> 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.
I'm still not getting your reasoning. There are lots of unions that take all kinds of fucked-up positions, often because their leadership either shares or capitulates to fucked-up and backward attitudes among their membership. The position of the Machinists on war is arguably even more abominable than the Mass. IBEW local's position on gay marriage, since the IBEW was endorsing the principle of second-class citizenship for gays, but the Machinists were openly calling for the incineration of thousands of Arabs and Muslims regardless of whether they were innocent of any crime. It does NOT follow that you should then support their boss if they get into a fight with the boss over wages, pensions or what-have-you.
I made the analogy with the HRC -- and I agree that it's hard to imagine the HRC calling a demonstration about anything, but you get my point, don't you? -- because I was trying to show that the content of an action matters more than the overall attitude and opinions of the people involved in it. If we can expect solidarity from and for only people who accept the full measure of everything we believe, we will get nowhere. The queer liberation struggle does not deserve to get fucked over by others just because the HRC may be in the lead in a particular case and its leaders are assholes. The same goes for IBEW members -- and by the way, if you think that there are no queers in the trades (particularly among women!), you are out of your mind, and they deserve decent wages, pensions, opportunities for training and upgrade and all the good things that go along with being a union member.
Union members, donors to the HRC, and all kinds of people have backward, stupid, and even wicked ideas about all sorts of things. You don't get to side with their even more reactionary enemies one day just because they have backward ideas about something else. Like I said before, if the IBEW actively pickets against gay rights, you have the right -- no, let me be "authoritarian" (functional definition: saying that we all have responsibilities and standards that we ought to live up to) again and say you have the OBLIGATION -- to undermine that and fight against it. If they picket for better wages and working conditions for union members, and you try to undermine them then, then you are indeed siding with their boss because there are only two sides in a situation like that -- and you would be a scab. One action is reactionary, the other is progressive.
Once again, what is so difficult about this?
- - - - - - - - - - John Lacny http://www.johnlacny.com
Tell no lies, claim no easy victories