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I'm not sure what the local issues are or who represents your town? But if there are real grievances, then it would seem a few would join in Occupy types of meetings to gather petitions for redress. And with a town that small, it would be very easy to set up Town Hall meetings which allow for direct democracy every year... to vote on budgets, taxes, officials, and general charters/ statements/ commitments etc that you would wish to see accomplished.
I would actually encourage everyone within the occupy movements to head to VT in and around the End of Feb, beginning of March, Tuesday's are normally the Town Hall meeting days across the state. Its how I know that direct democracy can work. One issue I have with Occupy is the idea that every decision has to be 100% consensus. One person who has randomly come in for the day can block the general attitude of the Occupiers who have been on the ground for multiple days and know they really need something from the GA. We could not elect representatives on Consensus in this country. What will begin to happen, if not already occurring, will be dissenters and antagonists and provocateurs entering into GA's and purposely creating blockage for any work to be done. There is a bit of getting around this with using working groups, however, the working groups create division within the Occupation. AND someone in comfort may have a great idea or concern from the media group or what not. It seems as if in NY the "in-fighting" is beginning. They have been there trying to camp out, weather is becoming colder, more and more people are coming thru just to be tourists and other's joining in or coming in for marches.
The one thing that I would encourage is for a more "Town Hall" type of structure. I'm not sure enough people know what one looks like or can be like to actually understand what it does. Most of the country only sees this vague concept of "Town Hall" during Presidential election run times where they and the media call it a Town Hall Meeting.. But really, its more like a small gathering of citizens who can ask questions in a more intimate setting of the candidate who is running for a position. The actuality of a Town Hall meeting is where many of the towns in VT still vote on budgets, council members, school board members, and will ask for amendments to budgets or taxes or what not. One needs to make a motion, another needs to second the motion, and then there is a vote. If they cannot get a real fix on the vote by using Yeah or Nay, then the vote goes to paper ballot. People will write the answer on the slip of paper, drop it in the box, and then the poll officials will tally the vote (while the vote is tallying, the meeting continues on)... Once the poll workers have a tally of the motion either passing or not, they send it up to the Chairman or Selectman (I suppose insert person at the end of Chair or Select) of the town to tell the town. Many times, they will hold off on addressing any motions that needed a vote tally until after lunch or after a break and bring it up all of them up at one time. Our town divided the budgets between town needs and school budget needs into 2 different sections. For the town budget the Selectman convened the meeting. For the School Budget, the School board chair lead the meeting .. both with the entire council or board present on a small stage to answer any questions. Before the town hall meeting, a Town Hall guide is sent out to town members. In it are the numbers for the previous year in the budget, and the purposed new numbers for the budget (accounting for any raises or if they felt they needed to budget for more salt or overtime for the town crew). The budget and issues in town hall guide book were gone through line by line.
For years, we had a 3 room elementary school, no gym, and it held K-8th grade. The proposal for an addition to build the elementary school into a bigger school was something that had to be voted on, and the tax money for appropriating the bonds to build the school had to be approved. The town was quite divided by the costs and such, but it did pass. We ended up splitting the K off from all the classes, and then 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8 (high school get's shipped out to a larger high school and the town pays a tuition fee for the older kids, much cheaper than trying to run a high school in a very small town. The town hall also got a section of the addition (before the town's agenda was kept in the person's home...not convenient when someone needed a hunting license). And now the town hall meeting is conducted in the Gym that was built instead of an old building that wasn't as conveniently set up for a lot of people. The school is a real source of pride for the town. Its used to better the kids, its used by the town, and it was agreed upon by the town in a town hall fashion. AND this year, they are finished paying for the bond. The school is now "free". They should be able to get a timely tax deduction. On top of that, they take none of the Race to the Top money, they have some of the best testing scores in the state, and my mother's math program (both my mom and sister teach at the school.. my mom was on the school board when they got the work completed and issue passed to build us an addition) is one of the best math programs that you could find. It would be amazing if she could actually get funding to create this program in a larger way to be utilized by other schools. She literally has the 8th graders working at 9th and 10th grade levels... The biggest problem for the students graduating from the elementary school and going into the high schools in the surrounding area is that they are way ahead of their peers. And she is trying to get the high schools into taking her kid's into passing over 9th grade math because its a repeat and boring for those already ahead. She had one kid that was phenomenal in math. She was ready for trig and calculus when she graduated. And it literally starts in the 1st grade. She goes into each class and helps to teach the math and helps the teachers to be able to teach the math so that everyone is on the same page when moving through the school. And she completely teaches the 7th and 8th graders their math course work herself.
But she's getting older now... She just got back into teaching in 2001 (she went to college to be a teacher, graduated and couldn't find a school and ended up in a private sector job for 25 years). She went back to her routes of teaching and developed the program that now works throughout the entire school. When she is at the level of retirement, who knows if the program will keep up in even the school she's been working in? Its definitely something that should be packaged and taught to other teachers along with her going into schools to evaluate and help other teachers jump into teaching. What she's found is that many, many elementary school teachers are phenomenal with their patience, their love of teaching, and their dedication. However, many of them are not all that strong in math in their own lives. They are good at coming up with projects and teaching reading and writing, but when it comes to the math, they stick to the lesson plan and teaching guide book because they aren't as comfortable with the material themselves.
So, my mom has weeded thru the teaching games, the computer online games, and in class participation in understanding the basics of skip counting. And because the school she is in is small and the teachers try to feed off of one another and take ideas for individual kids to keep them interested or keep them from slipping behind, she is able to float through the classes and know what she needs to get the 2nd graders ready for before they are in the 3rd grade the following year. Its the way schools should work; especially at the basic elementary school levels. Also, because it is a small school, and the "middle school" is kept with the elementary school, things like middle school bullying are at a minimum. The older kids are expected to make a good impression, help out in the lower grades if need be, be a mentor. The whole "dating" thing is more minimized, yes people get the boyfriend/ girlfriend thing going on, but its less like pre-teens trying to be teens before they even know what is happening to their bodies, and more like holding hands, minimal kissing, and slow dancing at a school dance...the kid's have a chance to be kid's longer. And because they are expected to act more like a big brother or sister to the younger one's (and many times they really are siblings..LOL), they adjust into that change better. AND that has been the mentality of the school since I was a attending nearly 20 or so yrs ago.
I went off on a bird walk here.. but I think the Occupy movement would work better and get better participation with a town hall type of set up, rather than trying to do a consensus democracy. That system will become slow and debilitating at times. Different working groups needing things will become upset faster when someone outside of the group or a newbie shoots down say money for more tents or cold weather sleeping bags.. Or that people in media have had their individual electronic items smashed in a march or stolen from the media tent, and the group says no, we aren't approving money for the media group to replace people's items or to get more equipment or better equipment to get the news delivered... Which we all know is the most important aspect of covering the movement because M$M is not covering it adequately in either footage of say police brutality or as to what is really happening on the ground. On top of that they say everyone is included. One person can create a block. One person blocked library funds a while back. People come and go based on schedules and if they happen to be in NY on a trip and want to stop in. At some point, it would be beneficial to create actual "occupation township". In a town hall, someone from a neighboring town may speak (that's when a lot of local politician's pop up to meet and greet and talk to constituents for a few minutes). However, a neighbor cannot vote or bring up a motion because they are not living in the town. I know inclusion is a big part of the movement, however the work that need to be done to keep the occupation going forward and working to create a better National/ Worldwide society, has to get past minute details. Perhaps creating a working budget that can be passed month to mont for a while until they figure out what they need for each group, would be a great way of getting past the issues regarding money and how it is spent and where it will be spent and what other occupy groups they may feel need some donation help with.
If one wants a paradigm shift, a different way we operate.. a more fair, just system where perhaps the common goods for society ought to be owned by the society, like water, sewer, electric, paying for health care, education, etc weighed against the value of people, the value of labor, and the value of living spaces and what those living spaces should consist of weighed against both the intrinsic value of nature and value of a resource out of nature. A good start would be getting money out of politics. Electing officials that are not bought from a wider range of society.. not just a lot of rich lawyers who thought it would be great to be a politician too. And on a local level, how do we want to directly participate in democracy? Should cities be divided into townships to address issues on a more basic level in their neighborhood to then be brought together in a larger sense with a representative to bring forward the neighborhood needs? It would be easier for parents to directly involve themselves in the process of educating their children, deciding on what is "good" for the neighborhood (like not allowing a walmart to build within the township, how much of a "tax" they may want to levy on themselves weighed against the other taxes they must pay on and order on up the scale, and then how within the city to divide into a more fair system so exclusion and poor pockets do not keep entire areas blighted as they often do now. It all goes back to what we value and how we are going to value it. What should the value of a human being be? What are the costs it will really take for a person to survive individually and/ or as a family? It all comes down to value and how we are going to determine what the value will look like and how we will exchange those values going forward. So far it has been in the forms of bartering, coins (gold/ silver), paper currency, and now numbers on a computer screen you see when you pull up your bank account.
To me, this is why the process is slow going. If we want a change on local, to county, to state, to federal, to global change that tries to value all people along with nature with a fair system, it is going to take some work and it is going to encompass an entirely new way of thinking. Everyone who has been born and has been taught into the way we live now, has to un-think the way we were taught. We have to come up with a better way to move forward. Grabbing oil out of every crevice and now ruining our water sources for deposits is just stupid. If we need to switch of of oil/ gas in our cars, then we need for everyone with a car in the world to be able to have a way to switch the vehicle over or to pull them in, reuse parts or what not, and put out vehicles that won't run of oil.. AND not in a manner that someone has to buy and go into debt or NOT have the money to switch. We need to switch, we have to. We have to stop burning coal to give ourselves electricity. We need a NASA project with the smartest people to create energy that we can all use and then for the governments to make the massive switch. We cannot be held back by this idea of "money" and not having it or who has it and keeps things from happening at the government levels because of money. Which all leads back to what do we value and how do we value it and how do we do it with nearly 7 billion people. Its the big picture with lot's of little items that lead into that big picture. AND that's why the message isn't confined at any Occupy and that the Occupy within each area needs to create a viable working township that can operate. At some point, the occupation must move off of the street and into a community to be able to move forward with any ideas on how to become that change, that transition, that noble idea of community, space, peace, human and nature value.
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