Splintering the Enemy - some observations for campaigners.
From GLOBAL INFORMATION OF COAL SEAM GAS.
Okay, you've got your cause. It's the greatest scourge since the slave trade, and it needs to be stopped. The government isn't listening and it appears there are vested interests pushing their agenda.What next?Naturally, you need to protest. But beware: the organisation pushing their desires are fully aware people will object to what they're doing. They know, probably better than anyone else, exactly what the negative consequences are for their push. They've done their homework, and have reams of research answering anticipated objections. They can release this gradually over a long term so it gives an appearance they constantly have all the answers, and this pesky little Greenie group doesn't know what they are talking about.Let's pause a little and make some assumptions for this article. I will refer to the organisation (almost always a publicly listed company) trying to do something objectionable as the "Pusher", and they are promoting their "push". Campaigners will be known as protestors, which is not so ambiguous.There are several big advantages a Pusher has. They are normally large, driven by the profit motive, and united. That last point is the focus of this article. Almost all statements coming from the Pusher are issued centrally, in an organised manner.Some lazy members of the press won't even investigate and write their own story. Once they strike up a relationship with a Pusher, they'll often simply reproduce their press releases word-for-word, and they'll take home their paycheques for being a "journalist". The Pusher, encouraged by this, might become aware of the fact, and even include some minor objections in their press releases, so that coverage obtained looks less than uniformly positive, and thus reduces the suspicion of readers.This is all going on in the corporate world of the Pusher. They'll have a legal department, media relations department, loads of experience dealing with the press and a lot of money. A lot more resources than a protest group will ever be able to muster.The battle with protestors is always one where the two competing sides are most definitely not on a level playing field. Protestors can only watch on with awe at the resources a Pusher has at its disposal. And you might be thinking "what's the point - I can't possibly compete with that - I'll just give up now and get back to my usual life". I'd say a lot of protestors end up doing exactly that.And don't the Pushers know it? A corporation has another advantage - longevity. The record for a human is 116 years. But there are some corporations in the world that have been in existence for several centuries. They have long-term goals, and even if something gets banned now, then in twenty years time it might start reaping benefits for the Pusher, so a few useful procedures taken at this point in time might end up paying off in a decade or two. It might be worth it, because a corporation has longer term goals than a human. It's a very common practice, for example, for a company being sued by a person they've made sick to delay all their actions using legal and other methods, and then wait for the opponent to die. That normally shuts the protestor up completely.But the main advantage a Pusher has over the protestors is a united voice. Press are required to only deal with the media relations officer of the company. Strict guidelines are developed in what can and can't be said. But the main thing is that these statements will be reported in the media as "Pusher said..." or "A spokesperson for Pusher told us..." And all the media coverage is centred on the one point.Compare this to protest groups. On Facebook, there are, for example, over 1,000 pages opposing the operations of companies wanting to exploit Coal Seam Gas reserves. Without going into the merits of the issue, this by its very existence, is a major barrier to the protestors. There isn't a united voice against the cause. There are thousands.A Pusher will see this and use it to their advantage. It's not one united voice standing up against the Pusher's cause, it's an array of fractured groups, with a vague common purpose, but little else in common. So the technique of divide and conquer is something the Pusher can employ. They can even get this advantage with absolutely no effort on their part, when individual groups protest about EACH OTHER and how they are going to do deal with it.An interest group should have one objective (ie to oppose whatever they want to oppose) and NO MORE, otherwise it de-focuses their efforts. It's normally difficult enough to get enough volunteers to do mundane things like stuffing envelopes, or turning up early on Saturday morning to man the Sausage Sizzle stall.
In a regional area with a small population, you might be lucky to get enough people to do this effectively for one group. Yet the ponderous thing is that in a small country town, you might see three or four "splinter" groups set up protesting against the same thing, simply because one group does not like another group's efforts.What is missing is trust. There's always more than one way to skin a cat. In fact, the way Pushers work, you need to be able to attack from various fronts. But a group needs to trust its members will do the right thing. The members also need to trust the group to do the right thing. Without that trust, unity is gone.A lot of arbitrary decisions get made by local groups in undertaking tasks. Certainly you need to agree on a plan of action and carry it out, but that plan may well include things that you, personally, don't think will work, or reckon might be using the wrong methods. But often you reach a point in time when you need to do SOMETHING.
The decision on what exactly that something is might be a very difficult value judgment.A group is made up of a disparate number of people all with varying talents, abilities and available time and resources. Obviously people are going to think differently and come up with different answers to the same question. But deep down they all believe the same thing, ie that Pusher is an evil force and needs to be stopped.You need to step back and look at the motivation behind each person's actions. It is to protest against the Pusher. You're home and hosed with that alone - try not to complicate it, and leave it at that.What it becomes is XXXX is going to protest against Pusher by doing YYYY.
I don't think we have any place doing YYYY, I'd rather do ZZZZ, so I'm going to object to XXXX and go off and join AA instead, and give XXXX a spray for coming up with such a stupid idea in the first place.
Keep thinking like this and your visits to AA might become more frequent, or the requirement of a court order.But what it means is the efforts are de-valued. It makes it difficult to protest because "always the same people turn up and no-one else ever joins in", plus not only is the Pusher working against you, but groups who have exactly the same stated intent are also working counter-productively.
In this case who are your enemies? It'd be a lot quicker to list your allies.
(Peter Deane)Pushers jump on this opportunity. Despite the validity of a message that a protest group might have (eg if Pusher keeps doing this, then all aquatic life with 100 km will die) the Pusher can simply point out that ah yes, that's what XXXX says and they did YYYY, but another group has instead said KKKK and rejected XXXX's statements completely. They can do this with little or no effort on their part.All your energies protesting, all your valid arguments, are all not so much lost, but their effect is substantially reduced. If your Pusher can say that, and you're not even starting to explore the validity of your arguments, what is the point in protesting at all?When groups spend time countering each other's activities, that time is completely wasted. Indeed, it's worst than wasted as it will probably reduce the effectiveness of other campaigns, and consume the meagre resources protest groups have.Before you question someone or a group's efforts, ask yourself the motivation behind their actions. If these motivations are based on hate and violence, then perhaps you do have a valid reason to object to that group. But that's a rare extreme case. People in protest groups are motivated by a disdain of what they're protesting about, and they react by doing whatever they can do within their power. Their motives are usually kind-hearted and come from deeply within their hearts. They only have malice for the pusher, not other protest groups.So if you think a group might be doing the wrong thing, don't have a look at the details of a protest, look at the motivation behind it. You need to trust the fact that other group is doing exactly what your group is doing, only using different methods, and different resources. It's quite valid to object to a protest motivated by the wrong reasons, but I'd put it to you that that would never be the case for a small locally based protest group.Splintering the protest group into a fragmented and disorderly rabble is EAXCTLY what the Pusher will want. It might happen with no effort whatsoever on the Pusher's part, but it WILL affect the effectiveness of your actions. Don't do it.
My yarn on this subject.
Good bit of writing, a little hairy in the XXXX and AA and YYYY etc but if you re read that a couple of times you will get his drift there.
Nothing has changed in groups and or teams since I studied this as a subject at TAFE. People do inevitably pull together in the face of adversity. But there is good old human nature and all of my years in soccer showed me this also. I have much experience with committees and working in teams, it isn't easy ever. This is the reason a lot of people don't want to get involved is because this always happens and I mean it ALWAYS seems to happen. Human Nature see.
I think it is a tool that is used in close groups and it is done with the help of what I have learned is called and Agent Provocateur a french word for trouble maker.
I was well schooled in this by Lock the Gate people. I had never heard of that term before then though even though in Groups and Teams work I studied how people respond in situations.
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