On Starting Over, Starting Anew

We can achieve something really beautiful if we work hard together here and put aside the petty territorial disputes. There are things wrong in the world today; we must unite -- all of us 99%, everywhere -- or those in the 1% will defeat us very handily.

We will get nowhere thinking that any of us, as individuals, are in charge of anything. We should start imagining ourselves as representatives of *all* the people in drafting this document and calling for whatever is eventually decided to be called for -- by we, the people. And we should be attending GAs everywhere every day (or weekly at minimum) and forming GAs in the areas where there isn't one yet. Talk to your neighbors and friends also, and ask them what they think, then listen carefully and come back here with the spirit of the people in your heads and hearts.

By ugly contrast, assuming that one or more of us "just knows" what the right things to do are, rushing into some sort of pre-fab plan, and arguing all the while that we shouldn't have to be bothered even checking in with the *real* people in the *real* streets because we already know better than them what they need... well, that is just pure foolishness. That's the 1% talking!

And there *were* people *banned* from the group for suggesting to Michael that he did not have the right to speak for even us here (let alone any GA anywhere), or the right to collect money, or to form a corporation, or to create "lawyers-only" or "official" sections of our organization, lots of things. All the while, no vote ever was taken on anything, and no understanding of what we would consider as an approved proposal was ever put in place. Michael didn't intend to give you a vote he couldn't control, dear reader, and that tempting desire in each of us to control and to manipulate is what we're fighting against here, on Wall Street, in Washington, all the Statehouses and in our very own souls, from which the rest of those things spring. We should learn carefully and well from this difficult experience. The road we're on is long, and this thing I'm speaking of now will dog us the whole way along.

I understand that many of us here are excited about the idea of holding alternative elections or starting a third party. Michael had every right to propose such, and you all have every right to join him in pursuit of it. But if we want to create anything that we are going to claim is representative of a whole movement, then the ideas discussed here, and especially the process that allows those ideas to come before the group for consideration, has to be fair and democratic.

Let's learn from this experience and start over, my friends. The first thing we need is to figure out how we're going to set forth a charter and governing rules that enshrine democracy throughout the entire process.

This is a beautiful opportunity for us as individuals and for the whole world. But if you only want to tell us how you think things should be done, and excise dissenting voices, then you don't agree with the overall movement you claim to be inspired by anyhow. Additionally, if you consider yourself an impatient kind of person, as Michael appears to be, you should not volunteer for this process. It will be messy, painful, difficult and... beautiful!

I am somewhat concerned things will get bogged down in discussion with the end result of nothing getting done. I understand the criticisms on how some things were handled and agree a more democratic approach with more representation from various OWS groups would be an improvement. But I'm unsure on how a GA approach to a national working group would work. I worry that lack of organization and leadership will doom the movement while also understanding the need to form consensus. I think there needs to be a balance here. Is the movement about the corruption in our political and business systems or is it about the GA process and a rejection of a hierarchical society?

I tend to be impatient but ask permission to stick around and just be told when I'm being overly impatient.

One way to move forward would be to ask every OWS group in the country to choose, however they like, one or two members to work on the national working group and to report progress back while getting feedback from their GAs. I think this will help to get buy-in from the movement around the country in general. Would this make the group too large and unwieldy to be productive or would it allow us to harness a greater pool of talents? I think it may be a good way to move forward.

"This is a beautiful opportunity for us as individuals and for the whole world. But if you only want to tell us how you think things should be done, and excise dissenting voices, then you don't agree with the overall movement you claim to be inspired by anyhow. Additionally, if you consider yourself an impatient kind of person, as Michael appears to be, you should not volunteer for this process. It will be messy, painful, difficult and... beautiful!"

Well said.... Are we hoping or is the intention that this forum becomes the mouthpiece for the 'Occupy' movement GLOBALLY ?? To be honest I'm getting more than a little worried at seeing things popping up in various places that are being referred to the NY group as if the NY group are actually being placed in charge of the movement as a whole ?? Or am I reading too much into things ??

psconway wrote:Let's learn from this experience and start over, my friends. The first thing we need is to figure out how we're going to set forth a charter and governing rules that enshrine democracy throughout the entire process.

Are you suggesting a leaderless group?

I have seen this all happen before half a dozen time in different movements. While we can get by without leaders we do need a structure.

Another leaderless group I worked with for years had a clearinghouse for coordinating each State. Each State has regional groups who each put forward one representative. These representatives will then elect one of their own (or another volunteer) to act as State clearinghouse coordinator. Then the states are grouped into five regions. Each region has a coordinator selected from among the clearinghouses. This way five people would share the job of facilitating the national movements communications. These regional coordinators and clearinghouse coordinators are primarily responsible for the dissemination of information to the group at large.

This structure allows the easy(relatively) movement of ideas from local groups to national and vice versa with four steps in the process each way.

AmericanRevolutionary wrote:Another leaderless group I worked with for years had a clearinghouse for coordinating each State. Each State has regional groups who each put forward one representative.

What did the groups expect of the representatives? Were they merely messengers, conveying the opinion of the group to some discussion forum? If that was the case, they couldn't speak on any issue except those explicitly permitted by the group. Is that right? Or, were they allowed to represent the sense of the group when some previously unanticipated issue arose?

The problem is that we are trying to make government bigger than the community. Nobody knows whats best for someone else, so government needs to focus locally where it's easy to listen to everyone's concerns and come to some kind of consensus. Ideally, everyone in a community should know each other. If they don't know each other it breeds fear and distrust.

This wasn't a problem when humanity lived in small scattered groups, but we have 7 billion people now from many cultures with different beliefs. The problem is so big that it is impossible to reach a 100% consensus on anything.

An online open forum consisting of a double set of the issue topics and the other work group topics. One set would be used by the organized work groups, kept to a limited number, and be fully visible to all. The second set would be for the public commentary. The organized groups will submit decisions or final drafts to the public groups for approval, and members of both groups will be able to vote. Membership in the organized groups will start with whoever volunteers, be capped at a manageable number, and anyone can call for a vote to remove someone which would need like 80% to pass. New members can be voted in only when there's an opening.

In this way there is no one in charge, no positions of even implied power, every decision is democratically checked, the entire process is open to the public, and streamlined, we all know our jobs, there can be no tyrants or dictatorships, and maybe we can begin to make some progress, democratically.




 

I'm not sure what the exact answers to your questions are here. I trust that if a democratic ethic takes root here that we will find the answers together.

I don't think the GA methodology is very complex. We just need to figure out how to do it online. Here in Jax, we do GAs once a week. Someone says a few words about the proposal and all are asked to raise their hand if they are in favor. Then all are asked to raise hands if they are against. Then all are asked if anyone wants to place a block. We would need to emulate this workflow online. Many proposals would be distributed ahead of time for review. But ability to create on-the-fly proposals would also be needed.

Perhaps invite 2 reps from all known local GAs to participate in weekly national GA. There is no requirement for all people to show up at a GA. Attendance is never taken at GA. If reps miss the meeting, that's fine. The GA would be comprised of 2 reps from each local GA and all members of 99% Declaration group.

I can't speak for the NY GA. They may have stricter rules that go way beyond what I'm saying here.

In reply to Alex, above, the members of the NYC GA, who were working on their own "Visions & Goals" document tonight (very draft stage), reiterated at the end of the discussion something I've heard said there many times before: the other GAs are autonomous as far as they are concerned. If they can agree on a statement that represents the view in NYC, they will then invite other GAs to comment and suggest on it. If a unified statement ultimately emerges, they'll like that a lot; but they will not try to force it, and they are not going to try to block anything anyone else does. I have every reason to think that applies to us here, as well.

While many of us are ready right now to have a completed statement of the movement's goals (probably all of us here, for starters, I'd imagine -- myself included), I believe that if we allow a little more time for everyone everywhere to talk their grievances out and synthesize them jointly, we're going to end up with a relatively short and incredibly powerful call for action that will make us all very proud.

Some former participants of this forum were intent on slandering the protesters in NYC and their tyrannical ways, but from what I have seen of them in person, they are very far from the tyrants that they were portrayed to be. Quite a bit of the pot calling the kettle black, unfortunately. The folks at the center of the NYC GA are thoughtful, respectful, soulful people. So are we. I think this is all going to work out very well in the end, assuming that we don't try to eat the cake before it bakes, so to speak.

I replied on this in another thread.

I am sorry to disagree to you psconway, although I sympathize with your arguments and good motivations.

If we ever want to achieve anything, we need to get organized pretty quickly. This does not mean we should eliminate democracy in this group. But we cannot hope to have every citizen in the country provide his/her comment on every thing we do or say.

This is why I call this 99% declaration an "initiative" at this stage. We need to quit debating about the obvious and original message that inspired us to join and move on. I'd rather see this fail than not happening at all. And this is where it is going if we dont start to think about practicalities instead of promoting ervery ideal under the sun.

I hope the moderators (who are they by the way) come up with a practical system. I hate being paranoid but I am afraid some very active participants here (and I do not mean anyone without any proof) may start trying to kill the momentum.

Again I posted this somewhere else, I consider the implicit "mission statement" here is to DRAFT a declaration to be debated at a NGA, and organize the election of national delegates to come up with a consensus and an action plan.

georgesetal wrote:I replied on this in another thread.

I am sorry to disagree to you psconway, although I sympathize with your arguments and good motivations.

If we ever want to achieve anything, we need to get organized pretty quickly. This does not mean we should eliminate democracy in this group. But we cannot hope to have every citizen in the country provide his/her comment on every thing we do or say.

This is why I call this 99% declaration an "initiative" at this stage. We need to quit debating about the obvious and original message that inspired us to join and move on. I'd rather see this fail than not happening at all. And this is where it is going if we dont start to think about practicalities instead of promoting ervery ideal under the sun.

I hope the moderators (who are they by the way) come up with a practical system. I hate being paranoid but I am afraid some very active participants here (and I do not mean anyone without any proof) may start trying to kill the momentum.

Again I posted this somewhere else, I consider the implicit "mission statement" here is to DRAFT a declaration to be debated at a NGA, and organize the election of national delegates to come up with a consensus and an action plan.

Couldn't agree more... I think a lot of folk are chomping at the bit and trying to run before they can walk. I don't want to dampen any enthusiasm but that enthusiasm needs to be channeled into more constructive pursuits....

I've seen a number of links posted all over, Facebook, Twitter et al..... Listing DEMANDS !!! This is quite frankly ridiculous. Are ALL of the Occupy groups in any agreement to these demands ? Have they even been asked ? What I'm seeing is a headless chicken running around and each limb doing it's own thing. It's quite frankly pretty scary and unless someone picks up the reigns and starts to direct these energies the movement as a divided one is doomed to fail, it's just a matter of time. We have to look for ways of banding everything together and working as a whole unit.... This is far more important at this time than coming up with what will in all honesty turn into a list of things that will be endlessly debated over and agreement rarely reached.....

I understand from the message at the head of the home page that someone (the current "leaders" of this forum I presume - by the way, who are they?) will soon come up with some sort of organization.

I believe we need leadership here on organizational matters. Debates on all issues should obviously remain open to all voices.

Quickly this organization needs to form working groups and invite members to participate in those. Invitations to a press WG, a financial WG, a tech WG, among others, have been sent, I think this is a good start. Too many threads are confusing and do not attract representative debates for lack of attendance.

"Official" members of such WGs should take it upon themselves to achieve something out of chaos, and report regularly to the forum at large by inviting comments on their work and buy-in through polls.

Invitations have been sent? By whom? Never wait for an invite. How undemocratic.

DJequalityNash wrote:Invitations have been sent? By whom? Never wait for an invite. How undemocratic.

I know. I am also asking who the people running this forum are (as you can see in my post). I am just assuming for now, for the sake of producing something until everything is sorted out, that these people are legitimate and have good intentions to get us organized in a democratic manner.

I do not see censorship here, or bashing of new ideas, that is a positive.

I think we're just trying to transition, and to create. Someone has to moderate, but I agree, it should be open and public. (You'll note under the colated committees topic I asked for a Website Facilitation Workgroup, where we will be able to keep an eye on them all.)

I did get an invite last week to a private drafting committee. I'm currently ignoring that section of the forums, though I don't think it was created with any evil intent.

Joe Steel wrote:

AmericanRevolutionary wrote:Another leaderless group I worked with for years had a clearinghouse for coordinating each State. Each State has regional groups who each put forward one representative.

What did the groups expect of the representatives? Were they merely messengers, conveying the opinion of the group to some discussion forum? If that was the case, they couldn't speak on any issue except those explicitly permitted by the group. Is that right? Or, were they allowed to represent the sense of the group when some previously unanticipated issue arose?

Joe this is an old argument. Do rep's vote their conscience or vote what their constituents think? This debate goes back to the founding of the republic. Ultimately rep's have to make decisions on their own so people place value on rep's being of good character and sound judgement. That said I believe that we can us rep's as facilitators for a pure democracy. Each rep would need time to meet with their constituents on each issue. This will require a good organization and proper planning to make it work.

However, one of the main obstacles to pure democracy is that it is incumbent upon the citizens to be fully educated on the issues; this is not where we are today as a country or a movement. Sadly this means we must trust experts to help us in complicated areas like financial planning and constitutional law.

Although it may seem democratic, what we should avoid is back seat politics. This occurs when part time enthusiasts think their desire to participate equals expertise on the issues. I have seen people spend years on issues shouted down by someone at a meeting who has nothing to offer but passion. And sadly passion usually overrides logic and accuracy at such gatherings.

Honestly I have watched while for twenty years the left-wing in this country has contemplated its navel.
I have seen groups who after a year have still not been able to adopt a charter because any person at a meeting was allowed to object. You get a few people (we better not call them leaders) who spend all of their free time coming up with a plan only to have it shot down by by people who were not involved in the process; sadly that is pure democracy.

Which is why pure democracy only works when the opportunity to have a say is coupled with some responsibility to do something.

The catch 22 scenario goes like this. We form a charter saying we will conduct ourselves as a pure democracy. One person one vote. Then we go about coming up with a plan of action and get to work. Meanwhile we have an explosion of new members who also have one vote. Since the new members don't necessarily agree with the current plan they vote against it. So one day when most of the old members are busy elsewhere the new membership now in the majority votes to redefine the groups charter and since they have the votes to do it they can. Which leaves the original membership out in the cold with their organization that they worked hard to build totally co-opted. So what do they do...start another group based on pure democracy? They would have to be crazy. (I am crazy)

This is why our principles must define us first and foremost. Everyone who joins must understand that the group cannot be voted in any old direction. We must come up with a succinct purpose, like planning a convention and then we cannot be swayed. If new members then want to do other stuff they can start another group, not reshape this one into the flavor of the month. The same goes for any rep's we elect, they should know from day one what they are being elected to do, and then we can trust that they stick to it.

Thanks for this post AmericanRevolutionary... We are not a group aimed at designing and implementing policies: we are a group designed to organize a NGA and let representatives finalize a document which remains a draft until then, as well as an action plan. We do not purport (and have no way to achieve that) to represent everyone in this country, but need to move forward with more actions and less debate.

Post revolutionary - I agree that we need to define some basic goals and objectives, and perhaps some guiding principles. Otherwise it's all kinda aimless.

Georgesetal, I agree it's not up to us to write legislation, but we'll want to be able to have as much research and drafting work done in advance to save them time when the convention begins. They won't have but a few months to complete their work.

I don't want to overload the people here actively and consistently participating, but I'm positive a discussion of our goals and objectives and what all they entail will be coming soon. Maybe one of you would like to go ahead and start that thread? I'd keep it here under the Improving Workgroups sub forum, seems like a good place for all these organizational threads.

DJequalityNash wrote:Post revolutionary - I agree that we need to define some basic goals and objectives, and perhaps some guiding principles. Otherwise it's all kinda aimless.

Georgesetal, I agree it's not up to us to write legislation, but we'll want to be able to have as much research and drafting work done in advance to save them time when the convention begins. They won't have but a few months to complete their work.

I don't want to overload the people here actively and consistently participating, but I'm positive a discussion of our goals and objectives and what all they entail will be coming soon. Maybe one of you would like to go ahead and start that thread? I'd keep it here under the Improving Workgroups sub forum, seems like a good place for all these organizational threads.

Let us start with the mission statement - there is a public poll on that. We need far more people to cast their votes.

AmericanRevolutionary wrote:This is why our principles must define us first and foremost. Everyone who joins must understand that the group cannot be voted in any old direction. We must come up with a succinct purpose, like planning a convention and then we cannot be swayed. If new members then want to do other stuff they can start another group, not reshape this one into the flavor of the month. The same goes for any rep's we elect, they should know from day one what they are being elected to do, and then we can trust that they stick to it.

Well put.

Consensus is great but we can't let it foul the process. We have to keep ourselves focused on first principles. Only defined leadership can to that.

My vision of this group is to organize and produce a National Convention to be held on July 4, 2012, which would put together and vote on a Petition for Redress of Grievances (I MUST learn how to spell that so I don't have to get my dictionary out every time). I think we can do lots of chatting about the Petition, and bring all our ideas to the table in July, but our main mission should be the Convention, how we elect the Delegates, where it's going be held, how we are going pay for it, etc.

The first sentence of my post here should be our mission statement, in my opinion. I think declaring this as our mission will do 1) focus us on the task at hand, 2) declare our intention with clarity to the public at large, and 3) diffuse the tension between us and the NY GA that has been distracting us from our mission for too long. Also, it's a totally doable goal that will show determination on the part of this movement to actually participate in our government and bend it to the will of the people, not the money.

---Brenda Weber

BrenW wrote:My vision of this group is to organize and produce a National Convention to be held on July 4, 2012, which would put together and vote on a Petition for Redress of Grievances (I MUST learn how to spell that so I don't have to get my dictionary out every time). I think we can do lots of chatting about the Petition, and bring all our ideas to the table in July, but our main mission should be the Convention, how we elect the Delegates, where it's going be held, how we are going pay for it, etc.

The Declaration of Grievances should be finished before the National Assembly meets. The Assembly's purpose should be publicizing the Declaration. It's just silly to think the National Assembly could develop a Declaration of Grievances in the time available to it.

Joe Steel wrote:

BrenW wrote:My vision of this group is to organize and produce a National Convention to be held on July 4, 2012, which would put together and vote on a Petition for Redress of Grievances (I MUST learn how to spell that so I don't have to get my dictionary out every time). I think we can do lots of chatting about the Petition, and bring all our ideas to the table in July, but our main mission should be the Convention, how we elect the Delegates, where it's going be held, how we are going pay for it, etc.

The Declaration of Grievances should be finished before the National Assembly meets. The Assembly's purpose should be publicizing the Declaration. It's just silly to think the National Assembly could develop a Declaration of Grievances in the time available to it.

The Delegates will be chosen MONTHS before the National General Assembly, and if we set up a good working group here for them to come to and work on the Petition before they vote on it at the NGA.

I think the Delegates, in consultation with the 99%, should draft the Petition, and we should do everything we can to facilitate it, but for us to write a Petition without the Delegates is wrong. If they have a working forum set up with information, research, public input, etc. (which we can provide for them), and a fixed deadline I have no doubt they can come up with a Petition to present, debate, and vote upon during the NGA. Besides, it gets the NYGA off our backs concerning "legitimacy" and "co-opting".

--Brenda Weber