Talking with Phil Cubeta and AKMA this morning about enforcing the moral claims that support the resources that support local action.
The dark side of community organizing, decentralization and local action is that those who are aggregating resources are hoping that this trend continues, in order to keep energy focused at the local level and money flowing to the centre. Releasing these resources to support meaningful change, including stuff like building infrastructure in First nations communities.
In First Nations, there are actually a number of tools that help to express power and enforce claims. Access to litigation, treaty negotiation, self-government and other tools give First Nations communities leverage, but what remains unenforced is the moral claim. This is a deliberate bait and switch. It is easier to implement a political and legal claim because the tools are there. Enforcing the moral claim is more difficult. It relies on inspiring hearts across the divisions that cleave apart Canadian society.
The tool to enforce the moral obligation, to redefine of “right,” is poetry.
See also, Ernesto Cardenal, Martin Luther King, Vaclav Havel and others who wrote or spoke their truth in a way so compelling that it transcended the carefully constructed segmentation of societies.
Giving conference is happening, and we have just finished the first sessions. I attended a session offered by RuthAnn Prange who was floating the idea of convening a conference of facilitators who work for the common good.. The idea came out of her work with the Listening to the City project in New York in 2002.
Basically Ruthann’s idea is top convene a conference of facilitators who work for the common good, whether that is within business organizations, communities or elsewhere. It seems as if there is a community evolving of facilitators who do this and a gathering of some kind, perhaps evolving into a network would be a way of sharing skills, experiences, tools and honing purpose.
One metaphor we were talking about was one that came to me from astronomy. When looking through small scopes at a faint nebula, tapping the scope slightly will often resolve the structure of the body. There were a number of great conributions that went into a tentative inivtation which RuthAnn will share out with us at some point, leading towards a conference. If that interests you, or you have any ideas for her, leave a comment here or on the conference wiki page.
Chicago on the Skeena, photoshopped by GlobalChicagoAgitPropEnterprises Ltd.
Light blogging ahead. Over the mountains and off to Chicago for the Giving Conference to join folks like Michael Herman, Ashley Cooper, Jon Husband, The Happy Tutor, AKMA, Tom Munnecke, Lenore Ealy and others for three days of very interesting conversation.
If you aren’t joining us live (and why not? eh? eh?) then follow all the action on the conference wiki, or through Phil Cubeta’s postings at the GiftHub blog.
See you out there!
Michale Valpy of the Globe and Mail ran a series about a 23 year old Saskatchewan voter called Chandler. Turns out that he felt like I did on June 28.:
“Having voted, Chandler felt no satisfaction with what he’d done.
He still saw no real connection between his vote and how Canada is run. Democracy, as he said repeatedly, has different dynamics: consensus building among citizens around a specific issue; informed and well-researched submissions to civil servants and cabinet ministers; influence from lobbyists.
‘I am not drawn to electoral politics,’ he said simply.
And if you don’t vote, you can’t complain? ‘I am not impressed by that argument,’ he replied.
Knowing he’s a practising Roman Catholic (I’d driven him to mass with his grandparents), I said: ‘Look, voting is like taking part in the Eucharist; it’s a symbolic and representative act. It’s not an end in itself, because to be a Christian you’ve got to be more fully engaged in your faith, and to be a citizen you’ve got to be more fully engaged in your civic society. But the sym- bolism of the vote is important.'”
Advice from Leonardo Da Vinci, elucidating one of the reasons I keep this blog as a learning tool to support my professional practice:
OF THE MISTAKES MADE BY THOSE WHO PRACTISE WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE.
Those who are in love with practice without knowledge are like the sailor who gets into a ship without rudder or compass and who never can be certain whether he is going. Practice must always be founded on sound theory, and to this Perspective is the guide and the gateway; and without this nothing can be done well in the matter of drawing.”