I posted this essay in the IOPS blog system, but that it arguably has wider relevance - so I am reposting here on ZNet, as well...

A lot of folks in IOPS are wondering, what can we do? We have joined. Now what? In partial answer, here are some views that I have heard and some reactions to them, as well as some views that I myself favor and reasons why.

Some people say: 

• "Let's plan national meetings, set a date and move toward them." 
• "Let's plan an international convention, determine an agenda, set a date, and move on." 
• "Let's figure out how to finance all this via dues or other lasting means we can settle on and now implement." 
• "Let's decide on a program and begin to act on it."

Any of the above proposals could be elaborated further, of course, and all these type proposals would make a great deal of sense to refine and implement if IOPS had many more members. Indeed, the four proposals more or less presuppose IOPS has many more members, but don't seek to deliver to IOPS those many more members. 

My problem with the proposals, then, is that to undertake such steps without more members would entail a relatively small group of people overreaching their rightful prerogative. What is instead needed is that the people currently in IOPS work to create conditions of self management for a much larger future membership that could then together pursue the four proposals above and others as well. 

Feeling this way, I, and then I and the International Consultative Committee, and then I and Jason Chrysostomou (programming the web site) and the ICC, have been trying very hard to avoid even implicitly establishing policies and features that should rightfully be established only once large numbers of members can make the relevant decisions. 

Our aim has been to keep moving forward but also to keep overarching decisions to a minimum, particularly regarding anything controversial or complex. We had to have a name and a site. We had to settle on the opening statements for people to agree on if they were to join. But we are trying to avoid deciding anything much beyond that.

Establishing an international or national program would take an opposite approach, even if we could very effectively involve 1500 people in the decision, because it would by turn IOPS into an organization defined in full, including its program, by only early participants. My guess is that to do that would be a bad precedent concerning our commitment to attain self management, a commitment, history shows, that all too easily dissipates when people have little prior experience of participation. I also suspect that determining so much now would repel so many possible recruits, not wanting to join something they have no say in defining, that it would ensure a continued small scale for IOPS. We have seen this kind of centralizing and delimiting scenario a million times. Okay, not a million, but a good many. The result of such steps is typically something tightly defined, perhaps even brilliantly defined, but then having relatively few participating members and little at principled self management. 

A rebuttal would be to argue that by now moving toward national and international meetings, lasting financing, and shared program and actions, IOPS would be more clearly defined and for that reason easier to recruit for. More, since all the early choices could be altered later, what's the harm? It is plausible, but I still feel the risks as noted above outweigh the hoped for benefits and I also have to wonder, if we had program, the recruiting would be "easier" than what - the recruiting we are now doing? What makes anyone think that?

If we were all trying and failing to recruit, and if the people we were addressing as potential new members were sincerely saying that they weren't joining because we don't yet have clarity of program and convention timing, etc., that they like, then the case for deciding all that now would be more grounded. Such possible recruits would be saying, "we would rather join something defined and scheduled by a few with established program we find appealing, then to join 1,500 others in growing the numbers of members for a time, so that more of us could all decide such matters together." I have to wonder, is that a viewpoint we want to attract, now?

Okay, enough naysaying about the four proposals. Since I don't like them as current priorities - what do I have to offer as a positive current alternative? Or even addendum?

The Context of Deciding What Next

For those who want something meaty, something daring, something exciting, something physically dangerous or intellectually complicated to do - my apologies. What I propose is rather mundane, simplicity itself, intellectually and physically. In practice, however, history suggests it is simple to think, but hard to do.

• A revolutionary organization such as the IOPS description promises, would, at some point, have flexible program seeking diverse social changes that would be partly shared internationally and have other parts specific to countries or even cities. 
• Such an organization would also participate, no doubt, in all kinds of ongoing activism both collectively and also via the choices of its individual members whether made branch by branch, chapter by chapter, or even member by member.  
• It would also have internal program, partly bearing on enhancing the knowledge, skills, and confidence of its members, and partly oriented to meet member needs, including beginning to internally implement structures that reflect our future desires, what we call seeds of the future in the present. 
• Additionally, all this and more would develop in accord with shared values and aims, and by self managing processes. 

To me, it follows that steps to get IOPS from where it is now to being the revolutionary organization it aspires to be, might look roughly like this. 

• Get members. 
• Involve members with one another and with knowing the IOPS definition.
• Improve members' confidence and abilities regarding applying the logic of IOPS's organizational aims and likely activities. 
• Get more members. 
• Involve and improve members some more. 
• Having attained substantial members in a particular locale, meet informally, develop trust, share lessons. 
• Having met informally, outreach some more - in part together, collectively, perhaps by having events, gatherings, etc. - even while also continuing to outreach personally, individually, as well.
• As member rolls grow, find ways for members to mutually aid each other, both to enjoy life more within IOPS and to learn from one another. 
• Get more members. 
• Involve and improve members more. 
• Have formal local chapter meetings and begin, once a chapter has, say, twenty, thirty or fifty people, to think about some flexible but formal chapter wide ways of furthering education and skills, as well as flexible but formal ways of mutually aiding and benefitting from one another and reaching out. 
• Get more members. 
• Involve and improve members more. 
• When there are enough chapters in a country, say twenty or more - and when each is functioning well and has upwards of 50 members or more - begin to think about plans for a national convention. 
• Have meetings of many chapters, or of members from many chapters, together with each other, sharing lessons, developing trust, and further thinking through national possibilities. 
• Have national meetings and settle on some national program, methods, etc.
• Have members from relatively nearby nationals informally get together, sharing lessons, developing trust, etc. 
• Begin to think about and then to plan an international convention.
• Finally, have an international convention - and bring to it proposals so as to settle on shared international program.

If this scenario makes sense, the biggest tasks for a considerable time to come are: (a) recruiting, (b) involving new recruits in the organization and increasing their facility with IOPS ideas, etc., (c) creating an internal dynamic among members that makes being a member an enrichment of people's lives, and (d) more recruiting. As far as externally oriented activism by members, there are countless political activities people can be involved in, including movements, events, campaigns, and so on - before and until IOPS as a whole, or even any national branch or local chapter of IOPS, has program of its own. 

Okay, again if this makes sense, we might ask: what can people do soon that bears on points (a), (b), (c) and (d) above? 

More specifically, we could ask how can we recruit? How can we involve new recruits and increase their facility for advocating IOPS and working well within it? How can members mutually aid one another on the path to greater allegiance and participation?

How to recruit

Recruiting means bringing to people information about IOPS, addressing their questions and concerns, asking them to join, and finally either welcoming them or trying to determine and then learn from their reasons for not joining. And then, it also means sharing the insights gained from all this activity with other members, to inform other efforts.

That said, what we can do to recruit seems straightforward. 

We can talk to people we work with, or go to school with, or are friends with, or organize with, at lunches, dinners, and parties, and also just while getting together - whether we do all this informally and spontaneously or we do it at planned sessions that we arrange specifically for the purpose and that we invite individuals or groups to. 

Of course doing this requires that we become steadily more adept at presenting the logic of iops, its features, etc., and at responding to typical concerns, whether we do this one to one, or one to a group. So we can practice making a case for IOPS. And we could also share our experiences, blog and tell each other how it worked out, and also seek and give tips aimed at doing better.

This is organizing. It is not complicated, dangerous, or exciting, but it is at the core of building almost anything politically and socially sustainable and substantial. Talking, face to face and personally, about ideas and possibilities, is central. It is not just saying to someone please attend some protest and then moving on to say it to someone else - though that has its place, too, sometimes, of course. It is sustained engagement with others, seeking to arrive at substantial agreement.

Okay, what else?

Well, while recruiting is, or should become, mostly a personal face to face process - done by all or nearly all members - it doesn't have to be only that. We can also (impersonally) create a public presence which communicates to people in ways enhancing their likelihood of joining IOPS. Sometimes that may even work entirely, as it did, via emailings and articles and the like creating a presence which went a long way to attracting the nearly 1500 current members. Or sometimes public visibility may just lead to interest and openness of a sort that then requires additional personal exchange if it is to lead to actual membership. Still, public visibility that propels people to be open and interested is certainly very important - so, on top of our arranging to talk personally with political friends, family, workmates, activist allies, and school mates, we can write articles or blogs, give or do interviews, post comments on other people's essays online on many sites, and, yes, use social networks, all to let people know about our being in IOPS and what it means to us and why we hope they will join us. 

There is another variable dramatically affecting recruiting, I think. People have limited time. People have limited emotional energy. As a result, people don't want to get wrapped up in discussions about something that they think has no positive future. And, in truth, sadly, most potential members of IOPS are currently highly skeptical that any effort to create political organization could possibly get anywhere valuable, much less become important. So, even potential recruits start with a strong bias against IOPS, or really, against any organization. 

This hurts recruitment prospects. It makes it hard to get people to listen to personal appeals, or to read public exchanges. It is not impossible, but it is much harder than it ought to be. Indeed, in times like these everyone who cares about a better future should be starving for news of new organizational efforts, and therefore very very eager to hear about IOPS in hopes that it will prove worthy in their eyes. But, alas, the situation is virtually the opposite. People feel so skeptical about anything good emerging from any organization, they fear having their time and emotions drained for no good reason. The are loathe to hear about organizational efforts. 

How do we break through that? Patiently but persistently. If we aren't willing to buck up against resistance and work hard to unravel it, patiently but persistently, we don't stand a chance. If we become good at doing that, however, we may succeed, person by person, though with great outlay of effort often even just to get a hearing. Is there another route to getting a hearing?

Yes, I suspect there is, but also quite difficult. Suppose there was a lot of commentary, mostly very positive and encouraging, all over the left part of the internet, about IOPS. Suppose the scuttlebutt - we used to call it that, forty years ago, but I think nowadays, mimicking academia, many people might call it the narrative - floating about in alternative media and online, was a range of highly optimistic but also quite thoughtful accounts of IOPS aims and logic, appearing many places, even appearing all over. This would create a climate of credibility and hopefulness that would make it much much easier to get people's ear regarding IOPS. Instead of encountering resistance based on bias and skepticism, we would encounter a least a degree of eagerness based on information from worthy articles and interviews and the like. The task of conveying additional information and addressing concerns would be infinitely easier. Okay, this observation leads to another thing we can do. We can try to get alternative media and alternative writers and journalists to give IOPS a public hearing, to report on it, to assess it. 

And I honestly think that the above is what we can do about recruitment, except, of course, also becoming adept presenting the IOPS mission, vision, structure, and sharing lessons about our efforts. Again, all this is organizing. Once we have seriously involved people, then having a convention should be relatively easy. But recruiting people and generating sustained participation, that is hard. 

How to foster participation

The second issue was how can we involve new recruits and increase their facility for advocating IOPS and for working well within it? It seems like the answer to this too is clear enough, albeit also not at all trivial to achieve. 

First, we welcome new folks into the midst of whoever else is involved in their city, and country. This can only occur by old members reaching out, periodically, to new members. Trying to get together in person would be ideal. Interacting by email, is probably fine as well, at least for a time. 

Second, improving people confidence and abilities entails that people become confident about the IOPS defining vision and commitments including understanding them, applying them, and refining them, but also verbally advocating them. Some ways to approach this occurring are having reading groups, or perhaps some kind of seminars online in the forums - as well as people taking some time to practice writing or verbally offering their ideas welcoming feedback to their efforts, in the blog system, or practicing role playing recruiting.

How to Develop Mutual Aid

Finally, the third issue was how can members mutually aid one another on the path to greater allegiance and participation? This has infinite possibilities. None of what is needed for this entails struggling with repressive systems, overcoming media opposition, confronting cops, etc. This is, instead, a matter of largely like minded people relating positively to other largely similarly minded people. It is creating our own very positive community relations and options for our own community. It could involve the reading groups and seminars mentioned above. But it could also involve social events, - parties, picnics, movie nights, or what have you. Or people could share some day care tasks. Or help one another deal with bureaucratic problems we all encounter. Or even collectivize some life costs . This issue is really a matter of building not just organization, but actual community. But people live significant distances from one another, someone might object. Okay, that's what weekends are for. That's what guest rooms are for. 

The old adage, where there is a will there is a way, applies to all aspects of recruiting new members, developing member skills, and developing member community. We apply our will to find possible ways, and we then act on them, learning as we go. If we do that vis a vis recruiting, participating, consciousness raising, and community building, , then I bet that matters of program, conventions, and even structure are going to prove relatively easy to resolve. But without solving recruitment, participation, skills development, and community building, no amount of brilliance, courage, and desire regarding the rest will amount to much.