This isn't just about consensus decision-making. Believe me, I'm in a minority of the anarchist movement which favors pure c-d-m. This is about much more than just how a group makes decisions. Its about power, hierarchy, vanguardism, centralization, and more. The student who reported on that conference touched on some common problems that students have faced when the ISO comes knocking.
> On the other hand, though, there may be a grain of truth
> in this type of report, in that those who complain of being outvoted
> & outmaneuvered by members of such outfits as the ISO, the WW, the
> RCP, etc. may be really too individualist to get together & organize
> a united front or "counter-block" against them.
It's not just a matter of group members outvoting other members. In coalitions that are pretty diverse and which involve many anti-authoritarians, these outfits usually just try and play along, until the situation becomes favorable to their under the table manipulations. For example, at one meeting of the Mobilization for Global Justice here in Washington, several ISO members tried to get rid of consesnsus decision-making. I think they were surprised when most of the people at the meeting spoke up in favor of the process.
In an ideal situation for the ISO, which this conference smells like, they assume control of the agenda, the organizing, and the process of the meeting. If they've set up a fake front group, they'll put together a public meeting on a college campus on the hot topic du jour. They'll get some good non-ISO speakers for the draw, but they'll always have at least one ISO speaker and an ISO moderator. When it comes time for question time, the moderator will maintain a "stack" which favors the ISO members that are sprinkled around the audience. The ISO members will pretend to be regular working people and students, but they'll always try to get in a few words about the ISO and/or socialism.
Now the IAC works in a different way. They don't bother as much on intervening in the processes of any group or organization. They create front groups and coalitions and then try to get enough "critical mass" in the Left behind their efforts, so that it seems to everybody that the movement has mobilized behind the IAC.
This gets more complicated, so I'll spare everybody the juicy details.
> The recent LBO-talk
> exchange between Chuck0 and Dennis P. is a good example. Evidently,
> the two don't want to work together as comrades, despite both being
> in favor of the anarchist tradition & having other common grounds.
I don't think I ever said that I didn't want to work with Dennis P. My disagreement with him stems from my knee-jerk reaction to his comments after I rejoined this list. I had no idea who Dennis was, nor what his political orientation was.
Chuck0