Times are changing. Everywhere, frustrated people demand more control over their lives, and everywhere governments slowly and reluctantly accede to these demands. The ordinary citizens of Europe and of North and South America understand they face the same danger and the same enemy, for they understand the concept called "Global Free Trade" is merely the strategy of powerful, selfish men to replace political rule of Earth with their economic rule.

Millions of ordinary people in Latin American countries have rejected the U.S. initiated Free Trade Agreements, and in Europe millions—recognizing its subversive intent—have rejected the proposed European Constitution. Citizen groups in many European countries are currently struggling to create a more just and humane constitution for proposal to the European community. In the United States, millions of frustrated citizens have marched to protest the concept of Global Free Trade.

But protesting and even defeating the concept of free trade will solve neither the American republic's nor the European's true problems. And what are these true problems?

There are many. But the core problem is that common citizens of planet Earth, and by common I mean those without wealth, title, or authority, despite their greater numbers, are timid. And because of their timidity and fear of confrontation—even social confrontation—they have easily been programmed throughout the centuries to accept the voice of authority and the unjust, prejudicial political systems that keep them impoverished and ignorant of many crucial truths.

Within the last half-century, commoners have begun to think about alternative ways to operate governments more fairly. These thoughts have taken two directions.

First: development of new models of government organization that allow ordinary citizens to participate in government decision-making.

Second: development of processes to assist groups of ordinary citizens to make informed and logical decisions, as good-or better-than their political leaders.

The first direction is exemplified by the proposed National Initiative For Democracy comprised of a Democracy Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and a Federal statute law called the Democracy Act , which together assert the citizens' sovereign rights as lawmakers and provide the tools to assert that right.

A second plan has been offered by the E.F. Schumacher Society called "Decentralization," which emphasizes the efficiency and relevancy of small neighborhood and regional government units as opposed to large centralized governments.

Then, there is the Simultaneous Policy plan of the International Simultaneous Policy Organisation At the very beginning of its proposal the organization admits that "it's clearly going to take some years for SP to be adopted by sufficient nations" for DD to sink roots.

Another approach to modify government's structure is called "A New Way To Govern" by Shann Turnbill, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. His plan revolves around a principle called "Network Governance." This approach involves the restructure of government to include "stakeholder councils:" a stakeholder being anyone affected by government such as government officials, government employees, citizens, professional advisors, etc. Each of these councils would function as both advisory and watchdog groups. Together, it's believed the councils would exert a regulating influence to keep government honest and efficient, benefiting society as a whole.

There are other such plans with merit popping up all the time as individuals around the globe become dissatisfied with elitist governments and top-down lawmaking processes, such as Plan B For Managing Civilization by John Lowry, Beyond Plutocracy, by Roger Rothenberger, and Inclusive Democracy by Greek journalist/author Takis Fotopoulos.

Then, of course, there are the traditional Initiative & Referendum movements within the U.S. The first state to include I&R for its citizens was Nebraska in 1897. Today, one hundred and eight years later, only 22 states have approved I&R, while the elitist governments of 28 states have ignored citizen demands for these political rights, or merely passed restricted versions of either the initiative or the referendum.

As for development in the second direction taken toward DD, there are two similar, but different processes being successfully tested.

The most promising is the Planning Cell concept originated by Professor Peter Dienel, Bergische University, Wuppertal, Germany. A Planning Cell is comprised of a randomly selected group of nonpartisan citizens gathered for three or four days to discuss, deliberate, and decide how to respond to a single social issue or need. Citizens are reimbursed for income lost and given a daily expense allowance. Decisions are passed on to the commissioning body-normally a government agency. Planning Cells have been successfully utilized throughout Europe since 1972.

In the U.S. the Jefferson Center, founded by Ned Crosby has initiated a process it calls "Citizen Juries," which is similar to Planning Cells. Citizen Juries have been used in the U.S. on such projects as Minnesota's Property Tax Reform, Physician Assisted Suicide, Comparing Environmental Risks, and Welfare Reform. Citizen Juries have been utilized in Australia and in England.

In 2004, the citizens of British Columbia, Canada, formed a Citizens Assembly that met for eleven months to study international electoral systems. They made their suggestions for federal electoral reform in a report to the government and the people of British Columbia in December of 2004. However, as is the norm with elitist government, the Canadian Parliament's Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs tabled the report.

All of these experiments designed to allow the common people to effectively participate in the decision-making processes of government, however, are structured to function parallel to existing hierarchical systems, complementing, rather than replacing them, or they rely upon these elitist, top-down systems for funding to function effectively, something that rarely happens.

There has been more than enough talk throughout the past few decades about the advantages to be gained by the common masses of Earth should they adopt the political form of government known as "participatory" or "Direct" Democracy. It's time to transfer such talk into physical action in the real world.

What is needed at this stage of human evolution is a financially independent organization with a program to help fulfill the demand for just government. Such an organization would accomplish its goals by educating commoners with the knowledge and skills of the Planning Cell concept, and by doing so increase both the demand for Direct Democracy and the probability of its success.

I offer a vision of such an organization, recognizing its limitations as well as its potentials. I envision an organization with a fourfold mission:

1. to function as a provider of knowledge and physical assistance to social units—large and small—requesting guidance in initiating a DD form of government via Planning Cells.

2. to train the personnel who will actually teach and assist these social units to conduct Planning Cells, which I prefer to call "Citizen Advisory Committees" as I believe it is more descriptive of the groups' function.

3. to educate all segments of society with knowledge that DD is the only true democracy, acquaint them with the benefits of DD, and impress upon them that many traditional social illnesses, such as poverty and ignorance, can be eliminated only within the environment of a true democracy.

4. to make the organization financially self-sufficient.

Enthusiasts understand the only chance for Direct Democracy to take root upon Earth is totally dependent upon, what seems to be, an insurmountable task of educating the public. But the task is not insurmountable.

This organization would create and produce a DD course and textbook titled "Direct Democracy As A Political Option." The contents would be based upon experiences of Professor Dienel and his Planning Cells in Germany, and Citizen Juries in the U.S. The textbook would describe other DD experiments around the globe. The organization would be responsible for persuading college, university and, perhaps, high school administrators to integrate the DD course and textbook into their political or government curricula.

Another of the organization's activities would be the promotion of DD to the progressive and non-profit segments of society and the production of a booklet for the general population called "Take Control Of Your Political System: How To Make Citizen Advisory Committees Work."

A third—and probably its core-activity—would be to solicit and train students as interns to perform one, or more, of four different activities.

1. to become a working board member and/or officer so that it will be possible to relinquish operation of the organization to the younger generations as soon as feasible.

2. to become Programmers and Moderators who will go where requested to help conduct Advisory Committees initiate DD political systems.

3. to go out into the world of females and spread the word that the only possible way to bring true equality, justice, and peace to planet Earth is for females to demand equal political authority with males in determining their society's priorities, and that establishing a bottom-up political system is the only possible way to produce such gender-equal societies.

4. to spread the word among the Earth's young non-students.

Logically, there are two groups that should lead any movement for DD: the academic and the scientific communities. It's the students, teachers, scientists, and philosophers-the active seekers of truth and knowledge-who will be a stabilizing element in any attempt to initiate true democracy, and they should assume their advisory role at the very beginning.

Why preference for the academic and scientific communities above all other segments of society? For four reasons.