[Dialogue] Minneapolis 50th Gathering & Bend History #2

[steve har]

Minneapolis 50th Celebration is taking up Bending History #2 this Saturday.

Editor John Epps recommended JWM's 5th City Testimony in 1968

He said a Sacramento group had a really lively study of the paper.

[Hello Sacramento -go global please and share your notes!]

When I read the 22 paragraphs I was trying to figure out how to
distinguish 20th C "dust" from 21st C gems - what's available for no
longer/not yet creation

To say it more simply is there anything that remains REVOLUTIONARY in
JWM's testimony.

You're welcome to your own views of course, my notes for the future are below.

You can -for a day or 2 read the text here but BUY THE BOOK

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aYxp0CgFUM1k7dWnB_i9Pv_4KnVn-Ys2Apt5Lp7l-1Q/edit

As I re-read my notes, I'm looking for MORE revolutionary, that handle
 Arab spring and 1% 99%. I don't think detachment is going to do much.
Engaging might.

See anything revolutionary?
What?
--
Steve Harrington

Provocative Propositions for the next 50 years:
1 world's struggle to create a new social vehicle demanded by the
scientific, secular and urban revolutions that define our age

2 Chicago's West Side  three foundational problems image of
self-depreciation inflicted upon the psyche; and the absence of local
social structures human benefits which the modern world. People are
deprived of any real means of participating in the decision-making
processes

3 The primordial problem in the city is psychological or internal
Every person and every people operate out of a primordial self-image.
Practical action results from that image

4 The super city complex has destroyed older forms of local
corporateness within its boundaries. Because suburbia still has such
structures and the accompanying power it drains off the means of the
good life that society at large creates.

5 This means that people have no sense of doing anything that will
make any difference. This refers of course to arrangement of voting
districts, to entrenched political machinery, to the power of crime
combines -- all of which disenfranchise in a fashion city people. The
state of powerlessness is.

6 We deal with people whose future is cut off and no amount of counter
force -- which intensifies hopelessness -- can long secure them.

7 sophisticated benevolence, never penetrating to the real issues.

8 Chicago has developed a model of comprehensive community
reformulation in Chicago's West Side.

9 Comprehensive reformulation begins with a carefully defined area,
set apart by clear boundaries. This reduces the sense of chaos created
by the seeming impossibility of the task. Geography curtails
dissipation and duplication of effort. Geography makes possible a
clearer picture of the maze of problems that paralyze the citizens.
Unless the imagination of citizen is refurbished, nothing else can
lastingly be altered for the black disadvantaged of the central city.

10 Piece-meal approaches never get at the real issues and cannot
create the needed morale for action. Indeed they tend to cultivate the
victim image.

11 the postures of the various age groups radically influence each
other. If the elders are neglected they will unintentionally
communicate their images of submissiveness to the young.

12 In creating a community large or small, a sense of commonness in
mission must be created. Corporateness relative to task define
community. and this is mediated through living symbols. These include
songs, festivals from the geographical area

13 a practical solution must be reiterated frequently:
"comprehensiveness" has both scope and depth and timeliness. For
example, the first four-year experimental phase has both impact and
penetration ensuing in an awakening and commitment of a core of the
citizenry and they establish imaginal education forms, the social
constructs, and the community organization.

14 imaginal education is the beginning. It is the crucial problem of
local communities. Imaginal education  involves first of all,
de¬programming passive, disengaged, victim conversations for no
possibility

15 Replacing victimology means that individuals and communities become
proud of  and engaged in a  conversation for possibility in a new
works of possibility.

16 imaginal education begins early in the crib and much later with
senior citizens, with people beginning careers, with established
adults and the cultural images that surround them.

17 Creating a new grassroots social contract means learning to handle
hundreds of surface problem areas and organizng into 5 shared social
processes of: economic, political, education, arts life style
practices.

18 A shared  grass roots social contract can yarn bring into being a
web of local initiatives to deal with self-identified identified
problems

19 A shared grassroots social contract brings community organization
and structural access  give to do something about unmet local needs-
for example local health care access.

20 Developing community is  the creative thrust of the city and
impacts the total social vehicle. It is the force of social change
operating from within the ordinary patterns of society that become
extraordinary.

21  "Iron Men,"to use a specific community image that became a symbol
and a statue in 5th City community, Chicago are local, often not very
visible community leaders know the neighborhood and who disseminate
crucial information about social and individual needs which are often
by means of a simple online community webpage -- made available to the
Guilds of the community for proper action

22 Over time an 'invisible collage" of neighbors  grows. People sense
after what it means to participate in a new social contract and  the
decisions and action that influence the destiny of their community.
There is a living conversation for possibility in many local
communities and diverse cultural expression.

23 There is a living on-going sense of positive accomplishment and
active participation in living history.

24 community reformulation is in our opinion the only strategy for
dealing with the tragedy and the promise  of local communities in
cities everywhere.