I attended my first General Assembly on Wednesday evening and wanted to share some feelings
The first hour & 1/2 was awesome as we discussed the March 12th
march and letter to our Egyptian colleagueIs. I was very impressed
But as we went on to the second proposal, which is very poorly written
and I think unnecessary given the 3rd proposal, I feel the facilitators lost
control of the situation.
I’d come to the GA specifically to participate in the vote & discussion of Prop 3, but
when I watched the disrespect shown one another, I began to have 2nd thoughts
about staying. I left when someone called Gandhi a “prick.” I’ve been involved in
social change for over 40 years, ranging from civil rights, prison work, the women;’s
movement, and the LGBT struggle.
As I watched people be so disrespectful, it reminded me why I no longer am an
anarchist. Having worked in a 200 person collective and watched our inability
to created even a simple budget and the meetings break into chaos like I watched on
Wed. Night, I decided it was time for me to leave, because people were not listening,
nor were they being respectful of one another.
I cannot express how disappointed I felt.
Kara
Hi David,
Let’s see, I don’t want to go on about this forever, so let’s shoot through this right quick.
Sure people cheered about the Gandhi comment. Read my point about GAs being about grandstanding etc. The facilitator took control of the situation and re-focused the debate. In an open forum people are going to say outrageous things and other people are going to cheer outrageous things. Is that really what we want to focus on?
We’re marching with labor because 90% voted for it.
We aren’t declaring solidarity with the open source voting software developers because 90% didn’t vote for it.
The examples I gave of things passing was in response to the original comment suggesting we could not pass a simple budget. We can pass things. Maybe you don’t agree with them, but 90% do.
90%. Let me say that again- 90%
“I want us to just agree that vandalism and violence aren’t the right message to send to the rest of the 99%”
Not everyone at a GA agrees with that.
Had to reply to my own post Nemo because this software doesn’t seem to allow more than 2 levels of reply…. I agree, you’ve summed up the situation well, and I think you show understanding of all sides of the argument. I do not wish to ban self-defense, I do not wish to ban Occupation itself as a tactic. I do not even want to ban vandalism: I just want it to be agreed that any vandalism which will take place would be agreed on by the GA in advance. Any specific tactics I mean. I could imagine wonderful and beautiful acts of “vandalism” that would transform an ugly and generic public space into something that the people can celebrate, something that will reveal our common humanity through art. But I can’t imagine that just allowing each individual person to decide whether or not they feel like smashing up bank windows is really constructive towards ending corporate influence in the U.S. government.
We need a breather, regroup, form a proposal that doesn’t condemn but rather calls for unity of tactics.
Hi Kara, David, and others. I agree with the need to define ourselves as a peaceful protest for so many reasons. I have been very sad and disappointed by the direction I have seen things take. However I have accepted that for now, things are as they are. I accept that OO may not survive this and I realize I won’t be able to affect the outcome by focusing on taking non violence proposals to the GA right now. However I am not quite ready to throw in the towel yet. For now, I am doing committee work, talking one on one to as many people as possible, and hope to be involved in bringing some positive actions forward to the GA that will help define OO as a positive movement, despite lack of a consensus on the subject of “what is violence.” If I get too discouraged, I plan to turn my precious life energy to other Occupy movements, or other avenues of change. But for now, I continue, hoping my small efforts, combined with those of others, will help turn the tide. We each need to follow our hearts and do what feels right.
Oh wow, he said that huh?? Very interesting. Thanks for letting me know!
And a correction – I said board of supervisors, I meant city council.
I believe the motion came before the GA on 10.28 – unfortunately, I was not taking notes and the minutes have not been posted – so I can not give more details about who was speaking.
What Derrick Jensen mentioned is that many indigenous populations have been turned off by the term “occupy” because they are occupied. He suggested that “Liberate Oakland” “Decolonize Oakland” or similar might be more effective in expanding the reach of the movement.
David, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Unfortunately it seems like every time the question comes up the proposal is examined as if there are only two possibilities: license or ban.
One “party” seems to feel that anything short of a ban is tantamount to an endorsement while the other “party” feels that even a mild reprimand for specific actions is equivalent to (or at least leads towards) an injunction against all violence (even self defense or occupation).
Personally, I think everyone (myself included) needs a breather – but I feel like that position gets attacked as both “leaving the issue unresolved,” and “supporting violence” because it delays the introduction of a specific ban.
“As for Derrick Jensen’s suggestion; a coalition of representatives from different tribes did come before the GA, and did ask for a statement of support (I’m rather annoyed that it does not appear to be posted, since we approved the statement). They did not ask for a name change as part of their proposal. Perhaps in a future GA they will ask for the name-change. If they do, I will support it. However, I do not think it is my place to speak for them.”
Please explain this a bit more? What representatives? What name change?
“I totally agree with that. I highly question the wisdom of the people who put it forward, and then the people who failed to put forward a more sober and specific proposal that I had heard rumors about. I was there ready to vote for it. A lot of people were. A lot of us decided right there that Occupy Oakland needs to change its form. And possibly it’s name too, as Derrick Jensen and his friends requested today. Of course, requesting things in a forum where you refuse to take a Q&A is pretty sketchy to me, but who am I to judge? Just an American citizen.”
I think that the people who pulled the more specific proposal made a sound tactical decision. It was fairly clear from the discussion of the previous proposal that no consensus would have been reached. Under normal circumstances that might not be an issue (table it, make some revisions, bring it before the GA again). However, Wednesday was not normal circumstances.
1) There were several people there who would have viewed failure to reach consensus on the proposal as a vote for violent tactics. (I disagree with that interpretation, but my disagreement would not have changed their view point).
2) The board of supervisors had just approved another raid on the camp, so any result which could possibly been construed as pro-violence would have been trumpeted as such to every media-outlet in the state.
As for Derrick Jensen’s suggestion; a coalition of representatives from different tribes did come before the GA, and did ask for a statement of support (I’m rather annoyed that it does not appear to be posted, since we approved the statement). They did not ask for a name change as part of their proposal. Perhaps in a future GA they will ask for the name-change. If they do, I will support it. However, I do not think it is my place to speak for them.
LOL, I kinda feel that way, although I wouldn’t presume to strike the pose of MLK and I don’t think any of the other pacifists or “peace police” want to be MLK either. He was a leader, and we don’t have any leaders. If a cop starts beating my wife up, I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do. I may very well haul off on his ass. I am not sure how I will react to a situation until I’m in that situation. So I don’t really want to be “MLK vs. Malcolm X”, I want us to just agree that vandalism and violence aren’t the right message to send to the rest of the 99%.
We should think of the GA as only a useful tool, like any other useful tool. It is not the be all and end all of the Occupy movement. We didn’t form this movement to create a direct democracy for the whole country, did we? I still believe in the U.S. Constitution but I believe we need an Amendment to tackle the corporations head-on. Just like we needed an Amendment to end Prohibition, we need one to end Corporatism. And we can form a consensus with the libertarians and the Ron Paul supporters around this type of Amendment if it’s worded right.
“This is a movement where everyone is given equal voice. That is our strength and our challenge. The comment about Gandhi that you disagree with was actually frowned on by the facilitator. She said such comments were divisive and unnecessary.
I guess you missed that part.”
Maybe you missed the part where a pretty large and loud group of people applauded and cheered when he said that about Gandhi. The facilitator is just one person, and she can’t control all those people who shout and make noise and don’t respect the basic rules of the GA.
“If you wrote Occupy off on Wednesday than you probably weren’t there Friday when we PASSED a proposal from the finance committee regarding the dispersal of funds and we PASSED a proposal for a march with labor.”
Why exactly are we marching with labor, anyway? Just because we want to march? Because we understand or endorse labor’s goals?
The same night, we couldn’t pass a proposal that would have held corporations accountable for their software manipulation of elections.
“The “non-violence” proposal put forth on Wednesday was poorly written and divisive. It should have gone down in flames.”
I totally agree with that. I highly question the wisdom of the people who put it forward, and then the people who failed to put forward a more sober and specific proposal that I had heard rumors about. I was there ready to vote for it. A lot of people were. A lot of us decided right there that Occupy Oakland needs to change its form. And possibly it’s name too, as Derrick Jensen and his friends requested today. Of course, requesting things in a forum where you refuse to take a Q&A is pretty sketchy to me, but who am I to judge? Just an American citizen.
“That doesn’t mean there can’t be another one that alleviates “non-violent” concerns AND unifies our movement.
Don’t give up.”
I agree, I intend to work with people towards creating a Constitutional Amendment that will end corporate personhood and stop all campaign donations from outside groups that aren’t part of the local community.
It didn’t disappoint me so much that he said it, as the fact that people loudly applauded.
Yes!
Thanks kara, you are expressing a deep and almost tragic disappointment that a lot of us feel about how Occupy Oakland has been co-opted by the anarchists. If you had stuck around, you would have seen the people who were there to present the 3rd proposal give up on their chance to turn this thing around because of the “need for solidarity.” Many of us showed up that night to give Occupy Oakland one last chance, and we failed ourselves somewhere along the line.
There are things that have bothered me since day one, but I put them aside as quibbles. For example, renaming the city plaza after Oscar Grant showed solidarity with victims of police violence, which is a good thing, but it also showed disrespect for progressive leaders and role models of the past like Frank Ogawa, which is a bad thing. Incidentally last night I was in San Francisco and talked to some people in front of the Federal Reserve Bank about 1:00. The guy I talked to was the definition of an immature pseudo-revolutionary. He was bragging about how they had renamed the park after Bradley Manning, and how he didn’t even know who Justin Herman was. As if that was something to be proud of — ignorance is the mark of these people just as much as it is of the far right. He started to talk about Oscar Grant plaza but he didn’t even know Oscar Grant’s name. When I started to explain to him that Frank Ogawa was a progressive hero and that he and his wife were forced by the United States Government to sell all their property and spend 4 years in a concentration camp during WWII…. well I didn’t get as far as saying any of that, because he shut me down and told me to fuck off and leave. He went on to say something like “the people deserve new heroes and new names.” Wow. Let’s just rename all the MLK Jr. boulevards after the latest victim of police violence while we’re at it. That’s a big fucking problem in the Occupy movement — a lot of these kids have no knowledge of the struggles of the past and they have no interest in finding out about how social and economic change has successfully been achieved throughout history. And the total lack of respect shown to others, the lack of ability to listen.
We all love the impulse behind anarchism, we all wish that we could live in utopia, but as we get older we start to get more realistic. Some of us just turn into total tools of the corporations, just buy into the whole thing. Others of us start to work in more constructive ways than we did when we were in our youth. I hope that one day at least a few of the collective anarchists of Oakland with their huge nasty dangerous tent on the west end of Frank Ogawa Plaza will look back on these events and understand how they took part in destroying the dream of returning power to the 99%.
In short- we need to talk to each other outside of the GAs.
No other way IMHO.
At long last MLK and Malcolm X get to hash it out.
What we have here is failure to communicate.
People show up to the GAs and think we’re somehow going to magically come to some kind of consensus.
That’s not what the GAs do. The GAs are about formalizing what is already percolating up from the body politic. What’s percolating up is clear to see. Propositions from one side talking amongst themselves and from the other side talking among themselves.
And we’re surprised this isn’t working?
The ‘misogynist prick’ comment also set my alarm bells screaming. Not only is it historically inaccurate, it is the sort of inflammatory language guaranteed to divide the movement. I haven’t quite given up on OO yet, but that moment was a slap in the face.
Hi younggringos,
You are so right that everyone having an equal voice is the beauty of our movement and certainly what we aspire to. But when protesters can’t engage with each other in a respectful manner, regardless of their differences, communication breaks down and progress is hindered. I hope that members of #OO can find a way to express difference of opinion in a way that honors EVERYONE who is part of this movement as someone to listen to with respect. Otherwise, there is no way forward.
Kara,
This is a movement where everyone is given equal voice. That is our strength and our challenge. The comment about Gandhi that you disagree with was actually frowned on by the facilitator. She said such comments were divisive and unnecessary.
I guess you missed that part.
If you wrote Occupy off on Wednesday than you probably weren’t there Friday when we PASSED a proposal from the finance committee regarding the dispersal of funds and we PASSED a proposal for a march with labor.
The “non-violence” proposal put forth on Wednesday was poorly written and divisive. It should have gone down in flames.
That doesn’t mean there can’t be another one that alleviates “non-violent” concerns AND unifies our movement.
Don’t give up.
Hi Kara,
I understand how you feel! I have been a part of #OO, attending GA’s and actions whenever I could. But I have also grown increasingly turned-off by the disrespectful manner in which people deal with each other, at the camp, at GA’s, and on this forum. Of course not everyone at #OO is this way– far from it! Most people are respectful and are interested in real change.
But there is a core group whose vision is blocked by rage. These people do not listen and are unwilling to engage in constructive dialogue, and it is greatly hindering progress at Occupy Oakland. That is why I have decided to change course and lend my services to #OSF and #OCAL, where I can contribute something that will actually have an impact. I believe it is only a matter of time before those activists fighting against their own will undermine #OO as a whole. A sad and disappointing situation. I only want the movement to grow and succeed, for the good of the country as a whole. But others seem to be more focused on personal vendettas.