A CALL TO ACTION FROM THE INDEPENDENT REPUBLIC OF DAM GREEN
for all who want to see real and meaningful democracy introduced to the United Kingdom, the United States of America and any number of other countries that currently do not have a properly functioning system of democratic government.
HISTORY
The Dam Green Republic was founded on the 9th of November 2001, Dam Green being a hamlet in the parish of Kenninghall, comprising just 15 houses and the Republic accounting for just 1.25 acres of that hamlet. On our coat of arms, the apple represents the oppressed poms (Aussie slang for the British people).
On this day we invited the entire population of the parish of Kenninghall and Dam Green and lots of friends and like-minded people to our first Republican Party where we celebrated with music and fireworks and the burning of the crown. The Republic has ever since then co-existed quite happily with the kingdom that surrounds it but in recent months it has become clear that because of the abysmal failure of the government to provide any leadership worthy of the name, it is no longer a safe option to just mind our own affairs and leave the UK to muddle along as it chooses. We have therefor decided to declare ourselves to be independent of the (Dis)United Kingdom. We will henceforth be Dam Greens rather than UK citizens and we welcome you to this our website.
The reason we regard the political systems of the UK and that of the USA as undemocratic are many but one of the main reasons is that in both countries the funding of the political system depends on donations rather than on state funding and in such a system it will always be easier to find financial support for a political party that promises to look after the best interests of the rich rather than one that promises to protect the interests of the poor. While it may appear to be an unimportant detail, it is thanks to this method of funding that the governing classes of these two huge economies have been able to allow the poor to fall ever further behind the wealthier members of their respective societies and they have succeeded in forcing the other economies of the first world to either trade at a disadvantage to them or else to follow suit.
What is more, in both the UK and the USA it is impossible to bring about change to the electoral system as in both countries an election can only be won by one of two parties, both of which benefit from maintaining the existing system that gives them a stranglehold on power. While only the rich have any access to positions of power and only the very richest and greediest have easy access to power, there is no hope of effecting change through the electoral process so another method has to be adopted to replace these systems with real and meaningful democracies. It is with this in mind that I propose on this day, the 9th of the 11th 2020, the 19th anniversary of the Dam Green Republic, that we begin a campaign of non-cooperation with government at all levels and a campaign of non-violent civil disobedience.
If the UK and the USA had sound democratic systems in place and funding was the only problem I would not suggest such a campaign but the American system has allowed 6 out of the last 7 Republican presidents to be elected even though they lost the popular vote and while there are 50 senators of each party, the Democrat senators polled 40 million more votes. In the UK the Prime Minister who destroyed the UKs best chance of future prosperity by holding a referendum on utterly idiotic terms won an absolute majority with just 26% support from the electorate. There are many other problems with what passes for democracy in America but they are problems only Americans can get to grips with and in America there is at least a glimmer of hope with the election of a new president. In the UK the problem is compounded by there being no democratic control over who sits in the upper house and no control over who is head of state. These posts are either inherited or filled from the ranks of the establishment and not only are they chosen in an undemocratic way, they have even now to a significant extent been chosen on the basis of gender and thus represent an insult not only to those who value democracy but to all women, no matter what their political persuasion.
The UK head of state has taken no active part in trying to prevent or mitigate the twin disasters of Covid and Brexit that face the people of this (‘her’) country and has allowed her first minister to lie to the heads of state of 28 countries (herself included), lie to parliament and the Lords, lie to the people and watched public confidence in the government evaporate precisely when public confidence in the midst of a pandemic is of utmost importance without her lifting a finger to help ‘her’ people in their predicament. She has from the outset sheltered herself from the Corona virus and her son from justice and when she eventually crawled out of the woodwork, it was to visit a research station for testing chemical weapons. Arguably the only bit of advice she has given to her people is that they should pray more, one assumes as help from above may seem more likely than help from her government.
The Lords are a national embarrassment and the MPs in the Houses of Commons are no better placed to curb the excesses of our mendacious Prime Minister and his cabinet of incompetents. The Prime Minister has surrounded himself with people who can be relied upon to be loyal to him and he has patently failed to find enough of those who have either brains or integrity and indeed it seems as if most members of the Cabinet have neither.
This farce cannot be allowed to continue!
I intend to do all I can to persuade people to discontinue all cooperation with this current government as no other non-violent means appear to be available. While it may seem difficult to start behaving in such a way when the whole of society pressures one to cooperate and to comply, I strongly suggest that to withdraw cooperation is the only remaining route to meaningful change. The government is regarded as a legitimate revenue raising authority only because it is perceived to be democratic while it patently is no such thing. Paying taxes is regarded as a civic duty even though the government spends much of the money raised in order to further enrich the already obscenely rich in return for which they can safely rely on further generous funding from that group.
Paying taxes is one form of cooperation but there are many other ways in which we unquestioning comply with unspoken understandings and behave in ways that allow the government to claim that they are governing with the consent of ‘the people’. We abide by the speed limits for good reasons but there is no law against driving just a little slower than the car in front. If enough people did just that, it could make an enormous difference to the economic activity in the country and it could bring home to those in power that they govern in spite of us rather than on our behalf and there are many other ways in which we could show our contempt for them and our determination to bring about a genuinely democratic government in the UK. The BBC has become the mouthpiece of the current administration and although the first minister is clearly a liar, the BBC refuses to allow anyone to say so and therefor it would be entirely appropriate to refuse to continue to pay the licence fee.
Actively opposing the government is only likely in the long term to encourage the regime to resort to ever more repressive measures and the already very limited access we currently have to unbiased information will be further curtailed. The police and the army are capable of stopping protestors from blocking roads and runways but they can’t force anyone to act in a way that helps society to function better. It is much harder for a regime to take harsh measures against people who drive a bit slowly or folks who say they cannot pay their bills and almost impossible to legislate against people who fill a supermarket trolley, only to find that they have left their money behind. The authorities can stop us from actively opposing them but they cannot force us to behave in ways that helps society to function better, no mater how disruptive this behaviour may be. Anyone who thinks that this is not the time for making things worse, make no mistake, doing nothing will enable them to do it for you and they will. This is no time for doing nothing as doing nothing will make it harder by the day to stop the idiots from destroying this beautiful world.
Cancel all standing orders and stop paying for bad government as paying them will only encourage them.
Our demands must be clear. We need to replace the electoral system that has brought this country to the verge of ruin and replace this sorry bunch of MPs with a democratically elected parliament that is accountable to the people and we need to replace the Lords with an assembly of part appointed and part elected people from all walks of life and get rid of the last vestiges of unearned privilege. Only then shall we be able to begin to address the pressing issues of our day such as inequality and the climate emergency.