How To Build The California Civil Rights Grassroots, In X Easy Steps!!!!

[hoffmang]

The one thing that I'd add to Oak's analysis.

Anyone who wishes to be serious about advancing gun rights in California is going to have to learn to love and embrace change - since that is, at the bottom, what we all want.

-Gene

[KarLorian]

I like the subtle reference to Malcom X in the title


BTW +1 to everything covered in the thread.

[oaklander]

I like the subtle reference to Malcom X in the title


BTW +1 to everything covered in the thread.

wow - i did not even intend that, but I have been thinking a lot about him. he was actually who I wrote my entrance essay "on" when i applied to Hastings.

i like these cool coincidences!

[oaklander]

The one thing that I'd add to Oak's analysis.

Anyone who wishes to be serious about advancing gun rights in California is going to have to learn to love and embrace change - since that is, at the bottom, what we all want.

-Gene

Yes, I may try and do a longer post that tries to explain the concept of "change." President Obama nailed the concept, but only in his campaign, unfortunately.

What I have been hearing (kind of directly from policy people, and not from blogs and stuff), is that both sides of the aisle are disapointed with him.

OUR VERSION OF "CHANGE" - WELL - IT FRICKEN DELIVERS "CHANGE."

Sometimes it is not comfortable, or nice. BUT, it is fun to participate in, and the results are happening right now.

[oaklander]

OK - had some time to think. . .

--------------

First off, I think I know what Gene is getting at. As some of you know, Gene is a "change person." If you know about his day job, and the stuff that he has influenced, you may never look at your digital life (and real life, for that matter) the same way again, and that is all I will say.

Here are some elements of "change" - and these aren't from a book, rather, they are from my pointy little head:

1) change is not easily defined:

True change does not mean simple rule changes, or a different arrangment of deck chairs. Here is an example: moving deck chairs on a boat is "movement." Having the entire boat completely disappear and reappear somewhere else is "change."

2) change itself is fluid:

What this means is that "change changes." A concrete example is that the CA grassroots used to be run via "telephone trees." Now it is run on the internet. It started out in blogs, then kind of moved over here, and it is shifting yet again to various social networking sites.

3) change is hard to "see" properly:

I am in a strange position in that I have affiliations with many of the key players (both groups and people in those groups). I can give concrete examples of misperceptions, based on lack of knowledge. Here is a concrete example. There USED to be big split between UOC and CGN. I know this because I was the biggest a-hole talking smack about UOC. Well, this has changed. Ironically, a galvanizing event for UOC'ers was the Tuason incident. If you don't know about it, do not worry, it is now old news. But the funny thing was that it was ME who broke the story (in a certain way) to national media. I did this, even back when the appearance was that I hated UOC. It would have broke, no matter what I did, but I wanted it to break in a controlled fashion so as to not cause damage to LE, or CGF, or CGN.

Would I do it again? No. I now know that such things can be dealt with in other ways, without media. But the point is that the entire thing happened in a way that was not even seen by most people.

A lot of what we "do" - especially in the realm of PR, is kind of hard to explain, and many times should NOT BE EXPLAINED, since everyone (including our opposition) reads this forum.

If you think that "we" are "hiding" something, just call me. My cell is 415.843.1776. As long as it is not something related to litigation, or is otherwise protected or confidential, I will tell you what is happeneing, at least to the extent that I know, and to the extent that I am not sharing something confidential.

We can call that the "Oaklander Promise" and I do not break promises. That being said, I will want to know who you are, and I will want to know who you know. I am open about grassroots, but I am not stupid. We DO have opposition to our little efforts here, and some of that opposition actually comes from gun owners who do not like the thought of "universal rights."

Do not even get me started about the Johnny The Jet Boy episode.

OK, TOO LATE!

;-)

There was a poster on this forum who bragged about his own private fighter jet. In a later post, he started to make veiled threats against our own gun rights efforts, and implied that he "knew" certain people, and all sorts of kind of douchy things like that. My personal opinion is that he is one of those guys who only wants guns for the folks at his high desert country club. He seemed uncomfortable with the concept of guns as a right.

Well, his mistake was naming the make and model of his jet in the earlier post. That, combined with some other public information allowed me to determine that he is the CEO of a somewhat large company. As a matter of courtesy, I will not name him. But he is off the forum. He thought he could browbeat us into slowing down, or changing course. He was wrong, and he gave up. I am still waiting for his minions to appear at my door. They never will. . .

If they do, I will invite them in for some tri-tip! Everyone likes tri-tip!



We do not fade in the face of anything. We just BBQ more tri-tip. . .

4) Change is complex:

Some of you might find it strange that I generally support LE. Well, people change too. I am now married to a DOJ employee (not BOF, thank goodness!) I also have LE folks in my family. From my own personal interactions with folks in law enforcement, I have changed my opinion. And I am entitled to that.

My own personal opinion does not conflict with anything that "we" do, since we all are strong believers in the rule of law. And we all do not like it when things go off the rails. Folks forget that "we" are the ones who work within the system to change it.

It is NOT 1969, and we do not need to burn our bras anymore. We do things within the system now, and we have fun doing it. But we always follow ALL laws. This little point is not negotiable, BTW.

But the point is that the very folks who are currently engaged in making change *also* change. So, now we have the methods changing (per the example in #2 above), and the "people" changing. I think you all can see how complex this can be!!!

I will stop before I confuse myself any further.

I will leave with one word:

變

I think it conveys the sense that we are talking about. I am hoping that people who actually know traditional Chinese can correct me if I got the wrong subtleties here!!! Google it for some strange and unexpected "correlations" to the concept of changing things. . .