Forum Post: Ten Steps To Non-Violent Revolution Posted On https://sites.google.com/site/the99percentdeclaration/
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 8, 2011, 4:23 p.m. EST by ms3000
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The Occupy Wall Street movement should elect an executive committee. Ideally this committee should represent each city in the U.S. that is being occupied.
The committee will then plan and organize the election of 870 delegates between now and July 4, 2012.
Each of the 435 congressional districts will form an election committee to prepare ballots and invite citizens in those districts to run as delegates to the Third Continental Congress in Philadelphia beginning on July 4, 2012 and convening until October 2012.
Each of the 435 congressional districts will elect one man and one woman to attend the Third Continental Congress. The vote will be by direct democratic ballot voting.
The executive committee will act as a central point to solve problems, raise money to pay for the expenses of the election and Congress and make sure all 870 delegates are elected prior to the meeting on July 4th.
The executive committee would also arrange a venue in Philadelphia to accommodate the Third Continental Congress where the declaration of values, petition of grievances and platform would be proposed, debated, voted on and approved. The delegates would also elect a chair from their own ranks to run the meetings of the congress and break any tie votes. We would also need the expertise of a gifted parliamentarian to keep the meetings moving smoothly and efficiently.
The final declaration, platform and petition of grievances, after being voted upon by the 870 delegates would be formally presented by the 870 delegates to all three branches of government and all candidates running for federal public office in November 2012.
The delegates would then vote on a time period (presently suggested as one year) to give the the newly elected government in November to redress the petition of grievances. This is our right as a People under the First Amendment.
If the government fails to redress the petition of grievances and drastically change the path this country is on, the delegates will demand the resignation and recall of all members of congress, the president and the supreme court. A new election will then be held by, of and for the PEOPLE.
There will NEVER be a call for violence by the delegates even if the government refuses to redress the grievances and new elections are called for by the delegates. Nor will any delegate agree to take any money, job promise, or gifts from corporations, unions or any other private source. Any money donated or raised by the executive committee may only be used for publicizing the vote, the congress, and for travel expenses and accommodation at the Congress ONLY. All books and records will be published openly online so that everyone may see how much is raised and how the money is spent each month. There will be no money allowed to "purchase" delegate votes as we have in the current government.
Well that is not going to happen unless you elect representatives OUTSIDE of the political system to speak for you. Protesting and demonstrating indefinitely will get you no where. The world's attention is clearly focused on the OWS movement (for now) but there is no plan of action or articulate representatives to actually sit down with the government and tell them what we want. We have that right to petition the government for the redress of grievances but a crowd of people cannot do that and make any real constructive progress.
The only other options are to run our own candidates in the next election which is the tea party approach or violence which is something I and everyone I know will NEVER engage in. I have been to OWS twice and I would rather have the police beat me to death than rely on violence to effect change because if that is what you do, you will just end up with a dictatorship (see France, Germany, Russia, Spain, the Balkans, etc.)
I urge you to look to Dr. Martin Luther King and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and see how those movements were organized. Do you think they just went out into the street and protest without organization? Hoe many times did Dr. King and other go to Washington to meet with politicians during the civil rights struggle? You need people who stand for your views to sit down with your adversaries and speak truth to power.
yeah sounds like a tea party no thanks. This isn't about elections and changing people in the system. This is about changing the system.