FROM GENERAL ASSEMBLIES TO A PEOPLE’S CONGRESS
We need a political system that is not dominated by huge sums of money nor subject to rampant corruption. A system that accounts for the needs of the many in conjunction with the needs of the planet’s ecological balance. The General Assemblies found at the heart of each Occupy encampment resemble the idea of Peoples Congress.The key democratic tenets of consensus and direct democracy are indeed found at the heart of the General Assemblies guiding principles and that is in line with the kinds of practices needed to insure a genuine democratic process. So we have a vigorous movement with the right set of guiding principles—now what? The question is how does the Occupy Movement become effective in its goals to create the kinds of changes we need to successfully address the issues of the day and near future?
A PEOPLE’S CONGRESS: FROM POLITICAL MOVEMENT TO A PERMANENT POLITICAL FORCE
Let’s look to the American Revolution for clues to the elements of a successful revolution and of how to organize a permanent political body.
The first ingredient is dissatisfaction to the point of open rebellion against the current system of governance. The Occupy Movement has signaled that open rebellion is fast becoming the norm. The American Revolutionaries then drafted a constitution.
The Occupy Movement must now draft it own constitution using the crowd sourced method that Iceland recently used to create theirs. Once we have a popularly ratified constitution in place we can then create a list of the changes we want the U.S. Government to enact.
The people can then vote on what the priorities should be. We can’t throw the whole kitchen sink at them at once and expect them to act. We start with priority number one and do what it takes to get priority one addressed and so on down the list.
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