Just say know´s first instrument ist DEMIT. DEMIT means Democratic Information Technology.
If you´re interested what DEMIT is, the demit-blog might be interesting for you.
To explain what DEMIT is I want to give you an easy description of the database and its options which were orginally designed and created for all those who believe that controlling a political system is better than trusting in those who think that they reprensent the (democratic) people and so the political system.
Democratic information technology depends on two essential principles:
The first of all is an all known and inhererent philosophic-political dilemma of all political-economical and at least democratic systems: Who controls those which control these which have the control? May be you know Robert Anton Wilson? 😉
The second once was decribed by Tim Leary – I love you Tim – and means: Just say know!
The data base is based on the concept of Jörg Pohl and was created by Jan Slabon in the years 2003-2005.
Once it was made for supporting descision finding in enclosed decision systems as workshops for regional development in the administrative district of Helmstedt, Lower Saxony, Germany. This idea failed heavily because I was not able to find the right words in a seamingly wrong time to declare what is this kind of descision controlling good for or not.
After this regional development project I had the idea to revolve and adapt the data base of this decision controlling internet based instrument towards political systems such as our local democratic decision finding system which depends on the german representative democratic system. And I failed again 🙂 The time isn´t ripe for this kind of democratic control. Now, when I write this essay – in August 2013 – still the time isn´t ripe yet, I guess.
May be you know something about the german democratic representative system? If not, here are some basic informations for you. I´ll start with one of the most important Art. of the german constitution which has the biggest influence in how our social and legal community and society works and because this Art. is designated to influence my professional working environment daily. The german constitution declares in Art. 28, para. 2, constitutional law, the so-called municipal (local) self-government or self-governance. That means, that our political representatives on the lowest governmental level (as the administrative district of Helmstedt) have different constitutional based rights to control the lower governmental level and to set political decisions as administrative targets such as planning of industrial real estates or general residential building areas and much more. The german communal (local) constitional fixed right of self-government means also that the local authorities in the representative boards can decide what they want to do within their constituency. Even if the german constitution declares that the municipal level of out nation is the administrating level of our society, the municipal level is protected by constitution – even by Art. 28, para 2. Over 20 years I´m working on this lowest governmental and administrationg level. And as the years passed by a unique criticism put it´s way into my daily work: The question is who controls the political decisions even when these decisions become legally binding, e.g. in construction law.
Normal practise over decades has been that the control media are represented by a legally independant press. But his system does not work sufficiently any time longer, even in the context of a more and more complex surrounding with international and global challenges (such as international financial markets and resourcing, raw material supply, climatic change, distribution problems and inernational trade systems and even more) and the concentration process of companies and markets.
On the lowest governmental – the municipal level it might be easy to get all information you need for example political decisions in your own town. Is it so or should we better state that it is a very high challenge for you?!? I think that it´s the least decribed scenario. It´s not so easy for single man. The local press is nowadasy not the newspaper of 10-20 years ago. Today the local gazettes and news-papers are mainly parts of huge even national or international press empires and they do not report about local dicison findings in our democratic representative bodies. Even if internet changes this secenario rapidly in the last few years, the editor´s have no floats to set their concentration on the
Combined with this reporting absence the so-called lobbying is a big challenge of all democratic representative systems. Sometimes one can not be sure if a decision or something like a directive or even a law was made by the politicians themselves or by the lobbies of special interests. If you – as a normal citizen of any country in the world – want to know who decides what, when and how you need a lot of time to get the informations to get to know it. Most of the times you are confronted at least with a “Join our party – then you´ll get all informations!” Is this true?! I don´t think so.
So – DEMIT was created to get more informations about your political decision systems. This data base as an internet embedded system offers you a tool with which you can create a mirror of all decision bodies in your town or your administrative district.
You enter all adresses of the democratic legalized representatives and combine them with the different bodies in which these representatives do their job.
Then you registrate yourself as an press body in your local town authority. After this the town administration has to give you all decision papers for the different political bodies of your town. Here in Helmstedt law says that all press bodies have to get these papers (or data) at least ten days before the political body has its meeting.
These data you enter in your www.demit-”example town”.de or whatever us. en. and so on.Now the habitants of your town can registrate on the www.demit-”example town”.de and you as the administrator team verfify the adress at the local authority because even real habitants of “example town” may decide on this special demit-domain.
One day before the real meeting of the political body takes place you close the online desision finding and the system can send this online.decision to all adresses you entered before – of cource of the political represenatives and the habitants which have logins and to other official press bodies in your local area. You wait one day and then you go to the meeting if it is an official meeting or you may ask by phone at the local adminstrative authority to get the real decision result. This result you enter and the data base now calculates the difference between the online and the real decision. This difference is send by the system to all addresses (the poltitical representatives, the habitants with logins and other official press bodies if you want) and the result can be seen on www.demit-”example town”.de
That´s all. Now you and your habitants know who decides what, when and how. Just say know.
In the latest version there is no discussion board in the system because DEMIT wants to be easy and clear and discussions are a matter of your local press body. If you want you can send your items towards the political representatives directly because on the homepage their adresses can be found. So you might start your own discussion because you´re very well informed by your www.demit-„example-town“.de.
But we created a special tool for you on DEMIT. To earn some money DEMIT offers the administration stuff the opportunity to place advertisements on the homepage. Basis of this idea was to connect local or regional economics with political decision control through the inhabitants as potential former customers of special products and services. For example: the cultutural committee and its decision finding is interessanting for cultural services like cultural hosts, bookshops, ticket sales and others. So you can sell after a while advertising places on the page which you can manage as the administrator of this page within the data base easily.