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Well, it was bound to happen, but in October?

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.

Read on...

And then give them money and other goods if you can't go down to your local Occupy Chapter:

Urgent Needs:

insulated gloves, wool hats, scarves
long underwear / smart wool thermal socks
300 hand warmers, 300 foot warmers
waterproof boots in all sizes
disposable shoe covers
winter coats
hot beverages
thermal heaters
all weather sub-thermal sleeping bags
tarps
insulating tents; foam padding for inside of tents
wooden pallets to get tents off the ground
cots to get people off the ground
Emergency Blankets
Dry Socks, Gloves, and Hats
Payless gift certificates for Shoes
Towels
Plastic Bins
3 post tents

Shipping address:
118a Fulton St
PO Box 205
NY NY 10038

The beat goes on...rain or snow, cold or hot...America is waking up...

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