GA Meeting Minutes • January 17 2014 GA

GA January 15 2014
Agenda
1.TPP
PP
NSA
March Against Corruption
Bill Moyers’ MAP
Thinking Revolution
Announcements

Occupy Media (Jana) Good chance for a Morse Center grant to set up an archive of OE footage regarding housing/homeless issues. Will be featured at a Homeless Conference by the UO Philosophy Dept. Consensus endorsement by GA.

Library Committee: Jen will serve on planning committee for Morse Center bringing in speakers the next couple years. Looks like a lot of energy from the University towards homelessness. University is asking “What’s the University’s role in homelessness?” EFF rep came in to Eugene to organize about surveillance. Bringing our rights online with us. Would like OE testimony about being spied on. Philosophy students will create an event in March about “digital defense” and “digital activism”. Museum has offered to do an exhibit of homeless portraits. Tsunami fundraiser Avant Guardeners fundraisers in the works.

Whoville(MaryB): Whoville has been given an evict notice & posted no trespassing signs. Going to put up a fence, but don’t plan a violent removal. Going to try to make life miserable for campers. They’re backing off on claiming there are spots available at the rest stops. Meeting tomorrow with cops facitated by Jen. MaryB, Alley. Originally said they would not close Whoville without alternative facilities. They want to open a spot by NW Expressway. Asking for security and year long contract. Might be wanting Occupy Medical to sponsor it. People coming out of surgery and Johnson Unit are being dropped at Whoville. 35-50 community supporters showed up in solidarity today. Whoville has a Facebook page to keep the cops in the loop. SLEEPS has a celly telephone alert message system.

Occupy Medical (Sue) preparing a proposal for an Intensive Care Transition Shelter. Some motel ventures are available. Also working on vaccine clinics. Veneta clinic started Saturday OM is training staff. Will be training “village healer” EMTs. Veneta clinic called Rural Occupy Medical. Received an award from City of Eugene. Seeking board members. Planning crisis medical workshop. Want to develop information network. No date yet. May 4 OM fundraiser hosted by Mountain Rose. Nationwide Neighborhood Great Neighbor event May 24 OM has applied an award from. Michael Kinnesen, the citys Neighborhood Services, asked OM to do so. Michael wants to release press release to support Whoville residents until there is shelter available. Groups are able to take care of one another, so it’s better to keep the camp. 1500 pounds of feces every day has to go somewhere. Whoville has bathrooms and places to wash hands.

Newsletter: Jack is working on getting business supporters for the Occupier. Tidying up their format. Will approach organic foodsellers. Will have PayPal set up for separate Occupier account. They have two $100/issue sustaining conributers. Will check out WePay as donation account service.

Public Bathrooms
Vickie has a proposal for OE’s endorsement on her downtown public bathroom proposal to the City for more facilities downtown. Approved by consensus.
March Against Corruption David Adkins: an organization called Nullify the NSA contacted us to join the resistance to NSA surveillance. They’re reaching out to all political persuasions. OffNow.org Asking for OE’s electronic banner to be placed on their website. They list a lot of details about how NSA works. Demand Progress is another group which contacted us, along with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has an event Feb 11 to fight back against surveillance. Asking folks to contact their congressional representatives. They have a banner people can put on their websites. Aaron Schwartz founded Demand Progress. He killed himself while waiting to be prosecuted for hacking the MIT website. The fear behind surveillance is crippling and we have to stand up for our freedom. NSA will use huge amounts of water. David will contact Demand Progress to get the banner. Fergus will write a press release passing the contact info on to anyone else who wants to join the protest. March Against Corruption is a worldwide group standing up against corporate money in politics.
They are holding events in March and want OE to organize an event. Discussion of whether to join the march. OE supports and will put something on the website, but no march.

TPP Jen proposed contacting the City Council to make Eugene a TPP-free zone. She posted model language for a resolution to the contacts list.

Bill Moyers’ MAP of successful social movements(Fergus): Moyers maps out the eight stages successful social movements typically pass through: 1:normal times; 2: institutions start to fail; 3: conditions worsen; 4: a “triggering event” sets off a mass mobilization of outrage; 5: identity crisis of powerlessness; 6: majority public support; 7: success; 8: moving on. Occupy is likely in stage 5, an identity crisis of powerlessness. You know, the “Occupy is dead” meme. Moyers calls this normal for a movement, and once it passes through the process of making the public aware of its core issues (for Occupy: the Empire; our corrupt private banking system; economic inequality, and corporate influence on politics and government) the “loose” and informal organization model doesn’t work anymore. Many movements fail at this point. Successful movements, says Moyers, transform themselves into what he calls an “empowerment” structure which moves away from spontaneous mass gatherings to a more stable, behind the scenes kind of organization which draws natural allies into the management of the movement and methodically builds popular resistance to dominant institutions. This takes organization, staff and resources. Just the kind of things Shane Ozbun has accomplished by taking leadership of Oregon’s PANDA (People Against the National Defense Authorization Act) organization. He’s allied with conservative groups which honor the constitution and has won support from Douglas, Klamath, Coos County Commissions and is working on Lane County. More of a traditional kind of organization. Can Occupy Eugene make the shift? More discussion at the February 15 GA.

Thinking Revolution: Gary from North Bend. Goal is to get representation for everyone in our government operation. Moral and ethical standards. It seems to be a system involving everyone learning basic information to allow them to have an intelligent vote.

Announcements
Nightengale collective paying $500/mo for sanitation. They have a WePay button on website. nightingalecollective. Or MaryB.

UO student wants to talk to OE about their experiences. Contact [email protected]

Statistics: Posted by GrameenEugene — Sat Jan 18, 2014 8:35 am — Replies 0 — Views 1