March 10th, 2019 Boston Regional Meeting

Main Ideas for Discussion

• What differentiates us from other parties/groups?
  • What are we focusing on?
  • Where are we going?
  • How to we reach out to more people?
• Platform
• How to run

What differentiates us from other parties/groups?

• Focused on personal privacy
  • Tends to be defensive, though
  • Counter are cryptoparties and other means to show people how to protect themselves
• People first
• Focused on democratic decision making
• Non-electoral efforts
  • Cryptoparties
  • Mesh Networking
  • Break light clinics
  • Ask for other ideas at meetings/on-line

Platform changes

• Housing first
  • everyone has a place to live, providing stability and improving state of mind
  • not solely focusing on people who are homeless, but recognizing the increasing cost of housing
• Education reform (but not the neoliberal kind)
  • Fix the infrastructure of our schools
  • Use technology (only where needed?)
  • Centering on student empowerment and help for students to succeed at what they are good at and support them where they have challenges
• Criminal justice
  • reducing policing and incarceration
  • Increasing harm reduction policies.
  • Less punishment, more restorative justice
• What would we implement in our first 100 days of achieving power?
  • Citizen surveys of police and school systems and municipal government (13 and older)
  • End solitary confinement
  • Fair pay for fair work (even prisoners)
  • Open government additions
    • Removing exemptions of the open meeting law for all three branches of government
    • Actual enforcement of open meeting law and FOIA
    • All data paid for by the public should be on-line and machine readable/searchable (with personal privacy exceptions) That includes all branches of government
    • No scanned documents without OCR
    • All bills have to be voted on in committee
    • All votes have to list who the individual votes
    • Reduce the power of house speaker/senate president
    • Remove legislative loopholes (no votes in out of session periods). Spell out limits on emergency sessions.
    • Require bills only include content relevant to the original purpose of the bill
  • Full decriminalization of private consensual activities and implement effective harm reduction strategies.
  • Change the law to use IRV/RCV
  • Fully fund the MBTA and all public transit systems
  • Pass net neutrality bill
  • Have a mock budget with taxes and spending
    • Include money for energy conservation fund
    • Solar credit?
  • Close the fusion centers
  • Stop any support for ICE and other related agencies. Prohibit county sheriffs from helping ICE
  • Try to increase competition in oligopolies esp. media
  • Promote training for creating cooperative operations and tomorrow’s leaders (e for all?)
• What would we implement in our first year of achieving power?
  • Restorative justice approach for minors
  • Implementing changes based on survey results
  • Within the first year exonerate and wipe records of all private consensual crimes
  • Basic right education
  • Fund the development of public transit in Mass.
  • Development of high speed broadband in Mass.
  • License requirement
    • law students have to teach kids their rights
    • psychology students to help homeless
  • Education
    • Expand financial decision making/responsibilities education
    • Teaching labor rights and struggles
    • Bring back home economics and food preparation
  • Require state (MEMA) and municipalities do a climate change/storm risk assessment
    • Must include food security, housing, transportation
• What would we implement longer term?
  • Decentralize federal/state government to county/regions and municipalities
    • Reconstitute county governments to make them elected and able to solve regional problems
  • Removal of laws that no longer apply especially if they are harmful to individual rights
  • Expand the ballot initiative and direct democracy. Institute a people’s veto

Attendance Statistics

• 7 people a1tended in all
• 6 activists, 2 supporters
• 6 people participated in the discussion, 1 person observed
• 6 men, 1 women
• 0 people of color