destination. After all, that is what matters.
We have to unite. Why not hold a party and invite everyone? Would that not put us all together?
We have to unite so we get what we all really want. And that is a complete and total system change.
Let’s get real here. We all know what we have to do. We have to change the system. We have to put the people in charge of it. That is done by the people uniting together and building the new system we all want. United people have all the power.
Yes, we have to remove those currently calling all the shots. But - I can assure you - that will get done by simply shifting the power to the people. The 1% will no longer have any power. As soon as we unite, the power will have shifted from them to us.
This is a proposal to organize the people for power. This is a proposal to build a new system. This is a proposal to unite us in a structure that gives the people the power to change everything. This is a proposal that elevates individual freedom, and creates vibrant inclusive communities that we share with each other.
This is a proposal to unite us into a system that lets people make all the decisions for how their lives and communities flourish. This is a proposal to deliver power to the people. Yes, a new system of governance.
The key to it all is to unite so that we can be together to make the decisions we all need to make. We can no longer tolerate - nor afford - to allow those making our decisions for us to continue. They not only cannot handle that responsibility; they are completely off-track from what we want.
This is a proposal to shift the power into the hands of the people. And by building a system of power to the people, we will automatically be removing the power from those currently holding it. It’s a 2-for-1 deal.
We all know what we have to change. Instead of further explanation on what has to be changed, I will just share this image someone circulated on Twitter (“X”). It pretty well sums up what we all know.
This image represents what we currently have in terms of the power to make the decisions of our society. These are not amusing clowns. They remind me of the clowns in horror films. Nefarious clowns.
We need better decision-makers to guide forward our lives, our communities and our society. In fact, we do not need clowns at all. We need ourselves to make all the decisions on everything. I still trust the people. And I trust them to make the right decisions.
Let’s put ourselves into the seats of our law-making institutions. Yes, they are ours. We own them. So … we get to populate them.
To make this change our reality requires power. The power to determine the directions we take. Where is that power? All of it resides in the hands of the people. Yes, it resides in our hands. The power we need is already there. It is resting at our feet. What is required is that we unite so that we pick up that power and put it into our hands.
Democracy, freedom, liberty and even basic humanity will not come to us until we unite. Because each of those elements require us to have the power necessary to make them our reality.
It is people that come together as a united force that have all the power. We all know this. So, we should all recognize that we need to organize to unite the people. Uniting is the first action step we must take. We unite for power.
I propose a solution for how we unite for power.
Let me first state that this is not my idea. It was actually presented by Ralph Nader in his 2016 book “Breaking Through Power: It’s Easier Than We Think”. What I have done is modified it to reflect the current landscape and expanded it beyond solely political power. Nonetheless, without Nader’s work, I would likely still be searching for a solution.
Democracy works when people make decisions together. Democracy is about communities allowing everyone to have their say, discussing issues together, weighing all the options, and then accepting the consensus decision of the majority. Everyone does have to agree to accept the decision of the majority even when it does not always reflect our individual choice. Democracy requires unity or it does not work. But when it does work, it can cover every single decision a community requires to flourish.
The key is to unite the people. Democracy requires participation. United people participating in the decisions of their community brings democracy to life. United people embracing democratic actions is the most powerful organizing mechanism available to us. And it works because it has all the power a true community can provide.
Right now, we are not engaged with democracy. We all see the deficiencies and horrors our absence from democracy is giving us. We are living in the hell of an autocratic class that is wielding all the power over us. It is our failure to engage democracy for ourselves that is giving this 1% all their power. They are organized; and we aren’t.
We put these clowns in charge by giving them our power. But—it is our power. Which means we can take it away and put it back into our hands.
Even the 1% knows that the dynamics of power only work through being organized for power. So, they are very well organized. And we aren’t. That gives them all the power.
How do we know this to be true? Look at it from the 1% point-of-view. The 1% has one overriding fear that can thwart them completely: That we can take them down.
To make sure that they retain their power, they have to ensure that we fail to engage our power. They feed us a steady stream of propaganda, they take actions that silence our free speech, they criminalize our right to gather together and protest, and they even form domestic militarized forces to keep us in-line. Every one of their actions is designed with only one thing in mind: To keep us from uniting together. They know that they are defeated if we join together and engage our power of unity.
If the people unite—they are finished. And they know it. And it scares them.
What do we have to do? We have to make their fears their reality. We have to unite.
United we call all the shots for our future direction. When the people are united, the 1% has absolutely nothing. Once we are united, we don’t even have to take any further action to remove them. We have replaced them. Sure, they will not leave quietly. So we will likely have to issue a few eviction notices. No problem—we will issue them.
They are defeated by our action to unite. Our uniting is a 2-for-1 deal. We unite for power and that automatically generates their removal. Buy one; get one free. Sweet, huh?
THE POWER OF A UNITED PEOPLE
By uniting together, we make everything possible. There are so many great action ideas out there; but do you notice that none of them have the impact to change anything unless they are backed by the power of a united force of people?
Some people are calling for a general strike. But—a general strike will not happen unless there is power behind it to actually shut down the system. That power is a united people.
Some people are calling for boycotts. But—boycotts will not inflict pain on the system unless there is a power behind them to actually boycott the targeted product or entity. That power is a united people.
Some people are calling for protests and demonstrations. But—protests and demonstrations will not happen with full force unless there is a power to drive attendance behind them. That power is a united people.
Some people are calling for electoral actions to displace the corrupt politicians currently in office. But—electoral actions will not displace the corrupt actors unless there is a power behind them. That power is a united people.
We can all see the consistency to everything we are calling for. They are all wonderful ideas. But they are pointless if they do not work. A united people is what is required on every single action item—because we need those action items to actually work. Otherwise, what is the point of any of them?
We want the entire system to change. We want to remove the 1% from power and replace that power with us—the 99%. We know where we want to go. We want the entire system to reflect our values, elevate our lives, and invigorate our communities.
I have gone through this at length. I have done so because we really need to understand the dynamics of power. Because we absolutely have to shift that power into our hands. It is sitting at our feet and we have to pick it up. We do that by uniting together.
Most of us know that we have to unite. But, we have been doing it all wrong. The evidence is right in front us—the 1% is still holding the power. It is time to do this right.
Many of us have been waiting for a “hero” to rise up and lead the way. Bernie Sanders did it twice. We are captivated by others arriving on the scene. Dr. Cornel West, Robert F Kennedy Jr, Marianne Williamson and others. But … we quickly see that no individual can sustain a movement on their own. They disappear. They disappoint. They fade our hopes. And we end up deflated every time. We have to break that cycle. We are looking for a hero to unite us. But, we do not need a hero to do that. Uniting is all of us. It is us united that is our hero. Our hero is us.
We just need to organize it. We are all there. We are just not united. So, what is it that we are really missing? Let me throw this out there. We are missing a place and time to all gather together and become one community of power.
Let me reiterate this point. We need to create a venue for us all to meet together at. We need to organize a party for power. A party where we can all attend at the same place and time.
We have to organize a party for ourselves. We need to set a place and invite everyone to it.
Once we all start to attend this party we plant all the seeds we need to change the very system we no longer accept. We are the best party out there. Everyone else will want in on it.
Consider this. What general strike, boycott, protest, demonstration, or political action will we even need when we build the system we actually want? We won’t need to take further action. We will have the power to create the system we actually want.
ORGANIZING TO UNITE
What we have to do is organize the people. Organize to give the people all the power that they need to chart the future of everything.
Step 1 is the step we are missing. We are not organized into a united power. Step 1 is putting fuel into our tank so we can get to the destination we want. Tossing little flairs of action into the mix has gotten us nowhere closer to our destination. We need to unite together so that we can actually get to where we want to go. Let’s fill up our tank so we have the energy behind every single action item so that they succeed. After all, we are in this to win it. Right?
We can do it. That only requires us to organize. The people are already there. We are there. There are enough of us to make every action we choose to take succeed.
We know there are enough of us. We know that from the millions that supported the Occupy Wall Street movement. We know that from the millions that engaged with the Black Lives Matter movement. We know that from the millions who rose up (twice) for the Bernie Sanders campaigns in 2016 and 2020.
We are all still here—by the millions. We just need the venue—the place—where we can once again all rise up together to embrace the energy and the power that standing united with each other gives us. By the millions!!!
And—this time—we need to make our movement permanent. Lesson learned: We need permanency built right into the design
How many of us are going through an emotional roller coaster ride these days, thinking we might have a venue unfolding under the leadership of a Cornel West, or a Robert F Kennedy Jr, or a Marianne Williamson? Each of them rise up and place a stake in the ground for us to rally around. But then those stakes quickly vanish right in front of our eyes. We are left spinning on a ground that gives us no stability under our feet. We end up being disappointed for one reason or another as we discover that the unity we need to engage our power is nothing more than an illusion of what we really need. We keep placing our hopes into individuals. And these individuals are as flawed as we are. It’s deflating.
Let me state an observation on these hopes. We have put ourselves into a pattern that just ends up in repeated disappointment. We are waiting for a hero to unite us. But that fails us every time. Our hopes are dashed because we are placing our energy into individuals. We are seeking a hero. Yet, every time our selected hero-of-the-day ends up deflating us because we find that they inevitably come with flaws just like every individual human ultimately has.
The bottom line is that we are seeking a movement. Not a hero. Seeking a hero will never get us to the destination we actually want. WE WANT CHANGE!!! Massive, total system change. We want everything changed. We want the corruption out. We want freedom and liberty and to have a say in how our lives, our communities, and our society move forward.
Here it is folks. We already have our hero. Our hero is us. We are just not organized. That is the problem we have on every single front. We are not organized to engage the power that our unity actually gives us.
We are here. We are united in the destination we seek. We all want the same things. And we number in the millions. We have all the power we need. We just need to join together and take every next step together. The only thing we are really missing is the venue to gather at. Where and when do we meet up? That is merely a venue issue. Where’s the party?
We need a place and time to unite together. All of us.
That is the first step we have to take. To unite. That requires a place and time so we can all get together. It’s like organizing a party. A party of freedom. A party of liberty. A party of self-determination. A party of power.
As for every next step beyond setting the venue—we will figure them all out together. We already have some good ideas out there. We will propose ideas, we will discuss ideas, we will debate options, and we will come to a consensus through the democratic principle of majority consensus. And then we will execute those ideas we together selected. And we will win every one of them because we will be united and have the power necessary to make them work.
Right now, we just need to focus on the first step. All the rest of the steps leading all the way to our destination will be decided by us together. Martin Luther King Jr saw this dynamic clearly and he is right. He saw the power of unity, the necessity of taking the first step to ignite that power, and then letting that unified power chart every single next step necessary to bring us to our destination. Is that what MLK was thinking?
THE FIRST STEP
Organize the place for people to unite at. Where are we going to have our party?
That’s it. The people will take it all from there.
I recommend we organize ourselves across all of the 435 Congressional House Districts. This will require organizing 435 local, grassroots community groups. Organizing neighbors with neighbors and doing it coast-to-coast.
In each district, we will hold Town Hall meetings that rotate locations around the district boundaries so everyone gets a chance to participate. These can be scheduled in people’s homes, libraries, pubs, coffee shops, or any place where discussions can flow. That covers the “place”. Everyone in the district is invited.
These Town Hall meetings will be held on the evenings of the first and third Tuesdays of each month, giving people the notice they need to schedule their attendance. That covers the “time”.
These Town Hall meetings will be ongoing continuously and permanently. That makes this movement permanent. Which covers off that limitation that previous movements have failed us on before. Our movement never ends. It becomes part of our community.
The operating procedures and conduct of these meetings will be through the principles of democracy. Everyone will have a voice on any and every issue. Everyone will be able to comment or speak their position on any issue. All voices will be heard. Debates can be had. And—ultimately—each issue will be voted upon with the rule of the majority being the deciding factor.
For this to work, there is only one requirement. It is that we place our trust in each other. We trust our neighbors to come to the best right conclusion on every issue. It may likely not translate into everything we want individually, but any mistakes we do make we will make together. And we will have the power to quickly correct those.
The agenda will be on any and all issues that anyone in the district wishes to raise.
There will be no platform to this movement. The people will make their own.
There will be no political parties or politicians. They are not needed. The people will decide on their own delegates to represent them from among themselves. And this will be on every single elected office position ranging from Congress to Dog Catcher. Every political office works for the people, so the people will be who hires them.
There will be no focus on elections or election cycles. The people will make their own choices for all elected offices. There are no political campaigns required. Election day will merely be an event where the people hire the candidates they have already selected by checking the ballots. Election day is merely a bureaucratic paper-pushing event.
By the way, this is called creating “voting blocs”. We do not rally around a candidate that a legacy political party throws at us and a platform they dictate in some back room (which is usually phony in terms follow-through once they are elected anyway). We are not organizing around a political party at all—we are merely organizing the voters. Sweet, huh?
There will be no leaders. The people make all the decisions. What will be needed are organizers and facilitators. After all, it is only the venue for communities to conduct their own democracy that needs to be organized.
Each of these district organizations (Town Halls) will be created as an organized “District” with the sole purpose of delivering a democratic process to each district. Here is the platform:
That is the platform. In its entirety. There is nothing else to add.
By the way, item 5 is the item that scares the 1%. They have no special powers. Their corporations are not people. Their entire organizing structure that is holding them in power over us today simply collapses. They are not invited to our party. They are excluded. And the people can determine how they are dealt with. Justice is in the hands of the people.
The objective is to bring the principles and the process of democracy to each district. The result is an organized community. It is grassroots (by definition). It is locally-based (because it is). And it is powered by democracy.
One person = 1 vote. And every single vote is as equal as every other vote on absolutely everything.
ORGANIZING TO ORGANIZE
We need to create 435 of these organizations. There are 435 districts to cover.
What we need to do is to organize 435 districts. Do you see any other path forward to get the change we all want?
I don’t. And I have looked. If you do see another path, absolutely share it in the comments or reach out to me directly. But, in all honesty, I have not seen one.
435 organizations to build sounds like a big lift. But I do not believe it to be as daunting as it sounds.
If we organize a team to start this process, I am confident it will build quickly. The people want change. Give the people what they want! Give them a party!
We can deliver a template for each district to follow We can amplify the overall movement this creates under one umbrella and give it exposure. We can build alliances with independent media outlets to amplify the movement both in each district as well as an overall movement. We can build alliances with existing activist and labor movements that elevate their mission with ours. These are natural win-win alliances.
We can build a central support infrastructure for fundraising initiatives. We can build legal support resources for them. (We can expect the 1% to put up a fight. These are not people that will leave quietly. They will need eviction notices.) We can amplify and promote local democracy everywhere.
We can build a technology platform that emphasizes direct democracy in each district—actually allowing people to vote on every local issue. And deliver it directly to them in their homes or workplaces via the Internet technologies that currently exist. The technology available today can make this happen. Imagine voting from home—on every single thing!
There is a lot to this—and I have some ideas on many of the details that can move it along further. I am absolutely certain that others have even more ideas, and can add improvements to some of the existing ones.
There is one thing I am completely certain about. We will get absolutely nowhere if we do not unite together to move in the direction the majority of us want to go. If we do not take the step to unite ourselves, every other step would be skipping the unity they require. And they would fail to deliver the system change we all want. Let’s recognize that and corral our energy where it needs to go.
We just need to start it. We need to light the spark so that we shine a light on a movement that builds our power. With that light, others will see it and they will feel it shining on them. Giving them a positive course to take for their futures and the futures of those around them. They will join in and add their light so it all shines even brighter. And then even more will see it. And they will add their light to ours. And more will then see and feel our light.
Can we change everything? Of course we can. Because we have each other. And together we are everything we need.
Do people want this? Absolutely they do. Over the past 10-15 years, they have confirmed it in the millions several times.
A survey showed that 44% of the people supported Occupy Wall Street.
In June 2020, two-thirds of the population supported Black Lives Matter.
All of those people are still there. Would such a movement as I outlined here gain significant support? I have absolutely no doubt.
What we cannot do, is wait for some hero to come riding in to lead the movement we need. This movement is on all of us. It is us—together—that is the hero we need. Look in the mirror. And then look around at the rest of us. You will not walk this alone. Someone will be walking with you to your right. Someone will be walking with you on your left. Your neighbors will be walking with you everywhere around you. Together we go. We are our solution.
What is the next step? We need a small team to start the organizing effort. Light that light. And, as others join us on our path, we will welcome them with open arms and add their light to ours.
Let’s go and change absolutely everything. Uniting the people will take us there.
Comments are welcome. Volunteers are welcome. Ideas are welcome. Comments can be posted below.
There are already a few of us ready to move this forward. We have already taken the first few steps to organizing this. If you can help us build this, please email me at dancelovsky@gmail.com We will welcome your light and add it to ours.
Imagine what our futures can be. And let’s go and make them our reality. Together, we can do anything. And everything. Let’s light that light.
Meet you at the party.
Solidarity.
Wonderful, thank you!
[The post is unnecessarily long and a bit redundant and that may be a hurdle in getting others to read it, particularly given the short attention spans of many in our modern era; ChatGPT can probably condense it quickly without compromising the content].
To begin with, I would like to suggest the Town Hall be an online platform. This will ensure that when the powers that be come for us (and they will, guaranteed, if we start to gain traction), many will remain free to raise the alarm. Also, the number 435 seems arbitrary. It essentially means each community would number between 700k-800k. A larger number of communities seems more optimal to me.Y'all may be interested in examining the work of Adolph Reed in re: economic justice and equality as well. THAT is how you stick it to the 1%. When their money is meaningless they will have no power.