Town Hall discussion on the future of Occupy Chicago

[tierradelfuego11]

Explanation:
The occupy movement nationwide has faced down massive police violence as camps have been raided and cleared from coast to coast. In many cities, valiant efforts to reclaim camps have continued to be turned back by major mobilizations of police. The movement is now transitioning toward new forms of protest and organization, with momentum growing around a variety of struggles from fighting foreclosures, to taking the occupy movement onto campuses, to organizing to shut down the west coast ports on Monday, Dec 12.

Meanwhile, increasingly vocal politicians and pundits are declaring the occupy movement dead or calling on occupiers to turn their energy toward the 2012 elections, and hoping the courageous, outspoken, united resistance we've shown in the streets will dissipate. Nonetheless, the occupy movement has had an enormous impact on politics nationwide, and beginning to accrue small victories in various cities and states.

Now that we in Chicago have a new home, we should use it to come together and discuss the challenges and successes we've seen so far, and where we want to move next. Occupy Chicago is already deeply involved in a variety of critical projects on city campuses, defending unions, organizing in the south side against police brutality, defending our civil liberties, and organizing to stop school closures and turnarounds, just to name a few. We should bring together the news and ideas from each of these projects and discuss what more we want to take on in the coming months.

Proposal:
When our lease is signed and we're ready to start having GA indoors, we'll organize a collective discussion of our next steps. We'll publicize this discussion to try to involve as many as possible of all those who've been arrested with us, marched with us, stood in the rain and the cold with us and shown us their sparkle fingers. It won't be a formal presentation but rather an open conversation for us all to have a chance to reflect, brainstorm and plot our next moves.