Just a day or so ago, I wrote this:

There's an odds-on chance that we're set to witness more large-scale system failures as bloated, wasteful and sluggish institutions run into challenges they cannot adequately address.

Katrina is the example du jour, and a spectacular one at that, but there are contemporary examples in recent history. The failure of the Democratic party to dispose of Bush is one. The failure of the Pentagon to produce an unabashedly total result in Iraq. The failure of anti-war activists to make even a dent in the march to war.

In truth, that last one is more an example of a failed coalition than a failed institution. However, part of the whole thesis is that effective coalitions can in many way do the work of organizations which have become institutionalized. As such, I have to make the case that most recently constituted coalitions -- the anti-war protest movelet, America Votes, etc -- have been in some way lacking in critial qualities which render them ineffective. When I do that, it's not to disrespect or run anyone down. It's an honest inquiry into what works conducted in the hope of making things somehow better.

And now for an unrelated, but still revolution-oriented Portland-inspired thought.

Fires are part of the revolution. Sitting around a fire gets you back into a deep human place. You go out when the band it done playing, and someone picks up some scrap lumber from a construction site and you break some of it up and throw a little white gas on and suddenly you've got the original community ritual, ready for a gathering. It helps if it's the right kind of cold outside, but regardless it's a good thing to sit around a fire with some friends and talk.

It's been a good night. I could really see myself staying here for longer than a weekend if I had the option. Feels like a place where it would be possible to put down some roots.

Just a day or so ago, I wrote this:

There's an odds-on chance that we're set to witness more large-scale system failures as bloated, wasteful and sluggish institutions run into challenges they cannot adequately address.

Katrina is the example du jour, and a spectacular one at that, but there are contemporary examples in recent history. The failure of the Democratic party to dispose of Bush is one. The failure of the Pentagon to produce an unabashedly total result in Iraq. The failure of anti-war activists to make even a dent in the march to war.

In truth, that last one is more an example of a failed coalition than a failed institution. However, part of the whole thesis is that effective coalitions can in many way do the work of organizations which have become institutionalized. As such, I have to make the case that most recently constituted coalitions -- the anti-war protest movelet, America Votes, etc -- have been in some way lacking in critial qualities which render them ineffective. When I do that, it's not to disrespect or run anyone down. It's an honest inquiry into what works conducted in the hope of making things somehow better.

And now for an unrelated, but still revolution-oriented Portland-inspired thought.

Fires are part of the revolution. Sitting around a fire gets you back into a deep human place. You go out when the band it done playing, and someone picks up some scrap lumber from a construction site and you break some of it up and throw a little white gas on and suddenly you've got the original community ritual, ready for a gathering. It helps if it's the right kind of cold outside, but regardless it's a good thing to sit around a fire with some friends and talk.

It's been a good night. I could really see myself staying here for longer than a weekend if I had the option. Feels like a place where it would be possible to put down some roots.

Via Jabob's blog, which I recommend as daily reading. Here you go:

These are beautiful people from New Orleans who hooked up with some old school French social entrepreneures, the Secours Populaire Francais. The Popular Help.

There's an odds-on chance that we're set to witness more large-scale system failures as bloated, wasteful and sluggish institutions run into challenges they cannot adequately address. Today it's FEMA, tomorrow it may be General Motors or Keiser Permanente. What will replace these things? Perhaps human beings doing human things will do.

Human Power

I've been considering the notion of Human Power for a little while now. I thought about getting a tattoo to the effect; those words and a stylized bike gear on my shoulder or something. I think it might be a good title for the book too, a good concept to organize around.

Last night I watched Black Hawk Down, a well-made pean to the quality and effectiveness of America's Armed Forces in the most adverse situations. The political dimensions are pretty clumsily handled, and the action bits remind me (somehow uncomfortably) of a video game, but the essential narrative of comrades on a noble mission sticking together and performing their function in the midst of chaos has traction. It's a "guy" film, I think. Huah.

What does this have to do with the idea of revolution... Well, for one thing, if you want a career as an armed revolutionary, joining the Special Forces is one way to go. That's not what I am after, but I think there's a lot to learn about effective organization by looking at the military. Our country has been pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into that organization for decades. We ignore their developments and discoveries at our peril.

Discipline, focus, roles, responsibilities, these are not inherently fascist things. They are good practices for accomplishing tasks. Ask Zizek, he knows.

Now, I'm not a big fan of hierarchical systems; that's not what I'm advocating here at all, a chain of command. However, the concepts of training, mentorship and leadership are strong. I believe that experienced working groups can form ad-hoc organizations which rapidly attain levels of effectiveness exceeding those of institutionalized, top-down machines. The key is that these groups and their members have functional knowledge of one another, and a common set of standards for interoperation. Talented people who are experienced at working together and willing to do so towards a common goal will outperform a bureaucracy or hierarchy just about every time. Their fitness is greater. They are more effective.

Chris dropped this quote which comes from an article about chess:

Strategic concentration of force, advantage in tempo, and the element of surprise could devastate a much larger foe.

As the speed of communication increases and the automation of routine processing becomes more and more the norm, quantum leaps in operational methodology emerge. We're ways off from being able to make things mesh on-demand, but we're improving. Also, these are advantages of which the institutional establishment will have a very hard time taking advantage; they have not cultivated the necessary operational autonomy within themselves.

Large-scale institutions generally react to change by attempting to restrict the pace of new development, to maintain the status quo long enough to absorb the new wave, and therefore sustain their position of influence. This tends to be the strategy even if they happen to be on the loosing side in the long-term equation, to hold the line as long as possible. This is the story of the record labels as surely as it is the story of most left-of-center political machines.

The upshot is that, in B-school terms, a significant and untapped market niche exists. There's a strong human impulse for the kind of agency we're talking about, for political and economic power to be more decentralized and distributed on the human level. It's also a good idea in terms of problem-solving. As I said, this kind of organization works better. Individual human effort is leveraged to greater effect. At the Department of Defense, they call this a force multiplier.

As the next generation of social organizations emerge, they are finding participants not only among newly minted citizens (talkin' 'bout my generation), but also among large number of adults who are tired of being functionally disenfranchised. Voting is the least you can do, and for a lot of people it doesn't really relieve their sense of social responsibility. As the scale and extremity of our problems come into sharper focus, this trend will increase. That's a good thing, by the way.

The question is, how do we act in this situation? I am interested in learning to build highly effective collectives of highly effective people which can operate with functional independence, but maintain a superior level of situational awareness and cooperative consciousness. These cells would be able to rapidly form as-hoc coalitions to accomplish goals on the state, national and international scale.

These coalitions must be unified and outcome-driven to be effective. Coalitions that are a "mixed salad" of purpose and meaning, a chaotic melange of egos, will continue to be brushed aside by the establishment at will. Those which provide an effective temporary focus for the network have a chance at succeeding, at breaking through.

Finally, I am also interested in stitching together a broad narrative into which these cells activities can be connected. The results of our individual, group and coalition activities must be linked together into our own version of history.

So we have four distinct levels of operation: Individual, Community, Coalition, and Historical. When we get these pistons firing together -- when individual action can be folded into experienced communities which function as constituencies in an effective coalition, which in turn accomplishes things which can be powerfully contextualized within an emotionally, intellectually and spiritually gripping historical narrative -- that's when you get a real sense of Movement.

With that sense, impact is increased yet again. This is the engine of social change. Lather, rinse, repeat. How many revolutions-per-minute can we muster? The revolution will be more than the sum of its parts.

(technorati tag: revolution).