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on creating an alternative

2/11/2011

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I've been liaising with Lisa & Bill since Lisa offered to help the Occupy Auckland movement by providing nightly speakers for an early-evening 15 minute talk.  Seemed a good way for older folk to provide guidance.  Unfortunately the movement remains bogged down in negativity due to the prevailing social pathology in their group culture, so I've decided to pull out.
Essentially oppositionist, the movement has adopted the collective stance of adolescent rejection of the parental authority of the state (the state being controlled by the capitalists, regardless of whether a left or right govt is in control).  This is understandable.  Protest movements are the traditional form of political expression of the angry people when elections don't solve the problem.
I believe the OWS premise is flawed:  protests don't solve the problem either.  What they should be doing is forming an alternative political movement to offer the people a positive alternative to the status quo.  That means formulating an alternative, articulating it, advocating it.  Instead, they remain locked in grievance mode.  A week ago they decided to produce a list of grievances to present to the media, yet this job remains undone.
Various suggested points have been provided by individuals in the movement to the person who they selected to formulate the list.  I have seen some of them notified to the Occupy online site.  They can be interpreted as a list of complaints but they really point to problems.  The next step, which the movement must take if it is to be effective, is to identify the solutions.  Instead, Occupy Auckland follows OWS in the traditional stance of the protest movement.  After 40 years of this syndrome failing to deliver the desired results, my attitude is enough of this shit.  Get over it!  Act like adults instead of adolescents.

At least the Greens have the right approach, as does Lisa with her Awareness Party;  they're both advocating a positive alternative.  I've explained in my earlier essay here that I discontinued all involvement with the Greens in mid '95.  [I may  make the reasons public.]  I've been staunch ever since in avoiding all party members and my aversion has kept me from checking out their website lest it make me angry and disgusted.  Don't like being that negative, but my conscience requires me to tell the truth.  I understand that negative feedback is an essential healthy part of community, but liberal socialists can't handle reality at all and would find my critique too severe.  I'm not inclined to hurt people, so better to cut all ties.
However last night I finally went to look at the Green Party site:  it's nice & user friendly in ambience but content seemed banal.
I know I can feel good about the Greens if they retain support for Tibet & decriminalising cannabis.  When I took over as organiser of the Greens justice and international relations policy working groups in '91 I discovered to my disgust that the justice policy didn't include decriminalising cannabis & the international relations policy didn't include freedom for Tibet.  So I put both in immediately!!  I then drove the policy consensus process through regional adoption to national adoption.  I've been grateful for Nandor Tanzcos  & Russel Norman leading both causes in the public arena in the intervening years.
However, a quick check of the website failed to find a policy statement in favour of either issue.  That's liberal socialists for you - if it's an issue of natural justice, integrity and authenticity they will run & hide every time.
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intro

22/10/2011

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Thinking outside the square:  alternative Aotearoa

Alternative Aotearoa seems the best label for the cultural niche I've occupied the past 4 decades.  It's true I was considered weird as a child, became a teenage rebel like the leading edge of my generation, saw myself as non-conformist when the underground was the fashion trend, identified as extreme radical when the new left alienated me - all before the alternative-lifestyle movement got going.

Some things never change:  alternative-minded folk are usually thinking outside the square, the square being the mental prison that normal people (squares) inhabit.  I always expected my peer group to establish an alternative political movement as a natural evolutionary outgrowth of the cultural wave I grew up into.  Sure, we changed the world.  But not enough!

I'm too unconventional to identify easily with the most others on the cultural fringe.  Fringe-dwellers tend to be apolitical.  They view politics as an old-fashioned game that would be too boring to play.  No fun and no gain.  We need to reframe that view by introducing a new game.  Society has trended in recent decades toward inclusion - no longer the domain of WASP males.  Ethnic & other minorities are allowed a voice in the national media.  No reason to continue excluding fringe-dwellers then, is there?   Having waited 4 decades for our input to be included in the national debate on a whole range of issues, I feel disinclined to wait any longer.  I will assert our collective right to inclusion in the democratic process:  on our own terms!

You know, someone who sees further and deeper than most always struggles with communicating those insights.  Growing up as a loner is a further handicap, but I have had rewarding group involvements from time to time after discovering in early teenage years that I could star in peer-group situations.  Leading a group comes naturally to me, provided the group does actually figure out what's required, but I'm just as happy to play second fiddle to someone more outgoing.  My forte seems to be keeping things on track - I'm forever intervening to do that when some digression starts to threaten success.  I'm also a natural problem-solver, but since democracy in its current form has no place for those who aspire to solve social problems, it's taken me this long to find a way to contribute effectively.

Identifying with the avante garde as I became adult meant transition from following role models to learning to play that part myself.  Took quite a while!  It ain't enough to be a fast learner, one must find social contexts in which to exercise the skill.  This country had few that didn't alienate me immediately.  Readers ought to be aware that fast learners don't just drive social progress, they also are an early-warning system for the tribe.  In times of subtle danger they function like the canary in the coal-mine and boy, are we in one of those times!!   Most people are afflicted by a gradualist outlook, so the tribe will fall victim to our current bunch of global threats unless we jolt them out of their complacency.  I hope this site proves a suitable vehicle for snowballing a transition away from business as usual.

In the following essay I explain why, based on my personal experience, I arrived at my view that the greens cannot save the world unless they become an avante garde movement like the one described in this site.  In this essay I'm wearing 2 hats:  the cultural historian & the political analyst.  Readers outside this country will find a few references to the politics of my country:  I hope they are brief enough not to detract from your comprehension.
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    Author

    Dennis Frank (mystic, fringe-dweller, leading-edge conceptualiser) also blogs @
     http://altaotearoa.blogspot.co.nz/ 

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