Talk:GA/Proposals

Message Only GA, 10/24??? No decisions. No other topics.

user:AriaLItthous Oct 18, 2011 3:19 am

Can someone propose this tonight?

PROPOSAL: that the GA on Monday, 10/24 be devoted entirely to Message, including the "no message Message" option, no decisions, no other topics. City Life/Vita Urbana will be asked to attend to address the issue of inclusivity. (Let me know if I need to ask them.)

Proposed Agenda

1. City Life's comments on inclusivity, 2-5 MINUTES

2. Presentation of 2 Proposals* (Airing), 1 MINUTE EACH a. Small Circle discussion, 5 MINUTES

b. Rinse and Repeat, 2. a.

c. Small Circle report back., 10 MINUTES

3.. Should we have a Message? a. Pro, 1 MINUTE individual comments b. Con, 1 MINUTE individual comments C Rinse and Repeat

4. Individual Comments on Proposals.

5. Setting of follow up date for Rinse and Repeat.

re: Message Only GA, 10/24??? No decisions. No other topics.

user:sharksocks Wednesday, 10:18 am

Have no idea what this means..

?Post on Wall--process question

user:AriaLItthous Oct 17, 2011 7:59 am

Weren't the proposals supposed to be posted on the big wall so people on site could see them?

Proposed Occupy Boston Declaration of Occupation

user:JSkeet Oct 14, 2011 7:39 am

This is a work in progress, submitted here for review as decided upon by the GA on 10/13. Hopefully this can be presented soon, with any appropriate friendly amendments and corrections added into it:

Occupy Boston Declaration of Occupation

The times in which we live confront us with a combination of crises the likes of which we in the United States have never seen before: a toxic mix of financial, economic, social, and environmental messes that demands a radical clean-up. While each of these crises has its own determinants, they also all share a common root cause: the domination of our social, economic, and political order by a system designed to serve a wealthy elite, at the expense of the vast majority of the population, here and around the world, not to mention other living creatures on this planet. In light of these interlocking crises, the stench of which we can no longer stand, crises which threaten our lives, our livelihoods, our liberty, our human values, and our common future, We, the General Assembly of Occupy Boston, believe that "business as usual" is no longer an option. The corrupt order, and the intolerable crises amidst which we live demand a profound, collective response, a popular and participatory response of the sort the ruling elite can neither allow, nor even imagine:

Whereas, the problems of economic inequality, unemployment, crushing debt, as well as corporate personhood, greed, and unaccountability, are all symptomatic of the larger corrupting influence money has on our political and social lives,

Whereas, this influence has consistently been used to impede progress toward a more just and sustainable society, and has often perpetuated crisis and war at home and abroad in furtherance of its own undemocratic agenda,

Whereas, those wielding this influence also own and control the media we require to inform ourselves about their many abuses of money and power,

And whereas, our peacefully gathered democratic assemblies are amongst the last uncorrupted arenas we have to educate ourselves and plan resistance,

Be it resolved that we, the General Assembly of Occupy Boston, acting in solidarity with occupations across America and with peoples' movements worldwide, do hereby declare our opposition to all systems of power that function to maintain these oppressive and undemocratic arrangements, just as we declare our affirmation in the belief that a better world is possible, and that it is our right and responsibility to begin creating it.

re: Proposed Occupy Boston Declaration of Occupation

user:bugmagnet Oct 14, 2011 3:41 pm

Hi,

I am new to Occupy Boston, and I really like what you wrote. However it seems very general. For example these wonderful statements could easily be co-opted by Obama or Republicans to further the status quo in the name of change, instead of actually fixing anything. After all it was "Freedom of Choice" we earned when they flushed proposals for universal single payer health care down the toilet. Then we were told how grateful we should be for that. What do you think of adding an amendment with specific demands? Here are my suggestions: - Public financing of elections - Criminalization of any type of gift giving to politicians while in office and for a minimum of 4 years after leaving office. - A Constitutional amendment that bans corporate personhood. This should include organizations of all types. Only people are people. - A universal, single payer health care system that covers all Americans, with the expectation that this will be paid for with new tax revenue. - Criminalize health insurance as a for-profit enterprise - An end to the Drug War - Quarterly audit of the Federal Reserve Bank - Nationalization of the Federal Reserve Bank - Peg the minimum wage to inflation - Tax capital gains at minimum 50% - Socialize all our prison systems, and criminalize prison administration as a for-profit enterprise. - Peg congressional pay to the average salary of Americans, including benefits. - Cut in half the current level of annual military spending - Abolish the CIA as a secret organization, merging it with the state department and military.

re: Proposed Occupy Boston Declaration of Occupation

user:JSkeet Oct 14, 2011 10:19 pm

The purpose of this was to simply be a declaration of occupation. I feel it's important to get a document like this out as soon as possible, and we're closer to doing this than we are in coalescing around a set of demands, so we realistically should separate the two and try to pass something like this now.

Also I'll use this opportunity to post a recent revision: I just realized that we promised the inner city youth, in a consensus decision at GA, that we would recognize the different plights of different segments of the 99% in our statement. With that in mind, here is a slightly revised declaration, with the revision happening in the 3rd whereas statement:

Occupy Boston Declaration of Occupation

The times in which we live confront us with a combination of crises the likes of which we in the United States have never seen before: a toxic mix of financial, economic, social, and environmental messes that demands a radical clean-up. While each of these crises has its own determinants, they also all share a common root cause: the domination of our social, economic, and political order by a system designed to serve a wealthy elite, at the expense of the vast majority of the population, here and around the world, not to mention other living creatures on this planet. In light of these interlocking crises, which threaten our lives, our livelihoods, our liberty, our human values, and our common future, We, the General Assembly of Occupy Boston, believe that "business as usual" is no longer an option. The corrupt order, and the intolerable crises amidst which we live demand a profound, collective response, a popular and participatory response of the sort the ruling elite can neither allow, nor even imagine:

Whereas, the problems of economic inequality, unemployment, and crushing debt, as well as corporate personhood, greed, and unaccountability, are all symptomatic of the larger corrupting influence money has on our political and social lives,

Whereas, this influence has consistently been used to impede progress toward a more just and sustainable society, and has often perpetuated crisis and war at home and abroad in furtherance of its own undemocratic agenda,

Whereas, the perusal of this agenda has had profound detrimental effects on all working and middle class communities - and particularly on communities of color, youth, and other marginalized segments of our population – as well as on the environmental systems upon which we as a species depend,

Whereas, those pursuing this agenda also own and control the media we require to inform ourselves about their many abuses of money and power,

And whereas, our peacefully gathered democratic assemblies are amongst the last uncorrupted arenas we have to educate ourselves and plan our resistance,

Be it resolved that we, the General Assembly of Occupy Boston, acting in solidarity with occupations across America and with peoples' movements worldwide, do hereby declare our opposition to all systems of power that function to maintain these oppressive and undemocratic arrangements, just as we declare our affirmation in the belief that a better world is possible, and that it is our right and responsibility to begin creating it.

re: Proposed Occupy Boston Declaration of Occupation

user:JSkeet Oct 14, 2011 10:29 pm

Ah, the typos in the 3rd whereas.. apparently persual isn't a word! And profound should be profoundly:

Whereas, the pursuit of this agenda has had profoundly detrimental effects on all working and middle class communities - and particularly on communities of color, youth, and other marginalized segments of our population – as well as on the environmental systems upon which we as a species depend,

re: Proposed Occupy Boston Declaration of Occupation

user:panagiotis1 Oct 15, 2011 7:38 pm

The following statement was written as a complement to Skeet's declaration, and is thus in the same spirit. It is also a work in progress. There are elements in both that can be incorporated into a powerful declaration of the occupation.

We, Occupy Boston, are building a broad alliance of the discontented, the dispossessed, the alienated, and the exploited. As the 99%, we declare that the 1% will not make us pay for their crisis and will no longer corrupt the democratic process, depriving it of its significance. It is the democratic process that we seek to broaden and strengthen, letting people affirm their dignity by taking their lives and the wealth they create into their own hands, for the liberation of labor and humanity and for the progression to a more equitable and just society. As a precondition for the real democracy that we seek to establish, it is necessary that all individuals – irrespective of their race, sex, age, creed, skin color, or immigration status – are secured a decent level of healthcare, education, housing, income, and employment or retirement security so that they may participate meaningfully in the popular processes that we are developing in occupied squares throughout the United States.

We thus declare the urgent need for a society in which priority is placed on the free social and cultural development of all individuals, not on the maximization of capitalists’ profits, in which public goods and social services are once more brought into the sphere of the commons, and in which workers democratically control the process of production, so that decisions regarding the allocation and distribution of our resources are made in a participatory and inclusive manner in the broader interests of our society.

In solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, the peoples of Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Libya, Spain, Greece, Italy, and Chile, and all those participating in this global uprising

Equality – Justice – Dignity The General Assembly of Occupy Boston

Only discuss "housekeeping" at morning GA

user:AriaLItthous Oct 9, 2011 7:06 am

Keep maintenance items off the pm GA agenda. This will help prevent meetings from becoming survival of the fittest.

re: Only discuss "housekeeping" at morning GA

user:intensely_human Oct 10, 2011 8:00 am

What do you mean by "survival of the fittest"?

re: Only discuss "housekeeping" at morning GA

user:AriaLItthous Oct 10, 2011 8:49 am

If you can make it through the boring stuff, have the time, endurance, etc., then you get to talk about message, 'demands', actions.

re: Only discuss "housekeeping" at morning GA

user:terrawiki Oct 14, 2011 10:28 pm

I like this, because I can't stand through the GA. My back hurts after about 10 minutes. I'm too old, basically. I can walk for miles. But can only stand for about 10 minutes.

I'm hoping to figure out how to to estimate when my proposals will come up for a vote.

Can you help?

re: Only discuss "housekeeping" at morning GA

user:AriaLItthous Oct 15, 2011 2:27 am

Got to the 5 pm facilitators meeting and ask to put it on the agenda as something to come to consensus.

Proposed Statement of Being and Solidarity

user:Lexikon Oct 14, 2011 7:48 am

I think we can all agree we're badly in need of a statement that reflects the group, but isn't incendiary, at the same time offering support for the movement and making it clear that it's not a demand of any kind.

There were some statements floating around the SPP message board written by groups or individuals and I liked them, but since we need only one and we should all have a hand in crafting it, I combined them, and added my own 0.02 as well.

It's pasted below, feel very free to rip it apart, edit it, add to it, reject it, etc. etc.

When a people become beholden to a broken form of governance, they will rise up and fight for the rights appropriated to them as human beings, even as an empire crumbles around them. The American people’s pursuit of life, liberty and happiness has become impeded by a government that no longer operates in the best interests of its people.

Once the land of freedom, opportunity, free thought, and growth, the United States sits besieged by economic calamity and oppression, the results of an inept system controlled by a fiscally influential minority that allowed corporate and personal greed to place priority on profits over people.

We, Occupy Boston, stand together with all Americans and in solidarity with the growing Occupy movement, here and abroad, as the beginning of a global, echoing, chant of dissatisfaction and dissent with these policies.

The current system can no longer be trusted to reform itself, as it was wrought to do, as those elected to lead us have neglected their duty to the people by failing to address the crises we face today.

When 1% of the population controls the destinies of the other 99%, great and fundamental changes must be made in order to preserve our civic well-being. We believe in the creative ability of the people to look beyond paradigm and systemic prejudice to address and solve the problems we face.

Therefore, Occupy Boston is engaging a dialogue to foster a national debate using a directly democratic model, which will identify problems and manifest solutions.

The path toward a just society is clear and we, the people, declare our intent to stand and demand a relief from oppression and a regress for grievances levied against a government that has allowed a subversion of the rights of the citizens of this democracy.

Whereas we are a diverse group but cannot yet represent all people in all places, and whereas our democratic process is both pure and thorough, we intend to issue future statements, but will make no further announcements on our collective purpose until a time when we are able to reach a consensus reflective of all individual issues, concerns and ideas of this body.

We stand united. We are the 99%.

re: Proposed Statement of Being and Solidarity

user:terrawiki Oct 14, 2011 10:27 pm

I like this. When will it come up for a vote?