Occupy Los Lunas NM

For comments about this file, email to: paul@kinzelman.com

These are the blogs from meetings and the General Assemblies in reverse date order (most recent is up top).

Occupy at the Trump Rally, Stardate 2016/Oct 30, 7pm

Fear and Loathing in Albuquerque

…with apologies to Hunter Thompson

I found out that Trump was coming to town tonight, so even though I’ve already voted, I decided that I needed to experience the spectacle.

Tickets were easy to come by on-line. A neighbor and I drove to Atlantic Aviation at the Albuquerque airport, but we couldn’t get all the way to Atlantic, we had to park where we could. The police had already cordoned off the road to Atlantic, although the police presence when we got there was pretty minimal.

As we walked to Atlantic, we passed a handful of demonstrators, some holding signs, some dressed up as clowns. And there were a number of booths selling pro-Trump paraphernalia for appropriately high prices.

My uneducated guess is that the crowed numbered between 5000 and 10,000 people overflowing out of one of the hangars with the podium set up at one end. We entered through metal detectors run by the TSA and the Secret Service, but nobody asked to see our tickets. I saw very few black people (though several were manning the pro-Trump merchandise booths), most everybody was white with some Hispanic mixed in. There was even one guy in an Indian head-dress.

The Trump-mobile landed about 7 minutes late, pretty good timing. Trump eventually came out and spoke at the podium and the crowd went wild. Trump can deliver his populist message very well, even when he’s pulling information and numbers out of his ass. People don’t care, he’s railing against everything people see that’s wrong with Washington. And 90% of his criticisms are right-on. But nothing about real policy, nothing about how he’s going to fix anything in any detail at all. But what he says resonates with people because everybody knows Washington is broken. I just don’t think he’s going to fix anything.

We stayed and listened to his speech for about 45 minutes and then decided to leave. As we left the hangar area, we passed about 50 police in full riot gear standing at the ready, but no demonstrators were in sight. One spectator said there had been fights down at the University Ave intersection, but by the time we got there, I saw only about 10 people standing on a corner and only one sign that said “Nasty Woman” which I took to be a Hillary supporter, tho it wasn’t obvious.

On the walk down University, we passed two city buses, three police cars, and one or two paddy-wagons for arrests, sitting at the ready. But from everything I saw, everything was peaceful.

The crowd was obviously wildly pro-Trump, though it remains to be seen if that translates into votes in 9 days. He did ask how many people had already voted, and almost everybody’s hand went up.

I was pretty uncomfortable about the ultra-nationalist sentiment I felt from the crowd, on several occasions, the chant of “U-S-A, U-S-A” started up.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/Aug 2, ~10:30am

With a farewell of 56 honks and thumbs up, Deb, Linda, and Gene met for what may be the last Occupy Los Lunas bridge party. There will be a break in the action at least for a time.
It is discouraging that fewer rather than more participants didn’t gather over the years.
Anyway it was a good run.
Life goes on for everyone.
The struggle continues.
In solidarity.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/July 26, ~10:30am

Only three came out today, and it looks like people’s schedules are conflicting so we may not be able to continue unless additional people were to step up and come out. It’d be a shame to give it up after almost 4 years.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/July 19, ~10:30am

Six showed again including the new guy! Maybe he’ll become a regular! Lots of good conversation which should be happening all over our country. Not enough people are involved with understanding what our government is doing.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/July 12, ~10:30am

Six showed today even with a couple of regulars not present with 55 honks! A libertarian type guys showed up but was generally supportive of our advocacy of the problem of money in politics.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/July 5, ~10:30am

Eight showed up! One guy stopped by just to ask what we’re about and he didn’t stay long enough to discuss anything, and a second guy stopped by and showed us a picture of himself from probably the 1960’s. He looked like a hippy, much like Jerry Garcia, and said that’s who he used to be but he ‘grew up’, and then he proceeded to yell “communists” and “useful idiots” at us. When we tried to reply, he let out this maniacal laugh, and then left before we could ask him if he liked his social security and medicare benefits – you know, those socialistic pinko-communist programs. Maybe he’s one of those idiots who wants the government to keep its hands off his medicare.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/June 28, ~10:30am

Five showed today even tho two of the regulars weren’t there! Not much exciting happened today.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/June 21, ~10:30am

Only two showed today, several of us are busy in various parts of the world, but still lots of honks and waves.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/June 14, ~10:30am

Five showed up including one new person! She showed up because as a born-again Christian she supports Israel and regards Israel’s attacks on the Palestinians as pure defense. She stopped by to see what we were about, so we gave her some stuff to look up. She also thought we were against the troops “fighting for our democracy and way of life” and I pointed her at Smedley Butler’s greate pamphlet “War is a Racket”. Hopefully she’ll be back for more discussions.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/June 7, ~10:30am

Six showed up today! Average number of honks and a few middle fingers.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/May 31, ~10:30am

Five showed up in spite of the fact that two regulars were out of town! Nice spring day.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/May 24, ~10:30am

Three showed up! It’s Memorial Day Weekend, so only two of us regulars showed up, but a new person stopped by to thank us for what we’re doing. He’s from Lebanon, came to the US to escape the Civil War. Happenings like this makes it all worth it, lets us know we’re making a difference.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/May 17, ~10:30am

Four showed up today, lots of honks, not much else to report.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/May 10, ~10:30am

Four came today, everything was pretty low-key today because it’s Mother’s Day. Gene brought pictures of an AF plane that was doing circles over his house, looks like it might have been a C5A. Weather was sunny but a bit chilly.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/May 3, ~10:30am

Six came today, nothing of note happened.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/Apr 26, ~10:30am

Only 4 showed today, weather was drizzly so we left earlier than usual to keep from getting too wet. Not that many honks as I recall.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/Apr 19, ~10:30am

Six showed today! We even had one person who had not stopped by before, he stopped by to find out what we were about. He was a veteran, hates or involvement in wars, so I think he was on the same page as we are.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/Apr 12, ~10:30am

Seven showed today! Great weather, a bit cloudy so not too warm, but it seemed like we got fewer honks today for some reason.
Occupy Los Lunas now has our very own library! The Occupy Los Lunas Small Free Library is currently being housed in a blue shopping bag! Stop by with a book to loan or pick up one to read.
We also had one guy stop by promoting the Phoenix Journals, one source of many guides to the nature of reality.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/Apr 5, ~10:30am

Five showed today, a beautiful Easter day!

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/Mar 29, ~10:30am

Five showed up (including a five-year-old, they count as a person on the airlines, so I’m counting them here too :-). Nice day, seems like a lot of honks of support.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/Mar 22, ~10:30am

Wow! Nine showed up today, including three kids from the local high school, one of which had a guitar and serenaded us!

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/Mar 15, ~10:30am

Only four came today, including one person who hadn’t been there before, he had been wrongly arrested by the Albuquerque Police Department. Great weather, lots of honks!

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/Mar 8, ~10:30am

Today was probably the nicest day all year. Six showed up including one guy just like last week who took issue with the “Boycott Israel” sign, again because the Bible promised Palestine to the Jews, with no thought for what the the millions of non-Jews living there should do. However, he did agree that the legalized bribery problem in DC is horrible and needs to be solved. All day we got lots of honks, and a couple of negative shouts, probably because the weather was so nice, people had their windows open. It appears that people have been honking in support for years, but what really makes people stop by is our “Boycott Israel” sign.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/Mar 1, ~10:30am

Nice sunny day. The number who showed up is a bit controversial. There were four of us regulars, one person walking by said hi and that he supported us, and a new guy stopped by with 4 teenagers as a captive audience in the truck, so I’d say six total. The last guy stopped by because he took issue with our “Boycott Israel” sign and said the Bible gave that land to the Jews, so it’s their land with no regard for the Palestinian occupants. But we did agree on the problem of legalized bribery in DC. We invited him back for further discussion on the issues another day.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/Feb 22, ~10:30am

Five showed today, windy, cold, and blustery. Nothing of note happened today.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/Feb 15, ~10:30am

Six showed up again today, nice spring-ish day. One guy I think might have showed a long time ago, he’a a Vietnam Vet, two tours, Agent Orange injuries, purple heart, and thanked us for what we’re doing advocating for our troops to come home and stop with the stupid and fraudulent wars. Unfortunately it’s not up to us or the troops who make the decisions to send them places they shouldn’t be sent. Paul also handed out some literature from the Move To Amend folks in Minneapolis.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/Feb 8, ~10:30am

Six showed up, very nice day, felt a lot like spring. Included was one guy who had not stopped by before, we had a great discussion for an hour or so. He’s an Iraq War veteran and stopped by to see why we oppose the troops. We explained how we actually support the troops by advocating for them to come home and stop being sent off to fraudulent wars to make money for the corporations. The veteran had some interesting personal stories from Iraq, about all the mass graves that he personally saw from Hussein’s reign.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/Feb 1, ~10:30am

Only four came out today (some of us were sick and had other commitments), but with the large number of honks that we got, nobody stopped by. But that’s understandable considering it’s Superbowl Sunday, and the distraction of 300 pound gladiators attempting to give each other concussions is much more important than addressing the myriad of problems in our country and the world. It should remind us of the “Bread and Circus” shows that the plutocracy of Rome put on to distract the population toward the end of the Roman empire and during its descent into the chaos of the Dark Ages.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/Jan 25, ~10:30am

NINE came out today! One artist brought a beautiful painting, another brought cardboard to paint more and larger signs to overturn Citizens United. Nice and sunny and warm.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/Jan 18, ~10:30am

Six came today, including two from Greenfield MA on vacation who just happened to stumble across us! They said that there’s even a little Occupy going on in Greenfield, tho it’s a bit larger than ours. Also, one of us posted on the Get Money Out web page, they’re sponsoring an event for the 5th anniversary of Citizen’s United, so we signed up our Sunday get-together for that.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/Jan 11, ~10:30am

Five came today, nice sunny day, not too cold for the winter.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/Jan 5, ~10am

Deb and Paul went to the PRC meeting in Santa Fe discussing PNM’s plan to jack the rates to pay for additional investment into pollution control in two of their four coal plants, and also shutting down two other coal plants. They also want to charge people with grid-tie solar power generation with an extra fee to pay for grid maintenance. While there is some rational merit to their argument, they should be incentivizing more people to go solar, not penalizing people who have already gone solar. Sandy Jones, the recently elected Region-5 PRC representative has stated that he thinks that extra fee is reasonable.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2015/Jan 4, ~10:30am

Four showed up today, it was the day after our first big snowstorm in a couple of years. Cold but sunny.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Dec 28, ~10:30am

Wow! Nine showed up including three people who had never visited before! Sunny and cold, just like last week. Lots of interesting discussions with the new folks.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Dec 21, ~10:30am

Five again today, cold but sunny. Just before Christmas, not as many honks as some days, but perhaps people are distracted by the holidays and helping Bill O’Reilly fight in his imaginary War Against Christmas.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Dec 14, ~10:30am

Five showed up, weather was cold and very windy. Signs were blowing around. But we still got lots of honks.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Dec 9, ~9:30am

Three of us met with State Rep Kelly Fajardo, who is going to be the Majority Whip for the next session. We talked about a number of subjects and found a lot to agree on, we had a great discussion.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Dec 7, ~10:30am

Six of us showed up today, great weather, warm and sunny. Lots of energetic honks.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Nov 30, ~10:30am

Five showed up today, weather was a bit windy, nothing of note happened.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Nov 25, ~10:30am

Paul met with his state senator, Clemente Sanchez about a number of issues for about 40 minutes. He lamented the success of the Republicans in the last election, especially in Valencia County, typically a Democratic stronghold. I suggested that many people stayed home because the Democrats are not seen to be standing for anything, especially in DC.
He understands that money in politics (legalized bribery) is a problem and agrees that money is not speech, but is wishy-washy on whether corporations are people. He also doesn’t like constitutional amendments, but had no solution otherwise.
He doesn’t know much about GMOs, but for now opposes labeling, saying that the non-GMO people should lable their products instead. He doesn’t yet understand the dangers of GMO.
He didn’t know anything about the Health Security Act but sounded open-minded about it.
He’s also against cannabis legalization because “it’s a drug” without realizing the devastating costs of our failed drug war.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Nov 23, ~10:30am

Five here today, people seemed less enthusiastic today for some reason. It’s windy today, and the weather turned quite cold while we were out, and just before 11:30 when we quit, it started sleeting a little bit.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Nov 18, ~7:30am

Paul and Gary met with Alonzo Baldonado who is the state representative for this area. We wanted to discuss the trickle-down theory, the problem of money in politics, the problem with GMOs, and the Health Security Act, but he is comfortable with the way things are and is not interested in researching the data showing that those issues are real problems. He absolutely believes the fiction of the ‘trickle-down’ theory.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Nov 16, ~10:30am

Wow! TEN people today! That includes a couple of people who were walking by having just moved to the area, but they were quite supportive of us and may be back. It started out rainy and cold and then cleared up. There was a great article about us in the News-Bulletin this past week. In addition, Paul and Deb went to the Health Security Campaign strategy meeting yesterday, and we all endorsed their efforts to bring better health care to NM and decided to be listed as an organization in support of the Health Security Act.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Nov 9, ~10:30am

Five showed up. Everybody was pretty bummed about the elections and the success of the Republicans. While the Democrats are often pretty bad, people just don’t want to hear about what the Republicans want to do – eliminate all those ‘taker’ programs like Social Security, Medicare, etc.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Nov 2, ~10:30am

Five showed today, including Frank Otero, running for state representative. Seems like more honks than usual, with two middle-finger salutes and two “go home” shouts but that was about it. Weather was gloomy and chilly and started raining a few minutes before we were going to quit anyway. Gary showed up an hour early because he forgot about the time change.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Oct 26, ~10:30am

Only four today, not as many honks as some weeks, apparently everybody has slept late today.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Oct 19, ~10:30am

Five showed up today, including Frank Otero, a Democrat, who is running against the Republican incumbent Alonzo Baldonado, in State Representative District 8. Alonzo has never stopped by and fails to understand the importance of efforts like Occupy and amending the constitution – we’ve tried to explain it to him, but so far, to no avail. It’s also difficult to get Alonzo to respond to us, his constituents. Frank has stopped by a couple of times, and he does get it.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Oct 12, ~10:30am

Only three of us today, lots of bicyclists, but not as many honks today, probably because of fewer signs.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Oct 5, ~10:30am

Seven showed up! Lots of great conversation, and Gary even sold two of his great Occupy Los Lunas green T-shirts!

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Sep 28, ~10:30am

Six showed up today! Two people stopped for directions and then we talked about what we were doing here and they wholeheartedly supported what we were doing.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Sep 21, ~10:30am

Even BIGGER WOW! Twelve people showed up today, including a guy who runs a bike shop in Socorro that has all kinds of Occupy-type signs in his window. He was involved in a lot of the Vietnam War demonstrations back in the 60’s as well. Lots of honks again. A couple of first-timers too! First-timers often have been passing by for a long time and honking, but never bothered to stop by.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Sep 14, ~10:30am

WOW! ELEVEN people showed up today, several new people, some bicyclists who needed a tool and are with the program, and one guy selling chihuahua puppies who is an ex Navy Seal sniper who quit when he decided he didn’t like killing people. A couple of people showed up specifically to learn more about why we’re here. Hopefully they’ll be back. The time went by pretty quickly because of all the people coming and going.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Sep 7, ~10:30am

Four of us showed up. We seemed to get more honks than usual during the first hour (including three motorcycles!), and then the enthusiasm tapered off the last 1/2 hour. We were trying to figure out why, maybe it’s related to the crisis in Ukraine and people are worried about us getting lied into another war. Heard one guy yell, “Go home”.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Aug 31, ~10:30am

Four showed today, nothing much of note, lots of honks of course, and I counted three middle-finger salutes, but of course they didn’t stop by to find out that they’re missing the point.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Aug 24, ~10:30am

Five showed today including one new guy who stopped by out of curiosity to find out what it was all about. He took issue with the sign “Resist, Don’t Enlist” because he spent a couple of decades in the military including 3 tours in Vietnam and thinks the military is a great career. We tried to tell him that we’re not against the troops, we’re against the military being sent to places where they don’t belong, and if people didn’t elist, they wouldn’t be able to misuse the military.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Aug 19

I just posted a video for the DecidingForce.org project, they asked for a video about our experience with the police so here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrUsagvaH4g

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Aug 17, ~10:30am

Six came today, including one of our early folks who moved to CA a year ago! And one person from Albuquerque. Lots of honks of course, but nothing else of note.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Aug 10, ~10:30am

Five showed today! Lots of honks, even got a wave from a policeman and an ambulance with its siren on! Also got some yahoo who was leaning outside of the car window at the waist (perhaps practicing for an audition for the next Jackass movie), dropped a couple of F-bombs but we couldn’t understand what the rest of what he said was, though it sounded like it might have been derogatory.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Aug 3, ~10:30am

Another wow day! Eight people were there, including two people who had their K-9 search dog training him to look for cadavers. Another guy drove down from Albuquerque. Lots of honks again.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/July 27, ~10:30am

Wow again! Six people showed up, counting one that stopped in the road in front of us and yelled about how horrible Obama was thinking that we supported him and we yelled back that we agree that Obama is horrible. Another guy, had not stopped by before, but said he always honked, but now as a result of Gary’s “Stop Bombing Gaza” sign, he stopped by to say that he supported Israel. We talked a bit about how we were under no illusion about how much of what the Palestinians have done (like the recent murder of the three Jewish teens) is despicable, not to mention their bizarre Islamic policies toward women, but that did not excuse what Israel has done and continues to do. But the sign did prompt him to stop for the first time for a discussion, and that’s a goal – to provoke discussion and thought.

Paul also brought something from the Deciding Force Project researching the relationship between Occupy and the police, specifically with the goal of maintaining a peaceful relationship. We’ve never had an issue with the police, but then we’ve never threatened the existing power structure. So we’re working on a video to upload to them about our limited and good experiences with the police.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/July 20, ~10:30am

Wow! Seven people showed up including two new people that just happened to stop by, as well as Frank Otero who is running for State Legislature District 7 against Alonzo. The honks for some reason seemed particularly energetic today.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/July 13, ~10:30am

Only two of us today, one is out of town. Gary brought a new sign “Stop bombing Gaza”. Still got lots of honks, so it sounds like most people don’t buy into the mainstream myth that Israel can do no wrong. However, one guy stopped his pickup truck (what else would he have) in the middle of the street in front of us (no traffic behind him) and yelled, “When will Gaza stop firing rockets into Israel”. But he didn’t wait for an answer.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/July 11, ~6pm

Paul met Tom Udall at his fundraiser at the Luna Mansion. He told Tom that his Constitutional Amendment wasn’t going to solve anything, saying that we need simplicity and clarity: corporations are not people, and money is not speech. Anything less isn’t going to do it.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/July 6, ~10:30am

Same old three of us, hot and sunny day.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/June 29, ~10:30am

Four people showed up, hot and sunny, lots of honks. I didn’t see any negatives other than two Diesel pickup trucks who stepped on the gas as they went by attempting to gas us with exhaust. Fortunately the wind direction carried the black smoke elsewhere.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/June 22, ~10:30am

Only two today, Gary has a broken rib. Hot sunny day, it seemed like there were fewer honks, but we didn’t see even one negative “comment”.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/June 15, ~10:30am

Four showed today, lots of honks. Only one diesel pickup attempted to douse us with exhaust, other than that, everybody was positive.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/June 8, ~10:30am

Four were present today, very sunny and quite hot now-a-days.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/June 1, ~10:30am

Three came today, nothing of note happened. We started early and left a bit early to beat the heat.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/May 25, ~10:30am

Only three of us today, but then it’s the Memorial Day Weekend. Seems like there were more honks, but also more middle finger salutes than I remember in quite awhile.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/May 18, ~10:30am

Wow! We had 12 people! However, one guy was just asking directions to Walmart, and two were giving Gary a ride, but even so, that’s 9! Emily Montoya, who owns the “Revolving Door” second-hand store is running for County Sheriff, and she came with two of her helpers. The weather is really starting to get hot now.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/May 11, ~10:30am

Wow! Eleven people showed up at various times! Emily Montoya, a candidate in the Democratic Primary for county sheriff showed up with a helper. I think she really gets the importance of Occupy. I hope she wins in the primary against Rene. Lots of honks and *very* windy.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/May 4, ~10:30am

Five showed up! It seemed like there were fewer honks than other Sundays, and Gary was out, but we had three new people! However, one of the people had a camper and just wanted us to watch it while he went for a hike. And I asked him if he knew what we were about, and he said that all our problems would be solved if we just deported all the illegal aliens here in the country. It must be nice to live in a sterile news-bubble where all of our myriad of problems can be solved merely by deporting a segment of the population that really had nothing to do with causing any of our problems.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Apr 27, ~10:30am

Three showed up today, very windy.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Apr 20, ~10:30am

Today is Easter Sunday, and the traffic seemed about as heavy as normal, but there seemed to be fewer honks. But four people showed up including a 20-something that has been seeing us out here for over two years, and he finally stopped by to say hi. We had a robust discussion!

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Apr 13, ~10:30am

Five showed today, one of which is a woman who’s wandering around the country. You can read up on her web page at risetogether.weebly.com

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Apr 6, ~10:30am

Same old three of us, lots of honks.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Mar 30, ~10:30am

Five showed up today again! Nice day, lots of honkns. One of the people who showed up was Frank Otero, who is running for State Rep in District 8 against Alonzo Baldonado. Alonzo has refused to engage with me on any subject at this point, but most importantly, on a Constitutional Amendment and GMO issues. There are topics we could probably work together on, but without dialog, we can’t even get to these topics.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Mar 23, ~10:30am

Five showed today, including one person who had never stopped by before! He was wearing a Navy hat and wanted to find out what we were about. Turns out he thought we were against the military and that’s not true. We are trying to end our fraudulent wars and bring the troops home where they belong. He said he agreed with us now that he understands what we’re about. Lots of energetic honks.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Mar 16, ~10:30am

Eight showed today including four new people! They’ve driven by lots of times and honked but never stopped in. One is in High School, the other is a Freshman at UNM-Valencia. It’s great to see that some young people care about what’s important for their future. One was a police officer that stopped by to make sure we weren’t spray painting the sidewalk – we always use chalk. Somebody apparently saw Gary chalking the sidewalk and complained so they were just checking us out. She was very nice and said that she’d seen us for quite awhile and that we were fine.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Mar 9, ~10:30am

Four showed today, not many honks, but then people are still recovering from losing an hour due to the stupid daylight savings time thing. I like the old Indian saying, only a white man could think you could cut a foot off the bottom of a blanket and sew it onto the top of the blanket and think that he’ll get a longer blanket.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Mar 8

Paul and Gary went to the Democratic State Convention at the Rt66 Casino (rather metaphoric place to meet, don’t you think? 🙂 ). We handed out 50 $1-bills from the $50 that Tim Eichenberg gave us for the MoveToAmend effort. We made a bunch of contacts. Every politician I talked with expressed concern about money and politics, and several brought up the need for a Constitutional Amendment before I did so I think they’re on board with it.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Mar 2, ~10:30am

Chilly and rainy day, again lots of honks. But there were five of us today! Frank Otero who is running for to be our State Representative was one of the Occupiers today.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Feb 23, ~10:30am

Paul was flying and couldn’t make it, but four showed up including one new recruit that had seen Gary’s chalk notice of the weekly meeting!

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Feb 16, ~10:30am

Five showed up, including Frank Otero, who is a Democrat running for Alonzo Baldonado’s state representative seat (district 8). Alonzo is the one who opposed yoga being used in schools for stretching before exercise because he was afraid it was a religion and would distract our young Christian children’s minds. Lots of honks today.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Feb 9, ~10:30am

Six showed up today! The four regulars and two more people who randomly stopped by. One had been driving by a lot and finally stopped in, very supportive of or message about not enlisting, and that from a multi-generational military family! Lots of honks, and I saw only one thumbs-down from one driver. Nice weather.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Feb 2, ~10:30am

Four showed today, not as many honks as some of the other days. Paul brought his writing for his Town of Peralta Councillor candidacy for review. We hope to make our weekly meeting here a “watering-hole” for anybody who wants to talk politics.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Jan 25, ~10:30am

Six showed today! Seemed like there were more honks of support today than other days. Paul has been visiting Peralta businesses in connection with his candidacy for Peralta Town Council, and so far, everybody he’s talked with remembers seeing our little demonstration. Nick and his wife from the Constitution Party stopped by, we have a lot in common, so I’m hoping he might join us on a regular basis.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Jan 19, ~10:30am

Five people showed up, including one advertising sales person for the local newspaper. And Gene brought his reflector telescope. Nice warm day for a January. Deb estimated that the positive responses (thumbs up, honks, etc.) are running about 20 or 30 times the negative responses.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Jan 12, ~10:30am

Seven people showed up! Three were from Albuquerque. Nice day, was not too cold. Lots of honks, but lots of great discussion among us too.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2014/Jan 5, ~10:30am

The regular three of us today, the beginning of the cold snap. Traffic was quite light and not as many honks as other Sundays. Perhaps it’s because the holidays are over.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Dec 29, ~10:30am

Wow! We had 7 people today! And lots of honks! Nice warm (relatively) day. One guy who stopped by is an independent photo-journalist who was on his way to the Grand Canyon and happened across us. He took a bunch of pictures and will email them to us. Also a couple with a horse stopped by.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Dec 22, ~10:30am

Six people showed today! One was visiting from Lubbock. The honks seemed more energetic today as well! Must be the holiday cheer.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Dec 15, ~10:30am

Four showed today, nice weather, lots of great honks.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Dec 8, ~10:30am

Same three of us, quite cold, partly sunny. I noticed that a lot of the people who didn’t honk actually waved, but with darkened windows, it’s often difficult to tell.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Dec 4, ~7:30pm

All three of us regulars went to the Peralta Town Hall meeting for a vote on a Resolution, and Joe Romero moved the motion, and the other three commissioners didn’t even second the motion (the mayor is unable to second a motion). We were shocked, and this was after Paul talked to each of them on the phone and they all said they were OK with the motion. Two of the commissioners have refused to even discuss the motion further, so the success depends on Kori Taylor who said she wants to understand more about it. So if we can get her support eventually, the motion will be successful. However, Tracy Aragon and Leon Otero have refused to meet to discuss their opposition to it.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Dec 1, ~10:30am

Four showed up today, including one new person from Albuquerque! It was the first pretty chilly day this year. Not as many honks as some other Sundays too.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Nov 24, ~10:30am

Cold and snowy today, the regular 3 of us showed up, plus 2 more people, friends of Deb stopped by.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Nov 17, ~10:30am

Nice day, we had the 3 regulars, and one guy walked by and we had a short discussion. He said that the whole reason everything is falling apart is because we don’t have prayer in schools anymore. I tried to explain that many Congresspeople are Christians and pray, but that’s not helping in DC, and suggested that maybe if we didn’t have money in politics, which is what our effort is about, that might help. I don’t think he was able to understand this.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Nov 10, ~10:30am

Same old four of us showed up. Bright and sunny, nice day. We waved to one guy across the street walking his dog. He was about to cross the street to us, but the traffic didn’t let up and he eventually gave up and continued walking away.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Nov 3, ~10:30am

Three of us showed up today, Fred hadn’t been out in awhile. He said he thought we were getting a lot more honks from people than he remembers in the past. And Gary was out an hour early because he forgot about the time change last night, so he was out from 9am to 11:30am standard time. Whew!

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Oct 27, ~10:30am

Quite a bit of activity today. In addition to the regular 3 of us, we got what seemed like a lot of honks. One new guy stopped by to see what we were about. He seemed to be on the same page and we gave him a handout. Also, Gary’s new neighbors stopped by with a couple of kids, so we can count 8 people for today! Plus a dog.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Oct 23, ~7:30pm

Paul went to the Peralta Town Council to present a request for them to pass a resolution in support of the Move To Amend Constitutional Amendment. It was well received, and I’m hopeful that they will pass a Resolution at their next meeting on Nov 20.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Oct 20, ~10:30am

Six showed today! The same old four, plus two people stopped by as a result of Gary’s “Resist Don’t Enlist” sign asking what it was about.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Oct 13, ~10:30am

Same four of us showed up today, not much to report.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Oct 6, ~10:30am

Four of us showed up today, nothing of note happened.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Sept 29, ~10:30am

Three of us showed up (Paul was back east) today. Paul got email from the Valencia County Chairman, who had been very supportive of a Resolution, that all of a sudden he’s no longer supporting the Resolution. He says he wants to focus on local issues. We wondered what happened.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Sept 22, ~10:30am

The same old four today. Lots of honks, but we saw only 2 or 3 negative responses, usually we see more than that. Another interesting item is that the Catholic Church that Gene passes by on Sunday was completely empty and closed up – very unusually that not one person was there. And it’s very coincidental that the new Pope came out telling people to de-emphasize what has been Catholic Doctrine for ages about gay marriage, abortion, and birth control. Maybe it was too big a shock for them and they closed down.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Sept 15, ~10:30am

Same old four of us today. It’s been raining so a lot of people showed up at the parking lot, but they didn’t come over and interact with us so I didn’t count them. They came to see the river which is extending across the entire river bed now, it hasn’t done that in a few years I think. Apparently these people have attention spans that don’t last that long.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Sept 10, 5pm

Gary Werner and Paul Kinzelman met today with State Senator Clemente Sanchez. I first talked with him about the need for a Constitutional Amendment to overrule the Supreme Court as the first step in ending the legalized bribery in DC. He said he agreed that US Congress does not work and DC needs to be cleaned up from all the money. He said he would not commit to any particular resolution or Constitutional Amendment until he read it, but he was sensitive to the issue and agreed that something needs to be done to fix Washington. Paul thought that was a fair position.
Gary and Paul then spoke with him about GMO. Clemente said he knew nothing about GMO until it was brought up in the last legislative session in Santa Fe. A bill needs to go through two committees before being brought to the floor, as determined by the bill’s sponsor, in this case, Peter Wurth. However, Peter wanted it to go thru the Conservation Committee, and then the Judiciary, but the Corporations Committee would have been the appropriate one. Clemente said his vote was a procedural one, the result of the bill being routed to the wrong committee, but the end result was that the bill was killed. Clemente said didn’t know enough about the GMO issue to have an opinion about the bill itself and whether GMOs are a health hazard.
Paul expressed hope that both issues would come before the legislature in 2014, but Clemente said that laws can come before the legislature only every 2 years, during 60-day sessions. The 2014 session is a 30-day session, and only bills that affect the state budget can be brought forward, and so bills related to a Constitutional Amendment and GMOs will not be able to be considered in this session at all unless the Governor should put forth the bill (not likely).
Gary and Paul gave him some information about GMO, and Gary had a long-term study about the harm GMO does to rats in the hope he would research the issue for the day when GMO will come up again (looks like 2015 now), and he said he would consider the information. Paul asked him to contact me when he learns enough to form an opinion about the issue to let me know where he stands on this issue.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Sept 8, ~10:30am

Four of us showed up today, lots of honks. Gary brought a new sign “Hands off Syria”. Another car showed up with two people so I thought we’d have some new people, but they just wanted directions to the Los Lunas Chili Festival so I won’t count them. We also discussed and approved applying to the national www.movetoamend.org organization to become an affilidate.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Sept 1, ~10:30am

It was a holiday (Labor Day) weekend, so we didn’t expect much activity, but three showed up. Later in the day Gary came back to chalk the sidewalk and a car with three people stopped by to ask what he was doing. He replied he was chalking the sidewalk, but before he could explain the point of the chalking, they drove off. So I’d give us about 1/2 per additional person, so that was 4.5 people today.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Aug 25, ~10:30am

Six showed up! The 3-4 regulars, and a young person who works at the prison stopped by to find out what it was about. He doesn’t watch news so he’s not predisposed to oppose us. And an irate woman, a lifer military person, was very angry at our signs against enlisting and for bringing our troops home, apparently mistakenly thinking that our troops overseas are protecting our freedom here at home. She kept saying that was should just wait until the Muslims implement Sharia Law here in the US. She wasn’t interested in any information, she had already made up her mind that we supported all of Obama’s freeloaders on welfare and didn’t care about them getting jobs. We tried to explain to her that we didn’t like Obama and wanted everybody to work too, but she couldn’t hear that. She watched Fox News, but claimed also to watch CNN (not much of an improvement over Fox News).

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Aug 18, ~10:30am

Five showed up! One of us was very uncomfortable with a sign opposing Obama even if balanced with the Republicans in Congress because the few beneficial things he has accomplished are more than his opponents would have accomplished. And we need to be unanimous about the signs we display, so it looks like we won’t have that sign. Besides, Paul misspelled Boehner’s name on the sign and that would have to be fixed anyway.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Aug 11, ~10:30am

Six of us showed up! One person driving by yelled “I hate Obama” apparently thinking we were supporting Obama’s policies, which for most of them is not the case. So we discussed some signs we could make to indicate we oppose most of what Obama does. But we also did not want to give the wrong impression that we oppose Obama, thereby supporting the Republican idiocy. So we talked about making a sign that said we opposed all the leaders: Obama, McConnell, and Boehner.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Aug 4, ~10:30am

Wow! Seven people showed up and one of the regulars was not even able to be there! One person connected with similar demonstrations from Tulsa OK (friend of Deb) came, and two Jehovah’s Witnesses came. I count them because they engaged in a discussion. They had a brochure they left titled “Does Demonstrating Work” or some such. Apparently it’s not supposed to work, they seem to have a better idea, though they’re not much on the radar these days either.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Jul 28, ~10:30am

We had four people, including one new visitor who hadn’t been out before! He said he’d come out again!

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Jul 27, 9am

Paul went to a breakfast campaign stop for Tim Eichenberg running for State Treasurer in the June 2014 election. He seems like a good progressive candidate. His website is at www.eichenbergforstatetreasurer.com

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Jul 21, ~10:30am

Same old 4 people present tho a couple of us had to leave early. Bosque is now open again due to the recent rains, so there are a bunch of horse trailers around.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Jul 14, ~10:30am

Four showed up, hot as usual.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Jul 7, ~10:30am

Same three of us, seemed to be fewer honks for awhile at the start, but picked up as we stayed there. Debbie said that she had gotten zero response to the request about whether anybody would participate in the July 4 parade, so we did not have a float this year.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Jun 30, ~10:30am

Another hot day, four of us. We again discussed the July 4th parade, but so far, Debbie hasn’t gotten very much positive response so it doesn’t look good for this year’s participation.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Jun 23, ~10:30am

Four showed today! We talked about participating in the 4th of July parade, but we don’t think we’d get enough people to make it worthwhile.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Jun 17, ~1:30pm

Paul went to the County Commissioners meeting, and gave the presentation. One commissioner expressed the concern that if the Amendment passed, it would prevent her personal corporation from funding her campaign. Then the Chairman asked for a second for the Resolution, and not one Commissioner was willing to second the motion. I was very disappointed, because I had talked with each one of them beforehand and they said they would all support it. So I will have to talk with them and try to address their concerns.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Jun 16, ~11am

Another hot day for the three of us. Paul brought a statement to be read at the Valencia County Commission meeting the following day in support of a Resolution for the Move To Amend effort.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Jun 9, ~11am

Just the 3 of us on another hot day.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Jun 5, ~5pm

Today the Valencia County Commissioners were to consider a resolution in support of a Constitutional Amendment. The Chairman was supposed to present it, but he was absent, and the other commissioners voted to strike the issue from the agenda in spite of the fact I was there. And I had talked to all of them and they all said they would support the Resolution. So at this point I don’t suspect a nefarious agenda, but who knows. Hopefully Chairman Eaton will put it back on the agenda for the next meeting and we can get it done.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Jun 2, ~11am

Back to the three regulars. Hot and wind calm.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/May 26, ~11am

Wow! Seven people showed up! We even had one hiker who had just finished a hike from Phoenix to Albuquerque along the Enchantment Trail. Lots of encouraging honks, one even from a police car! Today was also the day after the anti-Monsanto March all over the world. Three of the people today had been on that march.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/May 19, ~11am

Two of the regulars were present.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/May 12, ~11am

Nobody was there, our schedules got complicated.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/May 5, ~11am

Four people showed up even though one regular wasn’t there! Nice day, lots of honks.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Apr 28, ~11am

Only two people came, Paul went to flight training.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Apr 21, ~11am

Five came! One new person too!

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Apr 14, ~11am

Same old 3 of us today. Very windy.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Apr 7, ~11am

The “first shorts” day of the season, four of us showed up. Nice day, seemed like more honks than some days we’re out. Gene brought a very unusual looking bone fragment, looked mostly like a skull, but couldn’t really tell what it was. Definitely not human.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Mar 31, ~11am

Easter! Only two of us regulars (one on vacation), but a new person showed up with some interesting literature.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Mar 24, ~11am

Nice sunny day, still only the 3 of us.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Mar 17, ~11am

Saint Patrick’s Day.
The same old three of us, plus a local high school student stopped by. He’s graduating this year. His ROTC commander asked him to come and ask us a few questions. We had a great conversation, I gave him a handout. We agreed that the legalized bribery in DC was the fundamental issue so I suggested let’s all work on this fundamental issue on which we agree.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Mar 10, ~11am

Same old 3 of us, gloomy day, a few snow showers.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Mar 3, ~11am

Two regulars and one other person stopped by. Paul was flying CAP cadets, so he flew over and did a couple of circles over the Occupy, so that should count for something.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Feb 24, ~11am

Same old three of us. It was pretty chilly.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Feb 17, ~11am

We had SIX people show up, three who had never been there before! One stopped by for only a minute before going fishing, his son had just enlisted in the Marines and he supports what we’re doing.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Feb 10, ~11am

Same four people showed up today.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Feb 3, ~11am

Four showed up, including one new person!

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Jan 27, ~11am

Wow, 4 of us showed up, including a new guy who stopped by to see what it was about, so Gary and I explained a bit about money and politics and gave him one of our handouts to take home.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Jan 20, ~11am

Wow, there were six of us! One extra from awhile back, and one new person! Nice warmer day too!

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Jan 13, ~11am

Four of us showed up. Very cold. I was hoping that a new person or two would show up because my rebuttal of at Tea Partier’s editorial in the local newspaper was published last Wednesday. You can see what I published at Paul’s Belen News Bulletin Letter

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Jan 6, ~11am

Three showed today.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Jan 2, ~11am

Two of us went to the Valencia County Commission meeting and made this statement during the time for public comment. I presented each of the five commissioners with our statement in support of a resolution we hope that they will pass which is in support of a Constitutional Amendment to end corporate personhood and end money as protected free speech. We also presented them with a couple of example resolutions from other municipalities. Here it is:
January 2, 2013

We are members of the Occupy Los Lunas group. We meet every Sunday at 10am at River Park in Los Lunas. Please come and visit us.

We will be petitioning you, the Valencia County Commissioners, and our state congress-people to pass a resolution in support of a Constitutional Amendment to help eliminate money from affecting politics. We need grass roots and local legislative action, because the US Congress is unable to address the problem, because they’re addicted to money from campaign contributions primarily from corporations.

Corporations are not inherently evil, but as we can see, they must be true to the function for which they were organized, and they must be prevented from using their immense financial resources from corrupting our political process. Corporate lobby groups like the National Chamber of Commerce and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) must be prevented from writing legislation harmful to citizens.

Money in politics (legalized bribery) affects all of us because:
1) It rewards politicians who cater to corporations and ignore their constituents.
2) It buys endless and fraudulent wars
3) It enables Wall Street to engage in massive fraud with legal impunity.
4) It corrupts our legal and penal systems, immigration policies, and everything else it touches – and it touches everything.

Politicians sing his song whose bread they eat – and big money donors hand out almost all the bread to their political choruses.

You can’t have an honest dialog with someone who is being bribed and right now bribery works. And in the rare instances when corporations get caught and fined, the fine usually amounts to much less than the profit made as a result of their bribery so bribery makes good business sense. History shows that this level of corruption always leads to disaster.

Laws alone will not solve the problem because of the consistent lack of understanding by the Supreme Court of human nature, most recently demonstrated by their disastrous “Citizens United” decision. We must overrule the Supreme Court with a Constitutional Amendment.

We need a Constitutional Amendment to establish the following:
1) First, that money used for political campaigns is not protected free speech so Congress may regulate it.
2) Second, that Corporations are not people, may not participate in the political process, and do not have the right to Constitutional free speech.

In addition, we need
1) Full Public Campaign Financing. I don’t like taxes funding politicians either, but all the other alternatives are much worse.
2) Finally, stations licensed by the FCC should be required to provide public service air time for all vetted candidates in political campaigns.

As Winston Churchill said, “Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing, but only after they’ve tried everything else first.” We’ve tried everything else, so now it’s time to do the right thing – pass a Constitutional Amendment that rejects systemic corruption.

See www.occupyloslunas.info and www.movetoamend.org for more information.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2013/Jan 1, ~11am

Thanks to the invite from Don Holliday, a Valencia County Commissioner, we came to the noon-time swearing-in of the local elected officials at the Los Lunas Court Complex. We handed out our information sheet and $1 bills on which we had stamped the www.movetoamend.org‘s “Not to be used for bribing politicians” in big red letters. Some people even refused to take the money, but we handed out 49 – $1 bills today. We thought it was money well spent. Most people got a kick out of it.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Dec 30, ~11am

Thanks to a medical emergency and a work schedule conflict, today was the first weekend-day since we started over a year ago, on which we had no presence at River Park. However, two days later we did have what was probably a more important presence (see Jan 1).

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Dec 23, ~11am

We had four out today, including Valencia County Commissioner Don Holliday. I gave him the example resolutions other places have passed or tried to pass. He sounded like he was with the program. He suggested contacting the other commissioners as well as coming out on January 1 at the Courthouse Complex (Rt 314 and Morris) at 1pm for the swearing in of the new local elected officials. The press might be there and so we should bring signs and handouts.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Dec 16, ~11am

Same old three showed up. Getting thin guys.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Dec 9, ~11am

Four showed up today. We talked more about changing some of our posters.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Dec 2, ~11am

Only 3 showed today, Paul was flying.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Nov 25, ~11am

The usual four cast of characters showed up. We discussed how it might be good to focus on advocating for eliminating corporate personhood and eliminating money as protected speech, but coming up with a sign with minimum verbiage is difficult.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Nov 18, ~11am

Four people came, although one was Gary’s daughter who had noplace else to go. We also saw a number of pickups with two people driving in and out of the ditch road. This was the last day of the great coyote genocide sponsored by the Gunhawk store in Los Lunas.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Nov 11, ~11am

Five people were there! We had our hard-core three, and one Fox News viewer stopped by to ask what Occupy was about – to his credit he came out to find out what it was about rather than believing the disparaging information on Faux News. It was also the coldest day yet of the season and the wind was blowing pretty strongly.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Nov 4, ~11am

We had four people today, Fred is taking some time off, but we had one friend from Ruidoso visiting. Lots of honks. Election is in 2 days.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Oct 28, ~11am

Five of us today, and it’s the FIRST ANNIVERSARY of our weekly get-togethers. We’ve been here every single weekend for a year! Contrast that with the Tea Party who showed up once near April 15 and that was it. We could use some more people out here, I think Occupy may become more important, especially if Romney is declared the winner (notice I didn’t say “wins”).

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Oct 21, ~11am

Only four of us came out today.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Oct 14, ~11am

The same six people today, but we seemed to get more honks, possibly because Fred brought some Obama and Heinrich signs suggesting that we need to take a stand against the vulture capitalist. None of us are very pleased with Obama, but given the choice of bad and total catastrophe, we’ll take the bad.

Also, it’s two weeks until our first anniversary of being out every single Sunday, please try to join us for that.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Oct 7, ~11am

Six people today, and in addition, two other people stopped by looking to meet somebody, but were in support of us. I invited them to come back on another Sunday when they have more time.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Sept/30, ~11am

We had eight show up today! Lots of honks and encouragement!

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Sept/23, ~11am

Four of us showed up, lots of honks, no rocks.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Sept/16, ~11am

Ten showed up! And Amy even bought donuts! It’s the day before the first anniversary of the first OWS. We seem to get a lot more honks the second hour than the first. We also received our first real premeditated assault. A gold SUV threw a plastic zip-lock bag with a 5-lb rock and a note that said “Why don’t you MISCREANTS go “Occupy” HELL and stop vandalizing public property!! You’re worthless human beings!” Guess we’re making somebody nervous. We get a *lot* more honks the second hour, and only a few thumbs down or middle-finger up.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Sept/9, ~11am

Five of us showed up!

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Sept/2, ~11am

Six showed up plus 3 kids, so that’s 9!

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/August/26, ~11am

Only 3 people showed up.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/August/19, ~11am

Wow, TEN people showed up (although 3 of them were kids), that’s quite impressive! Several people stopped by who hadn’t been out for awhile. One guy stopped by even though he had a heart attack 2 weeks ago.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/August/12, ~11am

Two of our regulars couldn’t show up, but we still had four in attendance today. We’re coming up on our first anniversary and so we were trying to decide what day we actually started last October. Amy suggested it was probably the weekend before the Facebook page which started on Oct 27, which means the first day of Occupy Los Lunas was probably on or around Sunday Oct 23, so let’s just declare that day to be our anniversary.
Yani is starting school and won’t be able to come out anymore, so Amy and Paul split her signs, so if you need some wonderful signs, see one of us.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/August/5, ~11am

Again, five of us regulars showed up. Debbie started counting honks and got over 100 in just over an hour and 1/2.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/July/29, ~11am

Five of us regulars showed up. We talked a bit about if candidates should want to put up signs in favor of their guy where we are demonstrating, and our consensus was that we wanted to keep things non-partisan.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/July/22, ~11am

Six of us regulars attended, plus there was one new person who was really on board with why we’re here. We gave him a handout and hope he comes out again.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/July/15, ~11am

We had 6 adults show up, and one brought his 3 small children. He came to ‘caulkupy’ and the kids drew chalk drawings, something that the Occupy folks in LA have been shot with rubber bullets for doing.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/July/8, ~11am

Eight of us showed up today, but nobody from the exposure we got from the July 4 parade even though we gave out over 40 of our handouts and one woman was really excited about our group. We’ll have to be satisfied for now to be the pilot light of the Occupy Movement.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/July/4, 9am-11am

We entered our Occupy group (11 people including 2 from Albuquerque!) into the Los Lunas Annual July 4 Parade through Main St (about 2 miles). We marched as #31 in about 75 or so different floats and other parade entries. With the election coming up, many floats were political.

We had two trucks in our parade entry, and Yani made some great signs taped to her truck with Gary’s huge “Stop the Wars” sign, and Poppy made some great 99% T-shirts. Paul’s truck led the group with a few signs taped to his truck too.

I was concerned about heckling because so many Faux News viewers actually believe the false propaganda that FN tells them, but there were very few hecklers as we marched in the parade. We were able to give out quite a few handouts. Some people were very excited about Occupy being in the Parade and in Los Lunas, so hopefully they will come out on Sundays with us for our weekly demonstration at River Park.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/July/1, ~11am

We had eight people today, in spite of the fact that the bosque is closed due to fire risk because it’s been so dry. They had used yellow tape to close the parking area, but we parked a short distance away and walked to our same spot and stayed on and next to the sidewalk. We also discussed some of the logistics for our participation as an Occupy group in the Los Lunas July 4th day parade. The are closing off Main St from 9am-11am. The parade is 2 miles long from the “Y” on the east side (near Albertson’s and Smith’s) to the Los Lunas town Police Station on the West side of town.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/June/24, ~11am

Seven people showed up today, and Gary had the great suggestion that we march in the July 4th parade in Los Lunas. Time is short but he’s going to look into it. Also, Poppy is going to make some shirts for us.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/June/17, ~11am

Only six of us braved the sun today for a couple of hours. We all agreed though, that we seemed to be getting more honks and waves than usual.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/June/13, ~6pm

Gary went to the Occupy Caravan in Albuquerque. It’s a caravan of people traveling across the country in support of Occupy with a destination of Philadelphia. See http://occupycaravan.webs.com/ for more info. Gary said about 60 people showed up for the celebration and pot-luck. They did a pan-clanging through Old Town. Everybody had 99 seconds to say whatever they wanted to say on a soap-box as well.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/June/10, ~11am

Ten people came out eventually plus Paul briefly circled overhead in an airplane. And that count included three people who had not been out before! Way to go!

And Fred came up with a great slogan for us: “We’re the pilot light of the public conscience”.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/June/3, ~11am

We had 10 people come out! Fred brought donuts and Yani brought a sign saying “Free Donuts”, but the only people who ate any donuts were us. We weren’t able to draw anybody to the demonstration with our unabashed bribery. Somehow bribery works better for the right-wing. 🙂

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/May/27, ~11am

Eight people came out on the Holiday (Memorial) Day weekend! After most left, a new person stopped by who may come out on a subsequent weekend.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/May/20, ~11am

Wow! Ten people were here today, enough to have a presence on the other side of the street and to even have a semblance of a GA! We got a lot of positive honks because of our crowd.

One suggestion was for each person to try to recruit one other person to show up with them in the next couple of weeks to keep the momentum going. I think it’s impressive that we’ve not missed a Sunday since we started last October.

Another suggestion is to have a PA system or music system so that it might look more inviting for people to stop by.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/May/13, ~11am

Only four people today too, come on folks, this is kind of pitiful.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/May/6, ~11am

For 1.5 hours it was just Fred and Paul, and then a couple more people showed up for a total of four. We experienced significantly more honks and positive responses when there were four of us than when there were two. Nice day, even had one person pull up on the way to church who might show up before church next week!

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Apr/29, ~11am

Eleven people showed up! But that included one heckler that we talked with for quite awhile and we gave him a handout, so who knows, he may understand. Also, Frank Otero came, he’s running as a Democrat against the incumbent Republican Alonzo Baldonado. Frank gets it, but Alonzo does not.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Apr/22, ~2pm

Nine people showed up, if you count Paul’s fly-over by airplane, after all, he was at the same latitude and longitude as everybody else, he was just a bit higher :-). The Tea Party did not show up this week. The consensus is that because it’s getting hotter, we should meet at 10am instead of 1pm. Fred will poll the group.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Apr/15, ~2pm

Seven folks showed up, and the Tea Party showed up on the other side of the street for their Tax Day demonstration. Fred went over and engaged them for a bit and found some common ground.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Apr/8, ~2pm

Four showed up today, or as Faux News would report, it was an increase of 30%!

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Apr/1, ~2pm

Only 3 of us showed up, but the weather was kind of lousy.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Mar/27, ~2pm

Paul visited Occupy Rochester NY (http://occupyrochester.org/). They’ve had a small but continuous tent city in a park downtown for many months and even have live streaming of their GAs. The police here have never been brutal, but they have had trouble with some members with alcohol and such and are working through those issues. Paul went to the GA and there were about 14 very committed people. They are currently awaiting a judge’s decision about whether they will be ordered to vacate the park. Some say they’ve worn out their welcome because the place is kind of a mess and they will shortly be cleaning it up.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Mar/25, ~2pm

Five showed up. Yani and Amy mentioned the prospect of having some sort of public picnic across the street in conjunction with the Sunday event. They were thinking of doing that during warmer weather, although it was really hot today. Nice contrast with last week’s wind tunnel.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Mar/22, ~2pm

Three of our group (Fred, Jesse, and Paul) attended a “meet the candidate” session with Maxine Velasquez at Teofilo’s. Maxine is running in the Democratic primary (one of four candidates) for state senator district 30. Due to strange gerrymandering, this district includes Bosque Farms, Peralta, and parts of Los Lunas, and extends to the west to the Arizona border. You can find information about Maxine at www.maxineforsenate.com

We all found her to be very intelligent, articulate, and right about many topics including public campaign financing. We all thought she would make a fine Senator.

We presented her with the99pledge.com and she took it and will read it later to determine whether she wants to sign it.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Mar/18, ~2pm

Well, today only four of us crazies went out for almost an hour. It was blowing a gale, dust all over, signs were difficult to hold up. But saving our country takes a lot of work, the rest of you are just a bunch of wimps!

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Mar/17, ~2pm

Gary Werner attended a meeting of Move to Amend on March 17- a lot of activity is in store for this Spring:

1. Unity Rally for Peace – first Saturday of each month – 12:00 noon – 1:30 pm at Tulane and Central in Albq.

2. Rally Saturday, April 7 from noon to 3:00 pm – Pro-peace and against War in Iran. Gather at Montclair and Central and march to Tulane and Central to combine with the Unity Rally.

3. A web site Calendar is being organized to coordinate activities of progressive groups statewide.

4. Move to Amend has a goal to pass 100 resolutions – corporations are not people and money is not speech – in city, county and state legislatures.

5. Occupy organizations are asked to push for the 99 Pledge with politicians.

6.Training for 99 Spring- Train the Trainers will be held at the South Broadway Cultural Center (I believe this is in the Library) on March 24 and 25. I believe this will be happening all day long.

7. Nob Hill Area Earth Day Festival April 22 from 8 am to 5 pm at La Montanita Coop – Bring the Family – kids will love it.

8. National Call to Unite Against the War on Women. Action at State Capital (Roundhouse) April 28 from 10am to 2 pm.

The full minutes of the meeting are located on the MTA Facebook page
for those wishing more info.
http://www.facebook.com/groups/abq.move.to.amend/#!/groups/abq.move.to.amend/doc/318116994910910/

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Mar/11, ~2pm

About 7 people (plus kids) showed up. Marie came up from Belen and talked about her experience in her office (volunteer teacher). She had Occupy stuff pased on the office and the supervisor said that she’d gotten complaints. Turns out there were only two. She asked to see the specific regulation prohibiting her postings and has yet to be shown it. In parallel, somebody came in and ripped her signage down. She’s also going to petition the Belen City Council to sign a pledge to get money out of politics.

Paul is attempting to contact a state representative to sign the www.the99pledge.org as well.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Mar/4, ~2pm

It was cold and windy, 8 people showed up.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Feb/26, ~2pm

There were 8 people and one little person at today’s gathering, including two new people. I think they were a couple and that she was from Nebraska. A lady on horseback with an Oklahoma sweatshirt rode up to us and expressed support.

In addition, Paul went to the (Un)occupy event in Albuquerque for a statewide GA. About 100 people were there. The meeting was discussing upcoming events that people from all over the state could participate in.

I’ve seen a couple of postings (not here) of bogus reports about the unOccupy event in Albuquerque yesterday (Sunday, Feb 26, 2012). I was there and this is what I observed.

The “provoking” (as I’ve seen it reported) was for one woman to go and sit in the middle of the park, quietly, cross-legged, and she read a book while everybody else was huddled on the paving stones next to the sidewalk doing a GA, trying to obey the edict to not use the park and not get run over by the buses whizzing past. I think she was also a student. I think she did have a “99%” on her shirt.

While this was going on, there were a couple of other student-looking types standing with their bikes to the north in the park watching. And they were not arrested.

In seconds, with nothing else going on, and no cause to do this that I could see (she was not yelling, jumping around, etc.), the police came over, warned her, and then arrested her while she as quietly reading a book sitting on the ground. That caused the GA to stop and people started yelling things like “shame” and “this is NOT what democracy looks like”, etc.

After that, probably 90% (not including me) rushed over to the police car that they put the original arrestee in and that probably precipitated the other arrests. Before that original arrest, I think the police were pretty cool and nobody was confrontational.

So the black eye gets put on the police in this case from my personal observation.

There were originally 7 UNM cops, but after they arrested the reader for her “provocation” of reading in the park, I counted about 20 cops.

I did not see the other arrests.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Feb/21, ~2pm

Four staff members working for US Rep Steve Pearce (from the southern part of NM) came to the Los Lunas Railrunner station to hear constituent concerns. Most of the conversion was about local issues, but two of us from Occupy Los Lunas were present and introduced ourselves as such. We presented the staff with the Pledge from www.the99pledge.com and asked that the staff show it to Steve and ask him to sign it. One of the staff members promised to get back to me with the result when Steve returns from Vietnam where he’s traveling at present.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Feb/19, ~2pm

Another cold and windy day, only 8 people showed up.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Feb/12, ~2pm

Kind of a cold and cloudy day, only about 10 people showed up.

Afterwards, a number of us went to a moveon.org event to watch the movie “Inside Job”. Lots of people there I’d never met, and some of the folks might come out some Sunday.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Feb/5, ~2pm

We had about 15 people out, lots of honks. Several people stopped by to talk with us, most interested in information about Occupy. There was one guy who drove up and told us all to get a job. We said we had jobs, but he was having none of it. He already had formed his opinion, facts be damned!

And one person stopped by and gave me 4 candy bars to thank us for what we’re doing.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Jan/27, ~2pm

Fairly small crowd today, about 11 people.

Word indirectly from the Los Lunas Chief of Police is that he has no issue with our weekly demonstration at all.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Jan/22, ~2pm

…at the Los Lunas River Park. People in attendance: 13+

Agenda:
Occupy the courthouse discussion
Occupy front yard signs
Teach-in Judge Pope and a lawyer named Reggie; News Bulletin gave the information
Jim representing Los Lunas Occupy for pledge to Sanchez
People’s opinions about what went on inside the roundhouse
Occupy the media
Occupy the courts discussion
Lawrence Lessig YouTube video

The discussion concerning the march on the roundhouse was mainly focused on the Tea-party inclusion and reactions to the mic check done inside the roundhouse.

Jesse needed our opinions on whether we were in support of the mic check. Some were torn on the tactic, some were in support, and some found the tactic rude. A idea was brought up about having more occupiers on the inside; one group gets kicked out but more groups are still in the chambers.

Some discussion on the idea of teach-in’s; we need more info before a time is set. Judge Pope and a lawyer named Reggie are in support of the occupy movement and want to share knowledge of laws and politics.

During the roundhouse march, a group was handing out pledges to be given to representatives. Jim will represent the Los Lunas group and go talk to representative Sanchez; try to get him to sign the pledge.

Occupying the media was not discussed.

There was some discussion on the occupy the courts; membership was high at the recent occupy the courts; Paul went.

Everyone appeared interested about the YouTube video Paul suggested; the video is a Lawrence Lessig video. This topic will be discussed more in googlegroups.

Some appeared interested in the yard signs; each sign is $5 but we need the sellers information first.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Jan/17, ~2pm

Today was the start of the NM Legislature Session, and all the Occupy groups from around NM met together and we were able to surround the entire Round House. We must have had 1000 people, whereas the Tea Party seemed to have about 50.

See the Chan 13 report about it – Fred makes a cameo appearance!

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Jan/15, ~2pm

Occupy Santa Fe schedule, Jan 17, 2012:
10:30-12 Speakers
12:00 Marchers arrive
12:05-12:15 Welcome Call Out. Special Acknowledgement of Pilgrims Walking from Albuquerque
12:15-12:25 OSF Human Mic
12:25-12:45 Music
12:45-1:15 Song and Circle the Roundhouse
1:15- 1:30 Response to Governor’s Speech
1:30-3:30 Statewide GA / Soap Box
3:30-5:00 Work Groups

GA Minutes:
23+ people attended the the meeting today. Lots of honkers in support.

12+ occupiers from Los Lunas will be at the roundhouse meeting on Tuesday.

Need copies and flyers to hand out or talk about at the meeting on Tuesday. Jesse and I will be manning a table.

Everyone will need to bring snacks and water, none will be provided for the entire group.

Yani will make 6 signs to represent Los Lunas and 6 signs concerning our mission statement.

We discussed possible action items, such as foreclosures and Amonix solar array.

Lisa will be our representative at the statewide GA on Tuesday. Topics of discussion for her will be education reform, foreclosures, and cutting gross receipts tax.

We also discussed meeting once in a while at someone’s house to discuss occupy without the loudness of the vehicles involved.

Everyone will meet at the roundhouse near the East concourse, I will get specific times to you; I believe this information was already posted on googlegroups.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Jan/11, ~2pm

These are the minutes from the umbrella group planning the January 17 event.

Umbrella Meeting Minutes
January 11, 2012
Prepared by Judy Welte
Meeting facilitated by Richard Sober
I. Poem read by Richard, followed by brief introductions
II. Information about January 17th March to the Roundhouse given. We have the East concourse at the Roundhouse from 9-5. Emcees are Rebecca Sobel, Richard Sober, and David Bacon.
III. Schedule for event:
10:30-12 Speakers
12:00 Marchers arrive
12:05-12:15 Welcome Call Out. Special Acknowledgement of Pilgrims Walking from Albuquerque
12:15-12:25 OSF Human Mic
12:25-12:45 Music
12:45-1:15 Song and Circle the Roundhouse
1:15- 1:30 Response to Governor’s Speech
1:30-3:30 Statewide GA / Soap Box
3:30-5:00 Work Groups
IV. General Notes
It was stated that the content of Governor Martinez’s speech will be available at 11pm on January 16th, so people could get a copy of it and prepare the response.
At this point, twelve groups have requested tables for teach-ins and information. Ten tables will be provided by David Bacon. A couple of groups will bring their own.
Crates will be provided by Lisa Krooth.

The stage and amplification system will be provided by Jon Hendry.

People are invited to use materials provided by Somos un Pueblo Unido, at their headquarters at 1804 Espinacitas, this Saturday from 2-6, to make SIGNS. Jon Hendry advised that signs should be DOUBLE-SIDED, so that their message shows up for the press.

The press release was read and edited. It was stated that the groups mentioned in the release should be specifically named. It was also stated that the people should be described as the constituents of our legislators, that the legislators represent US. Judy will pass on those comments to Charlotte.

It was stated the the emcees need a list of all groups so that the Welcome Call Out could include everyone. Judy is listing the names of the ones she knows. Please add others and give that information to Rebecca. Contact Rebecca at sobel.rebecca@gmail.com. As of today, we have people from Occupy Santa Fe, Albuquerque, UnOccupy Albuquerque, Taos, Los Lunas (Carmen please add others), Union members (Richard and Miles please add specific union groups), MoveOn, WeArePeopleHere, Unicopia, Somos un Pueblo Unido, Veterans for Peace, Working America, Nukewatch, The Green Party, The Southwest Broadway Coalition (fighting foreclosure), LANL, 350.org, C4Puertas (educating us about GMO chili and other foods), EarthCare Youth Allies, New Energy Economy, Health Security for New Mexicans, and the Network of Health Professionals supporting the Health Care is a Human Right Constitutional Amendment (these doctors will be wearing white coats).

V. The question was raised about the Umbrella’s continuing role during and after legislative session. Most people agreed that the Umbrella group should continue in its efforts. The next meeting will be held on January 23rd. Details forthcoming.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Jan/10, ~2pm

This date was when some people from our Occupy Los Lunas group went to Santa Fe to participate in the planning of the January 17 action at the Round House. Poppy reported the following:

6 people attending from the Los Lunas group. In all, there were 30+ people at the meeting.

The meeting was focused on the schedule of the 17th roundhouse march. The group agreed on a tentative schedule, I should get more exact info before our Occupy on Sunday.
So far, the group wants to focus on the following bills: SB 9, Peter Wirth, Tax Equity for New Mexico Businesses. SB 1, Michael Sanchez, Mortgage Fair Foreclosure Act. SB 11, Peter Wirth, Disclosure Corporate Campaign Donors.

There appeared to be disagreement on what is the important aspects of the march but I believe this was just a lack of information. One person in wanted to focus on the Somo issue or at least include it. Many speakers are lined up for the roundhouse meeting, 4 teach-ins will be held, the hope of the group is to circle the building. The NM GA will be held at 1pm, we need to gather at 10:30am, the march starts at 11:30am. I believe our group will be on the east concourse. There will be two groups, one going to directly to the roundhouse to gather the other will be at the rail-yard.

There will be 10 tables and it was concluded that Jesse and I would man a table, giving out information, at least for a little while. There is a report of possibly a thousand people will be at the march. Numerous groups will be in attendance besides Occupy, such as unions. Our group needs to bring flyers, and be prepared to talk about hot topics in our area. This is something we can discuss at our meeting on Sunday. All the information we need should be on the Occupy Santa Fe website.

Although, the facilitator of the meeting claims there are multiple websites. Jesse is sending me these websites I will get them to you. We talked about wearing name tags and also having a sign-up list at each table. Occupy Santa Fe asked if we had any working groups but we don’t since our group is small. The six of us talked about having working individuals until our group is bigger; another thing we can discuss on Sunday. We need to bring our own food and water and we will need to keep track of trash.

Another thing is informing the News Bulletin about our group going to the march. One thing that I noticed, well, it was rather painfully obvious, disagreement seemed to be a big issue with the Santa Fe group. We don’t need to add that to the minutes though. I hope this was enough. Oh, a possible action plan for our group is the Amonix proposal but that may not be an issue come next Wednesday. But if the vote goes in favor of Amonix we thought an Occupy of the site might be in order. Just a thought we can discuss.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2012/Jan/08, ~2pm

About 14 people showed up during our demonstration. Lots of honks probably because the “car whisperer” was present this week.

Paul submitted a revised Handout, that, after we remove “GOP” from the graph, he’ll be posting on the web page. Be sure to print them and hand them out liberally … or conservatively.

A reminder that many people will be showing up in Santa Fe for the Jan 17 demonstration, coinciding with the opening of the NM State Legislative Session. A lot of planning is being done by OWS-Santa Fe, and Jim and some others will be driving up for a meeting this Tuesday. They are planning a PA system, stage, dancing and music, and a General Assembly at different times during the afternoon. Take the Railrunner up to arrive in Santa Fe at 11:15am. Be sure to check the return times so you don’t miss the return train if you take the train to Santa Fe. You can find more info at: the Occupy Santa Fe Web Page and the Occupy The Round House Info Page.

Next week is Martin Luther King’s Birthday, so people might want to bring some food to share in celebration. The Resources and Links of our web page now has a pointer to MLKjr’s famous Vietnam speech from 1967.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2011/Dec/31, ~2pm

It’s a holiday weekend (and Saturday at that) and only about 8 people showed up.

The main thing we discussed was an addition to our mission statement to include what we’re doing here in Los Lunas which is mostly outreach to people who don’t know what Occupy is about.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2011/Dec/24, ~2pm

15+ occupiers (with food) were present

Agenda:

• Possible carpool January 17th, Occupy roundhouse
• Handouts

Paul mentioned there is now a state-wide coordination group for NM Occupy groups and there’s a GoogleGroups for this called OccupyNM. A meeting of this group will be held next Wednesday Dec 28th, at the Communciations Workers of American Union building which is on Truman behind the Taco bell in front of Kirtland Airforce base Truman Entrance. This meeting is about Unions and Occupy talking about working together, it will be at 6-8pm.

There is a proposal that for Jan 17th (coincident with the opening of the 30-day NM State Legislation Session), Occupy supporters will march around the Round House in a circle. Governor Martinez will be there and she rarely makes public appearances. Paul also mentioned you can ride the railrunner train that gets to Santa Fe at 11:15am and so everyone is encouraged to ride that train on the 17th. Bring a sign that says “Occupy” with your town affiliation (Los Lunas for us). Also mentioned is that there is an Occupy tent city in Santa Fe, near the train station of 12-14 tents.

Paul talked about the handouts that he, Fred, and Lisa came up with for our Occupy. We will be able to download a flyer at the occupy Los Lunas info website, probably in a day or so.

Jesse brought a flyer from the Occupy Albuquerque group for the Jan 17th demonstration. Jesse’s flyer can be found on the march to Santa Fe facebook page.

Our next Occupy will be on Saturday January 31st, it was deemed a more convenient day; same time at 1:00pm. After this date we will continue our regular occupies on Sundays.

Occupy LL Log, Stardate 2011/Dec/21, 6pm

[Note this posting documents the meeting that a couple of OWS-LL people had with others in NM to coordinate activities for the Jan 17, 2012 opening of the Legislature in Santa Fe – posted by Paul Kinzelman.]

Jesse and I participated in the Skype concall meeting last night, there were 7 participants.

The purpose of the meeting was to bring together various Occupy groups from around NM. The near-term issue is what to do for the opening of the NM legislature Jan 17, 2012 in Santa Fe. Hopefully the coordination will continue. We plan future meetings. We decided on the name (for now) of this group as Occupy NM signifying state coordination.

We had people from the various Occupies:

• Albuquerque
• Los Lunas
• Santa Fe
• Taos
• Farmington

…and there are people in Roswell and Carlsbad too, but they were not present last night.

For Jan 17, there may be a lot of people at the legislature, unions, moveon.org, etc., supporting Occupy. Some people are planning to come for several days to lobby Congress, and the hotels have special rates, but you have to ask for the “legislative rate” discount. If people know friends in Santa Fe who would be willing to let people stay at their house to save lodging costs, that would be useful too.

The opening session is mostly for show to kick off the 30-day legislative session, and so probably nothing substantive will be done, but everybody (including Gov Martinez who rarely makes public appearances) will probably be there to kick off the season. The session will last only a couple of hours starting at noon.

People who want to participate can come by nmrailrunner.com and arrive at 11:15am. There will probably be a march from the RR station to the Round House (about a 10-min walk). The consensus is that a march of everybody circling the Round House would be the most impressive, especially if there are enough people for the circle to be complete.

It was suggested to carry signs saying “Occupy … ” with your town to have commonality with other signs and to show that there are people from all over the state. You can’t bring these signs in the legislative chamber. Everybody wearing something similar (like a T-shirt) would be difficult because it’ll probably be cold.

There will be a pilgrimage of people (6-ish) walking from Albuquerque to the Round House starting a few days before the start of the session.

The press will be contacted and a press conference will be planned.

Later in the afternoon, the plan is to have a state-wide General Assembly. Here’s a good training video for participation in a GA.

In addition, various teach-ins are planned, for instance, one on foreclosures. Anybody wanting to lead one should contact the planners.

Bring video and audio recorders, use them liberally. You have a right to record anything you want outside, and even phone conversations without permission of the other side because NM is a ‘single party consent’ state. Inside the chambers, you’re not supposed to use cameras.

And if you plan to do anything for which you might be arrested (or even if you’re not), write the number of the National Lawyers Guild on your arm (I don’t have the number for that right now).

OWS-LL Log, Stardate 2011/Dec/18, ~2pm

Facilitator was Lisa Durkin

• Christmas Eve Potluck – We will meet on Christmas Eve Saturday December 24th, instead of Christmas day, for our weekly protest. The group will bring food items (to be discussed on Google Groups). We will need hot coffee and hope that Jesse will be well enough to bring his generator.
• Handouts – Paul and Fred and Lisa are going to write a handout to give to curious people about our message and goals. We will print them so that they are available at the protest and for any protesters to use at their discretion to educate people. We would like more buttons. We gave a round of applause (ergo muffled from the presence of gloved hands) to Paul for all of his hard work and efforts on the website, google groups and the snazzy bumper stickers that he brought.
• Attendance – We had 12 occupiers at the General Assembly. A new family came to protest but didn’t stay for the GA. It was really cold.

OWS-LL Log, Stardate 2011/Dec/11, ~2pm

Facilitator was Paul Kinzelman
GA Meeting Agenda
1. Introduction of people
2. Mission Statement
3. GMOs
4. Keystone Pipeline
5. Climate Change
6. Jan 17 Occupy Round House (Santa Fe)
7. Walmart Distribution Center

1. We had about 15 people at the max, including two people from NC visiting, Pat and Tom.

2. We combined the two options for our mission statement into one statement and accepted it.

3, 4, 5. We discussed the dangers of Genetically Modified Organism crops, the Keystone Pipeline, and Climate Change to raise our awareness.

6. On Jan 17, the legislative session opens and Occupy Santa Fe is planning a demonstration for that day. They are inviting all Occupy people to come and participate. The Railrunner would be a good way to get there.

7. The Occupy Albuquerque folks are planning a demonstration/walk from the Los Lunas Walmart Store to the Los Lunas Walmart Distribution Center (DC) tomorrow (Monday) from 2-4pm to be in solidarity with the actions by Occupy movements on the West Coast. One person who works at Walmart cautioned people to stay off Walmart property because they will not tolerate any demonstrations on their property. We discussed that it would have been better if we knew what the goal of the march was, especially because they in Albuquerque planned something in our community without communicating with us. Apparently somebody contacted Jesse seemingly as an afterthought and Jesse invited them to our GA today but nobody showed up. We discussed whether it was good to participate given that so many people in our community shop there. I think the consensus was that being there would be a good thing because of the publicity, and there is a lot of support for Occupy even among the Walmart employees. Lisa took on the task of contacting the Albuquerque Occupy folks to find out what they are planning and what their goal is.

The meeting petered out around 3:15pm.

OWS-LL Log, Stardate 2011/Dec/4

Facilitator was Poppy Ulbricht
GA Meeting Agenda
1. Website
2. Google groups
3. Bumper stickers, pdf possibilities
4. Christmas festivities and Christmas-themed signs

A great day of demonstrating.

The mission statement and website was accepted with focus on goals. We talked about the website having useful links.

We determined the website will be for research; Facebook page for informal discussion, and Google groups for the formal discussion.

The topic of renewable energy was brought up; determined it was a part of all three action plans. We decided to use bumper stickers, with possible options of “Occupy Los Lunas,” “Occupyloslunas.info,” and “I support the 99%.” If we want more ideas, suggestions should be posted on the Google groups page (for those of us still having trouble, post to the Facebook page). We will look into cost and what not this week.

We also talked about the possibilities of leaflets to hand out. Discuss options for leaflets on Google groups/Facebook and I will have something for everyone to look over Next Sunday.

Discussion on Christmas-themed signs for upcoming Occupy’s was fun, we need ideas for signs, post them soon.

We discussed the possibility of Marching further than Wells Fargo and some Occupiers mingling with folks at Henrietta’s.

Something that did not come up during the GA was thoughts on name tags and a symbol. This discussion will be at the next GA; do we want name tags for everyone and having a symbol to represent our Occupy movement? The symbol can be put on buttons.

Occupy is a go for next Sunday December 11, with a possible march to Wells Fargo again, and/or possibly stopping into Henrietta’s or the Village Inn for coffee or something. We also thought that having the GA closer to 2pm might work better for people who might need to leave early.

OWS-LL Log, Stardate 2011/Nov/27

A reporter from a French newspaper I think it was happened to drive by, saw us, and decided to take pictures and interview us for his paper. We may have an international presence!

General Assembly Minutes

The facilitator was Paul Kinzelman.

Consensus was reached on the following points:

Paul suggested that we adopt a credo stating we work for the betterment of environment and community.

We would continue to have the action at the river park(north side of main east side of the river) at 1:00pm on Sundays. Reasons cited were consistency, light and competition with commercial propaganda. (ours is better so there) Addendum-Jim noted that the original intent was for 2 actions a week. This was understood. However the season we are in has limited daylight so we tabled this, understanding that we all Knew it would be correct when spring came.

Next week it is appropriate to split our collective and some march to the west side of the bridge into downtown and leaflet, march and speak with our neighbors, returning for the General Assembly.

It was I believe understood that with time and seasons all of the points we conceded would by necessity be revisited, as our greatest strength outside of giving a shit, is fluidity and maturity.

A prevalent desire to attract new participants, especially younger citizens was stressed. Actions suggested;

• Placards in rear car windows w/face book address
• UNM-VC Visit With hand outs
• Advert signs, like garage sales use before the turn to river park, as guides.
• Park in such a way that our vehicles could be used as easels or billboards.

Sign suggestions:

• Bigger lettering
• More concise Message(ouch)
• More Facebook sharing on walls

The Beginning is near

See-wat oh yay

OWS-LL Log, Stardate Oct and Nov

Our group started getting together weekly toward the end of October, but notes were not kept.