[CRNMC] crn Digest, Vol 5, Issue 7

[agnes at mcn.org]

hank you Charles and amen.

Agnes


> 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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