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The US imagines itself a great democracy, yet most Americans despise its politics. Which is why direct democracy inspires them

Reinhard Mohn Prize 2011  Bertelsmann Stiftung This platform was launched to collect and discuss projects from all over the world that help to "Vitalize democracy through participation" - and to identify a winner for the Reinhard Mohn Prize 2011.

Summary of Personal Democracy Forum 2010 Barcelona with a focus on open data

"You can't sustain a democracy in an oligarchic state. The writers on Athenian democracy understood that 2000 years ago," says Chris Hedges, whose new book The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress explores the problems of a crumbling empire, inside and out. Chris joins Laura in studio for a conversation about the death of Bin Laden and the continuing concern over terrorism, the end of empathy in the U.S., and what avenues are left for progressives to fight back.  "The elites are not going to help us," he warns, "We're going to have to help ourselves."

In this interview on Canadian television Chris Hedges basically states that American democracy is dead and that only 'a revolution of the people' can restore the USA to democratic values. Since this is extremely unlikely, America will further degenerate, and end up as a semi-fascist corporate state, probably culminating in a right-wing backlash in the form of Nazi-like purges against Muslims, immigrants and other minority groups. And, of course, there will be more endless wars on defenceless nations to boost the arms industry and divert attention from the internal rot. Maybe the Americans should learn from the Egyptians rather than vice versa!

This film explores the historical role of the Democratic Party as the "graveyard of social movements", the massive influence of corporate finance in elections, the absurd disparities of wealth in the United States, the continuity and escalation of neocon policies under Obama, the insufficiency of mere voting as a path to reform, and differing conceptions of democracy itself.  Original interview footage derives from Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, Michael Albert, John Stauber (PR Watch), Sharon Smith (Historian), William I. Robinson (Editor, Critical Globalization Studies), Morris Berman (Author, Dark Ages America), and famed black panther Larry Pinkney. 

interactive exhibition which offers a platform for creatives to voice their opionions on the concept of democracy

Ist deswegen interessant: "Der demokratische Impuls, der von einer Open-Data-Initiative ausgehen würde, ist vermutlich um ein vielfaches höher als eine Reform des Wahlsystems."

Economic meltdown, pro-democracy revolts, protest camps - it's kicking off everywhere. But was all this catalysed by new social media and technologies as many claimed? Paul Mason, a BBC correspondent who witnessed much of the unrest at first-hand, tells Liz Else that it's a lot subtler than that

If we learned that the government was planning to limit our First Amendment rights, we'd be outraged. After all, our right to be heard is fundamental to our democracy. Well, our free speech rights are under assault -- not from the government but from corporations seeking to control the flow of information in America. If that scares you as much as it scares me, then you need to care about net neutrality. "Net neutrality" sounds arcane, but it's fundamental to free speech. The internet today is an open marketplace. If you have a product, you can sell it. If you have an opinion, you can blog about it. If you have an idea, you can share it with the world. And no matter who you are -- a corporation selling a new widget, a senator making a political argument or just a Minnesotan sharing a funny cat video -- you have equal access to that marketplace.

April 22, 2008 Democracy Now! Pentagon's Pundits: A Look at the Defense Department's Propaganda Program The New York Times has revealed new details on how the Pentagon recruited more than seventy-five retired military officers to appear on TV outlets as so-called military analysts ahead of the Iraq war to portray Iraq as an urgent threat. The Times reported the Pentagon continues to use the analysts in a propaganda campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration's wartime performance. We speak with Col. Sam Gardiner (Ret.) and Peter Hart of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. (excerpt)

It seems that just about every hundred years or so, the body politic we call America swells with fever as it fights off a democracy-destroying disease. That disease is "Special Interest Government".

It's a perfect storm. And I'm not talking about the impending dangers facing Democrats. I'm talking about the dangers facing our democracy.

In the balance of this paper, we place the emergence of the Internet in the broader context of the development of different systems of media and politics which have emerged throughout American history.

Nearly a decade ago, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) stood alone as the Senate's constitutional conscience. Casting the only dissenting vote against passage of the Patriot Act in 2001, he was powerless to stop an opportunistic power grab by neoconservatives who had long sought, well before the tragedy of 9-11, to expand our government's reach into the lives of law-abiding Americans.