Movement Resource Group

[Stephen Marshall]

Please check this out
http://movementresourcegroup.org/

Stephen Marshall
11 Hungerford Terrace (out back)
Burlington Vermont 05401
Dispolemic.Blogspot.Com
802-861-2316 Landline
802-922-1446 Cell

[Brett Williams]

On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 9:27 AM, Stephen Marshall
<visi...@burlingtontelecom.net> wrote:
> Please check this out
> http://movementresourcegroup.org/

Habitually hierarchical.

*** Responding to an activist who asked how to submit a proposal for
financial support, Greenfield responded, “We are not Occupy Wall
Street. We are working in a way that’s different, and we want to
integrate values and ideals to the degree that we can, but we are not
committed to consensus decisionmaking.” ***
http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/01/ben-jerry-raise-cool-occupy-cash-get-activists-cold-shoulder/#ixzz1o4E7FRDr

No shit the 1% would like to integrate our movement to the degree that
they can. ;)

I'm downhands on accepting any money from them, even without strings.

For the moment we should probably privately pressure them to adopt an
open process. When (I can't bring myself to say "if") they refuse, we
should openly dissociate from them and oppose this as co-option.

<3,
mungojelly

[Stephen Marshall]

http://www.nycga.net/groups/accountability-transparency/forum/topic/mrg-movement-resource-group-fka-bagomg/

On 3/3/2012 10:27 AM, Brett Williams wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 9:27 AM, Stephen Marshall
> <visi...@burlingtontelecom.net> wrote:
>> Please check this out
>> http://movementresourcegroup.org/
>
> Habitually hierarchical.
>
> *** Responding to an activist who asked how to submit a proposal for

> financial support, Greenfield responded, �We are not Occupy Wall
> Street. We are working in a way that�s different, and we want to

> integrate values and ideals to the degree that we can, but we are not

> committed to consensus decisionmaking.� ***

> http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/01/ben-jerry-raise-cool-occupy-cash-get-activists-cold-shoulder/#ixzz1o4E7FRDr
>
> No shit the 1% would like to integrate our movement to the degree that
> they can. ;)
>
> I'm downhands on accepting any money from them, even without strings.
>
> For the moment we should probably privately pressure them to adopt an
> open process. When (I can't bring myself to say "if") they refuse, we
> should openly dissociate from them and oppose this as co-option.
>
> <3,
> mungojelly
>
>

--
This reply email has been edited to reduce volume and to simplify
reading it.

[Eric Davis]

Mungo,

So the first thing I thought of when I read the quote you included was, hmmm...that seems really out of context. And going back to the article it seems as though OWS NYC wasn't happy when it was made clear that access to MRG's funds wouldn't be by OWS's consensus based decision making process. The way I read MRG's process, grant proposals are received by MRG and are then reviewed by a panel of 10, 5 occupiers and 5 people from MRG, through what is likely a consensus based process. It might not be directly democratic, it seems to be more of spokes design.

And I'm not so sure habitually hierarchical is an appropriate characterization. Hierarchy implies not only structure, but some sort of control of one person/group over another person/group. An organization deciding to give no strings attached money to another organization to promote shared values/goals seems more like organizations freely associating with each other than a hierarchical relationship.

Second, I'm also not comfortable of painting the 1% with such a broad brush stroke. The 1% and the 99% is an awesome rallying cry, but in reality there are many 1 percenters who are fully aware that everyone doing well is a much better way forward than a few people doing really well. The problem doesn't lie with everyone making over x amount or worth x amount, the problem is the people who to choose to use their financial advantage to undermine the democratic process for their own ends. There are 1 percenters who are allies.

To be sure the more open and transparent MRG is the better, but I don't share your pessimism in their willingness to be as open as possible.

-Eric

[Brett Williams]

On Mon, Mar 5, 2012 at 1:36 PM, Eric Davis <ericpa...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> And I'm not so sure habitually hierarchical is an appropriate
> characterization. Hierarchy implies not only structure, but some sort of
> control of one person/group over another person/group. An organization
> deciding to give no strings attached money to another organization to
> promote shared values/goals seems more like organizations freely associating
> with each other than a hierarchical relationship.

OK well leaving aside that the money is ill-gotten, sure. Except that
of course in this particular case there are in fact huge strings. If
you really think there aren't, consider my proposed strategy for
dealing with this attempt at co-option: Write a proposal for the
money, full of the safe reformist stuff they want to hear, and then
simply spend the money instead on something radical. I'd expect them
to violently fight that strategy, I'd expect them to dissociate and
sue, which shows how many strings they actually want to put. They
want to fund actions that go down exactly as described in proposals
submitted to them in advance. Do you think they'll be checking the
proposals to make sure they're sufficiently radical and disruptive? I
would expect them to be carefully checking them to see if they benefit
their own personal and institutional interests.

<3,
mungojelly

[Emily Reynolds]

Hey everyone! Everyone in nyc is buzzing about this too. Seems like the general feeling is to accept funds but without strings because ben and jerries kinda have to or they would get bad press from us. So hopefully it will be no strings attached.

[Eric Davis]

To me co-option describes someone (or organization) using another's platform which they don't really believe in for their own personal gain. Considering Ben and Jerrry have been working for social justice issues well before Occupy Wall Street and I dont see in what disengenious ways MRG could benefit, considering they are just an organization formed to handle big money donations and disburse them, I'd use a different term than co-option. I'd use collaboration.

I don't think writing a grant proposal with the intent to deceive the funding organization is a good idea. What if you are wrong about them? If the goal is to see if they are willing to fund radical projects, why don't we write an awesome proposal for something fairly radical like the formation of a temporary workers cooperative and also write a proposal for ho-hum stuff like meeting space and the like? It's a win win. We either get the funds for the radical project or if we get money for the vanilla grant proposal, it frees up are funds for radical projects...

[Stephen Marshall]

Stephen here,

I want everyone to be aware of a conversation about the Movement
Resource Group, an affinity group that came out of the NYCGA, initiated
by some "one-percenters for the 99%", including Ben and Jerry.

If you are unfamiliar with this discussion, try starting from the bottom
of this email.

I talked with Jerry Greenfield last night - at the David Cobb
presentation. I asked him about the MRG protocol and the objections
people have. He made two points:
1) The MRG selected Occupy people for the first round of grants so they
could get up and running quickly. They intend to get people selected by
Occupations for future rounds. Jerry argued that Occupy democracy is
slow, so they took shortcuts to get started.
2) MRG would operate under a hybrid of Occupy process and standard
practice. There will be and are 5 Occupiers, 4 people from other
activist groups, and only one from inside MRG. MRG will select the
non-Occupy activists, and Occupations will select the Occupy people. I
didn't think to ask about whether it would be consensus based or
majority based.

> On 3/5/2012 6:45 PM, Emily Reynolds wrote:
>
> Hey everyone! Everyone in nyc is buzzing about this too. Seems like
> the general feeling is to accept funds but without strings because ben
> and jerries kinda have to or they would get bad press from us. So
> hopefully it will be no strings attached.
>
> On Mar 5, 2012 1:36 PM, "Eric Davis" <ericpa...@gmail.com

> Mungo wrote:
>
> Habitually hierarchical.

>
> No shit the 1% would like to integrate our movement to the
> degree that
> they can. ;)
>
> I'm downhands on accepting any money from them, even without
> strings.
>
> For the moment we should probably privately pressure them to
> adopt an
> open process. When (I can't bring myself to say "if") they
> refuse, we
> should openly dissociate from them and oppose this as co-option.
>
> <3,
> mungojelly
>
>

--
This reply email has been edited to reduce volume and to simplify reading it.

Stephen Marshall