Forum Post: Give Us a Voice

The Occupy Wall Street movement has given us all much hope, but I am audaciously asking for more. I am asking the movement to “be all that we can be.”

In a recent opinion piece about the OWS, Leonard Pitts wrote: “When you have all eyes upon you, your next move should be obvious. Say something.”

He could just as well have said, do something. True, we have been doing something, occupying space, but that’s not an end in itself. I propose we do something so that we can say something – say something with some authority.

I don’t want to second-guess the OWS Movement in NYC, but I want to address the problem of coming to a consensus and developing and delivering a message, not so much for the near term, but for the future.

Marshall McLuhan said, “The medium is the message.” We could extend that statement and say the process is the message. We need to develop an effective process for creating a message and delivering a message.

I am proposing the use of my home district, the First District in Oklahoma, as a testing ground for creating and delivering messages. But before discussing possible processes, I suggest we look back to France during the regime of Louis XIV for a lesson in creating a message. Keep in mind this was the process that sparked the French Revolution.

Prior to the revolution, the government wanted to avoid financial collapse. The crisis forced the King to summon an Estates-General. This body represented each of the three Estates of French Society. The government invited each of the three classes to draw up a statement of complaints and grievances. Within each class, the delegates summarized the district statement to form the provincial statement. They then presented a summary of the whole to Louis.

Formation of the statements for the Third Estate (peasants) began with local assemblies. Village churches hosted many of the meetings. Each of these initial meetings included about one hundred voters. This is where the people formed new ideas and sharpened their understanding of what they wanted for their nation.

We now, more than ever, need to form new ideas and sharpen our understanding of what we want for our nation. We could do this using a process similar to that used by the French, but remember the revolution was not an unqualified success. Instead of forming a temporary structure to produce one statement, we need to form a permanent structure to guide the movement. (No beheadings please) We need to design a structure to accommodate collaboration among all the people who want to collaborate when they want to collaborate.

To begin building this structure, we would need to form Local Discussion Groups (LDG’s). These groups could be formed by people who live in one geographical area or by people who share an interest in a topic. For example, those in the 1st District interested in sustainable energy might decide to form a group.

Each LDG would create its own Facebook group. Meetings could be conducted face-to-face, on Facebook, or using a combination. The group would govern themselves.

The purpose of each group would be to contribute statements to help form a district statement. The group would do this by issuing a proposal or proposals.

Following the French model, each LDG would elect a delegate to form a district assembly to consider proposals and to combine them into one statement. This is NOT what I am proposing.

Instead of forming a district assembly, we would build a website to be used for district collaboration. When an LDG votes to issue a proposal, that proposal will be posted on the website by a contact person. I call this web site the People’s Virtual Assembly (PVA).

Each LDG would be responsible for making proposals for statements, seconding proposals from other LDG’s, proposing amendments, and voting on whether to accept proposed statements. PVA business would be conducted using a modified version of Robert’s Rules of Order. ( See http://facultyfp.salisbury.edu/capp/rules_for_cyberland.htm for possible modifications.) Members of an LDG would jointly play the role of an assembly delegate. Votes would be weighted by the number of people belonging to the LDG. All proposals, seconds, amendments, and statuses of proposals would be shown on the PVA. All votes would be posted and archived on the web site. The PVA must be totally transparent.

The PVA, then, would be an ongoing source of guidance from the people. There would be no doubt about what the people want – at least those people who care enough to say what they want. Imagine what the effect would be if we could replicate this process in the 434 other congressional districts.