Veteran activist and Food Not Bombs co-founder C. T. Lawrence Butler is teaching three workshop sessions at Occupy Boston, courtesy of Free School University and the Facilitators Working Group. We are honored to have C. T. Butler here to help us, since, when it comes to consensus, he literally wrote the book!
Consensus: So That All Voices May Be Heard
A Workshop with C. T. Butler
Monday, October 31 and Tuesday, November 1, 2011
1 pm to 2:30 pm
Confused, frustrated, hopeful, or exhausted with consensus so far? Consensus is a process that takes years to master. C. T. Butler and team want to help you of Occupy Boston do what you’re already doing (direct democracy) better. Whether you’ve had formal training or not, come to this workshop to deepen your understanding of what consensus is and is not, its structure and its inherent paradigm shifts. What’s wrong with voting? How can groups handle dominant people? Does consensus have to take so long? Bring your questions to C. T.!
Facilitation Workshop
C. T. Butler
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
3 pm to 5 pm
Interested in joining the General Assembly facilitation team or learning better skills for your committees, working groups, and affinity groups? What is the role of the facilitator in consensus and leaderless movements? Join us in developing Occupy Boston’s expertise in large and small group facilitation, so that all voices may be heard!
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C.T. Lawrence Butler is co-founder of Food Not Bombs. From that leaderless, consensus-based international movement and his activism against war, nuclear power, and oppressions, Butler wrote the definitive work On Conflict and Consensus. It is the only model of consensus specifically designed to interrupt privilege and oppression. His latest book, Consensus for Cities, is designed for groups of up to 100,000. As a front-line activist, Butler has been arrested over fifty times in non-violent direct action.
10 Responses to “Facilitation Workshops with C. T. Butler”
Hate to say this, but what exactly has Mr Butler accomplished? Being arrested 50 times, uh, wow. That’s great. Show’s he’s really good at being arrested.
It’s sad folks – Occupy Boston is celebrating its one month anniversary, and the consensus process has pretty much decided that it’s opposed to racism and pretty much every other ism (yay!), and wants to decolonize the city. Oh, wait, the self-proclaimed General Assembly also wants to allow everyone to talk. And that’s it.
If that’s how well the GA works, imagine it spread to 100,000 people. I suppose you could have a collection of small GAs, electing representatives to larger GAs, and finally an overall People’s Assembly. Folks, this has been tried, and it’s an abject disaster. You’re either stalled out – like Occupy Boston – or you eventually get taken over by a radical faction (also like Occupy Boston).
Do you remember what your sitting in Dewey Square for? Ah, yes, your going to change the world through drum circles, tents, and chatter – all the while losing momentum, and turning in on yourselves.
If you want to represent the 99%, stop this self-indulgent consensus crap and start acting like a democracy. Democracies involve making choices, sometimes hard choices. Consensus involves finding the least acrimonious position and running with it. And by looking at Occupy Boston, consensus means driving out people who don’t believe in the group think, sending out self-congratulatory messages, and gradually fading away.
Well, at least Mr Butler has another chance of being arrested. 51 times, I wonder if he gets a little gold star.
Barry – Have you come to GA and voiced your concerns? Which working groups are you involved in? If you don’t like the way it’s going, please participate! If progress has been slow, it’s because too many people are still watching, rather than participating.
Sorry about the “your” typos. Yes, it should be “you are”
Mr. Butler is working tirelessly for a world in which you can love yourself without feeling the need to tear everyone else down. Wish him success!
Oh for the love of God. You’re serious, aren’t you?
Dana, this is politics, and Occupy Boston is facing some of the most well financed, well organized, and aggressive opponents imaginable. You can’t (literally!) join hands and sing Kumbiya. You have to do _something_, and do something now. The moment is going to pass your movement by, and the 99% you claim to represent want action.
Mr Butler has not stopped any bombs, nor has he come close. His political theories were tried, and they failed, and miserably at that. And the whole consensus system has reduced all of the Occupy sites to real life versions of Monty Python’s Judean People’s Front.
“This is what democracy looks like!” is your cry, no, this is what a self-congratulatory group looks like. Please, please, consider that you haven’t accomplished anything so far except to exist. And that’s not sufficient, you need to act.
The Monty Python reference is dead on, and the seeming purpose of the workshop, consensus training “So That All Voices May Be Heard” is exactly the wrong thing for Occupy to be focusing on.
If Occupy is about raising awareness of, and demanding solutions to, the financial and social inequities that exist in this country, then I’m all for it. That has traction. That has sustainability. Occupy is favored in public opinion 2 to 1 over the tea party in most polls, and serious media attention is steadily increasing. In that respect, what the movement started out to do is succeeding. It’s got the attention of the world and it’s creating dialogue that might actually help.
If, on the other hand, Occupy is morphing into some kind of utopian-fantasy-society-building movement, you’re going to quickly become irrelevant and forgotten.
What all voices!? There is only one voice and it has already spoken: We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We rally around this point until we succeed. Everything else is diversionary.
Can we PLEASE MAKE SURE these facilitation Workshops are Webcast????
This is VERY important to those of us outside Dewey who are establishing groups in support of Occupy Boston and free-standing occupations in the smaller communities.
Thanks, Peace,
Tom From Gloucester
And By The Way, Is Occupy Boston At Work On A Declaration Yet? As In:
https://sites.google.com/site/the99percentdeclaration/
I think we need to roll one out to the public and soon. Or Adopy MYC or Philly’s.
Thanks,
Tom From Gloucester
As others have observed, Occupy Boston is chaotic and slow. This is partly a consequence of the leaderless nature of the movement. However, we can do better. Please participate! You need not be camping to participate, and in fact most people are not, and rarely come to Boston. Most work is being done on the wiki now, but we need lots of help to organize things! http://wiki.occupyboston.org/wiki/Main_Page
There is a national coalition of occupations forming, and some from Boston are involved in that. I don’t know if anyone is working on a declaration like the one you linked.