"What happened to the Occupy movement?" by Arun Gupta at Aljazeera

[Leopolds Ghost]

15. There are many possibilities.

I like the idea of a GA as it was designed to function. Most GA's don't actually function along those lines.

As for modeling it after local government, I'd agree if not for the fact that I live in a very progressive community and even there I've seen how corrupt and unresponsive local government has gotten. People who tend to get elected have a top-down mentality -- "the people who I answer to don't have time to participate -- they expect me to work for them" and those people are always the wealthiest homeowners and businessfolk. Even in a blue city. (Especially in a blue city, since the real estate economy is stronger there and many city councils have become divisions of the development planning board, not the other way round). Heck, that's why I got involved in politics and got upset in the first place.

There's no tradition of participatory (direct) democracy in the US at the local level outside Vermont. Many people are actively against it.