[GPSCC-chat] Occupy San Jose Update

[Gerry Gras]

Spencer Graves wrote:
> 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.

I went to the website to see if I can find it.  The only
likely candidate I saw was the manifesto.  But I don't
think that was what I heard Ledesma say today.  So what
is going on?

>
>
> 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.

That's not all.  These guys are friendly with the police.
I heard someone there tell about a policeman saying that if
he was not in uniform he would be joining them.

And I saw a fire truck honk in support.

>
>
> 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/>".
>

Gerry