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A True Democracy

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Thank you, thank you for being here. I am traveling the country

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presenting conferences on a subject I have been working

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on for the past six years, something that I think

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should be of interest to you. Something that is poorly addressed in our media;

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yet a subject that seems trite: that is democracy.

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And ... while the referendum debate of 2005 was being prepared (NT: on the European Constitution)

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and studying what turned out to be an anti-constitution

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since the European constitutional treaty is in fact an anti-constitution.

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In other words, it is a text aimed to destroy national constitutions.

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(I will explain what I mean when I say that)

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As I was studying the anti-constitution, I woke up.

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Meaning, I was politically asleep.

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I was like the majority of us, a voter without any specific loyalty, without

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a party, without a syndicate / union, even with no social organisation.

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I was taking care of my own business, like all of us. And on the 2005

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referendum debate, because of an anecdote that turned all eyes on me

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(and I am not saying this to talk about me),

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I started to think about what kind of institutions would be able to make

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the same changes that happened to me,

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happen to a greater number of people.

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Athenians were very good at this, mind you. In other words, humans are sensitive...

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The majority of humans are sensitive to the way others view them.

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We are driven by what others expect of us

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and we are held back to a certain limit.

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Often, that limit is in the suspicious or disapproving look from others.

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Meaning that the look of others,

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benevolent or reproachfull, helps us behave well or badly.

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And this is what happened in a way for me, I think.

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At least in regards to my decision to act,

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to engage in politics, trying to understand, and putting myself to work for the greater good,

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and finally after the intense emotions that I lived

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for two or three months during the time of the referendum,

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March, April May and June 2005, I did not stop.

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Meaning that for the entire period we contested the European Anti-constitution.

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We will talk briefly about it, maybe during the Q & A

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I will try, although it is difficult for me, but I will try to be brief

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and leave time for a Q & A

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because I come here looking for ideas too, from you.

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The political Trap

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So after criticizing an anti-constitution,

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which was the European constitution, I asked myself: What do we replace it with?

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Could we build something else instead?

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And so several schools of thought emerged in my head

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I am looking to decipher, enumerate, the variables of the political trap

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in which we are all trapped throughout the world.

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We are in a political trap that has shared characteristics

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in all the countries around the world, especially by inverting the meaning of the words

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by literally inverting the meaning of the words like Orwell argued in 1984.

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You know, Big Brother and the Newspeak deprived people that they wanted

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to dominate from the possibility of resisting

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by inverting the meaning of the words and by suppressing the words entirely

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that would highlight the problem. They weaken us.

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Thus we need a real effort here, that we should all do,

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which is re-appropriating the real meaning of the words

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that contain solutions. We aren't even able to find them

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because we were giving them an inverted meaning.

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In addition, I am working on an alternative, I am researching

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(Oh here you go! That's nice, does this work? Can you hear me now? Note: Etienne is handed a microphone.)

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I am researching in a constructive way, realistic way, not at all utopian.

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I am looking to institute, to imagine a system of institutions

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that would finally protect us against the abuse of power.

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So in fact, the back bone of my work,

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in fact of all the work that I have done politically for the last six years

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is.. finding what are the causes of the abuse of power? What makes social injustice possible?

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And I am going to share with you what I have found today

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on this project and what we could do

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to protect ourselves efficiently and for the long term.

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Here again I believe I found some paths... By searching I found...

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But, I don't come with polished ideas, fully conceived, finished and packaged, I am not here to sell you anything

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because I am not a candidate for anything. Many people asked me to run,

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it is simply, absolutely not an option.

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I refuse even the notion of power the same way one would refuse drugs.

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I know that if I used drugs, it would be delicious

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I clearly see that drug addicts live in a world..

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But I also know that it is a dangerous world, so I don't use drugs

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Well, it is the same with power. I want to stay alert,

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trying to be of service without hurting myself in the process

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When we study the history of humankind, there is practically no exception

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that power corrupts, power changes people for the worse,

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money too, but power corrupts. So I am not here

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to try and convince you, I am not here for your votes

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but instead I believe that we are all in need of

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each other, to implement and to desire the success of

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the idea that I am going to defend before you and which could work.

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It is about implementing a real democracy.

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Seeking the root cause

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What I would like to focus on is:

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What is a constitution?

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What link does it have to social injustice?

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The nature of the social injustice, the battles against the social injustices,

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will inherently divide us if we burden ourselves with the consequences instead

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of focusing on the causes.

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What should we have to change so that we finally have

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a true constitution? I am a beginner in politics.

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It has been 5 years that I have been practicing

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and I crossed paths with activists, old activists

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that have over 40 year of political life. Every Wednesday

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they distribute flyers in the markets, they run meetings non-stop

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they think non-stop about the greater good and this for decades.

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To each one his or her sector has a priority,

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and this one's priority is the corporate injustices, because to him this idea appears of utmost importance and is essential.

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This right, unjust, which gives power to the owner of companies

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and none or very little to employees whose only power is their work,

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for this activist, it is essential and he fights against that.

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He tries to improve the workers' situation in companies.

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But also, so is the case for another activist, who is working hard

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on ecological catastrophes

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that are becoming more and more threatening. For another, the problem is nuclear energy

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and its danger, for another person, it is the GMOs etc.

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I don't want to get into more details. What am trying to say, is that I met

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hundreds of people with their own specialty

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in activism and protests and they embraced, heart and soul, social injusticel - it is the word I use

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to group all protests - a social injustice that he fights

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and in which he becomes expert and knowledgeable of the mechanics of injustice

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and the cunning of those behind it, and is often driven to

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consider as an enemy another activist, which surprises me

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that he fights someone who is also fighting social injustice that has nothing to do with his,

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but is as important. The first example that comes to mind

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when I tell you this, is the anti-nuclear activist

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who perceives nuclear as an imminent threat

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and has made it a priority, and this activist when he is side by side

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with an activist fighting financial fascism or

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predatory finance, and which is a priority for him,

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but he happens to be pro-nuclear because he considers that it is progress,

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Well, for now he thinks it is dirty, but in the long run it will be clean

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These two activists can hate one another to the extreme,

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when from where I am standing, I consider both activists

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relatively heroic, alone in their corner, where they spend most of their time,

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all their energy, and their fight is worth it on both sides.

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Their disagreement deserves a debate, a discussion

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And then we will vote, we will have a referendum, and we will see what comes out of it.

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It is not worth banning each other when we should be resisting.

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So what I want to say, I could elaborate on this, but I am going to summerize

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What I would like to say is that all these activists have a common goal

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that they are fighting over, what I call, consequences.

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The consequences of a cause, which in fact is common.

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I think that ALL these social injustices,

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but I could be wrong, I am not perfect,

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but it appears that all these social injustices

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have a common point, a common cause which is none other than our political powerlessness / impotency.

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And you are concerned too, like me, I believe, unless you are ...

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even if you are from the parliament. I find our common political impotency

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to be the common cause.

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behind our inability to resist all social injustices,

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practically all. And if you would like, I follow a precious method

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that I think will serve me all my life.

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I discovered this, I find it very helpful.

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I found out an advice from a guy named Hippocrates

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in Antiquity, he was a doctor and put forward, in a few words

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an idea he left us, which is very helpful.

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It is very logical, very practical and very pragmatic

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Hippocrates left us with these few words: "search,

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"search for the root of causes." Then he died and disappeared

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but he left us with this "search for the root of causes"

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and it is very shrewd, I believe.

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We can take one or two examples: We don't cure a disease

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by attacking symptoms, everyone understands this I think

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We cure a disease by looking for the cause of the disease

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and by attacking the cause, we fix the disease.

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And when we are faced with several causes, which is often the case,

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practically everything is multifactorial, if there are several causes

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we don't attack just any cause, we try to locate

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the source, it is a different image, we try to go back to the source

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to locate the cause of origin, in other words, to detect and

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destroy cause "zero" (the root cause) which controls the other causes.

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And I integrated this research method

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and it is this method that I use. So when I look at all these social injustices,

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I don't limit myself to fighting corruption,

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I try to find the cause of corruption.

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I fight however, the bankers who are bankrupting us.

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I try to understand, what gives these bankers

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all the power and none to me. Do you understand what I am trying to say?

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I don't attack a banker by saying "he is evil and we are good".

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Not at all. I don't think along these lines. I try to understand

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what is the cause, the principal cause of my total political powerlessness.

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I think of course in terms of the greater good, for the city,

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for our social society.

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A true constitution

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When we graduate from law school we are under the impression

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that the constitution... is a tool that protects people

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but I think we don't know much, most importantly what is bad

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is that we are only taught this in law schools.

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I think that every citizen should know from a very young age,

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people should learn

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what they could win or lose from having a good or bad constitution.

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Let me explain in a few words: The idea of the constitution is simple ...

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it is simple and it is fabulous. It is there to save us.

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We need it, this is what we need today.

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I will get back to it later, I will come back to the link between this and our problems.

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But to say it in two words, to say what we ought to explain to our children

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when they are little,

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but we should later keep in our minds, between us, so as not to lose sight of its importance.

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If I put the citizens on the bottom, the group of people who want to create society,

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if there is no written law, no State of law,

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we will be hitting each other and will live by brutality.

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But to create peace, and this over 2500 years ago,

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they decided to submit to law

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which would be superior to this society and would prohibit the powerful

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from imposing "their law" which in essence was not a law.

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The law of the fittest is not a law, it is a perception

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To prevent that the most powerful abuse the rest of us,

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humanity put in place a law, a written text of rules

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which are produced, written by people in power

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who are above us. So we consent to putting in place,

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we say "to institute" powers, that will have

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the important duty of producing the law to which we will consent.

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This is very important but at the same time very dangerous

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Meaning these powers that we accept to govern us

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are at the same time very useful and very dangerous.

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Therefore, given this context, thousands of years ago,

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the people who were aware of this danger,

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because they were not insane,

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put in place a set of rules above these powers.

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Rules that were superior to these powers in order to protect us.

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These rules are called the law of law, the Constitution

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The constitution, is law, but it is a higher system

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whose charge is to question the powers and to weaken them,

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to weaken the powers so as to protect us.

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This, any kid could understand. A kid should know this.

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An adult also understands this. We should have in our heart

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this protective organization and we should defend

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this precious ideal, this protective, appeasing thing that is this Constitution.

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Beware! A true constitution, not a fake one.

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We will see what I call "power thieves" are champions

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in word inversion, including the word "Constitution"

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They are champions for using the word Constitution when

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in fact it is exactly the opposite,

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because it is not because you put together a text that you have solved the problem

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This text, I repeat, this higher text

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shouldn't just organize the powers.

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Because powers in place don't need us to get organized

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A constitution does not serve to organize the powers.

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A constitution is meant to weaken the powers, to make them

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protect us, to protect everyone from any abuse of power,

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to protect us at all times, rich and poor, young and old,

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to protect us from the maximum amount of abuse of power

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there is a constitution. Once we understand this

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normally, we are ready to understand that a person

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that is going to write, the people that are going to write this higher text

241
00:18:50,983 --> 00:18:53,828
to keep in check those who will produce the law,

242
00:18:53,828 --> 00:18:59,204
meaning those of parliament, the judges, the ministries, the presidents,

243
00:18:59,204 --> 00:19:02,758
even those of the media. If the constitution covered the media too,

244
00:19:02,758 --> 00:19:04,844
journalists would fear the Constitution too.

245
00:19:04,844 --> 00:19:09,409
The banks, because financial systems should be covered too

246
00:19:09,409 --> 00:19:11,509
by a modern constitution in which powers would be separated

247
00:19:11,509 --> 00:19:14,711
We may talk about this later. Right now, these powers

248
00:19:14,711 --> 00:19:18,792
produce rules that we fear.

249
00:19:18,792 --> 00:19:22,936
These powers, you understand now, should fear the constitution which is designed to protect us

250
00:19:22,936 --> 00:19:26,867
Do you see how since they are useful and dangerous

251
00:19:26,867 --> 00:19:34,600
It is necessary that they have something to fear.

252
00:19:34,600 --> 00:19:38,923
It is absolutely insane to grant to these people (in power) the role of writing the constitution.

253
00:19:38,923 --> 00:19:43,401
I hope you see that if the people in power write the rules that they should

254
00:19:43,401 --> 00:19:49,301
be following and that they should fear, it won't work.

255
00:19:49,301 --> 00:20:00,485
Is this clear? If you bring it back to basics, it is simple

256
00:20:00,485 --> 00:20:05,436
and very important. And I am surprised

257
00:20:05,436 --> 00:20:07,385
that it is not in public debates more often. But that it is not

258
00:20:07,385 --> 00:20:10,168
in the debates of parliamentarians, ministries, and men in power

259
00:20:10,168 --> 00:20:14,650
this does not surprise me. That it is not discussed by

260
00:20:14,650 --> 00:20:19,968
people in parties... Well I know that there are great people in parties.

261
00:20:19,968 --> 00:20:21,551
I have many friends in political parties, but at the head of each party

262
00:20:21,551 --> 00:20:23,451
there are people that are ... it is like a filter

263
00:20:23,451 --> 00:20:28,627
it seems as though the parties choose amongst us those who lie the best,

264
00:20:28,627 --> 00:20:33,651
who are the most resilient to ill treatments, the biggest traitors, the most...

265
00:20:33,651 --> 00:20:39,669
Well not all of course, I know some are not, however, it seems

266
00:20:39,669 --> 00:20:41,969
that the people at the head of parties are in no way similar to us.

267
00:20:41,969 --> 00:20:45,473
It looks like they went through a filter. So I am not surprised that amongst these people there is no talk of constitution.

268
00:20:45,473 --> 00:20:52,197
But for us and to me, the current context is favorable

269
00:20:52,197 --> 00:20:54,119
to explain this. Nowadays, the abuse of power is in open daylight

270
00:20:54,119 --> 00:20:56,197
We see these abuses on a daily basis. It is impressive when

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00:20:56,197 --> 00:21:01,329
we have 4, 5 new and considerable abuses.

272
00:21:01,329 --> 00:21:07,620
And always, something that we can no longer formulate

273
00:21:07,620 --> 00:21:13,625
so much we have became used to it, always our political powerlessness / impotency is there.

274
00:21:15,563 --> 00:21:23,194
Stop me if am exaggerating, if I am saying something that

275
00:21:23,194 --> 00:21:30,575
is .. if I am extremist. This "democracy" that they show off

276
00:21:30,575 --> 00:21:37,574
as if "it was the best on earth in terms of politics",

277
00:21:37,574 --> 00:21:42,554
what does it leave me as a fundemental right? The right to designate every five years political masters

278
00:21:42,554 --> 00:21:49,174
that will decide everything for me. I don't votes the laws

279
00:21:49,174 --> 00:21:52,646
so I select people who will vote them for me

280
00:21:52,646 --> 00:21:58,080
and who are my political masters. I elect among them people

281
00:21:58,080 --> 00:22:02,679
I have not been able to choose: These are false choices.

282
00:22:02,679 --> 00:22:08,246
When my choice is dreadful candidate A and terrible candidate B, in this case it is a false choice.

283
00:22:08,246 --> 00:22:10,962
I am not allowed to choose people I consider good around me.

284
00:22:10,962 --> 00:22:16,913
Not at all, freely I cannot do that.

285
00:22:16,913 --> 00:22:21,330
This "democracy" supposedly leaves me only with the possibility,

286
00:22:21,330 --> 00:22:24,446
the right to designate masters, among people I have not chosen

287
00:22:24,446 --> 00:22:28,846
and against whom I cannot do anything.

288
00:22:28,846 --> 00:22:31,395
For five years, I will say it again, I cannot do anything for 5 years.

289
00:22:31,395 --> 00:22:36,346
I can march in the streets if it amuses me, they could care less.

290
00:22:36,346 --> 00:22:38,657
I can't do anything if they betray me,

291
00:22:38,657 --> 00:22:43,440
even if they betray me to the extreme

292
00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:47,214
I cannot do anything. All I can do

293
00:22:47,214 --> 00:22:52,583
is at the end of their mandate, not re-elect the scoundrel that just betrayed me for the past 5 years.

294
00:22:52,583 --> 00:22:57,151
I exaggerate here, I am pushing it, but it is just to make a point.

295
00:22:57,151 --> 00:23:01,902
I am not saying that they are all scoundrels. Although....

296
00:23:01,902 --> 00:23:04,130
No, I am not saying that. But what I am saying is that

297
00:23:04,130 --> 00:23:07,865
even if he is a top quality scoundrel - and there are a few, you know it -

298
00:23:07,865 --> 00:23:12,215
even if he is the finest scoundrel , all I can do

299
00:23:12,215 --> 00:23:17,169
is not re-elect him. The poor guy ! The poor scoundrel.

300
00:23:17,169 --> 00:23:20,066
Because, in fact, it does not matter what will happen to him

301
00:23:20,066 --> 00:23:24,349
because if I don't reelect him, I will elect another one,

302
00:23:24,349 --> 00:23:28,017
the one I refused to elect five years earlier because he betrayed me the five years before that

303
00:23:28,017 --> 00:23:32,151
and I only have this choice. I only have one choice between two larger parties.

304
00:23:32,151 --> 00:23:33,978
When I am not happy with one, I take the other one

305
00:23:33,978 --> 00:23:35,411
and when am not happy with the other one, I retake the one I just rejected.

306
00:23:35,411 --> 00:23:41,427
They are part-time workers. And they have voted some sort of unemployment benefit, you wouldn't believe it

307
00:23:41,427 --> 00:23:42,635
I don't know if you realize this, they voted unemployment benefits

308
00:23:42,635 --> 00:23:47,762
that lasts five years. Which means they continue

309
00:23:47,762 --> 00:23:51,378
to be paid as if we had elected them

310
00:23:51,378 --> 00:23:54,612
when in fact we did not reelect them. They continue to be paid full-time for a half-time job.

311
00:23:54,612 --> 00:24:01,695
Just waiting that the one elected gets sacked ... Right? And they call this "democracy".

312
00:24:03,354 --> 00:24:07,218
The political awakening

313
00:24:08,704 --> 00:24:13,626
At 50 I did not understand very well what a democracy was.

314
00:24:13,626 --> 00:24:17,875
Thus, I accepted, I accepted like you, like everyone,

315
00:24:17,875 --> 00:24:23,684
some sort of an incredible lesson, that they told me since I was a kid.

316
00:24:23,684 --> 00:24:29,318
"Election = democracy". Boy, repeat after me: "Democracy = election",

317
00:24:29,318 --> 00:24:34,152
"Election equals democracy, democracy equals election."

318
00:24:34,152 --> 00:24:37,485
And they repeated this at school,

319
00:24:37,485 --> 00:24:40,686
they repeated this in the newspapers, on TV, in the books

320
00:24:40,686 --> 00:24:43,851
Books that speak of democracy, I have... I don't know,

321
00:24:43,851 --> 00:24:48,468
specifically about democracy, the organization of democracy,

322
00:24:48,468 --> 00:24:54,441
400 or 500 books maybe. Well let's just say out of 400 books

323
00:24:54,441 --> 00:24:57,753
there were 10 that really speak of true democracy.,

324
00:24:57,753 --> 00:25:01,153
that speaks of a democracy that deserves this name, of democracy

325
00:25:01,153 --> 00:25:07,444
"demos kratos", "the power of the people". The other books speak of our actual regime,

326
00:25:07,444 --> 00:25:13,847
the one we should refuse to call "democracy". The regime in which we live

327
00:25:13,847 --> 00:25:17,080
carries a different name. It is called representive government;

328
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:19,862
We should say the so-called representative government.

329
00:25:19,862 --> 00:25:23,180
But let's call it by its official name.

330
00:25:23,180 --> 00:25:29,660
Back in 1789, 1776, the USA, founders of our regime

331
00:25:29,660 --> 00:25:32,425
set up something totally different from what a democracy should be.

332
00:25:32,425 --> 00:25:34,309
They knew exactly what democracy was, but they didn't want it.

333
00:25:34,309 --> 00:25:38,158
They were prominent citizens. The 99% didn't make the French Revolution happen.

334
00:25:38,158 --> 00:25:41,525
When Sieyès writes: "What is the Third Estate ?"

335
00:25:41,525 --> 00:25:43,759
you know, the Third Estate, during the French Revolution

336
00:25:43,759 --> 00:25:49,658
You had the nobles, the clergymen, and the rest.

337
00:25:49,658 --> 00:25:53,942
The rest was the Third Estate. The Third order.

338
00:25:53,942 --> 00:25:57,708
You could call it nowadays the 99%.

339
00:25:57,708 --> 00:26:01,893
The problem is that Sieyès

340
00:26:01,893 --> 00:26:06,410
in 1789, a great thinker, bishop Sieyès, a great thinker of

341
00:26:06,410 --> 00:26:10,347
the French Revolution, when he wrote "What is the Third Estate ?",

342
00:26:10,347 --> 00:26:15,709
and when he thought of what should come as replacement of the Old Regime,

343
00:26:15,709 --> 00:26:24,661
Sieyès thought about the 1% of the Third Estate. He was thinking of the rich businessmen,

344
00:26:24,661 --> 00:26:28,594
the bankers of the Third Estate. They financed

345
00:26:28,594 --> 00:26:30,759
the wheat wars, the baking flours wars, that starved the people

346
00:26:30,759 --> 00:26:33,026
for over three years before the French Revolution.

347
00:26:33,026 --> 00:26:39,782
This pushed the people, the folk, to rise against their masters that they couldn't stand anymore

348
00:26:39,782 --> 00:26:42,662
to take their place afterwards. The people were manipulated.

349
00:26:42,662 --> 00:26:46,430
That's when Talleyrand, and I must watch my language,

350
00:26:46,430 --> 00:26:49,529
that scoundrel Talleyrand did what he did.

351
00:26:49,529 --> 00:26:51,847
I said I wouldn't leave my main thread, but I'll make this one exception.

352
00:26:51,847 --> 00:26:57,562
I strongly recommend that you

353
00:26:57,562 --> 00:27:03,755
discover the historian Henri Guillemin.

354
00:27:03,755 --> 00:27:07,597
Look on the internet for "Guillemin", or "Guillemin Napoléon"

355
00:27:07,597 --> 00:27:12,646
"Guillemin, the Commune". "Guillemin 1914 - 1918"

356
00:27:12,646 --> 00:27:16,995
You will find televised lectures/shows. The man is dead.

357
00:27:16,995 --> 00:27:19,714
But he left us fabulous treasures.

358
00:27:19,714 --> 00:27:23,151
The man is a diamond. I listened to two lectures on my way here.

359
00:27:23,151 --> 00:27:27,132
Two or three. They are half-hour conferences.

360
00:27:27,132 --> 00:27:30,529
He explains how representative governments were born.

361
00:27:30,529 --> 00:27:33,680
He explains the Third Republic (NT: 1870 - 1940 in France)

362
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:37,301
The Republic of Businessmen. The Republic for kicks & laughs.

363
00:27:37,301 --> 00:27:41,631
The Republic of "honest men". That meant the wealthy.

364
00:27:41,631 --> 00:27:46,246
The Republic of the "moderate". The Republic of the "Center-Left".

365
00:27:46,246 --> 00:27:48,984
That just meant the bankers, the colonialist bankers

366
00:27:48,984 --> 00:27:53,279
who went to willingly pillage the countries of Africa.

367
00:27:53,279 --> 00:27:55,747
They called it "Center-Left" and called themselves "Democrats".

368
00:27:55,747 --> 00:27:59,653
They called themselves also "Progressive".

369
00:27:59,653 --> 00:28:02,370
All were businessmen and bankers. It had nothing to do with the people.

370
00:28:02,370 --> 00:28:04,806
Or at least the idea you could have of a people's party.

371
00:28:04,806 --> 00:28:12,099
So it's very important. I see many young people, who are 20 years old,

372
00:28:12,099 --> 00:28:18,301
20 years old or 30 it seems, not even. I woke up, I was 50 years old.

373
00:28:18,301 --> 00:28:24,074
I am so angry to not have begun earlier. You need time to discover all this.

374
00:28:24,074 --> 00:28:29,308
You need time. If you start when you're 20 years old, you are lucky.

375
00:28:29,308 --> 00:28:32,341
There are so many things to find out, it's true.

376
00:28:32,341 --> 00:28:37,774
You can only understand the current situation if you study it and you need to work on it a bit.

377
00:28:37,774 --> 00:28:40,641
But it's delicious! History feeds us with so much information.

378
00:28:40,641 --> 00:28:44,624
When you discover how Bonaparte, Napoleon,

379
00:28:44,624 --> 00:28:51,957
was pushed by the private bankers to take power in France,

380
00:28:51,957 --> 00:28:56,660
to assassinate the ideals of the Revolution, to create the so-called bank of "France"

381
00:28:56,660 --> 00:28:59,174
which isn't at all from France, but the bank of bankers

382
00:28:59,174 --> 00:29:04,391
that pushed Napoleon... It sheds some light on what is happening today.

383
00:29:04,391 --> 00:29:08,154
It helps you understand the current situation. It hasn't changed at all.

384
00:29:08,154 --> 00:29:14,008
But it is very important so that you are able to imagine a solution; to correctly understand

385
00:29:14,008 --> 00:29:16,322
the basic situation of the problem at hand. As long as we are being manipulated with words,

386
00:29:16,322 --> 00:29:21,911
and use words but give them their opposite meaning,

387
00:29:21,911 --> 00:29:29,327
you are lost. When you accept giving the words

388
00:29:29,327 --> 00:29:34,700
an opposite definition to what they are, you won't even be able to formulate the solution.

389
00:29:34,700 --> 00:29:37,768
We don't live in a democracy. We voluntarily live [in a lie].

390
00:29:37,768 --> 00:29:44,012
Sieyès knew fully well what he was writing when he made the representative government.

391
00:29:44,012 --> 00:29:48,410
That is: a regime where the people don't get to vote their own laws.

392
00:29:48,410 --> 00:29:52,878
The people are not autonomous. The people don't vote their own laws.

393
00:29:52,878 --> 00:29:57,776
The people are heteronomous. The people submit to laws written by others.

394
00:29:57,776 --> 00:30:02,944
At the bottom of page 11, I have written for you the quote of Sieyès

395
00:30:02,944 --> 00:30:10,865
that lets you understand what kind of regime we live in since day one.

396
00:30:10,865 --> 00:30:13,345
We never lived in a democracy that slowly sank and became different.

397
00:30:13,345 --> 00:30:17,911
From day one, we live in a regime that renounces democracy.

398
00:30:17,911 --> 00:30:21,844
It is very important that we know this

399
00:30:21,844 --> 00:30:25,794
so that afterwards, we can imagine alternatives. What bishop Sieyès said

400
00:30:25,794 --> 00:30:31,893
back in 1789 was: "The citizens who nominated for their

401
00:30:31,893 --> 00:30:35,632
own sake representatives" - so, they nominate themselves -

402
00:30:35,632 --> 00:30:40,037
"[the represented citizens] renounce and must renounce making the law themselves.

403
00:30:40,037 --> 00:30:44,547
They have no particular will to impose.

404
00:30:44,547 --> 00:30:48,198
If they dictated their will, France could not be that representative State.

405
00:30:48,198 --> 00:30:52,932
France would be a democratic State. The people, I repeat,"

406
00:30:52,932 --> 00:30:56,797
- says Sieyès - "in a country that isn't a democracy,

407
00:30:56,797 --> 00:31:01,949
and France can't be one, the people can talk,

408
00:31:01,949 --> 00:31:05,882
can act, only through their representatives."

409
00:31:06,851 --> 00:31:11,258
Democracy and the Random Draw / Common Lot

410
00:31:12,829 --> 00:31:17,397
If, when you discover this book

411
00:31:17,397 --> 00:31:20,247
that I strongly recommend,

412
00:31:20,247 --> 00:31:24,397
- and I've been talking about this book for over a year in conferences -

413
00:31:24,397 --> 00:31:29,481
this book has shaken me, transformed me. I beleive it will transform you.

414
00:31:29,481 --> 00:31:32,464
It is a very important book. This book that I will talk about

415
00:31:32,464 --> 00:31:35,380
doesn't have a very "sexy" title at all.

416
00:31:35,380 --> 00:31:39,413
If you see it in a library without having been told that it is great,

417
00:31:39,413 --> 00:31:41,328
you'll probably just miss it and think:

418
00:31:41,328 --> 00:31:47,631
"That one, maybe another day." The auther is Bernard Manin

419
00:31:47,631 --> 00:31:52,745
and the title is "Principles of representative government."

420
00:31:52,745 --> 00:31:55,946
It is an essential book. It is a book

421
00:31:55,946 --> 00:31:59,695
that talks about election and of random draw / common lot. It is a book that is surprised

422
00:31:59,695 --> 00:32:01,951
that the random draw completly dissapeared

423
00:32:01,951 --> 00:32:07,097
from the political scene. And with that tone, the book tries to

424
00:32:07,097 --> 00:32:14,196
make an honest inventory of the pros and cons of democracy,

425
00:32:14,196 --> 00:32:17,296
of the random draw and of the election. When did we start using the election process?

426
00:32:17,296 --> 00:32:20,236
How does it work? Has it given us satisfaction? Who talked about it

427
00:32:20,236 --> 00:32:23,446
and when did the transformation take place?

428
00:32:23,446 --> 00:32:26,564
And since we have never heard of the random draw,

429
00:32:26,564 --> 00:32:28,663
- well maybe you have heard of the random draw -

430
00:32:28,663 --> 00:32:31,109
but I, during my whole education, including law school,

431
00:32:31,109 --> 00:32:32,756
I never heard of the random draw / common lot.

432
00:32:32,756 --> 00:32:35,043
And when democracy was debated

433
00:32:35,043 --> 00:32:37,523
with the existence of the random draw, it was described as an odd ball

434
00:32:37,523 --> 00:32:40,372
and we passed quickly to another subject. I absolutely didn't see

435
00:32:40,372 --> 00:32:46,155
how central the random draw was to democracy. And we discover it with Bernard Manin

436
00:32:46,155 --> 00:32:50,905
in a very lively, tonic, and passionate litterary way.

437
00:32:50,905 --> 00:32:52,894
And there is a whole bibliography

438
00:32:52,894 --> 00:32:56,656
that will make you discover other books on democracy, the true democracy!

439
00:32:56,656 --> 00:33:00,089
The true one, the one the Athenians had. The one that could be ours

440
00:33:00,089 --> 00:33:04,291
if we wanted it! We need to want it for it to become true.

441
00:33:04,291 --> 00:33:10,290
I will talk more about it. But books like the one by M. H. Hansen,

442
00:33:10,290 --> 00:33:14,788
that describes Athens in detail, and who spent his life working

443
00:33:14,788 --> 00:33:17,428
on all we could know about Athens and all the documents

444
00:33:17,428 --> 00:33:19,896
from far or near on the topic... a great scholar

445
00:33:19,896 --> 00:33:24,227
who wrote many great books on athenian democracy.

446
00:33:24,227 --> 00:33:27,747
Concerning the period of Demosthenes, he compiled it all in one book.

447
00:33:27,747 --> 00:33:30,758
So it's a summary and it's captivating. It is about the life of Athenians

448
00:33:30,758 --> 00:33:34,905
who go to the Assembly in the morning... Well when they go to the Assembly that is.

449
00:33:34,905 --> 00:33:37,542
The Assembly is about 6000 people and 2000 present themselves for the random draw.

450
00:33:37,542 --> 00:33:43,535
And every day, people are randomly drawn.

451
00:33:45,320 --> 00:33:50,147
So I'll explain this in very few words,

452
00:33:50,147 --> 00:33:52,694
and I will let you argue as to why this could be wrong. I know many possible objections.

453
00:33:52,694 --> 00:33:55,360
I am getting used to them now,

454
00:33:55,360 --> 00:33:57,560
but I hope you will find objections that I haven't seen yet.

455
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:01,330
I actually appreciate that ... I am looking for it. I am not trying to be right.

456
00:34:01,330 --> 00:34:06,176
I am trying to imagine a robust system that could work

457
00:34:06,176 --> 00:34:09,944
and that wouldn't be a utopia. And if you show me that I am wrong,

458
00:34:09,944 --> 00:34:12,949
I will adapt, I will change, I will work on it or on something else.

459
00:34:12,949 --> 00:34:15,324
For now, I am under the impression that I have a hold on something strong.

460
00:34:15,324 --> 00:34:17,962
And I want to see it under fire from your objections.

461
00:34:17,962 --> 00:34:22,631
The Athenians

462
00:34:24,462 --> 00:34:29,134
So Athenians, 2500 years ago, had

463
00:34:29,134 --> 00:34:33,992
a small city-state of 60,000 citizens, give or take,

464
00:34:33,992 --> 00:34:40,031
depending on the period, depending on the plagues and so on. It lasted 200 years.

465
00:34:40,031 --> 00:34:45,182
The Athenians, after 800 years of tyranny and when a reform came along

466
00:34:45,182 --> 00:34:52,487
by one of the prominent citizens - someone of the high society, Solon -

467
00:34:52,487 --> 00:34:56,705
- who started to reform Athens and started to change

468
00:34:56,705 --> 00:35:03,621
the mechanisms of power to protect the social body and core from abuse of power -

469
00:35:03,621 --> 00:35:08,054
the Athenians started to put in place a regime under which

470
00:35:08,054 --> 00:35:13,921
they wrote by themselves the laws and also voted their own laws...

471
00:35:13,921 --> 00:35:18,971
the laws that they obeyed. They would gather

472
00:35:18,971 --> 00:35:22,071
in an assembly, a great assembly, 6000 seats,

473
00:35:22,071 --> 00:35:26,659
and whoever was willing could come. And same as nowadays,

474
00:35:26,659 --> 00:35:29,321
many did not come. And it wasn't always the same who showed up.

475
00:35:29,321 --> 00:35:32,502
You had a daily agenda that was published on the Agora,

476
00:35:32,502 --> 00:35:37,467
and you came to the Assembly if the subjects of the day were of interest to you.

477
00:35:37,467 --> 00:35:40,984
And I'll diffuse the first objection that generally pops up

478
00:35:40,984 --> 00:35:45,949
and that is that the Athenians, the people of Athens, so the citizens

479
00:35:45,949 --> 00:35:51,267
or at least those who were the citizens of Athens weren't all the Athenians in Athens.

480
00:35:51,267 --> 00:35:53,423
You had half of humanity that was set aside:

481
00:35:53,423 --> 00:35:58,900
women back then had no political right. And you also had slaves,

482
00:35:58,900 --> 00:36:01,235
and slaves had no political rights either.

483
00:36:01,235 --> 00:36:03,951
Foreigners also had no political rights either.

484
00:36:03,951 --> 00:36:07,144
Of course, children and animals had no rights either.

485
00:36:07,144 --> 00:36:08,561
What I am getting at is that there are common points

486
00:36:08,561 --> 00:36:11,244
that you still find today: children, animals, the insane people...

487
00:36:11,244 --> 00:36:15,762
or even us, living human beings who have no political rights.

488
00:36:15,762 --> 00:36:18,347
So what I want to say to diffuse that objection

489
00:36:18,347 --> 00:36:21,944
so that it doesn't bother you the whole while because I know

490
00:36:21,944 --> 00:36:26,310
some of you know this and it stops us from moving forward.

491
00:36:26,310 --> 00:36:29,944
I know fully well that they were slave traders and they were male chauvinists,

492
00:36:29,944 --> 00:36:32,328
but I am not interested in that. Personnally, I am neither

493
00:36:32,328 --> 00:36:35,293
a slave trader nor a male chauvinist. What I want to say

494
00:36:35,293 --> 00:36:41,961
is that you shouldn't transpose that system as if it were a model to our present day.

495
00:36:41,961 --> 00:36:44,777
The Athenian regime is of course not what I am pointing out here.

496
00:36:44,777 --> 00:36:50,228
What I am pointing at here is that all the civilizations at the time

497
00:36:50,228 --> 00:36:52,361
- remember 2500 years ago isn't the same as today -

498
00:36:52,361 --> 00:36:55,478
all the civilizations at the time ill treated their women

499
00:36:55,478 --> 00:37:02,478
and had slaves. It was not specific to democracy.

500
00:37:02,478 --> 00:37:05,577
And emocracy can fully well work without those elements.

501
00:37:05,577 --> 00:37:08,278
Or at least, today it could. Maybe back then, it couldn't have worked without it,

502
00:37:08,278 --> 00:37:11,060
because women worked so much that the men could

503
00:37:11,060 --> 00:37:14,311
free their time and take time

504
00:37:14,311 --> 00:37:16,400
for politics. Slaves too freed up time

505
00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:19,333
for men. But today, we would have with the help of oil and machines,

506
00:37:19,333 --> 00:37:22,301
we would have more than enough to free some time in our schedules

507
00:37:22,301 --> 00:37:24,667
to make room for politics, all of us, without the need for slaves.

508
00:37:24,667 --> 00:37:28,135
And we would have women along side us in the assembly.

509
00:37:28,135 --> 00:37:31,301
So as you can see, that objection is not worth the trouble.

510
00:37:31,301 --> 00:37:35,117
Objectively, that objection is worth nil.

511
00:37:35,117 --> 00:37:40,333
I understant that an elected representative, who wants us to stop talking about the random draw

512
00:37:40,333 --> 00:37:42,533
that is going to put him out of a job, is going to tell me:

513
00:37:42,533 --> 00:37:45,684
"But Mr. Chouard, you are defending

514
00:37:45,684 --> 00:37:47,418
a slave trading regime ?
- Yes, yes, I know.

515
00:37:47,418 --> 00:37:51,083
- And you wouldn't happen to be a slave driver, by any chance?
- No, no, I am no slave trader or driver."

516
00:37:51,083 --> 00:37:55,616
What I observe in Athens, in the small community of Athens,

517
00:37:55,616 --> 00:37:58,767
and of course I am only talking about athenian citizens,

518
00:37:58,767 --> 00:38:03,201
therefore excluding women, [slaves & foreigners], OK

519
00:38:03,201 --> 00:38:08,766
So in that community, you had many poor citizens.

520
00:38:08,766 --> 00:38:13,266
Almost all of them were poor and you had very few rich,

521
00:38:13,266 --> 00:38:19,583
very rich. And this looks oddly like today.

522
00:38:19,583 --> 00:38:26,601
And listen closely: for 200 years, 200 years of randomly drawing people,

523
00:38:26,601 --> 00:38:29,049
- and you will see how random draw garanties this -

524
00:38:29,049 --> 00:38:35,616
for 200 years of randomly drawing people every day, the rich never governed.

525
00:38:35,616 --> 00:38:41,015
Not one day. And the philosophers, Plato, Aristotle,

526
00:38:41,015 --> 00:38:44,850
spent their lives spitting on democracy. To say how wrong democracy was.

527
00:38:44,850 --> 00:38:45,987
Because how dare you imagine a regime

528
00:38:45,987 --> 00:38:48,950
where the poor, the rabble, the poor lead and govern. They govern poorly.

529
00:38:48,950 --> 00:38:54,396
They lie, they learn how to lie. So Plato slandered,

530
00:38:54,396 --> 00:39:00,144
and the word isn't strong enough, Plato invented wrongs

531
00:39:00,144 --> 00:39:05,895
that someone who then studies democracy can easily break.

532
00:39:05,895 --> 00:39:09,279
He can easily undo the lies. Plato should have been

533
00:39:09,279 --> 00:39:12,900
- and he was a noble - should have been a company boss.

534
00:39:12,900 --> 00:39:17,333
One of the city bosses, and bad luck for him, he lived at the time

535
00:39:17,333 --> 00:39:19,886
when democracy was around. So he missed his political career altogether,

536
00:39:19,886 --> 00:39:22,834
because of demcoracy. So he spent his whole life writing how bad

537
00:39:22,834 --> 00:39:26,100
democracy was. You need to know this. Mind you, he said some very interesting things,

538
00:39:26,100 --> 00:39:32,817
about us, our condition. You won't hear me reject entirely the works of Plato.

539
00:39:32,817 --> 00:39:39,701
I invite you just to be aware of Plato's situation when Plato speaks about democracy.

540
00:39:39,701 --> 00:39:42,500
He had a score to settle, a personal score,

541
00:39:42,500 --> 00:39:44,807
and in my eyes it didn't correspond at all with the greater good.

542
00:39:44,807 --> 00:39:47,233
Plato actually respects quite poorly the greater good when he talks about democracy.

543
00:39:47,233 --> 00:39:50,134
So you need to keep it in mind when you read Plato. Aristotle is in the same situation too.

544
00:39:50,134 --> 00:39:56,320
Most philosophers despised democracy.

545
00:39:56,320 --> 00:40:04,201
So Athenians protected themselves from abuse of power.

546
00:40:04,201 --> 00:40:06,983
And this happened after having seen over 800 years that power changed people,

547
00:40:06,983 --> 00:40:10,297
transformed them. People who were good at the start

548
00:40:10,297 --> 00:40:12,564
ended up becoming madly insane and started to serve

549
00:40:12,564 --> 00:40:14,914
personal interests rather than the greater good.

550
00:40:14,914 --> 00:40:20,130
So noticing that it was the case and quite pragmatically - not at all idealisticly -

551
00:40:20,130 --> 00:40:24,832
with their priorities set right, they made something very robust

552
00:40:24,832 --> 00:40:28,247
that could still work very well today. The Athenians put in place

553
00:40:28,247 --> 00:40:34,082
a system of rotating responsibilities. You can actually still find it in our conversations.

554
00:40:34,082 --> 00:40:39,680
I am sure that when you are having a conversation, often you say:

555
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:42,247
"The problem is that politics is now a question of professionals.

556
00:40:42,247 --> 00:40:46,133
It is always the same people who end up leading us, and there is just not enough renewal in politics."

557
00:40:46,133 --> 00:40:49,216
Often, we say that or hear it, nowadays. Well the Athenians

558
00:40:49,216 --> 00:40:53,066
solved the problem by making an institution where the responsibilities rotate.

559
00:40:53,066 --> 00:40:56,266
You have short mandates, one year maximum,

560
00:40:56,266 --> 00:41:00,754
often six months, even shorter. Even the boss of Athens

561
00:41:00,754 --> 00:41:06,169
was randomly chosen every day. Every single day, the chief of Athens was randomly drawn.

562
00:41:06,169 --> 00:41:09,138
So you had short mandates, non-renewable,

563
00:41:09,138 --> 00:41:14,031
which garanteed to Athenians and others

564
00:41:14,031 --> 00:41:17,232
that you had political amateurism.

565
00:41:17,232 --> 00:41:20,732
The Athenians did not want professionals politicias to run the show.

566
00:41:20,732 --> 00:41:24,150
They did not want it. They absolutely did not want it

567
00:41:24,150 --> 00:41:27,998
to protect themselves against abuse of power.

568
00:41:27,998 --> 00:41:32,248
They said, and they knew, then... or they had as first hypothesis

569
00:41:32,248 --> 00:41:37,977
that at the beginning, you have real political equality.

570
00:41:37,977 --> 00:41:41,242
That is why it is at the center of your schematic. A real political equality.

571
00:41:41,242 --> 00:41:43,341
Athenians knew very well that they weren't equal.

572
00:41:43,341 --> 00:41:45,224
They knew fully well that you had intelligent people

573
00:41:45,224 --> 00:41:47,562
and idiots. They knew you had people with virtue

574
00:41:47,562 --> 00:41:51,125
and dishonest people. They knew you had strong people and weak ones.

575
00:41:51,787 --> 00:41:54,906
They knew that. They knew that there were people capable

576
00:41:54,906 --> 00:41:57,721
of governing a ship and others who weren't capable of it.

577
00:41:57,721 --> 00:41:59,938
That wasn't the question at all. Here, the question is politics.

578
00:41:59,938 --> 00:42:04,405
"Concerning politics," said the Athenians, "there is no necessary skill.

579
00:42:04,405 --> 00:42:10,488
We are all competent." To give strength

580
00:42:10,488 --> 00:42:16,805
to this central principle, of true political equality,

581
00:42:16,805 --> 00:42:22,289
you had to put political amateurism in place. And we are all,

582
00:42:22,289 --> 00:42:26,956
as said Aristotle, in a democracy where the citizens are alternatively

583
00:42:26,956 --> 00:42:30,021
governing and governed. Governing and governed,

584
00:42:30,021 --> 00:42:38,438
at random. The central procedure that made Athens possible

585
00:42:38,438 --> 00:42:43,138
was the rotating responsibilities and so political amateurism

586
00:42:43,138 --> 00:42:45,622
and political equality all held together!

587
00:42:45,622 --> 00:42:47,821
If you take random draw away, it all falls apart.

588
00:42:47,821 --> 00:42:51,622
You loose democracy. The procedure that makes it possible

589
00:42:51,622 --> 00:42:56,055
is the fast rotating responsibilities and political amateurism.

590
00:42:56,055 --> 00:43:03,624
It is the random draw. On the contrary, the election is by definition

591
00:43:03,624 --> 00:43:06,572
- and it isn't even subject to a debate -

592
00:43:06,572 --> 00:43:12,055
the selection of the best one out of us. An election isn't choosing

593
00:43:12,055 --> 00:43:14,538
the worst, this we agree on, and I am not exagerating.

594
00:43:14,538 --> 00:43:18,473
The goal of the election is to choose the best. Whether you achieve this or not,

595
00:43:18,473 --> 00:43:24,539
you are looking for the best one. The best one, "aristos" in Greek.

596
00:43:24,539 --> 00:43:29,783
Aristocracy is the regime of a government led by the best.

597
00:43:29,783 --> 00:43:33,348
So what Aristotle observed 2500 years ago,

598
00:43:33,348 --> 00:43:38,948
was that aristocracies degenerate, degrade over time, always. That was what Aristotle said.

599
00:43:38,948 --> 00:43:42,031
So already 2500 years ago, we saw that an aristocracy never stays for long.

600
00:43:42,031 --> 00:43:47,881
An aristocracy becomes an oligarchy, said Aristotle.

601
00:43:47,881 --> 00:43:52,709
So this is nothing new. So if you will, up to 200 years ago,

602
00:43:52,709 --> 00:43:59,877
until Rousseau, Montesquieu, every one knew,

603
00:43:59,877 --> 00:44:03,191
and this was general knowledge, everyone knew

604
00:44:03,191 --> 00:44:10,675
that the election was aristocratic by nature. And that the procedure of democracy

605
00:44:10,675 --> 00:44:14,509
was the random draw. Everyone knew this.

606
00:44:14,509 --> 00:44:16,608
What I like about democracy is that it is not about finding something

607
00:44:16,608 --> 00:44:19,559
that is perfect. I know fully well that it isn't perfect.

608
00:44:19,559 --> 00:44:23,458
That's not the topic here. I am not looking for a utopia... Something that is perfect.

609
00:44:23,458 --> 00:44:26,842
I am looking for a way out of an awful situation in which people are [trapped].

610
00:44:26,842 --> 00:44:29,978
We are going back to war here. You find the same signs

611
00:44:29,978 --> 00:44:33,090
that were present just before the previous World Wars.

612
00:44:33,090 --> 00:44:36,536
But for the same reasons, with the exact same political impotency of the greater mass of people

613
00:44:36,536 --> 00:44:39,348
who don't want to go to war, and the same political power

614
00:44:39,348 --> 00:44:43,197
of those who have money and who want war.

615
00:44:43,197 --> 00:44:46,446
Listen to Guillemin, you will see the geneses of the wars:

616
00:44:46,446 --> 00:44:49,248
the genesis of the Napoleonic Wars, the genesis of the Commune (NT: period 1871 in France)

617
00:44:49,248 --> 00:44:54,697
and that of the war in 1870, the genesis of the 1914-1918 war,

618
00:44:54,697 --> 00:44:59,449
and the genisis of the Second World War. And every time, those were unecessary wars,

619
00:44:59,449 --> 00:45:02,868
manipulated wars, wars that were only wished by the 1%.

620
00:45:02,868 --> 00:45:07,950
It is very important that you listen to Guillemin.

621
00:45:07,950 --> 00:45:10,983
You will see clearly what is happening to us today.

622
00:45:10,983 --> 00:45:13,333
And you already know it, or at least you already partially know it,

623
00:45:13,333 --> 00:45:17,000
but you will see how strong it is and how strong it can become.

624
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:20,202
I mean by that that it doesn't only seem clear to you but it becomes powerful.

625
00:45:20,202 --> 00:45:24,400
You tell yourself: "Hang on, we've got to do something about it!"

626
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:29,283
I won't go further into details... I don't have much time.

627
00:45:29,283 --> 00:45:32,018
But what I still need to explain

628
00:45:32,018 --> 00:45:34,717
is that the random draw scares. It scares us today.

629
00:45:34,717 --> 00:45:36,850
When I talk to you about randomly drawing people, the first reactions are:

630
00:45:36,850 --> 00:45:40,418
"But what on earth is that thing ?! The random draw,

631
00:45:40,418 --> 00:45:43,114
yeah right! You want to put power in the hands of randomly chosen people ?"

632
00:45:43,114 --> 00:45:48,913
No! That's just it. Random draw isn't used for giving power;

633
00:45:48,913 --> 00:45:53,531
it is used to keep power for us, us all, the 99%.

634
00:45:53,531 --> 00:45:58,013
Up to now...and last year still, I was saying "the rich & the poor"

635
00:45:58,013 --> 00:46:00,446
and that was a problem. But it is in effect very simple,

636
00:46:00,446 --> 00:46:03,046
I was thinking about the ultra-rich, and the poor were everyone else.

637
00:46:03,046 --> 00:46:05,864
So they are not really poor, but they are us. And we are having a hard time

638
00:46:05,864 --> 00:46:08,897
imagining that we are the poor ones. We can't identify with that term.

639
00:46:08,897 --> 00:46:11,580
So it wasn't the correct image. And then the rich,

640
00:46:11,580 --> 00:46:13,364
we are all rich compared to someone else.

641
00:46:13,364 --> 00:46:15,029
So that wasn't right. But when I say:

642
00:46:15,029 --> 00:46:18,994
1% the rich, 99% the others, everyone gets it.

643
00:46:18,994 --> 00:46:20,565
And the Protestors / Occupy movement gave us those words,

644
00:46:20,565 --> 00:46:25,711
it is useful, it describes better the fact that it has always been the same problem.

645
00:46:25,711 --> 00:46:29,194
And so, in a democracy, or a democracy that is worthy of the name,

646
00:46:29,194 --> 00:46:31,244
What the Occupy movement / Protestors are looking for today is:

647
00:46:31,244 --> 00:46:33,692
"We want a real democracy". Well, Athenians

648
00:46:33,692 --> 00:46:35,877
had already found exactly what they needed,

649
00:46:35,877 --> 00:46:38,792
what they were looking for. But sadly, you don't find the random draw

650
00:46:38,792 --> 00:46:41,226
present in the Occupy Movement. It is still missing.

651
00:46:41,226 --> 00:46:43,479
They haven't discovered it yet. But listen to

652
00:46:43,479 --> 00:46:49,142
how it was back then, in Athens, for the 99%,

653
00:46:49,142 --> 00:46:51,929
that is all those who want to write the laws.

654
00:46:51,929 --> 00:46:54,877
Well no, not write the laws because we are not all capable of writing them.

655
00:46:54,877 --> 00:46:57,393
Here, in this room, we would already be too many to write laws.

656
00:46:57,393 --> 00:47:00,043
To write a law, you need to build a small group.

657
00:47:00,043 --> 00:47:02,859
But we want to vote for the laws. That is we want to say,

658
00:47:02,859 --> 00:47:07,530
for every single law, not bit by bit, but law by law,

659
00:47:07,530 --> 00:47:10,844
we want to say, if we are autonomous, if we are citizens,

660
00:47:10,844 --> 00:47:14,896
and not simple voters but autonomous citizens,

661
00:47:14,896 --> 00:47:20,375
we want, we the Athenians, we want to vote ourselves our own laws.

662
00:47:20,375 --> 00:47:25,116
So how did it work ? Well we would get toghether in a great assembly

663
00:47:25,116 --> 00:47:29,016
where people would come up. So you had speakers

664
00:47:29,016 --> 00:47:30,599
who would come to the floor of the assembly and say:

665
00:47:30,599 --> 00:47:34,131
"We need this law because of this reason". Then another speaker comes.

666
00:47:34,131 --> 00:47:36,368
When you are 6,000, you don't all talk. The people in the assembly

667
00:47:36,368 --> 00:47:38,850
can ask for permission to speak and go down to the floor and talk.

668
00:47:38,850 --> 00:47:42,284
But there is no debate or discussion. Everyone is silent during the assembly.

669
00:47:42,284 --> 00:47:45,298
You vote. It is outside of the assembly that you will do the talking,

670
00:47:45,298 --> 00:47:47,299
to prepare. But once you are in the assembly,

671
00:47:47,299 --> 00:47:52,251
you vote. You listen to the speakers. You listen to the successive debates.

672
00:47:57,313 --> 00:48:02,507
And so that the system can work, the assembly can't do everything.

673
00:48:02,507 --> 00:48:05,689
The assembly can't prepare a law. The assembly won't prepare them.

674
00:48:05,689 --> 00:48:10,018
The assembly can't carry out the laws either. The assembly is not going to be the police,

675
00:48:10,018 --> 00:48:14,870
or the judges. So the Athenian assembly, the democratic assembly,

676
00:48:14,870 --> 00:48:19,068
it would be neighbourhood assemblies. Here, we're in Montpellier.

677
00:48:19,068 --> 00:48:21,217
You would have multiple neighbourhoods, and in each,

678
00:48:21,217 --> 00:48:25,600
you would have assemblies. But for each assembly, we need representatives.

679
00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:32,333
Our own assembly needs representatives.

680
00:48:32,333 --> 00:48:34,850
And a democracy worthy of the name has representatives,

681
00:48:34,850 --> 00:48:39,395
but they are not masters. They are the servants

682
00:48:39,395 --> 00:48:41,578
that we must constrain so that they remain servants,

683
00:48:41,578 --> 00:48:45,736
So that they never become our masters. And the random draw was there for that.

684
00:48:45,751 --> 00:48:52,421
The random draw is there to give a very small bit of pwoer, and never twice in a row,

685
00:48:52,421 --> 00:48:57,747
and never for long. So the randomly drawn in Athens were,

686
00:48:57,747 --> 00:49:00,530
for example, the Counsel of the 500 that were randomly drawn.

687
00:49:00,530 --> 00:49:06,160
The Counsel of the 500 prepared the laws. They made parlementarian study groups and think tanks.

688
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:08,595
They didn't vote the laws. The representatives never voted the laws.

689
00:49:08,595 --> 00:49:11,642
So for the random draw, you are afraid of it when, at first,

690
00:49:11,642 --> 00:49:13,709
you think: "We are going to randomly draw people who are going to vote instead of me."

691
00:49:13,709 --> 00:49:17,593
Not at all. A democracy doesn't work that way.

692
00:49:17,593 --> 00:49:20,177
Representatives aren't the ones who are going to vote for the laws.

693
00:49:20,177 --> 00:49:22,660
Do you see what I am getting at ? We will always vote for the laws.

694
00:49:22,660 --> 00:49:27,879
The 99% who want to build a real democracy,

695
00:49:27,879 --> 00:49:30,492
a democracy woth of its name, they will put in place

696
00:49:30,492 --> 00:49:32,844
the random draw because they know they need representatives

697
00:49:32,844 --> 00:49:36,307
to write the laws, or to carry them out, or to be the police.

698
00:49:36,307 --> 00:49:40,174
Policemen were randomly drawn. Judges were randomly drawn.

699
00:49:40,174 --> 00:49:44,868
Short mandates, non-renewable, and at the end, you were accountable for your actions.

700
00:49:44,868 --> 00:49:49,524
There were a serie of control mechanisms added to the random draw, and they were fabulous!

701
00:49:49,524 --> 00:49:56,993
To be randomly drawn didn't mean that you did nothing. You had a collection of responsibilities

702
00:49:56,993 --> 00:50:00,325
and you were in danger. People could loose their life at the end of their mandate, since they were accountable.

703
00:50:00,325 --> 00:50:03,209
I'll grant you that it's a bit brutal, but life was more brutal at the time.

704
00:50:03,209 --> 00:50:05,309
We wouldn't have to be so brutal today, of course.

705
00:50:05,309 --> 00:50:07,774
We could simply punish, without sentencing someone to death.

706
00:50:07,774 --> 00:50:10,860
We could punish instead. But what I want to say is that since you were held accountable,

707
00:50:10,860 --> 00:50:13,608
it was quite strict! What did he do during his mandate? Why did he do it?

708
00:50:13,608 --> 00:50:16,043
And you kept asking questions until you were sure that he had correctly served the greater good.

709
00:50:16,043 --> 00:50:20,126
And if he had correctly served the greater good,

710
00:50:20,126 --> 00:50:24,208
you built an arc of triumph for him. You treated him with the highest honors,

711
00:50:24,208 --> 00:50:30,892
you looked at him with gratitude, and he would make a reputation for himself.

712
00:50:30,892 --> 00:50:34,306
And with the eyes of society on you, and its appreciation,

713
00:50:34,306 --> 00:50:38,039
you didn't need a money reward. Only insane people try their very best for society

714
00:50:38,039 --> 00:50:40,956
only if you reward them with money. Most of us

715
00:50:40,956 --> 00:50:45,481
we work really hard for the greater good, without the need of money rewards.

716
00:50:45,481 --> 00:50:47,699
We need money to live, and that's it. Afterwards,

717
00:50:47,699 --> 00:50:50,265
the simple fact that people are grateful and are happy

718
00:50:50,265 --> 00:50:52,115
with what you have done keeps us going and makes us happy.

719
00:50:52,115 --> 00:50:54,598
For most normal people, that's enough. Of course, you have crazies

720
00:50:54,598 --> 00:50:56,836
who need a million euros a year to actually bother working hard,

721
00:50:56,836 --> 00:51:02,365
but you should throw those in jail. That's absolutely not the general case.

722
00:51:02,365 --> 00:51:07,332
That was just a joke. So the randomly drawn were filtered.

723
00:51:07,332 --> 00:51:13,016
Well, not filtered, they were slightly selected.

724
00:51:13,016 --> 00:51:15,451
In your schematic, what I am going to tell you

725
00:51:15,451 --> 00:51:18,032
is on the left part... the vertical line there...

726
00:51:18,032 --> 00:51:20,866
that was the checks done on randomly drawn people,

727
00:51:20,866 --> 00:51:24,899
because Athenians were afraid, as you are, to randomly draw idiots

728
00:51:24,899 --> 00:51:28,646
or dishonest people. Of course they were afraid! But they put in place a large set of control mechanisms

729
00:51:28,646 --> 00:51:32,824
that made sure they had nothing to be afraid of from those randomly drawn.

730
00:51:32,824 --> 00:51:34,824
So at the start, it is on a voluntary basis.

731
00:51:34,824 --> 00:51:37,096
That was the first filter. So already, those who thought themselves

732
00:51:37,096 --> 00:51:40,377
to be incapable of taking up the responsibilities didn't come forward

733
00:51:40,377 --> 00:51:43,227
to be randomly drawn. So that was your first filter.

734
00:51:43,227 --> 00:51:48,498
Then, you had ostracism that pushed out those

735
00:51:48,498 --> 00:51:51,464
you didn't trust. And Athenians didn't trust most of

736
00:51:51,464 --> 00:51:56,499
those who could speak well. Athenians, who had strong political experience,

737
00:51:56,499 --> 00:51:59,113
and it is very interesting to discover it - you learn so much from it -

738
00:51:59,113 --> 00:52:06,246
yhey built up a political system to protect themselves from the abuse of power.

739
00:52:06,246 --> 00:52:09,797
From demagogues, from corruption. They put in place

740
00:52:09,797 --> 00:52:12,630
many institutions that are absolutly incredible.

741
00:52:12,630 --> 00:52:17,747
So ostracism today has a very negative meaning. But ostracism,

742
00:52:17,747 --> 00:52:20,465
back then, not only was it not negative,

743
00:52:20,465 --> 00:52:22,622
but it was a very important word for Athenian democracy.

744
00:52:22,622 --> 00:52:26,437
It let you put someone aside that you were afraid of.

745
00:52:26,437 --> 00:52:30,213
So since they were looking for agreement, in order to pacify society,

746
00:52:30,213 --> 00:52:34,525
you absolutely had to push aside individuals that could cause hate

747
00:52:34,525 --> 00:52:40,441
or fear, or panic. So for individuals who worried them, Athenians

748
00:52:40,441 --> 00:52:42,974
could, with the help of a procedure call "ostracism"

749
00:52:42,974 --> 00:52:44,758
put those individuals aside. I'll talk about it later

750
00:52:44,758 --> 00:52:49,229
if you are interested, you'll just have to ask. So you had a method to put aside

751
00:52:49,229 --> 00:52:51,760
people that you feared. You also had "docimasy" [Greek].

752
00:52:51,760 --> 00:52:55,027
I keep the word because I like it a lot. There is a certain form of poetry in some greek words,

753
00:52:55,027 --> 00:52:57,110
like "isegoria", the right to speak for all at every moment,

754
00:52:57,110 --> 00:53:01,528
or like docimasy, that sort of test, not of skills,

755
00:53:01,528 --> 00:53:06,161
since I told you earlier that all Athenians believed they were equally skilled in politics.

756
00:53:06,161 --> 00:53:09,078
That was their hypothesis. They knew there weren't equal [in skills]

757
00:53:09,078 --> 00:53:11,412
But the hypothesis was equality in politics, however,

758
00:53:11,412 --> 00:53:16,544
they could understand that there was the issue of aptitude.

759
00:53:16,544 --> 00:53:19,728
For example, an insanely disturbed person, a mad man, you had to have a

760
00:53:19,728 --> 00:53:22,462
mechanism to put him aside. So docimasy served to put mad men aside.

761
00:53:22,462 --> 00:53:25,111
They also had criterias - and we could think of what criterias

762
00:53:25,111 --> 00:53:27,634
we could choose as ours, modern criterias - but they had their criterias

763
00:53:27,634 --> 00:53:32,730
that I find fun. You couldn't be randomly drawn

764
00:53:32,730 --> 00:53:35,295
and pass the docimasy

765
00:53:35,295 --> 00:53:39,112
if you weren't someone who took good care of your parents.

766
00:53:39,112 --> 00:53:43,611
It is curious to see that. You couldn't take care of the greater good

767
00:53:43,611 --> 00:53:47,612
if you weren't even capable of taking care of your own parents.

768
00:53:47,612 --> 00:53:57,795
So this simple assessment should lead us to study the athenian system.

769
00:53:57,795 --> 00:54:01,627
They practiced it for over 200 years.

770
00:54:01,627 --> 00:54:05,546
If it were so bad, if there were so many faults, if there were so many problems,

771
00:54:05,546 --> 00:54:11,128
if it were even suspicious, they would never have lasted 200 years.

772
00:54:11,128 --> 00:54:14,227
200 years, that's a very long time. It's the same length of time as us trying out the election system.

773
00:54:14,227 --> 00:54:21,178
Since 1789 (French Revolution), you have approximately 200 years. A 200-year long trial of elections.

774
00:54:21,178 --> 00:54:24,928
And in Athens, you had a 200-year long trial of random draw.

775
00:54:24,928 --> 00:54:30,294
If it were so wrong, if it had so many objections, without any answers to them,

776
00:54:30,294 --> 00:54:33,244
it would never have lasted 200 years. So have a look, you will see.

777
00:54:33,244 --> 00:54:35,845
If you feel you have an objection, when you dig slightly deeper...

778
00:54:35,845 --> 00:54:38,276
you need to work on it a bit... if you just work a bit on the subject, you'll find out

779
00:54:38,276 --> 00:54:41,547
how passionate it is. If you work, you'll see that the objections

780
00:54:41,547 --> 00:54:49,312
all find a solution. When I weigh the pros & cons,

781
00:54:49,312 --> 00:54:51,639
and this is not an opinion, but facts,

782
00:54:51,639 --> 00:54:55,100
when I look at 200 years of random draw,

783
00:54:55,100 --> 00:54:58,082
and when I see that during 200 years of random draw

784
00:54:58,082 --> 00:55:02,233
it is the citizens in their vast majority, almost exclusively

785
00:55:02,233 --> 00:55:05,867
the 99% that voted their laws and who for over

786
00:55:05,867 --> 00:55:10,684
200 years voted their laws that put forth a society

787
00:55:10,684 --> 00:55:16,883
that knew prosperity, was rich, politically stable. They weren't miserable.

788
00:55:16,883 --> 00:55:19,082
They weren't more miserable then their neighbouring societies.

789
00:55:19,082 --> 00:55:21,998
It wasn't chaos at all. They had their problems, for sure.

790
00:55:21,998 --> 00:55:24,617
Democracy had problems that would be interesting

791
00:55:24,617 --> 00:55:28,628
for us to study to try and avoid them and make the system better.

792
00:55:28,628 --> 00:55:33,960
But over 200 years of practice, the 99%, the poor were in power.

793
00:55:33,960 --> 00:55:35,677
And they didn't squash the rich either. They didn't kill them.

794
00:55:35,677 --> 00:55:39,702
They didn't steal from them. The rich lived a very good life back in the time of Athens!

795
00:55:39,702 --> 00:55:42,384
They lived much more comfortably than the poor.

796
00:55:42,384 --> 00:55:44,751
They had great villas, many slaves,

797
00:55:44,751 --> 00:55:48,501
and lived wealthy lives but they didn't have political power.

798
00:55:48,501 --> 00:55:52,118
We have a hard time imagining it.

799
00:55:52,118 --> 00:55:55,217
We grew up in a regime, since we were children,

800
00:55:55,217 --> 00:56:01,633
where all the societies in the world

801
00:56:01,633 --> 00:56:04,983
have rich people in power and they have everything. And if we are poor,

802
00:56:04,983 --> 00:56:08,418
we don't have power. We have nothing. And there is a synchronisation

803
00:56:08,418 --> 00:56:10,517
to which we have becomed used to.

804
00:56:10,517 --> 00:56:14,593
I want you to become aware that in Athens, for 200 years,

805
00:56:14,593 --> 00:56:21,821
because of random draw, the political power and the economical power

806
00:56:21,821 --> 00:56:25,739
were desynchronised. You did not have the same people who were politically rich

807
00:56:25,739 --> 00:56:32,006
and economically rich. And today, it is the opposite, for 200 years,

808
00:56:32,006 --> 00:56:35,406
the false universal suffrage, in our false democracy,

809
00:56:35,406 --> 00:56:41,073
with false citizens, these elections with their false choices,

810
00:56:41,073 --> 00:56:43,038
for over 200 years [have left us powerless]. Listen to Guillemin, you will

811
00:56:43,038 --> 00:56:45,489
find the details of what I am telling you. For 200 years,

812
00:56:45,489 --> 00:56:50,259
it is always the 1% who have been in power,

813
00:56:50,259 --> 00:56:55,023
voted laws of ultra-rich people for the ultra-rich. It is without a single exception.

814
00:56:55,023 --> 00:57:02,657
And the 99% have never been in power, not even during the Popular Front [1936-1938], not even in 1981 [Women's emancipation].

815
00:57:02,657 --> 00:57:09,655
So the simple assessment that the random draw gives power to the poor,

816
00:57:09,655 --> 00:57:11,839
that democracy, the true democracy, gives power to the 99%

817
00:57:11,839 --> 00:57:16,907
and that representative government gives power to the 1%, the rich

818
00:57:16,907 --> 00:57:22,785
that should normaly stir you. I am not saying adopt it right away.

819
00:57:22,785 --> 00:57:25,551
I know fully well that you will need time to get used to the idea

820
00:57:25,551 --> 00:57:28,135
because it is so shaking, upsetting. You'll need time to shake off the habits.

821
00:57:28,135 --> 00:57:30,751
It's been 50 years that I have been taught "Election equals Democracy",

822
00:57:30,751 --> 00:57:35,152
"Democracy equals Election". That's not true!

823
00:57:35,152 --> 00:57:39,045
The solutions.

824
00:57:43,124 --> 00:57:47,924
So I'll stop talking about athenian democracy until further questions.

825
00:57:47,924 --> 00:57:53,309
So I would like to talk about our concerns,

826
00:57:53,309 --> 00:57:56,492
the problems we face today, and the solutions

827
00:57:56,492 --> 00:57:59,974
that I have come up with because I am interested in your opinion.

828
00:57:59,974 --> 00:58:02,891
Do you think that it could be possible, doable ?

829
00:58:02,891 --> 00:58:05,925
What wouldn't work ? What are your objections?

830
00:58:05,925 --> 00:58:10,584
I am in need of your objections.

831
00:58:14,015 --> 00:58:16,479
Over the past 6 years, I have been living with controversy.

832
00:58:16,479 --> 00:58:18,628
Endlessly, I rub against opposition. Almost every day,

833
00:58:18,628 --> 00:58:21,145
I am in a controversy, people contradict my point

834
00:58:21,145 --> 00:58:26,194
and you move so much faster when people contradict you, oppose you.

835
00:58:26,194 --> 00:58:30,495
We need that. Today, there is a good chance that most of you

836
00:58:30,495 --> 00:58:36,713
won't completly agree, but most often, in an assembly,

837
00:58:36,713 --> 00:58:39,661
we come together because we share more or less the same point of view.

838
00:58:39,661 --> 00:58:42,077
The progress made in such an environment isn't as good.

839
00:58:42,077 --> 00:58:44,827
What is better for moving forward is when we [disagree]

840
00:58:44,827 --> 00:58:50,411
That's the gamble of democracy. In Athens, the general idea of democracy

841
00:58:50,411 --> 00:58:55,111
was to get people together, and most importantly people

842
00:58:55,111 --> 00:59:01,879
we dislike, to bring up conflictive situations. That's what is important.

843
00:59:01,879 --> 00:59:04,744
To make the best possible decision, the Athenians beleived

844
00:59:04,744 --> 00:59:07,963
that we should give everyone a say. That was isegoria.

845
00:59:07,963 --> 00:59:12,039
To give everyone a chance to speak up, the right to speak for all, concerning any subject, at any given moment.

846
00:59:12,039 --> 00:59:18,934
Isegoria... a beautiful word. That right of speech and the setting for conflicts

847
00:59:18,934 --> 00:59:23,635
let them shed light on which were the correct decisions.

848
00:59:23,635 --> 00:59:27,021
What I observe everywhere is that in the Constitution,

849
00:59:27,021 --> 00:59:30,932
the rules that organise our power are not planned at all.

850
00:59:30,932 --> 00:59:34,320
That is, they are anti-constitutions.

851
00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:39,152
The institutions that organise our power are missing.

852
00:59:39,152 --> 00:59:41,439
That is why we are powerless, politically impotent.

853
00:59:41,439 --> 00:59:45,666
Because nothing is programmed to give us any kind of power.

854
00:59:45,666 --> 00:59:49,290
That is a cause. You know, I was telling you

855
00:59:49,290 --> 00:59:52,423
about the tree of social injustices earlier, with all its consequences.

856
00:59:52,423 --> 00:59:56,524
All the branches that are types of political corruption,

857
00:59:56,524 --> 00:59:59,657
abuse of power in companies, ecological catastrophy,

858
00:59:59,657 --> 01:00:04,823
unemployment, low income, and so on. All those social injustices

859
01:00:04,823 --> 01:00:09,624
all the discrimination, the racism... All those social injustices,

860
01:00:09,624 --> 01:00:16,378
to me, they are all consequences of our political powerlessness / impotence to fight against them.

861
01:00:16,378 --> 01:00:18,380
We are many, very many, (and we don't need all),

862
01:00:18,380 --> 01:00:21,343
we are many ready to fight against these injustices.

863
01:00:21,343 --> 01:00:25,576
But we are without power. I propose that we take on

864
01:00:25,576 --> 01:00:28,926
the cause of our powerlessness and get rid of it.

865
01:00:28,926 --> 01:00:31,758
Like someone who is sick isn't going to just take some aspirin

866
01:00:31,758 --> 01:00:33,926
when his head hurts. He is going to try and find out why

867
01:00:33,926 --> 01:00:36,294
he has a headache. So for very serious diseases,

868
01:00:36,294 --> 01:00:39,496
where it isn't just a headache that goes away with aspirine,

869
01:00:39,496 --> 01:00:42,676
and by then, the cause has dissapeared, but for serious diseases,

870
01:00:42,676 --> 01:00:47,722
the doctor is going to have to search for the cause of the disease. The root of the issue.

871
01:00:47,722 --> 01:00:49,884
So that political impotency, where does it come from?

872
01:00:49,884 --> 01:00:52,708
It comes from the Constitution. You see, I go back to the source of things.

873
01:00:52,708 --> 01:00:54,543
I go back to the root. It stems out from the Constitution.

874
01:00:54,543 --> 01:00:58,710
Ah! The Constitution. So how come these Constitutions

875
01:00:58,710 --> 01:01:01,891
are bad Constitutions? So I try to understand this.

876
01:01:01,891 --> 01:01:06,109
But, but, but, but... who writes these Constitutions?

877
01:01:06,109 --> 01:01:09,292
Who wrote them? Who voted them in? It is still we, the people.

878
01:01:09,292 --> 01:01:11,526
It is always the people who vote their Constitution in.

879
01:01:11,526 --> 01:01:13,392
So now we see that it isn't suffisiant to solve the problem,

880
01:01:13,392 --> 01:01:15,675
since the Constitutions, as I told you, program in almost every country,

881
01:01:15,675 --> 01:01:19,175
the powerlessness of the people. So voting for the Constitution doesn't change that.

882
01:01:19,175 --> 01:01:22,658
You musn't just accept a Constitution you are asked to vote on.

883
01:01:22,658 --> 01:01:25,592
That's a scam. That's not where the game is played.

884
01:01:25,592 --> 01:01:27,675
What is important is not who votes for the Constitution.

885
01:01:27,675 --> 01:01:30,626
What is important, is who writes it. So who writes it?

886
01:01:30,626 --> 01:01:34,210
Everyone around the world, no matter the historical period, the question is who wrote the Constitution?

887
01:01:34,210 --> 01:01:35,976
Do you remember what I told you earlier?

888
01:01:35,976 --> 01:01:40,377
You have us, you have the powers who are capable of producing the law,

889
01:01:40,377 --> 01:01:45,860
useful for us but also dangerous, and then you have the institutions that they should be afraid of.

890
01:01:45,860 --> 01:01:50,093
Who writes the institutions that they never fear?

891
01:01:50,093 --> 01:01:58,896
They do! That's my point. And I work hard, and I come here to meet with you,

892
01:01:58,896 --> 01:02:01,993
because it must absolutely become your point as well.

893
01:02:01,993 --> 01:02:06,575
It must become your thesis, our soul focus point.

894
01:02:06,575 --> 01:02:08,963
If I alone fight this, it won't work. But if we are millions,

895
01:02:08,963 --> 01:02:11,684
billions even, we can say: it is not the place or the role of people in power

896
01:02:11,684 --> 01:02:13,443
to right the rules of their power. We must stop having

897
01:02:13,443 --> 01:02:15,791
professionals in politics that find a seat in Constitutional Assemblies

898
01:02:15,791 --> 01:02:20,459
for the following to stop: the simple fact that these political professionals

899
01:02:20,459 --> 01:02:22,224
program the impotency of their people. But it's normal,

900
01:02:22,224 --> 01:02:25,892
they have a personal interest in that. I am not saying they are scoundrels.

901
01:02:25,892 --> 01:02:30,005
I say that, since they are professional politicians,

902
01:02:30,005 --> 01:02:33,971
even virtuous, even very noble, even very generous professionals,

903
01:02:33,971 --> 01:02:37,104
that when they will be writing a Constitution that they should fear,

904
01:02:37,104 --> 01:02:41,046
and that will hinder their interests, in essence,

905
01:02:41,046 --> 01:02:45,696
in that specific moment, they are in a conflict of interest.

906
01:02:45,696 --> 01:02:48,447
Conflict of interest is a concept that is very important to understand.

907
01:02:48,447 --> 01:02:51,998
It is the key. It is the key to all this mess.

908
01:02:51,998 --> 01:02:55,551
It is the source of the catastrophic situation we are in.

909
01:02:55,551 --> 01:02:57,954
I will give you an example of conflict of interest,

910
01:02:57,954 --> 01:03:00,634
and I'll come back to our professional politician writing the Constitution.

911
01:03:00,634 --> 01:03:04,822
Conflict of interest occurs like this: you have a judge, a very good judge,

912
01:03:04,822 --> 01:03:09,851
an honest judge, who worries about the greater good, about justice.

913
01:03:09,851 --> 01:03:16,604
More detailed, more conscientious than him, you won't find. Not an ounce of dishonesty.

914
01:03:16,604 --> 01:03:21,194
A good judge. In his role, in the agenda of cases to do during the day,

915
01:03:21,194 --> 01:03:29,879
comes along his son, or his daughter, either as a victim or accused of a crime.

916
01:03:29,879 --> 01:03:34,150
Everyone on earth understand that this judge,

917
01:03:34,150 --> 01:03:39,188
even a good judge, is incapable of producing justice

918
01:03:39,188 --> 01:03:41,578
for his daughter or his son. Do you understand?

919
01:03:41,578 --> 01:03:44,177
That is called conflict of interest. The conflict of interest

920
01:03:44,177 --> 01:03:47,494
doesn't mean that he is dishonest, not at all,

921
01:03:47,494 --> 01:03:50,410
it doesn't say he is a corrupt scoundrel, not at all!

922
01:03:50,410 --> 01:03:57,536
It just says that for that specific moment, he can not be fair.

923
01:03:57,536 --> 01:04:00,137
So what do we do, for that specific case, accross the world?

924
01:04:00,137 --> 01:04:02,517
It is not even a problem, not even for the judge!

925
01:04:02,517 --> 01:04:05,681
He makes it a point of principle and honor by recusing himself.

926
01:04:05,681 --> 01:04:12,665
You declare him incapable of doing that particular trial.

927
01:04:12,665 --> 01:04:19,398
Why ? Because he would be judge and jury, he would be in a conflict of interest.

928
01:04:19,398 --> 01:04:23,265
So you can't have that. It is very important that you understand that this is wrong.

929
01:04:23,265 --> 01:04:27,864
You understand it? Well I say that our political representatives,

930
01:04:27,864 --> 01:04:34,414
our ministers, our judges, our presidents, our news reporters,

931
01:04:34,414 --> 01:04:38,035
our bankers, all those who hold important power, [are in conflict of interest].

932
01:04:38,035 --> 01:04:40,498
Media and banks, you must also put them in the same bag

933
01:04:40,498 --> 01:04:44,147
as parlementarians, government, judges. It's a whole.

934
01:04:44,147 --> 01:04:46,198
You don't have three powers but you have five powers

935
01:04:46,198 --> 01:04:49,268
that threaten us and that we must weaken and control through a Constitution.

936
01:04:49,268 --> 01:04:53,833
So all these people, including candidates for such positions,

937
01:04:53,833 --> 01:04:57,033
including people who aren't parlementarians yet,

938
01:04:57,033 --> 01:04:59,885
who aren't ministers yet, but who see themselves in the future

939
01:04:59,885 --> 01:05:03,479
as candidates for a party, for power, they are included.

940
01:05:03,479 --> 01:05:07,447
Do you see? So all these people, even the kindest ones,

941
01:05:07,447 --> 01:05:11,696
the virtuous ones, the good ones, the devoted to greater good,

942
01:05:11,696 --> 01:05:17,581
when we are in the constitutional process, when we are writing a Constitution,

943
01:05:17,581 --> 01:05:20,813
when we are writing the text they should fear,

944
01:05:20,813 --> 01:05:26,206
if that Constitution is well written, they are in a radical situation.

945
01:05:26,206 --> 01:05:31,789
It is a strong conflict of interest. They will have a personal interest contrary

946
01:05:31,789 --> 01:05:36,032
to the greater good of us all. We have let them deactivate

947
01:05:36,032 --> 01:05:39,376
a great tool that is the Constitution, that could protect us

948
01:05:39,376 --> 01:05:42,927
efficiently today against bankers, against oligarchs.

949
01:05:42,927 --> 01:05:46,850
We have let the word lose its meaning:

950
01:05:46,850 --> 01:05:50,900
a concept, an essential tool that legally protects us.

951
01:05:50,900 --> 01:05:55,417
We have let the word lose its meaning by letting

952
01:05:55,417 --> 01:05:59,618
the Constitution be written by exactly those who should be fearing it.

953
01:05:59,618 --> 01:06:05,220
The solution is not with those people. If we wait and want them to make things change,

954
01:06:05,220 --> 01:06:07,933
it will never change. That isn't the root cause,

955
01:06:07,933 --> 01:06:13,388
they aren't the cause of the problem.

956
01:06:13,388 --> 01:06:16,103
The root of the issue is the people who let them write the rules.

957
01:06:16,103 --> 01:06:21,956
That's us.
We are the lazy ones or the uncultivated.

958
01:06:21,956 --> 01:06:28,346
I know : lazy, uncultivated, afraid, coward.

959
01:06:28,346 --> 01:06:34,815
I am saying it nicely but you see what I mean.

960
01:06:34,815 --> 01:06:36,303
But wait, wait, wait...

961
01:06:36,303 --> 01:06:43,677
If you recuse yourself from writing the Constitution, you shouldn't complain

962
01:06:43,677 --> 01:06:46,811
about your political impotency. It is your fault.

963
01:06:46,811 --> 01:06:50,695
It is our fault. And I beleive that I found the cause. So it gives us hope.

964
01:06:50,695 --> 01:06:55,425
If it is in us, then we can change it!

965
01:06:55,425 --> 01:07:01,445
If it only depended on others, and they are scoundrels who double the stake by being in conflict of interest,

966
01:07:01,445 --> 01:07:06,448
then we'd be stuck! But if it is us, then it's simple finally.

967
01:07:06,448 --> 01:07:09,909
It's not complicated at all! Beleive me when I tell you it isn't complicated.

968
01:07:09,909 --> 01:07:11,975
It is complicated only if we are few. Voilà.

969
01:07:11,975 --> 01:07:15,142
If we are 1,000, 2,000, even if we are 100,000, it won't work.

970
01:07:15,142 --> 01:07:18,525
They'll butcher us. When I say "They", I mean the "people from Versailles".

971
01:07:18,525 --> 01:07:20,507
Listen to Guillemin, he will explain what happened during the Commune.

972
01:07:20,507 --> 01:07:22,375
You will understand who "the people of Versailles" are.

973
01:07:22,375 --> 01:07:32,907
It's awful. They still exist today and they still squash

974
01:07:32,907 --> 01:07:36,959
us! When you look at the Greeks nowadays, just look at them. They are us!

975
01:07:36,959 --> 01:07:38,905
When I look at Palestinians...we are Palestinians!

976
01:07:38,905 --> 01:07:47,305
If we don't do anything, in the long run, it will end up with work camps. We have to wake up.

977
01:07:47,305 --> 01:07:51,344
Internet Revolution

978
01:07:53,328 --> 01:07:57,284
It seems to me that the Internet is a revolution as important as .

979
01:07:57,284 --> 01:08:00,585
the first printing machines. The printing press gave us the power to read.

980
01:08:00,585 --> 01:08:03,318
It gave the people the incredible right to emancipate.

981
01:08:03,318 --> 01:08:05,683
That you have the right to read is good but not sufficient.

982
01:08:05,683 --> 01:08:09,963
Even with the printing press, you can only read

983
01:08:09,963 --> 01:08:14,155
the books that have been written, in general, by the elite,

984
01:08:14,155 --> 01:08:20,605
by oligarchs, by people who are no longer part of the mutlitude.

985
01:08:20,605 --> 01:08:23,189
What the Internet has given us, what the Internet has given to the people,

986
01:08:23,189 --> 01:08:27,861
and by that I mean the people of the earth, is the right to write.

987
01:08:27,861 --> 01:08:30,612
And that is probably [the breakthrough]. We have not yet seen the full consequence of this,

988
01:08:30,612 --> 01:08:33,346
and maybe I am wrong, but I am under the impression

989
01:08:33,346 --> 01:08:35,929
that it is at least as important as the first printing machine.

990
01:08:35,929 --> 01:08:38,380
It will give us the possibility to educate the people

991
01:08:38,380 --> 01:08:43,295
that we need, and to put powers back on top,

992
01:08:43,295 --> 01:08:46,812
above our elite. It will let us put a text on top

993
01:08:46,812 --> 01:08:50,646
that they will fear. And in my eyes, it can change everything.