Ideas Candidate, Elections, and Occupy Discussion 2/8/2012

This wasn't a formal ideas working group meeting. Instead, five us of got together to talk about political candidates, the Occupy Movement, and the relationship between them. What follows is a summary of that conversation.

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There are a lot of different philosophies about how we should interact with candidates and politicians; it would be good to form some kind of policy for this. Although we dislike the system, we'll need to work within it in order to effect certain kinds of changes; if we don't, then we're stuck on the outside. What's the point in asking our elected officials to do things that they are never going to do?

We can address injustice from the outside, and lobby effectively from the inside.

Some folks in the OccupyMBTA group are interested in approaching legislators, to discuss and/or lobby for alternative solutions to the MBTA budget problems.

Politicians do participate in Occupy Boston events (e.g., several events sponsored by the Citizen's United WG). We shouldn't shut them out. However, we can set ground rules for how we'd like them to act at Occupy events (e.g., non-partisianship). We should also ask for disclosure -- people who are candidates or elected officials should say that they are candidates or elected officials.

The League of Women voters has a tradition of holding non-partisian policical forums. These forums are focused on issues. We should care about knowing where candidates stand, and we should care about how they'll vote when elected. Occupy could sponsor non-partisian forums, to discuss issues that are important to the movement. Many legislators believe that the Occupy movement is influencial. That gives us some leverage to approach legislators, and ask them to collaborate with us in finding solutions to problems. We should be prepared to offer solutions.

Elected officials need engaged citizens in order to motivate them.

Every legislator cares about reelection, reelection, reelection. They're all part of the same system. We can leverage this through petitions. For example, suppose we want a legislator to take up an issue. If we can get a statistically significant number of voters from that legislators district to sign on, then they'll be forced to take up the issue -- because it could influence their reelection.

The Occupy movement has a chance to correct some of the problems with our political system.

Occupy appears to have arrived at consensus on one issue: we should not endorse political candidates.

What kind of ground rules could we have (for politicans and candidates) at occupy events? Some suggestions:

• They cannot ask for political donations at occupy events.
• They cannot do solicitous campaigning at occupy events.
• They cannot distribute campaign literature at occupy events
• Occupy is non-partisian, so candidates and politicians should behave in a non-partisian manner. (i.e., stay focused on issues).
• Perhaps something to address conflicts of interest.

Should Occupy Boston develop an ethics policy?

When approaching candidates and politicans, we should have two game plans: one short-term (immediate needs), and one long-term (bigger, broader objectives). Ideally, these two plans should be developed and executed by two different groups.

Can we compare the Occupy movement to the Tea Party? Both movements grew out of dissatisfaction, and both started at the grass roots level. Today, the tea party has many politicans in office, and they're heavily dependent on corporate money. We do not want Occupy to be influenced by corporate money.

The real revolution will be to Occupy our Democracy. Why aren't we filling the legislative halls with more civicly-engaged students? Students shouldn't be afraid to challenge legislators.