[Campaignforrealdemocracy] CRD Blurb

[Mark Barrett]

Hi everyone

I've just updated the Ning site opening page for the Campaign for Real
Democracy blurb. Here's how it reads. Comments v.welcome. The location of
this blurb is at http://21stcenturynetwork.ning.com/group/CivilRights

Welcome to the Campaign for Real Democracy (CRD) group page.

What is meant by 'real democracy' is an open question, but our group
believes it must include local sovereignty (the importance of local,
democratic neighbourhood structures with real political and economic power),
greater use of consensus (horizontal) decision-making, and building a
viable, grassroots social movement.

So far the group has identified the following priorities:

(1) To map, and, where possible connect the various local and other
campaigns for real democracy already in existence. To provide a resource,
skills-share, cross fertilisation of ideas and raise awareness. You can find
a calendar of campaigns at People in
Common,<http://www.peopleincommon.org/>and please email us with any
campaigns, in London or elsewhere that you
think we should know about.
(2) To encourage campaigners to raise their aspirations to the level of
seizing power and ensure their own group's decision-making is really
democratic.
(3) To look for ways to encourage one really big, effective campaign for
democracy.
(4) To develop a 'real democracy' manifesto for an alternative democratic
political economy, a new political settlement to grow alongside the present
one, and eventually supplant it.#

One further priority is to encourage a 21st Century Network Social Action
group to affiliate with CRD and further support its aims in some way. We
hope this possibility will be explored at the meeting on August
19th<http://www.meetup.com/21stCenturyNetwork/calendar/10410683/>.


One interesting conceptual framework for all this is Henri Lebfevre's "The
Right to the City". This has been described as the "collective right to
shape the city to your hearts' desire, and be changed ourselves in the
process". This is essentially the democratic right to take part in decision
making and so create with your friends the political, social and economic
culture of the places and spaces you individually and collectively inhabit.
We think this fits well with the 21st Century Network's aim of opening up
public space to consider (and we would add, act upon) the great issues of
our time. We will be exploring this concept, aswell as looking at practical
campaigns, at a 21CN meeting on December
2nd<http://www.meetup.com/21stCenturyNetwork/calendar/10863366/>and we
hope to be able to build upon that for a bigger event in 2010.

In the meantime, this space will be used to collate the CRD manifesto. So
far this has been developed on a Wordpress site and on the Project 2012 and
CRD mailing lists, and I'm in the process of transferring the info across to
here. Sorry for the delay in getting this done.

Here are the Minutes from our first CRD
Meeting.doc<http://api.ning.com/files/wEmKpXpNPLiknsh9TPoHpNQcSm92*ThRc*gTku*ab436QAqzuQDIS2iM8qZozGwNRv1z7kG9ejVysyYcYt*wH-FQPSgcWWqr/MinutesfromourfirstCRDMeeting.doc>

And the second one...23rd July CRD
Minutes.wps<http://api.ning.com/files/eFEyqotybvr4a0pexZBT5TP723o-Ihve0D9jkwvQJ2R5biKCM3unfqWEFEZuE8KeQuRm4Nfz3SdXpfdf-UuqROY8hvqk8CfI/23rdJulyCRDMinutes.wps>

*NEXT (THIRD) CRD MEETING - TBC in September*

The next CRD (Campaign for Real Democracy) meeting will be in September. The
last meeting was held on the eve of Thursday 23rd July in the Guernica
Tapestry round table space at the Whitechapel Gallery. More info on this to
follow.

*Come to one of our meetings if:*

1. You think there are a few people in your area who might want to run their
own affairs in a really democratic way (for convenience we're defining
'local area' using council wards -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wards_in_Greater_London
2 .You've experienced something you think is real democracy-in-action (in
organisations like the climate camp) and want to see it spread
3. You'd like to see your area become democratic but don't really know
anyone else that thinks the same or even what real democracy might look
like.
4. You want to find ways to join up the campaigns.

*Also, come to the Democracy Picnic:* August 15th, Parliament Hill,
Hampstead Heath - an opportunity to get together for fun, plan the
London/wider campaign and make the point about the need for people to take
back control of their communities from the state and corporate hegemon. The
Facebook group for this is
here<http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=93829936659>

Here is a link to a new, independently written document to which we have
been invited to contribute, once it goes on-line for open source editing: A
Sustainable Economy for
London<http://www.brooklyndhurst.co.uk/media/A%20Sustainable%20Economy%20for%20London%20-%20Final%20June%202009%20version.pdf>

Finally, if you wish to join our wide ranging email discussion forum, please
do so at Project 2012 <http://groups.google.co.uk/group/project2012> or to
join the low-traffic, dedicated CRD list, pls email james at dogmanet.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.aktivix.org/pipermail/campaignforrealdemocracy/attachments/20090813/8944ef18/attachment.htm>