[OccupyCU] ocCUpy Minutes from GA - 11/26/12

[Theresa Scott]

ocCUpy Minutes 
November 26, 2012
 
Next meeting: Monday, December 3, 2012, SDaS Room, IMC, Elm and
Broadway
 
In attendance:  Susan,  Dada, Ya’aqov,
Michael, Karen, Stuart, David, Chris G., Sandra,  Mark, Paul, Chris E., Theresa
 
We came up with a tentative agenda based on issues that had
arisen in past meetings and interest of the group.  
 
1.              Walmart report – Dada reported that several ocCUpy
people attended the protest.  There
were also people from JWJ, SEIU, and local citizens.  25 strong. Parking lot was filled.  The protest was about an hour, but we made our point, which
is important in the context of a nation-wide effort.  Sandra said that it is good to show store workers that there
is community support.  Ya’aqov raised
the issue of protesters knowing what to say to people should they be questioned
while protesting.   Perhaps we should host educational briefings in
advance so that we can have a more powerful effect if others engage us?  The group ended up speaking for some
time on this topic.  Stuart shared
some facts: subsidies are given to Walmart that in effect cost each taxpayer $1000.  Many workers are on welfare and
Medicaid.  Sandra said maybe a
flier that focused on myths vs. reality would help to explain what is really going on.  Chris said that there are many sides to
this that might appeal to ocCUpy:  suppliers are strongarmed into lowering prices due to
Walmart’s huge reach,  as well as the
Walmart heirs who possess as much wealth as the bottom 42% of the nation’s
population.  We might publicize
that it would cost only 30 cents more a trip to the store to provide a worker
with benefits.  David said that we
should see if anyone is already doing anything before we go forward.  Susan said there is a  lot of fodder in the Walmart
issue and that it is something we may want to take on.  
2.              We had a discussion about the county’s handling
of the tax money allotted for public assistance.  General assistance is when you don’t quality for other
things like Social Security disability. Many are homebound and require medical assistance.  Champaign Township pays less than many
other places with similar economic
levels and the service that is provided is not great.  In the 1990s there was a law passed that said that government bodies
can’t tax more than they need.  From looking at their annual report in Champaign County, it reported
about $250,000 had come in and $200,000 had been spent.  People might want to go after government
malfeasance, but Stuart is less comfortable in suggesting that we take this up
as a group since the monies' target audience even at its highest was just 100 to 150
people.  Now it is closer to 20
people.  Karen felt that even if it
is a low number, they are the poorest of the poor and we should see that their
needs are met.  Susan said that
people and our current politicians don’t want to
talk about the poor; all are lumped into the middle class.  Susan says the poor are dealt with
through charity in our nation.  She
thinks that the poor need to be politicized.  She means that what we do and how we act will help them
locate sources of blame.  Enabling
people to see that they are not the source of the problem and helping them to
see how things can change.  
3.              Michael reported on the referenda.  He will work on the leafleting
referenda with Charlie S. soon.    
4.              There was some general talk about what might
interest us as a group, as well as how we might frame the issues.  Michael said that using the term “the 99%”
was important because it helped to unify all against the 1%.  Stuart reported on something Chris E had
said.  Perhaps we couch things in
terms of tax payers vs. tax takers. If we do this, those who are keen on saying
that there are freeloaders out there (Michael reported that when he was
canvassing recently and people talked about what bothered them, they most
frequently mentioned “freeloaders”) will be playing into our hands because we
can talk about who is paying and what are they getting.  We know that there is corporate
welfare.  Paul brought up Bristol
Place again, which is an area of low-income substandard housing and trailer
parks that city planners are wanting to gentrify so that they can have another
egress into Marketplace and town.  Mark
wants us to get away from thinking about individualized needs; we need to think
about things as collective needs.  Michael added that we do all have collective needs such as those
presented by the environment, water, infrastructure, the economy, etc.  
5.              We had a brief discussion about meeting
structures and the schedule of General Assemblies vs. working group meetings (a
la the Outreach Committee of the past).  Maybe if we determined who wanted to work on what that would help us figure
out a meeting structure?
6.              The above led to a discussion of what are our
general aims?  The group brainstormed
the following as possible criteria:
~ Can it effect
change?  (i.e., Can we educate,
create awareness, listen, change language, learn what the community wants)
~ Can
it build on a previous success?
~ Is
there a passion for this issue within the group? 
~ What
are we for? 
Susan
said that these criteria could be used by any group. We call ourselves Occupy.
We need to be FOR something. We need jobs, housing, schools, clinics, tranpsortation
systems  -- the public good. That is, things we can think about collectively where “we” is the
pronoun.  Not being against "them," but
FOR us.  We could be for business
and anti-corporation.

We agreed to meet again next Monday, December 3rd, to continue to further discuss these and other issues.  
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