[Peace-discuss] Re: Obama brochure; AWARE misc and consensus

[jencart]

Friends,

I see Bob's point about Carl's letter, but I don't think we can or should have to count on readers to be that perceptive, logical, and tolerant. This whole thing has put AWARE -- unnecessarily -- in a very bad light.  It should be one of our goals to leave AWARE-bashing to others, to protect our image, to avoid looking like the very groups we oppose.  Respectful and decent behavior towards other members (for starters) must be seen as included in that.

Our good efforts should take so much time and energy that there's none left for petty stuff in general, and personal attacks in particular!  Right now, I'm thinking TPJ and UFPJ have the right idea.....their names say what they're for, and I like the positive sound of that.  AWARE is a great thing to be, but the letters say only what we're against.  I'm hoping that emphasizing what we're against doesn't come to mean we don't actually need to be for anything...  

The beliefs of AWARE's members probably go all the way from "Tear-it-all-down-the-system-is-too-broken-to-be-fixed,"  to "Work-within-the-system-to-fix-the-system," plus everything in between.  And for each increment along the continuum, there are differing views on which issues merit our attention, and which methods and approaches are appropriate (or not appropriate)  It's a miracle that AWARE has functioned so well until recently!

I agree w/ Bob that brochures etc need review and consensus before AWARE's name is used, just as we get consensus before AWARE can support a cause, or co- sponsor an event.  And SOME of us writing letters, guest columns, etc should ask a couple of AWARE members to approve their drafts before submitting them for publication!!

Also....I'd like to discuss behavior during AWARE protests. We had some passive resistence workshops and training, and we made great strides dealing w/ the pro-war crowd and police on Prospect a couple of summers ago.  Let's revisit the subject w/ our goals -- and also our image -- in mind, and set some guidelines.

Thanks,
Jenifer C.
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Unlike many AWARE members, I was pleased to see Carl's Guest Commentary in the News Gazette on September 4th. This article, "Liberals must call Obama on his support for the war",
consisted largely of Carl's brochure that was handed out during the Obama town meeting, with an attack on liberals in general and Al in particular (not named but known to all)
tacked onto the end.

I was pleased because there was no possibility of this
article being thought of as AWARE endorsed. The author is named and the attack on an AWARE member also makes it clear that AWARE does not endorse the content. This somewhat undoes the damage I believe was done at the Obama event.

For those of you who don't see the problem with the brochure, let me describe briefly my objections. On first reading, I found the statements true while the style was excessively negative. On closer reading, I found it to be not true.

There is a way of lying with the "truth". It is called the
half-truth. The quotes of Obama no more represent his full position that the tiny quote of Al represents his true
position. It is easy to trash someone's position by taking
things they said out of context, i.e., by telling half-truths. I do not believe that this sort of thing has any place in
AWARE literature, which is why I recommend that we be more careful to ask for consensus on AWARE brochures in the future.

Bob