From: Andrew Phelps <dis_course@yahoo.com>
Subject: [s-acc] grassroots forward
To: s-acc@yahoogroups.com
Cc: Friends
Date: Sunday, June 29, 2008, 9:13 AM
Hi
For me what's primary is to get the grassroots activity working as well as I know how. Nurture the 'underground'. Build a critical way to approach the global questions.
On the area touched by this list I'm working on
[a] getting online a study group in the general area of "influencing attitudes and changing behaviors." Does "freedom and dignity" (ML King., Jr.) serve as the value system driving behavioral science, or do "cover stories" for treating us like animals-who-behave put raw behavioral manipulation in the fore?
I heard a "whisper" from Calif. DMH circles that when the MHSA (Prop. 63) started to challenge their core organizational process, people were talking about "some animals are more equal than others." Not necessarily with Orwellian passion, maybe even just trying to describe what they see happening.
[b] the "Social Accountability Work Group" organizational notion, that groups of "client/survivor" people and friends can network in "Alice's tea room" and nurture struggles which locally (or in their limited domain) can make the ongoing issues develop differently, in a more socially accountable way.
An example is in
the flyer some of us put out, to confront a NAMI power play to get control of the infrastructure of mental health networking in the Silicon Valley. The chief organizer of the demo (against County M.H. cutbacks) was a mathematician for whom I once worked, who is now the head of County NAMI. We brought 10 people to the demo (of 50) and 'disturbed' their singlemindedness. In the 'old days' we'd have called this nurturing our 'voicing process'.Anyway these are things I'm thinking on.
Andrew