[Street] Thursday night GA
Gregory Murphy
gsjmurphy at gmail.com
Wed Dec 14 11:21:38 EST 2011
Emmanuel Church
15 Newbury Street
7:00 PM
On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 1:35 AM, Katie Gradowski
<katie.gradowski at gmail.com>wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> I'm forwarding this email widely because it seems pressing. The past two
> GAs following eviction have felt very out of place -- I feel like we, as a
> community, have not yet dealt with the eviction from Dewey Square, which
> has resulted in a creeping sense of sprawl and dysfunction. This email is
> a tentative call for a reset!
>
> *A brief overview of my concerns: *
>
> Over the past two days, we have seen hours worth of working group
> announcements, in many cases for working groups whose purpose and identity
> has irrevocably shifted. We have seen "message" proposals, even as we
> have houseless occupiers who have gone days without a place to stay. We
> have had a proliferation of hastily planned actions, with no thought or
> coordination of how we, as a community, want to respond to eviction, or of
> coordinated actions between working groups in response to eviction from
> Dewey Square. Reports so far on tonight's GA (contentious issues of
> storage, personal attacks, a proposal to send homeless occupiers to DC?)
> suggests that things are not getting better.
>
> While this is all happening, there are pressing issues that have not yet
> been resolved. I feel deeply uncomfortable moving forward in any sense
> until we can take time, as a group, can resolve the question of space and
> housing. I would like to propose tabling Thursday's GA, and in its place
> scheduling an open community forum this Friday, at St. Paul's Cathedral,
> from 6-8:30 p.m. to find immediate, community-wide solutions to the
> following three concerns:
>
>
> ******************************************************************************************************************************************
>
> IMMEDIATE ISSUES (to be resolved in the next few days)
>
> *1) Permanent space for GA + reassessment of working groups *---
> Without a site, we have sprawl on all sides. Working groups that no
> longer have space, GAs are tentatively planned, lots of options on the
> table for sites but no solid choices, defunct groups consolidating with
> other groups. We need to sit down and map out the new terrain. What is
> the new "site" for OB, in the absence of Dewey Square? (don't outsource
> this to a working group! let's solve it together) Do we want a central
> space for everything or several diffuse spaces? Do we want roving GAs in
> JP, Chinatown, Dorchester, and elsewhere? (and is it important for Gas and
> working groups to be in the same space?) Do we want to rent or borrow?
> Do we want a food truck and a caravan of tiny houses? And if so, how do
> we make that happen?
>
> *Between now and Friday, I propose that *everyone* who has an idea or
> plan about permanent space take this week (facilitation, logistics,
> outreach, Eric, Greg, Brian, myself) write it up as a proposal, and bring
> it with actionable items to Friday's community forum*. In line with
> that, I propose that as many working groups as possible check in with
> updated information about where you are meeting and how you are situated,
> post-eviction. *This is a top priority at the moment*. Without a space
> to assemble and a concrete proposal for what space we want to inhabit,
> post-Dewey, we will not be able to settle long enough to accomplish
> anything of substance. We'll split up, peter out, start meeting
> separately, stop checking in, and that will be the end of Occupy Boston.
>
> *2) Long term winter solution for houseless occupiers * -- At the
> moment, we have up to 10 people remaining who are active occupiers who need
> a place to stay. At least 4 are couples and cannot go into the shelter
> system. *We cannot rely on occupiers who have stepped up to offer
> short-term housing as a long-term solution to this issue. * Those of us
> who have offered space are already stretched thin and are trying hard to
> fill in the gaps. Many of these people have stuck it out after eviction,
> helping to coordinate space logistics and participating in GAs and working
> groups, in spite of the very real possibility of spending the night in a
> bus station.The occupiers who remain are part of our community, and we need
> a community solution to this issue.
>
> *We need an immediate solution to the question fo where they will be
> housed. * Possible short term solutions: rotating couch space, church
> space, others? long-term solution: outreach to places that will allow us
> to pitch tents (not a good option over winter)? large indoor spaces with
> housing? renting an apartment for houseless occupiers over winter?
> Sending people to other occupations is not an option -- nor is farming this
> out to a working group or a dedicated set of individuals. If we are truly
> a community, we need a community solution to this issue. Most of these
> people have arrangements that are expiring by the end of the week. This
> issue must be dealt with, before any broader questions of message and
> direction are considered.
>
> *3) OB actions this week, next week, and moving forward. * I had a
> conversation with some folks in media a few days ago about message, and
> someone remarked (quite rightly) that the way we make statements now is not
> with words, but with actions. There are a number of very exciting actions
> coming out of the community organization meetings, as well as a
> proliferation of exciting, small-scale actions (tiny tents, anyone?) that
> are in progress. Let's coordinate TOGETHER, plan across working groups,
> and approach these actions in a really intentional way!
>
> This week has seen more sprawl than usual, with a proliferation of
> actions, many reactionary, quickly planned with little coordination or
> thought of execution. Autonomous action is fine, but too easily becomes an
> excuse to throw things together at the last minute -- let's NOT use GA
> announcements as a place to plan actions in the hopes that people will just
> show up -- let's actually sit down and plan them together! *There are
> two meetings taking place this weekend -- an OB action summit (Sunday at 1)
> and a community-wide spokescouncil meeting to plan for a mass day of action
> sometime in January or February.* Let's prioritize these meetings, and
> use that space as a jumping-off point for a larger discussion of what we,
> as a community, want to prioritize going forward.
>
>
>
> *********************************************************************************************************
>
> WIDER POST-EVICTION THOUGHTS - on GA, facilitation, and the need for open
> community spaces
>
> (this is less urgent - feel free to skip it if you like -- they deal with
> my broader concerns about GA, and how we can move forward as a community in
> the wake of eviction from Dewey Square
>
> *Reclaiming GAs as a public space* -- the past two GAs have felt very
> closed at a time when they need to be radically open -- they have carried
> on with "business as usual," instead of reclaiming GAs as an open forum
> (which they initially were). In the wake of eviction, we need SOME spaces
> for "loose" facilitation, for town hall stye forum, similar to what we had
> in the beginning ---> perhaps reviving the PROPOSAL FOR COMMUNITY NIGHTS?
> how to deal with the sprawl of announcements?? replacing WG
> announcements with print copies to circulate -- info desk at GA? -- all of
> these and more. now, more than ever, we need to make it a radically open
> space, and be proactive about inviting new people in
>
> In the days and weeks leading up to eviction, many people remarked
> privately to me that they felt OB becoming a closed community, with people
> onsite "taking care of their own," and offsite working groups operating in
> total isolation of each other. Post-eviction, we have followed "business
> as usual" -- continuing meetings, highly procedural GAs, prioritizing an
> hour of working group announcements, and dragging on for hours.
>
> We need to respond to GA specifically -- but we also need to actively
> create spaces for people to meet and socialize, building in time for social
> events, community forums (like the one I'm proposing right now),
> discussion meetings, teach-ins, and debate -- planning them in advance and
> publicizing them widely, so that people outside the mailing lists will know
> about them and can come. In line with this, we need to actively make use
> of the website, wiki, facebook, and twitter make sure we are publicizing
> our events, keeping people up to date, and coordinating within Occupy
> Boston in order to get the word out in a timely manner.
>
> *Taking care of our own*. When occupied, Dewey Square was in a constant
> state of crisis. It was impossible to respond, react, or slow down long
> enough to deal with the myriad issues -- chief among them, the
> marginalization of houseless occupiers and people of color. Their needs
> need to be addressed and put front and center in any discussion of how we
> as a community move forward as a community (whether they be clothing,
> shelter, living assistance, a place to take showers, etc)
>
> *Prioritizing people over process:* David made a proposal at Saturday's
> facilitation meeting to go back to loose process and allow people to speak
> openly at the post-eviction GA. This didn't happen, and to date, no space
> for this kind of open conversation has been made. Post-eviction, we need
> to reintroduce a sense of radical openness to GA, even if it slows things
> down or breaks process. *We need spaces for loose facilitation, even at
> the expense of efficiency, both to take into account (and deal with) our
> radically changed circumstances, and to make space for new people to have a
> place in the dialogue.* Strong facilitation is comforting to some and
> profoundly alienating to others -- at this juncture, I feel pretty strongly
> that we need spaces for both strong facilitation and open, spontaneous
> dialogue -- and that if this isn't currently happening in GA, we need to
> make it so.
>
> *Collaboration across working groups. * For anyone who was at last
> night's community orgs meeting, it was an amazing example of coordination
> across groups -- we had four solid proposals on the table for upcoming
> actions (from January through March) and left with actionable items on each
> one. For the first time in the history of that meeting, there were
> representatives from media,outreach, facilitation, and community
> organizations from across Boston. At the facilitation meeting last
> Saturday,likewise, there were representatives from almost all of the major
> working groups. It felt amazing, to see and begin to plan large-scale
> collaborative actions as a group, with thoughtful, intentional buy-in from
> everyone in the room.
>
> Too often, we farm out difficult decisions to working groups or create new
> ones on the spot, rather than do the workto have these conversations. We
> need to create spaces where we can collaborate TOGETHER to solve pressing
> issues across working groups, marshal our existing resources and work
> together, across working groups, to plan actions, solutions, discussions,
> and next steps. More conversations like this = more work that can
> immediately get done (and can get done together!), which is what's going to
> keep us together in the long run.
>
>
> *********************************************************************************************************************************
>
> Everything that's outlined above is hard. We need to be thoughtful,
> intentional, and have the courage to take things slowly rather than rush to
> keep up with press coverage and the post-eviction spotlight. We also need
> to try, as best we can, not to trash each other by email as we work through
> these difficult issues.
>
> Without a space -- and in particular, without concrete accommodations made
> for our most marginalized members -- I feel it will be very hard to move
> forward on any of the rest of it in a meaningful way. I propose that we
> start this conversation Friday at 6 p.m. at St. Paul's Cathedral.
>
> Those are my thoughts! Please let me know yours.
>
> All best,
>
> Katie
>
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