From Occupations to System Change
With upwards of 2,000 gathered for the opening night rally of OccupyMN, myself and other organizers were beaming. As one of the MCs, leading chants and introducing speakers, my voice was almost gone by the time I got to my hardest task that night: rallying people to our first General Assembly, which was to start a few minutes after the rally.
After all, what the hell is a “General Assembly”? Even among the core organizers, different conceptions were rife. Using the “people’s mic” call and response method of amplification, I chose my words carefully.
“We all know / that our democracy is broken / that the elites on Wall Street / and the big corporations / and their paid-off politicians / have completely corrupted our system / but we still need to learn / how to build a real democracy / how to build a bottom-up participatory democracy / where everyone’s voice is heard / tonight we are going to have an experiment / in participatory democracy / we are going / to have our first General Assembly”
Across the country and around the world, General Assemblies (GA) are a defining feature of the occupations. Their specific character and internal processes vary widely, but everywhere most Occupy activists consider GA’s more than simply decision-making bodies for the immediate protests. They are also viewed as a radical experiment in participatory, bottom-up democracy.
“These protesters have not come to work within the system,” explains acclaimed journalist Chris Hedges. “They know electoral politics is a farce and have found another way to be heard and exercise power. They have no faith, nor should they, in the political system or the two major political parties. They know the press will not amplify their voices, and so they created a press of their own. They know the economy serves the oligarchs, so they formed their own communal system. This movement is an effort to take our country back”
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