tw430

     On page 430 it says:

     "This is only the first, most primitive indication of tomorrow's potential for direct democracy. Using advanced computers, satellites, telephones, cable, polling techniques, and other tools, and educated citizenry can, for the first time in history, behing making many of its own political decisions.
     The issue is not either/or. It is not a question of direct democracy versus indirect, representation by self versus representation by others."

    More on page 430:

     "Many other imaginative arrangements can be invented to combine direct and indirect democracy. Right now members of Congress and most parliaments or legislatures set up their own committees. There is no way for citizens to force lawmakers to create a committee to deal with some neglected or highly controversial issue. But why couldn't voters be empowered directly, through petition, to compel a legislative body to set up committees on topics the public - not the lawmakers - deem important?"

     "But we must begin thinking outside the worn grooves of the past 300 years. We can no longer solve our problems with the ideologies, the models, or the left-over structures of the Second Wave past."