Notes

I don't believe that the community mural is a good idea. The conditions between the Central Park/Lawrence lot and the Maywood lot are completely different:
1) There is no construction (much less affordable housing construction) planned for the Maywood lot; there is on our lot.
2) The Cubs have already set up a successful garden in their lot; we have not.
3) The Cubs are heightening a contradiction between a reactionary government which seeks to defend private property at the cost of any social utility and an organization that has established its credibility in the community; we are heightening a contradiction between a "progressive" alderwoman seeking to build affordable housing in an empty lot in a community that desperately needs it and an organization that is still working on building its credibility.

What goal do we have in mind with this idea? Heightening contradictions is not a goal or ends, it is a means. The action of heightening a contradiction is meant to overcome that contradiction in some way, to approach its dialectical self-destruction. This can be good, but it can also be very, very bad. The only result would be our reputation damaged and Rossana being stressed and perhaps slightly maligned by the community (which isn't beneficial given that the primary contradiction in Albany Park is not betweens SocDems and Maoists, but gentrification, inability to acquire food, and slum lords). As many legitimate critiques against reformism, "affordable" housing, and the DSA we have, we need to remember that a failure to orient our practice around the primary contradiction will only cause confusion and failure. The only other identifiable goal is to "reclaim the space," but concrete clarity as to what this spatial reclamation entails in these circumstances is not (and in fact cannot be) present.

It puts us at risk of committing adventurist or left opportunist errors (stemming from an inability to identify the primary contradictions). I think that we need to stop seeing the Mass Line as a method of validating a pre-existing idea but as a method of generating and systematizing new ideas. Another failed experiment on the same lot would only serve to ruin our credibility with other organizations (since the 33rd ward clique and the "progressive" alderwoman have a larger reach, media presence, and influence than us). Our first campaign was deemed to be marked by left opportunist errors, let us not embark on the same project again.

I only see this program succeeding if we were larger and engaged in large-scale anti-gentrification operations (so we build up our credibility in this arena). We would also have to conduct extremely precise and large-scale social investigation and acquire concrete empirical data regarding the potential consequences of building affordable housing of that specific type in Albany Park. This would be something that we build up through a long and difficult process of rectification, cooperation (not necessarily with the alderwoman), good faith, and caution.

Aside from this particular idea, I believe that every other campaign is perfectly fine and is exemplary of the things we should be doing: cautiously building credibility through mutual aid; heightening of contradictions against slum-lords, gentrifiers, reactionaries, etc. with an explicit and concrete goal in mind (such as to improve housing, combat gentrification, etc.); and reaching out to other organizations, strengthening relations, and providing support.

This critique doesn't even factor the logistical and legal problems we might encounter (we still need to build up proper legal support).

I have two quick clarification questions related to the outreach committee notes and the community mural idea:
1) When will the CC discuss the community mural and prepare the related survey?
2) Is the community mural supposed to go on the Central Park/Lawrence lot?