Draft Guiding Statements, January 2012

Washington Monument under construction, 1859, with exterior building blocks of white marble

The starting point for this Citizen Now project is the following series of "Draft Guiding Statements for a Community Convening a Democracy Movement for the United States" — consensus-developed from August 2010 to January 2012 by the Principles and Purpose Working Group, in conversation with nearly 2,000 of their fellow citizens. (For more on the founding history of this
project, please click here.)

These draft Statements are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license, which you can view here.

 

Draft Guiding Statements
For a Community Convening a Democracy Movement
for the United States

 

Core Ideals

AUTHENTICITY
We strive to be open with one another in a way that promotes
understanding, cooperation and trust.

EMPATHY
We engage with one another exercising humility, listening, honesty,
civility and respect.

INCLUSIVENESS
We reach out to and engage with people from diverse backgrounds and
political perspectives.

CONTINUOUS LEARNING
We educate and learn from one another, in order to help ourselves and
others make better-informed the decisions that shape our common life.

INDEPENDENCE
We remain independent of political parties and strive to keep ourselves
free of ideologically based assumptions and influence.

UNITY
We communicate in ways that bring people and ideas together.

DEMOCRACY
We honor the practice of democratic voting to make important decisions through a process that maintains respect for those with minority viewpoints.

 

::   ::   ::

 

Purpose Statement

[Organizational or Community Name] exists to convene, equip and empower
a movement of citizens who work together to make real the founding vision
of the United States as a country in which “Governments…derive their just
powers from the consent of the governed.” *

* Quote from the Declaration of Independence

 

::   ::   ::

 

Public Goals

PUBLIC GOAL 1
Identify, promote and help to secure those improvements to government, business and society that will enable and encourage all U.S. individuals and institutions to act together in ways that strengthen the self-governing voice
and power of We the People.

Sub-Goal
Build alliances and create effective public initiatives in areas that bear most directly on the functioning of a healthy and vigorous democracy — such as

• curtailing the undue influence of money in politics;
• government transparency (three branches);
• fair and open elections;
• access to highest-quality, unbiased news and information;

and

• the development of scalable technological innovations designed
  to foster greater citizen engagement and participation.

 

PUBLIC GOAL 2
Model a standard of political discourse and action that enables citizens respectfully to learn from one another and work together to examine the
issues and events of the day from the broadest perspective — so that
informed, reasoned and wise decisions can be made regarding our future
and our general welfare.