[Peace-discuss] When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?

[LAURIE SOLOMON]

As I said, the experiences that I describe have been my experiences and that
I have no idea what anyone else's experiences have been.  While the campaign
for Citizen Police Review Boards in this community certainly has been a
daunting goal involving much time, effort and coordination with successful
attainment of goals primarily in Urbana and setbacks in Champaign (and
unknown efforts and results in the county), it was a relatively narrow and
specific project.  In that regard it was unlike many of the projects that my
experiences came from, although it may be closer to project being addressed
here; and therefore, your comments on it may be appropriate.  Nevertheless,
my two other reasons come into play and direct my decisions - namely my lack
of connections at the University and at the YMCA to access their facilities
and resources which others may have and be in a better position to utilize
in achieving the goals in question  and my health factors and conditions
which for the time being take priority and are limiting.

 

 

 

From: John W. [mailto:jbw292002 at gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2009 2:50 AM
To: LAURIE SOLOMON
Cc: E. Wayne Johnson; Morton K. Brussel; Peace-discuss
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?

 

 

On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 9:53 PM, LAURIE SOLOMON <LAURIE at advancenet.net>
wrote:

It is interesting a) how you picked one of the reasons I gave to focus on,
b) which reason you selected, and c) what you selected to give as a
response. Leading free-thinking people is for sure hard but not impossible;
but  being free-thinking is not the same as undisciplined self-centered.
Leading the latter and getting them to engage in a cooperative enterprise
involving hard mundane work over a long duration is next to impossible given
that everyone is  focused on  "doing their own thing" and not accepting
leadership of anyone.  I have no idea what anyone else's experiences have
been; but those are mine.  I do not have the time, energy, or resources to
spend changing peoples minds who are dead set on achieving their own
personal goals and attending to collective goals only in so far as they are
in line with their individual personal goals or who are not into doing any
detailed advance or systematic  long range planning.

You may be able to draw cats to what cats want; but first one has to know
and be sure of what the cats want.  I make no such claims, although you seem
to.


Speaking as one who organized the campaign for Citizen Police Review Boards
in this community, I can say that members of this list were crucial to the
effort.  Ricky Baldwin was absolutely indispensable; Stuart Levy was deeply
involved; Mort Brussel gave of his energy and wisdom.  And of course there
were others.  I hope I'm not leaving out any current readers of this list.
If I have, I deeply apologize.

We spent virtually no time arguing points of ideology, and none jockeying
for "power".  There were minor disagreements over strategy and tactics, but
they were resolved amicably.  There's no doubt that some individuals did
more of the behind-the-scenes "grunt work", while others limited their
participation to speaking out at city council meetings.  Both forms of
participation were necessary.  All in all, though we didn't get everything
we wanted, it was an extremely valuable lesson in community organizing
around a specific goal upon which we were all in agreement.

In like manner, Carl seems to have organized a small but faithful cadre
around his weekly UPTV show(s).  They have their disagreements on air and in
life, of course, but lively discussion of the issues is the very purpose of
the shows as I understand them.

And of course there are the now-monthly Peace demonstrations, which have
been going on since 2001.  Nor have I forgotten the successful campaign for
a living wage, or the vibrant and active CU Citizens for Peace and Justice
which meets weekly on Saturday afternoons.

So I don't see community organizing as so horrendouly difficult, though it
does have a price.  Once the 'collective goal' is clearly identified, those
who are passionate about that goal will give of their time and energy and
talent.  Those who are uninterested will decline to participate.  What
surprised me most about the campaign for Citizen Police Review Boards was
how FEW genuinely committed individuals are actually necessary to bring
about some sort of meaningful change in a local community.

John Wason


 

From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
[mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of E. Wayne
Johnson
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2009 5:27 PM


To: LAURIE SOLOMON
Cc: 'Morton K. Brussel'; 'Peace-discuss'

Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?

 

This is disappointing, Laurie.  I was hoping you would take the challenge
and run with it.

Leading any sort of free-thinking people is sure enough like herding cats,
hence the tendency toward more authoritarianism, more dumbing down,
more bread and circuses, and more admonitions to "not think too much", since
a dumbed down, unthinking, amusement-oriented, submissive population is much
easier to control.

Ya cant drive cats.  But you can draw them to what cats want.

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace-discuss/attachments/20090825/ee02483a/attachment.htm