In the Middle of Negotiating New Agreement, City Raids Occupy Buffalo

[marmar]

In the Middle of Negotiating New Agreement, City Raids Occupy Buffalo
By: Kevin Gosztola Thursday February 2, 2012 8:59 am


The city had police move on Occupy Buffalo early in the morning after it decided not to renew the occupation’s permit for Niagara Square. At least ten were arrested and tents and personal property were bulldozed. Occupiers had been offered an agreement which they turned down. After midnight, they were in Niagara Square without a permit but the city could have continued to negotiate with Occupy Buffalo and chose to carry out an eviction instead.

The action began to unfold around 1:30 am ET. Police surrounded the square.

A broadcast from @BootsofSolidarity on UStream shows a Buffalo police chief asking who was in the “leadership” at Occupy Buffalo.” The occupiers said, “We have a lot of shared leadership.”

“I need a leader. Or someone you want as a leader that you’ll take direction from,” the chief replied. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2012/02/02/city-raids-occupy-buffalo-in-the-middle-of-negotiating-new-agreement/

[T S Justly]

1. K&R (nt)

[baldguy]

2. From Artvoice: Dispatch: On Last Night’s Eviction of Occupy Buffalo

This morning, AV received this letter fro Dr. Michael O’Brien, who witnessed the eviction of Occupy Buffalo from Niagara Square late last night:

Last night, I acted as facilitator for Occupy Buffalo’s General Assembly held immediately before our 11pm press conference aired live on Channel 4, YNN, and other local stations, explaining why we could not sign a contract with the City of Buffalo that would have required a decampment on March 8.

Three hours after this peaceful assembly, the Buffalo Police Department, on order of Mayor Byron Brown, stormed Niagara Square with at least 100 officers, riot gear, bulldozers, pepper spray, dump trucks, and a military-style tank emblazoned with “Buffalo Police Department” and within a few hours razed a community that had been built up over four months and had become the home of nearly 30 people. That night the police arrested 10 brave men and women sitting silently on the sidewalk.

At the GA last night, there were nearly 60 people of every race and religion and social class in Buffalo, everyone from people who struggle with poverty so deeply that they have no other homes than the tents they lived in at Niagara Square to students, artists, teachers, lawyers, and doctors—in other words, the 99%. We all sat in a circle, two hours before the agreement we had signed with the City in December, and had been told would be renewed, was set to expire. Earlier that day we had spent many hours of general assembly, facilitated by our brother Henry, deciding if we would agree to the city’s twisting of the previous agreement that stipulated that we would leave Niagara Square voluntarily by March 8, with a vague suggestion that the City might help us transition into a “new phase.” After long debate, the group could not come to consensus in regards to signing this new manipulation of the original offer we had with the City. It was understood then by everyone in the tent that, at least in the eyes of City Hall and the mayor, Occupy Buffalo was, at midnight on February 2, fair game for the type of brutal, excessive, forceful repression that we have seen acted against peaceful people’s movements from New York City to Oakland to Greece to Egypt. Henry was exhausted and emotionally drained. He asked someone else to take over facilitating GA. I had never facilitated a consensus decision-making body like this before, but I knew that now was the time to act, so I volunteered.

People often say that the Occupy movement is leaderless. In fact, Occupy and the 99% movement are leaderful. We are all leaders. We all have an equal voice. We make all decisions only by 95% consensus agreement. Every single person present at the assembly can veto any decision on ethical or moral grounds. The group decides on the agenda and who will act as the facilitator at the beginning of every general assembly. The facilitator’s job is simply to keep the discussion focused, ensure everyone who wishes to speak gets a chance to, and acknowledge a series of simple hand signals that allow people to ask questions, provide helpful facts, or quietly show agreement or disagreement with what is being said in an orderly way.



Read more: http://blogs.artvoice.com/avdaily/2012/02/02/dispatch-on-last-nights-eviction-of-occupy-buffalo/#ixzz1lHLrO83w

[gopiscrap]

3. You know Occupy Tacoma

about to be raided