Planning the Training for the Gathering.

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.