Forum Post: A 30-year old NYC H.S. teacher's view of the Occupy Wall Street Protests

http://www.reddit.com/r/occupywallstreet/comments/kvat1/a_30year_old_hs_nyc_teachers_view_of_the_occupy/

A couple teachers from our school stopped by Zuccotti Park to check out what was going on at the end of today. Figured I'd share my experiences. Walking up from the Wall Street stop we could hear the drum circles and it was clear that the entire neighborhood was noticably different from the last time I was down there for a Union meeeting or something. The three of us got noticeably excited by the energy we felt as we approached the park. And we knew we were there when the hustle and bustle of regular wall-street types were mixed in with a line of quiet peaceful people holding up protest signs that were really respectful, but perhaps incendiary to someone of a different mindset.

I stayed through the afternoon and ran into an old friend, some of my teacher friends saw their former students, and we all tried to stay for the general assembly, but I had to go home to hangout with the misses. Here are some of my thoughts:

• The direct democracy work that is going on down there is amazing. It seems like they have created their own little country right in the middle of NYC. If you go down and start talking to people you will find wonderful conversation and perhaps some Kennedy Assaniation theories, but what you really need to see is how some of the decision making processes work. It's not like a giant Phish show tailgate free for all. There are large group decisions being made in an organized way, there are disagreements, debates, and, democratic participation that will really stay with me. By comparison, watching today's News coverage on our Nation's democratic process feels like watching Christmas specials right after I realized there is no Santa Claus.

• Occupy Wall Street can live on forever. "Zuccoti Park" and "Occupy Wall Street" will probably live on in the american lexicon the "Woodstock" or "Tea Party (the first one)" do today. The amount of artwork, the number of cameras present, and the amount of laptops being written into gives one the impression that the lessons learned from just these first 12 days can be crafted into documentaries, art installations, and mobile democratic laboratories that thousands can benefit from. Especially considering what you may be able to get from the NYPD via FOIA. Who knows, maybe this will be bigger than any of us imagined? Maybe I'll curse myself for not going down earlier.

• They do this thing called 'talk back' which allows everyone to directly participate. When a group is assembled one person talks and the group repeats what they say. I'm not sure if this is a component of the Direct Democracy framework they use, but it's really cool. When people get into the General Assembly and say stuff like, "Your protest is bankrupting my child's college fund" the people assembled don't have to repeat it. Two people I talked to are not participating in assemblies because they think the group is infiltrated, and because they think they can't get an agenda point. These same people were also spouting conspiratorial theories about New World Order and hidden meanings of the dollar bill. At another time somebody wanted to address a bunch of people he yelled 'mic check', and about 25-30 repeated 'mic check!' Then he started talking about the cops or something, and after that two or three people repeated what he said. Then he just kept talking without the 'talk back' he got to speak his mind, no one talked over him or kicked him out, they just stopped repeating what I guess they didn't agree with. Seemed pretty cool.

• Regardless of all of the ideas that could come across it seems that everything feasible gets heard. Their process allows anybody to voice displeasure on a bill and if you want a decision to get passed you have to have 90 percent approval, so there is little chance of a good idea getting completely ignored. A facilitator explained the process to me and the other teachers which allows for amendments and counterpoints and conversations in a way that is similar to the Roberts-Rules-of-Order style of Democratic decision making that most student governments run. The boiler-plate response to a system that uses consensus, or 90% consensus, is usually "Yeah, but where in the real world will you see this happen?" Now Occupy Wall Street and other protests give consensus based decision making a living, breathing example, and it's right across from the World Trade Center complex! Student governments across the country might convert to consensus style decision making shortly.

• The big thing that I noticed is that this is not an internet event. It's not like sports where you can follow it from home. You need to go down there and let your ideas intermingle with the ideas of others. Perhaps there will be pathways to integrate the internet into the day-to-day running of things. But if you're on the train or live nearby, and you're ready to commit to a solid chunk of time, you'll learn more than you could with any amount of internet time.

TL;DR After spending an hour at the OWS protests, I am very excited by the decision making processes, am convinced it will change America, and (knock on wood) hope that they are not going any where anytime soon!