Re: [Ideas] [FWD: Re: [Occupybostonoutreach] Occupy Legislation]
John Hawker
world-St Pauls is - but this is far more important
On 1 November 2011 03:47, <mic...@teamgood.org> wrote:
> Thank you Kevin
> I was unaware about what the LA city council passed. One of the seven
> documents which were given to the Boston City Council was the the Sudbury
> doc so right on there! There were seven documents given to Boston. The
> Philly letter and permit, 4 letters of support and the letter to the city to
> sign and return to Occupy Boston which is included below. This document was
> given to me and reviewed by several people a part of the Occupy Movement. I
> delivered it with out alteration. This was the letter that we would like
> the city to send us back supporting Occupy Boston signed by the Mayor.
>
> Dear Occupy Boston,
>
> In a spirit of cooperation with your cause to highlight
> issues of the day, the City of Boston is supports your indefinite stay at
> Dewey Square Park, with the understanding that the support is given "in
> cooperation" with Occupy Boston. While we understand that you cannot
> control autonomous individuals acting in solidarity with your group, it is
> our understanding that Occupy Boston will not condone violence or
> destruction of property in its aim to peacefully assemble. In that spirit
> of cooperation, we support the limited use of commercially available diesel
> generators to power onsite kitchen appliances, as well as winter-resilient
> tenting structures. This cooperation is offered with the understanding
> that:
>
> - no sales are permitted onsite
> - the group will leave the site in a clean and orderly condition.
> - no vehicles or heavy equipment are allowed onsite without police
> permission
> - the City will have access to the site at all times for safety reasons
> - the group will not hold the City liable for any reason
> Thanks again Kevin for sharing about the LA letter.
>
> In solidarity,
>
> Michael
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [Ideas] [FWD: Re: [Occupybostonoutreach] Occupy
> Legislation]
> From: Kevin Maley <kevin...@gmail.com>
> Date: Mon, October 31, 2011 3:18 pm
> To: mic...@teamgood.org
> Cc: in...@teamgood.org, occupy-b...@googlegroups.com,
> occupy-boston-f...@googlegroups.com,
> id...@lists.occupyboston.org, occupy...@googlegroups.com
>
> fHi Michael,
> For reference, the LA city council passed a fantastic resolution in favor of
> the occupation (and its grievances) which is a terrific read (below). And
> the Sudbury Democratic Town Committee recently passed a resolution in favor
> (see here). Am happy to help on this as needed
> Kevin
> http://crooksandliars.com/tina-dupuy/must-read-la-city-councils-resolution-s
> WHEREAS, Angelenos, like citizens across the United States, are reeling from
> a continuing economic crisis that threatens our fiscal stability and our
> quality of life; and
>
> WHEREAS, "Occupy Los Angeles" is fueled by Angelenos from all walks of life
> who have come together in a demonstration of solidarity with and support for
> the national movement started by the "Occupy Wall Street" protests that
> began 17 days ago; and
> WHEREAS, on Saturday, October 1S\2011, "Occupy Los Angeles" started a
> peaceful protest on the Lawn of Los Angeles City Hall that continues through
> this day, and "Occupy Los Angeles" demonstrators are working to secure
> permits to continue the protest; and
> WHEREAS, over 70 additional "Occupy" protests have taken root across the
> Country, from large demonstrations in Boston and San Francisco, to dozens of
> smaller ones in between, with many more being planned every hour, including
> a large-scale "Occupy Colleges" movement set to begin at 12 noon today on
> college campuses across the United States; and
> WHEREAS, the protest in Liberty Plaza called "Occupy Wall Street" released
> its first official Resolution on September so", 2011, available at
> http://occupywallst.org/forum/first-official-release-from-occupy- wall-street/,
> providing an overview of the goals and unifying principles of the "Occupy"
> movement; and
> WHEREAS, the "Occupy" demonstrations are a rapidly growing movement with the
> shared goal of urging U.S. citizens to peaceably assemble and occupy public
> space in order to create a shared dialogue by which to address the problems
> and generate solutions for economically distressed Americans; and
> WHEREAS, the causes and consequences of the economic crisis are eroding the
> very social contract upon which the Constitution that the United States of
> America was founded; namely, the ability of Americans to come together and
> form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility,
> provide for the common defense of, promote the general welfare of, and
> secure the blessings of liberty for all, allowing every American to strive
> for and share in the prosperity of our nation through
> cooperation and hard work; and
> WHEREAS, today corporations hold undue influence and power in our country,
> and the key to this power is the corporate claim to "personhood," an opinion
> both U.S. Supreme COUl1Justices Hugo Black and William O. Douglas declared
> should be reversed; and
> influencing the selection of candidates, the outcome of elections, and
> policy decisions -- threatening the voices of the people; and
> WHEREAS, our economic system can only be called broken when one considers
> that currently, over 25 million Americans who seek work are unemployed; more
> than 50 million Americans are forced to live without health insurance; and,
> even using our current poverty measure that is widely recognized to be
> inadequate and outdated, more than 1 in 5 American children are growing up
> poor in households that lack access to resources that provide basic survival
> needs, such as food, clothing, and shelter; and
> WHEREAS, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released a "CDC Health
> Disparities & Inequalities Report- United States, 2011" revealing that
> income inequality in the United States is the highest in the world among any
> advanced industrialized nation, with wide-spread inequities in U.S. health
> outcomes by income, race, and gender; and
> WHEREAS, the United States Supreme Court's recent 5-4 ruling in Citizens
> United v. the Federal Election Commission rolled back legal restrictions on
> corporate spending in the electoral process, consequently
> highest in the world among any advanced industrialized nation, with
> wide-spread inequities in U.S. health outcomes by income, race, and gender;
> and
> WHEREAS, over the past 30 years, both the average and the median wage in
> America has remained almost stagnant while the average individual worker
> contribution to GDP has soared to 59% and the economy has doubled, all after
> adjusting for inflation; and
> WHEREAS, over the past 30 years, almost all the gains to the economy have
> accrued to the very top income earners-largely the top 1%, who now control
> 40% of the wealth in the United States, in great part as a result of policy
> changes that are reversible such as taxation; and
> WHEREAS, the Institute for Policy Studies indicates that the top 1 percent
> of Americans own half of the country's stocks, bonds and mutual funds; and
> WHEREAS, the 400 richest Americans at the top control more wealth than the
> 180 million Americans at the bottom; and
> WHEREAS, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor has officially endorsed
> "Occupy Los Angeles" and "Occupy Wall Street" in a statement of support
> saying: "The Los Angeles labor movement stands with its sisters and brothers
> occupying Wall Street, downtown Los Angeles, and cities and towns across the
> country who are fed up with an unfair economy that works for 1% of Americans
> while the vast majority of people struggle to pay the bills, get an
> education and raise their families;" and
> WHEREAS, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor statement of endorsement
> continues: "The Occupy Wall Street movement is mobilizing for a fair economy
> across the country including in Los Angeles. This movement is taking a stand
> against the corporate bullies, banks and investment firms that not only
> created our economic collapse in 2008, but continue to take advantage of it
> today, making billions in profits while demanding further wage and benefit
> cuts from American workers;" and
> WHEREAS, Americans must resolve some of the divisive economic and social
> realities facing our nation in a peaceful way to avoid the further
> deterioration of our greatest asset -our human capital-and;
> WHEREAS, in cognizance that one of the factors spurring recent violent
> revolutionary protests in the Middle East is high income inequality, though
> the sobering reality is that income inequality in the United States is even
> higher than that of some of the countries torn asunder by violent
> revolution; for instance, according to the C.I.A. World Fact Book, the
> United States Gini coefficient, which is used to measure inequality, is
> higher than that of Egypt's pre-Revolution; and
> WHEREAS, the fiscal impact of the continuing economic crisis is disastrous
> to education, public services, infrastructure and essential safety-net
> services that have historically made America successful, with school class
> sizes growing while teachers are laid off and forcing Cities and States to
> make sobering choices that just a few years ago would have been unthinkable,
> such as how to cut hours and services from public safety provision, delaying
> or neglecting to maintain essential physical infrastructure including roads,
> sewers, and water and power delivery; and cutting services provided by our
> libraries, recreation, and park facilities; and
> WHEREAS, one of the largest problems causing our economy to continue to
> flounder is the foreclosure crisis, with some banks continuing the use of
> flawed, and in some cases fraudulent, procedures to flood the housing market
> with foreclosures, such as the recent revelations of widespread foreclosure
> mismanagement by mortgage servicers who fail to properly document the
> seizure and sale of homes, in some cases foreclosing without the legal
> authority to do so, prompting the 50-state Attorney General investigation of
> foreclosure practices; and
> WHEREAS, California has been particularly hard-hit by the foreclosure
> crisis, with: • 1 in 5 U.S. foreclosures in California; and • 1.2 million
> foreclosures in California since 2008, with a projection of a total of 2
> million California foreclosures by the end of2012; and • More than a third
> of California homeowners locked in an underwater mortgage, with few banks
> offering any type of principal reduction modification, even given Federal,
> State and City programs offering to split the balance of a modification with
> the bank; and
> WHEREAS, the costs of the foreclosure crisis to California taxpayers
> includes: • Property tax revenue losses estimated at $4 billion; and •
> Local, county and state government losses to respond to foreclosure-related
> costs estimated at $17 billion --including costs such as the maintenance of
> blighted properties, sheriff evictions, inspections, public safety, trash
> removal, and other costs at $19,229 for every foreclosure; and
> WHEREAS, on March 5th, 2010, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed
> the Responsible Banking measure, CF 09-0234
> (Alarcon-Garcetti-Hahn-Parks-Reyes), which would create a Responsible
> Banking program for the City of Los Angeles, scoring financial institutions
> that the City pays to conduct City business along a LosAngeles-specific
> "Community Reinvestment Score" that measures the
> institution's LosAngeles investments in an objective, data-driven manner,
> for example, by measuring the amount of home loan modifications extended
> to Los Angeles homeowners, the amount and location of bank branches
> maintained throughout the City, and the amount of affordable housing dollars
> invested in the City; and
> WHEREAS, the Responsible Banking program, a practical approach to ensuring
> accountability, would therefore provide an important financial incentive for
> banking institutions to 1) Invest more in our City and our citizens,
> particularly by stabilizing the housing market; 2) Provide our community
> development institutions and nonprofits with increased affordable housing
> funds, and 3) Provide incentive for additional economic development drivers
> to spur increased fair lending and equitable investment in Los Angeles, by
> leveraging a model similar to the federal Community Reinvestment Act;
> NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, with the concurrence of the Mayor, that by
> the adoption of this Resolution, the City of Los Angeles hereby stands in
> SUPPORT for the continuation of the peaceful and vibrant exercise in First
> Amendment Rights carried out by "Occupy Los Angeles" and urges the City
> Departments responsible for completing the implementation plan associated
> with the Responsible Banking measure (CF 09-0234) that was approved by the
> Council on March 5th, 2010, which would address some of the concerns of the
> "Occupy Los Angeles" demonstrators by demanding accountability and results
> from the Banks we invest taxpayer dollars in, to bring the Responsible
> Banking measure for a final vote to the Council by October zs", 2011.
>
> On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 2:26 PM, <mic...@teamgood.org> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I attached a letter which went out today as a follow-up to a meeting I had
>> last week with one of the city councillors. I also attended the city
>> council meeting last week and coordinated with another city councillor there
>> who I then followed up with via email after. Earlier today, I followed up
>> with the entire city council. The email to them and the recap email from
>> the meeting I had last week are all attached in a word document.
>>
>> Also worth noting, it was recently noted that I have not attended the
>> recent SPP meetings. I attended all but one of the original SPP meetings
>> which began weeks ago. For the last few weeks I have been helping as a
>> volunteer with the Safety group doing overnights when I am able.
>> Additionally, I made binders of the minutes and notes from those meetings.
>> There should be one copy of all those minutes and notes at Occupy Boston
>> however the original copy and the additional copies were stolen from may car
>> after Professor Chomsky spoke last Saturday. Much else was taken along with
>> my laptop which had data that was improperly backed up making this past week
>> more difficult than most by way of personal logistics. Also, I will be
>> unable to attend tonight's meeting as I have to work most all
>> Monday nights. My apologies for not being able to be there. If someone
>> would be so kind as to send me the date, time and location of the next
>> meeting that would be greatly appreciated and I believe I would be able to
>> attend as long it is not next Monday at 7pm.
>>
>> The attached information I attempted to bring forward at the GA last
>> week. After waiting for two and a half hours from the start of the GA, I
>> had to leave because there was a working group meeting about transparency
>> which I wanted to be in attendance for since I believe transparency of all
>> working groups and accessibility to all meetings of the working groups is of
>> critical important to this movement. I did my best to petition the
>> facilitator to allow me to announce what was going on but I was unable due
>> to process to make the announcement. The first couple weeks I observed
>> announcements like these being allowed to be included as long as no one
>> disagreed. Personally, I feel going forward we all should be cautious
>> about mindlessly following the process laid forth. Process is black and
>> white, it is up to us to impart our own conscience, moral compass and
>> judgement to determine when life needs to happen in the grey area. In cases
>> like these, I agree that we must be held to account to justify such actions
>> which breach the process. There will always be cases in black and white
>> systems where life happens which is in the grey. We need to be consciously
>> present in those moments to take in what is happening in real time so we do
>> not fall victim to the rigidity of systems over people. The system is a
>> tool for us as people to work together effectively. Keeping this in mind I
>> believe is a good practice since for example in the case mentioned it would
>> have imparted much of the information you will come to know after reading
>> the attachment.
>>
>> Thank you all for your commitment to this movement. I am inspired by the
>> actions of people working in all the various ways to serve the movement. It
>> is a pleasure to working with all of you as we realize a functional example
>> of a government for, of and by the people.
>>
>> In solidarity,
>>
>> Michael
>>
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: Re: [Occupybostonoutreach] Occupy Legislation
>> From: Terra Friedrichs <ter...@compuserve.com>
>> Date: Mon, October 31, 2011 10:19 am
>> To: occupy-b...@googlegroups.com, mike Ippolito
>> <in...@teamgood.org>,
>> "occupy-boston-f...@googlegroups.com"
>> <occupy-boston-f...@googlegroups.com>
>>
>> Richard,
>>
>> I urge you to work with Mike, who has been talking to City Councilors,
>> too. So we can be coordinated.
>>
>> I don't see the resolution that you're offering up. Is there a link? The
>> link goes to an article.
>>
>> I like the idea of offering up a resolution, because Mike's already
>> submitted a "sample letter" that a few of us want the city to write...he can
>> provide you a copy. I have to leave my desk now. The reason I like this is
>> that often if an elected board is considering a proposal, and someone else
>> comes and asks for something else, which is similar, they can see more
>> pressure from other sides to do "something".
>>
>> With respect to a resolution, I urge you to keep it very short, and refer
>> to something that's already been approved, or is close to approval. The
>> Statement of Purpose was passed.
>>
>> For a longer, more detailed statement, I feel that Daria's Roadmap (that
>> is more a declaration than a roadmap) is the closest thing that we can get
>> approved in the short term, as in "this week". The "above the line" part
>> has been beaten to death, walked around the camp several times. And so I'd
>> say that it would get a round of applause if it were brought to a GA.
>>
>> Personally, I like adding the below the line part, if everyone insists.
>> And the human rights declarations that Mike brought forth. And George's
>> work in the hood. And now the work you're bringing forth.
>>
>> But I feel that time is short for us, if we don't get something approved
>> soon...
>>
>> I have heard that the camp is to be removed "by mid-November". That is
>> just a rumor. But I also know in my heart that if we don't produce
>> "something" soon, that it will be hard to get the kind of support that we
>> had the last time we were physically threatened, as a camp.
>>
>> Terra
>>
>> On 10/31/2011 9:31 AM, Richard Kerver wrote:
>>
>> Chris and all - this is very well written and succinct enough to get a
>> read by city council. I'd add just one whereas placed as follows:
>>
>> WHEREAS, on almost every index of quality of life, or wellness, or
>> deprivation, there is a gradient showing a strong correlation between a
>> country's level of economic inequality and its social outcomes; and
>> WHEREAS, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released a “CDC Health
>> Disparities & Inequalities Report....
>>
>> Reference Note: A hard-hitting study of the social effects of inequality
>> has profound implications, by Lynsey Hanley, The Guardian, 14 March 2009;
>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/mar/13/the-spirit-level
>>
>> On 10/30/11, Christopher Hope <ccho...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> I think it is time for our work at Occupy Boston to impact legislation,
>> and as a start, I have drafted a City of Boston resolution in favor of us
>> exercising our 1st Amendment rights by occupying. The momentum of this
>> victory will be a huge morale booster for us and will build legislative
>> momentum for the movement. But I need YOUR input and support. Before I can
>> get a city councilor to introduce this in City Hall, I need your
>> feedback.....
>>
>> -- Terra *~*~*~* Terra Friedrichs 978 808 7173 (cell) 978 266 2775 (desk)
>> 978 266 2778 (home/messages)
>>
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>
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--
John Hawker
www.ZOCA.me
haw...@sat-ed.com
john.w...@gmail.com
Skype - hawkerj
Twitter - @hawkerj
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27cxxg2ppX0
If you received this communication in error and got this far then you
read it and telling you not too read it make both of us idiots, so
rather than insult both of us, as lawyers would, I won't. I will say
sorry though, ask you to delete the email if you would be so kind, and
could you let me know so I can delete your email from my email list,
unless of course you like getting my emails by mistake, in which case
don't tell me. That would be a smart thing to do if your a spy of
course, but don't think it wouldn't stop me suing me if I find out! If
I did mean to send this communication to you, be aware it was sent
using blatant honesty, occasional coarse humour, dreeadfull speeling
from both the USA and British schools and gramatical errors'. I have
little patience these days, so get used to it. If you reply and ignore
a direct question I've asked, expect me to get dam annoyed and repeat
the question in bold capitals until you do reply with an answer. Don't
try slippery answers either, that just really annoys me. By the way
it's much better to just get the bad news off your chest and tell me
straight off than delay the inevitable. If you are unable to handle
the truth, require careful nurturing, if your easily insulted, then I
suggest placing my email on your spam list and then delete this
communication in its entirety. If you have a joke - I have a friend
called Alex Mackay who likes them, ask me and I'll send you his email,
I don't like jokes that much so don't send them to me. He'll forward
me the good ones and I'll read them to my mum, she's 86 and likes
dirty ones and Whiskey. If you have any dinosaur pictures my son loves
them, khundi...@gmail.com Thank you.