[Campaignforrealdemocracy] Fwd: Real Democracy

[Mark Barrett]

  does anyone fancy getting started with this as I really don't have much
time - would be great to put something together in collaboration

Forwarded Message:

Could be interesting - I wouldn't want something which is obvious in only
trying to publicise your manifesto. I would focus on the "radical
decentralisation of power" theory, and perhaps take a few international
examples (Brazil comes to mind, but other local examples abroad would be
good).  Less than 700 words please - with links!

-- 
Jessica Reed
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On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 1:19 AM, Mark Barrett <marknbarrett at googlemail.com>wrote:

> Hi Jessica
>
> I'm a community campaigner currently involved in the Election Meltdown**
> mobilisation for Mayday (in the run up to the election) aswell as the Labour
> Land Campaign. I'd like to write a short piece on real democracy and the
> actual structures we'd need to achieve a political economy based on
> community, equality and a radical decentralisation of power. The piece would
> be couched in the language of the real third way - ie how to empower civil
> society to take charge between state and corporate-led globalisation, and
> will stand in stark contrast to the vague, aspirational rhetoric and limited
> thinking of the major parties on these issues.
>
> Think of it as a grassroots election manifesto, co-written by a cross
> section of activists from the direct action movement in consultation over
> the last decade. The manifesto will include actual democratisation policies
> for unemployment, banking, education and tax reform* aswell as addressing
> overarching constitutional issues.
>
> Some good original writing on this was put forward in my work in
> 2009 as Press Officer for G20 Meltdown (who called the big demo at the Bank
> of England last April); unfortunately the blog site I used got closed down
> shortly after the protests as it had been infected by a sophisticated
> virus.
>
> You can see an example of a petition I penned before the financial
> transactions (Robin Hood) tax got on the mainstream agenda (now expired) at
> http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/tobintaxnow/#detail and also a draft
> interim statement on the British Constitution at
> http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.peopleincommon.org/C421.html
>
> Hope to hear from you soon
>
> Best wishes
>
> Mark Barrett
> 0785 439 0408
>
> * Tax reform via a movement away from taxes on income (the contested NI
> increase) and instead towards land values
> See eg Phillipe Legrain in the latest edition of Prospect
> http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/03/tax-the-ground-they-walk-on-2/
> And the Labour Land Campaign www.labourland.org
>
> **Election Meltdown
> www.meltdown.uk.net
>
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