2/7/2012
Minutes
Facilitating – Heather
Stack – Bert
Minutes – Maria
Timekeeper – Brian
Agenda –
Press Release
Schism
Present Idea on Sunday re. Guerilla Gardening
Report Backs
Ron – Ad Hoc Working Group did work on the press release, there were adjustments, several people looked at it, it went to Sonia who distributed it
Heather – Events Working Group – Rob will bottomline film events – wants someone to be in charge of town council meetings and action posting – see listserv
Bert – Occupy Health and Wellness NC group – posted on listserv brief description – inaugural action this Saturday at HKon J – vision statement to listserv – banners made this afternoon
Press Release
Jeremy – details of press release unknown, except it has to do with building action
Amanda – fairly succinct document, however how it came to be – imho – has qualifications around it, now that it’s out doesn’t sense that debating about it in itself, but rather the things that are sticking like burs around it
Maria – trusts working group to get press release out, lot of work to do in 24 hours and trusts consensus of GA that press release was needed
Ron – it was time sensitive, there was a conflation of Nomadic and Commune in some press, did not make midnight deadline, but it was necessary to delineate between the two
Amanda – has questions about language, does not have issue with press release, but what the press release points to in terms of what OCHC and the Carrboro Commune and OccupyEverything and what everyone who is involved in this particular movement is doing, and to spin issues of press release is not as useful as schism
Heather – how do we want to discuss press release?
Gordon – if the press release is gone, we’re just clarifying intention – schism discussion would cover those details
Geoff – supports moving to schism
Ron – four maybe three paragraphs – OCHC was not associated with Carrboro Commune
Brian – time keeping – if this is not essential to schism discussion, for the sake of time, let’s keep moving instead of searching for documents
Amanda – several issues we can not touch on, but need to be aware of, there are structural and systemic issues in OCHC that need to be looked at and addressed and there are some things we need to do so that we can go forward – could sit and rehash specifics – what happened when and who did what and why – could be valuable in one sense and totally pointless in another – there is a word for the past few days that keeps coming up that represents something – that word is disingenuous – not sincere and lacking in candor – the state or quality of being frank, open and sincere – Occupy is a broad and young movement, an intimate revolution, within that it’s really complicated – something occurred that hit the mark in a lot of ways, did good things in a lot of way, but also missed an opportunity and turned public away from what Occupy can do, 30% of me feels encouraged but 70% of me feels discouraged, not over what happened but what didn’t happen, because we’re not doing something in ourselves, I’ve talked to folks outside of us and have been educated by some things and I’ve talked to some within Occupy and have been enlightened by things, we are at a very crucial crossroads
Bert – I heard a huge number of generalites and I think you need to be specific
Geoff – I sort of have an idea of what Amanda is getting to. My first reaction at 4 on Saturday is – here we go again. I have a point of clarification. It took me a long time to come down and believe that Occupy can come down and accommodate my political views. If OCHC occupies private property I cannot be part of it.
The honorable thing to do is to leave. That is what I would do.
I was under the impression after Yates that OCH had dissociated itself from the occupation of private property. If it supports by association and default occupation of private property I cannot be part of it.
Amanda – there’s a lot of fuzziment – OCH consensed there would be a Nomadic Occupy in Carrboro which set up tents. The same weekend this occurs there’s an action that occupies the CVS building ostensibly under the action of an independent organization, yet is composed of individuals that are part of OCHC. As the event unfolds there is movement back and forth that becomes hard to separate. We can analyze this in any number of ways. But as it unfolds again I come back to a disingenuous process that I am not comfortable with. It becomes an Occupy action. For us to rush to judgement with a press release saying we didn’t do it, I have issues with … as Geoff is speaking to, there is a certain disingenousness. I as a long time participant of the movement feel that I am being played and fed bullshit with this press release. There are long term issues we have not dealt with, the lack of precision within the general assembly as a tool for parliamentary procedure, the inability of us as an activist community to address some of the issues going forward
Gordon – The basic concept of what’s happening is if you would picture an amoeba – it has an outline – now picture two amoebas making love – they are contacting 30% of their total circle – and that would be a metaphor – and we – pointing to OCH – is also in the making love sense – CC – – 50% of the active people were in the 4pm Sunday GA in Carrboro – and that’s an important proportion – the anarchists are never going to see that — our concept of we needs to be adjusted
Jeremy – people are both associated with CC and OCH – some of this is focused on the media and the public and how they respond – and we can’t control that – I was standing across the street and NBC reporter asked me about OCcupyRaleigh – I told her I didn’t know what was happening – article says – OccupyRaleigh denies … OC never formed an opinion
Brian – maybe the organization background I come from is different from y’all. I see this in terms of decision making bodies. Any given decision making bodies needs clarity on what they decided and organized. There is a lot of crossover between OCHC and other groups, formal and informal and general public. I like Amanda directing us to the word schism. There are ways to come at – the way I am coming at it – lots of committed activists are coming to OCH and also coming out to Saturday action and also coming out on Sunday. Some people may want to do actions as part of an occupy movement that OCH doesn’t support.
This space is a point of interception. How can we resolve trust issues? From a variety of angles not just the ones that Amanda brought up.
I would be sad if we couldn’t continue to work together.
Ron – there has been a serious breach of trust here – one segment being secretive and the other being transparent – I won’t go too much into my own thoughts. After Yates there was a newspaper article – Anarchists ruin the credibility of any movement that they join. Eliminating private property is one of the most coercive things I can imagine. I’m pissed off and the reason I’m pissed off is that Heather, Diane and I went to the NAACP meeting the day before and the first thing I saw Sunday morning was people wearing masks and I’m not wild about that anyway – in 1953 a state regulation passed against masks because of anti-Klan ordinance – and I am thinking about 40,50,60 year old people from NAACP and seeing a bunch of white guys wearing masks on television – how fucking clueless can you be? – wanted to establish a working group about onerous antiquated ordinances – sexy occupations get shifted aside because of sexy occupation
David Guest – nothing wrong with mask thing – OWS does it – you’re talking about the anarchist book fair event …
Heather – brain fried, I hear a lot about the schism – I am hearing a lot of politics and ideology and my standpoint – and we’re all here to do this – but I feel like we are not listening to each other anymore – I want to be with all of you, I am not an anarchist, I am not a democrat, I am here to be with all of you because I love you – I was drawn here because I could activate this way and activate that way – a many pronged effort is part of that
David – There are a lot of things – as for masks, we live in a police state and people are at risk – press stated almost across the board that this was not OCH – no reason to tell about actions that are not OCH actions – after last experience with Yates hoped not to have a repeat of renouncement and did not feel welcome at this GA – ran from public space to Weave to make sure he wasn’t rounded up if there are arrests – and doesn’t want to have to do that – anarchist are the tap root of OWS – all of this that we do comes from anarchist concepts – one of our tactical points of unity that disappeared from the website – diversity of tactics and multiplicity of voices. Still willing to work on the heavy lifting of the ordinance stuff. This is not mutually exclusive work. Does not feel welcome in space if we follow down this path.
Justin – how social movements fail is infighting and schisms, opportunity to talk about the world and society and instead we are talking about tiny little disagreements, obviously people are pained and feel hurt, obviously there are people who want to drive difference, but in OCH the factions are so muddied that there are no factions, if we’re going to shoot ourselves in the foot let’s do it and get it over with, find what we have in common and fuck all the rest
Maria – two antiapartheid movements on campus, different tactics, different press releases, press, administration, etc. were not confused even though people attended both actions
Geoff – come from tradition of argument, argue again, kill them and then send them a letter – came to clarify his point of view – but now wants to leave meeting welcoming Carrboro Commune – moderates have won often at OCHC – maybe the other side has felt excluded – but let’s not have actions happening simultaneously – we owe it to community and press and each other to make it clear – we are part of the same movement but we are different
Bert – when this movement started in CH, there were about 350 people, lots of my liberal friends, within about a week they had separated because they perceived it was an anarchist group, I give anarchists credit for creating this encampment but we need everybody here and Yates and CVS turn off people like me. We have to have some separation of ideas. I cannot feel good about OCH if part of our actions are taking over private property. I voted for the press release because of that.
Jeremy – I was not an activist, but I could not in good conscience just stay home so I joined the temporary GAs in Raleigh. I am scared of these divisions breaking up the movement as a whole. We have the same debates in Raleigh. We have to remember the common ground. A paradigm shift is what we’re really after.
Ron – Pay attention to some sharp criticism meant with affection. The main issue is the conflation and the confusion. The burden is on whatever action is taken in the future. The two actions together, the calling of general assembly at the same time was either antagonistic and stupid. There can be overlap. The more voices we have the better off we are. When there is an action, the independent action should differentiate themselves. If this was a discreet action the media could be able to distinguish.
(back and forth about media)
Brian – let’s address this and move forward, we stay together because we act together as well as talk together, there’s two ways we can come out this, we’re not a group that has capacity to kick people out, if we feel not looked out for and feelings are hurt, we can talk about it – the other approach is – I won’t do this, I won’t do that, how can we control these people – if anarchists ruin movements then I can leave, because there are people who I can organize – Zucotti Park was private property – it’s more complicated than we can even know
Amanda – one of those things we have to do with an organization that has so many viewpoints, we have to get out of our own way, we have to be smarter than ourselves, the strength of the hyrdra, the many headed snake, we have a perfect storm here of CVS, we have an identifiable corporate target, we have a sympathetic government, we have a sympathetic body of community, somehow because we did not look to each other, trust to each other, we missed the synergy of all of that, what could we have done as the catalyst of Occupy to bring that 99% together? What could we have done to bring 2-300 people with babies and elders together? This is the essence of my discontent. We are not being smart enough. We are reinventing the wheel. We are doing the stuff that’s already been done. Maybe we’re too egocentric about our own agendas. It’s not about us, it’s about the people who don’t want a CVS there, if there had been 300 Carrboro people there then there wouldn’t have been any arrests.
Brian – can I present another agenda item related to this (and as timekeeper … we’ve been talking about this for awhile)
Geoff – talked about mural in post office – most of these people were anarchists, it took them 15 years to achieve that, at work I am a radical, here I am an old man that is right – CC and OE have every right to occupy this community – yes I want us all to be more respectful of each other – we can establish distinction or common ground – how we get people back at OCH we evolve – I won’t always support OE – we set an agenda as OCH and ask everyone to join us – if OE decided to plant a garden and protected him from arrest then he would be there doing that
Jeremy – learned a lot about anarchism – they don’t just want to break things and burn things down – I think an indirect success of that Saturday action is tonight hashing things out – I don’t agree with everything that happened
Heather – moderates and liberals – how can the outreach group reach out – as a liaison – to the middle?
Geoff – where is outreach???
OUTREACH ON THURSDAY AGENDA
Ron – Maybe too late for proposal – maybe a temperature check – Ron, David and me draft a statement on diversity in OCHC – so media have no excuse to conflate actions of OCH with other actions
Amanda – I am not a fan of ossifying things into thises and that’s – problem in US government feeling like they have to come up with something official – the more pronouncements we make the more we are in a box – we need as few boxes, bars and things like that
Heather – Can we TABLE UNTIL THURSDAY
Brian’s Proposal
Came to GA here briefly and went to one time impromptu GA in Carrboro, two dozen people are so, some OCH people, some have not been as active, discussion of what did and did not work …. At the end there was a consensus to call for a weekend of guerilla gardening on that site.
As a partisan putting forth this proposal – I don’t necessarily endorse that occupations, I endorse occupations.
This call is an open call to do something participatory that has been done in a clandestine manner.
A way to include more people including people who have been here.
Geoff – I was in Durham three years ago and we were driving around a roundabout and she put up a metallic chicken and she was putting it up as a protest – guerilla art – there is a way to engage people that is attractive – I can’t take part because of private property, but I could let my brothers and sisters d that
Jeremy – the bull on OWS was a protest piece
Heather – so this is a general open invitation
Brian – do people want to discuss consensing on OCH endorsing on? Some of the things planted would be medicinal and edible – medicinal for CVS, edible for Weaver Street – if you can’t afford either
Geoff – if you are discussing trespassing on private land you don’t want to be transcribing it
Brian – proposing that OCHC could endorse it or people could engage as individuals … just opening that door
David – there’s been talk of talking to Carrboro Family Pharmacy to see if they wanted to do a Pharmacy Transfer Week, outreach at Farmer’s Market, giving away seedlings – there are ways to participate without guerilla gardening.
TABLE THIS UNTIL THURSDAY
David hands out flyers.
Bert – Outreach Working Group needs people to get on the damn working group.
Jeremy – will bring stuff back and forth between OCH and OR.
Justin – Ibooks movie on Thursday night – Coconut Revolution – Sierra Club fracking presentation tomorrow
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