PeopleCount.org is all about members of Congress being wholly and only accountable to us, the people. What’s PeopleCount.org’s accountable for, and how can you hold PeopleCount accountable?

PeopleCount is accountable for fulfilling our mission:

To empower people to be responsible for and create effective and accountable government

Accountability happens only in a relationship. Who holds PeopleCount.org accountable? Ideally, it would be about 200 million American citizens! How about starting with you?

Please hold PeopleCount accountable for building the full site, or at least all the functions needed so that it works as the How it Works page describes. To do this, start by putting your email address on our newsletter.

And then communicate with us. Start by answering the questions in the Demographic Profile. Then email us suggestions for important issues to cover, as well as questions to ask and articles that would be good for the “More information” pages.

An issue is important if many people want to vote on it and say they want to receive reports on it. Who’s going to vote on your issues? Start with friends and family. Then, are there any groups in America that advocate for or against this issue? Do an exhaustive search and send us the list. Include their URL (website address) and how many members they have. When the site is ready, we’ll contact them to send their members.

I’ve written articles about creating our world. In this world we’re creating, PeopleCount.org will be at the center of politics. We’ll be accountable for a ton of stuff, including keeping your data secure and the tallies accurate. =

There are two ways you can help create this world. The first is to hold us PeopleCount accountable for it- communicate with us by emailing us and receiving our newsletter. The second is to be our partner– please join our mailing list and donate.

You should help PeopleCount.org bring political accountability to democracy.

A new Pew poll found: “just 19% say they can trust the government always or most of the time… Only 20% would describe government programs as being well-run. And elected officials are held in such low regard that 55% of the public says “ordinary Americans” would do a better job of solving national problems.”

Adlai E Stevenson said: “Public confidence in the integrity of the Government is indispensable to faith in democracy; and when we lose faith in the system, we have lost faith in everything we fight and spend for.”

The same Pew poll found that more than half of Americans see the federal government as having a major roll in 10 of 13 areas. That’s more than half of Republicans as well as more than half of Democrats!

So our government is failing, and we know it. Plus Congress is continually in gridlock, and 6 of 10 voters blame members of both parties.

Buckminster Fuller said, “The things to do are: the things that need doing, that you see need to be done and that no one else seems to see need to be done.”

That sums up why I started PeopleCount.org. We’ve tried every kind of way of fighting to try and get Congress to work together. We’ve even tried some compromise. What we haven’t tried is actually making members of Congress accountable to the people.

Currently, there’s little chance that I can pull a team together and get PeopleCount built. With your help, including some funding, we can.

Please: Make a donation. Vote on issues. Share with your friends.

In the last post, we looked at how accountability is not only in the center of politics, it’s also important for making PeopleCount work. What’s the proper relationship for you and PeopleCount.org? It is for you to hold PeopleCount accountable for delivering the results with which we all can transform politics together.

If enough of you hold me accountable, I’ll be reporting to you. I’ll be able to ask each of you for a donation. If there are enough of you, we can fund this from small donations without investment capital. If we can do this, I can take PeopleCount non-profit, or make it a customer-owned business (a mutual company). Americans could own this 4th estate (or 5th or 6th, depending on your definitions).

Even if we don’t raise enough to fund PeopleCount fully, funding it partially will also be a newsworthy event. We can leverage that publicity to add more supporters and make more news as well as get the attention of wealthy donors. There are enough wealthy donors to make this happen, but they won’t listen without some noise.

In my view, the Occupy movement has largely failed. I don’t know any results that people attribute to the Occupy movement except that it fueled the start of other movements. The reason it failed is that they couldn’t agree on what they wanted. I read that the leadership came to some agreements, but the word never got out. It certainly didn’t get out to the mainstream press in a way that inspired people to generate actions that produced results regarding their core issues.

Imagine that PeopleCount had been available to the Occupy movement. They could have communicated with each other about what they wanted. They could have seen how many of their supporters were behind their various wants. And they could have seen how much support they had in each district and state. Plus, their desires would have been in a form that the rest of America could look at and either agree with or disagree with.

We commonly say that Democrats and Republicans disagree. But the fact is that there also areas of widespread agreement. Some of those were in Occupy’s list.

Hold PeopleCount accountable for transforming Congress. You do your part and we’ll be able to do ours.

You could say that the fate of politics hinges on accountability. If you’ve read other articles, you know that PeopleCount.org is organized to make it easy and desirable for politicians to be accountable to people, and for people to hold politicians accountable.

The big challenge is whether I can put a team together. I came up with the idea 4 years ago, spent 5 months honing it, and then stalled for 3 months. Then I quit my job and spent 9 months making some progress, but not enough and found another job for 2 years and worked on it nights and weekends. I’ve been at it again, full time for the last 5 months. I almost had a team of 3 put together, but it didn’t work out.

While I might not be great at putting a team together, clearly lots of people know how to put together teams. We know how to launch organizations and make projects work. So all I have to do is convince enough people that this is doable and we’ll be able to do it. And when I talk to people, 90% think it’s doable.

Often these people go away and think about it and lose the idea. It’s not too complex, but it gets lost in there other “understandings” about politics, which I call “myths”. People get confused. If we talk again, they’re convinced.

So if I can get some face-time with a potential investor who wants to transform US government and empower people, it’s almost certain that the project will get backing, and take off. The problem has been that they won’t talk to me. All I’ve been able to get to them is a written description, and that hasn’t yet been convincing.

Your help here is welcome. If you can understand this, please send me an email. Read more of my posts (especially, see those in the “Memorable Posts” list). If enough people send me a note, we’ll be able to get their attention. If you want to see us succeed, please fill out the Demographics political profile on PeopleCount.org.

The fate of politics hinges on accountability. When enough of you hold PeopleCount accountable for transforming politics, we’ll be able to deliver. We’ll have the notoriety that it takes to attract a good team and to attract funding. At the same time, we’re pursuing other strategies as well.

There’s another way you can hold PeopleCount accountable. I’ll save it for the next post.

Most people think they’re right, that their political views are good, correct, fair. How does that work in an accountable democracy?

“Rightness” is not an absolute measure, it’s relative to ones point of view.  For instance, people who see equality as paramount easily view disparities as injustice.  People who view freedom as paramount can tolerate a fair amount of inequality. Either view can feel right.

In addition, rightness is basically a feeling we have. When I feel I’m right and others are wrong, my mind easily “sees” the problems with others’ arguments and points of view.

In a democracy, government should weigh the values of all people’s views. It needs to respect them and then at times choose rules or take actions that seem to honor some views more than others.

The foundation of accountability is giving an account of what happened and why. Without accountability, if your view doesn’t seem to be honored, you feel the government is wrong. But accountability can mitigate that. If your representative truly represents you, she knows that the solution doesn’t seem to honor your view. So in her report on the issue, she would. Perhaps the law contained exceptions or was made very specific in order to honor your view. Or perhaps a project is being rolled out first as a pilot project to ensure your concerns are addressed.

Without accountability, there’s a good chance you’d never find out. And if there is no accountability, a representative could easily overlook your concerns without consequence.

Without accountability, it’s easy to end up feeling I’m right and others are wrong, to feel frustrated, even to want nothing more to do with politics. But with accountability, hearing that my concerns were taken into account, I can more easily accept the verdict and keep participating. And by participating, I add my view, and my input, my wisdom.

With political accountability, being right becomes an essential part of the discourse, rather than a source of conflict. Hearing from our representatives about why they made the decisions they made is critical. It keeps people participating, which is essential for a healthy democracy.

This is part of a series on political accountability. Political Accountability is difficult to deliver because we have 3 basic misconceptions.

Most people gloss over their misconceptions. We think we’re right and smart, so we think, “Other people have misconceptions, not me!” Plus, our misconceptions are tightly integrated into other bits of knowledge. They become part of how we see the world.

As discussed in the first post in this series, accountability for a politician to the people, where the people are the boss, has 3 parts:

1. the boss guides the politician and has expectations
2. the politician answers the boss’ questions and is evaluated by the boss
3. the boss is able to fire the politician and hire another

Misconception #1:  Political accountability is just being able to hire and fire.

The first misconception is that we accept our cultural mis-definition of political accountability” as just being #3, fire-ability. It’s like trying to build a company by hiring lots of managers and having them work out what to do, letting them work for a while and then firing them if it doesn’t work out. Companies don’t work that way. They need constant oversight. They need goals and expectations, agendas and timetables.  They need to be managed, by a boss.

Misconception #2:  It’s impossible for us, the citizens, to be the boss.

Currently, we argue and fight a lot. Many of us don’t care and we aren’t well informed. We’re too busy to be the boss of politics! Even if those weren’t true, we’re unable to communicate with each other in a way that lets us act together. 

It’s true that we currently can’t be the boss. But it’s not impossible. We just need to design and build a system that facilitates the people communicating and acting together.

At PeopleCount, we’ve designed this system- we just need to build it. But if would help if you would stop thinking it’s impossible.

Misconception #3:  Politicians will not be answerable to us.

There IS accountability. Members of Congress needs money to run campaigns to stay in office. They are accountable to their big donors. So when industry wants something, it gets it. When the wealthy want tax breaks, they get them.

And they need their party endorsements and their party’s support. They’re accountable to their party.

Let’s focus more of our attention on solutions that reward accountability. They must reward accountability to the people and deter lack of it. Let’s loosen up the dependency on donors and free candidates from being accountable to their party.

We must make an underlying system that lets people design our future together and guides Congress to build it. It must enable accountability. It must reward people for working together to be the boss, and must reward politicians for being accountable.

As you read other articles, keep listening for such as system. And keep watching the three misconceptions arise in your thoughts. See what’s in the way of you seeing that political accountability isn’t difficult to deliver.

This post is mainly about being responsible for how you listen. The part about accountable government, political accountability, will come at the end.

By “listening”, I don’t mean how you hear. I mean how you add meaning

Someone posted on Facebook:

Wake up, jump out of bed, clap your hands together and say, “YES! I’M ALIVE! THANK YOU!” I’m grateful for being able to open up my eyes this morning and witness the majesty of the world! I’m grateful to see the crystal clear vision I have for myself and I’m going to get out there and make it happen, whatever it takes! As far as we know, we only have ONE life! What are you going to do today to make it unforgettable, full of love, passion, and purpose!?

Now we’re at the end, and should mention accountable government. Whether it’s present or missing, it’s part of life. Be responsible for how you listen for accountable government, too.