Shit like thisâendless process, strenuous efforts to ensure that every voice gets heard, consensus-driven everythingâis what killed ACT-UP. This kind of shit attracts people who get off on this kind of shit (crazy people) and repels people who can't stand this kind of shit (sane people). I realize this video was posted to a conservative blog to make OWS look ridiculousâbut it actually happened. And it's happening in NYC too. Gayle Collins wrote about the "assembly" problem in her column on Saturday:
âYou get so many voices and so many opinions, itâs hard to find consensus,â said Ambrose Desmond, a 32-year-old psychotherapist from San Francisco who was the leader of the meeting. Or would have been if there were any leaders. Which there most definitely were not. The people sitting around with Desmond were studying a proposal for reorganizing the way that the various working groupsâDonations, Finance, Outreach, Internet, Sanitation, Medical, Direct Action and many, many moreâmake their opinions felt in the evening assembly. The current system, it said, makes newcomers come away âexhausted by our model of direct democracy, rather than invigorated and inspired by it.â
Once the lunatics realize that you've adopted "a model of direct democracy" that requires you to listen to lunatics, the lunatics will come. Then the sane peopleâexhausted, not invigoratedâleave. And then there's nothing but lunatics left.