Democracy at Random

by David Grant

Young Anthony is angry about his parent’s betrayal, about being black and about his crippling disease. When, in middle-age, he is chosen to the first non-elected, randomly-chosen, demographically-accurate national legislature, he brings his painful background and present reality with him.

Josephine arrives in Washington from the mountains of North Carolina, full of good cheer and ready to serve her nation as a randomly-chosen representative in the Citizen House. Although she realizes Anthony chooses her only as a token -- a white female -- for his agenda to support eugenics under the guise of consumer-driven genetic engineering, Josephine turns the tables by taking charge with her own agenda for a Universal Basic Income.

This odd couple takes to the road in an autonomous bus to hold town hall meetings around the country. Their speeches engender both apathy and activism. A couple of dangerous adversaries kidnap Josephine and threaten to unleash weapons of mass destruction.

Can a fully representative Citizen House cope with such a challenge? Once having made that Next Step for Democracy, can The People maintain it?

This screenplay is formatted for easy reading rather than to film industry specifications.

125 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 2, 2018

About the author

David Grant has come full circle. While obtaining a Master of Fine Arts degree at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, he took courses in film and television production. As a result he began his professional career producing and directing at a PBS affiliate. Programs included a daily hour-long magazine, a special from inside a state prison, live broadcast of a jazz concert and many more. After five years at the station he left to embark on a series of political, social and environmental endeavors. In the last few years he has returned to the creation of literary and visual media.

In those intervening years he developed a self-sufficient homestead in a land cooperative; volunteered with Peace Corps as an agro-forester among aboriginal hunter-gatherers; coordinated a soup kitchen; published articles, some anthologized as ‘best of’; and wrote unproduced scripts and unpublished novels.

For several years Grant was a community organizer with Rural Southern Voice for Peace in the American southeast. In the mid-1990’s he moved to the Netherlands to head the International Fellowship of Reconciliation’s nonviolence program, requiring frequent travel in Africa, Asia and Europe. Thereafter he became one of the charter directors of Nonviolent Peaceforce, providing unarmed protection for civilians in war zones.

He has now established Common Lot Productions where he writes, produces, directs and edits screenplays, a docudrama, promos, adaptations and essays. Not long ago he helped organize and attended the international conference "Democracy in the 21st Century" at the Library of Alexandria, Egypt, including moderation of the panel on sortition (random selection).

He is also assisting in the publication of the works of Thomas Timmins via Zoetown Media; and of Roger Thiel of Thiel Press. He produced a promotional video for Timmins’ novel, “Between the Hour of One and Two” and adapted it to screenplay as “Tofu Noir”. See https://tinyurl.com/yc6rfwrw

Continuing as a senior advisor with Nonviolent Peaceforce he has trained staff in South Sudan and represented the organization at the World (Park) Ranger Congress.

He has recently released four screenplays, a novel, a novella, a long essay and short stage play. See his Author’s Page at https://www.amazon.com/author/grantd