Today was the second General Assembly meeting of Occupy Albany. I decided to actually get off my computer and go take part.
A bunch of us got together about a mile away, in Albany's Delaware Ave. neighborhood, to march down to the meeting together, doing outreach to the community as we walked.
Here are a few pics of us moseying on down to the meeting:
This gal was really creative:
Evidence of the movement preceded us:
Join me below the decorative Kosicle for more, if you like.
We talked to a lot of folks on the way there, gave out a lot of flyers, encouraged folks to join us. A few did:
When we got to the Grand Avenue Community Center, we were greeted by a lovely sight. A larger crowd than I expected:
There were around 200 folks there (I'm a really bad estimator, so that may be wildly low or high. I'm not sure. When I see 'real' estimates, I'll update if necessary). Sadly, even though the meeting place is in the 'hood, we were a mostly white crowd. Happily, this was directly addressed by one fellow who stood up to speak to the lack of diversity. Hopefully there will be a working group to address this.
Here are a couple shots of the crowd inside:
It was kind of amazing, being part of this crowd. There was a lot of hopeful energy, a sense of possibility, and some solidarity.
There was also the inevitable impatience with the process. General assembly consensus building is s-l-o-o-o-o-o-w. And messy. And occasionally frustrating. But that's cool. That's democracy at work. It was heartening being part of a large group of folks with many different points of view, working together to try to get to consensus. We did manage to agree on non-violence as a fundamental assumption. There was a blocking concern about that, some discussion, and finally agreement to include it as part of our movement.
We also agreed to make the proposal to send buses to the Wall Street occupation a working group.
Finally, there was quite a long process about the actual where and how of setting up Occupy Albany as a 24/7 presence. Sadly, I had to leave before this was completed.
There is a facebook page, where the new working groups have been posted. I need to figure out where I can be most useful. I can't actually join the occupation on a 24/7 basis, but I hope to be able to support it materially, however I can.
Thanks for coming along, if you're still here. It's amazing to be taking part. Thanks to all you guys. Daily Kos has been a major motivator for me to take part in our political process.
That reminds me. I asked some of the folks I was walking with if they knew about Daily Kos. A few had, but most hadn't. They wanted to know how it was useful in terms of this movement. I had a lot of fun excitedly explaining how great it is for organizing, educating, informing, and community'ing. It is what we do best. Hopefully some more action oriented folks will be joining up soon.
Ok, that's all for now. Yay Occupy Everywhere!
UPDATE - we were the lead story on our local channel 10 (WTEN) news. Here's the clip:
http://www.wten.com/...=