Planning the Training for the Gathering.

No worries about the job; we all do what we must in this system while we work for change. The formal gathering itself is the 31st to the 3rd; there was a plan last year to do a training before the gathering started—let’s not get into the plans, the boycotts, the recriminations, the calls for accountability, the question of payment—but the upshot is that we agreed to have it a day ahead this year, and Delphine has been bottom-lining that effort. @triciafromphilly I keep reminding folks that we are all organizers, we are all participants. All who can get there a day early are welcome; @oswgwhe says that we have some camping space for the night of Wed., the 30th.

The original intent was for the organizers to go through the training, but as far as I know it was never limited to just organizers, but anyone who was drawn to take it.

Delphine said Sarah Campbell and Claire Baird of the Catalyst project will be facilitator, and possibly others in a one day one night notable event.culminating with a march on the Capitol.

99Rise taught me the lesson that our Loomio planning group is not yet ready to put on this Summer's gathering, but we are ready to do the training on Wed Aug 30. At that event we can unify a group to plan for a Sacramento Gathering for next year, to prepare for a 2016 gathering in Washington DC.

99Rise has taught us how to "work" the halls of power. We work Sacramento. Then we work Washington DC.

Our training this year will be crucial to unify a group to plan for next year. We have to think long term. A warm up gathering in Sacramento next year in 2015 could prepare us for a culminating event in 2016 in D.C.

So ... now we must focus on getting many willing learners here for our Wed Aug 30 training in Sac.

I meant Wednesday July 30, not August 30.

To be clear, the whole week-long gathering is not foreclosed. However 99Rise has taught us our errors and so we must concentrate on the training on Wed July 30. We might, by then, if people are willing to embrace the difficult training, have people and resources which as of today are still unwilling to do much.

I missed the part where 99 Rise "taught" us. What are you talking about?

Those few in Sacramento who participated with 99Rise learned lessons for which there is, as yet, no discussion that will allow the teaching to be spread.

To wit. 99Rise succeeded so brilliantly during its two week occupation of the Capitol, that until what they did is known, our plans and discussion will suffer, accordingly as we do not start asking what did they teach, and how can we learn, and how does it relate to our plans for this summer?

Whereas I welcome 99Rise to the gathering, I am not ready to put aside our planning. I am not sure that you are suggesting that, so please clarify?

Certainly our planning goes forward and 99Rise will enhance it by their participation. Especially on our Training day. And they want to participate fully.

Sally, Things are changing very fast. The situation in Sacramento viz-a-viz our Gathering has changed. We have a firm whole day to work on the changes. Wed July 30. Doesn't it seem the Gathering would go better after that? And that can begin now in this discussion.

On the other hand, things may simply come together the way we want them to. However I doubt that it will, if our planning process can't change along with other changes.

To see 99Rise as somehow contrary, or as usurping our business in Sacramento, is wrong headed. We have a good planning process that now needs to change.

The change should be to focus on Wed July 30 now, and from that effort the rest of the Gathering will flow. However the Gathering will not flow out of our current planning situation. The Sac GA, the other groups, the various factions or distinctions within the Occupy 99% movement, as well as Laura Cres NikiV and Donna and others, all of these entities are not planning on the same page.

No one has satisfactorily answered why it came to be that Sacramento was chosen. An answer might be that this was the only place the change can happen. But that doesn't mean that we comprehend how the change will come about. Now is the time for the change in our situation that could lead to a successful Gathering.

Sea, what exactly is it that needs to change about the planning process?

What change are we talking about? the change in Occupy, the change in local politics, the consciousness transformation?

I don't understand the statement about how Sacramento was chosen. There's no choosing. Although I do understand that this year it did not rise up organically from the local occupy, as it had the two previous years, but was suggested to Sac, and voted on at the Sac GA to host the gathering. I defer to Sac folks for any local history before the initial call Jan 6.

Prior to that online, having a gathering was discussed on the Occupy Free Leonard Peltier calls I joined the last of those 12-16-13.

Planning Call Notes 12-16-13 and 1-6-14
http://natgat2014.titanpad.com/1

pre-planning on Occupy Free Leonard Peltier calls
http://interoccupy.titanpad.com/23

anyway, how does this come into play, besides not garnering the in-house enthusiasm that rising up organically creates?

Please see the "preface" to this response to Jackie's questions, which was just posted as a comment in the "Legal: Permits, Do We ... " discussion.

Questioin 1. What needs to change about the planning process?
Response: Its not the planning process that needs to be changed, its the planning situation. What we hope will happen in Sacramento depends on Sacramento. That is what has changed because of 9iRise. So Question 1 should read, "How can we explain what just happened in Sacramento, and to explain it in a way that will streamline what we work on between now and the Gathering?

Question 2, Is the change in Occupy, in local politics, a consciousness transformation?
Response: Its a change in all three. Explaining its comprehensive nature will be the meat of the answer to Jackie's questions.

Question 3. I don’t understand the statement about how Sacramento was chosen. There’s no choosing. Although I do understand that this year it did not rise up organically from the local occupy, as it had the two previous years, but was suggested to Sac, and voted on at the Sac GA to host the gathering. I defer to Sac folks for any local history before the initial call Jan 6.?
Response: Jackie's comment is in the right direction. The full answer will be long.

Please consider what i have said above and consider the preface that I just posted in the "Permits" discussion as a way to learn how we can succeed at the Gathering and how as of now we will have to take a few steps backward to be able to gain perspective on where we are going.

Then we can answer Jackie's question together as a group, and do it comprehensively. And thereby plan and learn together as a group and do it comprehensively.

so, are these to be agenda items? I think this looks like a call series of its own.

how you expect to clear these items up within 3 calls is beyond me. these sound more like continuing Occupy discussions to take place within NatGat

What I take from the various long threads you have posted is that there is an entirely different natgat being planned outside the community that has worked together for 7 months, and that information is being intentionally withheld. If this is the case, and folks want to plan a different natgat weeks before opening day, go for it, but have the decency to inform the folks plugging away.on specifics. Personally, I don't wish to give 4 or 5 more weeks of 80-100 hr weeks to an effort that is not inclusive, collaborative, open or transparent.

I am loathe to continue contacting speakers and volunteers if the information we are giving them will not stand. This is wrong, and will hurt the image of ongoing natgats gravely.

Those are unlikely agenda items. If they are a call series then the series has no clear identifier as to what it is. Information is not intentionally being withheld. There are not 2 NatGats being planned. However the assumptions made at the beginning of the process don't seem to be valid assumptions any more. This is why focusing on a Training to unite us around current assumptions makes sense. Then the planning you have done will be able to happen in an improved environment. Its the dynamics of Sacramento's planning (which our GA has disrupted) that has slipped behind the dynamics of the State Capitol which has not disrupted us. Rather, the Rotunda of the People's Temple in Sacramento, beckons us to a higher purpose than what we had originally enunciated. All the current plans stand as good if we first focus on the Wed July 30 Training.

The statement about "why Sacramento, and how the NatGat came to be here", may be telling re: the change in consciousness, a changed situation requiring new assumptions that weren't present a year ago, what influence a potential reunification between the 99 people and the Occupy people will mean, and the possibilities of what we can accomplish.

All the current plans stand as good if we first focus on the Wed July 30 Training.

ok, what does that look like?
how do we first focus on the training?
what is needed?
how will it be accomplished?
how long will it take?
can occ sac or what's left of their natgat wg or an individual give a reportback, and articulate what is expected of the group.

3 weeks; 3 calls

is anyone actually thinking of logistics and time constraints?

all you say is very interesting but doesn't seem to take into account the rest of Occupy., who comes to natgat to experience a variety of issues and activities.

Your if statement sounds like an ultimatum, and that ain't collaborative.

If you want to use the ultimatum word, ok.

The ultimatum comes from Sacramento which will welcome our Gathering if we do this training right. If we don't, our Gathering will be fraught with difficulty.

There are two deadlines that are playing chicken with each other. The usual NatGat planners are acting like the Training is incidental, so are waiting for Sacramento to play nice. Sacramento is acting like they don't need us, and so are waiting for us to do the training.

The disruption in the planning from the SAC GA is a result of "white" male privilege. The reason why now, almost three years later, the State government and State police here are warming up to Occupy and 99%, is because there is a strong "liberal" electorate who are especially sensitive to racial and other oppression. How many times have I said things are changing very fast? 99Rise speeded things up, and they raised the standard for what the State Government and Police will allow. They will welcome an Occupy National Gathering whose "character" is higher than what is revealed at GAs, on calls, on Loomio, at interoccupy.net, or amongst the groups, or amongst the still contrary egos. See hexagram 59.

Right now most Occupiers I encounter are not willing to offer the last full measure of devotion that is required. However that situation will change during the next few weeks. It will change because we focus on the Training, knowing that once our house is in order, the rest of the world will be eager to participate.

The "ultimatum" was given by Karl Marx when he discovered the exactly measurable physical quantity and quality called surplus value. Few Occupiers think its important to study the discovery. We presume that our privilege also privileges our wisdom. But it doesn't. A "white guy who knows a few tricks" will not be respected in Sacramento. If the usual NatGat planners don't embrace, study, plan and attend the Training, our Gathering will achieve very little, other than it will continue the National Occupy organizing project, which in the future might to get with the changes, which aren't reflected on social media.

Hexagram 59 was cast after NikiV and Donna came to our GA. They are the two people who have directly engaged in the dynamics of the planning in Sacramento. My rendering of hexagram 59 goes like this:

Dispersion. Success.
Occupy 99% approaches its self-made 5th Estate.
Dispersion of egos leads to Gathering Together.
Perseverance furthers.

From the Wilhelm-Baynes translation.on Page 227.

@oswgwhe - When you say "The ultimatum comes from Sacramento which will welcome our Gathering if we do this training right. If we don’t, our Gathering will be fraught with difficulty", to whom in Sacramento are you referring?

IMO, while it's a good thing that the training will be happening, and organizers, GA facilitators, etc., the training is not the main thing that this whole gathering hinges on. There is a lot more to the gathering than the training. And no one can demand that anyone come to the training. (That didn't work last year and it didn't work this year.)

Many white folks don't see themselves as having privilege, because they are economically or socially disadvantaged. A good anti-racism training helps white people realize that the power differential comes because of the color of their skin, essentially unearned privilege.

The question is how to attract/entice folks to attend this training, given that (a) they may not see themselves as privileged, and (b) for most white people (and even more so for most white men), the subject itself is unpleasant.

Thanks Cal. I think your comment is very useful and insightful. Much more of this kind of discussion will make our Gathering a success.

The 99 Rise said nothing about privilege - it was about corporate personhood. I don't see how @oswgwhe connects the dots. The training already has facilitators and presumably an organized program, If we can get a hold of their materials we'd be able to promote it from facts and not fancy.

I think the dates of July 31-Aug 3, were decided before the ever speeding up changes, and before we knew 99Rise would arrive. I think the gathering is starting on July 30. That's what needs to be discussed.

We've been promoting July 31-Aug 3rd for months and it was decided the training would be before the gathering.

Please think things through before you post.

The Training must set the tone for the Gathering. But if we scramble for July 31-Aug3, the Training will have less good effect on the Gathering.

What you refer to as my "lack of thought", is the confusion of the changes, which are hidden, but which we must respond to anyway.

No one said it was going to be easy.

"The question is how to attract/entice folks to attend this training, given that (a) they may not see themselves as privileged, and (b) for most white people (and even more so for most white men), the subject itself is unpleasant."

How do we get them there, Cal?
If we can't get them there, do we proceed as though it didn't matter that they didn't show up?

There were not changes; the dates were either Aug 7 to 10 or July 31 to Aug 3 and we settled on the latter. The training was always—even as planned last year—was something to happen before the gathering; having it the day before allows many people to start out a day earlier and do both. It is definitely an asset, helpful, and something to publicize—which I believe we have been doing, though not as a change of dates from those that were agreed to on the call, to “July 30 to August 3” as you seem to want.
We proceed by encouraging folks to attend, maybe doing a report back during one of the GAs or otherwise sharing with the folks who did not get there, and continuing to plan for Thurs. to Sun., trusting that those who have agreed to make the training happen (mainly Delphine, I believe) will do so. Those of us who find it valuable will likely recommend it, or a similar program to their home Occupys and other groups—and, bit by bit, we become more enlightened.

"Bit by bit, we become more enlightened" is a major way patriarchy reinforces itself. Bit by Bit, instead of "end patriarchy now".

I fear that last year's decision (and this year's) to have the Training before the Gathering, was a result of patriarchs (consciously or unconsciously) hoping that it wouldn't be too big an event. And the argument that people want to do other things supports that view. The patriarchy isn't going away. Its colored our reception of 99Rise.

I couldn't find the "Sociology of Ethnic ... " discussion. It was partially dominated by "patriarchal" discussions which purported to be talking in a way to ease patriarchy, but whose effect was to enforce patriarchy.

99Rise happened in Sacramento. Few, really active NatGat planners are in Sacramento. The National Group doesn't know what happened. What happened is hard to explain. it was a change in consciousness.

Patriarchy, sustained in the NatGat planning process, mostly by Cal, needs to be our priority. Women need to be assigning tasks to men, without men having an obscure (or hidden) voice influencing the women. Cal is hurting the Occupy 99% movement.

Ok, You, @oswgwhe are assigned to work on making sure there's fresh food available on August 30th. A nice spread with lots of cooling foods and beverages.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/1999/10/14/eating-together-fuels-togetherness-among-baliese.html

I guess you mean July 30. I'll try my best.

I posted the wrong link
http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/47tnp8rd9780252037634.html

It can really help people feel altogether and egalitarian. If you can't cook, Local restaurants might like to help out, you never know.
Thanks!!

Sea, I also asked you to do something to help Jackie and I on another discussion. It is not about which gender assigns which other gender tasks—and I see you as being pretty binary in your comments to Tricia—but about how we all work together. I agree that I would prefer much more than “bit by bit”—but if that is all we get, then I will take that and keep pushing.

DISPEL THIS MYTH
"I fear that last year’s decision (and this year’s) to have the Training before the Gathering, was a result of patriarchs (consciously or unconsciously) hoping that it wouldn’t be too big an event"

As a matter of fact, the training was requested by (the later boycott team) to be BEFORE THE GATHERING so that organizers would receive the training, making them more capable and sensitive during natgat. It was not only requested to be before natgat, but refused to be part of the natgat, so that it would be it's own stand alone event, and not consumed as just another part of natgat.

#COMMSFLOW #Fact

Just had a good call with William Underbaggage from the Indigenous Nations Network. He's prepared to do the opening ceremony. He's got support within Pine Ridge Reservation and may possibly bring their security team with him. Here's his presentation from last year in Kalamazoo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1dqwLngThU

Thanks for the good news, Tricia.

And just to be clear, the people who wanted the training to be a separate standalone thing before the start of NatGat were people of color.

Thanks for participating in this discussion, Cal. Your voice can help make the training successful, and can help get everyone to participate, even though its on Wed July 30.

Yes, I saw your request Sally, to get a theatre to show movies in, right? I'll try, only after the "NatGat Flow" (the schedule) is more clear.

Cal, I'd like to soften my tone toward you. I do think Donna needs to be defended. She is so beautiful and creative and energetic!! We are all trying our best, I know. I don't feel I have to defend my attitude toward the "patriarchy" I see. However all people have a little male and little female in them. Thanks for your hard work with Jackie and Sally and others so that we have IO and Loomio, and our "5th Estate" that we can now approach. I am a very critical sociologist. I learned this in women's studies courses and in reading and in experience. Again thanks. I hope everyone can be part of the Training.