Saturday, October 8, 2011

What, Me Organized?



One of the greatest things about the Occupy Wall Street and spin off movements is that it is constantly being called unorganized.  During the Occupy Portland rally I went to I saw clearly that it is very, very organized.  In so many ways, from the second I got within 100 feet of the group assembling I noticed instruction on a variety of fronts all over the event.  The "Mic Check" scheme made it clear that this is a very democratic way of getting all the feedback needed to get the participants to participate!!

Here is a feed from the Huffington Post that says a lot about how this works:

"Last night, I was part of a nearly 3hr meeting that involved coordination of direct action trainings, legal strategy education, political education, historical education, support strategies for teachers of color in NYC, skillshares & theater to combat patriarchal behavior in organizing, support for indigenous remembrance in opposition to Columbus Day, and means of putting the struggles of marginalized communities in NYC at the center of it all. This involved management of TWO google groups, multiple schedule tracks of classes, 3-4 web calendars integrated into one web platform, and fuck knows how many twitter feeds. It also involved liaising, federation, and mutual support between no fewer than five thematic working groups and adherence to principles laid out by a directly-democratic general assembly.The next time you hear someone say Occupy Wall Street is disorganized, please slap them." - Jason Cherkis

This is probably confusing to the media because they don't "Get" the structure.  They want a single individual to interview.  The media doesn't Get democracy and transparency.  Too, too funny really.

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