G.A. Minutes 11-28-15
The first two Occupiers entering Coney Island tonight are wearing big grins. As they were on their way and driving down Superior St, they spotted Mississippi Woman. She was dressed in a Santa Claus outfit minus the beard. Considering it’s the end of the month, they assumed she was hustling for spare change.
At the end of the month most everybody in the neighborhood is down to zero where money is concerned. The street people are doing a serious hustle.
Mississippi Woman always has a unique style but dressing like Santa in order to coax a few bucks out of the hipsters and the bar folks really takes the cake.
Coney Island has only a few patrons when the Occupiers arrive. It certainly doesn’t have the excitement or commotion like CJMM but it may have to do for the next few months.
Coney Island in Duluth has existed as a greasy spoon type café for almost 100 years. It still has the old fashioned look; all the old booths and most everything else is made of wood. The menu is the same with the addition of some items that could be considered healthy.
There’s a large booth tucked away in the back, the place is managed by young hipsters; the background music is excellent. We hope a lot of the folks who used to frequent our fires will decide to join us here for a while.
As we are settling in, an older man who has been a part of the Catholic Worker movement for a very long time arrives. We’ve all interacted with him via social media so know he’s been very excited since the Pope’s Encyclical was presented. He tells us he’s been taking the publication around to various Catholic churches attempting to start a conversation. Apparently neither the parishioners nor the clergy are at all interested.
The Catholic Worker tells a few stories about adventures he’s had during his long life. He says he attended Climate Convergence event today and plans to attend the Climate Hike tomorrow.
A few of the Occupiers had planned on attending the Climate Convergence but it turned out they were just too tired from the Black Lives Matter/Justice City Coalition march and rally on Friday.
This event followed on the heels of the BLM/JCC event of a week ago. The demand of Justice for Jamar is still the same but several days ago a small group of white supremacists showed up at the camp outside the 4th Precinct in Minneapolis. When they were asked to leave, one of them fired a gun into the crowd of BLM activists, wounding five.
The Mpls cops of the 4th Precinct were slow to respond. Some of the cops told the demonstrators getting shot served them right. It only goes to show what the BLM people have been saying all along.
Marches and rallies for BLM have been happening all over the country, especially over the last few days. Duluth’s event was successful and received attention from all of the local major media sources again.
The African American population in Duluth is relatively small. Yesterday’s march contained very few black folks. The African American female leader of the BLM/JCC tells us many of these folks are afraid to march or express their real views in public. Those of us given white privilege are obligated to speak out about racism and complacency. We are obligated until all this injustice is a thing of the past.
An Occupier reports she has finally received responses from the DPD concerning the four complaints she filed about the illegal harassment of our CJMM recreational fires. The responses to three of the complaints said our complaints were unfounded. The response to the complaint about the threatening behavior of Officer #464 was noted in his file but no disciplinary action was deemed necessary. A copy of the letter from the Deputy Fire Chief was included with the rest of the paperwork.
“Give me a break!”, moans an Occupier, “They can’t dispute that our fire is legal according to all their various laws so they tell us a corporation called The City and some anonymous community members don’t want a fire at CJMM so there’s not going to be one?”
“It’s not over yet”, replies the reporting Occupier, “I imagine no one is surprised that there’s one set of laws for regular people and another for “The City” and his/her community members.
“We now have something in writing. We need to ‘show and tell’ all over the place. I’ve made contact with several City Council members and with a retired attorney. I haven’t called the Occupy attorney from out of town.
“These worshippers of the 1% like to drag things on forever hoping the common person will just go away. Things are definitely not over yet”.
Another Occupier tells us the next step in the Stop the Enbridge Invasion is a tour of places on the proposed pipeline route by Honor the Earth. They will be in Duluth on Tuesday December 8th and Idle No More/Northwoods Wolf Alliance will definitely need our help in managing the feast/potluck.
Someone mentions Loaves N Fishes will be having their annual Christmas Party on Saturday December 13th 2pm at St. Paul’s Episcopal.
Another reports she’s been going to Socialism and a Slice with peeps from Socialist Action down at Pizza Luce’, 6:30pm every last Monday of the month. “I talk with intelligent, humorous folks I don’t get to see very often. I’m going again tomorrow; maybe some of you will join us?”
One of the Occupiers is moving from one apartment to another this upcoming Tuesday. He doesn’t have a vehicle so really needs our help. We will arrange our day to accommodate him.
An Occupier muses, “When we do these actions and events we need to see results. We need goals”. Another Occupier pats him on the arm and answers, “It’s going to take a long time. Our grandchildren and great grandchildren are the ones who will see the results. Remember the 7th spark and the 8th fire and all that? We just need to stay focused and remember to keep love in our hearts. Keep on keeping on, blah,blah,blah”. We all laugh and agree.
It’s almost 9pm, the place is empty, the staff has cleaned everything and they’re standing around politely looking like they want to go home.
Well, o.k. then….. Time to go. We expect to be back, same time, same station next Saturday.