Welcome! Who are we?

[Brett Williams]

Welcome, Robert and Liam. Just the three of us here so far, so we're
going to need to get some more support here before this will be a very
useful organizing tool. ;) We could share some first ideas, though,
to make it look interesting here so more people will join. ;)

If we're going to be an organizing committee for this event, it would
be helpful to figure out how that committee relates to the whole
structure of the worldwide revolution. Here's my first pass at it:
There's eventually going to be a worldwide consensus-driven
revolutionary organization that ties together all of the Occupies and
labor unions and everyone and builds a new world. It doesn't exist
yet (or it has such a disorganized internal structure that it doesn't
even have a coherent sense of identity, depending on how you think
about it). But we are now autonomously creating one part of that
organization, the May Day Committee. I would say that, whether we
succeed or not, there's no point to disbanding that group come May--
we should just immediately turn around and start planning May Day
2013. We should federate with other bodies that intend to be
worldwide representatives of the Occupy movement (or the revolution in
general) with a mind towards constructing a functional centralized
(autonomy respecting, consensus-driven) organizing force for our whole
movement.

<3,
mungojelly (brett)

[Liam Fox]

Brett, thanks for the intro, and sharing your vision for this committee.  I was excited to find the google group today as I was researching for an article ( http://newsjunkiepost.com/2011/12/30/may-day-2012-the-only-way-forward-may-be-to-stop/ ) about the May Day events.  Seeing that it was only three of us at the time, my intention was to reconnect this evening and ask about outreach.  I've been in McPherson Square, DC, at the Occupation since it's inception.  I'm taking a brief break, in New Mexico, to spend some time with my children before returning, on a permanent basis.  I've become involved with both the Occupy DC 2.0 committee, as we call it, to investigate 'what next?' considerations, as well as the labor committee, through which I've already participated in a couple national conference calls where 'May Day: a Day Without the 99%' has been discussed and enthusiastically received.  

I agree with you that this movement must grow if we are truly going to achieve revolutionary change.  And, I also agree, the May Day event may best be viewed as an outreach action to broaden participation, and networking, globally as well as domestically, towards achieving that goal.  I think you're on to something with the idea of this committee continuing past the event itself.  I'm down for the long haul.

Autonomous attempts at organizing, such at this, are happening at a number of levels, and in a variety of arenas.  Locally focused, nationally focused, specific issue based, or organized around specific methods or tactics, such as street theatre and art, or symbolic/material direct action.  Community GA's must be considered as part of this as well.  One thing that I've noticed they have in common is the desire to connect with others.  It is currently disorganized, or at least lacking in adequate organization, but, I believe that in the same way our little occupy communities went from strangers huddling under tarps, to somewhat organized communities with structure and working groups, an organic (yes it's a tired term, but an appropriate one), horizontal, consensus-driven, global community will emerge.  It's simply a matter of time and continued efforts, such as this one.

An action centered, Occupy - Labor Movement type committee, such as this Occupy May day committee may become, is a crucial piece to that structure, globally, as well as domestically... and, as yet, I'm not sure is existing in any functional, viable form, safe from the over-influence of organized labor, and inclusive of disenfranchised workers throughout the world who have yet to see the Occupy Movement as something pertinent and valuable to themselves. 

What is your opinion about extending invitations to Occupiers, and labor activists, I connect with through committees and national conference calls, list-serves etc.  Do you think invitations sent out en masse is appropriate? or, would you prefer invites to those known to share the vision you express, with which I concur?  I'd like your opinion but personally I lean towards curtain number 2.  While I've met some fantastic professional labor activists, who I consider friends and trusted allies, I've had too much experience with paid labor activists working to raise their own stock, and pad their own resumes, within the corporate culture of large modern unions.

If you want a little more insight into my thoughts on this subject, there's a couple years worth of related posts at the blogg linked above.  Looking forward to your thoughts.  Skype and telephone are options for communication as well.  Let me know what you prefer.  I have a feeling that if we're going to move on this, the pace will pick up rather quickly.

Liam

Skype - liamfox1

mobile - 575-496-0713 - I return messages

--
J. L. Fox

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[Brett Williams]

On Fri, Dec 30, 2011 at 8:55 PM, Liam Fox <j.lia...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Autonomous attempts at organizing, such at this, are happening at a number
> of levels, and in a variety of arenas.  Locally focused, nationally focused,
> specific issue based, or organized around specific methods or tactics, such
> as street theatre and art, or symbolic/material direct action.  Community
> GA's must be considered as part of this as well.  One thing that I've
> noticed they have in common is the desire to connect with others.  It is
> currently disorganized, or at least lacking in adequate organization, but, I
> believe that in the same way our little occupy communities went from
> strangers huddling under tarps, to somewhat organized communities with
> structure and working groups, an organic (yes it's a tired term, but an
> appropriate one), horizontal, consensus-driven, global community will
> emerge.  It's simply a matter of time and continued efforts, such as this
> one.

Alright, I think we're on the same page. Let me pitch you an
organizational structure: An affinity group cluster. This is a
structure which is useful in situations in which there is severe
repression, opposition or distraction. Organizing here on the
internet we are quite vulnerable to all three. I therefore propose
this form: We all autonomously form small closed invitation-only
groups focused on particular aspects of organizing this event, for
instance outreach to Occupies, outreach to Labor movement
organizations, propaganda design, etc. Those groups can then
voluntarily and autonomously federate into a cluster, which we could
call perhaps the Occupy May Day cluster or committee. In the
unpleasant event that one of the groups seems obstructionist the rest
of the groups simply decide to associate as something new that does
keep going forward together quickly.

> An action centered, Occupy - Labor Movement type committee, such as this
> Occupy May day committee may become, is a crucial piece to that structure,
> globally, as well as domestically... and, as yet, I'm not sure is existing
> in any functional, viable form, safe from the over-influence of organized
> labor, and inclusive of disenfranchised workers throughout the world who
> have yet to see the Occupy Movement as something pertinent and valuable to
> themselves.

I would propose that the Occupy May Day committee also federate up,
joining with other Labor related clusters to form a giant
supercluster, one industrial union grand.

> What is your opinion about extending invitations to Occupiers, and labor
> activists, I connect with through committees and national conference calls,
> list-serves etc.  Do you think invitations sent out en masse is appropriate?
> or, would you prefer invites to those known to share the vision you express,
> with which I concur?  I'd like your opinion but personally I lean towards
> curtain number 2.  While I've met some fantastic professional labor
> activists, who I consider friends and trusted allies, I've had too much
> experience with paid labor activists working to raise their own stock, and
> pad their own resumes, within the corporate culture of large modern unions.

I prefer quality over quantity in invitations, for sure. It's very
comforting to me that we've been joined here first by comrades from my
local Occupy Burlington. We're not at a point where we're
disconnected and need to figure out how to reach anyone, we have this
incredible momentum and connection, so the best place to start I think
is just to gently invite those beautiful networks and make some points
of connection.

> If you want a little more insight into my thoughts on this subject, there's
> a couple years worth of related posts at the blogg linked above.  Looking
> forward to your thoughts.  Skype and telephone are options for communication
> as well.  Let me know what you prefer.

Thanks for reaching out Liam, it's awesome to meet you, I've read a
few posts on your blog and there's definitely a lot we agree about! I
need to get a better telephone. I mostly text! And I like to chat on
gmail. Hey here's an idea, maybe we could get together an Occupy May
Day conference call! I haven't tried out the interoccupy.org phone
call system yet, but what I've heard sounds awesome.

> I have a feeling that if we're going to move on this, the pace will pick up
> rather quickly.

That's the beauty of this motivation, is that our organization isn't
open endedly trying to do something sometime, we have a deadline. So
any proposals that come up, it's not about whether it could be done in
an ideal world, it's about whether it can be done in a fixed shrinking
number of weeks.

January, February, March, April, let's make each of them count.

<3,
mungojelly (brett williams)

[Liam Fox]

Wonderful.  I've already spoken to just a couple quality people that I know and trust. They're very motivated.  They're very excited.  And, in addition to being tirelessly dedicated to the Occupy Movement, they have strong networks within the activist and labor communities, in DC and nationally.  I'm in New Mexico until Sunday and fly back to DC on Monday.  I will be meeting with one of these individuals on Monday evening, not long after I arrive, and this is at the top of our agenda to discuss.

The affinity group cluster idea is only 'natural', for all the reasons you mention, and, that it allows for the necessary and rapid growth this requires without the dangers that can come with a singular monolithic body.

I've just finished configuring a new computer and hope to have time to tweak my audio and video chat settings within the next day or two.  Any of the communication platforms you've suggested will be great.  I'll get on it during the weekend, at the latest, to make sure that there aren't any bugs in the works before Monday when I expect to hit the ground running.  Happy New Year, it's going to be a fun one. ; )