"What happened to the Occupy movement?" by Arun Gupta at Aljazeera

[daaron]

10. For me, General Assemblies are the problem -->

not something to be proud of. Pure (horizontal) democracy is nothing but mob rule, and in the case of GAs, it quickly degenerated into "The biggest bully with the loudest voice and most free time wins." Most of the problems this nation faces are too big for a mob of activists to do more than shout and wave signs about. Certainly it is almost impossible to make any informed decisions as a group, when the basic organizational structure is utterly incompatible with extended research and debate about complex issues.

The best thing Occupy could do to become effective (which I DEFINITELY WANT) would be to immediately abandon GAs and all the juvenile finger-waving and blocking and have real substantive debates that tear an issue to shreds before reassembling the pieces into a coherent policy position, then stating that position emphatically.

That's something we could stand in solidarity with. Until that happens, I for one will never attend another GA. They're awful! Unbearable! Not inspiring, they're a crowd and I can't stand crowds.

Want new blood? You had me, Occupy - I was there in my city in mid-October and kept coming back until the GAs and bullies got to be too much. Fix that, then come back and ask again.