REMOVE & REPLACE THE SYSTEM

Part 1: We Have the Authority

Jun 08, 2023

June 8, 2023

This article is a two-part presentation.

The first part is presented below. It describes the path and detailed steps for how we take the power of democracy that we own—all we have to do is commit to participate in it.

The second part will follow in the next couple of weeks. It will present the execution—which is to build the organizational structure this requires. This part will be the call to action, so that we place all the democratic power into the hands of the people. Where it belongs.

The most recent Gallup Poll (Apr 3-25 2023) shows us that the favored political party option is Independent. When asked about their political party affiliation, people split out as follows:

Republicans 30%

Democrats 27%

Independents 41%

If Independents had a formal choice to select - who would win? Who would be running the government?

The problem is that Independents are not organized. There is no single unified choice on the ballot to rally together as independents. WE CAN FIX THAT.

We can organize a choice for Independents—the support is already there. The largest voting bloc is already there.

Let me emphasize our opportunity further:

The level of satisfaction in government clearly punctuates the voting bloc of support we already have. PEOPLE WANT OUT OF THE LEGACY POLITICAL PARTY CHOICES.

Let’s create that choice. We have the largest voting bloc already lined up. Let’s give them a home.

That is what this is about. It is about organizing for the power that we actually want. The voting bloc we need is already among us. This is all about organizing it. Let’s organize and build it. Let’s give the Independents an organized unified home. A home for the people.

Do we build it by creating a viable third political party? NO. We don’t need a political party. We won’t build one.

Do we build it by offering candidates? NO. We do not need to coronate candidates and thrust them onto the people. Let the people choose their own representatives from among themselves.

Do we create a platform covering our positions on all the issues? NO. We make all the decisions on every single issue that affects our lives, our communities, and our society ourselves. We can trust each other to come to a consensus among ourselves on every single issue. By the way, we can address every single issue by using democracy.

Do we play the political game of focusing on election cycles? NO. We empower ourselves constantly and permanently. Election days are just the days we push some paper around to enforce the decisions we have already made among ourselves.

WE CHANGE THE SYSTEM. And we do it by giving the people the democratic power they have. We organize the voters and we act on and embrace democracy.

That is what we organize.

Do we need to get some kind of authority to do this? NO. Democracy gives us all the authority to do it without registering anything. We organize independent voters—which organizes our political power.

By the way, our voting bloc is solid. A decade ago (Apr 4-14 2013) the same Gallup Poll was Republicans 26%, Democrats 33%, and Independents 40%. Not much difference. Our voting bloc is solid and consistent. It’s time to wield the power we have—and change everything.

What follows is how and where we organize ourselves.

THE PROBLEM

“The citizen has become irrelevant. He or she can participate in heavily choreographed elections, but the demands of corporations and banks are paramount.”

Chris Hedges

The political system we have is completely broken. Instead of giving us the power of self-determination (via majority consensus) it has placed the wedge of organized and un-elected political parties between us and the very power that is our authority to take.

Power belongs to us. It is our authority to take and wield. Don’t take my word for it. Take the dictionary definition’s word for it.

So … what is the problem? Why does everything we want—as a majority among us want—not become our reality? Why are our lives, our communities, and our society suffering from oppression, neglect and the opposite realities of what democracy offers us?

The answer is simple—corporate interests have organized themselves with 12,644 registered lobbyists consuming all the energy, attention and time of our elected representatives. And our elected representatives give them their time! We have been pushed aside to the back-burner. How did this happen? Through monetary donations by the corporate interests to support the political party candidates that will give them their time and consideration. Legal or not, it reflects corruption.

We were even warned about how our power can be taken from us. We were warned about it almost 250 years ago.

Political parties. They have no place in democracy. ZERO. They are weapons created by and wielded by a nefarious few—a small minority actually—to take our power from us. That is the situation we are in. 12,644 lobbyists. It is literally an army of corruption.

The Democratic National Committee (the DNC) has even declared their authority in a court of law. In an official declaration they literally stated that they are a “private organization,” completely removing any democratic authority from the people and placing electoral choices into our legislatures that they select. They are a fraudulent organization that gives people the false belief that they promote democracy while actually doing the exact opposite.

The above video clip is an interview with lawyers in a court case brought against the DNC to reclaim the political donations made to the Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign. It is likely one of the most important revelations you will hear. Be informed. The DNC itself has, in official court declarations, stated their mission, which is very clear, that they are not in any way obligated to promote or represent democracy. In their own official words. I strongly urge everyone to hear this truth. Your future depends on it.

Political parties have hijacked our democratic power. And they have stolen our democracy for their own purposes. They have literally stolen your democratic freedom and authority.

That’s the problem. Democracy is broken. It is so broken we cannot fix it as it currently exists. We have to remove and replace the political system itself.

We can do that.

THE SOLUTION

We can reject the political circus that the thieves of democracy have given us.

We will reject them and their games. We will reject their political system outright. We will replace it with our own. And we have the complete authority to do just that.

We will reject their political parties, their politicians, and their election cycles. We do not need any of them to change everything. This is a revolution. And we have all the authority we need because our authority is in each and every one of us - as long as we organize our power into one community voice.

We each have one equal vote. Stand alone and it adds up to nothing and can easily be exploited by those currently operating our democracy. Together our votes add up to all the power we need to chart our future communities. Democratic power comes by joining our equal vote with each others’ equal votes. We need each other to make democracy work.

We just have to organize. The question is what do we organize? We don’t organize around a political party or political candidate. We organize our votes—our voting power. They are called voting blocs. We organize into voting blocs of democratic power and authority. And we change everything.

We do not need leaders—we lead ourselves. Our decisions come to us through consensus. Every issue and every problem can be discussed and considered—as long as we gather together to have those discussions. Consensus comes to us not through unanimous decisions. Democracy does not require full agreement—it requires majority agreement. 50% + 1. Reference 1(a) in the above definition. On every single issue.

What we have to do is create the venue so that people can gather and partake in open discussions and come to a majority consensus. Our challenge is to create that venue. That is an effort that does not require leadership—it is an effort that requires organizing. We do not need leaders—we need organizers.

Power comes by organizing our equal votes into consensus so we make the decisions ourselves. We can do that.

What do we have to organize that empowers us to make our own decisions for ourselves? So that we actually put the power of democracy into our own hands?

We have to organize the venue so that people can gather together and conduct democracy. We need to organize a venue that enables and facilitates democratic activity. Actually, we have to organize 435 venues. We need organizers to organize them.

435 VOTING BLOCS

We cannot just organize a venue in one place such as Cincinnati Ohio. That would be great for the people of Cincinnati—but very inconvenient for the majority of us.

We need to organize around the country so it is convenient for everyone. I propose organizing across all 435 federal electoral districts that represent the 435 seats in the House of Representatives. With this approach, we also effectively organize the 100 seats in the Senate (which provides two seats per state).

As a quick side note: I propose we organize in Canada too. So, that is 338 more federal districts to organize to represent all the seats in Canada’s House of Commons. What the heck? Let’s organize all 773 districts!

The advantages of this approach is not just to spread out the local convenience that would be experienced in Cincinnati—it has many other advantages.

It becomes manageable for organizers. We are organizing in local communities. And, by the way, I would absolutely encourage people in each district to also organize around their state districts and even local political offices. All the organizing flexibility is ours once we organize.

Do not worry about the national Presidential level. Congress has a lot of power—including the power of impeachment—which is meant to remove corrupt individuals across numerous offices up to and including the President. In Canada, the Parliament has the right to call a non-confidence vote and remove the Prime Minister.

What we are organizing are 435 Town Halls across each federal electoral district. We are creating Town Hall venues and we are inviting all our neighbors to attend and join them in their own communities with their own neighbors. That is the venue we have to organize.

PURPOSE OF 435 TOWN HALLS

This approach is not my idea. I am building on it—adjusting to our current situation. It was proposed as a foundation of democratic power by Ralph Nader in his 2016 book “Breaking Through Power: It’s Easier Than We Think”. The beauty of this work is that it fully confirms our authority to do this—and it outlines how quickly power starts to shift to the people from the corrupted political system we are dismantling (I will outline the details of the power dynamics shortly).

435 districts give us a local grassroots ability to tap into local activities, local activist groups that are already organized in our communities, and local media resources that can circumvent most of the national corrupted corporate media outlets. Most of all, it allows us to organize our own neighbors.

Imagine a Town Hall structure in your community with the following elements:

Bi-weekly regularly scheduled Town Hall meetings. For example, every first and third Tuesday of every month. This gives everyone an organized schedule to work their own activities around.

Regularly scheduled Town Hall meetings give something for the local media to plan their coverage around.

Actual locations can be scheduled in advance in venues that rotate around the district boundaries so everyone has access locally. Coffee shops, parks, libraries, people’s homes, are some of the available options. This gives us so many flexible options that can be pre-planned and evolve as attendance grows—and it will.

Guest speakers can be scheduled, giving a platform to local activist groups to present their actions to their community (and have their membership embrace the democracy that we are delivering).

We can build an online access platform for people to attend remotely to effectively expand our attendance across the district. The technology is there to use—and we can leverage such a platform’s cost across 773 districts.

Best of all, these are venues that put neighbors together, which is paramount to creating the communities we all want.

These Town Hall organizations will be delivered on a permanent basis. They do not expire or end at the next election cycle. They are the venues for local democracy and local action. They are here to stay—permanently.

NATIONAL LEVERAGE

I am not suggesting that we organize 435 Town Hall venues in isolation of each other.

That would be a complete waste of energy.

We also need to create a national support group for them. The mandate is to elevate the energy of each district’s effort to unleash more energy in all the districts. (And include the 338 Canadian districts as well).

While legacy political parties are structured around a corrupted centralized structure, they cannot stop us from effectively structuring around decentralized and evenly distributed models. In model C, power is distributed. Leverage opportunities are decentralized. Maximum effectiveness becomes ours. The 1% cannot defend against these distributed structures because there is no single point where they can attack and diffuse them.

A national support group has key supporting functions to provide:

Facilitate. The national support group operates upside-down—it does not dictate policies, terms or platforms other than promoting one sole principle: Power belongs to the people. The mandate is to facilitate power; the power of the people. Facilitate and foster it. “To facilitate and foster power of the people” is the policy book—in its entirety.

Amplify. The message conveyed across each district can be amplified across all districts. Successful actions and ideas discovered in one district can be leveraged across them all. Mistakes made in any district can be corrected across them all. There is power in synergy—and we will embrace that power. That is just working smart.

Organization. A national support group can act like a funnel to direct individuals to their local groups—increasing their activation levels in their own communities. A national support group can ensure that efforts of duplication are avoided and an efficient national force of self-empowerment is leveraged. It can coordinate fundraising and national outreach actions.

National Voice. Across national media outlets and actions, a national voice can elevate every district through leveraging the overall message. Power to the people. It can leverage action across other national organizations coordinating various groups into one unified energy across labor groups, activist organizations, political organizations, and independent media voices and access.

Efficiency. We can leverage our “buying power” across numerous fronts. From creating the people’s own social media democratic platform, to national presence marketing efforts. Again, we can take advantage of everything that leverages the power of each district to succeed across our entire society.

We can all see how a political party operates. They centralize across a national base promoting their own agendas and platforms. We can do the same—except as a supporting role rather than a leading central commanding role. We retain the benefits and synergy of having a central voice, but we do not organize into a formal political party. We merely tie together independent actions across 435 districts into one banner that elevates and amplifies them all. We unify nationally across one single message: Power to the people.

We are not a political party. We are an empty shell of a political party—empty of candidates, platforms, and ideologies. Each district can select their own candidate within their own community. Each district can decide on every platform item that applies to their community. On national-scope issues, the central support organization can administer and facilitate votes across all districts to push through national agenda items such as pressing for peace, a national minimum wage, healthcare for all, dismantling corporations that monopolize markets and smashing banks that are too big to fail, and so much more. Never to set the agenda—always to platform the majority decisions made in the district communities.

We should have a uniform name for this effort. I propose The Permanent Occupy—but I am open to other ideas. I like The Permanent Occupy because it leverages the 2010 Occupy Movement effort, and reflects our permanent occupation of our democracy. We are absolutely organizing a permanent occupation of democracy itself.

POWER

Now we get to the fun part. The actual taking of power away from the unauthorized 1% and putting it where it belongs: Into the hands of the people.

We are seeking to take our democratic power at the federal Congressional level. 435 House of Representative seats and 100 Senate seats. However, once established, there are no limitations on communities from engaging their power in alignment with elected state and municipal offices. But we have to start somewhere. To keep our actions manageable as we organize ourselves, let’s keep our initial focus targeted on the federal Congressional seats.

We are building voting blocs. That is the important dynamic and we need to understand what it means. The political parties and their chosen candidates all enter election cycles to get our votes. They spend money on advertising, engage the corporate media outlets, and create events such as rallies to thrust their agenda upon us. They all come out and seek to convince us to select them. Basically, they have to ‘buy’ our votes.

Their process has weaknesses that we can exploit. We can declare our votes to be ‘not for sale’. That exploits their weakness and renders their money-driven tactics irrelevant.

They are pitching their platform and agenda which they thrust upon us. We do not need their platform or agenda. We advocate creating our own platform and agenda in each community. And we agree to what our platform and agenda is among us through our Town Hall meetings.

They come to us with the candidates selected by their political parties. We do not have that constraint. We can pick our representative from among ourselves. Even if our candidate is not on the ballot, we can always run a write-in campaign (which can succeed).

What the political parties have failed to recognize is that the people are in charge—who to run is not a political party’s choice to make. We do not work for them—they work for us. The representative we select is a hiring process. We are the hiring manager. We choose—they don’t. In a democracy, the people rule (refer back to the dictionary definition for this rule).

Through our Town Hall meetings we will gather together and we will make an agreement with ourselves and our neighbors. We will hold our own votes on every platform issue and on which candidate we choose, for whatever reason, to represent us. We all agree to move in unison with the majority consensus. Once again, the majority does not mean 100% agreement—it means 50% + 1.

We do not need to concern ourselves with waiting for election day to make decisions. We can decide any time we want. Election day is only the hiring date—the date to process the paperwork on the decisions we already, between us, have made. We follow our schedule, not the schedule of the political system—a system we are rejecting.

We only need to agree and adhere to one rule: We all agree to abide with and follow the consensus of the majority. With that agreement our votes are combined into a voting bloc and that voting bloc gives us power.

When we do that, we have rendered the political parties (run by people who typically do not even live in our community) irrelevant. We have rejected them. We have rejected their agenda. We have rejected their platform. We have rejected their candidates. We have rejected their donors and removed the stench that their money aflicts on our democracy. We have removed the corrupted system they represent. We have taken our power to ourselves.

We have moved to a direct and pure democracy. And we now have the authority and power to self-determine our futures. It truly is freedom and it is liberty. It is the freedom and liberty of self-determination. We are free!

OUR POLITICAL PARTY ISN’T A POLITICAL PARTY

To summarize our political party in a nutshell: There isn’t one.

We have to organize 435 permanent Town Hall venues across each Congressional District. That covers the 100 Senate seats as well. Congress has power—and we can shift that power. And we are going to do just that.

Our national supporting group will never offer nor present any political candidates. Why would we? We are not a political party. We are only a support group.

Our House candidate is “To Be Determined”. Our Senate candidates are “To Be Determined”.

Each district will select their own candidates by consensus among themselves. Let them choose the best candidates they have in their communities.

Candidates are not “leaders”. They are employees of the people in their community. The community hires them to represent the platform to which they agree. That is how democracy is supposed to work.

As a community selects their representatives, we can offer the support and assistance to place that candidate on the ballot for that District. Election day will be the day the community can go to the polls and formally process their selected candidates into the job. Yes, Election Day is paper-pushing day, merely a bureaucratic event, which completely eliminates the farce of the election campaign.

The money to buy votes is irrelevant as votes are already set during Town Halls. The people have already selected their candidates. Say good-bye to the stupid election campaign ads. Say good-bye to the media polls, pundits and consultants. Say good-bye to the farce of it all.

Who needs endorsements? The people chose the candidates—their endorsement is the only endorsement that matters.

Adios money. Adios political corruption. Adios media circus.

Hello democratic freedom.

THE PRESIDENT/VICE-PRESIDENT TICKET

The Presidential ticket is the one political office that gets the most attention. We are not focusing on it—for now. I can assure you that Congress has enough power to change how our government functions. Congress even has the power of impeachment and removal of a President.

What we can do is have each Congressional district select a presidential candidate among those offered. Every election cycle, there are hundreds of independent candidates—although the media does not give them any energy. Same with third party options. Let each district deal with the President and Vice-President tickets themselves. They vote their decision as a bloc.

Let’s keep our focus on the local community Congressional districts. The House and the Senate.

Let’s spend our limited energy wisely. Let’s leave the Presidential election cycle frenzy on the periphery. Congress has power and focusing on Congress gives us power. Let’s get our job done.

DEMOCRATIC POWER

We each get one equal vote. You get one. I get one.

Standing alone; I have no power. Standing alone; you have no power.

When you and I join together, a little spark of energy ignites our power. Let’s walk together—lest we walk alone. You can feel the difference—that is the energy we need to engage. You know it’s real—because you can feel it.

And we can grow it. Keep adding more people—each adding one equal vote. Five of us. Fifty of us. 500 of us. 5,000 of us. 50,000 of us. I 100% guarantee this energy is growing and it is growing our power. And this is how democracy works. This is how our individual equal energy turns into power. I can only describe it in one form: You can feel the energy. Yes—you feel it.

This is our mission. To gather together our energy into a massive inferno of democratic power, to start growing it and keep growing it. That is our organizing job.

Let me explain this in the terms of democracy itself. Democracy works by “the rule of the majority”. The majority decides absolutely everything. Damn, if there is a law that is withholding the wishes of the majority, the majority can even change that law. Think about that. Democracy, when properly used, can change absolutely everything!!! Sweet, huh?

But democracy has one condition it requires from each of us to make it work for us—our participation. We have to pick democracy up and embrace it by actually participating in it. If we don’t participate, it merely rests silently at our feet - and the nefarious few will continue to exploit us for their own ends. We have to pick it up and embrace it!

That is what we are going to do. We are going to create 435 venues for people to gather together and embrace their democratic power. What are those venues we need to organize and create? 435 Town Halls.

EACH DISTRICT IS DIFFERENT

Each and every one of these 435 districts will be different. Some will be “Safe Republican” districts. Some will be “Safe Democrat” districts. Others will be “Leaning Districts”. And some will be “Toss-Ups”.

It doesn't matter what label your district reflects. We are here to put them all into play. The only difference is that the impact of our power is going to come quicker in some districts than in others.

Power will come to us in phases. Some districts give power to one legacy party candidate with only a few thousand (or less) votes. When we create a voting bloc that covers that margin of difference - we become “king-makers”, and we end up with the power to shift a Democrat seat to a Republican seat (and vice-versa). That is power. It is the power to start rattling their cages. We can then throw our support behind either of their candidates provided they agree to the concessions we demand. That is the first phase of power we get—creating actual fear in the legacy parties’ candidates against each other.

Legacy parties have all the time in the world to attend meetings with corporate lobbyists. But they never seem to have any time to meet with one of their constituents. In fact, Ralph Nader has noted that it can require a bloc of 500 constituents to even get a meeting with their representative. Yes, anti-democratic to say the least, but it is the reality. Well, once your district’s Town Hall (aka voting bloc) grows to 500, you’ll get your representative’s attention. They will attend your Town Hall and you can start challenging them on the issues.

You get their attention because you start to scare them. Your power scares them.

We are also going to scare them right out of the door in every district we start to organize—during the first week of organizing a district. Here are the basic steps to organizing your district:

Gather an initial organizing team. It can be as few as two of you. With your initial team, appoint a media and community contact person, with a phone number, an email address, and a physical address in your district.

Schedule the venues and dates for the first four Town Hall meetings. The venues can be a local cafe, a public outdoor space (weather permitting), a meeting room in a library or other facility, or even in someone’s home. Schedule them for the evenings of the first and third Tuesday of every month. Rotate the locations across the districts.

Kick-start the permanent occupation of your district. Start it with a blaze of energy. Write an open letter putting your incumbent representatives in both the House and the Senate on notice that their politics-as-usual farce is coming to an end. (see Appendix A for an example). Be sure to make a couple hundred paper copies.

Hand-deliver these open letters to the local district offices of your House Representative and two Senators. Hand-deliver copies to your local media outlets. You have just put everyone on notice. Presto!!! You are now active.

Write up a letter of introduction to your neighbors inviting them to join you at your Town Hall meetings (sample provided in Appendix B). Make a couple hundred paper copies of these as well.

Combine the open letter to your incumbent politicians with your letter of introduction. And get out there canvassing your neighbors asking them to attend your next four Town Halls. Give them each a copy of these letters. You will be engaging with many of them as most people will discuss politics. Tell them you are here to give all the political power in their district to them. You want their voices to be heard. All they have to do is attend your Town Halls. The legacy political parties cannot come close to what you are offering.

Keep growing your membership. Keep canvassing. Your volunteer base will grow. Financial support will grow. But, most importantly, your voting bloc will grow. Keep in mind that most people will not even attend the meetings but they will support what you are doing and they will throw their votes to support your voting bloc.

You are growing your Town Hall. You are growing your energy base. And you are growing your political power. You are delivering your neighbors the freedom and liberty of democratic power to self-determine their own lives, community, and society. Yes- you are handing out candy. I think you will be surprised at how many of them have been waiting a long time for you.

We can improve and fine-tune these dynamics and our approach as we all move forward. We are all here to support each other and to improve our methods together. WE CAN DO THIS.

POWER IN WASHINGTON DC

In at least the past several decades, Congress itself has been pretty evenly divided. Neither legacy political party attains significant majorities. That is a weakness we have the power to exploit.

If we empower ourselves with just a few seats, we carry a balance-of-power—political power. (Yes, some will say that The Squad, The Progressive Caucus, or The Freedom Caucus were designed for that purpose, but they have not delivered). This is about power and the very weakness of the legacy political parties opens the doors of opportunity for us very quickly.

THE POLITICS OF FEAR

The legacy parties are nothing more than weapons wielded against us. They are controlled and operated by and for corporate elites to deliver their agenda. They are weapons of corporate lobbyists on K-Street.

They use propaganda to deliver fake narratives of reality to ensure their rule. Their propaganda is designed to keep us cowering in fear should we not comply with their agenda and actions. They constantly tell us we need to support one of them out of the fear of getting the worser of them. That is complete garbage, and it is undemocratic.

We are going to flip this. We are going to place that fear into their laps. We are going to scare the crap out of them.

That is what will happen as the power to change everything shifts into our hands. Democracy and its freedom and liberty of self-determination becomes ours.

It’s ours to take. Let's go take it.

This is part one explaining how we can organize to change absolutely everything. How we can take our democratic power to freely decide the futures of our lives, our communities, and our societies together. We have the authority to do it and we can do it.

Part two will follow that starts the process of organizing so we get there. I urge you to subscribe to this susbstack so you stay in the loop. We all go together. This substack account is for you, me, and all of us. Let’s light the flame of our power. And then add fuel to it and change absolutely everything.

The Permanent Occupy

REMOVE & REPLACE THE SYSTEM

Part 1: We Have the Authority

Daniel Celovsky

June 8, 2023

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