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GA Meeting Minutes • 7-6-15 Occupy Eugene GA Minutes
In Solidarity with #Occupywallstreet Minutes of the 7-6-15 Occupy Eugene General Assembly
Facilitator — Art, then Jan
Note Taker — John T.
Agenda
0) Approve minutes from 6-19-15 GA
1)Proposal Re: Antidiscrimination affirmation by OE.
2) Resolution about OE supporting alternatives to police violence.
Anti Racist and Bigotry:
-Occupy opposes cops murdering people when alternatives are available.
-When either being capable of killing suspects or being able to do otherwise, police should always preserve life.
-Equality of Specie Proposal: It has been proposed by Occupy and numberless humanistic groups that equality should not be affected by race, nationality, creed, gender, gender identification, sexuality, age, capacity to be self sufficient etc. This is already been accepted by most groups including Occupy upon their inception.
The addition I am proposing to include is species other than humans who are able to feel, by virtue of being sentient (having nervous systems). This includes the rest of the animal kingdom.*
*As most biology students know, for human and non human animals to exist,the protection of the vegetable kingdom is essential too.
Sincerely, Dave Ivan Piccioni
3) Resolution about making newsletter have more articles by more authors. The proposal (revised) is that the EO, Occupy as a whole and allied groups make more of an effort to have a variety of voices and opinions for the newsletter. That each individual author doesn’t have more than 2 of their writings go in the paper. The EO is a part of Occupy and represents itself thus when gathering underwriters; it should have all of our voices. Dave Ivan Piccioni
4) Committee Reports and report on informal gathering
5) Introductions
Committee Reports — Ward 9 Camp Report
Kristen — We have kind of a small camp right now, lots of homeless people who live in the woods were staring at Ward 9 people. Ward 9 is a bit of a SLEEPS camp with 5 to 15 people.
Dave — Why were homeless people threatening you?
Kristen — We don’t know why.
Informal Gathering Spots Report
John T —- Minutes from the 6-19-15 GA were not published on the OE web site until last Thursday, so the informal gathering spots resolution wasn’t quite 100% official, but I went ahead and since there seemed to be a demand for OE I held unofficial informal gatherings for OE at the Eugene Public Library on the two Saturdays following the GA from 12:45-2PM. The first week I had Eric and Charlie participate. Eric is from Cascadian Forest Defenders. We had a long conversation about a wide range of topics. What I remember centers on Eric’s disdain for some activists. He thinks that activists spend too much time in places like Oregon that are easier to deal with than living in a place like Texas. He thinks that the activists need to spread out more and carry their messages to some hard core red states. As an example of the possibilities, he cited the fact that in Texas 6 major cities have recently discontinued water fluoridation, with only a handful of activists pushing those changes through.
Charlie is an older gentleman from the CALC Peace Vigil group who recently gave away his computer to St Vincent De Paul, so he no longer has online access. I let Charlie read the Al Nakba Awareness Project Memo that Mariah wanted me to give to Peg.
The next week Charlie brought some magazines from home to share and there was one other man who participated who related how there is a program for homeless people in Oregon that allows them to purchase tiny cabins for a monthly payment of only $250. I replied to him that that sounded a bit like the retirement community in Tennessee that I saw advertised on TV where it was claimed that older people can get a luxury house for $350 per month.
Finance Committee —- Jan
Finances are good. We have $ for porta-potties. We have 8 people who have pledged $10 per month, but the deposits have not always shown up on time. Have your credit union put your name in the memo field so we know where the deposit came from.
Library Committee Report — Art
We got a 20 box donation of books. Looking to do another book sale soon.
Newsletter Committee —
Jan – We received the bill for printing the last issue. Has this been paid? We need to be prompt with payment as the printer has been working out well for us and there is no reason to screw up that relationship.
Jack – Hasn’t collected money from the underwriters yet since going to the US Social Forum in San Jose last month. Has collected about $250 so far.
Dave – Should we deal with the # of articles per author in the newsletter now or later?
We will deal with it now.
Dave – Article authorship should be more democratically distributed.
Other possible authors are being recruited.
Jan – If you have a desire to be involved with a committee, get involved and bring it up there, not at the GA.
Dave – Newsletter should represent more thoughts than just 2 people.
Mariah — Vickie has reached out to try to get more authors.
Jack – We send out invitations every issue.
John T — I could write an article on fair trade crafts, maybe include some interviews with Saturday Market vendors. We need to spread the word about concepts such as the fact that the labor costs of a garment manufactured in the US or Mexico are only 6% of the retail price of the shirt, even after doubling the wages of the production workers. The fair trade hackey sacks I sell for instance are creating a profit for the production workers of about 4-8x the minimum wage in Guatemala.
Art – More people will write stuff.
Art — Mentioned that he was re-elected to be president of the Eugene-Springfield Solidarity Network — Jobs For Justice.
Any other committee reports? Occupy Medical?
End of Committee Reports.
Proposal Re: Antidiscrimination Proposal
At this point it was noted that there were 14 people present. Someone went to the OE Office and recruited Sasha to come to the meeting. Now we have a quorum of 15.
Mariah – Connor put up a Google Doc. Some of the people who added comments last time aren’t here.
Other groups may pass similar resolutions.
John — Add children and elders. Should we make the list complete or just say ‘for example’?
Art – say ‘including but not limited to’ instead of ‘for example’.
Kristen — Concerned about the urgency, don’t see what the urgency is.
Mariah — has been working on this proposal since January.
Dave — A Jew might have a problem with 3 Arab groups being represented in the statement, but not Jews.
Sasha — What are all the listings for? She started a group at CALC called ‘Welcome Out’ to not label people as being a part of any one group. It is hard to fit into any one group.
Mariah — Various groups are doing this type of statement.
Temp Check —
Art– How many people think the statement is OK as is and how many people differ?
There are two separate ways to make the statement. List the groups or just say we are all human beings.
Instead of identifying groups, just say nationality, sex, ethnicity.
Jan — If it isn’t ready, put it back on Google Docs.
Kristen — List the names or broad categories.
John — Is there something in the St Paul’s statement that already resembles this statement?
Jack — Beliefs and actions that categorically dehumanize people. People are under attack by the US Empire.
Mariah — St Paul principles here don’t address this issue.
Art — Does UDHR address this?
Mariah — No.
Art — Test for consensus.
Anon – Rearrange it so the last statement is up front.
Dave — Just say human beings.
Read it again and test for consensus?
Art – Should this be tabled?
Mariah – Should we add human beings.
Dave – Motion to table.
John — Is Dave going to have a long conversation?
Art — People are talking out of the order of the stack and interrupting. I’m through with facilitating this meeting.
Jan – I will now facilitate. Any objections to taking this up next month?
Kristen — Reread it in the way that Sasha wanted it reordered.
Sasha — As long as everyone is included I’m fine with it. Include humans and Earth walkers.
Why would you not name Jews and Christians?
Dave – We do want to make it perfect. We should have more general statement including sentient beings.
John — Process statement.
Jan — Would anyone object to waiting to next month?
Sasha — Throw lots of things in there.
John T — I only got on Google Docs today, so why is there a big to do about people not participating?
Mariah — Why didn’t people object earlier to not being able to get on Google Docs?
Jan — Tabling proposal.
Should Occupy declare ourselves anti-cops that shoot people when there are alternative courses of action available?
Jan —- Put this in a Google Doc.
Minutes approval from previous GA:
Jan — It is not necessary to approve edits to minutes. There is no process for a GA to approve minutes from a previous meeting.
Announcements —- All buses will be free next weekend for the County fair.
There is a booth (Community Village) at the County Fair.
John — Thanks for people showing up to the action at the train station.
John T — Peaceworks organized a door to door campaign to stop the oil trains a few weeks ago.
Police Commission is looking at large demo rules. 5:30PM this Thursday, 2nd Thursday of the month at 300 Country Club Road.
Art — Any interest in protesting the TPP?
John — Definitely the TPP is a concern.
Jack — The Police Commission has no authority?
John — Process — Finish the announcements.
Meeting adjourned.
Jack — Israeli training of police should be addressed by the Police Commission.
Statistics: Posted by pagesincolor — Thu Jul 23, 2015 5:27 pm — Replies 1 — Views 24
Source: https://occupyeugenemedia.org/discussion/viewtopic.php?t=1561&p=3336#p3336
