Extreme Democracy is a new Web site and online book edited by Mitch Ratcliffe and Jon Lebkowsky. “‘Extreme democracy’ is a political philosophy of the information era that puts people in charge of the entire political process. It suggests a deliberative process that places total confidence in the people, opening the policy-making process to many centers of power through deeply networked coalitions that can be organized around local, national and international issues.”

I am a firm believer in the Web being a new expression of our democratic process. More than ever before every citizen can have a voice in local and national debates simply by visiting their local library or school and logging onto the web. But that is not true worldwide. Many countries do not have access for all their citizens, thus their voices are not heard by the rest of us. As stated in the preface, “Rather than debate how involved a citizen should be or fret over the lack of involvement among citizens of advanced democracies, the extreme democracy model focuses on the act of participation and assumes that anyone in a democracy is free to act politically. If individuals are constrained from action, they are not free, not citizens but subjects.” This is a site that will give you a lot to think about, whether or not you agree with their conclusions.