At 06:13 AM 1/18/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Colin Stark wrote:
>>
>> At 03:40 PM 1/17/98 -1000, Jay Hanson wrote:
>> >From: Christoph Reuss <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> >
>> >
>> >>What's the use of Direct Democracy if the people is brainwashed by
>> >>corporate media and misinformed to take the wrong decisions ?
>> >>How can ecological revolution succeed democratically with a majority of
>> >>polluting egoists and "No Future" idiots ?
>> >
>> >
>> >Good question! IMHO, democracy is an idea whose time has past.
>>
>> If it has passed, then it has passed without my noticing that it ever existed
>>
>> I believe that Direct Democracy might be worth trying while we await your
>> gloomy predictions (whether or not they come about)
>
>I believee another word for direct democracy is syndicalism (AKA
>anarchism).
>Most every time persons have tried to try this, they have been attacked
>by
>the heavy hand of the marketplace (AKA police / army). Remember
>Joe Hill, Rosa Luxemborg(sp?), Emma Goldman(sp?), et al!
With this statement you are shifting ground to a historical/national
perspective.
To start there is probably not the best place, and I do not wish to follow
you there.
As I said to someone from one of the Gulf Islands (between Vancouver and
Vancouver Island) yesterday:
"the islands strike me as one of the IDEAL places on the globe to plant DD
-- for a variety of reasons -- the islands have a lot going for them that
other places do not have -- isolation from provincial influence, community,
educated people, often out of the main stream, ...
Much of our written material is on our website (http://www.npsnet.com/cdd/):
I would suggest that you "follow the red dots", download it, print it out,
and study it. Much of it is professionally written, or carefully written and
edited.
But much can only be absorbed by engaging with people -- the best people I
know to engage with do so (partly) through our Listserv:
send an e-mail to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- with the word SUBSCRIBE in the subject line"
(end of quote)
>I cannot speak for "blue collar" workers, for my only work experience
>is as a computer programmer in large commercial "DP shops" (from
>insurance
>to government contracting to "research"...). There is a book
>published about 1978 which is *well* worth reading, both for what it
>says about the organization of this kind or work, and also about one
>researcher's [pro-worker] research methodoology: _Programmers and
>Managers:
>The Routinization of Programming in America_, by Philip Kraft. At the
>time it was published, it earned a *scathing denunciation* by one ot the
>then Big Names in theorizing about the organization of computer work
>(at least Kraft didn't get hung for his treason to the tenured
>class...).
>
>"All" (Ah, but what a big little thing it apparently is!) programmers
>and managers need to do to implement direct democracy (like all that is
>needed for Christ to appear in their midst when two or three are
>gathered together...) is for them to distance themselves from knee-jerk
>hierarchical obedience to "upper mgmt" and discuss together what they
>should be doing ahd how they should be doing it *in their current
>situation*. They need, as Joseph Weizenbaum so eloquently pleaded,
>to think about what they are doing, whatever it, so that those who
>come after them will not wish they had not done it. It is simply
>irresponsible to blindly obey orders rather than for a work group
>to self-critically (sociology of knowledge, industrial sociology,
>ethics of engineering, etc.) evaluate what is being asked of them
>and respond with their best judgment (and efforts). Sometimes the
>best implementation of a cdomputer system (as of many other things...
>is to *not* implement it...)....
>
>\brad mccormick
Again, I feel you are shifting ground -- this time to the workplace.
I spent 30 years as an industrial engineer/manager/consultant; I have not
"had a regular job" in 7 years.
I would not at this time take DD into the workplace -- I tried
"participative management" in new factories in the 70s and it got corrupted
into higher profits -- the business climate now seems more coercive than it
was in the 70s -- but the day may come ...
In summary I believe that the best places to look for fertile ground for DD
is at the grassroots -- community organisations, local governments, NGOs,
etc -- although we communicate with business, Provincial and Federal people
as appropriate.
Colin Stark
