Democracy Workshops bring activists together in Olympia and Seattle

On November 18th and 19th, the South Puget Sound Alliance for Democracy, as part of its Democracy Rising Project, hosted two well-attended and energized workshops on the topic of building alliances to create authentic democracy in Olympia and Seattle,
Washington.

The workshops began with Susan Bee describing political and social structures that seem to be hampering the American experiment with democracy--empire, class, and certain constitutional structures and interpretations, such as corporate personhood, money as speech, and the shareholder primary doctrine. She also discussed how the corporate class unifies its power to battle the efforts of citizen groups that, if successful, would diminish shareholder profit. In contrast to corporate unity, citizens often practice "identity politics"--dividing and weakening themselves by focusing on individual issues, rather than unifying and empowering themselves as the underclass that demands authentic democratic self-governance, rather than rule by the corporate elite.

Next, Jan Edwards, an activist and artist from northern California, led the group through a discussion of rights-based activism, using California's Humboldt County's Measure T as an example. Measure T, approved by voters in June, mandates that only county residents, businesses and organizations may make financial contributions to Humboldt County election campaigns. Jan also led a discussion on the commons.

AfD co-chair Nancy Price presented information on water privatization as an example of the commons being commodified. She also provided information on the trade agreements and their anti-democratic nature. There was much discussion and participation by those who attended the workshops. Much was learned. Bonds grew. Those who attended the Olympia workshop have scheduled a follow up meeting to discuss a coordinated community action in line with the values of the Democracy Rising Project and the workshop. (For pictures, see the slideshow section of the Alliance for Democracy website.)