[OccupyCU] on strife - Jesse Francis' presentation, communication patterns, trust, & flame warring

[Stuart Levy]

I'd like to back off a bit and look at how we've been discussing Jesse's 
presentation & OccupyCU.  What I see:

    - Jesse asked to come and speak to Occupy on Monday.   He told us 
about his well-visited website, featuring many dozens of subjects from 
the Iraq war to colony collapse disorder to the LIBOR scandal, but most 
prominently about 9/11 truth.  He offered its services, if OccupyCU 
wants them.   We asked him some questions.  We deliberately (thank you 
Susan!) postponed any discussion of whether we considered taking up his 
offer to be a good idea.

    - Scott, who wasn't present but read about this offer, made a 
connection which must be incandescently strong to him - between the 9/11 
truth movement and neo-nazi sympathies.   I'd never heard of this 
association before.  None of the people I've talked to who were at the 
meeting had, either.

Then what?   How the conversation *might* have gone:

    Scott:  Is OccupyCU seriously considering associating itself with 
this web site?   Were people aware of this connection?   Look at A, B, 
and C on that site if you don't believe me.   I say we should have 
nothing to do with this.

    Any of us might have replied:   That is news to me.    Thank you for 
raising it.   We've had little discussion and no decision, but this will 
be important when we do.

What happened instead?    I'm guessing that, Scott, you assumed we did 
know, and we (a) didn't care and (b) were happily going forward.   And 
further, that you *expected* not to be heard. Right?

If so it reflects an alarming distrust of the group.  Where has that led 
us?    Accusations have flown.  We've had *27* messages on this topic 
yesterday.   At least two people have dropped off the list.  I don't 
think we've made any progress toward anything that Occupy stands for.

Worse, I think this discussion has deepened what mistrust there had 
been.   That is a terribly destructive thing for a group.   What can we 
do to heal it?


Yesterday's flames were also a distraction from the really fine 
presentation we heard from Francisco Baires in the latter part of 
Monday's meeting.  He talked about Johan Galtung's theory of hierarchies 
of violence, direct and cultural and structural; how movements - 
particularly the immigration rights movement - can form effective 
responses to them; and what we in Occupy might take from their 
experience.   This is 'way more fruitfully consequential. Let's talk 
about that!