How Indigenous Forms of Governance Can Improve Our Modern World

Ardoch Algonquin Chief Robert Lovelace helps us re-imagine society’s relationship to nature

Indigenous cultures are complex knowledge systems that utilize energy, food security, transportation and communications in balance with natural systems. Understanding how indigenous economies, as well as social and cultural systems work can help bend the curve against the prospects of social, environmental and economic failure.

Present governance structures conform little to environmental or ecosystem realities. For the most part, political boundaries were created to serve colonial settlement, resource extraction and industrial manufacturing while denaturing ecosystems and limiting environmentally appropriate governance. Faced with overexploitation of resources, ecosystem degradation, contamination of soils and water and climate change, the people of North America need to re-imagine how we connect to the earth. Ecosystem appropriate governance is a step in the right direction. We also need to ensure economic, social and cultural practices work with natural replenishment cycles rather than against them.

Language is the “signature” of culture. How we speak to one another, how we describe and discuss the world in which we live, determines our success in relating to the world. Indigenous knowledge systems are reflections of empirical interaction with the earth, rational discovery, symbolic imagery and social reinforcement, directed toward a deep understanding of the local. Indigenous languages are verb-based rather than using nouns as the foundation for communication as we do in English. If we simply want to acquire “things,” then the structure of our present language works fine. If we want to relate with the world, make appropriate ecological choices, and rebuild collapsing environments then we need to learn, think and create in action words. We need to live within dynamic eco-natural processes to live well together.

– ROBERT LOVELACE

Professor Robert Lovelace, retired Chief of the Ardoch Algonquin First Nation, has decoded elements of aboriginal governance that are key to re-indigenizing the commons. Lovelace presented part of his work at the Great Lakes Commons Gathering. Excerpted from “Kosmos magazine.”

Editor: Another chapter in Celebrating the Commons: People Stories and Ideas for the New Year from Commons Magazine being presented each Sunday at EYNU.

"Amy Goodman sits down with AOL/PBS filmmakers to talk about her longtime career in journalism, building Democracy Now! over the past 17 years, and how independent media is essential to the functioning of a democratic society."

Yes, this woman is one of the very good people. Democracy Now! streaming every weekday. Where real journalism can be found.

I Have A Dream - I Have A Drone

captured on the internet . . .

If M.L. King Jr.'s assassination knocked the wind out of the human movements of his lifetime, let's think about going directly "back" to him for the most effective way forward. Below comes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last book of essays, “The Trumpet of Conscience,” 1968: This from “Nonviolence and Social Change”:

"…Of course, by now it is obvious that new laws are not enough. The emergency we now face is economic, and it is a desperate and worsening situation. For the 35 million poor people in America—not even to mention, just yet, the poor in other nations—there is a kind of strangulation in the air. In our society it is murder, psychologically, to deprive a man of a job or an income. You are in substance saying to that man that he has no right to exist. You are in a real way depriving him of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, denying in his case the very creed of his society. Now, millions of people are being strangled that way. The problem is international in scope. And it is getting worse, as the gap between the poor and the ‘affluent society’ increases.

The question that now divides the people who want radically to change that situation is: can a program of nonviolence—even if it envisions massive civil disobedience—realistically expect to deal with such an enormous, entrenched evil?

…I intend to show that nonviolence will be effective, but not until it has achieved the massive dimensions, the disciplined planning, and the intense commitment of a sustained, direct-action movement of civil disobedience on the national scale….

…The only real revolutionary, people say, is a man who has nothing to lose. There are millions of poor people in this country who have very little, or even nothing, to lose. If they can be helped to take action together, they will do so with a freedom and a power that will be a new and unsettling force in our complacent national life.

Beginning in the New Year, we will be recruiting three thousand of the poorest citizens from ten different urban and rural areas to initiate and lead a sustained, massive, direct-action movement in Washington, D.C. Those who choose to join this initial three thousand, this nonviolent army, this ‘freedom church’ of the poor, will work with us for three months to develop nonviolent action skills. Then we will move on Washington, determined to stay there until the legislative and executive branches of the government take serious and adequate action on jobs and income.

A delegation of poor people can walk into a high official’s office with a carefully, collectively prepared list of demands. (If you’re poor, if you’re unemployed anyway, you can choose to stay in Washington as long as the struggle needs you.) And if that official says, ‘But Congress would have to approve this,’ or, ‘But the President would have to be consulted on that,’ you can say, ‘All right, we’ll wait.’ And you can settle down in his office for as long a stay as necessary.

If you are, let’s say, from rural Mississippi, and have never had medical attention, and your children are undernourished and unhealthy, you can take those little children into the Washington hospitals and stay with them there until the medical workers cope with their needs, and in showing it your children, you will have shown this country a sight that will make it stop in its busy tracks and think hard about what it has done.

The many people who will come and join this three thousand, from all groups in the country’s life, will play a supportive role, deciding to be poor for a time along with the dispossessed who are asking for their right to jobs or income—jobs, income, the demolition of slums, and the rebuilding by the people who live there of new communities in their place; in fact, a new economic deal for the poor.

…I have said that the problem, the crisis we face, is international in scope. In fact, it is inseparable from an international emergency that involves the poor, the dispossessed, and the exploited of the whole world.

Can a nonviolent, direct-action movement find application on the international level, to confront economic and political problems? I believe it can. It is clear to me that the next stage of the movement is to become international.

National movements within the developed countries—forces that focus on London, or Paris, or Washington, or Ottawa—must help to make it politically feasible for their governments to undertake the kind of massive aid that the developing countries need if they are to break the chains of poverty. We in the West must bear in mind that the poor countries are poor primarily because we have exploited them through political or economic colonialism. Americans in particular must help their nation repent of her modern economic imperialism.

But movements in our countries alone will not be enough….So many of Latin America’s problems have roots in the United States of America that we need to form a solid, united movement, nonviolently conceived and carried through, so that pressure can be brought to bear on the capital and government power structures concerned, from both sides of the problem at once. I think that may be the only hope for a nonviolent solution in Latin America today; and one of the most powerful expressions of nonviolence may come out of that international coalition of socially aware forces, operating outside governmental frameworks.

…In practice, such a decision would represent such a major reordering of priorities that we should not expect that any movement could bring it about in one year or two. Indeed, although it is obvious that nonviolent movements for social change must internationalize, because of the interlocking nature of the problems they all face, and because otherwise those problems will breed war, we have hardly begun to build the skills and the strategy, or even the commitment, to planetize our movement for social justice.

…In this world, nonviolence is no longer an option for intellectual analysis: it is an imperative for action."

Source: Commenter DrJack37 within Common Dreams post

Editor: 43 years later, the numbers of poor, displaced and exploited have skyrocketed - otherwise little has changed.

Words Matter

Re-humanization: A Glossary of Terms

by William Manson via Dissident Voice

DE-HUMANIZED?:

• Avaricious (adj.)—“grasping, acquisitive, covetous, mercenary”
• Bourgeois (adj.)– “selfishly materialistic… greedy, acquisitive, banal, conformist, philistine, capitalist (middle-class)”
• Corruption (n.)—“moral deterioration, decay… venality”
• Ignoble (adj.)—“dishonorable, mean, base”
• Inhuman (adj.)—“brutal, unfeeling… vicious”
• Joyless (adj.)—“depressed, gloomy… dreary”
• Neurotic (adj.)—“suffering from anxiety, obsessions, compulsive acts”
• Philistine (n.)—“vulgarian, yahoo”; (adj.)—“materialistic, unread”
• Robot (n.)—“person who works mechanically but insensitively”
• Soulless (adj.)—“lacking sensitivity or noble qualities”
• Vice (n.)—“defect of character… transgression, shortcoming”

RE-HUMANIZED?:

• Aesthetic (adj.)—“sensitive to beauty”
• Exuberant (adj.)—“buoyant, spirited, zestful”
• Free (adj.)—“independent, self-governing… unconstrained”
• Humane (adj.)—“benevolent, compassionate”
• Integrity (n.)—“honor, rectitude… wholeness”
• Magnanimous (adj.)—“nobly generous: not petty in feelings or conduct”
• Meditative (adj.)—“thoughtful, reflective”
• Natural (adj.)—“uncultivated, wild… inherent, innate… spontaneous”
• Romantic (adj.)—“imaginative, visionary, idealistic”
• Sagacious (adj.)—“showing insight, good judgment or wisdom”
• Sincere (adj.)—“free from pretense or deceit… unfeigned, open”
• “Soul” (human; n.)—“essential… moral, emotional, or intellectual nature”

SOURCE: The Oxford Desk Dictionary

Where Are the Off Buttons?

Anyone who has followed the politics of Encinitas knows about the speakers, citizen and elected, who cannot edit themselves. They drone on and on and choose to speak repeatedly. The biggest disappointment is that content rarely warrants the extra time. With high hopes that a new council would set the stage for terse, informative speech (perfected in the campaigns) and high hopes that the community activists who long hoped for a respectful council finally had a new governing body; the last month has been depressing. (This isn't about staff presentations, a subject for another day.)

The following guidelines from Do You Suffer from SME Info Dump Syndrome? by Brad Shore is offered as a perception framework for the goal of edited speaking. Some word substitutions were made to fit a public sector audience versus a private company.

Not long ago I was with some people (normal people, that is – ones who don’t sit in front of a computer screen 24/7) and someone mentioned something in passing about blogs. In no time, I was waxing eloquent about RSS feeds, the appeal of interactive marketing, and the merits of WordPress over competing blog platforms. I was so wrapped up in my oration that I barely noticed that several of my companions had gone to refill their drinks, and the few who remained had their eyes glazed over.

Yes, the shocking reality took hold – I am in the early stages of Subject Matter Expert Information Dump Syndrome (SMEIDS). Luckily for this post, I had made the diagnosis in time. In the latter stages of the disease, victims are no longer aware of their propensity to drone on endlessly about subjects of no interest to their listeners.

The symptoms of SMEIDS include boredom, irritation, and hostility – in listeners. The cure? Remembering that people have their own enthusiasms. In the absence of strong indications to the contrary, assume those enthusiasms are different than yours.

[ . . . ]

If you are an SMEIDS sufferer, there is hope, I hope. I’ve begun limiting my conversation about blogs and social media to short phrases. So far, the news is good. People I’m talking to in meetings do not seem to be falling asleep as quickly as usual. In time, I anticipate a complete recovery.

. . .  Early Warning Signs of SMEIDS
If you are suspect you have SMEIDS, look over this checklist. If you answer “yes” to more than three questions, seek help immediately.

• Do your [online comments] average more than 750 words?
• Are your emails often three paragraphs or more, even in response to yes/no questions?
• Have you ever used the phrase, “Please allow me to explain”?
• Do you ever feel you are not connecting with [others]?
• Do you often find yourself thinking, [others] just don’t understand how great [your opinions] are?
• Are you frequently interrupted?

Maybe a laugh or two could shake our relentless talkers to consider the mute button.  For some activists it seems that dissent for its own sake is just a deeply ingrained habit.  Standing up to a non-reponsive majority for a decade plowed some deep grooves. The beginning of a new year brings a lot of empathy for this kind of a challenge.  Even so, it simply does not work to say the same thing dozens and dozens of times with hundreds of words in order to get a different response.

Rambling council members are really vexing as the past years of stream of consciousness, thinking aloud, love of one's own voice fixations, revisionist nostalgia, autobiographical monologues, diatribes, obfuscations and general questioning for the sake of record were all captured on videos in the city archives.  One of the reasons for the encinitasyouneedus YouTube clips was to separate compelling facts and deliberation from this wasteful noise. A new council of smart, respectful people with something valuable to contribute to deliberations was what we thought we got.  Please hear this as a reminder of that mandate.

This isn't a blanket criticism.  Mayor Teresa Barth is well practiced at covering a great deal of information efficiently and she's already demonstrated a real knack at running a meeting to maximize discussions and contributions. Deputy Mayor Lisa Shaffer used a PowerPoint presentation to address her many thoughts on the process of selecting commissioners.  It actually worked because it was dense with information, well organized and delivered with clarity and brevity.  This was heartening and a more effective use of this tool than often seen with staff presentations. But, staff presentations are an entire subject unto themselves and better left to another post.

Demonizing anyone on the theme (SMEIDS or other reasons) that manifest in the seeming lack of an off button is not a healthy or respectful approach. But, let's just be clear that time theft is not something acceptable in forums that a whole community must share. We need to be able to name this. Distracting from the mountain of issues that are already on the table for this local government is annoying and though a democratic right, it can manifest as the opposite of civic action.

Editor: Speaking as someone who loves words, word crafting, parsing complex subjects and formulating an argument; using twitter, comment threads, oral communications and email lists are not inviting options.  I highly recommend a blog for someone who needs to create with words and share opinions and perspectives.  Those of like mind will appreciate what you offer.  Those who disagree will not hang around long or choose what to read or skip.

We ALL Can Do It!

An affirmation for a new year - Making the invisible visible

(and a birthday gift for someone close)

via soirart, via gradient lair

Dracula Strategy

Six months ago - over the July 4th holiday week - this post on Secrecy introduced the über secret TPP international maneuvers.

Well, the election is over and it is clear that the TPP is still working to foist corporate power against sovereign nations worldwide. Sounds like hyperbole, but it's not. And activists have taken many different approaches to protest and work to stop this movement. We the 99% around the world will be the ones to suffer.

One approach is called the Dracula Strategy, because dragging something into the light will expose this slow-motion corporate coup.

Full story is here, for details and background on the TPP.

We Write Letters, We Blog, We Publish

Signs on steroids

Rachelle Collier, Leucadia

Each election cycle, our candidates put up signs to indicate endorsements. I would like to call attention to the fact that some candidates have what I call signs on steroids. 

But what is more telling than the size of the signs is their location. I have noticed that they are mostly on nursery land and empty lots. Now, anyone can put signs up to endorse their candidate. Tony Kranz and Lisa Shaffer signs are up throughout many neighborhoods in people’s yards. 

This tells me that the community of Encinitas endorses Tony and Lisa. The signs on steroids are on locations with the potential to develop. Anyone who pays attention to local politics knows that there is a disconnect with what neighborhoods want and what is being built in our fair city. No one can stop development and everyone wants business to thrive. 

We live in a very special place and development should fit the community character. We should not change our character to suit the development. There is a reason that most of us moved to this incredible place. If you value this unique area, please vote for Tony Kranz and Lisa Shaffer. 

We Blog

Around the same time this letter to the Coast News editor was posted, blogger Encinitas Undercover printed this picture that perfectly illustrated Rachelle's point with another version of this same essential story captured in a headline.  

Very good stuff.  The first comment was from a well informed local describing some history of this location.

"This property was owned by the Browns, who always supported Stocks, Bond, and Dalager. The property was sold to City Ventures and is zoned RR-1 (Rural Residential 1 house per acre). A call was made to City Ventures, who responded that the Browns still have the right to give permission for the signage."

For more go here . 

Wave signs, read blogs, write letters and talk to friends, because we are all educating our community one step at a time and bringing change. And, in the in-box we received the plea by the North Coast Current Online Publisher Roman S. Koenig via his point of view editorial at his own paper. Read the whole thing by all means.  The following is just a taste. We disagree strongly only with his recommendation on Encinitas Proposal K.  Please vote no.

We Publish News

Leave Jim Kydd alone. 

Some of you might find this statement surprising coming from the editorial director of the North Coast Current, especially those of you who have chosen to use recent coverage in this publication as a passive endorsement of typical Encinitas-style “hate politics.” I found it fascinating in the past couple of weeks how the Current, in its work to cover news and provide civil discourse, had cuffs and chains thrown at it for this town’s mud pit of rhetorical nonsense. 

[. . . ] 

This whole rhetorical battle over encinitaselection.com certainly has its amusing moments. The most amusing comes from an exchange in comments Oct. 27 between posters Jack Lane and Vikki St. Mary. 

Lane accused the “blog” North Coast Current of being part of a leftist conspiracy against Jim Kydd: “This latestest (sic) critique of Jim as a person and his publication is typical of the vitriol that come from the Left and its need to smear and define others.” To which St. Mary replied: “So there is a liberal media conspiracy against the liberal media?? You are confusing please explain.” 

St. Mary’s call is right on, although I would say our publications are ultimately more centrist (not to speak for Jim Kydd, though). 

The Coast News and North Coast Current are on the same page when it comes to Encinitas City Council endorsements. The Current, like Coast News, supports Lisa Shaffer and Tony Kranz, and does not support conservative incumbents Jerome Stocks and Mark Muir. However, the Current supports Propositions K and L, largely attributed to the council’s conservative majority. Much of the “vitriol,” as Lane puts it, is in the comment sections of the Current, Patch and blogs from supporters of conservative candidates such as Stocks. 

All of this goes right to St. Mary’s reply to Lane’s cliché interpretation of recent events. 

A leftist plot by one centrist publication against another? I think not. 

Roman S. Koenig is editorial director and publisher of the North Coast Current. Columns are the opinions of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of North Coast Current ownership.

Tell-A-Vision: Encinitas Sees Us

Here is a vision for tomorrow.  No, really, tomorrow as in Wednesday, October 24th, the last Encinitas City Council Meeting before the election for a new city council.  Even though activists are usually working on researching the agenda packet to be prepared to speak, another approach just might be timely.

What about our preferred council candidates Lisa Shaffer and Tony Kranz speaking at Oral Communications about the overwhelming support for change in the council members?  After more than a year of meet-ups, events, canvassing, flyer handouts and campaign writing, filming and every day spontaneous testimonials from voters - they have so many stories to tell.  Picture council commissions filled with some of the best-qualified and most council interactive dialogs.

Similarly, our regular council-viewing community have their own stories from others to share.  In three minutes each can give the idea of the sheer numbers of people contacted listened to, written about and befriended during this election year.

See, the council majority has proven over the last 12 years that Jerome Stocks is not only immune to fact-based criticism, he thrives on retaliation and revenge. Muir is the weighted right hand and Bond is over.  Without these players, Gaspar is . . . alone and pettiness or petulance won't be indulged.

What about describing the long silenced minority running the show? Give examples of innovative ideas - like bioremediation of the contaminated soils - and how a transparent, interested council might treat the subject.  Share your daydream of how the city manager might be effective in removing obstacles and challenging the staff to provide more and better support.

How would a council without fear of public discussion of financial strategies and risks envisioned to move back room, highly complex subjects into a series of intelligible forums. There are so many business friendly ideas and insights Lisa and Tony have to share.

All kinds of people have stories they've gathered of an active general population craving more support for walkable streets, more open space enhancement, community gardens, healthy air / oceans / wetlands and our urban forest.  Just standing and reciting lists of things like this - with a big broad smile (and maybe even a blub or two) would bring a glad hearted feeling to the many, many people who are watching from home.

Oh, and what fantastic clips my dears.

Take a Moment

“There seems to be three ways for a nation to acquire wealth: the first is by war . . . this is robbery; the second by commerce, which is generally cheating; the third by agriculture, the only honest way.” ~ Benjamin Franklin


After a few minutes thought, the above quote seems to speak to this writer's core beliefs.  All people are entitled to food, water and shelter. 

No matter what, we all need to eat.  Take a moment this campaign season to think about your community and your part in shaping it.  Keep what matters most, those essential life moments, in the forefront of your thoughts. Encinitas You Need Us thanks you in advance for being one of those that Encinitas does truly need.

Putting on the Big Show

In the hot mess that was this last meeting on Aug. 22, 2012, Councilwoman Kristin Gaspar and Councilman James Bond treated their position on the City Council with all the decorum (ahem) of 19th century carnival barkers. They treated the justice system, specifically the Grand Jury, like a freak show. And, if Gaspar was speaking truth and she doesn't know how the Grand Jury works, it could be even more creepy.

Mayor Stocks laughed out loudly when earlier Bond rumbled his snappy put down aimed squarely at the late Councilwoman Maggie Houlihan's husband. Jerkism hardy har har! He's a jerk for having threatened to sue the city. This is a council majority that closes all doors and forces citizens to sue to be heard and then calls them a name.

Gratefully Teresa Barth is not amused.  She's well known for the using the Thomas Jefferson quote in her communications, "We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate."  For her this means knowing the facts before opening your mouth and not treating the dais as a carnival sideshow or self-promoting infomercial selling party lines or revising history.

And here is a friendly reminder, please remember to specifically exclude Teresa Barth in accusations that belong in the laps of the council super majority.  It is difficult enough for our councilwoman to try a separate herself from this majority carnival gang, make her points, get on the record, remain civil, go above and beyond with outreach, homework and civic participation.  Remember, it is mostly just about being deliberate in your phrasing (council MAJORITY, not just council). To be lumped with the others must be extremely disheartening if not irritating.

In the final portion when future agenda items were requested, Mark Muir asked about the Economic Development Corporation being placed on the agenda, specifically the North County Economic group. Teresa Barth asks if this is related to the Supervisor Bill Horn project. Stocksplaining, the mayor assures her and all of us poor rubes, no.

Barth may well be correct in her assumption. The non-profit San Diego North Economic Development Council "has used the taxpayer grants to coordinate Prosperity on Purpose."  This Bill Horn pet project is right up Jerome's alley, no transparency and funneling tax money to developers. NCT article on this is titled, "Questions raised about supervisor-backed Properity on Purpose".


Editor Note because respect is respect: Frank Zaitshik, who runs Wade Shows, a carnival business with over 100 amusement rides and attractions that entertains over 15 million people each year speaks about Carnival Barker terminology. Zaitshik, a second generation carnival worker -- a term he prefers to the word "carny," which is some used as a pejorative. He says he has spent much of his life battling negative stereotypes about his industry. 

The reference to 'carnival barkers' and 'sideshows' is really a thing of the past. "It's not like the olden days. The carnival industry has modernized and is more high-tech. In fact, there are very few barkers or sideshows these days."

Show of Force Won the Day

Update: At end
Encinitas citizens! It looks like it's showing up in real numbers with clarity of purpose that matters right now.  The Crest Drive neighborhood's more than 2 dozen speakers, the well prepared organization of Kevin Farrell's diligent application, and organizing from several groups, a petition drive with hundreds of signatures and familiar faces from other neighborhoods all contributed to a successful appeal.

The following clips capture most all of the public speakers, grouped with 3 or 4 each. Pass them around the city, send them to organizations you belong to with this optimistic sense of power to the people. This first one begins with Appellant Kevin Farrell, Architect for the proposed Backus Residence.



Rick Backus, owner of 1794 Crest Drive property, Boone Hellmann UCSD campus architect who lives in Cardiff (punched holes in staff report compliance imperatives) and Ron Grimes who heads the Palomares Heights Association gave history of threats to Crest Drive since 1982.



Debbie Barley, Elizabeth Cotton, Charles Smith and Alan Aberhothe (?) all question what is going on with the city staff's lack of service to community. What can't be shown at a council meeting are the months and months of struggling with staff. Only through testimonials like this is a bright light shown on the behind the scenes city processes.



Appellant Kevin Farrell's daughter, L Farrell (?), Jennifer Lutz with her dad, John Lutz and Kyle Malloy speak out. Public Hearing of the appeal of Engineering conditions for public improvements adjacent to 1794 Crest Drive. What a good sign for Encinitas when younger people show up at the city council meeting ready to speak.



Just when you think you have heard all from these activists, they provide more insight into the community. Within the 15 minutes that these regulars activists participated in this one hour long public hearing. Several captured here are Mark Wisniewski, Delores Welty & Sheila Cameron.



Lastly, the issue of costs. Speakers like David (last name unclear), Ted Goldberg and Jennifer Hewitson raised the issue of the exhorbant costs. Ellen Speert spoke about Nature Deficit Disorder while many simply shared their stories of moving from somewhere else and Crest Drive was a place they love. Sandra Goldberg, Elizabeth Gilpin, Jerry Louis, Helen Konig and Mark Scoular.



Apologies for spelling and other name errors.

Update: From Patch article comments:


kevin farrell
10:03 am on Monday, August 20, 2012
As a follow up to my accomplishment for this particular case on Crest, the mandate from the city engineering department for drainage swale, curbs and sidewalks in all parts of encinitas will now change. It is up to all builders, owners and design professionals to question and scrutinize the forced ROW (right of way) items from this engineering department. All old encinitas areas are effected by our 5-0 City Council vote. I would like to thank this City Council and all whom assisted in this
8 month endeavor. My goal is to keep our Community Character in our control, not an overbearing engineer's.

Kevin Farrell, Architect

Tamara Backus
6:13 pm on Monday, August 20, 2012
Thanks you's to everyone who came and spoke at the City Counsel meeting last week! Kevin Farrell put together an incredible petition drive and appeal, and we will be forever grateful! We were so heartened by the number of passionate Crest Dr. and non-Crest Dr. residents who came out and patiently waited for their time to speak in support of this appeal. Crest Dr. is a magical street that should never be changed, and we are so pleased that our Mayor and City Counsel came to that conclusion, as well!
Again, Thank You to all who signed the petition and came to support us in our appeal!
Warmly,
Rick and Tammy Backus

Tuesday is Dues-day: Magical Intent

Today is Dues-day, but what are the dues?

Paying attention . . . Yes, by simply schooling yourself on how our local governance is organized, who are the players, what are the screw-ups, where is the money and what things get reported you can legitimately call yourself a citizen, an advocate for democracy.

For most people local politics only becomes a reality when you are afraid for your home, your property or your neighborhood. Fears can be physical, financial and cultural.  Fears can be great motivators, as so many activists' stories of initial involvement attest.

Citizen Tip = Magical Intent or Harmful Communication

It is good to remember that fear also silences voices and kills civic participation.  This is why the ever increasing use of police power to stifle dissent is so contemptible in a so-called democracy. A less recognized instrument is language used to cause harm. Hate speech and bullying are obvious examples, another is one a social justice writer labels "Magical Intent."

Magical Intent is the principle by which someone who has said or done something offensive, hurtful, rage-making, marginalizing, and/or otherwise contemptible argues that the person to whom they've said or done it has no right to be offended, hurt, enraged, alienated, and/or otherwise disdainful because their intent was not to generate that reaction. 

In other words: "I didn't intend for you to feel that way, so if you do feel that way, don't blame me! My intent magically inoculates me from responsibility for what I actually said and how it was received!" 

This is one of the most harmful—and common—manifestations of accountability deflecting language, rooted in the false contention that intent is more important than effect. It is a most curious habit, given that most of us would readily acknowledge that "I didn't mean it" isn't an excuse for not having to apologize when we bump into someone or accidentally step on someone's foot. Yet we have nonetheless created an entirely different standard for things we say that inadvertently hurt other people. 

Intent does not, in fact, magically render us unaccountable from the effects of our communication, no more than not intending to step on someone's toes magically renders us unaccountable from the effects of our movement. Pain caused unintentionally is still authentic pain.

The limited numbers of activists in Encinitas have a real problem with a few valued people with this particular kind of communication failure and it really hurts us all.  Here is a hint, this post isn't aimed at Councilwoman Barth or Candidates Lisa Shaffer or Tony Kranz.  Why? It isn't that each hasn't been guilty of speaking in a way that has inadvertently hurt another.  This editor has personally (privately) called out each for words that hurt the people supporting them. And, they each held themselves accountable with a commitment to avoid repeating the same error. Not one claimed "magic intent" as the excuse to avoid that accountability. Of course, this doesn't mean this is a pass, merely a reassuring vote of confidence.

Need a visual cue for something invisible?  This is what harmful language does if we could see it as a physical thing.  It stifles others in a way that bullies, rather than peer to peer conversation or debate. And it blames the victim.

This "magical intent" idea is pretty difficult to grasp because our culture has excused this in countless, familiar ways.

McEwan adds, "That's a difficult notion to accept for most of us, because most of us have engaged in this type of harmful communication at some point in our lives, even if it's not a regular habit. Even being presented with the idea that common defensiveness can be abusive is likely to elicit, in some readers, a magical intent response: I don't intend to abuse or manipulate people, so there's no way I'm doing it! 

But that's why this conversation is so important—because a lack of intent to harm doesn't guarantee that one will never harm."

In this 2012 campaign this citizen tip is important on a number of levels.  Besides the simple humanity of caring if we cause harm there is the practical aspect of running a campaign that boldly states an alternative of openness, civility and respect that welcomes the many voices in our community needs to champion healthy communication. Lisa Shafer and Tony Kranz have spoken out in the city council and in speeches, meet-ups, their websites, in commentaries about this very aspect of a need for change in Encinitas. Councilwoman Barth has sat through years of harmful communication without sinking to those levels with her council members, as dozens of video clips demonstrate. And we want dozens more to join this campaign against big money opposition.  We can ill afford to alienate anyone or instill fear in those trying to speak up, speak out and do what they can to move us to that goal.

We who claim to be friends and neighbors all working towards the same goal of replacing the supermajority leader Stocks and his appointed ally Muir have a big responsibility. Sometimes our own private agendas, perfectionism, expectations and issues of control need to be held in check.

One commenter in the post cited wrote something like the paraphrased (for our citizen purposes).

"If someone I trusted has deliberately hurt me, this adds the layer of it being a betrayal - and the more trusted/intimate, the bigger that betrayal.  It's not that the lack of intent lessens the hurt, for me; it's that knowledge of intent makes it much, much worse, as it means my trust has been broken."

Using the press, blogs and public gatherings to demand someone in your circle of activists respond as you would have them is hurtful and politically stupid.  We can ill afford to alienate the very few who are awake and energized to what goes on at Encinitas City Hall.

Bonus Tip: Evil vs. Complex

McEwan acknowledges with this follow-up a realization that may be an aid:

"And, you know, the funny thing is that, in my experience, it's exceedingly easier to apologize in a meaningful way when you view yourself as a complicated person, with virtues and flaws, good instincts and bad habits, the capacity for kindness and a reservoir of internalized ugliness. 

When I acknowledge fucking up and apologize, I don't feel like I'm "giving away" something about myself, as if it's some mystery that I'm not perfect.  It used to feel that way before I fully embraced the idea of knowing and caring about myself in all my sometimes regrettable aspects. 

This dynamic -- evil vs. complex -- can be really harmful in interpersonal relationships, too.  I have found that accountability denying language is frequently invoked by members of my family who interpret "you hurt me" as "you're a bad person" and/or "you don't love me," which extends from their own inability to exist comfortably as a person with visible and acknowledged flaws.
That also tends to lead to a cycle of abuse, because if one resists seeing oneself as someone with flawed communication about which one needs to be vigilant, one makes the same mistakes over and over, then deflects with harmful language over and over. 

And after someone communicates enough times that you're responsible for the hurt they cause you, the only choice with which you're left to break that cycle is to disengage."