"OccupySF follows consensus process. Peoples Reserve CU and OccupyMission are not organs of OccupySF,
as they exist out of process."
That's a recent tweet communication from someone regarding the organizational structure of Occupy San Francisco. The statement is both twitter-speak and Occupy lingo. I will translate:
As with many non-hierarchal meeting structures, most of the Occupy groups use some form of consensus building process in order to reach decisions. For one such process you can view this short youtube video. The intention is not to get stuck in the old leader/committee/elite decision making process. Everyone should be involved with an equal voice no matter who you are or when you joined the movement. So ...
"OccupySF follows a consensus process." There are often local tweaks and twists to the process but the basics are usually the same and Occupy San Francisco uses just such a decision making process in the General Assembly (GA) meetings and in sub-groups created by the GA.
"Peoples Reserve CU and Occupy Mission are not organs of OccupySF." The Proposed People's Reserve Credit Union and the new encampment in the Missions District are not extensions of the original Occupy San Francisco @ Justin Herman Plaza organization. They are separate entities functioning under their own forms of decision making arrangement.
".. as they exist out of process." These are the key words that prompted my post today. The author means that both of these offshoot organizations weren't not created via the consensus process within OccupySF, therefore they exist outside of that process and are not authorized nor formally condoned by Occupy San Francisco.
Fine. I do not disagree with the content of this tweet and I acknowledge the difficulty of communicating anything in 140 characters or less. So I have no issue with the original author. I do, however, have a big concern about that queasiness anyone including myself felt upon reading "as they exist out of process."
Insider speak is necessarily exclusive of those who don't know the secret handshake and don't have the decoder ring. We can excuse that in a twitter communication or a brief email but there is a more serious hidden agenda here, I would be interested if you had the reaction I did.
Did you find the communication strident? Did it sound vaguely like - "we have rules and if you don't follow the rules you are out." Should the 99% already be broken into ten groups of 9% or ninety-nine consensus meetings of 1% each? Yes there does need to be some sense of order and some means of processing the hearts, minds and feelings of members but guidelines become rules, rules become laws and laws lead to exclusion not inclusion.
