NOTE: These pages are undergoing substantial revision and will be published in an updated, expanded, and revised form as a book.
INFORMED VOTERS USA
THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN. REAL CHANGE REQUIRES STRUCTURAL REFORMS, LESS DIS-INFORMATION & BETTER INFORMED VOTERS ARE THE KEY.
SORRY... No pretty pictures or even a good web design, but rather just lots of facts and original analysis for decision makers, opinion makers, and those who are way ahead of the conventional wisdom curve!
If we believe democracy is the best form of government, then informed voters are the indispensable base.
“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.
Whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights." Thomas Jefferson
"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis.
The great point is to bring them the real facts." A. Lincoln
Real change will either be initiated by the people or imposed by catastrophic events.
An uninformed voter has a 50% chance of making the best decision, a misinformed voter has a zero percent chance.
There are proven ways to get more and better information to voters.
The core theme of the 2008 presidential election was change. Senator Barack Obama won the nomination with “Real Change You Can Believe In” as the centerpiece of his campaign, and he touted the broad base of his contributors as breaking the dependence on special interest money, while Senator McCain said he was a real maverick who stood up to special interests and worked for bipartisan solutions.
Both of these campaigns recognized that “things have gone so far wrong” as to attract the people’s attention, but in fact things are worse than the people think because for some time politicians have been afraid to tell the American people many hard truths: that they spend too much time raising money from too few people who expect something in return; that we rely on China and countries in the Middle East to buy our debt and shore up our corporations; that we can’t keep all the promises made under Social Security and Medicare without substantive changes and sacrifices; that we spend far too much on drugs and medical procedures that are not worth the cost; that our increasing dependency on foreign oil jeopardizes security as well as our economy, that all regulation and taxes are not bad, that social/value issues have become far more important than basic security/economic issues... indeed that our government no longer acts efficiently and rationally in routine matters, much less is it able to address the larger and harder questions we now face.
While both Obama and McCain acknowledged the system is broken, "standing up to special interests" means more than substituting one set of special interest groups for another, and sustained true bi-partisanship is simply isn't possible without structural changes. In short the problems are so significant and so systemic words and good intentions are not enough.
The following analysis asks the bedrock questions the Founding Fathers struggled with: what is the best form of government, and assuming the answer is democracy, what role ideally should, and practically can, “the people” play in it; assuming in the past our government was more competent, what has changed over the last 50 years; and finally what changes could make our democracy work better. The analysis tentatively concludes that there is a big difference between uninformed voters and dis-informed voters, while the best way to arrive at true facts and best actions is debate and discussion (and there are proven ways to increase both), we must also focus on ways to diminish dis-information and the influence of special interests, and then ultimately trust, as the Founding Fathers did, that the American people are smart enough to understand hard facts, strong enough to make hard decisions, and selfless enough to make hard sacrifices for the future.
Analysis (Sorry, links have been removed pending revisions and new book format):
1. FORMS OF GOVERNMENT:
2. WHAT HAS CHANGED?
3. TO WHAT EXTENT CAN VOTERS BE INFORMED
4. THE ROLE OF MISINFORMATION, DISINFORMATION AND PROPAGANDA IN A DEMOCRACY
5. WHAT CAN BE DONE TO BETTER INFORM VOTERS
6. OTHER POTENTIAL REFORMS & DISCUSSION POINTS
6. FINAL THOUGHTS & NEXT STEPS
There is nothing else like this analysis anywhere because, simply put, the problems are so large and systemic that they appear overwhelming. However, nothing will happen until a knowledgeable few take the first steps to create a national debate on the causes of our problems, possible solutions, and next steps.
Read, think, comment, act -- and send your comments, thoughts, suggestions and corrections -- and requests to be notified when the book is to be published -- to info@informedvotersusa.org.
This Web Page Uploaded 10/12/08, revised 03/14/09; all original material and format on this site Copyright 2008; Quotations & other material copyright by source holders. Non-commercial use and distribution encouraged with attribution, commercial use and distribution with written permission.