The Revolution will not be Televised…it’ll be PEEPS

In 1970 our favorite proto-rapper and poet, Gil Scott Heron, released the “Revolution will not be Televised.” The Revolution was not going to be brought to you by corporate sponsors. It wasn’t going to be something where you could grab a beer during commercial breaks. The promise was that the revolution will put you in the driver’s seat. Almost 40 years later, we can tack on that the revolution will not be brought by big marches on Washington, protest songs (sorry Gil), by Twitter, Facebook or even Reddit.

The “revolution” can exist only by one thing: our communities. Modern change can exist when communities rally together. By tapping into our communities and networks of friends, family, neighbors, followers, colleagues we can transform those communities into movements. We’ve launched Peeps Democracy and WeThePeeps to give you the tools to effect change and motivate your communities to bring revolutions.

Making Movements

Democracy feels like it is in crisis today. Over the past decade, we’ve seen an eroding trust in the institutions and decision-makers that we’ve trusted to protect democracy and democratic values across the entire political spectrum. Politics has been corrupted by corporate interests as the hands individual voters.Trust in corporations might have fallen off a cliff in the last 15 years.

At the same time, we’ve seen democratic communities flourish online and IRL wherever groups of three or more people come together and decide to be governed by consensus rather than force. In an effort to re-inject democracy into our society’s important institutions, we want to give you the tools to create more of those informal democracies online.

Our goals are simple:

• to put you in the driver’s seat,
• to give you the means to build an action-oriented community,
• turn networks into movements, and
• make sure that every voice is heard.

The reality is that revolutions take a tremendous amount of time and effort, often happening in slow, mostly peaceful fits and starts. Moreover, for the most part, sudden uprisings don’t tend to end well nor does the momentum of these efforts continue in a meaningful way.

Communities dedicated to taking action for change are proven to work. In the 1960’s, the civil rights victories in the U.S. happened because there was a movement that had been born out of the communities built by leaders like W.E.B. DuBois, T.R.M. Howard, Jo Ann Gibson Robinson and many others. The movement was inspired by icons like Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks and Thurgood Marshall. And most important of all, it was powered by the ordinary citizens who organized, marched, sat down at segregated lunch counters, and voted all in the effort to build a better future.

WeThePeeps is the operating system for movements in a way that empowers your community to bolster an issue and build democratic and action-focused communities. We believe it should be easy for any inspired, motivated citizen to gather their friends, find supporters and make change happen.

The Deets on WeThePeeps v0.1

Let’s get to brass tacks, how are we doing this? What’s our path to making this real? Fair questions. We’re starting by addressing U.S. politics, because one thing pretty much everyone agrees on is there’s a lot that could be improved. Small donor donations have a tremendous impact on politics and, increasingly, politicians are opting out of receiving corporate donations.

Our beta version will allow any person (who’s a U.S. citizen or permanent resident over 18) to start a “movement” on the platform.

• Each movement starts out by defining a value, political goal or set of policies you want your community to support.
• From there, you add the top 5 politicians at the federal level who reflect that value or political goal or set of policies that matter to your movement.
• We allow users to join your movement by donating to all five of those politicians at one time.

This way movement founders can help and support several key politicians all at once and the rest of us can piggy-back off the movement founder’s hard work by “investing” our contribution dollars in the issues, values, political goals, etc. that matter to us with a single donation. Money in politics isn’t going away, but we’re turning Citizens United into UNITED CITIZENS.

A movement doesn’t stop with a single donation (or even recurring donations). Movements are thriving, living communities of individuals, which is what we’re trying to build.

Anyone who donates to a movement on our site becomes part of that movement. Through a gamified approach using blockchain technology, other donors have the right to propose adding candidates to any empty slots (remember you can list up to 5 politicians) or even propose kicking a politician off the slate if he or she no longer supports the movement’s mission. These proposals only last for 48 hours and require a majority of a movement’s members to vote on the proposal and then a majority of that group to vote “yes” for the proposal to pass. We’re giving you fully democratic community-driven system to influence our greater democracy (very meta).

visit: www.wethepeeps.us

Near Futures and Early Promises

We’ve started with political donations as the first action route, because (unfortunately) money speaks loudly. We just want to send the message to politicians that they’re receiving contributions from 1,000 ordinary citizens who all care about an issue, because we think that’ll get the politicians’ attention in a good way.

Our future features will all be aimed at empowering you and the movements you join to act in high-value ways. Your time is valuable, we all work hard, so we want everything you do to be as impactful as possible. To that end, the next feature we’ll be rolling out will alert you to whether a politician lives in your district, because money talks, but constituents vote!

We’re trying to power the movements that will change our country (and eventually the world) for the better, one that imagines a future with more flexible forms of political participation and social impact, where people feel heard and democracy is plentiful.

If you have any other ideas, features or are just interested in the project, please reach out to us at info@wethepeeps.us or follow us at WeThePeepsPAC. We can’t do this without you!

-Peeps Democracy (i.e. Bill, Matt, Aaron, Priyanka, Mickey, Corey, Chris)

*NB: When it comes to donations to U.S. federal politicians, the law restricts giving and participation to only U.S. citizens and permanent residents over 18. If you live in another country where you think we could help you bring real change…we want to hear from you!