Civitas is an alternative to the two party system that has come to serve us so poorly. Rather than organize Americans into parties based on a shared set of values, Civitas aims to organize us into groups that build consensus between members with often widely divergent politics. Read on to find out Who we are, What Civitas is, Where we hope to take action, When we can achieve these goals, Why these goals are so essential to the future of America, and How we can achieve them. If you are still confused, consider browsing our FAQ, or adding your question to it.
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Who are We?
We are a small group of citizens from a wide range of the political spectrum, with many different sets of political values. Some of us are religious, and some of us are secular. Some of us believe in strong Defense Spending, and some of us are pacifists. If there is something we have in common, it is a commitment to the Democratic process, a respect for the intelligence and competence of the average American, and a belief that if we work together and are willing to make sacrifices, we can overturn a great deal of the corruption and mismanagement that has become ingrained in American politics.
If you want to know more specifics, you can read about our Staff.
What is Civitas?
Civitas is a non-profit political organization committed to revolutionizing American politics by building political consensus. We offer an alternative to the party system and, while we are not a political party, we do some of the things that a political party normally does. Civitas' mission could be summarized as:
1. Collaborative Learning
We will provide tools with which American citizens can teach, learn, debate and explain about politics: everything from local issues to international ones. We aim, in this respect, to break down the strict division between the political 'expert' and the citizen. As citizens of a Democratic nation, we must all endeavor to be better experts, and frankly we are already a lot better informed and more intelligent than popular portrayals of us would have us believe.
2. Choosing Representatives
In addition to providing tools and forums in which Americans with various political opinions can get together and share information, discuss and debate, we will involve ourselves directly in the representative process by nominating members of Civitas to run for public office. The process by which we will nominate leadership is markedly different from that of a traditional political party. For more information about how Civitas will relate to public office, you can read about leadership in Civitas.
This makes us different because central to our campaigning will be our endeavor to bring American participative politics into all of our lives, and to get people involved and organized. We will share information with each other, exchange opinions, and begin to establish a human connection with one another that will lead to leadership that we will know, and consequently be able to trust.
Civitas is primarily about engaging Americans in debate and discussion with other Americans, even and especially those we have classically been at odds with. By bringing Americans with a wide range of political opinions together under the common goal of creating consensus, we believe that Civitas will produce better solutions to many of the most pressing issues facing America today.
If you want to know more, you can read about the organization of Civitas.
Where will we Take Action?
At this stage of Civitas' development, we are most concerned with building membership in two ways: first, on the internet through digital collaborative media (like this website), and second, in regional groups through personal human contact.
The first area of growth is important because of the way digital media empowers us to establish and maintain human contact across great distance with relatively limited resources. While there are still many people in America with limited access to the internet, it remains a cheap, powerful solution for networking people that is unprecedented in human history; and it allows for two-way discussion in a way that mass media does not.
Not only are many intelligent Americans unfamiliar with the newest collaborative technologies, many more have limited access to them. Here is where the second area of growth is essential, because as much as the internet may empower us to establish and maintain meaningful human contact, it is, by itself, somewhat detached from the physical world in which politics operates. So, the first group, members of Civitas networked through digital media, will act as seeds in their local communities to involve friends, family and coworkers in the processes that we will start here.
Because of the nature of Civitas and its emphasis on growing collaboration and consensus among small groups of Americans, it is all the more important that our groups be small, and regional. We will devise local solutions to the problems and issues facing us close to home, and as we grow we will work together to devise solutions to problems in our cities, counties, states and our nation.
If you want to know more, you can read about where our current members live.
When can we Change America?
The short answer is: now. We are seeing the sun set on the cynicism and empty materialism of the nineties, even though the richest and most powerful Americans are still frantically trying to go on with business as usual, injecting absurd sums of money into an economic system that has become self-defeating, and using the same old techniques of "divide and conquer" to dominate the American political system.
But this is the way of the past, and our great strength is that the most nefariously self-interested groups of Americans don't realize that the world is changing faster than they are. Modern collaborative technologies, the growing discontent of a nebulously defined "middle class," and the brink of our next Great Depression all combine to make this the perfect time to band together and change our system.
Our opportunity is that collaborative media contain the potential for fast, profound growth. We can start to reform our country very quickly if we take this opportunity to do so.
But the truth is, it's not just an opportunity anymore. It's a necessity. If we don't do it now, circumstances will force us to it very soon. The crisis of the twenty-first century is here. The only question is how we will face it.
To read more about why we think now is the right time for America to change, check out our News Bulletin.
Why Change America?
Most of us agree that America needs change, but why abandon the party system? Why not focus on reforming it?
A better question might be, how is the traditional party system serving our interests? The party system was never meant to go hand in hand with American politics, and while it may at certain times in history, have served Americans well as an extension of the "checks and balances" built into our representative Republic, it has now long outgrown its use.
Why do we organize ourselves into groups based on a set of ideologically similar political platforms, and then proceed to alienate ourselves and vilify those whose politics are different from our own? It hardly makes sense, especially as corruption has increasingly undermined the parties' ability to accurately represent their political platform.
We need to break our camps and start talking to one another. Diversity is one of America's profoundest strengths, and we think it is high time diversity meant not an institutionalized war between political "left" and "right," but a wide variety of opinions and perspectives debated and discussed in a forum geared towards building consensus between those perspectives.
It's true that we can't agree on everything. And it's true that some of the things we can't agree about are very important. But here at Civitas, we don't think that our disagreements mean that we can't work together.
If you want to know more about why we believe these changes to be necessary, you can read about our political philosophy.
How can we Change America?
You can start by creating an account, or emailing us to tell us you'd like to get involved. There's a lot to do. Because this site is a Wiki, you are encouraged to add, edit, and contribute content immediately after joining. If you're not sure how to use MediaWiki, there are some great resources available; but in addition to people who will help us with the website, we need people who will help us establish our regional presences.
Once you join, we will get you involved in a Group, either regional or net-based, depending on how many members of Civitas live near you. From there, you can get to know our fellow members, start to share your voice, and listen to the other voices around you.
We're very new, so a lot of this is going to change and develop as quickly as we grow, but the first step is just to get in touch.
