A petition, e mail, or any other form of communication has the potential to be a great tool of power projection but, as currently conceived, these “having your say” type efforts can have no genuine impact; nor can they make lasting change to our structural problems. Making no provision for organizing power, they are simply incapable of penetrating hierarchies and shifting allegiances. They will be rightfully perceived as the work of amateurs.

Their great weakness is that they can only be directed to one issue or cause and not address or affect a system as a whole. Further, rarely are such demands directed to appropriate decision makers and strategic in nature. Thus, on the occasion one such effort succeeds in getting the attention of those in power, it is unlikely to be sustained or instill permanent fear or respect in those being petitioned; which is essential.

The best you can get is a bone thrown your way, perhaps a stray battle won, but no more; that is beggary no less than protest signs are! Further, such on-line driven efforts serve to create a dynamic of "slackstivism"; the feeling that with a click ones civic duty has been done.

Our current political-media-electoral systems operate in a wide open expanse – a wild west – where media systems are completely unconnected to our civic authority. Under these circumstances no sustained presence of a deliberative citizenry can be assembled and the people will always lack for coherence. Without that, the projecting of any power is not possible.

More will be needed to gain control of our political system and public sphere. That will require a defined and specially purposed network tool, built like the country, where those who hold elected office will be strongly tied to a visible constituency who first are THEIR NOMINATORS; not a faceless theoretical entity to whom they owe nothing!

Establishing that makes unquestionable the people’s ability to project grant or deny power and that control of our elected officials can then be parlayed into all the network will be purposed to deliver: coalitions, knowledge-media, and a high functioning republic.

Yes. Some 11 of these dysfunctions are documented in the “Distortions” video series available on part five slide five of the web site. In fact it is demonstrated that no element of the current system would be left unaffected; should the people assemble and act within the framework suggested. What has been made clear is that the neglect of our nominating and ballot access powers is actually the chief enabler of the modern expression of ALL these distortions. Our absence from these functions leaves a vacuum that ensures this power will only be used for punitive and controlling purposes. Therefore, perhaps counter-intuitively, both the problem and the solution lie within it. For example, and again perhaps counter to intuition, it is not first the money that creates the entrenched incumbency; it is the lack of genuine competition within the ballot access and nominating process. What is important here is that people can do something about this; directly and decisively. Once the great potential for principled electoral competition is enabled, so are many other things. The ability for visible and coherent constituencies to penetrate, supervise and shine the light ensures that problems like revolving doors and ethical issues soon will be a thing of the past. Transparency is not difficult to get when allegiances have shifted to the public and matters that were previously obfuscated are dealt with publicly Redistricting is another misunderstood problem. The issue is not first that districts will not elect one or the other party because of how they’re drawn; the issue is that such districts will never create competitive dynamics at the nomination level. For the dominant party, this helps to ensure the incumbent has a safe seat from "within" so long as he is safe. Since competitive dynamics are discouraged and controlled, the residual effects ensure that when such an incumbent is challenged for the nomination (many and most are not in any serious way) the benefits and assets the incumbent has accrued assures he will make quick work of his rivals. This is a problem that exists in all elections - whether or not party affiliation is in play - and cannot be solved without the roof. However, that bad is greatly compounded when one considers that the *minority party of that district will likely never field serious candidacies, offer principled alternatives or truth; at either the nominating or general election tier of the system. This makes for many potential elections and rather trite and, perhaps even dissembling affairs, on the occasions there might be. This is a problem the redistricting literature mentions only in passing on the very rare occasions it does. Moreover, if one is only concerned about having a 50-50 chance of electing one or the other party in the general election, they have missed the entire point of the redistricting issue. And, this is exactly what has happened. Most all of the advocacy directed at redistricting complains about a safe seat for one or the other party and reports that a crisis. But, if there are few substantive differences between those parties - given how representatives are nominated and elected - it would matter very little if those elections were “competitive”. These are the true driving forces and the real crisis of our system; that no general election for leaders or new-fangled ballot initiatives will ever solve. The general elections certainly are and should be important but they are made something very much less when there is no competition at the granular level of the ballot access and nominating process. It is tantamount to a ladder with it first several rungs missing. General elections are indeed meaningless; if the nominating process has been ignored because the game will have already been decided! As documented, the approach proposed here will in fact create principled competition at all levels - all the time - and thus create great proximity to our elected officials and their operating environment. When there is proper participation at the first tier level, these and many other distortions fade as we durably rebalance power structures in our system and society. * (as the dynamics transcend parties, in elections where the parties play no role- substitute the term challengers for minority party)