Posts Tagged "World Population"

Hillary Clinton On Democracy

Posted by admin on Jun 14, 2010 in Articles | 0 comments

Fox News criticized Hillary for telling European foreign ministers that the US was the first country in the world to establish democracy, while the Europeans claim that democracy begun in ancient Greece.

According to surviving historical records, the idea of democracy (Greek: dimokratia = people rule) was established in Greece around 2,500 BP (before present). The problem with this idea is that the ancient Greek democracy excluded women and slaves and was limited to Greek male nationals. Women of that time and region were no more than reproductive house slaves and the numbers of working slaves was often higher than the number of Greek citizens.

Before the Greeks, egalitarian tribes of the late Paleolithic and the Neolithic (50,000-5,000 BP) were the first to develop democratic systems. But as the world population grew, these tribes became male-ruled chiefdoms turned states and empires from 5,000 BP and on, eventually culminating in the Second World War which involved tens of millions of soldiers and most nations. The war was ended by the United States and its European and Russian allies, thereby freeing the West of the German national socialist regime, and paving the way to democracy.

The question is whether the West can talk about democracy as a done deal before actual gender, race and class equality is established.

The domestic violence statistics brought back into the spotlight by Chris Brown’s brutal assault of Rihanna and the view and treatment of such violent crimes by law enforcement, remind us that we have a long way to go.

Blank State – The Future of World Democracy?

Posted by admin on Apr 26, 2010 in Articles | 0 comments

A new project that aims to create a global democracy from scratch has settled on its first goal: to gather at least one member from every country in the world. Blank State, as the group is known, has been founded on a single core principle: democracy. The members collectively decide the goals and structure of the group through discussion and voting. Membership is free and open to all world citizens.

According to the founder, Duncan Rickelton, a democratic structure to represent the people of the world is long overdue: “The people of the world currently do not have a voice. The massive forces at play in today’s global economy are touching more and more lives and determining the future of the planet and the human race. It’s time the race as a whole had more of a say in how this goes.”

Only with fairly recent developments in technology has something like Blank State become possible. Over 23 percent of the world’s population now have internet access, representing an increase of 350 percent since 2000. Also, the popularisation of web 2.0 applications such as embeddable voting widgets is now making it easier than ever to collectivise the decision-making process of large organizations. Blank State is based in a social network (http://blankstate.ning.com) built on the Ning.com platform, which was itself only founded in 2005.

There are already members from eight different countries, but Blank State wants to go much further. The group recently decided to make it their first goal to get at least one member from every country in the world. “This will be our first step towards fair representation,” says Rickelton. “Once we’ve achieved that we’ll see where everyone wants to take this.”

Despite the growth in internet use, engaging a member in every country could be quite a challenge. In Myanmar, for example, still only 0.1 percent of the population has access. But the members of Blank State are undeterred. A message has already been posted in a Myanmar forum – there is still an internet audience of 40,000 people to reach.

A notable inclusion in the list of 195 target countries is the Vatican City. There is as yet no word as to whether the Pope will be invited to join, but with such an inclusive membership policy there is little doubt that he would be welcome.

For additional information about Blank State visit http://blankstate.ning.com