> You know, I can't speak for them, but think that
> Brian, or for that matter my sister (who's also gay)
> might be willing to sacrifice their own interests in
> human treatment if there was _any reason_, by which I
> mean, say, a demonstrable 5% probability, that doing
> so would actually advance the interests of the
> "working class as a whole" in some material way. Say,
> win us card-check union organizing within two sessions
> of Congress, or a minimum wage that applied to all
> workers and paid above the poverty level, or, God
> forbid, universal national health insurance. Maybe
> they wouldn't.
After substantial reflection on your comments: "touche" on this point. I still think some issues are far more urgent than others, but I concede that it is a rare case when anyone can say with any certainty whatsoever that deprioritizing issue X will actually help prioritized issue Y. Given these limits, you are indeed correct that would be beyond obtuse to tell others they ought to hold off on pursuing their own worthy political agendas. So thanks for setting me straight on this (no pun intended).
> even when he became an anti-communist, you know, the
> idea that if we run the Correct Line, in this case
> Bring Back The New Deal and forget anything that will
> alienate white unemployed ex-steelworkers in
> Youngstown, then we can elect Democrats and all will
> be well. Childish.
I'm not interested in developing a Correct Line, but I am interested in the question of which kinds of political compromises are acceptable and which are not, and I think a dialogue about political priorities can help address this.
For example, I have been in a number of situations where I've been organizing rallies and someone brings up the possibility of inviting Rev. This or Fr. That to speak and say a prayer. Under what circumstances should you invite such clergy to your event? Are you only going to allow it if the good Reverend is a pro-gay Unitarian Universalist minister? What if he's an anti-choice dickhead who happens to speak eloquently on your issue? Those who advocate for political purity will argue that we should never work with anyone who is not 100 percent on "our" side in all respects, for them, the answer in these situations is easy. For the rest of us, the question is substantially more complicated -- it involves conflicting loyalties, an assessment of the urgency of your issue, etc. Inevitably, when compromises are being made, something good is going to have to be deprioritized -- well, what should it be?
Let me tell you another story: A few days after the Sept. 11 attacks, when I was an undergraduate at U. Michigan, I was sitting in these anti-war rally planning meetings. Without fail, these meetings would be hijacked by the local sectarian Trot group whose pet issue was defending the University's affirmative action policies. So effectively, they wanted to turn an anti-war rally into an anti-war/defend affirmative action rally. The argument, predictably, was that these were both important issues and that, besides, they were connected. No one present (and this included myself at the time) had the guts to stand up and say "you know what? right now, during these few days we have before this war starts, defending Affirmative Action just isn't as important. so shut the fuck up." Being good conscientious leftists, no one felt s/he had a right to "judge" anyone else's assessment of What Really Mattered. Well, to the average, (already highly-skeptical) observer, the resulting rally (probably one of the few of any size whatsoever in the U.S. during that time) looked as absolutely ridiculous and fringe as you could imagine.
So, by all means, you win the argument on setting long-term priorities, but there are times when it makes sense to tell people who are otherwise working on good stuff that it's not their time to be in the sun.
-WD