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DESCRIPTION:All are welcome to the…\nRESEARCH WORKING GROUP MEETING\n_____DATE: 
 Sunday, January 8th\n_____TIME: 3:00-4:00pm\n_____LOCATION: Farley’s 
 East, 33 Grand Ave (bet. Broadway and Webster), Oakland, 94612. Two blocks 
 north of the 19th St. BART.\n_____MORE INFO: Contact Yvonne at 
 yvonnegrapher at gmail.com or Darwin at darwinbondgraham at 
 gmail.com.\n\nGOALS:\n1) To build a research community in Oakland and to 
 share skills\n2) To support Occupy Oakland’s upcoming actions, such as 
 the building occupation on 1/28\n3) To provide research for long-term 
 strategy and action, such as targeted research about Oakland’s 
 1%\n\nDRAFT AGENDA:\n1. Introductions and check-ins: What are your new year 
 resolutions?\n2. Share existing research\n_____a) Chamber of 
 Commerce[1]\n_____b) Ports[2]\n_____c) Business Improvement 
 Districts[3]\n_____d) City budget cuts (see Resisting Austerity Measures by 
 Darwin, below)\n_____e) Shredded safety net\n_____f) 
 Foreclosures[4]\n_____g) School closures\n_____h) OccupyResearch.net 
 survey, Oakland respondents[5]\n3. Report on Occupy Oakland: current status 
 and upcoming actions on 1/28\n4. Discussion on short-term research needs 
 for 1/28\n_____a) Fact sheet on budget cuts and shredded safety 
 net\n_____b) Survey on social services provided by Occupy Oakland\n_____c) 
 Projection of how many city residents can be served by a community 
 center\n5. Tasks\n6. Timeline\n7. Next steps\n_____a) Next 
 meeting?\n_____b) List-serv?\n_____c) Long-term goals?\n8. Check-out: Where 
 do I see Occupy Oakland a year from now?\n\nRESISTING AUSTERITY IN OAKLAND 
 by Darwin Bond Graham\n“There was a time, owing to the Breakfast for 
 Children program, where the Black Panthers were feeding more people than 
 the government of the State of California were feeding. And this was no 
 small embarrassment to the government of California. What is interesting is 
 that the Black Panthers were revolutionaries who understood that there was 
 an emergency happening among their constituents, which they needed to meet 
 in a dignified way, while at the same time providing a mechanism through 
 which people might transcend the conditions that create such emergencies in 
 the first place. You can’t just build a revolution by demanding that 
 people sort of go out and take on the police. It involves articulations 
 about demand and imagination – precisely the kind of thing we were 
 talking about earlier on. Food was a weapon in that war. And the organizing 
 to provide that food was also a weapon in that war.”\n—Raj 
 Patel\n\nOccupy Oakland finds itself engaged in a political struggle on two 
 important fronts. First, the occupiers and allied, more established 
 community and labor organizations, are resisting the imposition of 
 austerity on the people of Oakland by demanding legal and institutional 
 reforms to produce greater income equality, to produce a more progressive 
 tax and revenue system, to achieve greater democracy in local and national 
 government, and most immediately to maintain or even expand important 
 social services provided by the state.\n\nOn another level the occupiers 
 and their allies are attempting to critique the failure of the state and 
 corporations to provide the most basic conditions of dignified life. This 
 criticism manifests itself largely through the establishment of alternative 
 institutions to provide for people’s needs as budget cuts decimate 
 healthcare, schools, parks, and libraries, and take away job and income 
 security, housing security, and other human rights.\n\nIn order to advance 
 to the movement —resisting both within the established political 
 institutions, and by building alternative institutions to meet emergency 
 needs— we propose to document, broadly and systematically, how austerity 
 is being imposed upon Oakland’s communities, and the ways that the people 
 are directly countering these budget cuts.\n\nTo do this we propose to 
 create a comprehensive tally of city, state, and federal budget cuts, with 
 explanations of how these cuts are harming Oaklanders. Counterposed to each 
 specific cut we will attempt to describe how Occupy Oakland and other 
 community groups have stepped in to meet people’s basic needs and rights, 
 for example by providing meals or defense against evictions.\n\nThe outcome 
 of this project will be a paper, fact sheets, and other materials that 
 organizers can use to inform their campaigns to resist further budget cuts, 
 and also to build alternative institutions. Furthermore, it will help 
 immediately by demonstrating the ongoing failure of authorities at all 
 levels of government to respond to the crises that plague the people of 
 Oakland.\n\nENDNOTES\n[1] http://occupythechamber.info/ and 
 http://darwinbondgraham.blogspot.com/2011/11/who-rules-oakland.html\n\n[2] 
 http://www.westcoastportshutdown.com/content/why-shut-down-west-coast-ports\n\n[3] 
 http://sfbayview.com/2011/whose-streets-oakland%E2%80%99s-shadow-government-presses-city-hall-to-end-the-occupation/\n\n[4] 
 http://cjjc.org/en/publications/forclosuresmakeussick and 
 http://www.arc.org/recession\n\n[5] http://occupyresearch.net/\n\n[6] 
 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/us/jerry-brown-asks-california-voters-to-pay-6-9-billion-in-new-taxes.html\n 
 https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/01/06/18704287.php
SUMMARY:Oakland Research Working Group Meeting
LOCATION:Farley’s East, 33 Grand Ave (bet. Broadway and Webster), Oakland, 94612. 
 Two blocks north of the 19th St. BART.
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/01/06/18704287.php
DTSTART:20120108T230000Z
DTEND:20120109T000000Z
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