Debbie Coffey Copyright 2013 All Rights Reserved.
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While some advocacy groups quickly lauded certain aspects of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report regarding the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Wild Horse & Burro Program, Anne Novak of Protect Mustangs noticed something and brought it to my attention:
On page 275 of this report, under the Chapter 8 topic of Social Considerations, the NAS Board advised the Bureau of Land Management:
“One possible method to gather the latest information from experts and to focus it on a particular problem is to use a Delphi process.”
What’s troubling about this? The Delphi process was developed in the 1950s by the Rand Corporation, and has since been used for the purpose of maneuvering segments of the public into accepting predetermined government policies.
In other words, the Delphi process gives the illusion of public input and participation, but the input isn’t really considered and participation doesn’t matter. It’s basically just a way for the government to pretend there is public participation and accountability.
BLM photo of National Wild Horse & Burro Advisory Board meeting
Here’s how the Delphi process works: There is a predetermined outcome. (Most likely, not the one you’d hoped for.) And who picks the supposedly unbiased “experts” who will be submitting “the latest information?” Who chooses what to “focus” on? (Not you.)
There may be a series of meetings where people are broken into smaller groups and sit at different tables around the room. The purpose of this is that if knowledgeable people arrive together, they’ll have to sit with strangers and hopefully be more subdued.
Each table will have a facilitator, who will know which way to help “steer” the group. The people will be instructed to answer some questions among themselves, then arrive at a table “consensus.”
The Delphi process often uses surveys to bring about this “consensus,” but the questions on the survey are loaded and skewed to manipulate the desired outcome. The survey will use grading like “agree all of the time, agree most of the time, agree some of the time, and don’t agree. Or, the survey will ask respondents to use ratings like “most important, moderately important and least important.”
After the first survey, people are told most people agreed or somewhat agreed with the predetermined outcome. Then, people are given another survey and are asked if they can be flexible and try to rethink the “few remaining” areas of disagreement. Then, the respondents are told that the majority achieved a “consensus” (which is the direction that the group leading this meeting wanted: the predetermined outcome).
Someone is chosen to speak for the table, most likely a person who has been secretly pre-briefed about the desired Delphi outcome. The table “spokesperson” is the only one allowed to address the podium and there will be little, if any, opportunity to address the podium or the crowd directly.
What is APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY?
Under Chapter 8 of the NAS report, the committee also advises the BLM to use Appreciative Inquiry (AI). AI creates a situation where people in a group only talk about positive things, not any problems or “negative” aspects of an issue.
An example of this might be if you had to rack your brain to think of something good about the BLM’s mismanaged Wild Horse & Burro Program, you might think “Well, sometimes a few horses are adopted by nice people.”
So, using AI, you’d ONLY be able to talk about nice people adopting wild horses. You wouldn’t be able to talk about the BLM’s skewed population inventories/estimates with no photos or videos to back up their wild claims of excessive horses and burros. You wouldn’t be able to bring up issues like the BLM’s roundups and inhumane handling of wild horses and burros.
You wouldn’t be able to express concerns about the lack of public access and accountability with BLM’s blanket bait trapping contracts, where the public doesn’t know when or where these roundups are taking place. You wouldn’t be able to talk about horses needing shade while warehoused in feedlot conditions in sweltering temperatures. You also wouldn’t be able to ask about the many thousands of wild horses and burros that most likely have gone to slaughter.
I’m not sure who would appreciate “Appreciative Inquiry,” but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be wild horse & burro advocates.
Appreciative Inquiry has been critiqued for being almost evangelically focused on “the positive” (Dick 2004) and too “Pollyanna-ish” (Fitzgerald, Murrell & Newman, 2001). Rogers and Fraser (2003) question whether AI encourages “unrealistic and dysfunctional perceptions, attitudes, and behavior.” Golembiewski (2000) noted that AI discourages analysis.
Most importantly, if you don’t look at problems, how can you fix them? This process isn’t about fixing problems, it is about controlling your participation and input.
BLM has already been denying problems with their program for a long time. It showed callousness (and a lot of gall) for a BLM employee to speak at a National Wild Horse & Burro Advisory Board meeting and say “You have to go slow to go fast” in referring to developing a humane treatment policy, after the BLM has blatantly ignored their mandate to care for the wild horses and burros for 42 years. (That’s pretty slow.)
The NAS suggestions in Chapter 8 of the report seem to squelch your right to speak at a public meeting. (There is already little opportunity to speak at most BLM meetings now, even at the upcoming National Wild Horse & Burro Advisory Board meeting. Public comment time is always strictly limited on the agenda.)
With the Delphi process, anyone who tries to speak out in opposition may be told from the podium “We don’t have time to discuss that now,” or “We discussed that on another date,” or “We can discuss that after the meeting.”
In other words, your comments won’t be on public record, and the predetermined outcome will then look like a unanimous decision. They may even try to discredit you. This technique is meant to bully people into submission.
It has been advised that people who don’t want to be manipulated by the Delphi process arrive separately, and sit far apart. Remain polite, smile, but be firm. The Dephi facilitators are trained to make anyone who doesn’t accept their agenda look aggressive or silly.
If the facilitators interrupt you, listen politely, then ask your question or make your comment again. If they try to distort your question or your comment, clarify to the group that this is not what you were saying, and then repeat your comment or question verbatim. If your friends do the same, and you persist, you may retain some control over free speech and the democratic process. Or, go hold your own meeting at another location and give your plan to the government agency.
This isn’t just about the BLM and wild horse & burro advocates. This issue should be of concern to everyone who cares about our Constitution and free speech.
SOURCES:
http://www.rand.org/topics/delphi-method.html
http://www.santarosaneighborhoodcoalition.com/delphi.html
http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/uploads/critical%20evaluation%20of%20appreciative%20inquiry.pdf
http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/whbprogram/Advisory_Board.html
National Academy of Science tells BLM to use Delphi (manipulate you) | Wind Wild Horse
Mar 16, 2015 @ 10:48:24
Oct 12, 2013 @ 09:57:24
Oct 02, 2013 @ 10:32:06
Sep 11, 2013 @ 04:05:13
Sep 09, 2013 @ 19:59:17
Sep 08, 2013 @ 19:34:25
Sep 08, 2013 @ 10:24:05
Sep 07, 2013 @ 10:01:12
Sep 01, 2013 @ 10:18:31
Aug 29, 2013 @ 11:09:55
Dear Grandmagregg, Thank You !!!!! for the Info, i will try to find him, Although every Mustang is important , this one I cannot forget , he is very special in this quest for Freedom of the Mustangs……..
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Aug 28, 2013 @ 18:06:29
I do not know … but you could FOIA the current location of all WH&B from that capture and then maybe by process of elimination (age, sex, color and markings) narrow the list down to him and find out where he is “today”. I hope he is FREE.
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Aug 28, 2013 @ 12:56:39
Thank you Kathleen, this link sums it up so well:
“An agency cannot be held to police itself”.
(especially when they believe themselves to be above the law – which they have publicly stated)
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Aug 28, 2013 @ 12:08:44
Dear Grandmagreg, Thank You for Mentioning The Mustang Freedom, the magnificent Mustang from Jan 2010, Do you know where he is ?????? He is always in my Dreams , I remember his glorious escape !!!! His courage and his longing for Freedom , even when he escaped he stopped on the desert to take one last look at the Family he had to leave behind ,,, I have tied to find out where he is to no avail, the BLM claims they have him , they said they captured him , shorty after he escaped !!!! This single event sticks in my mind !!!!!! Any info on where Freedom is now , i would appreciate ………
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Aug 27, 2013 @ 23:34:28
Bullied we were. Every time one tried to make sense and condense their “input” into a short comment… we were chopped off with the very comment: “we don’t have time”… It is the work of a regime. What appalls me is the fact that in our democracy this flies. How could it ? I brought well prepared materials. The Chief of the Division didn’t want it, she just grabbed it and walked away. It is maddening that they can treat us like this It’s all about psychology to screw us and the horses.. not betterment or reform. This agency must be dissolved. Yes Joan, I don’t know how you sleep at night.
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Aug 27, 2013 @ 18:51:46
Thank you Debbie. Many of us that have been involved in public land issues have been well aware of the Delphi technique for many many years. It has been used successfully by the agencies while violating the Data Quality Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Quality_Act
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Aug 27, 2013 @ 15:15:21
gee, I thought the blm was already doing this, and blowing smoke at the same time.
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Aug 27, 2013 @ 14:06:14
Thank you Deb Coffey for reminding us of this frightening and obviously devious manipulation of “we the people”. The Delphi reminds me of the BLM contractor wild horse and burro capture traps that aim the wild ones toward the trap and then continue to manipulate them until they are in the jute trap and then the metal traps … and then gone forever with no control over their lives.
But there ARE a few that escape these traps … like the great black stallion FREEDOM. We must follow the example of FREEDOM.
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Aug 27, 2013 @ 13:32:38
I think that if I were a “Delphi” meeting, and I wanted to reduce it to a complete shambles, I would suggest that the superiors of whoever was in charge of the meeting (NOT whoever was in charge, or any of the facilitaros) had eliminated the GBAS portion because of a resentment of the fact that Senator Schumer is a Jew (I’ve met the Senator in the late 1990s; he’s not my kind of Jew, but so few people are). I would insist that the meeting be adjourned and postponed until the report could be provided with either the GBAS portion available, or with the presence of Senator Schumer or a senior member of his staff, or the regional director of GBAS. Otherwise, the purpose of the meeting was to influence an outcome or consensus with incomplete information. Again, the objective is to so provoke your table’s facilitator that they’ll give way to hysterics (if female) or physical violence (if male). I consider disrupting a meeting with a pre-planned conclusion in mind as the most fun you can have with your clothes on, especially if it ends with police cars with lights and sirens unexpectedly attending.
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Aug 27, 2013 @ 13:11:13
Before I left the United States to live in the Philippines, I was involved in a few of these “Delphi” things. When I was asked for my opinion, I asked the table facilitator, in an aggrieved voice, “where’s the input from GBAS in this report?” When I was asked what GBAS was, I replied that it’s an interagency project set up under the influence of Senators Charles Schumer and John McCain. Then I’d imply that the facilitator was an anti-Semitic racist, without actually using those terms. Part of the fun of this is that for many liberal practitioners of the “Delphi’ technique, criticism of Senator Schumer is often taken as evidence of Naziism, and criticism of Senator McCain is considered vaguely unpatriotic, because he was a POW. My goal was always to create a meeting outcome where the police (or at least building security) would have to be called, and to reduce my table’s facilitator to tears (if female) or to take a swing at me (if male).
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Aug 27, 2013 @ 13:03:16
WOW Thank You this is great Info !!!!!!! A loaded deck so to speak, this is how the BLM likes it a stacked deck all in there favor !!!!! Thanks again , Now that we know this , we can do our own deck stacking !!!!! Isnt it a dirty shame that these poor innocent horses are being used by our Government as Pawns !!!! they are true Icons and Treasures , a gift of pure love and innocence, we must find a way to Stop this !!!!!!
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Aug 27, 2013 @ 09:08:55