Direct Democracy Gregory @DirectDemToday

Agreed

🇨🇭 Take a listen to this short introduction to The Swiss Democracy Dictionary. Today, September 27, the Swiss people are voting on national, regional and local issues. Perhaps you are interested in having more say and in also having the tools to act within your own political system? If so this book is for you. Take 5 minutes to listen #DirectDemocracy

@brian_welsh @KetanVora4 @andyburnham I don’t see any accountability in the British system. We have that in Switzerland.

@andyburnham What’s missing is participatory democracy whereby people don’t just have a say, or vote for people every four years, but they have the tools to intervene, like they have in Switzerland

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Some people continue to deny the evidence of their eyes even when it’s obvious, all because they saw something on the TV 📺

@sequi_simon @jperkinsauthor All roads lead back to…..

And “debt” is where those in power seem to want everyone to be. I sometimes ponder the thought that if George Orwell had heard the refrain “Build Back Better” he would have immediately recognized an inversion. The word “Build” actually means “Billed” Bill the plebs as much as you can, so that they can’t pay - ergo the “cost of living Crisis”. “Back” becomes “Lack” - let them lack and be in lack on every front, scarcity everywhere. Then “Better” - this becomes “Debtor” once they’re in deep debt, then they come to the State, with their begging 🙏🏼 bowls. Exactly where they want you. Build Back Better REALY means “Billed, Lack, Debtor”

@DirectDemToday @andyburnham 💯 That's where we should be

“Vaud and the Power of Direct Democracy” 🇨🇭🗳️ Today in Vaud, one of Switzerland’s 26 cantons, voters did something that citizens in many representative democracies cannot do. A canton is not simply the Swiss equivalent of a UK county. It is a highly autonomous state within the Swiss Confederation, with its own government, parliament, constitution, taxes and substantial powers over public services. And yesterday, the people of Vaud overruled their government. Voters approved a 12% reduction in cantonal taxes, despite the cantonal government’s opposition and warnings about the impact on public finances. This is the power of direct democracy. In a conventional representative system, citizens elect politicians and then largely hand over the decision-making to them until the next election. You choose who governs, but you don’t normally get to vote on the policies themselves. Switzerland works differently. Here, citizens don’t simply elect the people who make the decisions. Under the constitutional system, they can sometimes make the decisions themselves. The government can argue. Parliament can debate. Political parties can campaign. Interest groups can lobby. But ultimately, the people can say: “We decide.” That is more than having the right to vote. It is having political power between elections. Direct democracy doesn’t guarantee that every decision will be right. But it changes the relationship between citizen and state. Politicians govern. The people retain the final say. Perhaps that is the question other democracies should be asking: Why should citizens only be allowed to choose who governs them, when they could also have a constitutional right to decide what is governed? Motto of canton Vaud - Liberté et Patrie (Freedom & Homeland) #DirectDemocracy

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“Have you noticed the rotten fruit?” Or “ By their fruits you shall know them” A poem Shake the tree, and what is rotten falls. Better the rot revealed than hidden in the wood, quietly spreading where no one can see. For how can we remove what we do not know is there? So let the shaking come. Let what is rotten fall into the light. It may disturb us now, but what is exposed can finally be removed. And what remains may yet grow strong again. There’s a reason for the shaking.

Cain – Megalithic City Builder” At the beginning of 2026, I published Cain – Megalithic City Builder. It is somewhat different from the books I have published before: four novels and three non-fiction books, all connected in some way to direct democracy. Yet Cain, another novel, has a connection to direct democracy too, although the words “direct democracy” are never mentioned. The connection lies in power. More specifically, it lies in entrenched power and the desire of certain so-called elites to make their power and control permanent. I could think of no better symbol of that desire than the ancient megalithic stonework scattered across our world. These extraordinary structures have survived for thousands of years. They were built to endure, and they have. They are, quite literally, symbols of permanence carved in stone. Taking that idea of permanence, and the human desire to achieve it, the book takes the reader on an extraordinary historical journey following the discovery of thirteen ancient manuscripts by a Benedictine monk. Each manuscript has been written by a different hand, yet all thirteen are discovered together in a hidden recess within an ancient abbey. What they reveal is a story of power: the story of those who have sought, throughout human history, to acquire power and then hold it forever. The journey begins in a world many would call myth: the antediluvian world before the great Deluge, an event reflected in more than 200 flood traditions from cultures around the world. From there, the manuscripts carry us through the ages that followed and into the great civilisations and empires of history, each seeking permanence in its own way, learning from those that came before, and each ultimately discovering that power built on permanence can eventually collapse. The manuscripts take us into the corridors of power behind these attempts to control the future. You will encounter those who came through the portal of the Flood. You will find yourself in ancient Egypt and Babylon. You will meet Greeks travelling along a road in Athens and listen in on their conversation. You will encounter secret discussions about Rome and, later, the Vatican. Then the journey takes you somewhere altogether different: into the cottage of a Cornish tin miner, before transporting you to a pub in the heart of London, where Fleet Street reporters discuss the power behind the power. You will discover the events of 1963 that helped shape the world we inhabit today. You will follow the narrators into China and Tiananmen Square. And eventually, you will be transported into 2036, into a dystopian world driven by algorithms, surveillance and control. Across 344 pages, our hero, the Benedictine monk, becomes your fellow traveller. As the story unfolds, the connection between the ancient stones and the pursuit of permanent power becomes increasingly clear. Like those megaliths, the structures of power seek to endure long after their creators have disappeared. And then comes the most unsettling possibility of all. The digital world is borderless. For the first time in human history, technology has created the possibility of concentrating power on a truly global scale. The dream of permanence could become reality: a single, vast, centralised state, governed from above and removed from the principles of subsidiarity, decentralisation and direct democracy, where power ultimately belongs to the citizens. It is a world in which permanence of power comes dangerously close to being achieved. But as the story reaches its climax, all is not lost. Freedom has one more card to play. And when it does, it breaks in spectacular fashion. So why not join the journey? Read Cain – Megalithic City Builder, a novel about power, permanence, control and the extraordinary possibility that freedom can still prevail. Whereas my other books throw a light on what direct democracy is, Cain reveals what the power mongers want, absolute control.

@DaleSearle2 I haven’t - do you recommend it?

🇨🇭- Les habitants du canton de Vaud, en Suisse, ont voté aujourd’hui en faveur d’une initiative populaire obligeant leur gouvernement à baisser l’impôt cantonal sur le revenu et l’impôt cantonal sur la fortune de 12%, contre l’avis de ce même gouvernement ✅ J’ai beau essayer de faire travailler mon imaginaire de toutes mes forces, je n’arrive pas à imaginer un jour ce genre de chose arriver chez nous. Peut-être des leçons à tirer de la part de l’un des pays les mieux gérés du monde ?

@Divs_King @lasouveraine6 This is why 🇨🇭👇🏼 C'est la raison pour laquelle

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