Joseph Thiebes portland, oregon | art | science | philosophy | politics | food

Doddering Democracy: Expediency and Idealism in the “Occupy Wall Street” Movement

A funny thing happened on the way to the General Assembly. It was the first time I had attended such a meeting at “Occupy Portland, Oregon,” the local protest corresponding to the “Occupy Wall Street” protests in New York City. The protests had already been going on for a couple of weeks and it was the first opportunity I had to spend any time at one. I attended principally because I was interested to learn more about the concerns of local protesters and how the protest was being organized.  As someone interested primarily in listening, I didn’t speak, and I learned more than I imagined I would, on an unexpected subject—democracy, and how it differs in application when utilized as an organizational tool, as opposed to idealized as a panacea. Two encounters in particular at this meeting have given me much to consider on this subject, and have shaped my thoughts concerning the nationwide “Occupy” movement as a whole.

My first impression of the Occupy Portland General Assembly actually took place on the outskirts of the gathering, as I was approaching. I saw a small group of people, visibly disenfranchised from the main group. Their passion and frustration was palpable even before I could hear what any of them were saying. Then, the voice of one young man rose above the others in an angry bluster, “Who cares about this voting shit?! We do what we want!” I was stopped dead in my tracks by this emphatic scatology applied to voting, of all things. I wondered how a simple democratic deliberation could have inspired such an outburst. Then I heard more. “It’s always the same people who get to speak. When anyone else has something to say, they just ignore us.” I wasn’t here to listen to the disenfranchised and disgruntled, however; I was interested in learning about the protest and how those assembled hoped to reverse the crisis in which our nation currently finds itself.

Moving on to the General Assembly, I witnessed in person for the first time “the people’s microphone,” where one person speaks, and all others within hearing range repeat what that person says, in a call-and-response style delivery. When crowds are large enough, the process is repeated, so that the first response becomes the call for those further away to respond, providing a second echo for those too far to hear the first. A person who steps up to the “people’s mic” gains control of the device by simply stating the phrase, “mic check,” and upon hearing the others present repeating the phrase, proceeds to recite their message. This is the way that the General Assembly in Portland works to ensure that all voices have a chance to be heard.

Winston Churchill flashes the "V for Victory"

The subject under discussion was the question of who would be the official “media team” and what would be the official live video stream. Apparently there were more than one team of people with the equipment and incentive to produce live, streaming video of the event over the Internet, and there was some question about who should, and who should not, produce the live video feeds. I asked someone nearby, “Why can’t there be more than one? Couldn’t there be as many feeds as people want to make?” The quick response was, “This is the people’s media, not individual media.” I wasn’t sure how to respond, but I began to see a connection between the proceedings at hand and the disenfranchised group I had seen earlier. A famous saying of Winston Churchill floated through my mind: “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time” (Great Britain 206-207).

The problems of our society are vast and difficult to pin down: corporate personhood, money in politics, factory farming, bank bailouts, wars for oil, the military-industrial complex, the free press as propaganda ministers, the export of slavery and the import of everything. The list of tribulations goes on and on, and these complex issues transcend the party politics that most of us grew up with. With slight re-framing of the above concerns, many of them might be voiced by members of the right-wing Tea Party just as easily as they have been raised by the generally left-leaning “Occupy” movement. In recent years, all this has come to a head, and the 24/7 protests that started in Washington, D.C. have spread to well over 70 cities in the U.S. and abroad (Walters). These protests will fail, however, if their participants idealize democracy and rely on this system of government to solve their problems for them, instead of merely utilizing democracy as a tool for enfranchising people and building consensus.

Some participants in the protests feel that democracy, wherein the majority rule by direct voting, is the answer to all the problems that plague the U.S. today; they suggest that society must be reformed around this ideal form of government, treating the General Assemblies as bodies “that could act as a model of genuine, direct democracy to contrapose to the corrupt charade presented to us as ‘democracy’ by the US government” (Graeber). Other participants have sought merely to utilize the methods of democratic consensus-building first pioneered by anarchists during the Spanish Civil War (Bookchin). While there is significant overlap between these two perspectives of the ideal and the pragmatic, and certainly many individuals hold both perspectives, democracy is far from perfect and is prone to corruption and mob rule. The result of democratic deliberation on the day that I attended the General Assembly showed that these protests are not immune to corruption.

If government is a tool which serves the people it governs, then it practically does not matter what form or system of government is utilized, so long as it effectively and efficiently accomplishes the goal of providing justice and liberty to the greatest possible number of people. The people in a nation, or state, or public assembly may be served well by nearly any form of government or organizational structure, if that structure is in fact oriented toward serving them. Likewise, any form of government may become corrupted and be used to serve only some of the people, at the great expense of others. While democracy may be less prone to corruption than most other forms of government, it is not immune from corruption, and it is particularly prone to dampening the efforts of ingenious individuals—such as those required to ask permission at the General Assembly to turn on a video camera.

In the minds of many protesters, protest organizers, and politicians alike, there seems less focus on people merely utilizing democratic forms of deliberation to enfranchise and include everyone’s voice, and a greater emphasis on idealizing democracy and considering it to be a panacea for all the problems of society worldwide. In fact, considering the wars of the last 80 years at least, democracy has been upheld as an ideal for which we must fight at any cost. In the words of one bumper sticker that has been popular this year, “Be nice to America, or we’ll bring democracy to your country.”

Democracy is not identical with liberty and justice, and should not be conflated with them. John Stuart Mill pointed out the inherent problems of democracy, echoing de Tocqueville and James Madison when he wrote:

The will of the people, moreover, practically means the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people; the majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority; the people, consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautions are as much needed against this as against any other abuse of power. … This view of things, recommending itself equally to the intelligence of thinkers and to the inclination of those important classes in European society to whose real or supposed interests democracy is adverse, has had no difficulty in establishing itself; and in political speculations “the tyranny of the majority” is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard (4).

The question we must ask, when considering whether to adopt a particular system of government, is not whether or not the system is “democracy,” but whether the given system serves to create the greatest possible liberty and justice for the greatest number of people.

I left the General Assembly not knowing much more about the protests. I still felt strongly in agreement with many of the concerns that I saw articulated on cardboard signs, and I still hoped that the protests would continue and grow. As someone who has participated in anti-war protests since 1990, it was certainly uplifting to see, at long last, so many people fighting with their voices for liberty and justice in politics again. As I wandered back home, however, I found myself filled with doubts about the possible ramifications of idealizing democracy rather than simply utilizing it.

When I got home, I went to my computer and noticed that a friend, who had been attending the General Assemblies for some time, had a few days earlier written a brief comment on an online social network, saying that a small group of people at one of the General Assemblies had declared themselves “facilitators” by donning yellow duct-tape armbands. When asked how they were appointed, they brushed off the question by saying, “That is not up for discussion.” The next day, my friend brought a roll of yellow duct-tape to distribute armbands to anyone who wanted one. Naturally, the significance of the arm-band quickly faded and now nobody wears them. In this brief scenario, we find a corrupt democracy healed by the clever actions of an ingenious individual exercising his liberty.

Works Cited

• Graeber, David. “What Did We Actually Do Right?” AlterNet. N.p. 19 October, 2011. Web.. 19 October, 2011. <http://www.alternet.org/story/152789/%E2%80%9Cwhat_did_we_ actually_do_right%E2%80%9D_on_the_unexpected_success_and_spread_of_occupy_ wall_street/?page=entire>
• Great Britain. House of Commons Debates (5^th Series). Volume 444, 11 November, 1947. Web. October 15, 2011. <http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1947/nov/11/ parliament-bill>
• Bookchin, Murray. “An Overview of the Spanish Libertarian Movement.” Anarcho-Syndicalism 101: Class Struggle Online. N.p. 2 September, 2005. Web. October 15, 2011. <http:// www.anarchosyndicalism.net/archive/display/164/index.php>
• Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. London: Longman, Roberts & Green, 1869; Bertleby.com, 1999. Web. 19 October, 2011. <http://www.bartleby.com/130/>
• Walters, Joanna. “Occupy America: protests against Wall Street and inequality hit 70 cities.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited, 8 October 2011. Web. October 15, 2011. < http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/08/occupy-america-protests-financial-crisis>