>The A16 model works, at least for a large coalition type action. The fact
>that it has kinks and people who aren't proficient in its methods is no
>reason to reject it as one tool in our toolkit.
I don't reject it as one tool in our toolkit. It's just that youths who became enthusiasts of the A16 style assert that's the _only_ way to handle any meeting & organizing, because that's "democratic." I think the A16 style may work OK for one-time event (or even a series of events) organized by people who _really_ share the same objective and have relatively similar political beliefs.
>But Yoshie has touched on an important consideration here. It's a mistake to
>take a new tool and use it on all bolts, regardless of their size.
>
>I witnessed a similar example here in D.C. after A16. One afternoon our local
>infoshop collective had a marathon strategy and decision-making retreat. Our
>facilitator had been an A16 facilitator and had been training at one of the
>A16 facilitator retreats. He's a young activist and understandably
>enthusiastic about what happened at A16. Still, he proposed at one point that
>we adopt the A16 model for running our bookstore/infoshop. Many of the others
>got excited about this, until I threw a bucket of water on this idea by
>explaining that based on my experience volunteering at a cooperative
>bookstore, that implementing the A16 model would be overkill. We only have 20
>people in the collective at this point and that number will double once our
>store opens. There is simply no time for us to play the "working groups
>report to the spokescouncil" model. We've set up working groups for things
>like ordering books and zines and doing publicity. But these groups won't
>send a delegate to our monthly meeting. That will be the traditional
>collective-style meeting where all members are welcome to attend.
Thanks for this anecdote -- I'll relate it to the Columbus Network (a provisional name of the network I mentioned earlier).
>I think that the A16 model *IS* conducive to participation by people of
>color. It is egalitarian and encourages people to volunteer to work on things
>they want to work on. People of color can set up their own affinity groups
>based on their needs and goals and a delegate from each group is sent to the
>spokecouncil.
What you mean is that the A16 model _should_ be conducive to participation by people of color, since it has not been yet.
>I think what you really need to criticize is DAN's need to control the
>*agenda* of these coalitions. This is where the clique problem comes from.
I'm not part of DAN, so I'm not privy to inner workings of this network. Perhaps you can say more about it.
>I like the idea of exercising affirmative action within these groups, but I
>think most people are alienated by majority rule. That method of
>decision-making is inherently disempowering. It makes the process more
>efficient at the expense of minority and contrarian viewpoints.
>
>I don't know, I learned most of what I know about consensus decision-making
>from a class on West African history.
I think that "consensus decision-making" may have seemed to work in a pre-colonial African society (if we ignore hierarchy in such a society). Smooth consensus requires an impossible level of social, political, and economic homogeneity (which has never existed in history). Here, however, we are talking about a modern democratic undertaking that aspires to become fully multi-racial and to bridge certain gaps that derive from income & wealth divides, different political traditions, etc, so the conditions are not the same.
The majority rule isn't perfect, but I think that "blocks" are less democratic than individualist tools. For that reason, I haven't been using "blocks" even though I often represent a "contrarian viewpoint" due to the fact that I'm one of the few Marxists in the network.
Yoshie