--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > Imagine what our two resident feminazis would say if > they heard that Obama's campaign had weekend retreats > to train volunteers for the campaingn, and that on > that retreat 1) every minute of their time was mapped > out, and any divergence from the schedule could be > punished by being kicked off the retreat, 2) that no > one was allowed to leave the retreat to go into town > or take a walk by themselves, without a "buddy," and > 3) that the lion's share of the retreat was spent > sitting in front of TVs watching hours and hours of > videotapes from Obama spelling out the principles of > his philosphy. You KNOW how they would react. We > would be hearing cries of "Indoctrination!" and slurs > like "Obamazoid Training."
Actually, there were retreats to train Obama volunteers along these lines. They were called "Camp Obama." Here's descriptions of three tapes of what went on: ----- Building from Self to Relationship: Marshall explains the technique for quickly developing relationships with strangers who you will meet in the process of working to persuade voters to support and perhaps join you as a volunteer. Buffy demonstrates the technique with a young volunteer, Katherine from UC Berkeley, for the Camp to use as an example of the exercise they are then asked to perform. Development of the Why You're Here Story of Self: Marshall Ganz goes into how we can develop our own stories of self so we can relate with voters on a deeper emotional level than just to transfer information. Movement Building: Story of Self to Story of Us: After an Enthusiastic warm up, Marshall explains the importance of Story of Us as key to Movement Building and how we link our Stories of Self to Stories of Us. He shows an excellent example from the Burbank CA Camp Obama - "Susan's Story of Us". Then 7 campers tell their Stories of Us. ----- http://campobama.blogspot.com/ The key was the "stories of self." Instead of telling people about Obama's positions and policies, the volunteers were encouraged to talk about how they themselves "came to Obama," to describe the emotional process. This is from a HuffPo story by someone who attended a Camp Obama retreat: ----- The purpose of this weekend training, Ganz explained, was not only to learn skills, form teams and get organized--but much more importantly, to learn how to tell our own stories, how to "put into words why you're called, and why we've been called, to change the way the world works." Those "stories of self" and "stories of us" were to be the most powerful tool for these campaigners--along with the ability to teach others how to tell their stories--back home recruiting and motivating volunteers and building relationships. After a little more instruction and modeling of story telling, the large group was split into a few dozen smaller groups by Congressional district for participants to have a chance to work on their own stories. The goal of this period was for participants to emerge being able to tell their "story of self" in less than two minutes, just as Barack Obama had in his 2004 convention speech. ----- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/stories-and-numbers-a- c_b_62278.html http://tinyurl.com/629orf The main difference between the Camp Obama approach and TM residence courses, obviously, is that the Obama volunteers were being trained to recruit others to the cause, whereas residence courses were for one's own self-development. > But when I present a different View of TM residence > courses, I'll also bet that at least one of these > feminazis is going to come roaring in saying how > inconscionable it is to compare them to any kind of > "indoctrination." Right? Wrong. I'm sure Barry will do his best to portray my response that way, but in fact I made no such complaint, just pointed out that my residence course experiences were very different from those he described. BTW, from my dictionary: feminazi: usually disparaging : an extreme or militant feminist As I've noted before, anyone who thinks I'm an "extreme or militant femiist" has never met one. (Rush Limbaugh is credited with having invented the term, BTW.) <snip> > I don't know about you, but I already have a pair of > parents, and even though they are now dead, I don't need > replacements for them from any organization. I'm an > adult, and I expect to be treated like one by any > spiritual tradition I interact with. I suspect that how one responds as an adult to a structured experience of any kind depends to some extent on how one was treated as a child. If one's parents were overbearing or excessively strict or irrationally harsh, if it was designedd to make one feel bad about oneself, one is more likely to overreact to any sort of imposed structuring with the sense that one is being "treated like a child"; it reminds one of one's childhood, and one responds *as* a child. If the discipline one's parents imposed was reasonable, moderate, and loving, if one didn't feel one was constantly being put down, in contrast, one is able to respond to structuring *as an adult* without feeling compelled to rebel against it.
