A great development happened in Occupy Wall Street the night of March 1st, 2012. The members of the general assembly rebelled against tyranny.
Occupy Wall Street was once a force that counterbalanced the tea party and that changed the national conversation. However, certain forces within occupy had no interest in engaging the political system. These elements had no interest in work, either. They wanted Occupy to function as a commune and as a welfare agency. Every time a good political proposal came up, they would come up with arcane OWS rules and use it to prevent it from proceeding. Last night, this was broken. When a group wanted solidarity with OWS, as they were going to DC to protest against groups lobbying for war with Iran, these elements through facilitation tried to prevent this proposal from even being discussed. They brought out every arcane rule they could. But the occupiers stood our ground, stating that we are activists and that we will not be oppressed by tyrannical rules. Occupiers, for solidarity purposes, donated funds to this group out of their pocket. Facilitation declared the meeting adjourned, but the body of people decided the meeting wasn't over. The facilitators were replaced, and we voted to stand in solidarity with the anti Iran war group.
Occupy made a good move in overcoming inertia, in going back to its roots as activists fighting for change, and in purposing ourselves. Occupy is not a welfare agency. The government does that job well enough.
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I wish I could say that is what happened yesterday. Instead, an emotional and overcharged group of people stood up against not-the-best facilitation violently and outrageously, precipitating the close to the General Assembly in response to physical threats against a female facilitator.
ReplyDeleteThe meeting decided to move to the park when it was clear that the General Assembly, not the facilitation staff as a whole, could declare when the General Assembly was concluded. Those who agreed to facilitate in their stead did so not knowing that a physical threat was made against a female Facilitator, and in fact did not learn of such until ANOTHER physical threat was made against ANOTHER female facilitator, necessitating two male facilitators to lead the meeting because a bellicose, angry mob refused to abide by their own protocols and agreements until "alpha male" responses kicked in with two male facilitators attempting to bring the meeting back into order.
What happened last night should never have happened, and while it's laudable that we persevered through a tough GA to get a needed solidarity statement through, your claim that we were on the right side of things - and the right side of the discussion - while true politically is vastly incorrect as far as the safety and sanctity of the GA are concerned, and the question that needs to be addressed is not "who watches the watchmen?" but "why the fuck do we PUT UP WITH THIS SHIT?".
Fortunately, as ragged as the GA has gotten, I've spent the past few months working on a fix to change the climate and culture of the General Assembly by reasserting the principles of fair play back into its design and protocols. We put up with bullshit because we have nothing helping us to NOT do so... and once one person institutes the screaming match, everyone has to run roughshod or be run roughshod upon. THAT is the critical discussion we did not have last night but should have - but no, we wanted to hear the proposal.
I hope, when in the near future I bring that discussion to GA, you will remember that I helped give the GA what it felt it needed last night - but not necessarily what it truly needed, which happened to not be on the agenda.