shag carpet bomb (Saturday, October 22) The way this works is that, when people just 'stand aside' everyone knows that, although they might have 'consensus', you aren't really going to accomplish anything if the people standing aside constitute a significant faction.
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Note that the Russian Revolution was by consensus; those who rose up in demonstrations against first the Czar & then against the Kerensky government did no do so on the basis of a call or "top-down order." By various methods (very sloppy methods not grounded in any kind of "strategy" or even formal agreement on tactics).
It is only those who are _both_ without any experience in mobilizing people for mass action _or_ who are either unwilling to read history or are incapable of translating their reading into any sense of what the historian is telling them who sit around, separated from those they want to direct, innocent of what those who they want to direct are interested in or will respond to -- only they can have bizarre fantasies about a group of "leaders" getting together all by themselves and issuing marching orders to the masses.
One could never arrive at the slogan, "Fight the Corporate Attack on Democracy," from analyzing the present state of the nation, the economy, the formal politics, and so forth. That slogan, which seems to be the most workable one (though better may emerge) can only be 'discovered' by actual groups collectively putting their heads together and reaching out to others. It is the same with all slogans (and I'm afraid few on this list are aware that when they talk about strategy or tactics, they are in fact talking about the forging of slogans and the development of means, under given concrete conditions, of calling the attention of a circle of potential participants.
The point about Seattle, Wisconsin, and OWS was that they acted (are acting) as magnificent megaphones, reaching the 'ears' of those who feel in some way the same as do those making the call but who have been passive. It seems that Seattle, one of the greatest actins ever held in the U.S., did not trigger a response that could broaden and duplicate: that was not due to any mistake made by those who built that struggle or those who participated in it; somehow, the 'public mood,' the concrete conditions of that period were not receptive. Wisconsin, a much 'smaller' action in most ways, was the traditional match tossed on a pile of tinder. It energized activists (those who had been plugging away for moths or years or decades) by suggesting the possibility that their efforts, if renewed or enhanced, might meet with positive response. When this did in fact occur, that fact itself, filtered to other localities, other little 'cells' of activists, through the internet and conferences, reinforced itself as well as 'infecting' othrs.
Now I do not know to what extent this increase flurry of activity (or, of course, the conditions which had brought it about) affected those who planned and developed OWS, but it (and the general conditions, which should be analyzed more fully in retrospect) certainly had much to do with the burst of Occupations elsewhere. (I don't know all the details of what happened here, but some of the persons and acts which led to the Occupation of ISU (now of Blo/No) were intertwined with the activities that had surfaced here since Wisconsin: the appearance of the only Adbuster locally at the October meeting of BNCPJ; the first email call for support for OWS coming through the BNCPJ web site, etc.) And the resonance of the local Occupation depends to some extent on the web of relations among IPA, LUC, Serve the Need, BNCPJ which (in part already existence) had developed greatly as a more or less direct result of Wisconsin and the Left Forum Plenary. Moreover, the relationships among the different Occupations in Central Illinois are partly the result of contacts made new since the beginning of the occupations and partly due to or facilitated by links between Peoria, B/N & C/U which result from the activity of the anti-war groups in the three areas over the last couple years. People in several areas have been for sometime thinking and talking about moves towards greater cohesiveness of central Illinois cities, and though that is still just a glint in our eyes, not a reality, it has approached closer to reality as a result first of Wisconsin & now of the OWS 'movement.'
Now a word on IPA. It was formerly a strictly Chucrh-based, more or less 'do-gooder' and definitely top-down group called CIOP (Central Illinois Organizing Project). Its change of name coincided with its beginning to accept individuals as members, and it is nominally a bit more democratic, but still pretty close to Dean's dream of a Party: Top Down and planned by a few central figures from the Churches which support it financially. But individual membership has had some effect on it, some people in it are intertwined more with other local groups, etc. Its actions, though simply announced after internal planning, nevertheless bring together, in a picket or in a rally outside City Hall, people who would possibly not 'find' each other otherwise. Many of these activities have also involved people from the local Move-On (though one of our local Reds, not me, is getting a bit edgy about Move-On and the Democrats).
All this among the Central Illinois corn fields. :-)
Now, we have not made sufficient use of Consensus or these various activities might have been more successful than they were. Planning was too much the result of conversations among only 5 or 6 people and hence in the implementation we did not have the number of people we really needed. Much more of that and the five or six would themselves begin to suffer burn out. (LRS was destroyed, or at least its self-destructin was triggered, by burnout among the leadership. SWP was reduced to a comic grouplet more by the flaking off of leadership since even most of the leadership could not stand the narrowness of focus resulting from the Dean-Like organization of that party. One of the first 'vctims; of its top-down tight organization ws the greatest of its members. Angelus has reported on that in some recent posts.)
A final note: Marx speaks of an infant socialist society, as it emerges from the revolution, requiring a Working Parliament: that is, he insists that Parliament must be deeply involved in the implementation of the 'deciosns' it makes: he scoffs, that is, of a leadership, such as Dean's Central Committee of Experts) that lays out the strategy for others to timplement.
Carrol
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of shag carpet bomb Sent: Saturday, October 22, 2011 5:45 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Murray Bookchin on autonomy, consensus, democracy
The way this works is that, when people just 'stand aside' everyone knows that, although they might have 'consensus', you aren't really going to accomplish anything if the people standing aside constitute a significant faction.
e.g., if in our local group, I want to put together a float for the christmas parade, others in the group will say "yay, me too." If a minority of others say, "meh. not my cuppa, but go ahead." here's what I heard: I don't really have enough resources to do anything. the minority of people who said "meh" have indicated they won't provide resources to the effort.
When this happens under voting conditions, that nuance doesn't come out unless there is a good discussion where everyone can say what they like and I learn exactly the tenor of each yes vote(in which case, the supposed benefits of voting - shorter meetings - are lost). Since there is no way, in most groups, to enforce disciplined support for the majority decision, it's easy for people to passively agressively refuse to support what they never supported in the first place. They magically don't have time to help, they magically can't be bothered to post status updates or fix typos on the blog, etc.
So, I can get 80% of vote but it is easy to not really understand that 40% of those who agreed weren't really going to help build the float.
This is the reason why consensus works better when you are also counting on the bodies in the room to do the work as well. It's also a good idea to use it when the actions you are undertaking could land you in jail or beaten or worse.
It's also why building trust and solidarity is important. As Natasha said, if you have an impromptu consensus d-making process to decide to commit CD, then you have to trust that, when the group of 70 says it's going to do it, they are actually going to do it with you. If you don't trust them, you'll never agree to it.
When you have money and a labor force of volunteers and hired help to actually run the show, and you don't have rely on the bodies voting to actually do the work, and when you aren't facing hostile conditions of being beaten, killed, maimed and jailed - you have the luxury of not worrying about building solidarity and all that other girly stuff the big buoyz seem to be terrified of.
with a bigger organization, you can get away with majority d-making like that. If you are using voting d-making in a small group where the bodies do the labor too, then you still need mechanisms to build solidarity and trust - which are time consuming -- otherwise, people who feel they've been mistreated by leadership (much as our labor education collective saw happen), will simply passively-aggressively refuse to support the decisions: they don't show up for working group meetings, the plead other commitments, they throw monkeywrenches, donations dry up, etc.
> From the Bookchin article:
>> In majority decision-making, the defeated minority can resolve to
overturn a decision on which they have been defeated -- they are
free
>> to openly and persistently articulate reasoned and potentially
>> persuasive disagreements. Consensus, for its part, honors no
>> minorities, but mutes them in favor of the metaphysical "one" of
the
>> "consensus" group.
> Graeber gives his defense of consensus:
> http://makeworlds.net/node/84
>> Consensus is often misunderstood. One often hears critics claim it
would cause stifling conformity but almost never by anyone who has
actually observed consensus in action, at least, as guided by
>> trained,
>> experienced facilitators (some recent experiments in Europe, where
there is little tradition of such things, [yeah, cause there's no
Quakers there! -- S.A.] have been somewhat crude). In fact, the
operating assumption is that no one could really convert another
completely to their point of view, or probably should. Instead, the
point of consensus process is to allow a group to decide on a
common
>> course of action. Instead of voting proposals up and down,
proposals
>> are worked and reworked, scotched or reinvented, there is a process of
>> compromise and synthesis, until one ends up with something everyone
can live with. When it comes to the final stage, actually "finding
consensus", there are two levels of possible objection: one can
"stand
>> aside", which is to say "I don't like this and won't participate
but
>> I
>> wouldn't stop anyone else from doing it", or "block", which has the
effect of a veto. One can only block if one feels a proposal is in
violation of the fundamental principles or reasons for being of a
group. One might say that the function which in the US constitution
is
>> relegated to the courts, of striking down legislative decisions
that
>> violate constitutional principles, is here relegated with anyone with
>> the courage to actually stand up against the combined will of the
group (though of course there are also ways of challenging
>> unprincipled blocks).
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