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Table of Contents
The Event and Introduction3 Forming a Working Group..4 General Assemblies and Facilitation....6 Creating zones of Peaceful Assembly and Free Speech...14 On Compassionate Activism by Velcrow Ripper (Occupy Love) and Judy Rebick (Occupy This!).. 16

Occupy The Economy Event and Introduction

Interoccupy.net/occupytheeconomy The following is meant as a concrete example and introduction to what an Occupy The Economy event could look like. For example, meet at a location and gather, then move to the targeted corporate headquarters. Once there, surround the corporation with tents in a certain formation, and deliver a message to it with the peoples mic. Then hold a General Assembly right outside their headquarters. That GA will decide where it can set-up a space for peaceful assembly and free speech about making our economy work for everyone and the planet. Or simply hold a massive General Assembly outside a major corporations headquarters. The GA is critical because we want to create a real and symbolic contrast between Occupy horizontalism and Corporate Capitalism that will penetrate the corporate media into the public mind. This will give the population, the 99%, a new narrative for understanding and solving our current problems. We need to understand that we are not living in a post-ideological world. We are living in a world in which the most profound, far reaching, and unexamined ideology in existence is Capitalism itself and the fear that replacing it inevitably leads to disaster. We are transcending this narrative and creating a cultural revolution. By committing to re-occupy, we show that the movement has grown. We draw awareness to the Rolling Jubilee movement to eliminate debt, to the successes of Occupy Sandy illustrating the efficiency of horizontal structures, and to the compassion of Occupy Love. In the process we draw attention to the old order and the current dominant system of power. We recreate autonomous zones of freedom in which we can peacefully discuss how we will change our current economic paradigm of personal material gain at the expense of others, to an economic paradigm of horizontalism, cooperation, and sustainability. In the process we are raising consciousness about how our economy is run by centrally planned competitive hierarchies, and we are contrasting that with models of action based on horizontalism, volunteerism, and mutual aid. In short, there are three parts to the action. Gathering surrounding the headquarters to deliver a message, and picking a spot to commit to camp. From there, we move toward creating the changes we need in our cultural and social institutions in order to build a new world. Maybe we can discuss these ideas with board members? Maybe we can create a new kind of 99% unionism? Maybe we can start occupying our workplaces and the economy
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itself? However we get from here to there will be discussed in a democratic forum so that our means cohere with our ends. This guide is meant to give you the tools to plan an action that inspires you, in the spirit of Occupy. If you are not near a corporation that is on the Occupy the Economy calendar, dont worry! Plan something at a different Corporation. Perhaps you want to Occupy the Corporate Media, or Occupy Bank of America, or something else. This will help you. We are all leaders.

Forming a Working Group and Planning Your Action.

Start with friends and people you know who have already been involved with the occupy movement. Once you have found a core group, it is time to start planning for your action. You will need to think about tents, social media, twitter, phone trees, and holding general assemblies. Your working group will be responsible for reaching out for volunteers who will be able to commit to all these things. We recommend you start a thread on occupytosustain.org, under Occupy The Economy, for your action. You can create a username and it post to the thread. This will allow for you to create an active dialogue for planning your movement. You may also want to create a Facebook page and an event for the action. We also recommend using interoccupy.net and using their conference calls. At this stage we recommend trying to meet up with the people who have decided to join in your effort and hold a General Assembly for further planning. This will allow everyone to have their voice heard and be a crucial tool in building successful occupations. As members of Occupy Portland noted, I think the most important thing for us was using the General Assembly model and making each decision everyones decision. This helped us remain unified. Legal assistance, bike deliveries, medics, photographers, people who can stream the protest, and similar topics were brought up. We covered nearly all the bases, and most of us left with a pretty hefty amount of notes. Notes from the General Assembly were posted online on a page for everyone in the Portland group to see. You will want to get in contact with people from the lawyers guild, and let them know that you are planning a peaceful assembly outside a corporations headquarters to send a message. Then plan to create a zone of peaceful assembly where people can
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exercise free speech and discuss building a new economic paradigm. As the Occupy movement has grown it has accumulated precedent for peaceful actions. The preparation is the real nitty gritty part of activism. You will need people who are committed to camping with sleeping bags, tents, you will need people to volunteer for food etc. Remember the Arab Spring tactic is about creating an Agora, an open public space where people can exercise their creativity and reason for solutions we badly need. We also need to make it fun, non-violent, and with a message of love. Then, pick a date and a time. There are already dates and times on the calendar, but these may not be the best for your group. We recommend sticking close to the date, however, so that we can create a poignant nationwide statement, helping to spark a cultural revolution. The dates are all Fridays., You want people who can commit for at least the whole weekend and preferably as long as it takes. Then you will plan out where you want to gather before you hold a General Assembly at a Corporation nearest you. We recommend surveying the area so that you can find out exactly how you want to deliver the message and hold the GA on your day of action. Make sure that you have people who will use twitter so that you can recruit others to the occupation, once it starts People are heavily following #occupywallstreet, #takewallstreet, #usdor and other widely used hashtags. Each tweet should include a trending tag, the city, and a link to the Facebook group, and or groups. You will want to set-up a twitter account for your action, and have your fellow occupiers on twitter and tapped into as many networks as possible. We also recommend connecting your working group with InterOccupy. You can form a Committee of Correspondence that will link to all the other occupations springing up across the globe. You will also want to set-up a phone tree. This is hard work but will pay off if you can pull it off. As one experienced occupier noted, In Athens, the camp consisted of around 200 people but within a matter of a few hours they could have half a million people there. This is a game winner if you can pull this off. The square was cleared a few times but they always took it back. A phone tree works because everyone has maybe three or four phone numbers to call or text message. This was taken from the article How to have a successful Occupation on howtooccupy.org We highly recommend everyone reading this article as well! Please visit that page!

Holding General Assemblies

General Assemblies are the core of the movement. They allow everyones voices to be heard, and can be used with large groups by breaking them up into small groups and then having the small groups send representative spokes to the larger assembly. Below is an overview of the process, and links for further information. The following was taken from the Seeds for Change Network. We recommend visiting their site for more information on consensus before you start planning your actions. (Unless of course youve already had experience with this )

Consensus Decision Making: A Short Guide

Conditions for consensus Facilitation The decision making process A consensus flowchart Agreement and disagreement Guidelines for reaching consensus Key skills for consensus Consensus in large groups Download the PDF of this briefing to print out - 325k
This PDF is in booklet format - print both sides of the paper and fold over to make a booklet.

Consensus decision making is a creative and dynamic way of reaching agreement between all members of a group. Instead of simply voting for an item and having the majority of the group getting their way, a consensus group is committed to finding solutions that everyone actively supports - or at least can live with. This makes sure that all opinions, ideas and concerns are taken into account. By listening closely to each other, the group aims to come up with proposals that work for everyone. Consensus is neither compromise nor unanimity - it aims to go further by weaving together everyone's best ideas and most important concerns - a process that often results in surprising and creative solutions, inspiring both the individual and the group as whole.

Working Together
At the heart of consensus is a respectful dialogue between equals. It's about everyone working together to meet both the individual's and the group's needs - working with each other rather than for or against each other, something that requires openness and trust. Consensus is looking for 'win-win' solutions that are acceptable to all - no decision will be made against the will of an individual or a minority. Instead the group adapts to all its members' needs. If everyone agrees to a decision they will all be much more committed to making it happen. Consensus decision making is based on the idea that people should have full control over their lives and that power should be shared by all, not just concentrated in the hands of a few. It's about having the freedom to decide one's own course in life and the right to play an equal role in creating a common future. This is why it is used widely in groups working towards a more just and equitable society such as small voluntary groups, co-operatives and campaign networks.

Conditions for Consensus

Common Goal: Everyone in the group needs to share a clear common goal and be willing to work together towards it. Work out together what your goals are and how you will get there. If differences arise later, revisit the common goal to help to focus and unite the group. Commitment to reaching consensus: Everyone needs to be willing to really give it a go. This means being deeply honest about what it is you want or don't want, and properly listening to what others have to say. Everyone must be willing to shift their positions, to be open to alternative solutions and be able to reassess their needs. Trust and openness: We need to be able to trust that everyone shares our commitment to consensus and that everyone respects our opinions and equal rights. It would be a big breach of trust for people to manipulate the process of the meeting in order to get the decision they most want.

Part of this is to openly express both our desires (what we'd like to see happening), and our needs (what we have to see happen in order to be able to support a decision). If everyone is able to talk openly then the group will have the information it requires to take everyone's positions into account and to come up with a solution that everyone can support.

Sufficient time for making decisions and for learning to work by consensus. Taking time to make a good decision now can save wasting time revisiting a bad one later. Clear Process: It's essential to have a clear process for making decisions and to make sure that everyone has a shared understanding of how it works. Active participation: In consensus we all need to actively participate. We need to listen to what everyone has to say, voice our thoughts and feelings about the matter and pro-actively look for solutions that include everyone.

Facilitation
In most meetings, there are one or more facilitators. Their role is to ensure that the tasks of the meeting get done: that decisions are made and implemented. They also help the group to work harmoniously, creatively and democratically. The facilitators might take steps to keep the meeting focused, or make sure a few people don't dominate the discussion. They might suggest a break when people are getting tired; they might have prepared an agenda and process that will help the group achieve its goals. The facilitators shouldn't have any more power than anyone else and should stay neutral on the issues under discussion. They're not there to make all the proposals and decide things for a group. They can only do their job with everyone's support and cooperation. If a small group doesn't give anyone the role of facilitator, then everyone can be responsible for making the process of the meeting work.

The Decision Making Process

The diagram below shows how a discussion evolves during the consensus process. At the beginning it widens out as people bring different perspectives and ideas to the group. This provides the material needed for a broad-ranging discussion which explores all the options and helps people understand each others concerns. This can be a turbulent and sometimes difficult stage - people might be grappling with lots of competing or contradictory ideas - but it is the most creative part, so don't lose heart! Then the group moves on to synthesize a proposal. This means finding the group's common ground, weeding out some ideas and combining all the useful bits into one

proposal. Finally, if the group agrees on a proposal a decision is reached and implemented.

A Consensus Flowchart
There are many different ways of reaching consensus. This model outlines the common stages and will work well with up to about 20 people.

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Agreement and Disagreement

At the decision stage people have several options: Agreement with the proposal. Reservations: You are willing to let the proposal go ahead but want to make the group aware you aren't happy with it. You may even put energy into implementing it once your concerns have been acknowledged. Standing aside: You want to object, but not block the proposal. This means you won't help to implement the decision, but you are willing for the group to go ahead with it. You might stand aside because you disagree with the proposal, or you might like the decision but be unable to support it because you don't have the time or energy. The group may be happy to accept the stand aside and go ahead, or they may work on a new proposal, especially if there are several stand asides. A block always stops a proposal from going ahead. It expresses a fundamental objection. It isn't "I don't really like it," or "I liked the other idea better." It means that you cannot live with the proposal. The group can either start work on a new proposal, or look for amendments to overcome the objection. In an ideal consensus process a block wouldn't happen since any major concerns about a proposal should be addressed before the decision stage. However, sometimes people aren't able to express their concerns clearly enough, or aren't heard by the group. In such situations the block acts as a safeguard to ensure that decisions are supported by everyone. Being able to block is an integral part of consensus, but it comes with a big responsibility. A block stops other people from doing something that they would like to do, and it should therefore only be used if serious concerns are unresolved. Make sure everyone understands the different options for expressing disagreement. Often people are confused and block when they'd actually be happy to stand aside. Sometimes people are scared of blocking, even if they are deeply unhappy and use a milder form of disagreement instead.
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Guidelines for Reaching Consensus

If you don't understand something, don't be afraid to say so. Be willing to work towards the solution that's best for everyone, not just what's best for you. Be flexible and willing to give something up to reach an agreement. Help to create a respectful and trusting atmosphere. Nobody should be afraid to express their ideas and opinions. Remember that we all have different values, backgrounds and behavior and we get upset by different things. Explain your own position clearly. Be open and honest about the reasons for your view points. Express your concerns early on in the process so that they can be taken into account in any proposals. Listen actively to what people are trying to say. Make an effort to understand someone's position and their underlying needs, concerns and emotions. Give everyone space to finish and take time to consider their point of view. Think before you speak, listen before you object. Listen to other members' reactions and consider them carefully before pressing your point. Self-restraint is essential in consensus - sometimes the biggest obstacle to progress is an individual's attachment to one idea. If another proposal is good, don't complicate matters by opposing it just because it isn't your favorite idea! Ask yourself: "Does this idea work for the group, even if I don't like it the best?" or "Does it matter which one we choose?" Don't be afraid of disagreement. Consensus isn't about us all thinking the same thing. Differences of opinion are natural and to be expected. Disagreements can help a group's decision, because with a wide range of information and opinions, there is a greater chance the group will find good solutions. Easily reached consensus may cover up the fact that some people don't feel safe or confident enough to express their disagreements.

Key Skills for Consensus

Active Listening: When we actively listen we suspend our own thought processes and give the speaker our full attention. We make a deliberate effort to understand someone's position and their needs, concerns and emotions.

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Summarizing: A succinct and accurate summary of what's been said so far can really help a group move towards a decision. Outline the emerging common ground as well as the unresolved differences: "It seems like we've almost reached agreement on that bit of the proposal, but we need to explore this part further to address everyone's concerns." Check with everyone that you've got it right. Synthesis: Find the common ground and any connections between seemingly competing ideas and weave them together to form proposals. Focus on solutions that address the fundamental needs and key concerns that people within the group have.

Consensus in Large Groups

In large groups it's a good idea to delegate issues to smaller groups, such as working groups or local groups. However, someimes the issues will be so important that they have to be discussed and decided by everyone. This will often be done in a spokescouncil, which enables hundreds and thousands of people to work together by consensus in an efficient way. In a spokescouncil the meeting splits into small groups, which start by discussing the issue(s) to come up with concerns and ideas. Spokes (delegates) from each group then meet up in a spokescouncil to these thoughts. The spokescouncil uses this information to create one or more proposals. These are discussed back in the small groups to check for any amendments and agreement. The results of these discussions are taken to the spokescouncil who should be able to either confirm agreement or draw up new proposals for further discussion. In this way the power to make decisions lies firmly with the small groups, not the spokes.

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Fishbowl Spokescouncil
The groups sit in an outer circle around the spokes.

This makes the spokes more accountable and reduces the need to repeat information. The small groups are often based around pre-existing groups such as work teams, local groups or affinity groups. Alternatively, a large group of people might split into smaller groups randomly. The spoke's role is to feed back information between the small group and the spokescouncil. The spoke needs to act as a voice for everyone within the small group, communicating the breadth of collective thought rather than just their own personal point of view. Being the spoke carries a lot of responsibility to represent information accurately and not to manipulate the process. Generally spokes don't make decisions for their group but always check back for agreement before a decision is finalised. However, an individual small group may empower their spoke to take decisions within agreed parameters. Rotating the role of spoke from meeting to meeting is a good idea, as is having two spokes, one of them presenting the viewpoints and proposals from their small group, the other to take notes of what other groups have to say. This helps to ensure that ideas don't get lost or misrepresented. Why small groups? Some people don't see the need to split into small groups - they want to hear the whole discussion, and have everyone else hear their point of view. However, large plenary meetings make it very difficult for
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everyone to participate - there's not enough time for everyone to speak and many people feel too intimidated to talk in front of hundreds of people. Breaking into small groups creates safer, more dynamic spaces to work in, includes more people and saves a lot of time. Small groups can also allow several tasks to be done in parallel. For more specifics on GAs and faciliation, please visit http://www.seedsforchange.org.uk/shortconsensus
We also highly recommend these sites for addition information (especially the NYGAs hand signals): Guide to Hand Signals from NYCs GA - http://nycga.cc/resources/general-assembly-guide/ The Peoples Mic at Occupy Wall Street (YouTube video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knhnpUgdi_o Occupy Together General Assembly Resources - http://www.howtooccupy.org/ Peoples Movement Assembly Organizing Kit - http://peoplesmovementassembly.org/resources

Creating Zones of Peaceful Assembly and Free Speech. Occupy.

Today millions and millions of us wake up and go to work in a way that is predefined. The ideology of competition for profit forces our collective working life to undermine a peaceful, just, fair, and free existence. The economy is generating the ecological crises, and the division between the 1% and the 99%. How can we eliminate this difference and create a just and sustainable economic paradigm that works for everyone? We Occupy the Economy. We occupy and discuss these questions collaboratively and openly. We come up with creative solutions of building a new paradigm where humans can live in harmony with each other and the earth. We create autonomous zones of freedom, collaboration, art, reason, and participation. We discuss logistics of how to create an economy of collaborative democracies instead of competitive tyrannies. And we integrate with everyone else doing this all over the world. Charles Fourier, a French philosopher, once said that there would be three great revolutions in human history. The first having made serfs out of slaves. The second wage-earners out of serfs. And the third would transform the proletariat into free men and women, eliminating the commodity character of labor, and bringing the entire financial, industrial, and commercial system under democratic control. Whether or not this happens is up to us.
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Compassionate Action.
By Judy Rebick and Velcrow Ripper

Compassionate Action is positive, kind, fierce and transformative. It comes from the heart, not just the head. It is activism that works for the interests of the whole, not just an isolated individual or group. It is rooted in interdependence, and the recognition that your well being is my well being; the planets well being, is all of our well being. This understanding of interconnectendess is both spiritual, and scientific in science its called systems thinking. We are part of interconnected systems within systems there is no seperation. Despite the best intentions of consensus decision-making, people fall into old habits of polarizing debates, attacks on other people or their ideas, not listening to others, insisting I am right and everyone else is wrong. Politics in our cultures, right or left, tends to be an argument, not a discussion. Most of what happens in mainstream politics is a choosing of sides, not a process of finding agreement or collectively breaking new ground. Activists too, are often better at monologues than dialogues. When we are changing the world, differences will always arise and we should welcome them, as ways to help us to see the next step. Anger is also part of our political heritage. It is often the fuel that propels a person out of silence into activism, but too often our anger is turned on each other. Anger is a short term fuel it is not sustainable. Van Jones said that anger is like running on diesel we need to learn to run on solar. Compassion will keep you going for the long haul. Treating each other and even our opponents with compassion is the human relationship part of consensus decision-making. Without it, people becoming despairing and burn out. Compassionate Activism recognizes that the process is important, not just the end goal in our journey to create a more just, equitable and sustainable society, we strive to live our ideals, to be the transformation.

Here are some guidelines for compassionate activism. KEY POINTS OF COMPASSIONATE ACTIVISM 1. Working towards what we are for, not just what we are against Dreaming of and beginning to put into practice the world we want, creates feelings of compassion and love. A big part of the world we want is about co-operating instead of competing and taking care of each other through sharing. Focusing on what we are
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against can keep us in a state of anger and sometimes hopelessness. We are seeking solutions, not just presenting the critique. This doesnt mean we accept the problems; we are indeed against the destruction of the planet, and local economies because we are for the earth, for humanity. 2. Compassion is rooted in an understanding of the connection between all living beings Our differences are superficial compared to our similarities. Most ancient teachings, including many Indigenous teachings, tell us that we are all inter-connected. Science is now confirming our close connection to each other and to all the creatures on the earth. When we understand that connection, supporting the struggles of oppressed peoples, whether in our country or in the global south shifts our action from one of us helping them to one of for the good of all. We still need to recognize our privilege and the oppression that exists even in our circles. The great learnings from feminism and anti-racism can be integrated into compassionate activism. We want a world where everyone is equal - but we are not there yet. 3. Learn to act rather than react Most successful social movements, like the civil rights and womens movements, had a dream. We had visions of what equality could look like and our battles were placed in that framework. But more recently we have been anti-capitalist, anti-racist, anti-poverty. Occupy is reminding us we need to talk about what we are for to attract large numbers to work for change. Creating alternatives while we oppose the injustices of the current system is central to maintaining hope and broadening our movement 4. The ends do not justify the means Capitalism is all about the ends justifying the means. How else could the banks, the mining companies and other corporations do what they do? Compassionate activism turns that upside down. The means are just as important as the ends and shape the result as significantly. We are walking our walking, not just talking our talk. We live the change we want to see, in our actions, in our communities, in our process. 5. Dont put people down. raise each other up, and build on commonalities. Whatever our disagreements, we are all working for change. I can disagree with you even on big questions, but that doesnt make you a bad person. We love our family even if they dont think much of our activism, so most of us know how to maintain connection despite differences. We can do it with our comrades in movement too and it makes us much healthier, and happier. Beyond just getting along we can

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consciously look for ways to empower each other, inspire each other, raise each other up. A little acknowledgement goes a long way. 6. Its only an opinion Because we are often swimming against the stream, we use our opinions as a life jacket. Hanging on to our opinions for dear life or even worse identifying ourselves with them can create very polarized debate. Opinions are important but to be creative we must be willing to change our minds. Thats what listening is all about. Often times, we may discover a new approach, and a more creative solution, when we open our minds. 7. Be a peacemaker Be active in peacemaking. Teach what you know about compassionate activism and intervene if you see people fighting or treating each other without compassion. Never be patronizing come from a place of empathy. Often times, people are longing to be heard, and once they feel heard, tensions will ease. 8. Learn to listen to your heart, not just your mind It is a balance of heart and mind that will give us the questions and the answers that we need. 9. Its all about process In the womens movement, we started to understand the importance of process to our work. Collectives, horizontal organizing were features of the feminist movement of the 70s but as we got more powerful we forgot Audre Lordes advice The masters tools will never dismantle the masters house. 10. Be Mindful Mindfulness is about truly showing up, truly being present. When someone is speaking, listen deeply, instead of thinking about what you are about to say. When doing an action, focus, give it your full attention. And remember to breathe. The simple of act of returning to the breath releases tension, grounds us and brings us into the present moment. It creates spaciousness, which can be incredibly powerful, especially in a crisis or during times of stress or tension. Breathe. So simple, yet so often we forget. Breathe.

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