Trans-Pacific Partnership

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Hello, All -

Is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the most significant international commercial agreement since the creation of the World Trade Organization in 1995? Does Occupy Wall Street have anything to say about it? Does Occupy Delaware? What happened when we broke camp? What happened when the ACLU pulled the plug and we failed to replace our encampment? What happened when we decided too many members had to be taken down and out? What would happen if we invited all former members to an open forum study group prior to the next G.A. at 6 p.m. on the third Wednesday of the month to study important current issues? As Pink Floyd said in a song long ago, “Is Anybody Out There?”

Sincerely,

M3

GA meeting notes for 2015-05-15

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Occupy Delaware
General Assembly
Meeting Notes
Hanover Church
Wilmington, Delaware
2013-05-15
Chock-full of links it’s a wonderful notes.
Better notes a millionaire’s money can’t buy!

Meeting start: 1920 hr

REPORTS BACK

Pacem in Terris authorized fiscal agency for the Delaware Hour Exchange, which will be launching soon, and I hope all ODE people will get involved. Time banking is an international movement in which each person’s time is worth the same as any other’s. [delawarehourexchange.org] DHE is a project of Wilmington in Transition, and has members now from all around the northern Delaware area. It’s about helping each other meet needs, valuing community, not devaluing non-scarce talents and skills, such as nurturing, helping, in community. Unlike the cash economy. DHE will have a roll-out very soon. We’ll post the announcement on the ODE events page, and send out emails. The night before last 7 of the 8 worker bees of the DHE went to Phoenixville, PA for their time bank’s [http://www.pa-timebank.com/] annual meeting and the launch of a new Mid-Atlantic Time Bank Alliance. Act locally, share globally, like InterOccupy cf. Occupy. The IRS says it’s not taxable. The founder, Edgar Cahn [http://www.law.udc.edu/?ECahn], was one of the panelists. The local community-building aspect is a primary reason it’s sponsored by Wilmington In Transition [https://sites.google.com/site/wilmingtondeintransition/]. The book, No More Throw-Away People. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_banking and http://nomorethrowawaypeople.org/] Social services have been shown, the recipients, when asked to reciprocate, their usage of the service decreases and their self-esteem goes up. I’ve got some feelers out with HARP, Homeless Are People Too [https://www.facebook.com/harp2011], all hours are valued equally. WiT has reached the milestone of establishing Working Committees! DHE is the Economy working group.

Kris Lynn got a message from Havre de Grace, who are interested in starting an Occupation! Asked if we’d come down to hold a GA. So people who are interested contact Kris. Mark will contact Kris. We’ll have to take Steve and Jen, our institutional knowledge base.

Jen has moved forward on her media project. Delaware Matters (stolen from Bernie, who’s thrilled). So next step is to start a non-profit online newspaper for Delaware. So we’ll have a meeting of people who are interested. Contact Jen. [Delawarematters.org]

Jen registered OccupyDelaware.org domain name. So now we have Occupyde.org and that one.

Save The Valley [http://savethevalley.org/] rally was last night. Beaver Valley is Woodlawn Trustee-owned land just across the Delaware line, they were looking to get a zoning change to develop it. At the zoning hearing last night there were 1000 people to protest the zoning change. The developers withdrew their zoning applications. But are planning to re-submit separately in the future. Vigilance!

We did Delaware Ave. bridge sign hold-up. “Reinstate Glass-Steagall Now!” and a policeman stopped to ask if that’s the financial thing…! So the message is getting out there!

[insert photo here!]

There are a group of state senators in Delaware co-sponsoring a resolution to encourage the federal government to re-instate Glass-Steagall: Venables, ???. Please contact Cathy Cloutier [http://www.cathycloutier.com/] and encourage her to sign on to this. Ted Kaufman on his Website consistently promotes re-instatement. [http://tedkaufman.com/ted_kaufman_on/whos-for-too-big-to-fail-now] The News Journal has endorsed Glass-Steagall, as has the president of M&T Bank, and many other honest banks. [http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/02/dodd-frank-a-total-failure-bipartisan-panel-agrees/] Part 2 of Dodd-Frank enables banks to convert depositors’ money into stocks and then to declare those stocks worthless, just like what happened in Cyprus and Greece! We’re moving forward with outreach and education. To get people to pressure elected officials, relate it to the personal level. The collapse can happen again! The collapse is happening again, right now. The EU is imposing conditions on nations to pay debt, banks are telling nations what to do. This is fascism, really. Synarchism [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synarchism], which is how Nazi Germany was funded. It put Franco, Mussolini, Hitler into power. Paul Hoffman’s [Ben Protess?? http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/compromise-seen-on-derivatives-rule/] editorial, yesterday, was very clear.

OWS has a subgroup, Occupy The Economy. Their group calls are next to useless, now. OWS is losing track of what it started out to do. Where are they now? Occupy Sandy? But there are fundamental issues that need attention. [http://alternativebanking.nycga.net/ and https://docs.google.com/document/d/12xYu0yUaHE2RCKgCHfWV7CLK-_Ekljhp_A8kDVM86Y4/edit]

ANNOUNCEMENTS

The March Against Monsanto on May 25th – Philly, West Chester, D.C. – it’s an international day of action. [http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/] Many other things going on the same day, not deemed to have a critical mass among known likely local participants, to organize something locally – probably some will attend D.C. or Philly rallies.

Same day is a protest at noon, at Horsham (PA) Air Guard base. [http://dronefreehorsham.com/] It is the newest installation of military UAV (‘done’ aircraft) operations. Pacem in Terris (and others) will be there protesting the use of military drone aircraft assassinating people abroad. Pacem will take it’s scale model ‘predator drone’.

Also… put the word out to promote the continuation and expansion of the Delaware Ave. vigil/protest. Street theater – how do we make these actions [even] more fun?

Jen is continuing editing on the film shot back last Autumn about predatory lending – it’s slow work, but moving along.

Meeting adjourned: 2045 hr

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GA meeting notes, 2013-04-17

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Occupy Delaware
General Assembly
Meeting Notes
Hanover Church
Wilmington, Delaware
2013-04-17

Meeting start: 1930 hr

10-MINUTE DISCUSSION

[none]

REPORTS-BACK

Delaware Avenue, Norris with Steve and Ed, today. Beautiful day for holding signs — Greed Is Evil. A lot of passionate support from the people driving by! The Aries thing was really happening tonight!

Advocacy Trip to DC for the nutrition part of the corn bill. Faith-based, 750 people, ecumenical. Lobby day in Washington. Monday we met with our representatives. What we used to call food stamps (SNAP) has always been a big part of the farm bill, but that’s been falling apart. The Farm Bill expired last year! But some, including food stamps, has been continuing, but many great programs went away. And the food stamp program is falling behind. 1 in 5 children is food-insecure, 1 in 6 adults. How many vets are on food stamps? A lot of veterans are having severe economic and other problems with re-integration. 22 vets a day commit suicide. There are groups that are doing good things, with some success. The Senate passed a farm bill last year but the House didn’t let it out. It’s not likely that there’ll be much commodity support, because biofuels is using a lot of surplus corn so can’t justify paying farmers not to grow it. Natural gas is so cheap that the idea of subsidizing growing corn for ethanol makes so much un-sense. The villain at the conference was Monsanto. This was the 11th annual trip. Ecumenical Advocacy Days. The Farm Bill bill is a beautiful way to encompass many moral issues. Food will be used as a weapon as the climate changes. Most of the food reserves are 90% GMO.

https://www.facebook.com/advocacydays
http://advocacydays.org/2013-at-gods-table/lobby-day-ask/

The media doesn’t cover these issues, on poverty. The media is suffering with technology changes and they don’t want to bite the hands that feed them.

http://www.contentdelaware.org/

http://heartsandminds.org/

http://delawareway.blogspot.com/

http://www.newarkpostonline.com/

Bloggers’ tribe about peace and justice.

Content, good reporting, on local government is sorely needed here. It is hard work, to go to all the committee meetings, getting to know people, to get into the back, smoke-filled, rooms. It takes years to develop this. All the little towns in Delaware, all the local dramas. It’s a full-time job. “The school board beat.” Or a portal for people to upload their notes, videos of the meetings they go to. Curated, edited. That’s what we’re losing, the role of the press, to filter, interpret the raw data. The equivalent of a front page, so we know what’s important.

Would Gary Soulsman be available to consult? The Occupy Times, Pittsburgh Occupy has a paper, too. We could talk this over with Tizzy Lockman, contentdelaware.org. We could specialize in Occupy topics. Tom and Mark will follow up with this.

The last GA or action meeting we talked about the foreclosure video and getting a booth at Newark Night and screening the movie (we may not be able to make Newark Night) but we’re putting the video together.

Tax day thing, ADA, went well [All Riled Up for Tax Reform].

Keystone XL rally [Keystone Pipeline: Shut It Down!]

The more active we are the less coverage we’ll get. The News Journal is competing with Grumpy Cat. MSM has an agenda, they’re corporate, and they need to make money.

We are Spores of Truth. The civil rights movement started in church basements and grew over 50 years. Stonewall. Each day looks bleak, but from a historical perspective there is change. Occupy has had an impact already.

Rise of the Drones, streaming on PBS now. The things they can do with a drone…they can keep tabs on us, all the time.

Kill Decision. Madison, WI has sought to outlaw drones in their air space.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Pacem in Terris, Delaware Campaign for Gun Sanity, the film, Trigger, with a speaker. 7 pm, Westminster Presb.

Tomorrow, 350.org and SC are doing a day of action in DC to deliver the anti-XL letters to the State Department. Stephanie.Herron@sierraclub.org.

Sat, 20, pre-Earth Day celebration at Russ Peterson park, Wilmington in Transition will be tabling.

Delaware Hour Exchange will be launching relatively soon. Charles Eisenstein, Sacred Economics for background. Vigorous discussion of time banking ensued.

WiT is having a potluck picnic, May 5, 1 to 4 or 2 to 5pm. Brainstorming meeting to formulate ideas to bring to a strategic planning session.

May 10, MoveToAmend National day of Action. Sheets and signs on overpasses.

Super Sale, May 4, Hanover Presbyterian Church, 1801 N. Jefferson St., 19802, to benefit Hanover’s Mission and Service ministries.

Meeting adjourned: 2100 hr

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GA meeting notes, 2013-03-20

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Occupy Delaware
General Assembly
Meeting Notes
2013-03-20
Hanover Church
Wilmington, Delaware

Meeting start: 1930 hr

10-MINUTE DISCUSSION

None tonight.

PROPOSAL

None tonight

REPORTS-BACK

Just got back from DC, visited the Peace House and a sustainable living
communal living farm they’re putting together. They’re requesting seeds

Go to the dollar store for heirloom and non-patented seeds.

If anybody has anything to donate…I’m going back soon.

They’re an extension of the Peace House, which is being threatened with
foreclosure. 10 or so people are getting it ready, Occupiers are working
to get the gardens going. Doing sustainable community living.

How much land? What are they trying to grow? Raised beds.

I’ll put it on the actions page. They’re clearing the lot, turning the
soil by hand, and it’s coming along.

———–

Just got back from Dover, with Sierra Club for the Renewable [Energy] Portfolio Standards.

Very rewarding and pleasant experience. The contentious part was with
in Harris McDowell’s office, Finn McCabe is drafting legislation, and
Collin O’Mara was in the office, Bruce Gillette, SRO. Amy Roe had just
informed Harris of University of Delaware’s exemption from Solar Renewable Energy Credit participation, which dilutes the SREC market. Harris starting talking about natural gas and it’s supposedly being cleaner than oil and being the “bridge to the future.” I brought up that that’s a specious argument, it’s not a bridge because we won’t develop enough sustainable renewable energy to replace the amount of energy we’re using now, so a bridge to that nonexistent future…A very 20th century way of thinking. We’re living likes pigs at the trough, a fossil fuel glut, society built on this and we need to radically change the way we live. It’s not a bridge to the same thing.

You don’t get what you don’t invest in.

He suggested it’s the gateway drug. Is fracking gas better than extracting tar sands oil? Depends on where you live. Will we somehow avoid collapse?

Society as a whole will not make the transition until the pain is excruciating. The pain will come years after irreversible changes happen.

There are places in that pain right now. The causes are already happening.

The Wilmington in Transition people are also aware, we’re not alone. Occupy folks need to look back at what they’ve achieved and what they can do in the future. Do we want to continue to get prosecution for the bankers? We’ve had success with regard to the housing issue. Keep pressing for prosecution of the banksters, get focus back Glass-Steagall.

You’re not stuck in traffic, you are traffic.

30 percent of mortgages are under water. They made these ridiculous loans because they could sell them. We need a devotion to rigor. We have
a core group of people who are involved in many different things in many different groups.

Dealing with the banksters is what Occupy is about, or at least what its
impetus was. The thing that’s powerful is reclaiming the public space,
Occupying, about dominion and ownership, and consumerism. The social
justice aspect of the screwed up economics apparatus has to be part of it.
Being able to occupy where you are. Not just about money.

Amnesty International, for example, have a very focused mandate, and
they’ve been very effective.

Has Occupy had a single mandate?

Another Venn Diagram group, 350.org, local chapter, founded by Gary
Robbins, we met last week about how to carry the ForwardOnClimate rally forward. One action, timed to coincide with Move Your Money, at TD Bank, the number one funder of TransCanada, a big tar sands pipeline company.

This is related to a core issue of Occupy, this industry is funded by the biggest of the big of the the 1%, the source of a lot of injustice. This is attacking the 1% where it hurts. Make people aware of TD Banks injustice, and the need to invest locally in our banks.

Banner hanging and vigil last Saturday at UD where the tar sands cars are backed up. Ten protestors, 5 police cars who watched the entire time. (DC did a TD Bank action this week.)

The Delaware SB 19 to repeal the death penalty made it out of committee.
HB 35, for closing the loophole for gun control, made it out of committee.

Delaware Hour Exchange will be starting up in 2-3 months.

I went to Godspell Friday and they had a protest part, at Mt. Pleasant HS, they yelled “Occupy Mt. Pleasant!”

Kris Lynn is running for Delaware City city council. We went out Sunday door knocking, handed out flyers. She got a very positive reaction. She has a candidate’s forum this Saturday, March 23, 2 pm, at the DC Library. KristinaBLynn FB page. Kris would not be doing this if it weren’t for her involvement with Occupy.

The St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dover, GPDE and DE-SC, we had two
electric-powered trucks and handed out stickers to the kids. People were shoulder-to-shoulder, tons of kids, I gave every kid a sticker until I was the last one in the parade, it was over and I was still handing out stickers! It was a good event.

I went last night to hear Kurt Buzzworth, the first person exonerated from death row by use of DNA. His mission is to abolish the death penalty. Abe Bonowitz of Witness to Innocence was with him. They do advocacy, as opposed to street actions. At Siegel JCC. 18-minute clip Buzzworth, really good. There’s a place for advocacy in Dover. Maybe an Occupy place?

A reason Occupy is so important is because sometimes advocacy works and sometimes it doesn’t, for when we need to get into people’s faces. The beautiful thing about Occupy is that we’re like water. We go where we need to go.

When it starts happening and there’s a massive pushback in other countries then people here may start to see the possibilities. Cyprus, what do we think about it? Will it happen here? No, not until we can’t get our money out of our ATMs.

When you start seeing countries go down, what’s next, the Euro? It’s huge, trying to tax deposits…The international and US economies are very connected, it’s the same banks. But Americans won’t care until it does happen here.

Everybody’s got ideas that they think somebody else should organize and  they’ll support.

TD Bank action, posted on occupyde.org. It’s an Occupy thing.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

April 1, United Day of Action, Tent City. Pop a tent in any open space.

How about Dover, on the governor’s mansion lawn? Have some sandwiches.

MoveToAmend, May 10, the 127th anniversary of the first court ruling that started citizen-type rights for corporations. Planning a national day of actions. Focusing on signage over bridges and interstates, like the light brigade. Hang real big banners. This sounds like a straight-ahead Occupy thing.

Meeting adjourned, for Action Committee meeting, 2045 hr.

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Two Anti-Tar Sands Actions for YOU to Join!

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TSB-FB_TK_SMALLTuesday March 19th – Tar Sands Blockade solidarity action: Join members of the Delaware Sierra Club, Occupy DE and GPDE next Tuesday, March 19th in Newark from 5-6pm for a Delaware anti-tars sands action during the National Week of Action against Tar Sands Profiteers! We’ll hold our tar sands banners and signs in front of the very place where the toxic tar sands are being held in rail cars (right near residential areas and UD campus) as they wait to be unloaded and processed at the Delaware City Refinery.

Friday March 22nd – TD for Tar Sands – Move Your Money! : Join Delaware Sierra Club, Occupy Delaware and GPDE from 3-6pm for a “Move Your Money” action at TD Bank in Newark for their continued major financial support for TransCanada and tar sands profiteering! (edit)