This misleading title will probably conjure visions of a lunch type business meeting in which poor downsized saps are given tips on how to make a resume that speaks to their possible new employers when they loose their shitty jobs in two weeks. These lunch time information sessions are given such hopeful titles as “Internet equals world of opportunity for Fifty year old entrants to the job market” and for the depressed worker “Change your conventional oven to gas in less than an hour”. But it’s not about this brave new economy, it’s about democracy. More accurately democracy’s long lost often embarrassing cousin, direct democracy.
This form of direct democracy goes beyond letter writing campaigns to your MP to get the age of consent lowered (if not eliminated completely), or giving local seniors free coffee and a bus ride to the legislature to get them to hold placards demanding that the provincial government lobby the feds for the above legal changes. It also puts Noam Chomsky’s advice on doing crappy things like voting, complaining, writing books about democracy, and voting again to shame.
Hopefully this preamble has wet the reader’s appetite and engorged their faculties. The whole concept of direct democracy, I believe, rests on (or more accurately in) the “brown bag of democracy.” One citizen can voice their anonymous opinion by placing poo in a brown paper bag and depositing this package at the front door of the institution or residence of the organization or individual that has wronged him or her. Even the most important people on the planet enjoy receiving packages and surprises.
This concept of placing democracy where it belongs, in the hands of the people, has a long and rich history dating back as far as the 16th century. My tireless research uncovered the first use of the brown bag of democracy by none other than my man Martin Luther. Some other historians contend that it was Luther Campbell who first pioneered this technique in the greater Miami area 400 years later, but as you will soon discover my case for Martin Luther is much stronger. For those of you who are not familiar with religious history, Martin Luther was the father of Protestantism. His criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church and papal excesses won him few friends in the upper echelons of the German State. In his memoirs, he wrote of the extreme depression he suffered as a result of being banned from such events as the Cardinal’s annual golf tournament and heretic burning August 1st long week-end party. Luther was also subject to a life of celibacy due to his exclusion from his local churches singles bridge night. After years of complaining and voicing his opinions on how the Roman Catholic Church could be more responsible to its followers and less dependant on a highly complex scheme of absolution from sins being sold by the church to those with money, he finally discovered a way to get the pope to stand up and take notice.
This next paragraph is where my research deviates from most other texts. Present wisdom declares that Martin Luther nailed a copy of his 95 theses to the door of his local Church demanding change. This is a misrepresentation of history. Martin demonstrated his displeasure with the Roman Catholic Church by leaving the first ever brown bag of justice on the door of his local bishop. This action single-handedly changed religious history forever. Protestantism was born with its foundation resting squarely on the idea of the brown bag of democracy. The Roman Catholic Church took notice and immediately began making widespread changes. The result is the bastion of fairness, openness, and equality for all people regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation that we today call the Modern Roman Catholic Church.