I have just received an email message from 38 Degrees, an online campaigning organization in the UK that claims to have three million members of which, apparently, I am one.  The subject line is “Islamic State” and the message asks me to “vote” on what I think 38 Degrees should do.  I was given this link:

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/air-strikes-poll-2#petition

This is not democracy — it is just an online poll.  Where do I, or anyone else, have the chance to engage with other members and try to persuade them of my view?  Where I can I hear their views?  

I won’t even comment on the matter of whether anyone, a 38 Degrees “member” or not, can vote in this online poll, or vote multiple times (possibly using multiple email addresses).

I won’t discuss the issue of who wrote the questions we are voting on. (Who did write them?  Where was this decided?)  The mass mailing I received makes reference to “the scandal of the UK’s 2003 invasion of Iraq” — but maybe not every 38 Degrees member will agree with this?

The mailing also contains links to articles from the New York Times, Guardian and Washington Post, plus the “Stop the War Coalition”, an organization which in my view is lacking in all credibility.  So presumably we are to read these 3 or 4 links and then make up our minds?

Giving “members” a vote but not a voice, a chance to say yes or no to pre-determined positions without any debate, is the stuff of authoritarians, not democracy.

I am sharing this blog with 38 Degrees and will of course welcome their response.