[Campaignforrealdemocracy] (no subject)

Sat May 21 23:26:56 UTC 2011

Thanks Vera !

I've posted the manifesto here:
http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/2011/05/rossio-square-lisbon-popular-assembly-manifesto-may-21st/

Hasta La Victoria Siempre

Mark
On 22 May 2011 00:18, Vera Polido Baeta <vera.polido at brookes.ac.uk> wrote:

>  Here's the Lisbon Manifesto that came out of the 1st Assembly in Lisbon.
>
> Joining you tomorow in Belgravia,
>
> Vera Polido
>
> *
> *
>
> *Manifesto approved at the Rossio Popular Assembly in Lisbon.*
>
> May 21st, 2011
>
> * ** *
>
> « *MANIFESTO PLURAL*
>
>
>
> Those gathered at the heart of Lisbon in the Rossio square, being totally
> aware of the current action of resistance, have agreed on the following
> manifesto:
>
> 1.       After many years of apathy, a group of citizens of all ages and
> social strata (students, teachers, librarians, unemployed, workers...) are
> in REVOLT against our lack of representation and against all the treasons
> carried out in the name of a fake democracy.  We reunite in Rossio to
> build up the idea of Real Democracy Now.
>
> 2.       Real Democracy Now utterly opposes all those discredited
> institutions which have been misleadingly displayed as the citizen’s
> representatives, when in fact those institutions only house managersforging the interests of the international financial powers against the
> people.
>
> 3.       The sort of democracy promoted by the bureaucratic apparatus by
> use of sheer corruption only offers a redundant slot of electoral practices
> where citizens find no case for real participation that actually matters.
>
> 4.       The discrediting of politics has also kidnapped the words giving
> rise to a speech setup for the use of the ones in power. We should aim to
> rebuild the words and their meaningfulness blocking all forms of language
> and speech manipulation which only leaves behind a dim and helpless
> citizenship incapable of any joint action.
>
> 5.       Examples of language manipulation and kidnap abound and are a
> weapon of control and misinformation.
>
> 6.       True Democracy is to name the infamy we are facing: the
> International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, the NATO, the
> European Union, the credit rating agencies, Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s and
> alike, the political parties in Portugal, PS, PSD, CDS; and yet there are
> plenty more and our duty is to point our fingers at them.
>
> 7.       We need to build a political reasoning towards the creation of a
> new social tissue, the one that has been systematically cut-off its power by
> years of lies and corruption. We, the citizens, have lost all the respect
> for majority political parties but this does not mean losing our sense of
> critical reasoning quite the opposite: we do not fear POLITICS. POLITICS is
> to rise up and speak. POLITICS is reaching for alternatives in citizen
> participation.
>
> 8.      One of our key premises is to give Democracy back its true
> meaning: a government by the citizens. A participatory democracy.  Beyond
> this we demand a strong deontology to be embodied by politicians so they can
> abide to best practices in their duty.
>
> 9.       We will say it loud and clear: the citizens now gathered are part
> of A MOVEMENT ACROSS GENERATIONS for we are bound to several generations
> that have been condemned to an intolerable loss of participation in
> decision-making and in policies with a toll on our daily lives and futures.
>
> 10.   We do not call for abstentionism. We demand that our vote bears a
> real impact on our lives.
>
> 11.    If we are here today it is not to claim for grants or an improved
> job market. THIS IS A HAPPENING MOMENTUM. And such an event is able to fill
> our actions and speeches with bright new meanings. All this comes from
> ANGER. But our ANGER rises from imagination, strength and people power. »
>
>
>
>
>
> On 21 May 2011 23:28, Mark Barrett <marknbarrett at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>>  IT’S NOT JUST INDIGNATION. Inventing new ways of doing politics.
>>
>>
>> It’s true that we’re indignant. But not just that. If it were just
>> indignation that brought us together in the streets and squares of our
>> cities, the movement would have less force. Once the moment of excitement
>> had passed we would have gone home. That is not what is happening. After the
>> demonstrations, groups – some larger, some smaller – have camped in the
>> squares and after being evicted, have returned again and again. This shows a
>> will to be heard which goes far beyond mere indignation, a will which is
>> opening up new means of doing politics on the basis of the idea that
>> “politics” is not only nor principally a profession – the “business” of the
>> so-called political class – but rather that politics is the only way we have
>> to resolve problems collectively. The capture of politics by those
>> professionals who have turned it into their exclusive terrain, reducing it
>> to a matter of representation and exercising it against the interests of a
>> large part of the population, takes out of our hands those tools without
>> which we are doomed to savage competition amongst ourselves, war between the
>> poor.
>>
>>
>> The increasing intensity of the crisis has made this model of politics
>> blow up. It has shown clearly that the current politicians use the
>> legitimacy which the voting box grants them in order to make citizens ever
>> more impotent against the demands and requirements of a global capitalist
>> class which the politicians either do not know how to or do not want to
>> tame. No one said things were easy. What we are saying is that we need the
>> tools of politics, of a new kind of politics, in order to find solutions to
>> the current situation.
>>
>>
>> The partial movements that have emerged recently give us hints in this
>> direction. All of them, from platforms like “Victims of Mortgages”, “Real
>> Democracy Now”, “Youth with no Future”, to the offices of social rights, the
>> social centers, and the assemblies of the unemployed as well as many others
>> have shown a tremendous capacity to oppose the measures imposed by the
>> public administration, to construct partial alternatives and to attempt to
>> disrupt the privatization measures and impoverishment which are underway.
>>
>>
>> So here we have a social Left which does not coincide with the political
>> “Left.” The latter has been absorbed by economic elites to such an extent
>> that it is difficult to distinguish between the recommendations of the big
>> business groups and the decisions of the politicians. The narrow filter of
>> party democracy impedes meaningful participation. This is why it is now time
>> to get our imagination rolling and seek new forms of articulation which
>> reinvent the political community, putting our collective intelligence to the
>> test. The internet networks are at work; they give shape to the new virtual
>> political space. But we need more: popular citizen assemblies, open
>> encounters, public discussions, institutions which supervise and control the
>> political parties… it is our future, this is our moment.
>>
>>
>> Montserrat Galcerán of the Nomad University
>>
>> www.universidadnomada.net
>>
>>
>>
>
>

-- 
Apathy is Dead !
http://www.flickr.com/photos/solarider/5254770064/#/photos/solarider/5254770064/lightbox/
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