[GPSCC-chat] Occupy San Jose Update

[Spencer Graves]

Hello, All:


       I arrived at the Occupy San Jose site at City Hall, 4th and Santa 
Clara for a 10 AM meeting of the Communications Committee.  With some 
effort, a group of roughly a dozen people got consensus on a "working 
version" of a statement of why they were there.  The statement appears 
now under "Who we are at "http://occupysj.org <http://occupysj.org/>".  
I plan to produce bookmarks of that text.


       The Research committee was scheduled to meet at 11 AM.  The 
meeting was attended by Gerry Gras, Doug Jones, and others whose names I 
did not properly record.  At the General Assembly (GA) schedule to begin 
at noon, I summarized the minutes of that meeting by saying that we were 
proposing to produce a bookmark with the Occupy San Jose Statement 
produced by the Communications Committee and approved by the GA, and we 
would ask people to distribute them AND ask anyone who seemed interested 
in talking about their concerns (about the current political and 
economic problems facing the US and the world today) -- then listen 
respectfully, taking careful notes on what people say.  Or invite people 
to write their own summaries of their concerns.  The concerns would go 
onto Post-Its / sticky notes or 3 x 5 cards, which would then be sorted 
using the Affinity Diagram technique (Wikipedia, "Affinity Diagram").  
This will produce categories of concerns.  These categories of concerns 
might then be translated into questionnaires to get quantitative data 
ranking people's concerns.  They can also be used by Research committee 
to focus their work and by the group at large to craft position papers 
on those issues.  This is crudely similar to what well funded 
politicians do to figure out how to package themselves for the voters.  
We would use it in a less cynical way to develop political agendas that 
could sell -- and to further research the past actions and positions of 
candidates on these issues.  Honest analysis of the histories of 
competing candidates is not a worthy subject for the mainstream media, 
because it would reduce their revenue during election years.  We can 
help fill that gap.


       Around 1:45, Merriam, Catherine (I failed to get her last name) 
and I went looking for people representing the United Methodists, who 
own a lot at 5th and Santa Clara, just north of City Hall, to ask their 
permission to use that site for expansion or as an alternative in case 
the San Jose Police actually evict the group currently camped on the 
City Hall lot on 4th St. at Santa Clara.  We failed to find a human, but 
Merriam will make further attempts to contact them.


       I believe there is a difference between the current international 
Occupy movement and the antiwar demonstrations of the 1960s and early 
1970s.  When I was involved in my late 20s, I don't remember working 
with anyone much over 30, who had knowledge and experience with similar 
efforts.  This group seems genuinely pleased to have members of the 
"Over the hill gang" like myself to provide a perspective of what they 
need to do to have a longer term impact than we had at that age.


       Thanks to all of you who helped edit the "No Credit Card" flier 
last year and all you've been doing since.  They have a General Assembly 
at 7 PM each evening, Monday - Saturday, and noon on Sunday.  As far as 
I know, they've had people on that site every minute of every day since 
last Sunday, Oct. 2.  They'd be happy to have you come by any time.  As 
long as I've listened respectfully and asked questions, they seem to 
have appreciated my suggestions and offers to do things for them.  They 
haven't responded to every suggestion I made (I'd be worried if they 
had), but I think they've accomplished a lot in a short time and stand 
poised to accomplish much more.  For more info, try "http://occupysj.org 
<http://occupysj.org/>".


       Best Wishes,
       Spencer


-- 
Spencer Graves, PE, PhD
President and Chief Technology Officer
Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc.
751 Emerson Ct.
San José, CA 95126
ph:  408-655-4567
web:  www.structuremonitoring.com

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