Re: [SycamoreCanyon] ORGANIZER'S ART AND THE ROMANY TRAIL

Well, we differ directly and politely, Sam.  I wish I could say otherwise.

H


HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ 
and Ohkwari' 
www.hunterbear.org 
(much social justice material)
 
For the new, just out (11/2011) and expanded/updated
edition of my "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- 
with a new and substantial Introduction by me:
http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm
 
Our community organizing course:
http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm
 
Personal Background Narrative (with many links):
http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: [email protected] 
  To: [email protected] ; [email protected] 
  Cc: [email protected] ; [email protected] 
  Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2012 12:21 PM
  Subject: Re: [SycamoreCanyon] ORGANIZER'S ART AND THE ROMANY TRAIL


    
  Hunter, with all due respect for your past history and your current wisdom, I think that you are badly mis-estimating what is happening with Occupy.

  What I see in my local Occupy, and to some degree with OWS, and from what local people tell me about Trenton, Kansas City and some other places, is that Occupy is beginning a lot of grass-roots organizing in the fullest sense of the term. At least in some places.  

  And as you know, in these early parts of such activity, it indeed can look like it has disappeared.

  What I do not know is whether these efforts will bear fruits and, indeed, whether they will continue.

  But I have lots of good feelings about what is going on in Central New Jersey, anyway.

  I would add that when  you say the good advice was like water off a duck's back, again, you seem to me to have missed what actually took place.  People took these words to heart (or already knew it, in some cases) and are digging in.








  -----Original Message-----
  From: Hunter Gray <[email protected]>
  To: Bear Without Borders <[email protected]>
  Cc: marxist <[email protected]>; SycamoreCanyon <[email protected]>; Redbadbear <[email protected]>
  Sent: Thu, Jan 12, 2012 11:59 am
  Subject: [SycamoreCanyon] ORGANIZER'S ART AND THE ROMANY TRAIL


    
  I wrote this piece years ago -- time has run away like a jackrabbit -- and it is a component of our very long web page on community organizing.  That discourse, I'm glad to see, is being visited even more than it usually is and its stats have always been pretty good.  I hope this is one sign of hopefully many, somewhere, that there is rising interest in thoughtful and systematic activist community organizing.   I've spent my life so far doing just that, and quite successfully as well.  To hell with false modesty.  I'll happily match my record for long-distance grassroots organizing against any living person in this world. 
  I haven't heard much about Occupy lately.  It burst forth, encompassing the remarkable energy and courage of awakened youth [and others] and capturing the hopes and imagination of many.  Early on, seasoned activist veterans gently raised questions about its lack of inter and intra organizational structure and its paucity of reasonably clear short and long range goals.  As the Occupy saga proceeded, it was clear that advice was falling like water off a duck's back.  And Occupy began to dissipate.  There are undoubtedly pockets that remain, and there may be a few that are genuinely attempting to engage tangible justice issues, but most of it now strikes me as having been sand castles grounded on sand.  If it means anything, Occupy Boise, which has included a family member of ours, has shrunk to less than 15 people, camped stolidly day after day in front of the Capitol.  Some well wishers around the country hope, and maybe trust, that -- come spring -- Occupy will do the Phoenix Arise.  Well, hopefully, but I'm increasingly skeptical.  While I'm sure it's radicalized some, it's very likely also discouraged many. 
  What seems to me to be much more likely than a significant revival of Occupy, is the emergence of new social justice activism.  Hopefully, that can avoid the mistakes of Occupy -- and those of some similar, transitory flares in recent activist history -- that see turgid rhetoric [and/or ideology alone] as tangible and enduring and effective action.  I'm personally confident that new endeavor, and perhaps several of them at around the same time, will definitely emerge -- and sooner than later. 
  But now's the time to really Plan -- and to also look Beyond. 
  Hunter [Hunter Bear] 
  ORGANIZER'S ART AND THE ROMANY TRAIL   
  NOTE BY HUNTER BEAR:

  Grassroots organizing is Genesis.  Pure and simple.  It's absolutely
  critical in building the bona fide human solidarity required for effective
  security, enhancement of one's life and that of the group [large or small]
  in the immediate and relatively near future senses [on-going], and in
  creating a myriad of currents which ultimately and inevitably flow together
  at various levels and with varying breadth -- first as Movement and then as
  a conscious part of Many Movements and then into a Mighty Movement, for
  genuinely fundamental and radical systemic change.  From my little catechism
  on community organizing and related dimensions:
  http://www.hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm
  This extensive discussion has now, I'm pleased to say with no false modesty,
  been very widely reprinted and both the United States and Canada.

  "And any really healthy grassroots organizing campaign has to have a
  Vision -- one that is two dimensional: Over The Mountain Yonder, and the
  Day - To - Day needs. As I have indicated, a movement which, among other
  things, is characterized by an idea whose time has come, is a broad-based
  cause growing out of local community organizational efforts -- in turn
  inspiring and stimulating new community-based thrusts. To become a bona fide
  movement, there absolutely has to be the two-dimensional ethos and active
  life. But the purely local effort has to have the same two dimensional
  ingredients, whether it's part of a movement or by itself.

  [Something with vision only can easily wind up a small, in-grown sect;
  and something that's only day - to -day can become a tired service program.
  And when an organization has lost its way, factionalism is a sure thing
  along with the withdrawal of the local people.]

  A good Organizer's role in all of this vision-building is extremely
  critical -- especially at the outset. But it's also critical all the way
  through in conjunction with the growing awareness of the grassroots people.
  The two-dimensional vision -- Over The Mountain and Day - To -Day -- is the
  shiny idea that makes people part of a crusade and sometimes a truly great
  one. It all gives meaning to life. And sometimes, if necessary, one will die
  for it. Each of these two dimensions stimulates and feeds the other. A good
  and truly effective Organizer absolutely has to show this interconnection."
  --------------------------------------

  My oldest son, John [Beba] made this post last night 9/13/05 -- and it's
  quite on
  target.  Nothing has much changed for us material possessions-wise -- to
  this very point -- but we are incredibly rich in family [including animal
  companions] and friends.  Our current house on the far-up edge of Pocatello
  [Idaho] has proven to be a wise investment from many perspectives.  And we
  do take pride in our extensive collection of Native arts and crafts
  [including paintings] sprinkled judiciously and often inconspicuously around
  our house as well as an extensive library.

  This from Beba and then a bit more from me:

  "Speaking as the son of a lifelong organizer, I can say this.  We never
  owned a new stick of furniture.  We weren't always allowed to answer the
  phone as children because men would be on the other end saying they were
  coming to kill us.  It was not uncommon to come home from school and learn
  that we'd be moving across the country in a couple weeks.  My point being
  that we need to separate different kinds of organizers--the light load trail
  rider Shane vs. those comfortably ensconced in their settings.  Great topic,
  though!"  -- John Salter

  >From Hunter Bear, again:

  >From the historic and still very much alive Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers
  film of 1953-54, SALT OF THE EARTH, based on the 1950-52 strike against
  Empire Zinc in Grant County, New Mexico: Ruth Barnes [Virginia Jencks] on
  the life of she and her organizer husband, Frank Barnes [Clinton Jencks]:

  "Me, I'm a camp follower -- following this organizer from one mining camp to
  another -- Montana, Colorado, Idaho . . ."

  I can say I've been a working organizer virtually all of my life -- long
  before I married Eldri in 1961.  But since even then, we have lived in 16
  different settings all over the 'States. [In a number of those places, I
  worked in several different specific areas in the region.]  A good
  organizer, sooner or later, works himself/herself out of a job.
  Presumptuous as this sounds, see my little catechism:
  http://www.hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm


   "The Organizers, who at the outset may well play a very key role in the
  function and affairs of the community organization, must, on a step-by-step
  and essentially pragmatic basis, shift increasing responsibility to the
  leaders and membership of the group, to eventually:

  A] First, insure that the community organization can function effectively
  with only occasional involvement by Organizers.

  B] And then, that the community organization can function effectively
  with no involvement by Organizers to the point that, in addition to
  conducting its regular affairs, the group can "organize on its
  own" --bringing in new constituents and/or assisting other grassroots people
  in adjoining areas in setting up and conducting their own community
  organizations."

  For four years, 1969-73, I directed a large-scale grassroots community
  organizing project on the turbulent and sanguinary South/Southwest side of
  Chicago -- working primarily with Black, Puerto Rican, Chicano people "of
  the fewest alternatives".  We had a wide range of enemies: e.g., white
  racists -- organized and otherwise, the Daley Machine, Republicans, many
  [not all] police.  We were also vigorously opposed by the Back of the Yards
  Council, the first of the Saul Alinsky organizing projects.  That dinosaur
  richly exemplified two major organizing flaws: [1] top down organizing and
  [2] the fact that some organizers stayed on and refused to relinquish the
  coalition."

  For a discussion of all of this, see my: Chicago Organizing:  Tough,
  Cat-Clawing and Bloody
  http://www.hunterbear.org/chicago_organizing.htm

  And, one final time lest it's gotten lost in my verbiage:
  http://www.hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm
  ---------------------------------------
  The Internet can help -- help -- mobilize.  But it can never accomplish
  fundamentally real organizing.

  Real organizing -- the grassroots stuff -- is tough and usually tedious and
  always the hardest work there is.

  Keeps the Real Organizer usually thin and always happy.

  In Solidarity -

  Hunter [Hunter Bear]
  HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
  Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
  Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ 
  and Ohkwari' 
  www.hunterbear.org 
  (much social justice material)
   
  For the new, just out (11/2011) and expanded/updated
  edition of my "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- 
  with a new and substantial Introduction by me:
  http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm
   
  Our community organizing course:
  http://hunterbear.org/my_combined_community_organizing.htm
   
  Personal Background Narrative (with many links):
  http://hunterbear.org/narrative.htm