"See Something, Say Something"

 It's getting harder to write positively when things are still progressing in authoritarian directions, but I owe it to myself and my readers to keep trying. Certainly just because misinformation is the norm is no excuse to stop trying to counter the false narratives. I loathe seeing the title headline in the newsletter every week. It is taken from a warlike, paranoid playbook and really offensive when all the info in the paragraph is really just providing the info that we have paid Security and a number that you can call to report things to clean up or address. It's drama. 

This week we hear in the newsletter that "there are many more complaints than ever before" but although I agree that this is true, I find them legitimate, and don't want to dismiss them. "The amount of vitriol exhibited by members, old and new" is noticed, but what is not addressed is why this might be so, if it indeed is (I don't believe it is.) The suggested remedy is to join a committee and expect people to not agree with you, but keep offering solutions. "Keep in mind that your problem, and solution, may not be what the group wants."

True enough. What's left out is our current reality which involves power dynamics of control and domination, a lack of transparency, and dysfunctional committees where volunteers are not wanted unless they are compliant with the top-down official program. Efforts are continually made to recruit new volunteers while those who have disagreements and persist in bringing them into the system are pushed out, shut out, not listened to, not responded to, and threatened with termination of their membership. They are even named personally by officers in negative election campaigns. I don't know many people who would persist in trying to volunteer in that atmosphere, whether they are being shut out, or being pressed to be the ones to do these authoritarian tactics against their fellow members.

What I see operating is that because the macrocosm is so horrifying, with the demented Prez and his power structure that is focused on loyalty and compliance, most people are having to tune out to a huge degree because it is so unbelievable and so destructive. So when it comes to our microcosm with some similar difficulties and trends, it is impossible for our members to see and admit the systemic things that are happening to our member-driven market. We don't want to believe that things could get that far from what we think we are doing. But I am here to say that some people lie, and are able to charm others into supporting them in actions that are highly destructive and nothing like what we have ever done before. Our atmosphere of trust is gone and people complaining is not what has broken it.

Speak to any older member or any former staff and they will say "We don't terminate members." We never have in our long history, unless they are egregious in not following rules or break the actual laws. I remember we did have to kick out one guy who was caught dealing pot and caused a bit of a riot when he asked his neighbors to defend him against the police. That was in the 90's. Another guy got kicked out for being actually violent. Generally people would be suspended for a year, asked to get some training in things like anger management, or just left alone to right themselves and make amends for straying from the norms. We find it in ourselves to welcome people back and let them have ideas and opinions of their own that don't agree with ours. Membership is voluntary and we are equals. No one should be put into the position of fighting against another member, and there should not be an atmosphere where dissenters are seen as enemies. That truly is not who we are. 

But one thing that is different now is that we have no stable structure when it comes to what I consider the vitals: a dependably honest public record that is diligently kept, and an overly cautious and responsible financial management structure that protects us from insolvency and provides the place where our many vulnerable members can exist. Our mission to be a business incubator includes the unspoken component that many of our members can not thrive in the regular mainstream business environment. That includes old people, disabled people, neuro-divergent people, people in various social and personal transitions, as well as those trying out new careers and businesses hoping to get a foothold that will support them. This component of our membership is probably a lot larger than the part that is financially successful. They're not always the type of people who are the easiest to deal with...they can be frightened, easily discouraged or confused, insecure, or young and passionate with great ideas that are new to us.   

The members have a level of interest that is sparked when things happen that bother them, and fades away when they are satisfied, doing well, and looking forward to more of that. That's the surface dynamic, but we are so much more complicated than that. We are easy to manipulate with false narratives, and we see the disturbing trends, but we are also generally unwilling to spend a lot of time volunteering that we need to be putting into our own lives and businesses, which are not hobby-level for the most part. Most of us don't want to or can't spend even 50% of our time volunteering and putting in a few years on a committee that doesn't welcome us or listen openly to us is just far too frustrating.

I personally was spending 90% of my time volunteering since our manager left in mid-2021. I was keeping the public record and archiving the historical record and working in the office with the managers and acting managers and whomever on staff needed support. Obviously that was not sustainable for me but I had skills the market needed and I gradually left my OCF volunteer positions to focus on SM, the KF, and other things I do in the community. At certain points I had to let go even when I could not find someone to replace me, and now I can see how scary it really is to not have an accurate public record. Having someone who values accuracy and honesty in that position is something everyone would support, but that is not where we are right now. 

I found it impossible to carry that weight when information was being withheld, controlled, and gates were being erected to keep members from seeing the reality. The whole secret termination effort directed at two food booth owners was shocking and wrong in so many ways. Sure I complained, but minds were made up to follow through with a false narrative and being on a committee would not have made a single piece of difference in having my complaints be effective. In fact, things I tried to do were subverted and blocked, long before I resigned. I was an officer, and I had no influence, so one can see how an ordinary member with no power would be easily frustrated and resort to complaining. 

Members who go through that type of oppression take a long time to admit they are being manipulated, because we value trust and we like to assume people are doing their best and sharing our goals as an organization. I am here to tell you that we aren't there right now. We haven't had any type of retreat to discuss goals and common values since about 2018. We lost all of the tracking efforts we had in place to monitor our financial and members situations so for years we didn't know what we were able to do or how to be wise about things. Some financial tracking has been restored, thanks to dedicated volunteers on the Budget Committee, but their recommendations are still not regarded as informed directions for our operations. We're spending savings that took decades to put away, on things that used to be in place, and are fully restorable, and we are not drawing on our considerable human resources for our continuity and accountability. People who try to bring such things forward are dismissed as complainers and told to volunteer more and longer and expect others not to agree with them.

That doesn't sound like a membership of equals. Now that the bylaws have been changed to allow staff to be members, are they acting like equals to the rest of us? I don't see it. What will that actually look like? Would our equal members have decided to cancel selling days and spend savings without consulting the rest of us? Would they be keeping things secret so we won't know the truth or their plans? I don't think so. However, we apparently have a board that supports these actions and we don't know about most of it except if we hear it as rumors, while being advised to just support whatever the power structure does. I do not support spending savings to cover for lack of financial management skills. I do not support cancelling selling days. Those are our paydays. 

Involving members in real ways can be messy. We have people who get angry and people who will fight hard for what they see as justice. It's not that hard to take them down one by one, shut them out and take away their rights. It should be harder to do that. I think if we weren't in such a toxic macrocosm, we would have more ability to protect our microcosm.

The financial picture for ordinary people at our income level is dire. All of our costs are rising, some unimaginably, and we are going to lose healthcare, access to vital services, and support from the federal, state and local governments that we have little ability to change. We have this one way we can protect ourselves from all of this, our community, where we can use our values to support each other, shore up our systems so we can still survive and even thrive at our economic level, and work together to preserve this precious opportunity we built over the last 55 years. 

We can't be fighting with each other. We can't be shutting out everyone who is inconvenient to deal with. We can't be kicking out members who have an aversion to authoritarian tactics and are obviously distressed and vulnerable. They need our safe place, they need our income opportunities. They need us to work with them and for them, while we work for ourselves.

We saw the X-tian proselytizers return this week with the students. What I saw from my space which was not right on the corner in the midst of it, was a market stubbornly refusing to be ruined by it. We didn't stop doing what we do best, and even just a few spaces from the corner we showed that we were a safe place by the many PRIDE flags and political signs we display in our spaces. We didn't let it become our fight, and to my mind this was because the top-down drama we have been seeing was on vacation. This is not our fight and we do not have the resources to make it our fight. We need to focus on our own issues.

We do need to pull together, use our maturity and experience to solve our recurring issues, and not panic. We have the ability to do whatever is before us, and have done most of it before, many times. There is no crisis that can't be managed. If people feel they cannot manage this without panic, secrecy and things that may not even be legal, much less sensible, than they should step aside, resign or replace themselves or just stop trying to fix the wrong things. Our problem is not our members complaining. It would be a bigger problem if they stopped.