Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kirby Urner on 9th mo. 27, 2016 at 11:03am

We can wade through history for centuries, finding instances wherein conspiracies and keeping secrets (that weren't just personal) played a part in this or that outcome. 

So was the American Revolution a negative development in your book?  I'd say the oppressive non-democracy we enjoy today ("Hilladon Country") is thanks to subsequent coups, not something to lay at Thomas Jefferson's door (we wouldn't have attacked Ho Chi Minh, a Jeffersonian, had the America of the Founding Fathers stayed on track -- but then history contrary to fact is just more science fiction).

Quakers got a sandbox (Pennsylvania) out of the deal, although it admittedly eroded away (as any Quaker utopia) and was more a parallel experiment. To this day Philly is still something of a Quaker capital (thinking of Friends Center, also known affectionately as  the "Quaker Vatican" with AFSC offices therein, affectionately know as the "Quaker KGB" -- more of that "Commie Kitcsh" I was talking about, want a T-shirt?).

My mom (87) is a role model for me, in that she conspired with native peoples in the Philippines, in a martial law context, to help them protect their land rights in the face of US Army style divide and conquer tactics.  She could do this as a foreigner, with ties to the US Embassy (not unlike Lindauer in some ways).  She wrote a Pendle Hill pamphlet about it (The Needle's Eye...).

She knew the Marcos regime would be paranoid and invited one of their Colonels (RP intelligence) to some meetings, which freaked out her co-conspirators.  She was practicing her Quaker values, of openness and transparency.  But that didn't keep her from networking with those subversive Jesuits and so on, the kind that oppose tyranny at some risk to their well-being. Lots more stories as our family moved around, and Urners have a propensity to get their hands dirty (in a clean way).

Given my reading of history, and the good the conspiracies do (not just the bad), if Lindauer were to show up in Portland -- not far fetched as she was on staff for both DeFazio and Ron Wyden in her DC years -- I'd have no problem with her membership in Multnomah.  I've suggested we offer membership to Chelsea Manning, now that we allow "from a distance" joiners (something we practiced with Canada), however my understanding is Chelsea is not looking for such karma (she has enough on her plate already).

My guess is you and I are temperamentally on different sides of this coin.  You're more like the small town newspaper owner who fields teams of investigative reporters to find things out, report the truth, tell it like it is.  I'm more like [batman] the nuclear abolitionist, networking with students to help them become tomorrow's weapons inspectors and decommissioners -- the people working full time to put the moronic Age of Nukeheads (aka Planet of the Apes) behind us. I expect OSU in particular to have a strong curriculum, in light of its existing investments.

I also think Prohibition was a travesty, a huge invasion against personal rights (I have similar views regarding the Drug Wars more generally). If Quakers played a significant role in providing speakeasies (watering holes), and/or did underground brewing, I'm prepared to be proud of these Quakers, just haven't done enough homework to know if they existed. 

As a liberal (see my QQ blog post on that), I have that"use it or lose it" sensation around various human rights.  We need to exercise those rights once we have them, not just bemoan their eroding when we see we're losing them.  The right to keep secrets, organizationally, is one of those human rights, right up there with freedom of assembly.  The Quaker testimony is to non-violence i.e. get the business done without recourse to outward weapons.  Diplomacy in other words, including citizen diplomacy ala Snowden.  I'm for it.  Quakers should practice that more in my reckoning.  YMMV.

Permalink Reply by Kirby Urner on 9th mo. 27, 2016 at 12:12pm

Here's a post about our "long distance membership" experiment, with more details:

http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2013/05/approved-long-distance-memb...

Kirby Urner said:

Given my reading of history, and the good the conspiracies do (not just the bad), if Lindauer were to show up in Portland -- not far fetched as she was on staff for both DeFazio and Ron Wyden in her DC years -- I'd have no problem with her membership in Multnomah.  I've suggested we offer membership to Chelsea Manning, now that we allow "from a distance" joiners (something we practiced with Canada), however my understanding is Chelsea is not looking for such karma (she has enough on her plate already).

Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 9th mo. 27, 2016 at 2:28pm

Trying to establish abstract ideals as a guide to conduct is probably as misguided as Keith would say. Friends have really blown it in efforts to reform one thing or another; the ability to change course when the panacea makes everyone sick has helped a lot.

But despite occasional situations where the enemies you love don't really need to know _everything_ -- Conspiracies make an unwieldy, treacherous tool for wothwhile objectives. The opposition is probably better at conspiring than you are.

And when you're calling for a demonstration; and you aren't machiavellian enough to want it to generating truly ugly photo-ops -- you'd _want_ the cops to know what you've got in mind. A scared cop ("armed and dangerous", even if they personally like what you're asking for) can make life nasty, brutal, and short.

Permalink Reply by Kirby Urner on 9th mo. 27, 2016 at 2:34pm

I have a lot of real world experience regarding what you talk about, re calling for a demonstration.  As AFSC Liaison, as depicted in this Photostream [1], I helped plan the route for a May 1 protest, and yes, one needs police permission because yes we want control of the streets, no traffic.  They get paid for that.  So we duly filed our papers ahead of time, letting everybody know.  Then #BlackLivesMatter showed up and ingeniously made the circuit flow the other way, having the flow come to R2DToo (a HQS) from across the street.  Brilliant, a surprise hijack of an entire event.  The police were amused at our lack of crowd control.  I wasn't on control duty, just a photographer, as usual.

Like with "propaganda" I think we're pre-conditioned to reflex negatively about any "conspiracy" (those are bad, we learn that in kindergarten).  However keep in mind how it really is, a crew on a ship, few contacts on land, putting in to a port somewhere.  The crew faces a new unknown as a team, fans out, regroups, sails away, compares notes.  That's a "conspiracy" in the sense of "a team with the ability to compare notes often".  Quakers certainly have that.  Not my fault.

[1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/afscportland

Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 9th mo. 27, 2016 at 4:09pm

If you plan it they'll have your press releases.

There were groups down here who regularly butted heads with police clubs... and groups who tried to get along... but the City government's in-the-public-face conspiracies got their way just about every time. Mysterious phone calls from Anonymous would now & then arrive with pretty good information about what They were up to -- but only the fact that many public employees agreed with us could make that happen.

The concessions we got by making a modicum of trouble helped a lot of desperate people hang on a little bit longer and a little bit better; but nothing worked as well as having one real lawyer annoyed enough to finally sue the bastids. (& he was personna non-you-name-it with the City gang from that point on.)

A certain Machiavelian friend... would do stuff like call up the cops & tell them that if they arrested us, he would bathe in gasoline & take a dive off the major downtown hotel. We'd come home wondering where all the cops had been, & next morning we'd find out he'd just talked to the shrink & gotten himself released from County Mental Health. He really was crazy, but knew what to say. We weren't 'breathing-together' with that guy; the fumes might have been toxic...

Nothing ever works according to plan anyway; you might as well save yourself the trouble.

Permalink Reply by Kirby Urner on 9th mo. 27, 2016 at 4:33pm

That sounds rather defeatist.  True, ya win some, ya lose some, but that doesn't mean ya don't win some!

I'd say some plans go off without a hitch, the well-designed ones in retrospect. I can't Monday Night quarterback every game (believably).  Anyway, we should get back to Jesus and the Bible here shortly, or Friends'll get nervous. I'll see ya in another thread!

Forrest Curo said:

Nothing ever works according to plan anyway; you might as well save yourself the trouble.

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