GA Minutes 11-9-11

[mikerancourt]

General Assembly 11.9.11
Facilitators – Mike Rancourt, Rachel
Minutes – Joshua Farina
Stack – Steve
Vibes – Neville Rolls

Caucus Updates
• Radical Caucus (Colin) – Tuesdays &Thursdays in Hex Tent after GA. Thursday 11/17/11 actions are being planned.
Working Group Report Backs
• Direct Action – 10:30am at Central & Partridge 11/11/11 – Join Veteran’s for peace in Veteran’s Day march. Next meeting Wednesday at 4:00pm
• Mind, Body, Spirit – Condoms will be available at the medical tent.
• Smokers Group – Marijuana and tobacco advocacy. We will meet after tonight’s meeting.
• Food Group – There will be a meeting by the food tent. We will discontinue making disposable utensils available.
• Facilitation – We meet before and after every GA.
Working Group Proposals
• Smoker’s Group
o Proposed: $20 per day for tobacco.
o Modified: Add a separate donation container for donations of tobacco.
o Outcome:
 Tabled
Other Business
• Bradley
o Proposed:
 Occupy Albany stands in solidarity with Bradley’s re-occupation of Lafayette Park and encourages its members to join him in reoccupying the park.
 Occupy Albany considers Bradley’s re-occupation worthy of our legal working group’s support.
 Occupy Albany gives specifically authorizes Bradley to use all usual channels of communication to publicize his event.
o Outcome:
 Stand aside – I respect his bravery, but I am afraid.
 Stand aside – I’m not sure this is in the best interest of our long term goals
 Stand aside – I’m not entirely clear on what degree of communication, support, PR …
 Consented to.
• Colin
o Report back:
 Nine members of Occupy Albany met with city officials. Three of them were a part of the previous meeting. Six had not attended meetings with the City.
 The chief attorney for the city agreed to attend our General Assembly and discuss the MOU.
 The Asst. Chief of Police encourages call police when necessary without fear of eviction.
 City officials would like to conduct a follow up inspection later this week. They agreed to forewarn us so that we can make guides available.
 The impression that we gathered is that City Officials agree that we have a right to stay here indefinitely.
 The City seems to be interested in having a signed MOU address issues of liability.
o Proposed response to the city’s MOU
 See Proposed Response
o Outcome:
 Tabled: The discussion will continue online.
• Doug
o CWA event, 11/10/11 at 10:00 am rally in front of Verizon on State St. It will kick off a march to NYC, 20 miles a day stopping at various Occupations along the way.
• Rob
o Aid people who are being evicted. There will be a meeting after the GA.
• Cookie
o Operations will be meeting next to the coffee tent next to the GA.
• Vincent
o Expresses frustration with the GA.
• Mark
o Proposed
 Occupy Albany stands in Solidarity with CWA and encourages it’s members to participate in the rally at 10am tomorrow.
o Outcome
 Consented to.
• Ira
o A tent will be set up for media and PR.
o Encourage caucus participation.
• Josh
o Roundtable Discussion on empowerment and collective ownership.

Attachments:

[tooladder]

Thank you very much for the quick adding up of the minutes! I want to clarify the first stand-by in the minutes though. I did not "SAY" I respected or admired Bradleys’ bravery in his willingness to put himself on the frontlines of a fight against the tide of ever subtle infringements on our freedoms of assembly and speech. I said I am cowardly afraid to lose the rewarding job I have by condoning the provocation of the government. I just wanted to note that in case things go south and I get accused of supporting the aggressive means used to so rudely bring the issue of freedom of speech and assembly to the public’s attention. Officially I think we should just be content with whatever freedoms “The Government” allows us to have and remember that constitutional rights can be trumped by “The Government” whenever “The Government” says it is in the best interest of “The People”.

[anonanon]

• Vincent
o Expresses frustration with the GA.

Josh, thank you for taking the minutes I know it is hard to keep up for an entire GA. However, this tells me nothing about Vincent's problems with GA, unless he literally didnt say anything and just made some expressive movements and grunting sounds with contorted facial expressions. I know Vincent and this doesn't sound like him. I am also continuing to see a pattern of silencing those on the left and I am pointing it out here because I *suspect* this *may be* another of many instances in this pattern to point to. If this was purely an inability to keep up with the pace or with what he was saying then I apologize.

[markm]

Does anyone know when the city attorney will attend a GA?

[mikerancourt]

Nov 10, 2011 1:18:43 GMT -5 markm said:

Does anyone know when the city attorney will attend a GA?

According to the report-back, the city attorney did not identify a day. It sounds like it may be soon (in a few days, perhaps).

[hz]

It's good minutes are posted, so that we can all read and clarify or expand on our points as we feel necessary, and we should all take a moment to read over and do so. There is indeed a physical limitation on how much nuance the notetaker can include & also the readability of notes that include every aspect of conversation. It seems like the forums are the perfect avenue to further expound on presented ideas. I hope Vincent will come forward to clarify, if he feels the need.

I know he has been generating some good conversation elsewhere on this board.

[vincent]

Thanks Mike, you beat me to it, and I have two points to clarify:

1) The explanations of the stand asides failed to mention mine, and it seems like a difficult job, so this isn't a criticism of Josh's (?) notetaking at all; these things happen.

I "stood aside" regarding Bradley's proposal for GA solidarity regarding his upcoming actions. I did this not because I disagree with his actions, but because he has been placed--as has everyone else now--in the unfortunate position of practically begging the legal working group for legal aid, should it prove necessary. This places all of us at the whims of whether or not legal will protect our actions, in effect allowing legal veto power.

This is not legal's fault--it is the curious remainder of having lived in an overly litigious society. Many of legal's members--Rob and Colin from who I knew and could see--pledged support for Bradley as individuals (correct me if I am wrong about this). They are to be commended for this.

I also see this dynamic manifesting itself in our relations with the City of Albany (which I have explained elsewhere).

I also pointed out to someone using the motion to hurry up that they would not deter me from making my point. Please see my posts about the abuse of such hand gestures in NYC; I really didn't take long to explain my stand aside but when halfway through it someone makes the "hurry up" motion, it means that they disagree with the content and not the speed with which I am delivering it.

2) My expression of frustration was more like a request that people please comment and engage in dialogue with each another regarding the strengths and weaknesses of our current "consensus" model. I understand that we are learning as we go, but that also is not a valid justification for some of the practices taking hold during the GA's (e.g. the great difficulty of asking a question in a timely, and thus relevant, manner; the abuse of gestures; the difficulty at times to explore dissent, all seemingly in the name of "efficiency").

[mikerancourt]

Nov 10, 2011 12:27:41 GMT -5 vincent said:

I also pointed out to someone using the motion to hurry up that they would not deter me from making my point. Please see my posts about the abuse of such hand gestures in NYC; I really didn't take long to explain my stand aside but when halfway through it someone makes the "hurry up" motion, it means that they disagree with the content and not the speed with which I am delivering it.

This is a small thing, but the person who gave you the wrap it up sign did that for about five people in a row. I really don't think he was responding to content but was just impatient.

[vincent]

Perhaps you are right; fair enough.

[joshred]

I just didn't understand his point entirely. I think I was trying to reword whatever had happened previously and I missed a chunk of what he said.

I'm really not interested in silencing those on the left...like...at all.

[anonanon]

occupyalbany.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=library&action=display&thread=892

"There is nothing totalitarian about asking people who join your revolution to act in ways that support the goals of that revolution. And the Constitution guarantees your right of free association — which includes the right to exclude people who aren’t on the bus"

OK I was mistaken when you linked to this article, I thought you were endorsing this author's view that this is "your" (ie progressives') revolution.

[joshred]

No. The article appealed to me because I understood it to be saying that saying no to violence is a good thing.

[anonanon]

I really don't mean to troll in a minutes thread so this will be my last post here. But the article makes not a single mention of 'violence' (only once refers to the possibility of a 'violent response' by a drug user who is confronted about drug use) as a politics. That is why I would normally assume you are now conflating violence with something else in the article, and it would have to be one of the groups mentioned at the outset as the focus of the article: "drummers, druggies, sexual harassers, racists, and anarchists." I don't know that there is a big (or any) sexual harasser or racist problem (only other two candidates for violence - never seen a violent drum circle) at OA which would prompt you to bring the article to our attention. So while I would normally conclude you were characterizing a broad school of left political philosophy as inherently violent - quite a leap - since you say you are not interested in silencing/excommunicating the left, as the author advocates, you should know you have my full support in helping to root out and ostracize the sexual harassers and racists in our midst.

[joshred]

I see. I didn't scrutinize the article too carefully. I just thought it offered good advice for dealing with people that are damaging the community. I definitely don't support silencing or excommunicating anyone based on their political persuasion.

...and for the record, most of my personal beliefs would be described as pretty left-wing.