General Assembly 1/21 Community Church of Boston Facilitators: Rich and Pattie Stack: Jorge Minutes: Matt Notes are heavily paraphrased. POI = Point of Information, CQ = Clarifying Question, C/O = Strong Concerns or Objections, Amend = Amendments Announcements FAWG - Greg: I just wanted to invite people to the Thursday Jan 26 presentation by Financial Accountability Working Group. Ocupemos el Barrio - David: We had a proposal that passed consensus, about expedited deportations. Boston is the only city in Mass that does this, we're the pilot for this model. They basically can hold you and expedite it in 60 days, started with violent crimes and felonies, they can deport you, now it's for things like traffic violations. I'm gonna do this as a priority proposal so by the time it comes to GA it'll be nice and neat. My friend Kade and I will probably bring it next Satruday. Group also worked on another proposal. They hope Occupy Boston will not just endorse this. When they bring it, I think it's gonna be different from this. Safety - Anna: We all decided in our meeting that we don't want to be just Safety, something more like Safer Spaces, and we're going to take our sweet time and get this right. We're reaching out to other groups, working groups that can give us some guidance and offer help: anti-Oppression, Decolonize, etc. Right now we're just seeking guidance. We're looking for a multi-working group conversation about not only what it means to be safe but what it takes to be open to people. We're also going to take Monday's Commmunity Gathering, since Outreach is too busy handle it. We're going to do a kind of workshop in the Community Gathering. "A Step Toward Co-Creating a Safer Community." It sounds vague, but we have a specific model that we want to use. I want to really encourage you to come to this meeting, I think it'll be inspiring, especially if you have friends who feel a little disenfranchised, we're going to have a conversation about what it takes to get them back in. It'll be 6 to 8:30 in St Paul's Church. Consensus - Alex: Consensus is meeting tomorrow in City Place, if you want to be involved in conversation about consensus, come and give input on whether you feel your voice is being heard or if you feel disenfranchised, tomorrow at 5:30 at City Place. Facilitation - Justin: GAs are at Arlington and Emmanuel and Community Church. Community Gatherings are booked through...Also, come to facilitation meetings. Media - Eli: We have two forms on the website now for submitting calendar items as well as blog posts, etc. If you have an event and want to get something up on the calendar there's a place to do this now. Usually it'll get posted fairly quickly. This is a way for us to expedite that process, it's been a challenge up to this point. Second announcement is tomorrow at 3 at E5 we are having a meering around a campaign to get a resolution passed by City of Boston condemning the Citizens United decision. Radio Brandon: Occupy Boston Radio is still a thing, we meet every Monday and Friday 7pm at E5 and Wednesdays at 6 at E5. If you know someone who wants to write stories or do news on the radio, come to a meeting. Street - Kevin: Occupy the T rally against the proposed T cuts and fare rises on Monday. Meeting 12 at Statehouse and then marching to the Transportation Building. There will be a couple meetings at the Transportation Buidling and other stuff throughout the week. Email Street if you have questions. I also wanted to talk about an email that's gone out from Katie announcing an occupation of a house in Malden at 12:30 Monday. Last thing is a week from Monday big protest against the banks for principal reduction on mortgages that are under water in middle of day 12:30, real quick hour thing if you can make it on lunch break we encourage you to come. They're rallying at the Statehouse and then marching to the Transportation Building. [POI from audience: address is 236 Cross Street in Malden, name is Marin] [POI also a big rally on Monday at 6 with the T Riders Union] [POI from audience, didn't hear this] Individual Stack Daniel [audience]: Email dchavez@.occupyboston.org to help me with the leadership proposal I was going to bring at the last GA. Individual Stack: Bil: I've put this book I made on the web. I give it as a gift, to the church I attend, it gives them something to relate to us. Also, who went to Washington, DC this weekend? Did anyone get water-boarded? Chaser [from audience]: I did not get water-boarded, but we are going to do it here as public event in Boston about NDAA. Brandon: I've been talking with a few other folks about getting together and starting an Occupy Boston homebrewing group. Wanted to see if anyone else is interested in brewing. [POI from audience]: You should talk to Matt Carroll, he's a brewer [CQ from audience]: do you need help with the tasting committee? Rich: I'm putting together a "Meet Occupy Boston Forum" at Salem Statee College. It'll be on February 6 at 2 o'clock. Alex: I just went down to DC and got back and had some insight into how we operate as a movement. There was this idea that there was going to be a national GA, some people were wary. We were very confused about what this would mean, if it meant co-optation. They convened this national GA, and we didn't have anything to talk about because we were just a rabble, not a community, so what we had was the appearance of a GA. This made me think about the way we do things in general. The GA has no meaning except as a representative group. The state rules by threat of violence. Our GA doesn't rule that way. So you show up to this GA [in Washington] and there's no conversation to have. So I think we should all keep that in mind that whenever we're doing anything in this movement we need to have the principals and structure behind this movement in mind. I encourage you to look at the videos online. [Facilitator]: So we do have a proposal. [call for quorum check] POI: We always do a quorum check in the process, not before the proposal has even started] POI: We have taken a quorum check before the actual proposal POI: Is there a set number that constitutes quorum? POI: Lowest number we've ever had is 25. POI: Clearly there's disagreement even amongst members of facilitation about this. I feel comfortable saying we discuss as a community how we are going to proceed. POI: I understand we don't have a number for quorum because the makeup of the crowd, whether it's representative should also be taken into account POI: As person who called quorum, I think it's fine to hear a summary of what it is [the proposal]. It's also throwing me off that facilitators are counting, because it's never been a number.... Pattie: I'm going to decide that Martin can read the summary of his proposal and then we will get back to the quorum issue. Martin: I propose that Occupy Boston adopt the following civility pledge: As a member or supporter of Occupy Boston, I promise to conduct myself in a way that is civil, honest and respectful towards people with whom I disagree.. I value people with different cultures, I value people with different ideas, and I value and cherish the horizontal democratic process. [audience member]: I don't think we have quorum to decide something as important as this. Pattie: If you believe we have quorum to hear Martin's proposal, please raise your hand. [no quorum] [facilitator offers to take proposal through consensus process] [facilitator asks for clarifying questions] Carolyn: Who would be the judge of civility? Martin: I think there are certain things, like yelling "fuck you' at someone is probably not civil, getting in someone's face and yelling is probably not civil. Things that would put people on edge, like hostile behavior. CQ: Who would be the enforcer? Martin: I did not put any language on here about shunning or kicking people out, I did not want to open that can of worms. This is an honor thing. No one's going to kick you out, you'll just be in clear and open violation of the community values. Pattie: Randy's getting hot water to make some hot tea.[because there's no heat in this room]. CQ: Isn't this already under the Good Neighbor Agreement, and if we already have words that say this that people don't stick to, does this do anything? Martin: I think the Good Neighbor Agreement was more about "I pledge not to punch people in the face." Main point I'm trying to get across is "I value people with different ideas and cherish horizontal democracy." Having heard so much bashing of other ideologies and other things. CQ: Have you spoken with any of the groups that deal with a lot of these issues, like anti-oppression? This seems like a proposal that one person should not put up. Martin: I have a much more elaborate proposal that is more outward-facing, I've been working on that for a month. I've included lots of groups. CQ: But for this proposal? Martin: No, but having done work on that proposal that's very much in line with this, this proposal is very much informed by that. CQ: If this proposal passes, what do you actually see changing in terms of how we regard each other and what is the positive value we gain? Martin: There are a lot of informal structures at Occupy Boston that no one puts a label to, that we get past, because there's nothing people can point to that says we agree as a community to value this. I think codifying this in terms of the language, calling out the shadow leader structure, like the leadership statement [proposal] will do, like what this does with stated values, is important. CQ: I find myself saying the phrase, "agree to disagree without being disagreeable." CQ: Have you considered doing this in tandem with some sort of a gathering? Given its length, it's not extensively defined, and since you're not proposing an enforcement structure.... Martin: Last available Community Gathering is in April, quite a ways away, we could do this at Community Cuppa, we could do it at a Sunday night gathering, I dunno. CQ: I think this could result in duels, I think people have to be the bigger person at some point and move on. Martin: I agree with you but also have lack of faith. CQ; Where does this statement come from? Martin: I got this idea from the Citizens United thing that we hosted earlier today. This is an informal flyer for the thing called the Coffee Party. The reason I did not disclose where it came from. I'm not asking for any sort of endorsement at all for the Coffee Party. This is their civility pledge. The reason they created this organization is because the Tea Party is a little belligerent at times and they wanted to have a more civil response. Basically when I read this, I thought I could easily have written this. CQ: Is that, except for the term "Occupy Boston", word-for-word what their pledge is? Martin: No, I also added the word "horizontal.". Theirs just said "democratic." CQ: We live in civil culture and society and you can't always blame the fruit for the tree. [facilitator asks for concerns] C/O: I'm concerned that framing as a pledge, to have "I" in there is like giving a pledge to everyone that they consent to sign. I'm concerned that it's not speaking for Occupy Boston but trying to speak for people within Occupy Boston. C/O: I don't see value in passing this proposal by itself, should be part of a larger conversation about consensus. Seems also like we're scolding people who feel in certain ways. C/O: I'm concerned about this being proposed by any one person, especially in light of what's been going on over last few weeks of Occupy Boston. For one person to come up and try to fix the issue themselves is not in the spirit of what is needed to actually fix these issues. Pledge brought by one person will not get buy-in that we need. I don't think one person bringing two sentences that came from somewhere else, and I think that matters, will not be effective. [facilitator announces proposer is thinking of tabling proposal, wants to make sure he doesn't want more feedback. proposer confirms he wants to table proposal] [audience:] Is this definitely being tabled, because I think that affects whether we want to discuss it. Are you bringing it back or just killing it? Martin: I'm leaving for a week, as long as it takes io get back on stack, I don't know...[didn't hear] [audience:] Taking concerns could be helpful if you really want to bring this to consensus. [audience:] If you announce this, you won't have to go at this by yourself, you could have others there with you, it could be something that the community works on together. Martin: Every once in a while you read something that someone else wrote, and you think I've been thinking about this forever and I didn't know how to say it, but someone else was able to put it into words. This is what happens. I work with people in my day job with very very different ideas who sharply disagree with each other. Only way I think Occupy Movement has any chance of success is to get more and amore people to the table. A lot of the people in the 99% hold ideas that are not welcome at Occupy Boston. Mainstraem views. I mean, people have had long conversations about how we should ban certain ideas. My last thing is, I thought that proposals and the process and all that, while we encourage individual empowerment and for individuals to have their own...because they alone are not empowered to make decisions....I was 100% certain that even if there were a quorum check or if there were 100 people in this room, this would not be passed this way, we would have a bunch of amendments. [facilitator moves us back to taking concerns] Amend: Maybe add something along the lines of this is a first step. We plan to work towards some kind of a process to enforce this. C/O: I think it's really critical that we welcome opposing views, my concern about this statement is that it is self-undermining because it doesn't encourage discussion about those opposing views, I think it pushes us toward "agreeing to disagree". I think there will be verboten topics. C/O: I think a lot of cases are not obvious, some people might think "strong disagreement" could be uncivil, lack of transparency could be considered uncivil, Other thing has to do with range of ideas, clearly we're not welcoming every idea. So how do we say which ideas we do welcome and which we don't ? We're not welcoming the 1%. I understand what you're trying to do, I'm unhappy with the incivility that's gone on, much of which I don't see because I'm not on Twitter. I'm worried about how we've defined key terms. C/O: I agree with the merits behind it, because I'm on Twitter and I've seen it get ugly. My concern is I hate pledges, I hate that kids are made to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I think if we can get a Statement of Civility into our bylaws or something similar. I think we should be open to all ideas, even if it is the 1%, let them in, hopefully we can overrule them. C/O: Overall, at any of these things, the pledge as you read it is just fine, it is sweet, kind, gentle and highly insipid, it won't get used. It's not like we're going to do this in each meeting. It doesn't have any meaning and similar proposals have no meaning. The people against whom it is directed are not going to pay any attention. Nice idea. C/O: Civility and manners are taught from a young age, by the time people are grown and crusty, good luck. [facilitator asks for statements of support] SOS: I think it's important to codify shared values. I really agree with Kevin's point not making it something separate but having it live inside something like the Good Neighbor Policy. We need in this community to be able to disagree and though we don't like each other work with each other. This won't solve that but it's an articulation we should be able to get behind. We should be having bigger conversations, which is really how you get to change culture. Perhaps if we're going to make this part of the Good Neighbor Agreement we should have this as a conversation. This shouldn't come from someone who is, Martin forgive me, divisive. This shouldn't be Martin's proposal. Ultimately I see room for this in Occupy Boston, I don't think it's pointless, I don't think it will solve the problem, I think it's something we should do. SOS: I like idea behind this, I think it should come from community. [Martin interjects, didn't hear this] SOS: I really support the spirit behind this proposal, some of us have been talking since two or three weeks ago, Greg once told me that in anti-Oppression that there are sheets they put up, values that they share, we thought we should have something similar at GA, I hadn't really thought about pledge. We keep invoking the Good Neighbor Agreement, but even though everyone knows it, I'd like to see it bubble up again, make it something seen at every GA, though there's no way to enforce this. You see problems at GA over last few weeks, people are screaming at each other. I support the spirit of this just wonder how we can work through it. I believe wholeheartedly in you bringing this up. Pattie: last thing we're going to do is give Martin some amendments. It's getting colder in here, heat won't turn on. Amend: I think there should more about how to handle people who don't follow this. Amend: I would amend you change any language with "I" to "We" as Occupy Boston. We strive to be "this value." Amend: That you turn this into a voluntary pledge to sign. Amend: I feel like what you're getting at is that we don't want to have a community that closes it off to ideas, that becomes insular, stagnant in thought. I think you should include language that directly involves Hegelian dialectic, that ideas get formed through thesis-antithesis-synthesis, etc. [back to individual stack] Tricia: If people can put me in touch with any pictures that were taken about Occupy, I want to play with this new Apple app, put something together about Occupy Boston. POI: There is a Flickr group. Tricia: Email is Patricia.Downer@gmail.com. Daniel: dchavez@occupyboston.org, email me about leadership group. I'm also thinking about putting together a weekly meeting in which we just workshop proposals, look at language. Temp check? {Temp check is good.] [suggestion from audience]: a mini-lecture on Hegelian dialectics. [joke from Randy about Hegelian dialectics and installing light bulbs] [question from audience about whether we pay for space by hour, facilitator confirms we can leave early and not pay for extra hoursE Alex: consider this Individual Stack. We are the GA, we are the people who are here... [facilitator adjourns GA]