[Crsd] CRSD Delegate Meeting: September 16, 2018 (please read)

[Monty Kroopkin]

Fellow Worker Eric, thanks. I would add a few bits to a good summary. 1) In addition to the invitation for the Che Cafe Collective to attend and observe our CRSD meeting, San Diego AF3IRM and Rouge Forum and Indian Voices were invited. Rouge Forum and Indian Voices expressed interest but were unable to attend this time. We have not heard back yet from San Diego AF3IRM. 2) I am also a member of the Che Cafe Collective, but not a member of the core committee. Mike, who attended our CRSD meeting, is a member of the core committee. As a long time member of CCC I have seen many groups and movements use the Cafe as a community space, for organizing, for meetings, for celebrations. It has never been limited to use by people who frequent the campus as students or staff. A recent example of this took place this summer as the collective hosted a region-wide series of events at the Cafe, organized by Native American youth. Mike's observation about the CCC not being a likely driver of much organizing on the left is a fair "snapshot" of the where the collective is at right now,  but not to be taken in any way as a discouraging of the broad left community as far as the Cafe always being open to people bringing new ideas and proposals for events/projects to the collective for consensus approval.

---------- Original Message ----------


From: Eric Grey <jsgreyshade at gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2018 09:43:29 -0700
To: crsd at lists.resist.ca
Subject: [Crsd] CRSD Delegate Meeting: September 16, 2018 (please read)




CRSD Delegate Meeting: September 16, 2018 
 
Minutes by Eric (IWW)
 
Present at meeting: members of IWW, PSL, DAF, and Che Café Collective (observer)
 
The IWW hosted this meeting. The observer from the Che Collective was the first to arrive. He expressed the view that Che Café had little to offer a left coalition in San Diego. He felt they only have a meeting a performance and space and that it was isolated on the UCSD campus. It was pointed out that left spaces are badly needed and that UCSD will soon be connected to the trolley system making the campus, and the Che Café, much more accessible to the working class.
 
PSL announced a decision to withdraw from Collective Resistance and be involved with member groups on an action-by-action basis. They stated the time commitment to regularly attend delegate meetings as being the primary issue. Colectivo Zapatista expressed the same concerns previously.
 
IWW proposed suspending quorum rules for delegate meeting for the foreseeable future and returning to a more plenary meeting structure. Proposals discussed at meetings must go back to member organizations for approval or rejection anyway, therefore quorum at meetings is redundant. Suspending quorum will allow organizations like the PSL and Colectivo Zapatista to remain part of CRSD. PSL will consider this proposal.
 
PSL stated that three attempts at their radical soapboxing project were unsatisfactory. The locations of the attempts were Balboa Park and Horton Plaza. The PSL representative needed to leave the meeting but in later discussion it was noted that the IWW’s historic soapboxing took place in the Stingeree district with a target audience of day laborers waiting for work and those seeking food assistance. This was very different from affluent shoppers, tourists, and people with the leisure to lounge around the park.
 
IWW proposed a CRSD page at newindicator.org. Initial text to be derived from the existing CRSD (re)introductory letter to serve to introduce the organization. Later content would be subject to approval.
 
A CRSD action committee was proposed. Due to the small size of our coalition the most effective structure would be a committee of the whole. The listserv and other channels can be used to informally discuss ideas pending member organization approval. Actions might include protests, door-to-door work, resistance block parties, workshops on getting our messages past the barriers put up by liberals, and whatever else we can think of.
 
DAF will provide a report on recent sexual misconduct on the local left. The latest problems involved a cis-male preying on women. A similar series of incidents came to light less than a year ago involving a gender queer person preying on men. Despite the differences, there are similarities in the patterns of both perpetrators. Both had ambiguous, ill informed political views but used the pretext of being radical and/or marginalized to gain access to their victims. Both moved between orgs, actions, and radical spaces constantly and used left disunity to conceal their patterns of behavior. This is a example of why we need better communication and coordination on the left. We need to develop an inter-organizational agreement on community standards of behavior.
 
Reports from member organizations:
 
DAF is involved with the Democratic Socialists of America. They report the organization has two internal tendencies. There are some focused primarily on electoral activities with the goal of moving the Democratic Party back to a centrist position. DAF is part of the left/direct action tendency in the DSA. They say DSA is particularly strong in San Diego and the two tendencies are less divided. They believe they are having a ripple effect within the organization.
 
IWW is preparing for a second meeting with the Employee Rights Center to find test cases for their Wage Theft campaign. Thousands of workers who quit or are fired never receive their final paycheck. Our goal is force employers to pay the workers through direct action. Based on similar campaigns, a sternly worded letter on labor org stationary is enough to get results in the majority of cases, however we need to be able to reliably carry out the “further action” (protests, leafleting etc) in those cases where it is not enough. We are building a text message contact list of those people who want carry out these actions. At the moment it contains only nine contacts. We would like it to have closer to twenty-five so that if only half can make an action we are still an intimidating presence. Please join our contact list.
 
Personal meeting evaluation by Eric:
The “organized” left in San Diego consists of about two-dozen tiny, atomized organizations struggling to maintain minimal membership. CRSD was created to address this problem. On the way we became bogged down in formal procedures that turned us from a resource sharing mechanism into a resource draining one. This cannot be allowed to happen. The state of the left in San Diego must be addressed. We need CRSD. A less formal more organic approach suitable for a network of less than fifty people can work. Please consider the IWW proposal. It is my sincere hope that the PSL will reconsider its withdrawal in light of this new approach. I also urge Redneck Revolt and Colectivo Zapatista to reopen communication with the coalition.
 
Thanks for reading comrades. 
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