The Truth About the 99 Percent Declaration (I think)
Hi! This article, uh, kinda sucks. Please see my working record of various Out-Of-Process-Statements (OOPS) for a more accurate, working record of various such statements including the 99 Percent Declaration. I'm sorry this initial attempt to understand and explain events sucked so much, but it did. It's here for posterity.
More up-to-date update: According to Shawn Redden, his and David Haack's attempt to co-opt #OWS is not related to the 99 Percent Declaration. I apologize for the error. I'll be following up with the relevant parties. What is for certain is that attempts to co-opt the movement are prolific, and that the 99 Percent Declaration, as well as the work by Redden and Haack mentioned in the NY Times article linked below are not accountable to the Zuccotti Park General Assembly and thus should not be considered projects of Occupy Wall Street.
Update 10/21/11: Some doubts raised in comments below as to whether the 99% Dec is the same co-opting demands doc as the one mentioned in Hoffman's NYTimes article from 10/16. Even if it isn't, though, the point is that neither of them are actual products of #OWS and the reason they cannot speak for #OWS is that Zuccotti Park has a process in place that this is not accountable to. The link between the two situations is the only part of my recounting that is actually (trusted) hearsay; it's also the part being questioned. More as we hash this out.
OK — here is the true story of the 99 Percent Declaration.
The 99 Percent Declaration is a fake. In fact, it has nothing to do with Occupy Wall Street.
Two guys from the Zuccotti Park occupation’s Demands Working Group went rogue after this very document, of their own design, failed to reach nine-tenths consensus, required for approval, during two successive working group meetings. On their own, these two men contacted, or were contacted by, Meredith Hoffman from the New York Times. Hoffman later wrote this story about them:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/nyregion/occupy-wall-street-trying-to-settle-on-demands.html
The headline describes the Zuccotti occupation as “trying to settle on demands”, and the story would have you believe that the 99 Percent Declaration’s writers, David Haack and Sean Redden, are leading participants in the Demands Working Group. Unfortunately, this document has nothing to do with the Zuccotti occupation, and the Times, knowing this, went to press with the story anyway. The Times’ story didn’t mention the document itself, but Haack and Redden hoped that Hoffman would represent it as the work of Occupy Wall Street.
The Demands Working Group WAS empowered by the Zuccotti General Assembly (the open, nine-tenths-consensus-based forum in which participants make decisions every night of the week) to work towards creating a list of demands. Haack and Redden introduced the above document, entitled “The 99 Percent Declaration”, to this working group. The first meeting at which it was brought for consideration ended without the working group reaching consensus on the document. The second meeting ended with 4 blocks to consensus, which means that 4 members of the working group blocked its approval by the Working Group (that is an overwhelming number, though I don’t know the number of people attending the meetings). A New York Times photographer attended this meeting, and despite the other members of the Demands Working Group reaching consensus on asking him to leave, Haack and Redden insisted that he could take photographs of them, telling him the group ran on 2/3rds majority rule and that the measure had passed.
All of this is besides the fact that even had the Demands Working Group reached consensus on Haack and Redden’s document, its next and non-negotiable step towards approval by Occupy Wall Street would have been to propose its adoption by the Zuccotti Park General Assembly. There, it would have had to have been approved by nine-tenths consensus.
It is difficult to imagine that, had the 99 Percent Declaration not been blocked by the Demands Working Group, and had it been presented to the Zuccotti GA, it would have reached nine-tenths consensus the first time it was proposed. It would have probably gone back to the Demands Working Group for further revision and — based on its language and proposals — possibly would first have been workshopped by a wider group of people than the Demands Working Group itself.
On October 16th, immediately before the article was published, the Zuccotti Park General Assembly was made aware of these events and consensed, with no blocks, upon composing a statement emphasizing that anything that hasn't been "presented to and consensed upon" by the Zuccotti Park GA does not represent the Occupation of Wall Street in Zuccotti Park.
All of this is based on information gathered during my participation at Zuccotti Park during the past week, including and particularly the 7pm General Assemblies. I’m not sure the minutes for the relevant day are on Occupy’s website just yet, but you can check my livetweets of the General Assembly for documentation. The point is: the odds are quite low that this document, given its creators’ relationship to Occupy Wall Street, will or would ever be approved by the Demands Working Group or the Zuccotti Park General Assembly.
The irony is - at least, as I read it - that the Constitutional Convention Haack and Redden’s document proposes would involve many occupations around the country. The wording of the document speaks for all of these occupations and for other participants in Occupy Wall Street all over the United States, and notably ignores those in other countries. As such, the only conceivable Occupy Wall Street decision-making body that could ever be empowered to approve and enact the document as worded is the very Constitutional Convention the document proposes. Sorry, guys.
