Comment

Comment by Lindsay Newland Bowker on December 8, 2011 at 9:53am

"We now do crown you with the sacred emblem of the deer's antlers, the emblem of your Lordship. You shall now become a mentor of the people of the Five Nations. The thickness of your skin shall be seven spans -- which is to say that you shall be proof against anger, offensive actions and criticism. Your heart shall be filled with peace and good will and your mind filled with a yearning for the welfare of the people of the Confederacy. With endless patience you shall carry out your duty and your firmness shall be tempered with tenderness for your people. Neither anger nor fury shall find lodgement in your mind and all your words and actions shall be marked with calm deliberation. In all of your deliberations in the Confederate Council, in your efforts at law making, in all your official acts, self interest shall be cast into oblivion. Cast not over your shoulder behind you the warnings of the nephews and nieces should they chide you for any error or wrong you may do, but return to the way of the Great Law which is just and right. Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground -- the unborn of the future Nation."

Article 28 of the Constituion of the Iroquois Confederacy.

Innerstructure

Built Right in.

This particular section is the "oath of office" for the Lords of the Counsel

( A wonderful ceremony and beautiful language  too for Lords who are "disbarred" for straying from this path, betraying this trust)

Doing research for a TED project, and inspired by Jitendras call for "innerstructure" I had ocasion to reread the Iroqouis Nation  Constitution and a bit about how they governed their confederacy of 5 nations.

 

As most of us no doubt now, that Consititution and it greatr success in governance of  a large population in 5 distinct nations .  Redaing it now I see they tokk the procedures alone from the Iroquois as if the process somehow explained the great success of the Iroquois Cofederacy.  They didn't understand that it was the "innerstructure" all these values we have been talking about here at Occupy Cafe as the Heart of Sustaianable Economy of the radically different economic, social and political world we hope to co-build.  They ddnt understand the mystical balance of feminine and masculine in the Iroquois gyneocrcay (yes they are all matrilineal tribes..as wisdom, the divine feminine, was with God at creation ( according to that beuatiful psalm and our common musline,judaic,christian heitage) the women held title to all land and possessions, the women enforced this innerstructure, the women appointed or banished the Lord's of the Counsel.

The famous orator and diplomat Red Jacket was merely a "speaker of the women" carrying words written by elder woman of this tribe, a mere messenger.

Sour founding fathers took only the process of the Iroquois nation, not the true heart that made it work, its innerstructure .  They strip process only out of a beautiful "conviviocracy" also a "gyneocrcay" and  created not a democracy but an androcracay.. a boy's club for plunderers and exploiters.  That androcracy has degraded relentlessly, steadily, continuously, inevitiably  for 324 years to the "corporatocracy", the "kleptocracy"..the aburd, catastrophic extreme of the "adrocracy" that brought us to this precipice.

May the Great Spirit somehow come alive in us in time to lead us back from the edge. 

Comment by Pawel Klewin on December 6, 2011 at 4:52pm

“The purpose of Occupy Cafe is to serve and expand the Occupy movement and to support the conversation it has ignited into the wider world”. 

As the front man of the wider world here I posted some questions to Let's Get the Problem Definition Right, flabbergasted at no interest in the discussion there.

Comment by Lindsay Newland Bowker on December 6, 2011 at 11:33am

Once upon a time

"A long time ago, in this galaxy but far, far away... the sky is packed with bright stars and glowing nebulae, far denser than today's tame heavens. But this scene is not to last. A great curving wave of stars picks up the solar system like a scrap of flotsam, sweeping it out into the empty galactic fringes, far from its forgotten homeland."

 

This from current New Scientists felt somehow grounding to the work we are trying to takeup together..to the odds we work against.

 

Comment by Lindsay Newland Bowker on December 5, 2011 at 2:53pm

Thought of a simpler way to express the above.

people got addicted to the benefits of what we advocated for and achieved..but they never attached, to internalized , the underlying/ implied values.  So there never really was a true "innerstructure" in what we achieved ( and have now lost and are still losing inch by inch every day) 

Comment by Lindsay Newland Bowker on December 5, 2011 at 10:37am

Jitendra,

You are right that local initiatives aren't yet feeding or changing the  big system..because the big system..all of us the 99% are still feeding the corporatocracy tapeworm by consuming more than we can afford ( iei incurring debt again)..look at the Black Friday Sales!!!

Last time around..my time on watch over 3 decades we did it wrong I think..we advocates for human dignity ( freedom from poverty, freedom from hunger, safe and santiary housing, clean air, clean water, child protection , banking consumer protection etc. etc. were top down..we adocates were lobbyists..we added these layers  but the values they express never were the "innertructure of the nation"   .

People only know and feel the circumstances in their lives..they unite nationally as the 99% only on a few things like "millionaires should pay their fair share of taxes" or "too many subsidies and tax breaks for the rich:"..they don't feel a betrayal of any core values shared by the 99% beyond that.

The key to the inside out transformation is to discover a true innerstucture and govern from that..build that into our constitution..it was never there you know.

Do Americans consider the dignity of every living person a national priority?  Do they consider  it as given that  some may always require governemnet programs and asistance or some form of support beyond means ( in whatever form that comes?)  My sense is no.  the 99% just wants things to be like they were..they want the higher standard of living , the standard beyond their means that is only possible.  If we are going to build a transformation..we have to start with these realities and the realities of what is about to happen to all of us when the next derivatives bubble bursts.

I think Gail points to osmething valid with her "teach-ins"..I don't know if teach ins are a way to connect the dots but our work right now is connecting the dots.helping people to connect the dots themselves.  Right now they can't make that connecton between their lives in New Hampshire and the Keystone Pipeline.

Comment by David Eggleton on December 5, 2011 at 10:14am

Jitendra,

I am not coming from the mindset of making the world a better place, as did many of those nice projects you mentioned.  I am striving for the reversals that can restore a life affirming balance.

Comment by David Eggleton on December 4, 2011 at 11:18pm

Consumers of stuff from anywhere and everywhere, and of services performed by specialists, practically all are trapped in the idea that it's feasible to live in and have effects on the world.

Freedom is right outside that idea!  Contemplate human scale and living systems.

Comment by Kerry Lindsey on December 4, 2011 at 11:13pm

When I think about how we go about making real change in the system, (other than doing our personal work and nudging the big game closer to the tipping point), I feel like I'm in a surreal movie like Inception or the Adjustment Bureau......having to play chess on a 3 dimensional chess board when all  I've ever played on is a normal board.  I suspect that in some cases we can't fix anything, that we just have to create the new along side the old so that people have a choice.  Feels like a pretty huge task...but like a kid stepping up to that threshold, I do feel a sense of excitement as well. (kinda like the first time I jumped off a cliff with a hang glider. I suspect if we weren't up to the task, we wouldn't be here now.

Comment by Jitendra Darling on December 4, 2011 at 10:24pm

I think I understand what you're aiming at, David—not certain.  Are you saying we can measure our effect by our present experience in our immediate surroundings?

My question regarding effect is aimed at larger time-frames relative to sustainable large scale systemic changes.  Let's say I've made measurable changes in my community and impacted quite a few lives in dramatic ways. Maybe I founded a homeless center and cleaned up drugs on six street corners and started a community garden with a wind turbine in place of a scarecrow.

Can I tell the degree to which I am making an impact on the whole?  Actually, all of those things I just listed, as you know, have taken place over and over again in many communities with varying levels of success and longevity over the course of many years.  They certainly make local impacts on the surface.

My question for contemplation is this: To what degree have these immediate "controllable" changes impacted meta systems, to date, as a whole (i.e.-economic structures at large, social justice at large, etc.)? 

So far, corporate energy, corporate food, corporate land seizures, corporate police, corporate congress, corporate control has actually been going backwards (relative to improving freedoms and justice).  The question on every occupiers lips, whether conscious or not, is "How do we actually change this system?"

I have noticed that small scale changes tend to be contained.  They get to a certain level where they seem to magically lose steam, get diverted, co-opted or simply plateau.  I strongly suspect this is by design at a higher level of organization invisible to most of the masses.  Conspiracy?  That's one way of putting it.  I think it's more like chess masters playing against rank novices.  My uncle was a highly accomplished chess player.  Playing against a high level opponent will make you swear they're getting inside information or somehow reading your mind.  We simply have not achieved a framework for understanding the nuances of strategy nor the experience from having encountered endlessly more scenarios and responses.

The "conspiracy" we face re: dominators of the world has more to do with an exponentially more complete understanding of the rules of the system, coupled with the power to adjust those rules of the system to accommodate their will as they go along, along with a fairly coherent idea of where they want to end up. 

Acknowledging this does not a victim make.  Ignoring, complaining or collapsing in the face of this game makes victims of us.  There is also  outright exploitation and overpowering that makes bona fide victims (human slavery).  That gives us, who still have a wide range of choice, that much more responsibility to change the game.

I say all of this to come back to the illusion we can sometimes adopt of making a difference, not realizing that difference is allowed within a prescribed domain to pacify change instigators.  However, we are exposing the edges and boundaries of control, making them more visible day by day.

All this considered, we need to be sober and grounded in our assessments of just what, and to what extent, change is actually being implemented, to what depth changes we see have actually penetrated.

This is one reason encampments were allowed initially to exist to a point. When they reached the edge of what was deemed by a certain cadre safely allowable, they were shut down—in concert, globally, in the same manner, with the same tactics. 

I recommend we, Occupy participants/brain stormers, step way back to get as high a perspective as possible.  To get as much of the playing field, in as many dimensions as is accessible, into view.  Study the system with all its feeders and drivers.  Understand the core dynamics in play before another significant move is made.  Blind rebelliousness, even informed rebelliousness, is still coming from a place that is less powerful than is required to make the shift we envision. 

rEvolution comes from a different place.  It moves toward rather than away from; it's an embrace more than a resistance.  It digests and incorporates all that has come before.  Certain things do die, but rarely at a significant scale without taking the bulk of the living system with it. 

I don't believe we want to kill the existing system, we need to heal it.  Of course, we need to assess what "the system" actually is.  What we call the system is actually a tangle of principles, regulation and human attitude. 

Why has nonviolence been the hallmark of the most memorable and significant movements?  I'd say it's our own consciousness registering the signpost most appropriate/useful to follow.

"I don't know." is my current answer to my own question regarding the extent of my influence to change a system. The gap between the theoretical answer and what we actualize is the territory we now traverse. This is the grand experiment—exploring the parameters/potential/possibility of our evolving personal and collective creative capacity and influence. 

I see we are children at varying stages of development, stepping up to the threshold of the manifest world and wondering what is possible, in our bodies, now. 

Comment by David Eggleton on December 4, 2011 at 9:03pm

"The question that emerges is then, To what degree am I a conscious and deliberate influence in my world?  What is the range and scope of my effect?  How/can I be sure?"

How about more today, around here, than yesterday?  How about by observing, around here, and by listening to feedback from neighbors?

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