NJ Common Sense

By Lon (Alonzo) Hosford

What does the Tea Party movement have in common with Alcoholics Anonymous, Apache Indians, Apache Server Software, Wikipedia, Napster, and Craigslist?  They all represent the unstoppable power of leaderless organizations.

The Starfish and The Spider

Starfish and Spiders
In a matter of 10 months tea party activists, or more generally conservative activists, have amassed a rapidly growing powerful organization poised to take down the two largest political parties and not even realize it themselves. They represent the power of a decentralized starfish organization. The power of decentralized organizations is chronicled in The Starfish and the Spider The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom. The political parties represent spider organizations that need a leadership to direct them.

In The Starfish and the Spider you can read how Napster and its followers like Kazaa, eMule and iTunes removed the centralized power the record label companies like MGM had over music. They did it without warning and in light speed time. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is another decentralized example that continues today. AA meetings run on their own without the need for a central head. Unlike the Incas and the Aztecs, the Apache Indians were able to resist the Spanish because there was no centralized head to cut off.

Tea party activists can learn a great deal about themselves in The Starfish and the Spider book. For example starfish organizations sneak up on you unexpectedly. This has evidence with the push back of health insurance legislation in August 2009 and the July 2009 behind singeing given to Republicans who voted for Cap and Trade and thus placing that legislation in limbo.

Identifying a Starfish Organization
Brafman and Beckstom give us a list of questions to identify a starfish organization. We can apply them to the current conservative citizen activist movement:

1. Is there a person in charge? No
2. Are there headquarters? No. Groups meet in homes, church halls, factory conference rooms, restaurants and just about anywhere.
3. If you thump it on the head, will it die? Thump, heck tea party activists are stomped, kicked, beaten and sassed but still grow in numbers.
4. Is there a clear division of roles? Anyone in a tea party group can perform any task and often do.
5. If you take out a unit, is it harmed? No. Even internal squabbles have resulted in more units.
6. Are knowledge and power concentrated or distributed? If anything the efforts to centralize power keep failing. Knowledge to take action is possessed by each  member. They do take action and often. This can explain why you are seeing social media filling with conservative messages.
7. Can you count the participants? No. Only centralized organizations can do this. The unknown factor of numbers in the conservative movement has all elected officials shaking. If there is any measurement it is the conservative media growth: TV, radio and books. They are exploding.
8. Is the organization flexible or rigid? Tea party groups come and go and overlap. They are morphing from protest and information groups into political action groups.
9. Are they self funding or get money from a central pool? Self funding to the point many out of pocket expenses are born by individuals and not even shared with the group members.
10. Do working groups communicate directly or through intermediaries? Information flows in all directions. No need for the top down to provide the information to act unlike Organizing for America.

Ori Brafman Relates Cortez Aztecs and Apaches To Starfish and the Spider

The Starfish Template
Brafman and Beckstom provide a template for the starfish organization. This template will help you understand how we got this far.

1. Circles. We use the term cells for terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. A circle is really a cell. In a circle all members are equals. Generally circles of 14 or less and that meet in person have the strongest bonds. Internet based circles are less strong such as eBay users sharing ratings.
2. Catalyst. This is the motivational leader. It is the iron that causes hydrogen and nitrogen to form ammonia. Not really sure who we could single out in the conservative movement. However Beck and Limbaugh are possible names. It may well be Brafman and Beckstom have missed but implied that there can be more than one catalyst combining to get the results. Catalysts to starfish organizations generally fade into the background and are not the leaders. Often they are not credited with final result.
3. Ideology. This is the glue that binds the circles together. AA believes other alcoholics can help one another. This represents a strong bonding ideology. Free sharing of music is the ideology that challenged the music industry and represents a weak bond. Do not expect folks would not back you up if you got caught doing it illegally. For conservatives the ideology of freedom, smaller government and the strength in the individual having liberty is a strong glue. The patriotism is powerful and why circles routinely start with a Pledge of Allegiance with the under God part emphasized.
4. Pre-existing Network. The Quakers were critical to how Bill Wilson grew the AA. Tea party groups from what I see so far are building their own networks. They used existing networks to start slowly binding them together. This is an area that can be improved and the Social Media can help [See Social Media Is Freedom’s New Voice] .
5. Champion. Slavery had Thomas Clarkson. The conservative champion is yet to arise. It was Ronald Regan. It is not Newt Gingrich or John McCain. They are part of the disconnected centralized political organizations. It is not Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh. They are more catalysts. It might be Sara Palin. She did remove herself from a central organization. It will need to be someone from an unexpected background who connects like Regan. It may not occur in 2010.

The Sweet Spot
The balance between decentralized starfish and centralized spider is called the sweet spot in The Starfish and the Spider. Toyota for example has a central organization, but uses decentralization on the factory floors. This is a factor cited for higher quality products and better worker discipline. The factory floor became circles where each member performed as peers. Nothing like those peers to keep you focused.

The Sweet Spot of For Conservatives
Will conservative tea party circles remain as a pure starfish movement? The answer could be the high story for 2010. For conservatives the sweet spot is still in flux. It may well turn out that the Republican party is overhauled and becomes the spider. That is already happening as tea party circles are already looking to Republican primaries. This includes conservative candidates as Republicans. We also see the message changing to conservative with incumbent Republicans who are often called RINOs. It may be too late for them. A third organization like GOOOH [See To GOOOH or not to GOOOH: That is the Question] or one not yet invented could become the spider. Perhaps the sweet spot is already reached as a highly decentralized movement and no centralized unit.

Liberal Authors
I digress but I need to mention that the authors, Brafman and Beckstromm, exhibit a strongly liberal bent with the usual liberal ignorance such as not knowing that FDR’s centralized policies prolonged the Great Depression and contributed to the destruction of lives for years longer than necessary (see page 39). Even contradicting themselves in making a comparison of today’s centralized Federal Government and Katrina as a failure yet believing the proven incorrectly written history of New Deal being a success. With the FDR reference, Brafman and Beckstromm revisit the comparison of how progressives prolong economic down cycles as you are now living through.

As well the positive light they depict Aztecs runs contrary to the book. The Aztecs were a highly centralized government as argued in The Starfish and the Spider. Aztec good works of temples, pyramids, roads and so on were at the expense of bloody barbaric ritual: public murders of its inhabitants. Cortez’s actions may not be praised, but he did end this hell for humans lauded as an “advanced civilization”. Brafman and Beckstromm clearly exhibit liberal communist indoctrination symptoms many suffer from during their collegiate years and need some serious deprogramming. Tyrants are evil; its that simple. However conservatives can learn from liberals as we are fighting them and the communist vulnerabilities they exude.

Required Reading For Fighting Communism
The Starfish and the Spider provides a key tool to understanding the evolution of the new conservative movement and tea party activism. It also provides the knowledge on how to combat and take down organizations based on their starfish or spider characteristics. The Apache Indians’ starfish organization eventually succumbed to the infusion of elements that made them adopt their own centralized spider organization. This lead to their demise from within and eventual subjugation.

Communists at one time were seen by Americans as a spider in the USSR. A highly centralized organization with some of its fatal foibles mentioned in The Starfish and the Spider. The USSR fell as communism is destined to do. Communism regrouped as a world wide starfish and grew within its opposition just about everywhere including within the US. The UN may represent the emerging spider for communism and together may be the dangerous sweet spot awesomely poised to eradicate the only known freedom for individuals known to civilization.  Thus for conservatives that wish to develop strategies against communists, this is a required reading assignment.