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03:00:00 11/08/11
Occupy's A**hole Problem: Flashbacks from An Old Hippie
[LESS INFO] 6 VIEWS | ADDED 03:00:00 11/08/11
During Tuesday's Occupy Oakland General Strike, the so-called "Black Block" vandalized stores and buildings as peaceful Occupiers try desperately to stop them. [Caution: Strong Language-- NSFW]
Guest Editorial by Sara Robinson , Senior Fellow, Campaign for America’s Future
I wish I could say that the problems that the Occupy movement is having with infiltrators and agitators are new. But they’re not. In fact, they’re problems that the Old Hippies who survived the 60s and 70s remember acutely, and with considerable pain.
As a veteran of those days — with the scars to prove it — watching the OWS organizers struggle with drummers, druggies, sexual harassers, and racists brings me back to a few lessons we had to learn the hard way back in the day, always after putting up with way too much over-the-top behavior from people we didn’t think we were allowed to say no to. It’s heartening to watch the Occupiers begin to work out solutions to what I can only indelicately call the a**hole problem. In the hope of speeding that learning process along, here are a few glimmers from my own personal flashbacks — things that it’s high time somebody said right out loud.
1. Let’s be clear: It is absolutely OK to insist on behavior norms.
Occupy may be a DIY movement — but it also stands for very specific ideas and principles. Central among these is: We are here to reassert the common good. And we have a LOT of work to do. Being open and accepting does not mean that we’re obligated to accept behavior that damages our ability to achieve our goals. It also means that we have a perfect right to insist that people sharing our spaces either act in ways that further those goals, or go somewhere else until they’re able to meet that standard.
2. It is OK to draw boundaries between those who are clearly working toward our goals, and those who are clearly not.
Or, as an earlier generation of change agents put it: You’re either on the bus, or off the bus. Are you here to change the way this country operates, and willing to sacrifice some of your almighty personal freedom to do that? Great. You’re with us, and you’re welcome here. Are you here on your own trip and expecting the rest of us to put up with you? In that case, you are emphatically NOT on our side, and you are not welcome in our space.
Anybody who feels the need to put their own personal crap ahead of the health and future of the movement is (at least for that moment) an a**hole, and does not belong in Occupied space. Period. This can be a very hard idea for people in an inclusive movement to accept — we really want to have all voices heard. But the principles Occupy stands for must always take precedence over any individual’s divine right to be an a**hole, or the a**holes will take over. Which brings me to….
3. The consensus model has a fatal flaw, which is this: It’s very easy for power to devolve to the people who are willing to throw the biggest tantrums.
When some a drama king or queen starts holding the process hostage for their own reasons, congratulations! You’ve got a new a**hole! (See #2.) You must guard against this constantly, or consensus government becomes completely impossible.
4. Once you’ve accepted the right of the group to set boundaries around people’s behavior, and exclude those who put their personal rights ahead of the group’s mission and goals, the next question becomes: How do we deal with chronic a**holes?
This is the problem Occupy’s leaders are very visibly struggling with now. I’ve been a part of a**hole-infested groups in the long-ago past that had very good luck with a whole-group restorative justice process. In this process, the full group (or some very large subset of it that’s been empowered to speak for the whole) confronts the troublemaker directly. The object is not to shame or blame. Instead, it’s like an intervention. You simply point out what you have seen and how it affects you. The person is given a clear choice: make some very specific changes in their behavior, or else leave.
This requires some pre-organization. You need three to five spokespeople to moderate the session (usually as a tag team) and do most of the talking. Everybody else simply stands in a circle around the offender, watching silently, looking strong and determined. The spokespeople make factual we statements that reflect the observations of the group. We have seen you using drugs inside Occupied space. We are concerned that this hurts our movement. We are asking you to either stop, or leave.
When the person tries to make excuses (and one of the most annoying attributes of chronic a**holes is they’re usually skilled excuse-makers as well), then other members of the group can speak up — always with I messages. I saw you smoking a joint with X and Y under tree Z this morning. We’re all worried about the cops here, and we think you’re putting our movement in danger. We are asking you to leave. Every statement needs to end with that demand — We are asking you to either stop, or else leave and not come back. No matter what the troublemaker says, the response must always be brought back to this bottom line.
These interventions can go on for a LONG time. You have to be committed to stay in the process, possibly for a few hours until the offender needs a restroom break or gets hungry. But eventually, if everybody stays put, the person will have no option but to accept that a very large group of people do not want him or her there. Even truly committed a**holes will get the message that they’ve crossed the line into unacceptable behavior when they’re faced with several dozen determined people confronting them all at once.
Given the time this takes, it’s tempting to cut corners by confronting several people all at once. Don’t do it. Confronting more than two people at a time creates a diffusion-of-responsibility effect: the troublemakers tell themselves that they just got caught up in a dragnet; the problem is those other people, not me. The one who talks the most will get most of the heat; the others will tend to slip by (though the experience may cause them to reconsider their behavior or leave as well).
This process also leaves open the hope that the person will really, truly get that their behavior is Not okay, and agree to change it. When this happens, be sure to negotiate specific changes, boundaries, rules, and consequences (if we see you using drugs here again, we will call the police. There will be no second warning), and then reach a consensus agreement that allows them to stay. On the other hand: if the person turns violent and gets out of control, then the question is settled, and their choice is made. You now have a legitimate reason to call the cops to haul them away. And the cops will likely respect you more for maintaining law and order.
Clearing out a huge number of these folks can be a massive time suck, at least for the few days it will take to weed out the worst ones and get good at it. It might make sense to create a large committee whose job it is to gather information, build cases against offenders, and conduct these meetings.
And finally:
5. It is not wrong for you to set boundaries this way.
You will get sh-t for this. But…but…it looks a whole lot like a Maoist purge unit! No. There is nothing totalitarian about asking people who join your revolution to act in ways that support the goals of that revolution. And the Constitution guarantees your right of free association — which includes the right to exclude people who aren’t on the bus, and who are wasting the group’s limited time and energy rather than maximizing it. After all: you’re not sending these people to re-education camps, or doing anything else that damages them. You’re just getting them out of the park, and out of your hair. You’re eliminating distractions, which in turn effectively amplifies the voices and efforts of everyone else around you. And, in the process, you’re also modeling a new kind of justice that sanctions people’s behavior without sanctioning their being — while also carving out safe space in which the true potential of Occupy can flourish.
2 Views
03:00:00 11/08/11
Occupy's A**hole Problem: Flashbacks from An Old Hippie
[LESS INFO] 2 VIEWS | ADDED 03:00:00 11/08/11
During Tuesday's Occupy Oakland General Strike, the so-called "Black Block" vandalized stores and buildings as peaceful Occupiers try desperately to stop them. [Caution: Strong Language-- NSFW]
Guest Editorial by Sara Robinson , Senior Fellow, Campaign for America’s Future
I wish I could say that the problems that the Occupy movement is having with infiltrators and agitators are new. But they’re not. In fact, they’re problems that the Old Hippies who survived the 60s and 70s remember acutely, and with considerable pain.
As a veteran of those days — with the scars to prove it — watching the OWS organizers struggle with drummers, druggies, sexual harassers, and racists brings me back to a few lessons we had to learn the hard way back in the day, always after putting up with way too much over-the-top behavior from people we didn’t think we were allowed to say no to. It’s heartening to watch the Occupiers begin to work out solutions to what I can only indelicately call the a**hole problem. In the hope of speeding that learning process along, here are a few glimmers from my own personal flashbacks — things that it’s high time somebody said right out loud.
1. Let’s be clear: It is absolutely OK to insist on behavior norms.
Occupy may be a DIY movement — but it also stands for very specific ideas and principles. Central among these is: We are here to reassert the common good. And we have a LOT of work to do. Being open and accepting does not mean that we’re obligated to accept behavior that damages our ability to achieve our goals. It also means that we have a perfect right to insist that people sharing our spaces either act in ways that further those goals, or go somewhere else until they’re able to meet that standard.
2. It is OK to draw boundaries between those who are clearly working toward our goals, and those who are clearly not.
Or, as an earlier generation of change agents put it: You’re either on the bus, or off the bus. Are you here to change the way this country operates, and willing to sacrifice some of your almighty personal freedom to do that? Great. You’re with us, and you’re welcome here. Are you here on your own trip and expecting the rest of us to put up with you? In that case, you are emphatically NOT on our side, and you are not welcome in our space.
Anybody who feels the need to put their own personal crap ahead of the health and future of the movement is (at least for that moment) an a**hole, and does not belong in Occupied space. Period. This can be a very hard idea for people in an inclusive movement to accept — we really want to have all voices heard. But the principles Occupy stands for must always take precedence over any individual’s divine right to be an a**hole, or the a**holes will take over. Which brings me to….
3. The consensus model has a fatal flaw, which is this: It’s very easy for power to devolve to the people who are willing to throw the biggest tantrums.
When some a drama king or queen starts holding the process hostage for their own reasons, congratulations! You’ve got a new a**hole! (See #2.) You must guard against this constantly, or consensus government becomes completely impossible.
4. Once you’ve accepted the right of the group to set boundaries around people’s behavior, and exclude those who put their personal rights ahead of the group’s mission and goals, the next question becomes: How do we deal with chronic a**holes?
This is the problem Occupy’s leaders are very visibly struggling with now. I’ve been a part of a**hole-infested groups in the long-ago past that had very good luck with a whole-group restorative justice process. In this process, the full group (or some very large subset of it that’s been empowered to speak for the whole) confronts the troublemaker directly. The object is not to shame or blame. Instead, it’s like an intervention. You simply point out what you have seen and how it affects you. The person is given a clear choice: make some very specific changes in their behavior, or else leave.
This requires some pre-organization. You need three to five spokespeople to moderate the session (usually as a tag team) and do most of the talking. Everybody else simply stands in a circle around the offender, watching silently, looking strong and determined. The spokespeople make factual we statements that reflect the observations of the group. We have seen you using drugs inside Occupied space. We are concerned that this hurts our movement. We are asking you to either stop, or leave.
When the person tries to make excuses (and one of the most annoying attributes of chronic a**holes is they’re usually skilled excuse-makers as well), then other members of the group can speak up — always with I messages. I saw you smoking a joint with X and Y under tree Z this morning. We’re all worried about the cops here, and we think you’re putting our movement in danger. We are asking you to leave. Every statement needs to end with that demand — We are asking you to either stop, or else leave and not come back. No matter what the troublemaker says, the response must always be brought back to this bottom line.
These interventions can go on for a LONG time. You have to be committed to stay in the process, possibly for a few hours until the offender needs a restroom break or gets hungry. But eventually, if everybody stays put, the person will have no option but to accept that a very large group of people do not want him or her there. Even truly committed a**holes will get the message that they’ve crossed the line into unacceptable behavior when they’re faced with several dozen determined people confronting them all at once.
Given the time this takes, it’s tempting to cut corners by confronting several people all at once. Don’t do it. Confronting more than two people at a time creates a diffusion-of-responsibility effect: the troublemakers tell themselves that they just got caught up in a dragnet; the problem is those other people, not me. The one who talks the most will get most of the heat; the others will tend to slip by (though the experience may cause them to reconsider their behavior or leave as well).
This process also leaves open the hope that the person will really, truly get that their behavior is Not okay, and agree to change it. When this happens, be sure to negotiate specific changes, boundaries, rules, and consequences (if we see you using drugs here again, we will call the police. There will be no second warning), and then reach a consensus agreement that allows them to stay. On the other hand: if the person turns violent and gets out of control, then the question is settled, and their choice is made. You now have a legitimate reason to call the cops to haul them away. And the cops will likely respect you more for maintaining law and order.
Clearing out a huge number of these folks can be a massive time suck, at least for the few days it will take to weed out the worst ones and get good at it. It might make sense to create a large committee whose job it is to gather information, build cases against offenders, and conduct these meetings.
And finally:
5. It is not wrong for you to set boundaries this way.
You will get sh-t for this. But…but…it looks a whole lot like a Maoist purge unit! No. There is nothing totalitarian about asking people who join your revolution to act in ways that support the goals of that revolution. And the Constitution guarantees your right of free association — which includes the right to exclude people who aren’t on the bus, and who are wasting the group’s limited time and energy rather than maximizing it. After all: you’re not sending these people to re-education camps, or doing anything else that damages them. You’re just getting them out of the park, and out of your hair. You’re eliminating distractions, which in turn effectively amplifies the voices and efforts of everyone else around you. And, in the process, you’re also modeling a new kind of justice that sanctions people’s behavior without sanctioning their being — while also carving out safe space in which the true potential of Occupy can flourish.
0 Views
22:57:31 03/05/10
Uk Senior Day Send Off
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 22:57:31 03/05/10
Kentucky seniors Perry Stevenson and Ramon Harris, as well as Wildcats coach John Calipari and junior forward Patrick Patterson, talk about their last game in Rupp Arena coming Sunday against the Florida Gators.
1 Views
10:53:48 02/01/10
Mark Thomas Mtp 05 01 Dpa
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 10:53:48 02/01/10
* DPA o Note this show made the Channel 4 news earlier in the evening it was broadcast as a piece about the DPA o Tonight's show is a celebration o UK has more CCTV cameras per Capita than any other country o DPA became law in March 2000 o If anyone has personal data about you you can request it, they have 40 days to comply before you can report them to the registrar o Mark decided to write to a few of the companies he had had dealings with in the past to see what personal data they had on him o First company to respond was Nestle includes this quote: + "I think that as soon as I can lay hands on proof of his acceptance of Nestle money a few years ago, I will pass it to a suitable source following this latest incident - clear hypocrisy" o Balfour Beatty claimed they didn't have any which is a bit odd as someone sent Mark a letter from Lord Weir to Stephen Byers about him. o The letter was complaining about the disruption of their AGM. o Refers to "Mark Thomas, the soix dissant comedian". soix dissant means so-called or self styled. Send off a complaint to the regulator o BNFL sent a pile of stuff but missed some. o Environment agency sent one including: + "Mark Thomas often pulls stunts, chance he could arrive at a public surgery with radioactive mud, pigeon, seafood, whatever, dressed in comedy productive clothing and with a large Geiger counter." o Goes on to explain how they are going to counter-stunt Mark by having their own Geiger counter and everyday objects to demonstrate how everyday items are radioactive. o Most interesting stuff came from government departments. Wrote to DETR and they replied: + "Unfortunately the Data Protection Act comes under the Home Office." o They had confused the act with Mark's request for data from them o DTI quote found amongst the response from them: + "it is unfortunate that even when the Freedom of Information Act comes into force our open government regime will be more closed than many other countries" o MOD stuff had emails including chatting between colleagues about the show and swapping videos of the show + "I have a video of the first of the two programmes which you can borrow at any time. The second is presently being copied by Technical Services..." * A30 o A30 event loads of protesters and campaign groups got together to recreate the front cover of Sgt Pepper at Highbury Fields on 30 April 2000 o Across the front in flowers was the word "Terrorists?" o Police were there filming as they were leaving o Mark asks the senior officer about this who claims they don't have a video crew there. o But Mark finds them o The data protection act also covers CCTV footage so Mark wrote to ask for copy of their footage and they complied. * Securex o Security exhibition where over half of the companies exhibiting hadn't registered for the DPA o So Mark and the crew went along on 20 September 2000 and asked a few of the companies about it o Convinces some of the companies to register on-line in the internet cafe on site * CCTV o Mark goes down to the DTI and holds up a sign in front of their CCTV and then asks for the footage, which they get. o Competition for creative CCTV footage launched, Jonathan Ross has agreed to judge it o Went to Newham. The council have a software system called Mandrake which is attached to their CCTV cameras. The system is designed recognise faces and put red rings around known faces on the footage. o Went down with some Morris dancers on 10 November 2000 and danced on the pavement and in McDonalds o Sent in DPA requests for both o McDonalds sent footage. Newham didn't. They wrote: + "It has not been possible for us to extrapolate your images from those of unknown 3rd parties. In view of that we are unable to release the vdeo footage." o Their Mandrake system isn't that good then * Football o Found out that the Met police 1st XI football team were playing in North London o took 25 video activists along to film them o Also took along a portable video display screen and PA system and Mark starts commentating on the game
5 Views
12:16:00 05/08/09
LAMA JIGME RELEASED; NEW STUDENT PROTEST PHOTOS ESCAPE
[LESS INFO] 5 VIEWS | ADDED 12:16:00 05/08/09
New photos surface of a protest in Labrang led by middle school students, April 24, 2009.
Photo: Kunleng (VOA Tibetan service) A
Tibetan lama who had recorded a video testimony last year after being detained and physically abused by Chinese security forces has been released from his second stint of incarceration in the past year. Meanwhile a monk in Ngaba Prefecture, who may have admitted to sending information to the outside world about Tabey's attempted self-immolation in February, remains missing and is feared dead. Some information has escaped the plateau through China's steel curtain, in the form of accounts and photos of the students' march in Labrang last month.
Lama Jigme Guri was seized off the street on March 22, 2008 as he returned to Labrang Monastery from the town market . He was held for several months during which time he was severely tortured, and nearly died of his injuries. At that point he was released to his family, as some other Tibetans have been after suffering abuse which nearly killed them. The expectation seems to be that they will die in their family's custody, and the Chinese will thus not be blamed for killing them. Jigme survived after spending three weeks in hospital, and later returned to his monastery.
Lama Jigme Guri of Labrang Tashi Kyil Monastery, Sangchu County, Kanlho T-"A"-P, was released this week by the Chinese authorities after six months detention without trial.
Photo: Woeser Sometime in August Lama Jigme recorded a video testimony of his ordeal (faithful readers will recall that the Tibetan name "Jigme" translates as "Fearless"). The video was acquired by VOA's Tibetan language program Kunleng , and broadcast last September 3. Jigme went into hiding, living in the mountains and visiting safe houses until the approaching winter made that impossible. He returned again to Labrang around the beginning of November (after police had assured his family that he was safe from arrest), and on November 4 around 70 officers of the People's Armed Police and Public Security Bureau seized him from his monk's quarters and took him to an unknown location.
The 42 year old monk, who had been ordained at Labrang at the age of 13, mastered religious thangka painting and butter sculpture arts, and later headed the monastery's vocational training centre, was also the vice-chairman of its Democratic Management Committee (the Communist Party's oversight and disciplinary body within every Tibetan religious institution) at the time of his first arrest. Upon his latest release on May 3, after six months in his second abusive stretch of Chinese prison treatment, local accounts say that he is looking very frail and weak.
Once again, the heroes in this case are the same two Chinese civil rights lawyers who took on Phurbu Tsering Rinpoche's case, leading to its indefinite postponement last month. One of the two, Li Fangping, told the London Times that Jigme had been released "on bail", and that the mere prospect of legal assistance seemed to be enough to do the trick.> "When the police told him that lawyers had come forward to help him, he said he wanted legal representation. Before we even had time to see him, he had been released." Mr. Li and his partner, Mr. Jiang Tianyong said that Jigme had been warned by police not to give interviews and to see "as few people as possible."
The International Campaign for Tibet clarifies the bail issue from accounts by Tibetan sources. The release falls under something called " qubao houshen " which are restrictions on one's movements, associations, communications and other conditions. Violations of any of the conditions may result in further detention without trial.
Jigme's August 2008 testimonial has now been captioned with English subtitles:
The Tibetan author / poet / citizen journalist Woeser was the first to announce Jigme's release at her blog on May 5. High Peaks Pure Earth has a translation . A number of good photos of Lama Jigme in his home surroundings (as well as his hospitalization) can be viewed at Woeser's original article .
Coincidentally, I received an alert this morning to a new translation of a piece Woeser wrote for Radio Free Asia last month. In this one she does a very insightful media analysis and points out a fundamental misunderstanding by the Chinese state-controlled media organs on using and increasing their "discourse power". In a delightful anecdote, she recounts an occasion when a Xinhua official approached a senior foreign journalist for advice on achieving "discourse power" in the west. The journalist told her that in his response to the official, he emphasized "positioning":> "You people are positioned as mouthpieces, so you can’t think about whether the news you report is true or not; and so you are incapable of establishing any power of discourse. We, on the other hand, are positioned to make money. In order to make money we’ve got to provide truthful reporting, and that’s a necessary condition for establishing authority in discourse." When he heard this, the Xinhua official was very uncomfortable. I just bet he was! I really hope that conversation gets passed around at the Xinhua water cooler.
Monk Tabey, of Ngaba Kirti Monastery, lays in the street after he set himself on fire and was reportedly felled by gunshots from the security forces on February 27, 2009.
Photo: anonymous Tibetans in Ngaba Prefecture (Ch: Sichuan province) remain very concerned for the well-being of Jamyang Phuntsok , a 35 year old monk believed to be suspected by Chinese authorities of sending information about fellow monk Tabey's protest on February 27, 2009. A few days after Tabey's action, in which he attempted to immolate himself and, according to witnesses, was felled at the precise time three gunshots were heard fired by security forces, Jamyang Phuntsok was arrested from his quarters at Kirti Monastery. His whereabouts remain unknown and officials have not provided any information, leading many local people to suspect he may already be dead. Chinese state-run party mouthpiece Xinhua reported on March 5 than the monk had accepted the allegations of sending information to the outside world, but this has not been confirmed by any reliable sources.
Tabey remains in detention at an undisclosed hospital in Sichuan, and is not allowed visitors. A press release by the Kirti Monastery in exile said that his condition has improved sufficiently for him to leave the hospital, but authorities will not permit him to leave. The monk's mother had been allowed to see him in March, and she said that the Chinese authorities were pressuring him to have both his legs amputated. Tabey refused the surgery, which is almost surely for the purpose of destroying the evidence that he had been shot by security forces before being extinguished.
Images and accounts of the protest led by students of the Sangchu Tibetan Middle School on April 24 at Labrang, Amdo have escaped into freedom. Several of the photos were shown on Wednesday's broadcast of Kunleng , the Voice of America Tibetan language program. The students had gathered early on that Friday morning and began marching toward Labrang town, but were immediately surrounded by soldiers and police. A Tibetan eyewitness told the International Campaign for Tibet :> "Around 300 soldiers and police arrived immediately at the scene. Older Tibetans were begging the soldiers not to harm the students and to let them go back into the schoolyard. The school was then surrounded by armed soldiers." The students had called for freedom and democracy, return of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Tibet, and a solution to the problem of Chinese students taking college placements under the Tibetan quota. They were also objecting to a Chinese provocation in the form of an article published in the Kanlho News on April 15, which was then posted on the school bulletin board. The article was a denunciation of the Dalai Lama — a commonplace phenomenon in the Tibetan "Autonomous" Region but relatively new in Amdo. The Chinese "patriotism re-education campaign" is being implemented in the area, according to a Tibetan source in contact with local people.> "The main reason for the students' protest is that the local authorities are implementing a campaign of patriotic education and 'anti-separatism' in schools, which is strongly focused on denouncing the Dalai Lama. At the same time, many articles vilifying the Dalai Lama have been published in newspapers in the Tibetan language." An interesting term is introduced in this report, cited from an unidentified Chinese language blog. The Tibetan students are referring to the Chinese quota-jumpers as "University Entrance Exam Refugees" (a literal translation of the Chinese term used). These students wish to sit for the Tibetan exams which are designed to be slightly easier due to Tibetans' perceived lesser abilities in Chinese language. Some Chinese students will produce faked ID which shows them as Tibetan, thereby making them a sort of reverse refugee.
Another ironic aspect to this story is given by a Tibetan source. Apparently some local officials missed out on their political "awards" that day:> "What was interesting was that at the time, relevant officials from Kanlho prefecture were on their to Lanzhou to pick up an award they'd won for outstanding [political] 'stability' work, but this incident happened while they were on the road there and so cursing their luck, they had to head back!" The Kunleng broadcast (Tibetan language) can be viewed on this page by selecting the May 6 news program.
The images have been reduced to ensure no one's face could be recognized, although the video captures are blurry to begin with. I've left out two shots of younger children which were a bit too close for comfort. It's a shame we have to have such concerns — of retaliation on these kids from the Chinese Communist Party colonial administration of their country — but there you go.
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