View topic - [Contact form] NATO-G8 Summit: Chicago, May 2012
[Contact form] NATO-G8 Summit: Chicago, May 2012
[Contact form] NATO-G8 Summit: Chicago, May 2012
Dear Occupy Chicago,
I write to you in solidarity from New York, with solidarity from Occupy Toronto, and the newly-formed Occupy Canada, in advance of the G8 and NATO summits to be held in your beautiful city in May 2012.
We hope to build a most professional and educational website using the domains occupyg8.org and occupynato.org (and, later, occupyg20.org) that provide specific information related to concerns (a specific choice of words, rather than "demands") with the G8 and NATO.
Our hope is that we may build a communication, education, and media "hub," to coordinate with OccupyChi in advance of the summits, and to further build communication between local and international Occupy groups.
Our concern is that in the course of many globalization and Occupy demonstrations, the many important individual messages may be lost, and sometimes dissipate like tear gas.
Our hope that the ideas of leading nongovernmental organizations, such as Médecins Sans Frontières ( www.msf.org ), Oxfam International ( http://www.oxfam.org/ ), Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org), and various environmental organizations, journalists from Nick Kristof to Amy Goodman to Matt Taibbi, academics such as Professor Jeffrey Sachs, and "new ideas," such those of Professor David Graeber of Goldsmiths, University of London, who is credited with introducing the General Assembly process to Occupy Wall Street at Liberty Plaza/Zuccotti Park, and local and international Occupy groups, may be pooled.
In other words, if the NGO, journalist, academic, or Occupy group, had a "wish list," "one proposal," or "concern" for the G8, or NATO, what would they, or it, be?
The website could organize various issues from human rights to health to humanitarian issues to the environment to global finance (including speculation that drives up world food prices) to agribusiness on the website, as well as issues specific to NATO, involving, broadly, the military industrial complex, and more precisely, the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention. The question of humanitarian intervention, which did not happen in Rwanda, but may have been used less than genuinely in other circumstances, may be debated.
The coordination of demonstrations, of course, would need the consensus of the OccupyChi General Assembly. However, our hope is that it may be proposed that "Monday is Cluster Munitions Day," and "Tuesday is Small Arms Trade Day." That might sound silly and simplistic, but the idea is for the demonstration to focus on a particular concern. The point is, rather than the stereotype of a cornucopia of signs from demonstrators in Guy Fawkes masks, the demonstration may focus among the multitude of concerns to present a clear message that may not lend itself to misinterpretation by the mainstream media. An educational website may help organizers to organize, so that this demonstration does not diminish in what often becomes a misrepresentation about clashes with police, or what is often poorly portrayed as a general and unspecified anger at international institutions.
Our hope is what rises from Chicago, President Obama's hometown in an election year, in what we believe will be the first time the G8 and NATO will meet in the same city at a similar time, is not tear gas, or "just another G8/globalization protest," but education. What are the specific concerns? We may have the opportunity to provide the education component as Occupy movements focus on Chicago.
We may then further build upon the momentum of the G8 summit through the domain of occupyg20. A contact is currently working with leading musicians and a leading filmmaker on a benefit album, and our hope is that music videos may be linked to or included on the site (as well as your beyond-amazing poetry slams). Furthermore, the website may help Occupy groups to better coordinate. Members of local and international Occupy groups not in Chicago may raise specified concerns in their own locations, amplifying the specific message.
Although this may all sound ambitious, w believe this is an excellent opportunity for a magnificent accomplishment. Short interviews with NGO representatives, journalists, academics, and designated representatives from local Occupy groups may be performed online. An online location that organizes various concerns may provide education on the G8 and NATO summit, which can make this the most "educational" summit ever. As there is coordination between Occupy groups (links to websites and Livestream may easily be placed on the website), not only are Occupy groups better informed, but amplified.
We look forward to discussing these ideas further. Thank you for your efforts toward peace, social justice, human rights, and environmental concerns.
Best Wishes, and in True Solidarity with Hope of Communication,
Matt Leone
PS. I very much look forward to your reply, which I hope that you may cc to canadaoccupy@gmail.com
PSS. We hope that it may be possible to provide telephone contact information so that designated representatives may join us in a conference call, which may be reported back to OccupyChi.
And thank you to your drummers; my iPhone took me to the wrong location when I visited Chicago, so I just followed the sound of the beat.
I hope this idea sound interesting, and I hope that we will be working together soon. Our best to all...
- occupyg8
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:16 pm
That should settle you down
- SoadayGak
- Posts: 30
- Joined: Fri Aug 31, 2012 4:22 pm
- Location: usa
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