[OSList] protestors and process people on Wall Street

Thu Sep 29 09:55:18 PDT 2011

Sandy

Thank you for posting this. As it happens, a former colleague of mine
is working with these people I learned last night. There is informal
coalition forming and teams such as security, communications, safety,
trainings, etc. Evidently, the District Council of residents are
supportive of the peaceful assemblers and they are addressing concerns
of late night noise. There is a lot of opportunity for learning and
skill building and collaboration. They are creating teams now as
happened in Tahrir. Younger policeman evidently know this
demonstration is about protecting their pensions and this is a message
that frequents the crowd. I can try to make connections for anyone
interested.  So far the "leaderless" aspect is being used against by
the Mainstream Media to avoid coverage and taking seriously. NPR news
director even said "no one prominent", but they have to because
Congress people can make trouble for Corporation for Public
Broadcasting in our weak democracy that doesn't protect us from that!
They've done it for their Donors continuously since 1980!

I agree with the observation about responsiveness to police orders. It
was explained to me last night at a meeting by an experienced NYC
activist that this is the way people get rapidly arrested. Thjs was a
hot topic with my colleague who mutually agreed of the need for
training and skill building.

The young people also need to learn about the divide-and-rule tactics
that will be used clandestinely against them. The banks downtown being
targeted by "occupiers" are well documented as using these techniques
in foreign countries and even here to maintain the value of their
"investments" in cheap land, agriculture, "labor" etc. There is plenty
of documentation of "operatives" working for them throughout many
institutions here and abroad. There is some great symbolism about
proximity to some of these "august" institutions that means a great
deal to me since I worked on Wall Street and the City of London and so
know their real well-hidden stories!

For example, my colleague noticed clearly schizophrenic people there
for the first time. As we know from history, people with these kinds
of illnesses are targets for agents provocateurs. I hope that doesn't
come as a shock to members of this list. There is an opportunity for
training on how to recognize these traps that will no doubt be set and
how to avoid them and even turn them to the peaceful assemblers'
advantage. There should be alternatives from the peaceful assemblers
that can overcome these tactics and expose them for what they are so
they can no longer plague citizens as they have now for how long? As
Michael Moore observed on DN! yesterday, if policemen in white shirts
i.e. supervisors, are pepper spraying, the orders are coming from
somewhere. And, prosecutions to out those tactics on the public record
are clearly not happening unless we make them happen.

These tactics are traced throughout history as key turning points
toward violence which is what the suppressors must carefully work
toward if they expect to hold  their power as they have in the past
all over the world. Wide ranging awareness of them with alternative
practices can nullify them once and for all which would be great! Many
of us are beginning to recognize how it works from the pepper spraying
video which caught a supervisor in the act. He is evidently also
implicated for other similar acts to incite crowds at political
conventions. These practices need outing with widespread awareness
making more and more wise to them.

I can try to make my colleague aware of NCDD and other processes and
make this connection for anyone interested. He has been at the center
of it from the beginning and is a longtime downtown resident. It
sounds like there may be an opportunity. It is a very exciting time.

Best regards, B

On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 8:09 AM, Sandy Heierbacher <sandy at thataway.org> wrote:
> Hi, Open Space and Art of Hosting friends!
>
> I wanted to send a quick message out to both the OSlist and the AoH list to see if any process experts in these communities are working with the Occupy Wall Street folks who are doing direct action in NYC right now.
>
> We had a thread on the NCDD Discussion list yesterday (I'm the director of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation, if you've not heard of NCDD) about the timely opportunity to provide real assistance and advice with process to these activists.  Additional occupations (as they're being called) are being planned for DC, Boston, and other locations I believe -- and I wanted to check in with the Open Space and AoH communities to see if process folks were already involved (if so, let's talk about how NCDD members might be able to help you out, and stay informed about what you're doing).
>
> The Occupy Wall Street folks are an intentionally leader-less, self-organized group.  Open Space and Art of Hosting-style processes seem like the best fit for helping them stay that way, continue to give all protestors a voice and to move more quickly to jointly-identified outcomes.
>
> For those of you who may not be too familiar with what's going on in NYC right now, here's an interesting part of the listserv thread I mentioned (this segment is written by Tom Atlee):
>
> NCDDers in NYC might find the occupier community (they call themselves "Occupy Wall Street") a challenging, exciting context to work in.  Process is being evolved on the spot.  The occupiers were using a traditional consensus process, but the police forbade microphones.  So they developed a fascinating "human microphone" system where the speaker says a few words and the crowd repeats what was said (which allows those in the back to hear). (You can watch all this on streaming videos!)  But that increases the already extensive time needed for consensus (checking for concerns, etc.), so the police have started issuing demands that must be met within 5-15 minutes, which the crowd can't respond to fast enough without formal leaders, which they don't want.  The evolutionary pressures to develop new forms are intense.  What comes out of that could be very good, very bad, or something else...
>
> If an NCDDer joined them and created a self-organized "Talk to the Others" working group, something might happen along the lines you're thinking, Stephanie.  But there's no one in charge to talk to about getting other protesters to join in Activity X.  It is a self-organized system, for better and/or worse.
>
> If you/we want to do something more planned, best to start now planning for the parallel occupation of Washington DC by hundreds/thousands of progressive protesters that is about to hit the city on Oct 6 http://october2011.org.
>
> For info on Occupy Wall Street, here's some fascinating links:
> http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/7468-occupy-wall-street-take-the-bull-by-the-horns
> http://www.readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/64-64/7564-the-whole-world-is-watching-nonviolence-at-liberty-plaza
> http://www.truth-out.org/occupywallstreet-more-hashtag-its-revolution-formation/1316784846
> http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/09/chris-hedges-occupy-wall-street-is-where-the-hope-of-america-lies/
> http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2011/09/20/police-occupy-wall-street-9-20-2011/
> http://thiscantbehappening.net/node/785
>
> Best,
> Sandy
>
> Sandy Heierbacher
> Director, National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD)
> email:  sandy at thataway.org (switching to sandy at ncdd.org)
> website:  www.ncdd.org
>
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Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
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