Tonight General Assembly ratified OB Legal’s proposal to send three Occupiers to the mediation ordered by the Court’s ruling on our Injunction some days ago. This mediation will take place before the Dec. 1 preliminary hearing on Occupy Boston’s right to remain in Dewey Square.
The three Occupiers “temporarily empowered” to represent Occupy Boston will be accompanied by lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild in a mediation with the City, Boston Police, Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy. NLG Lawyer Ben Wish read Legal’s proposal, “We recognize that it is impossible to have any small group of our community represent the interests of our entire community but it is necessary for the immediate and long-term survival of Occupy Boston that we as a GA temporarily empower a small group to engage in that mediation… Court-ordered mediation is a necessary step.”
The GA agreed to choose three of its dedicated members, Jennie Seidewand, Kristopher Eric Martin (known as Eric), Michael Alex Ingram (known as Alex) to mediate with the City, BPD, and RKG. These Occupiers reassured the GA that they will not make any binding decisions within the mediation without going to the GA first. NLG Lawyer Ben Wish told GA that either he or Howard Cooper will also be at the mediation, and will be able to find out more about the specific people representing each side at the table. Legal Working Group’s Proposal, read in its second-round, amended form by Eric Martin, included the stipulation that the OB mediators will be bound by consensus process in all decisions at the mediation. More details to come, on this historic moment for the Occupy Movement.
Occupy the Courts!
Many thanks to @caulkthewagon for live-tweeting and @profpoole for live transcription.
4 Responses to “Occupy Boston will attend mediation with City, BPD, and Rose Kennedy Greenway”
on November 18th, 2011 at 12:51 am #
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The mediation process is good and should be maintained at all times to keep a safe buffer zone between the occupy movement and police activity. Occupy Boston should demand in light of the unique circumstances of the peaceful movement towards a more fair democracy, that police officers be given individual specific orders in writing from their commanding officers. This will not only protect the protesters, it will protect police officers who do not want to use undue force against the citizens and the constitution they have taken an oath to protect. Occupy Movement needs to demand that police officers will require written orders before taking any action against the peaceful protest. Occupy Boston will demand and require those written orders 24 hours before any action is to take place, and have the opportunity to consider and decide what to do in order to keep the peace. If police are ordered to use force of any kind, it should be clearly specified what methods they are to use in these written orders. This will help both police officers and protesters to have a clear understanding between them. It will also make clear who is responsible for any unreasonable use of force, arrests, imprisonment and destruction of personal property.
NPR had a headline about RKGC wanting Occupy evicted. No mention of mediation. Be careful getting into the web of Boston politics. Not trying to be a wet blanket but, tread lightly folks. Good luck!
There is a reason that the Occupy movement in London, Ontario was the first in the country to be evicted by the police. That reason is largely because the Occupiers had little support from the public and their only consistent media strategy seemed to be to display their own indecision, fear of confrontation and internal bickering.
They faced difficult odds, for sure. But ultimately they sank themselves. Read how it all went wrong here:
http://www.josephcouture.com “How To Blow A Revolution: The London Model”