That's very gracious. I agree with you too that in particular contexts there's a time and a place for things and lines have to be drawn on particular occasions for particular purposes.
--- "Mr. WD" <mister.wd at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/15/07, andie nachgeborenen
> <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > 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
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>
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