[Peace-discuss] AWARE

[C. G. Estabrook]

Oh, Matt -- don't be silly.  From your first line ("banning Carl and Wayne") I
thought you were engaged in a Stephen Colbert-style jeu d'esprit, a long satire
of the free-speech liberal calling for banning of speech...

But then I concluded, with rising dismay, that you were serious -- I hope I'm 
wrong -- so I'll try to answer your charges:

[1] "hate-monger": no, I don't recommend hate even against people with
despicable ideas or my enemies; I belong to a tradition that insists upon loving
enemies, difficult as that may be.

[2] "homophobe": no, not just because "some of my best friends...," but because
I don't think holding (as I do) that the ethics of sexual behavior are debatable
and at the same time not very important qualifies one as such.

[3] "irrelevant tangents": Stuart's been upset with this, too, but I thought,
e.g., that the discussion of the meaning of "pontificate" was an amusing way to
respond to a ridiculous objection -- and it was interesting: we discovered (I
think) that the common English connotation grew out of a political dispute.

[4] "pretentious off-color remarks":  this one has me stumped (and the
puritanism surprises, given your taste for Anglo-Saxon); the best I can come up
with is my reference to "mailboxes getting stuffed," which could be regarded as
a Brit (hence pretentious) euphemism (hence off-color).

[5] "anarchistic": guilty.  As a yellow-dog Chomskyan, I wish to imitate his
anarchism/libertarian socialism (with the understanding that "libertarian" here
does not mean "libertarian" in the contemporary American sense), a position to
the left of M-L sects.

[6] "overbearing personalities": me?!  Why, you'll quite turn my head ... but my
professional history suggests I've rarely if ever been able to overbear much of
anybody.

[7] "weekly news updates": you haven't been around for a while, Matt.  They're 
an example of [6], in that they were silenced at AWARE meetings because they 
were improperly "framed."

[8] "apology made for regressive 'anti-war' conservatives":  paleoconservatives
have consistently been principled opponents of the war, a position always
defended on the Left but rarely (and decreasingly) by liberals.

[9] "reminders that mainstream Democrats have, by and large, betrayed their
progressive base": you agree that they have done so, apparently, and the
reminder is hardly redundant for many self-styled liberals in what Chomsky (and
other) call the political class.

[10] "Ron Paul is somehow better than Dennis Kucinich": he's certainly had more
effect (an old Trot friend of mine thinks Dennis is just an example of
repressive tolerance), but where they disagree (generally in economics) I'm
usually on Dennis' side.

[11] "multi-millionaire": now you've done it! My wife just looked over my
shoulder and is raging about "Where are you hiding it!?" with angry mutterings
about Bernie Medoff...

[12] "racist": I'll ask the black and white members of my family to debate this
one.

[13] "xenophobe": I'm thinking of going and living in Venice (or maybe
Paris...); does that exculpate me?

[14] "no passion for the good of your country":  well, I would have supported
neither the American Revolution nor the Civil War, though my family did; in fact
a good bit of my adult life has been taken up with learning, somewhat
uncomfortably, what might count as "the good of my country": e.g., JFK's 
inaugural speech was I now think fascistic.

OK, now tote up the score, like the magazine quizzes:

	0-3 -- terminate with extreme prejudice
	4-6 -- ride him out of town on a rail
	7-9 -- allow him to attend meetings, but only with an S&M gag in place
	10-12 -- allow him to post to the list, but no more than once a day, and only 
after the text has been passed by The Committee for relevance & framing
	above 12 -- for he's a jolly good fellow...!

Solidarity, CGE



Matt Reichel wrote:
> I think most of this list's problems would be solved by just banning Carl and
> Wayne: maybe they can go and create their own peace group for hate-mongering
> homophobes and litter each others' inboxes with their irrelevant tangents and
> pretentious off-color remarks.
> 
> AWARE cannot go on without any organizational infrastructure, as attractive
> as it sounds to be "anarchistic." A simple, respectful level of organization
> backed by a widely supported set of rules will make the group more
> democratic, and less prone to dominance by overbearing personalities and
> their seemingly regressive ends.
> 
> Since everyone that has left the group or that are currently frustrated with
> its direction seem to have a problem with the same person, why don't you just
> give him the old "heave ho"? Because his weekly news updates are supposedly
> of some value? Because you want to hear every possible apology made for
> regressive "anti-war" conservatives, coupled with redundant reminders that
> mainstream Democrats have, by and large, betrayed their progressive base? So
> Ron Paul is somehow better than Dennis Kucinich? . . I guess if you are a
> multi-millionaire, racist, xenophobe with no passion for the good of your
> country . .
> 
> Will someone down there please find the courage to defend the integrity of
> this group and lay a ban down on the aforementioned assholes?
> 
> Best, Matt