In
other words, if you have a potential division of opinion, unless it's something
really fundamental, why not let people try out what they feel inclined to
experiment with? See how it works, and
then they can come back and they can say, "I had the crap beat out of me," or
they can say, "You know, I think we can could do this elsewhere!" We used to call it "Exemplary Action," and I really favor it as a decision making
process over endless discussions with amendments, motions, and parliamentary
procedure, and "I appeal the ruling of the chair," and all the rest of it.
Rob Kall: Exemplary Action. Sounds beautiful. I just want to go on a little bit, because we
only have a couple minutes left. You
talk about Occupy - the Occupy movement - and you say, "Accompanying and
Occupying are first cousins, or perhaps, to speak more precisely, blood
brothers. That is, when people set out
to walk together as equals, to make the road by walking, they're as likely to
grow from the horizontal companionship as the shared desire for more enduring
arrangements."
Staughton Lynd: Correct.
Rob Kall: What do you have to say about Occupy? Where it's been, where it's going?
Staughton Lynd: Thank you for asking. Along with the rest of the world to the Left
of Center, I thought it was terrific. I
was the keynote speaker at Youngstown Occupy's first meeting, and after they
threw us off the downtown square, I was the lot lawyer who tried and lost to
win the right to stay there. But I think
the whole point is: everybody had to be
aware that you weren't going to spend the rest of your life in a tent on the
downtown public square. I mean, come on. But, it's been very difficult, and we have to
concede this. It's been very difficult
to make the transition from physically occupying the downtown public square, to
developing specific projects, working groups.
Now
here in Youngstown, we have the problem of fracking. We are the earthquake center of the United
States at the moment, because these companies dump their waste in holes that
they drill in our valley. Last New Years
Eve, I went across the kitchen reacting to an earthquake that was caused by
that, so, 1) I would say our largest ongoing activity is opposition to
so-called fracking, but as well, 2) we've begun to set off a program for
teaching in local prisons. When the
steel mills went down, somebody in the One Percent [1%] got the bright idea of
having prisons, so we have them all over the place here.
Alice
and I have been lawyers for prisoners, but we're now also teachers of
prisoners, so that I would be surprised if it were not the case that in most
local Occupy movements, there were a couple of working groups that were
beginning to take hold and to build in a continuing manner. I think it's a shame that that's such a
(laughs) painful and sometimes confusing process, but I think it is happening,
and it is a great new beginning, and it's changed the conversation of the whole
country.
Rob Kall: OK.
Now, we've just got two or three minutes left. I want to read something you've written to
close out your book, and then you can close it.
You say, "Yes, we should support 'this' bill and oppose 'that' one; yes
we should give President Obama some pressure from what Subcommandante Marcos..."
He's from the Zapatistas, right?
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