what is our mission now?

[Vonn New]

Hi Everyone,

I think we might want to get together to have a conversation about what our mission is as Occupy Poughkeepsie moves into its next phase.  It's not clear to me what that looks like, but I think that we as occupiers have a stake in being part of that conversation in the evening GAs.  As that unfolds we need to consider our role.  Is there a need for evening meals?  What to do with the stuff we took offsite?  How else can we be helpful.

Just as food for thought, here's a message that the Occupy Philly Food Committee just sent to their occupation:

We have missed seeing your faces in line for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. I'm sure you have missed the Peanut Butter and Jelly's. Also, I'm sure some of you are happy to have alot more meat back into your lives, sorry guys. To clear up some confusion we have heard, we just wanted to let you guys know what we are up to. Unfortunately alot of our members were sick for a couple of days so currently we are playing catch up, but getting there. As a commitee we have decided that we are going to continue to feed our homeless friends in Center City, atleast twice a week. Since we no loner have a whole camp to feed, the number of people who would be eating our food have lowered immensly. Also we plan on doing more food related direct actions, now that we are not running around like maniacs back and forth from the kitchen and the food tent. We also plan on spreading more knowledge on where to acess food, if you are hungry, and more knowledge of healthy food and how to access it as well. Also, we plan on acting like the "Op Catering Group", for when we have large events we are going to work on having food available at said events, like rally's, marches, etc. If you would like to get involved, please email us at foodoccu...@gmail.com to find out the time and place of our next meeting. We miss seeing all of your faces everyday, we miss putting food into your bellies. We will announce when our feedings are next week, and we will see some of your lovely faces at the conference at the Friends Center tomorrow.

What say you all to a face-to-face meeting in the near future?

Peace,
Vonn
 

--
Vonn New  -  Raising consciousness, one eyebrow at a time.

Visit my websites:

http://www.vnew-tech.com  <-- website design and audio services
http://www.vonnnew.com  <--  Listening for Muses -  music, art and musings.
http://ministryofsoup.blogspot.com <-- where food and community meet

[Alexander Key]

As one of the "homeless" Occupiers, my vote is
1) rides to and from places like High Valley, who have graciously
extended a huge, warm and spiritually recharging space to the
movement.
2) Places to stay/eat/warm up in poughkeepsie proper.
3) Openess to general help in whatever form it is.

These are the things that come to mind.
I would like to reiterate my thanks to all the people who fed us when
we had our camp.

Yours in the Ninth Wave,
Alexander the Grateful

> > would like to get involved, please email us at foodoccupyphi...@gmail.comto find out the time and place of our next meeting. We miss seeing all of

> > your faces everyday, we miss putting food into your bellies. We will
> > announce when our feedings are next week, and we will see some of your
> > lovely faces at the conference at the Friends Center tomorrow.
>
> What say you all to a face-to-face meeting in the near future?
>
> Peace,
> Vonn
>
> --
> Vonn New  -  Raising consciousness, one eyebrow at a time.
>
> Visit my websites:
>

> http://www.vnew-tech.com <-- website design and audio serviceshttp://www.vonnnew.com <--  Listening for Muses -  music, art and
> musings.<http://hemingwayscat.com>http://ministryofsoup.blogspot.com<-- where food and community meet- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Kathi Instone]

Hi Vonn,

Meeting sounds like a good idea... 

Kathi

--

Kathi Instone
ekins...@gmail.com
"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope."      Robert F. Kennedy

[Nikki Kennedy-Hanlon]

I'm up for a meeting to discuss plan B. The group has lost some direction and I'm interested in moving forward with the group. I have some great ideas that I think just might work. Plans that include community involvement with the group. Sometimes its helpful to think "small" and "local" in order for a movement to have impact. If we can try to organize our thoughts and our goals and actually establish a working orginization, the group as a whole can be effective.

I'm available in the evenings. May I suggest we hold the meeting indoors as its getting cold and we have lots to discuss. Perhaps at the library or a church. But its important to re-group.

Nikki

[Patricia Fallon]

Just wanted to weigh in on future planning.  Someone was circulating an article online to Occupy folks about diversity of tactics, citing the Civil Rights movement.  The idea was that you should be doing more than one thing, in fact as many things as possible within your resources.
That said, I have no objection to outdoor occupations but I think it would be a bad idea to limit ourselves to just that.  I may be projecting (my respiratory infection from hell seems to relapse whenever I am out in the cold too long) but I think making all our activities outdoors, in winter, would be a terrible limitation.  I really can't even come for meetings now unless they are inside, and I can't be the only one who can't take the cold.
I was really interested in the possibility of occupying a foreclosed home-I thought the group was in touch with a local foreclosure lawyer?  This seems like a way to benefit some poor foreclosure victim directly, and these occupy foreclosures seem to be well-received by the communities they are in.  So this seemed to me the most promising of future tactics, but again, see diversity of tactics above, it doesn't preclude doing anything else as well.
BTW have 2 propane stoves, rolling cooler, asst'd Tupperware & a pot lid.  Maybe we should set up a location to drop off the things we took from the site so people can look through them & reclaim them.
Also in any endeavor you need to cycle down sometimes to re-assess and recharge. Sorry as I am about the eviction, we should turn it into an opportunity to do just that.
Thanks everyone for all your efforts.

[Vonn New]

Just so everybody knows, there is a lot still going on on many fronts.
There is a Foreclosure working group that is hard at work w/ an attorney and 6 different homeowner facing foreclosure.
The Outreach working group is reaching out to organizations, labor unions and churches.
The legal team is having a training tomorrow.

All of these groups meet indoors and they include the occupiers from the park and lots of additional people. 
I'm sure there is more happening that I don't know about.

Outreach meets 11 tomorrow morning at Vassar, rm 237 College Center.
Legal meets 1 tomorrow afternoon at Christ Episcopal Church
Blair is getting me info on when Forclosure meets but it will also be indoors.

Just FYI, the term 'diversity of tactics' is loaded.  In activist circles, this term is used to mean that both violent and non-violent tactics are to be used and that no one should criticize another's choice.  It might be better to say 'different kinds of actions' just so no one misunderstands.

Peace & Love,
Vonn

[Patricia Fallon]

Oh, sorry didn't mean to bring in a tainted term.  The article was just talking about things like marches, sit-ins & boycotts.  Hope it goes without saying we're all totally non-violent-certainly didn't mean to imply anything else!  Really glad to see there is still a lot going forward.

[Vonn New]

I know you didn't mean that, that's why I thought you'd want to know about the term.  I'm sure you are not the only one who doesn't know what it means.

[Patricia Fallon]

No, thank you for the heads-up, I do appreciate it. I wouldn't want to unknowingly pollute all our discourse. I shun this term from now on!

Best wishes,

Sent from Patricia Fallon

[Andrew Sawtelle]

I don't understand what "diversity of tactics" is tainted with. I
understand that the Occupy movement has shown itself to be non-violent
movement, but across movements there are ongoing discussions about the
relative merits of violent or non-violent tactics in particular
circumstances. There is also discussion about the problems of framing
tactics primarily as violent vs. non-violent. I would appreciate if
mention of things like a moratorium on criticizing other people's choice
of tactics also reflected these discussions.

Andrew

On 12/9/2011 8:06 PM, Patricia Fallon wrote:
> No, thank you for the heads-up, I do appreciate it. I wouldn't want to
> unknowingly pollute all our discourse. I shun this term from now on!
> Best wishes,
>
> Sent from Patricia Fallon
>
> On Dec 9, 2011, at 7:40 PM, Vonn New <vonn...@gmail.com

>> <mailto:nikkikenn...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> I'm up for a meeting to discuss plan B. The group has
>> lost some direction and I'm interested in moving
>> forward with the group. I have some great ideas that
>> I think just might work. Plans that include community
>> involvement with the group. Sometimes its helpful to
>> think "small" and "local" in order for a movement to
>> have impact. If we can try to organize our thoughts
>> and our goals and actually establish a working
>> orginization, the group as a whole can be effective.
>>
>> I'm available in the evenings. May I suggest we hold
>> the meeting indoors as its getting cold and we have
>> lots to discuss. Perhaps at the library or a church.
>> But its important to re-group.
>>
>> Nikki
>>
>> On Dec 9, 2011 2:07 PM, "Vonn New"

>> <mailto:foodoccu...@gmail.com>

[Vonn New]

Here is so background information on 'diversity of tactics' and alternatives that folks may find helpful:

Food for thought:

http://www.truth-out.org/what-diversity-tactics-really-means-occupy-wall-street/1319485557

http://www.trainingforchange.org/diversity_of_tactics

http://www.trainingforchange.org/nonviolent_action_sword_that_heals


I feel that we cannot say it too often or work too hard to promote non-violence.  As humans, when we are fearful or angry, it is not our default. We have to prepare, support one another, and constantly recommit to non-violence as our response if we are going to succeed.

Peace & Love,
Vonn

                                   <mailto:foodoccupyphilly@gmail.com>