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On 23 Oct, 2007, at 14:47 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Yeah. On a related topic, Adolph Reed wrote me recently:
>
>> On the religion thing, I've never pretended -- in nearly 40 years of
>> organizing work with working class black and white people, many in
>> the South -- to be at all religious; nor have I forced myself to
>> pander a
>> syllable in all that time, partly out of principle, partly because
>> my disdain
>> for the enterprise is so thorough. I've not once found my approach
>> to cause
>> me any problems connecting with people, not even most recently at
>> the SC flea
>> markets.
That's not the question though. Most (especially on this list) who have criticised the smug assault on the religious have not said that we need to pander to them (it was rather your misperception of "faux populism" that led you inevitably to that interpretation). Adolph Reed chose to organise working class people for 40 years by talking to them about healthcare and issues that matter. He did not go crusading into their midst, a la Dawkins, whaling on about how childish their beliefs are, etc. That's the point! What is asked for is the Reed attitude: talk about the things that matter, and leave alone the things that do not (irrespective of your own mighty intellectual conclusions).
On 23 Oct, 2007, at 18:19 PM, BklynMagus wrote:
>> I believe the quotes >are to repeat the claim:
> that the government was hanging people because
> they were "the queers" -- as opposed to being
> hanged for other things.
>
> According to my friends inside and outside Iran,
> queers are being tortured and killed just for
> being queer.
>
That's possible, but a lot of the scare-mongering by bloggers like Doug Ireland has turned out (IIRC) to be false. And Yoshie has made many posts with relevant details. Hence my correction regarding how to read her quotation marks.
> But alas, they did and we don't. I do not live in the
> world of what ifs, but in the world of what is happening
> to queers in the present day and am looking to stay the
> hand of those who would torture and kill queers anywhere
> the world.
It's not a world of "what-if"s ... its a question of knowing the limits and worth of our actions. What does the statement "Iran does X to group Y, which is bad" achieve? If it is hoped that making this statement will better the lives of Y, history and an analysis of the current situation tells us that in fact the opposite may be the consequence. If, OTOH, the sentiment is that "nothing we say on LBO can have any impact on anything", then why say anything at all? Is it to establish one's cred? But the fact that someone is a member of this list already establishes that cred -- it is assumed that you are in favour of gay rights, women's rights, etc, oppose actions are discriminatory towards them (hell, my pet cause is animal liberation -- no pun intended -- which may be the only topic that we cannot safely assume all subscribe to(*)).
> Join me. I promise we won't try to recruit you.
Given my lack of a social life, as brutally summarised by Fräulein Bitch ;-), the recruiting sounds like a positive not a negative (I assume one can be a member without initiations that involve forearm deep proctal adventures ;-)). But I am already with you, if only as a keyboard warrior. I too want queers in Iran (in whatever sense we can apply that term) to be free and "practise their love" (in the words of our leader, George W). Only thing is that I believe the greatest threat to that is not the mullahs but George W and his gang (and therefore indirectly, us). The real threat to Iran (and the people of Iran realise that, I am sure) is not The Gay Bomb but the real bombs that might start dropping from the skies soon, killing all indiscriminately, including gay people, women with or without chadors, etc.
--ravi
(*) That support for gay rights can be always assumed in leftist circles is not entirely accurate, I admit (though I do believe it is exponentially more common than concern for animal welfare(**)): there does seems to be a virulent homophobia among the Orthodox Left.
(**) Which does not imply that gay people are to be equated to animals, in *contrast* to "joyous"/vanilla/het people, but that animals are (to a large extent) to be equated to all people (***).
(***) I am not writing this stuff to initiate another animal rights/ welfare/liberation thread!