Donna writes:
> A different approach, from the Class Matters website:
This is just the same tired, ineffective HRC approach: tell them our stories and they will abandon evil. NOT.
This passive approach gives away queers' power to disrupt and weaken the enemy. Once we befriend the enemy we lose any advantage we have. Should all radicals settle for telling George Bush our stories and hope that he will listen? Would you advise a union to give up strikes and pickets and just tell employers/owners their stories. Double NOT.
Unions are not queer's natural allies. If they were they would have realized that allying themselves with queers made sense. Instead they cave in to the religious bigotry and hatred of their members. Queers have not mounted a campaign against unions, but unions have mounted a campaign against queers.
John L writes:
> Because the IBEW takes a reactioary position on queer
oppression, you should side with the boss if they picket over
wages or pensions?
The IBEW did more than take a reactionary position. They are actively discriminating against queers and causing harm to them. They were not forced to act in this manner. They chose to and in doing so broke solidarity with all leftists and radicals who support basic human rights, one of which is the right of freedom of sexual self-expression.
As for crossing the picket line, I have explained that my action would be to protest the active hatred that the IBEW was engaged in. In your authoritarian style ( def: expecting unquestioning obedience), you try to control my discourse by saying a) that picket lines are always and only about class; and b) since I crossed the picket line I must be supporting the bosses, even though I have clearly stated what my reason was and that I would explain my actions to those on the picket line.
> If the HRC calls a protest against some anti-gay reactionary,
do I say to hell with them (and effectively side with the
reactionary) because the HRC is a middle- to upper-class white
gay male organization with an anti-working class outlook and a
board half of whose members are probably Uncle Tom's
Cabin Republicans?
First, it is almost impossible to image HRC calling for a protest: much to messy. Secondly, has HRC ever called for a protest against unions? Have they inflicted actual harm on unions the way the IBEW inflicted actual harm on queers? Once queer marriage is legalized in Canada and other states, how many more unions will follow the IBEW's lead? Will you defend them too?
> If you have to be a saint to be deserving of solidarity, then no
one qualifies.
Again, you simplify in order to defend heterosexism. It is not a question of being a saint. It all depends on your stand on queer rights. If you think queers rights are unimportant then you will not be bothered by IBEW's actions. I think queer rights are basic human rights and deserving of being respected. If IBEW changed their by-laws to exclude women or blacks, would you be upset?
Eubulides wrote:
> No, you're simplifying the issues so you don't risk the
presuppositions of your argument to substantive counterexamples
which show your position to be seriously incomplete and
inadequate for the much needed and all too lacking 21st century
forms of solidarity.
Yeah, what Eubulides said. Double. LOL.
Doug writes:
> I think someone brought up the old aphorism that hard
cases make bad law, and it seems that everyone is looking for the
hard cases here. I don't really understand why.
Maybe because it is my life. Also, it is interesting that all posters are only focusing on the question of crossing the picket line. They have ignored my question of what you do with a union that practices and promotes heterosexism? What do you do when your (alleged) allies break solidarity. By practicing discrimination against queers, IBEW members turned themselves into enemies of humanity.
John A. writes:
> we could see another East St. Louis-type of occurrence,
If you could, what are you referring to.
John L. writes:
> I am bothered by the word "authoritarian," and never use
it except to ridicule it, mostly because I have never seen
anyone give a credible definition of what "authoritarian" means.
I gave a definition earlier in my post.
> They're saying that holding people accountable to collective
decisions is just as bad as enforcing arbitary class rule
So I should be held accountable to a collective decision that harms myself and my queer sisters and brothers? I am to abandon all thought of preservation in order to enforce collective decisions? Now that's authoritarian LOL.
> or that leftists are bound to respect union picketlines
How about leftists are not to bring harm to queers and should shun and cripple those who do. But you seem to put union rights above queer rights (which is your perogative as hateful as it is) as evidenced by your website which has many links to leftist resources, but none to any queer sites.
ravi writes:
> do we estimate that point based on high-level rules presented
as axioms (thou shall not cross a picket line), or from some
more fundamental moral values (thou shall not restrict the life
opportunities and experiences of others, thou shall not harm other
living creatures, etc)? if the latter, then definitely reasoning has to
be involved in answering the question of solidarity. if the former,
with greater priority over the latter, then am i not being asked to
act against moral fundamentals that i hold (which have not been
proved wrong)?
Once again ravi has clarified what I was trying to say without much success on my part. John L. fetishizes collective decisions. Who cares if they violate basic human rights? Who cares if hate and bigotry are behind them. The tribe has spoken. Queers to your deaths. It is this sick way of thinking that has crippled the left.
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister