Venting Over Daniel Lee and Company

[Official Occupy Tulsa]

Post anything you like regarding Daniel Lee and his cohorts, their actions and the events surrounding them, in this thread only.

--C. J. Williams

[quetzalhombre]

Early on I was blocked by Stephanie Lewis and Samuel Molik. Then I was slandered by Daniel Lee (he claimed I talked to the police, which is a lie). Then Stephanie did her tactic of Protective Orders (which were thrown out) to keep me from attending GAs. I asked the leaders of the OT to deal with this but no one stood up for me. I asked for mediation, but no one responded. Rather than fight to get back in I and other folks who were blocked started Occupy Tulsa Neighborhoods. I wonder if the leaders that I wrote to about her and Daniel now realize that this was just the beginning of blocking, lies and other power plays by her and Daniel. I knew that eventually folks would see through their tactics, but I just hope you all have learned something from this. Sincerely, Roberto Mendoza

[Harja-susi]

I vented all I needed to on the FB page. Thanks though for allowing this here too C.J.

[Official Occupy Tulsa]

Just trying to facilitate the best I can, susi and Sandy.

Roberto:

We don't have leaders, but a leadership body with those taking the lead within it. The difference being no one claims power within the group. For instance, I'm taking the lead in matters against Daniel and making sure we have a forum for discussion, but I'm far short of any sort of leader.

That said, I had no idea of your situation. I won't be at this indefinitely, but if you want a voice, keep posting here. I'll post a discussion in the GA forum and the people can talk about it there.

Be sure to show up to the GA meeting (Wednesday, Dec 21st, 7:00pm Centennial Park) to address this issue. I would be glad to hear from you.

--C. J. Williams

[quetzalhombre]

Sorry I can't make the GA as I have a prior commitment to be at Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's event in OKC.

[Official Occupy Tulsa]

Thanks for stating that. The discussion of your case has been posted in the GA forum and we'll discuss it there in the meantime.

--C. J. Williams

[quetzalhombre]

Can you postpone it until the following GA. I would like to participate, as I would like to answer questions. Plus some still think it was OK to block me.

[Official Occupy Tulsa]

Sure. Not a problem.

[quetzalhombre]

“Information is what defines who we are, what we can become, what we can perceive, what we are capable of achieving. Blocking or controlling information flows stunts our growth and virtually assures defeat if not death. It is the optimization of listening--being open to *all* information (and especially all the information the secret world now ignores)--that optimizes our ability to adjust, evolve, and grow.
" Robert D Steele
This is what happened in OT Tulsa. I am glad to see that folks now see that.

[leto]

Can someone fill me in? I support Occupy Wall Street, and I support Occupy Tulsa insofar as they are the closest branch to me (due to situations beyond my control my support is pretty limited to the internet), but I would like to get the facts regarding this whole episode, if possible. I do not have a Facebook account, so I haven't been able to keep up.

I have "talked" to the people running the original twitter account (if I understand correctly it's Daniel Lee), and gotten a short account of their side. Now I'm here.

I would like to know what happened, if possible, in an unbiased and mature manner. I don't personally know anyone involved with either faction, and I don't have any preconceived notions of who is in the right versus who is in the wrong, but I strongly support the movement, and would very much like to see it continue.

Thanks.

[scottm]

Leto,

i'm not sure of the whole story either. I fell out due to personal reasons shortly after the speedy trial protest. I know there is disagreement over things. I understand that a lot of the controversy surrounds Stephanie and Daniel. A lot of it is facebook bullshit, but a good deal of it seems to be over who gets to call themselves Occupy Tulsa and act in the groups name and control the group's resources.

Personally i've seen a bunch of decisions made that i strongly disagree with, including some of Stephanie's actions and the responses to said actions.

My main concern now is that whatever group ends up with the Occupy Tulsa name use it wisely and in support of our common core cause which is the elimination of corporate greed's influence on our political process.

[ascent]

The story is that Stephanie was publicly censured by the Occupy Tulsa General Assembly (The original and real Occupy Tulsa as established by group consensus) who performed an action, namely attending a candlelight vigil for a man accused of double homicide (whose case has extended over 3 years and has been in jail all that time without a conclusion to his case, but who by all affiliation is a gang assassin and lowest of low individuals and who he and his cohorts have threatened death to several prosecutors, attempted to intimidate witnesses, contaminate the jury pool and bribe officials among other things, in other words causing his own delays), then holding an impromptu interview with a Fox news representative to defend their action, which ended up making them look even worse when the reporter called them on their uninformed crap.

When called out in that Saturday's general assembly (the next day, I think), Stephanie and Dan then burst out into rationalizations, yelling and cussing. It wasn't pretty. Later, they walked out of the meeting early as soon as the decision to censure Stephanie was voted on regarding Stephanie's actions a couple of weeks earlier in which she moved the OT site from Centennial Park to another location (I was there when the move happened, and I was watching the live feed of that Saturday's GA when they were behaving like raving lunatics.)

That night, Daniel went on a rampage and began accusing the GA of "unilateral actions" because one member of that day's council went a little too far and banned Stephanie's access to the FB page and a couple of other. He then claimed that the GA was illegitimate. Then he started to accuse another admin of deleting his posts, which never actually happened, but his posts were in fact reported, not deleted. And so he set about removing the admins that did not support Stephanie wholeheartedly. (Again, I was watching this unfold.)

For the next 36-48 hours Dan proceeded to perform a marathon of actions including removing admins from the Occupy Tulsa webpage, forum and Twitter accounts and posting all the false/erroneous accusations on any page he could find to post them on. He also banned many members, including myself, simply because we were not their supporters. Then he turned the Facebook page into a dictatorship with himself as the dictator, spouting every nonsensical rule of censorship against which he would unilaterally delete posts and ban members (exactly what he was accusing the other admins of doing). Some of the rules were pretty far out there, and he claimed that he worked on them with the help of an "OWS facilitator", which was clearly not true considering that they featured his trademark bad grammar and spelling and clearly were not in line with the horizontal democracy of OWS. When we set up a new Facebook page called "Official Occupy Tulsa", he then began a campaign of trolling our boards.

On Wednesday of last week, at the GA, Mark Manly and someone else read a declaration of independence from the Occupy Tulsa GA and disavowed all association and claiming the GA's democratic authority to be illegitimate. (Again, I was there.)

Finally, Anonymous came to the rescue and kicked Daniel off the original Facebook page, unbanned everyone and banned Daniel and now no one is admin of the page. So Daniel set up the "Official Occupy Tulsa (The original group)" (or something to that effect). Stephanie has been speaking to the press as if her group is the only Occupy Tulsa and they have overlapped their own dates for action over those we decided upon at last week's GA meeting.

[barndog]

Barney Simmons Daniel Lee "The GA has no authority. Sorry." You told me that the event I created needed to be taken down because it did not have the authorization from the G.A.. So which is it? One of the two you're telling is a lie!
about an hour ago · Like · 1

Daniel Lee Barney - I never told you that. I posted your event, I posted Rick Piercall's events, I posted everyones events, GA approved or not. I dont think ANYONE should go bowing and scraping to some made up authority.

[leto]

scottm, ascent, thank you both.

I will say that I have been extremely disheartened by this whole scenario. Bruised feelings and hurt egos can only serve to weaken us. Hopefully Occupy Tulsa as a whole can survive this, and become stronger.

Good luck to you all.

[mike]

leto: Sounds to me like you are bowing out. No one can tell another what to do, but hang in there. This Movement is a whole lot larger than a few petty egos. OTGA is moving on down the line. Stay in touch.