Present: Patricia, Adam, Alan, Vince, Woody, Marilyn, Mike (TM or TruthMerchant)
Received letter: Marilyn discussed a letter she received. The letter described a project to start a community center that would have a community-owned bank and various cottage industries such as canning, and so on. The writer asked if any OT people might be interested, and several leads were discussed. Patricia will contact the writer of the letter.
Report on Voting Plugin: TM reported the results of his continuing research on a plug-in for our website that will enable us to have dynamic updates to a project list that he and Vince have been working on. OT activists would be able to number issues on a form in order of priority, and they would be able to add their own issues. OT activists would be able to update their own input at any time. An aggregated version would automatically update, reflecting group sentiment dynamically. There are a number of technical barriers to doing this, and TM continues to work on this.
Discussion of Wealthy: TM spent some time discussing what he sees as a problem. He says that the continuing emphasis on hating “all rich people” in some circles in the progressive movement alienates others who might otherwise become involved in movements such as Move to Amend or the Occupy movement. Alan said that he thought the problem was a system that created vast disparities in wealth. He mentioned that the family who owns Walmart has more wealth than the bottom 40% of the population. He felt that the economic system is the main problem, and that the actions of particular wealthy individuals was secondary to a system that breeds economic injustice. Others said they knew activists who just disliked the wealthy. There was discussion around this.
Idle No More: Patricia discussed the Idle No More movement and the recent drumming circle at the Tacoma Mall. She talked about the rapid growth of this movement on both sides of the Canadian border. There was much interest in this report, and a good discussion followed.
Respectfully submitted: Alan OldStudent
