Discussion Notes

This is a long term discussion group that sprung from reading Strategizing For a Living Revolution by George Lakey. We meet every Friday at 6:30 pm at the World Community Center, 435 N. Skinker Blvd. We have cancelled meetings until after Occupy the Midwest. We will start up again on March 23. 

Pay Day Loan Action for May 1

In order to tie concrete change to actions we are proposing this idea, which we will vibe check at GA and on the Forum after OMW:

• pick one Pay Day Loan business that is a national chain and preferably financed by BOA to Occupy

• have Occupiers stand in line asking financing and business practices questions to essentially tie up their business for the day

• have Jobs with Justice (JWJ) and the Organization for Black Struggle (OBS) petitions available for people to sign:  1. to raise the minimum wage by $1.00   2.  to cap pay day loan interest at 36%

Bank of America Conference Call

• OWS is working in coalition with Matt Tiabbi (reporter from Rolling Stone) and many, many affinity groups to foreclose on BOA

• OWS is calling for actions on March 15 and April 15 to increase public awareness of BOA’s impending demise (see proposal passed by GA on 3-4-12 posted on occupySTL.org>News for details)

Abandoned Buildings

• can get a list for $1.00 of LRA properties from City Hall. These are abandoned and/or city owned property that can be purchased for the price of paying the back taxes, or sometimes the city will give this property away if there is aldermanic support to do so

• create community centers, gardens, coops, housing, etc. with this property

Media Working Group

We observed that many of our working groups do not seem to be operating at full capacity. In terms of long term strategy, planning for the spring and summer, it seemed like a good idea to start with the media working group.

• While Facebook and occupySTL.org are being manifested, gmails are being answered, the rest of the tasks of this wg seem to be languishing

• we put together some ideas (which are currently being vibe checked on the Forum>General Discussion) that we hope will help get us on track. We thought that it might be a good idea to divide this wg into 4 working groups.

Social Media

• Essentially, the social media would remain unchanged. A nominee would still need to go through GA consensus to be on it. Is there a process for removing someone? Anyone could be on any of the other media wg.

• responsible for:  Facebook, twitter, tumbler….

Organizational Media

Responsible for:

• occupySTL.org

• creating Facebook events (in conjunction with the working group responsible for the event)

• occupystlouis@gmail.com

Press

Responsible for:

• press contacts:  both maintaing a media list of press contacts and a list of Occupiers to speak to the press

• press releases for radio, tv, printed press

• media training

Livestreaming

Responsible for:

• Livestreaming

Originally, flyers had been the responsibility of the media working group. We think it might be better if the people responsible for putting on an event or action also be responsible for making the flyer.

Do we need GA approval before putting occupySTL.org on a flyer?

Maybe we could use an apprenticeship model for training new people as they join the media working groups. There is a model the Zapatistas use which could be helpful. It’s called sortition and is Greek Athenian model of participatory deomocracy:  http://youtu.be/KsnNpcJtwoo

Other

Would it be helpful to have a Concern (Circle) working group?

What is currently going on with the other Occupy St. Louis (OSTL) working groups?

We are working on a May 1 flyer to be distributed at the St. Patty’s Day parade.

Bob Levine, Bob the Button Man, can make 99% buttons. Mark will ask him to make a bunch.

Did You Know Flyer

The trifold flyer is ready for distribution when it gets GA approval. This is a “Did You Know” flyer that talks about Economic Inequality with OSTL contact information. Zach ultimately plans to taylor this flyer directly to the neighborhood(s) being targeted in the city and county.

Neighborhood Associations

We need an introductory flyer that includes info on GA’s, working groups, and future actions. This, along with the trifold flyer, will be handed out when teams go speak to Neighborhood Associations. We agreed to wait on setting up these speaking engagements until the second flyer is complete and we have more information about future events.

Concrete Long Term Strategy

We discussed Occupy the Midwest Regional Conference (OMW) and May 1. We agreed that long term build up for big events makes a more lasting impact with our message. It is also good to have fact sheets and information about future events/actions to distribute.

May 1 will be a global event and we need to begin strategizing for it now. Ideas that were brought up:

• a day without the 99%
• remembering, the history of May 1
• anti-corporation: An action at the Peabody Shareholder’s meeting is already being planned during the first week of May by MORE, SEIU, Wash U, Young Activists United, and the Greens. Peabody has a long track record of union busting, not paying taxes, record profits, and environmental destruction–flyers have already been made.
• connect May 1 to something concrete
• St. Patty’s Day-do May 1 outreach
• anyone who can’t participate in May 1 can step outside at a predetermined time and bang pots, or make some other type of noise and/or wear a button that says, “I”m part of the 99%”

We also want to strategize on ways to make concrete changes in our community, such as reclaiming foreclosed and occupying abandoned properties for the purpose of establishing resources, like a community center. We agreed that after identifying a building we would first need to speak to the neighborhood to see what their needs are. In order to facilitate this it would be good to identify block units and their captains. There already exists a Federation of Block Captains. A phone call system to alert neighbors of actions/events happening in their neighborhood will ultimately be developed.

Canvassing is already happening in the 14th ward, which is Annie’s ward, so it makes sense to continue to do outreach in this area. This is Carol Howard’s ward. She is a new alderperson. Cathy will bring a proposal to GA for this canvassing to be a part of OSTL outreach. Ultimately, as part of our efforts to effect concrete change, we want to help promote mutual aid between block units, develop alternative economic systems, such as bartering, and to promote the formation of more General Assemblies.

Other means of effecting concrete change are the petition drives that the Organization for Black Struggle (OBS) and Jobs with Justice (JWJ) have been spearheading. One petition is to raise the minimum pay in Missouri by $1. The other is to end the usurious interest rates on pay day loans. These petitions could also be a part of any outreach team’s efforts.

Newbies

We began a discussion about how to promote connections with new people who come to OSTL through outreach, OMW, and nice weather.

As GA’s have sometimes been fractious, and because this is often someone’s first contact with OSTL, how do we improve the GA process? And, do we need to strengthen our welcoming team and pamphlets? Perhaps, when the weather is nicer and GA’s are more plentiful, we can have a once a month newcomers meeting instead of GA.

Ideas discussed to make GA’s run smoother:

• Stronger facilitation–Cathy will talk to Colleen and set up more facilitator training.
• It can be hard for some people to respect the GA process. Experienced facilitation training should help newer facilitators be comfortable with the process.
• Possibly have newer facilitators co-facilitate their first few meetings with a more experienced facilitator
• It’s important that everyone’s voice is heard and therefore important that no one dominates the process. Progressive stacking is one way to alleviate this.
• Make it clear at GA what the expectations are.
• Consider going to a 10% block. That way, when there are large numbers of participants, it will take more people to block. This helps to maintain a balance so, for example, two people couldn’t block a proposal 100 people are in favor of.
• We need to emphasize being concise. Most of what we have to say can be said in1 1/2 minutes. Often, people end up repeating themselves.
• When doing vibe checks, remember that taking a straw poll can actually yield more information than twinkles alone.

We also discussed possible ways to ask someone to leave the movement if they repeatedly over a significant length of time show an unwillingness to be a respectful participant. Ultimately we thought this would be a good issue to bring toConcern Circle. Cathy is going to do Concern Circle Facilitation Training.

Other topics touched upon:

• Work groups that could form out of these discussions: Neighborhood Outreach, Alternative Economics, Art.
• McKee is buying up land and the rights to buy land on the North Side.
• We need to plan a year in advance for some artistic endeavors like big puppet and stilt walker parades. Floats.
• It would be good to have liaisons to affinity groups, like OBS and JWJ. We could call them “links.”

Notes from 1-3-12

Our notes in the past have directly accounted who said what when. Today, my notes are more of a summary of our discussions and directions we’ve agreed on. If I get something wrong or leave something out, please make a post to that effect.

In reviewing where we are now in this discussion we mentioned that we might be nearing the point where some of our initiatives need to be formatted into working groups and brought up to GA.

Mark is interested in working on overturning Citizen’s United and working to prevent a war in Iran by raising awareness that a war has to be declared through Congress. He is willing to start a working group to deal with these issues.

The high cost of tuition was discussed with three new student members who would like to get involved in Occupy Campuses. They were able to connect with Sasha as to when the next meeting will occur.

We didn’t advertise very well that the name of our discussion group has changed from Long Term Strategy Discussion to Shared Vision, Strategies, Tactics Discussion which has caused confusion.

Disucssion on Polling

Johnathan reported on what he and David did this week regarding polling. Johnathan met with a professional pollster and financier to work on polling questions and funding. The questions he’s been formulating are based from polling done in the ’60’s as the circumstances between now and then are so similar. 30-40 questions are being formulated and the financier thought it would take several thousand dollars to pull this off. Johnathan thought it might be possible to get a grant. The polling would be via phone or door to door. A sample of 400 should yield statistically significant results.

The ensuing discussion: First see what polling has already taken place (secondary polling), such as the mayor’s mini-polls and research yields of local non-profits’ polling, which Johnahtan agreed to do. It  was suggested that during GA Johnathan could go to various working groups to get polling questions.

Discussion about polling yielded these two points:

1. Everyone’s problem in their own backyard is enormous to them. While working with people on their own issues you can also educate them as how to work on their issues in a way that they become empowered and this helps to broaden their horizons.

1. All our issues (shared vision) are interrelated. We can help people see the connections among all our issues as we, through our numbers, address them.

Neighborhood Associations

Susie brought a list of St. Louis City and County neighborhood associations. Discussion:

1. some neighborhood associations are nothing more than corporate or politically sponsored meetings

1. it might be good to hold town hall meetings

1. each neighborhood meeting has it’s own agenda and it could take a while before we could speak at some of these meetings

1. we would want to give a brief description, accompanied with a handout, of Occupy (our consensus model, GA’s, wg), let them ask questions, ask what are the issues that they are working on

Sasha said he would go through the neighborhood associations and determine which were in the city and which were in the county. I believe there was consensus that we should begin in the city.

Mapping the Demographics of St. Louis

Glenn, Will, and Cathy will be creating this map.

Matt took a business course, part of which dealt with how firms interact with activists.

The thrust of this course was how to curtail activists. Matt will be posting their model in this google group.

Sasha pointed out that we’re not activists, we’re revolutionaries and we are not configuring ourselves in the same way this model depicts. He did say that the working groups might be configuring themselves in this manner

OSTL Media Working Group

Discussion of the model Matt brought in along with input from our new member, Rachel, led to a discussion about our media wg.  Arianna and Sasha shared how other Occupies handle media. These points were discussed:

1. We need to trust our media team to bang stuff out without going through 2 GA’s so there can be immediate Press Releases on some issues

1. There are three types of press releases:

• Policy–would still require passage of 2 consecutive GA’s
• Response Statements
• Basic Information, such as events

1. We need to continue to develop our own alternative media.

1. Maybe our media team, which does not seem to be functioning at the moment, needs to be broken into sub-teams.

1. Does there need to be transparency with the admin group and the rest of OSTL?

1. Do we need a Spokes Council where working group reps go to bring up proposals and GA’s for overall issues, not specific to working groups? There was some mention of a Spokes Council model that was used when Kiener was occupied. Our current wg meetings before GA’s is kind of a hybrid.

The Time Bank

Arianna reported on a small town (in Iowa?) where the entire town is using the Time Bank model with a buy in of $1.00. Arianna will post this info on our discussion google group.

Some Occupiers stayed after the meeting to help orient a newbie, Rachel, who is interested in doing a teach-in on media as she has worked in MSM.

Next Time

We agreed that next time we would:

1. Go over the demographics map
2. Review the secondary data collected
3. discuss the media working group
4. discuss neighborhood associations break downs.

The notes haven’t been posted yet from out 1-27-12 discussion. In the meantime I will try to summarize. We spent time trying to pick a goal, strategy, and bundle tactics and eventually landed here:

Goal:  Do outreach to identify concerns of the greater St. Louis community.

Strategy:  Get more people involved in OSTL by relating issues plaguing our communities, giving people a reason to participate.

Tactics:  polls, leaflets, neighborhood meetings, teach-ins, place ads in newspapers such as The American, the Riverfront Times, Soulard

Johnathan agreed to gather polling information. Susie agreed to get neighborhood associations contact info. Zach agreed to begin working on a flyer. Matt agreed to contact people in the Soulard neighborhood and to share with us at our next meeting a book on how corporations deal with activists from a corporate class he took. Michelle agreed to go to 3 neighborhood meetings a month after Occupy the Midwest Regional Conference.

Concern Circle: Guidelines for Non-Violent Communication, also sometimes called
Compassionate Communication 2-3-12

This is a time to air out unresolved issues utilizing non-aggressive, non-violent
communication.

Use “I” statements rather than “you” statements.

Assume each other’s good will, give each other the benefit of the doubt.

It’s not just about what you say, but how you say it. Use a respectful tone.

Be concise.

Don’t interrupt.

Speak from a place of compassion.

When using Facebook, use it as a way to resolve differences, not as a means to attack
someone.

Bring an issue with someone directly to that person person. Do not use Facebook for
this purpose.

Listen to what is being said rather than concentrating on what you want to say.

Topics brought up for discussion:

The warehouse conviction.
The use of language that separates us.
The controversy surrounding the marches.

It was agreed that we discuss the controversy surrounding the marches first. As it
turned out, this discussion lasted for the entirety of Concern Circle.

Actionable ideas:

Talk about our behaviors and goals rather than semantics.

We all need to have our reactions and then take a deep breath and proceed from a
place of mutual respect.

Have a “buy-in” before each march. Someone states clearly what the march will be right
before the march takes place.

Form a police violence and repression working group.

What about police actions on the North Side. There are primarily white folks on these
marches, we need to reach out to people of color who are being effected by police
violence and repression.

There is consensus within Occupy and then there are autonomous actions outside of
Occupy. Maybe some organizations should be more of an affinity group working in
coalition with Occupy rather than as part of Occupy. Then they could clearly take actions
independently of Occupy.

We need to define violence and hate speech.

Everyone comes into the movement with a different level of consciousness and
education. We need to reach out and educate people as we build a mass movement.

Arianna has a list of 198 methods of non-violence used globally.

Other sentiments that stood out:

This is an issue of tactics.

The Civil Rights Movement had a huge range of tactics. When there is this much
oppression in the world, it’s understandable when other tactics are used.

This tactic is counterproductive.

This tactic is counterproductive at this point in time. What did spray painting, throwing
trash cans, and shouting “fuck the police” accomplish? What did this communicate to
the folks at home?

This tactic resonated with people who watched the march and some of them joined in.

Handle our problems in-house.

Comments on Facebook made some people uncomfortable.

Dialogue in person rather than on Facebook.

Facebook is a place to discuss issues without addressing specific individuals.

Don’t be divided. Anything that happens is Occupy. We’re all in this together.

The public doesn’t distinguish between our actions but views it all as Occupy.

Many people felt disrespected at the march on Sunday.

Language got ugly at Sunday’s march. Threats were made to one individual.

Concern about a member of our safety working group taking pictures and saying he’d
bring them to the police. Confusion occurred because this person has always taken
pictures, in part to document what could be police provocateurs. Confusion also
resulted from the march morphing into something other than what a lot of people
thought it was going to be.

There was mob behavior directed at our security person who was threatened with
physical attack.

Concern over group think and group act.

There is concern about snitching.

If we take actions that invites repression from the police force, how is this different than
snitching if the end result is state sponsored violence?

Sunday and Tuesday’s march gives police the justification in the eyes of the public to
repress us.

Our security person was threatening people’s freedom by saying he’d turn pictures over
to the police.

One of the marchers on Sunday stayed to reach out to our security person. They talked
it out and got to a loving place.

Another person reported trying to talk to our security person, but he flat out refused to
talk.

Our security person is leaving the movement because of what happened.

The marches muddy our message. We are not clearly seen as the “good guys.”

There aren’t “good” protestors and “bad” protestors. Thinking otherwise is destructive.

Does a march like this create fear elsewhere?

There is nothing more violent than the police. All police departments are repressive and
violent.

How are people addressing police violence when they aren’t on the march?

There is involvement in police issues from marchers who spray painted, etc.

Children and adults at the march felt scared.

The behaviors children witnessed were confusing and frightening to them.

Many of the people who had adverse reactions to the marches have dealt with violence
towards their person in their lives.

Many of the people who felt positive about the march have had bad interactions with the
police. You don’t have to be rooted in activism to have the right to a visceral reaction to
police violence.

One child on the march is being bullied at school. What kind of teaching did this march
have for him?

Were these behaviors violent? Was camping at Kiener violent? What does violence
mean?

There is a spectrum of violent and non-violent behavior. Spray painting is less violent
than voting for Obama. Let’s focus on the real issues: racism, homelessness….etc.

Where does one person’s autonomy end up repressing another person’s autonomy?
Many people felt disempowered.

Live and let live. If you’re not comfortable with something, simply walk away.

There are natural consequences to everything we do.

Did actions from these marches result in the warehouse being evicted?

The warehouse was evicted for reasons other than this march.

We have to accept each other’s differences.

Some Occupiers are not pacifists who don’t subscribe to non-violence because in
they’re view it doesn’t work. One such Occupier has been beaten and tortured in jail.

Some Occupiers are coming from a spiritual place of believing we are all one.

Some people join the police force to protect and serve. The blue wall of silence,
however, makes them culpable when there is police violence. Transparency is needed
on the police force. Transparency is also imperative amongst ourselves. We shouldn’t
have our own wall of silence.

Those who came to Concern Circle have done so as an act of transparency and a with
a willingness to be open and talk to everybody.

Non-violence is misinterpreted by some Occupiers. Non-violence is not complicit with
authority.

Trust is very important.

It doesn’t matter when you became a part of this movement, or how often you
participate, your voice is still important.

This is a societal conversation that manifests itself in various ways, it’s not just us.

How can we get to a middle place.

At the beginning of our discussion we talked about having “An Ask” at the end to ask
people what we can do to move forward. However, we ran a half hour over our time in
order for everyone to be heard and we weren’t able to move to this part of the
discussion.

recap of last meeting
Zach-hopes to choose priorities & attach  tactics to them
Michelle-have to put up alternative structures as we tear  down the
old
Susie-need to try to see where we have consensus on our brainstorming
of shared vision, strategies and tactics; she and Zach offered a
handout with their synthesis and organizing of the brainstorming from
last meeting
Oren-suggests everyone read “Strategies for a Living Revolution” which
was the catalyst for this discussion- -he  will post on Facebook  &
Website
Z–longest term goal is economic equality
Tom-need sustainability & stable climate as basis for all our work
John–next step as he remembered the consensus at the last meeting is
shaping the brainstorm session by grouping ideas together and
attaching strategies and tactics to the shared visions
Will– could pare down brainstorm  ideas or could talk about the
brainstorm ideas as they relate to the 5 stages outlined in “Stategies
for a Living Revolution
Many people thought we could do both at once
Oren—we need to remember that we will be repeating ourselves often as
new people join us; this is part of the process;  he also wondered if
we even needed to come up with end goals, since this  might serve to
limit us as we evolve.
There followed a long discussion in which many people thought we
should have specific goals and shared visions to give us a direction;
Michelle—need to have goals to use as a measuring stick to determine
if our strategies and tactics are building in the right direction
Glenn—the “Strategies” article envisioned council communism, but we
decided at the first meeting to keep our shared vision more broad than
any one political vision so that we can remain inclusive
Cathy—our various shared visions are interdependent; we need to work
on all of them to achieve any of them successfully; we also need to
focus on outreach and organizing to gain the critical number of people
necessary so that our shared visions are not just pipe dreams
Matt—clear definition of goals will give us ability to articulate the
movement and get people on board
There was a long discussion about whether we should define our terms
e.g. what do we mean by economic equality; after some back and forth
we decided to focus in on that question—what is our vision of economic
equality?
Do we mean equality in outcome (everyone has the same income and
wealth) or do we mean equality of opportunity?
Matt—we can draw from models created by European socialism; they have
created greater security and greater equality through higher taxes but
many more social services
Tom—must be careful to make sure that we have correct structures in
place as we move toward this model; Zimbabwe cited as a case where old
structures of property were torn down but chaos resulted
Glenn—we could use a teach-in on political/economic theory so that we
are all using same terms and discussing from a common basis; also need
to expand people’s sense of their rights—they need a return to a sense
of having an ability to impact their lives
Chuck—need to develop a non-hierarchical cooperative economics to
replace the competitive model now in place
Peter—much of our economic problems stem from cultural conditioning
that instills wrong values and materialism at early age; need reform
of our whole educational structure
Glenn—we need to totally erase or at least totally redefine the
corporations to create the new economy

Dick—reminder that we are talking about a Revolution; many of our
shared visions can be reached either through a profit approach or a
cooperative approach but the profit approach has failed
Will—added Revolution and End to Capitalism as brainstorming ideas
under Shared Visions

[At one point much of John’s note were mysteriously deleted and Amanda
took over. Some of the above had to be re-created from memory. Sorry
if there is some repetition of thoughts.]

We then got into a more detailed discussion of economics and how to
attach strategies to our vision:

1.      Bring the idea of self employment to the forefront. Sustainable
employment = a job+ owning a share of the business. Brings down the
competition of job placement
2.      Principles of our “new economic system” solidarity, cooperative,
etc.?
a.      not profit based
b.      working together not against each other for gain
c.      transparency in business
3.      A system that is more conducive to small business – focus more on
small local business
a.      reduce corporate control
4.      Eliminate large corporations/modern corporations
5.      Focus less on individual, more on cooperative economics within the
community
6.      Corporations out of politics!
a.      Eliminate corporate personhood
7.      Take back the idea of supply and demand. Find out where your money
is going to and bring it local.
a.      Rework the basics. Local agriculture
8.      Eliminate bank illegalities with the federal reserve.
9.      People are all interconnected. Formulate awareness and promote the
strong suits of the individual within the community.
10.     Debt forgiveness – international trade agreements and exporting
workers needs to be stopped and those jobs brought back and/or
eliminate their powers
a.      limiting power of federal banks, international reserves
b.      devaluing the indiginous currency/products/exports pulling the
bottom out and potentially blackmailing them
11.     strengthening health care and education through the national level
and help each other to make this equal for everyone.
12.     We are fundamentally reliant on the environment. We are not living
sustainably. Sustainable living will be what supports and eliminates
the undermining of everything we will accomplish.
13.     Know your enemy. What would the end game of capitalism look like?
What/who are we fighting against and what is their end game. Look
ahead and be one step ahead before we get to that point.
14.     We as a collective would benefit about separating political
economy from this conversation. Leading to misunderstanding.
15.     Dramatic revolutionary change and redefining/explaining democracy.
Peoples view of how much control you have over your own lives are what
is going to be the hinderance.
16.     “The unfinished revolution” Control over the ballot box but not
control over what happens when politicians are in office. People have
the ability to impact your daily/material existence and believe in
that again.
17.     What would the shared vision be for what comes next? Keep the next
steps in line for after this is figured out. – create subgroup
18.     Bradley – this can be seen as organic – the end result of
capitalism is killing the planet and will be left with no future of
agriculture/economic development
19.     Pick the top 3 ideas/strategies for discussion of next week
20.     Corporation hierarchies are what is making business and government
intertwining. Get to the root of spreading out the power horizontally-
instead of one person trickle down. Everyone gets a share.

Cathy and Susie—let’s pick three items from our Shared Vision list to
work on at home—create a detailed grouping of strategies and tactics
to go with each as a plan to achieve that goal
1.      The group voted on three—Top 3:
a.      Eliminate corporations/corporations out of politics
b.      rework the basics of economics/cooperative based not profit based/
non competitive community economics
c.      Equalization of education and healthcare opportunities

Next meeting on Friday, January 20; 6:30 at MoKaBees
Other possibilities for meeting future meetings:
a.      Rowan center? Susie to find out Sunday
b.      If it is somewhere where new people will be- pre-brief before the
discussion starts
c.      Coffee Cartel? – just as loud/musicky
d.      World Community Center? might be too small
e.      Mokabees upstairs?
f.      Black Bear?
g.      Public space wins as a preference over private spaces
h.      City Hall rotunda for later meetings

Michelle and Cathy—let’s have some folks show up at at 6 and ask
newcomers to be there then so that they can be brought up to speed

As we progress we need to work on partnering with local groups that
are lining up with the similarities of OSTL

Oren took a few minutes at the end to explain an idea for a new
economy that he is developing; it is web based and based on the idea
that people have points that they give to others who provide a service
to them; the giver would publicly acknowledge his/her gratitude and
give the number of points s/he deems appropriate; the number of points
one has would not be public—the idea is not to encourage the
collection of massive points—but one would have to do good works to
have points to give away; this would be a system in which kindness is
rewarded and service to others is the goal

Paraphrasing of George Lakey’s article

Create a strategy that:
• builds on a shared vision
• guides a largely decentralized network of groups
• guides which tactics make sense & which don’t
• combines non-violence with non-cooperation
• use humor in actions to connect with people
• validates alternatives
• supports the experience of freedom
• expands the skills of cooperation
• is a political and community strategy
• links short-run struggles to more far-ranging goals
• takes down the top/bottom power structure while simultaneously building a new one
• is a community strategy that links today’s creativity to the new society that lies beyond the
power shift

Recognize:
• the power of strategy as a unifying force
• that strategy guides which tactics work, and which don’t
• strategy = power

Strategy is aimed at dismantling the top-down direction of the current power pyramid.
• identify the pillars that hold the pyramid in place
• weaken and finally break the compliance of those at the bottom of the pyramid

Five Stages–Strategy for a living revolution
These stages are simultaneously sequential and overlapping. Cyclical and linear.
1. Cultural preparation-consciousness raising
2. Organization building
3. Confrontation
4. Mass political and economic non-cooperation
5. Parallel Institutions

These stages occur organically with lots of overlap. Picture society as a cluster of sub-societies
that respond to the following stages at different rates. Activists might go through the first several
stages over and over again. We may end up more in cyclical motion than linear progression.

Stage One: Cultural Preparation
Create the vision of what we want. Create strategy around that vision:
• consciousness raising — be inspirational
• get rid of hierarchies of domination
• be the change we want to see, not just as an individual process, but a collective and cultural
shift
• unlearn racism, sexism, homophobia, religious bigotry, classism
• vision builds unity because tactical disagreements and personality clashes pale in the
perspective of our goal
• vision reduces co-option because its integrity is a rebuke against meaningless compromise

Stage Two: Organization Building
Develop our shared vision of a new society. Develop a broad strategy.
• organization is essential to generate enough force to make a difference
• spontaneous movements of resistance can be appreciated symbolically, but don’t change
structures
• recognize and deal with our internalized oppression and how we oppress others

Balance differentiating and joining to create a thriving movement:
• activists are good at spotting hypocrisy and differentiating themselves from it
• when differentiating becomes a habit, the group doesn’t have enough unity to accomplish
anything significant
• when joining becomes a habit, conformity results and the group loses its creativity to thrive
• balance makes it easier to:
-reach across class and racial lines
-pick up on organizational innovations
-support innovators in our own groups

Promising Organizational Forms
• alternative institutions–great labs for putting vision to work (co-ops, presses)
• ongoing affinity groups which come together over issues (working groups)
• transformational networks to share critical information rapidly (Facebook, twitter…)
• radical caucuses

Secrecy
While a discipline of secrecy is sometimes useful, it is a choice that requires careful thought.
Covertness is the most effective organizational style to undermine a movement.
A “security culture” hurts the movement by:
• breeding paranoia, reducing trust and morale
• reducing the ability to develop and sustain alliances
• reducing growth potential
• encouraging the power structure to invest more resources into infiltration

This stage creates the alternative institutions and cohesive organizations necessary to fill the
power vacuum opened in Stage Four.

Stage Three: Confrontation
The audience is the yet uncommitted public. Open conflict motivates the public to pay attention.
The confrontation stage is tricky and many movements have been lost in this stage.
• mass action with revolutionary content to promote rapid growth of the movement
• giant and prolonged drama and public outreach.
• as outreach becomes more vivid, we are viewed as the “good” guys
-create “dilemma demonstrations”
-decide specifically whom we’re trying to influence
-use campaigns as our major tool to move from reactive to proactive
-heighten the contrast between protestors and police behavior
-take a powerful attitude toward the prospect of state repression

Create “dilemma demonstrations”
Direct action that puts the power holders in a dilemma. If they allow us to go ahead and do what
we intend to do, we accomplish something worthwhile related to our issue. If they repress us,
they put themselves in a bad light. Either way the public is educated about our message.

Decide specifically whom we’re trying to influence
• the public is composed of sub-groups
• create a political/cultural/economic map of these subgroups
• decide who we most need to influence to meet strategic objectives
• create tactics accordingly

Use campaigns to become proactive rather than reactive
• having our action agenda dictated by where and when the power holders want to have their
meetings is not staying on the offensive
• reaction disempowers us
• campaigns put us on the offensive
• a campaign is a focused mobilization of energy with a clear objective that can be sustained
over a period of time

Heighten the contrast between protestors and police behavior
• the power of the confrontation stage is the drama
• drama in the streets can’t carry a complex analysis requiring long dissection and persuasion
• drama in the streets needs the simplicity of contrast between the protestors’ behavior and that
of the police
• use appropriate symbols to heighten contrast
• draw a line–anyone acting like a police provocateur is assumed to be one

Take a powerful attitude toward the prospect of state repression
• the power holders will use co-option and violence to repress us
• the purpose of repression is to induce fear so we will give up fighting
• one of the most fundamental choices is our attitude towards repression, be fearless

The third stage is a period of rapid growth to the point where enough people get involved to
enter Stage Four and seriously weaken the power holders’ pillars of support.

Stage Four: Mass Political and Economic Noncooperation
Having done significant cultural preparation allows the organizations we build to be more
cooperative, egalitarian, creative, and strong.
• the fastest growth of organizations will be during this period of time
• utilize local assemblies that mobilize people–take on local issues and concerns
• confrontation: mass demonstrations, sit-ins, boycotts, civil disobedience, blockades, funerals…
• insurrection is not enough, there must be strong organizations in place to provide the strength
and infrastructure to prevent a power vacuum

Stage Five: Parallel Institutions
The visionary movement with its infra-structure of experienced organizers and facilitators step
into the vacuum and create, step by step, a new society that supports freedom and democracy
rather than domination.

Bottom-up restructuring
• is born out of everything done in the previous four stages.
• atmosphere of turbulence encourages mainstream as well as radicals to seek alternative ways
of getting things done
• the new society is co-created with mainstream people
• interventionary tactics allow us to match alternative institutions to the one’s we’re replacing

Affinity Groups
• have grown phenomenally in their training and solidarity
• played major roles in the noncooperation stage
• gained valuable on the ground experience
• gained ability to make decisions quickly when conditions change in Stage Five
• train new members
• act as a lightening rod to ground reactionary opposition
• help occupy difficult sites

Transformational Networks
• unity requires shared information
• transformational networks and technology have been being developed all along
• come into their own in Stage Five
• maintain communication
• provide coordination to direct essential services and negotiate agreements

Councils
• local, regional, national, transnational
• grow organically from the work of affinity groups, transformational networks, radical caucuses
• retain the lessons learned
• put attention to cultural differences in communication styles
• assist newly formed and forming councils to do their jobs on all levels
• taxes are paid to councils rather than the government of the oppressive order
• organize essential services: traffic regulation, garbage collection, etc.
• national council works with other councils to dismantle the national government by distributing
its legitimate functions to local, regional, and transnational levels
• work with workers’ caucuses, cooperatives, and affinity groups to dismantle, in an orderly way,
those corporations worth decentralizing

Recognize that transformation takes time.

1. What happened to phone tree idea to support Anne?
2. Notes for December 27 are subject to change.
3. MORE is not involved in March 17 event
4. Be recommitted to respect for the individual.
5. Most of our ideas are good ideas.
6. We are getting away from OCCUPy's focus, THE ECONOMY.
7. Can we get a request for a $5 donation from all of our supporters on facebook?
	With the money we could fund a newspaper.
	or/and use money to provide resources to citizens; hospitals, educations centers, etc.
8. Muslim tie-ins to the 99%
	Lowes is not a good company
	January 21 action can be moved.
9. Event planning is more than making an announcement. Much planning has to go into an action like the one "planned" for January 2. Like how to divide the money and how to spend it and what kind of rations are we giving. Who to pass flyers to, etc, etc. None of that was done and this is  likely to be a weak event.
10. This whole thing is gonna take years to accomplish, get used to the fight and get used to the struggle.
11. Little if no African-AMerican community involvement. We need to take OUTREACH more seriously on these levels.
12. We do not have to prove we have an agenda to anyone. This is said in response to someone saying we are no on point.
13. Roughly $550 made in fundraiser.
14. Monies released for wood stove. Financial was not up to par. Hope change is good.
15. Rather than organize around Muslim affairs we can reach out to organizations that already exist.
16. Occupy Racism phonecall. We need to get all the national OCCUPY numbers together so we can all be connected.
17. Propaganda Machine is a good idea. We need to be able to spread our message and oppose the messaging of those who have media clout at the same time. Perhaps even pay salaries.
18. STACK PROCESS- We need to stay on good ideas for a time so that the idea can be metted out. We too often hear someone say something great and then just keep moving with the discussion.
19. ACLU-EM.org as it relates to police shooting on North Side.
20.Coalition against Police Oppression has meetings 7pm every 2nd Thursday of Month.