What Occupy Burners Is/Is Not

[Occupy Burners]

On our Twitter (@OccupyBurners), there has been a very active discussion today about what Occupy Burners is -- and is not. We've also been told by SF Slim that the BMORG held an official meeting and ordered their members not to make any statements on Occupy. I think this just proves how important Occupy Burners is in getting our tribe involved.

I also think it shows that it is important for us to define what we are and are not as soon as possible. I want your input. Here is what I have so far.

Occupy Burners Is:

Non-Violent. Though there is division within Occupy about acceptable tactics, no #OccupyBurners endorsed actions should involve violence.

Non-Partisan. We do not endorse any political candidates or parties. The Occupation is our party.

Non-Religious, though our members have diverse religious and spiritual beliefs or none at all.

Dedicated to encouraging more Burners to get involved with their local Occupation.

A Global Network of Burners using their diverse skills and experience to aid Occupy Wall Street.

A chance to make the default world a little more like the playa.

Occupy Burners Is Not:

Endorsed by the Burning Man Organization.

A call to protest or Occupy Black Rock City. 

Just for people who have been to the Black Rock Desert.

An excuse to divide Occupiers. We are all one Occupation, Burners and Non-Burners alike.

A Joke. We seriously want to help Burners help OWS.

All serious. Our revolution includes dancing, costumes, art and theatrics. Laughter is powerful.

Please give me your input. This is your organization too -- our revolution thrives on consensus.

Cheers,

Kit

[Kit O'Connell]

I would like us to reach consensus on this group definition if
possible by Wednesday midnight pacific, if possible.

In particular, I believe Occupy Burners events support nonviolence and
civil disobedience. We oppose violence against people. What about
violence against property?

Cheers,
Kit

[shanta stevens]

Howdy, folks!

I'm Shanta... aka aethyrflux.
I like to help.
I enjoy writing stuff & organizing things... here's my blog:
http://aethyrflux.livejournal.com

I would personally prefer a call for the utmost civility... including
a refrain from property damage, so as to not risk casting any
disparagement upon our movement.

Here's a related article...

_An Open Letter to the Occupy Movement: Why We Need Agreements_ by Starhawk
http://www.realitysandwich.com/open_letter_occupy_movement

"The framework that might best serve the Occupy movement is one of
strategic nonviolent direct action."

[Kit O'Connell]

*Twinkles* Shanta. that's how I feel too. My proposed definition is as follows:

Occupy Burners Is: Non-Violent. Though there is division within Occupy
about acceptable tactics, no #OccupyBurners endorsed actions should

involve violence. We support civil disobedience but not violence
against people or others' property at our actions.

--
Kit O'Connell ~ kitoc...@pobox.com ~ kitoconnell.com

[Yas Etessam]

What about distilling it down even further and putting the  primary focus on peace (not violence, nor the debates within the occupy movement)?

For example:

#OccupyBurners is peaceful.   We support civil disobedience but not violence

against people or others' property at our actions.   

Yas

[Kit O'Connell]

Very simple. Twinkles to this suggestion, Yas.

Kit

On Nov 20, 11:36 pm, Yas Etessam <yasi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> What about distilling it down even further and putting the  primary focus
> on peace (not violence, nor the debates within the occupy movement)?
>
> For example:
>
> #OccupyBurners is peaceful.   We support civil disobedience but not violence
> against people or others' property at our actions.
>
> Yas
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 8:26 PM, Kit O'Connell <vulp...@pobox.com> wrote:
> > *Twinkles* Shanta. that's how I feel too. My proposed definition is as
> > follows:
>
> > Occupy Burners Is: Non-Violent. Though there is division within Occupy
> > about acceptable tactics, no #OccupyBurners endorsed actions should
> > involve violence. We support civil disobedience but not violence
> > against people or others' property at our actions.
>

> > On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 10:22 PM, shanta stevens <aethyrf...@gmail.com>

> > Kit O'Connell ~ kitoconn...@pobox.com ~ kitoconnell.com

[Occupy Burners]

Here is the newest version based on the "friendly amendments" proposed in side threads:

**

We follow the Ten Principles of Burning Man. (Link to: Official Definition at http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/about_burningman/principles.html and my Community Sourced definitions here: http://kitoconnell.com/lexicon-10principles)

Occupy Burners Is:

Non-Violent. We support civil disobedience but not violence against people or others' property at our actions. 

Non-Partisan. We do not endorse any political candidates or parties. 

Non-Religious, though our members have diverse religious and spiritual beliefs or none at all.

Dedicated to encouraging more Burners to get involved with their local Occupation.

A Global Network of Burners using their diverse skills and experience to aid Occupy Wall Street.

A chance to make the default world a little more like the playa.

Occupy Burners Is Not:

Endorsed by the Burning Man Organization.

A call to protest or Occupy Black Rock City. 

Just for people who have been to the Black Rock Desert.

An excuse to divide Occupiers. We are all one Occupation, Burners and Non-Burners alike.

A Joke. We seriously want to help Burners help OWS.

All serious. Our revolution includes dancing, costumes, art and theatrics. Laughter is powerful.

**

Do we have any more comments or friendly amendments? 

I would like to hear more *Twinkles* from people in agreement as well. Unless we have many concerns raised before then, we will consider ourselves to have reaches consensus on this definition at midnight pacific time Wednesday night/Thursday morning.

Thank you,

Kit

[Tiggle]

Love this.

One addition to consider -

> Occupy Burners Is:
> Non-Violent. We support civil disobedience AND PASSIVE RESISTANCE but not violence against people

> or others' property at our actions.

(caps just to make it stand out, not because i think it should
actually be capitalized)

[Occupy Burners]

Tiggle: thanks for jumping in. Can you please define 'passive resistance' and how it differs from civil disobedience?

Kit

[Occupy Burners]

OK Occupy Burners. We are now 24 hours from the proposed close of discussion on this. Here is the definition we have now as best I can figure:

Occupy Burners Is:

Inspired by the global Burning Man community and its ethics.

Non-Violent. We support civil disobedience and passive resistance but not violence against people or others' property at our actions. 

Non-Partisan. We do not endorse any political candidates or parties. 

Non-Religious, though our members have diverse religious and spiritual beliefs or none at all.

Dedicated to encouraging more Burners to get involved with their local Occupation.

A Global Network of Burners using their diverse skills and experience to aid Occupy Wall Street.

A chance to make the default world a little more like the playa.

Occupy Burners Is Not:

Endorsed by the Burning Man Organization.

A call to protest or Occupy Black Rock City. 

Just for people who have been to the Black Rock Desert.

An excuse to divide Occupiers. We are all one Occupation, Burners and Non-Burners alike.

A Joke. We seriously want to help Burners help OWS.

All serious. Our revolution includes dancing, costumes, art and theatrics. Laughter is powerful.

Does everyone still feel we have consensus on this? Does anyone have concerns that they feel have not been addressed? I have triedto include many suggestions, and also removed specific mention of the 10 principles as they may disagree with civil disobedience. PLEASE speak up if you have something to say.

We hope to reach consensus on this by midnight, 12:00am Wednesday night/Thursday morning.

Cheers,

Kit

[Tiggle]

Good question and must say I thought about that quite a bit after the
posting, since maybe it seems similar. I guess i see the difference
as:

- civil disobedience is the sitting down in the road
- passive resistance is going limp when the authorities come to arrest
you

So, one is the initial action and the other is the reaction? Maybe? Or
something like that?

I guess I key in on this because I believe this is one of the critical
factors for this movement to engender populist support. Hard as it is
to 'sit there and take it' when one gets a police baton to the side of
the head, a photo of that will do 100 lbs of good - but the person who
takes a swing back at a cop, justified or not, will do 100 tons of
bad. Passive resistance is the key - MLK and Gandhi proved that (since
the alternative allows the authorities to frame the protestors as the
bad guys, unworthy of sympathy or support).

[Occupy Burners]

*Twinkles* Tiggle. I have added it to our definition and think it is
important to be there. What do others think?

Remember, unless we receive serious concerns from here out, or people
feel like their already raised concerns are not properly addressed, we
reach consensus on this definition tonight.

Kit

[Zonk Scott]

I twinkle with that. Just so long as I can choose to get arrested for choosing to sit down in a bank or the middle of I-35...

Zonk

[Occupy Burners]

*twinkles* I was raised with deep respect for activists who were willing to commit acts of peaceful resistance and civil disobedience for what they believed in. Though I plan to do more organizing/documenting than getting arrested, I am willing to take that risk for the causes I believe in. It's up to each OccupyBurner to decide what to risk for themselves, but we should support their choice to do so if they want.

Kit

[Bluesberrybunny]

Hi Kit!

I love how you've taken this process and run with the consensus idea
since we tweeted about in a couple of days ago!

For my part, the main issues I have have been addressed by the other
burners above, so I can wholeheartedly put in a yes vote of confidence
to this definition. I might add only one thing, that we might consider
adding something that allows us to re-examine and redefine ourselves
in future if indeed a quorum of Occupy Burners puts up a proposal to
do so, and we were to go through the consensus process again. This is
just to build in the ability for this group to grow as the movement
changes. Perhaps the ability to add amendments as the need arises?
Don't know if it's too late to add this?

Thanks for all your hard work, and so glad you've spearheaded this!

Bluesberrybunny (aka Lily)

On Nov 23, 1:24 pm, Occupy Burners <occupyburn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> *twinkles* I was raised with deep respect for activists who were willing to
> commit acts of peaceful resistance and civil disobedience for what they
> believed in. Though I plan to do more organizing/documenting than getting
> arrested, I am willing to take that risk for the causes I believe in. It's
> up to each OccupyBurner to decide what to risk for themselves, but we
> should support their choice to do so if they want.
>
> Kit
>
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 3:20 PM, Zonk Scott <zonk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I twinkle with that. Just so long as I can choose to get arrested for
> > choosing to sit down in a bank or the middle of I-35...
>
> > Zonk
>

[George Paap]

I’m not sure how many people are on this list but I think you should weigh delaying the definition to gain more perspectives. The definition is critical in people’s assessment of whether they want to be involved.  I’m just not sure midnight on a holiday is the best time to stop discussion, I would propose Dec. 1.  I think this works, but I also think it could probably be better and that additional people could help it.

 

In particular, I would like to understand the thoughts behind:

Dedicated to encouraging more Burners to get involved with their local Occupation.

I can see some friction coming from that statement. How, where, when? There is an aspect of evangelism that I’m not sure will resonate with everyone. What is appropriate, what is not?  As a BM regional contact and  community leader I’m a little concerned about the wording (ie being seen to use my role trying to recruit for OWS). I don’t think my role is recruiting burners to OWS. Most burners I know are pretty aware and also pretty independent.  I do see a need for burners to know this exists as a forum if they are interested.

 

I would re-order it

Occupy Burners Is:

A Global Network of Burners using their diverse skills and experience to aid Occupy Wall Street.

Inspired by the global Burning Man community and its ethics.

A chance to make the default world a little more like the playa

Dedicated to encouraging more Burners to get involved with their local Occupation.

Non-Violent. We support civil disobedience and passive resistance but not violence against people or others' property at our actions. 

Non-Partisan. We do not endorse any political candidates or parties. 

Non-Religious, though our members have diverse religious and spiritual beliefs or none at all.

 

Occupy Burners Is Not:

 

Endorsed by the Burning Man Organization.

A call to protest or Occupy Black Rock City. 

Just for people who have been to the Black Rock Desert.

An excuse to divide Occupiers. We are all one Occupation, Burners and Non-Burners alike.

A Joke. We seriously want to help Burners help OWS.

All serious. Our revolution includes dancing, costumes, art and theatrics. Laughter is powerful.

 

My 3 euros,

St. Tiki

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[Occupy Burners]

George,

If we need to revisit the definitions we can do that. I feel like having this nailed down helps us move forward onto actual projects but I don't want to step on any toes.

How do other people feel? It is hard to reach consensus on a virtual forum anyway which is one thing to keep in mind.

Re getting more burners out to ows: I don't see this as prosletyzing but a natural consequence of our projects. I think many people who have not gotten involved yet often don't know how or if they should - I.e. many of us who are unwilling or unable to spend the night on the steps of city hall. But give people a familiar task - like leading classes in skills already honed on the playa -and hopefully they know where they fit in. I want to create projects that Burners will naturally want to take part in, because I feel like once they get out to a camp they will be hooked on OWS the same as I am. I don't want us to be recruiters but to create opportunities for involvement while also growing the movement with our skills.

Kit

['Natara]

I agree with the idea of not being evangelists so much as offering people alternative views of how they can be of service if they'd like to be. That's certainly something I've been focusing on. In LA the community is blessed to be busy and/or employed, so camping out or being on the front lines may not be an option for them.

As far as consensus building and definitions and such, I don't see a problem with our self-definition being something that evolves as .needed.

'Natara

sent from a tricorder-like device with wonky autocomplete, please excuse any typos.

[Occupy Burners]

I think the definition should definitely be an evolving document. We've reached consensus on version 1.0 but discussion can and should continue on improving it. There seem to be two topics George is raising:

1) St. Tiki has proposed we re-order the document. Personally, I agree with this proposal. How do other people feel?

2) St. Tiki is concerned about the following statement:

Dedicated to encouraging more Burners to get involved with their local Occupation.Dedicated to encouraging more Burners to get involved with their local Occupation.

Tiki, based on the clarification I gave how do you feel? Do we need to change how this is worded in our definition?

Kit

['Natara]

I do not have a strong opinion right now about the order of the document.

'Natara

sent from a tricorder-like device with wonky autocomplete, please excuse any typos.

[Christina Jenkins]

Yes, twinkles here, too.

--
The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they
don't have any.
-Alice Walker