Cc: Ronnie Dugger <•••@••.•••>, Randy Schutt <•••@••.•••>, The Alliance <•••@••.•••>, Wade Hudson / the-alliance moderator <•••@••.•••>, writers-circle -- <private list> @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Date: Sun, 10 Mar 1996 Sender: •••@••.••• Subject: Dugger response to Open Letter Dear Richard, Concerning your open letter to me Jan. 10th, thank you for it and for the clear thought behind it. You will be pleased to know that many of us have been musing and talking together along much the same lines as your letter on many of the subjects you raise. For my part personally, as I've been saying quite widely, the Alliance is not a political party, but a movement, as you also contemplate. The question of working out a sophisticated and careful policy concerning subordinating large corporations to democratic self-government is absolutely central, is a thinking-work in progress among many of us, and I am opposed to a rush to doctrine, let us think and act and self-correct as we go along together--again as you contemplate. I do not myself go along with aspects in the tone and some deducible implications of your formulation of our task regarding the large corporations. But yours is one of the positions that must be before us as we democratically determine our course and our actions. Third, of course the alliance will be developing an economic and political agenda (=positions on issues of our selection), but not I trust so as to constitute any diversion from the posited real-politik insight that we cannot now achieve fundamental changes in power and distribution of wealth through the thoroughly polluted system we end up having, so that the issues are not the issue, the issue is the system--the issues in this situation are principally educational foci as we gather strength to change the system. Many of us realize we must expect profound and forceful opposition as we attain the effectivenesses we seek. Jonathan Fine, for example, speaks of our planning one- or two-year campaigns, and anticipating corporate/oligarchical responses and challenges, and storing in the refrigerator a number of strategic options and responses, to have them ready when they are needed. I say often in the talks I give that this is not for the fainthearted, that it is going to be gaspingly difficult, and that there is danger. Decentralization of structure is critical; we are positing that in autonomy and authority inhering in the local Alliances. Your words do not in my thinking dissolve the paradox of democratic process and need for leadership. First, we need more leaders; we need many speakers (lecturers) for us. Second, as Fran Peavey has been teaching some of us, the structure should be part of the vision; and should include specific means for accountability and answerability of leaders, and for impeachment and replacement of leaders. You are right we need publications/media mechanisms and perhaps these are about to evolve; probably the ISC/Alliance reps' meeting should address the question of policy (though not detailed editorial) review, on behalf of the membership, of publications in advance of their dissemination. (I think to add that now as #26 to my proposed list of possible topics for the Chicago agenda, initially numbering 22.) Of course, listening to each other is absolutely fundamental to real democracy. I disagree with any proposition, explicit or implied, that agreement is to be elevated normatively over disagreement, or that any individual is to be subjected to group pressure or subtle coercion on behalf of "consensus" to agree (induced, that is, to fall silent, or stand aside) rather than to disagree; I disagree with you squarely if you advocate consensus to the exclusion of voting as the means of deciding that we have decided, a process which, while workable and successful among small groups of people who know each other very well and have a great deal of time to spend on questions, I also regard as susceptible, in many situations, to manipulation by use of group pressure; as an avoidable source of possible error because it encourages, indeed, constitutes, the suppression of honest disagreement; and as impracticable in many situations and on many questions, except for the use of consensus to the extent it works but then of voting when time and proceeding on the basis of unpressured opinions require a vote. I am humbly open to listening more and learning more on this (as we should be on every) question, but am also ready to take the positions indicated until my intuition is corrected by more such listening and learning. I believe some of us now have well-earned concern that if we devote too much time to process (depending of course on what exactly we mean by too much time), valuable participants who wish to engage in democratically-decided actions to advance our common purposes will simply leave, giving up on this movement. Concerning your askanceness toward civil disobedience, obviously it's a serious tactic, and is never to be undertaken lightly, and should be undertaken, in my opinion, only by Alliances and persons who fully understand the subject and the possible/probable personal consequences. But I think you would not want to limit the Alliances' actions to suits and ties (and dresses and bonnets). I advocate that because of the gravity of our civic situation, that civil disobedience be frankly among the means that are available to us for our use--that it not be in effect proscribed as normally outside the options available to the free citizen. I look forward to your and others' participation in this horizontal discussion and others that happily are getting going lustily and gustily among us. In hope and action, Ronnie Dugger @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Dear Ronnie, Thanks so much for your forthright response, and for sharing it with Cyberjournal. Please understand that when my "Open Letter" to you was written, I'd seen nothing by you besides "The Call" article from the Nation. That article is addressed to the general public, and is really an OpEd piece exposing the corporate-emperor's deficient new clothes, and raising the possibility of populist revolt. It reveals nothing about organizing tactics nor political strategy. Since then I've seen minutes of Alliance Steering Committee meetings, your recent letter to the Alliance Chapters, and of course your message above. I want you to know you have my humble support and endorsement, for whatever it's worth. IMHO, you've signed up for the right mission, have identified your constituency, understand how to get a movement on its feet, and are providing an invaluable -- an historic -- public service. Don't let me waste your time with quibbles from the back bench. I see now, for example, that your anticipation of civil disobedience arises from savvy political experience -- when a movement gains momentum, an achievement of broad popular support often gets ahead of electoral successus, and direct action (Viva La France!) becomes appropriate political expression. I do want us to note however, that a legal foundation has been painstakingly established that changes the ground-rules re/ massive protests -- particularly re/ loose-conspiracy prosecutions, as in the case of the World Trade Center bombings. And with autonomous local chapters -- a policy I fully support -- there is inherent the very-present danger of a chapter being commandeered by an organized influx of new "recruits", who then engage in blatant felonious activity in the name of The Alliance. The Alliance could find itself suddenly under the threat of property confiscation, conspiracy prosecutions of leaders, a ban on public statements, and a frozen bank account. Meanwhile, the actual perps would be under immunity as "state witnesses" -- The "War on Drugs" does, after all, have a coherent purpose, and it isn't related to to slowing the drug trade, but with dismantling the Fourth Amendment. Just a note of caution, based on observing enemy deployment of specific weapons systems. --- About consensus... You apparently exercise leadership with considerable skill and sensitivity, and don't need anyone to sell you a formal system (consensus or otherwise), that would only interfere with a successful style. Indeed you know the value of consensus, and your every writing seems aimed at creating consensus across whatever audience you're addressing. You're the master and I'm the apprentice on this one. Nonetheless, please consider that there is a concious attitude toward group decision making, and a process of harmonization, that could be very helpful to The Alliance. This will become especially important as you must increasingly distribute leadership responsibilities within a growing movement, and as The Alliance begins to exercise a collaborative leadership role among other organizations -- with diverse mind-sets and priorities. I fear that Randy Schutt's perspective on consensus, though well-expressed in his posting to the-alliance, has nonetheless been widely misunderstood, as indicated perhaps by your remarks above. Let me just share this one-paragraph characterization from Randy: "Note that consensus process is VERY DIFFERENT from majority voting or rank voting which, again, focus on people's PREFERENCES and adding them up in some fashion. In a pure consensus process, people do not express their preferences at all -- instead they discuss how various options would work for the group. Consensus is not a numerical process of tallying preferences (like voting), but a discussion process to explore truth. In a pure consensus process, everyone chooses together." -- Randy Shutt <•••@••.•••>, to: the-alliance, 14 Feb 1996 You weigh rather heavily above against a "demon consensus" that would hypothetically suppress dissent and pressure the meek into group-think. The counter argument, which I honestly believe has more validity in practice, is that _voting_ -- especially if disagreement is pronounced and the vote is close -- is where dissension is suppressed and support diluted. The essence of "Randy's" process (if I may be so bold) is far from being intimidating to minorities. Rather it nurtures the expression of all perspectives, and encourages a few viable policy options to emerge from the discussion. If everyone understands the thinking behind the various alternatives, it becomes possible to discuss collaboratively which option(s) best serve the overall goals of The Alliance. Frequently a proponent of one option finds herself arguing the benefits of another, after coming to appreciate its advantages. Perhaps Randy is only describing (albeit over-formally?) what a Texan might simply call "helping folks pull together". Perhaps Randy will write to you to clarify and to open dialog on practical consensus and how it might apply most effectively to The Alliance. --- About outreach... There is an _immense_ pool of cogent writing extant or accessible via Internet, some of which would be usable (or revisable) into good OpEd pieces for use by The Alliance. I've even got a few articles myself I'd love to submit... the question is... to whom? Is there an Alliance-designated email address to some kind of "Editorial Committee" that is prepared to accept and evaluate proposed pieces? If there is, please let me know and I can do a little research, including 134MB of on-disk e-mail logs, and contacting some journalist colleagues. If, alas, there is no such address, then possibly our little six-person writers circle (begat of the-alliance list) could attempt to provide some interim service in that direction. Most assuredly and supportively yours In Solidarity, Richard Moore @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ Posted by Richard K. Moore - •••@••.••• - Wexford, Ireland Cyberlib - WWW | FTP --> ftp://ftp.iol.ie/users/rkmoore ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~--~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~
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