Evidence that the Occupy! movement has created a true political opportunity, how it works, and critical next steps for us all.

[Mark Roest]

Hello All,

Here is evidence that the Occupy! movement has created a true political opportunity in California -- and probably the nation.

http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2011/11/29/occupy-standoffs-continue-poll-finds-public-support-movement. The story is followed by a beautifully written call to action and statement of position for Oakland Occupy.

Here are the poll results: "As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, 46 percent of respondants said they identified with the Occupy movement and 58 percent agree with the cause that prompted it, compared with 32 percent who say they disagree with it. Unsurprisingly, those on the left were more likely to support Occupy while those on the right were more likely to oppose it. A previous Field Poll at the height of the right-wing Tea Party movement found it had only about half as much support as Occupy now enjoys."

The people in power today have a choice: they can acknowledge the support for the cause of the 99% and join in, or they can continue to use corporate control of the fifth estate (the profession of journalism, paid for with our direct and indirect purchases) to substitute propaganda for information, and attempt to further divide the people and ratchet up their control of our society.

Meanwhile we, the majority who support ending the extreme distortion of the distribution of wealth, and the exercise of empire around the world, can take advantage of having achieved 'critical mass'. How? By organizing with the people who come out to us as caring about justice, and both creating personal phone trees and email threads, and creating homes on social media for more public sharing of ideas, inspirations, and discoveries of what it feels like to collaborate and support each other, instead of trying to win the money game at each others' expense. On that foundation, we can build systematic and transparent processes for identifying, and getting binding commitments from, those in power (whether political, economic or institutional, at every level from neighborhood to nation) who join in the cause, and those who choose to run to replace those who refuse outright, stonewall the discussion, or resort to hypocrisy to mask their intentions and their allegiance to power.

Such a system of information and communication can help create the sense of order and trust that a large number of people need, to make the psychological leap from following the herd and relying on 'authorities' to make their decisions for them, to engaging in a truly democratic process of open discussion, searching for and agreeing on solutions that support everyone in living a healthy, happy, productive and fulfilling life, and in restoring as much balance as we can to the natural environment, so all the world's children and grandchildren can not only meet their needs, but also fully enjoy, and become stewards of, the miracle of Life.

Some people know (parts of) how to create the space on the Internet for this to take place, others know how to write the content, others need to study and understand to move forward, and still others rely on the opinions of those around them, or form their opinions in concert with their friends. All of these are equally valid; they are all roles in the process of governance. The same sort of diversity will be found in every dimension of the process; it reflects the diversity that has enabled humanity to survive until now, in what once was more than 9,000 cultures. Rather than looking for evidence of uniformity, we can come to know, understand, and celebrate the forms of diversity that emerge within our face-to-face and virtual sight. 

This process is fully capable of replacing the current lifeblood of politics, media advertising funded in back-room deals with those who control the money. We can, instead, work to come together as the 58% or whatever it is from state to state, and when we have done so, we can confirm that we are in alignment and in, or close to, the majority. At that moment, we can simply turn our backs on the media game, having rendered it irrelevant to earning the mantle of governance. Instead, we just sit down with those around us who have not yet understood the change, explain it to them, answer their questions and record their requests, and invite them to join in creation of a society that actually reflects our true nature, as both individuals and social beings. That will take us ever closer to true, practical, working unity and diversity, as the 99%.

Your thoughts about this are welcome, as is your participation in designing and implementing it.

Regards,

Mark Roest

[Devin Balkind]

This sounds lovely.

I was talking with some people last night about the role occupy could play in the 2012 election.

Every two years there is some effort to 'throw them [congress] all out]'.  I feel like this is something occupy could get behind and take to the next level.  Congress as a whole has a 10-20% approval rating, the average congressman has a 60% approval rating and the congressional incubants win 90% of the time (I made these stats up but I think they're about right.

What if the occupy movement did a branding and organizing campaign to turn the word 'incumbent' into something politically toxic and name recognition into a measure of corruption. 

"Your local congressman has been in power during a time in which income inequality has hit all time high and civil liberties hit all time lows.  What has he done about it?  Nothing!

This November, vote for someone else - anyone else - because, if you want to congress to change, you need to change congress."

A little wordsmithing and we've got the best superbowl ad ever!

Another idea - blank screen, silence, and this quote:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies . . . If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] . . . will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered . . . The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." -- Thomas Jefferson -- The Debate Over The Recharter Of The Bank Bill, (1809)

Whaddya think?

--
Devin Balkind
@devinbalkind
vitamindwb.com

[Miles Fidelman]

Devin Balkind wrote:
>
> Every two years there is some effort to 'throw them [congress] all
> out]'. I feel like this is something occupy could get behind and take
> to the next level. Congress as a whole has a 10-20% approval rating,
> the average congressman has a 60% approval rating and the
> congressional incubants win 90% of the time (I made these stats up but
> I think they're about right.
>
> What if the occupy movement did a branding and organizing campaign to
> turn the word 'incumbent' into something politically toxic and name
> recognition into a measure of corruption.
>
> "Your local congressman has been in power during a time in which
> income inequality has hit all time high and civil liberties hit all
> time lows. What has he done about it? Nothing!

In a situation where a minority can gridlock action, this seems a
completely wrongheaded view of the problem. For example, are you going
to throw Bernie Sanders out of the Senate because the Republican
minority keeps blocking things in the Senate, and the Republican
majority keeps blocking things in the House?

We need to "throw bums out" selectively.

>
> This November, vote for someone else - anyone else - because, if you
> want to congress to change, you need to change congress."
>

Unfortunately, that's what the Tea Party did last time - and look where
that got us.

The problem is that getting anything done, in today's world, seems to
require
- a majority voting block in the House
- a 60 vote majority in the Senate
- a President aligned with the voting blocks

Worst case scenario:
- Republican (Tea Party) majority in the House
- divided Senate
- Green Party or America Elects President

And this is neglecting the issue of Seniority, which effects who gets
Congressional leadership positions, and the opportunities to abuse power
that go with them.

What I think we need to make progress is:
- firm Democratic majority in the House
- Democratic supermajority in the Senate + a few extra votes for good
measure
- Democratic president

Which leads to the observation that a branding campaign, aimed
specifically at getting progressive Democrats elected might move us
somewhere (which implies primary fights in a lot of Democratic districts).
- a "throw the bums out campaign" might lead to something a lot worse
than we have now
- what we need is sort of the progressive Democrat equivalent of the Tea
Party approach

--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra

[Alex Hardman]

I have to disagree a bit. The Democrats have had power before. We either need to throw them all out, or throw the whole system out. If they can get re-elected in their district by joining occupy, great, otherwise oh well.

--

Alex Hardman (770.406.6430)
http://www.nycga.net/members/sunflame/

http://occupyatlanta.org/contact-communicate/members/sunflame/profile/public/

[Mark Roest]

Hello Devin and All,

I think your second idea is great if someone wants to and is able to get it on air. Start with Amy Goodman at Democracy NOW!  Her studio is in New York, and she does video as well as audio. She is syndicated to most of the progressive radio and TV stations. Suggest that she have Jill Stein read it sometimes, and the older Hispanic and black activists with the very deep voices other times (sorry, senior moment), and Harry Belafonte other times, powerful female singers other times, and perhaps Van Jones still other times. Give scope for them to say how they see it, rather than only presenting it as an isolated sound byte / idea. That way it comes into the senses at different levels, and penetrates deeply. At the same time, their personalities are registering with people, including those who did not already know them as activists. 

Also make up signs with the quote -- both handmade and personal, and by a wide range of graphic artists, in each of their styles. That can visually show, in one crowd photograph, that the movement is not drones or clones, but mutually supportive individuals with a powerful, enduring, intelligent message.

There is a Chinese classic on warfare (the Five Rings?) which counsels strongly against your first idea, if you consider the realities. The right is so well organized that they control Congress, and financial sector elite is so well organized that they control both Congress and the White House. If your approach was a gunfighter, Newt Gingrich would be Clint Eastwood saying, "Make my day!"

The work to be done is to make real connections with the people with whom we come into contact, wherever possible, and to build real political capacity to effectively mobilize the 46%. Think of a dense flock of birds which flies like a single entity, yet has no leader and is highly unpredictable from the outside, even while it is responding to whatever is meaningful to it -- food, threats, other flocks with which to merge and then diverge, changes in air flow -- in real time. That has enabled many small species of birds to survive and thrive for millions of years. Warriors in Kenya moved like that during their early wars with British colonists, and they were able to be effective with spears, against soldiers with guns. That was the level of action then and there; if we drove it to (or accepted) all-out confrontation we would be exterminated. That's just the way male chimpanzee and base-level human psychology work, when they have access to weapons, wealth, and the means to rally supporters.

What we need to do instead is to build relationships that extend to supporting each others' well-being, in whatever ways are relevant, and across all of the lines that divide society, exactly like what the Occupy! camps have been doing. If you notice, that fact is turning minds in the movement's favor, at a very deep level of perception.

These relationships include political coordination and strategy, and learning to avoid injury and death when the police come to break up our gatherings and camps. The coming conference on Non-Violent Direct Action vs Diversity of Tactics (whoever feels like it throws rocks, and eventually Molotov cocktails) on December 14 will be very important for learning what these two sets of skills are all about. They are really one training.

The realizable objectives are to: 

- Keep organizing, and create real, accountable capacity to reach (at least) the rest of the progressive to moderate electorate, using direct personal contact, the Internet, peer-to-peer communications, and mobile crowd platforms.

- Get the politicians who still feel a sense of responsibility to the people, and to the values of the nation, to realize that they will be able to rely on the 46% to enroll the rest of the 58%, to elect them with a very small campaign budget, if they hold up their end of the bargain and become true, committed populists (in the North Dakota sense of the word).

- Empower and embolden people in the movement who have the capacity to be effective in office to run for the seats of the intransigent -- those who are committed to the interests of the 1%. Support those who have already stepped up to do so independently of the Occupy! movement.

- Constantly gather in Independents (and Nomadics in the terms of the LOHAS/Yankelovich polls), and when possible, peel away people who are in the various right-wing movements but whose core values are not racist and classist, by addressing the specific reasons that they joined their groupings with deep truth and practical solutions. That means learning enough analysis and solutions to be able to point directly to real answers as the challenges are raised (but only after they are fully expressed), in both personal conversation and public discussion. Where possible, share the stories of these encounters, respecting wishes for anonymity or public identification, or anything in between (ask first!). 

- Continue to persuade politicians and anyone else who is sitting on the fence, mindful of the Chasm Theory of Marketing: First you get the pioneers, then the early adopters. Then you wonder where the market went. So you focus on niche markets, until you are 'hitting strikes and spares' (being very successful) in them, and the opinion leaders for the first half of the main part of the bell curve (two or more standard deviations, if you use statistics), who monitor niche markets, decide that the new idea has been proven and move to take advantage of it. The rest of the first half of the mainstream has been collectively monitoring the opinion leaders, and now they jump in the pool, almost all at once! After the first half of the mainstream has established the idea as the new standard, then the back half (who adopt ideas when they are the standard) moves in more slowly, followed by the late adopters, and eventually by those who felt they could not afford it but were not averse to it. The grandchildren of those who are averse to it may succeed in melting their hearts some day, and inducing them to try it.

- Organize, educate and nurture, to help those who have been damaged heal their wounds and scars -- or heal their experience of them, so that they can live meaningful, satisfying lives in their remaining time here.

Water washes away dirt and loose rocks, and even wears away granite over time, and expands its own channel by doing so. Ants follow the scent trails of their peers, which inform them whether there is food or threat, abundance or more searching to do. If abundance, most follow, and some explore the sides. If more searching, they diverge into search patterns. Water and ants both hold lessons for political organizing. In the political arena, the initial time frame is from now through the November 2012 elections, but the effort continues with ever-growing momentum until humanity has reclaimed and restored the world, and taken back its role as Stewards of Life.

Blessings,

Mark Roest

[Melvin Carvalho]

Seems to be an effort to discredit the movement:

https://twitpic.com/7nu4b2

>
> Regards,
>
> Mark Roest

[ArtBrock]

Exactly. Both Dems and Repubs have been bought up by special
interests.

What about an Occupy Government Party?

=== Imagine this scenario: ===

We build a powerful Internet-based participatory decision-making tools
(more on that in a moment). Candidates of the Occupy Party make their
core campaign promise and also a contractual agreement to vote based
on the actual will of the people as decided via these participatory
tools. And to spend their time, energy and budget on providing the
appropriate data for and encouraging participation on these tools in
their constituency instead of campaigning. From this we gain an
actual governance by the people, instead of this bogus representative
system where nobody but the campaign financiers are represented.

This gets us elected officials who are not career politicians, who get
re-elected by virtue of people experiencing their own voice and
feeling ownership in the decision-making process so they continue to
vote Occupy candidates.

A candidate who doesn't vote according to the online tools would be in
breach of contract and ineligible to be an Occupy candidate next
cycle, not to mention would not be likely to be re-elected anyway.

This could provide a path toward actual political reform, campaign
finance reform, new constitutional congress, or whatever. The tools
would also be made available in districts which are represented by a
Dem or Repub, and we can track how often they vote against the will of
their constituency. If we can build the tools to be effective,
reliable and transparent enough with enough critical mass of
participation, it could be political suicide for the party candidates
to oppose their constituency.

=== The Tools: ===

The tools would have to be game-proof. Or rather, they would have to
be set up that gaming them produces exactly the kind of participatory
government that we want. For example, if big finance has to bribe
millions of people to vote their way on every issue, that may be a
more appropriate transfer of wealth then paying off rich politicians
once. It's also much harder to hide.

There are a bunch of problems that would need to be solved: verifiable
voter identity vs. anonymity, user authentication, anti-pareto
effects, etc. But these are exactly the problems we should be working
on anyway and there are various partial or total solutions that exist
for most of them.

Also, the tools probably need to include some voting/decision-making
process that we're not accustomed to... such as:
- per issue proxies (appoint a representative for each specific issue/
decision)
- blind proxies (you can know you are representing others, but not
who you're representing)
- logarithmic proxies (proxies are worth less than direct
participation and aggregate slowly - e.g. by powers of 2. [1 person
(self) has 1 vote, 2 people yields 1+self vote, 4 people yield 2+self
votes, 8 yields 3+self, 16 yields 4+self, etc.] This makes impossible
to replicate the current representative power concentration pattern
getting people to blindly proxy to a person instead of dealing with
the issue itself.)
- voice amplification (people adding their weight to the best voices
without having to proxy their votes to them)

Oh yeah... and decentralized hosting/management/control. If this
software determines votes thereby "running" the government, we can't
allow it to be centrally controlled by anyone or that becomes the
target of control by the current puppet-masters (think Diebold voting
machines for example).

There's more... The point is this is challenge, but not an impossible
one.

On Dec 4, 11:41 am, Alex Hardman <hardma...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have to disagree a bit. The Democrats have had power before. We either
> need to throw them all out, or throw the whole system out. If they can get
> re-elected in their district by joining occupy, great, otherwise oh well.
>
> --
> Alex Hardman (770.406.6430)http://www.nycga.net/members/sunflame/

> *http://occupyatlanta.org/contact-communicate/members/sunflame/profile...
> *

>
> On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 3:55 AM, Miles Fidelman

> <mfidel...@meetinghouse.net>wrote:

[Melvin Carvalho]

IMHO, we shouldnt try and aim to make the next system 100% gameproof.
Just make it less gamable that it is today.

[Jason Daniels]

I wonder if it there isn't a political opportunity at the local level as well.  Working to establish an occupy presence within local community municipalities and governments.  Building towards a groundswell of support in regions (western Mass/upstate NY come to mind) and growing to state coalitions.  Is it self reliance, is it a principled approach to local government, is it saying to "no" to special interests buying off local votes?  Not sure, this just came to mind.

Just a view from a quiet but listening voice in the 'burbs.

Jason

[Devin Balkind]

There is an opportunity.  Young Americans for Liberty have pursued this course of action through their 'year of youth' program where they're training hundreds of folks under 30 to seize local office.  While the fact that the 'far right' is already organizing an endeavor like this, what is more frightening is how tone deaf so called progressives are to the fact that YALand other liberty groups want to end the wars, end prohibition and end the private banking cartels control of our currency - all of which are major policy proposals that would make America a more just, equitable and - dare I say - progressive nation.

Hopefully occupy will be able unite libertarians and progressives around issues of importance.

I'd love to get more feedback from this list: can occupy leverage a 'throw them all out' campaign to bridge the gap between progressives and libertarians? 

DWB

[Curtis Faith]

Devin,

I think the "throw them all out" campaign is a great idea if you use it to unite progressives and libertarians around those issues that they can agree on. There are quite a few major ideas that would indeed make the country better as you've outlined.

Ending wars and American empire (hundreds of military bases around the world, weapons for cold-war era, etc.)

Ending the "drug war" boondoggle and prison state

Ending militarization of police forces

Ending corporate personhood

Ending the influence of money on politics

Ending the state's religion-founded influence on issues like marriage and sexual practices

Prosecuting the banksters

Breaking up "too big to fail" banks

There is a role for a new coalition of the young. It will have to be a younger generation than the current set of voices in the blogosphere. They see politics and government as the answer to too many problems.

The time is ripe for this to emerge.

- Curtis

[teleb...@gmail.com]

That is a very comprehensive list Curtis. I can definitely get behind that!

-Jeff Sterling

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

---

From: Curtis Faith <cur...@worldhouse.org>

Sender: building-a-distributed...@googlegroups.com

Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2011 13:27:48 -0500

To: <building-a-distributed...@googlegroups.com>

ReplyTo: building-a-distributed...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: Evidence that the Occupy! movement has created a true political opportunity, how it works, and critical next steps for us all.

[Mark Roest]

Hello Curtis and Devin and All,

I guess the question is whether there is already a wedge between the nominally right-wing youth and the Koch brothers and other funders of the right wing, or whether one can be driven through documentation of how the betrayals and exploitation of the right wing work, and calls to action. That is necessary to be able to readily create an alliance of left and right.

The other issue is that we, and life on earth, cannot afford for this to be an armed power struggle with the resulting total abolition of liberties. We need to do an economic and political process that creates a foundation for a peaceful redirection of society's power, which means creating a strong and independent economy, based on sustainability and dividing up the real production and knowledge jobs for products and services that are actually worth doing, so everyone who wants a job and has the capacity to do the work can have one.

If we can combine these two paragraphs we will have something powerful.

Regards,

Mark

[Mark Roest]

I forgot to write that the other issue is racism, where it exists. It has to be a fully inclusive society without castes.

Regards,

Mark

[Curtis Faith]

Mark,

The racist/Koch-dominated branch of the right wing Tea Party is largely an older crowd of retirees and those about to retire. The younger libertarians are a very very different group and not at all of the same mind as the Koch branch of the Tea Party. They tend to be more of the anarchist or Noam Chomsky persuasion, in my experience. They also tend to support Ron Paul because they really do want to end American empire and the police state.

I don't think anyone is advocating armed struggle or abolition of civil liberties, except the current Republicans and Democrats, certainly not the libertarians.

Consider that Rand Paul was one of the very few senators speaking out against amendments to the latest defense appropriations that would let the military detain U.S. citizens without cause or reason. The Democrats were virtually silent on this. The bill passed 97 to 3, I think. Obama said he'd veto it and it may not survive the house, but who knows. The Democrats have stood by as our civil liberties have been decimated, and made things worse when they got in power under Obama. We still have Guantanamo, the Patriot Act etc.

It really does need to be a clean sweep if we are to make progress. Both parties suck.

There is still time to change 2012, but not time to delay.

- Curtis

[Mark Roest]

Curtis, please meet Jill Stein, a candidate for the Green Party nomination for President. Jill, please meet Curtis, a likely sagacious ally.

Regards,

Mark

[Miles Fidelman]

Mark Roest wrote:
> Curtis, please meet Jill Stein, a candidate for the Green Party
> nomination for President. Jill, please meet Curtis, a likely sagacious
> ally.

Right. Let's just split the Progressive vote. Jill's a great person
(know her personally, she's run for office here in MA several times),
but she's not going to take any votes from the Republicans. So all a
vote for Jill will do is increase the likelihood of Newt Gingrich, or
Mitt Romney, or worse in the White House.

[Devin Balkind]

Agreed.  I think progressives and libertarians can agree on all those points.

DWB

[Samuel Rose]

I am sorry that I cannot reply to every point in this interesting discussion directly. However, here's what I think:

1. Political parties...are conduits of money for special interests and bottlenecks in the system. Paul Hartzog and I wrote about this last winter around this time: http://p2pfoundation.net/The_Political_Principles_of_Peer-to-Peer_Advocacy#.22Parties.22.2C_not_.22Party.22

From singular entities to plurality. Remember, you are a party of one.

The most important political entity in Peer-to-Peer Advocacy is you, the person. Your value is exponentially greater than any party or organization of any type, in Peer-to-peer systems. To that end, looking for ways to participate directly with other people per problem or issue, is more effective more of the time than first requiring affiliation with party or group.

No advocate of peer-to-peer politics wants all communications or activity routed through them. Bottlenecks are weaknesses.

A party are a point of failure to be conquered and absorbed, is my opinion. It's clear to me that we need a whole new operating system for politics.

2. I predict that it is going to fast become evident that the state constitutional and state government level is where the real battle is at. This was displayed very clearly starting in Jan 2011 when laws were made on the state level to stamp out rights of workers, further impoverish already destitute families, and directly access and control tangible resources. Furthermore, state government legislatures are the bodies that ratify amendments to the federal constitution. The occupy movement could amend the federal constitution by getting people elected on state levels. One suggested amendment is to turn over a significant amount of congressional decision making power to voters directly, who are now quite possibly more trustworthy with this power than congress itself.

--
--
Sam Rose
Hollymead Capital Partners, LLC
Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
email: samue...@gmail.com
http://hollymeadcapital.com
http://p2pfoundation.net
http://socialmediaclassroom.com

"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition." - Carl Sagan

[Kevin Carson]

This ties in IMO with a study I recall seeing quoted in the news
recently, to the effect that 10% of the population being convinced of
an idea is a tipping point of some sort.

The propagation of OWS's memes about the legitimacy of the system is
primarily important, not as a source of pressure for achieving
political reform through the state (let the dead bury their dead), but
in rendering its privileges and artificial scarcities unenforceable by
undermining allegiance. What renders the system enforceable and keeps
enforcement cost-effective is not rubber bullets, pepper spray, sonic
blasts or water cannon, but the fact the state can count people to
obey -- out of a sense of obligation -- when they're not being
watched. When a majority of the population sees the state as an
instrument of class rule, and kill off the little authoritarian boss
in their heads that tells them they have a moral obligation to "obey
the law," the enforcement costs entailed in maintaining the system of
power rise astronomically.

--
Kevin Carson
Research Associate, Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
Homebrew Industrial Revolution:  A Low-Overhead Manifesto
http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com
Desktop Regulatory State:  The Countervailing Power of Super-Empowered
Individuals http://desktopregulatorystate.wordpress.com
Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html

[Openworld]

Art and Devind,

I see an immediate opportunity for a version of what Art has proposed
to spread at the local level. An open source eGovernment package could
enable residents of communities to occupy local government - by
creating a one-stop "participatory budgeting" alternative. With it,
citizens could directly wrest control over some level of municipal
spending (perhaps 10 percent), independent of elected and appointed
gatekeepers. Citizens using this alternative would gain an ability to
fund scalable projects that they feel have promise of showing ways to
do "more for less."

A turnkey solution of this kind could help break the grip of those who
have captured tax-funded public services at the expense of the common
interest, and spread creative alternatives at a time when top-down
subsidies are set to sharply decline. I can see progressives and
libertarians uniting behind such an initiative as a way to seed
grassroots-up alternatives to a failing system.

Best,

Mark
@openworld

[Devin Balkind]

Sounds good to me.

So... who's interested in putting their time where their mouth is?

[Sepp Hasslberger]

Occupy government?

We'd have to start that from the local level up. 

And it might end up surprising those currently in power...

Sepp

[Devin Balkind]

If you're looking for a model check out the freestateproject.org. 

Seriously thought folks - I'm 25 and spending all my time getting the emering occupy organization using rss aggregation, wiki, crm, organizing skill sharing events, etc.  I don't have the time to run for office or embark on a political organizing campaign right now.  Opportunities like this don't come often - who wants to take it to the next level and spearhead something, run for office, etc?

[Melvin Carvalho]

On 5 December 2011 23:16, Kevin Carson

A friend of mine was commenting to me that we live in exponential times.

This chart in the economist hammers it home:

http://www.economist.com/node/21522912

We achieve more now in one year than we did in the whole of the 18th Century!

And dont forget the 18th century included the French and American
revolutions! :)

[Mark Roest]

Hello Miles,

You may be right, and there is another factor. We have talked about people on the libertarian and independent (non-Republican) right joining forces with the left. Jill is actually talking with them and attracting them. We are now about 11 months from election day. I can think of what Jill could accomplish by campaigning and mobilizing those who feel betrayed on the left, and those who feel betrayed on the right.

She is articulate enough (perhaps more so than Obama) to be able to actually enable the left-of-Democrat and right-of-Republican to heal in the process of each learning how the other reflects them. Just suppose that Jill and some people trained by the National Charrette Institute in Portland, Oregon worked with them (maybe even using Compendium to map the concepts that come up) to map both of their worldviews (in fairly large samples, say 40 to 80 each) in front of each other, and then overlay the maps. And people in each camp start saying, Hey, we've really got something here! And then Jill and the newly merged group have a strategy session for the next 5 hours, looking both at how to win an election and how to take the nation back to the future we want. We might emerge from that with a process map that a very large number of Republicans can relate to very well -- for one thing because I know for sure that we can solve the budget issues quickly if the Republican and Democratic parties are both out of the way. The technologies exist, and most of the solutions have been written about, already. 

That means that traditional Republicans, who had liberal social values (they freed the slaves, remember?) and strong concern for a balanced budget, and were, up through Dwight Eisenhower, all for shrinking the military after both WWI and WWII, suddenly have a home! (They have been homeless since Newt Gingrich took over Congress a while back.) Furthermore, if all of the Herb Stein people have a real political home, supporting someone who has really great values across the board, they will no longer be voting Republican, so I say that Jill, if she does what I am talking about, can take votes from Republicans, in large numbers -- not those in the contemporary committed Repub base who are really for corporate domination and racism, and not lifelong Repubs who cannot bring themselves to switch, but all of the independent and third party votes that the Republican party normally sucks in at the polls. That is what can prevent your prophesy from being fulfilled.

Let's set aside the relative percentages of voters in national elections for a moment, and look at absolute numbers of determined Democrats, Republicans, and all others who are not felons, or under voting age -- in other words, all those who are eligible to vote well before the deadlines for registering to vote in the November 2012 elections. At the same time, look at how many people sat out the last election, and consider the possibility of everyone who feels disenfranchised getting a face-to-face invitation to the second New Deal, and an offer of a ride if that makes it easier to register and to vote. Consider the implications of giving America four months to study a new path that works, in plain language and clear images, presented with such clarity that there is simply no baggage, on the Internet. Consider a coalition of Second New Deal proponents who run for every office, at every level, and work together like an old-fashioned political machine before radio, only with NationBuilder.com as their common tool this time. Talk about a breath of fresh air! Do you realize how many people would cry Hallelujah if that happened? Can you imagine what that could look like -- people crowding into each others' living rooms and kitchens in every fifth home in the nation for sixteen weeks of collective study and goal-setting. Then dividing up the lists of who isn't already there, and spending the next six months communicating with them as much as they can handle?

To top it off, they could simultaneously be setting up the beginnings of a transition economy, focused on the things that will maximize immediate benefits to those who have been damaged and betrayed by Obama's top administrators and the Congress to the extent of losing their jobs and /or homes, or being unable to make ends meet -- or coming home with post-traumatic syndrome, missing body parts, and / or brain damage, or getting poisoned by the dust after 9/11 or the chemicals that BP is still dumping in the ocean, in a continuing attempt to make it impossible to prove in court the true amount of oil that has been released into the Gulf of Mexico, while the government lies about what it knows about the health impacts (cancer, etc.). Imagine the psychological impact of both revealing the truth, and creating an informal network of care that improves the lives of all these people, and publicly celebrates doing so? There is a meme here, and it is about recovering our humanity. It also happens to be the meme that Christ taught, and that means that it could split the evangelical Christian movement between those whose real religion is greed, or patriarchy, and those who just wanted vivid spirituality in their lives. How about  sessions examining the overlaps among religions in their core values, after or alongside the political sessions?

This is just a start. I need some sleep.

Regards,

Mark

[Mark Roest]

Right. I wrote and posted a bunch on it last night.

Mark

[Alex Hardman]

A lot of the occupy movements are centering around occupy.net. Building http://wiki.occupy.net/wiki/Main_Page, http://forum.occupy.net/, http://notes.occupy.net/, etc... I'm with http://occupyatlanta.org/ IT Infrastructure working group, and we're partnered up with guys out of the Tech Ops group with http://www.nycga.net/.

Also work with those at http://interoccupy.org/ who host a lot of inter occupation coordination and movement building conference calls.

If anyone wants to build something like a local campaign, or even a package of tools for running local campaigns, I can see how the tools we use could be tuned for that purpose. I know most IT guys in the movement are fine with supporting (technologically) actions they themselves don't agree with (like me personally, I don't support working within the current system of politics, but I'll gladly help those who do with technology on the off chance it works).

What I'm saying is get in touch with these groups that are directly part of occupy and use the platform it's providing (if you think you can get enough people to support it I mean).

--

Alex Hardman (770.406.6430)
http://www.nycga.net/members/sunflame/

http://occupyatlanta.org/contact-communicate/members/sunflame/profile/public/

[Miles Fidelman]

I'd sort of rather see an "occupy Democrats" movement that pushes really
hard to craft a uniform agenda for Democrats running in 2012 -
essentially doing to the Democrats what the Tea Party did to the
Republicans.

Mark Roest wrote:
> Hello Miles,
>
> You may be right, and there is another factor. We have talked about
> people on the libertarian and independent (non-Republican) right
> joining forces with the left. Jill is actually talking with them and
> attracting them. We are now about 11 months from election day. I can
> think of what Jill could accomplish by campaigning and mobilizing
> those who feel betrayed on the left, and those who feel betrayed on
> the right.
>
>

[Mark Roest]

Hello Miles,

That's a good idea, too. 

I have had the thought that if Jill Stein were listened to seriously by the Demos, and they used my strategy for ditching dependence on the corporate class, they could return to their best days, and clean the clocks of the Republicans while they are at it. This could happen if Jill mobilizes all the non-hard-core-Dems-and-Repubs to join the Greens (and yes, I realize that it's not very likely). She could scare the Dems into 'getting religion.'

I would like either scenario.

Regards,

Mark

[Kevin Carson]

On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 4:41 AM, Alex Hardman <hard...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I have to disagree a bit. The Democrats have had power before. We either
> need to throw them all out, or throw the whole system out. If they can get
> re-elected in their district by joining occupy, great, otherwise oh well.

Nader was right -- one corporate party with two heads. Both parties
represent different factions of the corporate ruling class, or
different coalitions of corporate capital. They're like two farmers.
The New Deal/consensus capitalism model is like an enlightened farmer
who thinks he'll get more work out of his livestock in the long run if
he houses them comfortably, feeds them a healthy diet, and works them
in moderation. The neoliberal/Reaganite model is like a farmer who
expects to come out ahead by just working them to death and replacing
them. But they all see us as livestock, and their primary concern is
running the farm on a profitable basis.

[Kevin Carson]

On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 12:39 PM, Melvin Carvalho
<melvinc...@gmail.com> wrote:

> A friend of mine was commenting to me that we live in exponential times.
>
> This chart in the economist hammers it home:
>
> http://www.economist.com/node/21522912
>
> We achieve more now in one year than we did in the whole of the 18th Century!
>
> And dont forget the 18th century included the French and American
> revolutions! :)

A few weeks ago, I read some commentator evaluating OWS in terms of
Crane Brinton's typology of revolutions. Some of the key steps in his
list that are relevant here are the inability of states to provide
basic services, the undermining of the state's aura of legitimacy and
inevitability when its attempts to repress the movement fail, and the
internal fracturing and loss of morale inside the ruling class when
some of its armed enforcers start to defect.

The trajectory from Wikileaks -> Arab Spring -> OWS already dwarfs the
Seattle movement, and has possibly already overtaken the global
movement of 1968. And unlike the two previous movements, OWS 1) has a
generally favorable rating among a majority of the general public, and
2) coincides with the largest economic catastrophe since the Great
Depression. And OWS is in process of emerging from its cocoon with
stuff like "Occupy Our Homes" and other distributed, stigmergic
efforts independent of the original movement -- dispersed like
dandelion seeds, too widely to effectively repress.

Re Brinton's typology, John Robb argued that if the periphery of the
Eurozone defaults, the waves from the financial collapse will
transform the global Great Recession into Depression 2.0. Imagine if
there had already been a networked movement on the scale of OWS in
being when the Depression hit bottom in the early '30s. Now imagine
what the gasoline-on-fire effect if a new Depression coincides with
the takeoff of OWS.

The fiscally strapped, hollowed-out state has already retrenched on
social safety net functions -- and OWS is in the news for filling in
the void through self-organized efforts like Occupy Our Homes to put
roofs over homeless and evicted people. Every single time armed goons
show up to evict them, that event will become another morality play
distributed virally via YouTube. It's the moral equivalent of the
house-to-house fighting in Stalingrad, with a million separate sites
for defensive stands. Neighborhood assembly offshoots of OWS, on the
Argentinian model, will probably start filling in the gaps for things
like reduced trash pickups and organizing mutual aid among neighbors,
further undermining the state's aura of legitimacy.

As for demoralization and defection, there were persistent rumors that
some 200 NYPD officers called in sick on the day of Bloomberg's
repression. The viral video of John Pike, I'm sure, was a wakeup call
for cops all over the country that they're living in a different era
now, and there are forms of accountability bigger than Police
Commission investigations to worry about.

Could it be that the global networked resistance movement is about to
enter a positive feedback process that will escalate out of sight?

[Curtis Faith]

Devin,

Did you see that Robert David Steele, he of Open Intelligence fame, has announced his running for the candidacy for the Reform Party as president. Seems very Occupy/People friendly in his platform.

http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/12/robert-david-steele-for-president-2012-use-donate-button-to-vote-1-suggested/

- Curtis

On Dec 4, 2011, at 3:15 AM, Devin Balkind wrote:

This sounds lovely.

I was talking with some people last night about the role occupy could play in the 2012 election.

Every two years there is some effort to 'throw them [congress] all out]'.  I feel like this is something occupy could get behind and take to the next level.  Congress as a whole has a 10-20% approval rating, the average congressman has a 60% approval rating and the congressional incubants win 90% of the time (I made these stats up but I think they're about right.

What if the occupy movement did a branding and organizing campaign to turn the word 'incumbent' into something politically toxic and name recognition into a measure of corruption. 

"Your local congressman has been in power during a time in which income inequality has hit all time high and civil liberties hit all time lows.  What has he done about it?  Nothing!

This November, vote for someone else - anyone else - because, if you want to congress to change, you need to change congress."

A little wordsmithing and we've got the best superbowl ad ever!

Another idea - blank screen, silence, and this quote:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies . . . If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] . . . will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered . . . The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." -- Thomas Jefferson -- The Debate Over The Recharter Of The Bank Bill, (1809)

Whaddya think?

On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 2:16 AM, Mark Roest <markl...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello All,

Here is evidence that the Occupy! movement has created a true political opportunity in California -- and probably the nation.

http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2011/11/29/occupy-standoffs-continue-poll-finds-public-support-movement. The story is followed by a beautifully written call to action and statement of position for Oakland Occupy.

Here are the poll results: "As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, 46 percent of respondants said they identified with the Occupy movement and 58 percent agree with the cause that prompted it, compared with 32 percent who say they disagree with it. Unsurprisingly, those on the left were more likely to support Occupy while those on the right were more likely to oppose it. A previous Field Poll at the height of the right-wing Tea Party movement found it had only about half as much support as Occupy now enjoys."

The people in power today have a choice: they can acknowledge the support for the cause of the 99% and join in, or they can continue to use corporate control of the fifth estate (the profession of journalism, paid for with our direct and indirect purchases) to substitute propaganda for information, and attempt to further divide the people and ratchet up their control of our society.

Meanwhile we, the majority who support ending the extreme distortion of the distribution of wealth, and the exercise of empire around the world, can take advantage of having achieved 'critical mass'. How? By organizing with the people who come out to us as caring about justice, and both creating personal phone trees and email threads, and creating homes on social media for more public sharing of ideas, inspirations, and discoveries of what it feels like to collaborate and support each other, instead of trying to win the money game at each others' expense. On that foundation, we can build systematic and transparent processes for identifying, and getting binding commitments from, those in power (whether political, economic or institutional, at every level from neighborhood to nation) who join in the cause, and those who choose to run to replace those who refuse outright, stonewall the discussion, or resort to hypocrisy to mask their intentions and their allegiance to power.

Such a system of information and communication can help create the sense of order and trust that a large number of people need, to make the psychological leap from following the herd and relying on 'authorities' to make their decisions for them, to engaging in a truly democratic process of open discussion, searching for and agreeing on solutions that support everyone in living a healthy, happy, productive and fulfilling life, and in restoring as much balance as we can to the natural environment, so all the world's children and grandchildren can not only meet their needs, but also fully enjoy, and become stewards of, the miracle of Life.

Some people know (parts of) how to create the space on the Internet for this to take place, others know how to write the content, others need to study and understand to move forward, and still others rely on the opinions of those around them, or form their opinions in concert with their friends. All of these are equally valid; they are all roles in the process of governance. The same sort of diversity will be found in every dimension of the process; it reflects the diversity that has enabled humanity to survive until now, in what once was more than 9,000 cultures. Rather than looking for evidence of uniformity, we can come to know, understand, and celebrate the forms of diversity that emerge within our face-to-face and virtual sight. 

This process is fully capable of replacing the current lifeblood of politics, media advertising funded in back-room deals with those who control the money. We can, instead, work to come together as the 58% or whatever it is from state to state, and when we have done so, we can confirm that we are in alignment and in, or close to, the majority. At that moment, we can simply turn our backs on the media game, having rendered it irrelevant to earning the mantle of governance. Instead, we just sit down with those around us who have not yet understood the change, explain it to them, answer their questions and record their requests, and invite them to join in creation of a society that actually reflects our true nature, as both individuals and social beings. That will take us ever closer to true, practical, working unity and diversity, as the 99%.

Your thoughts about this are welcome, as is your participation in designing and implementing it.

Regards,

Mark Roest

[Devin Balkind]

I'm friendly with Carl Person, who is running for the libertarian party nomination.  He's into the open source everything message.  I bet they could collaborate and get further together than alone.  What do you think?

[Curtis Faith]

Yes, I think that would make sense if they're up for it.

If Ron Paul doesn't get traction, I think there are a lot of Libertarians who'll want to move somewhere besides the corporatist Republicans and Democrats. The key is the right strategy for bringing everyone together around common cause rather than division.

What better way to show this than to link up two candidates who show the way by their actions.

- Curtis