Having been a community organizer and political activist (pre-occupy) in PDX, you might now understand, like I did, the whole irony behind chanting:

*This is what a Democracy looks like!*

...and why, in America, our government is formed in a Republic.

This is a good article.

Occupy is less than 3 months old. If it's going to get bigger, it's going to have to go through some growing pains where many of the original occupiers will disown the movement for "selling out." That seems to be what's happening now as the movement re-calibrates post-Parks-phase, and that's as it should be.

If Occupy is going to move policy the way it wants, it's going to have to shed the nutters and appeal to the broadest swath of the 99% that it can, while actually managing to stay faithful to it's principles. That's a tough tightrope act, but I think it's possible.

Is it possible if every mentally ill person or tinfoil hatter can continue to force 90% votes on quotidian issues, or simply scream obscenities and personal attacks during meetings? Probably not.

Interesting article. Somehow a protest movement about Wall Street became personally responsible for ending homelessness.

While I understand the process by which that happened, it is easy to step back and see that there isn't really a nexus there. Time to just refocus on the protest.

They just need to do what the Tea Party did and find one major piece of legislation the majority party in Congress is making progress on and...oh....wait.....

There isn't an easy answer to the issue, it is unworkable to evict people who are crazy or contrary since it can be subjective and the GAs are usually held on public property.

I agree there needs to be more consistency within the process to keep it moving, and allow for consensus without individuals spoiling the result for personal reasons.

That said, I hoped that Dan had offered some solution of his own since a single paragraph of criticism seems like a hollow shout out. I mean is it necessary for the occupy movement to throw out radicals/leftists, have a closed doors representative democracy model based on DC or maybe just have the movement be lead by appointed Representatives from the DNC? Maybe none of the above?

It may be unfair to assume these would be possible solutions, but without any clarity in the criticism, it is completely open to interpretation.

Occupy Portland has its own brand of nutters :-)

@PNW, this isn't oregonlive. We don't do the "tard" thing here. Next time try expressing your point of view without resorting the embarrassingly juvenile insults.

The "naive white libtards" guy certainly does the "tard" thing here. I've been reading it off and on here for months. (So does Andy from Beaverton, but I think he's just troll-spamming for a deodorant company.)

@geyser: I guess my point was that if someone wants to do the "tard" thing, they should head over to oregonlive, where it seems to appear in about every fourth comment.

So the "insiders" want to evict anyone that disagrees with their plans. In effect disenfranchising them?

Is that what "democracy" looks like?

@13: at least I'm capable of arguing my point of view without resorting to juvenile insults.

At least dmitrir HAS a point to his comments.