OWS' take on direct democracy

First off, let me say, I'm a "fan" of Occupy Wall Street. I not only support what the movement is fighting for, I'm deeply impressed with its approach. The occupiers have shown themselves to be non-violent, persistent, smart, and willing to be physically uncomfortable (and sadly, threatened) for what they believe in. This is the stuff Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. were made of.

Secondly, I must admit the first time I saw the hand gestures, etc, created by the occupiers to communicate within a large group, I laughed out loud. (Ok, so it was on a Daily Show bit, and it was framed in a funny way, but really, at first it does look a little silly, even unaccompanied by Stewart's dry wit). But the more I've thought about it, the more interested I am in these tools OWSers have created, spontaneously, to solve the problem of approaching direct democracy in large groups.

Although you wouldn't know it from a high school history class, democracy didn't begin with the Declaration of Independence, or even the Greeks. Way before hierarchy or patriarchy or governments or churches, for the vast majority of human time, we lived in egalitarian groups practicing direct democracy: nomadic tribes of gatherer-hunters.  Yes, democracy is a rare and beautiful thing when you look only at the last 5,000 years (and compared to the rest of the shit that has happened in that time, representative democracy is a huge step up). But if you look at the whole of human history, democracy is the norm; I'd say it's in our very nature.

The (very real) problem has been how to tweak democracy to fit countries instead of tribes, millions instead of hundreds. The compromises that have been made have very real downsides, all of which we're living with today, and many revolving around 'representation' (who's interests are really being represented?) and the necessity for politicians (no explanation needed on the downside of politicians).

As far as I know, OWS is one of the first experiments with direct democracy in the U.S., outside of Native tribes. And we're not talking about 150 people here and there, deciding things in their own small groups. Instead, thousands of people have communicated, innovated, brainstormed, planned and enacted powerful strategies without hierarchy or government. Unlike the civil rights movement, I cannot name a leader of Occupy movement. I have no doubt the OWS jazz hand is one potent tool they've used (alongside social media, of course) to pull off this amazing feat. Maybe it's not really so silly, after all.