Minutes for Making Worlds (MW) 8/25 meeting at Sunset Park: (Susana, Begonia, Rebecca, Jim, Ron, Antonio, Ina, Maria, Janet, Frances and John)
Agenda:
Report on URPE conference
Reply to Future of Occupy group
Momenta forum
MW Forum: date, place, purpose
URPE: Union for Radical Political Economics conf. (August 10 – 13, 2012, at Epworth Center in High Falls, New York)
3-4 people at MW mtg had attended URPE conf. Conf. had some discussion of “scalability” of cooperatives. While some people at URPE seemed critical of this issue several people at MW meeting seemed to like idea of co-op scalability (starting small and growing) as models/embryos of social change. Ron thought different co-ops or enterprise startups should be supported, whether non profit or for profit, if they serve social needs, and was critical of old left which he characterized as endlessly theorizing without experience of practical application of ideas. Brief discussion about radical change v gradual change. Jim thought there was little likelihood or desirability of a violent revolution given the overwhelming power of government forces of repression; better for radical changes to occur gradually and peacefully. So the discussion touched on the age-old debate over theory v practice and reform v revolution—needless to say, solutions to this ongoing debate are what will continue to occupy the Occupy movement.
Future of Occupy group (FoO– see thefutureofoccupy.org)
FoO invited MW to send in monthly blogs or writings about its activities, discussions, etc., and to join it in further activities.
Ron at MW meeting announced that he worked on the website for FoO and wanted MW to join FoO blog; he mentioned the connection to NYCGA.net. Discussion about confusion over just how much written text FoO expected from MW: a short monthly blog or did they expect a longer essay; would the group be committing itself to a lot of writing work or not? MW decided that for now it could send FoO a short monthly blog that would be a summary of recent MW meeting(s). This was all MW decided to contribute to FoO at this time. MW decided to have rotating minute takers for each MW meeting.
Momenta Forum: (to be held at Momenta gallery in Bushwick, Bklyn from Sept 14-mid Oct. See: http://www.momentaart.org/cur_pro/index.html)
Discussion of possible presentation by MW. Momenta gallery will host a series of presentations from Sept. 14 to mid Oct. to be coordinated by Occupy Univ. (OccU is an older group than Free U. see: <university.nycga.net> People at MW mtg were in favor of doing a few nights of presentation at Momenta perhaps towards end of Sept/early Oct. This could be done as a sort of preview of MW forum to be held a few months later. Brief discussion of topics MW could present at Momenta: food, economic crisis, internet, gardens. Jim C. to be point person for Momenta forum.
MW forum: Discussion of date and place:
Date: Decision made to move date to after New Year sometime in Jan or early Feb to give MW more time to organize forum. Also MW participation Momenta forum another reason to push date back. Most people felt that fall elections were not a factor in choosing date of MW forum.
Place: some people like the idea of a public library but it might be difficult given question of whether food could be brought into library. Brooklyn Commons as venue: Bkyn Com. has a kitchen on the second floor but forum would have to be held on 1st floor. Bkyn Com tends to be booked up; Susana volunteered to contact Bklyn Com (Melissa) to see about its availability in Jan/Feb.
Themes for forum: How to commonize? How do we go forward? Further exploring how to reclaim and grow the commons, and to develop links between groups involved in commons movement. Brief discussion about how to organize food at forum, how to contact and invite occupy groups, should MW prepare a list of questions to give groups ahead of time. …
Next meeting: Tomorrow: Sat 9/1 at 5PM at Yippie, 9 Bleecker St.
For the agenda:
-Look for places for the forum (to take place in February)
-Dr. Ron on alternatives to wikispace (our wikispace does not allow us to include new members without paying them, so we need to surf alternatives).