[Community Rights Network] Response from the Process Team

[Peter Norris]

Just a couple of corrections:

(b) Scott made himself (and his qualifications) known to Shannon and Peter
before Democracy School. Shannon welcomed his participation.
   *This is not true.  *
(c) Scott made known to Shannon and Peter that due to his extensive work in
community organizing and his personal financial considerations, he would
not be
attending Democracy School.
    *This is also incorrect.*

I have talked to Tim Rice regarding these misinterpretations.  If anyone
wants to say what I knew, I would suggest asking me.  These
misrepresentations of what I knew make it seem like I had an agenda.  The
only thing I tried to control was what the group agreement was at the time.
 I didn't want any previous group decisions to be co-opted.

Another note on (c).  Both Shannon and I, as well as everybody else is
aware that irregardless of Scott's background if one did not attend either
a Paul Cienfuegos workshop or Democracy School you would not have the
knowledge of this being a unique type of ordinance.  I would have been the
first to find him a scholarship had he not excluded himself.

"All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation
prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche
*Peter Scott Norris 707.456.9968*
*The thought manifests as the word; The word manifests as the deed; The
deed develops into habit, And habit hardens into character. So watch the
thought and its ways with care, And let it spring from love born out of
concern for all beings.*


On Sun, Apr 6, 2014 at 8:24 AM, Tim Rice <tim at multitalents.net> wrote:

>
> Greetings from the Process Team
>
> What an interesting week. Well, actually a couple of weeks.
>
> There is much good stuff here that'll take more than a 30 second scan
> so settle in, get comfortable, and we'll get started.
>
> For us, the process team, this e-mail as a learning/teaching moment.
> Our understanding is that since we are in a living system, the
> cutting edge is constantly changing. Learn from this e-mail and teach back
> to us how you respond. What are your questions? How are we being unclear
> for you? This is not cause and effect, it is dialog and deliberation.
> A conversation.
>
>
> This organization is just getting its "sea legs," so we're all a little
> off balance. That's OK, and that's also to be expected. We did not know
> what we did not know and we were sure our community was different. So here
> we are laboring under very tight deadlines, and setting very high standards
> for ourselves and others. The getting used to working together and getting
> to know each other process takes a while, and we request your patience
> and positive intentions to do your best, to chip in, and to help co-create
> this community rights network of Mendocino County boat.
>
> We'd like to provide a perspective about some recent conflicts. We request
> you bring an open mind to these matters. We ask that you join with us in
> an investigation into the truth of the matter. We provide some data points
> below, but we acknowledge that there is more to the stories below. These
> issues aren't settled yet, but we are working in that direction.
>
>
> (1) Let's start the most recent thing - Scott M.
> =======================================================
> We had the presenter of a meeting (Shannon) request that we only invite
> those that have taken one of Paul's workshops or attended Democracy
> School to the campaign school. Why? So she would not have to take time
> figuring out how to
> pack two days worth of information into a few minutes to bringing new
> people up to speed. A reasonable request. Now in some peoples minds,
> the request to limit the invitees to those that would not have to be
> brought up to speed, morfed into a hard and fast rule that the entire
> group agreed on, and it was later transgressed. Let's be clear that it
> was never a hard-and fast rule.
>
> It is clear to the process team, that a request by a presenter at
> a meeting does not automaticly become a rule agreed to by the entire group.
>
> Some things the group should know:
> (a) Scott had been working with the coastal group for about a month before
> the campaign day got underway, and he attended three meetings on the coast
> before campaign day, and was accepted by the coastal group. Jim Tarbell was
> also at one of these meetings (Jim will be a proponent of the ballot
> measure).
> (b) Scott made himself (and his qualifications) known to Shannon and Peter
> before Democracy School. Shannon welcomed his participation.
> (c) Scott made known to Shannon and Peter that due to his extensive work in
> community organizing and his personal financial considerations, he would
> not be
> attending Democracy School.
> (d) Shannon has told us that she enjoyed her interactions with Scott last
> Sunday and felt he would be a valuable member of our team.
> (e) Shannon has offered to personally bring Scott up to speed if that
> will help smooth things out. Scott has expressed a willingness to put in
> some study time to make sure he's on the same page with those of us who
> have
> gone through democracy school.
>
>
> (2) Now let's look at the (unknown to most) person that showed up a little
> after the meeting started and was asked to leave the meeting - Mr. No Name
>
> First we need to back up a bit. Do you remember that moment in Paul's
> workshop and/or Democracy School where you had that "ah ha" moment
> realizing
> just how much our minds have been colonized as it relates to our
> government?
> Did you also wonder in what other way our minds are colonized? Were we
> unconsciously fighting amongst ourselves the way that our culture taught us
> to be, so that we don't pay attention to the fundamental injustice and
> exploitation of our system? Is this same approach really what we want to
> be using going forward, or is a more open and embracing attitude toward
> fellow members of our community now called for?
>
> OK, now back to last Sunday. A number of things were going on here. One
> we've covered where a simple request in order to save time became a rule
> in some people's minds. Then there is the fact that exclusion (us and
> them) is a large part of our cultural conditioning. Add to that most of us
> went through the public school system. Many things were learned in that
> system some consciously and some unconsciously. One of the (possibly
> unconsciously) things we learned was to yield to authority. So when someone
> in our group got up to ask the person to leave with the conviction that
> they were acting on the will of the group, many of was were in shock, many
> unconsciously yielded to their "authority." And it all happened so fast,
> that many of us did not have a chance to ask ourselves what was going on.
> And unfortunately we may have lost an ally in the cause as a result.
>
>
> (3) And now we go back a week earlier to a disagreement between one of the
> attendees and the organizer of Democracy School. Again, there were a number
> of contributing factors. One factor was that both people involved have
> a styles of interacting that have neeeb observed to make people
> uncomfortable
> and sometimes even get people angry at them. Now put them together. Hmm.
> But that's only part of it. Many factors. There is the tendency of humans
> to
> (often times unconsciously) claim ownership for some endeavor they have
> put a whole lot of time and effort into. Then there was the confusion
> within the group (and probably still is) about what we were attempting to
> accomplish. It's not really about fracking (or water, or hack and squirt,
> or food sovereignty, or ...) it is about the right of a community to
> govern themselves. Fracking just looks like the most likely to succeed
> vehicle (for lack of a better term) to get our ordinance passed so
> we can start the process of governing ourselves. And then the big one.
> The blurring in some peoples minds of the organization (and
> organizational structure) of producing Paul's workshops/Democracy School
> and the organization (and organizational structure) of getting a county
> wide ordinance passed.
>
> It is clear to the process team, that there has been a transition point
> from the organization (and organizational structure) of producing
> Paul's workshops/Democracy School to what we develop now to get
> this ordinance passed.
>
> Preparation for this Ordinance has so far not included studying, planning
> and designing to invent an organization.
>
> Now that this critical juncture has been reached. Along side the work of
> the
> working-groups to get signatures, educate the public etc, a parallel
> effort on
> inventing an organization should be started now.
>
> That is: - doing now what we should have been doing last year.
>
> This current Ordinance is limited by the short time line so the group
> may find it difficult to prioritize resources toward creating the kind
> of organizational culture that this work requires. Which brings to mind
> the phrase "There is never enough time to do the job right, but there
> is always enough time to do it over".
>
> People could begin the process of decolonizing their minds and imaginations
> of the out-dated and inappropriate command and control hierarchical model
> of organizational design, with its centralized concentration of power and
> the autocratic behavior it engenders to sustain itself.
>
> That governance model cannot cope as it clashes head on with the complexity
> of the emergent systems-based self organizing network of freely associating
> self-governing people.
>
> Consequently, conflict, distrust and fear are erupting in the Ordinance
> group.
>
> This is a spiritual problem that can be addressed by implementing a
> conscious, radically democratic organizational structure complemented by
> wide ranging common study, and under-girded by routine practices that
> support the human spirit in difficult times - singing, meditation,
> exercises like Joanna Macy's work and regular circling.
>
> This is why Paul says it takes years to prepare to lead these Ordinances!
> We must be the change we want to see - and that takes time we don't have.
>
> To begin the process the process team proposes the following:
>       - each of the working-groups could create a Mind Map  - a graphic,
> intuitive, interactive rendition  of its role and contribution to the whole
> Ordinance effort.
>
> Mind Maps access the right brain, giving it an opportunity to express
> itself bypassing the left brain's drive to analyze, verbalize, interpret
> and direct.
>
> If you are unfamiliar with this technique - here are some links.
> Each of these 4 links has a piece.
>
> http://www.tonybuzan.com/about/mind-mapping/
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map
>
>
> http://www.google.com/search?q=mind+maps&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=f2NAU4a4NevfsASw94KwCA&ved=0CDIQsAQ&biw=1237&bih=776
>
> http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newISS_01.htm
>
> If you need clarification on this process, call Willow.
>
> This Mapping could be done by working-groups meeting in person - which is
> ideal.
>
> However, given the constraints of geographic dispersion, travel etc, each
> person in a group could make their own Map and distribute it to the rest by
> emailing photos or other digital versions.
>
> This collection of Mind Maps would be the stuff of the on-going,
> longer-term conversation within the whole group about how to organize an
> emergent systems-based self organizing network, capable of adapting to
> changing circumstances that - as we have seen - become increasingly
> demanding.
>
> Ultimately, the whole group would see all the working-groups'  Maps, and
> would
> then gather in carefully designed workshops to integrate them -
>
>                                              and see what emerges!
>
> - Process and Conflict Resolution Team: Tim Rice, Willow Rain,
>                                         Robin Sunbeam, and Charles Wood
> [ever notice how all four of our last names are nature
> elements/manifestations?]
>
>
> P.S. You may have noticed in all of this that nowhere did the process
> team say "this is how the group will function" or "this is how it must
> be done". That was intentional. We're doing our best to model how
> autonomous self governing people interact.
>
>
>
> --
> Tim Rice                                Multitalents    (707) 456-1146
> tim at multitalents.net
>
>
>
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>
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