Occupy the Macarena? (part one of four)

Continuing from this post, Occupy Vancouver needs to make it explicit who exactly is authorized to speak in the name of Occupy Vancouver.  Why?

Scenario
Early one morning, a flashmob of people appears outside city hall.  They proclaim that the Macarena is the official dance of Occupy Vancouver.  For those too young to have lived through the Macarena craze or lucky enough to have forgotten it, the flashmobbers offer a demonstration.  eh-oh-eh-oh...ahAH.  They dance and dance until onlookers turn away in disgust.  People in the media blame Occupy Vancouver for this atrocity.  Well, is OV to blame?  What could OV say in its own defense?  What should OV be able to say in its own defense?

First and foremost, OV needs to be able to show reporters quickly and incontrovertibly that it never passed a proposal proclaiming an official dance.  It's not enough to point reporters to the minutes of the General Assembly, because the minutes are incomplete and because no one reads the minutes anyhow.  All of the proposals ever passed by the GA could be listed on just a few sheets of paper.  It would be very nice if someone who isn't me would comb through the minutes and make that list.

The more difficult question is whether the flashmob has any right to speak for Occupy Vancouver.  Certainly the Press Committee has the authority to issue statements on behalf of OV -- why not the flashmob?  The details of specific cases matter, so I'd like to look at several different variants of this scenario.

Scenario Variant #1: False Flag

Identity must come before solidarity

This is the first in a series of posts about what went wrong with Occupy Vancouver and what went right.

One thing that went wrong: it was often unclear which actions were being taken in the name of Occupy Vancouver.  The Occupy the Vatican false-flag incident made it apparent just how serious the problem was.  It remains a problem -- what exactly is the Direct Action Committee authorized to do?

Two police officers bitten at nonviolent protest

An organization committed to nonviolence should never need to deal with headlines like this: Occupy Vancouver protesters bite cops

Below the fold:

- what happened (with start-to-finish video of the confrontation)

- what nonviolence means

- what nonviolence requires
- what nonviolence requires of me

Tent Cities: they're common, they can work and they are justified

Occupy camps were intended to protest inequality, but they very quickly turned into tent cities for the homeless.  In that respect there was nothing unique about the Occupy camps, because tent cities are already common in North America.  Here's a link to a series of news stories documenting the situation.* 

I don't think it's correct to say that tent dwellers are homeless. I've seen what happens to street people who move into tents. They feel pride, and a sense of community. Having a place that's yours (even if it's just a tent) means having a home, and that's a huge step up from sleeping in shelters or out in the rain.

Occupy Vancouver is an unusually well organized tent city.  It has a tent library, tent places of worship, a tea  tent, a medical tent staffed 24/7 by volunteers and a tent community kitchen. It has a municipal government (the general assembly) which the community recognizes as having authority to pass bylaws, and it has a volunteer security force charged with keeping the peace. The OV tent city is a tent city, and I hope that more North American tent cities come to have similar institutions.  

Question: do tent cities have a right to exist?

I think tent city dwellers have some rights to the land they're encamped on, and some right to govern themselves rather than fall under the jurisdiction of a hostile neighboring municipality.  I'll need to think more about that, but for the moment I'll just drop this strong reading of Locke's 2nd Treatise, section 36:

Supposing a man, or family in the state they were at first peopling of the world...let him plant in some in-land, vacant places of America, we shall find that the possessions he could make himself...would not be very large, nor, even to this day, prejudice the rest of mankind, or give them reason to complain, or think themselves injured by this man's encroachment. 

But of course we are not in the state of nature, because the invention of money, and the tacit agreement of men to put value on it, introduced (by consent) larger possessions, and the right to them. Because we all agree that our financial system is just, municipalities and absentee landlords have the right to use force to ensure that their vacant, neglected property remains vacant and neglected.

* I comment on metafilter as justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow, in case you were wondering why my post here looks a lot like some comments there

Three Goals

Diagnosis, amplification and popularization

Short Version:

Diagnosis: A direct-democratic assembly should be a network of people who can trust each other to provide information about what's wrong

Amplification: A direct-democratic assembly should give instant advice and sustained support to people who can imagine practical courses of action.

Popularization: We are pursuing broad consensus in our society on a few common values

Very Long Version:

1) Diagnosis

The issue that prompted OWS was inequity. We sound like we're all over the map partially because we aren't as organised in expressing consensus as we should be, but primarily because there is no single cause of inequity. Problems with the Bank Act? Student loans? Rent control? X? Y? Z? Yes. Each of those is part of the problem. No one person sees the whole picture, and many of the things that went wrong over the past few decades happened unnoticed. That's true partly because some of the issues are obscure (read the Bank Act lately?) and partly because some people are hit harder than others (esp. various forms of discrimination).

The situation is bad enough that here in Canada it can be attacked from any political perspective. (Outside of Canada your mileage may vary) Conservatives don't like to see radical change in society; they should be wondering why hardworking lower-middle class people aren't becoming upper-middle class as they might have a generation ago. The Progressive Conservatives must still be out there somewhere. Greens should be mad that companies are profiting from dropping externalities on the rest of us. Libertarians should be angry that government policy is distorting the market to the benefit of those with the best lobbyists. NDPstas are watching the labour movement get ground down year after year. I don't know what specifically would bother Liberals and Bloquistes the most, but take your pick! On some issues we might get consensus. On other issues, I think it would be great to see our political parties fighting <i>in good faith</i> over who's got the best solutions. We have enough common values to work together, and we need to get better at listening and working across party lines.

It's time to pull out into the open the ways society is invisibly unfair. What's it like to be a single mother? Are the laws stacked against small business owners? All voices should be heard, especially the voices of people who have been marginalized.

It's also time to hit the books. We need to have small, disciplined groups of people rigorously informing themselves about particular issues -- what the law is and how institutions work. It would be all the better if those groups include certified experts. Economist? Lawyer? Yes please, committee's over there. In my limited experience, general assemblies are good at focusing attention on people who know what they're talking about, and at making sure that people who have questions get answers.

Diagnosis: A direct-democratic assembly should be a network of people who can trust each other to provide information about what's wrong with our society.

2) Amplification

Even if all you know about Occupy is what you've seen on the news, you've probably seen the human mike trick, used where actual microphones have been illegal or inconvenient. If a person can't be heard on the far side of an assembly, the people nearby will repeat her words in a loud voice. Consider it a metaphor.

One person who writes a letter to the editor is a crank. One hundred people who are threatening to drop their subscriptions get taken very seriously. One thousand?

Have you been suffering discrimination? A large, diverse audience wants to listen. Is there more we can do than listen?

Have you carefully researched payday loansharking? Explain the problem as you see it. Suggest a solution. Listen to feedback, get backup, pass the torch if you need to. It may take time to build consensus (complex issues are complex), but there is strength in numbers.

Maybe you shouldn't wait for consensus. Don't use the Occupy name if you don't have consensus support from a general assembly (that’s fraud), but if you’ve made the connections you need, consider going in your own name. However, why not pitch it to all of us – why not have all the support you can get?

Amplification: A direct-democratic assembly should give instant advice and sustained support to people who can imagine practical courses of action.

3) Popularization

We need proclaim our common values. I don’t mean we should advertize the values of those of us currently protesting. Our society has been divided-and-conquered for too long. If we can dig through cultural differences and the us-vs.-them mentality we might find common ground in surprising places. Those folks consuming hard-right news don’t speak our language, but they too have experienced injustice and inequity. They too are part of the 99%. We need to hear their voices. (and, ahem, vice versa)

They’re the hard target. Easier to reach are people who are confused by us or generally apathetic. We need to convince them that we will listen to them and that we are capable of successfully fighting inequity. How do we keep growing? If they won’t come to us, how do we in a spirit of openness go to them?

Popularization: Society-wide consensus on a few common values is almost as impossible as a massive spontaneous wave of peaceful assemblies springing up overnight without central leadership in cities around the world.

Why not go where people are?

Most Vancouverites will never visit the Art Gallery site, and even fewer will participate.  People are busy.  Culture clashes can be an irrational barrier to working together.  Given what's happened in some cities, there's reason for people to fear arrest if they attend.*  Those people who do protest cannot speak in the name of the 99% when the vast majority of Vancouverites have not made their voices heard.

Most Vancouverites will never go downtown to stand out in the cold, but does that mean they can't get involved?

Why not go where people are?  We should ask ourselves what a general assembly-style meeting would look like in a retirement home, or a church basement, or a neighborhood community center.  Three assemblies a day is absurd for most people, but many people can spare one or two hours once or twice a month.  That's enough time to stay informed, to be heard and to plan action.  Do not underestimate the political power of Grandmothers who have the time to socialize, write letters and vote.

Would an occupy-inspired meeting in a community center really have anything to do with what's happening at the Art Gallery or would it just be appropriating the name?  It's a question of what our core principles really are.  Can we get around culture clashes by transposing those principles into a new key?

If there were little assemblies all over town, how would we hold the movement together without abandoning direct democracy?  I think co-attendance might be enough, but this is a big worry that I'd want to consider carefully.

I seem to be using the words we and our.  I'm not sure exactly when I joined.  Huh.

* I should not need to thank public officials for respecting the charter right of peaceful assembly, but given the violence seen in other cities I would like to give credit to our Mayor and to the Vancouver Police Department for doing their jobs competently.  Mayor Robinson would like to see the Art Gallery site dismantled, but he has not resorted to force or fraud.  Kudos to him for renouncing threats and ultimatums.  Credit for minimally decent behaviour should also go to the VPD.  In the wake of the Canucks hockey riot one might have expected them to be on edge, but as far as I've seen they seem to be keeping cool heads.  Thanks for your professionalism.