Occupy Philadelphia

National Gathering Process Proposal – Communique #1

We, the General Assembly of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, being the open, transparent, direct democratic decision-making body of the Occupy Philly movement, bring the following proposal to all other peaceful Assemblies across the United States of America.

In recent weeks, we have grappled with the question of how to build consensus across the broad national (and international) movement of which we are a part. Like many, we are excited about the prospect of National Gatherings – as we have already enjoyed participating in regional gatherings – but we also recognize that such gatherings are fleeting, unrepresentative of the entire movement, and produce results which cannot bind the movement to collective action, given our horizontal structure: The real work of our movement will always happen at the local level.

Yet this does not mean that we believe a process for coming to consensus across our movement is either unnecessary or impossible to achieve. Indeed, we believe it would represent an historic achievement for our movement, and we aim to prove that such a process is achievable. We propose to initiate the planning of a single National Gathering – openly, transparently, and democratically – as a means of developing our ability to come to consensus across this broad movement.

Our General Assembly has already offered to host a National Occupy Gathering on Independence Mall in Philadelphia on July 4th, 2012, but we have also declared that we will only participate in such a gathering if it is organized democratically and approved by multiple General Assemblies.

We therefore further propose the creation of a multi-GA-sanctioned Working Group dedicated to planning a truly democratic National Gathering. Toward this end, our Committee of Correspondence plans to facilitate an open national conference call using the InterOccupy system on Tuesday, January 17th, 2012, at 9pm EST. Call participants will attempt to come to consensus on how the National Gathering Working Group will organize itself, including its role, scope, and processes.

We intend no power for this working group beyond the ability to collectively craft a proposal (or proposals) to be considered by local General Assemblies across the United States. If a single proposal (like this one) is widely affirmed by American General Assemblies, and if it leads to a “National Gathering” plan that is then also widely affirmed by American General Assemblies, only then will we consider the resulting gathering to be truly a “National” manifestation of our movement’s collective will.

Lastly, we hereby announce our plans to utilize InterOccupy.org for all official correspondence between our General Assembly and all others, in accord with the November 22nd, 2011 decision of our friends and partners in the New York City General Assembly. With its reliance on open communication working groups – like our Committee of Correspondence – and facilitated, direct democratic conference calls, the horizontal communication tools available through InterOccupy seem to answer that difficult question of how to build consensus across our many assemblies: by simply facilitating communication between all participating General Assemblies in the Occupy movement.

This proposal is hereby submitted to all General Assemblies – formed and yet unformed – across our country. We respectfully ask for your consideration and ratification of this plan. We are eager to begin working with you all – on this and many future initiatives – as we come together, make our voices heard, and change the world in the process.