[P2P-F] [NetworkedLabour] [Networkedlabour] Another Politics - After Syriza

Tue Feb 3 00:01:12 CET 2015

Glad to see Bob H. cc ed in.

I look forward for us to enable greater situational awareness ,
understanding (inter)dependencies ,

having further individual capacity to make choices regarding the "code" /
contracts
we want to suggest , and the ones each of us wants to contribute to.

Through deconstruction / reconstruction.

For now, many of us still depend more or less on certain social contracts,
including those related to the contracts of / and leading to credit
creation as monetary units.

Each having their externalities , which can be better visualized , with the
potential for additional layers of context creation, metadata creation (
and alternative social contracts suggested ) ...
in my view, if and when we start using semantic technologies.

Also see some projects converging here :

https://www.loomio.org/g/exAKrBUp/openapp

and a presentation by Seth, Helene and co on one of the concepts which to
some extent share an understanding with other projects I like to interact
with

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/156YzIeH-eoYFl9nMzFxofQ55KVoksqusS0pYYL4WVaA/edit?pli=1#slide=id.g121aaf830_00

Best
Dante

On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 12:54 AM, P2P Foundation mailing list <
p2p-foundation at lists.ourproject.org> wrote:

> Probably I am the worse in that sense. I mean tempering my fluctuating
> enthusiasms, is not my strong side, but I can be very agree with you Bob,
> and Anna on the points you make.
>
> May be there is also a phycological or personality wise labour division we
> are in need of, between femininity and masculinity, modesty and pride, ego
> and id..
>
> What is certain though is that not everyone will reach at a certain level
> of wiseness, self- and general awareness, consciousness at the same time,
> and even one reach there it is hard to get it stabile -at least under this
> mode of production or for me :)
>
> but sure, this is something that was causing, from the agency side, so
> much trouble in terms of getting somewhere, understand in each other, and
> standing together. The worse thing is that is doesn't matter who is saying
> these words, like me myself, the same person can be the one loosing her his
> awareness-less at most. what makes difference is if he or she holding a
> point in power structure or network -like me moderating of this list
> (although i do not own the server where the list is hosted :)) can be the
> one bullying. And sometimes people doing this kinds of things can be ones
> doing this out of worry, they grow in their minds our of ignorance, so
> futile worries, for protective purpose. But sometimes these kind of
> behaviors are hard core elements established and there to stay.
>
> Anyway, there were at one point a reference to molecular, radical inner
> chance -as part of changing whole at community, societal, and global
> levels- may be what is happening or needs to get stronger these days is the
> emergence of new form of social labour division, distributed in a way it
> transcends artificial borders dividing social relations by identities like
> gender, class, geographies, ethnicities so on. those border that are built
> to reproduce disempowerment.
>
> p2p, cooperation, commons,... the more intensified and open the exchange
> between people is the more possible to realize such labour division. and to
> develop awareness of our awareness of how these borders being built,
> function, and overcome.
>
>
>
> Anna,
>
> I appreciate when people temper their enthusiasm with experience. I see
> too many people being unwilling to critically reflect on their enthusiasms.
>
> Thank you,
> Bob
>
> On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 12:39 PM, Anna Harris <anna at shsh.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> After my enthusiastic foray into Otto Scharma's U.Lab I have to report
>> that I found it another liberal attempt to encourage people to become
>> 'change makers', supporting them in a self blaming exercise, where fear
>> and greed are seen as the problems of our social dis/ease, without linking
>> this to social and economic pressures.
>>
>> Some good ideas of deep listening, connecting head, heart and will,
>> moving from ego to Eco, focussing on what is emerging, but falling short of
>> a radical critique which could reveal the enormity of the task in hand.
>>
>> Going beyond the shift in consciousness required to let go of old habits
>> of thinking, takes us to an unexplored place on the edge of what we know.
>> Few are willing to go there, because everywhere we judge, and we are
>> judged, by what we know. In this culture ruled by science, there does not
>> seem to be any room or any relevance for not knowing. Yet I persist in
>> trying to bring it to the attention of those on this email list.
>>
>> Anna
>>
>>
>>
>> On 28 Jan 2015, at 10:57, Anna Harris <anna at shsh.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>   A very different answer to the same question from Otto Scharma :
>>
>>
>> [–]rodneyrod <http://www.reddit.com/user/rodneyrod> 6 points 6 days ago
>>
>> Otto, as you have worked with change makers across the globe where have
>> you seen the most resistance/discomfort in people as they attempt to enter
>> the "presencing" stage of listening? How can those observations assist us
>> as we open this journey to others?
>>
>>    - perma-link
>>    <http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2t6gy3/iama_a_senior_lecturer_at_the_mit_sloan_school_of/cnw57t3>
>>
>> [–]OttoScharmer <http://www.reddit.com/user/OttoScharmer>[S
>> <http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2t6gy3/iama_a_senior_lecturer_at_the_mit_sloan_school_of/>
>> ] 5 points 6 days ago
>>
>> i have found that most people who, regardless of their sector, are
>> exposed to real world change, and have to hold the space for people related
>> changes (or are exposed to the creative process one way or another) are
>> already well prepared to drop to these deeper levels of operating. so where
>> is it not the case? with people who are stuck in powerpoints worlds of
>> headquarters and politics--sometimes also people that are just very remote
>> of real reality, like old style academia... but overall i am VERY surprised
>> how significant the readiness for these deeper levels are --although that
>> readiness is usually not conscious (yet)
>>
>>    - perma-link
>>    <http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2t6gy3/iama_a_senior_lecturer_at_the_mit_sloan_school_of/cnw5gks>
>>    - parent
>>    <http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2t6gy3/iama_a_senior_lecturer_at_the_mit_sloan_school_of/#cnw57t3>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 5:01 PM, P2P Foundation mailing list <
>> p2p-foundation at lists.ourproject.org> wrote:
>>
>>> hi Anna,
>>>
>>> At the p2p foundation we stress personal and interpersonal change and
>>> facilitation, but at the same time, we have to be realistic in this, what
>>> is already possible but very difficult in small groups of committed people
>>> may not be possible for society at large ... For understanding this, and
>>> though I'm critical of the authoritarian interpretations of that tradition,
>>> the integral psychology of clare graves remains fundamental ..
>>>
>>> Detailed studies by Susan Cook-Greuters have determined that at most 2%
>>> of the population have integrative consciousness, with 30% more or less
>>> having this as a aspirational consciousness ..
>>>
>>> I take great comfort in the growth of participative culture and skills
>>> now evident in the new mutualized working spaces  but this is far from
>>> being the general culture ..
>>>
>>> Again, referring to the scheme of John Heron, I would say that for the
>>> greater masses, we are at the potential change of stage 2 to 3, with
>>> significant minorities at four ..
>>>
>>> so here is how I see it:
>>>
>>> * develop fully participative cultures for mature peer producing
>>> communities
>>>
>>> * develop deeper participative potentialities for the aspirational parts
>>> of the population (active citizenship)
>>>
>>> * embed participative process in the general social technology of our
>>> time, to upgrade the general culture ..
>>>
>>> A lot then further depends on the relative positioning of scarcity vs
>>> abundance dynamics ...
>>>
>>> for abundance context, the generalization of peer governance is very
>>> realistic
>>>
>>> for scarcity contexts, the choice between hierarchical,
>>> democratic-representative, and market-driven allocation mechanisms remains
>>> entirely open
>>>
>>> see for example how the wikipedia re-introduced a rather toxic
>>> bureaucracy by re-introducing artificial scarcity ... (notability
>>> requirements to be decide by elite editors)
>>>
>>> just today, I am involved in a frustrating dialogue with a feminist
>>> activist who did not even want to share even excerpts of her book on
>>> 'moneyless living' .. in other words, she is creating a artificial scarcity
>>> of her own book, that is technically freely copyable, in order to 'swap' it
>>> in exchange for something else  ... reproducing the artificial scarcities
>>> in so-called advanced milieus ... moneyless living for those that have the
>>> money to buy it ..
>>>
>>> I'm sure you can find similar contradictions in all of us, including me
>>> ..
>>>
>>> in conclusion, we are not ready to shed relative domination processes
>>> for any pure egalitarianism any time soon,
>>>
>>> Michel
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 1:05 PM, Anna Harris <anna at shsh.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Amid all the euphoria in celebrating the Greek landslide, and following
>>>> Michel's integrative approach, the points in the article below need to be
>>>> emphasised. We all carry within us the wounds of oppression however much we
>>>> feel we have cast them aside, and they will surface again in the new post
>>>> capitalist structures unless we put some focus individually and
>>>> collectively on healing ourselves and becoming whole.
>>>>
>>>> 'the wounding through oppression that we all experience shows up in our
>>>> organizing, and have permeated organizational culture except where the
>>>> influence of feminists and others committed to transformational work has
>>>> created a different way of creating structure, that prioritizes a strategy
>>>> and collective struggle rooted in healing and wholeness.'
>>>>
>>>> Pauli Friere spoke about this in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
>>>>
>>>> What does that mean? How do we do that? Often it seems there isn't time
>>>> to go into this now, let's get into power first, then we can see to these
>>>> issues. That's when the multitude becomes an instrument, and arguments
>>>> between hierarchy and horizontality appear to be abstract concepts with no
>>>> people involved.
>>>>
>>>> How do we become more fully human in our relationships with each other?
>>>> What makes it particularly difficult is that there is no ready made formula
>>>> - follow these steps and you will get there. No. This is a step into the
>>>> unknown. But that also makes it an exciting exploration.
>>>>
>>>> Anna
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 25 Jan 2015, at 11:38, P2P Foundation mailing list <
>>>> p2p-foundation at lists.ourproject.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> https://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/andrew-willis-garc%C3%A
>>>> 9s/another-politics%E2%80%94from-anticolonial-to-occupy
>>>>
>>>> *Another Politics-from anti-colonial to Occupy*
>>>> *Chris Dixon's new book identifies four principles that underpin the
>>>> success of transformative social movements.*
>>>>
>>>> Andrew Willis Garcés 7 January 2015
>>>>
>>>> [This article originally appeared in* Waging Nonviolence*.]
>>>>
>>>> Seven years ago I worked at a tenant and worker organizing group in
>>>> Washington, D.C. We referred to ourselves as a "movement-building"
>>>> organization, but weren't always clear what we meant by that. One evening I
>>>> was out door-knocking with one of our members, James, an African American
>>>> man in his 50s. He asked me about a conference some of us had attended in
>>>> Atlanta the previous week, the U.S. Social Forum.
>>>>
>>>> "What was the big theme there that stuck out to you?" he asked.
>>>>
>>>> It was a good question. At that moment, the DJ Unk song "Walk It Out"
>>>> was booming from a nearby car.
>>>>
>>>> "Well, I was most impressed by the groups that really try to walk out
>>>> their beliefs-connecting all the dots between racism, capitalism, even
>>>> imperialism, and the inner work we have to do as people to overcome the
>>>> things we've learned."
>>>>
>>>> I explained more about what that meant to me.
>>>>
>>>> He shook his head, amused.
>>>>
>>>> "That's a tall order!" He thought about it a little more. "When will we
>>>> get time for all that?"
>>>>  That tall order is the subject of Chris Dixon's book* Another
>>>> Politics,* newly released by University of California Press. The
>>>> product of dozens of interviews conducted with community organizers over
>>>> the last decade, the book is an excellent distillation of what Dixon calls
>>>> "another politics," a shared political orientation that unites grassroots
>>>> organizers working from similar principles in the United States and Canada
>>>> across issue, movement, sector, strategy and identity.
>>>>
>>>> Through the interviews, he identifies four core principles that unite
>>>> left "anti-authoritarian" organizers across different "strands" of
>>>> struggle, transcending traditional notions of issue-based organization:
>>>>
>>>> . being against domination of all kinds;
>>>>
>>>> . prioritizing the development of new social relations and forms of
>>>> social organization in the process of struggle;
>>>>
>>>> . linking struggles for improvements in people's lives to long-term
>>>> transformative visions; and
>>>>
>>>> . grassroots organizing from the bottom-up.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> In regards to these different strands, he writes, "We braid them
>>>> together as we work collectively and build relationships across politics,
>>>> campaigns and movements: anarchist labor organizers draw on analytical
>>>> frameworks from women of color feminism; radical queer activists use
>>>> community-based models for dealing with violence, developed by anti-racist
>>>> feminists and prison abolitionists."
>>>>
>>>> He explores how Occupy Wall Street, anti-colonial movements, and
>>>> INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, among other groups, have
>>>> contributed to developing "another politics" across decades.
>>>>
>>>> Dixon digs even deeper, characterizing organizations practicing
>>>> "another politics" as being explicit about their "collective refusal" of
>>>> oppression-specifically, as incorporating "the four anti's" of :
>>>> anti-authoritarianism; anti-capitalism; anti-oppression; and
>>>> anti-imperialism, into their work. This left me wondering how some
>>>> organizations might "fit" this taxonomy-what if your group has a handle on
>>>> economic exploitation, for instance, but relies on charismatic leadership?
>>>>
>>>> But Dixon is nevertheless clear about organizations that he sees as
>>>> practicing "another politics," and the book is most compelling when he
>>>> recounts movement-building victories, like the story of Canada's multi-city
>>>> immigrant rights group* No One is Illegal*:
>>>>
>>>> "In a stunning December 2007 action, some 2,000 people, largely South
>>>> Asian, blockaded the Vancouver International Airport to stop Singh's
>>>> impending deportation. And starting with an 'Education Not Deportation'
>>>> campaign in 2006, NOII-Toronto launched a multi-year fight for Toronto to
>>>> become a solidarity city, where all people can access city services
>>>> regardless of immigration status. Organizing across sectors and services,
>>>> they finally won in 2013."
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  Dixon also uses the book to highlight "ideas rarely in writing,"
>>>> exploring dynamics of movement-building organization that don't get much
>>>> print. For instance, he writes about the process of integrating not just
>>>> issue lenses but our whole selves-creating community and organization that
>>>> operates at the speed of the whole.
>>>>
>>>> As Dixon writes,  "recognizing and deliberately fostering feelings and
>>>> relationships as essential ingredients for transformative struggle" is
>>>> still not a widespread practice, and he points out that this is not a new
>>>> phenomenon, as the Black Panthers and Student Nonviolent Coordinating
>>>> Committee also sought "to develop common expectations about how people
>>>> should treat one another."
>>>>
>>>> Continuing this thread, he also counts as emergent practices among
>>>> "another politics" practitioners, forms of organizing that affirm families
>>>> and domestic and reproductive work simultaneously with challenging systemic
>>>> inequity, and moving beyond an individual-focused anti-oppression politics.
>>>>
>>>> Dixon and the people he interviews point out that the wounding through
>>>> oppression that we all experience shows up in our organizing, and have
>>>> permeated organizational culture except where the influence of feminists
>>>> and others committed to transformational work has created a different way
>>>> of creating structure, that prioritizes a strategy and collective struggle
>>>> rooted in healing and wholeness. This increasing focus on wholeness and
>>>> wellness, seen in the recent popularity of integrating somatics and other
>>>> healing disciplines into community organizing, can only make us more adept
>>>> at building a broader and more resilient web of movements.
>>>>
>>>> And Dixon helps unpack the challenges unique to movement-building
>>>> organizations, which, he says, must move towards specific victories and
>>>> goals, while also moving through a process that creates new ways of being,
>>>> doing and relating, that avoid replicating oppressive practices. All while
>>>> avoiding "ruts" common to anti-authoritarian groups, like knee-jerk
>>>> non-hierarchy, and the "burn bright, burn out" cycle of organizations that
>>>> rise and fall quickly.
>>>>
>>>> Dixon illustrates this point with a fantastic metaphor offered by
>>>> Project South's Steph Guillioud, comparing different forms of organization
>>>> to different kinds of cars suited to particular functions:
>>>>
>>>> "The variations in vehicles don't change the map, they don't change the
>>>> road, they don't change the need for people to drive and people in the back
>>>> or the people moving it. We will always have and need the people who can
>>>> push it and the people that can work on the insides, the people who can
>>>> never get a ride, et cetera."
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> It's rare to find a book on social movements written explicitly for
>>>> people with less academic credentials than its author. Dixon, who wrote the
>>>> book for a PhD program, takes care to explain terms as they come up; he
>>>> doesn't assume we know about ethnography ("analyzing lived culture while
>>>> experiencing it"). And he gives his interviewees plenty of airtime to put
>>>> their own spin on, for instance, "affective organizing," which becomes "not
>>>> being a fucking asshole," in the wonderfully succinct words of Bay Area
>>>> activist Harjit Singh Gill.
>>>>
>>>> Still, the number of concepts he introduces feels overwhelming at
>>>> times, and I longed for a glossary or flow chart when concepts like
>>>> "non-instrumental organizing" popped up (which, it's worth noting, refers
>>>> to the analysis and strategies people can create when they come together in
>>>> dialogue and struggle as peers, as opposed to treating people as
>>>> instruments to be manipulated, or pieces on a figurative chess board to
>>>> mobilize toward a predetermined end).
>>>>
>>>> "Anti-authoritarian," then, could be shorthand for "principled
>>>> organizing"-organizing that gets down to the roots, that refuses to settle
>>>> for electing a slightly better candidate, for selling out our potential
>>>> allies to scoop up a superficial win, or that sees the path to victory as
>>>> anything less than the destination itself.
>>>>
>>>> Towards the end of the book, I was reminded of my exchange that day
>>>> with James. Clearly, as Dixon demonstrates, there are mixed-class
>>>> organizations that make time for individual and collective healing
>>>> practices, for skillshares and strategy seminars, for discussion groups,
>>>> for intentionally developing and evaluating leadership, and for developing
>>>> organizational structure. But increasingly, as people are forced to work
>>>> longer hours for lower incomes, I have to wonder: How are organizations
>>>> adapting to support their people to do more with less?
>>>>
>>>> I longed for more detail on what day-to-day life is like for an
>>>> organizer in the six specifically-chosen cities from which Dixon chose his
>>>> interview subjects. What does it look like to practice "another politics"
>>>> in Atlanta, for instance? It's worth asking, given that the book is
>>>> structured around questions like, "How can we most productively manifest
>>>> our visions through our organizing work?" Like a good organizing mentor,
>>>> Dixon (and his interviewees) gives us insight without "right" answers,
>>>> helping to deepen our understanding of commonalities and remind us of the
>>>> deep roots of the "another politics" leftist lineage.
>>>>
>>>>  ((((((  )))))
>>>>
>>>> *Andrew Willis Garcés* works with Training for Change and has led
>>>> trainings for immigrant activists in several US states on campaign strategy
>>>> and civil disobedience. Read more of his work at www.porvida.org/.
>>>>  _______________________________________________
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> NetworkedLabour mailing list
>>>> NetworkedLabour at lists.contrast.org
>>>> http://lists.contrast.org/mailman/listinfo/networkedlabour
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
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