Earlier today I send out an e-mail to the facilitation team regarding a proposal for an idea brought to my attention by fellow Occupier Rick Young who has been involved in politics as part of his support for the Occupy movement and currently holds a Neighborhood Council seat. He mentioned to me that several other Occupiers are running for political offices and as members of Occupy also which is obviously a good way to ensure support of Occupy in politics regardless of whether or not there is support for politics in Occupy. But he had called me specifically to ask me if I could be there tomorrow, Monday the 15th of October, to support his efforts to talk with other Occupiers about showing a little support for such efforts done on our behalf and maybe a few more of us getting involved. So I wrote up the proposal and sent it in.
The proposal is that we show solidarity with our fellow Occupiers who have chosen to work within the system to get things done. I know there are those who consider Occupy to be an anarchistic anti-government movement, but as long as we claim to represent the 99%, we can not restrict ourselves to any one such political philosophy as a movement. Individually however we are free to be anarchists, capitalists, communists, humanists, morticians, beauticians, politicians, clinicians, military, sedentary, sadistic, idealistic, materialistic, nonchalant, idiot savant, or what ever we want. We may not support all of each other's ways of thinking, but we are all in this together trying to make the world we live in a better place to live, so I say let's show that support and stand in solidarity. Do I hear any crickets chirping? Oh, um, I mean... is ANYONE with me on this? :)
Anyway, here is the proposal just to let a few more people get to see it before the General Assembly tomorrow and for the record after the fact.
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Occupy Candidacy - Downtown Los Angeles
Emergency Proposal - For Monday, October 15, 2012.
To be presented by Rick Young
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What
Show support and solidarity for those Occupiers who feel that we should at least try to make the system better as long as it hasn't self destructed or been thrown out yet. The call for general consensus will be on the support and solidarity rather than on the action since the action is autonomous as Occupy can not as a movement officially take sides politically because we represent the general population with all its diversity. For this reason, reaching general consensus does not constitute an Occupy endorsement of any particular candidate or political party. It simply means that Occupy supports Occupy.
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How
Morally support Occupiers who are running for elected positions and help them to live through the process. Also try to find at least two Occupiers willing and able to run against each other on "friendly terms" for the same elected office, including if possible any elected office of the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council which has a deadline of October 16th 2012 for application.
We can do this by talking about it amongst ourselves and trying to reach a consensus of at least two Occupiers willing and able to apply for the same elected office. This consensus of two will be sought with or without the general consensus to show support and solidarity, but a general consensus of support and solidarity would be greatly appreciated. There are already Occupiers registered as candidates for elected positions, and any more Occupiers willing to do likewise would add to our voice as a movement.
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Why
Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council is having its election on November 15th, and the deadline to apply to be a candidate is October 16th.
Since all we ever see of elections is candidates cutting each other down, and people being told who not to vote for, perhaps some of us with enough guts to take on the challenge could show politicians a better way by running against each other with open support of the things they agree upon rather than blatant attempts to polarize and divide the voters.
Donald Arthur Kronos.
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