Posted on 01/27/2012 2:11:35 PM PST by combat_boots
...we are seeing citizens being invited to “participate” in various forms of meetings...to “help determine” public policy in one field or another. They are supposedly being included to get ”input” from the public ...
in one of these meetings...
...you will find that there is already someone designated to lead or “facilitate” the meeting. ...
Actually, he or she is there for exactly the opposite reason: to see that the conclusions reached during the meeting are in accord with a plan already decided upon by those who called the meeting.
The process used to “facilitate” the meeting is called the Delphi Technique. ...
However,...the steps of Delphi could be very valuable in manipulating ANY meeting toward a predetermined end.
How does the process take place? ...
First, the person who will be leading the meeting, the facilitator or Change Agent must be a likable person ...
It is, therefore, the job of the facilitator to find a way to cause a split in the audience, ...
Facilitators are trained to recognize potential opponents and how to make such people appear aggressive, foolish, extremist, etc. Once this is done, the facilitator establishes himself or herself as the “friend” of the rest of the audience....
At this point, the audience is generally broken up ...
Within each group, discussion takes place of issues, already decided upon by the leadership of the meeting. Here, too, the facilitator manipulates the discussion ...
Generally, participants are asked to write down their ideas and disagreements with the papers to be turned in and “compiled” ...
This is the weak link in the chain, which you are not supposed to recognize. Who compiles the various notes into the final agenda for discussion? Ahhhh! Well, it is those who are running the meeting.
(Excerpt) Read more at vlrc.org ...
"HOW COLLECTIVISTS USE THE DIAMOND TACTIC TO SWAY PUBLIC MEETINGS AND HOW TO THWART THEM" by G. Edward Griffin
http://www.freedomforceinternational.org/pdf/diamond_tactic.pdf
Very timely and topical and deserves loads more discussion and exposure than ‘What Newt said about Mitt after Mitt said something about Newt.’
This sort of thing is the primary method used to ram home everything from zoning variances to school levies to nonsensical transportation expenditures. It’s also used in schools to pressure kids/parents into whatever social engineering issue is in vogue at that particular time.
Nothing aggravates me more than someone putting words in my mouth and/or insulting my intelligence. I hate to use the term ‘it OFFENDS me’ but it applies here.
A ‘facilitator’ who shows up with prefab handouts or PowerPoint slides is not to be trusted especially when they are a poor public speaker and end up reading (ugh) the information verbatim as they do their clockwork soldier routine.
It all sounds and looks rather innocuous even when watching only a few bits of it on public access channels but the result is always the same: more creeping statism.
Whatever one feels about this kind of manipulation of meetings - and for sure it does take place, and whatever opinion one has about the “Delphi Technique” and it to does exist, the two things are quite different.
To the point, what the author describes here as the Delphi Technique is not. There isn’t a single point in common between this manipulative management of meetings and the anonymous blind delphi technique which does not ordinarily even make use of meetings at all.
For a reason I don’t understand the author has rightly objected to the covert manipulation of a public meeting (no problem - a common leftist/greenie/progressive tactic) and incorrectly labeled it as using the Delphi Technique. Why slur the delphi technique in this way?
I attended a couple of meetings held by the BLM to invite public comment on some of their plans. I attended them in two different locations, and my wife and I made it a point to be in separate groups both times.
The stated intent was to get comments from the local residents, but there were very few residents in the meetings. A few, but many people there were from various activist groups who had driven in from out of the area to take part. And a few people in the groups were BLM “interns” in plain clothes. They didn’t really hide who they were, but didn’t advertise it either.
They didn’t try to intimidate anyone at all. They didn’t need to. Most of the comments were of the feel-good type that everyone would agree with. The few comments that went against the grain, such as comments that favored ranchers for example, were accepted with good grace... but they were swamped in the midst of other comments.
Because of the nature of the people showing up at the meeting, the immediate bias was toward greater BLM control. The results from every group and every meeting was exactly what BLM wanted to hear.
At the end of the meetings, both times, once all the groups were brought together to display their comments, there was a surprising uniformity. All groups, both meetings, both locations. So I can attest that the method makes it easy for the people leading the meeting to guide and get the results they want. And, done right, no one realizes they’ve been manipulated unless, like us, you show up at more than one meeting and see just how uniform are the results.
Government employees spend a lot of time in training to be facilitators, and they get in a lot of trouble if their plan gets thwarted, or if attendees come up with their own plan. The government works using long-range plans, and they use the Delphi Technique to these plans "approved" by the sheeple, thus it is vitally important to attend any public meeting where a long-range plan is being discussed and throw in a monkey wrench at every opportunity.
The facilitators will do virtually anything to turn the discussion back to their predetermined outcomes. Be polite and upbeat to sway the attendees over to your "side". However also count on the fact that the audience will be packed with government employees (in civilian clothes), so much so, that the public will frequently be outnumbered. Liberals fight dirty in order to win!
I went to a couple meetings where long-term policy decisions regarding our local National Park were being discussed, and nearly every single park employee was there... in casual clothes, not in uniform. During the meeting it was obvious they had orders to force the government plan through at any cost.
Your experience matches mine pretty close.
This way they can comply with the law that they have to publicize the meeting, but it apparently doesn't say it has to be a local paper. They also make real sure all their enviro-wacko friendly groups are personally invited well in advance by special invitation.
The good news is that people are onto the technique and are fighting back at the public meetings, refusing to be separated into smaller groups, refusing to be screened beforehand by "registering" to attend, etc.
-PJ
I agree completely:
Often a prominent flip-chart is used, with huge markers. The objective is to give the illusion of receptivity by the authorities to the real feelings of the public.
Audience members voice some objection, then it is compressed into five or six words on the stupid sheet —the voicer then gains some immediate but illusory sense of sublimation, i.e., that they have, “gotten it out of their system”.
And that’s the whole idea —to ritualize public objections to the plan, so that they can then be implemented.
In completely unchanged form.
You are correct. The real Delphi technique has nothing in common with these manipulative schemes used in getting "public input." My first use of the real Delphi took place around 1968, and I used it many times during my professional career. I personally knew the inventors of Delphi, Dalkey and Helmer, when they worked at RAND.
Why do the manipulators describe their procedure as "Delphi?" Primarily so they can claim validity for it, hijacking the term and claiming it was developed at RAND. Those of us who are familiar with the real Delphi may be fighting a losing battle, but I can't stand by and let these manipulators pretend that their schemes have anything to do with the real Delphi.
The Delphi Technique, what it is and how to counter it
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2200642/posts
Thank you for your comments. While I agree that the purity of a blind Delphi technique can be used without manipulative intent, there is no way that either the Diamond or Delphi technique are used without intent to control outcomes at any public event, especially political.
We can no longer afford to believe in any good will or decency in any public meeting that includes opponents or agitators. We shall not sway opinions with strongly worded letters.
BUMP!
bfl
It’s also being used with the improperly named ‘Bay Delta Conservation Plan’ (BDCP) whose sole purpose is to send more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to Los Angeles and Westlands Water District in Fresno.
My friends who are fighting this say it is like swimming in molasses to make a point at one of these meetings.
And the BDCP proposes deliberately inundating up to 175,000 acres of delta farmland, dispossessing approximately 40,000 people, allowing salt water intrusion as far up the Sacramento River as Freeport, usurping the seniority water rights of communities in the region so their water can be exported to Los Angeles even in times of drought - meaning that people who live on the American River will have to ration their water so people in LA don’t have to.
It’s a part of why my family left California.
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