[CRNMC] crn Digest, Vol 5, Issue 7

[Caitlin Alexander]

Asking that the CRNMC list serve be used for CRNMC business is not
unreasonable or dictatorial - everyone has their groups to promote and its
fair to have it be focused instead of a becoming diffused and composed of
all kinds of other information. Additionally, we could have people join the
list serve who are of varying political backgrounds and promoting our
non-topic, personal, political perspectives on a list serve seeking common
ground regarding community rights and the banning of fracking could be
problematic.We need to reach out to a broad population and keep the focus
on passing this ordinance in November on this list serve, to my mind.

-Caitlin


On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 3:09 PM, Charles Cresson Wood <ccwood at ix.netcom.com>
wrote:

> 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
>
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