[CRNMC] crn Digest, Vol 5, Issue 7

[Charles Cresson Wood]

Thank you Caitlin for asking us to focus our postings so that they have some relevance to those things related to the Community Rights Network of Mendocino County. I believe you have provoked a conversation that we all needed to have, and for that I am appreciative. To my knowledge there are no published guidelines for the topics to be addressed by this listserv, but such guidelines are needed. Based on Caitlin's posting, the approach that seems to be adopted by the core group -- of banning certain things, is, as I see it, the opposite of what it needs to be -- specifically inviting a focus on certain things.

I believe that if we develop a list of things we wish to focus upon, that list will guide people in their postings. I do, however, think that we should not ban any particular types of postings. If the connection to the Community Rights Movement, or fracking, or this November's ballot measure, is not immediately obvious from the topic, then the poster should explain the connection. 

I don't think that we want to be authoritarian or dictatorial here, nor do I believe we should use any type of censorship. We should encourage all sorts of new ideas, different thinking that is "outside the box," innovative approaches used by other groups, etc. If the list of permissible topics is too narrow, as I believe it was with Caitlin's message, this CRNMC will soon start to rigidify, the excitement will turn to boredom and thankless hard work, the group will increasingly turn into a bureaucracy, and we will take on undesirable aspects of hierarchical corporate America. 

So let's not have any moderation on this listserv, and let take a positive and expansive view, encouraging people to focus on CRNMC, fracking, and this ballot measure, but at the same time encourage them to post on related topics if those topics would contribute to the work that we are doing together. For example, the event that I just help to produce, in the village of Mendocino, about colonization of mind, would be off-limits under the new guidelines that Caitlin published. Yet the colonization of mind is a fundamental conversation underlying the whole community rights movement and absolutely should be part of our ongoing discussions. Those of us who attended Paul Cienfuegos' workshops remember that we talked about this topic in his workshops.

Similarly, new ways to organize a community effectively, as demonstrated by other groups, should be of particular interest to us all. Likewise, some related things being done by the Occupy movement folks, the public bank folks, the Move to Amend folks, and others are all related to community rights, and we should encourage collaboration with those groups. So let's not say anything is off limits per se, let's simply say this and that is what we want to focus upon, and then go on to periodically remind people about that agreed-upon general focus. 

/s/ Charles