The technical term is “a clusterf**k”

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So you want to join the revolution? If you live in Austin they are gonna start revolting at 10 am today, with a “general assembly” meeting at 3 pm.

The general assembly will be using the “consensus process” to make decisions:

Consensus Process Basics

Overview
· A formal decision-making process
· Nonviolent, everyone has a voice, everyone is involved in making decisions, decreases competitive dynamic that is seen with parliamentary procedure or majority rule
· Consensus is built on a foundation of trust, respect, unity of purpose, nonviolence, self-empowerment, cooperation, conflict resolution, commitment to group, active participation, equal access to power, patience

Roles
· Agenda planner
· Facilitator – non-directive leadership, facilitates process, if they have something to say as individual, they step aside as facilitator for the moment
· Timekeeper – watches the time spent on each item, gives 1 or 2 minute notice before time’s up, and when scheduled time runs out
· Peacekeeper – keeps an eye on tensions, process, respect, can interrupt at any time if needed to reflect on process and communicate potential course corrections

Process
· At beginning of each meeting, group enters agenda contract including agenda items, their order, and the initial number of minutes allotted to each item
· One proposal is considered at a time
· Any concerns are raised and resolved, sometimes one by one, until all voices are heard.
· Decisions are adopted when all participants consent to the result of discussion about the original proposal.
· People who do not agree with a proposal are responsible for expressing their concerns.
· No decision is adopted until here is resolution of every concern. Consensus does not assume that everyone must be in complete agreement. Other options include:
o Standing aside – When concerns remain after discussion, individuals can agree to disagree by acknowledging they have unresolved concerns, but consent to the proposal anyway and allow it to be adopted
o Send to committee and readdress at next meeting
o Block/veto – any individual can block any item; not done frivolously- only if the decision is of such great importance that the person would leave the group if the decision went through
· The individual is responsible for expressing concerns; the group is responsible for resolving them. The group decides whether a concern is legitimate; the individual
decides whether to block or stand aside.
· Consensus works best in an atmosphere in which conflict is encouraged, supported, and resolved cooperatively with respect, nonviolence, and creativity.
· Evaluation of process & tone occurs at the end of each meeting

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I have a little experience at this kind of stuff and the “Consensus Process Basics” are either bullshit or a recipe for a clusterfuck.

Who is the “general assembly?” Are they a specific group of people or is everyone who shows up for the meetings a voting member? Who selects the “roles?”

What if there is someone who won’t agree to anything? Can they veto everything? Get 3-4 strong-willed people with differing ideas together and you’ll have permanent gridlock.

Who decided on the consensus process? Was there a consensus? What ever happened to Roberts Rules of Order? Is that considered a fascist paradigm now?

I wish I lived close enough to Austin to attend because I would love to see this process in action. Our friend RalphB lives nearby, I hope he attends the meeting and brings us back a report.

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Speaking of Facebook

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This is an open thread

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The Filter Bubble

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Watch the video.

(Via I Own The World)

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Who’s to blame for that?

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Matt Yglesias

The Cost Of A Demobilized Left

Watching the growth of Occupy Wall Street solidarity protests around the country, it’s hard not to be reminded of the lost opportunity to mobilize a left-wing popular movement back in the winter of 2008-2009 and the spring of 2009. That was a time when Congress was psychologically prepared to address the issues of joblessness, the availability of health care and education, and the ecological sustainability of the global economy. But instead of hearing from a popular protest movement driving at roughly those things, the powers that be were faced instead with a mania for austerity and deregulation driven by racial resentment.

The problem at that point was the fundamentally paradoxical attitude of the Democratic Party leadership. On the one hand, they want to be in the center of American politics. On the other hand, they’re viciously opposed to the emergence of any kind of mass movement to the left of the Democratic Party leadership. This combination of preferences is simply not viable. I’m not saying it would have been smart for Barack Obama and Harry Reid to lead radical protest marches, but it would have been smart of them to see it as beneficial if someone was doing so. The dynamic in the House GOP where the Tea Party caucus sometimes annoys John Boehner but also repositions him as a moderate and reasonable guy and gives him leverage in the process. The giant puppet people protests against “globalization” in the late-1990s were, I think, always helpful to Bill Clinton.* They gave him the positioning he wanted — as a center-left mildly progressive neoliberal technocrat trying to take practical steps toward prosperity. People in the streets chanting about “corporate greed” is a useful reality check to the c-suites that could have helped restrain their fantasies about Kenyan anti-colonialist sharia socialism.

But Team Obama didn’t want progressive groups to put people in the streets back when he was powerful and prestigious enough that such protests could have given him a commanding position in the center of American politics. Instead the mass movement has arisen at a time when the president looks weak, mildly unpopular, etc. That’s no coincidence. But the same process that’s taken the shine off Obama has hurt progressive issues across the board and will make it much harder to make tangible progress on anything.

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Remember back in 2008 when one of the selling points about Obama was his mad organizational skills? Supposedly he would mobilize “Obama for America” (now “Organizing for America”) to flood congressional phone lines and mail rooms to push his agenda the same way they flooded the intertoobz with lies and smears about Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin.

So what happened?

What happened to Barack Obama’s once vaunted political machine? The outfit that put upwards of 8 million volunteers on the street in 2008 — known as Organizing for America — is a ghost of its former self. Its staff has shrunk from 6,000 to 300, and its donors are depressed: receipts are a fraction of what they were in 2008. Virtually no one in politics believes it will turn many contests this fall. “There’s no chance that OFA is going to have the slightest impact on the midterms,” says Charlie Cook, who tracks congressional races.

Neglect is to blame. After Obama was elected, his political aides ignored the army he had created until it eventually disappeared. No one was in charge; decisions were often deferred but rarely made. By the time they realized they needed more troops, says longtime consultant Joe Trippi, “their supporters had taken a vacation from politics.”

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New York Times on 1/26/2009:

Mr. Plouffe said the group had not settled on a budget or begun serious fund-raising. The goal is to have a relatively small staff, with representatives in most, if not every, state, and to make up any shortfall in personnel with the use of technology.

There is a clear interest in keeping the Internet-based political machinery that made Mr. Obama’s brand so iconic and that helped him raise record amounts. The new group’s initials, O.F.A., conveniently also apply to his Obama for America campaign. And the desire for the Obama organization to live on was voiced in a meeting of organizers in Chicago after Election Day, and echoed at 4,800 house meetings in December and in a survey completed by 500,000 Obama supporters.

Still, sensitive to ruffling feathers even among fellow Democrats wary of Mr. Obama’s huge political support, Mr. Obama’s aides emphasized that the effort was not created to lobby directly or pressure members of Congress to support Mr. Obama’s programs.

“This is not a political campaign,” Mr. Plouffe said. “This is not a ‘call or e-mail your member of Congress’ organization.”

Let’s go back to what Matt said:

But Team Obama didn’t want progressive groups to put people in the streets back when he was powerful and prestigious enough that such protests could have given him a commanding position in the center of American politics.

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Once more:

Team Obama didn’t want progressive groups to put people in the streets

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Now why would they not want that if they intended to pursue a progressive agenda? The question almost answers itself.

They didn’t intend to pursue a progressive agenda.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

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The Lost Generation – victims of excessive self-esteem

"My dad says I have to get a job." "Bummer, dude."

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What do you do with a whole generation of slackers who thinks they deserve rewards just for existing?

The creative class is a lie

Someday, there will be a snappy acronym for the period we’re living though, but right now — three years after the crash of 2008 — American life is a blurry, scratched-out page that’s hard to read. Some Americans have recovered, or at least stabilized, from the Great Recession. Corporate profits are at record levels, and it’s not just oil companies who are flush.

For many computer programmers, corporate executives who oversee social media, and some others who fit the definition of the “creative class” — a term that dates back to the mid-’90s but was given currency early last decade by urbanist/historian Richard Florida — things are good. The creativity of video games is subsidized by government research grants; high tech is booming. This creative class was supposed to be the new engine of the United States economy, post-industrial age, and as the educated, laptop-wielding cohort grew, the U.S. was going to grow with it.

But for those who deal with ideas, culture and creativity at street level — the working- or middle-classes within the creative class — things are less cheery. Book editors, journalists, video store clerks, musicians, novelists without tenure — they’re among the many groups struggling through the dreary combination of economic slump and Internet reset. The creative class is melting, and the story is largely untold.

It’s happening at all levels, small and large. Record shops and independent bookstores close at a steady clip; newspapers and magazines announce new waves of layoffs. Tower Records crashed in 2006, costing 3,000 jobs. This summer’s bankruptcy of Borders Books — almost 700 stores closed, putting roughly 11,000 people out of work — is the most tangible and recent example. One of the last video rental shops in Los Angeles — Rocket Video — just announced that it will close at the end of the month.

[...]

Some of these employees are young people killing time behind a counter; it’s hard for them, but they will live to fight again. But education, talent and experience — criteria that help define Florida’s creative class, making these supposedly valued workers the equivalent of testosterone injections for cities — does not guarantee that a “knowledge worker” can make a real living these days.

[...]

Is it a recession, a transition, a reset, or all of the above? “I think we’re nowhere,” says Donnelly. “We’re in a no man’s land.”

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Well boo-fucking-hoo you WATBs.

Seriously, who do these morons think they are? Did they really think they were just going to crank out the next great American novel in their spare time and then live la dolce vita evermore?

My generation looked forward to 40-50 years of hard work after graduating from school. A lucky few would get rich, far more would die in middle age from strokes and heart attacks.

These are the leaders of tomorrow? We are so fucked.

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TANSTAAFL

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Thank Wal-Mart for your new bank card fee

When Bank of America announced last week that it would charge $5 a month to customers who make purchases with their debit card, customers railed against the bank.

Many conservatives and libertarians said the anger should be aimed at Congress and the Obama administration, which, through last year’s Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, effectively outlawed the old debit card business model, spurring Bank of America to make this change.

But the real culprit is Walmart and the retail lobby, which used government to squeeze banks and fatten their own bottom line. Walmart won, banks lost, and now customers are stuck with a new monthly fee.

Here’s the background: Whenever you use a credit card or debit card to buy something at a store, the credit card processor (like Visa or Mastercard) and the issuing bank (like Bank of America or Chevy Chase Bank) both take a cut. The store may only get $9.70 on a $10 purchase.

How is that rate — the “interchange fee” — set? Until this year, it was set by market forces. Visa and Mastercard offer stores a service that facilitates sales and brings in more business. In return, they demand a cut of the sale. Walmart and Joe’s Corner Store aren’t required to accept debit cards or credit cards, but they do, which means that they decided the price was worth it.

Retailers, of course, wish the card issuers and processors would provide this service for free. Businessmen are always looking for a better deal. The businessmen in this case decided to employ regulatory robbery to get their way. Led by Walmart and the Retail Industry Leaders Association, retailers pushed for a federal cap on interchange fees.

When the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill came up, Sen. Dick Durbin introduced an amendment giving the Federal Reserve the authority to cap the interchange fee on debit cards (but not credit cards). Durbin, in the misleading populist mold of his fellow Illinoisan, Barack Obama, painted himself as the scourge of the special interests, because he was battling against the banks. But some other special interests were firmly in Durbin’s corner: the big retailers.

Melissa Merz, a former press secretary for Durbin, lobbied for Walmart on the financial regulation bill, as did former Durbin legislative aide Donni Turner. The Durbin alumna were both at the Podesta Group, and the firm’s lobbying filings indicate both lobbied on “Senate financial services regulatory reform legislation.”

At the same time, these retail lobbyists were helping fund Durbin’s campaign. Daily Caller reporter Jonathan Strong wrote “one month after the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill passed, both of those former aides, Melissa Merz and Donni Turner, attended an Aug. 10 fundraiser for Durbin hosted by the Podesta Group. A group of lobbyists mostly from the Podesta Group gave Durbin $5,000 on Aug. 10 and a $5,000 check from Walmart’s PAC cleared shortly afterward, on Aug. 27.”

The returns to the retail industry were huge. As the Federal Reserve prepared its rules setting the maximum per-purchase interchange fee, a Home Depot executive told investors on a conference call “Based on the Fed’s draft regulations, we think the benefit to the Home Depot could be $35 million a year.”

That $35 million Home Depot gain is a $35 million loss for banks and credit-card processors. Their interchange revenue was central to the business model that allowed banks to offer free checking and free debit-card use.

That business model is now illegal, and so Bank of America has switched to the model they find second best. If they can’t make the stores cover the costs of debit cards, make the consumers pay a share. The American Bankers Association calls Bank of America’s $5-a-month charge “the Durbin fee.”

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Let’s see, you were paying a hidden 3% surcharge for using your debit card, and now you’re paying a flat $5 per month fee. Meanwhile, people using cash are no longer subsidizing debit card users by paying the same hidden surcharge.

And that’s unfair? $5 a month seems pretty reasonable, especially if you spend more than $200 per month using your debit card.

I’m not a big fan of banks, but there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.

BTW – While Walmart may be the biggest single beneficiary, all those small businesses (like my local liquor store) also benefit.

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Dead meat

This picture is a strangely apt metaphor

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Michele Bachmann’s campaign is sputtering in Iowa

Michele Bachmann’s appearance on a talk radio show here should have been a breeze. Ronald Reagan was a sportscaster at the station in his early days, and his memorabilia is sprinkled around the office. The host was a friendly conservative.

But Bachmann repeatedly was asked the central question for her campaign: Does she have to win Iowa’s caucuses to keep her presidential campaign alive? She danced around an answer, saying she planned to win, until finally relenting when asked a third time whether failure would doom her effort.

“No, no, no, no,” Bachmann said, her voice growing uncertain. “Not necessarily; we might go on.”

It was a rare moment of audible frustration for the Minnesota congresswoman, and the break in her perennially cheery demeanor demonstrated just how much her bid does rest on Iowa.

After she formally announced her candidacy at her birthplace of Waterloo, about 100 miles northeast of here, Bachmann surged, capping the summer with a win at the straw poll in Ames. Since then, her candidacy has sputtered.

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I had heard a lot of bad things about Michele Bachmann over the past few years, but since most of the things I heard were from biased sources I was willing to keep an open mind and give her a chance.

Unfortunately for her most of what I heard was true.

She’s one of those people who seems normal and rational (even of you don’t agree with her) but then without warning she makes a sudden veer over into batshit.

She was flavor of the week once, now she’s the day before yesterday’s news.

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Reminder: Tomorrow, 10/4, is Run, Sarah, Run day

The Undefeated dvd is for sale starting tomorrow in stores across the country (including Target). If you can’t wait, pre-order it today at Walmart or Amazon.

Iron Dad

Steve Bannon, the guy who made the film, interviewed First Dude Todd Palin last night. Here’s the complete radio interview in 4 short (approximately 10 minutes each) segments.

Todd talks about Sarah work in Alaska as governor, the pipeline, her use of the veto pen. Quite interesting to me, in part 3, when Bannon asks him about the resignation decision, the first thing Todd brings up is the Obama-Rouse connection in the  strategy of ethics complaints:

“The July ’09 decision or? You know, I could talk for hours about Obama’s connection with Alaska because Pete Rouse who was his Chief of Staff as, you know, Senator Obama, so he’s got strong ties to Alaska …”

He doesn’t elaborate but it seems clear that the Palins were aware that the attacks were being directed from the WH.
Part 4 is about Todd’s Native American heritage and about the Iron Dog.

Tomorrow, let’s rattle the establishment  by getting this message out:
                   Run, Sarah, Run.
Blog it, Tweet it, Facebook it, write it on your car in dust.

(Essex and Orange has made available some great free Run-Sarah-Run images we can use. I love the bear poster.)

Their logo is pretty uncivil too

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Beltway Confidential:

Photos of First Lady Michelle Obama were featured on all major network newscasts yesterday as she was spotted shopping at a local Target retail store wearing a hat and sunglasses.

Target notoriously sparked the outrage of liberals and LGTB activists after donating money to Republicans in Minnesota.

Just last year activists at MoveOn.org, funded by liberal billionaire George Soros sponsored a huge campaign against Target creating a “Boycott Target” group on Facebook and collecting over 260,000 supportive signatures.

“Target’s refusal to acknowledge its customers’ outrage at their attempt to buy elections is scandalous,” said Justin Ruben, Executive Director of MoveOn, at the time.

Word of the boycott has subsided in recent months, and an investment fund controlled by billionaire George Soros purchased 543,900 shares of Target stock in August 2011.

But if the boycott is over, someone forgot to tell the 80,000+ members of the Boycott Target Facebook group.

“OMG! Michelle Obama is on the news for having shopped at Target. Let the current administration know that they need only to deal with companies who support a liberal agenda.” wrote an incredulous member.

MoveOn.org, hasn’t responded for a request for comment on the issue.

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I guess I should read those MoveOn emails they still keep sending me. Then I could have felt virtuous for not shopping at Target. Now if only I didn’t have to feel guilty for shopping at Walmart.

BTW – I never really understood this “George Soros/Koch Brothers” dueling boogeyman thing. Why single them out?

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How’s that hippie-punching working out?

"I got impeached and I'm still more popular than you"

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The factious left dogs Obama

President Obama is learning the hard way that you can’t please all of your fans all of the time.

After riding a wave of liberal support into the White House three years ago, Obama has found that some of those same supporters are now among his most vocal critics.

[...]

Complicating life for Obama, GOP leaders – particularly those in the Senate – have adopted a strategy of opposing the White House even on some legislation Republicans support. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), for instance, raised eyebrows at the start of the deficit-reduction debate when he helped kill a bipartisan bill – a proposal he’d previously characterized as the “best way to address the [budget] crisis” – after Obama endorsed it.

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” McConnell told National Journal last year.

The GOP’s rigidity has forced Obama to the right in order to pass anything through Congress, which in turn has only heightened the backlash from the left.

[...]

Still other observers maintain that, despite their grievances with some of Obama’s positions, liberals will come out for him at the polls when faced with the Republican alternative.

“I don’t think that Obama has fractured his base,” Henry Brady, political scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, said in an email.

“The truth is that its members have no place to go other than to him right now.”

Who says they have to go anywhere? Lots of them will just stay home.

Stop blaming the GOP for Obama’s “right turn.” He had supermajorities in both houses of Congress for two years. All we got out of that was a bad stimulus and a national version of Romneycare.

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The Doctor is Grumpy

Not covered under your plan

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Doctor Grumpy:

I’m not taking sides in the health care debate, but I do want to clarify something.

I see people on the news screaming that they don’t want “bureaucrats” between them and their doctor, and are afraid that’s what government health care will bring.

WTF? THAT’S THE WAY IT IS NOW, PEOPLE!!! I hear my nurse Annie on the phone all day trying to get approval from non-government insurance companies for tests, medications, physical therapy, ANYTHING that I order.

Look at your insurance card. Doesn’t it say things like “in-network” and “formulary”? Who the hell do you think came up with those? Not us docs. Dat be dem dere byoo-row-kratz!

Look back at some of my posts (like this, or this). I routinely have medications (both brand name and cheap generics) and tests refused by insurance companies. For an excellent commentary on this from the pharmacy side, this was written by FranticPharmacist.

So if you don’t want bureaucrats between you and your doctor- TOO BAD. They’ve been there for years. THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO DON’T HAVE THIS PROBLEM ARE PAYING CASH FOR EVERYTHING!

In fact, for those of you who don’t want the government running this, THEY ARE ACTUALLY ONE OF THE BETTER ONES TO WORK WITH! Just ask Annie. Medicare doesn’t question the majority of my tests, or meds. Yes, they don’t cover everything, nor should they, but they don’t fight with me over stuff like MRI’s on stroke patients. Uncle Sam (unlike Aetna, Cigna, Humana, and many others) tends to leave these things to the doctor’s discretion. Annie prefers Medicare patients for this very reason – they make her life easier.

So what happens to you the way it works NOW, with your non-government insurance?

You come to me for some neurological issue, which requires further work-up. So I order, say, an MRI and MRA of your head.

Annie gets the order, and calls Bozo Insurance, Inc. (BII) to schedule it. BII refuses, saying they want more information. So they fax us a 5 page “pre-auth” form, which Annie spends 20 minutes filling out and faxes back. Then they say the form wasn’t enough, and they also want copies of your office notes, so we send those, too (yup, when you joined BII you agreed that they can read your medical records).

So a few days go by. BII will claim they never got our fax. Or that we filled the form out wrong. Or that they don’t cover Capricorns when the moon is in Pisces. And we don’t know this until Annie calls back after a few days, because they’re hoping we forgot about it.

Eventually they’ll deny the whole thing, on the grounds that you don’t meet criteria for an MRI and MRA. This decision is usually made by a non-medically trained person with a minimum of a GED. They do this because they want to see just how badly I want the test.

So they tell me I can appeal this via “peer-to-peer” review. Which means I need to personally call their “physician reviewer” to argue with them as to why I want the study.

So, during my insanely busy day at the office I have to call them. I’m promptly put on hold for 10 minutes, before finally reaching the reviewer. This person is a doctor- but NOT necessarily in my specialty. In fact, it’s usually something like a retired dermatologist, who hasn’t done neurology since medical school in 1938. Or an OB/GYN who hated his job, and is doing this now instead. Or some doctor who immigrated from Lower Swazbodiaczk and can’t get a U.S. medical license (but your insurance company hired him to decide what medical care you need). But it’s almost NEVER someone actually in my field, who might understand why I want the study.

So after telling your life history to Dr. Denial, one of 2 things will happen. They’ll deny both studies, and want you to try medication or physical therapy or psychotherapy or holistic reflexology or whatever, and if you fail that THEN I can try to resubmit a request for the test. OR they will flip a coin and say they will cover the MRI, but not the MRA. Or vice-versa. They’ll say that if the first test is fine, THEN I can start over trying to get the other covered. Maybe.

And many of these companies actually pay these “reviewers” bonuses based on HOW MUCH MONEY THEY SAVED THE COMPANY BY DENYING TESTS.

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If you want to read the funny part you gotta follow the link.

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