The hijacking of Democracy (a Class gift)

Dictionary.com defines democracy as government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system. Wikipedia shows it to be a political form of government in which governing power is derived from the people, by consensus (consensus democracy), by direct referendum (direct democracy), or by means of elected representatives of the people (representative democracy).
Can democracy be hijacked by well-intentioned individuals to be something else? Does it become Socialism, Communism, or Fascism? The CGSC Class of 2011-01 and by default Class 2011-02 voted to choose a class gift to represent the Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airman, Coast Guardsman, and DoD employees that make up our class. A committee was assembled by volunteers to narrow the choices of the gift and a democratic vote was used to decide which of those choices to go forward with. The choices that were decided from were a donation of monetary funds to charity, a choice of print themes, or something else. The democratic vote determined that a majority of the Class were in favor of a themed print entitled “The Long War”. In order to proceed, a number of artists needed to be contacted and their impression of this theme would be resubmitted to the class for the one that best represented the theme. Notably absent from the choices of sketches provided was the artist James Dietz, who chose to design one for the War College instead. What were returned as artist concepts for the class to vote on were a series of battle scenes and units on patrol, none of which portrayed an idea of a war that had gone on longer than any previous war in American history or seen the changes in uniform, equipment, and doctrine that the current conflict represents and was embodied in the theme “The Long War”. Conspicuously absent from the voting choices was also the choice of “none of the above”.
Is it the Class gift committee’s intent to hijack democracy by making us choose to sell our dreams to a failed choice? Should not we be given the choice to either continue to look for an artist who can envision what we as a class democratically chose and represent it in a print, or go back and make that choice again to choose between something else and this failed choice of an artists’ concept? When we as a Class chose democratically the theme of “The Long War” we all had visions of what that might be and any number of could have given our ideas to the artist to help that vision become a reality, but instead we then were restricted to a number of artists (who might be very talented at drawing military art) that failed to grasp the vision of what we as a class have gone through and choose to represent us in a class gift.
My personal ideas were that of a father (in the military or not) standing with his young son looking in a reflection and seeing his son in the years to come going off to the same conflict that the father experienced. On the back of Military Review (Nov-Dec 2010) there is copy of the water color “Fallujah” by Elzie Golden showing a Soldier reclined on a cot with uniforms and weapons hanging on the wall near him. If this painting had shown the three different uniforms of the war (DCU, ACU, and now Multi-Cam) I would have thought it to be one of the contenders for the class gift theme.
I would like to have the Class of 2011-01 be able to make this choice and not a volunteer committee (well intentioned or not) make it for us. Preferably before we commission the artist to do something that will not sell the minimum number of 500 prints and the class as a whole is on the hook to pay for the difference. If there is no time to find additional artist, or provide additional guidance to get one of the current artists who have provided a sketch to come up with an acceptable idea, than I would suggest we go back to the choice of voting for the currently chosen print or a donation? When the majority voted for the theme “The Long War” over the possibility of a donation, it was with the understanding that an artist would be able to embody that theme and provide a suitable print, I say that by making us choose between unacceptable choices (and not giving us the choice of “none of the above”) democracy has been hijacked by this volunteer committee from the people!