From HotAir:
It’s impossible to do this justice through excerpts, so be sure to read it all. However, a couple of points stand out (via Instapundit):
On Sunday, October 23, a meeting was held at 60 Wall Street. Six leaders discussed what to do with the half-million dollars that had been donated to their organization, since, in their estimation, the organization was incapable of making sound financial decisions. The proposed solution was not to spend the money educating their co-workers or stimulating more active participation by improving the organization’s structures and tactics. Instead, those present discussed how they could commandeer the $500,000 for their new, more exclusive organization. No, this was not the meeting of any traditional influence on Wall Street. These were six of the leaders of Occupy Wall Street (OWS).
To understand what follows, one has to have some familiarity with the organization of OWS. The General Assembly (NYC-GA) nominally makes all the decisions through overwhelming consensus; it requires 90% agreement to approve any decision, including expenditures. Sound groovy? Well, not really; a minority of 11% can essentially block all action, and apparently often do. And you thought the US Senate was bad …
This produced the need for subcommittees, called Working Groups (WG), which try to vet all issues and make recommendations back to the NYC-GA. It also eventually led to the creation of the Spokes Council, thanks to frustration in the Structure WG with the “Finance WG’s monopoly over OWS’ funds[].” To use the UN analogy of the “General Assembly,” the Spokes Council would be the Security Council of OWS. The account by Fritz Tucker shows that the better analogy for the Spokes Council is that of the pigs in Animal Farm. Think I’m kidding?
Daniel, a tall, red-bearded, white twenty-something—one of the six leaders of the teach-in—said that the NYC-GA needed to be completely defunded because those with “no stake” in the Occupy Wall Street movement shouldn’t have a say in how the money was spent. When I asked him whether everybody in the 99% had a stake in the movement, he said that only those occupying or working in Zuccotti Park did. I pointed out that since the General Assembly took place in Zuccotti Park, everybody who participated was an occupier. He responded with a long rant about how Zuccotti Park is filled with “tourists,” “free-loaders” and “crackheads” and suggested a solution that the even NYPD has not yet attempted: Daniel said that he’d like to take a fire-hose and clear out the entire encampment, adding hopefully that only the “real” activists would come back.
Yeah, well, some animals are more equal than others, too.