Kongo Innocent Emmanuel Wrote:

"Through the Third Universal Theory ( Direct Democracy)
The Revolutionary Committees Movement(RCM) promote the emergency of a new type of citizen for a new society entirely democratic throughout direct democracy developed in the Green Book inspired by Muammar Al Qathafi, the leader of Al Fatah Revolution.
everywhere.

The duty of the Revolutionary Committees becomes:

Ø To incite the masses to exercise their authority.
Ø To strengthen the people's authority.
Ø To practice revolutionary control.
Ø To animate the Popular Congresses.
Ø To advise the Popular Committees and its delegates.
Ø To protect, defend the Revolution and to everlasting its propaganda.

For more information, please read a Green book, through this link.
You'll find your answer.
http://www.rcmlibya.org/English/"

Thank you for this contribution.

I went to the web site, printed several pages and had a long read.

I think the principles outlined by Muammar Al Qathafi, do try to go in the right direction, but I can't see how in most human societies his system would work.

When I was a very young man, I also thought that "direct democracy" was the right way to run a society. Now I've got a lot more experience I see the problems with that. We can't be interested in ALL the things that happen in our society, there simply isn't the time. So we make laws and we set up institutions to do some of the work for us.

GOOD LAW, if the beginning of a good society, backed by a police system and a judicial system that makes the way the law is enforced fair regardless of who you are.

The body that makes the law, the government, cannot be "everyone" because it takes far too much time to be informed about the issues involved. So we trust the process of making the law to specialists, politicians, who's job it is to understand what they are doing an to make laws that desirable for the community.

The question of how those people are appointed is often controversial. In some pacific islands, the politicians are still appointed by the Chief. In most places there is a "vote" of some kind, but that doesn't in my view make that community "democratic". Muammar Al Qathafi is right when he says that representative government as it exists in most places isn't representative at all. There are ways to make government more representative. We've tried hard to do that in New Zealand, with some success.

In the USA, on the other hand the system of representation has almost completely broken down. The TWO main political parties have too much power, they have manipulated the electorate boundaries, they manipulate the voter rolls, and apparently the party machines can even manipulate the count. Besides, both parties are bought and paid for before the election begins. Regardless of who wins, there will be no real change because the man with the purse strings is really in control.

Things are better in the UK, but not much better. Tony Blair was able to completely ignore public opinion and follow GW Bush into the war in Iraq. If the UK system was more democratic, he could not have done that.

I don't know too much about the government of Libya today, but the country has not been a democracy in the recent past. Nor are any of the countries of north Africa. There's some way to go before any but a tiny number of countries (Maybe 4-6 in the world) can truly be said to be democratic. Certainly for for me at least the USA doesn't qualify, nor the UK.

Regards
John
Friday, May 23, 2008