TO THE VILLAGE: With a large college and high school student contingent, occupiers from all over the city have repeatedly marched to Washington Square where at least two general assemblies have convened. PHOTO: Stephen O’Byrne

On August 2, 2011 at the very first meeting of what was to become Occupy Wall Street, about a dozen people sat in a circle in Bowling Green. The self-appointed “process committee” for a social movement we merely hoped would someday exist, contemplated a momentous decision. Our dream was to create a New York General Assembly: the model for democratic assemblies we hoped to see spring up across America. But how would those assemblies actually operate?

The anarchists in the circle made what seemed, at the time, an insanely ambitious proposal. Why not let them operate exactly like this committee: by consensus.

It was, in the least, a wild gamble, because as far as any of us knew, no one had ever managed to pull off something like this before. Consensus process had been successfully used in spokes-councils  —  groups of activists organized into separate affinity groups, each represented by a single “spoke” — but never in mass assemblies like the one anticipated in New York City. Even the General Assemblies in Greece and Spain had not attempted it. But consensus was the approach that most accorded with our principles. So we took the leap.

Three months later, hundreds of assemblies, big and small, now operate by consensus across America. Decisions are made democratically, without voting, by general assent. According to conventional wisdom this shouldn’t be possible, but it is happening  —  in much the same way that other inexplicable phenomena like love, revolution, or life itself (from the perspective of, say, particle physics) happen.

The direct democratic process adopted by Occupy Wall Street has deep roots in American radical history. It was widely employed in the civil rights movement and by the Students for a Democratic Society. But its current form has developed from within movements like feminism and even spiritual traditions (both Quaker and Native American) as much as from within anarchism itself. The reason direct, consensus-based democracy has been so firmly embraced by and identified with anarchism is because it embodies what is perhaps anarchism’s most fundamental principle: that in the same way human beings treated like children will tend to act like children, the way to encourage human beings to act like mature and responsible adults is to treat them as if they already are.

Consensus is not a unanimous voting system; a “block” is not a No vote, but a veto. Think of it as the intervention of a High Court that declares a proposal to be in violation of fundamental ethical principles — except in this case the judge’s robes belong to anyone with the courage to throw them on. That participants know they can instantly stop a deliberation dead in its tracks if they feel it a matter of principle, not only means they rarely do it. It also means that a compromise on minor points becomes easier; the process toward creative synthesis is really the essence of the thing. In the end, it matters less how a final decision is reached—by a call for blocks or a majority show hands—provided everyone was able to play a part in helping to shape and reshape it.

We may never be able to prove, through logic, that direct democracy, freedom and a society based on principles of human solidarity are possible. We can only demonstrate it through action. In parks and squares across America, people have begun to witness it as they have started to participate. Americans grow up being taught that freedom and democracy are our ultimate values, and that our love of freedom and democracy is what defines us as a people—even as, in subtle but constant ways, we’re taught that genuine freedom and democracy can never truly exist.

The moment we realize the fallacy of this teaching, we begin to ask: how many other “impossible” things might we pull off? And it is there, it is here, that we begin enacting the impossible.

This article was written by David Graeber for the Occupied Wall Street Journal.

Jamaica Queens, NY—On Saturday, October 29th Occupy Wall Street, in solidarity with Occupy the Hood, will take action against the homelessness forced upon innocent Americans through criminal foreclosure practices. At 10:00am we will gather at Liberty Square and march to the J train, which we will take to Jamaica, Queens, the foreclosure capital of New York. Metro fare will be provided for those who need it. On the subway we will hold democratic forums on the intolerable hardships Americans have been suffering because of bank foreclosures.

“According to the Mortgage Bankers Association and the FDIC, one child in every classroom in America is losing their home because banks are foreclosing on their parents. In Queens, the reality is even worse,” said Michael Premo, a volunteer who is helping with Saturday’s event.

At noon, we will gather in Jamaica Center and march through the neighborhood, winding through foreclosed homes. As we pass by foreclosed homes we will visually reclaim them with banners and signs in windows and yards, and by tracing a map of the foreclosed homes of Jamaica, Queens using our bodies.

“There are five thousand homes in Queens that are being foreclosed upon. This is a pandemic. Jamaica is ground zero for foreclosures in New York,” said Patrick Bruner, a volunteer with Occupy Wall Street.

#OccupyWallStreet is a people powered movement that began on September 17, 2011 in Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District, and has spread to sustained occupations in over 100 cities in the United States and actions in over 1,700 cities globally. #OWS is fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations. The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Spain, Greece, Italy and the UK, and aims to expose how the richest 1% of people who are writing the rules of the global economy are imposing an agenda of neoliberalism and economic inequality that is foreclosing our future.

#OccupytheHood’s mission is to encourage individuals & community-based organizations to be involved. We are present at General Assembly’s, sit-ins, marches and rallies. We also initiate our own protests and boycotts. We will be seen and heard on our own, along-with and in unison with all the occupy-the-world movements until we bring forth a viable solution…. no matter how long it takes. Numbers speak volumes but the most important number to note at this time is the number one… Our voices are going to blend as one.

In a demonstration of the broadening base of the Occupy Wall Street / 99% movement, a rally will be held this coming Saturday, October 29 at City Hall Park in New York City, co-sponsored by the Coalition Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), the A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI), the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA), the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA), the National Action Network (NAN) and the NY State and NYC City Chapters of the NAACP.

Saturday, October 29th
City Hall Park, New York City
Rally: 12:00pm Noon
March to Liberty Square: 2:00pm

Afterward: Screenings of SING YOUR OWN SONG and discussion with Harry Belafonte
Three screenings: 3PM – 5:30PM; 6:30PM – 9PM; 10PM – 12AM

Speakers at the Rally already include Terrence Melvin of CBTU, Sonia Ivany of LCLAA, Pres. Sid Ryan of Ontario Federation of Labor, Anthony Harmon of APRI, Chris Provost – Chair of Univ Student Senate, CUNY, members of Transit Workers Union Local 100 and SEIU Local 1199.

Earlier this week the NAACP put out a statement in support of the Occupy Wall Street / 99% movement:

“For over 102 years the NAACP has supported, and continues to support, policies which create, preserve and expand living wage jobs, increase economic opportunity and protect the desire of every American to build and retain wealth and equity,” said Ben Jealous, NAACP President and CEO. President Jealous went on to say that the largely peaceful protests are true to “the non-violent traditions and philosophies upon which the NAACP is based and has operated under for our entire existence.”

At 2:00pm, the entire rally will march to Liberty Square in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement and the shared ideals of equality for all, individual dignity, economic and social justice, and the right to peacefully demand change of a broken system.

“This will be a significant and inspirational day for Occupy Wall Street and the movement as whole. The 99% is made up of all us. We are united behind the fundamental ideals of equality, and economic and social justice. Our country isn’t broke, it is broken. United, we cannot fail to bring the change so urgently needed,” said Kanene Holder, a Harlem-based educator and volunteer with Occupy Wall Street.

Afterward, Occupy Wall Street and SEIU Local 1199 will co-host a Civil Rights Event with Harry Belafonte.

Occupy Wall Street and SEIU Local 1199 will co-host the showing of a new documentary SING YOUR OWN SONG, directed by Susanne Rostock for HBO, about Harry Belafonte’s civil rights career followed by discussions with Mr. Belafonte. The event will be held at the Borough of Manhattan Community College 950 seat theater on West and Canal.

Most people know the lasting legacy of Harry Belafonte, Jr, the entertainer. This film unearths his significant contribution to and his leadership in the Civil Rights movement in America and to social justice globally. Mr. Belafonte was a confidante of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., bailing King out of the Birmingham City Jail and raising thousands of dollars to release other Civil Rights protesters. He financed the Freedom Rides, and supported and helped to organize the March on Washington, DC in 1963. He also helped organize the “We Are the World” effort, is one of the leading prison reform advocates, as well as a vocal thought leader and advocate in dozens of other civil rights causes.

Belafonte on Occupy Wall Street: Through its choice of non-violence “this movement is instantly struck with a sense of great genius,” Belafonte boldly pronounced, noting core strengths and values, and courage, as attributes of the movement’s identity. “It has attracted the rest of us to become greatly involved in any way that we can serve it.”