Max Sawicky wrote,
> A basic point in MFM is the duelling social theories, bureaucracies,
> and political interests underlying the launch of the War on Poverty
> (as reflected in the evolution of the Mobilization For Youth project
> in the Lower East Side of NYC). There was nothing so coherent as
> a single 'model,' Ford's or anyone's, underlying what unfolded.
> And Ford's influence was well-eclipsed early in the process.
Right. Coherent model wouldn't be the word. Let's say instead that the
model provided the founding rationale for the participatory rhetoric. It's
been more than 10 years since I read MFM, but I seem to recall that nobody
(except the planners who drafted it) really knew what MFP was supposed to
mean. Maybe not even the planners.
What I was getting at is that participation was used to evoke organic
democracy even as it implemented functional compliance. Militant
posturing and gangsta' attitude can easily be assimilated under the broad
rubric of participation, "Gee, Officer Krupke, Krup you!" becomes Fuck tha
police without much imagination.
Naturally, my impressionistic collage of events, institutions and social
theories may deviate at times from Daniel Patrick Moynihan's. He was
up there, I was only down here. Gee, Senator Moynihan, Moyn you!
Tom Walker
