Meeting 5 - 11/17/11

Announcements

Democracy Now had a show on the Occupy movement that can be seen on democracynow.org. Ben Emery is doing a five part series on how government works on his facebook page, go friend him and see. The townhall meeting on Monday was a huge success, and we need to take it upon ourselves as Occupy to set an example of supporting the community. Volunteer forms for the extreme weather shelter are available here. There was an Agricultural Commission meeting this week discussing the need to support the rights of local farmers to fight the regulations of the corporations that keep them from consuming and selling their own organic products.

Goals

The goals discussion started with a quick brainstorm review, and a voting session to decide where we would like to focus our efforts. I believe the only ideas that are not already listed in previous blog posts were occupying parks that are in danger of being closed, and a suggestion that we familiarize ourselves with the Consolidated Annual Financial Report of Nevada County at CAFR1.com. The decision to address foreclosures won the majority of votes, with choosing a mission statement and creating educational presentations for the public tying for second.

Foreclosures

Dennis presented a wealth of knowledge on the legal (or illegal) process of foreclosures, particularly in California and our own community. Particulars ranging from auctions at the courthouse, "robo-signers", the specific wording and rights granted in a deed of trust, legal precedence set by the supreme court, unlawful detainers, non-judicial foreclosure states, etc.

Beyond the legal aspects, there's the question of what we can do to help in terms of direct action. The obvious question was do we want to occupy foreclosed houses? The answer for now was a fairly emphatic no. What does occupying a house actually do for someone who has been foreclosed on? It seems that would be a day late and a dollar short, and would ruin our rapport with the local police. Either way, we did recommend that we join the Nonviolence training on Nov 26th, in case it does come to that. There are several steps that could be taken before such extreme actions.

The proposed solutions primarily took two forms: helping those in danger of foreclosure, and discouraging banks from foreclosing. We will definitely have a seminar for those in need of foreclosure assistance. We would like to find people who want their stories told, and want our help. We will stay in contact with the legal center, and setup a hotline for anyone who wishes to seek our help; there may also be people at the rallies. We could go with them to the bank to help apply pressure on the bank, could help them negotiate, or if it does come down to occupying, we will consider that option. To discourage further foreclosures we proposed protesting at the foreclosure auctions at the courthouse. Working through local government, we could possibly add a layer of bureaucracy to slow the process, akin to an environmental impact statement, but for the impact on neighboring housing prices.

The depth of this topic and the volume of options and necessary considerations make a dedicated work group necessary, and will be created at the next GA. This has proven to be a first priority item, and we will give it the attention it deserves.

Economics Discussion

We broke off into small groups for a less formalized, open-ended discussion on economics, then reported back to the whole group.

Group 1 talked about the growing disparity between the 1% and 99%. Much of that has to do with the growth of payroll taxes, which all employees and employers pay, and the decrease in capital gains taxes which are only placed on gains on investments. Economics has been all about the bottom line of money, but could alternatively be (and has in the past?) tracked in terms of social, economic, and environmental impacts. Locally owned businesses and franchises do not enjoy the larger corporate tax loopholes, but often suffer the same regulations, and fees. An important distinction between multi-national corporations and locally owned branches of franchises must be made. Locally we have Quiznos supporting us, but while they carry a corporate name, they are owned by a local family. They and other businesses like them are not the target of our ire, and though it complicates the situation, we need to be careful whom we fight and support.

Group 2 dove almost exclusively into the operations of the Federal Reserve as a private entity, talking about the operations and generation of money. Money from the federal reserve is spent into existence by the government and multiplied once it becomes deposits in banks and lent out again. Central banks such as the Federal Reserve, CBE, and the IMF run the show, with the interests of the banks in mind. They also touched lightly on the extent of the growth of income inequality.

Group 3 hit a range of topics, but mostly stuck to basic concepts. What is econ? Econ as we know it has only really been in existence for around 300yrs, and around 100yrs for modern econ. Economics could be considered to be a subgroup of ecology in that it requires certain levels of resiliency, diversity, and sustainability. Right now we have little resiliency or sustainability, but how can we make the system sustainable while the population is continuously growing. Does less consumption necessarily mean lower GDP and higher unemployment? Can the consumption of services replace the consumption of goods? More intangibly, do we live a richer life with the increased communication, technology, and availability of various products and services? Are there ways we can become more interdependent and value community over greed?

Agenda

Because time ran short, we agreed to continue the economics discussion at the next meeting, which would be the Thursday after Thanksgiving (No meeting next week!), Dec 1, 6:30pm @the Peace Center. The agenda is as follows: Intro/announcements (15mins), Goals: Mission Statement (30mins), Occupy $ (10mins), Small Group Econ Discussion (25mins), Large Group Econ Discussion (25mins), and finally Agenda (15mins). In the mean time, we will be using the forum on the Occupy Nevada County webpage to do preliminary work formulating the Mission Statement and Occupy Money proposals. Click on the Forum tab just below the introductory info. You are also encouraged to develop the wiki which is under construction.

Meeting 4 - 11/10/11

Intro

We had some quick announcements on the two very successful meetings from the night before. Both Nancy's meeting on income inequality and the collective meeting on corporate personhood were well attended and very successful. The agenda for the night was approved, and without further delay...

Corporate Personhood Continued

Jed finished his presentation on the history of corporate personhood from the 14th amendment to today. An in depth summary will be posted as soon as a webspace more suitable is created (I am sending a request to the tech group now). In short, with the blessing of rights equal to that of a person -- defended by dubious assertions of the intentions of the 14th amendment -- corporations were free to receive further rights granted under the 5th, 4th, and 2nd amendments. Some of these rights were granted in spite of state opposition and state laws, because the supreme court determined those laws denied corporations their constitutional rights as "people". Several examples of further applications and attempted applications were given to wrap up a very informative presentation. Again, resources and presentation materials will be available soon.

OWS Declaration Discussion

We continued the discussion on the NYC General Assembly's Declaration, specifically how we understood its intentions and implications for Occupy Nevada County. We broke the larger group into three smaller discussion groups, and after 25mins of discussion, rejoined the larger group to share our findings.

Group 1 moved directly into issues that needed to be addressed, such as grand ideas like stopping the perpetuation of war, and smaller goals like occupying minds. They also saw the need to add to the list of the grievances; for the general declaration they saw the need to give nature protective rights, and end militarism in the name of oil. Locally they wanted to focus efforts on preventing the return of mining, prevent homelessness, occupy Bridgeport Park, stop foreclosures, and establish a public works program in the Tahoe National Forrest.

Group 2 dove deep into the intentions of the OWS Declaration. Noting first that its sole focus is the necessary response of the people to the influence of corporations. Emphasizing cooperation and peace, their intention was for us to setup a framework for self-governance from within our own communities, and return power to the people through seeking consent. The list of grievances added a somewhat conflicting aspect: the need to establish what we stand for. There is a careful balance to be found between establishing goals, so that we may accomplish something as a group, and setting aside particular agendas in the interest of broadening appeal and maximizing participation from the community. This was a heated debate that continued in the large group discussion.

Group 3 also picked up on the risk of alienation, and suggested the greater Occupy movement may be consciously dragging its feet with this purpose in mind. To be all inclusive, the NYC GA was very careful in its wording to only be against corporate power and support democracy; we should be careful to do the same. They also came to the conclusion that our actions should start with local social and political issues, but not lose sight of the larger movement.

Rejoining the larger group, we dove deeper into how to get the entire 99% on board with the movement. There were so many inspirational small town things we can do: Show our presence by standing up for each other, stop unfair foreclosures, buy locally, start support groups for the unemployed, come up with a list of skills and services that we are happy to provide, have public events where anyone in need can feel welcome. Victims of social or economic injustices may have no one to turn to, and may feel rejected for not making it in the "American dream". We want to embrace them, and tell them it's not a shame to not be financially "successful". The sense of kindness, initiative, and inspiration gave me the feeling that we may be creating a league of small town superheroes, not stopping supervillains (yet) or explosions, but standing for humanity and community in whatever way we can. Inspiring others through good deeds in the community is a powerful way to encourage others to join our cause.

Goals

The declaration discussion seamlessly morphed into a discussion on specific goals and objectives. One suggestion was a potluck that would be both a social event and an outreach to those in need. Occupying houses that are being foreclosed on (preferably before they are foreclosed on for legal and practical reasons) was another possibility that got much attention. Compiling the list of services we can provide seems a simple task that could be done immediately. This may lead to some other working groups like a hospitality WG or a counseling WG. Our GA has agreed to support local businesses, and some have noticed an increase in business, but we think it would be good to explicitly say when we are buying local on behalf of Occupy NC. A consensus was reached to suggest at the next GA that we sign merchant receipts with "Occupy" or even recommend writing "Occupy" on the money itself, of course with the warning that, while never enforced, writing on money is illegal.

A couple of other more general questions came up as well. First, why aren't we occupying in tents in parks? There were several answers to that question: we're staying visible in other ways; occupying isn't about tents, it's about democracy; it's super cold; but most importantly, it's just not where we are as Occupy NC, and not where we've decided to spend our effort. However, if there is interest in starting an occupation, anyone may propose it at the GA and is free to start an occupation.

Second, we discussed the email from Michael Rogers regarding the potential for discrimination and the squelching out of minority dissent. His main concern was with the power a facilitator has, and the potential for misuse, particularly when using the progressive stack method (a method used to call on speakers where people who have not spoken much get a higher priority than those who have already spoken a lot). This was more a warning than a response to any particular incident, and though the progressive stack method found much support in our group, we did have a heartfelt talk about the importance of impartiality and proper training of facilitators.

Agenda

Two hours came and went in a flash, and the proposed agenda for next week was hammered out as follows: Intro (20mins), discuss goals starting from tonight's list and the previous brainstorming session from two weeks previous (40mins), stretch (5mins), small group discussion on economic perspectives (20mins), large group discussion on economics (20mins), form the next agenda (15mins). The econ emails are already flowing, so looking forward to a most lively discussion next Thursday at 6:30pm @ the Peace Center, Nevada City.

Meeting 3 - 11/3/11

The Intro portion of the meeting included introductions, role assignments, and a review of the previous week’s material, similar to the previous week. The remainder of the time was spent nailing down consensus on the specifics of the agenda.

Ben and Jed began with a 20 min tag team presentation on the evolution of corporate rights and personhood. Because of time constraints, their presentation was mostly limited to the 19th century and earlier. In order to finish their presentation and bring us up to the present, a 15 min part two by Jed was agreed to for next week. For a summary, click here.

Eric presented next on the status of the OWS national convention. The current plan is for a convention in Philadelphia modeled at least in spirit on the original Constitutional convention with two elected delegates from each Congressional district. Presently there is no approved list of demands or goals. The list put forth by the working group of the 99% Declaration was apparently a renegade effort that was never approved by OWSNC GA and has been disavowed by them. Sharon, who just returned from a “Direct Democracy” training session with the facilitators group of OWSNC gave some clarifying details on the workings of their GA. There are currently 79 working groups. A Spokes Council for the groups has been formed to transmit ideas and recommendations to the GA. There is no consensus on goals. But statements issued by the various working groups have been posted and can be read at NYCGA.net.

In conjunction with Eric’s presentation, Gary spoke eloquently on the original “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City”. As the founding document of the movement it is a visceral declaration of grievance and purpose over the loss of the basic rights and freedoms that we the people have suffered at the hands of our corporate state. He recited some of the more inspiring passages. There was an intense discussion how best to reflect and utilize the spirit and letter of this document, particularly in regards to the formation of our own local goals. For starters, it was consensed that we should all read the document for next week.

Somewhere in the course of discussion precipitated by these presentations, a formal proposal was made and adopted for a recommendation by the education group to be made to the OWSNC GA, to encourage folks to attend, without a specific endorsement, an information/action event on Weds the 9th, hosted by Public Citizen and Move to Amend.org on abolishing corporate personhood and overturning the Citizens United decision.

After a lengthy one minute break Gary and James presented their work on the OCCUPY 101 core curriculum.
James produced a finely tuned, handout outline of 10-20 headings and sub headings for each of the main topic areas agreed upon the previous week. His only substantive change was to breakout Social and Economics into two separate topic areas. Gary spoke again on applying the heuristic formula of the “descriptive”, the “diagnostic” and the “prescriptive”- where we are, how we got here and where we want to go- to the curriculum. He also spoke of aligning our educational goals with the need to find simple, compelling words to educate and inspire the honkers, so that they take the next step and get out of their cars and pick up a sign.
There were two main threads of conversation around the curriculum. One was about the content and how to include larger concepts of community and spirituality in the curriculum. The other was about various formats for learning such as continuing with the current presentation format, large group discussions as opposed to breaking into smaller groups and bringing summations for discussion to the larger group, and how the information produced by this group gets circulated to a wider audience in an inclusive fashion.

The concerns voiced in these conversations flowed into the discussion surrounding next week’s agenda.
There was a consensus, as a general guideline, that in the future we would have fewer presentation topics per meeting leaving more time for discussion. After considerable back and forth, the general outline for next week’s agenda was agreed to as follows: Intro, 15 min for the second part of Jed’s presentation, 25 min. small group focus and discussion on the NYC GA statement- group size to be determined, followed by a 25 min. large group discussion on the same topic. There was specific agreement that the concepts of community and spirituality would be considered in the small groups discussion. After a (?) min. team building break for “light and livelies”, there will be a 40 min focus and discussion on the formulation of goals in light of the NYC GA statement. This will be followed by the X number of minutes it takes to consense over the next agenda.

I think it is fair to say that there seemed to be two complimentary undercurrents that were animating the more intense parts of this week’s meeting. One was reflected by Sharon’s passionate statement that our goals- our local goals and the goals of the national movement- are still not big enough to properly encompass and represent what we are really about. I took that to mean that we are still at the stage of struggling to understand and come to terms with the enormity of what we are proposing to do. That maybe, in fact, this movement is both creating and cresting a change so fundamental to the current order it amounts to a revolution, albeit rooted in the Constitution, but a revolution nonetheless, of, by and for the people. If that’s the case, we already know that we want it to be; a leaderless, grass roots, nonviolent, democratic revolution. Those, however, are all adjectives. What are the nouns that are going to say what this revolution is? I think that’s where the other undercurrent of this meeting was coming from; the concerns over fundamental nouns like community and spirituality and how they are going to fit into and drive whatever enormous thing it is that we are doing.