Bcc: FYI
rkm websites: cyberjournal.org escapingthematrix.org
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re/ back in ireland, new subscriber…
Peter ‘webwiz’ wrote:
This reminds me of my time in cohousing. aka rigorous local self governance training. Amazing stuff that builds and retains commitment to these ideals over long periods.Peter
Can you tell us more about your self-governance training? I’d love to learn about the processes that were involved.rkm
Well thats a long long story. Early on the cohousing founders McCamant and Durret did a workshop with us, and one of the first things they said is that building cohousing is akin to a university degree in community development, itll cost as much and take as long.
That proved ultimately correct, after 10 years and 10 million dollars, the place was finally built. To my mind theres a circle of comittment reinforcement about cohousing. You join because your looking for more community in your life, and the process of financial committment to the project reinforces your desire to make it work when the going gets tough. The challenge of learning to work together as a group of neighbours all the while learning the tricky trade of property development tends to multiply into immensely complex undertaking. Its a peculier mix of task and process where neither could prevail. You discovered that everyone had something to contribute.
The process was fairly intense with 2 to 4 weekly meetings, with a endless parade of decisions to be made, all by consensus. The basic approach used was a mixture of:– leaning on a common vision embdodied in the cohousing book– upskilling the whole group in group decision making and conflict resolution– sponsoring people to attend specialised facilitation courses– some mix of tradtional business style meetings, proposals, votes, facilator, co facilitator, timekeeper, minute taker, vibe watcher, with more process oriented meetings to deal with any under currents that arose, plus timeout/work events, design retreats etc– quaker/cohousing style consensus tools, 3/4 majority fall back (relied on maybe once or twice tops). Colored cards system to give meeting floor time to introverts and extroverts alike.– reliance on established cohousing wisdom that groups in the 20-30 household size are the most effective. Too small and individual personalties and problems way heavy, and too large and you lose human scale.– task or focus groups as they were named and renamed were typically 5-7 people, the size considered managable without faciliation. Main group meetings were typically 30 people, and you soon learned to do your homework as working groups to make that main meeting flow.– all meetings started with a round of personal checkins.
Particular challenges were bank driven time pressure for decisions. Employing members (any group that pull that off gets an A+ for Advanced Local Governance Training). Handling crises in the construction side of it (can be incredibly powerful bonding). Particular highlights for me, were being able to contribute and learn skills, knowing that we were literally changing the world, celebrating the births, deaths, seasons and project milestones,
Earthsong Eco-Neighbourhood maintains a 3 page history here:
Its all starting to blur a bit, but if theres anything in particular that interests, just holler.
RegardsPeter
Thanks Peter, for your inspiring and informative report. I particularly appreciate your including so much detail about process, and the different processes used for different situations. You describe, I would say, an ‘evolving dialog-based culture’. I’d love to see a conference, of similar community initiatives, dedicated to sharing process experiences and advancing the state of the art.
I’d like to highlight this comment of yours…
…having folk around to lend a hand, shoulder to cry on, or even just that quiet unspoken support, knowing that there are people around you who would care, and new they would and how they would because you had literally been through the wringer with them.
You are describing what I like to call ‘the bonding power of collaboration’. It shows up, in varying degrees, whenever people accomplish things together. The greater the challenge, or danger, the stronger the bonds. Soldiers on the front lines have been known to say that they feel closer to their platoon buddies, than to their own wives.
It seems that the challenge of dealing with the construction issues was very important in building the sense of community that eventually emerged in your cohousing experience. Many community start-up ventures have failed, when they had no bonding imperative other than ‘wanting community’.
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Gregory Prinsze wrote:
Hi Richard,
That’s a brilliant analysis… it makes perfect sense. It also explains something I’ve been very puzzled about. A short time ago, several months or maybe a couple of years ago, Henry Kissinger said during the course of an interview that “Within twenty years, Israel as we know it will no longer exist.” Ever since I read that I’ve been thinking… WTF? What in the world does he mean by that? Why would he say that? What purpose could it serve?
After reading your obervations below, it all fits together. He was just telegraphing something, almost bragging, in the way elites often do… something which he knew very few people would understand. In either pre-planned scenario you describe, war or no war, Israel will change dramatically… or it least they will make it appear that things have changed. Solving the crisis in Israel (the planned, ever worsening crisis) will certainly be one of the reasons for justifying a much stronger UN as you say, and one of the reasons the public will accept it… even clamor for it.
The banksters, their servant politicians, and their propaganda outlets will at least make it look like Israel and the situation in Palestine have changed… this is one of the reasons why the much stronger UN was necessary, we’ll be told, and the “results” will be trotted out as proof that it worked. Whether or not things really change is immaterial to the global oligarchs… all that matters to them is that the public buys the justification, and the appearance of change.
It seems very likely that “solving” the totally manufactured crisis with Ukraine and/or ISIS could also be offered up at the same time, strengthening the justification for the “solution”… and later bolstering the “proof” that it worked. Of course the goal of one world government is the same whether they choose the pre-planned “war” scenario or the pre-planned “no war” scenario… so it’s just a question of whether or not they’ll actually put us through World War III.
My guess is that if they can get the public to clamor for the much stronger UN and ultimately a fully integrated one world government in the “no war” scenario, they might spare us World War III. If they can’t, if the strengthened UN hits an impasse and fails (analogous to the League of Nations) then they’ll unleash World War III… and just as the failure of the League of Nations was used to justify the original UN following pre-planned World War II, the failure of the strengthened UN will be used to justify launching the full blown one world government following pre-planned World War III.
In either the “no war” or “war” scenario, I’m guessing that the changes in Israel will be mostly superficial, for as long as they need to maintain appearances. Of course ultimately the “changes” will be meaningless altogether in the post-democratic era of the bankster’s defacto global dictatorship. So the fuller truth is revealed… Henry Kissinger was referring not just to Israel, but to all nations no longer existing as we once knew them. Isn’t he clever! All we need is just enough “crisis” to get the public clamoring for the “solution”… and just enough appearance of change to minimize buyer’s remorse. And if we take Kissinger’s time table literally, the plan is for all of this to happen well inside of twenty years time, with or without World War III.
Thanks again for sharing your ideas.
Cheers,Greg
Thanks Greg for your comments. I’d say you have a good grasp of the overall canvas, on which events are unfolding. A canvas that includes actions, rhetoric, and media, along with many branching alternatives.
As the Ukraine crisis has continued, it seemed to me that almost weekly the barometer changed, as regards the ‘war / no-war’ alternatives. The blatantly false anti-Russian propaganda in the West has certainly been consistent with war preparation, along with the heightened attention to NATO, its mobilization, and its mutual-defense charter. At the same time, the bark has been bigger than the bite, from the dogs of war, as we see with the humorous exchange of sanctions, and the successful aid convoy from Russia – and all the while Russia provides the transport to the international space station. Is that how real enemies treat one another?
I think the spotlight of events is beginning to illuminate the part of the canvas that is actually to be traversed. I don’t see it shining on the war alternative. We haven’t heard a cuban-missile-crisis speech, drawing a deterrent line in the path of an advancing Russian armada. Heaven knows there have been opportunities, particularly after MH-17, and the accusations made around that false-flag episode.
Rhetoric and media, I would say, have made it appear that we have been closer to ‘the brink’ than we actually have been. And I think we’ve passed the climax of that rhetoric, which suggests we are on the verge of a settlement – otherwise the exercise in brink-creation would have been ill-timed. And a settlement in Ukraine – seen by both sides as a critical buffer state – will be a sign, I think, of a more general stabilization to follow.
I’ve experienced some confusion over the past several years because I saw a contradiction between the aggressiveness of the US, and the various signs that an NWO stabilization was on the near horizon. The aggressiveness suggested the war option, while the signs suggested a non-war option.
But now it’s becoming clear; there is no contradiction. The various war zones, covertly or overtly supported by the CIA and Pentagon, usually with support to both sides, all have a common-thread outcome: ethnic cleansing. What we are seeing is the demarkation of ‘cultural boundaries’, in conformance with the recipe articulated by Samuel P. Huntington, in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.
At risk of appearing illogical, I dare to suggest that we may have more to learn from prophecy, at this point, than from watching events, as they plod across our canvas. By ‘prophecy’, I refer not only to the likes of Huntington and Kissinger, but even more to the likes of Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. They were both connected to elite circles at a very seminal time, when social engineering projects were being launched in the aftermath of World War 2, when a new world order was being created – geopolitically, socially, and economically.
I’ll be posting a follow-up piece, exploring these prophecies, and their relevance to our future.
rkm
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