Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Politics DIY legislating, the movie
Posted by Lindsey Millar on Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 4:53 PM
Local filmmaker and regular contributor to the Times Gabe Gentry is raising money Kickstarter-style for a low-budget version of a reality show that he came close to getting made on PBS last year. It's sort of like "Road Rules" meets CSPAN.
Directing Democracy is a documentary film project that will chronicle an experiment in open source governance. We want the online community to elect three citizen representatives: a centrist, a progressive, and a conservative, to become investigators and eventual editors of a crowd sourced bill aimed at revitalizing the middle class.Your elected representatives will travel the country meeting with policy experts and concerned citizens to seek their input. During their two-week journey, you and others will have access to an online Wiki bill. It is here that the various debates and drafts of the crowd-sourced legislation will take form.
The edited bill will be hand delivered to each House Congressional office in Washington, D.C. The entire process will be filmed for a feature length documentary to be released in 2012.
Will Congress act on the crowd-sourced legislation? I'm guessing no. But that doesn't mean this won't be compelling viewing.
Speaking of crowd-sourcing, a friend of a friend is behind ioby.org, a site that helps folks "crowd-fund" local environmental projects. It's just finished its NYC pilot and is now accepting projects from around the country. I suspect someone in these parts has one.
Comments (2)
Showing 1-2 of 2
Gabe was very generous to me with his time and suggestions 6 years ago and I've always considered him a great Arkansas asset. I have a little money coming later in the month and I'll peel some off and send it to him for his project.
One of 2 things will happen in America for the next year. Either the Occupy movement will be successful in getting the majority of Americans to rethink the current warped system we're operating under and I do mean way way under, or the bad guys will win and our government will become even more a tool of the rich and the misery level of the working people will go up and up.
Not that Gabe is connected to Occupy (I do not know), but I'd think that if more Americans start questioning the unfairness of our current system, it would open the door to new ideas such as Gabe's group is suggesting. With Congressional approval at 9%, and our misery factor set at bright orange, if ever our government and our elected officials needed a good steam cleaning....it's right now.
Washington, DC and the capitals of all 50 states are operating like it's still the 20th century..if not the 19th. Computers and instant communication demands a big adjustment to the way we're governed (first lets have a law saying an outgoing elected official can't crush state hard drives). Clearly America isn't being served well by our antiquated system so riddled by loopholes that the super rich get away with murder on a daily basis.
Let's give Gabe some money and a chance to help drag our government into the 21st century.
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Guess I'm going to wear the conservative attire here and call this for what it is..
plain f*cking stupid.
3 people selected to gather info and write a bill. He's got to be kidding. So easy to manipulate 3 people.
I hope these young chaps rake in all the money they need to live a free-wheeling life for another year or two. I've never been one to knock a good money game.
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