This is a good example of what happens when we become so preoccupied with formulating our next riposte that we quit paying attention and making distinctions. The union thing is an EXAMPLE, the meetings I am doing are desinged to put together a network of multi-issue organizers in a very specific context. At 11:31 AM 2/21/01 -0600, you wrote: ><I want to see someone go into a meeting of Local 204, United Food and >Commercial Workers Union, in Raleigh, North Carolina, and explain to >them how the notion of integrating town and countryside became a central >component of the communist program.> > >You mean LECTURE to them, don't you, Stan? That's what the elite >paid union OUTSIDE organizers see their task to be. They need >community organizers from inside their community, not travelling >'professional leaders' on 'International' payroll. Your remarks have absolutely nothing to do with my point, which is that the conversation we are carrying on here is not relating to the level of consciousness among the masses, and so we should be very careful about checking in with reality when we want to assess how something might actually be changed. > ><I am going to have around 100 meetings in 100 days, contacting people >who might know people, who are interested in progressive politics. In >these meetings, I am listening more than talking, because I am listening >for that person's values, and keeping an eye peeled for danger signals, >like --disruptor, whiner, flim-flam artist, new-age guru, etc. I also >bird-dog new contacts.> > >What an elitest! But you will be 'listening', of course. Yeah, yeah... "elitest"... that's me. I didn't say I was listening in an encounter group. Anyone with any organizing experience should be able to relate to exactly the problems I am listening for. I'm listening the same way a deer listens in the woods... for danger. I've already been there with all these archetypes, and I've watched them fuck up one organization after another. > ><Second round of meetings, with a vetted group from the first round. >Confirm shared values and goals. Now I am determining if the person has >the individual charactersistics and skills to do what we're looking for >(organizing). > >Consciousness, maturity, persistence, willingness to give and accept >criticism, effective communicator, HAS THE TIME... stuff like that.> > >Yawn. What a prescription for continued disintegration of the trade >unions. And you will give the whole idea of 'organizing' a bad name >at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars of union workers' dues. > >And what vision have you offered anybody to risk life and soul for? >Being under your supervision? Instead of yawning, you could have paid attention. Not a union. It's a network of organizers. Like the one I worked in with over 50 community groups in Eastern North Carolina, the one I built from 20 to fifty organizations in North Carolina, and like the one that has 22 organizations across the South. Labor people, environmentalists, civil rights people, consumer advocates, faith-based... though I'm sure it's nothing compared to your vast experience, Tony. I, myself, am a member of both UAW Local 1981/NWU and the Screen Actors Guild, in neither of which I supervise anything. My point, the second one you completely missed, is that we need a process to put together a meeting, if the meeting is to develop organization. Back off the accelerator, comrade, you're misreading the road signs. > >Tony Abdo > > > > > > > > > > >_______________________________________________ >CrashList website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base > "...all truly great scientific abstractions are both universal and simple. They are simple not because they explain so little but because they explain so much. Generality does not arise because an abstraction represents everything that could possibly happen, but because it remains valid no matter what happens." Alan Freeman _______________________________________________ CrashList website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
