Heres the egregious email, that Justin refers to in his explanation for why he shut down @OccupyWallStNYC. I @shushugah, an ex collective member since June 3rd (shortly left after I posted snippets of this email on my wall... and yet *Im* the one, that caused Justin to shut the account down, 3 months later?) Without further ado, read the email enclosed below, and make your own conclusion. One thing is clear, @JustinWedes is not the only wolf of OccupyWallSt, its loaded with self promotional wolves all across. ################################################################################################################################## This is a longish email, so feel free to just skim the bold items if youre the TL;DR type or just dont have the bandwidth these days... Dear #TweetBoat, Transparency has always been a core principle of my activism and of this boat since Day 1, so I feel obliged to explain a couple things that have broken down internally within the OWS community lately with which I have been either directly or tangentially involved. As many of you know, two months ago I began a summer sabbatical to recharge my batteries in the small town of Nehalem, Oregon, at the invitation of Micah White. Micah is the former senior editor at Adbusters and one of two people, including Kalle Lasn, to write one of the original OWS calls to action. (I write one of because I know from credible sources that similar ideas to that proposed by Adbusters were already floated around NYC and in other circles, e.g. Empire State Rebellion.) I rented a house in Nehalem and worked jointly with Micah and some of his collaborators on several projects, including the launch of The After Party. This sabbatical was cut short two weeks ago by a rather abrupt falling out between Micah and I. Ill spare you the details - you can call me if youre interested to learn more - but suffice it to say that I became increasingly uncomfortable with Micahs fledgling consultancy, Activist Boutique, as well as his personal intellectual property claims on OWS. I have since left Nehalem and have now relocated to Detroit, where Im involved in several different grassroots organizing projects, including The After Party and Detroit [freespace], a hack space opening tonight downtown and based on the model of the San Francisco [freespace] (freespace.io). Unfortunately, Micahs aggressive undermining of fellow activists has continued with his treatment of OWS organizer Priscilla Grim, with whom he was scheduled to sit on a Left Forum panel tomorrow until recently. When Micah informed Grim that he was taking over sole control of OccupyWallSt.org and @OccupyWallSt, Grim did the right thing and immediately moved to replace him on the panel in order not to give him a continued platform to speak for those whose consent he had not only not solicited but had actually misrepresented and undermined at every juncture. This he has done in coordination with Justine Tunney, who as we know violated the communitys trust herself when she commandeered the @OccupyWallSt twitter account as her exclusive mouthpiece. Now, both of these media entities are perpetuating the lie that Micah will be speaking on the Left Forum panel tomorrow, which even according to the Left Forums own website is no longer the case. I feel compelled to share this not out of a desire to publicly shame or out Micah - this would only add fuel to his fire - but because you as invested participants of the TweetBoat and OWS deserve to know this. (I have also asked and received permission from Grim to share this with you.) As of now, I am severing all connections with OccupyWallSt.org and @OccupyWallSt as well as the Occupy Solidarity Network, from which Priscilla has been ejected by Justine (its founder) and Micah (not officially/legally a board member but in the process of becoming one). I want to make clear that I had never access to these media accounts or posted to them, but had previously trusted in at least some of their members to promote a broad range of events/opinions/action of the OWS community, and they had on occasion also promoted my projects and those I promote. I no longer have that trust. Also, the Occupy Solidarity Network will now cease to be the fiscal sponsor of the Freedom School, Occupy Labs, or The After Party. Ill end by acknowledging that many of you have been instrumental in helping me arrive at the decisions I have now made, and I ask for your continued support and patience as I learn humbly from both my successes and mistakes. I believe, in the end, that people get what they deserve but that we need constant feedback from others in order to improve ourselves and each other, so please keep it coming and lets support each other. In solidarity from Detroit, Justin
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 17:02:19 +0000
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