Occupy Brooklyn General Assembly

That the Brooklyn General Assembly endorse the call that’s gone out for May 1st to be a coordinated “general strike”. That we also spend the time over the next three months to re-think what a general strike can look like in 2012, and why it’s important to rise up to this challenge, in whatever ways we are currently able.

rooklyn General Assembly
Collective Agreements
By attending and participating in the Brooklyn General Assembly, we hereby consent to the following agreements:

We are here to listen, participate, work and collaborate with Occupy Brooklyn (and its various General Assemblies around the Borough) our Working Groups and affiliated projects;

 This IS a assembly that welcomes all voices that seek to improve the lives of all people in Brooklyn

 This IS a assembly that welcomes and seeks to encourage traditional marginalized voices and members of all communities to have a say and decision in who they wish to live.

 This IS a assembly that is about positive direct actions, campaigns and other activities that seek to improve the quality of life of people in Brooklyn and beyond.

 THIS is NOT a assembly for infinite/infantile, egotistical and/or divisive debates that aren’t meant to improve OCCUPY Brookyn or it’s General Assembly

 This is NOT a assembly that excludes anyone based on race, class, gender, creed, and/or sexual orientation

 This is NOT a space that pushes individual, racial, classists, sexists, homophobic and/or xenophobic agendas that seek to divide the people of Brooklyn and this General Assembly rather than uniting it

We are committed to respecting each other and our host/allies who allow us to use their facilities to have General Assemblies

 Zero tolerance* for violence or verbal abuse towards anyone, especially building security and staff;

 Zero tolerance* for abuse of personal or shared property;
 Zero tolerance* for illicit drugs inside of facility
 No alcohol anywhere inside of facility unless except for functions organized through and with the facility.

We take care of each other and this space

 We clean up after ourselves and our occasionally careless comrades
 We keep our things in order
 We de-escalate and stay grounded
 We turn our cell phones to silent/vibrate during the GA
 We honor the facilitators, proposers and those on stack by refraining from side conversations
 We don’t abuse points of process, proceedures or information,clarifying questions/concerns to make personal points non movement building and/or to jump stack
 We allow each GA to have a ‘soap box’ section for members to voice points of information, concerns or general thoughts ((as it relates to improving the General Assembly and actions, campaigns and strategies

* Anyone who breaks these agreements* will not be granted access into a General Assembly for 30 days. After 30 days, they may request a review of their standing with the General Assembly, given that the Assembly consenses, former members will be readmitted to GA. But if they break any of the agreements again they will be denied access to GA for another 30 days. More than three disruptions and that person will be banned permanently from the Brooklyn GA. We also have a ZERO tolerance for paid or unpaid informants of the 1% in attending our GA’s.

Update: This proposal was discussed and tabled at the 12/22 GA.

The OCCUPY BROOKLYN COMMUNITY AGREEMENT FOR GENERAL ASSEMBLIES AND WORKING GROUPS MEETINGS includes:

AGREEMENT# 1-ENSURES INCLUSIVENESS OF ALL GROUPS IN GENERAL AND MARGINALIZED GROUPS in PARTICULAR

AGREEMENT #2-ENSURES THAT NEGATIVE, THREATENING AND OUT OF PROCESS DISRUPTIONS ARE POSITIVELY DEALT WITH…For example: A individual who continually disrupts General Assembly and/or Working Group Meetings 3 times will be suspended from future meetings….

This proposal was presented and withdrawn at the 12/22 General Assembly. Attendees were asked to start thinking about the issue, and directed to this article.

We have gone on record to support the infrastructure of the internet. Let’s affirm the rights of nature or at least begin talking about it.

To take a temperature check to determine if we are a group gathered to discuss, strategize and take nonviolent action against oppression and/or exploitation,

a) specifically from the corporate and industrial elite (the 1%);

b) where it has been maintained in the institutions under the control of the 1%;

c) potentially where we might discover it being perpetrated by other privileged parties (subsets of the %99); and

d) to support other nonviolent groups engaged in any of the above that might apply.

If there is not a general consensus about any of the above, we might determine that the group is at least committed to nonviolence.

Finally, regardless of any consensus we might reach about nonviolence, we might determine under what circumstances people would condone violence.

Note: It might be best to address each point separately since one does not automatically include another. This is not intended as a written statement or even as the seed of a future written statement. Just an opportunity for the group to acknowledge a general purpose. I would certainly like to know where people stand on all of this.

This is being proposed because in my estimation the group has already taking action that runs counter to what might be understood from the points included here.