If nobody wanted to join any union, there would be no firing of union organizers.
>I'm not susprised that an undemocratic institution like labor--which
>has a long history of partnership with capital--would have a dim
>view of any process that would empower the rank-and-file.
Not just business unionists but union democracy activists today don't, revolutionary syndicalists of yore didn't, run meetings by the sort of consensus method that you advocate here for all purposes.
>>At 6:09 PM -0400 6/1/03, Chuck0 wrote:
>>>the youth would "grow out" of their anarchist phase.
>>
>>Those who are committed to anarchism don't necessarily grow out of
>>anarchism, but many of them (whether they are anarchists or not)
>>get jobs as union organizers, community organizers,
>>congregation-based organizers, human rights organizers, etc., and
>>in the process, they develop a more nuanced approach to the
>>question of decision-making and anything else.
>
>And many of these people are still anarchists.
And they have probably learned to work with a variety of decision-making processes, rather than try to offer consensus as the "one size fits all" solution to all occasions.
At 6:09 PM -0400 6/1/03, Chuck0 wrote:
>>Secondly, I don't think consensus will go away, but it is and will
>>be limited to a minority of occasions (like whether or not to
>>practice civil disobedience) and favored by a minority of political
>>meetings.
>
>Again, you wish that it would go away, even if you have to backtrack
>from your earlier wish that it is just a passing phase.
When consensus was all the rage, the fashion wasn't confined to anarchist youths and impacted a lot of young activists who got radicalized by anti-WB/IMF protests and the like. Back then, some young activists who got excited about what was (to them) "new" came back to the local political scene and wanted us all (including those of us who "had been there and done that") to discuss "process" first of all and attend "facilitator workshops" that they organized. :-0 That's history now, though.
At 6:09 PM -0400 6/1/03, Chuck0 wrote:
>Leninist. Trotskyist. Social Democrat. It's all the same to me.
I suppose that simplifies political life for you. -- Yoshie
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