'Occupy Atlanta' Silences Civil Rights Hero John Lewis

Occupy Atlanta Protesters Use 'Assembly' Rules to Prevent Rep. Lewis From Speaking

Published October 10, 2011 | FoxNews.com

Rep. John Lewis is one of 435 members of the House interminably frustrated by the arcane ways of the Senate. At an Occupy Atlanta protest, he encountered a process arguably worse.

A lengthy video posted online over the weekend showed what happened when the Democratic congressman tried to address an "assembly" of protesters in his home state. Instead of giving the floor to a man who is not just a longtime U.S. representative but a revered civil rights icon, the protesters employed a tangle of parliamentary procedures to ultimately prevent him from speaking.

A stunned Lewis could be seen watching the whole thing unfold before ambling away.

The procedures they used -- rather, invented -- would make the Senate blush. Imagine some combination of Model U.N., Lord of the Flies and a Phish concert.

The central premise, it appeared, was that no one person is inherently more valuable than anyone else. So when the group's leader, a bespectacled man with a bullhorn, said anything, he spoke in clipped fragments so the rest of the crowd could repeat what he was saying back to him. Another rule -- no clapping, because "clapping can prevent someone else who is addressing the assembly from being heard."

Instead, the leader urged everyone to use effusive hand signals to show approval.

With these fundamentals in place, the assembly spent 10 minutes debating whether Lewis should be allowed to speak before the crowd, which had gathered as one of many offshoots of the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York.