Occupy Central Vermont

Notes from the TT/Occupy workshop at the VBC facilitated by Josh Schlossberg and Heather Pipino
Sunday, June 24, 2012 | Brookfield, VT

Words, Descriptions, Missions, Issues of the two groups:

Transition Town:
* Finding ways for communities around the world to adapt to climate change and peak oil; addressing how we live)
* Energy – Peak Oil
* Food – Permaculture (i.e. statehouse garden)
* Consumption issues, recycling, waste
* Natural resources (soil, water, air)
* Transportation
* DIY (“do it yourself”)
* Bridge to local government
* Time banks
* Responsible society
* Loosely organized
* Culture of sharing
* Local, small scale
* Re-skilling (growing, canning, composting)
* Intergenerational component
* Inevitability of future adaptation
* Environment / land-based
* Individual-centered, lifestyle, individual preparation

Occupy:
* Many leaders (a.k.a. leaderless)
* 99%-to-1% specifically about vast inequality, concentration of wealth
* Confronting the banking, monetary system — impacts of housing/foreclosure (6,300/day), corporate control of government
* Participatory style of democracy, direct democracy, consensus or modified consensus
* Public space / commons
* Using direct action to confront the system, engage people
* Theatrics
* Education, sharing knowledge and skills, workshops/teach-ins
* Urban based (?) — certainly more effective in urban area, but rural occupations too; difference of scale. Are there urban TT’s, or is it just rural?
* Diversity of tactics – violence / non-violence; systemic violence; police response
* Protest movements — anti-war, labor
* Social structures / human structures / oppression
* Suspicious of “organization” – inherent paranoia due to failure of systems and structures, fear of “co-option” by unions, political parties, or other groups (i.e. a “democratic tea party”)
* Inevitability of further economic “collapse” under capitalism / status quo
* Socially-centered, collective preparation

Similarities / Cross-Over:
* Ecology – Economy
* Decentralized – Local
* Basic fairness, equality, social and/or ecological relationships — only a few people create this imbalance
* Critical of destructive systems
* The Commons — i.e. public sphere
* Weakness = “fringe” — both want to attract more people, not be fringe
* Challenge power structures – bring power to people
* Opportunity = Good cop / Bad cop
* Live “off the grid” (i.e. not tied to oppressive systems, ways of doing things)
* Skeptical of political systems | Lack of political power
* Prefigurative model — live the way we must in the future
* Education and training — preparing ourselves individually and collectively for the economic and environmental crisis (i.e. the revolution)
* Analysis based on the economic-environmental crises
* Both willing to risk discomfort
* See corporate / capitalist model has failed (i.e. common enemy)
* Both have perceptions to overcome

Next Steps:
* Both want to attract more folks – reach out to others
* Both need to overcome perceptions (i.e. less “hippie” or “hipster”) without compromising who we are
* Interested in collaborating with others to get more people involved (BG)
* Ways to have more dialogue, explore commonalities, flush these things out more (HP)
* Hemp issue (JS) [joked about it being a 'nail in the coffin' on the 'hippie' thing]