GA Minutes Tue 10 July 2012

Facil.

 * THe facilitation would like to make sure we have consent on the two facilitators we have for tonight. The two facil. are Tess & Dana.
 * [Positive]
 * Ok, I'm going to hand it over to Tess & Dana

Intro

 * [Facil. explains the hand signals

Announcements

 * Bank Action WG: We've had two successful actions in the last 2 weeks at BoA. We're looking forward to planning more.  We'll meet 2 weeks from today at 6PM at the Bandstand (in the common).  Actions that we've had have been a bake sale for BoA.  Please come.
 * Bastile Day: I sent a flier around. @ Spontaneous Celebrations Sat, July 14, 1-4PM on 43 Danport St, in JP (Stony Brook T) is going to be an art fair.  It's free, dancing, food, art.  At 4 when we leave we're going to walk over the park and have GA there at 5PM.
 * Medics: There's going to be a training for street medics here in Boston on the weekend of Aug 10 & 11. We're still organizing where it's going to be, but hold the date.
 * Brian: I wanted to make an announcement about e5. They're facing evicion by their landlord.  The space hosts lots of organizations and progressive groups.  They're holding meetings tomorrow (Wed) at 5, and July 18 at 7PM.  THe former is for residents (OB has 2 resident WGs) and the latter is a broader community meeting.  They're going to need a lot of help with the transition and moving and all that.
 * Patty: A couple of events coming up. In Arlington, July 29: OA invites the public to a Sunday gathering at 5:30 to hopefully organize some of the more suburban groups.  On Sun Aug 5th in Winchester at the UU Church we're doing a service called Occupy Your Heart, we'd love to have people there if it appeals to you.
 * Noah: I passed out fliers to remind people about the Boston fair strike action this Friday. Meet at Park & Tremont at 6PM.  The past actions have been successful, no arrests or tickets.  The public has been receptive and supportive.  Please come out and join us.  We have a fully functioning 4 color silk screen press, it's living in JP right now but it's available to the OB community.  If you have a design we can try and make that happen.  We'll probably be having a party to do some designing and collect T-shirt donations.  OccuPrint coop in NYC also wants to help us out.  This is more of a personal note: at one point I heard someone mention that I personally had spent some of the tactical money at Camp Charlie.  I just wanted to clear this up, it was about $1,000 spent, but I ended up not getting that money from the tactical budget.
 * Locke: I was going to make a proposal today, but I'm going to make an announcement instead. I did a teach-in before at the Church about non-profits, and about starting non-profit businesses.  I thought some people might be interesting in doing a non-profit organizing group at the community gathering.  I thought it might be interesting to try and pursue that sort of a thing.  I would like to help try and develop the community gathering too.  Essentially what I'm talking about is starting a seminar for starting community non-profits.  If anybody wants to help me develop that idea please contact me.
 * Brian: I wanted to share a meeting coming up on Sunday called the Strategic Action Assembly (5PM, in Copley). One of the things that's going to happening there is a discussion about Occupying new space.  A number of folks have already been involved in discussion, and I think that can really help us revive the movement.  There's also a walking tour that Randy is going to lead at 4, an hour before the SAA to show some of the sites folks have been talking about occupying.
 * Linda: This is for the nonviolence WG. They're meeting tomorrow at 5:15 at Porter Square Books, everyone is invited.  We're planning a training for tainers on July 28th.  After that we hope to be having more trainings for the community.
 * Murphy: Tomorrow down in Plymouth a bunch of people go arrested at a protest. Their court date is tomorrow at 9AM at Plymouth District Court.  If you have the opportunity to go down with there you should.  There will be a rally at 11AM.
 * Noah: S17 spokes council is happening on July 21 (e5 3-7pm). Folks from all around New England will be coming in to talk about actions in NYC.  The S17 funding WG, which is in charge of organizing transport for Boston is meeting either the 21 or 22, we could definitely use more help.  If you want to get involved please joing the S17 list on May First

Introduction

 * Facil: we have a proposal tonight that's been requested we use the new proposal for.
 * [facil. explains new process & hand signals]
 * Facil: The proposer will lay out the proposals, we'll have a short period of CC and POI, then we move into small group discussion. Each sm. group will have a notetaker & facil.  We'll start with 20 minutes for that (can be extended).  We'll then meet back together, and the notetaker can explain what the group talked about.
 * Carolyn: I'm the proposer. The question is what we should do about decision making in Occupy Boston going forward.  We've been having dwindling attendance in GA, at the same time as we've been having very large proposals.  We don't have the people to make reasonable decisions, and that raises the questions of how we can have a democratic process.  This was a call-out to talk about how we should go forward.  I don't have a proposal at this point, in terms of specifics.  I did develop a series of questions to think about, which I'll read.  I worked on those with Facil. WG.
 * Questions:
 * What do you want & need from this process and OB?
 * Do we want to continue to make decisions as the OB community?
 * If so, what problems do we need to address to move forward?
 * What meeting structure, process, content, frequency do we need?
 * What basic ideas are we committed to? Horizontal and transparent decision-making?  Others?
 * If we don't want to continue to make decisions as the OB community what do we do about the decisions we have already made and pending issues about s17, space, money, etc.
 * What is Occupy Boston?
 * Are we ready to answer these questions now? If not, what process do we need?


 * CC: The proposals was about how do we make decisions as a group, but some of these questions seem to be about how we exist (as OB) should we focus on decision making?
 * A: The questions are about whether & how OB should exist as a movement.
 * CC: I was just worried that if we break into groups and there's 9 questions each group will have a different discussion/
 * A: The 'one' question is 'do we want to continue to make decisions as the OB community, and if so, how?'


 * Carolyn: part of the reason we're going to have multiple break out discussions is so that we come back afterwords and talk about it so groups don't get too far off track.

Clarify Question

 * Suggestion: I think what you're trying to do is good, and I love your questions. When I look at your list I think that #5 is the first question (are we ready to answer these questions now?).  I think we should start there.
 * A: My own sense is that different people want to start at different places, and I don't want to stop them.
 * CC: You just mentioned about breaking into small groups several times, could you run through the process for tonight?
 * Facil: When we have discussion process proposals we'll break into small groups and discuss the proposal. After that the groups will piece together some sort of report-back, we'll reconviene, and each group will report back and open the discussion to the entire assembly.  Usually we've only had one small group breakout, but we anticipate that this discussion will require that we break back into small groups again.  There's no set amount of times we need to do that.
 * CC: I believe personally and politically that anything we do in OB, especially something as crucial as decision making for the whole body has to be losely informed by an anti-oppression politic. So I'd like to ask how come that's not on there, and what does that mean?
 * A: I was trying to present things at a level of very great generality. I'm trying to be as minimalist as possible with presenting this proposal and allow the GA to fill in as it see's fit.
 * CC: Based on what you said, I just want to ask, the reason for this meeting is that there are operative decisions that need to be make by OB that can't be made because of a lack of a quorum, and that no extraneous matter such as a political matter has prompted this meeting?
 * A: I thought we needed a democratic process and that needed to include more people.
 * Facil.: We're going to break up into small groups. Let's try not to have more than 5.  In these groups please have a note-taker, so you can report back accurately, and please make sure that everyone has a chance to talk.
 * Facil.2: We don't want to have 25 report backs so maybe we should limit it to 5 groups. There are pads of paper up here for taking notes.  We're going to start with 20 minutes, then we'll check back in.

Group Report Backs

 * I was in a bunch of small groups and couldn't get off this issue: I feel many of our problems stem from our decision making which doesn't allow us to digest thought. By coming up with our agenda on the fly it puts people on the defensive.  With the internet we could easily schedule proposals that are important enough that people could know about them at a time.  Not to do that is block-level rude to me.  So, when an individual comes, something that's obviously an emergency we should be able to say let's talk about it tonight, or we should say it's not an emergency.  Not everyone has the priveledge and luxury of being here at all times.  So, put it online and I'll be back to talk about whats important, or make a stand and I'll put my tent up right there.
 * We had a really big group. More or less 5 people spoke in favor of occupation.  We talked about not having a mission statement, and the Dewey gave up a purpose and a mission that gave us a way to come together.  We talked about a general low level of energy in the movement.  Others felt that we weren't inclusive enough to make decisions, and that we should have dialogues and we should talk more about values.  Other people felt we talk to much and that's all we do is talk and talk and talk.  Other people felt that Occupation gave us a focus.  Some said that SAA was a better decision making body than GA.  That we need to advertise more.  Some people where saying slow down.  The thing about another occupation that came up, repeatedly, was how to not replicate the problems of Dewey Sq.  No Phil!  That how we talk to eachother, basically a lack of civility.  There are a lot of actions happening and people didn't seem to know that.  The problem isn't process but that we've developed a culture of not being kind.  One of the things is that we don't have a very high level of political analysis, we haven't talked through strategy.  A clear target, that we need to raise awareness.  Trouble comes with how we treat eachother.  Misplaced nostalgia for Dewey Sq.  Direct action against economic inequality is our mission statement.  Occupation is a tool, a medium, and not necessary the goal.  To communicate better with the public.  A decolonize framework before an occupation.  Get people to dialog.  Lack of focus, definition of common purpose.
 * I think there was recognition in our group was that actions and talking about shit are not mutaully exclusive. Those can happen concurrently.
 * Our group also had about 10 people. Similar themes came out.  1) Why are GAs so poorly attended?  Frequency: there was a proposal that maybe if we had GAs only twice a month people could prioritize it and actually come.  Content: maybe it's not the frequency, but what we discuss.  If we made GAs more action focus more people would attend. 3) Vision, common ground, goals, mission statements.  Something to bring people in.  4) Do we really know why people are not coming?  Maybe we should ask and do some basic research.  Some patterns we were guessing were frequency, value of time, whether there should be a large OB umbrella, content, etc.  5) Space: what is so different between now and October?  The world hasn't changed much, but there's something different: we don't have a space where we can meet eachother.  Maybe it's possible not to have physical space but some kind of other space.  6) This is not a sprint, this is a marathon.  How do you actually plan for a marathon?
 * We had a small group, but it was very friendly. We started off with comments about there's a lot fo bullshit at meetings.  People get meeting fatigue.  There's no camp to pull people together.  Other people said the process in the meetings gets in the way.  There's no unity of goals, we need to clarify our goals.  The WGs could continue without the GA.  The GA was really important at the camp.  One person suggested that we should be having GAs once a month, when the Occupier comes out.  We had a discussion about what consensus was and how it works.  Several different models about how it works.  When people bond they start making cooperative decisions.  Some of the diversity issues seem to be causing issues with the bonding.  Also talking about the idea that some bonding happened at camp because it was really stressful and folks were familiar with eachother.  That some things take a long time to change and some change overnight.  Sometimes you need spontinaity other times you need discipline.  There's contention between competition and cooperation.  We need shared values and goals.  Occupy really has had a great effect on the national dialog.  Somebody's life was changed because they feel like they have a power to just take an action.
 * We did a whole go around where people talked about a huge range of things. We tried to consolidate and see where we agreed and disagreed.  It's briefer than some of the others.  We should continue to organize together.  We should meet less, or make meetings more relevant or interesting.  We should address underlying issues and/or treat eachother better.  We had some disagreement on whether or not we need a coherent strategy to be developed at GA.  Some people disagreed that we need a deeper and braoder analysis of issues and how they tied together, and that's one of the things we can do at GA.  Somebody made a suggestion that fixing the internal issues might be very helpful, one suggestion was to have a retreat and hash it all out.  People in our group didn't want to see OB go away and just end.

Assembly Discussion

 * I think we are in a moment of extreme emergency right now in the GA today. The vulgar talk of money has barely come up.  The GA handles our money.  I don't want to go to the next one of this.  I think we're going to have another 5 more of this before stop going to this.  This isn't working.
 * Facil.: Matt is taking stack, if you'd like to speak get on stack with Matt.
 * I think a lot of what needs to happen is to focus on action. This has not been the case at GA for a long time.  Ever since the first GA it's been a lot of talking of statements, etc.  Secondly, I think process is overly individualistic.  We have a process where we can't make an agreement where anybody disagrees with anything.  I think we should get rid of the block and discuss them openenly.  If you're part of the group and you should be mature enough to go with the group.  We should vote by the majority.
 * I have not been here in any great capacity since January. I am really frustrated to hear you still asking why aren't people here, because I told you.  I told you over email, I told you in other assemblies, and so have many others who have left.  If you don't know by now you haven't been listening.  I left because I organize.  I've been organizing more than ever in my communities.  OB stopped doing things for Boston, for my communities, so I left.  I have not stopped organizing though.  There has been this prevailing attitude that we don't care about the movement.  No, I don't care about spending 4 hours a night arguing about money.  The thing is GA is irrelevant to the things I'm trying to do to better the world.  So honestly I don't have suggestions to move forward, because I've given them already and they've been ignored.  If you want to find them they're online.
 * I got to this meeting late, and I wound up accidently in a different meeting. I am curious as a to whether this meeting has focused at all on e5 or on Jared Chase.  Both of which seem quite compelling because they involve obviously allies, and that's one thing that's really mobilizing, not necessarily the big picture but individuals we work with.  I'm curious as to whether that factors into this discussion, and how.  And I know there's organizing that's been happening around those two things.
 * Honestly, I don't know what left to say. I feel like a stragler.  I feel like I want Occupy to come back.  I feel like it died.  I feel like there is no point, because I want the change, I want the shit to go the way it's supposed to, but unfortunately it's just been like I've being kicked out of the movement because I can't go to Boston every goddamn day.  I can't afford to come here every day and I feel like I'm being left out or something that I was being more a part of back in Decemenber.  It was everything to me at one point.  I'm not the type to be a self-starter, but what I do do is I help things, I support things.  I have always been freely expresitive on how fucked up this world is.  Before occupy happened I was working on school, trying to become something.  Then almost two years, three years after high school occupy comes, happens to be after the worst time of my life, in all honestly.  I just got a job today, I feel so happy about that.  But I want to make something happen.  I'm tired of my friends who go to jail without meaning shit to anyway (friends outside the movement).  They're in jail, because of bullshit reasons.  I'm tired of seeing my fucking friends die, in my own city.  Occupy was an opportunity to change all that.  In Dewey I saw something magical and creative.  Now where are we?  We're doing meetings, GAs?  What's happening to us?  What's happened to all these ideas I've heard?  How about those islands on the harbor?  Honestly I feel, coming out tonight and hearing the same thing repeated, can someone please take me aside and give me a direction to go in to actually make a change?
 * I'll try to be brief. I think that Dewey Sq., whatever you want to say about it, it was our center.  It was our living breathing heart.  And the powers that be destroyed it.  I think that without our center we'll continue to have endless meetings about endless meetings.  We can create another center.  I'm calling on everybody here to come to the SAA on Sunday (5 at copley) to talk about occupying another space.  The walking tour is at 4PM, Randy is going to lead a tour of places we've been talking about Occupying.
 * Facil.: One of the things we're supposed to do is see if we can synthesize consensus on topics. I've heard three different groups talking about spaces.  Can I get a temp. check on the idea of finding another space.
 * What I was alluding to earlier: I think we've gotten incredibly bad at decision making. As individuals we have to discipline ourselves and say "i feel like saying this for the next five minutes, but is that really going to get us closer".  We can't change the culture until we as individuals change our behavior.
 * One of the things that makes meetings get frustrating is when we get off topic. So I'm going to make a semi-proposal, but maybe we could make a list of things that are actually why we're here about what we do with GA.  Occupation is the center.  Having a retreat.  Having less meetings.  Those are the things I've heard people say about GA.  So I would invite people to say what we should do about GA.  Is there going to be another GA meeting.
 * So, when JD said we're in a state of emergency. I want to articulate what I think that means.  With no definition of quorum, a very small group could theoretically do things which the rest of us would never want to happen.  There is a huge gaping hole in the system and we're not doing anything.  There's very short numbers of people at GAs at this point, and quorum doesn't exist.  The talk about space and Dewey can be wrapped into one thing.  We could take our money and put it towards a space, they can't kick you off and you can do whatever you want... kind of.  The reasons these tent cities don't exist now is because of the laws stopping them.  We need to utilize our priveledge here.  Go ahead and break into a building and get somebody killed.  Pay it into the land!
 * 1) the question of GAs, I know money is really important to people, I don't know how much we have. At the beginning we did not have a dime.  So if somebody needs to write a proposal that we meet once a month, a quorum is 40 people, then that's what it is.  I think people showed up rather to figure out where we're going.
 * Facil.: how do we feel on deciding on frequency of meetings tonight?
 * I have a lot of problems with talking about frequency of meetings without talking about what we're using those meetings for. We've had people coming to GAs, that are boring, and other people have come there and said I'm glad you folks have kept the GAs alive.  We have to keep coming to it, even it's not exciting.  One of the reasons it's not exciting is that we originally said we were not going to discuss actions as a body.  There was a tendency to say it's autonomous, let a WG deal with it.  I would like to not have that be the case.  I don't think that every action needs to be decided at a GA.  If you're part of a community and the community has an action, it's not forcing everybody to take part in that action.  If OB decides we don't want to take that particular action, others can do it autonomously.  When we take them together we reduce the possibility of turning ourselves into little WGs which meet at the same time and don't communicate.  We can at least have some large things that recommunicate and recreate some of the community that brought us together in the first place.  Without that, to me, there is no point to OB.
 * Facil.: I've heard a few people say they think GAs should be action focused. We can make a decision on that tonight.
 * What I had in mind was sort of digressive, but it was kind of apt to the method. I've mentioned this a couple times but haven't gotten much traction.  Somebody mentioned it might be a good idea to ask people why they haven't been coming to GAs.  I think we could ask right now and ask, is it that you just hate GAs, or you simply have a life that kind of takes precidence?  The other thing I wanted to say was, we can at least revisit the discussion about a restriction of actions?  I didn't even know we had that rule.
 * I don't think there's a writen rule, but time after time when actions have been brought to GA it's been said "no, they should not be discussed here, it's a matter of autonomous action for WGs."
 * I just thought it would be a good time to do some guerilla theatre. I've stood here before you all, I've sat there with us all, I have facilitated, I've disrupted, I've agitated, I've compassionately held people in my arms, I've done so many things throughout the baby infancy of this movement.  What I have not been able to find the right words to say and throw insight and illuminate a particular point that we keep missing is how do we build a movement?  A movement is not made of actions, meetings, talking.  It's made of all of that together, with forethought, a lot of people disciplining themselves.  It takes so many things that I believe at this point we've not showed willingness to sit down, buckle up and do it.  I'm sorry I've came into this meeting angry tonight.  I've been told I need to try to be a little nicer.  I really wish that we would sit down, buckle up, and figure it out the best we can at the moment.  It's not about when do we have GAs?  Althought that's important.  I've always wanted to share with OB a forum on movement building.  There aren't a lot of us who have been part of movement building before, but there are a lot of poeple who have been.  I have found OB as a group of people to be unbelievebly resistant to sitting down for even an hour what does it mean to challenge our priveledge.  I wish people would take a few minutes to stop and reflect about how it informs the world to keep calling ourselves Occupy when that's so offensive to people that all they can think about is genocide.  I love this.  I know I've pissed off a lot of people, John, I don't if you've pissed off more or if I have.  Most of you have hung in there with me.  I am not going to sit around and keep doing this.  It's too painful.  What's painful is that we won't let ourselves stop for a moment and assess what is is we are, and how we're going to be what we'll be.  I thin that we'd be crazy not to have a decision making body.  I think there has to be some formality.  What I would personally wish for, and I don't know if many people will agree, is that it has to be far more structured.  Stack is stupid!  Stack is a horrible way to organize ourselves if we're going to try to reach consensus.  I hate the world disciplined, but around us, I've started to use the word for the first time.  If we're going to overthrow what's wrong with this world we're going to have to use discipline.
 * Facil.: POI it's almost 10 O'clock.
 * Discipline, I like the term responsibility. I think we all here essentially feel some sort of responsibility for what we're going to do.  "Reality is still a real place".  Reality outside of this space is really really terrible.  I come here annoyed and sometimes frustrated, but this reality here is probably the most inspiring thing, because I see so many people who want to change the reality outside of this space.  What I find really demoralizing is the fracturing of this group of people who can make an impact on the world.  If we could really try to get to work together and come together as a group, we can make a real impact.  What I've seen is that Democracy is a pain in the ass, but it's amazing and beautiful and it's the only thing I want, and if we can't do it, we're fucked.  We have a responsibility to do this.
 * When we got to Dewey, the press asked us, what are you about, what are you doing? We said we're a leaderless group.  We actually did have a focus, we were in front of the fed.  There was a broad understanding of what we were doing together.  But it gave us an apparent unity, that allowed us to do big actions together.  A, I'm going to address your questions as part of this.  We were held together, by a magic ingrediant, which was hope.  But it was an untested hope, and very quickly it was tested.  We discovered that in a lot of regards the hope was unreal.  But where we are now, what we need to do is focus on what of that hope is real, and can be made real.  Maybe some of that hope has been thrown out prematurely.  Some of it undoubtedly has to go.  The idea that we were going to grow our own food on 1/3 of an acre that was full of tents over a highway has to go.  I agree with A, A's questions.  What do we have to do to have a movement.  We were a movement then, apparently, because we had a unity, but it wasn't sustainable.  A has, to some extent, answered her own question.  What I've been talking about in terms of these different actions that focus on a specific issue is, well let's look at analysis and try to connect the issues together, so the example was, at Occupy The MBTA, lets look at the debt as part of the problem.  The goal should not be lets fix the fairs, it should be, lets fix the debt.  I think a GA is the wrong place to do that.  A suggested that its the organization of the GA, well stack is a problem, round robin is a problem.  The big problem is three hours is not a lot of time for people to come to consensus in a deep way.  I think we need to do something together that is over an extended period of time like a retreat, if we're not going to occupy something.  So that people can spend 2 or 3 days talking about these things.  I think we should understand that GAs should not be the sum total of our attempt to build consensus.
 * Part of what's going on really sucks and parts really cool. The really cool part is that some people said not enough people are coming out to make important decisions, so lets do what we can to get more people here.  The small group discussions were really great.  The report backs where so-so, but then we get to this deadening stack shit, and people started leaving because they don't like being talked *at*.  What I think we should do is this, we figure out what the topics are we want to talk about, and every Monday night is one topic.  We sit in a circle, and we don't talk at eachother, and we figure out what we're going topic by topic.  Whatever group that shows up that night makes a decision.  We figure out what those topics are, dedicate Monday night, and make a decision.
 * I think we should have one GA a month, it should be correlated with the release of the Occupier. I think we should take all the money which isn't set aside to tactical and S17, and everything else goes to bail funds.  We have one monthly GA where we do not talk about money.
 * I really like G's diagnosis (about being talked at). The crowd is shrinking and I just to end with some ideas where I thought we had consensus.  We're looking for another occupation and we should talk about it.  We should cut the number of GAs.  We want to be able to talk about serious stuff, JF said we don't have to have the agendas drafted that day, and we need to get serious about being premeditated.  We don't have to have an OB farm, but why couldn't there be an Occupy Eastern Mass farm where we're collaborating with a number of other Occupies?  If we buy land not in boston, it'd be a lot cheaper.  I would not want to see OB degenerate into a shit-load of WGs which never collaborate with eachother.
 * Facil.: We started with 51 people here tonight, and it's significantly shrunk since. One of the things that has continually come up, throughout all the report-backs has been the idea of having fewer GAs, and we heard a proposal from G to continue this conversation at the community gathering.  We could move forward with these ideas tonight.  I'm not sure that we have enough people here at this point to reduce the # of GAs, but I think we do have enough people to decide when we're going to continue this conversation, so I think we should start structuring the conversation in that direction.
 * I got a long thing to say. A public meeting doesn't have to be what we've assumed it to be since the beginning.  It can be a much more flexible and open thing.
 * Facil.: Can we get on temp check on how many people are wanting to proceed with this conversation on Monday night?
 * I don't think there is any way to corrall this back at all, so I suggest we decide between next Monday or Tuesday and dismiss.
 * Facil.: So it seems the two options are next Monday during the community gather or Tuesday night during. How many people are planning on going to the GA in JP after the Bastile day art festival?
 * I realize that we have a schedule GA on Saturday, but my feeling is that regardless of what we decide here people are going to get caught up in the festivities on Sat. and not come to GA on Sat.
 * Facil.: So it looks like we're going to continue this conversation formally on Tuesday, here (Common) at 7PM. There will still be a GA on Saturday.

Individual Stack

 * I realize that many people are probably thinking this over already. I would like to see more talk about brining OB out to other places.
 * I was going to say it's those people that come once in a while that say "we should go this, and this" and I was going be be like "great idea, but what are you doing for the movement". Since the fall of Dewey we've had so much time.  Has anybody volunteered with an organization in Boston.  We need to start getting in to these organizations.  We need to go to these people and help them, that's the only way they're going to come.  The proposal that was on the floor was to talk about GA, not Occupy, and it was a waste of time.
 * I got a whole fucking bunch of shit. I've been an anti-capitalist for years, and I saw for what was happening at Dewey was in line with my ideals.  If we start wandering off into individual WGs we're so much stronger.  LIKE FUCKING VOLTRON.  This is space, we're taking space right now.  Having everyone in the same room is great.  Meetings can be so much better, it can be whatever we want to be.  We can use a better consensus process than this horse shit.  Every single other group that does consensus has figured out that you don't need to comment on everything.  I feel like one GA is way to few, because if we have just one day we're screwing over so many people.  I think occupying is just one tactic, we can do so much more.  If you want to set involved with other stuff we're having a black cross meeting tomorrow.
 * I feel like to make decisions in a group this small is tyrannical.
 * I have on question for you all, how many of you think you are leaders? To me J & J are leaders, not in the sense of heierarchy, but in the sense of action.
 * July 14th, that's Bastile Day, it's going to be a party that we've shelled out $1k for and it's going to be a big deal. Wouldn't it be great to have a GA afterwards where we're all lubricated and warmed up?
 * Facil.: How many people the GA is over? It was great seeing you tonight.  The GA is over.