How Do We Encourage US & NC Swing Voters Not To Hate?

Yup. Started off tendentious. Let’s continue. At the moment, the body politic in the US and North Carolina generally votes right of center. No-one really believes this is because the Republicans are the party of aspiration. It is because they allow their supporters to hate. Democrats, mind you, aren’t the party of aspiration, either. They have become the party that asks swing voters to support issues and people with which those voters are demonstrably uncomfortable. Hence, the current political landscape in the US and North Carolina.

So, how do we win over enough swing voters to regain a natural voting majority for Democrats? I don’t have a gameplan as such. I have some thoughts though:

1) Stop preaching. Start asking. Democrats do not know best just because we are educated and intelligent. We know what is best for folks because we ask them. Enough of which we do not do at the moment. And don’t be asking a fellow progressive. Ask the people who are going to make a difference. The middle-of-the-road, likely working voters, who voted Republican in 2010, 2012 and 2014, at local and state level. Who preferably might have contributed to Obama’s two landslides.

2) Stop telling folks they are wrong just because they don’t vote the way we do. They are different. Not wrong. You win with candy. Not a stick.

3) A lot of folks in the center vote by herd instinct. I’ve lived around. Dallas, Atlanta, Carrboro, Providence, Boston. The mountains of western Carolina. Low income housing in Fort Worth and Carrboro. I’ve found single mothers with three kids on food stamps in the mountains voting Republican because it’s the cultural thing to do there. I’ve found truck drivers in Carrboro who are progressive because that’s what we do here. Find a way to make people comfortable being progressive, and it can become the mob mentality.

4) We excoriate Republicans because they promote prejudice. Wrong. Just find better prejudices. It’s the herd instinct thing. We want to make people feel good about voting our way. In the long-term, you don’t always achieve that by appealing to intellect. Somewhere along the way, you have to appeal to gut, too. I have made the journey from right-wing British Tory to left-of-center Democrat. I don’t hate. Don’t know how to. Always see the other point of view. But I have been surrounded by people who do hate. Foreigners, immigrants, the poor, people of color, people of different religious or gender orientation. But here’s the thing. And it’s important. Beneath the skin of every reasonable conservative beats the heart of a liberal. They actually want to love. Simple as that. It’s a good feeling to reach out and make people happy. And we don’t stress that enough.

5) Now, as a general rule, learned from some years spent in political public relations, on both sides of the political aisle, you don’t lead with morality or feeling when beginning the quest to change people’s minds. That comes later. You have to start with intellectual argument. And you have to use their language. We have to understand where they are coming from. And explain how where we are at offers something better, in terms they can understand. And often that requires some correction on our part with respect to policy and approach.

Let’s start with where I am politically now. I am a fiscal conservative. You can’t do anything if your economy and the public finances are in a mess. And, until something like mutualism really takes a hold globally, the bottom line is that economies derive their drive from folks who are rich. So, stop fighting it.

People do not aspire to be poor. They aspire to be rich and famous. So, stop punishing rich folk. Stop trying dramatically to re-distribute. Make ‘em pay a fair share. And concentrate on equality of access to all the levers, bells and whistles that allow everyone to aspire to the limits of what they are capable.

And I emphasize equality of access, of treatment. Not equality of outcome. We are not all born equal. We aren’t. We are who we are. We all have different levels and types of capability. Accept it. Be proud of it. Glorify it. What we can do is ensure that everyone receives the same treatment, has the same access and the same opportunity. After that, inequality is what it is. Every time anyone attempts to legislate equality of outcome, it ends in tears. Addressing one seeming inequality with another only feeds the hate.

At the same time, there are folk who will never be able to swim in the capitalist sea that we have created. Socialism does not work. Not in practice. So, it is some form of capitalism we are stuck with. But let us, with dignity and respect, create a proper safety net, that fully cares for those who are unable, through no fault of their own, to look after themselves.

That was my political journey. Accepting the second part of the financial and social equation. It is not a political sin to want to build a working welfare state. However, Democrats too often sound as if it is a sin to want a thriving economy based on a realistic business outlook.

You don’t win people over with the morality of Obamacare. You tell ‘em a healthy workforce is a productive workforce. You don’t win over folks to feel comfortable with gays. You win them over to same-sex marriage by telling ‘em that marriage of any kind is a better home for kids than a foster home. You don’t win over people to the citizenship path for undocumented workers by quoting the Statue of Liberty (one of my favorite things to do, I have to admit!). You win ‘em over by talking about 11 million new taxpayers, who want to build new businesses.

Then, you can wax lyrical how all of this helps to make our fellow man and woman happier. Trust me, you want to create a better prejudice than hate, it is the feeling you get when you make a sad person smile.

In 2011, after Republicans regained the US House of Representatives, and made huge gains in statehouses, I wrote a political song, called ‘Song of Solidarity.’ In my promotion I talked about Republicans who had stolen the mantle of patriotism. And how we needed to win it back for working people. Not Democrats. Working people. Democrats stopped being the party of working people a long time ago.

I talked about working folk who fought our wars, to escape poverty back home. I talked about true patriots being the people who ran our companies and our country. Who worked the shopfloors and fixed our roads. Who owned responsibility not just for their immediate dependents, but for the wider family of their friends and neighborhoods. I talked and still talk about shared responsibility.

How it is no good berating the police, when we don’t ask communities to take responsibility for those among them who break the law. How it is just as important for pastors, preachers and activists to educate the young about healthy social interaction, as it is for the rest of us to understand those at risk. Balance. Responsibility. Prudence. Compassion. And common sense. In equal measure. Not one to the exclusion of others.

One final example. I bought my car from a used car dealer, whom I will call Frank. He was a light Republican. Owned the car lot. Started by his father. Going to leave it to his daughter. We got talking. He wanted to support Obama. Really did. But he put it to me like this. Geoff, he said, I’m a good man. I don’t hate. I run a business. I look after my family. Take care of my ailing dad. Go to church. Pop around and help out neighbors who have fallen on hard times. I don’t mind digging a little deeper, and helping folks I’ve never met, if they genuinely need help. But I keep finding myself asking myself, he said, where are those folk’s family and friends?

Frank, good question. In my simple view, going forward, being a more successful Democrat means not only listening, understanding, changing ourselves and reaching out, it not only means being right, and making folks feel good about making other people happy, it also means asking some very tough questions of the people we want to help, the very folks we are asking swing voters no longer to hate.

Not exactly comprehensive. But it’s a start.

Same-Sex Marriage, Supreme Court - It's Equality, Stupid!

Oh dear. In an article wondering how the new gay rights case before the US Supreme Court will play into John Roberts’s long game, the NYTimes once again has it back to front. They look at outcome and superimpose intent.

I agree Roberts has a long game. The man became Chief Justice when he was 50. He’d be pretty stupid not to have a long game. And no-one accuses Roberts of being stupid. But, contrary to the NY Times, I think his long game is this:

1) To make the Supreme Court more relevant to ordinary Americans. He doesn’t follow polls. But he does believe that the Court should reflect long-term social trends. And reflect, not mold.

2) He is a constitutionalist. In the sense that I understand it. And in the sense which I broadly support. Which means that he believes that it is up to the executive and the legislature to legislate. It is for the court to interpret and apply the constitution, not to be activist.

3) And only the US Constitution. He is a states rightist. If something is within the purview of states, then that is where the impetus should remain.

4) He believes that the primary value contained within the US Constitution and attendant Bill of Rights is that of equality. And that means equality of opportunity, treatment, not equality of outcome. No-one can legislate feeling. No-one can determine how people will react, and therefore how things will turn out. And, as soon as you address one seeming inequality of outcome with a reverse inequality of outcome, then you sow the seeds of new resentment.

Thus it was with Obamacare that Roberts did not suddenly become a liberal overnight. He took the view that Obamacare had been thoroughly debated within the US executive and legislature, and also around all of the states, that there was broad support, and he was not going to allow his Court to stand in the way on a technicality (1, 2 and 3 above).

So it was with DOMA. At the time that his Court ruled against DOMA, he stated words to the effect that it was becoming increasingly clear that states were moving in the direction of not banning same-sex marriage. Some 17 states at that time had moved towards same-sex marriage. From a position when DOMA was made law, when no states were in favor of same-sex marriage. But, there was a way to go before he was convinced the Court needed to make a declaration for the remaining states (1,2 and 3 above).

Now that some 30 states are no longer opposed to same-sex marriage, he feels that it is time to make such a declaration. A declaration which is not about same-sex marriage, but about equality of treatment. Namely, married couples, and especially their children, who have been properly married and adopted in one state, should not be penalized in another. They should receive equal treatment in all states, now that a majority of the states had indicated that they accepted the premise requiring equal treatment, namely same-sex marriage (1, 2, 3 and 4 above).

The same is true with campaign financing and affirmative action. I believe that the primary interest of Roberts here is to make his Court less activist (2) and more about equality of treatment (4).

I get the feeling that Roberts feels much the same way as I do about campaign finance. So long as Amendment One remains in force, individuals are entitled to have the state not interfere with their free speech. A political donation is a political statement. Any group of individuals, speaking in a corporate (i.e. as a group) sense, are also entitled to make political statements unhindered by the state. Amendment One guarantees equality of treatment, not equality of outcome. We are not born equal. Some of us are wealthier than others. That’s life. Being permitted the freedom to speak does not entitle one to the ‘freedom’ to pay for a million-dollar political TV ad.

The very fact that this is a long game means that the only person who truly knows what it is is Roberts himself. But, once again, I do believe that the NYTimes is allowing its own political bias willfully to drive its misinterpretation of what I suspect is, at one and the same time, a very simple yet a very subtle long game of Roberts.

Creative Engagement - The Redux

I just added another couple of responses to a post on OrangePolitics, talking about getting feedback from people within their comfort zone, not ours. I have written about this before, also on OrangePolitics.

I believe creative citizen engagement to be crucial with respect to creating a process that fully engages communities with the notion of citizen design of policing. But it has wider implications, too. The latest OrangePolitics post and comments are worth reading in their entirety.

Carrboro, Citizens, Policing - Anarchist Humor

Well, I've been posting updates on the Occupy Chapel Hill/Carrboro [http://occupychapelhill.org/] listserv of the attempts a bunch of us are making to involve ordinary citizens in the shaping of policing policy in Carrboro, NC.

Quite a few folks have expressed interest. But there are one or two die-hard radicals who, for reasons best known to them, have been vehemently dismissive of the concept of citizen design of policing.

The irony has been that I, the reformed British Conservative Party pol from some thirty years back, have been the one saying citizens should decide, cut the red tape, let's prove what can be done. And it is one, especially vocal, purported radical who has been quoting statute, authority and regulation in denigrating the efforts to have citizen policing. Interesting irony, huh?

In any event, the one saving grace is that the radical in question, when he started losing the argument, decided to spend quite a bit of time producing hilarious memes, which I share. I guess it beats throwing rocks ...

Carrboro, Citizens, Policing - Conflation and Progress

I link to my latest update on the evolving process ultimately to allow the citizens of Carrboro, NC to design the policing approach in our community, a process I believe is essential to improving the relationship between all citizens and our police (in Carrboro and around the US), and a process which can more easily be explored in a community like Carrboro, which has a reputation for innovative approaches to governance.

This comment, the discussion thread in which it is embedded, and the links contained, offer an excellent reference point for learning about, becoming involved in and influencing the drive for citizen design of policing in Carrboro, along with my own blog – http://citizenpolicing.com/.

Now, nothing is going to happen unless citizens of Carrboro make the time to attend the community forums being staged by the Carrboro police and the Carrboro Board of Aldermen. Those forums are the focal point for evolving citizen design of policing. All the wishful thinking, chit-chat here on FB and elsewhere, marches and the like, will count for nothing unless we attend those forums, and evolve them into a sustainable ongoing process of citizen policy making for Carrboro police.

So. It is now up to us to make this happen.

Digital Communication and Employee Inclusion

Oh dear. Speaks for itself:

"Hey Ruffin,

I hope you had a pleasant vacation.

I'm pretty sure there is good reason for the appearance of a 28" (??) color LED screen in my kitchen in the Southern Village Weave. I'm pretty sure it is for something that can not be accomplished on the five computer screens we have in the general office upstairs. I only wonder aloud because I'm pretty sure this is another one of those decisions that was made without involving ordinary workers in the decision-making.

This is not some Geoff-is-itchy-cos-he-can't-go-on-Spring-Break wheeze. We all sweat to make the money in this co-op. We all have a right to determine how that money is spent. Not because I say so. But because co-op policy says so.

It is not something small and inconsequential. I am pretty sure I am not the only employee a little disappointed that, having had a year when the growth in sales in my immediate department averaged good double figures, my pay raise was in the single figures.

And then I find a computer screen, to which I do not have access, sitting proudly next to my walk-in. And I'm wondering why my pay raise could not have been bigger? Why I am not involved in the process to determine how much of the profits I help to earn are devoted to pay raises? Why I was not involved in the decsion to spend who knows how much on digital co-op management? When all of this is my right under co-op policy.

I would be grateful if you could let me know how much the whole project (screens, software, electrician time, IM time) to digitalize co-op management communication has cost and will cost, in total. Then, I would be grateful if you would let me know when employees might expect some inclusion in the process you and I discussed to allow them to help design ways in which we can be more included in decision-making, as is our right under WSM co-op policy.

All the best,
Geoff"

[By the way, who can work out the connection between the pics attached to my previous posts on Employee Inclusion in Decision-Making within The Weave and the pic attached to this post?]

More Testaments for 'Maggie's Hammer'

Well. Publication day for The Book advances rapidly. I've been having on-off discussions about reviews, forewords and the like.

I can confirm that, as of today, whatever else happens, the book will have attendant forewords and internal reviews from the former Counter-Terrorism Adviser to former Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir, and an immediate past Minister of State in the Home Office of the current UK Coalition Government.

Huh. Wouldn't have expected that twenty-six years ago. Excuse me while I do my little whoop-di-doo, whirly-twirly, thank-you-universe dance, in my pink tutu and Taylor Swift 'I'm the Princess' tiara. Good thing my neighbors are now numb to me ...

The Weave Christmas Party, MLK, and Kat ... Karaoke

So. What happened to the ever-popular Karaoke at the Weaver Street Market Co-operative Annual Employee Christmas Party, which is being held this evening at the Carrboro Century Center?

Until last year, Karaoke had been the highlight at a succession of reasonably well-attended Christmas Parties. And then, last year. Boom. No Karaoke. Only a DJ. So, why?

Well. I wrote about this last year ... here. And my view is still the same. And bearing in mind that today is MLK Day, I would add that this is precisely the sort of thing that our co-op should be thinking about. It's called 'inclusivity' and 'diversity.'

See you this evening ... !!

Creative Engagement

I just added a response to a post on OrangePolitics, talking about getting feedback from people within their comfort zone, not ours. I believe this to be crucial with respect to creating a process that fully engages communities with the notion of citizen design of policing. But it has wider implications, too. The post and comments are worth reading in their entirety. My response:

"I would be a millionaire if I had a penny for every time I have told the 'powers-that-be' that sensible community engagement requires engaging with people in their comfort zone, not in the comfort zone of those wanting answers.

Whether it was advocating for youth facilities at the age of sixteen in my home town in England, meeting with constituents as a municipal councilor at the age of 23, attempting to increase democracy within Weaver Street Market Co-operative, or inviting views on the issue concerning me at the moment (citizen design of policing), time and again I have tried to convince folks that it is incumbent on them to go to the people, not the other way around.

It really is not beyond the ken of creative elected and unelected public officials to find ways to engage with people who are not comfortable in crowds, in public, at times that are inconvenient to them, on camera, and the like. You raise the perfectly good example of asking folks to engage with their social circles, and then report back. It's not good enough for those same officials to say, well it's not convenient for me; ooh, I wouldn't want to go there; I'd rather stay behind my table, thank you.

Couple of caveats. If officials do find creative ways to engage, visiting bars, holding mini-meets in apartment complex offices, whatever, then folks, we have to find the time to respond and engage right back. You can't find the NFL more interesting, and then complain a month later you weren't asked.

Taking Weaver Street Market as an example, I stood for the Board of Directors four times as a Worker-Owner Candidate. I very quickly learned that fellow worker-owners had become very disillusioned over the years, and simply did not feel it was worth voting anymore. I undertook a long-term effort to try to re-engage fellow worker-owners.

I regularly visited units when workers were off-the-clock. I started a blog. I made my campaign to become a Worker-Owner Director a rolling, multi-year affair, more concerned with engagement than getting elected. I assiduously communicated with every new employee, to invite them to be Friended on Facebook. As a consequence of which I have about 60% of the workforce of WSM Friended on Facebook. A workforce of about 250 which, several years ago, had 100 worker-owners, and now has 192.

Even so, it pretty much remained the case that my fellow workers didn't want to take the time (their time, by the way; always off-the-clock, by-the-way, WSM management please take note!) to engage in 'official' exercises of feedback or to attend meetings. So, I would attend. And mention that fellow workers had passed their views onto me (which they had, and which they still do, regularly). Views which I tried faithfully to represent, even though I didn't always agree with them.

And there was the rub. Time and again, I would be told, sometimes quite rudely, that no-one believed I represented the views of anyone else. I was speaking only for me. I didn't care for myself. But it was a rather silly reaction, based solely on the fact that the people concerned didn't like me, or didn't want to hear the views being expressed. That said, none of this is about me. I merely use me as an example.

The point is this. If we are going to be more creative about engagement, then we have to be more creative about our response to sometimes rather weird engagement. But, this is not rocket science. We know the folks who appear at meetings, and who claim to represent the universe, when they represent only themselves. A few respectful questions about the nature of the representation will sort out the chaff. I mean, however much folks may not like me, I'm pretty sure that the body of people beyond the WSM Board and corporate office are reasonably willing to believe that I do speak to other workers. It's not a difficult difference to identify."

Now, I'm going to go a bit weird. My life has been a political journey. My early years in the UK were with the British Conservative Party. A party which today is generally acknowledged to be nothing like the conservatives to be found in the US. Meanwhile, I have moved leftwards, and now regard myself as a progressive centrist. With a weak spot for aspects of my first love.

So it is that I keep track of what the British Tories are up to. And currently, they have some interesting ideas about engagement. Which (hopefully) explains the weirdness in my linking to this post here. Forget the source. Pay attention to the creativity involved with the ideas for engagement. Think about what we regard as at risk communities with respect to policing. Young people and African-Americans have smartphones. Is there not some way of designing feedback that utilizes social media and modern technology?

Carrboro, NC Police/Citizen Dialogue - A Starting Point

I have held several conversations with three Carrboro Alderpeople about citizen design of policing in Carrboro, NC. I have reported those conversations widely, to act as a starting point for a process of citizen design, both for Carrboro, and, perhaps, for other communities in the US.

Lookee Who Came A-Visiting ...

So, my sister Maggi in England was taking a break from mother-in-law care over the New Year, and was visiting some old family friends in Cornwall. Shapland by name.

Look who popped in last Thursday, to get his (British) General Election campaign going, by visiting the chocolate factory started by Alex Shapland (bloke on the right) a few years ago with government money.

Maggi, who took the pic and who is not by any stretch of the imagination a die-hard Tory, was loathe to say that the visitor (ok, British Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron) was really quite charming, and, according to Alex, asked all the right questions. Don't you hate it when you like the person you really don't want to like?

Meanwhile, I know that our Dave is looking forward to both his re-election in May, and the publication of The Book in June ...

Including Workers In Decision-Making

Even more progress. But here's the deal. It comes with a caveat. YOU have to get involved.

I've done what I can (so far) to help to create the space where all employees of Weaver Street Market Co-operative can be included in designing how it is we are more involved in the making of decisions that affect us.

In coming weeks, you should see an invitation in the WSM employee Market Messenger to offer input on how you would like to be able to participate in the making of the decisions which affect you, whether at department, store or co-op level.

At that point, I can do no more. The only way anything will happen, will change is if you read the Market Messenger and respond with your views.

If the powers-that-be see this whole drive for worker inclusion as merely my fad, then they will pass on by. It's in your hands to create a groundswell of numbers calling for more worker democracy in our co-op.

Right. Now, this all came about as the consequence of a meeting I had with Ruffin, the WSM General Manager, yesterday. Here's the e-mail I wrote to him after that meeting:

"Hey Ruffin,

Thank you for meeting with me yesterday. I think we managed to cut to the chase pretty effectively.

I'm not wildly happy that our pay raise for 2014 was not backdated to what had become the norm of the beginning of September. But what is done is done.

What was and remains of much more interest to me is finding a way forward that allows the regular implementation of at least the spirit of the WSM Board Policy requiring that WSM employees be included in decision-making which affects them.

We discussed in passing employee inclusion in the setting of each year's operational budget. Again, I was less interested in specific decisions, even huge ones like the budget, than I am in helping to create space on an ongoing basis for employees to be included in decision-making generally.

But, on the subject of the budget. I don't think your average employee wants to be involved in the nitty-gritty of determining how much we set aside to buy nuts and bolts. But I do think we should have a role in contributing to the big decisions that determine how much financial profit will be left at the end of the year: e.g. how much building work, how much expansion, how much for salary increase and how much for dividend.

Addressing the very specific point of worker remuneration, I would like to see the opportunity before the next round of pay raises, after the end of the Financial Year 2015 (June 2015), for employees to be asked for their views on how much of the monies that have been set aside for their compensation (salary increases, benefit increases and dividend), what ratio of those monies should be attributed to each.

Now, the overriding issue. How do we find a way to allow workers to feel that they are being included in decision-making that affects them, where they feel that their views on topics at all levels (department, store and co-op) are genuinely being sought, are being listened to, and then have some influence on the decisions made?

I have no interest in advancing my own views. They have been well canvassed elsewhere. What I would like is to help to create the space where all employees can have their opinions heard on what they would like to see by way of more inclusion in decision-making.

Deborah already wrote to me that you and she were going to review the Board Policy in this regard. I wasn't terribly happy with that response. I don't think that you and Deborah should be doing that on your own. I suggested that you might, through the 'Market Messenger,' invite the views of employees before undertaking your review, publishing the results, and seeking further input. We differed a bit on how one might word that invitation. But you seemed essentially to be in agreement.

I'm not sure it is sensible to attempt much more than that at this point. If there is an overwhelming and varied response to the invitation, it may well be that one wants to revisit the idea of a more formal consultation exercise or even a task force. But, why not let employees have their first shot at sharing what they want? Allowing them the opportunity to help to design how they might become more involved in decision-making.

I look forward to the more general invitation in the 'Market Messenger,' and hopefully to some inclusion in the making of the big decisions that affect employee remuneration in the setting of the next budget.

In the meantime, I will hold my Formal Complaint/Proposal in abeyance, pending the progress that we discussed. Many thanks.

All the best,
Geoff"

So. Over to all of you now. Make it count.