Forum Post: Question for Facilitators About Direct Democracy Deadlock
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 16, 2011, 8:53 p.m. EST by mattready
(1)
from Port Townsend, WA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
As someone who will be helping my town form a General Assembly, I would really like help with the following scenario:
You have a wonderful vibrant General Assembly. The GA occasionally consents on actions such as wonderful non violent protests. Then one day a few hundred or a few thousand new people begin attending these GA's. These new people are not organized, they are a few hundred or thousand individuals. These new people begin blocking any proposal or action they disagree with.
What does the facilitator do?? What happens to a wonderful GA using direct democracy when it becomes frozen in deadlock of blocks? Or what do you do when the consensus is "we cannot agree on a single action or proposal."
I would love some direction for how a direct democracy could thrive through this.
Move for direct polling instead of hang signals.