Facilitator: Carie
Explaining core values, new Quorum process and hand signals.
Announcements
End Homelessness Working Group:
- Meeting at Angel House, Sunday at Noon
- Long March Home 7pm till 10pm, Friday night starting at Palm Park
ALF:
- ALF / Occupy fundraiser event, Saturday night at the Hideout, 9pm
- $10 tickets
- Levi and Chris Nelson performing
Kit:
- Targeting Stratfor
- They have been spying on Occupy Austin through DPS
- They have been spying on Occupy movement through DHS
SouthBy:
- This sunday, Jovitas 4pm-8pm, Pre-Occupy Southby Party
- Needs speakers to talk about Occupy
- Posts for Million Musician March are printed. Please take some and hang them up.
- March 17th, Noon at the Capital
- Having events all through SXSW, please volunteer.
- Major musician event on Friday night at 1am at Swan Dive 7th and Red River.
- Occupy Dance floor Party earlier on Friday.
- March 15th, Monsanto action
Occupy Our Food:
- Lockhart Action: Monsanto obscured their office by removing all signage, but we knew which on it was anyway. delivered a cease and desist letter. Have movie screening and held signs for traffic.
- Working out long term plan for following up on actions.
- College Station is having a StopMonsanto action on the 5th
- Fredericksburg Action was canceled by local law enforcement. Trying to set up event again.
- Occupy Houston and Occupy Eugene (OR) in attendance.
Twitter: Lots of support for today’s actions. Multiple tweeters from each city. New OA Welcome Wagon and OccuQueers twitter account. If other WGs want twitter accounts it is a great way to reach out to people with similar interests in other Occupys.
Reportbacks
Occupy Lockhart: Is doing actions against water fluoridation. Please reach out to friends and family in Lockhart. Gathering petitions. Go to City Council meetings twice per month at 6:30pm, sign up for Citizens Communications at 7:30pm.
Special Topics
Kit – United General Assembly: Once per month starting on March 17th, Occupies across the nation would have a national GA, bring national proposals and come to consensus
POI: March 17th will also be the largest GA in Austin because of our march that day.
CQ: Are they using Skype?
A: Topics are proposed earlier. The tech is still being worked out. Mostly planned ahead of time on Twitter.
CQ: Where did this come from?
A: Synchronized Occupy Wall Street, a twitter user proposed it.
CQ: How will results be collected.
A: Published online and reviewed collectively.
CQ: Do different size Occupies carry different weight?
A: Boils down to a queston of what is consensus.
Stack: Really cool that we are talking about this. These are important questions.
Stack: It’s great that we can include people from other countries. People outside the US have good ideas too. Working together on this future that we want to build.
Stack: What kind of proposals would be brought at a United GA?
Direct Response:: End Corporate Personhood, abstract and philosophical. Things for the media.
Stack: Concerned that passing too many proposals and national proposals, waters down local differences.
Stack: Concerned that some occupies would not be involved and yet UGA would be speaking for them.
Stack: 99% Declaration WG Ltd. has been organizing a centralized GA
POI: It has been frowned on by OWS and Occupy Philly because it has been supported by Goldman Sachs and Democratic Party.
Direct Response: This would be decentralized and much more difficult to be co-opted.
Stack: We could learn from each other by approach the same problem, but without obligation to solve the problem in the same way.
Direct Response: Good way to approach topics without fighting about language and commas.
Stack: This would be perfect for Solidarity Statements.
End of Topic
Late Anouncements
Amanda – AISD:
- March 2nd Rally at 3pm at Capitol, marching to TEA (Texas Education Administration) at 4:15pm
- Many great speakers. We are getting RSVPs from all over Texas.
Eslerh: Suggesting we make 5-6 min videos about Occupy Austin each week, as an outreach effort. Is starting a Working Group for it. Has a camera, but no editing software. ezlerh@gmail.com
POI: Download Adobe Premier 30-day travel and get Timekeeper to roll back trial period time.
GA concludes
Tags: General Assembly, minutes
