Coffee Party World Cafe #4: Declaration of Principles, Cont.

Thu, 06/03/2010 - 15:16 — pcarlsonbowen

Peg Carlson-Bowen intro

I am a semi-retired Silicon Valley-ite who is enjoying the time to get involved in the community more. I am involved in several non-profits, focused on civic involvement.
I am what I call 'trans-partisan'--I don't really care where the idea comes from--if it seems to address the systemic or root cause of a problem, I am happy to support it.
I came to the Coffee Party Movement through the World Cafe Community, and was glad to find the CPM addressing a long-standing frustration concerning civic involvement--how can we talk to each other and really make progress? It has seemed that the nation has been entrenched in a fruitless debate that is not improving our solutions or our relationships with one another.
I also am a devotee, if you will, of Peter Senge's 'System Thinking.' This is a movement that started in the 50's with Jay Forrester's work at MIT and continues to offer a way of thinking about problems and solutions that focuses on the institutions, processes, and relationships that lead us to sub-optimal situations--as opposed to blaming a person, or assuming that a person's motivation is the primary cause of any problem.

I am grateful for everyone who is participating in this process, especially to Ben who is keeping us all focused!

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Fri, 06/04/2010 - 15:20 — Bruce Schuman

My notes and thoughts from yesterday's call

This was my second call regarding the "Declaration of Principles" on this Maestro system. For me, it was a strong experience, that felt fertile and worth pursuing. The participants had good ideas, and a wide range of concerns were addressed.

Following an initial "plenary" session, that introduced the callers and the theme, this call was organized into three breakout groups, each of which dealt with the same general question:

"What could a powerful declaration of principles contain in order to make the greatest difference in the future of the Coffee Party movement?"

TWO BASIC RECURRING ISSUES

In my three breakout groups, we went over this question in several ways, and introduced two basic themes that seem to appear regularly in Coffee Party meetings:

1) The importance of the "civility and dialogue" approach, and all questions regarding how this approach is to be defined, from what sources it is to be influenced, what role it is to play, and whether this issue itself is the core message of the Coffee Party, or only an adjunct to it.

2) The tension between "advocacy and activist" approaches to issues ("there are real problems -- we have to deal with them and take positions and push for them") versus the "civility is the message" approach ("there are many advocacy groups -- we are called to offer something new based on bringing people together in more fruitful ways").

FACTORS IN A STRONG DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES

I heard these points raised by the participants, introducing ideas or content they felt belonged within a compelling and inspiring statement of principles:

1) Politics and the political system must be more responsive to individuals. We are called to provide or amplify a kind of "voice of the people" which seems lost in today's politics, causing frustration and upset, or apathy, or sheer fury.

2) Our Declaration of Principles should be vibrant and inspiring, able to get people's attention and be something they understand quickly.

3) We should focus on bringing people together first, and from there, consider the many specific issues that we Americans must consider today (economy, environment, immigration, taxation, individual freedom, etc.)

4) There is a significant problem with individual attitudes and psychology, in that many or most voters tend to be entrenched in their political or ideological perspective. "The ego has a hidden agenda of power, and will do anything to maintain that power", said one participant. We probably need to include ways to address these underlying psychological issues, probably by first clearly stating these attitudes ARE a problem, and then providing some approaches for individuals to consider that could help them overcome their own tendencies in this direction. This probably involves a substantial "educational" aspect of the task ahead of us. We have to understand this natural tendency in people, and help defuse and depolarize it.

5) We have to look at factors in our political system that force our political leaders to do unethical things -- twist or distort truth as they sell themselves to voters in their local districts. We the citizens are responsible for these problems, and should be aware of them.

6) Perhaps we need a new kind of "Declaration of Independence" -- perhaps declaring our independence from existing political systems or destructive ways of thinking, asserting that "we the people" want to come together in new ways, that are not controlled by the two-party system, and not infected by the media culture of outrage and blame that tends to keep us divided.

7) Our Declaration should be based on timeless principles that will endure and remain a stable foundation for this movement. The wording and concepts should be expressed in terms that are kind and humanitarian and supportive of human beings.

8) We must find ways to overcome "us versus them" thinking. We don't listen to each other in this country. We must learn to do this.

TWO MAIN THEMES:

1) We Americans have a responsibility to make our democracy work

2) The current situation DEMANDS a solution -- therefore a solution WILL emerge

MY INTERPRETATION

For me, the Coffee Party is a response to a wide variety of interconnected problems in American politics, most of which are not new, which have been festering for many years, and are inherent in the way we have organized ourselves.

My own personal perspective on the big picture of our situation might be simply expressed in these points -- each of which, I think, must be addressed in a systematic way:

1) What is wrong in American politics?
We need a detailed and strong analysis of the problems we are trying to solve. What is wrong? Let's get clear on this.

2) What will it take to fix these problems?
We need a big picture of a broad approach that can emerge.

3) How can we work together as Americans to address these issues and revitalize the country?
This "answer" can be addressed in an inspiring way in our Declaration of Principles.

As the call came to an end, one young participant said, "Before you go out and do something, you gotta make sure you know what you are doing."

I was reminded of the famous aphorism from Davy Crockett: "Be sure you're right, then go ahead!"

As a movement, we cannot act on issues until we are "sure we are right". For most highly complex and controversial issues today, "knowing we are right" may be close to impossible. To develop the best solutions to our problems, we have to listen to everybody and to everything -- and in order to do that, which is essential -- we have to make it possible to "listen to everybody and everything." This requires new approaches to systems and structures. Simply building another hierarchical bureaucracy is not going to get us there.

ORGANIZE THE FLOW OF INFORMATION - CREATE A WAY TO LISTEN

I personally do not want to build yet one more bureaucratic hierarchy, composed of elected people to whom we delegate our dreams and visions, hoping they will do the right thing and cursing them when they don't. In my opinion, this kind of administrative structure, in today's world, just cannot handle the sheer information flow that we are called to organize. Too many critics today think that the main political issues are moral and ethical, and that if politicians would simply be more ethical, our problems would go away. I feel that this is an oversimplification and a weak analysis, and that there are profound problems with "the system" as it currently exists -- or, perhaps more accurately, how we understand our system. This is a detailed subject with a lot of moving parts -- but for me, the real hope and power here lies in the observed high-energy response of people across the Internet. The Coffee Party caught fire through the Internet, and that fire must be maintained through the Internet. We need to harness internet power, and put it to work in innovative new ways.

Organizing the Harvest -- get a big harvesting machine, don't try to do this by hand....

The CPUSA web site -- though it can be difficult and overwhelming and confusing -- has become a huge resource for "harvesting". There are hundreds or thousands of brilliant well-written messages on that website right now, which are too often being ignored because they are not organized in an accessible format. Leadership -- and we ourselves -- are overwhelmed by this vast amount of information -- and we tend to retreat back to much more modest approaches, that tend to "start over from the beginning" -- while, unfortunately, totally ignoring the content on the web site. This, in my opinion -- is "failing to listen to the voice of the people". For me, this is a huge problem, and failing to address it is simply unacceptable -- and will obviously lead to frustration and anger and schism within the Coffee Party. As a computer systems developer and programmer, who built my first "community bulletin board" in 1986 -- I am convinced we CAN solve this problem, and should go about find people capable of working on this issue, who want to help build solutions and bring them into this process.

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Sun, 06/06/2010 - 07:46 — Administrator

Notes from Peg Carlson-Bowen

Thanks for these detailed notes, Peg.

6/3/10

Coffee Party World Café MaestroConference call

25 minutes: tone at ½ way point, 2 minute warning, final tone.

Question:

What could a powerful DoP contain in order to make the greatest difference in the future of the Coffee Party Movement?
(How could the Declaration of Principles document itself be a powerful force in the future of the movement?)

Group One
Linda with the Renton WA Chapter
-Contains something that we wouldn’t get distracted by special interests
-Some people get distracted by side issues, we need to be focused—not take on too much
-Problems in our country are somehow based on money in politics, mega-bank reforms, finance reform, and we need to focus on a few issues – could we have something in our wording that would keep us focused
-CPM seeks out better sources of information
-We need to have a better term than ‘non-partisan’, because some people don’t know what that means, or assign their own meaning to it.
-Could there be a way to have an ‘invitation’ to people new to politics to join us?
-We share common interests—we would be a strong group if we pulled together
-Support training on how to interact, have dialogue with someone who is labeled as ‘other.’
-Everyone should read a book called ’13 Bankers’- our government thinks like Big Business and not like government.

Just call me Jay – from Atlanta
-Need to do something about education of voters
-People don’t feel like they have much ‘say’ in what goes on—would it be a good idea to state that the coffee Party is a way to better connect ‘the people’ with our representatives.
-What are the major issues that you consider ‘problem areas?’

Keane – from Sacto
-We need to leave partisanship at the door—really don’t want to be thought of as an ‘anti-tea party’ and especially not a bunch of angry progressives.
-Difference between other forums and CPM would be that we are non-partisan, and that many members of CPM are new to politics.
-We need to challenge our own views/impressions of Tea Party members—the media is feeding us misconceptions. Libertarians seem to be more willing to engage.

Peg
-document needs to be a connecting point, basis for an elevator pitch stating who we are and what we do, so as to be an invitation to whoever is reading it/listening to a summary of what the document contains
-Big Tent idea needs to be supported and we need to welcome others, find a way to draw them in.
-Leave labels at the door—bring your ideas in, but leave the baggage/labels at the door.
-I still have a question about what would differentiate CPM from OFA or Moveon.org as far as advocacy goes…

Major themes of Group 1:
-Central theme is still Civil Discourse
-Stay focused on a few themes/issues
-Leave partisanship at the door
-Not be defined as ‘opposite of tea party’
-A place for newcomers to civic literacy to be welcomed
Group 2:

Paula O’Connor – Vacaville
-Can’t just have it for now—needs to be good for 10 years—timeless
-Include kindness and maybe even a humorous tone to it, people pay attention to warmth and something different—just something about the feel of it

Wade - San Francisco
-Like the elevator pitch. Current mission statement is rather long—we need a shorter version of what we want to say. Something as an initial ‘affirmation.’
-Should we identify problems to address . . . I’m not sure on that point, but this Declaration of Principles needs to be positive
-statements to persuade the elected officials to be responsive to citizens
-persuade politicians to respect different points of view
-some affirmation of an open, participatory democracy – how CPM works – end up with a hierarchy organization to have people

Bob from Vacaville
-Some changes being worked on are long-term issues, maybe not too interesting, and may be foundational ways to solve the issues we face today. Work on issues that are the barriers to the government being responsible and accountable.
-Citizenship is something we seem to have lost track of, people are dropping out because government is not responsive. We have a responsibility to make our government ‘work’ and be accountable.
-‘Civil’ dialogue is another term that should be in the DoP
-Identity is a struggle, but part of it is to educate and inform—do research and study—but ultimately to make government responsible to the citizenry.

Peg – Silicon Valley
-Elevator pitch
-Recruiting tool
-Explaining who we are—what we do—an invitation to participate

Themes from Group 2:
-Have timeless principles that endure
-Elevator pitch
-citizens are responsible for civic involvement
-mission must be to increase responsiveness/accountability of representatives
-Kindness and civility need to be included
-Need to change structures of our systems so that we can create a situation that supports politicians being responsive

Group 3
Al Williams from Austin
-Propaganda is where you tell people the answer, but I think what’s more important is to give people what you think is important that need to be considered that you need to be included in creating a decision.
-What might excite people in the CPM is to have a DoP not on the issues, but on transcending the partisanship
-We expect you to ‘work it out’ – come up with the best consensus you can and then ‘sell it to us’

Wade in SF
-Need to have civic engagement in finding common ground through democratic deliberation

Bruce Schuman from Santa Barbara (Charter for Compassion – Karen Armstrong
-How can politicians bring us the facts that are well-researched
-Push on the vision of Americans coming together, shake hands with our neighbors, and get together to solve our problems. -Something needs to rise in our nation, to pull us together—since 86% of Americans in CNN poll say ‘government is broken’, this is a huge ‘market’ to unite these disaffected folks and create a movement. Today, this is funneled into an ‘outrage market’-how do we channel this into positive action?

Peg Carlson-Bowen
-Civic engagement is key

Themes from group 3:
-Education and facts
-How can we get past this? Huge hunger for this, but no one has figured out what to do about it
-Shake hands with our neighbors, pull together and work on solutions – we can do this, like in a war situation

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Tue, 06/08/2010 - 09:06 — Anonymous

Bob Panzer from Vacaville, CA

I truly enjoyed participating in the World Cafe #4 dialogue. Everyone contributed thoughtful ideas. Thank you, Ben!

My thought is that our document should include the statement that good citizenship can mean expressing in a civil manner our anger over our dysfunctional government, demanding that our elected representatives be responsive to the public good - even if it doesn't appear to fit our political agenda. We want responsible leadership that is willing to negotiate differences in a constructive process, without blame or criticism.