[VIDEO] 9/11: Controlled Demo Proven in 19 Seconds
http://justanotherblowback.blogspot.com/2006/11/911-controlled-demo-proven-in-19.html
Whew! I escaped from the Heart of the Beasty Matrix! Only one Close
Encounter of the Third Reich Kind...that is, the Gestapo Homeland
Security folks pulled me over for a search at the Canada-US border. I
wasn't prepared for their silly questions and they didn't like my
vague answers. What nerve them asking me how I paid for my trip, why
I have a laptop, and what I write on the Internet! I said, "I write
about current affairs'. I should have said, 'I write about Gestapo
border guards'. With the new 'no habeas corpus' law, I'm wondering if
I ever will return to North America. I was always puzzled why more
people didn't escape from Nazi Germany when they still had the chance.
I don't take much comfort from the election outcome. Perhaps I would
if the Dems began by repealing the Patriot Acts, withdrawing from
Iraq & Afghanistan, and re-opening nuclear disarmament talks -- but
they won't. The main effects will be to make progressives think
things have 'gotten better', and squash concerns about electronic
voting. I assume 'they' let the Dems win, and could have had the
Repubs win instead if they wanted to, via the magic of Diebold.
Perhaps this means they've decided not to attack Iran. We'll see. It
may also mean they want the Dems to control Congress when the dollar
collapses, so as to blame the Dems.
---
I'm very happy with the outcomes of the tour. I met lots of people
who are involved in various kinds of activism and there seem to be
many possibilities for ongoing remote collaboration. In several
places, energy was generated to pursue community dialog events, in
the style of Wisdom Councils. :-) Also, in presenting my 'message',
I learned where people have trouble with the concepts. I'm convinced
that for future presentations I need to have slides to show along
with the talk. A good image or diagram can convey some of the key
ideas better than words, and would also fix the concept better in
people's memories. I also learned that following a talk, and Q&A,
there needs to be a 'circle process', so the folks can get a bit of
experience with listening-centered dialog. I was pleased that in many
cases new connections were made among local people, who had common
interests but had not met one another previously.
One thing I noticed is that many groups, of various kinds, could
improve their operation by use of better dialog processes. It would
be a good thing if there was more general awareness of the variety of
processes that are available. Many groups think they are using a
'facilitator', just because someone is chairing the meeting. Or they
know of only one kind of group process, and aren't aware that there
are more effective ones for their purposes. I guess my general rule
would be this: if chronic non-communication and dysfunction exists in
a group, then it is not using an appropriate dialog process.
in a few cases, people are forming reading circles, to go through the
ETM material one chapter per week. I'm hoping that might lead to such
a group going on to organize some kind of dialog events. Also I'd be
quite happy to respond to such groups, if they come up with
'questions for the author' as part of their process.
---
* The Community Empowerment Project
ETM is partly 'fact' and partly 'theory'. In the 'fact' category, I
count all the stuff about 'how the world works', and the stuff about
how harmonization works in small groups. In the 'theory' category is
the stuff about how harmonization processes can awaken a spirit of We
the People in a community as a whole, and in larger units of society.
This theory needs to be tested. Can a community really wake up and
become an empowered community? If that can be demonstrated, then much
of the book would shift categories from theory to fact. Also, a
single empowered community would be a significant milestone, an
inspiration to other communities, the seed of a cultural meme.
Hence, I'm beginning to formulate an experiment, my next 'big
project' after finishing the book itself. The project involves
working with some community, over a period of several months, to help
it 'wake up'. What I have in mind is to assemble a project team, some
of whom would be unpaid advisors, and some of whom (eg. facilitators)
would get paid market rate for their contributions. One of the team
members needs to be someone who is good at writing grant proposals,
as that would be the source of funding.
We'd want to get enough funding so that we could hold a whole series
of 'democracy circles' without requiring the community to do any fund
raising. A 'democracy circle' is likely to be a Wisdom Council, but I
prefer to use the more generic term. When the team gets organized,
and gets its funding lined up, then the next step would be to hook up
with some local activists in some community, who want to bring the
project to their community. The project team would provide support
and resources, including facilitators and funding for meeting places
and local advertising. But the local activists would need to take
responsibility for driving the project forward and handling local
arrangements. The locals would need to 'own' the project; otherwise
the democratic legitimacy of the endeavor would be dubious.
The key idea behind the experiment is to pursue it 'whole hog'. That
is, pull out all the stops, and give the project every chance to
succeed. Not only would there be several months of democracy circles,
followed by public meetings, supported by good publicity, but perhaps
also Conversation Cafes could be linked in, giving lots of people in
the community an opportunity to participate in community dialog. The
team would need to do some brainstorming in this area. If the
experiment fails, I want it to be because the theory is wrong, not
because we didn't try hard enough. In this way, something useful will
be learned no matter what the outcome.
Another important element of the project will be the training of
local facilitators. Our selected community would need to have strong
local activists to drive the project, and some local people who are
eager to learn how to facilitate circles. The trainees would get
their training for free, during the first two or three democracy
circle processes, and in return they would facilitate the remaining
circles at below-market rate. Thus the community would become
'democratically self-sufficient'. :-)
rkm
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