Post by anonanon on Nov 11, 2011 2:04:15 GMT -5
Start of meeting
Where did we land on “caucus” status? – waiting for colin.
What does caucus grant in terms of procedural power at GA/OA?
Agreement we don’t want special privileges.
Ben: Propose we won’t take advantage of any privilege to caucuses granted by OA/GA to speak first as a caucus.
No concerns – consensus.
Luigi is going to present on horizontalism in Argentina next week.. Next thurs at Radical Convergence at 7pm gather at OA camp.
Hezzi and ben discussing contacts.
Ben will give password to twitter/email accounts.
Any report backs/critical info?
Hezzie: Robert Magee is organizing committee to help in eviction defense. Group meets sat at 6.
Abe: homes not jails literature would be useful. Can get from internet.
Question: at GA today there are more and more announcements of things to be a part of – too many groups? How is that working?
Hezzie: this is a good thing, attracts people into movement. Yes there is something going on every hour.
Brad: plans on spending Friday night, building freedom fort all Saturday in Lafayette to reoccupy. Foam display boards, tape, signs, flags, etc. Encourages people to come with things they are willing to lose. Freedom moat will be constructed outside freedom fort. This will be fun when he is evicted. POI curfew does not exist on paper.
Dan: visited occupy Cleveland, they send their love, they are going to build a snow wall around their encampment.
Vincent: possible attorney from city will attend GA on Sat empowered to speak for city.
Brad: do we get to vote on city officials coming to speak at group?
Answer: think it is pretty open, they can get on stack for other business. He asks cus at one point Occupy St Louis turned down
a dem party official.
Daniel: city can potentially create a working group at OA, so can speak. Maybe we should propose policy. A policy should be in place where ...(something critical I missed).
Vince: problem of being represented at city hall behind closed doors. Does this mean we don’t recognize them as a rep of the city but as individuals?
This Saturday, he was invited to attend GA because some were not happy about meetings behind closed doors. He is accommodating.
How about livestreaming/recording the meeting.
Person: Moot point, he will give whatever kind of report to his bosses.
New Item: points of unity from Tues meeting. We have a working draft. To identify an umbrella under which the caucus will operate. Concerns about wording. Colin suggested we table voting on it til tonight for language alterations. Notes on issue of how to work in ‘gender expression’ or ‘heteronormativity’. Gender expression is broader and encompasses heteronormativity.
Reading of draft statement as distributed by Ben.
Wants to see more emphasis on ‘community’ instead of individualism.
response: each of the two headings uses 'communities'.
What does Heteronormativity mean? System of privilege for hetero people.
Daniel: good to expand from heteronormativity to gender expression generally. Reads his proposal.
Comment on heteronormativity vs gender expression: worry about laymen interpreting our statement.
Dan agrees, validity of ideas of masculinity.
Possibility of saying ‘heteronormativity including gender expression?
Heteronormativity is a version of reduced gender expression. Limitations on gender expression would include. When we are limited by institutions it affects our ability to be who we are.
Questions: is this just regarding laws that discriminate
DA: not limited to state regulation
Hezzie: is this a statement for us or for outreach? Statement is not approachable.
Ben: we should look at document as not only a statement of us but an online informational resource.
DA: these terms should be thought of as tools rather than jargon. We don’t use them often cus we don’t talk about them as a society. So we may need to introduce new words into public discourse. Language as a technology, use new words to describe new things.
A lot of these things we hold true as beliefs amongst ourselves, other people have not thought about. Words should always be used with view towards outreach. If they don’t understand our words we turn them off.
Propose we make a zine that has entire proposal as worded, use zine to explain each sentence and what it means. Broad agreement - this would serve as an advertisement for us. Statement to public about ourselves.
Maybe at this stage it is getting ahead to think of ourselves as doing broad outreach, maybe just to other occupys now. When there is critical mass of left wing we can start doing more grassroots work.
The occupy movement is growing, we should be getting message out to capital district so they know what we are doing here. Each area has own needs, what people are facing in different occupys. Networking with other occupations is important but we should also focus on getting thru winter and growing here now.
Dan: Zine is a good idea, but relations with people can develop out of the discussions about what words mean. Make connections when explaining concepts
Hezzie: outreach takes place through communication and words, not necessarily face to face. Has a problem seeming too ivory towerish, concepts are universal so people need to connect with them before they even come to the tent, we already lost them if they don’t understand.
An issue re: bringing more people into Occupy, finds people are not interested in discussing occupy but change topic to sports or whatever.
response: another person finds people don’t know too much about it but are for it.
Idea: zine that looks like a TV guide but when u open it up it hits u with exposition of lies and radical shoot
Ben: important to identify some of what we see caucus as fulfilling. Plenty of people in this caucus, what we do does not define OA. Need a forum for people who share our politics, shoulde not dilute our politics for purpose of bringing people in for broader OA. What we do under points of unity does not define everything we do for OA.
Have people start thinking about what it would look like in an alternative society built around better values. Right has made us out to be whiny bitches. In conversation she seeks to make inroads where she thinks she can find agreement.
Facilitation: This discussion has been on practical issues, lets steer back to points of unity draft? Finalize or get close to it?
Whether or not we decide this is outreach statement or whatever, one day these concepts should mean something to broader public. General focus on making understanding accessible.
Agreement we should move to finalize statement tonight
Hezzie: temp check on this?: understands everyones concentration on capitalism, but thinks we should concentrate on things that oppress people.
Ben: POI conversation a week ago led to this language. We specifically stated division of labor, private ownership of MOP, etc.
Hezzie: thinks it is easy to say capitalism is bad, doesn’t want ism’s, thinks we can get across ideas well without saying capitalism.
Person: seems to her capitalism is a substantial enough part of the problem that it should be identified by name.
Person: are we moving to an addendum – problem of socialism/capitalism being boo words. Might take a lot to unpack the terms for other people.
Another guy: at this point in history we live under global capitalism. All class society is oppressive. If we don’t name it we are not naming a fundamental thing. Fundamentally OWS is an anticapitalist movement. To not name it is dishonest. We have to turn on its head the idea that capitalism can be fixed. Social democratic countries like Scandinavia are capitalist – social welfare rounds edges. And deformed workers; states under global capitalist framework example.
Dan: agree with Hezzie that capitalism brings up many other issues. As a statement capitalism comes to represent way these things all come together – capitalism shorthand for these ideas. Trying to call out ways we interpret these things. We have to bring the idea up.
Vince: idea to solve term discussion – seems we are dealing with abstract ideas and concrete manifestations. Capitalism is a specific dominant form of oppression. Thinks we can have abstract idea that is tough to disagree with and then point out the specific thing.
Brad: as an anthropologist he would never point out white supremacy. What we want is ethnocentricsm/racism. White supremacy leaves these things out.
Ben: doesn’t like racism cus it uses the root “race” – race is not a biological fact. Call attention to cross-class alliance between white people – working class whites as auxiliaries to ruling whites. Doesn’t mind term racism and talking about it but it opens up can of worms.
Vince: agrees with Ben, but pay special attention to the American context. Whtie supremacy is the racism, patriarchy, heteronormativity etc. – we can explain this. PS race is not real.
Brad: understands weak genetic basis of race – but accepts using the term raceISM cus it is a problem, active hate. Removing the word is a big mistake. But add ethnocentricsm because it enhances, always uses both terms together.
Person: Likes ‘white supremacy’ term
Ben: don’t think we need to challenge ethnocentrism cus others are ethnocentric like black nationalists – doesn’t think we need to challenge black nationalism. So this is why would not use those terms now, here, maybe in future
Facilitator summation: 3 issues: issue of word capitalism, issue of gender expression, and of ethnocentrism/white supremacy/racism. Taking temp check on each phrase individually.
Vince: reiterate, use broader term and move to specific example in American context. Is not in disagreement with what others have pointed out.
New Issue:
Sheila: calling for the transformation of relationships with nonhuman animals in document as way to combat capitalism, thinks we can include species-ism. We’ve been normalized to exploit/consume animals. Dog vs chick preference is speciesism. Thinks should be included as a problem.
Dan: something something (sorry I missed this I think around the time of some ruckus)
Sheila: it is an arbitrary hierarchy and should be given attention just like other hierarchies.
Should we vote on each term?
Hezzie: there should be room, has sticking point on capitalism, prefers to keep some aspects of ‘capitalism’ – such as some private property.
Dan: it could be argued that private property, colonialism discussion, is root of it and maybe chronologically it proceeds from it to these other systemic problems. If it is not a point of ? We can try to force it thru or come to points of unity in long term. But point was to find the ground we can work from.
Person: capitalism as involuntary exploitation of labour. If you like a little exploitation of labor or a lot…having private property does not mean you are a capitalist. The point is the involuntary exploitation of labor.
Ben: issue of private property is hard to define – dwellings pre-dates us by 10,000 years. First private property was slaves. (discussion about exact dating of stages of human economic development).
Main protagonist: seems redundant to say capitalism cus interpretation can vary.
Facillitator: capitalism is specific form of social organization, seems if we are gonna construct narrative about who wer are what we stand for, if we are not putting capitalism at center of our narrative we are not a radical caucus. Capitalism as hub of analytical critique of forms of oppression.
Misha from Occupy Toronto: came in part way thru discussion, naming our heritage and what our history is about and then stating where we are going. So far there has been a capitalist framework that does not work for us. Using loaded language can be difficult but if we state in clear terms what we want to create then stating what it is called is maybe less important. But overall thinks it is good to name heritage.
Consensus attempt on capitalism inclusion: consensus with 4 stand asides
Stand aside: takes issue with using word capitalism – we can not leave it up to other people to interpret what we mean by the words. We should explain what it is specifically. Need to get specific with what exactly it is we want in the system and what get rid of.
Stand aside: it needs to be explained, is it private ownership or what.
Stand aside: also abstained for reasons first person mentions. Debate about pea coats and whether they make you a capitalist.
Stand aside: capitalists coined the term capitalism and feels we are playing their game by using the term.
Ben reads our proposed statement again, it defines capitalism pretty well.
Moving forward: gender oppression/heteronormativity:
(reading of statement in Daniel’s modified language)
Moderator: should we review the amendment and accept the change?
Daniel rereads both language choices
as is: no votes
new version: consensus
White supremacy: first vote: 6 failed first vote
Racism and ethnocentrism (white supremacy): first vote: 8, 2nd vote:
Racism, (ie white supremacy): first vote: 7 second vote:
Tabled for future meeting
Species-ism: tabled to another night
Proposal: pass statement with last sentence of first paragraph removed, table last sentence to future.
Temp check on species-ism: 4 in, 5 not in, lot of abstentions
Speciesism: statement about what humans would lke to achieve rather than what is logically of practically possible.
Question of environment: looks at this issue as how our species is running rampant over environment, feels same way philosophically, would like to evolve into some kind of entity that can exist without harming anything, but environment is a key thing we can not talk about anything else without addressing that. General statement, might boil down to food choices.
Sheila: “challenging our relationship to non-human animals” does not challenge problem, which is speciesism. Does not see how we can draw lines between what hierarchies we do and do not challenge.
Dan: talking about speciesism is reflection of our relations to people, problem of identification, not that it is a problem of hierarchy.
Person: if nature wills that species is no longer fit then so be it, but we should not be actively killing it, does not see a problem eating another creature ultimately.
Daniel: is this a blocking concern?
Sheila: yes if it were not being addressed at all, but not naming the problem (ie speciesism) is doing a disservice, but not a blocking concern.
Brad H: Can we say we are sympathetic to other sentiments such as anti-speciesism while recognizing our limited capacity to fully address it?
Ben: would suggest a footnote on speciesism.
Table speciesism
Propose we coordinate online for radical convergence - consensus
Meeting end
Where did we land on “caucus” status? – waiting for colin.
What does caucus grant in terms of procedural power at GA/OA?
Agreement we don’t want special privileges.
Ben: Propose we won’t take advantage of any privilege to caucuses granted by OA/GA to speak first as a caucus.
No concerns – consensus.
Luigi is going to present on horizontalism in Argentina next week.. Next thurs at Radical Convergence at 7pm gather at OA camp.
Hezzi and ben discussing contacts.
Ben will give password to twitter/email accounts.
Any report backs/critical info?
Hezzie: Robert Magee is organizing committee to help in eviction defense. Group meets sat at 6.
Abe: homes not jails literature would be useful. Can get from internet.
Question: at GA today there are more and more announcements of things to be a part of – too many groups? How is that working?
Hezzie: this is a good thing, attracts people into movement. Yes there is something going on every hour.
Brad: plans on spending Friday night, building freedom fort all Saturday in Lafayette to reoccupy. Foam display boards, tape, signs, flags, etc. Encourages people to come with things they are willing to lose. Freedom moat will be constructed outside freedom fort. This will be fun when he is evicted. POI curfew does not exist on paper.
Dan: visited occupy Cleveland, they send their love, they are going to build a snow wall around their encampment.
Vincent: possible attorney from city will attend GA on Sat empowered to speak for city.
Brad: do we get to vote on city officials coming to speak at group?
Answer: think it is pretty open, they can get on stack for other business. He asks cus at one point Occupy St Louis turned down
a dem party official.
Daniel: city can potentially create a working group at OA, so can speak. Maybe we should propose policy. A policy should be in place where ...(something critical I missed).
Vince: problem of being represented at city hall behind closed doors. Does this mean we don’t recognize them as a rep of the city but as individuals?
This Saturday, he was invited to attend GA because some were not happy about meetings behind closed doors. He is accommodating.
How about livestreaming/recording the meeting.
Person: Moot point, he will give whatever kind of report to his bosses.
New Item: points of unity from Tues meeting. We have a working draft. To identify an umbrella under which the caucus will operate. Concerns about wording. Colin suggested we table voting on it til tonight for language alterations. Notes on issue of how to work in ‘gender expression’ or ‘heteronormativity’. Gender expression is broader and encompasses heteronormativity.
Reading of draft statement as distributed by Ben.
Wants to see more emphasis on ‘community’ instead of individualism.
response: each of the two headings uses 'communities'.
What does Heteronormativity mean? System of privilege for hetero people.
Daniel: good to expand from heteronormativity to gender expression generally. Reads his proposal.
Comment on heteronormativity vs gender expression: worry about laymen interpreting our statement.
Dan agrees, validity of ideas of masculinity.
Possibility of saying ‘heteronormativity including gender expression?
Heteronormativity is a version of reduced gender expression. Limitations on gender expression would include. When we are limited by institutions it affects our ability to be who we are.
Questions: is this just regarding laws that discriminate
DA: not limited to state regulation
Hezzie: is this a statement for us or for outreach? Statement is not approachable.
Ben: we should look at document as not only a statement of us but an online informational resource.
DA: these terms should be thought of as tools rather than jargon. We don’t use them often cus we don’t talk about them as a society. So we may need to introduce new words into public discourse. Language as a technology, use new words to describe new things.
A lot of these things we hold true as beliefs amongst ourselves, other people have not thought about. Words should always be used with view towards outreach. If they don’t understand our words we turn them off.
Propose we make a zine that has entire proposal as worded, use zine to explain each sentence and what it means. Broad agreement - this would serve as an advertisement for us. Statement to public about ourselves.
Maybe at this stage it is getting ahead to think of ourselves as doing broad outreach, maybe just to other occupys now. When there is critical mass of left wing we can start doing more grassroots work.
The occupy movement is growing, we should be getting message out to capital district so they know what we are doing here. Each area has own needs, what people are facing in different occupys. Networking with other occupations is important but we should also focus on getting thru winter and growing here now.
Dan: Zine is a good idea, but relations with people can develop out of the discussions about what words mean. Make connections when explaining concepts
Hezzie: outreach takes place through communication and words, not necessarily face to face. Has a problem seeming too ivory towerish, concepts are universal so people need to connect with them before they even come to the tent, we already lost them if they don’t understand.
An issue re: bringing more people into Occupy, finds people are not interested in discussing occupy but change topic to sports or whatever.
response: another person finds people don’t know too much about it but are for it.
Idea: zine that looks like a TV guide but when u open it up it hits u with exposition of lies and radical shoot
Ben: important to identify some of what we see caucus as fulfilling. Plenty of people in this caucus, what we do does not define OA. Need a forum for people who share our politics, shoulde not dilute our politics for purpose of bringing people in for broader OA. What we do under points of unity does not define everything we do for OA.
Have people start thinking about what it would look like in an alternative society built around better values. Right has made us out to be whiny bitches. In conversation she seeks to make inroads where she thinks she can find agreement.
Facilitation: This discussion has been on practical issues, lets steer back to points of unity draft? Finalize or get close to it?
Whether or not we decide this is outreach statement or whatever, one day these concepts should mean something to broader public. General focus on making understanding accessible.
Agreement we should move to finalize statement tonight
Hezzie: temp check on this?: understands everyones concentration on capitalism, but thinks we should concentrate on things that oppress people.
Ben: POI conversation a week ago led to this language. We specifically stated division of labor, private ownership of MOP, etc.
Hezzie: thinks it is easy to say capitalism is bad, doesn’t want ism’s, thinks we can get across ideas well without saying capitalism.
Person: seems to her capitalism is a substantial enough part of the problem that it should be identified by name.
Person: are we moving to an addendum – problem of socialism/capitalism being boo words. Might take a lot to unpack the terms for other people.
Another guy: at this point in history we live under global capitalism. All class society is oppressive. If we don’t name it we are not naming a fundamental thing. Fundamentally OWS is an anticapitalist movement. To not name it is dishonest. We have to turn on its head the idea that capitalism can be fixed. Social democratic countries like Scandinavia are capitalist – social welfare rounds edges. And deformed workers; states under global capitalist framework example.
Dan: agree with Hezzie that capitalism brings up many other issues. As a statement capitalism comes to represent way these things all come together – capitalism shorthand for these ideas. Trying to call out ways we interpret these things. We have to bring the idea up.
Vince: idea to solve term discussion – seems we are dealing with abstract ideas and concrete manifestations. Capitalism is a specific dominant form of oppression. Thinks we can have abstract idea that is tough to disagree with and then point out the specific thing.
Brad: as an anthropologist he would never point out white supremacy. What we want is ethnocentricsm/racism. White supremacy leaves these things out.
Ben: doesn’t like racism cus it uses the root “race” – race is not a biological fact. Call attention to cross-class alliance between white people – working class whites as auxiliaries to ruling whites. Doesn’t mind term racism and talking about it but it opens up can of worms.
Vince: agrees with Ben, but pay special attention to the American context. Whtie supremacy is the racism, patriarchy, heteronormativity etc. – we can explain this. PS race is not real.
Brad: understands weak genetic basis of race – but accepts using the term raceISM cus it is a problem, active hate. Removing the word is a big mistake. But add ethnocentricsm because it enhances, always uses both terms together.
Person: Likes ‘white supremacy’ term
Ben: don’t think we need to challenge ethnocentrism cus others are ethnocentric like black nationalists – doesn’t think we need to challenge black nationalism. So this is why would not use those terms now, here, maybe in future
Facilitator summation: 3 issues: issue of word capitalism, issue of gender expression, and of ethnocentrism/white supremacy/racism. Taking temp check on each phrase individually.
Vince: reiterate, use broader term and move to specific example in American context. Is not in disagreement with what others have pointed out.
New Issue:
Sheila: calling for the transformation of relationships with nonhuman animals in document as way to combat capitalism, thinks we can include species-ism. We’ve been normalized to exploit/consume animals. Dog vs chick preference is speciesism. Thinks should be included as a problem.
Dan: something something (sorry I missed this I think around the time of some ruckus)
Sheila: it is an arbitrary hierarchy and should be given attention just like other hierarchies.
Should we vote on each term?
Hezzie: there should be room, has sticking point on capitalism, prefers to keep some aspects of ‘capitalism’ – such as some private property.
Dan: it could be argued that private property, colonialism discussion, is root of it and maybe chronologically it proceeds from it to these other systemic problems. If it is not a point of ? We can try to force it thru or come to points of unity in long term. But point was to find the ground we can work from.
Person: capitalism as involuntary exploitation of labour. If you like a little exploitation of labor or a lot…having private property does not mean you are a capitalist. The point is the involuntary exploitation of labor.
Ben: issue of private property is hard to define – dwellings pre-dates us by 10,000 years. First private property was slaves. (discussion about exact dating of stages of human economic development).
Main protagonist: seems redundant to say capitalism cus interpretation can vary.
Facillitator: capitalism is specific form of social organization, seems if we are gonna construct narrative about who wer are what we stand for, if we are not putting capitalism at center of our narrative we are not a radical caucus. Capitalism as hub of analytical critique of forms of oppression.
Misha from Occupy Toronto: came in part way thru discussion, naming our heritage and what our history is about and then stating where we are going. So far there has been a capitalist framework that does not work for us. Using loaded language can be difficult but if we state in clear terms what we want to create then stating what it is called is maybe less important. But overall thinks it is good to name heritage.
Consensus attempt on capitalism inclusion: consensus with 4 stand asides
Stand aside: takes issue with using word capitalism – we can not leave it up to other people to interpret what we mean by the words. We should explain what it is specifically. Need to get specific with what exactly it is we want in the system and what get rid of.
Stand aside: it needs to be explained, is it private ownership or what.
Stand aside: also abstained for reasons first person mentions. Debate about pea coats and whether they make you a capitalist.
Stand aside: capitalists coined the term capitalism and feels we are playing their game by using the term.
Ben reads our proposed statement again, it defines capitalism pretty well.
Moving forward: gender oppression/heteronormativity:
(reading of statement in Daniel’s modified language)
Moderator: should we review the amendment and accept the change?
Daniel rereads both language choices
as is: no votes
new version: consensus
White supremacy: first vote: 6 failed first vote
Racism and ethnocentrism (white supremacy): first vote: 8, 2nd vote:
Racism, (ie white supremacy): first vote: 7 second vote:
Tabled for future meeting
Species-ism: tabled to another night
Proposal: pass statement with last sentence of first paragraph removed, table last sentence to future.
Temp check on species-ism: 4 in, 5 not in, lot of abstentions
Speciesism: statement about what humans would lke to achieve rather than what is logically of practically possible.
Question of environment: looks at this issue as how our species is running rampant over environment, feels same way philosophically, would like to evolve into some kind of entity that can exist without harming anything, but environment is a key thing we can not talk about anything else without addressing that. General statement, might boil down to food choices.
Sheila: “challenging our relationship to non-human animals” does not challenge problem, which is speciesism. Does not see how we can draw lines between what hierarchies we do and do not challenge.
Dan: talking about speciesism is reflection of our relations to people, problem of identification, not that it is a problem of hierarchy.
Person: if nature wills that species is no longer fit then so be it, but we should not be actively killing it, does not see a problem eating another creature ultimately.
Daniel: is this a blocking concern?
Sheila: yes if it were not being addressed at all, but not naming the problem (ie speciesism) is doing a disservice, but not a blocking concern.
Brad H: Can we say we are sympathetic to other sentiments such as anti-speciesism while recognizing our limited capacity to fully address it?
Ben: would suggest a footnote on speciesism.
Table speciesism
Propose we coordinate online for radical convergence - consensus
Meeting end
