The Project
Vision
Uniting people through shared values and open tools to ignite a global democratic revolution
Mission
Create and adapt a model for transparent, accountable democratic governance globally
The Independence Project consist of a wide and collaborative network of social impact brands geared to find solutions that seek independence from central authority, because we believe that centralization of power is the single greatest impediment to the working of a democracy. Each of these brands work synergistically to provide turnkey solutions in delivering true democracy and decentralized governance.
Our aim is to lay the groundwork for an empowered community of veterans and activists, the two most impactful groups in our society who command support and reverence to unite the masses.
The Challenge
There exists widespread agreement among people of every color, creed, and nationality that humanity deteriorating on a variety of fronts, that its most critical institutions are incapable of fully reversing this trend, and that without some fundamental and broad-based effort of reform, the decades to come will prove devastating to the world.
Many of us are also likely to agree that the people and resources and ideas necessary to save the world already exist, but that to harness each element and arrange them into something capable of enacting broad solutions and winning popular support is simply impossible – disagreements over side issues and reluctance to take direction from any centralized body make mass coordination impractical. After all, no one has done it.
It’s an understandable view. But those who once agreed with it have recently changed their minds, and many of them – journalists, officeholders, veterans, CEOs, nonprofit directors, donors, and activists – are now actively assisting us in building the solution.
Independence Project
Independence Project addresses widely cited problems agreed upon by Americans of all ideologies and backgrounds – a military-industrial complex beholden to private wealth; a never-ending drug war that has eroded every civil liberty; a criminal justice system ridiculed around the world and increasingly despised by its own high officials; and, most fundamentally, the hijacking by the wealthy of the very electoral process that might have otherwise addressed these issues. These and other issues are approached via strategies of crowd-sourced online collaboration that were unavailable a generation ago, but which have since proven stunningly effective in a diverse range of contexts, even despite the lack of tools designed for such work. As the subject has become better understood, it has become practical to develop platforms by which to amplify these dynamics and make them accessible on the same massive scale the internet has brought to every human practice, for good or ill, from dating to mass surveillance.
The Independence project consists of uniting existing communities and organizations that may differ on issues and emphasis but share broad values; creating a common online framework under protocols that allow for both independence and cohesion; providing participants with a toolset by which new working arrangements can evolve as participants develop increasingly complex, non-institutional working arrangements; developing templates for effective action based on proven information-age methods; and ultimately establishing an online, participatory ecosystem whereby new tactics may be quickly developed, deployed, and refined.