4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Literary Minutia–Not At All What I Expected,November 20, 2011
I bought this book on the basis of a rave mention of it in one of the other books I reviewed, it might have been a year ago. It's been sitting in my airplane pile for a while.
At a professional level of erudite literary dissection and amplification, this is clearly both a supreme professional accomplishment and a labor of love. From the note to the bibliography to the chronology, this is one of the best constructed and presented “packages” I have ever held in my hands.
It leaves me cold. I simply do not see, feel, or comprehend the bru-ha-ha over this being a clarion call to flagrant abandon, an ode to homosexuality, a challenge to the ruling class, etcetera.
Second, although the “author” Duncan Crary takes great pains to minimize his role, I have dealt with massive transcripts and historical artifacts covering long spans and would say that he has done a heroic job–he has excelled–at pulling out “just enough, just right” pieces and ordering them into the following section (since Look Inside the Book is not available, I list them):
5.0 out of 5 stars Less Funny, More Provocative–Price is a WOW,November 20, 2011
First, a confession. I am 59 years old and had no idea who Paul Krassner was/is. The more I read through the book the more I marveled at his pioneering endeavors and their continuing relevance as Occupy struggles to find its voice and focus. So for all the folks that don't know who Paul Krassner is, at under $3.00 this book is a WOW value, and I recommend it for that alone.
This is NOT a funny book. There are a few places here and there where one can see the deep tragic comedy possibility, but more than anything this is a very provocative book that beats a single theme: the obscenity of all that we allow to be done in our name, to our bodies and our environment, to our families, schools, economy, and the Republic itself. Obscene, they name is a two-party tyranny and a Congress so corrupt they shame every dictator (all 40+ of them, all but two “best pals” of the US Government) in their craven greed and lack of democratic integrity.
“One of the constant mantras of the “Occupy Together” (OT) phenomenon is its “leaderless” nature. I support and applaud this… to a point.
Anyone who has come to my workshops over the past ten years knows I’ve been an advocate of “Emergence” – defined as “leaderless distributed networks of information and power”. In an Emergence, it is the system that learns, grows and adapts… without any kind of “authority” telling the various agents what to do.When it happens, it is startling, it is beautiful, and it is POWERFUL.
So, the question of whether OT needs “leadership” is tied to the question: “Is OT an Emergence?” The answer to that question is a firm “NOT YET”. And, because of that, OT is in definite need of leadership.But, a very different kind of leadership than what we’ve been used to.
First: upon what do I base my “not yet” assessment? An Emergence has five very important factors. In an Emergence…
1. The group has a large number of independent actors, all sharing information.
2. There is a lack of control over any individual’s behavior.
3. The actors share a common vision, simple values, and/or rules.
4. The actors have largely interchangeable roles.
5. The actors have the same goals and objectives.
OT clearly has #2 and #4.They clearly do NOT have #3 and #5. (I’m not sure about #1…) Without vision/ values/ goals/ objectives, OT NEEDS LEADERSHIP.A very different kind of leadership: Emergent Leadership.
We know the role of old-style leadership: tell the sheeple what to do. Whether it’s the “boss” on the shop floor, or the old-style politician wheeling and dealing in the corridors of power, leadership equals control, and control equals power.
Not in an Emergence.Someone grabbing a bullhorn and “telling” the Occupy forces what to
do would be met with derision, silence, scorn or pity. (Perhaps all of the above.) OT is – and should be – allergic to “control”.
Here’s a quote from Stephen Johnson, author of the book “Emergence”:
“Without an active leader who takes responsibility for building a network, spontaneous connection between groups emerges very slowly, or not at all.”
What they did not get, for all that time and money, was much practical training. Law schools have long emphasized the theoretical over the useful, with classes that are often overstuffed with antiquated distinctions, like the variety of property law in post-feudal England. Professors are rewarded for chin-stroking scholarship, like law review articles with titles like “A Future Foretold: Neo-Aristotelian Praise of Postmodern Legal Theory.”
So, for decades, clients have essentially underwritten the training of new lawyers, paying as much as $300 an hour for the time of associates learning on the job. But the downturn in the economy, and long-running efforts to rethink legal fees, have prompted more and more of those clients to send a simple message to law firms: Teach new hires on your own dime.
“The fundamental issue is that law schools are producing people who are not capable of being counselors,” says Jeffrey W. Carr, the general counsel of FMC Technologies, a Houston company that makes oil drilling equipment. “They are lawyers in the sense that they have law degrees, but they aren’t ready to be a provider of services.”
Phi Beta Iota: The entire US educational system is hosed. From college students who graduate with no more capability than high school graduates to half century ago, to “professional” degrees that do not teach how to “do” only how to take tests, the disconnect from reality is huge. While some intelligence studies have emerged, after the pioneering effort of Mercyhurst under Bob Heibel, they do not actually teach the craft of intelligence or how to do holistic analytics or create workable open source information technology support packages — they simply prepare rounded cogs for the secret intelligence world.
Each and every day some police action infuriates and breathes new life into this movement. Just when you think the movement might go stale and the message of “We are the 99%” will no longer pack the punch that it has had over the last two months, some picture or some video is released showing occupiers or, in this case, students peacefully standing their ground in the face of police violence.
Click on Image to Enlarge
Yesterday, UC Davis students showed solidarity with students at other UC campuses, who are facing tuition increases and have been the victim of police brutality (particularly at UC Berkeley during Occupy Cal protests). The students set up tents on the main quad area of UC Davis. Police were ordered to remove the tents and arrived in riot gear holding batons and tear gas guns. Students sat on the ground in a circle, linked arms and held their ground in the face of a menacing police force.
“Lieutenant of Police” for UC Davis, John Pike, stepped over the line of occupiers sitting on the ground. He pointed a pepper spray canister at the line of students. Then, as if he was watering his lawn, he began spraying the students with orange-colored pepper spray.
