[mgj-discuss] Is the People's Summit part of MGJ?

[Mark Cimino]

At the spokes-counsel meeting Sunday evening, some
people wanted clarification whether the People’s
Summit education group is part of MGJ or not.   In its
first meeting (19 people) people there were only 2
people who were from MGJ and participated in the
development of People’s Summit last year. Soren
Ambrose and Amy Quinn .


Amy & Soren had to leave early, and when I referred to
MGJ (I was facilitating) a person asked “Who in this
room is with MGJ?” I was the only one who raised my
hand.

This group then proposed that since this effort was
going to be from a mixture of organizations (green,
indymedia, dawn etc) and from people in the community
then it should not be called MGJ-education working
group.  They decided to call the event People’s
Summit, still ,and changed the name of the group to
People’s Summit Education Group.  

----

Since another concern was mentioned during the spokes
about anti-MGJ sentim ents on this list-serve, I can
say yes there were and they centered around MGJ’s
position on the war.   I  would like to point out a
few things here. First, the dialogue resembled some of
the discussions on MGJ-discuss, very critical, and
no-one was completely satisfied with the outcome. 

Second: Don’t shoot the messenger.  I carried news
back and forth of consensus decision making group. I
was the single person from MGJ, and, except for a
couple people a couple times,  no-one on either side
wanted to attend the other groups meetings. So I was
the conduit, and, sometimes, unlucky lightning rod
between the two groups.   

Actually, I was very happy to make sure that plans
used by last year’s people’s summit (many documents
that Amy Quinn had) were not wasted and were used by
this group to give shape to the process and to the
outcome. 

A third thing: most of the explicitly anti-MGJ people
left, and the actual implementation, it turns out was
done by a good number of people who have been
associated with MGJ: myself, Crystal, and another
woman who has said she is a part of MGJ but does not
feel comfortable coming to meetings, and Margo, a
social movement educatior who joined the list before
she moved here from Philadelphia. In the last week,
other such as Scott Cody, Rodney from Australia, have
pitched in.  Added to this, are many people from last
year doing the same workshops or similar workshops.   

Is this group a part of MGJ?  I’d say yes because it
is doing work in tune with MGJ and with the People’s
Summit last year.  And I’d say, it could’ve been more
a part of MGJ had certain individuals either supported
it or brought up questions or  criticisms directly or
in a more open democratic fashion. [And this is not
just my opinion, I am passing on the remarks of a few
others in MGJ, outside of MGJ, in the community, and
online, who have wondered what is going on in terms of
communication and process.]

The best support you could give the people who have
been working on the People's Summit, some working for
over two months as hard as you have, is not $300 or
$600, it's solidarity, faith, inclusiveness, and just
simply spreading the word. 
---------------

PS. We did lose 3 workshops/some educators who were
going to fly out from California when the information
for the summit was pulled from the web-site last week,
and all the educators saw only the End Corporate Rule
information from 50years/ Jubilee.

PSS  When people click the link People’s Summit they
still get outdated and confusing information. We have
tried to contact web-group about this a few times.

PSSS  We are hoping outreach or media can also
communicate information about the event, which is this
Sunday (not Saturday!)  

 The first thing and simplest would be to change the
web-site information and put links to this on press
releases, etc., but Crystal and I will send updated
flyers to these groups as they become available.




=====



"Every time we support a community based communication process, we are not only helping a concrete community to have a better and more dignified life; we are also supporting the development of a communication ideal that may be the only means to ensure cultural identity and the survival of a world of diversity." 
-- Alfonso Gumucio Dagron


 


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