OCCUPY THEATERS
A New Political Process to Bring Power to the People
It's Time For The Occupy Movement to Come In From The Cold And Get Organized.
(Excerpt from my book: "The Predicament")
To be clear: The Occupy Movement is nothing less than a revolution in progress, driven by resentments toward “repeated injuries and usurpations” inflicted by the 1 Percent, not unlike those grievances inspiring the revolution by which our republic was founded. Unlike the earlier revolution, however, the Occupy Movement has the ability to achieve its ends through the ballot, rather than the bullet, thanks to the foresight of our revolutionary founding fathers in creating the democratic process, enshrined the U.S. Constitution.
Therefore, embracing the Occupy Movement as a revolution need not raise fears of mobs storming the White House or of guillotines lining the Washington Mall, instead it should guide the Movement toward a peaceful, democratic change of regime achieved through mass mobilizations. The word revolution, after all, comes from the Latin revolutio, meaning simply “a turn around,” without any implied necessity of violence. Nor should we shy away from the description of the Movement as “radical,” meaning advocacy of “thorough or complete political or social reform” – which is, in a nutshell, what the Movement is all about. Our problems have been created by a certain set of policies enacted at the behest and in the interests of the 1 Percent. Solving them will require a political 180-degree turn, radically reversing those policies – nothing less.
Like our founding revolution, the present Occupy Revolution is progressing through a predictable series of steps on the road to achieving its objectives:
Revolutions originate with “injuries and usurpations” inflicted by government, giving rise to revolutionary discontent.
Next there are the public manifestations of that discontent by means of demonstrations in the streets – think protests and boycotts in response to the Stamp Act and Townshend Acts as the analog of last year’s protests in Madison, Wisconsin that spread across the country
These demonstrations are then met with forcible repression by the authorities -- think Boston Massacre as the analog of today’s forcible evictions, tear gassing, pepper spraying and arrests of Occupy demonstrators from Oakland to Zuccotti Park. Such repression serves to sound the alarm, alert and unite the citizenry to support the revolution.
Then follow acts of civil disobedience further exemplifying the resolve of the revolutionaries to change the established order – think the Boston Tea Party as the analog to the shutting down of the Port of Oakland.
Next comes the phase during which the revolutionaries organize, formulating the movement’s principles and objectives, rallying support for the revolution, electing leaders to guide it and devising plans to implement it. The 18th century analog would be the Continental Congresses, the formation of the Continental Army with George Washington as Commander-in-Chief, the publication of Common Sense by Thomas Paine, and the Declaration of Independence. This is the organizational stage now confronting the Occupy Movement, and is one of the main themes presented in this article.
Then comes the implementation phase of the revolution, where the organized revolutionaries overcome the opposition through purposeful, concerted action and take the reins of government – the Revolutionary War is the analog of the coming activism of the Occupy Movement needed to marshal an overwhelming electoral consensus in favor of the radical objectives of the Occupy Revolution. These too are themes to be discussed at greater length below.
And finally there is task of governing according to the principles and policies fundamental to the revolution – think Constitutional Convention and the formation of the U.S. Government under the presidency of George Washington as the analog of the task of legislative reform and governance the Occupy Movement will face after it achieves electoral victory.
The Occupy Movement owes an enduring debt of gratitude to the demonstrators who launched the revolution in 2011 by occupying the capitol in Madison, taking to the streets and occupying public parks in New York, Oakland and across the nation, to awaken America and the world to the ‘repeated injuries and usurpations’ inflicted by the 1 Percent upon the 99 Percent and demand redress. In so doing they demonstrated the courage of their convictions, putting their bodies and very lives on the line in the tradition of those who demonstrated and died in Boston, stood at Concord and Lexington and wintered at Valley Forge.
However, just as the troops at Valley Forge did not win the Revolutionary War by remaining encamped, neither can the Occupy Movement win its revolution by hunkering down indefinitely in primitive, leaderless encampments around the country. The Movement must avoid losing its momentum and thereby becoming ineffectual and irrelevant once the novelty of camping in public parks wears off. It is time for the Occupy campers to come in from the cold and get organized for an American Spring. It is not enough to be against something. To achieve positive change, the Occupy Movement must be for something.
While our democracy has taken a pasting at the hands of the 1 Percent over the past three decades, it still respects the majority of votes cast in elections. Numbers still count, so it is the task of the Movement to marshal sufficient numbers to elect representatives who will pass laws and run the country according to the will and for the benefit of We the People.
The question is, How?
To answer the question, we must first discard how not to go about it.
Today’s electoral process is dominated by an unholy troika of the superrich 1 Percenters who pick political candidates and fund their campaigns; the candidates who accept such financial support and who are, therefore, obligated to support policies favoring their benefactors; the media and their hangers-on, primarily television, who are the recipients of campaign funds in the form of paid advertising needed to garner votes. Therefore, money, “the mother’s milk of politics,” equals votes in today’s elections, given the structure of the political process.
The Occupy Movement must recognize the impossibility of competing successfully against the moneyed interests by engaging in a political process where money equals votes. The 1 Percent controlling two-fifths of the nation’s wealth will always be able to outspend the rest of the population, especially after “Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission” gave the rich access to corporate treasuries to fund political action committees. As long as money equals votes, the 1 Percent will prevail.
What the Movement needs, therefore, is a new political process capable of establishing a political consensus, untethered from big money and television ads. Such a political process requires just two critical components: theaters and the Internet -- not much money, no network or cable television, other than free coverage.
Here’s how it works:1. The Movement negotiates with the owners of movie theaters nationwide to hold Assemblies on Saturday mornings, a time when the theaters would otherwise remain vacant and non-revenue-producing. Preferably contracts are signed with movie chains at the national level to achieve uniform terms whereby participants pay the usual price of admission, say $10, at the ticket counter, and the proceeds are divided between the theater owners and the Occupy Organization in an agreed-upon split. Theater owners, eager to rent out their theater during the “off hours,” already solicit such rentals, as for example: http://www.amctheatres.com/Business/TheatreRentals/) Theaters are already organized to collect and disburse funds efficiently and accountably. $10 per event seems a small price to pay for good government. (To be inclusive, some provision can be made for those unable to afford it, exchanging some form of service to the Organization in exchange for admission to the Assembly.)2. Through the Internet, local Occupy groups form to organize Assemblies on specific Saturday mornings at local theaters with which the Movement has previously contracted, issuing a call to action inviting all supporters to attend the Assemblies.3. Each auditorium in the multiplex theaters will be dedicated to a specific policy topic, for example: agriculture, defense and foreign policy, economy, education, environment, financial reform, health care, homeland security, housing, immigration, justice, military and veterans, privacy, water, women’s health and others, depending on local interest. 4. Each auditorium will be equipped with audio-visual equipment – video camera, microphones hooked up to the auditorium’s sound and projection system. And – here’s the critical part – each auditorium will have the capacity to be networked not only to every other auditorium in each theater, but also, through the Internet, to every participating auditorium in theaters across the country. Such networking will permit the Assemblies to link up variously at the local, city, county, state and, ultimately, national level.5. Participants, therefore, will conduct Assemblies within each auditorium where they will discuss problems and solutions pertaining to their specific area of interest for the first hour, say. Speakers will rise spontaneously to express their concerns, opinions, recommended solutions with a view to achieving three primary objectives: 1) to arrive at a consensus regarding specific problems and solutions, expressed in a manner calculated to awaken, inspire and motivate the population to unite behind and act in support of principles and practices fundamental to the Occupy Revolution 2) to nominate spokespersons for the group who will represent the auditorium before the theater-wide Assembly conducted via an electronic network 3) to organize locally in a virtual organization on the Internet in support of the specific issue at hand.6. After the individual-auditorium Assemblies have conducted their business, they will then join a theater-wide Assembly via electronic network, with sound and images of the speakers and, if desired, multi-media presentations, displayed on each screen throughout the theater. (This will require some technical skills and equipment, well within today’s capabilities, provided in some combination by the theater and the Occupy organization.) Speakers nominated by Assemblies in each auditorium will have the opportunity to present a summary of their Assembly’s work to the theater-wide Assembly, with a view toward achieving theater-wide objectives similar to those previously mentioned, namely 1) to arrive at a consensus regarding problems and solutions across the full spectrum of issues discussed in each auditorium 2) to nominate spokespersons for the group who will represent the theater-wide Assembly to the next level up in the network, say city-wide. (Think of it in terms of a political “America’s Got Talent” format, with voting conducted by cell phones and laptop computers.) 3) to organize locally in support of Movement, including developing plans of action for demonstrations and other political activities to further the Movement’s objectives. 7. Eventually, the theater network can be expanded to conduct networked Assemblies at the county, state and ultimately national level with the same three objectives:a. Formulate a radical policy platform embodying the objectives the Occupy Movement (monitor this space for further ideas on this topic), expressed in such a way as to awaken, inspire and motivate the members of the Movement to undertake effective political action. b. Develop a leadership cadre to represent the Movement in elections at all levels of government. c. Organize overwhelming popular support for the Movement’s objectives, translating ultimately into electoral victories, including developing plans of action for demonstrations and other political activities at the city, state and national levels to further the Movement’s objectives.
This new method of political organization offers many advantages to the 99 Percent, in its quest to achieve electoral success.
It requires far less money than the present paid-media-intensive political process – no need to pay for expensive TV ads and media consultants, little need for renting expensive office space (much of the Movement’s business can be conducted as a virtual organization via the Internet).
Being funded by affordable individual contributions collected at theater ticket counters, it avoids becoming captive to the Big Money interests, enabling it to serve the interests of the 99 Percent. Money will no longer equal votes.
Theaters provide ideal venues for the New Political System: they are available at times of the day when they are usually unused; they are also ubiquitous, and therefore accessible to all interested members of the 99 Percent; people know where they are, how to get to them; there is plenty of (usually) free parking available; they are comfortable, familiar, offer food and drink as well as rest-room facilities to participants and offer no provocation for the authorities to disrupt Assemblies with police action (unlike tent cities in public parks). Multi-screen theaters are ideally suited to provide a multi-issue political movement with venues to discuss individual policy themes in separate, focused Assemblies and later to consolidate such discussions in General Assemblies at the local, state and national levels. Importantly, theaters today already possess much of the multi-media, audio-visual, Internet and networking equipment necessary to organize networked Assemblies at the various levels of participation. (Theaters are already offering networked content, like the British National Theater and N.Y. Metropolitan Opera, through NCM Media Networks’ Fathom Events (http://www.ncm.com/ncm-fathom)
Most importantly, Occupy Theaters puts the polis (the body of citizens, i.e. the people) back into politics, enabling the citizenry to come together, shoulder to shoulder, to fashion and implement their democracy with live human interaction, rather than sitting at home alone in their recliners being force-fed the 1 Percent’s stale, lifeless, self-serving political propaganda through television. Like traditional town meetings, Occupy Theaters can provide a more effective, interesting, motivating, nurturing and enduring political process than the impersonal biannual ad-fest offered by traditional politics. Think of it as the next evolutionary step in high-tech politics, with a very human touch.
Confronted with a government dominated by and serving the interest of the 1 Percent, the 99 Percent must mobilize to turn around the government to represent and serve the interests of We the People, by whose authority and for whose Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness the Constitution was established. Occupy Theaters offers the best, and perhaps last chance to achieve these revolutionary ends.
© 3/20/2012 D.L. SmithAll rights reserved